Legacy of Secrecy (35 page)

sation tying Oswald to Fidel, telling Luce that Oswald was “the hired

gun of a Cuban Communist assassination team.” The caller also men-

tioned the trip Oswald had made to Mexico City in late September, a trip

that would not be reported in the press until two days later.40

While several CIA-backed Cuban exiles were trying to leak incriminat-

ing information about Oswald to the press, some in the US military were

desperately trying to conceal information about Oswald. Our confiden-

tial Naval Intelligence source—who had helped to compile the reports

resulting from the “tight surveillance” of Oswald since his return to the

US from Russia—said that “on the day of the assassination,” he and a

coworker “were called back to their office in Washington.” After receiv-

ing orders from their commander, they “destroyed and sanitized lots of

the Oswald file.”41 Confirmation for such document destruction comes

from FBI memos, which describe their own interviews with Marines who

had served with Oswald. However, the FBI agents discovered that some

of the Marines had earlier been interviewed by Naval Intelligence—but

those Naval Intelligence reports were all missing, leading an FBI agent

to say in a memo, “Perhaps they have been destroyed.”42

The Naval Intelligence file our source handled in the fall of 1963 con-

cerned only the close surveillance of Oswald, not any operational duties

Oswald might have had. Those were apparently being handled by, or

coordinated with, the CIA. Our source said there was “a note on the top

of the file jacket [that] said to contact the CIA if Oswald was arrested

or got into any trouble. There was a name and some sort of code given

for someone at the CIA.”43 The one person at the CIA who is alleged to

have been in contact with Oswald is David Atlee Phillips. In his later

autobiographical novel outline, Phillips wrote that Oswald was part of

the effort to assassinate Castro and had “used [against JFK] precisely

the plan we had devised against Castro.”44

Naval Intelligence and its close counterpart, Marine Intelligence

(G-2), were components of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

headed by General Joseph Carroll. A journalist told former Senate inves-

tigator Bernard Fensterwald that “Oswald had connections to an ‘intelli-

gence service . . . called the Defense Intelligence Agency. . . . The General

who . . . supposedly made the arrangements [was] General Joe Carroll,

founder of the DIA. . . . The Army was going nuts over Oswald’s part

in the assassination.’”45 Army Intelligence destroyed its entire Oswald

file in 1973.46

However, General Carroll had problems with both the CIA and

some of the agencies theoretically under his control. As noted earlier, a

Cuban exile associate of Manuel Artime says that during a meeting in a

car (apparently to avoid prying ears in the Pentagon), General Carroll

expressed frustration with some “CIA activities because they [were]

interfering with Plan Judas.” “Plan Judas” was a name some exiles

used for the JFK-Almeida coup plan, since Almeida had been one of

the legendary twelve who founded the Revolution with Fidel. General

Carroll’s concerns were promptly reported to the CIA and preserved in

a memo sent to CIA Director John McCone by the Miami CIA station.

The same CIA memo also discussed Harry Williams, Bobby Kennedy,

and Manolo Ray.47

Even on the day of JFK’s death, a memo shows that Naval Intelli-

gence considered withholding information from General Carroll. Car-

roll asked to see Oswald’s Naval Intelligence file, but Naval Intelligence

was “cautious about passing [the] file to DIA.” Eventually, after Joint

Chiefs Chairman General Maxwell Taylor had made a request, General

Carroll was allowed to look at the file, but he was not permitted to keep

a copy.

It’s hard to say if Naval Intelligence was initially reluctant to share

the file for bureaucratic reasons, or because by that time it was probably

already incomplete. The DIA had been formed only two years earlier, as

the brainchild of JFK and Defense Secretary McNamara. Several top gen-

erals were opposed to its creation, since it would dilute the power of the

individual intelligence services. Branches like Naval Intelligence were

166

LEGACY OF SECRECY

already ostensibly accountable to the Navy Chief of Staff, the Secretary

of the Navy, and the Secretary of Defense. Now, they were also beholden

to General Carroll, who advised both the Joint Chiefs and McNamara.48

That was a difficult position for General Carroll, since General Maxwell

Taylor was probably the only other member of the Joint Chiefs who was

fully informed about the JFK-Almeida coup plan; McNamara says that

he wasn’t told about it.49

Based on the few DIA files from the fall of 1963 that have been declas-

sified, it appears unlikely that General Carroll knew about the destruc-

tion of parts of Oswald’s Naval Intelligence file, at least initially. While

the CIA is still withholding more than a million files related to JFK’s

assassination, the amount of DIA and Naval Intelligence files about the

JFK-Almeida coup plan and anti-Castro operations—which could be

related to JFK’s assassination—should be equally vast, if the files still

exist.

As for General Carroll’s superior, General Taylor, his concerns on

November 22 were more global. DEFCON indicates the degree of US

defense readiness, and declassified files show that the level was raised

to DEFCON 4, from 5, an hour and twenty minutes after JFK was shot.

One command even raised it to DEFCON 3. FBI Agent James Hosty

said that just after Oswald’s arrest, “fully armed warplanes were sent

screaming toward Cuba.” Peter Dale Scott wrote that the “planes would

have been launched from the US Strike Command at MacDill Air Force

Base in [Tampa] Florida,” the very base JFK had visited for a conference

with its top brass just four days earlier.

Scott also noted that a “cable [had been issued] from US Army Intel-

ligence in Texas, dated November 22, 1963, telling the Strike Command

(falsely) that Oswald had defected to Cuba in 1959 and was ‘a card-

carrying member of the Communist Party.’” Clearly, someone had been

feeding erroneous intelligence into the system—stories similar to the

false tales that John Martino would soon spread. Luckily, cooler heads

started to prevail, and “just before [the US planes] entered Cuban air-

space, they were hastily called back.”
U.S. News & World Report
says,

“The Air Force and the CIA sent a ‘Flash’ worldwide alert for all [US

surveillance flights] to return to their bases, lest the Soviet Union be

provoked.” But it would be almost two days before the DEFCON alert

status finally returned to normal.50 Even then, the specter of a nuclear

crisis with the Soviets over Cuba would keep coming up in the days and

weeks after JFK’s assassination.

