PART 7:FINAL JUDGMENT:CUBAN LOVE SONG&AN OPIATE FOR THE MASSES

By Michael Collins Piper

Chapter Eleven 

Cuban Love Song: Meyer Lansky:

the Mafia, the CIA and 

the Mossad and the Castro Assassination Plots 

Three top "Mafia" figures—Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli of Chicago and Santo Trafficante, Jr. of Tampa— were key figures in the CIA-Mob plots against Fidel Castro and often linked to the JFK assassination. 

Although the three Italian-American gangsters were major mob players, evidence shows they also were—like Carlos Marcello— subordinates of Meyer Lansky. 

Amazing new evidence demonstrates Giancana (and Rosselli) were actively collaborating with the Mossad, essentially mere 'front men" for Meyer Lansky's little-known Chicago partner-in-crime, Mossad-connected Hyman Larner, the real 'boss" of the mob in the Windy City.

Carlos Marcello is not the only major "Mafia" figure whose connections with Organized Crime syndicate boss Meyer Lansky have been ignored by Lansky's friendly biographer Robert Lacey. The legendary Johnny Rosselli is never mentioned either. Was neither Marcello nor Rosselli worth mentioning? 

Were they really that insignificant? Not according to standard accounts of Organized Crime history. Both Marcello and Rosselli have particular prominence in the annals of criminal folklore, especially in relation to the Kennedy assassination. 

It is quite significant that Lacey has chosen to delete Rosselli from his account of Lansky's life: 

Rosselli was a major figure in Organized Crime in Los Angeles, where Lansky's longtime associate Ben Siegel—and Siegel's successor as Lansky's West Coast operative, Mickey Cohen—represented Lansky's interests. 

Rosselli was a major figure in Organized Crime in Las Vegas, where Lansky maintained major gambling operations. He was Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana's primary representative there; 

Rosselli was a major figure in Organized Crime in Havana, representing the interests of the Chicago Mafia, where Lansky also dominated gambling operations. 

By all standard accounts, Rosselli was very much a key figure in the modern "Mafia" as we know it. 

In short, while Marcello's activities were based almost entirely in his Gulf Coast fiefdom (and extending into Texas), Rosselli operated as almost a roving ambassador for the Italian wing of Organized Crime (popularly called "the Mafia."), primarily the Chicago branch.

Yet, Rosselli's ties to Lansky have been ignored by Lansky's biographer Robert Lacey. Why? Lacey's biography (which is otherwise quite detailed) would suggest—by virtue of ignoring both Marcello and Rosselli— that Lansky had no connections with them at all, or that any connections he did have were so insignificant that they weren't even worth mentioning. 

Rosselli's name—like that of Marcello—has also been prominently linked to the Kennedy murder. 

One can only wonder why Lansky's biographer failed to bring in these clearly important connections. Even Tiger (described in the index as "(Lansky's dog)" is mentioned—not once, but twice. (Carlos Marcello is not mentioned at all.) 

Rosselli was also particularly close to Lansky's Florida and Havana lieutenant, Santo Trafficante, Jr, who is also practically a "non-person" in Lacey's account of Lansky's ventures. And, as we shall see, it may well have been Trafficante who arranged Rosselli's own ultimate assassination on behalf of the CIA. 

Like Rosselli, Trafficante was also a major figure in the annals of crime and much more so than even Rosselli, was an intimate working partner of Lansky. In fact, as we shall see in much more detail in Chapter 12, Trafficante— although a "Mafia" leader—was Lansky's immediate underling in the gambling and narcotics rackets. 

In Lacey's biography of Lansky, Trafficante is also given short shrift. In fact, he is hardly mentioned at all, except in minor passing—just eight times. In fact there are fewer references to Trafficante than there are to yet another Lansky dog, Bruzzer, who rates 13 references, including a detailed review of the dog's sad final days. 

In Kennedy assassination folklore this is also particularly relevant, inasmuch as we have been told repeatedly that Trafficante once told one Jose Aleman, Jr., a wealthy Cuban exile, that JFK was scheduled to be hit. However, interestingly enough, the rest of the story goes untold. According to J. Edgar Hoover biographer Curt Gentry, it was, in fact, Aleman's impression that although Trafficante may have been aware of assassination plot against Kennedy that Trafficante himself "wasn't principal architect." 365 Who, then, was? 

THE LANSKY-CIA ALLIANCE 

All of this is interesting about Rosselli and Trafficante, particularly in the context of their central involvement in CIA-Organized Crime assassination plots aimed at Fidel Castro who had seized control of Lansky's gambling operations in Havana. 

There is much, much more to the Rosselli-Trafficante link with Meyer Lansky that needs to be explored, for this connection opens up another area: Lansky's long-standing and intimate ties with Israel's allies in the CIA. Indeed, as we shall see in Chapter 12, Lansky's CIA linkage goes far beyond Cuba and the Caribbean. It even extended into Southeast Asia.

As we saw in Chapter 7 (and which has been repeatedly documented by perhaps hundreds of writers over and over again), organized crime—Meyer Lansky in particular—had much to lose when communist revolutionary Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. 

Prior to the advent of Castro, Cuba had been a primary gambling money-making base of operations for the Meyer Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate and its Mafia lieutenants. Anthony Summers summarizes the situation well: 

"Castro's predecessor, the dictator Batista, had long been a puppet on strings pulled by American intelligence and the mob. In 1944, when the United States feared trouble from the Cuban left, Lansky reportedly persuaded Batista to step down for a while. When he came back in 1952, it was after the current President, Carlos Prio Socarras, was persuaded to resign, a departure reportedly eased by a bribe of a quarter of a million dollars and a major stake in the casino business. 

"It was now that the gambling operation already established in Cuba became a Mafia bonanza  When the Batista regime began to crumble before a revolution of popular outrage, the mob hedged its political bets by courting Fidel Castro. 

