Final_Judgment

328 They Dare Not Speak Out [267]
Fratianno's memory of the event suggests that Rosselli himself was
never being straightforward about the events as they had really unfolded.
Fratianno recalls Rosselli's words as follows:
"They had me up at the Carroll Arms Hotel . . . for a secret session and
I really fixed their fucking wagon. All hot, you know, about who killed
Kennedy. Sometimes I'd like to tell them the mob did it, just to see the
expression on their stupid faces. You know, we're supposed to be idiots,
right?
"We hire a psycho like Oswald to kill the President and then we get a
blabbermouth, two-bit punk like Ruby to shut him up. We wouldn't trust
those jerks to hit a fucking dog.
"Anyway, they start questioning me about this bullshit I'd told Morgan
years ago. You know, Castro retaliating against Kennedy because of our
attempts on his life. I said, 'I have no recollection of receiving or passing
on such information.'
"Well, Jimmy, it's not my fault if Morgan has a vivid imagination.
I've also been dropping by Jack Anderson's office and we're getting pretty
chummy, having lunch and dinner together. Nice guy, but he's always
trying to pump me, but he's cool about it." 716
THE CIA CONNECTION
Rosselli's biographers believe that "more intriguing than Rosselli's
motivation [in creating the story told by Pearson and Anderson] is the
question of who actually sponsored the bogus lead that Castro killed
Kennedy." 717
According to Rappleye and Becker, "Santo Trafficante seems the most
likely party." 718 They go even further, however. They believe that the CIA
was behind Trafficante's actions in this regard:
"Might the CIA have floated the Castro theory, again to deflect the
[Jim] Garrison investigation [in New Orleans]? If the CIA were actually
involved in the Kennedy assassination, as some leading researchers believe,
the scenario would fit.
"Considering his intimate association with the Agency, Rosselli would
have accepted their directive as well as Trafficante's. And Ed Morgan
himself had close ties to the Agency, both through [CIA contract operative
Robert] Maheu and from a prior stint as counsel to the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee." 719
(As we saw, particularly in Chapter 12, Trafficante was not the major
crime boss he has been portrayed by the Establishment media. Instead, he
was the immediate deputy of the CIA's longtime collaborator—and Israel's
loyalist—Meyer Lansky.)
PEARSON, JOHNSON & THE LANSKY SYNDICATE
Warren Commission critic, Peter Dale Scott notes, additionally, that
Pearson, himself, was close to then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and that