The significance of the Kennedy assassination to future generations may be more involved with the nature of American society in 1963 than with the nature of a whodunit
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| At about this same time events turned sour for Santo Trafficante who was arrested on June 8th, along with his bodyguard, Henry Saavedra. The two were arrested at a luxury Havana hotel where Saavedra had rented an apartment in his name. Three days later, the federal government indicted Trafficante for a 1955 gambling offense and on June 12th, he and Saavedra were
detained at the Tiscornia Immigration Station, outside Havana, pending deportation. At Tiscornia, Santo joined other of his former casino associates who were being held in comfortable albeit not luxurious circumstances. They had television and radio, cooked for themselves, and turned the lights out when they wished. It is debatable whether they were being held with the intent of deportation or as a ruse to delay extradition and to give Castro time and leverage to extract a quid-pro-quo from these valuable contacts. For Trafficante probably the most immediate concern was the imminent wedding of his eldest daughter, Mary Josephine, to August Paniello, scheduled for the Havana Hilton on June 21st. Mary was a graduate of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Academy in Tampa, the Trafficante's parish church school, and also of the University of Tampa; her fiancee was a law student from Tampa. Their wedding did come off as planned and Trafficante was brought to the Hilton from the detention center. Although a number of prominent Cuban officials enjoyed the event, reporters and photographers were denied access. Two weeks later Castro convinced his cabinet to order the deportation of Trafficante and his friend Saavedra; their expulsion was scheduled for July 9th. A curious event then transpired with the two Americans appealing their expulsion order and attempting to remain in Cuba. Shortly afterwards, Jack Ruby dined at the airport restaurant, at Dallas' Love Field, with two brothers from Havana and a curious deal took shape. Ruby July dinner was with Martin and Pedro Fox, two Cubans who worked at the Tropicana as resident managers for Santo Trafficante and with two local lawyers. There is a hint of narcotics affairs involved, but it is in August, after this meeting that events unfurl. Ruby meets with McKeown about furthering the jeep exchange. Then Ruby arranges to travel to Cuba to visit his old friend Lewis J. McWillie. By the way, McWillie asks Jack to bring him a weapon and Jack buys two .39 Colt Cobra Specials, one of which he keeps and eventually uses on Oswald, the other he smuggles into Cuba for McWillie. McWillie wanted it for protection. McWillie was still working in a casino at that time as he had since coming to the island in the mid-Fifties, now he was at the Tropicana with the Foxes and Rothman. McWillie showed Ruby around Havana and the two eventually showed up at the Tiscornia Immigration Center. Security was almost non-existent at the center. Tiscornia was like Ellis Island; Santo's wife, Josephine, visited him there and they walked in the gardens--- visitors were common. Ruby was observed visiting the American gangster-type named Santo by an Englishman, John Wilson. Wilson was a sometime adventurer, sometime journalist who also was being detained at the camp. Wilson felt that Santo was living quite well there and believed that he was actually " holing-up " there until he was free from the threat of federal indictments in Florida. Wilson must have gained the mobsters' friendship as well, for in 1963 he would be bailed out of a Dallas jail by Jack Ruby. In any case, after Ruby's visit, the situation resolved and on August 19th Trafficante reached an understanding with Castro which freed him and Henry Saavedra and allowed their return to their Havana apartment, and also allowed them to return to their gambling activities. Although Santo's 1954 bribery conviction had been overturned on appeal, other charges still were pending and as late as September 8th, Trafficante was content to remain in Havana despite all his recent turmoil. *** Lewis McWillie had arrived in Havana in September, 1958 and shortly after was working at the Tropicana. He would stay at the Tropicana after the revolution and later worked at the Capri until his return to the mainland in early 1961. Since he worked at the Tropicana at the time of Ruby's visit, it is most probable that McWillie also knew the Fox brothers, who were managers at the hotel, and also that he knew Santo Trafficante, who ran the hotel for the Lansky organization. Ruby's visit had a definite purpose: he was reportedly seen visiting someone at the Trescornia camp in McWillie's company. Later, he made a side-trip to Miami before returning to Havana and later in the month of August, Santo Trafficante, Henry Savaarda, and Loran Hall were released and returned to the mainland. Ruby had been seen at Trescornia by that English soldier-of-fortune, John Wilson, who was also being detained at the camp by Castro. Oddly, Wilson gave this information to American authorities in England after Ruby's arrest. John Wilson seems to have been involved with those American adventurers, soldier's of fortune, such as Loran Hall and Gerry Hemming, both in Cuba and later in the States. ***
