Jimmy Hoffa Diogenes - "The Irishman" at Dealey Plaza Part III

“The Irishman” at Dealey Plaza – Part III – Jimmy Hoffa Diogenes 

Greek Philosopher Diogenes - Air Force Code name for wet black covert ops 

There’s one aspect of Frank Sheeran’s story about killing Jimmy Hoffa that rings true and deserves special mention – the alibi.

One of the reasons I dismissed the idea that the mob or Mafia killed JFK was because it was the wrong MO – Modus Operandi – having a sniper shoot someone in the head with a high powered rifle was not the way mobsters operated. They did it the way they portrayed Sheeran doing it in the movie – shoot the guy in the head with a pistol at close range and leave the body to be found as a message to others.

The only counter-point I can come up with – and it’s a Big One – is the murder of Bugsy Siegel, on June 20, 1947, when he was shot with a .30 caliber military M1 carbine through a window and hit in the head twice as he sat on the couch of Virginia Hill’s Beverly Hills home.

While that murder remains officially unresolved, by now we should know who did it and why, but we don’t.

In any case, the Dealey Plaza Operation was a full fledged military style ambush, complete with a deception that permitted the first class sniper who shot JFK in the head – one shot one kill, and was not a mob or Mafia hit, though those guys certainly had something to do with it.

What rings true of Sheeran’s story to Charles Brandt is how he came to Detroit to do the job.

Sheeran says that he was driving Russell Bufalino to Detroit for a family wedding, along with their wives, when they left the girls off at a diner to take care of some business. They drove to a local private airport where Bufalino waited in the car while Sheeran flew to another private airport in Detroit where he drove to a suburban house and met some other connected guys who drove him to a restaurant where they picked up Hoffa, telling him they were going to a meeting – a “sit down” with Tony Pro – a North Jersey made Mafia guy who had a beef with Hoffa.

Hoffa wouldn’t have got in the car if his pal Sheeran wasn’t in it, so they go to the house in the suburbs and Hoffa and Sheeran walk in alone, and when Hoffa suspects something is up and starts to leave, Sheeran shoots him twice in the back of the head and leaves the gun – a Saturday Night Special, with the body, for someone else to take care of. 

Sheeran then goes back to the airport and flys back to Bufalino and they return to the diner to pick up the girls and go on their way to the wedding as if nothing had happened.

Not only does Sheeran have an alibi – he isn’t even in the picture, a diversionary move that protects him.

I had previously wondered - how John Rosselli could testify under oath that he was in bed in a Vegas hotel room when a Hollywood movie producer associate called him to tell him JFK was dead, when he was seen in Dallas at the same time?

And the answer is Diogenes, taking its name from the fourth century B.C. Greek philosopher and Cynic who made poverty a virtue and when asked what he was doing replied: “I am just looking for an honest man,” but found nothing but rascals and scoundrels.

While the shorter video interview with Gene Wheaton talking about his friends and the JFK assassination is better known, Wheaton also did a longer three hour interview with Matt Ehling, a documentary film maker from Public Records Media. He corresponded with and filmed an extensive interview with Wheaton. 

Although most of it concerned Wheaton’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal, he does touch on some interesting things – including the Zeta-Diogenes Program.

Wheaton:  “In Italy, in 1962, I was recruited into … I was approached to become part of an assassination network in the intelligence community. I was there (Italy) from ’61-’63 - as an (Air Force) Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent working out of Aviano Air Base…In ’62, shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the embarrassment of the intelligence community, they … CIA covert operators in conjunction with some people in the Pentagon wanted to set up a secret cell –(a) worldwide cell of intelligence agents that would be called on for, uh, torture, interrogations, and assassinations, if necessary…  I was approached.  A man came out from Washington, talked to me, and described it as … in the Air Force - I don’t know if it was that way in all the services and the CIA - but in the Air Force it was called the Zeta-Diogenes Program, the ‘ZD Program’ for short.  And each agent that was indoctrinated, recruited into it would be given this secret identifier on his master military record in Washington DC, and only another ZD controlling officer would recognize it.  Nobody in personnel or anybody else would know that it was there.” 

Wheaton: “They went looking for young, super-patriotic, guys … flag-wavers … with military and police background …, above-average intelligence … who could work on their own.  Who would do anything for their country. I was approached - because I fit that mold. Conservative. Oklahoma, Big family, Flag wavers, Patriotic.  I had been in the Marine Corps before the Air Force, and I’d been a police officer before that.  And I fit the mold.  Because of the compartmentalization, and so forth, I never knew anybody else in that program, except I knew that General Joe Cappucci had been…for the Air Force portion of this thing. In ’65, I transferred from the Air Force to the Army … I don’t know if I was recruited in or rejected … they just came out and interviewed me, and told me what it was about, and if they needed me, the idea was that you’d be sent on temporary duty someplace, and then you’d disappear and you’d go where you were really supposed to go.  And then come back and your temporary duty would continue, and you’d go back to your regular base.  And they could call these individuals out from all over the world.  They wouldn’t be a team - they’d be individuals. The next time I was specifically approached by this - the next generation of these people - was during 1985, when I was being recruited into Ollie North’s network.”

“…The idea was that you’d be sent on temporary duty someplace, and then you’d disappear and you’d go where you were really supposed to go. And then come back and your temporary duty would continue, and you’d go back to your regular base…”

General Joseph J. Cappucci, head of Air Force Counter-Intelligence, and close friend of J. E. Hoover, at a party at the Rome Hilton in 1969, told his assistant Col. William Henry Amos that LBJ had JFK killed. 

