Blackballing RFK - How it Was Done

HOW RFK WAS BLACKBALLED BY JFK CONSPIRATORS

RFK and Harry Carlos Williams - Bay of Pigs veteran 

The death of Harris Worfford and the publication of John Newman’s book “Into the Storm” both call attention to one of the historical perplexities of our times – why Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy did not legally pursue those individuals who killed his brother despite knowing exactly who they were.

And the answer, as we come to know it a half-century later, is because RFK was blackballed, blackmailed, stymied, checkmated into inaction by an aspect of the very plan utilized to assassinate the President.

While allowed to know the truth – that one man alone was not responsible for the crime, as he expressed to close associates, and as him and Jackie Kennedy reported to the Russians, RFK was prevented from acting on his knowledge for a number of reasons – the key one being RFK’s authorization of CIA covert actions against Castro, one of which boomeranged, was redirected to JFK in Dallas, and came back to haunt Bobby.

Harris Worfford: : "What surely shocked RFK] was the recognition... that his brother and the government... were entangled with the most evil forces he could imagine....The Mafia leaders were privy to what may have been the worst national secret in the history of the U.S., and the most embarrassing personal secret about John Kennedy.... The potential for blackmail... included Judith Campbell... and any number of CIA and FBI agents;..."

     "During the late spring and early summer of 1962, I would see [JFK and RFK] huddled in the Oval Office or walking in the Rose Garden.  Now I know one of the hardest subjects they had to discuss....[RFK] apparently decided that he could not succumb to the threat of blackmail and would continue his all-out effort against organized crime, including Sam Giancana.... The FBI intensified its surveillance of [Campbell] and Giancana. [Giancana obtained an injunction against FBI harassment, perhaps to warn RFK to lay off.] 'Bobby pushed to get Giancana at any cost,' said William Hundley, who headed the Organized Crime Section at Justice - but who did not know the cost the Attorney General realized he might have to pay."

One aspect of this whole JFK-Campbell-Giancana story that is tied to the JFK assassination drama is the fact the FBI surveillance of Campbell picked up two Texas boys breaking into Campbell’s apartment, the twin sons of a former FBI agent who was then working for a Texas defense contractor, whose wife obtained jobs for Lee Harvey Oswald – including the Leslie Welding and Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval jobs.

But it isn’t the pre-Cuban Missile Crisis shenanigans – its after the dismissal of  William Harvey and the CIA covert operations against Cuba in the summer of 1963 that are most relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy.

As Wofford said it:

     "No one can know how much all this contributed to the change in Robert Kennedy's attitude and approach that manifested itself so dramatically and decisively' a few months later in the Cuban missile crisis [when he was no longer the leading hawk on Cuba].  One of his most trusted friends, with whom I tested this theory that the CIA-Mafia-assassination-and-sex entanglement had a profound effect on [RFK's] thinking, says it fits the facts and may be the key to the puzzle."

     "There was no way of getting to the bottom of the assassination without uncovering the very stories he [RFK] hoped would be hidden forever.  So he closes his eyes and ears to the cover-up that he knew (or soon discovered) Allen Dulles was perpetrating on the Warren Commission, and took no steps to inform the commission of the Cuban and Mafia connections that would have provided the main clues to any conspiracy."

As John Newman details in his book “Into the Storm”  (2019) , the third book in a series on the JFK Assassination, there was a concerted effort BEFORE the assassination to associate RFK with the covert intelligence operations the CIA was directing towards Fidel Castro – covert operations approved by the Special Group (Augmented w/ RFK) of the National Security Council and ostensibly by JFK and RFK.

When one of those operations was redirected to JFK in Dallas, this became a false and treacherous attempt to blame RFK for approving the CIA plots to kill Castro, and ultimately implicating RFK in the murder of his own brother.

While I can’t wait to read Newman’s book later this week, I did hear his presentation in Dallas at the JFK Lancer conference, which focused exclusively on the details of how most of the allegations of RFK’s approval of CIA plots to kill Castro originated from one man – Samuel Halpern, Harvey’s former assistant and one of the primary snakes in the Cuban Task Force W – JMWAVE rabbit’s hole.