"Many of the guns which helped him to power in 1959 had been provided courtesy of Mafia gunrunners, a policy which did not pay off. Lansky saw the writing on the wall and flew out of Havana the day Castro marched in."366 

Investigative reporter Jim Hougan described the relationship between the Meyer Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate and the Cubans—both Castro and his enemies. "The Mob's relationship to the arrivista Castro regime was a stormy one. On the one hand, some of its members had been active in the revolution, ferrying guns to Castro's guerrillas. On the other hand, the new Cuban premier seemed determined to eradicate those social evils that the Mob found most profitable: drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Castro had, moreover, jailed both Trafficante and Meyer Lansky's brother Jake in the wake of his triumphal march upon Havana."367 

However, the initial mob support for Castro went sour when Castro proved to be a danger to the Lansky syndicate's lucrative operations in Cuba. It was at this point, then, that the mob did a turn-around and began working against Castro. 

Although many syndicate figures still hoped that they could resume operations in Cuba after Castro was removed from office, Lansky was more realistic and practical. He began looking to the Bahamas as his next Caribbean gambling base of operations. 

Still, Lansky maintained his ties with the anti-Castro Cubans. It was during this period the CIA was preparing to move against Castro. Lansky would play a major role in that effort. 

For an even more obscure reason—one which has often gone unnoticed— perhaps unmentioned—Lansky had another reason to be disenchanted with Fidel Castro and supportive of anti-Castro Cuban elements. The fact is that many of the anti-Castro Cubans who had settled in Miami and elsewhere following Castro's rise to power were Cuban Jews. 

THE CUBAN 'JEWISH CONNECTION' 

American CIA-financed anti-Castro propagandist Paul D. Bethel, writing in the December 15, 1965 issue of the Latin America Report (subtitled the "Free Cuba News") gives us some interesting facts about the status of Jews in Cuba before and after the advent of Castro. Bethel noted that of a total of 11,000 Jews in Cuba at the time of Castro's takeover, only 1,900 remained at that time. The rest had already joined the anti-Castro Cuban colonies which had largely migrated to the Miami and New Orleans areas. Of those remaining, an additional 1,300 were leaving at the time of Bethel's report .368 

The affluent Cuban Jewish community was, in fact, an important faction within the overall anti-Castro Cuban community. This, coupled with Lansky's financial loss in Cuba, made him all the more inclined to strike against Castro in cooperation with the CIA.

 LANSKY AND THE 

ASSASSINATION PLOTS 

Although Anthony Summers' previously-cited book on the JFK conspiracy, aptly titled Conspiracy, devotes very little attention to Meyer Lansky's pivotal role in Organized Crime, he does make reference to a CIA anti-Castro operation funded by Lansky. 

CIA operative E. Howard Hunt put together the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of anti-Castro Cubans, headed by Manuel Antonio de Varona, a former president of the Cuban Senate. In fact, as Summers tells us, de Varona met with Lansky for financial support and also received funds through the Washington, D.C. firm of Edward K. Moss and Associates, which represented the interests of Lansky operatives Dino and Eddie Cellini.369 (In Chapter 9 we first met the aforementioned CIA operative, E. Howard Hunt, and learned how he was implicated, in a little-publicized libel trial, in the JFK conspiracy. In Chapter 16 we shall learn much more about the circumstances which led up to that trial.) 

Now although the famous CIA-Mafia assassination plots against Castro have been reported time and again, the key organized crime players in the tale are always the aforementioned Santo Trafficante, Jr., Johnny Rosselli and Sam Giancana of Chicago. 

Rosselli's biographers note that it was CIA contract agent Robert Maheu, a longtime acquaintance of Rosselli, who initiated the CIA's dealings with organized crime in the anti-Castro plots. 370 

(It was this same Maheu, a former FBI agent as well, who had worked directly under the former special-agent-in-charge of the Chicago FBI office, Guy Banister. 371 It was Banister, as we saw in Chapter 10, who was the direct link between the Lansky-Marcello-CIA gun-running on behalf of the anti-Castro Cuban network.)

Maheu, who had become friendly with Rosselli during business trips to Las Vegas, had been approached by the CIA to open up negotiations with the Mafia for this special, mutually beneficial, operation. Thus, the initial plot was set in place. However, there were subsequent developments: 

"Once the basic groundwork was laid, Rosselli decided to introduce two new players into the picture. One was Rosselli's Chicago boss, Sam Giancana, and the other was Santo Trafficante, Meyer Lansky's colleague in the Havana casinos. Trafficante's connections could prove helpful in moving the plots along, and besides, Mafia tradition required that as the local don, he be informed of any activity taking place in his domain."372 

There is no question that Trafficante, Rosselli and Giancana did indeed help coordinate assassination plots against Castro with representatives of the CIA. (This, as we have said, has been thoroughly documented time and again. To discuss this here would belabor the point.) 

However, as one author succinctly put it: "Lansky was the top man in the CIA-Mafia plot against Castro, but the only journalist who had guts enough to point this out was [columnist] Victor Riesel." 373 JFK assassination researcher Peter Dale Scott acknowledges that Lansky was indeed involved in the CIA plots against Castro,374 but, Lansky's role has been obscured, ignored, or otherwise gone unmentioned. 

In fact, as we shall see in Chapter 12 when we examine the Lansky/Trafficante relationship further, Trafficante was Lansky's subordinate. All of Trafficante's anti-Castro operations in league with the CIA were being conducted with Lansky's approval and under Lansky's watchful eye. 

The latter phase of the CIA's anti-Castro operations were known as Operation Mongoose Headquarters of the operation—known as JM/Wave— were in Lansky's own city of Miami and based on the campus of the University of Miami. Part of the CIA's campaign against Castro included its so called ZR/Rifle Team project. Skilled assassins, recruited from around the globe (and often from the ranks of professional mercenaries and from within organized crime) were on retainer for use in the CIA's own private "hit team" or terrorist army, as the case may be. One of the prime in-house supervisors of the ZR/Rifle Team project was the CIA's counterintelligence chief, Israel's loyal ally, James J. Angleton. 

