Santo
Trafficante was born in Tampa, Florida, on 15th November, 1914. His
father, Santo Trafficante Senior, was a leading figure in the Mafia.
In the 1940s he joined up with Lucky
Luciano,
Frank
Costello, and
Meyer Lansky
to set
up gambling operations in Cuba. The dictator
of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, received
a large cut of the profits.
Santo
Trafficante
married Josephine
Marchese
on 17th April, 1938. He worked for his father in Florida and in
1953 he was sent to Cuba to manage some Mafia controlled casinos.
Trafficante
took full control of these operations
when his father died of stomach cancer in August, 1954.
Trafficante
also spent time in Florida. This resulted in his arrest and conviction
for gambling offences.
He was released from prison in January 1957 after his conviction was
overturned by Florida's State Supreme Court. It is believed that soon
afterwards Trafficante arranged for Albert
Anastasia, his Mafia rival, to be
murdered.
Trafficante
returned to Cuba
but his
casinos were closed down when Fidel Castro
overthrew Fulgencio
Batista in
January, 1959. Trafficante spent time in prison before being deported
to the United States.
In
September 1960 Johnny
Roselli and
Sam
Giancana,
took part in talks with Allen W. Dulles,
the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), about the possibility of murdering Fidel
Castro. In 1961 Roselli persuaded Trafficante to join the conspiracy.
Meyer
Lansky
also became involved in
this plot and was reportedly offering a million-dollar reward for
the Cuban leader's murder.
Trafficante
also worked closely with the CIA agent, William
Harvey, in this operation. By 1962, Trafficante and his friends
became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by
simply killing Castro. However, they continued to play along with
this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal
offences committed in the United States.
It is also
believed that Trafficante became involved in Mafia plots to kill President
John
F. Kennedy.
He told a friend, Jose Aleman: "Mark my word, this man Kennedy
is in trouble, and he will get what is coming to him. Kennedy's got
going to make it to the election. He is going to be hit."
Just
before Kennedy was assassinated on 22nd November, 1963, Jack
Ruby made contact with Trafficante, and another Mafia leader,
Carlos Marcello, about a problem he
was having with the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). However,
the Warren Commission
failed to find any direct link between Trafficante
and
Ruby concluded that "Oswald acted alone".
Trafficante
continued to work for the CIA
and was
involved in the Iran-Contra affair. Santo
Trafficante
died on the 19th March, 1987.
On
14th January, 1992, the New York Post
claimed that Trafficante,
Jimmy
Hoffa
and
Carlos
Marcello
had
all been involved in the assassination of President
John
F. Kennedy.
Frank
Ragano was quoted as saying that at the beginning of 1963 Hoffa
had told him to take a message to Trafficante and Marcello concerning
a plan to kill Kennedy. When the meeting took place at the Royal Orleans
Hotel, Ragano told the men: "You won't believe what Hoffa wants
me to tell you. Jimmy wants you to kill the president." He reported
that both men gave the impression that they intended to carry out
this order.
In
his autobiography, Mob Lawyer
(1994) (co-written with journalist Selwyn Raab) Frank
Ragano added
that in July, 1963, he was once again sent to New
Orleans
by Hoffa
to meet Trafficante
and Carlos
Marcello
concerning plans to kill
President John
F. Kennedy.
When
Kennedy was killed Hoffa apparently said to Ragano: "I told you
could do it. I'll never forget what Carlos and Santos did for me."
He added: "This means Bobby is out as Attorney General".
Marcello later told Ragano: "When you see Jimmy (Hoffa), you
tell him he owes me and he owes me big."
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
Forum Debate on Santo Trafficante
Namebase: Santo Trafficante
(1)
Robert
Maheu,
Next to Hughes (1992)
In the winter
of 1959-60, however, the CIA still thought it could pull off the invasion
(of Cuba). But it thought the odds might be better if the plan went
one step further - the murder of Fidel Castro. All the Company needed
was someone to do the dirty work for it. Professional killers. A gangland-style
hit.
It was then
that the CIA conceived the notion to let the mobsters do it themselves.
They'd had a grudge against Castro ever since he'd forced them out
of the Havana casinos. It was even rumored that Meyer Lansky had put
a million-dollar bounty on Castro's head. CIA Director Alien Dulles
passed the ball to his deputy director, Richard Bissell. Bissell handed
off to the CIA security chief. Colonel Sheffield Edwards. And then
I received the call...
