Sicilian born journalist Stefano Vaccara explores a story that has been hushed for decades: the story of the man behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Hailing from the home of Italy’s Mafia, Vaccara has taken a personal interest in its history and evolution in the United States. Since 2009, he has taught classes on the History of the Mafia at Herbert Lehman College, CUNY. “Mine is not a scoop,” Vaccara says about the book, “but just the confirmation of a suspicion I’ve always had and the result of simple research.”

Every semester Vaccara assigns an investigative paper on the JFK assassination, and 90% of the time his students come to the same conclusion: the real culprit was mafia boss Carlos Marcello.

New Orleans is said to be the real birthplace of the Sicilian-American Mafia. During the ’50s and ’60s Carlos Marcello, born Calogero Minacori, was the major figure of organized crime in Louisiana and across the Southeast. He was beyond reach until he crossed paths with the Kennedy brothers. In 1950, the U.S. Senate established an investigation into the illegal activities of the Mafia and other crime organizations throughout the country, but Marcello refused to answer the questions of the Senate Committee.

When John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, Robert Kennedy was nominated Attorney General, and Marcello was deported to Guatemala, where he planned his revenge. His search for a fall guy led him to Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union.
 

“They say the truth hurts, and in this case the truth has always been out there, but for some reason it has been kept dormant,” says Vaccara. “It was reawakened after Ted Kennedy’s death, and I’ve just stirred things up a bit further.”

Carlos Marcello:

The Man Behind the JFK Assassination

Stefano Vaccara
(English edition: Enigma Books, 2013)
(Italian edition: Editori Riuniti, 2013)