Chapter 3

Hersh "Represses" The Truth To Make Up His Smear

In what we have just seen of the very beginning of this Hersh book we have several fair samples. It is a fair sample of what in any book would be regarded, at the very least, as intensely controversial, and it is a fair sample of the need for what does not exist in this Hersh book, notes identifying, pinpointing, his sources.

Along with this omission, which cannot be and is not accidental, is sloppiness that also is not accidental for the skilled experienced Pulitzer Prize reporter that he is. Take, for example, all Hersh has said about Kennedy allegedly knowing about the various assassinations — take that of Lumumba, for example. Of it Hersh seeks to make a big anti-Kennedy thing. He returns to it seven times, with its first mention here, on page 3. Lumumba was assassinated before Kennedy became President. It and the plots to kill Castro were of the Eisenhower administration, not Kennedy's. But Hersh has not a single word condemnatory of those who originated those plots. Instead he condemns Kennedy because he says, without any source indicated, Kennedy allegedly knew about what Eisenhower was responsible for before he took office.

The CIA alone makes a liar of Hersh.

The United States' plots to kill Castro are of the Eisenhower administration, before Kennedy. Particularly, as Hersh knew, was the so-called Mafia plot to kill him. That was not, as Hersh would have it believed, Kennedy's idea or ambition. That one dates to August before Kennedy was elected, and those plots, according to the testimony of someone who had personal knowledge, United States Ambassador William Attwood, they date to a year before that, those CIA efforts to kill Castro. To his knowledge they began no later than July of 1959. Kennedy did not become President until January 1961.

(Attwood, by profession a journalist, was ambassador to several countries and to the United Nations.)

All of this and much more is Hersh imagines was in the White House files he says it were so unusual Robert Kennedy had to protect them. He imagines it because he has no way of knowing it, and just as he made up that for the outgoing administration to keep it files, which is and always has been the norm, the accepted practice, he imagines what is in those files. This means that he just makes it up. That is another reason he lacks source notes. He can't put a source on what he makes up and is not true in any event.

Making it up as he does, he puts there whatever he can use as a peg to hang his many stories on, stories that also are not true. Some are not even reasonable, are what no rational politician and few other people with all their marbles would think of doing.

And along with making it up he gives perfectly innocent and normal events, like each administration keeping its own records, as somehow sinister with Kennedy. Hersh treats it as devious and gives it an evil meaning it does not have. In all the pages of his book the average reader has no way of knowing that this has always been the accepted practice. Nor does the average reader know that those files abound in what is legitimately national security secrets as well as a very considerable amount of personal information about many people who are not and have no connections with, in this case, the Kennedys, in other cases those who were in the White House.

Nor, diligent and Pulitzer Prize reporter that he is does Hersh let the reader know that in each case, with the Kennedys being no exception, libraries for their records are created and named after each president and are administered by the federal government through its National Archives, not by the family, in this case not by the Kennedys.

With this approach, and it permeates in his book, Hersh would make something dirty of husband and wife holding hands.

It should be understood that, despite what he writes, Hersh has no way of knowing what was in the Kennedy White House files other than from examining them at the Kennedy library of the National Archives. With that he would have had no problem providing source notes and direct quotations, not what he imagines or makes up.

With the insensitivity that characterizes the book and the Hersh approach, he titles this first chapter "November 22." That was the day the President was assassinated. This chapter has only the barest mention of that assassination in it. It is where Hersh makes out of nothing at all what he presents as evil and devious, his allegation that Robert Kennedy had the White House files protected to hide dirty secrets that Hersh makes up for them to hold. As we have seen, that is the normal practice, the sole difference being that with the assassination the administration did not have the several months of the usual interregnum to do that, as all other administrations did and do.

This dishonesty is also typical of Hersh in this book. And it is particularly glaring as he introduces in this chapter two who are among his main characters in the fiction of his invention that he pretends is history. In his version, an evil part of our history and the Kennedy part.