Though I'm
no saint, I am a religious man, and I knew that the CIA was talking
about murder. O'Connell and Edwards contended that it was a war -
a just war. They said it was necessary to protect the country. They
used the analogy of World War II: if we had known the exact bunker
that Hitler was in during the war, we wouldn't have hesitated to kill
the bastard. The CIA felt exactly the same way about Castro. If Fidel,
his brother Raul, and Che Guevara were assassinated, thousands of
lives might be saved.
But in my
mind, justified or not, I would still have blood on my hands. I had
to think about it. The deal carried a pretty big price tag. I kept
thinking about my family. What kind of danger would it put them in?
If anything went wrong, I was the fall guy, caught between protecting
the government and protecting the mob, two armed camps that could
crush me like a bug....
Rosselli's
first response was laughter. "Me? You want me to get involved
with Uncle Sam? The Feds are tailing me wherever I go. They go to
my shirtmaker to see if I'm buying things with cash. They go to my
tailor to see if I'm using cash there. They're always trying to get
something on me. Bob, are you sure you're talking to the right guy?"
When I finally
convinced Rosselli that I was serious, very serious, he sat staring
at me, tapping his fingers nervously on the table. I didn't want to
pull any punches with the man, so I was totally up-front about the
conditions of the deal.
"It's
up to you to pick whom you want, but it's got to be set up so that
Uncle Sam isn't involved - ever. If anyone connects you with the U.S.
government, I will deny it," I told him. "If you say Bob
Maheu brought you into this, that I was your contact man, I'll say
you're off your rocker, you're lying, you're trying to save your hide.
I'll swear by everything holy that I don't know what in hell you're
talking about."
Rosselli hesitated
at first, but then agreed. Many people have speculated that Johnny
was looking for an eventual deal with the government, or some sort
of big payoff. The truth, as corny as it may sound, is that down deep
he thought it was his "patriotic" duty.
Understand
that the world was quite different then. The Cold War was raging.
Only months before, Francis Gary Powers had been shot down while flying
his U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union. The relationship
between Washington and Moscow was at an all-time low, with Soviet
Premier Khrushchev going so far as to openly call President Eisenhower
a liar on several occasions.
Once the
decision was made, it didn't take Rosselli long to put his plan into
motion. On October 11, 1960, we took off for what would be the first
of many trips to Miami. We booked ourselves into the Kenilworth Hotel,
selected because Arthur Godfrey did his TV show from there. In Miami,
Johnny introduced me to two men who would help us - "Sam Gold"
and "Joe." Sam was Johnny's backup man; Joe would be our
direct contact in Cuba. These weren't ordinary mob lackeys. Johnny
didn't bother to tell me that "Sam" was Sam Giancana, his
boss within the Mafia and the chief of its gigantic Chicago operation.
Or that "Joe" was Santos Trafficante, former syndicate chief
in Havana, and the most powerful Mafia man in the South.
I later learned
that Johnny didn't just need a little help from these men, he needed
their okay. Trafficante was necessary to get Castro because he had
the connections inside Cuba, and Giancana was necessary to get Trafficante,
because Trafficante had the stature of a "Godfather," and
only a man of equal stature - like Giancana - could approach him for
help. Johnny couldn't do it on his own. Both were among the ten most
powerful Mafia members - a fact I learned only after seeing their
pictures in a magazine soon after meeting them.
(2)
House
Select Committee on Assassinations (September 28, 1978)
Louis Stokes: In order to operate your casinos in 1957-58, did you
have to pay money to Cuban officials to maintain the operation of
your casinos?
Santo
Trafficante:
We had to pay a license of $25,000 a year and we had to give 50 percent
of the take of the slot machines.
Louis
Stokes: Can you tell us in late 1958, what was the result of the activities
of Castro? How did it affect the tourist and gambling business there
in Havana?
Santo
Trafficante.
You are talking about 1958 before Castro came in?
Louis
Stokes: Before he came in, yes.
Santo
Trafficante:
It wasn't too good, Every other day they had bombs and stuff like
that. It was nothing.
Louis
Stokes: What effect did it have on the gambling business? How did
it affect your business?
Santo
Trafficante:
Because every day there were bombs put in different spots and the
first thing you know, even if there were a couple bombs, before the
night was over, there were 200, supposedly, rumors, stuff flying around
and people would stay home.
Louis
Stokes: I suppose that this then caused the casino operators a great
deal of concern, did it not?
Santo
Trafficante:
I suppose so.
Louis
Stokes: And was there fear on the part of the operators that if Castro
came to power that he would confiscate these businesses?
Santo
Trafficante:
No.
Louis
Stokes: Was there anticipated at all that he might come to power at
that time?
Santo
Trafficante:
Nobody ever dreamt that he would come to power at that time.
