[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

Select Committee on Assassinations blamed the mob for the assassination under the
guidance of former Justice Department organized crime prosecutor G. Robert Blakey.
Blaming the mob for the assassination was also more politically palatable to members of
Congress than an examination of Oswald’s intelligence connections. The House
Committee largely avoided that topic and focused on organized crime and anti-Castro
Cubans. The Oswald as mob patsy also imbued President Kennedy with a heroic
dimension that his supporters could embrace. Despite allegedly being compromised with
his own ties to mob-connected people, Kennedy is gunned down largely because he had
his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, crack down on Mafiosi and labor unions
connected to the mob. According to this theory, Kennedy was a tragic figure who,
despite his own flaws, courageously attempted to battle the power of organized crime.
Investigative journalist Jack Anderson was an early proponent of the theory that
the CIA-Mafia plots to assassinate Castro backfired and led to the death of Kennedy. His
theory evolved over time, as more and more information came available about the plots.
Anderson, in his column coauthored with Drew Pearson, initially reported about the CIA
plan to assassinate Castro in a March 7, 1967 article. Pearson and Anderson wrote that “a
reported plan in 1963 to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro, which according to some
sources, may have resulted in a counterplot by Castro to assassinate Kennedy.” The
column also cited the remarks of Warren Commission, Senator Russell Long, as saying
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