Richard Belzer - Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

Hit
List

Hit List

An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

Richard Belzer and
David Wayne

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright 2013 by Richard Belzer and David Wayne

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Belzer, Richard.

Hit list : an in-depth investigation into the mysterious deaths of witnesses to the JFK assassination / Richard Belzer and David Wayne.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-62087-807-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Assassination. 2. Witnesses--Death--United States. 3. Witnesses--Texas--Dallas--Biography. I. Wayne, David, 1963- II. Title.

E842.9.B444 2013

973.922092--dc23

2013001767

Printed in the United States of America

History will not absolve us if we do not, once and for all,
reveal all that is known about the greatest, most tragic murder mystery
in American History. After all, 90 percent of the American people believe
that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. The other 10 percent
work for the government or the media. This book is dedicated to
the 90 percent: May you forever question, hold accountable, and improve,
the great gift from our forebears; what historians have called our
Experiment in Democracy. Let us all join in this quest to
preserve the very soul of our nation.

Anybody can commit a murder, but it takes an expert to commit a suicide.

Legendary CIA asset, Bill Corson, who held a uniquely close position to the highest and darkest echelons of the Central Intelligence Agency.

People are eliminated. Honey, you dont know how many people are just eliminated, just on the operating table alone. They just need to be disposed of. And dont ever believe what you read in the papers. Its all made up.

Joe Shimon, a professional assassin and deep cover operative who, for decades, did the dirty work for the permanent Government of U.S. military and intelligenceand who finally divulged the above facts to his daughter, late in his life.

Someday you will read that I have been killed in an accident, but dont believe it, Ive been murdered.

William Sullivan, high-ranking member of FBI, head of Division 5, Counterespionage and Domestic Intelligence, who was officially killed in a hunting accident shortly thereafter.

All I know is that witnesses with vital evidence in the case are bad insurance risks.

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, when asked about all the deaths of witnesses who had been sought for testimony.

Peter Janney, Marys Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision For World Peace (Skyhorse Publishing: 2012), 267.

Janney, Marys Mosaic (Shimon interview, February 15, 2007), 384.

John Hawkins, Right Wing News, 20 Aug 2007. Robert D. Novak, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum: 2007).

Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD, Pursuing Truth on the Kennedy Assassinations, 2012: http://lewrockwell.com/miller/miller40.1.html

Table of Contents

Important Background Information

1. Officer J. D. Tippit

2. Lee Harvey Oswald

3. Jack Ruby

4. Jack Zangetty

5. Melba Christine Marcades

6. Karyn Kupcinet

7. Grant Stockdale

8. Jim Koethe

9. Bill Hunter

10. Dorothy Kilgallen

11. Florence Pritchett Smith

12. Betty McDonald

13. Eddy Benavides

14. Bill Chesher

15. Hank Killam

16. Gary Underhill

17. Guy Banister

18. Hugh Ward

19. Deslesseps Morrison

20. Maurice Gatlin

21. Earlene Roberts

22. Al Guy Bogard

23. Lee Bowers

24. Marilyn Delilah Walle

25. Mary Pinchot Meyer

26. Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer, USN

27. Manuel Rodriguez Quesada

28. Gilberto Rodriguez Hernandez

29. Eladio del Valle

30. David Ferrie

31. Rolando Masferrer

32. Dr. Mary Sherman

33. J. Edgar Hoover

34. Louis Nichols, FBI

35. Alan Belmont, FBI

36. James Cadigan, FBI

37. Donald Kaylor, FBI

38. J. M. English, FBI

39. William Sullivan, FBI

40. Richard Cain

41. Sam The Man Giancana

42. Johnny Roselli

43. Chuck Nicoletti

44. George de Mohrenschildt

45. President Carlos Pro Socarrs

46. Jimmy Hoffa

47. John Paisley

48. Gary Powers

49. Jim Reeves

50. Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Conclusion

Appendix

Index

Important Background Information

In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died: six by gunfire, three in motor accidents, two by suicide, one from a cut throat, one from a karate chop to the neck, three from heart attacks and two from natural causes. An actuary engaged by the London Times calculated the probability that at least 18 witnesses would die of any cause within 3 years of the JFK assassination as 1 in 100,000 trillion .

Thus began the promotion of the 1973 film Executive Action, and a controversy that became legendary.

Its important to note that, during the exact same time period that this plethora of suspicious deaths occurred, President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover were in the process of slamming the door on any and all evidence that implied a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. As historian Walt Brown grimly notes:

Johnsons actions were a virtual guarantee that the truth would be buried and furthermore, the assassination would not have been carried out if those behind it did not have the full acquiescence of the incoming President and the FBI Director.

They controlled everything once the shots ended.

They controlled everything but they did nothing .

For those unfamiliar with the historical context, the chain of events was extremely unnerving:

• First, President Kennedy was gunned down in broad daylight on a Dallas street during a parade;
• Minutes later, in a somehow related crime, Dallas Officer J. D. Tippit was murdered on the street in a hail of bullets in a different section of town;
• Two days later, the accused assassin of President Kennedy was murdered while in Dallas police custody, with the event being captured on national television;
• Then, a seemingly endless list of witnesses started dying, many from obviously unnatural causes.

Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1989).

Actions Speak Much Louder than Wordswhat, exactly, did Johnson and Hoover do?, Walt Brown, Ph.D., JFK Deep Politics Quarterly , Vol. 17, #4, July, 2012 (emphasis in original).