Louis
Stokes: Did you or any of the other casino operators take any steps
to protect your businesses in the event that he would come to power?
Santo
Trafficante:
No. There was no question about him taking to power. They used to
- in the papers when you would read about him, you would read like
he was some kind of a bandit.
Louis
Stokes: Did you meet Fidel or Raoul Castro prior to January 1, 1959?
Santo
Trafficante:
No.
Louis
Stokes: When Fidel Castro took over, how soon did he order the casinos
to be closed?
Santo
Trafficante:
Well,
even before he reached Havana, because he didn't come down from the
mountain until after Batista had left, and he had a walkathon, you
would call it, from the mountains to Havana, and they kept interviewing
him and he kept saying the casinos would close, statements to that
effect, the casinos close without even being notified officially to
close. Everything was in a turmoil. There was people all over the
streets, breaking into homes, there was complete enmity and the only
thing at that time was to try and stay alive.
Louis
Stokes: After Castro came to power, did you continue to operate your
business as usual?
Santo
Trafficante:
No, everything was closed.
(3)
House
Select Committee on Assassinations (September 28, 1978)
Louis Stokes: When you left Cuba, where did you next live?
Santo
Trafficante:
I lived in Miami.
Louis
Stokes: Mr. Trafficante, when was the first time you were ever approached
by any individual who was affiliated with or working for the CIA?
Santo
Trafficante:
It was around either the latter part of 1960, or first part of 1961.
Louis
Stokes: And can you tell us who was the person who first contacted
you?
Santo
Trafficante:
John Roselli.
Louis
Stokes: And where did he approach you?
Santo
Trafficante:
I think we were in the Fontaine bleau Hotel.
Louis
Stokes: And can you give us the date?
Santo
Trafficante:
No.
Louis
Stokes: Can you approximate the time?
Santo
Trafficante:
I told you it was either the latter part of 1960 or first part of
1961.
Louis
Stokes: Did you know Mr. Roselli before that date?
Santo
Trafficante:
Yes, I had met him.
Louis
Stokes: Can you tell us how you knew him?
Santo
Trafficante:
Well,
at this moment I don't remember how I met him but I knew him.
Louis
Stokes: And how long had you known him?
Santo
Trafficante:
I would say about 15 years, 15-16 years.
Louis
Stokes: Now, had Mr. Roselli ever had any business interests in Cuba?
Santo
Trafficante:
No.
Louis
Stokes: Over the period of time that you had known him, how often
had you and he come into contact?
Santo
Trafficante:
Very
few.
Louis
Stokes: Now, did he tell you how he came to be affiliated with the
CIA?
Santo
Trafficante:
No.
Louis
Stokes: This first meeting was just between the two of you?
Santo
Trafficante:
Yes, the first time, yes.
Louis
Stokes: Can you tell us the substance of the conversation you had
with him?
Santo
Trafficante:
Well, he told me that CIA and the United States Government was involved
in eliminating Castro. And if I would happen, and if Mr. Gener, if
Mr. Macho Gener, if I knew about him, knew what kind of man he was.
I told him I think he was a good man, he was against Castro anyhow,
and that is about it. Then he introduced me to Mr. Maheu, and then
Mr. Giancana came into the picture. Mr. Roselli wanted me to be more
or less an interpreter in the situation because he couldn't speak
Spanish and I can speak Spanish fluently.
Louis Stokes: What was your reaction to killing President Castro?
Santo
Trafficante:
Well
at the time I think that it was a good thing because he had established
a communistic base 90 miles from the United States and being that
the Government of the United States wanted it done, I go along with
it, the same thing as a war, I figure it was like a war.
(4)
Louis
Stokes, House Select Committee
on Assassinations
(September 28, 1978)
In 1967, 1971, 1976, and 1977, those 4 years, columnist Jack Anderson
wrote about the CIA-Mafia plots and the possibility that Castro decided
to kill President Kennedy in retaliation. Mr. Anderson even contends
in those articles that the same persons involved in the CIA-Mafia
attempts on Castro's life were recruited by Castro to kill President
Kennedy. The September 7, 1976 issue of the Washington Post contains
one of Mr. Anderson's articles entitled, "Behind John F. Kennedy's
Murder," which fully explains Mr. Anderson's position. I ask,
Mr. Chairman, that at this point this article be marked as JFK exhibit
F-409 and that it be entered into the record at this point.
