Rob Reiner's "Who Killed JFK?" Pt. 3

                                  

This installment will review Chapters 7-9 of Rob Reiner’s “Who Killed JFK?”

Chapter 7 is entitled “Strange  Bedfellows”. It begins  with a meeting in Miami, representing the opening of the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro,  And right off the bat, there is an error.  The program says that this meeting was attended by Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, and Bill Harvey.  Harvey was not there. The first meeting in Miami was attended by CIA cut-out Robert Maheu, Roselli, Giancana and CIA Officer James O’Connell. (CIA IG Report,pp. 18-19) Harvey will not enter into the Castro plots until about a year later. (Ibid, p. 39)

The point of this I think is to begin to adduce certain groups who had reason to assassinate John Kennedy.  Three of them were eventually  involved in these Agency initiated plots against Castro: Cuban exiles, the Mob, and hardliners in the CIA.  (The show mentions a fourth that was not involved here, reactionaries in the Pentagon.) Co-hosts Soledad O’Brien and Rob Reiner then discuss these groups.  At this point, the show contradicts an important point Reiner had made earlier, namely that Kennedy did not cancel the D-Day bombings during the Bay of Pigs invasion. But now O’Brien says that Kennedy failed to send in the proper air support.

The truth is that Kennedy did not approve that D-Day bombing run and required that it could only be done from a beachhead on the island.  Since no beachhead was ever attained, the bombing did not occur. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, p. 45)

But the program talks about how many Cuban exiles had now grown disenchanted with Kennedy.  Partly due to that false myth, and especially after the close of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the no-invasion pledge Kennedy had made to Nikita Khrushchev.  Reiner now comments on Kennedy’s American University Peace Speech which seemed to signal a new era of détente with the USSR.

After the Cuban exiles, the next suspect is the Mob, and the show leads off with Carlos Marcello of New Orleans. In my opinion they truly exaggerate his business dealings to over a billion dollars per year, which in today’s dollars would be well over ten billion. If Marcello was making that kind of money, he would have been on the National Commission, which he was not.  They bring in the now famous deportation of Marcello to Guatemala by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. They broaden this to Santos Trafficante who had been a true czar in Cuba with his casinos, along with Meyer Lansky. The Mob wanted those casinos back. With Castro in power they would not get them.

The third suspects are the hardliners in the CIA and the Pentagon.  They are disappointed in Kennedy for terminating CIA Director Allen Dulles, and the peaceful solution to the Missile Crisis, which they saw as appeasement.  And finally, at last, the show brings in Vietnam. O’Brien and Reiner spend about 5-6 sentences talking about NSAM 263.  That document ordered a 1,000 man withdrawal by the end of 1963, and the rest of the advisors departing by 1965. Reiner then adds that President Johnson ordered an immediate halt to this on November 26, which is not accurate. Johnson tried to decelerate and also disguise this withdrawal. (John Newman, JFK and Vietnam, 2016 version, p. 460)

The program seems to now center on William Harvey, the man who Richard Bissell made chief of the Executive Action program, codenamed ZR/Rifle. This was a CIA assassination program of foreign leaders. Harvey was still in contact with Allen Dulles, he was familiar with James Angleton, was friends and colleagues with Johnny Roselli—while they were trying to liquidate Castro as part of the second phase of the CIA/Mafia plots. David Talbot then adds that Harvey knew David Phillips (first mention of Phillips) and Howard Hunt and had an association with the Cuban exiles.

The show shifts to the Cuban exile group Alpha 66 and its leader Antonio Veciana.  Alpha 66 raids on Russian ships taking goods into Cuba  are described, as are the press conferences the group called to highlight them. This predictably  angered Kennedy, who ordered the Coast Guard to prevent this from happening, since it upset his back channel dialogue with Castro. They bring in Veciana’s alleged association with CIA operative Maurice Bishop, who was likely David Phillips. Although this has been questioned by John Newman, the program clearly says it was him and Veciana knew him under that guise. Because of all this tumult, the target was now changed: from Castro to JFK.

