Legacy of Secrecy Read Online Free Page B

Marcello, Jimmy Hoffa, and Tampa’s Santo
    Trafficante prime targets for investigation. Bobby eventually pressured
    J. Edgar Hoover, now officially Bobby’s subordinate, into making some
    efforts against the Mafia, but in the meantime Bobby developed his
    own staff of special prosecutors in the Justice Department. In addition
    to his staff of Mafia prosecutors, Bobby organized a separate Justice
    Department group, informally called the “Get Hoffa Squad,” to target
    the Teamster leader. Bobby Kennedy used compartmentalization for
    security and administrative reasons, keeping the Get Hoffa Squad and
    his Mafia prosecutors almost completely separate. This tactic would
    have grave repercussions around the time of JFK’s assassination, when
    both groups were kept separate not only from each other, but also from
    Bobby’s covert Cuban operations, and each group had crucial informa-
    tion the other needed.
    In addition to Bobby’s focus on the Mafia and Hoffa, the early 1960s
    were a turbulent and transitional time in the area of civil rights. This
    was the era of segregated schools in many parts of the country, though
    racial discrimination was worst in the South, where even public drink-
    ing fountains and movie theaters were often still segregated. Most state

Chapter One
7
    legislatures had no blacks or Hispanics, and all-white juries were the
    norm. Bobby and his Justice Department played a leading role in the
    growing civil rights movement, enforcing the law when local or state
    officials refused, or even broke the law themselves.
    In June 1963, Governor George Wallace had stood in the doorway
    of the University of Alabama to block admittance to a black student,
    only weeks after Birmingham Police Chief Bull Connor had turned
    attack dogs and fire hoses on peacefully protesting children. A few days
    after that attack, the motel where Martin Luther King was staying was
    bombed, and JFK had to call out troops to maintain order in Birming-
    ham. Though King was able to marshal two hundred thousand people
    to Washington in August 1963 to hear his “I Have a Dream” speech, civil
    rights crusaders faced a constant threat of violence. Mississippi civil
    rights leader Medgar Evers had been assassinated by a sniper in June
    1963, and in September four little girls died when Birmingham’s 16th
    Street Baptist Church was bombed.
    Prosecutions for such crimes were largely local matters in 1963, since
    the comprehensive federal civil rights legislation sought by JFK and
    Bobby was proving problematic. Even with the help of Vice President
    Johnson, a consummate dealmaker when he had led the Senate in the
    late 1950s, passing such legislation would be difficult because of resis-
    tance from powerful conservatives in Congress, mostly from the South.
    Building Southern political support for JFK and his policies would be
    one reason for the President’s open motorcades in Florida (on November
    18, 1963) and Texas (on November 21 and 22).
    Bobby would have had his hands full if he’d done nothing but focus
    on civil rights, the Mafia, and Hoffa, as well as his extensive advice to
    JFK about political and personal affairs, but there was still more on his
    plate. Bobby also had a hand in foreign policy, which included being
    one of several advisors to JFK about the growing problem of Vietnam.
    The country’s dictator had been killed on November 2, 1963, following
    a coup by military officers. JFK had approved the coup to remove the
    corrupt dictator and his family from power, but hadn’t expected them
    to be killed; a famous photo captured JFK’s anguish when he first heard
    the news of their death. It’s important to remember that in November
    1963, there were officially no US combat troops in Vietnam (only several
    thousand “advisors”), and US casualties under JFK totaled less than
    a hundred. Even with that relatively low level of commitment, most
    scholars and former officials agree that JFK had decided to reduce