BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
John F. Kennedy was the embodiment of the hopes
and aspirations of his times. [music playing] The pain of his
assassination is indelibly etched in our national memory. [music playing] Decades after his death,
the speculation still rages. Who really killed Kennedy? The last official investigation
by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in
1979 pointed the finger at the mafia. It was a disturbing conclusion. What possible
connection could there be between John F.
Kennedy and the mafia? Between the most charismatic
leader of our times and most violent and evil
force in our society, we now know that
there were many links, for there was a split in the
character of John Kennedy. He could, at the same time,
pursue the loftiest of ideals and the most cynical
brand of pragmatism. His divided personality
was an inheritance from his parents, Rose and Joe. NIGEL HAMILTON: He's getting
this very moralistic, pious message from his mother,
and his father meanwhile is saying, listen, Jack, there
is no rule you need to obey in this world if you have
enough guts, enough money, enough determination. Every rule can be broken. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): Jack's
father, Joseph P. Kennedy was the richest
and most powerful Irish American of his times. His fortune had been made on
Wall Street, where he was known as a ruthless manipulator. But more damaging
to his reputation were the persistent stories,
that during prohibition, Kennedy, the son of a liquor
dealer, was also a bootlegger. During the early '20s,
witnesses described seeing him on the Massachusetts coastline,
nervously awaiting the arrival of his liquor boats. New York mafia
boss Frank Costello later claimed that he and
Kennedy had been bootlegging partners. "I helped make Kennedy
wealthy," Costello boasted. Kennedy was never formally
charged as a bootlegger. In 1933, he became a legal
importer of the finest scotch whiskies. But after prohibition,
his underworld connections continued, for he was drawn
to the pleasures and the vices that were the mob's
traditional sphere. Joe Kennedy liked to
bet, up to $10,000 a day with his own
private bookmaker. One of his favorite
gambling spots was Florida's Hialeah racetrack,
where he was a part owner. In the evenings, often
accompanied by girlfriends, Joe could be found in some of
the mob's favorite nightspots, such as the Stork
Club in New York and the Colonial Inn
in Miami Beach, owned by mafia kingpins, Frank
Costello and Meyer Lansky. According to Lansky, Joe Kennedy
used to come four or five times a week. But in the press, where
his money bought influence, Kennedy enjoyed a sanitized
image, as a devoted family man, distinguished
business man, and even a possible future president. His political career was
launched as a fund raiser in the presidential campaign of
Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1938, he was named ambassador
to Great Britain, but he was forced to resign in
1941 when he betrayed Roosevelt by publicly advocating the
appeasement of the Nazis. The public turned against him. His political future
was destroyed. NIGEL HAMILTON: The fact that
Joe Kennedy had seriously thought he could become
the United States president and had failed had an enormous
effect on Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy wanted to
achieve what had always eluded his father. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): By
1945, John Kennedy's own record as a war hero enabled him
to redeem his father's political failure. During a battle in the Pacific,
the young Naval lieutenant had saved the lives of his crew. His exploits received
national publicity. Now, at the age of 28, he stood
ready to fulfill his family's political destiny. In 1947, he entered the
House of Representatives, six years later the Senate. Voters, particularly
women, seemed to fall in love with Kennedy's
looks, his charm, his wit, and his intelligence. As a public figure,
he was irresistible. In 1954, he bolstered
his political appeal by marrying the sophisticated
and glamorous Jacqueline Bouvier. Two years later, he sought
the Democratic nomination for vice president. NIGEL HAMILTON: Jack Kennedy
wants to make it all the way to the very top,
to the presidency, and father is the banker. Instead of having to go out
and canvas money and promise the undeliverable to all kinds
of constituents and interests, Jack Kennedy only had
to turn to his father. It enabled him to be idealistic
and be above the fray. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
The clearest example of John Kennedy's idealism
