Chapter 44 of There’s a FISH in the COURTHOUSE

Gareth (Gary) L. Wean, Casitas Books, 1987, 2^nd edition 1996
Annotated by Kenneth A. Rahn in July 2001
(Posted by permission of author)

   Gary Wean’s book There’s a FISH in the COURTHOUSE traces his decades of battle with corrupt local officials in southern California. It is a fascinating look at one man’s pattern of reasoning. After years of struggling with judicial corruption at the local level, Wean came to believe that behind it was the “Mishpucka,” or Russian Jewish Mafia. Instrumental in developing this view was a revelatory conversation with an elderly acquaintance that is strikingly similar to the one between Jim Garrison and X in Oliver Stone’s JFK. But as Wean expands his view of the scope and influence of the Mishpucka by extrapolating to larger scales, he gets off the track. By the time he reaches the JFK assassination and the putative role of the Mishpucka in it, told in his Chapter 44, he is wrong on so many basic counts as to render his version of events impossible. Interestingly, Wean got his view of the assassination by uncritically accepting an undocumented story told in a single conversation by an unnamed friend of Sheriff Bill Decker of Dallas County, again like Garrison and X. Wean winds up with a complex scenario of a false assassination, run secretly by members of JFK’s cabinet to help him get rid of Fidel Castro, that was hijacked and turned into a real one by the Mishpucka, presumably because their national defense businesses would have been seriously harmed by JFK’s multipronged efforts toward reaching peace with Castro and others. I highly recommend the book, on one level as an account of an informed and principled citizen who struggles with entrenched powers and eventually loses, and on another level as a window into the mind of that citizen as he tries to make sense out of a complex and corrupt judicial world hidden from ordinary view. That the citizen ultimately got off the track matters less in the long run than that he struggled for justice with all his soul.

      On a street in Dallas, several shots rang out. President Kennedy riding in an open car said, “My God, I’ve been hit,”[1] a few seconds, then came more gun fire. The President’s head exploded in a spray of brain tissue, blood and bone. The President’s wife Jackie was heard to cry out, “Jack…they have killed my husband,” then, “I have his brains in my hand.” This, Mrs. Kennedy repeated time and time again.
      Officially, the Warren Commission concluded,[2] “One man, Lee Harvey Oswald murdered John F. Kennedy. The lone sniper had lain in wait and picked off his victim with two accurate rifle shots.[3] There had been no conspiracy.”[4] This was an official edict, like the Russian Royal Family, the version that had to be accepted by the people of the United States and world wide. But in truth there was conspiracy upon conspiracy…and conspiracy to double cross a conspiracy.
      Harvey Oswald did not kill President Kennedy. Frank and I had learned this shortly after the gruesome crime took place. The Sheriff of Dallas County, Bill Decker, was a good friend of Audie Murphy, he occasionally came to town on official business. They loved to go to the L.A. Police Academy and eat in the restaurant. On Decker’s trips I’d arrange to reserve a booth, which wasn’t always easy. Only a couple weeks after the assassination, Audie, Frank,[5] Decker and I were having lunch, naturally there was but one subject on the tip of our tongues.
      We were all skilled in firearms, Audie and Decker particularly were experts with hunting rifles and scopes. We had little difficulty coming to our unanimous conclusion, considering the existing factors it was virtually impossible for Oswald to make those shots with that rifle.[6] It was basic, there had to be someone else shooting, with this concurrence Decker leaned forward slightly, gazing around the table at us his voice tempered, “I have another much stronger reason for knowing Oswald never shot JFK. There’s a man in Dallas I’ve known a long time, he knows the entire truth about Oswald’s involvement. He’s scared to death to go to the Dallas PD or FBI. There’s been a terrible double cross somewhere and everybody is scared shitless of everyone else. You would never believe all the accusations and crazy suspicions heaped on law enforcement in Texas by imbeciles in D.C. and the chaos it has created. This man feels that it’s his duty to tell someone what he knows in case something happens to him. I realize it isn’t in your jurisdiction, but that makes it even better. God only knows how this will turn out so you guys get something straight right now. There was never any conspiracy in my Sheriff’s Dept. involving the assassination nor in the Dallas PD. I’ve known all these people too long…I would have known it…believe me, something as crazy as this I’d feel it in my bones.” Bill’s words threw a somber pall over lunch. After moments of silence Bill said, “I’ll be in L.A. on business a few more days, when I return to Dallas if this guy wants to talk to you I’ll give Audie a call and set something up.”