For more on this see: 

BRIGADIER GENERAL JOSEPH J. CAPPUCCI > U.S. Air Force > Biography Display

 https://www.publicrecordmedia.org/   /   http://www.publicrecordmedia.org/gene-wheaton/ 

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2018/09/zeta-diogenes-zd-usaf-assassination.html

While that doesn’t sound too far fetched, it is confirmed by at least one other military man - Sgt. Daniel Brad MacBolan III, who informs us that he too was recruited into Diogenes: “So basically they built this platform which was built on Zeta Diogenes Clear-Eyes. There are five levels with that. I’m a level five. Able to handle other elements within the five membered cell. Its unacknowledged special access programs deep coordinates cell. We are pretty much I guess you would say the darker part of the CIA’s non official cover-type, where you got CIA agents which have a different name. Nonofficial cover are employed somewhere and that’s their day job. And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And go about doing their spooking so to speak. They’re a spook and some may know it and some may not. Most know it because they have to have special training to make sure they’re, they’re extremely careful not to compromise themselves….”

“Non-official cover are employed somewhere and that’s their day job. And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And go about doing their spooking…..”

One of the weak links in this type of covert intelligence operation is the transportation – as Eugne Hasenfras demonstrated when he was shot down in Nicaragua while delivering supplies to the Contras, and Tosh Plumley says he flew Johnny Rosselli from Florida to Dallas when he was supposed to be in bed in Vegas.

And this is why the CIA Operational Files for William Harvey, John Rosselli, Carl Jenkins, Felix Rodriguez, Chi Chi Quentero and others are not available, as they document both the cover jobs as well as the black wet ops that they were involved in, especially in November 1963.

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The Mafia and Irishmen at Dealey Plaza Part 2

THE MAFIA AND IRISHMENat DEALEY PLAZA

Skinny D'Amato advising JFK during the 1960 campaign

By Billkelly3@gmail.com

Martin Scorsese’s new and popular movie “The Irishman,” and Charles Brandt's book it is based on, “I Heard You Paint Houses,” have numerous references to the Kennedys and the assassination of President Kennedy, and falsely implies that the mob or mafia were responsible for the murder.

They say lines like, “They killed a President, they can kill a Union President.”

While they were certainly involved in the conspiracy, especially in the silencing of the accused assassin, and the protection of the real assassins, the mob or the Mafia certainly were not responsible for the Dealey Plaza Operation that resulted in the death of the president.

Now this is something I know quite a lot about.

The idea that the Mafia or mobsters were behind the assassination is not a new one, but has been propagated by G. Robert Blakey, his assistant Gary Cornwall, Dan Moldea, David Kaiser, Thom Waldron and others, but like those who try to pin the tail on any such acronym organization or person, be it the CIA, KGB, LBJ or the Maf-i-a, assembling all the evidence that supports your theory and ignoring the rest is not the way to solve this crime or any crime.

As for the Mob and the Mafia, I have been down every alley that leads in their direction and for the most part, struck out, though the Mafia were certainly in the game and major players, especially in the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro that are essential in understanding what occurred at Dealey Plaza.

First off you have to understand that the Mob and the Mafia are not the same entities, as the Mob could be any group of gangsters engaged in usually illegal enterprises, - the rackets, while the Mafia is a very specific Italian ethic group that became highly organized and influential from the 1930s until relatively recently.

They frequently say with some authority that Old Man Joe Kennedy, JFK's dad, was a bootlegger during prohibition, but as I said in the TV documentary "History of Booze in America," Joe Kennedy wasn't a bootlegger who smuggled booze into the USA and sold it illegally, he owned the liquor companies - especially the Canadian whiskeys and Caribbean rums, and sold it legally to the bootleggers, who smuggled it and sold it illegally. But they knew each other and were in a sense business partners. 

JFK Statute at Kennedy Plaza on the Atlantic City Boardwalk 

I wrote an extensive article on the April 1929 convention of Mafia mobsters in Atlantic City that resulted in the formation of the “Commission,” the board of directors of organized crime that set the rules and arbitrated disputes.

JFKCountercoup2: 1929 Atlantic City Organized Crime Convention

In the mid-fifties through the early sixties the Commission consisted of the leaders of the Mafia families in the major cities – the five New York families (Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, et al….), Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, Santo Traficante of Tampa and Havana, Russell Bufalino of Northeast Pennsylvania and Sam Giancana of Chicago, who also controlled everything west of Chicago including L.A., Vegas and Dallas, Texas.

Russell Bufalino was the only mafia boss who did not control a major city – but his influence was large, as he is featured in “The Irishman” (and portrayed by Joe Pesci.)

Bufalano didn’t take no shit from nobody. As Sheeran put it, “Russell himself had no great use for Frank Sinatra. Russell wouldn’t put up with Sinatra’s loudmouth wise guy routine. Frank Sinatra behaved himself around Russell Bufalino. One night at the 500 Club in Atlantic City I heard Russell tell Sinatra: ‘Sit down or I’ll rip your tongue out and stick it up your ass.’ If he had a drink in him Sinatra was an asshole….”

Okay, that brings it all onto my turf. Being from South Jersey I knew a lot of the places that are mentioned in the book and the movie – especially the Latin Casino, where they had the testimonial to Sheeran, which was about two miles from my house and a half mile from my high school, and the 500 Club. 

Now the Five – Skinny D’Amato’s 500 Club in Atlantic City, was where Jerry Lewis met Dean Martin, and Sinatra helped make famous. When Sam Giancana and Sinatra bought interest in the Cal-Neva Lodge casino in Northern Nevada, taking part of Old Man Joe Kennedy’s former interest, they brought in Skinny D’Amato to run the casino, a patently honest broker.

While Sam Giancana has been credited with delivering Illinois to JFK in the 1960 election, even more significant was JFK's primary election victory in West Virginia, where Skinny D'Amato assisted by delivering cash to the local sheriffs who ran the election, as he knew them from their annual convention in Atlantic City. 

Skinny’s band leader – Pete Miller had a son, Peter Miller, who became a big time New York literary agent, and included Vincent Bugliosi as one of his clients



JFKcountercoup: JFK and Atlantic City

Sinatra was tight with JFK and was made head of his inaugural ball committee to arrange for the entertainment, and with the pull of Atlantic City political boss H. “Hap” Farley, the Democratic National Committee selected Atlantic City to host the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which would ostensibly renominate JFK for the presidency. That didn’t work out.