was his work on the senate's McClellan committee, which
was investigating mafia influence in organized labor. From 1957 to 1960, the senator
and his younger brother, Chief Counsel
Robert Kennedy, took on the most powerful
gangsters in America, and one of their closest friends
in organized labor, Jimmy Hoffa. We would be very happy to
have our legal counsel here, our legislative representative
here assisting me and spending as much time as necessary to
acquaint the American people with the fact that this is a
strike breaking union busting bill. Mr. Hoffa, this bill is
not a strike breaking union busting bill. You are the best argument I
know for it, your testimony here this afternoon, your complete
indifference to the fact of numerous people who
hold responsible positions in your union come
before this committee and take the Fifth Amendment,
because an honest answer might tend to incriminate them, your
complete indifference to it, I think make this
bill essential. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): To
Jimmy Hoffa and his mafia cronies, there was
a strange irony in being attacked by
Joe Kennedy's boys. The way the mob
saw it, Joe Kennedy had been just as
crooked as they were. Jimmy Hoffa complained,
you might have thought I was making as much
out of the pension fund as the Kennedys made
out of selling whiskey. And would you tell us
about the vice operations down in Lake County Indiana? [inaudible] Would you tell us if you
have opposition from anybody that you dispose of them
by having them stuffed in the trunk? Is that what you
do, Mr. Giancana? BILL KURTIS: Another of
the committee's targets, Chicago boss Sam
Giancana, told a friend that Joe Kennedy was one of the
biggest crooks that ever lived. Joe Kennedy feared that these
investigations could endanger his son's political
future by angering the unions and the mob. He urged Robert not to take
the Chief Counsel's job. But even more the idealist
than his brother John, Robert Kennedy pressed ahead and
accumulated a long list of enemies. None would be more dangerous
than a taciturn crime boss from Louisiana, Carlos Marcello,
the godfather of the oldest mafia family in
the United States. Carlos Marcello, known to
associates as the little man, ruled a Gulf Coast
empire of crime. On the wall of his office
hung a sign which read, "Three can keep a
secret if two are dead." To the underworld, Marcello
was the undisputed boss, not only in New Orleans, but
also in a nearby Texas city, whose rackets were under the
iron grip of the Louisiana mafia. That city was Dallas, an
all too familiar place in the annals of history
and American justice. I am announcing today my
candidacy for the presidency of the United States. [music playing] MEN: (SINGING) Who can
fight and fight til he wins? Kennedy can. Kennedy can. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
John Kennedy's presidential ambitions
forced him to confront the political
power of the mafia, but as a national candidate,
his relationship to the mob would be different than
it was in the Senate. In the end, he would
win the presidency, but find himself
imperiled by what the mob saw as political debts. MEN: (SINGING) Jack Kennedy can. BILL KURTIS
(VOICEOVER): The first of the debts was incurred
during the West Virginia primary in 1960. This heavily Protestant
state was viewed as crucial for the Catholic senator to win. To your church and
your state if you were to be elected president. The question is
whether I think if I were elected president,
I would be divided between two loyalties, my
church and my state. Let me just say
that I would not. I would not run-- BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
For years, reports have persisted that Joseph
Kennedy colluded with the mafia to stack the deck
in his son's favor. One of the most
disturbing allegations concerns a New Jersey
mafioso named Skinny D'Amato. According to D'Amato,
a political deal was struck with the candidate's
father to buy votes for cash. The scheme, D'Amato and
his men would make payoffs to the rural sheriffs
who counted the votes. In return, the
Kennedys, once in power would readmit a deported mafia
kingpin named Joe Adonis. When the votes were counted,
the victory was John Kennedy's. Skinny D'Amato shared a mutual
friend with the Kennedys, Frank Sinatra. John Kennedy felt
a special kinship with Sinatra, who was one
of the few American men as rich, as handsome,
and as famous as he was. And Kennedy was fascinated by
the singer's romantic exploits with women. Private investigator Ed Becker
knew many of the key players in Las Vegas during the 1960s. The era I lived in Las Vegas,
