Speaker 1: It's the early nineteen sixties and we're in the hottest
Speaker 1: hotel in Miami. Beautiful people, beautiful cars. But tonight, in
Speaker 1: a private room, there will be a secret meeting involving
Speaker 1: some very strange bedfellows. First, there's a sharply dressed guy
Speaker 1: with slick back hair and sunglasses. His name is Johnny Rosselli.
Speaker 1: He's a mafia leader in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Next to him is Sam g and Coanna, the notorious
Speaker 1: head of the Chicago Mafia. These mob guys are at
Speaker 1: the height of their powers. The extent of their controlled
Speaker 1: over organized crime is historic.
Speaker 2: Just days before he was scheduled to testify to the
Speaker 2: House Select Committee on Assassinations, Johnny Rosselli who was found
Speaker 2: chopped up and stuffed into an oil drum off the
Speaker 2: coast of Miami. Of course, in the telling of this
Speaker 2: story's Bill in one piece and very much alive.
Speaker 1: Also there is Bill Harvey. Harvey runs the CIA's executive
Speaker 1: action program known as ZR Rifle. It's a secret program
Speaker 1: designed to eliminate problematic world leaders. He's meeting with these
Speaker 1: legendary crime bosses with an official offer from the CIA.
Speaker 1: He wants to hire them to kill Fidel Castro.
Speaker 2: It was only revealed in two thousand and seven that Dulles,
Speaker 2: the godfather of the CIA, personally approved this arrangement.
Speaker 1: When Rosselli and g and Conna were first approached, they
Speaker 1: were offered one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash
Speaker 1: to take out Castro, but the mobsters declined the money.
Speaker 2: They don't want the job.
Speaker 1: They wanted the job, but they said they'd do it
Speaker 1: for free. After all, they're patriots.
Speaker 2: This is who killed JFK. Sixty years later? What can
Speaker 2: we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history?
Speaker 2: And why does it still matter today? I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Solidad O'Brien. Okay, so where are we in the story?
Speaker 1: We've looked at the weeks leading up to Kennedy's arrival
Speaker 1: in Dallas, which included the CIA connected Ruth Paine helping
Speaker 1: Oswald get a job at the Texas school Book Depository,
Speaker 1: which overlooked Kennedy's motorcade route. We learned about Operation Northwoods,
Speaker 1: a CIA false flag plan designed to attack a prominent
Speaker 1: American target blame Castro to justify an invasion of Cuba.
Speaker 2: It's hard to believe all of that's real.
Speaker 1: But let's look at the motive. In solving any crime,
Speaker 1: you have to ask who had the most to gain.
Speaker 2: And who has the most to gain.
Speaker 1: Well, there are three groups. First, the Cuban exiles, whose
Speaker 1: country had been taken from them by Castro. They were
Speaker 1: determine to get it back. Second, the mob who suffered
Speaker 1: a huge financial loss with their hotels and casinos gone,
Speaker 1: and were furious at Kennedy's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy,
Speaker 1: for cracking down on organized crime. And third, the hardliners
Speaker 1: from the CIA in the military, who believed Kennedy had
Speaker 1: gone soft on communism and was selling the United States
Speaker 1: out to the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Remember, after Castro took over in nineteen fifty nine, the
Speaker 2: CIA trained a group of Cuban exiles to execute a
Speaker 2: planned invasion to retake Cuba in nineteen sixty one. The
Speaker 2: attack was called the Bay of Pigs, and it failed miserably. Kennedy,
Speaker 2: not wanting American fingerprints on the mission, refused to send
Speaker 2: the requested air support. The exiles were overwhelmed and slaughtered.
Speaker 1: So first, let's look at the Cuban exiles.
Speaker 3: He knows that followed the Bay of Pig's envision there
Speaker 3: developed a very hostile attitude and then the ex commute
Speaker 3: toward Kennedy.
Speaker 2: Of that's Fabian Escalante speaking through a translator. He was
Speaker 2: a leader in Castro's intelligence agency.
Speaker 3: They were convinced that he was responsible for the failure
Speaker 3: of the Bay Bigs invasion and even were saying he
Speaker 3: was a Communist.
Speaker 4: My dad was a member of the Pigs invasion.
Speaker 2: That's the son of Ricardo Morales, Ricardo Morales Junior.
