Ep 89: Israel (Part 4)
- Matt Crumpton
- 4 hours ago
- 15 min read
Having covered the issues of Israel’s potential motive to kill President Kennedy, James Angleton’s close and unsupervised relationship with Israel, and the Permindex-Meyer Lansky web of connections and intrigue, we now have a few remaining topics to address before having a thorough understanding of the core arguments relied upon by those who believe Israel was behind the assassination.
In this final episode of the Israel series, we revisit Jack Ruby once again, and then turn our focus to the Mossad, newly declassified documents about Israel, whether a Cuban exile with foreknowledge implicated Israel, and alleged Israeli financing of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. Then, we attempt to answer the big question of whether Israel was behind the JFK Assassination.
Jack Ruby and Mickey Cohen
We last focused on Jack Ruby in episodes 84 and 85, with an emphasis on his organized crime adjacent biography. But, there is a Jewish Mob link that was conspicuously missing - Ruby’s alleged ties to gangster, Mickey Cohen. Cohen had been Bugsy Siegel’s bodyguard, and when Siegel was killed in 1947, Cohen took over his rackets, making him Meyer Lanksy’s West Coast representative.[1]
In 1946, when Gary Wean was an investigator for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation, Wean had Mickey Cohen under regular surveillance.[2] Wean claimed that he saw Ruby twice in Hollywood. The first time was in 1946 when Ruby was riding with Mickey Cohen in his black limousine. The second time was in 1947 when Wean introduced himself to Ruby at a bar called Harry’s Place. Wean told Ruby he was a police officer and Ruby then introduced himself by name and said that he was from Chicago.[3]
Investigator Wean noticed that Cohen spent a lot of time at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel lunch counter taking orders from a QUOTE “weird looking little guy.” After taking photos with a telescopic lens back to the office, Wean found out that the man directing Cohen was Irgun leader, Menachem Begin.[4] In his memoirs, Mickey Cohen confirmed that he helped the Irgun raise money across America. Cohen said that then-president Harry Truman looked the other way and allowed Cohen and the Irgun to steal American equipment and weapons that were no longer in use after World War II.[5]
Another connection point between Jack Ruby and Mickey Cohen was Ruby’s friend, Al Gruber, who was Cohen’s associate in Hollywood. Gruber was one of the first phone calls that Ruby made shortly after Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Ruby hadn’t seen Gruber in 10 years, but Gruber came to visit him in November of 1963 before the assassination.[6]
And Ruby may have had contacts with Meyer Lansky himself. At the time Ruby killed Oswald, his friend, Lewis McWillie was working at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas, which was owned in part by Meyer Lansky and his brother Jake. This means Lewis McWillie was working for the Lanskys when Ruby made seven calls to him in 1963, as noted by professor Peter Dale Scott.[7] There is speculation that when Ruby said he visited the Fox brothers at the Tropicana Casino in Cuba, he may have actually visited the Lansky brothers.[8] There is also an FBI report from Blaney Mack Johnson, who we previously mentioned in Episode 84, that says Jack Ruby owned an interest in a nightclub and gambling establishment with Meyer Lansky and Jake Lansky.[9]
Mossad in the 1960s
We can’t talk about whether Israel had the ability to pull off the JFK assassination, without addressing the capabilities of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency that was regularly engaged in covert action.[10]
There were several documented Mossad assassinations around 1963. In September of 1962, a West German rocket scientist who was working on the Egyptian missile program was abducted and never found. Swiss police later arrested two Mossad agents for the crime. In November of 1962, a mail bomb was sent to an Egyptian rocket factory in the United Arab Emirates, disfiguring and blinding the secretary who opened it.[11]Both of these actions were part of the Mossad’s Operation Damocles.[12]
In addition, Mossad operative, Yitzhak Shamir, headed a special hit squad from 1955 until 1964 which QUOTE “carried out attacks on perceived enemies and suspected Nazi war criminals.”[13] Shamir had been the leader of the Stern Gang, also known as Lehi, who worked with the Irgun to commit various violent acts. Shamir later became Prime Minister of Israel.[14]
The most famous mission carried out by that group was the May 1960 abduction of Adolf Eichmann, the man who oversaw the logistics of Germany’s mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust.[15] The Mossad abducted the war criminal and brought him back to Israel to face charges, where he was eventually sentenced to death by hanging.[16] While we are aware of the Operation Damocles actions, the capture of Adolf Eichmann and a few other assassinations that were later admitted by Shamir,[17] the Mossad was engaged in covert operations. So, it’s not like we can solely look to newspaper reports for the definitive list of Mossad assassinations.
