As I said before it was the matter of the trial that they would have been worried about.
He lived for another six years when he couldn’t harm them and just when he looked like he might again get in a position of power he was killed.
As you said with regards to Ruby if this was the only evidence then it wouldn’t, but there is also quite compelling evidence for these cases.
I am obviously not making myself clear, the professional gets away without being noticed, the nut gets caught and the case is closed.
Hoover, you must admit was not one of your finer historical figures. Scheim goes into detail of his sketchy dealings and suggests some possible reasons why he might have but I won’t list them here. In the end of the day it matters not, the fact that Hoover was putting pressure on his staff to come to the conclusion that Oswald acted alone would have affected the results. Whether it was purely because he was embarrassed that he let a conspiracy kill the president and the lone-gunman theory could be wrapped up quickly or he was doing it for money/favour/he hated JFK/blackmail or some combination it doesn’t matter.
What is this evidence? Even so, if he is easily painted as a nut it wouldn’t blow the theory as this would be exactly the type of person they would be looking for. A question, do you think that Ruby and Oswald were delusional or simply making shit up to strengthen their case?
Maybe so and the majority of Americans still think that way, but as long as the official version stays the same it doesn’t matter.
No, Ruby thought it did and that is all that matters.
This comes back to the size of the conspiracy and whether it is plausible. The people who had to be part of the conspiracy according to Scheim were:
Major heads of the mafia (for consent rather than anything else)
LBJ
Warren (probably, but since appointed by LBJ may not have been voluntary)
Ruby
Oswald
Significant sections of the DPD
As you said the autopsy reports must have been faked but what about the doctor who said ‘he would always know that Kennedy was shot from the front’ what reason would he have to lie and put his reputation at risk?
Of these people who were allegedly part of the conspiracy most of them would severely compromise themselves by going public with the story and would stand to gain nothing. Couple this with the threat of violence and I can’t see why these people would ever come forward.
People who could have helped cover up the conspiracy:
Hoover and significant sections of the FBI
Garrison
Marley, you are not quite getting this outsider thing, Sirhan Sirhan was just some dude of dubious background, which is all the mafia would need in this case. Maybe he owed them gambling debts as he was a bit of a gambler. In Scheim’s thesis Sirhan Sirhan was the distraction/fall guy and the real assassin was Bobby’s replacement bodyguard. There are a number of factors which point to this conclusion. When the bodyguard fired at Sirhan Sirhan he did it in a ‘wild western style, from the hip’, now I don’t know anyone who in a crowded room would fire from the hip. He was standing just behind Bobby at the time so his gun would have been perilously close to aiming at Bobby’s back. There is other evidence linking this bodyguard to the mob.
Okay, to imply that only liberal people get assassinated was wrong, I still think that both Kennedy’s being assassinated decreases the chances that it was random.
This argument has come up a few times in different forms, ‘how can they keep this conspiracy so well, surely SOMEONE must have found a hole in it?’ The problem with this argument is that it is again circular.
Conspiracy weak -> People claiming conspiracy incredible
This effectively nullifies any witnesses or conspiracists leaving only physical evidence to be debated.
No credible people claiming conspiracy -> Conspiracy weak
I believe that Scheim has conclusively connected the mafia to the JFK case and put strong evidence forward for the other assassinations. The whole idea of organized crime is to bribe the people who can be bribed and get rid of people that can’t. Naturally it is not possible to bribe or get rid of everybody so they then have to contain the information to the people they can.