Now, as mentioned in “The Irishman,” Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana had a girlfriend – Judyth Campbell (Extner), who they introduced to JFK, and they became an item, not only for sexual encounters but in passing notes and packages back and forth between JFK and Giancana.

Now for the JFK assassination connection that has never been run down – the FBI set up a stake out at Judyth Campbell’s apartment, and observed two young men break into it when she wasn’t home. Their automobile license plate traced them to I. B. Hale, a former high level FBI agent and security director at General Dynamics. The two young men were his twin sons – both of whom attended Arlington, Texas high school with the accused assassin, shortly before he enlisted in the Marines.

Believe it or not, one of the sons went on to shoot and  kill the daughter of Texas Governor John Connally.

And it is their mother – I.B. Hale’s wife – Virginia, who worked at the Texas Employment Commission and obtained jobs for the accused assassin – at Leslie Welding and Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval graphics arts firm. Oswald was not fired from Leslie Welding, but quit voluntarily and took the job at J/C/S, where in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he added arrows and captions to U-2 photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Of course the FBI did not do anything about the breaking and entering – black bag job of the President’s mistress that the Hale twins pulled on Judyth Campbell’s apartment – when she was having simultaniously amorous affairs with Giancana the Chicago mob boss and the President of the United States.

Then there’s Jim Braden and John Martino, both of whom operated in my territory for awhile.

JIM BRADEN

When Eugene Hale Brading officially changed his name to Jim Braden, shortly before visiting Texas with some other pals on oil business, he didn’t expect to be taken into custody as a suspicious person at the scene of the murder of the president, or for TV editor Peter Noyes to uncover that fact and write the book “Legacy of Doubt.”

When I picked up a copy of that blue pulp paperback from a drugstore rack, I took particular notice that Brading had been arrested in Camden, New Jersey in 1948, but according to Noyes the Camden police refuse to respond to his requests, and they were under the control of the mob.

Since my father was a Camden policeman, then a Lieutenant, I showed him the book and reference and shortly thereafter he handed me Jim Braden’s original arrest report, saying that it was located in a dark, damp corner of the city hall basement and the secretaries didn’t want to get dirty getting it for Noyes.

JFKcountercoup: Case Study No. 3 - Jim Braden

JFKcountercoup: New Jim Braden Documents Released

Jim Braden 1948 Camden, NJ Mug Shot | JFKCountercoup

Braden’s Camden Arrest Report | JFKCountercoup

Eugene Hale Brading (Jim Braden)

When Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague was appointed chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), a newspaper article mentioned that he had his staff read Peter Noyes’ book, so I took a photo-copy of Braden’s Camden arrest report and dropped it off at Sprague’s Philadelphia office.

Sprague had previously attained notority as a no-non-sense district attorney who had successfully 

prosecuted a United Mine Workers (UMW) union rival (Jock Yablonski) for the murder of the Union President (Tony Boyle) in Pennsylvania, the subject of a book that I understand is currently being researched and written by former HSCA attorney Robert Tannenbaum.

Sprague thought he could conduct a real homicide investigation that was leaning towards some sensitive CIA personalities, but he was replaced by G. Robert Blakey, then the head of the Cornell Institute of Organized Crime who wrote the RICO – Racketeer Influence Corruption Act that put many a mobster behind bars. 

Blakey took over from Sprague and redirected the investigation towards organized crime, issued a final report saying there was evidence of conspiracy, locked the HSCA records away for 50 years and wrote a book blaming the Mafia for the murder of the president.

While Blakey was writing his book, one of his assistants – Michael Ewing called me on the phone at the Jersey Shore asking about Jim Braden’s 1948 Camden arrest report. I told him I gave it to Sprague, and Ewing said that Sprague took all of his files with him. I said I was glad he did since Blakey locked the rest of the HSCA records away for 50 years, and at least Sprague had it.

I then shared the report with Blakey, as I had done with Peter Noyes, Bill Turner, Phil Melanson and others I had been working with over the years.

I was pretty much astonished to learn that the HSCA had subpoened Jim Braden and he testified in Executive Session for two days, a transcript of which was sealed until the JFK Act was passed in 1992.

Braden, as his 1948 arrest report attests, was a small time swindler, con artist who dabbled in the oil business and was best known for targeting rich widows, being thrown out of Dallas by Sheriff Bill Decker and with a friend (Victor Pierra) as being “The Honeymooners,” for their antics. Among which was swindling Mrs. Little, the widow of a founder of Magnolia Oil Company. And it was at a party at the home of three Magnolia Oil employees where Ruth Paine met Marina Oswald and the accused assassin was encouraged to kill General Walker, as Hitler should have been killed.

As Braden was taken into custody by a Dallas Sheriff’s deputy after leaving the elevator of the Dal-Tex building shortly after the assassination, - the elevator operator believing he was suspicious, Braden explained how he innocently got there.

While his oil buddies from California visited the offices of H.L. Hunt, he had gone to the parole office, though the parole officer disagrees on the particulars. Walking to Dealey Plaza, and learning of the assassination, he tried to find a telephone, and was directed to the second floor of the Dal-Tex building where he called his mother to tell her about the shooting.

Braden and his oil buddies from California had stayed the previous night at the Cabana Hotel, where Jack Ruby visited his friend Larry Meyers at the same time.

When Braden returned to the hotel he found that his partners had suddenly left for Houston on a private plane, and he followed them there using a commercial flight. According to his HSCA testimony, that the wanted made public, Braden said he then went to New Orleans where he spent the summer of ’63, working out of the offices of oil geologist Vernon Main, Jr. in the Pierre Marquette office building.

It just so happens that Main's office was on the same floor, just down the hall from the law offices of Carlos Marcello’s attorney G. Ray Gill, who employed as an investigator David Ferrie, the Civil Air Patrol Captain of the accused assassin.

