David Kaiser: Documents show that Oswald, the mob, anti-Castro Cubans, and right-wing groups really did conspire to kill the president
[David Kaiser, a historian, is a professor at the Naval War College. His books include American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Harvard University Press, 2000). This essay is adapted from his The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, to be published this month by Harvard University Press, copyright 2008 by David Kaiser.]
Sometime in the last week of September or the first few days of October 1963, three men knocked at the door of Silvia Odio, a young, divorced Cuban woman living in Dallas. Odio was packing for a move with the help of her sister. Their parents were in prison in Cuba, where they had been arrested after participating in an unsuccessful assassination conspiracy against Fidel Castro. Odio belonged to JURE, the Revolutionary Junta in Exile, an anti-Castro organization. By the fall of 1963, JURE, with covert American assistance, was preparing for a descent upon Cuba.
Two of the three men at the door identified themselves as "Leopoldo" and "Angelo." The third man, a young, slim American introduced as "Leon," said almost nothing. The men asked for assistance in identifying possible Dallas-area donors to the Cuban cause. Odio was polite but noncommittal, and they left.
A day or two later, she received a phone call from Leopoldo. The call, she surmised, reflected some romantic interest on his part, but he also asked what she thought of "the American." When she had nothing to say, he explained that the American was a former marine and an excellent shot, a slightly crazy fellow who might do anything. He speculated that Leon might be able to shoot Castro if he could be gotten into Cuba and also reported that Leon himself had commented that Cubans should have shot President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs.
As Odio explained to the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy many months later, she felt they were feeling her out to see if she had useful contacts in the Cuban underground. But she had no such contacts and did not reciprocate Leopoldo's romantic interest. A little less than two months later, after the assassination of President Kennedy, she saw Lee Harvey Oswald's picture and recognized him as Leon. Within two weeks she had given the essence of her story to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the agency did nothing to pursue it for more than six months.
The Odio incident was immediately recognized by Warren Commission investigators and by readers of the commission's 1964 report as one of the most provocative pieces of evidence in the case. But it has taken more than 40 years, and the release of millions of pages of original documentation in the late 1990s, to finally identify who Odio's callers were and how their visit confirms that President Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy for which Oswald was simply the trigger man.
As it turns out, the visit links Oswald and his crime to an enormous network of mobsters, anti-Castro Cubans, and right-wing political activists. Together with other new evidence, it allows us to name several key players in the conspiracy. The men who visited Odio were almost certainly Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, and Oswald. Hall was an American military veteran and part-time mercenary who went to Cuba in 1959, joined Castro's army as a trainer, and then spent several months in a Cuban transit prison after falling afoul of the authorities. In the same prison at the same time was one of the United States' most notorious criminals, Santo Trafficante Jr., owner of several Havana casinos and mob boss of northern Florida. During that summer, Trafficante was also visited in his cell by a Dallas club owner named Jack Ruby....
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Sometime in the last week of September or the first few days of October 1963, three men knocked at the door of Silvia Odio, a young, divorced Cuban woman living in Dallas. Odio was packing for a move with the help of her sister. Their parents were in prison in Cuba, where they had been arrested after participating in an unsuccessful assassination conspiracy against Fidel Castro. Odio belonged to JURE, the Revolutionary Junta in Exile, an anti-Castro organization. By the fall of 1963, JURE, with covert American assistance, was preparing for a descent upon Cuba.
Two of the three men at the door identified themselves as "Leopoldo" and "Angelo." The third man, a young, slim American introduced as "Leon," said almost nothing. The men asked for assistance in identifying possible Dallas-area donors to the Cuban cause. Odio was polite but noncommittal, and they left.
A day or two later, she received a phone call from Leopoldo. The call, she surmised, reflected some romantic interest on his part, but he also asked what she thought of "the American." When she had nothing to say, he explained that the American was a former marine and an excellent shot, a slightly crazy fellow who might do anything. He speculated that Leon might be able to shoot Castro if he could be gotten into Cuba and also reported that Leon himself had commented that Cubans should have shot President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs.
As Odio explained to the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy many months later, she felt they were feeling her out to see if she had useful contacts in the Cuban underground. But she had no such contacts and did not reciprocate Leopoldo's romantic interest. A little less than two months later, after the assassination of President Kennedy, she saw Lee Harvey Oswald's picture and recognized him as Leon. Within two weeks she had given the essence of her story to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the agency did nothing to pursue it for more than six months.
The Odio incident was immediately recognized by Warren Commission investigators and by readers of the commission's 1964 report as one of the most provocative pieces of evidence in the case. But it has taken more than 40 years, and the release of millions of pages of original documentation in the late 1990s, to finally identify who Odio's callers were and how their visit confirms that President Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy for which Oswald was simply the trigger man.
As it turns out, the visit links Oswald and his crime to an enormous network of mobsters, anti-Castro Cubans, and right-wing political activists. Together with other new evidence, it allows us to name several key players in the conspiracy. The men who visited Odio were almost certainly Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, and Oswald. Hall was an American military veteran and part-time mercenary who went to Cuba in 1959, joined Castro's army as a trainer, and then spent several months in a Cuban transit prison after falling afoul of the authorities. In the same prison at the same time was one of the United States' most notorious criminals, Santo Trafficante Jr., owner of several Havana casinos and mob boss of northern Florida. During that summer, Trafficante was also visited in his cell by a Dallas club owner named Jack Ruby....