Mossad & the JFK Assassination
It seems clear that the Mossad had the ability to pull off international assassinations around the time of 1963. But, the mere ability to pull it off is not the same thing as proof of doing it. So, what exactly is the theory of how Israel killed JFK? From what I can surmise, it is best articulated by leading proponent, Michael Collins Piper.
Piper argues that, in David Ben-Gurion’s final days as Prime Minister, he ordered the Mossad assassination team leader, Yitzhak Shamir to kill President Kennedy.[18] In support of that theory, Piper points to French Intelligence officer, Pierre Neuville, who opined that at least one of the assassins was hired by the Mossad through the deputy chief of the French intelligence service, Colonel Georges de Lannurien. Neuville said that Col. De Lannurien was at a meeting with James Angleton in Langley, Virginia on the day of the JFK assassination. That’s big if true. These show-stopping allegations all come from former French Intelligence officer, Pierre Neuville.[19] Piper cites to Angleton’s HSCA testimony for the proposition that Angleton confirmed this claim about meeting with de Lannurien on November 22nd, 1963. But, upon reading the entire transcript, I was not able to find it.[20]
According to Angleton biographer Tom Mangold, OAS mercenary Jean Souetre approached the CIA in June of 1963 with information that a communist mole was inside of French Intelligence.[21] Given Angleton’s role as head of counterintelligence, he would likely have been aware of this report. For many JFK Assassination researchers, the name Jean Souetre has long been among those mentioned as a potential Dealey Plaza shooter.
According to a declassified CIA memo from April 1, 1964, the French government believed that Souetre had been in Fort Worth, Texas the morning of November 22, 1963 and he was then expelled from the United States. We know this from a document from the French government asking for more information on Souetre because they wanted to know if he was in Mexico when Charles de Gaulle had an upcoming visit scheduled.[22] To further complicate matters, Souetre later suggested that another Frenchman, Michael Mertz often used his name and may have been the one who was actually in Fort Worth that day.[23]
According to Piper, Michael Mertz was part of Meyer Lansky’s French Connection heroin route with the Corsican mafia.[24] Author Dick Russell notes that House Select Committee on Assassinations investigator Mike Ewing told him that Jean Souetre QUOTE “was connected with people involved with murders or political assassinations in Europe. He was most definitely in the same circles of OAS-connected killers. The agency admits that its own handlers … were afraid of them, that they were not following CIA directives and were off on assassination plots of their own. The CIA was trying to keep them on a leash, because it was afraid to cut them off. So Jean Souetre is not the kind of guy you like to see arrested and deported from Texas that day.”[25]
The Cuban Business
Thanks to recent document declassifications we now know more about Israel’s role in -Castro’s Cuba. During Angleton’s testimony to the Church Committee, he mentions that he put CIA officer, Bill Harvey, into contact with the Israelis QUOTE “during the Cuban business.”[26] In the redacted version of this testimony, we didn’t know who Angleton had introduced Harvey to or for what purpose.[27] We can now see that Angleton introduced Harvey to QUOTE “Israeli operational people on the Cuban business.”[28]
In the same hearing, Angleton clarified that the Cuban Business meant QUOTE “Clandestine Services activity in Cuba.”[29] Angleton went on to say QUOTE “It seemed to me that both the Cubans and the Soviets knew everything that was being planned.” In other words, Soviets and Cubans knew what the Americans were going to do before they did it. Angleton continued QUOTE “So, when Bill took over the Cuban business, then I decided that I would try to help him out by getting him a source totally unknown to everybody. And I went to the Israelis. And I had them assign a man to Havana whom I happened to know very well…He can speak Russian and the Balkan countries’ languages. ….He was sent to Havana … and the communications were from him in a one time pattern, I mean total security from Havana to Tel Aviv, to me and from me to Bill. And no one knew of his existence or his identity, except Harvey, and myself, and of course Dick Helms.”[30]