      A week later we got a call, drop by Murphy’s office at Universal Studio. Audie loved excitement, his grin gave him away. “Hey, you guys want to take a trip?” We nodded silently never knowing what to expect. This caused his grin to widen. Audie never believed in long explanations, it was his military training, on a battlefield you didn’t have time, you had to be sharp enough to figure it out fast. “Okay, tomorrow morning be at Burbank Airport at six forty five sharp. We are meeting Decker and his friend in Ruidoso at noon.”
      It had been convenient for Decker to arrange a meeting about halfway to Dallas. Audie had some sort of race horse deals going in New Mexico. He always lost so much money on them we tried never to mention his horse fiascos. He had a favorite story he dropped on people foolish enough to quiry him as to how his ponies were doing. “Oh well, I plain lost my shirt the last three years in a row on those stupid nags, but geez, this last year was fabulous.”
      Invariably they’d exclaim, “That’s great, how much did you win?”
      “Win,” he’d shout, “Win hell, I broke even.”
      Staring out a small window of the two engine plane I’d become absorbed by the wild snowy mountains and desert we zoomed over. Everything was forgotten till suddenly we began losing altitude. Bill was waiting at the dirt airstrip in his Sheriff’s car. Out of the plane I realized it was dead winter, the wind was blowing, it was freezing cold. Audie neglected to mention this, it didn’t seem to bother him. Decker explained, “John is waiting for us in town.” Little more was said until we parked at the café and went inside. Shaking hands we settled in a large leather booth. John was middle aged, a large man, serious. From his speech and bearing I felt he had spent years as an officer in the military. We didn’t ask and he didn’t say.
      Concealing any nervousness or tension he seemed eager to tell what he knew. Decker and John had already had lunch, we ordered the house specialty, steaming bowls of chili beans and soda crackers with lots of butter. We ate and John talked. It wasn’t a rambling or memorized dissertation broken with pauses to think and review for likely mistakes. It came out smooth and positive like an experience etched in the mind, needing no prompting because it was there fresh in his brain, it had been a job, a duty he’d been personally involved in and had performed. Amazing and harrowing as was John’s tale of intrigue there were few interruptions.
      Decker’s friend began, “First and most important I must qualify Lee Harvey Oswald, he was none of the criminal things he’s accused of. He was an agent of the U.S. government acting under the specific orders of E. Howard Hunt.[7] The true facts of the assassination as far as I know them are so fantastically shocking if I tried to force them out in the open I’d surely end up in the same graveyard as Oswald, or committed to an insane asylum, buried so deep no one would ever hear of me again. Hunt is a patriot, a Super Patriot, he understood and feared the danger of Castro’s Cuba as a communist fortress only a few miles from our shore better than anyone. He had worked and labored on the invasion of Cuba by the exiles like a man possessed. When the Bay of Pigs became a terrible, embarrassing fiasco, he like others in CIA blamed President Kennedy. But deep in his soul and in fairness he realized the blame was not Kennedy’s although he’d officially taken the brunt upon his own shoulders. The failure was a combination of errors, outrageous misjudgments, and bad luck.
      But Cuba’s danger to the U.S. grew in intensity as its ties with Moscow became obvious. Dreaming up fantastic schemes Hunt had devised extraordinary methods of assassinating Castro, poison pills in coffee, poison in his food at his favorite café, exploding cigars, all dismal failures, then Hunt’s festering frustration conceived what has become the most bizarre political assassination intrigue of all time. His scheme was to inflame the American people against Castro and stir patriotism to a boiling point not felt since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Enraged Americans would demand that our military invade Cuba and wipe out the two-bit dictator for his barbarous attempt to assassinate President Kennedy.”