Despite being accused of being a shooter from the Dal-Tex building, Jim Braden has never exhibited any act of violence in any of his crimes, and was a white collar con artists who never shot anyone. He played golf.

I tried to track down Jim Braden to interview him further, as I believe him, but never got to meet him.

Then there’s John Martino.

JOHN MARTINO

John Martino is mentioned in early government files on Angelo Bruno, the “Docile Don” of the Philadelphia mafia family, whose base was in South Philly but whose influence extended west to Pittsburgh and east to Atlantic City. Frowning on drugs, Bruno specialized in gambling, and had interests in some Havana casinios. Martino is listed as one of the numerous bookmakers who took bets on sporting events in the Atlantic City area.

Foreknowledge & JFK Assassination | JFKCountercoup

JFKcountercoup: JFK and Atlantic City

John Martinos Confessions

William Pawley, the Kennedy Assassination, and Watergate TILT and the “Phase Three” Story of Clare Boothe Luce | COPA

As he later explained Martino went on to become a casino security expert working for Lansky’s Florida casino and for Santo Traficante in Havana, where he worked with Jack Ruby’s pal Louis McWillie.

When Castro came to power Martino returned stateside and actively worked against Castro, primarily in the Bayo-Pawley affair, and shared an apartment for awhile with John Rosselli, a significant connection.

Inexplictly returning to Cuba Martino was arrested as an American spy and sentenced to the Isle of Pines prison where he met Sylvia Odio’s father, who was incarcerated for his role in a plot to kill Castro that also involved Antonio Veciana. As he mentions in his book, “I Was Castro’s Prisoner,” Martino knew the date of the Bay of Pigs invasion weeks before it occurred, so it wasn’t a state secret.

Released with the Bay of Pigs prisoners, Martino collaborated with Nate Wheil in writing about his experiences in Cuba, but they had a falling out after the publication when Martino decided to take a nationwide book tour affiliated with the John Birch Society (JBS).

At a stop in a Dallas auditorium, Martino shared the stage with Father Walter McChann, patron of the Cuban exiles in Dallas, and supported by the Catholic Welfare Society that was funded by the CIA’s Catherwood Foundation.

In Dallas Martino mentioned Amador Odio with his daughters in the audience, which might have also included JBS supporter General Edwin Walker.

After having amorous affairs with some of his parishoners, including Sylvia Odio, McChann left the priesthood and after the assassination relocated to New Orleans, attending a Catholic college there and associating with one of Carlos Bringuier’s friends, who attended the court hearing with Oswald and Bringuier.

On the day of the assassination John Martino, at home in Florida, expressed foreknoweldge of the assassination and some of it’s details, probably obtained from his friend John Rosselli.

When Anthony Summers was in Florida interviewing John Martino’s widow and son, I was in Atlantic City interviewing Martino’s elderly sister and brother, both of whom were open and accomdating. She gave me a record album of Martino reading excerpts of his book, and hooked me up with Nate Wheil, who I also interviewed over the phone.

The book “The Irishman” is based on has high praise for Dan Moldea, who along with G. Robert Blakey, David Kaiser, Thom Waldren and others, promote the idea that the mob and Mafia were behind the assassination.

Modea shared an American University stage with John Judge on the subject of Media and Politics, with a special emphasis on the impact of Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK.” Moldea made his routine pitch blaming the Mafia, but Judge Judge rebuttled with a strong counterpoint, making note of the facts that the mob/Mafia didn’t control the evidence, the Zapruder film or the autopsy, and were “Sleps,” or waterboys for the CIA.

For those who promote any particular person or group – LBJ, CIA, FBI, Mafia – it wasn’t any one of them but all of them, as if it was a full fledged coup d’etat then every agency of government had to be either invited, involved or compromised, much like the Murder on the Orient Express.

Certainly the Mafia was involved – they hated JFK like J. Edgar Hover, General LeMay and LBJ did, but what occurred at Dealey Plaza was not the work of any renegade outfit – it was a well planned and expertly executed covert intelligence operation that included various elements of government and society, but can be more clearly defined by identifying those who pulled it off, and got away with it.

And that’s what we are doing.

There was at least one real Irishman at Dealey Plaza – Will Greer the driver of Lincoln, a Protestant who hailed for Northern Ireland, who didn’t care much for Catholics or JFK, and counter to everything he was trained to so, put on the breaks after the first shot and didn’t let up until JFK’s head was blown open.

Bill Kelly

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The Irishman at Dealey Plaza

The Irishman At Dealey Plaza

After reading the book – “The Irishman” on the plane to Dallas last November 21, and seeing the movie on Netflex when I returned, I was taken by the references to the assassination and the similarities to Oliver Stone’s “JFK.”

Both books are based on first person experiences – Jim Garrison’s “On the Trail of the Assassins,” and Frank Sheehan’s story as told to Charles Brandt – “I Hear You Paint Houses,” a mob euphemism for killing.  

And both books have been made into Major Motion Pictures that have re-stirred the debate over the murdered president.

A key character in both dramas – David Ferrie, is played by – Joe Pecci in “JFK,” whose role in the assassination drama was to serve as the accused assassin’s Captain in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol (CAP) before he enlisted in the Marines and defected to the USSR.

Now the CAP is important in the assassination story, not only for David Ferrie’s leadership of Oswald’s CAP squadron, but because it was founded in 1941 by D. H. Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination, from where shots were fired, but also because of the documents leaked to the press from the Pennsylvania chapter of the CAP that indicated the CAP cadets were being trained in Counter-Intelligence procedures and were being groomed to infiltrate communist organizations, something Oswald was trained to do and did.

Another original founder of the CAP with Byrd was Cord Meyer, Sr., the father of Cord Meyer, Jr., the head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division and husband to Mary Pinchot Meyer, a point that comes into play later in the game.

