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"A situation in which a leader is removed from power by the people who have worked with him or her"
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President Eisenhower approved the program in March 1960. The CIA set up training camps in Guatemala, and by November the operation had trained a small army for an assault landing and guerilla warfare.
José Miró Cardona led the anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the United States. A former member of Castro's government, he was the head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, an exile committee. Cardona was poised to take over the provisional presidency of Cuba if the invasion succeeded.
Despite efforts of the government to keep the invasion plans covert, it became common knowledge among Cuban exiles in Miami. Through Cuban intelligence, Castro learned of the guerilla training camps in Guatemala as early as October 1960, and the press reported widely on events as they unfolded.
Shortly after his inauguration, in February 1961, President Kennedy authorized the invasion plan. But he was determined to disguise U.S. support. The landing point at the Bay of Pigs was part of the deception. The site was a remote swampy area on the southern coast of Cuba, where a night landing might bring a force ashore against little resistance and help to hide any U.S. involvement. Unfortunately, the landing site also left the invading force more than 80 miles from refuge in Cuba's Escambray Mountains, if anything went wrong.
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The Kennedy plan, unique and different from any previously disclosed operation, was—as detailed in a Joint Chiefs of Staff memo—to have included a "palace coup," a provisional Cuban government and, if necessary, a "full-scale invasion" by "invited" US military forces.
The CIA's code name for their part of the operation, AMWORLD, has never previously appeared, making it one of the most covert operations in United States history.
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For instance, it was only late in the ARRB's term that it came across records for CIA project AMWORLD, a key 1963 program of moving Manuel Artime and other anti-Castro exiles offshore, and interpreted by author Lamar Waldron as being formed in support of a Kennedy coup plan for Cuba. The handful of AMWORLD records point to more.
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The Central Intelligence Agency knowingly worked with two of America's most-wanted Mafia figures in a botched attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, according to documents released yesterday.
The CIA declassified 705 pages of memorandums and reports detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.
The documents are known within the agency as the "Family Jewels," and were written in the mid 1970s at the behest of former directors anxious to know the worst of its activities in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
They acknowledge the secret testing of mind-altering drugs like '___' on unwitting US citizens, the wiretapping of journalists, spying on civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protesters, and break-ins at the homes of ex-CIA employees and others.
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In August 1960, the year after the young Left-wing revolutionary swept to power, a CIA official approached Col Sheffield Edwards of the agency's Office of Security to determine if Edwards "had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action," according to the documents. "The mission target was Fidel Castro," one memo said.
A go-between contacted a man named Johnny Roselli, a member of the Mafia who controlled the ice-making machines on the Las Vegas Strip.
At meetings attended by a covert CIA officer, Roselli was told that Cuban businessmen angry at losing money under Castro's regime would pay $150,000 for his assassination.
At the Fontainebleu Hotel, Miami Beach, Roselli then introduced the go-between to a friend, Sam Gold, whom he said knew the "Cuban crowd". Sam recommended that it would be easier to poison Castro than shoot him.
Weeks later the CIA realised that Sam Gold was Momo Salvatore Giancana, successor to Al Capone in Chicago, while his friend "Joe" also present at the meeting was Santos Trafficant, head of the Cosa Nostra in Cuba.
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Working under Todaro, Marcello became a major player in illegal rackets during the 1940s. In 1947, after Carolla was deported to Palermo, Sicily, Marcello became the undisputed leader of the Mafia in New Orleans. He held the position for the next 30 years. His reign included Louisiana's gambling network, including some of New Orleans' biggest casinos. Authorities claim he also extended his criminal activities to Dallas, Texas, during the 1950s.
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On March 24, 1959, Marcello appeared before a United States Senate committee investigating organized crime. Serving as Chief Counsel to the committee was Robert F. Kennedy; his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, was a member of the committee. In response to committee questioning, Marcello invoked the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in refusing to answer any questions relating to his background, activities and associates.
In 1960, Marcello donated $500,000 through Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, to the Republican campaign of Richard M. Nixon, challenging the Democrat John F. Kennedy.