So, Angleton had a secret Israeli spy put in Havana to get information on the Soviets there. And, according to him, the Israeli spy did a good job. Angleton said QUOTE “his production was without question the greatest production there was.”[31] When Angleton was asked whether Bill Harvey ever attempted to use Angleton’s Israeli agent in Havana to try to kill Fidel Castro, Angleton responded QUOTE “He knows that I would have cut his throat.”[32]
Homer Echeverria Foreknowledge
In addition to Angleton’s Church Committee testimony, there’s another potential link between Israel and Cuba, in the form of a statement from Cuban exile, Homer Echeverria, who was a Chicago based bus driver involved in the anti-Castro movement.[33]
In September of 1963, gun runner Tom Mosley approached Echeverria about selling him some machine guns to be used by his Cuban exile associates to invade Cuba. On the day before President Kennedy was assassinated, Thursday, November 21st, 1963, Mosley once again got in touch with Echeverria about buying machine guns. In response to Mosley’s offer to sell weapons, Echeverria said QUOTE “we now have plenty of money – our new backers are Jews – as soon as we (or they) take care of Kennedy.”[34] Echeverria also told Mosley that his superiors would have to confirm that Mosley was not a CIA agent before the purchase was made.[35]
Mosley met with the Chicago Secret Service and FBI about this incident on Tuesday, November 26th, 1963.[36] Two days later, the Secret Service observed Mosley as he picked up Echeverria in his car. But, in order to not be detected, the Secret Service agents did not follow Mosley and Echeverria. Mosley reported that after driving a short distance, Echeverria asked him to pull over, at which point another Cuban who he did not know got in his car. That Cuban said that they would decide whether to buy the weapons from Mosley based on his response to 2 questions: What did he think of the Kennedy assassination and who did he know in Cuba that could vouch for him?[37]
After Mosley’s responses to those questions were satisfactory, he didn’t care about JFK and he knew a guy in Cuba named Ponce, the unnamed Cuban told him that they would place a classified ad in the newspaper with a code name and a time and number to call when they wanted to speak with him again about the weapons sale.[38] Mosley added that he believed Echeverria’s group was backed by QUOTE “hoodlum elements,” specifically he believed the group was tied to Paulino Sierra Martinez and the Junta of the Government of Cuba in Exile (or the JGCE). You may recall from episode 82 that the JGCE was funded by Johnny Roselli.[39]Echevarria, for his part, was a member of the anti-Castro, 30th of November Group which was backed by the JGCE.[40] As far as we know neither Echeverria, nor his group, ever contacted Mosley again.
Although the Secret Service recommended further investigation, the FBI stated that QUOTE “the Cuban group in question was probably not involved in illegal activities.”[41] However, given the timing of Echeverria’s statement, the day before the assassination, the House Select Committee on Assassinations took the Echeverria allegation very seriously. The HSCA report highlighted that QUOTE “Secret Service was initially reluctant to accept this position, since it had developed evidence that illegal acts, were, in fact involved. Then, on November 29, 1963, President Johnson created the Warren Commission and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility in the assassination.” In other words, Secret Service was taking the Echeverria foreknowledge claim seriously, but the FBI took over the investigation and they did not take the claim seriously, so it was never thoroughly investigated.
Oliver Stone and Arnon Milchan
Another claim often raised by proponents of Israel as the primary culprit in the JFK Assassination is that Oliver Stone’s iconic film, JFK, was financially backed by an Israeli agent. I scoffed at this claim when I first heard it, but it turns out that it’s true.