“The Irishman” is ostensibly about the story of Philadelphia Teamster Frank Sheeran and his role in the murder of Teamster Union boss Jimmy Hoffa, played by Al Pachino in the movie, but it’s more about the underworld associations of these people and how they entwine with that of President Kennedy and his brother Robert, who went to war with both Hoffa and the Mafia.

Hoffa, like J. Edgar Hoover and Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay all hated JFK – with a passion, but as former CIA officer Rolf M. Larsson asked, what makes a man who hates a killer? That’s a big step, not only in having the hate and wanting to do it, but having the capability to do it and get away with it. 

As portrayed in the book and the movie, Sheeran (Robert DiNero) is introduced into the Mafia underworld by Russell Bufalino (Joe Pecci), only Mafia boss serving on the national Commission who was not a big city boss like those of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Tampa and New Orleans.

Unlike David Ferrie, his flamboyant character in Stone’s “JFK,” Pecci is now an older and wiser wiseguy, whose territory includes all of Northeast Pennsylvania and stretches into Upstate New York and Northern New Jersey, open territory for all five of the New York Mafia crime families.  These mob bosses formed what they called the “Commission” in Atlantic City in April 1929, shortly after the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago. The Commission was the final arbitrator in disputes among the mobsters.

In November 1957, shortly after the murder of New York boss Albert Anastasia, Sheeran says he drove Buffalino to a house in Upstate New York and dropped him off. The next day the local police took many of those who participated in a major mob meeting into custody, proving once and for all that there was an organized criminal enterprise that J. Edgar Hoover had previously denied existed.

In the book the first mention of assassination related items is (p. 133) when Sheeran is quoted as staying with Hoffa in a Chicago Hotel – the Edgewater Beach, where the Teamsters kept a suite of rooms on the 18^th floor.

“I got to meet a lot of important people. Sam ‘Momo’ Giancana would come by the Edgewater….Later on when Jimmy got to know my work himself, I stayed in the room whenever something was going on. Once in a while Giancana would have a guy with him named Jack Ruby from Dallas. I met Ruby a few times….Ruby was with Giancana and a man named Red Dorfman. One time we all went out to eat and Ruby had a blond with him that he brought up from Dallas for Giancana. There is no doubt whatsoever that Jimmy Hoffa didn’t just meet Jack Ruby, he knew Jack Ruby, and not just from Giancana, but from Red Dorfman, too.”

Jack Ruby was from Chicago, involved in the mob controlled Waste Handlers Union, knew Red Dorfman, was sent to Dallas to represent the Chicago mob there, and called Dorfman on the phone the week before the assassination. But you don't have to be Jimmy Hoffa's hit man, anybody can know that. 

Then (p. 144) Sheeran and Brandt get into the nitty gritty of the matter. In Florida, Sheeran says, “I met Carlos Marcello’s pilot there, too, a guy named David Ferrie. They later said he was gay, but if he was he didn’t make a pass at me. He still had his hair when I met him. They say he went a little nutty later on and carried a makeup kit around with him. You cold tell he hated Castro with a passion, and he was very close to the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida.”

“One morning a couple of weeks after the meeting in at the Gold Coast where I met Dave Ferrie, I was back in Philly at the local and got a call from Jimmy Hoffa, who told me to go check on that thing we talked about. That meant I should go to the pay phone I used to use and to wait for a phone call. I got over to the pay phone and when it ran I heard Jimmy’s voice say, ‘Is that you?’ I told him, ‘Yea.’”

“He said ‘I talked to your friend and he told me to tell you. Get your hands on a safe rig tomorrow and go down to the Harry C. Campbell concrete plant on Eastern Avenue outside of Baltimore. You can’t miss it. Bring somebody to help you drive. You’re going over the road. And don’t forget to call your friend.”

“….We pulled into the Campbell plant. I’ve been down there lately to find it and it’s got a new name, Bensal. It’s more built up, with more buildings, but the old stone buildings are still there. In 1961 when we drove in it had a little landing strip. The landing strip had a small plane on it, and Carlos Marcello’s pilot who I had just met at the Gold Coast, Dave Ferrie, got out of the plane and came over to my rig and directed us t back up next to some Army trucks. We backed up and all of a sudden this gang of soldiers came out of a building and began unloading military uniforms and weapons and ammunition from their army trucks and loading it all onto our truck.”

“Dave Ferrie told me that the war material being loaded was from the Maryland National Guard. He gave me paperwork on the load in case we got stopped. He told me to take it to the dog track in Orange Grove, Florida, outside of Jacksonville. He said I’d be met there by a guy with big ears named Hunt.”

“At the outset of the 1975 (Congressional) hearings, in a shocking move, the CIA admitted to the Church Committee the mob’s involvement and assistance in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the existence of the mob-CIA plot to kill Castro.”

“While the Church Committee was conducting its closed hearings, Time magazine reported in its June 9, 1975, issue that Russell Bufalino and Sam ‘Momo’ Giancana were the crime bosses behind the mob’s ties to the CIA and to the anti-Castro invasion and to the assassination plot to poison Castro.”

Now that’s the first I’ve heard of Bufalino being involved with the CIA in the Cuban operations.

In the book (p.182) Sheeran is quoted as saying, “One morning, a few days to a week before November 22, 1963, I got a call from Jimmy to go to the pay phone….I drove up to Russell’s and when he answered the door all he told me to do was, ‘Go see our friends in Brooklyn. They’ve got something for you to take to Baltimore…”

“I turned around and drove to Monte’s Restaurant in Brooklyn. It was a hangout for Genovese people. It’s the oldest Italian restaurant in New York City…..Tony Pro got up from his table and went to the back and returned with a duffel bag. He handed it to me and told me, ‘Go down to Campbell’s Cement in Baltimore where you went that time with the truck. Our friend’s pilot will be there. He’s waiting for this.”

“When I got there, Carlo’s pilot, Dave Ferrie, was there with another guy I knew from Monte’s who was with Genovese….He said, ‘You got something for us?’….I didn’t even get out of the car. I gave him the keys. He opened the trunk, took the bag, we said good-bye, and away I went home.”

