C (2:30)

He did a good job. Let me tell you something, your accent is worth 15 to 20 IQ points in the United States, Gordon, so continue to go with that accent. Unfortunately, McCloskey, in my accent, scores no points in the UK, but what can I say? But obviously the mob killed Kennedy, and I believe that. Now, you didn't bring Dominic Sambrook on because he doesn't believe that. McCloskey, he's a CIA guy, so he's going to bullshit everybody and tell everybody was a lone gunman. But I don't. I don't think it was the CIA. But, you know, the mob had a hit on Kennedy, which was a mistake that they all admitted to regretting after they blew the top of his head off. But, but you guys tell the story, and then I'll tell you what I know, and, and I'll tell you why I believe they killed him. And. And I could tell you who shot him.

B (3:20)

If there's ever been a kind of tease to stay with the show, that's it. We're going to reveal the truth.

A (3:25)

We should say that Anthony does claim to have some information that he will not share with us, that he is protecting sources and methods from his time in the White House.

C (3:36)

All I'm gonna talk about is what's available in the public domain. And then people can listen and they can read what's available in the public domain. And they could read the Warren Commission, and then they can read the other stuff. And a lot of the stuff, the conspiracy books and all that stuff is a bunch of nonsense. And frankly, none of those theories happened. You know, Carlos Marcello got super pissed off after they sent him 800 miles down the Yucatan Peninsula and they dropped him off in the middle of the jungle. They said, this is a message from Bobby Kennedy. He had to find his way back to his Louisiana New Orleans office. And he got pissed. And once he called Sam Giancana and the five families got together, they said, okay, enough of these guys. And by the way, an obscure fact in this. If Joseph P. Kennedy didn't stroke in December of 1961, and just for all the history buffs out there, Joseph P. Kennedy was a bootlegger. He was very tight with the mob. The mob helped Jack Kennedy in West Virginia. The mob delivered dead people votes in Chicago with Mayor Daley. And so the mob was super pissed at Bobby Kennedy. And there's a phone call, recorded phone call, between Joseph Kennedy and Jack where Joe Kennedy was telling me, you got to get Bobby to lay off the mob. And Jack Kennedy says to Joe Kennedy, you know, the problem with Bobby is he thinks like a cop, dad. That's the problem with Bobby. But, you know, Jack was out there, obviously having his liaisons, and he was a little unfocused at the time. And if Joe didn't stroke, because just remember this, guys, Joe Kennedy Stroke, December 1961, immobilized him, paralyzed him, and he could no longer really speak. And a result of which he wasn't there to broker the deal with the mob. So now by 1963, Bobby's running hard on the mob, even though the mob helped the Kennedy family. And that's what's known as retribution. But, okay, you guys go, you tell the story, and then I'll tell you what I think happened. And I'm delighted to be on the show because I love your show and I hope you guys know I cite your show often on the Rest is Politics. Us.

A (5:49)

We appreciate that.

B (5:50)

David, why don't you go and you give us some of the facts as we know them and the story, and then we'll hear what Anthony thinks about them.

A (5:57)

Okay, so maybe it's worth starting with some of the points on motive for the mob, because I think, Anthony, you laid a few of these out and. And these build a bit, Gordon, off of the story we told in kind of the main podcast, but they're, I think, distinct enough that it's worth laying out. So the first one is that in the run up to and during the 1960 election, the mob, as you mentioned, Anthony, was instrumental in helping Kennedy win in Illinois and I think lesser well known in West Virginia, but that there was some work via trade unions and kind of getting out the vote and frankly, even fabricating the vote in some cases that the mob may have been instrumental in helping Kennedy get elected. Right. So that's one point. The second point related to that is that when John F. Kennedy brings Bobby into the administration as the ag, he sort of absorbs into the administration as official policy, Bobby's war on organized crime, which Bobby had been at the Justice Department and working in sort of various roles on congressional committees the late 1950s, really working hard to target organized crime in the Mafia in general. This sort of impulse gets brought into the administration. And I do think there's actual intercepts of guys like Sam Giancana, one of the heads of the outfit in Chicago, who are royally pissed when Bobby is brought into the administration. They see that as a double cross. Now, I think there's another point here which is related to maybe a different set of mobsters and ties directly to Cuba, which is after Bay of Pigs. There's a subset of kind of The Florida mob who are furious with Kennedy that he didn't actually get rid of Castro. And all these guys, of course, want that turf in Havana. They want access to those casinos and resorts again, all that lucrative cash flow they'd had in the 50s. And they are furious with Kennedy for kind of looking weak on Castro and feel in the aftermath of Bay of Pigs like they're never going to get that money back. So there's kind of some different motives, I guess, depending on the mobster you're talking about. But that would be the high level picture of why mobsters would want JFK dead.

B (8:11)

And to me, the one of those which feels most plausible is the Bobby Kennedy one. If he's going after them, if he's trying to take them on, that one feels like, you know, the kind of double cross argument. I'm curious as to why he was so determined to go after them. Do we kind of understand or know that?

A (8:27)

Anthony, I'd be curious for your thoughts on this because it does seem confusing when you look at the extent to which the Bob was useful in helping the Kennedy campaign, why Bobby is so vociferously anti mob.

C (8:41)

So I brought some props with me and I know you guys have audio listeners, so if you're listening on audio, what I'm holding up is Stefano Vaccaro's book. Now, if you go to try to buy this book, you're going to have to pay about $150 to $200 for it because most of these books are out of circulation now. And the title of the book is Carlos Marcello, the Man behind the JFK Assassination. And if you look at the picture, guys, it's Bobby and Jack during the racketeering charges and the indictments back in the Senate when they were faced off against Jimmy Hoffa and Roy Cohn. And so Bobby had this thought in his head, this very Puritan thought he was a righteous guy, that he was going to root out corruption and make things right in the society. But wait a minute. Your dad was corrupt and your dad was a bootlegger and he was tied into the mob and the mob helped your brother get elected. I don't care. I'm in a role. I'm taking the Constitution seriously and I'm going to prosecute the mob. Now, his father did not want that. And that's why when said, you know, you got to cut it out. And Jack said, he's thinking too much like a cop. They both wanted him to lay off. But once the father stroked and Jack Kennedy got sidetracked by his own personal dramas and the liaisons he was having and trying to run the office of the presidency. He let his brother more or less do what he wanted. And, of course, you guys bring it up in the scripts. I'll just mention it. There's a famous situation where they take the mob boss from Louisiana and they ship him into El Salvador. They take him 800 miles down the Yucatan Peninsula. They take his shoes off and they say, good luck down here, Carlos. This is a message from Bobby Kennedy.