These two main characters in his novel Hersh presents as nonfiction are Judith Campbell Exner, when Kennedy knew her, an attractive young woman, and the Chicago Mafia boss, Sam "Momo" Giancana. They are indispensable in Hersh's argument that JFK was a bad President.

These two are this important in the Hersh book:

It has nine breakdowns under Exner in the index (page 483). It reflects that Hersh has her on ninety-one pages. There are eleven breakdowns for Giancana and the index reflects that Hersh has him on 89 pages (page 484).

This has Hersh using Exner on one page out of five in his book and Giancana almost as much.

In this Hershian study of the Kennedy administration Exner was nine times more important than Berlin, for example, the Berlin of Cold-War crises, because she is on nine times as may pages as is Berlin, including the wall that assumed such significance and led to such a dangerous situation in that Cold War.

Part of Exner's importance to this Hershian view of the Kennedy administration and the Kennedy Presidency is that she slept with him. Him and others, including Giancana. With regard to when she slept with Giancana, as is true of almost everything she is quoted as saying, she contradicts herself or adds to what she first said. We have more on this later.

If there is anything that is not secret about President Kennedy's personal life it is that he was a womanizer. Although Hersh does not say that he was the first president who slept with women other than his wife, he handles his exaggerated view of the actualities of the Kennedy- Exner relationship to make it appear that his sleeping with other women is something unique.

Such allegations in our history go back to those, called the Founding Fathers. The country's respect for Thomas Jefferson for another example is not diminished by the fact that he had a black mistress. President Grover Cleveland was known to have sired a bastard when he ran for President. That did not prevent his election and it was after he was elected, in the White House, that he legitimized that bastard. There is, more, much more, and there is no need for it here. Nor is there to recall all of that there is in the bible, going back to its earliest parts.

Except for Hersh's exaggerations, distortions and outright lies about this., it represents nothing new in our history or that of the world except that Hersh begins his rewriting of our history with the declared intention of having it make him a rich man so he can retire and not have to write.

(After this book, that would be good for him.)

Hersh lays much of it out on page 4 and to be fair to him, all of that page follows:

`In the last months of the Eisenhower administration, a notorious Chicago gangster named Sam Giancana had been brought into the Castro assassination effort, with Senator Jack Kennedy's knowledge. But Giancana was far more than just another mobster doing a favor for the government — and looking for a favor in return. Giancana and his fellow hoodlums in Chicago, one of the most powerful organized crime operations in the nation, had already been enlisted on behalf of Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign against Republican Richard M. Nixon, providing money and union support; mob support would help Kennedy win in Illinois and in at least four other states where the Kennedy plurality was narrow. Giancana's intervention had been arranged with the aid of both Frank Sinatra, who was close to the mob and the Kennedy family, and a prominent Chicago judge, who served as an intermediary for a meeting, not revealed until this book, between the gangster and Jack Kennedy's millionaire father, the relentlessly ambitious Joseph P. Kennedy. The meeting took place in the winter before the election in the judge's chambers. A few months after the election, allegations of vote fraud in Illinois were reported to Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department — and met with no response. The 1960 presidential election was stolen.

As Bobby Kennedy knew, President Kennedy and Sam Giancana shared not only a stolen election and assassination plotting; they also shared a close friendship with a glamorous Los Angeles divorcee and freelance artist named Judith Campbell Exner. Interviews for this book have bolstered the claims of Exner, who first met Kennedy in early 1960, that she was more than just the president's sex partner, that she carried documents from Jack and Bobby Kennedy to Giancana and his colleagues, along with at least two satchels full of cash. On one train trip from Washington to Chicago she was followed by a presidential advance man named Martin E. Underwood, who told in a 1996 interview of being ordered onto the train by Kenneth O'Donnell, Jack Kennedy's close aide. "Kenny suggested it might be a good idea," Underwood told me, "to go to Chicago by train. I said, 'What train?' It was the same train Judy took." He watched, he said, as Exner got off in Chicago and handed a satchel to a waiting Sam Giancana. Exner, in a series of interviews for this book, further admitted that she delivered money, lots of it, from California businessmen directly to the president. The businessmen were bidding on federal contracts.