and we see this man come in with Frank Sinatra. I mean, he was an entertainer. We're not trying to
paint him as a saint. But John Kennedy went
right down to that level as if he were a part
of the Rat Pack, and he's there with
an Israeli movie star. My wife sees him kissing
passionately this movie star behind the scenes, groping her. She comes home sobbing. There's a whole
life of John Kennedy that the American public
doesn't know about. NIGEL HAMILTON: Jack Kennedy
got a thrill out of illicit sex. This is a man who has been
living on the edge in terms of whether he will live or
not, almost since the time he was born. You know, he was given
the last rites at age two when he had scarlet fever. He was given the
last rites when he had these operations in 1954. He almost died, you
know, on his PT boat or in the wreckage
of the PT boat. Of course, this is a man who
has been living on the edge all his life. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
In February 1960, Sinatra introduced Kennedy to
a young and beautiful divorcee, Judith Campbell. They began an affair. REPORTER: [inaudible] Many times. REPORTER: What'd you
do what you went there? I would have lunch
with Jack Kennedy. REPORTER: Alone. I won't go into it. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
During the period she was seeing Kennedy, Campbell
was also in frequent contact with another of Frank
Sinatra's friends, the boss of Chicago's
mafia outfit, Sam Giancana. In recent years, the remarried
Judith Campbell-Exner has stated repeatedly
in interviews that she acted as a secret
career for John Kennedy, bringing cash to Sam Giancana
for use in the 1960 campaign. It has been a long road
from the [inaudible] snowy day in New Hampshire. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
Kennedy won all the primaries and became the democratic
presidential nominee. Now begins another
long journey, taking me into your city and homes
across the United States. Give me your help and
your hand and your voice. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): To
beat Richard Nixon in November, the state of Illinois
was deemed crucial. JOHN KENNEDY: I've
been campaigning in the state of Illinois, which
is going to be a key state in the presidential election. This state may well determine
who will be the next president of the United States. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
The decisive precincts would be in Chicago, where Sam
Giancana had enormous influence on the city's political machine. Most of Chicago voted
for Kennedy, but not by a great margin. The mob precincts and the
allied black precincts with the black numbers gains
were under mob control, when something like 80% for
Jack Kennedy, suspiciously high totals. So Jack just barely
wins Illinois. It was a very close election,
closest election since 1916, and the mob thought they
had provided the difference. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
After the election, Giancana told Judith Campbell,
"If it wasn't for me, your boyfriend wouldn't
be in the White House." [music playing] Once in office,
Kennedy would again find himself incurring
a political debt to the mafia, this time on
a matter of foreign policy. Let all our neighbors know
that we shall join with them to oppose aggression
or subversion anywhere in the Americas. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
For the new president, few issues were more
urgent than overthrowing the revolutionary government
of Cuba's Fidel Castro. The Cold War was in high
gear, and both Democrats and Republicans believed
that a communist regime in our hemisphere was
politically unacceptable. Near the end of the
Eisenhower administration, the CIA, desperate
to be rid of Castro, called in the mafia,
the proposition a mob hit on the
Cuban president. Three mafia bosses took
charge of the contract. Santo Trafficante,
a Florida boss, had run Cuba's lucrative
gambling casinos during the long regime of
Fulgencio Batista, Castro's corrupt predecessor. But Castro had closed the
casinos, depriving Trafficante and his American mob associates
of their prime sources of illicit cash. Trafficante's partners
in the CIA murder plot where John Roselli, the mob's
smooth talking ambassador to Hollywood and Las Vegas,
and Roselli's own boss, Sam Giancana, the same man
who befriended Judith Campbell and may have delivered votes
for John Kennedy in 1960. The CIA mafia plot
continued under the Kennedy administration,
but opinions differ as to what the president
and his closest advisor, Attorney General Robert Kennedy,
actually knew about them. False charge has been for
years that John and Bobby Kennedy were directly