ROSSELLI & THE JFK ASSASSINATION 

That Rosselli, for example, was entwined in some aspect of the JFK assassination conspiracy seems certain. Evidence suggests that Rosselli was definitely engaged in activities during the summer and fall of 1963 that tied him directly to several of the key figures in the assassination conspiracy. 

Rosselli's biographers themselves have suggested that Rosselli was indeed involved in the assassination itself. According to Rappleye and Becker: "The strongest indication that John Rosselli had a hand in the pre-assassination planning is a report of a direct contact between Rosselli and Jack Ruby in early October 1963. There were two meetings, both taking place in small motels near Miami, and both observed by the FBI. One of the federal investigators probing Rosselli's murder thirteen years later came across an FBI report on the meetings and relayed its contents, on a confidential basis, to Washington, D.C. reporter William Scott Malone. 

"An accomplished investigator himself, Malone said in an interview he was confident of the integrity of his source, and said the FBI had determined the actual site of the Miami meetings." 375 

According to Rappleye and Becker, Rosselli visited Guy Banister's office at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans. It was in the same controversial building that the Cuban Revolutionary Council (C.R.C) had an office. The C.R.C, as we saw in Chapter 9, was the brainchild of the CIA's chief liaison with the anti-Castro Cuban exiles, E. Howard Hunt, himself implicated in the JFK assassination.) 

Rosselli's biographers even go further, asking "Was Rosselli, in fact, in Dallas? FBI surveillance loses his trail on the West Coast between November 19 and November 27."376 

According to the Giancanas, the president was deliberately lured to Dallas where the operation could be carried off to the specifications of the plan. "The politicians and the CIA made it real simple," Sam Giancana explained. "We'd each provide men for the hit. I'd oversee the Outfit [Mafia] side of things and throw in Jack Ruby and some extra backup and the CIA would put their own guys on to take care of the rest." 377 

So it was that Johnny Rosselli and Sam Giancana—along with Santo Trafficante, Jr.—were brought into the JFK assassination conspiracy. 

The full story of Sam Giancana's role in much of these matters—the JFK assassination in particular—never became known until his own nephew and brother went public in 1992 with their book Double Cross. 

However, we now know that there was indeed a major Mossad influence at work in the affairs of Sam Giancana. 

SAM GIANCANA'S MOSSAD CONNECTION 

An eye-opening new book, Double Deal, bares new facts about the secret history of the famed Chicago "Mafia," revealing certain significant never-before-told details that further confirm the likelihood of Mossad involvement in the JFK assassination. 

The author of the new book, Michael Corbitt—the mobbed-up former chief of police of a Chicago suburbhas joined writer Sam Giancana,nephew of the legendary Chicago Mafia figure, in producing a startling expose that unveils, for the first time ever, the surprising identity of the little known "mystery man" who was the real "power behind the throne" in organized crime in Chicago and whose influenced reach all the way to Israel, Panama, Iran, Las Vegas and Washington,D.C. 

Despite his famous "Mafia" name, Corbitt's co-author, Giancana, was never involved in the family business and earlier wrote the account of the life and crimes of his late uncle, who had been murdered in 1975. Now Giancana is telling "the rest of the story."

Giancana and Corbitt dare to report something that has never been published anywhere before: that a shadowy Jewish, Mossad-connected gangster named Hyman "Hal" Lamer was the real, continuing behind-the scenes force guiding the Chicago mob for over thirty years. 

Despite the media-ballyhooed "revolving door" of Italian-American Mafia bosses such as Giancana and others who were alternately jailed or "whacked," it was Lamer who was continually in charge. Beyond that, the authors reveal that much of Lamer's criminal activity was conducted not only in concert with the CIA, but also, in particular, with the Mossad. 

Lamer was not just a major figure in Chicago crime, but on the international scene as well. He was also a longtime associate of Jewish crime chief Meyer Lansky but, effectively, Lansky's successor when Lansky died in 1983. 

According to Corbitt, he learned early on, during his mob days, of Larner's existence, although Larner's presence so high up in the mob was something neither government investigators nor a media (which was otherwise fascinated by the mob) wanted to focus on. Corbitt writes: 

"All the other Outfit guys were in the papers every day, their pictures plastered all over the front page of the Tribune. But when Hy Larner's name was mentioned in the papers, he was described only as an 'associate' or `protégé' or some gangster and nothing more than that. Nobody knew how deep his contacts went or how high up. Reporters called him a 'riddle" and a `mystery man.' 378 

As Corbitt himself advanced in organized crime circles under the patronage of Lamer's man, Giancana, Corbitt ultimately began to learn the secret of how and why the Chicago mob was able to operate so freely. It was the partnership with the Mossad—running guns to Israel–that gave the Chicago mob its 'get out of jail free' card as far as Israeli sympathizers high up in the Justice Department were concerned. Corbitt writes: 

"At the insistence of Meyer Lansky, [Giancana] and his pals started working with the Israeli Mossad, smuggling weapons in the Middle East. Everything was coming in and out of Panama, which meant that everything was being handled by Hy Lamer. Lamer was without a doubt Sam Giancana's most trusted financial adviser. He had everybody who was anybody in Panama—from bankers to generals—eating out of his hand. Once they started running guns to Israel, Lamer also had the U.S. military and its airstrips at his disposal."' 379 

And contrary to popular legend, they say—confirming what Final Judgment had already reported in earlier editions—it was not Giancana nor another famed Chicago mobster, Johnny Roselli, who cemented the now infamous CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, it was Meyer Lansky and Lamer. 

In addition, Corbitt and Giancana reveal, Lamer was also deeply enmeshed with two of Lansky's chief high-level lieutenants, Carlos Marcello in New Orleans and Santo Trafficante in Tampa. The two southern Mafia leaders were engaged with Lamer in lucrative guns and drugs smuggling operations in the Caribbean, not to mention gambling as well.