To understand the significance of these affairs in the altering and outcome of events, it is necessary to recognize a few basic facts.

For starters, the conspiracy wasn’t a plot – it wasn’t just a bunch of oil barons, mobsters and renegade CIA operatives sitting around smoking and drinking and figuring out how they were going to whack the President, as portrayed in the films Executive Action and Oliver Stone’s JFK.

It was a plan – a very distinct plan – a contingency plan to kill Fidel Castro that was “disapproved by higher authority” and redirected to JFK in Dallas.

We know this from the conclusions reached by former FBI agent William Turner, former CIA official David Atlee Phillips and James Jesus Angleton, mobster John Rosselli, security expert Gene Wheaton, former USMC and CIA trainer Carl Jenkins, and Cubans Chi Chi Quintero and Felix Rodriguez.

All of them point directly to a very small CIA JMWAVE unit – based in Florida – that concentrated its covert operations against Castro, but redirected one specific plan to kill Castro to kill JFK in Dallas.

Of all the CIA plans to kill Castro  using poison pills, tainted diving suit, exploding cigars, bazooka and poison pen, - forget them all – and focus strictly on those plans that utilized a sniper firing a high powered rifle to kill Castro while he rode in an  open jeep – just as JFK was killed at Dealey Plaza.

Of such plans that we know about – the CIA plan code named Pathfinder fits that very specific bill.

Pathfinder was a very detailed tactical plan to kill Fidel Castro with a high powered rifle as he rode past in an open jeep – an operational plan the files of which were kept, according to CIA NPIC technicians – in the NPIC section of the JMWAVE station instead of the Operational Files where they belonged.

That the redirection of the Pathfinder plan to kill JFK in Dallas was not the result of a renegade group within the CIA – but was an operation officially approved at the highest levels as exemplified by the fact that the overall strategic plan behind the assassination was an adaption of the Valkyrie plan to kill Hitler, that was being considered for use against Castro but redirected to JFK in Dallas. And the fact that they got away with it. If it wasn't officially approved at the highest levels, the cover-up was that allowed the killers to get away scott free. 

The CIA’s “detailed study” of the Valkyrie plan to kill Hitler for use against Castro, was the strategic plan that included the Pathfinder sniper tactics instead of a bomb, as there are five specific aspects of the July 20, 1944 plan to kill Hitler that were utilized in the Dealey Plaza operation, five fingerprints that fits like five fingers in a glove in the planning behind the murder of the president.

The five aspects of the Valkyrie plan are – 1) The utilization of standard cover operational procedures and techniques; 2) getting the victim to approve the plan; 3) using the Home Guard/National Guard to carry out the operation; 4) controlling the media so “only the conspiracy speaks”; 5) blaming the crime on a communist. The only part of the Valkyrie plan that wasn’t utilized in Dallas was the mechanism of death –  using a high powered rifle instead of a bomb.

Of the five similar aspects, the subject of this essay only concerns #2) – getting the victim to approve the plan, - the key to how RFK was blackmailed by the conspirators, whose identity remains unknown, but whom we can surmise as being major players in this story.

In 1944, Colonel von Stauffenberg wrote the Valkyrie Plan for the control of major government buildings and media outlets during the sudden outbreak of a national emergency – Stauffenberg gave the example of a revolt of the millions of slave labors in Germany. Hitler not only approved the plan, he authorized Stauffenberg to join him and his generals in the routine staff meetings, during which Stauffenberg left a bomb that failed to kill Hitler.

In the case of JFK, as president he refused to approve any plan or operation to kill anyone, as he told all of his close advisors and a half-dozen newsmen, and the Pathfinder plan to shoot Castro was “disapproved by higher authority,” with the higher authority clearly being JFK and RFK.