involved in the CIA mafia plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. They were not they had
no knowledge of them until May of 1962, at which
time Bobby Kennedy went over to the CIA, talked to Richard
Helms and other CIA officials and was-- and when he was told
about the CIA mafia plots, when they were confirmed to
him, he ordered them ceased, he ordered them stopped. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
But Judith Campbell-Exner tells a different story. She says that she
arranged personal meetings between the president
and Giancana to talk about the
plot against Castro. I have talked to
Judith Exner, and I think her story of the
relationship between Jack Kennedy and Sam
Giancana rings true, however sad it is to think
that it should have been said. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
The strange alliance between the CIA and the
mafia ended in failure. Kennedy's land invasion
at Cuba's Bay of Pigs was a catastrophe. And after the Cuban
Missile Crisis in 1962, Kennedy pledged that he would
never again invade the island. The masses of
anti-Castro exiles who had fled to the United States
felt betrayed by Kennedy. Some called for
violent reprisals. Their sentiments were
shared by mob bosses, like Santo Trafficante
who hungered for the lost riches of the Cuban casinos. In 1962, Trafficante was
approached by a Cuban refugee named Jose Alemon for help
in arranging a business loan. The conversation
turned to Kennedy. This time the committee
calls Mr. Alemon BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): In
1978, Alemon told the House Assassinations Committee
that Trafficante had made a startling prediction about
the president's re-election prospects. Thank you. He said, you see these men-- he's not going to be reelected. There's no doubt about it. He's been a man that has
been giving everybody a lot of troubles, and he's
not going to be re-elected. I said I don't see if
anything that he's not going to be reelected
or anything like that. And what, if
anything, did he reply? Well, he said, well, sir,
he's not going to be reelected. You don't understand me. He's going to be hit. Trafficante wasn't
the only mafia boss who wanted Kennedy killed
as we'll see what American I have felt that we should
secure the best talent we could get for every position,
regardless of party, regardless of any other factor. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
In late 1960, Joseph Kennedy
urged his son John to break sharply with precedent
and name his brother Robert attorney general. It would be a
fateful appointment. We are terribly concerned
about the extent of organized crime throughout the United
States, and the affected-- BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): The new
attorney general declared war on the mafia. DAN MOLDEA: Bobby Kennedy viewed
the mafia as the enemy within. So as attorney
general, Bob Kennedy committed himself to make the
pursuit of organized crime his number one priority. No US attorney general
in the history of America was as effective
against organized crime as Bob Kennedy was during his
tenure as attorney general in the Kennedy administration. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
But there was a paradox. The Kennedys were going
after the very same people who'd been close to their
father, who may have helped them win the election, and
who at this very moment, were trying to kill
Castro for the CIA. Ever since the 1920s, the
mob had not harmed honest cops, judges, prosecutors, but if
those people had taken favors from the mob and then
had not delivered, they were in danger
of being killed, and that's exactly
what the Kennedys did. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): In
1961, the FBI secretly recorded mobster John Roselli talking
to his boss m gene Conner about Frank Sinatra's efforts
to intercede with the Kennedys. The following conversation is
recreated from FBI transcripts. MAN: Roselli, between you
and I, Frank saw Joe Kennedy three different times,
Joe Kennedy, the father. He called him three
different times. He's got it in his head that
you're going to be faithful. Giancana, in other words,
the donation that was made. Roselli, that's what
I was talking about. Giancana, in other words, if
I ever get a speeding ticket, none of these [beep]
would know me. Roselli, you got
that right booty. They treat Frank like
they treat a whore. You [beep] them, you pay the,
and then they're through. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
On every front, the mob was feeling
double crossed. Joe Adonis, the
deported mafioso, whose return the mob believe
Joe Kennedy had promised, was not readmitted to the US. On the FBI'S hidden microphones,