The last clause of the first sentence is why Hersh dared not have any source notes. It is not that he did not know that responsible, honest writing requires them. He knew his book could not survive them, and this provides an early opportunity for establishing that. In establishing it we also establish that this Pulitzer Prizer is a Pulitzer liar.

Hersh knew the truth. He discloses this, without telling the truth, almost three hundred pages later.

Hersh says in this sentence that during the last months of the Eisenhower administration, out of nowhere in this Hersh version, by nobody, Giancana was "brought into the Castro assassination effort," of whom he does not say. Instead he has his necessary, his knowing and deliberate lie, "with Senator Jack Kennedy's knowledge." By withholding the name of the person with whom all this began inside the CIA, Hersh hides the motive that CIA man later has for not being truthful. And Hersh of the no-source writing does use him and what he attributes to him without disclosure of his prime motive for not being fully truthful, the Helms offense, and before the Senate, too. Hersh knows that man's name, as we see in a moment. He just "represses" it and condemns Kennedy for knowledge Kennedy did not and could not have had — without condemning those responsible for what would have been an international crime of first magnitude.

No source, no source notes, of course, just take it on Hersh's word. Which is necessary for the entire book.

In a carefully mixed-up account that begins two hundred and eighty four pages later and which Hersh holds secret from his reader until then he lets his knowledge of the truth slide out with his mention of the truth or of the source of it. He, by then, has given his version of the unraveling of that Mafia plot of the CIA's to get Castro assassinated and then he dates what he refers to as the "resolution" to April, 1962 (page 289). He says that Robert Kennedy's first knowledge of the CIA's use of the Mafia in that plot was on May 7, 1962 (page 291). In this Hersh is both deceptive and not truthful. His actual words as he begins this part (on page 289) are, "Nothing was resolved until April 1962." He does not say what was "resolved," but he does indeed suggest what is not so. He has gotten to the point where he can no longer "repress" that the CIA's use of the Mafia interfered with prosecution of it by Robert Kennedy. Then he says (on page 290) that "[CIA general counsel Lawrence] Houston and Sheffield Edwards," who was director of security "met with Bobby Kennedy" and "briefed" him, but again Hersh implies without saying what the briefing was or was about, (a cub reporter would not have left that out!).

The date of that meeting with Robert Kennedy was May 7, 1962.

We skip for a moment what we return to, what was bothering Kennedy, to recount that Hersh writes that "Four days later" than May 7 "Kennedy asked Houston and Edwards for a memorandum of the meeting. That summary was delivered May 14. Here Hersh interjects some of his anti-Kennedy propaganda where it is not in any way justified or is in any way other than deliberately dishonest writing in saying that the memo "gave Kennedy an invaluable document for the record, stating that he had been angered upon hearing presumably for the first time — of the Mafia's use in activities against Castro." This last part is also a lie.

It diverts and it grossly misrepresents the memorandum.

The memorandum that in this writing Hersh discloses having or at least having read, even though his representation of it is a great and not accidental dishonesty.

That memo, whether or not it was publicly available earlier by other means and for other reasons, was disclosed to me by the CIA under date of February 14, 1989. That is the same day of the same month it was sent to Kennedy in 1962. The brief covering memo was also disclosed to me with that same CIA letter, which was from its man in charge of FOIA responses, John H. Wright. It was the Department of Justice file copy that was disclosed to me because its disclosure was within an information request I had made of the Justice Department years earlier. (Because the documents originated with the CIA, disclosure required its approval. Because it did not qualify for continued withholding, the CIA did not dare, with Justice involved, violate the law by refusing to let it be disclosed publicly.) The Justice file is 82-46-5. Houston's memo reads, in full,

In accordance with your request of 11 May, 1962, I am forwarding herewith, in the attached envelope, a Top Secret memorandum by Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Director of Security, setting forth the facts on which we briefed you on May 7.