Long time Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan, who has produced over 130 films, is listed as an executive producer on Oliver Stone’s JFK.[42] That’s not the only famous film Milchan has been involved in. He also produced Pretty Woman, Natural Born Killers, Heat, Fight Club, 12 Years a Slave, and Bohemian Rhapsody just to name a few.[43]
In November of 2013, Arnon Milchan gave an interview to Israeli television and confirmed that he had worked for an Israeli agency that negotiated weapons deals and supported Israel’s secret nuclear project.[44] Milchan noted in the interview how much of a challenge it was to overcome his reputation as an arms dealer when making the leap into Hollywood, saying QUOTE “In Hollywood, they don't like working with an arms dealer, ideologically … with someone who lives off selling machine guns and killing. Instead of someone talking to me about a script, I had to spend half an hour explaining that I'm not an arms dealer. If people knew how many times I risked my life, back and forth, again and again, for my country."[45]
The allegation against Stone is that he allowed Milchan to infiltrate his film and to direct the ultimate conclusion of the film away from anything that could be tied back to Israel. Let’s zoom in on the precise role that Milchan had with Israel. He was working for the bureau of Scientific Relations, Lekem, an organization that wrapped up operations in 1987.[46] But, more importantly, Oliver Stone was asked about this issue when I was standing next to him in the halls of Congress after his April 1st, 2025 Congressional testimony. Here’s that exchange, courtesy of reporter Sam Husseini:
Reporter: “You, Mr. Stone, have talked in recent years about how Kennedy tried to prevent Israel from getting nuclear weapons. Now, the executive producer of JFK the movie has said that he was a spy for Israel and that he helped it procure nuclear weapons. When did you know that the executive producer for JFK was an Israeli spy?”
Stone: After we made the film. And he did not interfere in any way on the film. He was not the primary force. He came in as a partner with Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers was the one who was making the film with me. They let me go and say what I had to say. Arnon Milchan came in, frankly, on the backside of the case. He didn’t express any opinions. Frankly, I knew he was an Israeli, let’s say a big shot in Israel and he probably had some intelligence ties. But I didn’t know specifically what he had done.”[47]
Conclusion
So where does that leave us on the question of Israel’s involvement in the JFK Assassination?
When it comes to motive, we clearly established four areas of tension between the Kennedy Administration and Israel: the mandatory registration of pro-Israel lobbying groups, Kennedy’s alleged anti-Israel bias, Kennedy’s insistence on following through with UN Resolution 194, and most importantly, Kennedy’s determination to stop Israel from getting a nuclear weapon. This potential motivation for seeking Kennedy’s ouster is highlighted by the strong pro-Israel positions taken by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson.[48]
Now, just because it would have been in Israel’s interest to take Kennedy out office, it does not mean that the Israeli government ordered the hit. We still have to establish means, opportunity, and, ideally, proof that they actually followed through with it.
When it comes to whether Israel was capable of assassinating Kennedy, they had the Mossad – an intelligence agency that was deadly, efficient, and was involved in state sponsored killings during the time of the Kennedy Assassination. But, in my view, there is no reliable evidence linking the Mossad to the assassination. It is clear that Israel was not in control of Lee Harvey Oswald’s CIA file. Thus, Israel could not be the one who set Oswald up. That’s where James Angleton’s air tight relationship with Israeli officials comes in. But, even Michael Collins Piper says that Angleton was not controlled by the Israelis. Angleton’s too close and unsupervised relationship with the Israelis led to nuclear proliferation in Israel that was against the policy of the United States. But, Angleton’s mere relationship with Israel does not constitute proof that Israel was behind the JFK Assassination.
