The Kennedy Half-Century (111 page)

36
. 
Godfather III
came out in 1990.

37
. Evidently, some mobsters had disdain for Senator Edward Kennedy as well. Three weeks after RFK was assassinated, the FBI recorded a drunken threat made by Al Capone’s son, who boasted that EMK might “get it too.” See Helen Kennedy, “Al Capone’s Son Threatened Hit on Sen. Ted Kennedy Weeks After Robert Kennedy’s Assassination: FBI,”
New York Daily News
, August 1, 2011,
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/08/01/2011-08-01_al_capones_son_threatened_hit_on_sen_ted_kennedy_weeks_after_robert_kennedys_ass.html
 [accessed August 2, 2011].

38
. It is not clear that Joe Kennedy ever actually engaged in bootlegging. As the author Daniel Okrent points out, “Three times during the 1930s, Kennedy was appointed to federal positions requiring Senate confirmation (chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain). At a time when the memory of Prohibition was vivid and the passions it inflamed still smoldered, no one seemed to think Joe Kennedy had been a bootlegger—not the Republicans, not the anti-Roosevelt Democrats, not remnant Klansmen or anti-Irish Boston Brahmins or
cynical newsmen or resentful Dry leaders still seething from the humiliation of Repeal.” Daniel Okrent, “The Biggest Kennedy Myth,”
Daily Beast
, April 26, 2010,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/26/the-kennedy-bootlegging-myth.html
 [accessed July 27, 2010]. See also “Joe Kennedy Was No Angel But Neither Was He a Bootlegger,”
Irish Examiner
, March 14, 2011.

39
. This quotation comes from Sam and Chuck Giancana,
Double Cross: The Explosive, Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America
(New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010), 308. Sam is the nephew of Sam “Momo” Giancana and the son of Sam’s brother, Chuck Giancana.

40
. Encouraged both by J. Edgar Hoover and RFK, President Kennedy began to put distance between himself and Sinatra on account of Sinatra’s mob friendships. Having worked hard for Kennedy’s election, Sinatra felt betrayed, and his fury was such that he even personally destroyed a helipad he had commissioned on his California property for the use of the presidential helicopter. Siobhan Synnot, “The Rat Pack, Booze, Broads and the Coolest Turkey in Film History,”
Sunday Mail
, February 3, 2002.

41
. See “Tina Sinatra: Mob Ties Aided JFK,”
60 Minutes
,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/05/60minutes/main238980.shtml
 [accessed May 24, 2011].

42
. Giancana,
Double Cross
, 308–9, 376, 388–92; Michael L. Kurtz,
The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 203; David Talbot, “The Man Who Solved the Kennedy Assassination,”
Salon.com
, November 22, 2003,
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/22/conspiracy
 [accessed May 25, 2011].

43
. John Davis,
Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
(New York: Signet, 1989), 139–45; “The Assassination: Did the Mob Kill J.F.K.?”
Time
, June 21, 2007,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956397,00.html
 [accessed May 25, 2011]. Lee’s mother, Marguerite Oswald, knew a number of Marcello’s associates, including Sam Termine (Marcello’s chauffeur), Clem Sehrt (one of Marcello’s lawyers), and Louis Rousell (a financier who allegedly was an associate of Carlos Marcello).

44
. Telephone interview with Robert Blakey, July 8, 2011; Waldron and Hartmann,
Legacy of Secrecy
, 50, 753; “Santos Trafficante—It Should Have Been Bobby,” Mary Ferrell Foundation website,
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Santos_Trafficante_-_It_Should_Have_Been_Bobby
 [accessed August 2, 2011]; Frank Ragano,
Mob Lawyer
(New York: Random House, 1996); Gerald Posner,
Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK
(New York: Anchor Books, 1994), 460–61.

45
. Moldea,
Hoffa Wars
, 148; Kurtz,
JFK Assassination Debates
, 203–5.

46
. David Talbot,
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Free Press, 2007), 86–87; Seymour M. Hersh,
The Dark Side of Camelot
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1997), 203.

47
. “Organized Crime Expert Says JFK Assassination Wasn’t Mob Related,” ABC News,
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131460&page=1
 [accessed May 26, 2011]; “HSCA Final Assassinations Report,” p. 147,
History Matters
,
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0089a.htm
 [accessed May 26, 2011].

48
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 461–62.

49
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby,” National Archives and Records Administration website, page 781,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appen dix-16.html#family
 [accessed June 6, 2011].

50
. Marrs,
Crossfire
, 383–84. Dorfman would later develop a close working relationship with Jimmy Hoffa, the corrupt Teamsters Union president who despised RFK.

51
. Ibid.; “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby,” National Archives and Records Administration website, p. 801,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-16.html#family
 [accessed June 6, 2011]; Posner,
Case Closed
, 395.

52
. Moldea,
Hoffa Wars
, 155.

53
. Ibid., 165–66; Marrs,
Crossfire
, 387; Davis,
Mafia Kingfish
, 180–84.