Before entering into any explanation of the Edwards memo, of which as we saw Hersh had not a word to say other than to misrepresent its content, we here include that entire memo. It is on the CIA letterhead and in addition to stamps we do not include bears the same Justice Department file identification. The CIA notes that it was the first of only two copies made of that memo:

14 May 1962

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD:

SUBJECT:	Arthur James Balletti et al — Unauthorized Publication or use of Communications

1.	This memorandum For the record is prepared at the request of the Attorney General of the United States following a complete oral briefing of him relative to a sensitive CIA operation conducted during the period approximately August 1960 to May 1961. In August 1960 the undersigned was approached by Mr. Richard Bissell then Deputy Director for Plans of CIA to explore the possibility the possibility of mounting this sensitive operation against Fidel Castro. It was thought that certain gambling interests which had and formerly been active in Cuba might be willing and able to assist and further, might have both intelligence assets in Cuba and communications between Miami, Florida and Cuba. Accordingly, Mr. Robert Maheu, a private investigator of the firm of Maheu and King was approached by the undersigned and asked to establish contact with a member or members of the gambling syndicate to explore their capabilities. Mr. Maheu was known to have accounts with several prominent business men and organizations in the United States. Maheu was to make his approach to the syndicate as appearing to represent big business organizations which wished to protect interests in Cuba. Mr. Maheu accordingly met and established contact with one John Roselli of Los Angeles. Mr. Roselli showed interest in the possibility and indicated he had some contacts in Miami that he might use. Maheu reported that John Roselli said he was not interested in any remuneration but would seek to establish capabilities in Cuba to perform the desired project. Towards the end of September Mr. Maheu and Mr. Roselli proceeded to Miami where, as reported, Maheu was introduced to Sam Giancana of Chicago. Sam Giancana arranged for Maheu and Roselli to meet a "courier" who was going back and forth to Havana. From information received back by the courier the proposed operation appeared to be feasible and it was decided to obtain an official Agency approval in this regard. A figure of one hundred fifty thousand dollars was set by the Agency as a payment to be made on completion of the operation and to be paid only to the principal or principals who would contact the operation in Cuba. Maheu reported that Roselli and Giancana emphatically stated that they wished no part of any payment. The undersigned then briefed the proper senior officials of this Agency on the proposal. Knowledge of this project during its life was kept to a total of six persons and never became a part of the project current at that time for the invasion of Cuba and there were no memoranda on the project nor were there other written documents or agreements. The project was duly orally approved by the said senior officials of the Agency.

2.	Roselli and Maheu spent considerable time in Miami talking with the courier. Sam Giancana were present during parts of these meetings. Several months after this period Maheu told me that Sam Giancana had asked him to put a listening device in the room of (passage redacted). At that time it was reported to me that Maheu passed the matter over to one Edward Du Boise, another private investigator. It appears that Arthur James Balletti was discovered in the act of installing the listening device and was arrested by the Sheriff in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maheu reported to me that he had referred the matter to Edward Du Boise on behalf of Sam Giancana. At the time of the incident neither this Agency nor the undersigned knew of the proposed technical installation. Maheu stated that Sam Giancana thought that (passage redacted) might know of the proposed operation and might pass on information to (passage redacted). At the time that Maheu reported this to the undersigned he reported he was under surveillance by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who, he thought, were exploring his association with John Roselli and Sam Giancana incident to the project. I told Maheu that if he was formerly approached by the FBI, he could refer them to me to be briefed that he was engaged in an intelligence operation directed at Cuba.