Speaker 4: My dad thought JFK screwed us at the Bay of Pigs,
Speaker 4: and then he screwed us after the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 2: Morales refers to the nineteen sixty two nuclear standoff against
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union where Kennedy, instead of using the crisis
Speaker 2: as justification to attack Cuba, made a deal with the
Speaker 2: Soviet Premier khrus Chef to avoid nuclear war.
Speaker 4: And so he was no longer loved or trusted by
Speaker 4: by that part of the community, especially my dad. He
Speaker 4: no longer cared for JFK as a as a leader
Speaker 4: that it helped the Cuban people. They had given up
Speaker 4: on Cuba, so he had given up on him.
Speaker 2: So Ricardo before the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban
Speaker 2: missile crisis. Your dad got involved to try to quote
Speaker 2: get Cuba back from Castro.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my dad was a G two agent in Cuba,
Speaker 4: which is the intelligence branch of the government. Castro takes
Speaker 4: over and then it starts to evolve where Castro starts
Speaker 4: going towards Communism, so he has to figure out a
Speaker 4: way to get out of the country.
Speaker 2: Morales comes to the United States.
Speaker 4: Then immediately he starts becoming involved in the bombings and
Speaker 4: killings of Cubans that are working for Castro. And then
Speaker 4: he he's never home at that point, he's out, you know,
Speaker 4: doing his thing, and he it's very emotional right now. Honestly,
Speaker 4: I don't know why. Oh yeah, so, but you know,
Speaker 4: he we we thought he was. What he was doing
Speaker 4: was trying to free Cuba.
Speaker 2: My mom was Cuban growing up. She talk about the
Speaker 2: Bay of Pigs and how disappointed she was in Kennedy.
Speaker 2: So I do understand when they say that for them
Speaker 2: this was the loss of their homeland, the loss of
Speaker 2: their family. But while there may have been a shared
Speaker 2: sentiment among many exiles who had to leave, not everyone
Speaker 2: acted in the same way. It's important to specify that
Speaker 2: we're talking about a very particular group of Cuban exiles
Speaker 2: who took really drastic measures.
Speaker 1: These exiles, most of whom settled in Florida and New Orleans,
Speaker 1: were not going to just sit by idly and accept this.
Speaker 1: Their property was taken, relatives were killed in jail. They
Speaker 1: wanted their home back, so they started to organize.
Speaker 5: This is a huge turning point for the exiles.
Speaker 2: That's Dick Russell.
Speaker 5: Listen to what Castro's former head of intelligence, Fabian has
Speaker 5: Klante told me.
Speaker 3: The official of the CIA and.
Speaker 2: An official of the CIA came to a Cuban safehouse.
Speaker 2: He seemed very bothered by this and said, you have
Speaker 2: to eliminate Kennedy, the pinko of the White House.
Speaker 1: The Cuban missile crisis made it even clearer to the
Speaker 1: exiles that Kennedy was not going to help them get
Speaker 1: Cuba back. He was looking to forge a path to
Speaker 1: peace with Cuba and the Soviet Union, and it was
Speaker 1: made clear by his famous speech that he gave at
Speaker 1: American University. He took the position that was directly at
Speaker 1: odds with the exiles who wanted their island back. Kennedy
Speaker 1: was standing in their way.
Speaker 2: So that's the first group you've established the motive for
Speaker 2: the Cuban exiles.
Speaker 1: Next is La Coos Andostra the mafia. The mafia's goals
Speaker 1: were simple money and power, and in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: they had both. This mob story starts in New Orleans
Speaker 1: with a burly mob boss named Carlos Marchello.
Speaker 5: The New Orleans Crime Commission reported that under Marcello, the
Speaker 5: local mafia made over a billion dollars annually from gambling, prostitution,
Speaker 5: and burglaries.
Speaker 1: Attorney General Robert Kennedy was going after Marcello as part
Speaker 1: of his mission of cracking down on organized crime. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, Kennedy had Marcello deported. He had him
Speaker 1: flown out of the United States and unceremoniously dumped in
Speaker 1: a jungle in Guatemala. Two months later, Marcello returned to
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and let's just say he wasn't in the
Speaker 1: best of moods.
Speaker 6: Marcello had a deep and abiding hatred of Robert Kennedy
Speaker 6: by that time, and that was shared by the other
Speaker 6: organized crime leaders.
