A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
Legacy of Secrecy provides additional evidence showing that John and Robert Kennedy planned to stage a coup against Fidel on Dec. 1, 1963, ten days after JFK's trip to Dallas--and that three Mafia bosses infiltrated that top secret plan. ... The new information includes the confessions of all three Mafia bosses, and some of their associates.
Legacy of Secrecy is the sequel to the hotly debated, but many argue persuasive, Kennedy assassination conspiracy book of a couple years ago, carried in the BuzzFlash Progressive MarketPlace, Ultimate Sacrifice. Both books are authored by Lamar Waldron and our good friend and noted progressive talk show host and writer, Thom Hartmann.-- Lamar Waldron, coauthor, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination
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We know that every BuzzFlash reader has an opinion about who might have been behind JFK's murder; that's in the nature of conspiracy theories. There's no Higher Court of Truth to make a final judgment.
There are four basic theories: 1) Oswald did it alone (sorry Vincent Bugliosi, not a chance); 2) Castro and/or the Soviets directed Oswald; 3) the CIA arranged it and 4) the Mafia was behind the assassination. And, of course, there are various blends of these perspectives. Waldron and Hartmann find a lot of evidence to support theory 4. They present a compelling case, but you be the judge. Co-author Lamar Waldron was interviewed by BuzzFlash.
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BuzzFlash: In brief, how does Legacy of Secrecy differ from Ultimate Sacrifice?
Lamar Waldron: Much information has continued to emerge since the publication of the extensively updated trade paperback of Ultimate Sacrifice in 2006, information which provides even more confirmation of what we had originally written. Legacy of Secrecy provides additional evidence showing that John and Robert Kennedy planned to stage a coup against Fidel on Dec. 1, 1963, ten days after JFK's trip to Dallas--and that three Mafia bosses infiltrated that top secret plan. The mob leaders used parts of the secret plan to kill JFK in a way that forced Robert Kennedy, LBJ, and other key officials to cover-up much information, to prevent another confrontation with the Soviets, just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The new information includes the confessions of all three Mafia bosses, and some of their associates.
Ultimate Sacrifice had to cover 1964 to the present in just a few dozen pages, but the majority of Legacy of Secrecy is devoted to those years, showing how all the secrecy surrounding JFK's murder continued to have tragic effects. Legacy finally explains who paid James Earl Ray to kill Dr. King, and why.
Legacy also delves more into CIA officials like Richard Helms and E. Howard Hunt, whose involvement with the coup plan in 1963 continued to impact their careers and cause more cover-ups.
Leading the top secret coup for the Kennedys on Dec. 1, 1963 was going to be Commander Juan Almeida, head (and founder) of the Cuban Army. He wasn't going to take credit for killing Fidel; that would be blamed on a Russian or Russian sympathizer. It was never supposed to be known that the Kennedys were really behind the coup; otherwise, the Cuban people wouldn't follow Almeida and the new coalition government. Fidel didn't learn about Almeida's secret work with JFK for decades. For reasons detailed in Legacy, Commander Almeida is still listed as the #3 official in Cuba today and he could still be a factor in resolving the decades-long impasse between the US and Cuba.
BuzzFlash: What motivated you and Thom Hartmann to take on perhaps the most analyzed and speculated upon assassination in American history -- and to spend two decades doing it?
Lamar Waldron: After spending a couple of years exploring all the various theories, and running into the usual roadblocks and lack of documents, we decided to talk to people who had actually worked with John and Robert Kennedy in 1963. The first was JFK's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, who revealed that JFK was close to staging a coup and invasion of Cuba at the time of his death--but (unlike the Bay of Pigs fiasco) this plan was so secret that even Rusk was only told about it after JFK's death.
Next, JFK's close aide Dave Powers explained that he and another JFK aide had witnessed shots from the grassy knoll, while they were riding in the limo right behind JFK's. But Powers said they were both pressured to change their testimony to the Warren Commission "for the good of the country." With revelations like those, it was hard not to pursue all the leads until we eventually had the whole story. One Kennedy aide led to another, until we'd eventually talked to more than two dozen people who had worked with John or Robert Kennedy. Their disclosures led us to documentation in the National Archives, and eventually, to helping additional documents be identified and released.
Legacy of Secrecy explains why the whole process took so long--and why we're still pursuing the release of "more than one million CIA records" related to JFK's murder, that are being withheld despite the 1992 JFK Act requiring their release.
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