3.	During the period from September on through April efforts were continued by Roselli and Maheu to proceed with the operation. The first principal in Cuba withdrew and another principal was selected as has been briefed to the Attorney General. Ten thousand dollars was passed for expenses to the second principal. He was further furnished with approximately one thousand dollars worth of communications equipment to establish communications between his headquarters in Miami and assets in Cuba. No monies were ever paid to Roselli and Giancana. Maheu was paid part of his expense money during the periods that he was in Miami. After the failure of the invasion of Cuba word was sent through Maheu to Roselli to call off the operation and Roselli was told to tell his principal that the proposal to pay one hundred fifty thousand dollars for completion of the operation had been definitely withdrawn.

4.	In all this period it has been definitely established from other sources that the Cuban principals involved never discovered or believed that there was other than business and syndicate interest in the project. To the knowledge of the undersigned there was no "leaks" of any information concerning the project in the Cuban community in Miami or in Cuba.

5.	I have no proof but it is my conclusion that Roselli and Giancana guessed or assumed that CIA was behind the project. I never met either one of them.

6.	Throughout the entire period of the project John Roselli was the dominant figure in directing action of the Cuban principals. Reasonable monitoring of his activities indicated that he gave his best efforts to carrying out the project without requiring any commitments for himself, financial or otherwise.

7.	In view of the extreme sensitivity of the information set forth above, only one additional copy of this memorandum has been made and will be retained by the Agency.

(Passage redacted)

Sheffield Edwards

The silliness of much CIA withholding is illustrated by its redaction of Edward's well-known and officially disclosed title that was disclosed in the covering Houston memo. The other redactions, of information then long public, is of the names of Phyllis McGuire and Dan Martin and their relationship, allegedly to protect privacy that had not existed for some time.

It should be understood that what is disclosed to me becomes public. What the Justice Department and the FBI disclosed was placed in their public reading room and the CIA was supposed to do the same thing.

Earlier the FBI had made fairly full disclosure on that whole business, including the Balletti arrest and what he did and how he got off, as he did, through that CIA connection. I have had two thick FBI files on that for many years.

So, if these records were not available to Hersh elsewhere, they were in those public reading rooms. In any event, he has, as quoted earlier, disclosed that he had access to them, particularly to this Edwards memo of May 14, 1962.

Having been deceived entirely about it by Hersh we can now look at what he found it necessary to "repress." If he had not he could not have had this book the way he turned it out.

In 1960 the part of the CIA generally referred to as "dirty tricks" had the euphemism for a title of "Directory of Plans." The man who then headed it was Richard Bissell. At the outset Edwards attributes the idea of using the Mafia (and he is careful not to say that the use was to assassinate Castro) was Bissell's idea. The CIA got former FBI agent Robert Maheu to contact the Mafia and to stay in contact with it for the CIA. Maheu got John Rosselli interested. At this point Edwards interjects that "Rosselli said he was not interested in any remuneration," a position later reiterated. Roselli enlisted the Chicago mobster who is important in the Hersh fictionalization of our history, Giancana.

Because of another part of this Hersh-it fiction makes this important, it is here important to note that the CIA itself set "A figure of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars" of its own money as the payment, plus, as is stated later, expenses that were paid, for Maheu and a few other things. But as soon as this sum the CIA was to have paid is mentioned the memo states, "Maheu reported that Roselli and Giancana emphatically stated that they wanted no part of any payment."

This Hersh had to omit because his other star in his writing, Exner, said so often that JFK gave her the money for the project to give to Giancana. This CIA memo, of course, separately for all other matters that do the same thing, makes a big liar of Hersh's star, Exner.

The CIA set the money to pay them aside and repeatedly the mobsters said they would not take a penny!

But Exner said she delivered, personally, their payment which she says she got from JFK who knew nothing about this at all!

Then the memo makes a liar of Hersh, not just a writer who uses established liars with enthusiasm but in his own name, here about what we quoted earlier, his claim that Kennedy knew about this Eisenhower plot to get the CIA to get Castro assassinated.