Larner and Lansky were particularly close. Corbitt and Giancana say that the two master criminals were "Zionists—passionate defenders of the divine right of Jews to occupy the Holy Land of Jerusalem. . . But Hy Lamer and Meyer Lansky weren't just Zionists, they were also mobsters who believed the end justifies the means. Put organized crime and the U.S. government at their disposal and you've got a very powerful force" 380 

Lamer and Giancana were also engaged in gambling deals with casinos based in Iran, then the fiefdom of the Shah of Iran whose infamous secret police, SAVAK, was a joint creation of the CIA and the Mossad—a major point of contention when Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the Shah and forced him into exile. 

Michael Harari.

Corbitt also reveals the amazing story of how Giancana (with Larner's help) finally got the U.S. Justice Department off his back. It turns out that as much as President Lyndon Johnson and his Zionist advisers wanted to wage war against Egypt and the other Arab states on behalf of Israel, U.S. entanglement in Vietnam made it impossible for Johnson to act. However, Giancana not only put up a substantial amount of money to help arm Israel for its 1967 war against the Arab countries, but, in addition, Lamer and Giancana arranged shipments of stolen weapons to Israel from one of their outposts in Panama, an operation conducted in league with the Mossad's Panamanian-based operative, Michael Harari. In return for this service on behalf of Israel, President Johnson ordered the Justice Department to drop its campaign against Giancana. 

In the end, though, the arrangement between Giancana and Lamer came to an end. Lamer, it appears, was almost certainly behind Giancana's 1975 murder. Lamer, however, continued to thrive, even as a series of Giancana's successors were faced with a continuing series of federal prosecutions, widely hailed by the media as "the end of the mob in Chicago." 

GIANCANA AND ROSSELLI EXECUTED 

Giancana was murdered execution style in his own home in Chicago on June 19, 1975. The Establishment media hyped it as yet another "Mafia killing." The Giancana family doesn't think that's what it was. They say it was a CIA double cross. (And clearly, too, the Mossad was involved.) As it just so happens, Giancana was killed the very day that congressional investigators were on their way to Chicago to interview the Mafia leader about reported CIA-organized crime plots against Castro. 

Sam and Chuck Giancana frankly assert in their own book that it may have been Johnny Rosselli who helped arrange Giancana's murder. According to the Giancanas they believe that the CIA contracted out the Giancana murder and that the CIA had arranged it through Trafficante. 

The Giancanas believe that Trafficante, in turn, saw to it that Rosselli arranged the Chicago hit on Sam Giancana. As they summarize matters: "Giancana's Outfit friends knew he never would have divulged damaging information; the CIA, rampant with spies and counterspies, crosses and double crosses, may not have been so certain of his loyalty."381

In any case, Johnny Rosselli never lived long enough to tell the true story of the CIA-Meyer Lansky Crime Syndicate operations in the Caribbean—and in Dallas. On July 28, 1976, Rosselli disappeared in Miami. On August 7, the flamboyant mobster's butchered corpse bobbed up in a drum from the bottom of the ocean. 

Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker note that there have been suspicions that it was indeed Trafficante, again, who may have even arranged the hit on Rosselli. However, they point out that there are many in the Mafia who do not believe this necessarily to be the case. 

In the judgment of Rosselli's biographers, "The CIA certainly had the contacts in Cuban Miami to pull off Rosselli's execution, and as it had demonstrated by enlisting him in the first place, it had the will. Even the evidence pointing to Trafficante did not rule out collaboration by the spy agency.” 382 

As the authors point out, Trafficante did indeed have very close connections with the CIA—connections that went above and beyond his dealings with the spy agency in anti-Castro operations. In Chapter 12 we shall see, indeed, that Trafficante, as Lansky's primary lieutenant in the Southeast Asian drug smuggling racket, developed even closer and more intimate ties to the CIA following the JFK assassination. 

Only Santo Trafficante, Jr., Meyer Lansky's subordinate, remained alive and, as the Giancana family notes, "conducted business without so much as a whisper of legal difficulty." 383 

The Giancanas point out: "One had only to read the newspapers to see that the focus of underworld crime busters was not on Tampa, Florida, but on its highly visible New York and Chicago cousins to the north." 384 

And by this time—the mid-1970's—Lansky himself was ailing and almost infirm. Trafficante himself died of kidney failure in 1987—just four years after Lansky. 

THE MAFIA AND THE MOSSAD 

The bottom line: anyone who attempts to view the JFK assassination as a "Mafia hit" is making a big mistake, failing to calculate in the role of Mossad-connected Meyer Lansky, his Chicago associate Hyman Lamer, and their allies in Israel's Mossad, not to mention the CIA itself. 

So, once again, the Mossad connection is very much there, although there are few "JFK assassination experts" who are willing to admit it. But there's more.

Chapter Twelve 

An Opiate for the Masses: 

The Lansky-CIA-Southeast 

Asian Drug Pipeline 

and the Mossad Connection 

Tampa, Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr. has frequently been mentioned as a possible mastermind behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The media has also portrayed Trafficante as the prime mover behind the international heroin racket operating out of Southeast Asia. However, the truth is that it was Meyer Lansky who was the primary architect of the global drug operations. Trafficante was his immediate underling. 

The Lansky heroin pipeline was conducted through the CIA-backed French Corsican Mafia in Marseille and used the CIA's covert activities in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War as a cover for its operations. In fact, all the evidence suggests that the drug smuggling was a joint CIA-Organized Crime venture. What's more, Lansky's chief drug money laundering bank in Switzerland was a Mossad operation. Thus, the Lansky Crime Syndicate/Mafia connections with Israel's allies in the CIA are even deeper and more intimate than we have been led to believe. 

Veteran JFK assassination researcher Peter Dale Scott has suggested that "the flood of drugs into this country since World War II was one of the major 'unspeakable' secrets leading to the ongoing cover-up of the Kennedy assassination."385 Scott is correct, for any careful, in-depth examination of the global drug racket shows conclusively that Israel's allies in the Lansky crime syndicate and the CIA are very much a part of the international drug racket. 

Students of the global drug trade are indebted to Professor Alfred McCoy of the prestigious University of Wisconsin at Madison for his ground-breaking expose of the real origins of the modern-day drug crisis. First published in 1972—despite the strongest efforts of the CIA to block its publication—McCoy's classic work, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, has withstood the test of time. 