      John read our incredulous looks. “Oh yes…! There was to be an attempt on the life of President Kennedy so realistic that its failure would be looked upon as nothing less than a miracle. The footprints would lead directly to Castro’s doorstep, a trail the rankest amateur couldn’t lose.[8] Very unfortunate for Oswald he fit the bill perfect for Hunt’s operation. He’d worked for Military Intelligence for several years with considerable success. It started when he was a Marine at Japan’s Atsugi Air Base a few miles south of Tokyo. An Intelligence Officer recognizing Oswald’s possibilities had asked him to assist in making a connection he was trying to establish. The young Marine was not only surprised but very pleased with the assignment, which was a beautiful Japanese hostess at the Queen Bee Club a popular bar in Tokyo. Because of a natural proclivity for Intelligence liaison his role escalated increasingly to more important assignments. The Russian defection incident was part of Military Intelligence grooming of Oswald for a deep cover of communist affiliation. That was before Hunt had chosen him for his Assassination Mission. He was inducted into the dark, mysterious, clandestine secrets of the CIA, ending in an ignoble death.[9]
      The Cuban exiles in New Orleans and Miami were seething. In early 1963 Oswald was dropped right into a boiling cauldron in New Orleans. His instructions were to establish himself as a disgruntled ex-Marine and Commie adherent, a zealous left-winger. Joining the Pro-Castro, Fair Play for Cuba organization he got himself arrested to accentuate his activities and profile and to top this off Hunt and General Edwin Walker, a recognized leader of the ultra-conservative right wing, faked a shooting attempt on Walkers life. It was blamed on Oswald to add a dangerous, sinister touch to his character which would be needed later.”[10]
      John smiled at Frank who’s head was wagging, he said, “I know exactly what you are thinking Frank and it gets worse. At first Hunt did not tell Oswald what his exact mission was, except it was one of the highest National Security priority. He was instructed to give his wife absolutely no hint whatsoever of his secret government connections. Hunt did not trust her, in fact, he was paranoid about Marina being a Russian spy. It was only two months before the Fake Assassination when Hunt gave Oswald the rifle,[11] explaining his part in the scheme. Oswald was to fire three shots from his rifle in the air, then abandon it and the empty cartridges at the scene. He was to quickly leave the building for a rendezvous with agents who would transport him to a secret destination where he’d remain in hiding until after Cuba was invaded by the United States. A fake trail to Mexico City ending at the Cuban Embassy would lead investigators to think he had fled to Cuba.[12] The belief that Castro planned the investigation of President Kennedy and the assassin was being harbored under his protection in Cuba would stir the Americans to a feverish pitch of anger, like, ‘Remember the Maine,’ the battleship blown up in Havana harbor in 1898. It started the Spanish American War. Oswald was shocked and not a little frightened, however Hunt convinced him that he could be saving the United States from destruction by nuclear rockets being planted in Cuba by Russia. He confided to Oswald that JFK had not been made aware of their plan, that was for the sake of authenticity of his reactions. But it was approved and sanctioned by high ranking members of the cabinet. Hunt assured him, after U.S. forces overran Cuba and exposed the Russian nuclear missiles, President Kennedy would forgive them for their precipitant actions.[13] He would perceive them as American heroes. Oswald could come in out of the cold and live as an ordinary citizen with his family, which desire he’d indicated a number of times. On first blush Oswald was extremely leery of the feasibility of Hunt’s plan. But commencing to see and feel the power and confidence of people behind the mission he joined eagerly. His orders were to leave a trail that could be easily followed, yet not so overly obvious as to bring down suspicion. And specifically the most critical part was the moment of firing the rifle. It must be instantly clear to the crowd and security people in the street as to the location and source of the shots.[14] Success of the operation depended entirely upon police quickly finding the rifle and the clues. The hysteria and excited press and TV announcers picking up the scent would trumpet a bloodhound hue and cry following the trail right to Fidel Castro’s doorstep.”
      Audie mused, “Sounds exactly like a Hollywood script.”
      “Yes, but by standards it was a basic plan. Of course all covert operations have inherent danger and are subject to break downs, but my God, this was no break down or neglect of performance, or even bad luck. What has happened is incomprehensible. It cannot be that the Mafia or Cuban exiles have done it, there is no motive, they had already been given inside tips that an operation was underway that would return them to Cuba. It would’ve been totally stupid for them to interfere. Anyway, even Oswald wasn’t told the route to take for his rendezvous until the last minute, so how could they possibly know where he was? Only a few of Hunt’s most trusted men knew all his plans down to the last detail. It is impossible to believe any of them is a traitor. Still it is clear, who ever killed the President had to know all the minute details to pull it off the way they did. Something very frightening, horribly sinister had interposed Hunt’s mission. He and his men are petrified, they conceive this as not just murder, they’ve been drawn into treason. The mysterious assassins then intercepted Oswald before he reached his rendezvous. Certainly they were about to kill him when the police officer happened upon the scene, they did not dare be caught with Oswald so they shot the officer. During the shooting Oswald ran and hid in a theatre, he was captured minutes later. It had to happen that way, I know, Oswald would never have shot an officer under any circumstances, I’m positive.”[15]
      From his pocket John removed a manila envelope, business size, about 4x10, it was thick, he pushed it over to me, the flap was glued. Strangely it was further secured by red sealing wax about the size of a quarter with a thumbprint impression, a procedure police used to protect vital evidence from being tainted before it reached the court. I saw it was perfectly plain, no writing, I passed it over to Frank.
      John said, “Inside are irrefutable documents, evidence verifying what I have just told you.”
