Talbot says we "take pains to (repeatedly) exonerate the CIA in the killing of Kennedy," but we present evidence against several CIA personnel that implicates them to some degree in JFK's assassination. "Ultimate Sacrifice" details how AMWORLD was one way three Mafia bosses -- Carlos Marcello of Louisiana (who controlled the rackets in Dallas), Tampa's Santo Trafficante, and Johnny Rosselli of the Chicago mob -- infiltrated the Kennedy coup plan. For example, we quote CIA documents showing that Rosselli's mob paid $200,000 in August 1963 to one of the Cuban exile leaders for the coup plan and AMWORLD, Tony Varona.

Using the CIA's own declassified documents, our book exposes Mafia-compromised CIA assets, extensive CIA intelligence failures, unauthorized operations, and the stonewalling of Robert Kennedy and government committees by certain CIA officials -- all under the veil of secrecy covering AMWORLD.

The CIA personnel and CIA exile assets whom Talbot himself fingers at the end of his review -- Morales, Phillips, Harvey, Varona, Artime -- were all the subjects of incriminating new evidence presented in "Ultimate Sacrifice," and most had major roles in AMWORLD in 1963. Though we also present exculpatory facts where they exist, we present serious evidence against people like David Morales -- operations chief of Miami's huge CIA station in 1963 and close to Rosselli -- as well as exile leaders such as Varona and Manuel Artime.

Our focus on Marcello and his allies being behind JFK's death didn't originate with us -- it came from Robert Kennedy and his associates. It's well documented that after Robert F. Kennedy learned all he could from several private investigations, RFK told close associates such as Richard Goodwin and Hoffa prosecutor Walter Sheridan that New Orleans godfather Marcello was behind his brother's death. In 1979, the House Select Committee on assassinations -- whose director was a former Mafia prosecutor for RFK -- concluded that both Marcello and Trafficante had the motive, means and opportunity to kill JFK. However, since so much was withheld from the committee (including AMWORLD, the "Plan for a Coup in Cuba," the Tampa assassination attempt four days before Dallas, etc.), they weren't able to find conclusive proof.

After spending several years reviewing all the theories about the assassination, we were pointed toward a conspiracy led by Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli by a knowledgeable Kennedy associate in 1992, and quickly found a huge amount of supporting evidence. In addition to all the documentary evidence, we talked with five attorneys who worked under RFK at the Justice Department, as well as Pierre Salinger, who worked for the Kennedys in the 1950s as a Senate Mafia investigator targeting Marcello. Typical is Ronald Goldfarb, who concluded in his own book about those years "the likelihood [was] that our organized crime program" caused "Marcello and Trafficante to plot an audacious assassination."

Our book documents the godfathers' infiltration of the coup plan, and how they linked it to JFK's assassination in over a dozen ways, from the bullet found in Oswald's rifle to exile leaders like Varona. Talbot says RFK could have simply explained "the national security concerns in the judge's chambers" and proceeded with his prosecutions, but it would have been impossible to prosecute -- or even extensively investigate -- the godfathers' role without completely exposing the coup and invasion plan. In those tense Cold War times, just a year after the nuclear standoff during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that could have triggered a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets.

RFK tried to prosecute Marcello for other offenses even after JFK's death, to no avail. The attorney general kept the pressure on Jimmy Hoffa, a close ally of Marcello and Trafficante, and on Rosselli's Chicago Mafia. But if it had been publicly reported that the attorney general of the United States even suspected the Mafia of his brother's death, defense attorneys in those cases and many more would have had a field day. Talbot also failed to mention that Marcello, Trafficante and Rosselli all eventually confessed their involvement in JFK's assassination to associates. Two men who worked with Trafficante and Rosselli -- and who documents confirm knew about AMWORLD -- also confessed to friends, later in life.

Talbot says we "assert that Bobby blamed only the Mafia (and New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello in particular) for the death of his brother," but we also detail RFK's initial suspicions directed at the CIA. This includes not only RFK asking CIA director John McCone if the CIA killed his brother, but RFK's statement to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Haynes Johnson that "one of your guys did it," just hours after JFK's murder. As the book explains, Johnson was working at the time on a book with Manuel Artime, and CIA files now show Artime was not only involved in AMWORLD but working on the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro (which involved Rosselli, Trafficante and Marcello) and that the CIA had considered using the Mafia as a cover to provide weapons to Artime as part of AMWORLD.

Talbot says he can't understand "why in the world would organized crime bosses knock off Kennedy just days before he was about to knock off Castro?" As the book explains, the Kennedys tried to exclude the Mafia from any involvement in the coup plan, and any involvement in Cuba after the coup. As our sources told us and documents confirm, the Kennedys' goal for Cuba was a democracy with "free elections." Helping to ensure that would be the presence of U.S. troops, so even if the Kennedy coup plan were successful, it would do the Mafia no good.

The Mafia bosses had to kill JFK before the Dec. 1, 1963, coup, because only the top-secret coup plan/AMWORLD could provide the secrecy the Mafia needed to prevent a thorough, public investigation of JFK's assassination. Plus, Marcello was already on trial by RFK's men and Rosselli's Chicago mafia was under attack from RFK and the attorney general had just announced a massive crackdown on Las Vegas, where Rosselli represented the Chicago mob. Rosselli and Marcello weren't even U.S. citizens, and feared deportation even if they were only convicted of a relatively minor offense. Trafficante's criminal empire, and his close ally Hoffa, were under constant assault by RFK, so eliminating JFK to end RFK's war against them had to be the first order of business for the mob bosses. If the Mafia chiefs later wanted to eliminate Castro (which some experts feel Trafficante didn't want to do), they always had the CIA-Mafia plots to use against Castro, plots they played a major role in, unlike the Kennedys' coup plan.

By the end of Talbot's review we don't seem that far apart in our conclusions, of a conspiracy involving mob godfathers, some CIA personnel, and a few Cuban exiles. Our hope is that all authors, historians and researchers can work to get the remaining million-plus files that we talk about in our book released, and follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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