Speaker 2: That's Jefferson Morley again, the creator of jfkfax dot Org.
Speaker 1: The mafia despised the Attorney General, who they felt was
Speaker 1: targeting them. But as we've come to know, when the
Speaker 1: mob makes it decision, it's not personal, it's strictly business,
Speaker 1: and they had a really good business reason to dislike
Speaker 1: the Kennedys.
Speaker 6: In nineteen fifty nine, Castro took power and through organized
Speaker 6: crime out of Havana.
Speaker 1: Marcello and his partner Santo Traficanti ran Cuba. They called
Speaker 1: it the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. When Castro took over,
Speaker 1: they lost everything. Cuba was truly a second Vegas to them. Casinos, drugs, women.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to place a number behind these profits, but
Speaker 1: the business was huge, massive revenue streams, and growth potential
Speaker 1: was off the charts. Then Castro cuts them off. He
Speaker 1: shuts down their boomy casino and drug business. So now
Speaker 1: their goal is get rid of Castro. So you have
Speaker 1: the classic definition of strange bedfellows, the mafia and the CIA.
Speaker 6: The relationship between the CIA and the American mafia had
Speaker 6: begun in World War Two when the US invaded it
Speaker 6: through the South, and they didn't want any problem with
Speaker 6: the organized crime syndicates. That really controlled that part of Italy,
Speaker 6: and so they made an agreement with the mafia that
Speaker 6: they could continue to run their casinos. The US occupation
Speaker 6: wouldn't bother them, and in return, these crime syndicates would
Speaker 6: assist the US occupation.
Speaker 1: And guess who came up with that idea The poet
Speaker 1: spy James Jesus Angleton. He was stationed in Italy at
Speaker 1: the time, and under his guidance the relationship between the
Speaker 1: CIA and the mafia began. Angleton relied on his contacts
Speaker 1: with organized crime throughout the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: So the CIA and the mafia have this history of
Speaker 2: working together, and in this moment, which is the early
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, their motives are aligned against Castro.
Speaker 1: The hardliners in the CIA and the military felt that
Speaker 1: Kennedy was betraying the country. He had gone soft on
Speaker 1: communism and in order to stop it spread, you get
Speaker 1: rid of anything or anyone that stand And there was
Speaker 1: also an additional motive for Allan Dulles, the godfather of
Speaker 1: the CIA.
Speaker 7: I believe that President Kennedy had alienated much of the
Speaker 7: US establishment by the time he was killed in Dallas.
Speaker 2: That's David Talbot again. Author of the book on Alan Dulles,
Speaker 2: The Devil's Chessboard.
Speaker 7: I think he alienated not only much of his own government,
Speaker 7: but the national security establishment and the military industrial complex
Speaker 7: that was making so much money, frankly off the state
Speaker 7: of permanent war. He and his brother who came from
Speaker 7: Wall Street, a very powerful law firm on Wall Street,
Speaker 7: the Rockefeller brothers, the oil industry, the weapons manufacturers, these
Speaker 7: were all their clients. And they had had it with
Speaker 7: President Kennedy and his efforts at peace.
Speaker 2: What exactly does that mean? They had had it with him.
Speaker 7: They said this was putting the country at risk. They
Speaker 7: thought that President Kenny was a week president, that he
Speaker 7: was a Week leader, that he was an peaser, and
Speaker 7: he had to be removed from office.
Speaker 1: In October of nineteen sixty three, just weeks prior to
Speaker 1: the assassination, JFK signaled that he was going to start
Speaker 1: a withdrawal from Vietnam. He put it in writing in
Speaker 1: National Security Memo two sixty three, which he sent to
Speaker 1: a Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
Speaker 5: National Security Memo two sixty three stated that the president
Speaker 5: would withdraw a thousand military personnel from South Vietnam by
Speaker 5: the end of nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: The memo says, quote, A major part of the US
Speaker 2: military task can be completed by the end of nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five.
Speaker 1: Right he was telling everyone that this wasn't our war.
Speaker 5: McNamara had gone on the record stating that if JFK
Speaker 5: had lived, he would have withdrawn the US from Vietnam
Speaker 5: after the election.
Speaker 2: Just think how history could have changed. Memo two sixty
Speaker 2: three had actually ever gone into effect.