Chapter Thirteen

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, in the packed federal courtroom

in New Orleans, Carlos Marcello waited anxiously as the judge finished

charging the jury. Marcello wasn’t concerned about his case because he

knew a bribe had ensured he wouldn’t be convicted; he was eager to

hear the news from Dallas. Finally, one hour after the shooting, the rest of

the courtroom learned what Marcello already expected: After getting a

note from the bailiff, the judge announced to the stunned courtroom that

JFK had been shot and might be dead. The judge declared an immediate

recess, and Carlos Marcello and David Ferrie left the courtroom.

Court resumed an hour and a half later, at 3:00 PM (Central), though

Bobby’s Justice Department prosecutor for the case, John Diuguid,

told us he recalls that David Ferrie was no longer with Marcello. The

jury then began its deliberations, reaching a verdict in less than fifteen

minutes, thanks to the key juror Marcello had bribed. The juror later

boasted that “he had also convinced several of his fellow jurors to vote

not guilty.” Marcello had also threatened the government’s main witness

during the trial, compromising his testimony and ensuring Marcello’s

acquittal on both charges: conspiracy and perjury. With no conviction,

there would be no deportation for Marcello.1 Marcello, his family, and

his supporters all headed out for a big celebration, with Marcello surely

savoring the moment of his greatest triumph.

In Miami, Marcello’s associate John Martino got the news from his

son that JFK had been shot. Martino’s son later told
Vanity Fair
that his

“father went white as a sheet. But it wasn’t like ‘Gee whiz,’ it was more

like confirmation.” John Martino’s wife said that her husband “got I

don’t know how many calls from Texas. I don’t know who called him,

but he was on the phone, on the phone, on the phone. . . . ”2

Also in Miami was another Marcello associate, Teamster President

Jimmy Hoffa. From the Miami Beach apartment he sometimes used

during the cooler months, Hoffa called Frank Ragano, the attorney

168

LEGACY OF SECRECY

he shared with Santo Trafficante. According to Ragano, Hoffa could

barely contain himself: “Did you hear the good news? They killed the

son-of-a-bitch bastard.” Ragano said, “I had never heard him sound

happier or more elated.”3 Hoffa could be confident and happy because

he knew that a month earlier, one of his associates had paid Jack Ruby

approximately $7,000, as part of an arrangement to ensure that whoever

took the fall for JFK’s death didn’t live to talk about it.4 As for Ragano, he

would soon be celebrating and toasting JFK’s death with Trafficante.

In Washington, Secret Service officials had their Chicago office check

on the ex-Marine who had been arrested on the day of JFK’s canceled

Chicago motorcade. The man, Thomas Vallee, had been quickly released

in early November and had resumed his regular job. A later report says

that on November 22, “Vallee was employed at his place of business

during the entire day.” Yet neither the Secret Service nor the FBI both-

ered to interview Vallee to see if he had any knowledge of Oswald or his

associates, or to see if they had any links in common.5 The Secret Service

files on Vallee seem oddly incomplete, because some files treat him as a

subject of intense interest for years to come. It’s possible that the Secret

Service, or some other agency, had been keeping Vallee under surveil-

lance since the time of his release, which would account for the Secret

Service’s relative lack of official interest in Vallee in the days after JFK’s

murder. It’s also possible the Secret Service or FBI did more to investi-

gate possible links between ex-Marine Vallee and ex-Marine Oswald,

but that those files were treated with the same degree of secrecy as other

aspects of the Chicago assassination plot.

Only an hour after Oswald’s arrival at Dallas police headquarters, and

just ten minutes after J. Edgar Hoover learned Oswald’s name, Hoover

was able to tell Bobby Kennedy not only that he “thought we had the

man who killed the President,” but also that he even knew that Oswald

was “not a communist.” Several factors account for Hoover’s ability to

know so much so quickly.

First, the FBI had assisted Naval Intelligence with some of its tight

surveillance on Oswald, especially in landlocked cities like Dallas, where

Naval Intelligence had few assets. This information apparently almost

slipped out right after the assassination, when James Hosty, the Dallas

FBI agent assigned to Oswald, allegedly told Dallas police “officer Jack

Revill on November 22 . . . that Oswald . . . had been under observation.

When Revill protested that the information had not been shared with the

Dallas police, he was reminded of the FBI policy forbidding the sharing

of information pertaining to espionage.”6

If the public learned that the FBI had Oswald under surveillance

before he shot JFK, it would destroy the sterling image of Hoover’s

FBI that the director had spent decades building. It addition, many FBI

surveillance efforts in the early 1960s, such as “black bag” break-ins and

phone taps, were illegal. If they became known in Oswald’s case, public

awareness of those methods could unravel the whole network of illegal

domestic surveillance the FBI maintained, often in cooperation with the

CIA and various branches of military intelligence. Therefore, the Dallas

FBI agent’s alleged comments about Oswald’s being under observation

were quickly disavowed.

Hoover could never reveal that the FBI had ever had more than a

routine interest in Oswald, and had made a few run-of-the-mill, above-

board efforts to contact him after Oswald returned to Dallas. Hoover

didn’t even want some of those efforts publicized, once it appeared that

Oswald had killed JFK. Shortly after Oswald’s death, Hoover would

order the Dallas FBI office to destroy a note Oswald had left there just ten