Knowledge of this project during its life was kept to a total of six persons and never became a part of the project current at the time for the invasion of Cuba . . . The project was orally approved by the said senior officials of the Agency.

Only six people knew about the "project" and all six were "senior officials of the Agency," which is the CIA.

No Kennedy, neither President nor the Attorney General nor any other Kennedy, was one of those six CIA officials to whom knowledge of its plot with the Mafia to assassinate Castro was limited.

Or, this CIA record alone makes a very big liar of Hersh. Pulitzer-size in lies.

It also makes a lie of his saying that this playing with the Mafia to kill Castro continued, with Hershed-in Kennedy participation. The CIA said, "during the life of the project," which means the life had ended. In fact the CIA dates the end of the "project", saying that "after the failure of the invasion of Cuba" it told Maheu "to call off the operation."

That "operation" Hersh says continued under the Kennedys until the assassination.

That Hersh knew about and had studied this memo is established in the comment about its contents that he added on page 290, referring to the fact that the memo "made no mention of Castro assassination planning." Hersh added, "Such actions, as Kennedy surely was aware, are never to be put in writing."

However, seeking that fortune that would enable him to retire, Hersh persists in the false representation that after this the Kennedy's took the failed CIA/Mafia deal over Hersh says that the President "was his himself trying to do business in Cuba with organized crime. Kennedy also was goading the agency to get going with getting rid of Castro and knew, as did his brother, that a pretty California woman named Judith Campbell was carrying messages to that effect between the President, Sam Giancana and John Roselli"(page 290).

No-source Hersh has only one possible source for this, Exner, and he knew she lied. He had to omit some of what she had been saying in what he dared use that she said. She had been saying, seeking and getting attention in saying, that she was JFK's "courier" to Giancana. The attention she sought and got included TV. Here is an excerpt from the Liz Smith column as that gossip-monger's column appeared in Newsday, which is owned by the Los Angeles Times, on whose staff Smith is, in its January 8, 1997 issue:

In January's issue of Vanity Fair, I wrote the saga of how JFK used his young lover Judith Campbell to carry money and messages to Sam Giancana. Yet many naysayers still question Judith's veracity and scoff when she says that Kennedy felt she was a "safe" conduit to Sam. But A&E makes it all inescapably logical.

The Kennedys tapped the mob to assassinate Fidel Castro, promising to give the Mafia back its Cuban casinos when the Communist leader was eliminated. Giancana did everything to get Jack Kennedy elected by a mere 9,000 votes in Chicago. Then Giancana felt he had JFK in his pocket. The CIA (via Robert Maheu, who appears on the Biography" (special) made the government's offer to Chicago's Giancana, Vegas' Johnny Rosselli, and the underworld Kingpins of Louisiana and Florida.

The president, uncertain of the CIA, then used Judith Campbell, first to take money to the mob, and then to carry his own personal "kill Castro" messages to Giancana. The CIA helped Cuban exiles invade Cuba, promising them air cover. JFK, thinking the CIA incompetent feeling that they had goofed, called off the air support. The Cuban patriots died on Cuban beaches.

Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general, knew perfectly well that JFK was sending messages to Giancana via Judith . . .

Of course, with the CIA having promised a hundred and fifty thousand dollars plus expenses and with the vehemence with which the mobsters said they would not accept any pay, in his "#1 investigative journalist" style, which amounts to cribbing this Liz Smith column and other of her columns -- he gives no sources so he represents this as his own daring-do. Pulitzer style — Hersh had to omit Exner's claim that she carried money for the "project" directly from the President to Giancana. So, he says it was to "buy" the election.

