An appeal to AG Pam Bondi to unseal JFK-murder-related DOJ/FBI files about Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, and Santo Trafficante
Why hasn't Carlos Marcello's taped confession about his role in the JFK murder been released?
The Marcello tape
Forty-seven years ago—in my 1978 book, The Hoffa Wars, about the rise and fall of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa—I was the first to report that Hoffa, New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, and Tampa Mafia boss Santo Trafficante arranged and executed the 1963 murder of President John Kennedy. Bookstores began stocking my book in late August 1978. Its official pub date was in early September, just before the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) began its public hearings.
As I predicted, in its final report on July 17, 1979, the HSCA concluded that Hoffa, Marcello, and Trafficante had the “motive, means, and opportunity” to kill President Kennedy. . . . The chief counsel of the committee, G. Robert Blakey, declared: “The mob did it. It’s a historical fact.”
In my February 16, 2025, column in Mobology, I reported a call I received from literary agent Sterling Lord and Oscar-winning screenwriter Abby Mann on June 15, 1983. As fans of my book about Hoffa, they wanted me to co-author the memoir of Joseph Hauser, the FBI’s sting man in its 1980 BRILAB investigation that targeted Marcello.
Lord and Mann told me that Hauser secretly recorded Marcello who admitted his role in the President’s assassination. And, through a trusted intermediary, Hauser, safely under the protection of the federal Wit-Sec program, confirmed it for me.
In fact, there is an FBI report in which Marcello had admitted his role in the JFK killing in a separate instance to a fellow convict but not on tape, saying: “Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.”[1]
Representative Louis Stokes (D-Ohio), the chairman of the HSCA, was among those who believed that the Mafia was possibly involved in the murder of President Kennedy. An article in Newsday in January 1992 revealed:
In 1979, a few months after the House Select Committee on Assassinations had completed its work, its former chief counsel was told by a law enforcement source that the FBI had wiretaps on which a New Orleans mob leader talked about his role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
''My first reaction was, hey, why weren't we told this when the committee was in existence?'' Robert Blakey recalled Wednesday. ''I was told by the FBI that the tapes were part of an existing federal undercover inquiry called BRILAB, and they were off limits to us.''
Wednesday, Blakey, along with the House committee's former chairman, Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to move in court to have these tapes—which remain sealed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans—made public.[2]
Thirty-three years later, the tapes still remain sealed, even though government officials are boasting that they have delivered on full disclosure.
A friend of mine who reviewed the recent release of JFK files sent me the following screenshot, supposedly a part of the release, noting that an unidentified document about Marcello has been withheld.
Thus, I appeal to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to dig deep into the FBI’s records and release all documents, recordings, and any other materials still sealed about the JFK case, especially those referring to Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, and their criminal associates.
To be clear, if the recording of Marcello’s confession is not included, then many of us will view the entire release as illegitimate and negligent, as well as possibly fraudulent and even criminal.
Extra #1: Jeff Morley’s offhanded but shocking remarks on the mob’s role
Jefferson Morley is a widely respected expert on the subject of the JFK murder investigation. During the years that we have been acquainted, I have never known him to refer to the possible role of the Mafia in absolute terms.
On April 2, after the recent release of the JFK files, Morley appeared on C-Span’s Washington Journal. When a caller phoned the show and asked him what he thought about the mob’s role, Morley replied, in part:
“We know the organized-crime role in the assassination. The organized-crime role was to eliminate the chief witness, Lee Harvey Oswald. And Jack Ruby, responsive to organized crime’s directive, did exactly that. . . . .
“That part of the JFK story is really confirmed. Jack Ruby acted at the behest of organized crime.”[3]
Extra #2: The RFK file release
On Friday, April 18, the National Archives released 10,000 previously sealed documents about the RFK murder investigation.
However, without reading a single page, I can say with complete confidence that nothing will change or alter the basic fact that Sirhan Sirhan—whom I interviewed three times for a total of fourteen hours—brutally murdered Senator Robert Kennedy in June 1968. And he acted alone.
ENDNOTES
1. Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, (Counterpoint, 2009, p. 835)
In their 2005 book, Ultimate Sacrifice, Waldron and Hartmann wrote:
The goal for the mob was to plan the [JFK] assassination using the arms-and-planes deal as a cover. . . . Then the mob would assassinate Castro, coincident with a CIA-backed coup against Castro that would leave a Cuban leader like Menoyo, Varona, or Artime in charge of Cuba.
The complexity of this four-part arrangement has stymied investigators for decades. It was only through the efforts of Bobby Kennedy’s investigators in 1959—and work by Dan Moldea, whose mentor was Bobby’s top investigator, Walter Sheridan—that the operation can be documented today, despite all of the CIA files that remain classified.
In his 2013 book, The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination, Waldron added:
Due to books such as Dan Moldea’s The Hoffa Wars and the House Select Committee’s investigation, the press finally linked Marcello and Trafficante to JFK’s assassination.
2. Steve Wick and Timothy Clifford, Newsday, “Wiretaps Link Mob to JFK Killing,” January 23, 1992.
Notably, Hoffa was murdered on July 30, 1975. Trafficante died on March 17, 1987. And Marcello passed on March 2, 1993. . . . Also, we still want to know who killed and dismembered the body of mobster Johnny Rosselli in August 1976.
BTW: Speaking of my 1995 book about the murder of Senator Robert Kennedy in which I concluded that Sirhan did it and did it alone, Bob Blakey wrote:
Moldea’s book is a must-read for all those concerned about the troublesome questions raised about the official version of the assassination of RFK. His startling conclusions are all the more persuasive because of the tenacity and integrity he brought to his long quest for the truth.
3. C-Span, Washington Journal, “Jefferson Morley on Assassination Records,” April 2, 2024 (17:00 to 19:21)
Jeff Stein: There is also the testimony of Frank Ragano that he delivered the order from Hoffa to Marcello to kill JFK.
Outside of this alleged Marcello confession— who knows what the larger context was?—no hard evidence has emerged of a mob role in the JFK assassination. But it is curious that the tape has not been released – and it should be.