mobsters all across the country put the finger on the president. MAN: Philadelphia,
with Kennedy, a guy should take a knife
and stab and kill him. New York, I'd like
to hit Kennedy. I'd gladly go to
the penitentiary for the rest of my life. Buffalo, they should
kill the whole family. So they're really being
hounded at the same time they think they've done
favors for the Kennedys, and they're still doing favors
with this bizarre CIA mafia plot to kill Castro. One of them says
to an associate, here I am helping the country,
and that little son of a bitch is breaking my balls, the little
son of a bitch being Bobby. Bobby Kennedy had
put together a hit list of the principal organized crime
figures and labor racketeers he wanted to see prosecuted. Number one on that
list was Jimmy Hoffa. Number two was Carlos Marcello,
the mafia boss of New Orleans. Carlos Marcello first clashed
with Robert Kennedy in 1959 at the McClellan committee. Kennedy was outraged that
Marcello had been able to stall a deportation order that had
first been entered against him six years earlier. Though Marcello's
parents were Sicilian, he was born in nearby Tunisia. As an infant, he was
brought to New Orleans, but he never sought
US citizenship. The young Marcello robbed
banks and sold marijuana. He stood only five foot two, but
won a reputation for brutality. Marcello offered to install
jukeboxes or slot machines was rarely refused. In 1940, his power was
recognized by Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky, who made him
a partner in their Louisiana gambling casinos. Marcello, who shared his new
found wealth with crooked cops and officials, had little
to fear from the law. In 1947, he reached the top,
supreme boss of the New Orleans mafia. But in 1956, he learned
of an imminent order to deport him to Italy. So Marcello paid bribes
to become a bogus citizen of Guatemala, a country far
closer to his business empire. The ploy stalled his deportation
case until Robert Kennedy became attorney general. He decided to rub
Marcello's phony nationality right in his face. In April 1961, federal agents
grabbed Marcello and packed him off without so much as a
suitcase on a one way flight to Guatemala City. Kennedy gloated that he was
very glad Marcello is no longer with us. Two months later, Marcello
was back in New Orleans. His lawyers filed suits
against Robert Kennedy. We contend that his
deportation to Guatemala was illegal and that the
Guatemalan government has never agreed to accept
Mr. Carlos Marcello. G. ROBERT BLAKEY: Marcello had a
deep sense of personal dignity, and Marcello had every
reason to hate and resent the way in which
Kennedy had personalized this matter of business. Marcello was the type of man
who could have someone killed. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): In
1962, Ed Becker, a Nevada entrepreneur and
private investigator, was invited by a
business associate to meet with Carlos Marcello. Becker had Las Vegas friends in
common with a Louisiana boss, and so agreed to meet him at
his hideaway in the swamps. ED BECKER: He just took
me out to this place that looked like a farmhouse to me. And Carlos Marcello put on some
records, poured some scotch. We sat down, we
started drinking, talking about Las
Vegas, and I just start talking about
Bobby Kennedy. He's saying, well, yes,
I lived there more years than Bobby Kennedy
and everyone else in the goddamn Kennedy family. And I said yeah, but he
didn't throw you out. Well, that was the one that
started the little bomb going off inside of him. Now he's enraged, you
know, and he's saying, well, they're not so smart. They think they're smart. They're not so smart. Anything can happen to him. Now, I'm beginning to think,
what does he mean anything can happen to to him? I said to Carlos, you're not
saying you're going to get rid of Bobby Kennedy. Somebody gets rid
of Bobby Kennedy, the whole government
comes down on their head. And then he turned
it right around. He says, no, no, you cut
off the head, the tail dies. And I imagine it's an
old Sicilian thing, where if you cut off the head of
the dog, the tail is dead. All right, the
president is the head. The tail is Bobby Kennedy. You know, there was no doubt
in my mind what he was saying. BILL KURTIS: Later in the
conversation with Becker, Marcello said that he would
get a nut to do the job, someone with no clear
connection to his organization. It was a time honored practice
of the Sicilian mafia. MAN: Tell us exactly
what you saw, sir. He was coming down the
street, and my five-year-old boy and myself were by ourselves
on the grass there on Palmer Street. Then I waved to
