Final_Judgment

194 Little Man’s Little Man [133]
Harvey Oswald, was being set up as the patsy. (In Chapter 11, Chapter 14,
Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 we shall examine that aspect of the JFK
assassination conspiracy further.)
Without question, New Orleans and the Marcello fiefdom were an
integral part of the Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate. But to suggest that
Marcello was the driving force behind the JFK assassination conspiracy is to
ignore the whole picture.
LANSKY & THE LONG ASSASSINATION
As a passing historical note, it is probably appropriate to refer to the
demise of Huey Long and the role that Lansky and his associates played in
that important political event.
By 1935, Long had been elected to the Senate and had risen to national
prominence. In fact, Long was generally considered a major threat to
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1936 re-election chances. Long had made it
clear that if he didn't run as a Democrat—or as a third party candidate—in
1936, he certainly intended to play a major part in that election, and not on
FDR's side.
This, obviously, was of major concern to FDR. Thus, a Justice
Department investigation of Long and his finances was unleashed. Such an
inquiry was dredging up Long's tangled financial arrangements and
threatened to break the back of the very profitable machine that Long had
assembled. There were more than a few Louisiana political figures and Long
associates who were frightened of their impending demise alongside Long at
the hands of federal prosecutors.
As Messick notes—and this is ironic—it was in a Dallas, Texas hotel
room that the federal authorities made the decision to indict Long. The
colorful Louisiana Senator was shot that same day by a "lone assassin" who
was himself promptly shot to pieces by Long's bodyguards.
To this day there are myriad conspiracy theories relating to Long's
murder. Some say that the alleged assassin never fired a shot—instead, that
he swung a punch at Long and that the "murder weapon" was planted on the
scene afterward by the bodyguards who wanted to cover up the fact that it
was one of them who accidentally shot Long when firing at his assailant.
There are those, however, who say that Long was, in fact, deliberately shot
by one of his bodyguards.
The Giancana family, in their biography of the Chicago Mafia boss,
say that Sam Giancana later claimed that "Some of our friends in New York
had him hit—worked it out with a New Orleans [Mafia] boss. They figured
it out so it would look like a loony did it." 360
The real truth may never be known. Whatever the case, Long died in the
hospital some hours after the shooting. What we do know is that Long's
death removed from the scene a major threat not only to the Roosevelt
administration, but to the Long machine which relied so heavily on the
Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate. With Long out of the picture, the