Rob Reiner Names Four Shooters in the JFK Assassination

Isn’t it kind of interesting — and newsworthy — when a team of investigators names four individuals who probably fired the shots at Dealey Plaza that killed President John F. Kennedy?

Did any of you see any coverage of these findings?

The media did pay at least a little attention back in November, the 60th anniversary of the assassination, when Rob Reiner announced that his 10-part podcast “Who Killed JFK?” would name the shooters in the 10th and final episode on Jan. 10.

News of the iHeart podcast certainly caught my eye, as I have been studying and thinking about the JFK assassination for many years. I’ve been to Dealey Plaza more than once. I’ve read about 10 books on the subject, presenting a variety of conspiracy theories. I viewed “the Zapruder film” recording Kennedy’s murder, in the mid-1970s when investigator Mark Lane (“Rush to Judgment”) unveiled it at the Yale Law School.

And so I listened to all 10 parts of Reiner’s podcast as he released a new episode each week. Yes, I took copious notes! Of course!

Some of you, I hope, remember my substack piece of Nov. 24 — “JFK’s Death: Are We Finally Getting Closer to the Truth?” I noted Reiner’s tantalizing claim at that time: “We’ll tell you what we think happened. We’ll name the shooters.”

“I think we will be making news,” he added in an understatement.

“Stay tuned,” I wrote.

As a reporter and columnist for a daily newspaper for decades, I learned early on the importance of following up on a story. Don’t leave the reader hanging!

And I won’t. But what about the mainstream media? Did they think everybody would just forget what Reiner promised? Did they fail to write down on their calendars that on Jan. 10 Reiner would spill the beans on the biggest unsolved murder in American history?

Sure, it’s Rob Reiner spearheading this show. “Meathead” from “All in the Family.” The filmmaker behind the satiric “This is Spinal Tap.” He’s not Woodward-Bernstein. But he worked with Dick Russell, author of “On the Trail of the JFK Assassins,” an investigative journalist who spent decades researching the crime.

The podcast showcased a Lee Harvey Oswald entirely different from the “lone wolf/lone assassin” portrayed in the Warren Commission’s report on the assassination. We learned about all the evidence pointing to Oswald as being a double agent for the CIA, about his global travels and adventures in espionage. We came to understand that when Oswald told reporters “I’m just a patsy,” he was probably telling the truth. Of course he never got to say anything more because he was silenced by Jack Ruby, who had run guns for the Mafia and spent time in Cuba before Fidel Castro took over and spoiled all the fun for “the mob.” Ruby was pals with Mafia kingpins Sam Giancana and Carlos Marcello.

Here’s a Ruby nugget from the podcast: he pleaded with Warren Commission investigators to “get me out of Dallas and I’ll tell you everything; get me to Washington.” It never happened. He died in prison

More nuggets: Oswald’s fingerprints were not on the gun found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. There was no gun residue on his cheek.

Reiner’s team concluded there were at least four shooters waiting as JFK rode into Dealey Plaza and into a crossfire that was impossible to come out of alive. The podcast named five sites for the killers: One of them was on the sixth floor of the Depository; one was behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll; one was in the Dal-Tex Building across the street from the Depository; one was in the County Records Building; another was stationed at the overpass adjacent to the grassy knoll.

“The fatal headshot came from the overpass,” Reiner said. This of course would explain why in the Zapruder home movie we see Kennedy’s head thrown violently backward as his brain explodes.

Reiner and Russell said the names of the four assassins are a “highly educated guess.”

Here they are:

— Herminio Diaz Garcia, a Cuban exile, mob figure and skilled marksman. He had felt betrayed by JFK’s inaction against Castro, especially his lack of military support during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

— John Souetre, a French assassin who had tried to kill French President Charles de Gaulle.

— Charles Nicoletti, a Chicago mob associate and hit man for Giancana. He was murdered in 1977 before he could testify in front of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.

— Jack Cannon, a CIA operative.

Reiner and Russell said these four were “rogue individuals” who were working separately for different operatives.

Who orchestrated this? Reiner and Russell believe one of the two strategists was Bill Harvey, a CIA official who had piloted Operation Mongoose, going after Castro with guerrilla strikes and propaganda; there also was a plot to assassinate Castro. After Harvey made a profane outburst at Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, RFK fired him. The second master tactician of the assassination, according to the podcast, was Charles Willoughby, a former major general in the U.S. Army who got involved with ultra-right and anti-communist groups.

At the conclusion of his podcast Reiner was careful to say: “We can’t say for a certainty who killed JFK. It’s impossible. We’ll never know for sure.” He noted the U.S. government has kept many documents of the assassination sealed for decades.

Reiner should be commended for doing a public service. He said he hopes “the next generation” will demand the truth from their government. But I don’t hold out much hope for this. I think the JFK assassination has become old news, for baby boomers only, because they were alive then and, like Reiner and like me, vividly remember that day in Dallas. Reiner is right — we’ll never really know who killed JFK.