Speaker 1: And it was the beginning, in my opinion, to the
Speaker 1: divide that we have today. When Blenda Johnson became president,
Speaker 1: he rescinded Kennedy's memo and he issued a new one
Speaker 1: in which he called for an immediate halt to the
Speaker 1: withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Johnson signed the memo on
Speaker 1: November twenty sixth, nineteen sixty three, one day after President
Speaker 1: Kennedy's funeral.
Speaker 2: Rob has established his belief that the mafia, the Cuban exiles,
Speaker 2: and the hardliners in the CIA and military all had
Speaker 2: motive to kill President Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Their motives were different, but they were completely aligned. They
Speaker 1: just needed someone to put it all together, someone who
Speaker 1: had the means to pull something like this off.
Speaker 2: So the popular theory is that the CIA had the
Speaker 2: means to make it happen.
Speaker 1: But not in any what you would think official capacity. Remember,
Speaker 1: this is all about plausible deniability. To do something this
Speaker 1: world changing, the assassination of an American president, it would
Speaker 1: have to be done in a way that couldn't be
Speaker 1: traced back. A team would have to be assembled on
Speaker 1: a need to know basis. Certainly people like Alan Dulles,
Speaker 1: James Angleton, and Bill Harvey would know how to pull
Speaker 1: this off.
Speaker 2: Harvey, you might recall, was the man Dullest placed in
Speaker 2: charge of ZR Rifle, the CIA's executive action program. In
Speaker 2: his reporting, Jefferson Morley describes Harvey as quote an assassination specialist.
Speaker 6: For most of that time, Harvey was a raging alcoholic.
Speaker 6: He was a bitter critic of President Kennedy and his brother.
Speaker 6: Bill Harvey was, in the words of his colleagues, a
Speaker 6: very dangerous man.
Speaker 2: Here's General Lansdale, who was in the Air Force and
Speaker 2: then the CIA. He was a pioneer in covert operations
Speaker 2: and psychological warfare. Dick interviewed him decades ago.
Speaker 5: Harvey thought of himself as James Bond.
Speaker 7: He was convinced.
Speaker 8: I think that the anime was after him, so he
Speaker 8: always went armed.
Speaker 9: William Harvey, my dad called him a psycho, a drunk psycho,
Speaker 9: but he was a dangerous man.
Speaker 2: That's Saint John Hunt, son of E. Howard Hunt, the
Speaker 2: legendary CIA operative who became notorious for his role in Watergate.
Speaker 2: We'll talk more about E. Howard Hunt later, because you
Speaker 2: guessed it. He's part of this too.
Speaker 1: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Harvey was so insubordinate to
Speaker 1: RFK that he was taken off Cuban policy and banished
Speaker 1: to Rome. The humiliation only added to Harvey's hatred for
Speaker 1: the Kennedys.
Speaker 6: Harvey became very good friends with Johnny Rosselli, who was
Speaker 6: the crime boss of Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: At that time.
Speaker 2: That's Morley again.
Speaker 6: Johnny was also a known KI or. The FBI suspected
Speaker 6: him in about twelve murders. So if you wanted to
Speaker 6: kill somebody, Johnny Rosselli was the right person to go to.
Speaker 1: I loved Roselli.
Speaker 8: My husband always said, if I had to write shotgun
Speaker 8: and that's a guy I'd.
Speaker 7: Take with me.
Speaker 1: That's CG. Harvey. Bill Harvey's wife, cig was an agent herself.
Speaker 1: And here she is talking about her husband's close relationship
Speaker 1: with Johnny Rosselli.
Speaker 8: He definitely was mafia and he definitely was a crook,
Speaker 8: but he was a patriot.
Speaker 2: Well that's weird calling a mob boss a patriot, right.
Speaker 1: But it shows the connection that he had with her husband,
Speaker 1: which extended to their feelings about RFK.
Speaker 8: Bobby Kennedy and my husband were absolutely enemies, I mean
Speaker 8: just pure enemies.
Speaker 1: And then she goes back to talking about Rosselli.
Speaker 8: He knew that my husband was a patriot and that's
Speaker 8: what drew him to be.
Speaker 1: Now, pay attention to what comes next.
Speaker 8: And he had been recruited by another guy from the
Speaker 8: FBI for assassination purposes on.