54
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby,” National Archives and Records Administration website, p. 801,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-16.html#family
 [accessed June 6, 2011]. The HSCA’s Robert Blakey says that the Warren Commission relied on Lenny Patrick—a Chicago hitman who grew up with Ruby—to prove that Ruby had no connection to organized crime. “Give me a break,” Blakey said. “[Ruby’s] operation was prostitution, a strip joint. And the women are on a circle that go to these clubs. People don’t want to watch the same woman every week. And the union that runs this is mobdominated. And the place where he got them from, in New Orleans over to Dallas, was run by Carlos Marcello’s brother.” Telephone interview with Robert Blakey, July 8, 2011.

55
. Moldea,
Hoffa Wars
, 152.

56
. Kurtz,
JFK Assassination Debates
, 198–99.

57
. Giancana,
Double Cross
, 193.

58
. Summers,
Kennedy Conspiracy
, 335–40.

59
. “Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy: Appendix 16: A Biography of Jack Ruby,” National Archives and Records Administration website, p. 802,
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-16.html#family
 [accessed June 6, 2011]; Kurtz,
JFK Assassination Debates
, 196.

60
. Marrs,
Crossfire
, 37.

61
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 259. Oliver said she used a camera on 11/22 that did not exist in 1963.

62
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 368.

63
. Personal interview with Jim Leavelle, April 8, 2011, Dallas.

64
. Telephone interview with Nancy Pelosi, May 26, 2011.

65
. Posner,
Case Closed
, 396; “Testimony of Barnard S. Clardy,” Warren Commission Hearings, vol. XII, p. 412, The John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage,
http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol12/page412.php
 [accessed June 8, 2011]; personal interview with Bill Alexander, Dallas, January 14, 2011.

66
. Mel Ayton, “Why Jack Ruby Killed Lee Harvey Oswald,”
Crime
, November 25, 2005,
http://www.crimemagazine.com/why-jack-ruby-killed-lee-harvey-oswald?page=57
 [accessed August 2, 2011].

67
. Telephone interview with Jim Cunningham, December 17, 2012. Cunningham, now an Episcopal Church deacon in his eighties, was working in his office near Love Field when the presidential motorcade went by on November 22.

68
. “The Assassination: A Nonentity for History,”
Time
, January 13, 1967,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843229,00.html
 [accessed June 8, 2011]; “Sequels: A Last Wish,”
Time
, December 30, 1966,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901898.00.html
 [accessed June 8, 2011].

69
. It is important to note that Oswald’s transfer schedule was not the equivalent of a space launch; many realized it might not be precisely adhered to. The ten A.M. transfer time was tentative, and established to give the news media plenty of time to arrive and set up. Oswald’s interrogating officers were not hurried to finish by anyone inside or outside the police department. See “Shooting of Oswald,”
http://www.jfk.org/go/exhibits/dallas/oswald-shooting
 [accessed December 5, 2012], and “Testimony of Harry D. Holmes,” Warren Commission Hearings, vol. VII,
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/html/WC_Vol7_0153a.htm
 [accessed December 5, 2012].

70
. Telephone interview with Robert Blakey, July 8, 2011.

71
. Summers,
Kennedy Conspiracy
, 349.

72
. Personal interview with Bill Alexander, Dallas, January 14, 2011.

10. EXAMINING THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE: OLD AND NEW CONTROVERSIES

1
. Warren Report, chapter 1, History Matters website, pp. 52–56,
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0038b.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011]. See also “The Kennedy Connection,” Parkland Hospital website,
http://www.parklandhospital.com/whoweare/kennedy.html
 [accessed June 8, 2011].

2
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Charles Carrico, March 30, 1964 (vol. 3, p. 359),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0184a.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011]. Based upon these faint heartbeats, Dr. Carrico concluded that the president was still technically alive and continued efforts to stabilize the patient. This is a somewhat different definition of “living” than we have today, of course. JFK was brain-dead from the moment the bullet(s) struck his head, and his presidency effectively ended at 12:30 pm CST. See the Warren Report, chapter 1, History Matters website, at pp. 53–54,
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0039b.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].

3
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Charles Carrico, March 25, 1964 (vol. 6, p. 3),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0007a.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].

4
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Malcolm Perry, March 30, 1964 (vol. 3, pp. 367-368),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0188a.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].

5
. Ibid., 368. Dr. Perry told the Warren Commission that he had considerable experience with gunshot wounds, examining 150 to 200 during his tenure at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

6
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Malcolm Perry, March 30, 1964 (vol. 3, pp. 369–70),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0189a.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].

7
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Kemp Clark, March 21, 1964 (vol. 6, p. 20, 25),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0015b.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011]; Warren Report, chapter 1, History Matters website, at pp. 54–55,
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0039b.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].

8
. Warren Commission Hearings, History Matters website, Testimony of Dr. Marion T. Jenkins, March 21, 1964 (vol. 6, p. 48),
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0029b.htm
 [accessed September 29, 2011].
In all likelihood, Jenkins made a mistake by saying “cerebellum” when he meant to say “cerebrum.” See Dennis Breo, “JFK’s Death, Part II—Dallas MDs Recall Their Memories,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
267:20 (1992): 2804–7. The cerebrum is at the top of the head—the cerebellum is elsewhere.