Did a New Orleans crime boss orchestrate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?
In short: Carlos Marcello, the long-reigning boss of the New Orleans Mafia, was an avowed enemy of the Kennedy brothers. Decades after the 1963 assassination, investigators, authors, and even alleged deathbed confessions have pointed to Marcello as the mastermind behind the president's death, citing his motive, means, and opportunity to strike.
Born Calogero Minacore in Tunisia in 1910, Carlos Marcello rose to become the Godfather of the New Orleans crime family in 1947, a position he held for thirty years. His criminal empire spanned illegal gambling, slot machines, and horse-playing handbooks. Marcello was known for his fierce independence, enforcing a strict policy that required outside mafiosi to seek his permission before entering Louisiana. His influence was so pervasive that he famously bragged about buying Louisiana governors, including Earl Long, to whom he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The animosity between Marcello and the Kennedys intensified when Robert F. Kennedy, serving as Chief Counsel to the McClellan Committee, aggressively pursued organized crime. Marcello, who invoked the Fifth Amendment nearly 70 times during his 1959 testimony, became a primary target of the Attorney General. In 1961, Robert Kennedy successfully orchestrated Marcello's swift deportation to Guatemala. Although Marcello eventually returned to the United States, the legal and personal pressure from the Kennedy administration created a deep-seated vendetta.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) later noted that Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity to orchestrate the assassination, though it could not establish direct evidence of his complicity. Various accounts, including those from mob lawyer Frank Ragano and prison cellmates, suggest Marcello boasted of his involvement. Ragano claimed that a dying Santo Trafficante Jr. lamented in 1987 that they had killed the wrong brother, stating they should have targeted Bobby instead. While Marcello consistently denied these allegations under oath, the persistent claims from investigators like G. Robert Blakey and Lamar Waldron continue to fuel the theory that the New Orleans boss played a central role in the tragedy.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Carlos Marcello
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