{"id":234821,"date":"2023-11-23T08:50:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T03:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=234821"},"modified":"2023-12-03T18:18:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T12:48:36","slug":"six-seconds-in-dallas-the-assassination-of-president-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/six-seconds-in-dallas-the-assassination-of-president-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Seconds In Dallas: The Assassination Of President Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>By <a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Jayantha+Somasundaram\">Jayantha Somasundaram<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_200646\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-200646\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-200646\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Jayantha-Somasundaram-e1555571877215-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Jayantha-Somasundaram-e1555571877215-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Jayantha-Somasundaram-e1555571877215-45x45.jpg 45w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-200646\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jayantha Somasundaram<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\">Sixty years ago it was 12:30pm 22<span class=\"s1\"><sup>nd<\/sup><\/span> November 1963 at Dealey Plaza in Dallas Texas. President <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=John+F+Kennedy\">John F. Kennedy<\/a><\/span>\u2019s Motorcade was on Elm Street, moving at 18 kmph. The Presidential Limousine was number two in the Motorcade, following the lead police car. In the limousine next to the driver sat Roy Kellerman, ranking Secret Service Agent (the presidential protective detail) behind them in the jump seats were Texas Governor John and Nellie Connally, and behind them were President John and Jackie Kennedy. Then came six seconds of gunfire; Kennedy and Connally were hit, the President fatally. Forty five minutes later at Parkland Memorial Hospital President Kennedy was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A week later <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_F._Kennedy\">Kennedy<\/a><\/span>\u2019s successor President Lyndon Johnson appointed a six-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earle Warren, and including future President Gerald Ford and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Allen Dulles, to investigate the assassination. In September 1964 they presented their findings in what has come to be called the Warren Commission Report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Warren Commission concluded that 24-year old Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy without the aid or instigation of a third party. That using a Mannlicher-Carcano Carbine he fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building in Dealey Plaza where he worked.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>He then took a bus and a taxi, arriving at his home at 1:00pm, leaving shortly thereafter armed with a pistol. When confronted by police officer Tippit at 1:15 Oswald shot and killed him. After he was arrested that afternoon in a cinema he was held in a Dallas jail until the 24<span class=\"s1\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span> when nightclub owner Jack L. Ruby, also acting alone, shot and killed him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">All the doctors who treated Kennedy at Parkland Memorial were explicit: The cause of death was a massive head injury from a gunshot wound at the left temple. Besides the head injuries there were other wounds, a back wound nearly six inches below the collar alongside Kennedy\u2019s spine and a throat wound in front.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">If the wound at his left temple and throat were entry wounds they could not have originated from the Book Depository because at the time of the shooting that building was positioned almost directly behind the Motorcade. Moreover nearly two-thirds of the witnesses questioned as to the origin of the gun shots, identified a grassy knoll located in front of the Motorcade as their source.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Magic Bullet<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Commission claimed that Oswald\u2019s rifle could fire a bullet every 2.3 seconds. On the basis of cine films taken by spectators in Dealey Plaza it was established that the firing had lasted six seconds. Hence a maximum of three bullets could have been fired by Oswald\u2019s weapon in the given time. One bullet missed the Motorcade and embedded itself in the pavement. If another was responsible for the head wounds then the third bullet had to have inflicted all the other wounds. So it would have had to enter Kennedy\u2019s back torso and in the words of the Warren Report: \u2018pierced the President\u2019s throat and also caused Governor Connally\u2019s wounds.