him, and Joe waved, and I waved, and the man-- MAN: That's all right, sir. He was waving back,
he was, he was-- the shot rang out, and he
slumped down in his seat. MAN: I have just talked
to Father Oscar Hubert. He and another priest tell
me that the pair of men have just administered the last
rites of the Catholic Church to President Kennedy. President Kennedy has
been assassinated. The president is dead. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): Just
15 minutes after the shooting, the Dallas police radio
broadcast a description of a suspect that closely
matched that of Lee Harvey Oswald. MAN: We received information
he was in the Texas theater. We went to this location
surrounded it from the outside and then about eight officers
went in to the location. Officer [inaudible]
Macdonald was interrogating his third person when
as he approached him, the suspect jumped up,
struck him in the face, and yelled this is it. Full name is Lee Harvey
Oswald, O-S-W-A-L-D. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
The 24-year-old suspect worked at the Texas
School Book Depository, the presumed source
of the gunfire. RICHARD BILLINGS: The mob picked
Oswald, because he immediately deflected all suspicion
from organized crime, because this guy led
you everywhere else. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
Lee Harvey Oswald had a curious history. At 17, he enlisted
in the Marines, where he served as
a radar operator. But the young private became
increasingly disaffected with the inequities of
American capitalism. He learned Russian and
declared himself a Marxist. In 1959, he culminated his
political transformation by defecting to
the Soviet Union. During his three year stay,
Oswald married a Russian woman, Marina Prusakova. By 1962, he became disillusioned
with the inequities of Soviet life and returned
to the United States. But he remained
an avowed Marxist and became active in
the pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Now charged with murder,
an angry and defiant Oswald insisted he was
being framed because of his radical politics. [reporters shouting] I'd like some
legal representation. These police officers have
not allowed to have any. I don't know what
this is all about. REPORTER: [inaudible] REPORTER: Did you
shoot the president? I work in that building. REPORTER: Were you in
the building at the time? Naturally, if I work in
that building, yes, sir. OFFICER: Back up, ma'am! REPORTER: Did you
shoot the president? No, they've taken me because
of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. G. ROBERT BLAKEY: Who
killed John Kennedy? I don't have any doubt
about it, Lee Harvey Oswald. Nobody who comes to the
scientific and other evidence about Oswald's complicity can
come to any other conclusion. His rifle plainly and clearly
was used to kill the president. Lee Harvey Oswald plainly
and clearly fired the rifle. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): Oswald
steadfastly denied his guilt. But he dropped enigmatic
hints that he had associates, that he'd been manipulated. REPORTER: What time did
you leave the building? LEE HARVEY OSWALD:
I'm just a patsy. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): If he
was a patsy, who was using him, and where did they find him? Oswald was born and
raised in New Orleans. His father died
before Lee was born, but he could always rely on his
favorite uncle, Charles Dutz Murret. Murret was a gambler
and a longtime bookmaker and the criminal syndicate
run by Carlos Marcello. G. ROBERT BLAKEY: Lee
did not have a father, and Dutz Murret was
his surrogate father. It was to Dutz Murret that Lee
turned when he was arrested for his fair play
for Cuba activity, and it was people connected
to Dutz who got him out on-- bailed him out. This was a man who gave
financial and emotional support to the young Oswald family. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): Upon
arriving from the Soviet Union, the Oswalds settled near Dallas,
but in the summer of 1963, broke and under marital
stress, they temporarily relocated to New Orleans. The young couple received
financial help from Murret and were frequent dinner
guests in his home. Oswald saw his uncle weekly. For a time, he even
worked for Murret, running numbers out of this
mob controlled restaurant. If Carlos Marcello was looking
for a nut to kill Kennedy, his bookmaker's Marxist nephew
was a convenient and highly visible candidate. And there were further
links to Marcello. Oswald's base for his
pro Castro activities was an office at 544
Camp Street, that was given to him by another
Marcello associate, Guy Banister. Banister, a private investigator