Speaker 2: Kennedy or on cashtill on Kennedy. That's a big slip.
Speaker 1: Yes, she said that Johnny Roselli was recruited by someone
Speaker 1: at the FBI for assassination purposes on Kennedy. Then she
Speaker 1: quickly realized what she had said and she corrected herself.
Speaker 2: Freudian slip, but a big one. The CIA withheld a
Speaker 2: significant amount of material on Bill Harvey's secret operations from
Speaker 2: the House Select Committee on Assassinations when they investigated in
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: You'll remember former CIA agent George Joanniedes. He acted as
Speaker 1: a goalkeeper for the CIA during that investigation. Robert Blakey
Speaker 1: still has his regrets.
Speaker 8: Instead of pulling around with people that joeannadies Davis, I
Speaker 8: should have been talking to Harvey.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, David Talbot filed a Freedom of Information
Speaker 2: Act request for these records on Harvey, among others.
Speaker 7: They refused to release them to me, they said for
Speaker 7: national security reasons.
Speaker 2: The following year he sued the US State Department.
Speaker 1: And here we are in twenty twenty three and those
Speaker 1: Harvey records have still not been released.
Speaker 5: The records that have been released reveal that even after
Speaker 5: the Kennedys banished Harvey to Rome, he continued contact with
Speaker 5: Dulles and Angleton. They also reveal that he worked with
Speaker 5: a man named David Attlee Phillips.
Speaker 2: What do we know about David Attlee Phillips.
Speaker 6: David Attlee Phillips was a trust fund kid from Texas.
Speaker 6: He inherited a lot of money after the war and
Speaker 6: moved to Chile and opened up a expat newspaper. It
Speaker 6: was there he came to the attention of a traveling
Speaker 6: CIA officer named Howard Hunt, the future Watergate burglar, who
Speaker 6: recruited him to join the agency, and what his specialty
Speaker 6: was was deception operations using the press and radio.
Speaker 1: He was like an Angleton Junior. After Castro took over
Speaker 1: a Cuba, Phillips became a point person for anti Castro activities,
Speaker 1: specifically working with the Cuban exiles in Miami.
Speaker 5: There were a number of different groups that formed during
Speaker 5: this time, and they each had a different method of
Speaker 5: trying to remove Castro. Some were more diplomatic, while others
Speaker 5: were outright violent. Alpha sixty six in Operation forty were
Speaker 5: two of the more violent groups.
Speaker 4: OP forty is a special team of operatas basically assassins.
Speaker 2: That's Ricardo Moreles Junior again his father, Ricardo Moreles Senior,
Speaker 2: fought in the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 4: OP forty became more of a CIA run team that
Speaker 4: was ready to do whatever the CIA needed them to do.
Speaker 4: Alpha sixty six is just Cubans expats that are furious
Speaker 4: and want to blow things up. Alphai six wanted to
Speaker 4: go back to Cuban just assassinate Castro.
Speaker 1: Alpha sixty six was led by a Cuban exile by
Speaker 1: the name of Antonio Vessiana.
Speaker 5: Antonio Vessiana was smart and angry, and there was nothing
Speaker 5: he wouldn't do to get his country back.
Speaker 7: Antonia was a wealthy guy in Cuba.
Speaker 2: That's David Talbot again.
Speaker 7: He had been a banker, had been a member of
Speaker 7: the middle class there and saw that thought that the
Speaker 7: castro was taking the country in the wrong direction, so
Speaker 7: he joined the exiles who fled.
Speaker 1: Once he was on us soil, Vessiana started making plans
Speaker 1: to take Cuba back. He had a plan, but what
Speaker 1: he didn't have was money. He had left everything he
Speaker 1: had back in Cuba.
Speaker 4: The money for these organization this just has to come
Speaker 4: from somewhere.
Speaker 2: That's Morellis Junior. Again.
Speaker 4: You have the materials that are required, the bombs, the
Speaker 4: explosives and all that also has to be procured.
Speaker 1: A lot of the support came from a CIA operative
Speaker 1: named Maurice Bishop.
Speaker 2: So who's Maurice Bishop.