As the Review Board revealed, Mayor Earle Cabell of Dallas was not just the brother of fired CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell, he was also a CIA asset. But unlike what the show says, there is no evidence that he was responsible for shifting the motorcade route. I am sure that Vince Palamara would have written about that in one of his many books on the Secret Service, but he has not. (Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt, pp. 103-05)

We now come to a colossal error in judgment.  It was bad enough to use Tosh Plumlee to place Oswald at Nags Head, North Carolina.  But Reiner now brings him back again.  This time, its his hoary, evolving tale about flying in a hit team from Florida, making a stop in New Orleans and landing in Dallas. I communicated with Larry Hancock via email and phone about this story, and Plumlee.( Email communications of 4/16 and 4/17/2024 and phone call of 4/18) Larry spent many, many hours trying to sort this all out via FBI documents, stories in periodicals, and direct conversations with Plumlee. If one goes through the FBI documents, one will see that Plumlee was arrested in Columbus, Ohio back in 1959 for passing bad checks. (FBI memo from SAC in Cincinnati, 2/16/59) He served 60 days for that but he began to regale the Bureau with tales of derring do in the skies. The FBI recorded all of these, but never investigated them. Larry began to message Tosh via Compuserv in the early 90’s., The story Tosh conveyed was he hung around at airports in the Dallas area and he was recruited there.

Larry recalls that the first time Plumlee told him his hit team story the landing was at Sheppard Airbase in Wichita Falls.  Larry thought this was odd since that was partly used as a SAC base. This then evolved to a combination of Garland and Red Bird Airport. There are some serious problems with his evolving story. In the early versions the man he recalled transporting was Roselli. But both the FBI and Hunt’s biographers place Roselli out West, in Vegas and LA on that weekend. Secondly, in 1976, he negated his story. He told two FBI agents that he did not see Roselli from 1963-68. (FBI memo of 8/31/76 from Phoenix SA’s Middleton and Brown) Finally, in recent versions, and for Reiner, Plumlee added Howard Hunt to this flight into Dallas.  If one looks at the earlier incarnations, say one posted by Linda Minor on  December 13, 1998, there is no Howard Hunt. Same thing with a post by Jim Marrs on 12/2/2004 at the Education Forum. I am a bit surprised that Reiner did not detect any of this.

But if that isn’t enough, Reiner now says that other shooters were Charles Nicoletti, Jack Cannon, Herminio Diaz and Jean Souetre.  As of yet, there is no mention of the plots to kill Kennedy in Tampa and Chicago. Go figure.

Chapter 8 is simply entitled “11/22/63”.

It begins with Oswald visiting Marina at the Paine home on Thursday, November 21^st, and then Kennedy arriving in Dallas on the 22^nd and viewing the full page ad protesting his presidency in the papers.  The program reminds us that all three of Kennedy’s enemies are present in Dallas: the CIA, the Cuban exiles and the Mob.

In an interview with Wesley Frazier, the man who drove Oswald to work that day, Wesley notes that on that morning Oswald walked to his house, opened the door to his car, and deposited a paper bag on the back seat. Not a question is posed about this scenario.  Like, why did Jack Daugherty, who saw Oswald entering the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), not notice that paper bag--and no one else did either. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, p. 200)  Also, on 11/23/63 Frazier’s sister Linnie Mae Randle told the FBI that she saw Oswald go to the car that morning, open the door, and place the bag on the back seat. As anyone who has seen pictures of the Frazier carport, the car was on the other side of the port, and she had to see through a set of blinders. (WC Exhibits, 446, 447, Vol. 17)