was assisting Marcello with his ongoing fight against
Robert Kennedy and the Justice Department, and there was
yet another investigator on the Marcello defense team
with connections to Lee Harvey Oswald, a part time Banister
employee named David Ferry. Ferry, a one-time
airline pilot, wore a wig and artificial eyebrows because
of a disease which had caused the loss of his body hair. Ferry had known Oswald
since the 1950s. On the two weekends prior
to President Kennedy's assassination,
David Ferry stayed at Marcello's headquarters
in the swamps, ostensibly to work on
Marcello's legal case. During the same period,
witnesses report seeing Ferry together with Oswald. So there were clear associations
between Oswald and Marcello. But if Oswald was really a
pawn and a Marcello murderer conspiracy, his precise
method of recruitment remains a mystery. G. ROBERT BLAKEY: I don't think
it's credible that Marcello could have come to
Oswald, the ex marine, and said let's go
kill the president. I think they would have had to
come to him and elicit from him a favorable response by dealing
with him in any logical level, so that Lee Harvey Oswald
would have thought of himself as acting in a conspiracy to
kill the president on behalf of the communist
revolution in general and the communist revolution
in Cuba in particular. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
On November 22, 1963, Carlos Marcello was
in federal court in New Orleans facing
immigration charges when he heard what for him must
have been very good news. President Kennedy was dead. Just two hours
later, the mafia boss was acquitted on all counts. But he and his associates soon
heard the disturbing reports. Oswald had been arrested. After Kennedy was
shot, the mob plan was to blame it on
to Lee Harvey Oswald, to shoot down Oswald and make
it appear that he had been assassinated by some
outraged citizen. The only problem with that is
that the police got him first. BILL KURTIS: During the 48
hours following Oswald's arrest, a local Dallas mobster was
seen on numerous occasions inside the Dallas
police building on the same floor where
Oswald was being held. The mobster's name
was Jack Ruby. President Kennedy was shot, his
brother Robert, the attorney general, was home
on a lunch break from a special meeting
with federal prosecutors about his war against
organized crime. Later that afternoon, he
told his aide Edwin Guthman, I thought they
might get one of us, but I thought it would be me. Had it been the mafia? Perhaps the strongest
evidence of mob involvement came two days after the
president's assassination with the killing of
Lee Harvey Oswald. For the man who shot him
had spent his lifetime in the underworld. MAN: Who is he? The suspect's name is
Jack Rubenstein, I believe. He goes by the name of
Jack Ruby on Sunday morning November 24, 1963. Jack Ruby, a 52-year-old
nightclub owner, shot and killed Lee Oswald
in front of a live television audience, numbering
in the millions. [gun shot] G. ROBERT BLAKEY: I think
that killing by Ruby of Oswald is the Rosetta Stone
for the assassination. As soon as you understand
that to be a stalking, and you connect Ruby
to organized crime, why would organized crime
silence the assassin but to hide their own
complicity in the assassination? Jack Ruby was a mob guy,
killing Oswald on mob orders period. Ruby told police that he'd acted
on a sudden emotional impulse to spare Mrs. Kennedy the
pain of returning to Dallas for Oswald's trial. I got an impression from him
that he had been terribly upset by the president's death and
that he had brooded over it. But there's even
Ruby later admitted, that was a cover story. Silencing those
who know too much is a traditional element of
the mafia's code of violence. And Jack Ruby's entire life
was governed by that code. Ruby's mob associations
date back to the 1920s. Growing up in a poor Jewish
section of Chicago's West Side, he earned dollar bills
running errands for Al Capone. Ruby was educated
in the streets where he learned to hustle for
money and settle arguments with his fists. He drifted from
one job to another, always living at
the edge of the law. In 1947, by his
own account, Ruby was exiled from
Chicago on mob orders and forced to
relocate to Dallas. There, he embarked on a new
career as a strip club owner. [music playing] To scout for new
talent, Ruby often traveled to a New Orleans
nightspot called the Shobar, which was owned and operated
by the Marcello family. During the 1950s, Ruby made
mob connected trips to Cuba. There's evidence he
acted as a courier for guns and illicit cash,
and he may have played a role in mob efforts to secure