However, and for whatever purpose, Martino was sentenced without much protest from the U.S. State Department and imprisoned in La Cabana, the fortress, in Havana harbor, where he languished under severe conditions and with a painful kidney disorder that required medication. Martino was a last confidant and witness to the execution of Captain William Morgan, the famous soldier-of-fortune who was an integral part of Castro's success and who was close to Fidel after the victory Morgan was ultimately imprisoned by Castro for anti-Castro activities and finally executed. *** By the Spring of the following year Santo was finally ready to return to the States. Although he still maintained an interest in the Sans Souci and Commodoro hotels, the casino business was dead and the heat had died down in Florida, as well. Only the Hillsborough ( Tampa ) County Sheriff blocked his way from openly returning home; Santo could return home quietly but the Sheriff vowed to arrest him if he showed his face publicly. The Sheriff's vow soon proved to be only a politician's boast. In May of 1960 Santo returned openly to Tampa to visit his mother who had cancer. He and his lawyer, Frank Ragano ( who would be with Santo until Santo's death in 1987 ) showed up at the Sheriff's office and walked out freely when the Sheriff failed to make good on his boast. Santo challenged him to arrest him or shut-up and from that time on he resided in his native Tampa with no trouble from the local law. Santo returned at a time when business was quite lucrative, the influx of Cuban exiles had brought an increase in gambling revenues from the bolita activities which the Trafficante family controlled under Frank Deiecidue, one of Santo's chief lieutenants. The narcotics business was booming as well and again the influx of refugees provided an ample supply of drug runners for the Trafficante enterprises. As narcotics had always been a staple of the family's business, going back to the Antinori days, it continued unabated even with the loss of the Cuban base. However, Cuba may not have been as lost as it seemed; as numerous DEA reports over the years have noted, Cuba continued to be a haven for drug smuggling into the U.S. It is highly likely that part of Santo's accommodation with Fidel when he remained behind in Cuba involved a deal to keep the narcotics revenues flowing through Cuban hands. Shortly afterwards, when Santo became the prime operative in the infamous C.I.A.-Mafia plot to kill Castro, his numerous failures to kill Fidel prompted some to conclude that Trafficante had a greater stake in keeping Castro alive than killing him. It would be ideal for Trafficante, and typical of his style, to play both sides, compromising the U.S. government and keeping good relations with the Cuban strongman at the same time. After his return stateside, Santo beefed up his muscle with the addition of two enforcers; one, Loran Eugene Hall, was the soldier-of-fortune who had met Trafficante in the Cuban detention center and had been released with him. The other was James Henry Dolan who joined the Trafficante organization from Texas; Dolan was involved in labor racketeering and became a representative for AGVA in Florida. In this latter capacity, Dolan would be contacted frequently by Jack Ruby, supposedly on union matters, during the days leading up to the President's assassination. Loren Hall, whose real name was Lorenzo Pascilli, also played an intriguing role in the events leading up to the assassination. There is reason to believe he was the key man in setting Oswald up as the patsy and there is direct evidence of his link to Jack Ruby in Dallas. At this time, however, Hall was instrumental, along with the ubiquitous Norman Rothman and the just returned Frank Sturgis in setting up a guerilla training operation in the Florida Keys, from which the events and players in the Kennedy assassination would spring. The International Anti-Communist Brigade, or IACB, was one of a number of exile guerilla training operations which sprang up in the Miami to Florida Keys area after the rift with Castro developed. Of course as history has demonstrated most of these operations were founded by and run by the C.I.A. I.A.C.B. was different from these