JFK and the Mob

Another 60th Anniversary commentary

Yesterday a follower of this blog submitted a comment/inquiry on my previous post regarding the 60th anniversary of JFK’s death.

The comment concerned the alleged connection of the Kennedys and the Mafia aka the mob, the boys, Cosa Nostra, etc. The correspondent Salvator, just as with many if not all of you, is a deeply appreciated friend and colleague. As my reply developed and grew larger, it became evident that readers might find it interesting, so here goes. First the comment and inquiry; then my reply.

Sal wrote:
”I just read the latest Seymour Hersh drop. An interesting sidelight on Kennedy’s ‘courageous’ profile.

I’m forever changed in my Kennedy opinion by the knowledge of their betrayal of the hands-off deal they made with the Chicago outfit, and especially RFK’s justice department pursuit of The Boys and the attempted exile of Carlos Marcello. Products of their father’s blood, they sure knew how to make vengeful enemies. And now the clown RFK jr.”

Here is our response:

We agree on RFK, jr. Another comment on that later. I want to focus on the Kennedy/Mob allegations.

Hersh’s latest drop doesn’t deal with the alledged mob connection at all. Instead it is a bitter rehash of the standard “Kennedy was all in” on Viet Nam narrative. Perhaps a later comment on that, too.

Gore Vidal thought it was a mob hit and there's no one we admire more that Vidal. But first of all, it's important not to reduce things to a zero sum game. There most certainly WAS a mob element in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. But it is vital to remember that the mob was working WITH the right-wing, CIA, anti-Castro, pissed-off-over-Bay-of-Pigs elements in the intelligence and Cuban immigrant communities too. The CIA had long worked with and contracted with the mafia. They were in bed together; DEEP. So for starters, it's not an either/or proposition; a zero-sum game.

The Kennedy mob narrative you refer to goes something like this: Joe Kennedy, the father of JFK and RFK, paid off the Chicago machine to cinch the election for his son JFK and the mob thought the Kennedys owed them a debt. Attorney RFK exposed and prosecuted the mob in his “war on organized crime” and the McClellen Committee hearings and that was supposed to have gotten both of the brothers killed.

The problem is that there is little or no credible evidence for the claim — now repeated far and wide — that Joe bought off the mob. Furthermore, sources cited for this are thin and/or lack credibility. I used to believe it; not any more. Here’s a fine summary written by John J. Binder, author of The Chicago Outfit (2003) and Al Capone’s Beer Wars (2017) and consultant to the Chicago History Museum.

https://themobmuseum.org/blog/did-the-chicago-outfit-elect-john-f-kennedy-president/

Years back it was easy to swallow the Kennedy/Mob revenge story. I find it more difficult now.

There is another tendency that I emphasize here on the blog and elsewhere in my work. This is the tendency -- Seymour Hersh has it -- to look at public and historical figures as if frozen in time. Jefferson owned slaves, therefore he was evil. Lincoln wanted to deport blacks to Africa, therefore was a racist.

Let’s take the Lincoln example and perhaps it will shed some light on JFK. While true of Lincoln’s early life and career, it ignores Lincoln's evolution over time. By the end of the Civil War Lincoln admired and became close to Frederick Douglas; he welcomed him to the White House which created a kerfuffle and even worse, shook his hand !! He also signed the Emancipation Proclamation and by the end of his life had radically changed his views on the race issue. A bitter Confederate rat deprived us of knowing the end of that story.

People change over time. Great people change a great deal over time.

Are you aware of Mary Pinchot Meyer? There is evidence that she was JFK's most longstanding love-interest. In modern trash-terms, we would call her his mistress. But she was his intellectual friend and companion -- as well as lover -- and was a fixture at the White House throughout Kennedy's term in office ... in particular when Jackie was away. She was also married to Cord Meyer, a HIGH level CIA officer who is said to have been involved in the JFK assassination. Mary was an artist, intellectual, free-thinker, and friends with Timothy Leary. And she contemplated a campaign to get international leaders to take psychedelics -- she believed it would change the course of world history. There is some evidence that JFK took LSD with her ... certainly smoked a bit of weed during sex; in the Lincoln bedroom. They were more than lovers. There is a good book on this subject by the son of another prominent CIA figure who tried to figure out his father's involvement in all of this and in the course of doing so, uncovered the JFK/Mary Pinchot Meyer story.

Peter Janney -- Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace.