Mr. Trafficante, I want
to read to you just two portions of the article I have just referred
to, after which I will ask for your comment. According to Mr. Anderson
and Mr. Whitten in this article, it says: Before he died, Roselli
hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy's
murder. It was the same conspirators, he suggested, whom he had recruited
earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. By Roselli's cryptic account,
Castro learned the identity of the underworld contacts in Havana who
had been trying to knock him off. He believed, not altogether without
basis, that President Kennedy was behind the plot. Then over in another
section, it says: According to Roselli, Castro enlisted the same underworld
elements whom he had caught plotting against him. They supposedly
were Cubans from the old Trafficante organization. Working with Cuban
intelligence, they allegedly lined up an ex-Marine sharpshooter, Lee
Harvey Oswald, who had been active in the pro-Castro movement. According
to Roselli's version, Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may have acted
as a decoy while others ambushed him from closer range. When Oswald
was picked up, Roselli suggested the underworld conspirators feared
he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This
almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the
Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald making it appear
as an act of reprisal against the President's killer. At least this
is how Roselli explained the tragedy in Dallas.
(5)
Jack
Anderson, Peace,
War and Politics: An Eyewitness Account (1999)
The CIA's Sheffield
Edwards was supposed to make the contact with the underworld. He approached
a former FBI agent and CIA operative, Robert
Maheu, who moved at the subterranean level of politics. Maheu knew
his way around the shady side of Las Vegas; he had been recruited
by billionaire Howard Hughes to oversee his Las Vegas casinos. Happily,
Hughes was a friend who owed me a favor. Intermediaries persuaded
Maheu to confide in me. He confirmed that the CIA had asked him to
sound out the Mafia, strictly off the record, about a contract to
hit Fidel Castro. Maheu had taken the request straight to Johnny Rosselli.
Rosselli had a reputation
inside the mob as a patriot; he was quite willing to kill for his
country. But as he told me, there was an etiquette to be followed
in these matters. Santo Trafficante was the godfather-in-exile of
Cuba after Castro chased out the mob. Rosselli couldn't even tiptoe
through Trafficante's territory without permission, and he couldn't
approach Trafficante without a proper introduction. So Rosselli prevailed
upon his boss in Chicago, Sam "Momo" Giancana, to attend
to the protocol. Since Giancana had godfather status, he could solicit
Trafficante's help to eliminate Castro. The project appealed to Giancana
who had commiserated with other dons over the loss of casino revenues
in Havana. Killing Castro for the government would settle some old
scores for the mob, and it would put Uncle Sam in the debt of the
Mafia.
Maheu had been ordered
to keep a tight lid on the involvement of the U.S. government. The
CIA was ready with a cover story that the Castro hit had been arranged
by disgruntled American businessmen who had been bounced out of their
Cuban enterprises by Castro.
On September 25, I960,
Maheu brought two CIA agents to a suite at the Fountainebleau Hotel
on Miami Beach. Rosselli delivered two sinister mystery men whom he
introduced only as Sicilians named "Sam" and "Joe."
In fact, they were two of the Mafia's most notorious godfathers, Sam
Giancana and Santo Trafficante, both on the FBI's ten-most-wanted
list. They discussed the terms of Castro's demise, with Giancana suggesting
that the usual mob method of a quick bullet to the head be eschewed
in favor of something more delicate, like poison.
The wily Giancana was
less interested in bumping off Castro than in scoring points with
the federal government, and he intended to call in as many chips as
he could before the game was over.
(6)
In 1989 David
E. Scheim
was asked by Blaine Taylor
who killed President John
F. Kennedy.
The three
people are Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss of New Orleans... The second
figure is Santo Trafficante, who was the Mafia boss at Tampa, Florida.
The third is Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters' boss who was killed... Like
Carlos Marcello, each of the other two had spoken openly of assassination
plots against the Kennedys, and this all occurred in the summer months
of 1962. All three of them were very close friends, and, when we look
at Jack Ruby's telephone records, we find an astonishing peak in the
number of out-of-state calls in the months before the assassination
- it's actually 25-fold greater than in the month of the previous
January. Most of those calls are to organized crime figures, in particular
to top associates of Marcello, Trafficante, and Hoffa.
(7)
Frank
Ragano,
Mob Lawyer (1994)
Of the
Mafia trio, only Roselli testified before the State committee. On
July 19, 1975, the night before he was going to be questioned by committee
members, Sam Giancana was preparing a supper... when a person he evidently
trusted and had invited to share the meal ended his life by firing
a .22 caliber handgun equipped with silencer into the back of his
head. The killer followed up by discharging six more rounds into Giancana's
neck and mouth.
