Reply #6: Nixon, Mobsters, the CIA, Cuba and Kennedy...

[AntiFascist]

http://www.crimemagazine.com/03/richardnixon,1014.htm

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Nixon confidant Robert Maheu fronted for the CIA on the Mob plots. A high-end private eye (and ex-FBI undercover operative) who functioned in the shadowy realm between U.S. intelligence services and the national criminal syndicate, Maheu had performed previous "dirty tricks" for both Nixon and Giancana. Hoffa had also been a client of Maheu, who would eventually become the top aide to Mob-and CIA-connected billionaire and Nixon financial angel Howard Hughes.

The hit on Castro was to have been carried out at the same time as the secret Nixon-Hunt plan for the invasion by CIA-trained exiles. The invasion was a military debacle when later ordered by President Kennedy — who publicly accepted full responsibility for the April 17, 1961 landing in which 1,500 exiles were quickly overwhelmed by some 20,000 Cuban troops. Convinced, however, that the CIA set him up, Kennedy fired CIA chief Allen Dulles — an old Nixon friend — and swore he'd dismantle the agency.

Nixon, Hunt, and many CIA and Cuban exile leaders pinned almost complete blame for the military catastrophe on Kennedy for not providing adequate air cover. At the time, Nixon told a reporter it was "near criminal" for Kennedy to have canceled the air cover. Privately, he must have been just as upset that Castro had not been bumped off. In one of his many books, Hunt later accused the president of "a failure of nerves."

Nixon's secret Mafia buddies, already enraged by Kennedy's anti-crime crusade in this country, were furious that their lucrative gambling casinos — shuttered by Castro — would not be returning to Cuba.