Dershowitz on Kennedy Probe

In response to Dershowitz:

Like millions of other Americans whose parents were Italian immigrants, the Mafia is an embarrassment to me, and as a criminal prosecutor nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to lock these thugs up and throw away the key, but I cannot buy Anderson’s theory that the Mafia “hit” President Kennedy. One basic reason the Mafia has survived so long is because it is shrewdly parasitical, not committing acts of violence that would outrage the public like killing police officers, prosecutors, judges, and above all “feds.” In his day, New York Dist. Atty. Tom Dewey decimated the Mafia, locking up and deporting scores of big shots including the boss of bosses, Lucky Luciano, but no one dared retaliate against him. Eliot Ness crushed the Al Capone family, but no one dared strike back against him or his agents. If the Mafia mobsters consider the risks too great to commit violence against cops and prosecutors, surely they would think it insane to pursue a “hit” contract against the President of the United States (whose brother is the attorney general).

Anderson contradicts himself by relating how the Mafia ineptly botched six attempts on Fidel Castro’s life, just as the mobsters botched countless hit attempts on Don Joseph Profaci, earning the label “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” and then claiming they pulled off this masterly professional, clueless hit on Kennedy. What is also absurd is the notion that after these mobsters tried to kill him six times, Castro told them all was forgiven and he recruited these bunglers to go after the U.S. President.

In pointing an accusatory finger at dead people, dead mobsters, Anderson knows no legal action will ever be taken against him. Moreover, if he really believed the Mafia was as vindictive, fearlessly bold, and masterly proficient in the art of execution, he would not be popping off against it. To any serious prosecutor the evidence he presents for his case equals circus journalism.

I am not eliminating the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of Kennedy, but in all likelihood it was not “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”

JOSEPH SORRENTINO

Los Angeles