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Marcello soon returned to the United States. Undercover informants reported that Marcello made several threats against John F. Kennedy, at one time uttering the traditional Sicilian death threat curse, "Take the stone from my shoe". Some of those who knew him, however, suggested that Marcello did not know enough Italian to utter such a threat. In September 1962, Marcello told private investigator Edwin Nicholas Becker that, "A dog will continue to bite you if you cut off its tail...," (meaning Attorney General Robert Kennedy.), "...whereas if you cut off the dog's head...," (meaning President Kennedy), "... it would cease to cause trouble". Becker reported that Marcello, "clearly stated that he was going to arrange to have President Kennedy killed in some way". Marcello told another informant that he would need to take out "insurance" for the assassination by, ".... setting up some nut to take the fall for the job, just like they do in Sicily".
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk...
Reason being that During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy had instructed the then CIA director, John McCone, to halt all covert operations specifically aimed at Cuba. A few days later he discovered that Harvey had ignored this order (Harvey being the head of Task Force at the CIA JM/WAVE station in Miami) and had dispatched three commando teams into Cuba to prepare for what he believed would be an inevitable invasion.
Kennedy was furious and as soon as the Cuban Missile Crisis was over, Harvey was removed as commander of ZR/RIFLE. On 30th October, 1962, RFK terminated "all sabotage operations" against Cuba. As a result of President Kennedy kept his promise to Nikita Khrushchev that he would not invade Cuba, Operation Mongoose was disbanded.
In '61 though, Harvey arranged for CIA operative, Jim O'Connell, to meet Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, Johnny Roselli and Robert Maheu at the Fontainebleau Hotel. During the meeting O'Connell gave poison pills and $10,000 to Rosselli to be used against Fidel Castro.
Harvey was demoted and sent to Italy to work and It was hear he developed such a hatred for the Kennedy's. And It was also at this time he kept continual contact with the mafia - specifically Roselli. In fact they even met in New York on the 8th of April. Then a week later in Miami. According to Richard D. Mahoney: "On April 21 he (Harvey) flew from Washington to deliver four poison pills directly to Rosselli, who got them to Tony Varona and hence to Havana. That same evening, Harvey and Ted Shackley, the chief of the CIA's south Florida base, drove a U-Haul truck filled with the requested arms through the rain to a deserted parking lot in Miami. They got out and handed the keys to Rosselli.""
(Abraham Bolden)
(Thomas Valle)
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Abraham Bolden later discovered that this information was being kept from the Warren Commission. When he complained about this he was warned "to keep his mouth shut". Bolden decided to travel to Washington where he telephoned Warren Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Bolden was arrested and taken back to Chicago where he was charged with discussing a bribe with two known counterfeiters. He was eventually found guilty of accepting a bribe and spent six years in prison. When he tried to draw attention to his case, he was placed in solitary confinement.
Sam DeStefano, one of the men who accused Bolden of this crime, was murdered in 1973. DeStefano was close to Sam Giancana, Charles Nicoletti and Richard Cain. It is believed that Cain murdered DeStefano. Soon afterwards, Cain himself was murdered.
Lamar Waldron claims in his book, Ultimate Sacrifice, that according to a Central Intelligence Agency memo, mobsters in Chicago were involved in framing Bolden on the bribery charges.
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(MMD Newswire) November 30, 2009 -- FBI files at the National Archives say that in 1985, Louisiana-Texas godfather Carlos Marcello confessed to a "reliable" Bureau informant that he ordered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Marcello's confession to the informant was obtained during a long-secret FBI undercover operation, code-named CAMTEX. According to the files, the FBI used a bugged transistor radio in Marcello's prison cell to secretly record "hundreds of hours" of tapes of Marcello talking to confidants about his crimes. The tapes included Marcello talking about his meetings with Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Tampa-Miami mob boss Santo Trafficante.
In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, chaired by Rep. Louis Stokes, published their conclusion that "Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy." Their final report stated that "the Committee found that Trafficante, like Marcello, had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy." Marcello died in 1993, and Trafficante passed away in 1987, after discussing his role in Kennedy's murder with his attorney, the late Frank Ragano. As for motive, the Committee pointed out that from 1961 to 1963, President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had waged a massive war against organized crime. They had especially targeted the mob families of Marcello in New Orleans, Trafficante in Tampa, and the Chicago Mafia.