Some organized-crime
experts theorized that Giancana's murder was unrelated to the Senate
inquiry, and that he was killed by rivals to stop him from regaining
supremacy of Chicago's Mafia clan. From what I had picked up over
the years about mob executions, the nature of Giancana's death contradicts
that theory. In a traditional Mafia hit, a bullet in the throat signifies
that the victim had been 'talking,' and a bullet in the mouth means
he will never 'rat' again. Undoubtedly, Giancana was murdered to prevent
him from talking about the CIA-Castro plot or any other Mafia secret.
Almost exactly
on the first anniversary of Giancana's death, another layer of mystery
was added to the coincidence of his slaying and the Senate's CIA investigation.
After years of seemingly cooperating with congressional committees
and talking rather freely with newspaper columnists about Mafia affairs,
Johnny Roselli became extremely cautious, almost reclusive...
In late July
1976, Roselli made a dinner date. He was seen with his old friend
Santo Trafficante at The Landings, a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.
Two days after dining with Santo, Roselli disappeared.
Twelve days
later, on August 7, 1976, a fifty gallon drum containing the legless
body of a silver-haired man... The corpse was Johnny Roselli.
The manner
of Roselli's death also fit a Mafia pattern. He was beguiled to his
death by someone he trusted. The dumping of his body in the bay was
another message: The killers either wanted to give the impression
that he had deliberately vanished or they wanted to punish his relatives
for his misdeeds, perhaps his violation of omerta...
One fact,
however, was indisputable: Santo Trafficante was the only survivor
of the three mobsters recruited by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro.
(8) Robert D. Morrow, First Hand Knowledge (1992)
The execution of John F. Kennedy would be performed by a series of teams selected from CIA-sponsored exile and mercenary groups in Miami and New Orleans. The modus operandi to be employed would be very simple. The murder of the President of the United States could not resemble a standard syndicate killing. It should, ideally, be made to look as if it were the work of a lone gunman. As a sure kill could not be guaranteed by the work of only one gunman, two additional firing sites would be necessary.
The next item to pursue was the involvement of Fidel Castro. Trafficante planned the scenario. He would act as a double agent and, through an intermediary, warn Castro that the CIA, under presidential directive, would execute another assassination attempt on the Cuban dictator. Trafficante would then select two expendable subordinates who would be set up to murder Castro. The hitmen, under the impression they were actually working for the CIA, would be caught by Castro and reveal, after having been tortured, the identity of their supposed employer. As further evidence of their CIA affiliation, they would be equipped with assassination items readily identifiable with the clandestine agency. With both this evidence and the confessions of the hitmen, Fidel Castro would undoubtedly make a statement indicating his desire for revenge against the United States government. After the death of JFK, Castro's statement would be viewed as evidence of his complicity in the President's assassination.
Now that the actual plan for the assassination of JFK had been completed, it was time to find the players to fit the designated roles. To this end, Trafficante sent out word to the Mafia families and clearly detailed his requirements for personnel, armaments, communications and management of the two-phased operation.
David Ferrie received word of Trafficante's requirements and suggested Lee Harvey Oswald for the role of lone gunman in the assassination scenario. Oswald was the perfect patsy and fit all the requirements established to render the assassination a non syndicate hit: he was supposedly a liberal political activist with no traceable mob connections and presently residing in New Orleans - Marcello's home territory. Trafficante chose Rolando Masferrer, a Cuban mercenary closely associated with Kohly and del Vane, to assist in the implementation of the JFK assassination scheme. Masferrer would both coordinate and finance the assigned Kennedy hit teams, one of which would include John Michael Mertz. The staged Castro assassination attempt was coordinated by Tony Verona, "Prio" Socarras' former prime minister. To legitimize the Castro assassination attempt as a CIA operation, Trafficante had John Roselli report Verona's dispatch of a Castro assassination team to the CIA. The team's existence was leaked to Castro via Trafficante's use of a Cuban attorney named Carlos Garcia Bongo."
Trafficante's plan worked. On September 7, 1963, Fidel Castro told Associated Press reporter Dan Harker that the United States was assisting terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders. He added a warning to his statement, maintaining that, if this continued, U.S. leaders could find their own lives in jeopardy.
Although Trafficante and Ferrie maintained vigilant security precautions while both planning and staffing the JFK operation, their secrecy was breached. J. Edgar Hoover learned of both the contract on JFK and the ensuing plot to assassinate him. His method of securing the information was through FBI surveillance of the Trafficante organization and paid FBI informants. A Cuban Mafia member told a wealthy Cuban exile, Jose Aleman of Miami, that Trafficante felt indebted to Aleman's cousin, and wanted to reciprocate by helping Aleman solve the cash problems he was having trying to build a new motel. Trafficante said Jimmy Hoffa had already cleared a loan for Aleman from the Teamster's Pension Fund.
Available from Amazon
Books (order below)