In 1992 McCoy re-issued the work under the title The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. The new edition is an equally remarkable work which not only includes additional findings uncovered in the subsequent 20 years since its initial publication, but also a valuable preface in which McCoy outlines the CIA operations against his research and the publication of the book. 

THE DRUG BOSS

Although the Establishment media has repeatedly pinpointed Santo Trafficante, Jr., Mafia boss of Tampa, as the brains behind the Southeast Asian drug traffic, McCoy makes it very clear that Trafficante was simply operating as Lansky's underling. McCoy describes the origins of the Lansky-Trafficante relationship: 

"During the 1930's Meyer Lansky 'discovered' the Caribbean for northeastern syndicate bosses and invested their illegal profits in an assortment of lucrative gambling ventures. In 1933 Lansky moved into the Miami Beach area and took over most of the illegal off-track betting and a variety of hotels and casinos. He was also reportedly responsible for organized crime's decision to declare Miami a 'free city' (that is, not subject to the usual rules of territorial monopoly). 

"Following his success in Miami, Lansky moved to Havana for three years, and by the beginning of World War II he owned the Hotel Nacional's casino and was leasing the municipal racetrack from a reputable New York bank. 

"Burdened by the enormous scope of his holdings, Lansky had to delegate much of his responsibility for daily management to local gangsters. One of Lansky's earliest associates in Florida was Santo Trafficante, Sr., a Sicilian-born Tampa gangster. Trafficante had earned his reputation as an effective organizer in the Tampa gambling rackets and was already a figure of some stature when Lansky first arrived in Florida. By the time Lansky returned to New York in 1940, Trafficante had assumed responsibility for Lansky's interests in Havana and Miami. 

TRAFFICANTE THE FRONT MAN 

"By the early 1950's Trafficante had himself become such an important figure that he delegated his Havana concessions to Santo Trafficante, Jr., the most talented of his six sons. The younger Santo's official position in Havana was that of manager of the Sans Souci Casino, but he was far more important than his title indicates. 

"As his father's financial representative, and ultimately Meyer Lansky's, Santo Jr. controlled much of Havana's tourist industry and became quite close to the pre-Castro dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Moreover, it was reportedly his responsibility to receive bulk shipments of heroin from Europe and forward them through Florida to New York and other major urban centers, where the distribution was assisted by the local Mafia bosses." 386 

LANSKY MOVES TO THE TOP 

Lansky biographer Hank Messick makes it very clear that it was Trafficante Jr. who played a key role in ensuring Lansky's dominance over syndicate gambling in Cuba. It was Trafficante who helped orchestrate the assassination in 1957 of Lansky rival, New York Mafia figure Albert Anastasia, the most vocal Italian Mafia critic of Lansky's growing influence in the Cuban gambling rackets. Anastasia's removal from the scene was vital to Lansky's ultimate dominance. 

Messick notes that Trafficante got caught in the middle between Albert Anastasia and Lansky over the Havana gambling. Not only did Trafficante opt to abandon his fellow Italian Mafia figure, but Trafficante also swore a blood oath Mafia-style, assuring Lansky of his support. 

"So long as the blood flows in my body," he intoned solemnly, "do I, Santo Trafficante, swear allegiance to the will of Meyer Lansky and the organization he represents. If I violate this oath, may I burn in hell forever."387 

He signed it in his own blood. It was shortly thereafter, on October 25, 1957, that Anastasia was shot dead after what he wrongly believed to have been a friendly meeting in New York with Trafficante. Anastasia should have known what was coming. After all, according to Messick, he had, shortly before, told his fellow Mafia figures what he thought of them: "You bastards have sold yourselves to the Jews."388 

(Interestingly enough, Lansky's friendly biographical cheerleader, Robert Lacey, never mentions the Lansky-Anastasia stand-off that led to the Lansky rival's murder.) 

Organized crime authority Dan Moldea summarized the LanskyTrafficante relationship best and most succinctly: "Trafficante was deeply devoted to Lansky." 389 

THE MAFIA UNDER FIRE 

It was shortly after Albert Anastasia's murder that public attention began focusing on Organized Crime as a result of media publicity. It was not, in fact, until the infamous Mafia conclave at Appalachian, New York, in 1957 that the media began hyping "the Mafia" as a major force in organized crime. 

Americans had long been aware of legendary mobsters such as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, but general awareness that a national crime syndicate did indeed exist was not commonplace. 

Following a police raid of the Appalachian conference attended exclusively by top Mafia figures from around the country, Trafficante included—public attention began focusing on "the Mafia"—thanks to the media. 

The official story has always been that a local policeman just happened to stumble upon the conclave at the home of Mafia figure Joseph Barbara. The officer called in reinforcements and a major "bust" took place, following a heated chase of the Mafia figures through the briars and brambles of the rural countryside. 

However, according to Hank Messick, the police had been tipped off by a Lansky associate that the meeting was about to take place. Messick described the consequences of the Appalachian raid: 

"The delegates were scattered before any alliance could be reached. And the publicity caused the greatest heat since the 1930's. It focused not only on the men who attended the session but on the entire Mafia. What's more, it continued for well over a year as state and federal officials tried to find some charge to stick against the delegates they had captured or identified. Not only were Mafia leaders immobilized by the continuing publicity, but also they were demoralized. Almost instinctively they rallied to Lansky and other non-Mafia syndicate leaders for advice and assistance."390 

(Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the attorneys who played a key role in the Appalachian investigation was one Justin Finger. It was Finger who later went on to become chief of the "civil rights division" of the Lansky financed Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the primary intelligence and propaganda arm of Israel's Mossad in the United States.) 

Despite all this, as Messick notes, Trafficante himself stood to benefit. According to Messick: "Trafficante was a little annoyed at the publicity he received—after being picked up with the rest—but was soon mollified when he discovered he was now being hailed as the Mafia boss of Florida by the press. Glory was as important as loot to the Mafia mind."391 

Clearly, a close working relationship between Lansky and Trafficante had been cemented. It continued for many years, up to and including—and beyond—the critical year of 1963. It was in 1970, however, that Lansky, preparing to take refuge in Israel, turned over most of his responsibilities to his subordinate, Santo Trafficante, Jr. By this time Lansky was aging and in ill health. He was ready to move into retirement. 