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Warren Commission therefore created the \u2018magic bullet\u2019 which was fired from the Book Depository into Kennedy\u2019s back, then turned through 120\u00ba and travelled up his body, turned through another 120\u00ba at his neck where it exited<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>and then went on to inflict the wounds in Connally\u2019s back, wrist and leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><b>Ex-Secret Service agent reveals new JFK assassination detail<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Six decades later, new details are still coming to light in one of the most scrutinised events in American history: the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former Secret Service agent who witnessed the president&#8217;s death at close range, says in an upcoming memoir that he took a bullet from the car after Mr Kennedy was shot, and then left it on the former president&#8217;s stretcher at the hospital. It might seem like a minute detail in a case that has been pored over since the 1960s, but to individuals who have spent decades looking at every shred of evidence; Mr Landis&#8217;s account is a major and unexpected development. ~ <b>BBC News 13 September 2023<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">At 12:44 by which time all other police patrol cars were ordered to converge on Dealey Plaza, Police Officer J.D.Tippit was detailed to Central Oak Cliff \u2013 the location of his death \u2013 \u2018so that you will be at large for any emergency that comes in.\u2019 Witnesses said that Tippit\u2019s killer placed his elbows on the car window and appeared to be chatting with the officer. Had Tippit accosted his killer suspicious that he was the President\u2019s assassin, the least he would have done was draw his gun and step out of the police car.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The only witness who claims that he saw Oswald fire at the President was Howard Brennan. He provided a description of Oswald to Secret Service Agent Sorrel after one pm. Tippit was shot at 1:15. At 12:45 however the Dallas Police had broadcast a description of Oswald. Moreover when Oswald was arrested that afternoon he was charged with Tippit\u2019s killing; only twenty four hours later would Oswald be told that he would be charged with the assassination of the President. So why was Tippit\u2019s killer wanted by the Dallas Police half an hour before Tippit was shot?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">How reliable in any case was Brennan as a witness. Though he provided an accurate description of Oswald minutes after the assassination, just hours later that day he failed to pick Oswald out of a police line up! Brennan also told police that through the sixth floor window of the Book Depository he could see Oswald walking about. But the upper portion of that window was shut. So the Oswald that Brennan saw must have been walking about on his knees!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Jack Ruby<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Once Oswald was identified as the President\u2019s assassin it would be assumed that he was securely guarded and protected. Then how did Ruby get close enough to him in the Dallas Police garage to be able to kill him? Ruby who ran a couple of nightclubs in Dallas was said to be on speaking terms with about \u201c700 of the 1,200 men on the police force.\u201d There were standing orders that policemen and their guests be served anything on the house. In addition he also \u201cmade women available to officers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">When Ruby appeared before the Warren Commission he was warned by both the Police and the Secret Service not to disclose certain matters. So he requested a transfer to Washington so that they \u201cmight get a fair shake out of him&#8230; Gentlemen,\u201d he said \u201cmy life is in danger here.\u201d He also said \u201csomeone in the Police Department is guilty of giving the information as to when Oswald was coming down (to the garage where he was killed).\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">On November 14<span class=\"s1\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span> a meeting took place in Ruby\u2019s night club. The participants were Ruby, Tippit and Bernard Weisman, one of the leaders of the political right in Dallas. A crude but signed defamatory advertisement attacking the President was taken out by Weisman in the 22<span class=\"s1\"><sup>nd<\/sup><\/span> Dallas<i> Morning News.<\/i><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Ruby was identified hours before the assassination on the grassy knoll sporting a gun case and he was at Parkland Memorial after the assassination. Ruby was associated with elements of the US Armed Forces who were running guns to anti-Castro forces in Cuba. In a letter to the then Director of the CIA Richard Helms, Warren Commission Lawyers remarked that Ruby \u201cwas involved with members of the underworld&#8230;A Government informant in Chicago has reported that such Cubans (involved in gun-running to Cuba) were behind the Kennedy assassin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Fate of Witnesses<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Interestingly witnesses like Mrs Tice who had identified Ruby at Parkland were harassed and threatened. Other witnesses suffered worse. One witness was shot through the head. Another hanged herself to death in the Dallas jail. After another witness was interviewed by independent investigators her son was arrested and injured when he fell out of a window in an alleged attempt to escape from the Dallas Police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Two reporters visited Ruby\u2019s apartment just after he had killed Oswald. One, a writer for the Dallas <i>Times Herald<\/i> was found dead in his Dallas apartment, the victim of a karate attack; the Dallas Police were unable to find his killer. The other a former Dallas resident and a prize-winning reporter for a California newspaper was shot to death in a California police station; the police were able to locate his killer \u2013 he was a local police officer. An eyewitness to the Tippit murder Mrs Acquilla Clemons stated that she was implicitly threatened with harm by a Dallas police officer if she disclosed what she had seen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Abraham Bolden the first Black to serve on the White House Secret Service detail announced that he wanted to testify before the Warren Commission, because he was aware of the failure of the Service to take adequate precautions. Bolden was indicted by the Federal Government and charged with trying to sell government files.