Then they pick up on this (p. 270) after November 22, 1963. According to Sheeran, Hoffa said: “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, the top of the iceberg. Let me tell you – Dallas, id you hear that word tonight? 

\Remember that package you took to Baltimore? I didn’t know it then, but it turns out it was high-powered rifles for the Kennedy hit in Dallas. The stupid bastards lost their own rifles in the trunk of a Thunderbird that crashed when their driver got drunk. That pilot for Carlos was involved in delivering the replacements that you brought down. Those fuckers used both of us on that deal. We were patsies. What do you think of that? They had fake cops and real cops involved in it. Jack Ruby’s cops were supposed to take care of Oswald, but Ruby bungled it. That’s why he had to go in and finish the job on Oswald. If he didn’t take care of Oswald, what do you think they would have done to him – put Ruby on a meat hook. Don’t kid yourselfSanto and Carlos and Giancana and some of their element, they were all in on Kennedy. Every single one of the same cast of characters that were in on the Bay of Pigs. They even had a plot to kill Castro with Momo and Rosselli. I’ve got enough to hang everybody. And every last bit of it comes out if anything unnatural happens to me. They will all pay. All those who fucked me will pay.”

Now there was a white Thunderbird in Oak Cliff around the time of the assassination, but I don't believe for one minute a drunk driver lost the rifles - the Dealey Plaza Operation was a first class, well planned and executed covert intelligence operation that would not depend on a drunk driver delivering the rifles. 

And that’s it. 

The first trip to the cement plant in Baltimore in 1961 sounds suspiciously like the Houma Bunker raid where Ferrie’s crew took explosives and weapons from as depicted in the movie “JFK.” And the second trip to the cement plant delivering a duffel bag of rifles sounds very much like Robert Morrow’s story of buying a number of Manclicher Carcanos in Baltimore for use in the assassination.

Now there are some clues that can be checked out – Campbell’s Cement company in Baltimore, but the one I am most interested in is the possibility that Russell Bufalino is somehow connected to the Pinochet family, as they both hail from the same neck of the woods and are very powerful politically. 

Mary Pinochet, the daughter of a former Pennsylvania governor, was introduced to John Kennedy while he was a student by his school mate – William Attwood, who at the time of the assassination was the President’s point man in the ostensibly secret back channel negotiations with Castro. Mary had married Cord Meyer, Jr., the CIA officer who worked closely with Allen Dulles, and whose father formed the Civil Air Patrol with D. H. Byrd. After separating from Meyer, Mary once again became amorous lover with President Kennedy.

On September 15, 1963, the day Mrs. Paine took Marina and the rifle to Texas and Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were briefed by the CIA on their Covert Ops agasnt Cuba, Mary Pinchot Meyer accompanied the President on the first leg of his Conservation Tour, stopping to visit Mary’s mother who had donated land for preservation to the national park service.

For any researcher with the time and inclination to look into it, any association between the Bufalino and Pinochet families would be interesting and fit into this story.

In any case, while it appears Sheeran was a hit man for the Teamsters and the mob, and probably killed Hoffa as he describes, the Mafia certainly didn’t kill President Kennedy, though John Rosselli was involved with the CIA at their JMWAVE station in Florida and was directly involved with the anti-Castro Cuban commandos that were sent in to Cuba with high powered rifles and a plan to shoot Castro in the head as he drove by in an open jeep. That was the plan that was likely redirected to JFK in Dallas. 

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Dueling Mrs. Paine JFK Documentaries

Dueling JFK Documentaries

Since one of the most important JFK assassination witnesses - Ruth Hyde Paine, was not questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the 1970s or the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s, there are a lot of outstanding questions that Mrs Paine could answer about a things we have learned since 1964.

Former HSCA attorney and Philadelphia prosecutor Richard Sprague had an investigative policy of questioning the most significant witnesses last, so he knew the right questions to ask, and while that may be the case with Mrs. Paine, I don't think she has been asked the right questions.

Although we haven't heard from her in a long time, she came out of the woodwork in November 2019  to attend the premier of  Todd Kwait's documentary film "Truth Is Our Only Client" at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff, where Lee Harvey Oswald was famously arrested. She apparently is a main character in that film.

And then she returned on the week of the assassination to tour her old Irving, Texas ranch house where she used to live, and the accused assassin kept the alleged assassination rifle, a house that is now a museum. She also participated in a special program at the Sixth Floor Museum at the old Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). .

Kwait's primary interest appears to be music, but he says he personally bankrolled, produced and edited this film at the urging of former Warren Commission lawyers, especially Burt Griffin, who was responsible for investigating Jack Ruby and how he came to murder Oswald while he was in police custody.

Kwait says he started off with an open mind towards conspiracy but in the end came to believe what the Warren Report concluded - that Oswald acted alone, and those who have seen his film tend to agree with that assessment, so in the end, if truth is the only client, then the client was poorly served.

While Kwait promised me a review copy of his film sometime after November 22, when his preview showings would be over, he reneged on that promise and now says his distributor won't allow him.

He did however, offer to have CAPA present a screening in Washington D.C, New York or Pittsburgh sometime in the near future, and I will hold him to that.

When Mrs. Paine came to Dallas for the film's premier at the Texas Theater she did an interview with a local California newspaper and participated in the Q and A after the film, that included questions from the audience, some of them interesting, with equally interesting response.

The Kwait film also includes talking head interviews with others - including Griffin, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, and am official CIA historian (David Robarge) among others, all of whom I have questions for as well.

Mrs. Paine then returned to Dallas for a series of assassination anniversary week events at the Sixth Floor Museum where she was ostensibly interviewed by Steven Fagan for their oral history program. I sent Fagen a list of my 20 questions for Ruth Paine, if I ever get a chance to ask her, though I don't know if he got them or asked them.