Smith had another bit Hersh did not take and use as his own but then Smith did not attribute that to Exner. On her own authority and immediately following what is quoted above she stated, "So the Mafia arranged for its New Orleans branch to set up the murder of the 35th president in Dallas. Members of the Marcello crime family said openly that the president would be hit. One of them bragged they'd get a 'nut' to do it for them . . ." More that Smith just made up. Then,

Bobby Kennedy was shocked and guilty that he had caused Jack's death. But then the mob arranged to finish off Bobby in Los Angeles — once they discovered he might make it to the White House . . . And the rest is history . . .

To his Pulitzer credit, on this Hersh knew where to stop. So with all that Exner said about carrying the Kennedy money for the CIA/Eisenhower Mafia plot to kill Castro, he did not use this or any of the other Exner versions of it.

Referring to Balletti getting caught in the act, an saying much less of that then the disclosed FBI files contain, Hersh did write that "The case was turned over to the FBI, whose agents were told in April that the CIA was working with Sam Giancana and the mob. Their informant was none other than Maheu, who — distressed at what he perceived as President Kennedy's cowardice at the Bay of Pigs — began talking to his former FBI colleagues" (page 289).

Maheu did talk to the FBI. He did not talk to them, convenient as this business was for Hersh-it journalism, saying he found Kennedy to be a coward because he did not start a war by the giant United States invading the pygmy Cuba. No-source Hersh could have been using as his source and embellishing the May 22, 1961 memorandum J. Edgar Hoover sent to Robert Kennedy on this, with more detail in what the FBI refers to as a "LHM" or "letterhead Memorandum," which is attached. Not as Hersh like in withholding sources, both memos follow, with the letterhead printing, filing wd declassification notices omitted. But before this quotation it should be noted that in his second paragraph Hoover does state that "Maheu, after concealing his full connection with this matter, informed that coverage of Rowan was in furtherance of activities of Maheu on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) relative to anti-Castro activities."

Nothing in either memo about Maheu's alleged griping that he had a coward for a President. And it was not because he was a former agent or was so dedicated to seeing to it that the laws were obeyed and enforced that Maheu spoke to the FBI. (The law he conspired to violate.)

Actually, according to those fat files of the FBI's I've had for years, Balletti was from a Miami detective agency. His illegal acts were discovered by the maid, he was that careless. The maid reported it to an assistant manager. He notified the sheriff and it was the sheriff who nabbed Balletti. It was when Balletti said, and I paraphrase, if I go down I do not go down alone that it all started to come to official attention. If Maheu had not told the FBI the truth Balletti would have told the FBI all it needed to know as in fact he did, in Vegas. So, Maheu had little choice. Unless, he wanted to be charged as an accessory in the federal crime with which Balletti could have been charged, would have been had it not been for the CIA.

Yes, the CIA was actually doing the snooping for the mobster Giancana to learn for him if the woman who was sleeping with him was also sleeping with Dan Martin!

So of course Hersh says that what was really bugging Maheu and got him to blabbing was what he perceived as his President's cowardice in not starting a war against tiny Cuba!

Not a word of that in those fat FBI files on this.

There are a few blanks in this copy made when it was xeroxed.

Some of the content will interest us in more of this Hersh-it "#1" and "investigative" journalism. But if Maheu told the FBI that those CIA "activities" were the assassination of Fidel Castro, that is not in either FBI Memo.

To:	The Attorney General	Date:	May 22, 1961

From:	Director, FBI

Subject:	ARTHUR JAMES BALLETTI, et al

UNAUTHORIZED PUBLICATION

OR USE OF COMMUNICATIONS

This case involves an allegation Arthur James Balletti and another unidentified individual placed a wire tap on the telephone of Dan Rowan, a member of the comedy team of Rowan and Martin, in October, 1960.

The Criminal Division was previously advised that Robert Maheu, after concealing his full connection with this matter, informed that coverage of Rowan was in furtherance of activities of Maheu on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) relative to anti-Castro activities.

Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Director of Security, CIA, furnished information set forth in the attached memorandum regarding his utilization of Maheu in connection with anti-Castro activities, according to Colonel Edwards, Maheu contacted Sam Giancana in connection with this program. Reports of investigation of Giancana have been furnished to the Department in the case entitled "Samuel N. Giancana, Anti-Racketeering."

Since the purpose for placing the wire tap on Rowan's telephone, which is the basis for this investigation of the violation of the Unauthorized Publication or Use of Communications Statute, has not been determined, the full investigation requested in this matter is continuing and copies of reports will be furnished to the Department upon receipt.

In view of the information regarding CIA's attempted utilization of the hoodlum element in connection with anti-Castro activities, CIA has requested that this information be handled on a "need-to-know" basis.

ENCLOSURES (2)

1 -	Mr. Byron R. White

Deputy Attorney General (Enclosure)

1 -	Assistant Attorney General

Herbert J. Miller, Jr. (Enclosure)

* * *

May 22, 1961

ARTHUR JAMES BALLETTI, et al

On May 3, 1961, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Director of Security, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) furnished the following information.

Colonel Edwards advised that in connection with CIA's operation against Castro be personally contacted Robert Maheu during the Fall of 1960 for the purpose of using Maheu as a "cut-out" in contacts with Sam Giancana, a known hoodlum in the Chicago area. Colonel Edwards said that since the underworld controlled gambling activities in Cuba under the Batista government, it was assumed that this element would still continue to have sources and contacts in Cuba which perhaps could be utilized successfully in connection with CIA's clandestine efforts against the Castro government. As a result, Maheu's services were solicited as a "cut-out" because of his possible entree into underworld circles. Maheu obtained Sam Giancana's assistance in this regard and according to Edwards, Giancana gave every indication of cooperating through Maheu in attempting to accomplish several clandestine efforts in Cuba. Edwards added that none of Giancana's efforts have materialized to date and that several of the plans still are working and may eventually "pay off."

Colonel Edwards related that he had no direct contact with Giancana; that Giancana's activities were completely "back stopped" by Maheu and that Maheu would frequently report Giancana's action and information to Edwards. No details or methods used by Maheu or Giancana in accomplishing their missions were ever reported to Edwards. Colonel Edwards said that since this is "dirty business" he could not afford to have knowledge of the actions of Maheu and Giancana in pursuit of any mission for CIA. Colonel Edwards added that he has neither given Maheu any instruction to use technical installations of any type nor has the subject of technical installations ever come up between Edwards and Maheu in connection with Giancana's activity.

Colonel Edwards related that Maheu did come to him concerning the arrest in Las Vegas of Balletti for "wire tapping." Maheu cautioned Edwards that the Balletti arrest could cause CIA some embarrassment since Balletti was in Las Vegas attempting to obtain coverage on some "Hollywood people" in connection with Giancana's efforts for CIA. Edwards said that he did not know the facts of the Balletti case and Maheu claims "Balletti went; too far" in his efforts to obtain information. Edwards added that he was unaware of any reason for this activity of Maheu or Giancana in Las Vegas and that Giancana's activity in furtherance of the anti-Castro activity was left completely in Maheu's hands.

Colonel Edwards advised that only Mr. Bissell (Deputy Director of Plans, CIA) and two others in CIA were aware of the Giancana — Maheu activity in behalf of CIA's program and that Allen Dulles was completely unaware of Edward's contact with Maheu in this connection. He added that Mr. Bissell, during his recent briefings of General Taylor and the Attorney General in connection with their inquiries into CIA relating to the Cuban situation, told the Attorney General that some CIA's associated planning included use of Giancana and the underworld against Castro.

Hersh has contorted this as much as he could expect to get away with to be able to say that despite this Mafia plot flopping the Kennedys, both of them, continued to try to get Castro bumped off by the very same flopper who had flopped. His only sources are those who did continue to try to get Castro killed, the CIA, the people who had something to hide and who could make themselves look better by blaming somebody else for what they had been trying for years.