The JFK assassination has fascinated people for decades, and is in many ways the mother of all conspiracy theories. Whether you accept the official version or not, the links to organized crime, CIA plots, and more make the study of the event an incredible rabbit hole.
Millions of pages of documents have accumulated and are held – often very loosely – under the category of JFK Assassination records. Some were released early on, many trickled out over the years, and some have yet to become public. Often the reason for them remaining secret is “national security,” as though anyone would be surprised by what the American government was doing in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War.
2017-2018 Releases
In 2017-2018, by presidential order, the long-sealed documents began to get released. FBI files, CIA files, cables from various embassies, internal memos, and much more. But then, the releases stopped. The intelligence agencies convinced those overseeing the release that some things still weren’t ready to be seen.
JFK researchers were mostly unimpressed, but I’m not a JFK researcher – I’m primarily an organized crime researcher, and further a student of anything the FBI was historically doing in Milwaukee. Some gems were found, which I wrote about at the time. The most interesting, to me, was the release of various names of people the FBI was using to gather information. Some were no surprise, like newspaper reporters, but others were a big of a shock. Most notably, Sam Cooper – a man so close to Milwaukee Mafia boss Frank Balistrieri that his children called him “Uncle Sam.” Would they ever expect him to be talking with FBI agents?
December 15, 2021 Release
On December 15, 2021, another 1,500 documents of various page lengths were released. Still more (at least 10,000) were pushed back (again) to December 2022. The 2021 release has widely been seen as “frustrating” and “underwhelming.” University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, a leading scholar of the assassination, called the redactions that were removed in the release “minimal and worthless.”
During my first skim of the documents, I have to generally agree the release is not breathtaking. But, again, I’m not looking for new information on the assassination so much as nuggets on organized crime and Milwaukee investigations in general. And there are a few takeaways here.
Organized Crime and Milwaukee Investigations
There are more than a handful of documents on Chicago Mafia figures Sam Giancana, John Roselli and Richard Cain. While I am not knowledgeable enough to say whether any of this is “new” since the last document dump, even if it simply makes public the names of case agents, that has value in itself. Sometimes knowing who wrote a report changes the very way a report is understood because of the biases in the author. These three figures were also the key names involved in the CIA’s recruitment of Mafia killers to assassinate Fidel Castro. This story is well-known, but enough questions remain that any new document is welcome. A great summary document is this one: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32345891.pdf
The bulk of the documents, in fact, seem to relate to CIA operations in relation to Cuba and Russia. Although categorized as “JFK documents,” the real value may be in what it says about many operations that aren’t widely known. The CIA appears to have been very involved in following the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico, which isn’t surprising but may not be well-known. One operation is called Project Lipstick, which does not readily come up on a Google search.
In the various FBI files on mob figures (notably Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante) more informants are revealed, such as a doorman at a hotel and a Tampa optometrist. There are documents on James Patmore, an informant who claimed he was hired to kill Chicago mobster “Butch” Blasi. Patmore was named in earlier releases, but there do seem to be some new documents this time. No big names found, but it does give insight into who the FBI approaches to be their eyes and ears.
Various FBI reports from Agent Bill Roemer highlight Chicago figures like Gus Alex, Louis Arger and George Bravos. How these are in any way related to JFK is unknown.
Milwaukee’s top echelon informant, possibly August Maniaci, was briefly questioned about Felix Alderisio here: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32291940.pdf
There are also a fair amount of files on Buffalo, Detroit and Pittsburgh mobsters, but I’m not knowledgeable enough on those areas to speculate on the usefulness.
The only explicitly Milwaukee file I found was concerning Kenneth Heitkamp, a POW in Korea. His connection to anything is unknown. The lack of Milwaukee Mafia documents following the release of numerous ones last time is unfortunate.
Ultimately, I have to concur with the other researchers that this release is disappointing, though for different reasons than they said. There may be something hidden in there, but by all appearances the Milwaukee Mafia (and Wisconsin as a whole) are completely absent.
Maybe next year.