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Marina Oswald, Lee\u2019s Russian widow had from the outset insisted on her husband\u2019s innocence. But after she was threatened with deportation by Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) her testimony changed. Jean Hill who had seen Ruby in Dealey Plaza soon after the assassination said that \u201cthe FBI was here for days. They practically lived here. They just didn\u2019t like what I told them I had seen and heard when the President was assassinated. For years I have told the truth, but I have two children to support. I am a public school teacher. My Principal said that it would be best not to talk about the assassination, and I just can\u2019t go through it all again. I can\u2019t believe the Warren Report. I know it\u2019s all a lie, because I was there when it happened!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cTo believe the Warren Commission\u201d writes Robert Anson in <i>They\u2019ve Killed the President<\/i>, \u201cyou have to believe that bullets pause in midair and make ninety degree right hand turns; that a poor marksman can do what experts cannot; that Newtonian laws of motion were not operating on November 22, that a man can be in two places at once; that atoms are able to change their structure; that everything in life is mere chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>The Hell Hole<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">What was the political climate in Dallas that November day in 1963?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cGod made big people like Kennedy. And God made little people like me\u201c drawled one Dallas resident. \u201cBut Colt made the .45 to even things out. \u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Dallas residents sported \u2018KO the Kennedys\u2019 car stickers. There were lewd jokes about the hotline to the Vatican that ended in a Rome Sewer. On the eve of the assassination Protestant intolerance reached its zenith. A Baptist Convention was told \u201cone of the greatest blunders in history was the election of a Roman Catholic President.\u201d And that in future one should not vote Democrat or Republican but Protestant.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A Dallas newspaper accused Kennedy of being a follower of \u2018the communist line, which is atheistic and godless.\u2019 That Kennedy would \u2018take a man\u2019s income tax and without his permission spend it abroad as foreign aid in countries that deny a supreme creator!\u2019<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">When the President landed in Dallas he faced placards which read \u2018Kennedy Khrushchev and (Martin Luther) King\u2019 and \u2018Kennedy the Communist Party wants you re-elected.\u2019<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As the Presidential party embarked at Forth Worth Airport one of the local drivers asked Kennedy\u2019s Special Assistant Larry O\u2019Brian: Flying to Dallas? And when the latter nodded the man said \u201cThat\u2019s the hell hole of the world!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>The CIA<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">They still call it the years of lightening. The thousand days that President John Kennedy occupied the White House bringing into it the ideals of the New Frontier. But it was also a thousand day running war with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA was the \u2018invisible government.\u2019 It had its private armies at Katanga in the Congo as well as in Laos. It had its own airline \u2013 it was a state within a state. What was more, the CIA saw no future in toning down the Cold War as President Kennedy proposed. They distrusted the Kennedy brothers whom they saw as \u2018doves\u2019 and held them responsible for the \u2018loss\u2019 of Cuba.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The CIA viewed with alarm proposals for arms limitation, banning of nuclear weapons tests and the accommodation of liberation movements in South East Asia. In fact President Kennedy had already ordered the US military disengagement from Vietnam and summoned his Ambassador in Saigon Henry Lodge to review progress in Washington on 24<span class=\"s1\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span> November. The CIA persisted with nuisance raids on Cuba and three weeks before Kennedy\u2019s assassination had against Presidential orders, deposed of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in a bloody military coup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The insubordination of the CIA infuriated and embarrassed the President and his brother Robert Kennedy, the Attorney-General. President Kennedy responded by removing CIA Director Allen Dulles, and two <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Deputy_Director_for_Plans\">Deputy Directors<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/a> <a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_M._Bissell_Jr.\">Richard M. Bissell Jr.