Thanks to Dr. Cyril Wecht for tipping me off about an upcoming movie about Sam Giancana's role in the assassination.
He certainly had a role but was not the mastermind or the one who ordered the hit, as some of his relations maintain.
Giancana comes into the assassination picture as one of those contacted by CIA officer James O'Connell during the Eisenhower administration and asked to assist the CIA in murdering Fidel Castro.
At first I"Connelly went to Robert Mahu in Las Vegas for advice and Mahu directed him to Johnny Rosselli, the original dapper don. Rosselli represented the Chicago mobs interests in California and Vegas, and said he had to get permission from his boss, Sam Giancana.
Giancana suggested they bring in Tampa,Florida boss Santo Traficante, who also ran the rackets in Havana before Castro took over, and still had contacts there.
At first they planned to poison Castro, passing on the poison pills and $10,000 in cash to an employee of a Havana restaurant where Castro frequented. That never happened.
Them O'Connell was replaced as Rosselli's CIA case officer by William Harvey, head of the Cuban Task Force W and the ZR-RIFLE assassination project.
Both big drinkers they became friends and remained so until Rosselli was killed.
They cut out Traficante and Giancana, and turned to killing Castro with high powered rifles instead of poison. Harvey had Rosselli work on strategy with the anti-Castro Cuban commandos run out of JMWAVE in Florida, where Rosselli was given the cover of an Army officer known as "Colonel Rawlins."
There were a number of teams, one led by Julio Fernandez, and trained by US Army Ranger Captain Bradley Ayers, who was cross posted to the CIA by General Brute Krulack. That team, trained at Pirates Lair in the Everglades, was also financially supported by Clare Boothe Luce.
Another team and boat crew were supported by William Pawley, of Flying Tigers fame, who used his own boat in the Bayo-Pawley mission that included Rosselli's good friend John Martino and CIA cowboy Rip Robertson.
Another team was supported by Rosselli was trained by US Army Ranger Capt. Edward Roderick, John I.F. Harper and Carl Jenkins. They were trained as snipers at Point Mary, then a remote area off of Key Largo.
Together they were known as the Pathfinders, as they were originally assembled and trained to infiltrate Cuba before the Bay of Pigs.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, Harvey sent some of the Pathfinders into Cuba, and when Robert Kennedy learned this he called them back, fired Harvey and replaced him with Desmond FitzGerald.
Harvey was sent to be the CIAs man in Rome, where James Jesus Angleton had served in the OSS during WW2 and Clare Luce Booth had been ambassador. Harvey remained Rosselli's case officer and maintained contact with him.
They reportedly met for the last time in June, 1963 in Florida, where Harvey picked up the tab for their winning, dining and hotel rooms, paying it on the ZR-RIFLE assassination account.
There was a pause in the CIA plotting to kill Castro, not only because JFK had "disapproved" the Pathfinder plan to kill Castro by shooting him in the head as he drove by in an open jeep, and Kennedy and Castro were engaged in back channel negotiations at the UN, but for another reason.
As John Newman has pointed out, Castro had to be alive on November 22, 1963 as he was to be blamed for the assassination of JFK as part of the cover story and deception.
The CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro remained a secret, even from the Warren Commission, though Allen Dulles was the head of CIA when O'Connell began them during the Eisenhower administration.
They remained secret until Jack Anderson revealed them in a syndicated Washington Merry-go-round column as a protege of Drew Pearson. Anderson's source was Johnny Rosselli.
Giancana said that their participation in the CIA plots to kill Castro would end with their deaths, and he was murdered shortly before he was to testify before a Congressional Committee. Shot in the back of the head while he cooked sausages in his basement, he must have known and trusted his killer, a still unsolved homicide.
Rosselli testified twice, in secret, but then immediately visited Jack Anderson, who shared DC office space with lobbyists and fixer I. Irving Davidson.
Rosselli told Anderson he helped train the commandos out of the CIA JMWAVE station, and they were sent in, infiltrated Cuba to kill Castro, but were captured, tortured, and turned, and returned to kill JFK in Dallas.
I believe, as some of the Pathfinders admitted to Gene Wheaton, that they were paid and trained to kill Castro but redirected their fire to JFK in Dallas.
Not long afterwards, Rosselli went out on a boat with some people he must have known, and trusted, and was tortured, killed, dismembered, and stuck in an oil barrell that was found floating in a bay. A still unsolved homicide today.
So Giancana, through Rosselli, played a part in the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, that led to JFKs murder, and were murdered themselves for their roles and breaking their oath of omerta by exposing the plots, it was Rosselli who had a larger role with the anti-Castro Cubans who carried out the operation.
