New Data ties Hoffa, Mafia To Kennedy Plots by Earl Golz, Dallas Morning News

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VOLUME I I I NllMHrR (^ JANUARY 22, 1979
New data ties Hoffa,
afia to Kennedy plots
illif Dcill;iB ifliiruiiii; A'l- Dtcfmber24,1978
By EARL GOLZ
' ^ h e Dallas Morning Ntws, 19^8
New Orleans Mafia figurt Carlu!
Marcello and former Teamsters Vi on
president James Hofta will be ciled m
the House Assassinotions Committee
report next month as being involved in
early disciissious about killing Presi­dent
John F. Kennedy or his brother
committee sources .ay.
"They (committee members) are
not going to have smoking guns for
those guys, but that's where they are
going," said a source close to commit­tee
inve.stigators.
In Marcello's case, the FBI knew
about his implied threat on the hie of
the president in 1962, but apparently
neglected to follow it up, even after the
assa.ssination Nov 22, 1963, The Dallas
News has learned.
The FBI also knew of a tape-recorded
conversation Hoffa had in
August 1962, when he "openly dis­cussed
plans to assassinate" then-Atty
Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, a committee
source .'iaid.
A month later, Hoffa had increased
his ante and was talking about "mak­ing
arrangements for the president's
assassination," the committee was told
in a closed-door session earlier this
year, the source said. FBI informant
and Cuban exile Jose Alemon said the
Hoffa statement was related to him by
Florida Mafia leader Santos Tratficante
Jr.
Alemon, however, later refused to
repeat the story during a public hear­ing
of the committee last September.
Hoffa's good friend, Marcello, also
was making similar threats during the
same month in 1962 when Trafficante
allegedly heard Hoffa talk about assas­sination
plans.
MARCELLO, WHO had returned to
this country a year earlier after his
brief deportation to Guatemala under
Robert Kennedy's justice department,
reacted "like setting off a bomb" in Sep­tember
1962. when the Kennedy name
came up during a discussion at his
ChurchhiU Farms plantation near New
Orleans, a witness to the incident told
The News
At the lime, he had been "relaxing
away from everything else haMn^ a
few drinks and listening to Connie
Francis records," the plantation guest
.said At the mention of Kennedy. Mar­cello
had "an outburst of temper," he
said, and told his three guests the
younger Kennedy must be removed
from his position of power in the jus­tice
department,
Marcello, however, indicated his
target would not be the attorney gen­eral
hut his older brother, the presi­dent,
the witness said.
The New Orleans crime chief, who is
still fighting the deportation action in
federal court, cited an old Sicilian
adage that to kill a rooster, "you don't
cut off the tail, you cut off the head,"
his guest recalled.
The witness quoted Marcello as say­ing
the president would have to be
as.sassinated by "some nut" to avoid
suspicion.
"They do it all the time in Sicily,"
the guest said. 'They will get some poor
boy. probably retarded . . . and they get
him all excited like they are going to
make him a champion of the people.
"Whatever would motivate Lee Har­vey
Oswald, you know damn well they
had.
"They had enough people
anywhere. 1 mean, Carlos owned the
Caribbean, 1 would say, at that time.
From Belize to Cuba."
THE MAN WHO heard Marcello's
threats on the president's life was met
by the FBI and repeated the story to
two agents the day he returned home
in 1962
"Lm sort of an expert on these peo­ple
(Mafia), and I would take anything
they say seriously," the informant
toldThe News. '"A man in his (Marcel-
Io"s) position is not given to facetious
or ego satisfying remarks. He doe.sn"t
need '.. I mean, he feels powerful and
he is f jwerful,
""I'm not saying he did it (assassinate
the president). I'm saying he certainly
was capable and he certainly wanted it
to happen."
Hoffa also had strong reasons in
1962 for wanting the Kennedys out of
the White House, Robert Kennedy's jus­tice
department was not trying to
deport him but was trying to put him
behind bars
Hoffa later went to federal prison
for jury tampering and misuse of union
pension funds in 1967, was paroled in
1SI71 by President Richard Nixon and is
now presumed dead after he was kid­napped
in 1975.
BY AUGUST 1962, trusted Teamsters
leader Grady Partin of Baton Rouge,
1J , had begun turning state's evidence
again.st Hoffa
With a tape player recording. Partin
j'lcked up a telephone in a Baton Rouge
motel, called Hoffa in Pittsburgh and
edged into a conversation about Robert
Kennedy,
Hoffa "quite openly discussed plans
to assassinate Bobby Kennedy." a com­mittee
source said, and Partins tape
recording ended up in the hands of law
enforcement authorities. More recent­ly.
It has been made available to inves­tigators
for the committee, he said.
"Then, sometime m the middle of
September 1962, the plot against the
attorney general evolved into a plot
against the president," the source said.
"And although Hoffa was making
arrangements for it, it was Marcello
who was putting the machinery
together to make the hit,"
Months later, in April 1963. Lee Har­vey
Oswald left Dallas and his wife and
child behind for New Orleans. He first
stayed at the home of Mr. and Mrs.
Charles (Dutz) Murrtt, his uncle and
aunt.
Murret, a New Orleans bookmaker,
offered Oswald, then living off state