Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

Fifty-four years ago shots rang out in Dallas claiming the life of beloved U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. To this day questions persist and conspiracy theories run rampant in hundreds of books written by conspiracy theorists. Polls show 62 percent of Americans don’t believe the official findings of the Warren Report, issued by the U.S. Congress in 1964 following their investigation into Kennedy’s assassination. This report concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. We all know the official version.

This week some 3,000 pages of classified documents related to Kennedy’s killing are scheduled to be released by President Donald Trump and the U.S. National Achieves in Washington, DC. Federal law requires the document release by Oct. 26, 2017 — 25-years to the day after former President George H.W. Bush signed the JFK Assassination Records Act. Previous to 1992 these records were held sealed and unobtainable.

By law, President Trump is the only person that can decide to withhold any or all of the documents citing national security as in the past. But the president said on Monday he would release the documents.

“Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long-blocked and classified JFK Files to be opened,” the president said.

Speculation is raging about what these long-secret papers will reveal. Why all the secrecy for all these years? There must be something in these papers that connects the dots and put some of the pieces of this murder-mystery puzzle together.

Who or what put Oswald up to killing Kennedy? Did the CIA recruit Oswald to kill the president like many suspect? Did the mafia recruit Oswald? Did the mafia and the CIA conspire? Was Cuba’s Fidel Castro involved? Did Vice President Lyndon Johnson have anything to do with the assassination? Was then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover involved? Was there more than one shooter that day in Dealey Plaza? Why did Jack Rudy kill Oswald inside the Dallas Police Station?

The questions and theories about the “murder-of-the-century” and the “mother-of-all-conspiracies” go on and on.

Early this week the White House issued a brief statement following the president’s intention to release the documents.

President Trump should release every last document. After all this time there should be no more hiding anything. Let it all hang out. Withhold nothing. Some say the documents will not contain any “bombshell” or “smoking gun” revelations, but if the mafia is further proven to be involved that would lead many to ask what motivated the mob enough to go after Kennedy? Why did Jack Ruby — a man who owned a striptease night club in Dallas with proven ties to the mob, shoot Oswald?

Sometimes the obvious is hard to see. What single motivation fueled this assassination? In two words: Marilyn Monroe – the most famous woman in the world at the time. Here’s the short version of an amazing conspiracy theory of why the mafia may have been the ones to go after Kennedy.

Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, a former Monroe husband and perhaps the only man who truly loved her, and his best friend singing legend and Hollywood actor Frank Sinatra following Monroe’s mysterious death on Aug. 5, 1962 in California, conspired together to put out a hit on President Kennedy using their well-documented mafia contacts in Las Vegas to carry it out. Fifteen months after Monroe died Kennedy was dead.

Both DiMaggio and Sinatra had personal motives for wanting Kennedy dead and both men had the means and contacts to carry it out. DiMaggio’s motive was Monroe. Sinatra’s motive also involved Monroe, but also Kennedy’s snub of Sinatra, which is well documented in Bill O’Reilly’s best-selling book “Killing Kennedy.” Nobody embarrassed the ‘Chairman-of-the-Board’ Sinatra in front of all his friends.

According to O’Reilly, Sinatra and fellow Ratpacker Peter Lawford introduced President Kennedy and Monroe, who then had a well-documented affair while he was president. But Kennedy never did pay Sinatra back with personal visits to Sinatra’s home in California which Kennedy had promised. The ‘Chairman-of-the-Board’ had put in a helicopter pad and built additional living space to accommodate JFK and presidential staff, but he never came fearing negative press because of Sinatra’s mafia connections at a time when brother Robert Kennedy, then U.S. Attorney General, was going after Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa and other mafia figures relentlessly. Another reason Kennedy never visited Sinatra’s home was Monroe.

The mafia wanted Kennedy dead as well. There is nothing in “Killing Kennedy” that would disprove a DiMaggio-Sinatra-mafia connection to the assassination.

So when DiMaggio and Sinatra wanted it done, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The mafia then started a series of events that ended on Nov. 22, 1963 with Kennedy dead at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. The mafia owed DiMaggio and Sinatra a lot because their ongoing presence – including Monroe’s — filled their Las Vegas casinos and packed the ballrooms for their Rat Pack shenanigan shows. They were the big draw that helped build Las Vegas back in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The mafia handpicked Oswald because he was unstable and fanatical, and had ties to shadowy Cubans and communist Soviet Union. More than likely there was a second shooter as back up if Oswald failed. Ruby shot Oswald because mafia bosses told him to. He was the mafia’s last chance to cover all this up.

Much evidence points towards this involvement of DiMaggio, Sinatra and the mafia in Kennedy’s assassination. DiMaggio and Sinatra were powerful kings in their day. They ‘owned’ Las Vegas along with the rest of the Rat Pack – that included Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and Joey Bishop. Leading mafia figures were often photographed with DiMaggio and Sinatra in Las Vegas.

The Kennedy assassination may not be so complicated as ‘All the King’s Men’ or ‘All the President’s Men.’ It’s possible that DiMaggio, Sinatra and the mafia became a three-headed monster with one goal – killing Kennedy.

 If the release of these JFK Files points further to mafia involvement then this not-so-wild theory takes on greater meaning. For President Trump to withhold anything would only lead to more free-wheeling speculation about the death of this president.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.