<\/a><\/span> and <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_Cabell\">Charles Cabell<\/a>,<\/span> were forced to resign. Cabell&#8217;s brother, <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Earle_Cabell\">Earle Cabell<\/a><\/span>, was <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mayor_of_Dallas\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Mayor of Dallas<\/span><\/a> at the time of the Kennedy assassination on 22 November 1963.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Oswald Defects<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Lee Harvey Oswald had joined the United States Marine Corp (USMC) in 1956 and had been posted to the Atsugi Base in Japan, the largest CIA base, from which U-2 Reconnaissance planes operated over the Soviet Union and China. Here Oswald studied Russian and professed to be a Marxist. In 1959 Oswald applied for and received a discharge from the USMC, returned home for three days and then set out for the Soviet Union. Of particular interest is the fact that from London to Helsinki he was flown in a private plane. In Moscow he expressed a desire to defect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">At this point the US Naval Attach\u00e9 in Moscow cabled US Naval Intelligence reporting the defection and identifying Oswald as \u201ca former Marine&#8230;\u201d The next forty three spaces are classified as Secret. What else was Oswald besides a Marine?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">For some reason the KGB (Soviet intelligence) refused to clear Oswald, and his application for Soviet citizenship was turned down. However once he renounced his US citizenship Oswald was classified as \u2018stateless\u2019 and shipped to Minsk in Belarus. In 1964 when KGB officer Yuri Nosenko defected to the US, he brought across the KGB\u2019s file on Oswald. It appeared that the KGB suspected Oswald of being a \u2018sleeper;\u2019 a spy who after being dormant for years would be activated by the CIA at a future date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In Minsk Oswald met and married Marina <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marina_Oswald_Porter\">Prusakova<\/a><\/span> who was residing with her uncle Ilya <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marina_Oswald_Porter\">Prusakov<\/a><\/span>; he worked for the MVD the ministry under which the KGB operated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In 1962 the Oswalds decided to return to the US and in record time the \u2018defector\u2019 was given both a US Passport and a medical check up by US Air Force Captain Alexis Davison whom Colonel Oleg Pengovskly, a US spy was later to name as his CIA contact in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">On his way back to the US Oswald\u2019s itinerary contains two mysteries. Although he is supposed to have breached the \u2018Iron Curtain\u2019 at Helmstedt in Berlin, his passport carries no record of this crossing. In addition the Oswalds spent two days in Amsterdam, not in a hotel but in an apartment where they could have been debriefed by US Intelligence. Strangely the CIA did not question the \u2018defector\u2019 when he arrived in the US; mind you in that era they would regularly quiz tourists for information about Eastern Europe and open mail coming from there. Yet they seemed apparently disinterested in a returning defector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Once they settled in Dallas-Fort Worth the Oswalds were adopted by the White Russian community \u2013 those who had fled the Soviet Union \u2013 which was closely linked to the CIA. In fact George De Mohrenschildt who was close to the Oswalds was known to have been in Guatemala City during the Bay of Pigs Invasion (the April 1961 landing of anti-Castro Cuban exiles with US assistance) and submitted a report to the US Government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Three Oswalds?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In September 1963 Oswald travelled to Mexico City, here he applied for a visa to enter Cuba; there being no Cuban diplomatic mission in the US. By coincidence the person who crossed the US-Mexican border before Oswald was William Gaudet of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">One of the most perplexing problems that assassination investigators, both official and private came up against, were the hundreds of occasions when Oswald was in two places at the same time! More disquieting are two samples of Oswald\u2019s writing; one written in the Soviet Union displays atrocious spelling and syntax, while another, written after his return, is flawless. Photographs and descriptions of Oswald over these last few years are also confusing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Undoubtedly there was more than one Oswald. An examination of descriptions and photographs lead to the conclusion that there were three Oswalds. The historical or genuine one, the agent who went to the Soviet Union and the imposter used in the assassination.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">While Oswald stayed out of sight in the US, a trained CIA agent used his passport to travel to the Soviet Union \u2013 fantastic as this sounds, it is the only alternative to believing that Oswald increased and decreased in height during his time in Minsk! It will also explain why the CIA, which at that time clandestinely photographed everyone entering and exiting the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City did not provide a photograph of Oswald entering this Embassy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It is now common knowledge that the CIA had worked out blueprints to assassinate not only Fidel Castro but Duvalier in Haiti, Trujilo in the Dominican Republic, Diem in Vietnam, Lumumba in the Congo, Schneider in Chile and Jagan in Guyana. Kennedy who was seeking rapport with Cuba, who was for US withdrawal from Vietnam and who was going to purge and reconstitute the Agency was perhaps the CIA\u2019s most deadly adversary!