Stephen Rivele was born
on 6th May 1949. Rivele became an investigative journalist with a
strong interest in the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy.
In 1981 met Christian David, the leader of the Corsican network in
South America. David was awaiting extradition to France to stand trial
for murdering a policeman. David told Rivele that he had information
on the Kennedy assassination, in return for which he wanted a deal
with the U.S. government to block his extradition to France. Through
Rivele's efforts, a federal judge temporarily halted David's extradition.
In return for Rivele's
help, David told him that Kennedy's assassination had been organized
by Antoine Guerini, the Corsican crime
boss in Marseilles. David turned down the contract but was accepted
by Lucien Sarti and two other members of
the Marseilles mob. According to David, Sarti fired from behind the
wooden fence on the grassy knoll. The first shot was fired from behind
and hit Kennedy in the back. The second shot was fired from behind,
and hit John
Connally.
The third shot was fired from in front, and hit Kennedy in the head.
The fourth shot was from behind and missed.
Rivele's material was used
in the 1988 television documentary, The Men
Who Killed Kennedy. As well as Lucien
Sarti he also named Sauveur Pironti and Roger Bocognani as being
involved in the killing. However, Pironti and Bocognani both had alibis
and Rivele was forced to withdraw the allegation.
Rivele is the co-author
of The Plumber: The True Story of How One
Good Man Helped Destroy the Entire Philadelphia Mafia (1991),
The Mothershed Case (1992) and Lieutenant
Ramsey's War: From Horse Soldier to Guerrilla Commander
(1996). He also wrote the screenplays: Nixon
(1995) and Ali (2001).
Recently Rivele commented
that: "I believe that Sarti was involved, but apparently I was
wrong on the other two. If I were working on the case today, I'd look
at Paul Mondoloni of Montreal... Two points I would add: I saw a documentary
TV show last year about the KGB's investigation of the assassination,
and was amazed to learn that they came to the same conclusion as me.
Second, I was contacted two years ago by a former CIA agent (who worked
in the mind control program among others), who told me that I was
right about the assassination. Small comfort but better than nothing."
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Stephen
Rivele, transcript from The Men
Killed Who Kennedy (1988)
The initial turning
point was the first meeting that I had with the French narcotics trafficker
at Leavenworth Penitentiary. His name was Christian David. He had
been a member of the old French Connection heroin network. He had
then been a leader of the Corsican drug trafficking network in South
America known as the Latin Connection. And he had also been an intelligence
agent for a number of intelligence services around the world. In exchange
for my help in finding him an attorney to represent him against the
possibility of his deportation to France after he finished his sentence
at Leavenworth, he agreed to give me a certain amount of information
concerning the assassination based upon his own knowledge. The first
thing that he told me, very reluctantly and only after four or five
hours of my arguing with him, was that he was aware that there had
been a conspiracy to murder the president, and indeed in May or June
of 1963 in Marseilles, he had been offered the contract to kill President
Kennedy. That was the initial breakthrough, if you will. He was eventually
deported to France. I remained in contact with him. I went to Paris
to interview him in two prisons in Paris. And in the fear that he
would be either committed to an asylum or that he would be convicted
of an old murder charge, he gradually gave me additional information
about the assassination.
David’s position was
that there were three killers, and that they had been hired on a contract
which had been placed with the leader of the Corsican Mafia at Marseilles,
a man named Antoine Guerini. Guerini, he said, was asked to supply
three assassins of high quality, experienced killers to murder the
President, and that Guerini did so. In the course of one of the first
significant conversations I had with David on this subject, he told
me that he had been in Marseilles in May or June of 1963, and that
every evening he went to Antoine Guerini’s club on the old Port
of Marseilles to meet people who owed him money. And one evening,
Guerini sent for him, asked him to come to the office which was above
the club. Guerini told him that he had an important contract, and
he asked David if he were interested. David said, "Who’s
the contract on?" Guerini said, "an American politician."
David asked, "Well is it a congressman, a senator?" And
Guerini said, "higher than that... The highest vegetable."
At that point of course David knew who he was talking about. David
asked him where was the contract to be carried out. And when Guerini
said it would be done inside the United States, David refused on the
grounds that that was much too dangerous.
(2)
Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1998)
In May or June of
1963, he was offered a contract by Antoine Guerini, the Corsican crime
boss in Marseilles, to accept a contract to kill "a highly placed
American politician" whom Guerini called the "biggest vegetable"-
i.e., President Kennedy. The president was to be killed on US territory.
David told Rivele that he turned down the contract because it was
too dangerous. After David turned down the contract offer, he said
it was accepted by Lucien Sarti, another Corsican drug trafficker
and killer, and two other members of the Marseilles mob, whom he refused
to name. David said he learned what happened about two years after
the assassination in a meeting in Buenos Aires, during which Sarti,
another drug trafficker named Michele Nicoli, David, and two others
were present. During the meeting, the assassination of John F. Kennedy
was discussed. This is how the assassination was carried out as David
told it to Rivele.
About two weeks before
the assassination, Sarti flew from France to Mexico City, from where
he drove or was driven to the US border at Brownsville, Texas. Sarti
crossed at Brownsville where he was picked up by someone from the
Chicago mafia. This person drove him to a private house in Dallas.
He did not stay at a hotel, as not to leave records. David believes
that Sarti was traveling on an Italian passport. David said the assassins
cased Dealey Plaza, took photographs and worked out mathematically
how to set up a crossfire. Sarti wanted to fire from the triple underpass
bridge, but when he arrived in Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination,
there were people there, so he fired from a little hill next to the
bridge. There was a wooden fence on that hill, and Sarti fired from
behind the wooden fence. He said Sarti only fired once, and used an
explosive bullet. He said Kennedy was shot in a crossfire, two shots
from behind, and Sarti's shot from the front. Of the two assassins
behind, one was high, and one was low. He said you can't understand
the wounds if you don't realize that one gun was low, "almost
on the horizontal." The first shot was fired from behind and
hit Kennedy in the back. The second shot was fired from behind, and
hit "the other person in the car." The third shot was fired
from in front, and hit Kennedy in the head. The fourth shot was from
behind and missed "because the car was too far away." He
said that two shots were almost simultaneous.
David said that Kennedy
was killed for revenge and money. He said the CIA was incapable of
killing Kennedy, but did cover it up. He said the gunmen stayed at
the private house in Dallas for approximately two weeks following
the assassination, then believes they went to Canada, that there were
people in Canada who had the ability to fly them out of North America.
(3)
As
a result of his research Stephen Rivele came
to the conclusion that the plot to kill Kennedy involved Antoine
Guerini, Carlos
Marcello,
Santos
Trafficante and Lucien
Sarti.
My own conviction at this
point is that the contract probably originated with Carlos Marcello
of New Orleans who placed it in Marseilles through his colleague Santo
Trafficante, Jr. who had the closest relations with Antoine Guérini.
Beyond that, it seems reasonable that Giancana of Chicago was involved
if we accept Christian David and Michel Nicoli’s idea that the
assassins were met at the border by representatives of the Chicago
Mafia. And the fact that Sarti’s customers were primarily in
New York, and the fact that the assassins evidently moved out of the
United States through the Montreal corridor, which was very closely
linked to the New York Mafia, also suggests that Gambino may have
been involved.
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