Speaker 1: I know I'm throwing a lot of names at you,
Speaker 1: but stick with me here on Maurice Bishop. This is important. First,
Speaker 1: what you have to know is that there is no
Speaker 1: record of anyone at the CIA with that name. Did
Speaker 1: he even exist? And if he didn't, who was helping
Speaker 1: Alpha sixty six? In nineteen seventy six, during the House
Speaker 1: Committee investigation, we got the answer, and it was like
Speaker 1: something straight out of a movie. Stick with me here
Speaker 1: on Maurice Bishop. This is important. First, what you have
Speaker 1: to know is that there is no record of anyone
Speaker 1: at the CIA with that name. Did he even exist?
Speaker 1: And if he didn't, who was helping Alpha sixty six?
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six. During the House Committee investigation, we
Speaker 1: got the answer.
Speaker 5: The committee called Antonio Vesciana in for questioning. Vasciana mentioned
Speaker 5: that he had a handler with the last name of Bishop. Again,
Speaker 5: nobody recognized the name, so they asked Vasciana to describe
Speaker 5: what Bishop looked like. The sketch artist starts to draw
Speaker 5: a compositive Bishop based on descriptions from Vesciana and others
Speaker 5: who've described.
Speaker 1: Him, and then the sketch looked like someone familiar.
Speaker 5: When David Attlee Phillips was testifying to the committee, they
Speaker 5: showed him a copy of the sketch. He said, couldn't
Speaker 5: identify the person, but it looks like me.
Speaker 10: I want to unequivocally state that Maurice Bishop was David
Speaker 10: Attlee Phillips.
Speaker 1: The voice you just heard is Antonio Vessiana's son. He's
Speaker 1: reading a statement from his father revealing that David Attlee
Speaker 1: Phillips also used the name Maurice Bishop, the CIA's very
Speaker 1: own David Attlee Phillips, Angleton's disciple.
Speaker 2: David Attlee Phillips was given a chance to respond in
Speaker 2: his testimony to the houselet Committee on Assassinations, and he
Speaker 2: denied that he'd ever use the name Maurice Bishop.
Speaker 1: Well, he would have to. The implications would have been huge.
Speaker 1: In March of nineteen sixty three, Alpha sixty six, under
Speaker 1: the leadership of Antonio Vessiana, with the support and funding
Speaker 1: of the CIA, through David Attlee Phillips, sank a Russian
Speaker 1: ship doctor in Cuba.
Speaker 2: This is in nineteen sixty three, after the Cuban Missile crisis,
Speaker 2: in a moment where Kennedy had turned to peace. Did
Speaker 2: President Kennedy know that Alpha sixty six sunk that Russian ship?
Speaker 2: He did, and that Alpha sixty six was backed by
Speaker 2: the CIA.
Speaker 1: He did.
Speaker 2: He must have been furious, he was.
Speaker 1: Remember By the spring of nineteen sixty three, Kennedy had
Speaker 1: promised Khrushchev that he'd be hands off with Cuba, that
Speaker 1: Castro wouldn't have to worry about another US invasion. Kennedy
Speaker 1: knew that this attack on the Russian ship was an
Speaker 1: attempt to undermine his improving relationship that he was developing
Speaker 1: with Russia and also with Cuba. He assured kruse Chef
Speaker 1: that he didn't order the attack and would make these
Speaker 1: activities stop. And then Alpha sixty six launched another attack
Speaker 1: on another Soviet ship.
Speaker 2: So they were intentionally undermining President Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they even took it a step further. After
Speaker 1: the attack, members of Alpha sixty six hold a press
Speaker 1: conference where they suggest that the American government is supporting
Speaker 1: their actions. Kennedy, needless to say, was livid.
Speaker 5: He had the Coastguards seized the boats of Cuban exiles
Speaker 5: before they could attack any more Soviet or Cuban vessels.
Speaker 5: He sent planes and boats into the waters around Cuba,
Speaker 5: and he banned a dozen Cuban exile leaders from leaving Miami,
Speaker 5: including Vesianabi.
Speaker 3: Strategies theory about the United States. One from the administration,
Speaker 3: and then there's one of the CIA and the Cuban
Speaker 3: exiles in the mafia, and they had their own independent objectives,
Speaker 3: this need to assassinate Kennedy.
Speaker 1: And here it is the CIA, the Cuban exiles, and
Speaker 1: the mafia all in sync the goal assassinate Kennedy.
