If the Mob Murdered Kennedy...

Handsome Johnny, Assassination maestro?

A huge portion of the U.S. population believes in the conspiracy theory that the mob bumped off Kennedy in retaliation for little brother RFK playing attack dog on organized crime in his role as Attorney General within brother Jack's administration.  According to recent polls, more people believe the mob was involved than the "official report" generated by the heavily flawed Warren Commission report.

For those who are well-versed in the 20th century history and machinations of the mafia in America, the name Johnny Rosselli must come to mind; he was the guy who made things happen. He was counted on to execute the most difficult, profitable and important operations, whether it be taking over the Hollywood Unions, infiltrating the gambling industry in Las Vegas, or coordinating ex CIA spooks to battle Castro in Cuba.  If it was a high-degree-of-difficulty operation, Rosselli was involved. Period. The fact that he was a major player in nearly every major mob op in the 20th Century is a testament to his low-profile, elusive ways. Rosselli was a proverbial ghost, floating almost imperceptibly in, and then out, of the biggest crime scenes in American history, dealing with the major players not only in organized crime and business, but in government, and at the very highest levels.

So, if you buy into the mob-JFK assassination conspiracy, and you have a competent mafia IQ, then you have to assume that Rosselli was involved.  Finding Rosselli footprints on a crime scene proved to be a 50-year challenge for the FBI, but the quintessential Rosselli biography, The All-American Mafioso, has two sources, albeit shaky sources, that not only place him at the scene of the assination, but has him front and center.  If the mob killed Kennedy, here is how it was done. An Excerpt from The Johnny Rosselli Story.

There are even accounts that place Rosselli at the scene of the assassination. Jimmy Starr, the Hollywood gossip columnist and a friend of Rosselli's, raised the prospect in passing during an interview with one of the authors. "What I heard about the Kennedy assassination was that Johnny was  the guy who got the team together to do the hit."  Starr said the scenario was "fairly well known" in the underworld but was reluctant to go into detail.  "I don't remember where I got that -- I think it was from a couple of mob guys back East.  I wasn't back there, so I had no reason to follow it up."

A similar but more detailed version was put forward by Robert Russell, a convicted felon who detailed his allegations in pro per filings in federal court. Russell's story rambles over thirty-seven pages and and seems to draw heavily on the volumes of available assassination research. But what seems to be the crux of his discourse is a chance meeting with a woman named "Cindy," not further identified, who said she worked for Jack Ruby and had assisted in the Kennedy shooting.

"Cindy" told Russell that the day of the assassination, she had driven Johnny Rosselli and a second man, a sharpshooter from Miami, to the grassy knoll at the far end of Dealey Plaza.  When the President's motorcade approached, the sniper fired two shots, handed his rifle to Rosselli, and walked down the slope to lose himself in the crowd. Cindy then drove Rosselli and the rifle from the scene.  It seems auspicious that Russell would place Rosselli in Dallas on November 22; the FBI surveillance of Rosselli loses his trail on the West Coast between November 19 and November 27.

These reports are fragmentary and inconclusive, but taken together, they lend weight to Rosselli's later contention that he knew what had happened in Dallas.  Together, with his direct experience in the CIA plots against Castro, Rosselli held the key to secrets that would haunt the nation, guilty knowledge that would betray America's faith in itself. 

Excerpted from
All-American Mafioso
The Johnny Rosselli Story
Doubleday Books