      There was silence around the table, then Decker said, “We have to get rolling back to Dallas, it’s a long haul.” They shook hands and left. Audie had rented an auto to take us to the plane. On the way we stopped at some horse stables, Audie talked with some people a minute then we returned to the airstrip. Back at Burbank Airport Frank handed the envelope to Audie and asked him to put it in his safe with other things he was keeping for us.
      Driving to our office Frank and I agreed that the murder of JFK was an evil whirlpool so dangerous it could destroy Dallas.[16] We had no business sticking our noses in, we remembered Big Bill McKesson threatening what he would do to us if we even thought of going near Malibu the night that JFK was at the party. We weren’t sure he was kidding with his threat to kill us. Now if McKesson heard about this, if he didn’t murder us, there was a damn good chance someone else would. The frightening part was that no one knew who that someone else was…it was impossible to defend against.
      It was only a few days, Frank and I got a hurry up call to come by Audie’s office, this time there was no grin. He’d received many urgent calls from Bill Decker. Audie explained, “Hunt and his agents have regrouped from their horrified panic, they’ve sprung back into action. Hunt’s machinations and connection with Oswald had to be covered-up at all costs. Bill says Military Intelligence, FBI, and the CIA were terrified. If their secret schemes were to be exposed they’d be rooted out in an eruption of calamitous national anger. In their nightmares all they can see is a firing squad. In fact they’ve solemnly declared that National Security is at stake. That’s their justification for a cover-up at any cost. John told Decker he had made a horrible mistake by talking to us and giving us that envelope in a moment of panic, he wants it back immediately. I don’t know if I made a terrible blunder or not, I said the first thing coming into my mind. I told Bill we’d destroyed it on the flight back to Burbank, over the desert we had torn it into little pieces and let them fly out the pilot’s window. Bill repeated this to John, he told Bill if we were lying and still had it we would all be destroyed. Decker says for our own good we had better believe this.” Frank and I figured Audie made the best move he could when he said the envelope was destroyed.
      Then we watched the plot unfolding as the powerful, politically contrived Warren Commission covered-up the heinous assassination of JFK under orders of the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson.[17] We could easily guess our fate if we interfered. Some months later I left the District Attorney Bureau of Investigation in L.A. and took the job as Chief Investigator for the Public Defender in Ventura County.
      Just as the clerk in the book store had said it would, Summers book, Conspiracy arrived three weeks later. Like File on the Tsar, it was excellently put together. Diligent and definitively researched with integrity, it was 648 pages of itemized sources of information and a name index. In future years it would obviously be of great historical research value, it would also drive people insane, the who and what responsible for JFK’s assassination was a labyrinth of conspiratorial chaos. I hadn’t voted for JFK, at the time strong personal feelings had prevented it, but these had begun to change. Upon his death an awesome feeling of terrible loneliness, a fear for America swept over me. Momentarily in Conspiracy, its author had arrived right at the veritable point of truth when he speculated, “Perhaps some terrible unfaceable embarrassment of involvement rather than a murderous intent had forced United States Intelligence to cover-up their part in the assassination.”
      Instead of rooting into this involvement Summers succumbed to the Mishpuckas[18] devious, false evidence and rumor trails concluding that those guilty of the assassination fell into one of three groups, the Mafia…Anti-Castro Cubans…or a U.S. Intelligence Agency. Helping Tony down this road of misinformation was Mishpucka, Aron Kohn. In ‘78 as the Director of the New Orleans Crime Commission, Kohn lied to Tony, he deceivingly described Carlos Marcello as, “The most powerful single organized crime figure in the Southern United States, the head of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra in this area.” Kohn also told him Jack Ruby’s friend Harold Tannenbaum, was manager of five of Marcello’s biggest money making joints on Bourbon Street, but he’d reversed it, actually it was Marcello and the Italians who worked for Harold Tannenbaum and top Mishpucka Meyer Lansky. When the Mishpucka took more than a billion dollars to Miami right after the war, it was Lansky’s brains and wizardry that put the Mishpuckas in command of gambling, prostitution, narcotics and political corruption in the New Orleans, Havana, and Miami area. Marcello couldn’t put two and two together much less Lansky’s empire. Without Lansky’s patronage Carlos could never have risen higher than a two-bit street thug. He was a front man designed to take a rap for the Mishpucka. The fact he’d become personally rich and notorious was merely for their convenience. Hunt and Oswald salvaging their senses from the paralyzing shock of the Kennedy murder most certainly had identical thoughts, ‘I’ve been framed.’ A double-cross of fantastic dimensions. The consequences were too devastating, far too terrifying to grasp, it was the end for them.