I did almost have a close encounter with her, as when I got to Dallas I had a meal at the New York Deli next door to the Marriott hotel where I was informed Mrs. Paine had breakfast twenty four hours earlier - even sitting in the same booth.

Many years ago, when I was in Philadelphia working with John Judge at a Quaker center, Mrs. Paine called and pledged a donation to the Quakers center over the phone, a call that John Judge took and I thought was a missed opportunity to question her.

When she meets new inquisitors, Mrs. Paine gives them a copy of a letter ostensibly written by Oswald to Marina instructing her what to do if he is killed or captured after the Walker shooting, asking them what they make of it. She implies, as the Warren Commission did, that since Oswald took a shot at Walker he also killed JFK, even though that is not the case. I answer Mrs. Paine's question with one of my own - did she know that at the house party when she first met Marina, Lee was in another room talking with Volkmar Schmidt who suggested to Oswald that Walkler should be killed as Hitler should have been - and Marina signed a copy of one of the photos she took of Oswald in their backyard with the rifle and pistol with the notation:  "Hunter of Fascists, Ha Ha."?

Did Mrs. Paine know that? I don't think so, but she's never been asked.

Mrs. Paine is very cooperative and open to being questioned by reporters and researches, and was interviewed on camera three times by Max Good, who is also polishing off a documentary film - The Assassination and Mrs. Paine - that primarily features her, but also includes interviews with many others - including Gary Aguilar, Jim DiEugenio, Vince Salandria and even Max Holland.

When Good asked Holland why he wrote articles for the CIA's in-house publication - Holland honestly responds that he did it for the money.

While Kwait's film is apparently biased against conspiracy, Good had the audacity to ask Mrs. Paine some tough questions that sparked Burt Griffin to say Good should be ashamed of himself, but it is Griffin who should be ashamed of himself for not conducting a proper investigation in the first place. He never even talked to Jack Ruby, the subject he was assigned to investigate. .

Good wants to interview me about Michael Paine's mom Ruth Forbes Paine Young and her husband Arthur Young, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter, who I met and interviewed years ago. But I'm glad I didn't until I saw the film, which Good showed at the CAPA conference in a private viewing after Saturday night's program.

The Japanese documentary film crew had leased the Board Room on the same floor the CAPA conference was held, so after they left Good set up his projector and showed his film to about twenty of us, including Bill Simpich and Gary Aguilar.

As Good is a young guy I thought it would be an amateur production and was prepared to leave to get a beer but it is very well done - even riveting - and I stayed till the end, as did everyone else, and I told Good that I would help him in any way he wanted.

So now we have two documentaries featuring Ruth Paine, one in which she puts forth the lame idea that she is an innocent victim of Oswald, who killed the President by himself and another film in which she is asked key questions and appears to try to honestly answer them.

The more Mrs. Paine talks the more we learn how Oswald was framed as the Patsy and Fall Guy in a crime he didn't commit. So I hope she keeps talking, and at least tries to honestly answer my twenty questions.

Mrs. Paine, who is often described as the one person who knew the accused assassin more than anyone else, promotes the idea Oswald killed the President all by himself, something she considers a spur of the moment decision, spontanioius combusion - a point some others agree with because, unlike the Walker shooting, Oswald didn't plan it out weeks in advance, survey the situation, take photos and drawing and keep a notebook that he later destroyed. There was none of that, yet, if was the lone assassin, he would have to be considered the world's greatest Lone Wolf Assassin who actually pulled it off, rather than the low life, wife beating loser who couldn't hold a job - as Mrs. Paine and his accusers portray him.

While I haven't seen Kwait's film yet, Mrs. Paine told Good that after she met Marina at the February 1963 party, she invited Marina to move in and live with her at her Irving home because her and Michael were separated, Marina was pregnant and it would be good for all if she stayed with Mrs. Paine until she had the baby. That was what Mrs. Paine calls "The Arrangement."

Earlier in the film Gerald Posner calls Mrs. Paine an innocent victim of the assassination, Priscilla Johnson McMillan says her association with the accused assassin was a great irony, but Jim DiEugenio cautions that "If someone would look closely at Mrs. Paine you might find an important key to the assassination."

And "The Arrangement" cuts to the heart of the "Key."

I first learned of the arrangement while reading former Warren Commissioner's book "Portrait of the Assassin," in which he publishes a letter Ruth Paine wrote to Marina in New Orleans making the pitch for Marina to move in with her. If Marina accepted, Mrs. Paine wrote, she should write to her C/O in care of Arthur Young - Paoli, Pennsylvania.

I could find this letter no where else among JFK assassination literature, and knew that Ford was criticized for using documents not available to the public, so I assume the letter was one of those documents only Ford and the Warren Commissioners had access to.

Who was Arthur Young? I asked. Why as I learned over the course of years, Arthur Young was the genius, eccentric inventor of the Bell Helicopter who married Michael Paine's mother - Ruth Forbes Paine Young.

A member of the exclusive Forbes family, Ruth Forbes married Michael Paine's father - Lyman Paine, a founder of the Trotyskite Communist Party in the USA and considered a rich, cocktail party communist who conflicted with the regular Communist Party USA that was controlled by the Soviets. In the backyard photo that Marina inscribed "Hunter of Fascists, Ha, Ha," Oswald can be seen holding not only the rifle suspected of being the weapon that killed the President, and the pistol allegedly used to kill Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit, but two magazines - the Worker - the publication of the regular Communist Party, and the Militant - the publication of the Trotkysite Party.

So Michael' Paine's father was a founder of the Trotkysite Party in America, and Oswald subscribed to their publication and knew the history of the party and the fact that Leon Trotsky was assassinated by Soviet KGB agent Raymon Mercader in exile in Mexico City.