others in one important respect, it had been established by and supported by organized crime figures from the Lansky organization and as it had been in Cuba the go-between was Norman " Roughhouse " Rothman. In the late fall of 1959 the Lansky organization had regrouped in Southern Florida, Miami, and the Everglades. The nucleus of the group was Santo Trafficante, Norman Rothman, Mike McLaney--- the men who fronted for Meyer Lansky in Cuba. Some of the soldier's that had become familiar to the Lansky group were put on the payroll in Florida. As part of a plan to train exiles to regain Cuba and to eliminate Castro, the Lansky group, through Norman Rothman, funded the creation of Interpen or what was known as the Intercontinental Anti-Communist Brigade (I.A.C.B.), with training camps in the Everglades and later at a place called No Name Key in the Florida Keys. Loran Hall and Gerry Hemming recruited other adventurers to run this paramilitary operation with them and some of them became involved, as well, in the Trafficante smuggling operation which continued between Florida and Mexico. The groups members moved arms from the West Coast to Florida; their funds were often derived from committee's such as the Crusade to Free Cuba and the Free Cuba Committee. Interpen's leaders often engaged in fund-raising efforts on behalf of anti-Castro elements, an activity Ruby had become involved with in Dallas, as well. Ruby had a long involvement in arms smuggling and it is probable that he had contact with Santo's mercenaries in this regard. Norman Rothman was the mob contact and paymaster for Interpen. Rothman had worked for Lansky and Trafficante since the initial mob invasion of Havana; he had worked at the Sans Souci, Nacional, Deauville, and Santo's Tropicana at the time of the revolution. At the end of 1959, Frank Sturgis returned to Florida from Cuba where he had still been working in the casinos for Castro after the takeover. When he came to Florida, Sturgis was brought in to Interpen at Rothman's urging. In 1960 however Rothman had legal concerns which were occupying the bulk of his time--- his 1959 narcotics indictment along with the Cotroni's and a more recent indictment for smuggling guns to Castro in the wake of Fidel's takeover. Rothman continued as the paymaster for the I.A.C.B. troops, however Frank (Fiorini) Sturgis became their leader and his lieutenant was Loran Hall. Sturgis was just returned from Cuba and had his citizenship restored due to the intervention of Florida Senator George Smathers. Sturgis had lost his citizenship by virtue of having fought with Castro during the revolution. At Rothman's trial on the gun smuggling charge, the F.B.I. produced an informant as a witness against him. The informant's name was Jose Aleman, Jr. and he had been the Cuban contact for the purchase of the weapons that Rothman had allegedly smuggled. Aleman was a very interesting witness and oddly enough his testimony did not sour his relations with the Lansky group; it was probably understood that his compliance was not voluntary and his bona fides went deep enough so that even after the trial he continued to have an involvement with Lansky's men, Santo Trafficante included. Jose Aleman, Sr. was the former Education Minister who had been involved in looting the Cuban Treasury in favor of Lansky's real estate partnership, Ansan Corp., back in Florida. His wife, Elena Santiero y Garcia, the daughter of Lucky Luciano's Havana lawyer, had been the front for the partnership after her husband's death in the 1950's. Her nephew and thus Jose, Jr's cousin, Rafael Garcia Bango, was the lawyer who handled Trafficante's legal affairs in Cuba. The many power struggles and government coups which had occurred in Cuba for years had made pre-Castro political activities an odd melange; many well educated and wealthy Cubans opposed Batista even though they were part of the power structure. Jose Aleman, Jr. was such a one; in 1957, he participated in the famous attack on the Presidential palace which was an integral spark in the anti-Batista effort. Again, like many of his compatriots, he was a sometimes exile from Cuba before Castro. After the events at the Presidential palace and the ensuing crackdown by Batista's security forces, Aleman, Jr. retreated to Miami where he owned, at least on paper, the Miami Stadium, the Tradewinds Motel, and assorted other Miami real estate. In 1958, as conditions again relaxed in Cuba and as Castro's efforts seemed more promising, Aleman, Jr. once again returned home to Havana. The support that he and other wealthy Cubans offered Castro probably had a mix of motives: hedging the future by supporting Castro, opportunism, and the historical expectation that no matter who ruled Cuba the aristocratic dominance would always prevail. In 1960, the