      By my knowing that none of the three suspects Tony had named were guilty, hundreds of rumors and false trails in his book instantly became extraneous. Then in relation with the real assassins the first and most important clue found was the well publicized Magic Bullet, a dead give-away. A bullet was found on a stretcher carrying either President Kennedy or Governor Connally into the hospital. Warren’s Commission would have the public believe that the Magic Bullet in its travels had, pierced JFK’s back…coursed through the front of his neck…went on to strike Connally in the back…then pierced his lung, severed a vein, artery and nerve, broke the right fifth rib, destroying five inches of bone and emerged from Connally’s right chest…it then plunged into the back of his right forearm and broke a thick bone, the distal end of the radius and came out the other side of the wrist, finally ending up by striking Connally’s left leg. After doing all this damage it was still in pristine condition, without distortion when it was discovered on the stretcher. Thus amid derision and skepticism it was dubbed, “The Magic Bullet.”[19]
      Ballistics experts were positive that the Magic Bullet came from Oswald’s rifle. They were correct, but it had not returned from the sky where Oswald had fired it then miraculously fell on the stretcher at the hospital to be found. It had been very carefully planted there.[20] Regardless of Hunt’s convictions that his closest agents were beyond suspicion, one of them was a spy, a mole in deep, deep, cover…
      Hunt’s scheme of a phony assassination was monitored from the beginning by an insidious enemy. At some point after the rifle was first received it was test fired, they had to be sure the cheap weapon would fire at the crucial moment. During the test firing into cotton a perfect bullet was quietly palmed, the enemy knew when the time came their own bullet destined to kill JFK would be shattered with no ballistics identification being possible.[21]
      The mole pocketed the test bullet, passing it to a confederate who could get near enough during the confusion to plant it. Thus the trail would lead directly back to Lee Oswald and his rifle. When the shots in Dealy[22] Plaza rang out Jack Ruby had a perfect alibi. He was in the advertising department of the Dallas Morning News talking to people that knew him. Amid ensuing excitement and confusion Ruby quietly slipped away to complete the assignment that he’d been paid for. He was to park on a quiet tree lined residential street where he would intercept and kill Oswald before he could make his rendezvous with Hunt’s men.
      His killing would be blamed on one of the three suspect groups, the Mafia, the Cubans or an American Intelligence Agency. Myriads of crisscrossing trails of rumor and suspicion already were carefully circulated pinpointing these suspects, Mishpucka chaos was in effect. But fate now, as it had in the past, dealt a horrifying blow to the evil Mishpucka schemes. It came in the form of an entirely unexpected policeman doing an observant job on patrol just as it should be done.
      When the astounding message of shots fired at the President’s motorcade was broadcast over the police radio the Mishpucka was certain all patrol cars would converge on Dealy Plaza. But the Dallas police didn’t panic and stuck to good patrol procedure. At 12:44 p.m., fourteen minutes after Kennedy was shot they broadcast a suspect’s description, “White male, about 30 years, 165 pounds, slender build,” it fit Oswald. One minute later at 12:45 p.m., Officer J.D. Tippet,[23] in a radio car was ordered to the Oak Cliff area and was instructed to “Remain at large for any emergency.”
      Oswald came walking down the street toward him, Ruby stepped from his car.[24] He was at the instant of pulling his gun to kill Oswald when unexpectedly Officer Tippet came up. He’d spotted Oswald’s close resemblance to the broadcast. Observant, the officer kept his eyes watchfully on Oswald’s movements. But suddenly and startlingly he placed Ruby, seeing them together the officer’s eyebrows shot up with comprehension and alarm. Ruby spotting this panicked. God, if he got arrested with Oswald it was all over, a hand on the gun under his coat prepared to kill Oswald flew up. He fired repeatedly at the officer. Then fleeing in terror, leaping into his car in mortal fear he sped away.
      At 1:16, forty five minutes after the shots in Dealy Plaza there came the call from a citizen using Tippet’s car radio, “We’ve had a shooting here, it’s a police officer, somebody’s shot him.” The most reliable witnesses to the officer’s murder were Mrs. Aquilla Clemons and Frank Wright, both lived on Tenth Street. Mrs. Clemons stated, “I saw two men near the policeman’s car just before the shots. The man with the gun was short and chunky, kind of heavy build, wearing khaki and a white short,” a description fitting Ruby, “the second man was thin and tall,” it fit Oswald. “The chunky man with the gun ran off in one direction, the second man in another.”