In 1968—just two years earlier—Trafficante had journeyed to Saigon, Hong Kong and Singapore. It was there in the exotic East that he was solidifying the longtime relationship between Lansky and the CIA in the international drug racket. 

WHO'S THE BOSS? 

Here we turn once again to Professor Alfred McCoy for an elucidation of Lansky's ties with the CIA in the Southeast Asian drug racket and the covert part it played in the CIA's involvement in the Vietnam conflict. McCoy writes: 

"After Mafia kingpin Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was deported from the United States in 1946, he charged his longtime associate Meyer Lansky with the responsibility of managing his financial empire. Lansky also played a key role in organizing Luciano's heroin syndicate: he supervised smuggling operations, negotiated with Corsican heroin manufacturers, and managed the collection and concealment of the enormous profits 

"Lansky's control over the Caribbean and his relationship with the Florida-based Trafficante family were of particular importance, since many of the heroin shipments passed through Cuba or Florida on their way to America's urban markets. For almost twenty years the Luciano-LanskyTrafficante partnership remained a major feature of the international heroin traffic." 392 

McCoy notes further: "There is reason to believe that Meyer Lansky's 1949-1950 European tour was instrumental in promoting Marseille's heroin industry. After crossing the Atlantic in a luxury liner, Lansky visited Lucky Luciano in Rome, where they discussed the narcotics trade. He then traveled to Zurich and contacted prominent Swiss bankers through John Pullman, an old friend from the rum running days. 

"These negotiations established the financial labyrinth that organized crime used for decades to smuggle its enormous gambling and heroin profits out of the country into numbered Swiss bank accounts without attracting the notice of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. 

"Pullman was responsible for the European end of Lansky's financial operation: depositing, transferring, and investing the money when it arrived in Switzerland."393 

THE MOSSAD DRUG LINK 

As we noted in Chapter 7, Lansky biographer Hank Messick himself pointed out that, ultimately, Pullman's chief Swiss depository for Lansky's drug money was the Banque de Credit International (BCI), established in 1959. This bank, as we have seen, was the brainchild of longtime Israeli Mossad officer Tibor Rosenbaum. In Chapter 15 we shall examine the Lansky-Rosenbaum-BCI link to the JFK assassination in detail. 

According to Messick, "Once safely deposited in numbered accounts at BCI and other banks], it could be invested in the stock market or returned in the form of loans to individuals and corporations controlled by the National Crime Syndicate." 394 (Pullman, who had moved from Lansky's base in Miami beach to Montreal was Lansky's lieutenant in charge of that phase of the international drug operations.) 

THE CORSICAN MAFIA 

McCoy describes Lansky's European sojourn further: "After making the financial arrangements with Pullman in Switzerland, Lansky traveled through France, where he met with high-ranking Corsican syndicate leaders on the Riviera and in Paris. After lengthy discussions, Lansky and the Corsicans are reported to have arrived at some sort of agreement concerning the international heroin traffic. 

"Soon after Lansky returned to the United States, heroin laboratories began appearing in Marseille. In future years, U.S. narcotics experts were to estimate that the majority of America's heroin supply was being manufactured in Marseille.” 395 

McCoy notes that the European phase of the Lansky drug operations gradually began moving out of the hands of Lansky's associates in the Sicilian Mafia to the Marseille area in France, under the domination of the Corsican Mafia. 396 

All of this took place at the same time Israel's friend in the American O.S.S (and later the CIA), James Angleton was engaged in the region, assisting the emigration of European Jews to Palestine. (In Chapter 8 we examined Angleton's role in these affairs further, including his links to the Corsican Mafia and to BCI founder Tibor Rosenbaum.) 

LANSKY, THE CIA AND 

THE CORSICAN MAFIA 

McCoy explains how the CIA had developed ties with Lansky's partners in the Corsican Mafia: "The CIA . . . had sent agents and a psychological warfare team to Marseille, where they dealt directly with Corsican syndicate leaders through the Guerini brothers [Antoine and Barthelemy, leaders of the Corsican Mafia]." 397 

"The CIA's operatives supplied arms and money to Corsican gangs for assaults on Communist picket lines and harassment of important union officials. The communists had amassed much political clout in the region and the CIA utilized the Corsican Mafia to shatter the communists' strength. 

"The Guerinis gained enough power and status from their role in smashing the 1947 strike to emerge as the new leaders of the Corsican underworld. While the CIA was instrumental in restoring the Corsican underworld's political influence, it was not until the 1950 dock strike that the Guerinis gained enough power to take control of the Marseille waterfront. 

"The combination of political influence and control of the docks created the ideal environment for the growth of Marseille's heroin laboratories— fortuitously at the same time that Mafia boss Lucky Luciano was seeking an alternative source of heroin supply." 398 

THE VIETNAMESE DRUG LINK 

As McCoy notes further, the CIA had also began flexing its muscles in Southeast Asia, where the drug trade originated. McCoy describes the CIA's relationship with the indigenous drug racketeers: 

"In Laos from 1960 to 1975, the CIA created a secret army of 30,000 Hmong tribesmen to battle Laotian Communists near the border with North Vietnam. Since the Hmong's main cash crop was opium, the CIA adopted a complicit posture toward the traffic, allowing the Hmong commander, General Vang Po, to use the CIA's Air America to collect opium from his scattered highland villages. 

"In late 1969, the CIA's various covert action clients opened a network of heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle. In their first years of operation, these laboratories exported high-grade no. 4 heroin to U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam. After their withdrawal, the Golden Triangle laboratories exported directly to the United States, capturing one-third of the American heroin market." 399 

Thus it was that the Meyer Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate had developed a close working relationship with the CIA. 

Sam Giancana's family biographers stated flatly that Giancana claimed that in exchange for the underworld services of the Organized Crime Syndicate, "the CIA looked the other way—allowing over $100 million a year in illicit drugs to flow through Havana into the United States. 