Speaker 5: They were working together. The mob was selling guns to
Speaker 5: the exiles. The CIA was directly funding and organizing in
Speaker 5: the exile groups.
Speaker 1: And here's Alpha sixty six leader Antonio Vessiana Hill himself
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen at a JFK Assassination Researchers conference. He's
Speaker 1: eighty six years old and a translator is speaking for him.
Speaker 11: Over the years of his training and his experience in
Speaker 11: dealing with the CIA and Bishop and other Phillips and others,
Speaker 11: he learned how to become a professional conspirator.
Speaker 2: What it meant Phillips meaning David Atlee Phillips aka Angleton's
Speaker 2: protege code name Maurice Bishop.
Speaker 1: Correct, correct, Correct.
Speaker 11: The CIA never had an official meeting where they said, hey,
Speaker 11: here's where we're going to plan on the murder of
Speaker 11: the president. But he happens to know that a group
Speaker 11: of officials working within the CIA got together with the
Speaker 11: clear plan to assassinate and murder the president.
Speaker 1: And there's one more bombshell from Vessiana, and this is
Speaker 1: revealed by another translator. It shows how all the pieces
Speaker 1: start to come together.
Speaker 10: I traveled to Dallas at the end of August or
Speaker 10: beginning of September nineteen sixty three to meet with Maurice Bishop,
Speaker 10: my CIA hander. We had agreed to see each other
Speaker 10: in the lobby of a downtown Dallas bank. They are
Speaker 10: observed Bishop with a young man I later identified without
Speaker 10: a doubt as Lee Harvey Oswalt.
Speaker 1: So you have Oswald meeting with a CIA agent who
Speaker 1: is a master in counterintelligence. In September nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: pieces were being moved around the board, and Oswald wasn't
Speaker 1: the only piece being moved. The list of people who
Speaker 1: were in Dallas on November twenty second will make your
Speaker 1: head spin. Let's start with someone that didn't have to
Speaker 1: travel very far, the mayor of Dallas.
Speaker 2: How is it possibly news that the mayor of Dallas
Speaker 2: is in Dallas.
Speaker 1: Well, that in and of itself is not news. But
Speaker 1: what is news is what we've learned about this particular
Speaker 1: mayor over the years. Do you recall the name Charles Cabell?
Speaker 1: Remind me okay, He was the former deputy director of
Speaker 1: the CIA and one of the agents that Kennedy fired
Speaker 1: after the failed Bay of Pigs evasion.
Speaker 2: And how does he fit into all of this?
Speaker 1: Well. In nineteen sixty three, the mayor of Dallas was
Speaker 1: Earl Cable.
Speaker 5: Charles's brother, Earl Cabell, himself was a CIA asset.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, a batch of newly declassified documents revealed
Speaker 2: that Earl Cable had secretly worked as an asset of
Speaker 2: the CIA during his tenure as the mayor of Dallas.
Speaker 2: Those documents came out fifty four years after the assassination
Speaker 2: of President Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Mayor Cable was responsible for establishing the route the motorcade
Speaker 1: would take, and that route would pass right in front
Speaker 1: of the building where Oswald worked. Wait till you hear
Speaker 1: the roster of people who arrived in Dallas that morning.
Speaker 1: First up have Tosh Plumley, who was a CIA operative
Speaker 1: and a mercenary pilot during the fifties and sixties. As
Speaker 1: you may recall, he was stationed at Nagshead, North Carolina
Speaker 1: with Oswald. The day of the assassination. Plumbley was tasked
Speaker 1: with transporting two high profile people to Dallas.
Speaker 12: I was asked to go fly as co pilot on
Speaker 12: that particular flight.
Speaker 1: That's Plumblee.
Speaker 12: The flight was to go from West bomb Beach to
Speaker 12: go over to Tampa, and we flew open water across
Speaker 12: the New Orleans and some other people got on there
Speaker 12: at New Orleans and then from there we flew into Dallas.
Speaker 1: Plumbley, like everyone else, was on a knee to know
Speaker 1: basis and doesn't claim to know why he was piloting
Speaker 1: the flight, but he confirmed that one of the passengers
Speaker 1: on board was mob boss Johnny Rosselli.
Speaker 12: Rose Ella was on board our aircraft, so it was
Speaker 12: that a couple of other Cubans. I don't know for
Speaker 12: sure who they are.