But both JFK, RFK and the NSC Special Group did discuss and approve some ten violent covert operations against Cuba a month – some of which we know the results of from the news reports they generated –( ie. The Rex attack in NYT – Nov. 1, 1963 p. 1) and the articles in both the communist publications seen with the rifle and pistol in the  back yard photographs – the Trotskyite publication The Militant, and the official Communist Party paper – both featured articles on the commando terrorists raids against Cuban economic targets.

These post Missile Crisis JMAVE covert operations approved by the NSC Special Group (Augmented by RFK) are the ones we are interested in. Forget the rest for the moment.

In 1962-63 – in the post Bay of Pigs and pre-Cuban Missile Crisis atmosphere, RFK revived some of the Mongoose covert operations against Castro, including those being operated by the CIA out of its JMWAVE station at the University of Miami in Florida.

After RFK fired William Harvey as head of Task Force W (The Cuban Desk at CIA HQ), because he sent in the Pathfinders commandos during the Cuban Missile Crisis, - who RFK recalled. Harvey was replaced by Desmond FitzGerald, falsely said to be a cousin of the Kennedys, but who was very close to them.

FitzGerald and RFK reportedly played tennis together, but FitzGerald falsely told Dr. Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) that he personally represented RFK in his meetings to encourage Cubella to kill Castro.

From the records recently released under the JFK Act we know that the CIA Cuban desk under FitzGerald requested an average of twenty covert operations against Cuba a month – and the Special Group of the NSC approved an average of ten – half of those requested.

Of those rejected, we know that the Pathfinder operation to kill Castro with a high powered rifle as he rode in an open jeep – was “disapproved by higher authority,” although it was a very detailed plan that was months in the practice phase. Another psychological warfare plan that was originally approved, then recalled and cancelled, was a leafleting plan to drop leaflets over Cuba to encourage revolt. This plan was originally approved, but after it was approved JFK talked to Edward R. Morrow, his appointed director of the US Information Agency, who convinced the President against the leafleting plan, so it too was “disapproved by higher authority.”

During the summer of  1963 other, violent terrorist attacks against Cuban economic targets were approved  by the Special Group, the NSC and RFK and JFK – including the blowing up of oil and sugar refineries, dock facilities and similar specific economic targets.These came under the overall Program Alfa, which encompassed all of the covert operations against Cuba, each of which was given a specific code name too. 

These attacks were to be launched by commandos in small motor boats who were trained by US Ranger Captains Bradley Ayers, Edward Roderick, USMC Captain Carl Jenkins and “legendary” CIA explosives expert and trainer John “I.F.” Harper. Both Jenkins and Harper are still alive. 

Ayers, who did not sign a CIA secrecy agreement and wrote two books on the subject (“The War that Never Was” and “The Zenith Secret.”), recalls his work at the  CIA JMWAVE base in the summer of 1963, when he had the occasion to meet Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on two occasions, that he recalls in detail in his books. While William Harvey himself, as attorney for Ayers' first publisher Boobs-Merrell, edited the first book, and excised much of the most significant aspects, Ayers' recalls meeting RFK in Florida in his second book, which was not vetted by the CIA. 

The first occasion Ayers met RFK was at a CIA safe house overlooking Biscayne Bay, where the top brass, suit and tie CIA officials and case officers conjugated for a cocktail party mixer, that included Desmond FitzGerald, head of the Cuban Desk – Task Force W., Ted Shackley, the chief of JMWAVE station, Colonel Bond, William Harvey, James O’Connell, E. Howard Hunt, Manuel Artime, Richard Helms, Army Ranger Captain Ayers, case officers like Porter Goss, and RFK himself.

As Ayers described it in “The Zenith Secret”:  “It wasn’t every day that one met the attorney general of the United States. It was rumored that Robert Kennedy had great influence in the administration and I’d heard he chaired the Special Group. He was appointed by the President to keep an eye on the CIA. His presence tonight enforced my belief that the  Cuban situation and Castro were prime concerns to the White House. I believed that President Kennedy’s promise to the Bay of Pigs survivors was more than just an effort to pacify the exiles. There was something special going on. I was thrilled to have some small part of it.”