"It was an arrangement similar to all the rest they'd made, he said. The CIA received 10 percent of the take on the sale of narcotics, which they utilized 'for their undercover slush fund.' Such illegally earned monies were stashed away by the CIA in Swiss, Italian, Bahamian, and Panamanian accounts." 400 

Further, according to the Giancanas, when Sam Giancana was engaged in various and sundry rackets he conventionally shared his profits with other Organized Crime bosses depending on the region or activity in question. "Largely," they pointed out, "Giancana's international deals involved Lansky and whomever else they needed to take care of at the time."401 

The two primary CIA figures in Southeast Asia during the time of the Lansky-CIA drug smuggling collaboration were, interestingly enough, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines. Shackley was chief of station for the CIA in Laos. Clines served as Shackley's immediate deputy. 402 

As we saw in Chapter 11, it was Shackley and Clines who had supervised the CIA's Operation Mongoose, the code name for the CIA/Lansky Crime Syndicate assassination plots against Castro, operating at a headquarters on the University of Miami campus. It was this operation that came to be known as JM/Wave. 

Operation Mongoose, it turns out, was under the direction of General Edward Lansdale whom, assassination researcher Bernard Fensterwald notes later "reportedly cultivated a close relationship with the Corsican Mafia during his controversial service in Vietnam." 403 

Interestingly enough, it was Shackley and Clines—upon "retiring" from the CIA who set up an arms dealing agency—the Egyptian Transport Service Company. 404 "This firm worked closely with Israel's Mossad figure Shaul Eisenberg's Aviation Trade and Service Company ." 405 Eisenberg, in fact, was a major player in Israel's nuclear arms development program—the very operation that created the crisis between John F. Kennedy and Israel. The plot clearly comes full circle. 

The role of Lansky in all of these activities, however, has been carefully ignored, even by writers—Alfred McCoy, the notable exception— who have exposed the CIA's role in the global drug racket. 

COVERING UP THE 

LANSKY CONNECTION 

In Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World, journalist Jonathan Kwitny takes several pages to outline the CIA-backed drug trafficking networks operating out of Southeast Asia and using the CIA allied Corsican crime families as a central distribution source. 

Kwitny points out the role of Charles "Lucky" Luciano in establishing the initial networks which also utilized the Sicilian crime families in the Mediterranean. Kwitny even acknowledges Alfred McCoy's work as "the best published documentation of all of this." 406

However, interestingly enough, Kwitny does not once mention Meyer Lansky's pivotal role in formally establishing the Luciano-launched global drug network, despite the fact that Kwitny cited McCoy as "the best published" source on the history of the drug network. Nor does Kwitny make reference to Santo Trafficante, Jr., Lansky's chief lieutenant and primary heir in the global drug racket. 

This is all particularly interesting when one realizes that in the recent furor over the JFK assassination conspiracy (resulting from the release of Oliver Stone's JFK film) that Kwitny himself is one of the primary promoters of the theory that "The Mafia Killed JFK." According to Kwitny, the principal architect of the crime was, by his estimation, more than likely New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello—who, as we have seen, was one of Lansky's local front men.407 Evidently Kwitny—like others who claim that "The Mafia Killed JFK"—doesn't want to acknowledge that Meyer Lansky even existed. 

It is also worth mentioning as well that Lansky's friendly biographer, Robert Lacey, writing in his 1991 biography of Lansky goes to great lengths to suggest that Lansky had no part in the international drug racket. This, as we have seen, is par for the course as far as Lacey's attitude toward Lansky is concerned. 

However, Rachel Ehrenfeld, one of the world's leading experts on the drug combine and its connections with global terrorism, writes in her book Evil Money that "there exists reliable evidence to the contrary. “ 408 

She cites an interview she conducted with a former congressional special investigator for organized crime. She reports that she was "reassured that the evidence for Lansky's illegal dealings was ample and that Lacey must have been the victim of his close dealings with Lansky's former associates and family."409 

FRENCH ASSASSINS? 

Considering the CIA's alliance with Lansky's allies in the Corsican Mafia, it is interesting to consider here that there are those who believe that the Corsican Mafia or other French elements may have played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There is evidence, indeed, that at least one French mercenary did show up in Dallas the day JFK was slain. 

Writing in Reasonable Doubt, Henry Hurt explores one aspect of the so-called "French connection" in some detail. He describes the possible role of a French OAS terrorist in the assassination. 

As we saw in Chapter 6 and in Chapter 9, the OAS was comprised of CIA-backed French forces who opposed granting independence to the French colony in Arab Algeria. This led them into direct confrontation with French President Charles DeGaulle who granted Algerian independence. 

As a member of the Senate, as we saw in Chapter 4, John F. Kennedy had called for Algerian independence, in opposition to the OAS. Israel itself had a stake in continued French domination of Algeria in that French occupation of Algeria was a direct obstacle in the path of Arab nationalism. (In Chapter 15 we will examine Israel's covert ties to the OAS.) 

Hurt cites a CIA document discovered in 1977 by Mary Ferrell, Dallas researcher: "The document, dated April 1, 1964, reported that the French intelligence service wanted help in locating one Jean Souetre, a French OAS terrorist considered a threat to the safety of French President Charles DeGaulle. 

"The document asserted that Jean Souetre was in Fort Worth, Texas, on the morning of November 22, 1963. That morning President Kennedy also was in Fort Worth. A few hours later, John F. Kennedy was in Dallas, where, at 12:30 p.m. he was assassinated. Also in Dallas that afternoon was Jean Souetre. 

"Within forty-eight hours of Kennedy's death, according to the query from the French, Jean Souetre was picked up by U.S. authorities in Texas. He was immediately expelled from the United States. French intelligence wanted to ascertain whether he was expelled to Canada or Mexico. 