harsh disillusion of Castro's betrayal forced Aleman, like many of his compatriots, to seek permanent asylum in the U.S. After the Rothman trial, Jose Aleman, Jr. spent his days overseeing his Miami real estate ventures, along with his mother, and his obscurity would only be broken again in the aftermath of the President's assassination when once again his role as an F.B.I. informant would bring him into confrontation with the mob that had often sustained him. Jose Aleman, Jr. wasn't the only person interested in southern Florida real estate in 1960; in fact, Aleman and his mother's involvement would be tangential to the involvement of some much better known figures whose relationship would overlap not only that area, but would figure in future American political history most prominently. These would be Senator George Smathers, Charles Rebozo, better known as Bebe Rebozo, and their close friend, Vice-President Richard Nixon. Rebozo had been part of the Smathers' political machine since the late Forties; they had known each other since high school days in Florida. Rebozo had also been Nixon's close friend since they had met in Florida in the early Fifties. As Nixon had progressed in politics, Rebozo had progressed in Florida real estate, becoming a very wealthy man in the process. The influx of Cuban refugees in the late Fifties enhanced Rebozo's business ventures and by 1960 he and his associates were involved in the development of the Ansan property owned in the name of Elena Garcia on Key Biscayne. Through a series of shifting transactions, the Key Biscayne property had been prepared for a serious marketing and development effort, part of which now became known as the Cape Florida Development Corp. The property had been subdivided into a number of plots and Rebozo was responsible for their sale; in future, two of these plots would end up being owned by then President Richard Nixon who would establish a Southern White House at the Key Biscayne compound. The President's close friend, Rebozo, would have a cottage on the Presidential property, as well. At that time, however, future President Nixon's interests would be more concerned with political events in Cuba and with the incipient plans to undo Castro and his revolution. *** Carlos Prio had come to Florida before Batista's fall and the former Cuban President was in contact with Lansky's men who had worked with him when he was in power. Their intent was to return him to power in Cuba. Ruby had contact with Texas gun smuggler Robert McKeown since the early Fifties and had possibly arranged shipments to his friends in Cuba before the revolution. During the time of Ruby's trip to Havana, he may have contacted McKeown to purchase and smuggle jeeps to Cuba. Now McKeown was supplying weapons to Prio's men again, this time through Prio's deputy, Antonio de Varona. Varona was a former Prime Minister under Prio and now in the States he was Prio's main organizer; he had helped in the creation of the Cuban Revolutionary Council ( CRC ) and the Revolutionary Democratic Front ( RDF ) and he was a Vice President in those organizations. At that time, those groups were engaged in fundraising and paramilitary training of Cuban exiles, training carried out with Cuban exiles under Interpen's supervision. Later, these groups would come under C.I.A. funding, as well, and participate in the planning and operation of the Bay of Pigs invasion. At this time, the C.I.A. had moved broadly to coordinate the activities of all the various anti-Castro factions and was even in the process of forming an alliance with the mob to assassinate Castro. Varona would be involved intimately in both these operations and was distrusted enough by the U.S. government to be detained with other exile leaders at the time of the invasion. *** By 1960, with backing from the Lansky group, ex-President Carlos Prio and his long-time deputy, Manuel Antonio de Varona, were in the midst of organizing a number of overlapping exile, anti-Castro organizations. Varona was the VP for the main group, the FRD, or Revolutionary Front. Varona sent his colleague, Sergio Arcacha Smith, 36-year old former Batista diplomat, to New Orleans in order to establish an FRD chapter there. At the same time, Varona also helped establish a militant exile group known as the DRF, or the Student Directorate, they too established a New Orleans chapter. Oddly, both New Orleans groups eventually played significant parts in Lee Harvey Oswald's New Orleans sojourn during the summer of 1963. Also ironically, Antonio de Varona, with his numerous contacts in the exile community, would spend time at the home of Augustin Guitart in New Orleans. Guitart was the uncle of Silvia Odio, the lady who was visited by Oswald and his exile buddies in the months before the Kennedy murder. *** Also, in