Speaker 1: There was one other passenger plumb Lee could confirm. His
Speaker 1: name was Howard Hunt. Hunt was a high level American
Speaker 1: intelligen and, as we know, became infamous for his role
Speaker 1: in the Watergate break in. Here's Saint John, his son
Speaker 1: talking about his dad in Dallas.
Speaker 9: Well, at the time, I asked my mom, where's Papa,
Speaker 9: and she said he's in Dallas on business. And I
Speaker 9: remember that as if it were yesterday, And at the
Speaker 9: time I didn't I didn't put it together with the assassination,
Speaker 9: you know, but later on I thought, wow, that was
Speaker 9: right there at the same time.
Speaker 2: So what would be the role of someone like E.
Speaker 2: Howard Hunt in Dallas on that day?
Speaker 1: Saint John, you once told me that your father was
Speaker 1: in Dallas as a benchwarmer. What exactly is a benchwarmer?
Speaker 9: He knew who was involved, where they would go after,
Speaker 9: you know, the mission was accomplished, how to get them out,
Speaker 9: and things like that.
Speaker 1: I feel that he.
Speaker 9: Knew the points of entry and the points of exit,
Speaker 9: and he knew safe houses. I think he was someone
Speaker 9: who we had a grasp on the whole mission.
Speaker 1: When we spoke to Ricardo Morales Junior, whose dad was
Speaker 1: a Cuban exile working for the CIA out of Miami,
Speaker 1: he said his dad was in Dallas and used very
Speaker 1: similar language.
Speaker 2: Here's Morales Junior translating his father's testimony of that day.
Speaker 4: I was there as a cleaning team, just in case
Speaker 4: something went wrong. Those are the only orders I received,
Speaker 4: and that's what we did. We were at a safe
Speaker 4: house in Dallas awaiting orders. So once the assassination took place,
Speaker 4: they called in for orders. Their orders were to return home,
Speaker 4: and that's what they did.
Speaker 1: Others reported to be in Dallas that day, where Mob
Speaker 1: connected Charles Nicoletti, Cia operative Jack Cannon, a Cuban exile
Speaker 1: named Herminio Diaz Garcia, and a former member of French
Speaker 1: intelligence named John Swetre.
Speaker 2: So Dallas at that moment was like the super Bowl
Speaker 2: of covert operations.
Speaker 1: There can only be one explanation for all of them
Speaker 1: to have been there that day. They had to make
Speaker 1: sure that the president got killed.
Speaker 2: Next episode on Who Killed JFK? We follow Lee Harvey
Speaker 2: Oswald on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: He knows something big was going to happen that day,
Speaker 1: and he knows that he's on the inside of whatever
Speaker 1: this thing is.
Speaker 7: And so I said, what's in the package?
Speaker 1: Lee?
Speaker 7: And he said, don't you remember we talked about this
Speaker 7: sches Today, I've gone to Branks some curtain Rodge to work.
Speaker 8: When the shots that get to ring out, people really
Speaker 8: began to pay.
Speaker 7: I think he felt that the plot had been turned
Speaker 7: against him and he believed that his life was in danger.
Speaker 2: Who Killed JFK is hosted by Rob Reiner and me
Speaker 2: Solidad O'Brien, and our executive producers are Rob Reiner, Michelle
Speaker 2: r Matt George Jason English, David Hoffman and me Solidad O'Brien.
Speaker 2: Our writer is David Hoffman, with research by Dick Russell.
Speaker 2: Our story editors are Rob Reiner and Julie Pinero. Our
Speaker 2: senior producer is Julie Pinneo. Our producers are Tristan Nash,
Speaker 2: Dick Russell, Michelle Goldfein and Amari Lee. Our editors are
Speaker 2: Tristan Nash, Julie Pinneto, and Marcus de Lauro. Our project
Speaker 2: manager is Carol Klein. Our associate producer is emilse Kiros. Mixing,
Speaker 2: mastering and sound design by Ben la Julier. Research and
Speaker 2: fact checking by Girl Friday and emilse Kiros. Archival audio
Speaker 2: in this episode thanks to the Assassination Archives and Research Center,
Speaker 2: the Alderton Family, Dick Russell and Rob Reiner. Business affairs
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