Scruffy's going to give you some background now - some context for what you'll hear tomorrow.
Here's a timeline:
Summer 1959 - Tosh Plumlee first meets Lee Harvey Oswald, at Illusionary Warfare Training in Nag's Head, North Carolina. The operation was being run by the Office of Naval Intelligence, it was about planting "fake" disillusioned Americans into the Soviet Union.
Nov 13 1959 - Oswald enters the Soviet Union from Finland.
August 1960 - Col Sheffield Edwards of the CIA contacts Robert Maheu and asks him for help finding experienced hit men to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Oct 11 1960 - Johnny Roselli arranges a meeting between Maheu, Santos Trafficante, and Carlos Marcello in Miami. Maheu tells them a hit on Castro is worth 150 grand.
Nov 1960 - JFK is elected President with the help of Sam Giancana.
March 12 1961 - Maheu, Roselli, Trafficante, and Giancana meet with CIA operative Jim O'Connell at the Fontainebleau Hotel. O'Connell gives Roselli some poison pills and $10,000 in cash. JFK is not aware of this meeting.
Jan 19 1962 - BOBBY Kennedy (not JFK) commissions Edward Lansdale of the CIA to lead Operation Mongoose, a series of assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. Bobby calls it the highest priority of government.
May 7 1962 - JFK is briefed on the ongoing assassination attempts against Castro, and directs that they be immediately stopped.
June 1962 - Oswald returns to the US. He goes to New Orleans where he lives with his uncle Charles Murret, who has Mafia connections through Sam Saia, a bookmaker and close friend of Carlos Marcello. Another of Murret's associates Nofio Pecoro does business with Jack Ruby.
May 26 1963 - after living in Fort Worth for a while, Oswald returns to New Orleans in April (after the assassination attempt on Edwin Walker) and rents a small office and starts the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
June 1963 - Jack Ruby visits New Orleans where he hires a stripper named Jada to work at the club he owns in Dallas, then refuses to pay her, which causes problems with the American Guild of Variety Artists. To resolve these problems, he contacts associates of Marcello and Trafficante in New Orleans. Mafia protocol says that since both M and T are godfathers, you need an introduction from another godfather to talk to them. Sam Giancana is Jack Ruby's godfather, although his primary Chicago connections were Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras.
Sept 1963 - Oswald visits the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, to get permission to enter Cuba. After being turned down, he tries to get a visa to re-enter the Soviet Union. Subsequently he returns to Dallas where his wife is about to have their second child. She is living with Ruth Paine. Oswald rents a small apartment and with Paine's help gets a job at the School Book Depository.
Nov 14, 1963 - Jack Ruby has a meeting with JD Tippit and Bernard Weismann at the Carousel Club.
Nov 22, 1963 - the day of the assassination.
Feb 22 1967 - Eladio del Valle has his skull split open with an axe just before he's scheduled to give testimony to Jim Garrison.
July 1975 - Sam Giancana is murdered the day before he's scheduled to testify to a Senate committee.
July 1976 - Johnny Roselli is murdered just after testifying to a Senate committee.
Aug 1986 - Charles Giancana (Sam's brother) says Sam hired Richard Cain and Charles Nicoletti to orchestrate the hit.
March 14 1987 - Santos Trafficante undergoes major surgery, and just before it he tells G Robert Blakey: "Carlos messed up. We should have killed Bobby, not Giovanni".
Picture this - you're a mob boss. The government tells you they'll pay you 150k for a hit. So you start putting the wheels into motion. It's expensive and time consuming, because the hit is overseas in an unfriendly country and the target is closely guarded. Then suddenly, two years later when you're about ready to move, the government pulls the plug. Now what?
Look at the dates. May '62 - they pull the plug. June '62 - Oswald comes back from the USSR and immediately gets on the mob's radar screen.
You're a mob boss. You have connections in the FBI and lots and lots of people in the CIA who are working for you when they're not trying to assassinate Castro. If you're Carlos Marcello you hate Bobby Kennedy already because he deported you to Guatemala. Now you hate JFK too because he just cost you a shitpile of money. And you have a world class assassination plot already set up and ready to go. What do you do?
Guess what - drugs from Cuba were worth about 100 million a year. But this new guy Johnson wants to go to Vietnam, where the Golden Triangle is worth BILLIONS. What do you do?