early 1960, an event was taking place that would involve Manuel Antonio de Varona in the assassination plot aimed at Fidel Castro. Meyer Lansky's original idea had been percolated through the Eisenhower White House via Cuba liaison, Vice-President Richard Nixon, and ultimately was sent to the C.I.A. where it was incorporated in the incipient invasion plan which became known as the Bay Of Pigs invasion. The C.I.A. engaged their oft-used cutout Robert Maheu, former F.B.I. agent and now head of security for the Howard Hughes empire in Las Vegas. Maheu used his mob contacts to arrange a meeting in Los Angeles with John Roselli, the West Coast representative of Chicago's Sam Giancana. Their first meeting took place at the Brown Derby restaurant in L.A. and Maheu suggested that $ 150,000 would be appropriated for the operation. F.B.I. wiretaps on Giancana's headquarters would one day reveal the glee that greeted the governments suggestion that the mob help them get rid of Fidel. The following conversation was picked up on the bugs after the Mahue meeting, Roselli is pushing the idea to a receptive Giancana on the phone: " If this works out we'll have the fucking government by the ass. And we choke 'em. There's this former FBI guy I know, Robert Maheu, who's got a connection with the CIA, and the government wants us to clip Fidel Castro. What do you think of that? We don't have to have to tell nobody. If we pull it off, then we get the power. If somebody gets in trouble and they want a favor, we can get it for them. You understand. We'll have the fucking government by the ass. Fuck the commission, you're on the commission and you've taken the responsibility, you tell Santo what you want, Santo is in the clear. Now if we don't pull it off, nobody's the wiser. If we do, then we've got the power." By the fall of 1960 the operation is a clear go on both sides and Maheu, a C.I.A. officer, and Roselli are having meetings in Florida with Giancana and Trafficante. While Frank Sinatra is crooning in the main ballroom of the elegant Fountainbleu, Giancana and Trafficante are debating the best method of killing Castro at a table with the others. Finally, Trafficante's method is accepted and it is decided to sub-contract to an exile leader in Florida who should be able to reach Fidel via the exile's network of contacts still in Cuba. The exile leader was none other than Manuel Antonio de Varona. *** As is now well known, in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration, serious efforts were under way both to assassinate Fidel Castro and to topple the new Communist government ninety miles off the Florida coast. It is interesting to recall that the seed of the Castro assassination plot was planted by Meyer Lansky who had first appropriated funds for that purpose. Though future investigations would disclose how the C.I.A. sought organized crime figures to carry out the hit, deeper investigation indicates that the plan had come back to its source when Santo Trafficante was brought in to the plot. Trafficante's tie to Lansky was indisputable; the similarity to WWII's Operation Underworld was uncanny and the bounty that Lansky put on Castro's head was as well. Senator Smathers, a well known Batista supporter, whose connections with the mob's Florida power base was clear, was from the first an ardent advocate of disposing of Castro through violence; he continued in that vein throughout the years of the Kennedy administration, driving J.F.K. to his wits' end with his constant tirades urging Castro's demise. In 1960 then, with Eisenhower a lame duck President preparing to write his memoirs, Richard Nixon was the crucial White House liaison to the C.I.A. on matters concerning Cuba. As the White House Cuban action officer, Nixon was vitally involved in the early planning for the Bay of Pigs operation and a well known proponent of the plan. In fact, the Bay of Pigs invasion would be an event which many participants expected to have occur under a Nixon Presidency. As the actual Bay of Pigs operation would prove, assassination of Castro was an integral part of the plan. It is highly probable then that Nixon was aware of the mob plot to kill Castro. Certainly then C.I.A. director Allen Dulles was, as well, although Dulles would be mute on this point when he served on the Warren Commission investigating the President's murder. Another matter that not only history, but also literature may some day interest itself in is the enormity of the "adventure" involved in the assassination. The term is used in the meaning of what an enormous risk was involved in the plot. In an Oliver Stone film, the plotters move with the professionalism of film editors splices; in real life the task had to be much more complex. 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