Let’s look at Piper’s argument of how he says Israel actually carried out the assassination. Piper claims that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the hit in the Summer of 1963 after his resignation from office. Then, Ben-Gurion told Yitzhak Shamir of the Mossad to kill Kennedy. Piper says that Shamir then contacted French Intelligence Colonel Georges de Lannurien, who procured an assassin. The evidence for all of this is what French intelligence officer, Pierre Neuville, TOLD Piper. To add further confusion, the assassin that Piper theorizes was hired by the Mossad was Jean Souetre, a mercenary who, even if he was a shooter in Dallas, could just as well have been hired by the CIA or the mafia for that matter. I still have some questions about Permindex and its ties to intelligence. But, I don’t believe that Permindex having Louis Bloomfield as a lawyer and using the same bank that Israel used – BCI - is proof that Israel is behind the JFK Assassination.
On the other hand, Jack Ruby meeting with Mickey Cohen is absolutely believable. I believe Gary Wean that Ruby was with Cohen in 1947 in LA. After all, Cohen’s lawyer, Melvin Belli, would later be Ruby’s lawyer, and his girlfriend Candy Barr, regularly performed at Ruby’s club.[49] With Ruby, it now seems very likely that he killed Oswald on orders from someone. The big question is who?
I do not find the theory persuasive that David Ben-Gurion ordered the murder of President Kennedy. Yes, Ben-Gurion had some real policy issues with Kennedy and probably did not like him as a person. But, the evidence that he ordered the JFK Assassination, aside from motive, is limited to Angleton visiting him in person after he resigned and a statement from former French Intelligence officer, Pierre Neuville, to Michael Collins Piper about Yitzhak Shamir hiring an assassin through the French Intelligence Service. Big claims require convincing evidence. For me, I don’t see it here.
However, Cuban exile, Homer Echeverria, saying that Kennedy would be killed now that his group had Jewish financial backers, should not be ignored. (Of course, having Jewish backers is not the same thing as having the state of Israel as a backer). Echeverria’s exile group was supported by Johnny Roselli, which puts him squarely in the mix with the Cuban exiles.
It is possible that some Israeli officials, through their relationships with Angleton, may have had some level of foreknowledge of the assassination. We don’t know for sure. It’s also possible, based on the Echeverria file, that some Jewish people, likely linked to Meyer Lanksy, may have provided some funds to Cuban exiles at some point. But, aside from the Echeverria document, the proof isn’t really there for that claim either.
For me, I am taking Israel off of the board as a primary plotter for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We’ll be joined by Angleton biographer, Jefferson Morley, to recap the major points covered in the last four episodes and discuss rebuttals and counterpoints to that information. After that, we’ll be off for a short time before returning with a series that looks at whether the Soviet Union could have ordered the hit on President Kennedy.
[2] Gary L. Wean, There’s a Fish in the Courthouse, at 681, 687-688.
[3] Id. at 681.
[4] Id. at 687-688.
[5] Mickey Cohen with John Peer Nugent, Mickey Cohen: In My Own Words, at 91-92.
[6] Micheal Collins Piper, Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, at 165.
[7] Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, at 143.
[8] Piper at 167-168.
[9] Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, at 392.
[13] Washington Times, July 4, 1992 (referencing Ha’aretz newspaper article on July 3, 1992)
[17] See, e.g, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/15/world/shamir-memoirs-say-he-ordered-killing-in-1943.html
[18] Piper at 298.
[19] Id. at 241-242.
[21] Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter, at 558.
[22] https://www.tpaak.com/the-french-deception; Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, at 353.
[23] Id.
[24] Piper at 243.
[25] Russell, at 353.
[29] Id. at 83.
[30] Id. at 84.
[31] Id. at 85.
[32] Id. at 89. (Unfortunately, page 86 of the hearing transcript, which is in the middle of Angleton talking about Harvey’s relationship with the Israeli agent is missing.)
[35] Id.
[39] Lamar Waldron, The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination, at 205; see also https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html at 133-134.
[44] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/26/arnon-milchan-israeli-spy-past (Milchan was personally recruited by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.)
[45] Id.
[46] Id.
[48] See, e.g., Piper at 71.
[48] Piper at 300.