While she was married to Paine, Ruth Forbes was a close personal friend and traveling companion to Mary Bancroft, another rich socialite who met a Swiss businessman on a steam ship when she was traveling to Europe with Ruth Forbes, married him and relocated to Switzerland. There she met and became closely associated with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer stationed there, Allen Dulles. Bancroft became Dulles' secretary, chief assistant and amorous agent, especially in dealing with Nazi Gestapo officer Hans Bernard Gisivious. Gisiviious was involved deeply with the German military officer's plot to kill Hitler that culminated in the failed July 20, 1944 bombing at the Wolf's Lair headquarters. Dulles and Bancroft arranged for Gisivious to escape Germany and to testify against the Nazis at Nurenburg. Gisivious then migrated to American where he worked for the CIA and a major Dallas defense industry, as did many of the former Nazi  Operation Paperclip defectors.

The friendship between Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Mary Bancroft included Bancroft's visits to the Forbes family owned Nashau Island, off Massachusets, where Michael's wife Ruth Hyde Paine and Michael's mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young vacationed before joining Arthur Young in Paoli, Pennsylvania.

A Main Line railroad stop outside of Philadelphia, Paoli is a highbrow rich community and home to the CIA's front company the Catherwood Foundation, that comes into play elsewhere in the drama.

It was at Arthur Young's historic, rural farm outside of Philadelphia where "The Arrangment" was sealed, as Marina Oswald must have sent Mrs. Paine a letter there agreeing to the terms of the deal, and after leaving the Youngs at Paoli, Mrs. Paine drove her Chevy station wagon south, to D.C. where she met her sister, who worked for the CIA, and then south to New Orleans. There she stayed the night, then drove the pregnant Marina, their daughter and belongs - including the rifle - to Irving, Texas while Oswald ostensibly went to Mexico City.

Mrs. Paine contends she didn't know Oswald had a rifle, and Oswald packed the wagon in New Orleans and Michael unpacked it in Irving. For his part, Michael said that he didn't know about the rifle, and thought the pipe in the blanket that he moved around the garage was camping equipment.

While I don't think Kuait bothers to get into any of the details of "The Arrangement," Good shows an aerial photo of the Forbes Nashau Island, and asks Mrs. Paine about Michael's mother and Mary Bancroft, and implies that not only Michael's mom but SHE too knew Mary Bancroft, which would be two degrees of separation between her and Allen Dulles.

On the same day Mrs. Paine took Marina, the baby and Oswald's belongings - including the rifle, to Texas, and Oswald ostensibly left for Mexico, September 15, 1963, the Joint Chiefs of Staff met at the Pentagon for a special briefing by Desmond FitzGerald, head of the CIA's covert Cuban operations. At that meeting, FitzGerald said the CIA was engaged in a "detailed study" of the German military's July 20, 1963 plot to kill Hitler to be used against Fidel Castro. While FitzGerald acnowledged that there were a number of Cuban military officers who were disenchanted with the Castro government, there was not the confidence for them to talk to each other.

That was not a problem with the American military or the Joint Chiefs of Staff,who were united in their opposition to the Kennedy administration over the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and the back channel negotiations with Castro.

In response to a FOIA request for their "detailed study" of the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler to be adapted for use against Castro, the CIA claimed that it could find no records of such a study or anything whatsoever on the July 20, 1944 German military plot to kill Hitler.

If there was nothing put in writing - no existing documentation, such a detailed study must have been oral interviews with those still living who were involved, which should have included Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft and Hans B. Gisivious.

So my key question to Mrs. Paine is whether she confided in Michael's mother - Ruth Forbes Paine Young or Arthur Young, while she was living at their Paoli, Pa. farm house, that the pregnant Marina Oswald had agreed to "the arrangement" to move in with her in Irving, Texas until she had the baby?

And if so, was Mary Bancroft and Allen Dulles also informed of such an arrangement?

Oswald himself agreed to the arrangement, returned to Dallas and took out room under the same alias he used in Mexico City - O. H. Lee, and obtained the job at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) through the efforts of Mrs. Paine.

Shortly thereafter Oswald's second daughter was born, and Oswald was once again a proud father, and Mrs. Paine wrote a letter to her father in Ohio that Oswald was a good father.

At the same time the assassination occurred, Michael Paine was in the Bell Helicopter cafeteria with another worker talking about political assassinations - an ESP experience that Arthur Young - the inventor of the Bell Helicopter would have appreciated, as he was an avid believer in ESP. When I met Michael's mother and Arthur Young at their rural Philadelphia farmhouse she was too old and infirm to talk, but Arthur Young did my Astrology chart as we talked for hours.

As Mrs. Paine now says - "I was not a sitter for Oswald for the CIA and certainly don't feel I was manipulated in any way or encouraged to do anything in particular.....If you believe in astrology you can believe other forces were at work. If you are just going to look at the facts of the case, there is not evidence for conspiracy."

"For me one of the things I thought was very strongly and important was to answer questions, especially for those interested in the truth. The Warren Commission was interested in the truth, but I have less and less patience for those who are looking for a conspiracy."

Well you don't have to look far if you are looking for a conspiracy. As Warren Commission attorney said, if they knew about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro they would have conducted a different investigation. As the key figure in the CIA-Mafia plots John Rosseli said, he supported a team of assassins out of the CIA's JMWAVE station who were sent into Cuba to kill Castro. As former CIA officer Rolf M. Larsson has said, if there was a CIA plot to kill the President it originated at JMWAVE.

The focus on Oswald, the focus on Mrs. Paine is part of a psychological warfare black propaganda diversion operation, that so far has been successful, as the JMWAVE commandos who were paid and trained to kill Castro are suspected of redirecting their fire to JFK in Dallas.

As for Mrs. Paine, we now have two dueling documentaries - Todd Kwait's "Truth is Our Only Client" and Max Good's "Mrs. Paine and the Assassination."

In the spring in Washington D.C.,  possibly in mid-March during Sunshine Week - CAPA may host a JFK Film Festival that will include both films as well as the new "Destiny Betrayed" documentary that Oliver Stone and Jim DiEugenio are preparing for release around the same time.



MORE TO COME - this is a work in progress, stay tuned.