Then Ayers had the opportunity to meet RFK again, this time at a remote JMWAVE commando training base in the Waloos Glades Hunting Camp, in the middle of the Everglades swamp. As Ayers describes it:

When he arrived, Ayers says he saw some helicopters. “…One was a military Bell H-13 with the identification numbers taped over, and the other was a civilian chopper with the name of a West Palm Beach air service on the tail rotor boom…”

“…Soon the door to the Quonsets swung open and four men emerged….I caught my breath at the appearance of the second man. It was the attorney general Robert Kennedy. The four men talked in low voices for a few minutes, and then the attorney general came over and shook hands with each of us, wishing us good luck and God’s speed on our mission.”

“Hell, I didn’t even know what my mission was. His white teeth flashed and sparkled, and I felt a strange sense of strength and resolve when he grasped my hand. Then he and one of the Cubans went to the civilian helicopter, and in minutes it took off. Now I understood the need for extra-secrecy. If the president felt strongly enough to send his brother, something very big was being planned.”

A PLAN not a plot.

As Ayers continues, “When the helicopter was gone, the deputy chief of station came over….(who told him),… ‘The reason we’ve got you here and the reason for all the secrecy is that we just got the green light from upstairs to go ahead on some missions we’ve been planning for some time….You’ll be happy to know that the Special Group has finally given us permission to use two-man submarines to strike Castro’s ships in the harbors. Some of your UDT people will be involve in that. And next week Rip’s boys are going to Eglin for parachute training, so an airborne commando raid may not be far off. But right now we’ve got a go-ahead to hit one of the major oil refineries from on the island. All we’ve got to do is get a commando force in shape to do the job….”

One of the top officials who knew all about these affairs was Samuel Halpern who served as executive assistant to William Harvey and after RFK fired Harvey, Halpern worked alongside of his replacement – Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA officer who briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the adaption of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler to be used against Castro. 

Just as almost all of the immediate post-assassination intelligence sources who tried to blame Castro for the assassination were traced back to the assets of David Atlee Phillips, many if not most of the fake stories that implicate JFK and RFK in the CIA assassination plots against Castro can be traced directly to one man - Sam Halpern, as John Newman details in his new book, "Into the Storm." 

While unlike Bradley Ayers and the JMWAVE Cuban commandos, Samuel Halpern never met Robert F. Kennedy, was never in the same room with him. Yet, as John Newman details in his new book, Halpern made it a post- government career of falsely blaming RFK for backing the plots to kill Castro, and after JFK was killed, blamed Castro for killing him.

When Robert F. Kennedy, at his Hickory Hill home in Mclean, Va., received the phone call from the director of the CIA informing him of the assassination, RFK immediately thought of the Cubans – and asked CIA director McCone if his people were involved, and then called his Cuban friend – Harry Williams – and accused the Cubans of being involved. Bobby’s first thought was back to those in the CIA – the officers he met at the JMWAVE safe house on Biscayne Bay, and the Cubans – the Cuban commandos he met with at the Waloos Glades Hunting Camp.

At the very moment of the assassination, while Desmond FitzGerald’s emissary in Paris was delivering a poison pen to Dr. Rolando Cubella to kill Castro, FitzGerald himself was having lunch at an exclusive private and historic Georgetown Club with his assistant Samuel Halpern. According to Halpern, when informed of the assassination they left immediately, and on the way out, FitzGerald wondered aloud if any of his Cubans were involved.

And now we are just beginning to wonder the same thing.

But the names of the CIA trained Cuban commandos who carried out the operation are less important than the lines of authority, who approved and paid for Pathfinder - the operation that led to the death of President Kennedy. The one RFK was asked to approve, the one whose planners and officers he met at the Biscayne Bay safe house and was carried out by those CIA trained Cuban commandos he met at Waloos Glades.

So Bobby Kennedy was blackmailed from honestly responding to his brother’s murder because he approved the covert intelligence operations against Cuba that were turned against JFK in Dallas, and led directly to his death. 

BK Notes: I will add excerpts from John Newman's new book "Into the Storm," which deals with Samuel Halpern in detail, ASAP.