Mary Pinchot Meyer

Another of the finest works on the Kennedy assassination:

James W. Douglass -- JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

As with Lincoln, so with JFK. Kennedy entered office an enthusiatic Cold Warrior and supporter of the conflict in Viet Nam. By mid to late November of 1963, he had signed National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 - approved by President Kennedy on 11 October, 1963 to begin withdrawing the only 16,000 US troops in Viet Nam at that time.* When Kennedy was killed, the Johnson Administration threw the order in the trash. A year later in August 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin false-flag incident was manufactured as a pretext for an eventual 2,594,000 troops to take part in the disaster that became the Viet Nam War.

Don’t get me wrong. The exact facts surrounding the Kennedy assassination are still somewhat uncertain. But that veil of fog is not an accident. The evidence of intentional cover-up is 100% certain. JFK was not a saint, but neither was he the monster that Hersh and other Kennedy-haters make him out to be. He was a man; a man changed by his life-experience and his time in the presidency. There is no doubt of it. And he may have been a man also changed by Mary Pinchot Meyer. Oh … and Mary was shot in the head while jogging in a park a little less than a year after JFK’s assassination. The murder has never been solved.

Regarding Hersh’s attack on Kennedy’s courage, he wrote in reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis:

”Kennedy was famously quoted later as declaring that America—that is he himself—went “eyeball to eyeball” with Nikita Khrushchev, and the Soviets backed down. We would learn after Johnson left office that Kennedy, aided by his younger brother Robert, the attorney general, had not stood down Khrushchev but actually made a secret commitment with him to withdraw from Turkey American nuclear missiles that were within range of Russia.”

Kennedy never bragged about it. Notice that Kennedy declared that America had stood up “eyeball to eyeball” with Russia. He never once said it of himself. That’s just a journalistic device of Hersh’s. It is not obvious why Hersh “has it in” for the Kennedys. Does it have something to do with his Jewish background and their Catholicism? Is it a class thing ? Hersh seems a Russophobe in many of his writings. Perhaps he’s bitter that JFK DIDN’T attack Russia. It is hard to know. Hersh is a great investigative journalist, but he’s also become fusty and cranky in his old age - who can blame him considerting the treatment he’s received. JFK’s actual agreement was that the Russians would remove the missiles from Cuba and that the missiles that the USA had pointed at Moscow would be removed from Turkey; but that the news of this US missile withdrawals would be withheld … I think it was seven years. Perhaps it was until after his term of office and then ENDED up later because of the tranfer of office; can’t recall. But the reason had zero to do with cowardice. Kennedy was faced with a rabid and hostile Right Wing in the country and military; it almost certainly cost him his office. He and the country averted a nuclear war. This was a victory and bravery; not cowardice. JFK and Premier Kruschev signed the first above-ground nuclear test ban treaty on August 5, 1963 just two months before he was assassinated. This was a victory, not cowardice. And JFK circumvented the State Department and CIA to carry out a 100% private communication with Premier Kruschev aimed at nuclear arms reduction and eventual total nuclear disarmament. This was heroic; not cowardly. This latter effort was only interrupted by the bullet that popped his brains out; shot down like a dog in the street in front of his countrymen and women. The documentation for all this can be found in the Douglass book cited earlier in this reply.

And as promised, my friend … some thoughts on RFK, jr. My own “read” on him is that he’s a bit “off his rails” … something of a nut-job. He is certainly an impulsive and sloppy thinker; unimpressive and erratic. Not the kind of person I’d like to see in the White House. Is he worse than President Joe Biden or former President Trump? That’s a very low bar. It is too early to make predictions or election intentions/strategies. It seems quite possible that the terrain and candidates may well look utterly different in mid-2024 than they do now.

Thanks again for your comment. It was necessary to dig deep for a reply. If as indicated, you are “forever changed,” perhaps these responses will at least add some nuance to the forever. Hope you’ll take a moment to read the article on the Mob Museum site. My thoughts are offered, brother, in gratitude for your comment and most of all for your support, interest, and thoughtful ideas. They are not intended as any sort of “final word” on any of this, but as food for thought.

*NSAM 263 accepted the military recommendations of McNamara and Taylor, as follows: (1) changes to be accomplished by the government of South Vietnam to improve its military performance; (2) a training program for Vietnamese "so that essential functions can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time"; and (3) withdrawal as previously planned of 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. NSAM 263 specifies that no formal announcement be made of the withdrawal.

NSAM 263 was revealed to the public in 1971 in the Pentagon Papers.