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The CIA had many allies, many front organisations; it was the intelligence agency par excellence of the twentieth century and successfully enabled the US to emerge as the only super power by century\u2019s end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">During World War II the CIA\u2019s precursor the Office of Strategic Services, began a relationship with Salvatore \u2018Lucky\u2019 Luciano, the smartest and most ruthless Mafia leader. The Mafia protected the ports at home and they harassed the enemy in Italy. In return Luciano who was serving a prison sentence was deported to Italy when the War ended. Back home he organised the international heroin ring. But CIA-Mafia co-operation continued; in Marseilles, the entry point for heroin in France, troublesome French dock workers who struck in 1947 had the Mafia turned loose on them. Again in 1950 when the dockers refused to handle arms shipments to Indochina the Mafia went into action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">J. Edgar Hoover had officially proclaimed that the Mafia did not exist. Then in 1963 Joseph Valachi came before the US Senate testifying that the Mafia had infiltrated virtually every facet of American life. The Mafia empire was shown to be enormous; in addition to gambling, narcotics and prostitution they had penetrated legitimate business as well as unions like the Teamsters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>The Mafia<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Meyer Lansky was a leader of \u2018the Jewish Mob\u2019 and an associate of Lucky Luciano. He is given credit for building up scattered rival gangs into a national crime syndicate by moving into banking, investment and real estate. Jack L. Ruby, born Jacob Leon Rubenstein, was on the streets of Chicago by the time he was eleven years old, running errands for Al Capone. Ruby then became an official in one of Chicago\u2019s mob-run unions and was implicated in the shooting of its \u2018clean\u2019 Secretary Leon Cooke. This murder cleared the way for Paul Dorfman to take over the union on behalf of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">After World War II when the Mafia moved into narcotics and Texas, so did Ruby. He set up a \u2018supper club\u2019 in Dallas and in 1959 was recruited as an FBI informer. Lucky Luciano had after the War earmarked Cuba as the hub for the syndicate\u2019s narcotics operations, thanks to the benevolence of its dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was already in league with mobsters like Santo Trafficante and the legendry Meyer Lansky. It was Lansky who provided the finances to fix the 1952 Cuban election in Batista\u2019s favour.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Things changed when Castro came to power in 1959. He earned a million dollar price-tag on his head from the Mafia whom he threw out of Cuba! While US Companies were expropriated to the tune of $272 million, the Mob lost much more. In blind fury they threw everything, money, guns even aircraft behind anti-Castro exiles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Kennedys stumbled onto the Mafia connection when Robert discovered in the course of a Senate Rackets Committee investigation in the early fifties that the CIA was giving immunity against prosecution to members of the Mafia. Long before he became Attorney-General Robert Kennedy in Senate investigations had realised the extent of organised crime and its links with organised labour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">So in 1961 as Attorney-General he began the pursuit of these racketeers putting many of them behind bars including Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss. \u201cIf they are crooks,\u201d his policy went, \u201cwe don\u2019t wound them, we kill them!\u201d And John Kennedy backed his brother to the hilt. At the time of his assassination the President had ordered a full scale assault on organised crime. And the only way to stop Robert Kennedy was to remove the source of his power-the President!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">On November 22 the curtain came down on the New Frontier. The men who had been most terrified by it were now safe. The restrictions on the CIA were now relaxed, they went on to do what they pleased in Indochina and elsewhere. The Mafia, the corrupt union bosses and the international heroin ring were mollified. Robert Kennedy became impotent, his war against them petered out and he finally gave in and resigned in September 1964.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In 1968 Robert Kennedy tried to make a political comeback and ran for the US Presidency. On June 6<span class=\"s1\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span> at <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ambassador_Hotel_(Los_Angeles)\">Ambassador Hotel<\/a><\/span> in Los Angeles he was assassinated by <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jerusalem\">Jerusalem<\/a><\/span>-born Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian; another \u2018lone deranged assassin.\u2019<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":234822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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