      Mr. Wright heard the shots in his front room, he said, “Stepping out my front door I caught sight of Officer Tippet in time to see him roll over then lie still. I saw a man of medium height wearing a long coat that ended just above his hands, he ran around the police car fast as he could and jumped in a little old gray coupe, he drove away very fast.” Within three minutes radio cars and an ambulance arrived. Four empty casings were found on the ground ejected from an automatic pistol.[25]
      Sgt. Gerald Hill, an officer with many years of army experience and police work behind him recognized that the shells were ejected from an automatic pistol, he radioed this information immediately to headquarters.[26] At the same time he ordered Office J.M. Poe to mark the casings with his initials to record the chain of evidence. Another patrol officer radioed in, “I have an eyeball witness to the suspect in the shooting, he’s a white male armed with a dark finish automatic pistol.” When arrested only minutes later in a theater Oswald carried a revolver which does not eject its shells. No one in their right mind would conceive that fleeing from a murder scene, and expecting the killers next bullets to strike him in the back, Oswald would dally to eject shells from his revolver and drop them on the ground before he ran.[27] What was to have been a nice clean-cut execution with no clue to the killer had suddenly become a fiasco, an unbelievable mess. An officer killed and Oswald in jail where he could talk and blow-up the Mishpuckas entire operation. And somewhere in Dallas, holed up in his Command Post, E. Howard Hunt was cursing…sweating…going crazy, no matter how he squirmed it came out the same, Lee Harvey Oswald was a double agent, he’d been double crossed.[28]
      In his cell at the Dallas police station Oswald could only scream, “I did not kill anyone, I’m a patsy.” Back at the Carousel, Jack Ruby was a mental case, fearfully he reported the debacle. One of his first long distance calls was to a contact man, Jack Gruber in Hollywood, Mickey Cohen’s associate. They were so enraged with Ruby’s fiasco that if they hadn’t still needed him they’d have butchered him. His new orders were to get into the jail where Oswald was and kill him immediately. They laid out the reason he was to give for killing him, Ruby was to claim that, “He had become so mentally distraught over this lousy commie shooting the President and the thought of his poor wife and children suffering that he had become temporarily insane.” He must stick with that and nothing else. He would become a ‘hero’ for having killed this traitor and be back on the street in only a few days.
      Strangely, the ‘hero’ bit was the same words Cohen used when he conned Sammy LoCigno into taking the blame for Jack O’Hara’s murder. Ruby disposed of the automatic pistol he had been supplied with to kill Oswald but instead had used to kill Tippet.[29] Pocketing his own 38 revolver he’d purchased legally a few years before, he started prowling the police station waiting for a chance to finish off Oswald. It came two days later. In the basement of the Dallas City Hall, Ruby shot and killed Oswald.
      At the time JFK was killed Ruby had himself a perfect alibi, but wasn’t covered at the time Tippet was shot. The description by eye witnesses of the killer fit Ruby so close, the Mishpuckas decided he needed an alibi. Seth Kantor, a White House Corespondent provided it. At Parkland Hospital where Kennedy was taken only a handful of reporters were allowed in. Kantor claimed that just before entering, Ruby tugged on his sleeve asking him if he thought he should close the Carousel until further notice out of respect for Pres. Kennedy. Kantor told him it was a good idea and hurried on into the hospital. This was the exact moment Tippit was shot, the perfect alibi. Kantor had known Ruby from four years previous while a news reporter in Dallas. Even more disturbing, Seth Kantor was also connected with Oswald, Candy Barr, and Melvin Belli, and even more coincidental, he was one of the very few outsiders let in to the hospital area where the Magic Bullet was planted. But strangest of all, Ruby denied going to Parkland Hospital and repudiated Kantor’s alibi for the officer’s death. Kantor was stuck with this sinister embarrassment which not even the Warren Commission was able to swallow.
      An unseen airtight skin protecting the real assassination scheme by the Mishpuckas had been pinpricked. I knew that they had committed the two murders in Dallas on November 22, 1963, still it just didn’t make sense, the most necessary element, that important ingredient, a motive…was missing. More than once Oswald had openly professed genuine admiration and liking for JFK and his family.
      As for Tony’s three prime suspects, the Mafia, Cuban exiles, and a United States Intelligence Agency there was no logical motive, and the Mishpuckas deep mole had monitored Hunt’s Fake Assassination operation all the way and had approved. As with Summers suspects, the Mishpucka had no reason to interfere, if Hunt’s plan succeeded, the Mishpucka and Mafia would both regain their bases for criminal activities in Havana, the Cuban exiles would return to their homes and U.S. Intelligence would be satisfied by the removal of Russia’s nuclear missile threats from our shores.