"The French also wanted to know why the U.S. authorities had expelled Souetre. The simple purpose was to ensure the safety of President DeGaulle on his pending trip to Mexico." 410 

Hurt notes that the original document also noted that Souetre used the names Michel Roux and Michel Mertz. Roux happened to be in Fort Worth on November 22, having entered the country on November 19 and leaving at Laredo, Texas on December 6. He was not expelled. When questioned later, Souetre said that Mertz was an old enemy who often used his name and may have been trying to implicate him in misdeeds. 

THE HUNT CONNECTION 

Interestingly enough, it was CIA man E. Howard Hunt (whom we first met in Chapter 9) who was one of the CIA's point men in the dealings with Souetre and OAS intelligence 411 That the two may have been in Dallas— perhaps even together—during the time of the JFK assassination is intriguing, to say the very least and yet another of the details that, taken together, demonstrate continuing intimate connections between persons and institutions that have (elsewhere) been repeatedly linked to the JFK assassination conspiracy. 

In Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 we shall see that Israeli Mossad/ Lansky-- linked elements in New Orleans and elsewhere funneled money to the OAS for a 1962 assassination attempt against Charles DeGaulle and that, indeed, these same elements are tied directly to the JFK assassination. 

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN 

Professor Alfred McCoy summarizes the covert links between the CIA and organized crime around the world: 

"Since prohibition of narcotics in the 1920's, alliances between drug brokers and intelligence agencies have protected the global narcotics traffic.Given the frequency of such alliances, there seems a natural attraction between intelligence agencies and criminal syndicates . . . Both are practitioners of what one retired CIA operative has called the 'clandestine arts'—the basic skill of operating outside the normal channels of civil society. Among all the institutions of modern society, intelligence agencies and criminal syndicates alone maintain large organizations capable of carrying out covert operations without fear of detection." 412 

Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana's family biographers have written of Giancana's own elaboration on this relationship. They described how Giancana showed his brother an ancient Roman coin and declared: "Look, this is one of the Roman gods. This one has two faces . . . two sides. That's what we are, the Outfit and the CIA—two sides of the same coin" 413 

ISRAEL, THE CIA AND 

THE DRUG COMBINE 

All the evidence we have covered here suggests that the CIA and the Meyer Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate were indeed partners in many areas of mutual concern—not only in Cuba and in the Southeast Asian drug racket—but also in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

And as we saw in Chapter 6, Lansky's allies in Israel stood much to benefit from American involvement in Southeast Asia. 

While Israel was using America's engagement in and preoccupation with the Vietnam conflict as a means whereby Israel could flex its muscle in the Middle East, the Lansky narcotics network was using its partnership with the CIA during the Vietnam War as a cover for its drug-smuggling. 

And as we have seen in Chapter 8, the CIA and Israel itself had long and close ties equally as incestuous of those of the Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate and Israel. That Israel had its own difficulties with John F. Kennedy we have already seen. Likewise with the Mafia and the Lansky Syndicate. In Chapter 9 we reviewed the CIA's own problems with John F. Kennedy. Clearly, this alliance of forces against JFK was such that there was really no way John F. Kennedy could have ever completed his first term in the White House.

To be continued...next....

Chapter Thirteen 

Israel's California Connection: 

Mickey Cohen and the JFK Assassination Conspiracy

footnotes

Chapter Eleven Cuban Love Song 

365 Curt Gentry. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991) , p. 496. 

366 Anthony Summers. Conspiracy. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980), pp. 266-267. 

367 Jim Hougan. Spooks: The Haunting of America—The Private use of Secret Agents. (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1988), pp. 335-226. 

368 Free Cuba News, December 15, 1965. 

369 Summers, p. 193. 

370 Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker. All American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli Story. (New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 189. 

371 Robert Morrow. The Senator Must Die: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy. (Santa Monica, CA: Roundtable Publishing, Inc., 1988), p. 59. 

372 Rappleye and Becker, Ibid. 

373 Yipster Times (no date available) 

374 Peter Dale Scott. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993), p. 180. 

375 Rappleye and Becker, p. 245. 

376 Ibid., p. 256. 

377 Giancana., p. 334. 

378 Michael Corbitt & Sam Giancana. Double Deal. (New York: William Morrow), p.31 

379 Ibid., pp. 108-109. 

380 Ibid.,p. 109. 

381 Giancana, Double Cross, p. 354. 

382 Rappleye and Becker, p. 327. 

383 Giancana, Double Cross, p. 355. 

384 Ibid., pp. 354-355. 

Chapter Twelve :An Opiate for the Masses 

385 Scott, p. 71. 

386 Alfred McCoy. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991), pp. 40-41. 387 Hank Messick. Lansky. (New York: Berkley Medallion Books, 1971), pp. 210-211. 

388 Ibid. 

389 Dan Moldea. The Hoffa Wars: Teamsters, Rebels, Politicians and the Mob, (New York: Paddington Press Ltd., 1978), p. 123. 

390 Messick, p. 215. 

391 Ibid. 

392 McCoy, p. 40. 

393 Ibid., pp. 44-45.

394 Messick, p. 199.

395 McCoy, Ibid. 

396 Ibid., pp. 64-65. 

397 Ibid., pp. 60-61. 

398 Ibid. 

399 Ibid. p. 19. 

400 Sam Giancana and Chuck Giancana. Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America. (New York: Warner Books, 1992), p. 259. 

401 Ibid., p. 258. 

402 McCoy, p. 462. 

403 Bernard Fensterwald and the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. Coincidence or Conspiracy? (New York: Zebra Books, 1977), p. 187. 

404 McCoy, p. 477. 

405 Executive Intelligence Review. Project Democracy: The 'Parallel Government' Behind the Iran-Contra Affair. (Washington, D.C.: EIR News Service, 1987), p. 287. 

406 Jonathan Kwitny. Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World. (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 331. 

407 The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1991. 

408 Rachel Ehrenfeld. Evil Money: Encounters Along the Money Trail. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992), p. 259. 

409 Ibid. 

410 Henry Hurt. Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1985), pp. 417-419. 

411 Dick Russell. The Man Who Knew Too Much. (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1992), p. 563 

412 McCoy, p. 14 

413 Giancana, p. 215.