The hosts now shift to the arrival of Kennedy and his wife at Love Field, and the motorcade progressing to Dealey Plaza. While describing the location of Oswald in the TSBD, they discuss the testimony of witnesses like Carolyn Arnold, which puts him on the lower floors at the time of the motorcade passing. Yet the Warren Commission placed him on the sixth floor, doing the shooting. Here, Reiner  missed another chance to break  open a Commission shibboleth: the whole second floor lunch encounter between supervisor Roy Truly, motorcycle patrolman Marrion Baker and Oswald waiting for his soft drink from a soda machine. Bart Kamp has done some remarkable work on this issue, and he logically argues that this event did not occur. For example, Baker did not mention it in his first day report, even though he was sitting with Oswald in the witness room.  (See article at the AARC web site by Kamp dated May 25, 2022; Op cit. DiEugenio, pp. 216-19) They then use Barry Ernest’s fine book The Girl on the Stairs about Victoria Adams to provide an alibi for Oswald.  Dick Russell then adds the negative paraffin test on Oswald’s cheek indicating he did not fire a rifle that day.

I wish they would have delved more into the whole issue of the Commission saying Oswald could have gotten off three shots, with two direct hits in 6-7 seconds.  Because, as Craig Robert wrote in his book Kill Zone,  the greatest sniper of the Vietnam War, Carlos Hathcock, tried to duplicate this feat and could not. And when CBS enacted their rifle tests for their four night special in 1967, they cheated—twice. (James DiEugenio, “Why CBS Covered up the JFK Assassination, part 2” at Kenendysandking.com)

After Kennedy’s shooting, Oswald left the TSBD. Reiner muses: did he now think back to the warnings issued him by Richard Case Nagell, that he was being set up to take the fall for Kennedy’s assassination? The program traces him to his Beckley Street boarding house via bus and then taxi. It apparently goes along with the Commission story that the generic description of Oswald was supplied to the authorities by Howard Brennan, when the evidence indicates it was not. (State Secret by Bill Simpich, Chapter 6, note 3)

Reiner then says that after he left his boarding house, Oswald started walking toward the Texas Theater. This does not align with the testimony of Earlene Roberts, his housekeeper, who was the last person to him before he left his Beckley Street room. She said she looked out the window, and saw him standing at the bus stop in front of the building: “I did not see which direction he went when he left there.” (Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment, p. 170)

The podcast does not really deal with the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit which the Commission tried pinning on Oswald. Reiner states that doing so would likely take another whole podcast, and he is correct. It follows Oswald to the Texas Theater, which is rather large, containing 900 seats. But there were only about 25 people in attendance at the time. Reiner pointedly asks, in a near empty theater, why did Oswald then sit next to a man named Jack Davis?  Why did he then move across the aisle and sit next to someone else? After buying popcorn, why did he then sit next to a pregnant woman?

He finally went to the back of the theater, before the police entered. The program says he pulled his gun as the cops approached him.  This point has been hotly disputed since about 1967 when Sylvia Meagher attacked it in her classic book Accessories After the Fact. (pp. 259-60). Why would Oswald pull his gun when an officer was creeping up in front of him with his gun already pulled?

The episode ends with a policeman asking Oswald on the way to the station, “Did you kill our president?” Oswald replied with, “I have not shot anyone.” When they arrived at the station, another policeman asked him, “Do you want to hide your face from the reporters?” Oswald said, “Why? I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”

A nice and cogent touch.

Chapter 9 is entitled “48 Hours After”. It begins with a brief description of  Kennedy’s funeral, which Jackie Kennedy modeled on Lincoln’s. We then backtrack a bit to Sunday morning in Dallas with Jack Ruby shooting Oswald.  A year later the Warren Commission would say that this was a spontaneous reaction by Ruby. The two men did not know each other, and Ruby acted on his own.

The program then adroitly quotes a statement by Jack Ruby while awaiting trial: “Now they are going to find out about Cuba, the guns, New Orleans and everything.” A brief biography of Ruby follows leading up to his move to Dallas from Chicago and the use of his clubs to ply policemen with liquor and women. We quickly segue to his gun running activities out of the small town of Kemah, Texas. The show ignores men like Thomas Davis and Eddie Browder who Ruby worked with in those activities.