      But suddenly, about two months before Kennedy’s visit to Dallas everything changed. Something deeply affecting the Mishpuckas had occurred, it was then that their Real Assassination plans were put into effect. In Dallas strange events began to happen that later would point at Lee Oswald as the assassin. In one instance a person resembling Oswald and giving his name as such went into a gun shop, he wanted three holes drilled for the telescopic sight mounting on a rifle. But Oswald’s rifle found at the Texas School Book Depository needed only two holes. This was one instance, the book Conspiracy had documented a whirlwind of Mishpucka conspiratorial chaos left to be found after the assassination. The sinister clues and trails lead direct to and incriminated Oswald of the assassination. But Oswald would not be alive to defend himself or refute this evidence.
      Ruby had been in serious financial difficulties, his night club was months in arrears on rent. IRS was on his back for over $50,000 in unpaid taxes. Suddenly Ruby who’d long lived out of his hip pocket was waving around huge sums of money, he began using a safe in his office which he talked about embedding in concrete. Ruby’s part in the conspiracy was to simply, at a specific time and place, fill Oswald full of lead. Learning that Ruby’s contact man in Hollywood was an associate of Mickey Cohen’s, I began to generate a startling, shocking picture of some very powerful people who were involved. But it was crazy, they had no motive.
      Page by page I had worked my way into Conspiracy and Tony’s remarkable documentary of Mishpucka chaos with its dark abyss of crooked, manufactured trails leading to Miami, New Orleans and to Marcello and Cubans and U.S. Intelligence Agents. Then amazingly, Chapter 21…with monstrous comprehension the motive for the real assassination catapulted before my eyes. New Orleans, Miami and all the other chaos trails were blotted out. Tony had dug deep, probably deeper than he realized. Lord, like Audie said, it was a Hollywood scenario, I was amazed, reading on was like slowly twisting the dial on a very complex camera, bringing it to an ultimate focus.
      My blood curdled with the terrible irony of it, it was diabolical. President Kennedy, the dynamic, vital young leader of the greatest country on earth, holding out such bright hopes to everyone was shot, murdered because of one word, PEACE. It was known to only a very few trusted aides, JFK had been on the verge of negotiating World Peace. His life was forfeited for his interference into the Mishpuckas unspeakable, insensate greed, money…billions on billions, cold, cold money, money, money, money.
      Chapter 21 had brought the lens to a fine focus. In Hollywood, Gruber, the man Ruby called minutes after shooting Tippet…that was the connection, where the orders issued forth. Not long before JFK was killed, the conversation Henry Jacob’s had overheard between Cohen and Begin at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Henry had become terribly excited, he had felt it, he knew he was on to something big. Frank and I were amused at his exuberant rantings in the van. We’d kidded him, but we knew Henry was no novice with his imagination running wild. I remember his exact words, “Mickey was sounding real important, like he’s going in for big politics, he cursed Kennedy and his Peace Corp, and his wasting millions on two-bit countries in Africa and South America.” What really chilled me now was recalling Hank’s vivid description of their aroused, excited conversation about “War and Peace and the catastrophic possibilities of losing all their multi-billion dollar defense appropriations.” We’d tailed Cohen and Begin to Belli’s house above Sunset Boulevard for their meeting with a mysterious guest, Casper Weinberger. To Frank and I this incident had meant intelligence information of obvious value because of Begin the terrorist’s presence. But hell, it was to be more than twenty years before it began to add up.
      We didn’t know Weinberger was head man of a giant corporate colossus with powerful tentacles around the globe. The corporation was constructing billions of dollars of U.S. military installations in Europe, the Mediterranean, and in South East Asia because of overt threats of war. Until Conspiracy, Chapter 21, I had not known that the biggest threat in the world to Weinberger’s billions was the news of President Kennedy’s negotiations of World Peace.
      With the killing of Kennedy all thought and hope of Peace was instantly destroyed, shattered along with the lives, limbs and minds of thousands of America’s young men caught up in the premeditated insanity of Viet Nam’s holocaust. And now fantastically, more then two decades later, Casper Weinberger is the Secretary of Defense, demanding billions upon billions for his corporation to build military installations. And this in the face of tragic losses of young lives and the abandonment of billions of dollars of equipment and bases in the fiasco of Viet Nam. At the same time Casper Weinberger sinisterly attempts to demoralize United States military strength and morale by undermining the servicemens traditional pension plan.
