Seymour Hersh: RFK Used a CIA Man to Foment a Mafia War

An intriguing JFK story strengthened by declassified records pointing to the role of two top officials

Robert F. Kennedy (Credit: LBJ Library)

The finest investigative reporter of our time weighs in with a provocative scoop that he links to the CIA cover-up that followed JFK’s assassination.

In 1963 Attorney General Bobby Kennedy personally authorized the Agency to assign a senior agent “to spread disinformation among the always competitive and quick-to-anger Mafia families in Sicily,” writes Seymour Hersh in a Substack post headlined “The Kennedy’s Secret Sicilian Operation.

Hersh tells

a tale of Mafia betrayal and payback, triggered by Bobby Kennedy, that should have been disclosed by the agency after Kennedy’s assassination to the Warren Commission, but never was. It surely figures among the many thousands of CIA documents that have been withheld from public release by the John F. Kennedy Library. It’s likely it will never be released.

Hersh’s story does not mention the role of two top CIA officials who were almost certainly witting to the operation. Their involvement, however, only strengthens his case that this was one of those covert operations, relevant to JFK’s assassination, that was designed to remain secret “from conception to eternity.”