We then review Ruby’s 1959 trip to Havana to visit his friend and idol Lewis McWillie, who worked for Trafficante at one of his casinos. After Castro took over, Lewis moved stateside and worked for Lansky and Giancana in Vegas. Ruby was reportedly in Vegas visiting McWillie five days before JFK was killed. The HSCA detailed the many, many calls by Ruby to underworld figures in the months before the assassination, some of them related to Giancana and Marcello. Dick Russell then reads off about four witnesses who did say they saw Ruby with Oswald.  Most of them are out of John Armstrong’s book Harvey and Lee. (pp. 554-55). At least one of them is problematic. Dorothy Marcum said Oswald worked for Ruby in the summer of 1963, when Oswald was in New Orleans.

Due to his trial, Jack Ruby was not interviewed by the Warren Commission until over 6 months into their proceedings. He repeatedly asked to be questioned in Washington, a request denied by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The podcast asks: Was Jack terrified of telling the truth in Dallas? They mention the polygraph test Ruby took but they miss another golden opportunity. The HSCA reviewed that test.  Their panel of experts concluded that the test was not just flawed in many ways, it was actually rigged. And if interpreted properly Ruby lied during the test. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp 267-70)

We then shift back to Oswald’s denials of guilt while in custody. The facts are  that he never had a lawyer and he tried to make an enigmatic phone call to John Hurt in North Carolina on the night of Saturday the 24^th.  Was that call to a former military intelligence officer Hurt a desperate attempt to reach a cut-out for advice on what to do?

Ruby began to haunt the police station.  On Friday night, he corrected DA Henry Wade on the group Oswald was associated with in New Orleans: it was not the Free Cuba Committee.  Ruby was there on Saturday also. 

Then comes someone as upsetting as Tosh Plumlee: John Curington. As Joan Mellen described in her book, Our Man in Haiti, Curington was accused of being part of an embezzlement scheme against employer H. L. Hunt., one which appears to be CIA associated. Curington was forced to resign, but not before taking many documents with him. He was later convicted of mail fraud and received a probationary sentence.(Mellen, pp. 363-67) In the late sixties and seventies, he and his Hunt cohort Paul Rothermel—who likely was a CIA plant—began to toss around accusations of Hunt being involved in the JFK murder.  For example that Marina Oswald  was at Hunt HQ one Saturday after the murder of her husband; an accusation which Marina strongly denied. (Mellen, p. 375)  In 2018, Curington wrote a book called H. L. Hunt: Motive and Opportunity.  In every way it is  a preposterous book. It accuses Hunt of being in on, not just the JFK case, but also the murders of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and if you can comprehend it, Jimmy Hoffa.

For Reiner’s podcast, Curington says that Hunt told him to go to the Dallas Police HQ to check on the security arrangements for Oswald on Saturday. Curington told Hunt that these conditions were lax. Hunt then sent him to local mobster Joe Civello’s house. In other places, Curington said when the elevator doors opened he was face to face with Oswald, and the police introduced the suspect to him. (Mellen, p. 375) Really?  Those Dallas cops sure were polite.

The presentation of Ruby shooting Oswald on Sunday is confusing.  Reiner says Ruby walked up an alley and then a ramp.  This combines the official entry—which is false—with the true entry from the rear, which is the accurate one. (DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination, pp. 227-28) The show mentions that Ruby later died in prison and more or less leaves It at that.  There is no mention of Ruby winning his appeal for a new trial, or his treatment in jail by a CIA doctor, Louis J. West,  who decreed him unstable. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 475)

This segment closes with how men like Castro, Khrushchev and Charles DeGaulle responded sadly to Kennedy’s death. DeGaulle commented that there had been many attempts on his life. From those experiences he knew that JFK’s security forces had been compromised and that some kind of fall guy would be blamed for the crime. Then a code of silence would take hold: Better a cover up than a civil war. A nice ending.