the release from a Castro jail of the one-time
Havana gambling boss, Santo Trafficante, the same
man who predicted in 1962 that President
Kennedy would be hit. In Dallas, Ruby developed ties
to the local mafia boss, Joseph Civello, who functioned as
the regional representative of Carlos Marcello. During the months just
prior to the assassination, Ruby's telephone records
connect him to mob figures all across the country, such as
Lewis McWillie, a former casino pit boss for Santo Trafficante,
Irwin Weiner, a mob linked money man in Chicago, and
Nofia Pecora, a top lieutenant to Carlos Marcello. But from the mob's
point of view, Ruby's most useful contacts
were with the Dallas police. JACK ANDERSON: The mob knew
that Jack Ruby had access to the police. He was doing favors
for the police. He was playing his old
game, buddying up with them. He provided those who were
interested with girls. He provided others with
sandwich, others with booze . He was in and out of the
police station all the time. He was the only mob member,
low ranking though he was, who had that kind of access. They had to use him. He was the only one available. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER):
7:00 PM Friday, November 22. Ruby tried to enter room
317 of the Dallas police building, where Oswald
is being questioned. Midnight Friday, Oswald
appeared at a press conference with the District Attorney. MAN: Is he a member of any
communist pro organizations? That I can't say
at present time. MAN: Any organizations that he
belongs to that you know of? Well, the only one I mentioned
was the Free Cuba Movement. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): But
the district attorney misspoke. He meant to say Fair
Play for Cuba Committee. Or whatever that-- Fair Play for Cuba. BILL KURTIS
(VOICEOVER): Two voices called out the correction. One of them was Jack Ruby's. How much did he
know about Oswald? The nightclub owner who
stood but a short distance from the prisoner later admitted
he had a gun in his pocket. 4:00 PM Saturday,
news reporters, again, saw Ruby on the third floor
of the police building. Somehow Ruby was on a mission. It was not a spur of the
moment act on Sunday morning when he went over
the police station and suddenly killed
Lee Harvey Oswald. [music playing] BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): Jack
Ruby spent his final years in prison. Whatever he may have known
about a mafia conspiracy, he never revealed. In one of his last interviews
before his death in 1967, Ruby said, "The world will never
know the true facts of what occurred because unfortunately,
the people who had so much to game will never let
the true facts come out above board to the world." The day President
Kennedy was killed, Jimmy Hoffa phoned his
lawyer and said, "Did you hear the good news? They killed the son of a bitch." That same day in Tampa, Santo
Trafficante drank a toast. He said, "Maybe now they'll
get off Jimmy's back, get off Carlos's back,
get off all our backs." His brother's assassination
devastated Robert Kennedy. The Justice Department's war
on the mafia ground to a halt. Carlos Marcello was
never again deported. He died in 1993
at the age of 83. He outlived John Kennedy
by three decades. These a people who are used
to killing and not talking and who have nothing
to gain by talking. These are people
who do not share with their wives
and their mistresses the subject of their business. If there was any group
in the United States who could have done
it and kept it quiet, it is precisely the mob. BILL KURTIS (VOICEOVER): If
the mafia really killed John F. Kennedy, it may have been
because it saw itself being double crossed by a family
it believed was deeply in its debt. NIGEL HAMILTON:
Joseph P. Kennedy was blessed with sons who
had so much native talent and intelligence so much
to give to their country. The saddest thing is that Joseph
P. Kennedy in getting involved in so many shady deals with
so many shady characters, was possibly passing a death
sentence on his children. There are many views of
the Kennedy assassination. When the evidence
is weighed, there are some who say the only
plausible explanation is that the mafia did it, that
organized crime, feeling double crossed by both John
and Robert Kennedy, retaliated by killing
the president. But three decades
after the fact, it's difficult to
prove the mob theory beyond all reasonable doubt. Nonetheless, the
tragedy in Dallas may be the most poignant
example in our history of the awesome power of
the mafia to potentially elude American justice
and change history and to destroy our most
cherished hopes for the future. I'm Bill Kurtis. [music playing]