Okay so you don’t believe the private-eye dude, however you must admit that this is one more person whose story that you a not believing simply because you find it fantastic. And what about wealthy Cuban exile Jose Aleman who retold a conversation he had with Santos Trafficante (big player, was present at that big meeting in New York, Apalachin) to the Washington Post:
‘Have you seen how his [JFK] brother is hitting [Jimmy] Hoffa, a man who is a worker, who is not a millionaire, a friend of the blue collars? He doesn’t know that this kind of encounter is very delicate. Mark my words, this man Kennedy is in trouble, and he will get what is coming to him’ (Crile, ‘The Mafia, the CIA and Castro’, Washington Post, May 16, 1976 pp.C1)
When Aleman suggested that Kennedy would probably get re-elected Trafficante replied, ‘No, Jose, he is going to be hit’ (ibid)
Aleman said that he reported this and subsequent conversations with Trafficante to FBI agents (ibid) and was questioned closely by the FBI about this threat shortly after the assassination (ibid). Two agents that the Washington Post reported as having ‘acknowledge their frequent contacts with Aleman but both declined to comment on Aleman’s conversation with Trafficante’(ibid) because he ‘wouldn’t want to do anything to embarrass the Bureau’ (ibid).
As for the mob holding on to its secrets, they tend to do that fairly well considering the amount of stuff they have to hide, maybe it is something to do with the dismembering of family members. Even so, what about Johnny Roselli claiming that Ruby was ‘one of our boys’.
I think that even if it was common knowledge that the JFK assassination was a mob hit amongst mafia members, that many would have no concrete proof of it. The thing about the assassination is that it DID stop the big push that Bobby Kennedy was putting on the mob. Bobby Kennedy lived another six years, ran for president and then got shot, I can’t fathom how that isn’t just a little bit suspicious to you guys. The HSAC findings were clearly appalled with the performance of the secret services, even one of the two senators dissenting the finding of a conspiracy (against one dissenting that it did not go far enough) called for tighter regulation of their activities.
Silvio, I am glad that someone has read Scheims book. However, I dispute the assertion that you made that a big part of the case rested on the testimony of Becker. I think you could leave it out and it would still be convincing. Trying to judge what Marcello would or would not do is pretty hard, a possible motive for telling Becker could be just plain and simple boasting. After all, what is the point of being a powerful man if you can’t let people know how powerful you are? Also what about Aleman? And why would you implicate the mob for no reason?
The lone-nut thesis is less problematic than the mafia conspiracy purely due to its simplicity. We can’t tell what goes on in a person’s mind especially a crazy one, so there is nothing to dispute. That is the beauty of it and why it makes an attractive foil. I can’t tell you why the mafia did not hit Giulianni or Blakey, maybe it would be too obvious because they couldn’t blame some other party as easily. Are you implying that mafia hits don’t happen because otherwise why wouldn’t they have hit Blakey or Giulianni? The mafia in Italy has a long history of hitting judges and politicians why would it be any different in America?
If you manage to convince people of the official version or at least put enough doubt in their minds about a conspiracy then they are not going to react. The CIA wasn’t really involved in it, it was pretty much all the FBI, which after reaching the initial finding had a vested interest. Eventually there was enough political will to set up the HSAC which discovered many flaws in the Warren Commissions findings.
Now Marley, I know that you want the word conspiracy removed from the English language because they never actually happen, but I just wanted to challenge what you are basing this belief/feeling on (excuse me if I have exaggerated your stance). We never know when a successful conspiracy occurs, only when they fail (obvious, I know). Now when we perform our subconscious statistical analysis of the situation 100% of the conspiracies fail, meaning that they are almost impossible. Of course there is the flip side of the coin, if you start believing in every conspiracy that comes a long then they soon swamp out the unsuccessful ones and our judgement is off again.
Now I believe that people naturally disposed to conspiratorial actions just from personal experience and only a sense of moral duty stops us. Now what is that saying, ‘the people who want power are the last people who we should give it to’. This may be stepping over the line and may offend some people but I think that power has a tendency to attract immoral people (as they play dirty). Following this imprecise logic I arrive at the conclusion that conspiratorial actions are more likely to occur in the circles of power than in everyday life. Make what you will of that as I realise it is not very convincing but I just wanted to say it.
In summary, it is possible that Oswald was a nut, Ruby was a nut, Becker and Aleman I don’t know what their reasons for lying would be, Roselli was senile, that doctor was an attention seeker, the witnesses that saw someone or heard a gun-shot behind the grassy knoll were wrong, I don’t know how but that head shot was from behind and many, many more small incidents that implicate the mob in the assassination but I for one find this unlikely.
