Assassinations

July 24, 2005

Marilyn Monroe

Since Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, an unabated stream of books, articles and documentaries have attempted to link her death to then U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy -- despite the complete lack of any credible evidence.

by Mel Ayton

The purported affair between Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy as well as claims he may have had the actress murdered have once again been resurrected with the publication of Matthew Smith's book Victim (2004) and the 2005 broadcast of the BBC's television series "Secret Map Of Hollywood." Their stories follow on from Donald Wolfe's startling allegations in his 1998 book The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe.

The myth about the RFK/Monroe affair has entered popular culture and has never been seriously questioned. It is accepted my many writers and authors and has been repeated in television documentaries ever since the publication of Anthony Summers' book Goddess in 1986. The possibility that the Kennedys and/or the CIA/Mafia/FBI murdered the actress has also become part of the myth.

Consequently, the American and British publics have become convinced that President Kennedy's brother Robert had a brief affair with the movie actress in the months leading up to her death and may have had a hand in her death.

Sept. 14, 2003 Updated Sept. 24, 2007

Gov. George Wallace

Arthur Bremer tried to fill the void in his miserable life by taking the life of Gov. George Wallace in 1972. He failed on both counts.

by Denise Noe

(Editor's Note: Arthur Bremer is scheduled for release from prison by the end of 2007.)

"Send them a message"

When Alabama Gov. George Wallace ran for the presidency in 1972, he did not expect to win. His goal was summed up in the slogan he used to urge his supporters to vote for him: "Send them a message!" The "them" referred to was the Washington D.C. establishment that Wallace claimed had sold out white working-class people to cater to racial minorities and a privileged liberal elite. The flamboyant, folksy Wallace denounced school busing for integration, courts he called soft on crime, and a tax system that he claimed bled the average American without making the rich pay its fair share. He won many loyal, even fanatical followers by claiming to champion the "taxi driver, little businessman, beautician or barber or farmer" against the "pointy-headed pseudo-intellectual."

The campaign was Wallace's second bid for the presidency. He had run four years previously on the American Independent Party (now called the American Party) ticket but in 1972 he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. His candidacy was doing remarkably well, a development that disheartened critics who thought his victories and strong showings in state primaries were symptomatic of racism. They believed the "law and order" he habitually called for was code for an anti-black agenda.

June 6, 2007 updated Jan. 25, 2010

E. Howard Hunt

Howard St. John Hunt, the son of super-spook E. Howard Hunt is now peddling a story that his father rejected an offer to take part in plot by rogue CIA agents to kill President Kennedy. Isn't it about time a congressional committee finds out what the CIA's role was in the assassination?

by Don Fulsom

Was a key Richard Nixon cohort in past and future covert intelligence operations – then-CIA agent E. Howard Hunt – in Dallas the day President Kennedy was killed in 1963? During a 1985 libel trial brought by Hunt against Spotlight – a newsletter owned by rightwing Liberty Lobby – for publishing an article in August of 1978 written by former CIA agent Victor Marchetti entitled "CIA to Admit Hunt Involvement in Kennedy Slaying," CIA operative Marita Lorenz swore she saw Hunt in Dallas the night before the assassination; Hunt co-worker Walter Kuzmuk at the CIA said he could not recall having seen Hunt between November 18th and sometime in December of 1963; and Joseph Trento, a reporter for the Wilmington News & Journal, insisted he had once seen an internal CIA memo that said, "Someday we will have to explain Hunt's presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963." Hunt, by the way, lost the case.

Most notorious for directing Nixon's Watergate burglary, Hunt died at 88 in January, 2007, in Miami. But Hunt's son – Howard St. John (known as "St. John") Hunt of Eureka, Calif., – is now peddling a story that his dad rejected an offer to take part in plot by rogue CIA agents to kill President Kennedy.

March 8, 2009

Rose Cherami

A dope courier for Jack Ruby informed a Louisiana State Police lieutenant and numerous hospital personnel of the planned assassination of President John F. Kennedy two days before he was gunned down in Dallas.

by Don Fulsom

One of the most fascinating and underreported stories in the JFK assassination mystery deals with the Jack Ruby dope courier who accurately predicted the President's murder.

Two days before John F. Kennedy was killed in Dealey Plaza, 34-year-old Rose Cherami (sometimes spelled Cheramie)—a hooker, junkie, drug-runner and ex-stripper at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club in Dallas—was on a Florida-to-Texas heroin run for Ruby.

In rural Louisiana, a violent drunken argument with her two Ruby-connected male traveling companions broke out both inside and outside a seedy roadside tavern/house of prostitution. The argument continued during the next leg of their ride. Rose was tossed out of the gangsters' vehicle and then run over by another car near Eunice, La.

On the way to a nearby hospital, the cut and bruised Cheramie told Louisiana State Police Lt. Francis Fruge that her pending business in Dallas included picking up cash (for the eight kilos of heroin she'd been assigned to purchase in Houston). She said her fellow travelers were out to kill President Kennedy. At the hospital, she told doctors, nurses and others JFK would soon be murdered in Dallas.

October 15, 2003 (updated 03/22/09)

Richard M. Nixon press conference releasing the transcripts
of the White House tapes, 04/29/1974.

Nixon's ties to the assassination of President Kennedy run deep, from his association with Jack Ruby, his ties to Jimmy Hoffa and the Mafia, and his connection to CIA operative E. Howard Hunt. On a tape recorded in Nixon's White House office in 1972 he told two top aides that the Warren Commission Report pulled off "the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated." No one knew that better than he did.

by Don Fulsom

Seared into the memories of all Americans who lived through the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is exactly where they were on November 22, 1963. Yet private citizen Richard Nixon, who — believe it or not — was in Dallas, could not recall this fact in a post-assassination interview with the FBI.

The interview dealt with an apparently false claim by Marina Oswald that her husband —alleged Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald — had targeted Nixon for death during an earlier trip to Dallas. A Feb. 28, 1964 FBI report on the interview said Nixon "advised that the only time he was in Dallas, Texas, during 1963 was two days prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

While Nixon eventually came clean regarding his whereabouts on that fateful day, he seemed touchy whenever the matter was raised. For example, in a 1992 interview with CNN's Larry King, Nixon interjected he was in Dallas "In the morning!" when King cited the presumed geographical coincidence. Nixon left Dallas on a flight to New York several hours before Kennedy's noontime arrival at Love Field.