      In Wash., D.C. just prior to JFK’s trip to Dallas, a White House Correspondent, Seth Kantor obtained the latest information of the Presidential motorcade routes. Through inside D.C. informants and sources Kantor was one of the first to learn of the secret Peace talks Kennedy was setting up with Fidel Castro. Besides knowing Belli and Cohen who were are the Hollywood meeting and Jack Ruby, Oswald and Candy Barr in Dallas, he knew Weinberger in D.C. Kantor was tied in full circle.
      Belli was Ruby’s lawyer, he refused to put him on the stand for fear he’d lose control of his mouth and reveal why he shot Oswald. Babbling, “I’ve been used for a purpose,” Ruby was frightened nearly to death by the Mishpucka about what would happen if he broke and spilled his guts that the assassination of the President was a Jew plot. They’d put all the blame on him for endangering their master plan with his failure to kill Oswald the first time. Ruby was told, “It would mean the torture of his family and of Jews in the streets, there could be a total extermination of the Jews if the truth came out.” Terrorized by the Mishpucka threats, he ranted on about his Jewish origins and how, “The Jews would be killed by the millions because of what he had done.”
      Four days after John F. Kennedy’s funeral, Lyndon B. Johnson, now President, summoned Chief Justice Warren to the White House. Melodramatically he informed Warren that it was his National duty to head a “Commission of Inquiry” into the murder of JFK. Johnson told him, “If certain dangerous facts were not concealed it could cost forty million lives.” Then commenced one of the most lurid, official, governmental cover-ups of all time. Over the years it has grown into a national disgrace. Public demand for the true facts of the murder of the popular John F. Kennedy has burgeoned and multiplied out of government control.
      At one point Ruby was ready to talk, he stated, “The murder of JFK was an act of over-throwing the government,” then even more electrifyingly he declared, “I know who had President Kennedy killed.” In person, Ruby told Chief Justice Earl Warren that his life was in danger and if he’d arrange to get him to D.C. under his protection, he would talk. Repeatedly, eight times in all, Oswald’s killer begged Warren to arrange his transfer to D.C., the Justice refused.
      Several times when pressured, President Lyndon Johnson had invoked secrecy in the name of National Security. The purpose was to cover-up, first, the Phony Assassination by Hunt, and second the Real Assassination committed by the Mishpucka. Hunt’s wild scheme had created the lunatic effect of positioning JFK as the target in a shooting gallery. Johnson’s National Security fears were tied to the Real Assassination scheme. If it was revealed to the public that JFK was assassinated by the Jews it could ignite a Holy War, forty million Jews in America could be exterminated, precisely as Ruby tearfully predicted, “Jews will be killed by the millions because of what I have done.”
      To Christians, white and black, President JFK’s murder would be tantamount to the second Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This time it was a high powered bullet exploding his head in a halo of blood, bone and brains. Not like nailing his hands and feet to the cross, but still the second killing of Christ. President Johnson feared a populace out of control, gone mad…riots…revolution…a fearful Holy War, so the decision was made, America and the world were not entitled to the truth.
      Conspiracy, Chapter 21, page 419, “On September 17, 1963, with nine weeks left until Pres. Kennedy’s Dallas trip, an American and an African met over coffee at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Seydou Diallo, a little known diplomat, was an Ambassador, the Guinean Envoy to Cuba. As his American contact he’d selected Ambassador William Attwood, Special Advisor to the United States Delegation at the UN. Diallo knew and trusted Wm. Attwood as the former American Ambassador to Guinea. Diallo was aware Attwood had met Castro and was also on close personal terms with Kennedy. Diallo’s urgent message was that after three years of confrontation Castro wanted to reach some sort of an understanding with the U.S.. He was especially unhappy about the way Cuba was becoming tied to Russia and was looking for some way out. Just two days later on September 19, he selected Ambassador Attwood to handle it. Robert, JFK’s brother, was very concerned with the secrecy of the matter and was bothered about the possibility of a leak. But Peace was on the move, a hot-line telephone link between the White House and Kremlin had been opened, a symbol of determination to bring the superpowers into closer touch on sensitive issues.”
      Soon Pres. Kennedy and Kruschev would sign a nuclear test ban treaty, and JFK had projected the return of a thousand troops from Viet Nam, the first stage of a withdrawal that was to bring all U.S. personnel home within two years. Kennedy’s quest for World Peace was taking shape. But Robert Kennedy’s great concern for leaks in the proposed Castro, Cuban peace talks was real. In a few weeks his brother’s assassination would shatter all hope for peace and security around the world for years to come. The eventful facts of the White House intrigue during the few weeks prior to JFK’s death as related in Chapter 21 were of over powering interest. Of equal importance in Conspiracy, Chapter 20, entitled, “Double Image In Dallas,” were the motivating clues pointing directly at the Mishpucka.