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If the "unions knocked off JFK," that would be a most curious historic event since he was in the pocket of the unions. The Mafia may have played a role or at least was a plausible suspect since there is evidence that Chicago "Outfit" (not the Sicilian Mafia) Boss Sam "Momo" Giancana shared a mistress (Judith Exner with JFK, since mob nterests beyond Chicago as well as Giancana's group had supported JFK in 1960 and expected him to smash Castro for taking over their casinos and interests in Havana, and since Kennedy failed (despite popular mythology) to do ANYTHING effective against Castro.

According to no less an authority than Giancana's nephew, Giancana provided a poisoned suppository which the younger Giancana claimed was administered to Marilyn Monroe in Bobby Kennedy's presence and which killed her when she had become to much of a public embarrassment to the Kennedys.

So much for the POSSIBILITY that the Mafia was involved in JFK's assassination. They detested Bobby Kennedy's investigations of Mafia activity and the activity of mob-controlled unions. They had no such hatred of JFK although they were disappointed in his unwillingness to wipe out Castro.

As to the unions, the AFL-CIO at the time was led by George Meany who ran the AFL from 1953 until it merged with the CIO in the late 1950s after which he led the AFL-CIO until his death in 1980 at 86 years of age. He was extremely unlikely to have approved of assassinations of JFK or RFK. Long before anyone was familiar with RFK, Meany was busily purging corrupt and/or communist unions from the AFL-CIO and he rammed through an AFL-CIO constitution change that prohibited continued membership for any union having a major officer who had taken the Fifth Amendment before Congress (covering the expulsion of communists as well as of crooks).

For various reasons, in Meany's time, he purged from the AFL-CIO such major unions as the Teamsters (for corruption) and the United Auto Workers (for Walter Reuther's communist sympathies).

Meany was probably the greatest leader the AFL or AFL-CIO ever had. He even went so far as to refuse AFL-CIO support for George McGovern in 1972 and publicly told member unions that they could endorse Nixon if they wished to do so. Meany loyally supported the Vietnam War as preventing communists from crushing Vietnamese labor unions and as a necessary effort to limit communism generally. He was a steadfast enemy of the New Left and of communism generally.

Meany was a daily communicant of the Roman Catholic Church. That means he attended Mass and received the Eucharist every day of his life when physically able. His generation of Catholics were essentially blood enemies of all things and persons communist.

Meany was, to say the least, not likely to trust the communist likes of Lee Harvey "Fair Play for Cuba" Oswald whose wife Marina was a rare member of the Soviet Union's communist party (1% of the population there) allowed to marry an "American" and leave the country permanently. Oswald himself had been employed to manage a soviet TV station.

I grew up in a thoroughly AFL-CIO family and George Meany was rightfully recognized as a great and moral man. Folks here may well disagree with his economics or with the very idea of labor unions and all that the concept of labor unions conveys but Meany was a patriot, a good Catholic and most certainly not complicit in assassinations of JFK or RFK.

At some point all this phony baloney as to "conspiracy" theories must be put to rest firmly and finally. Playing to popular ignorance and paranoia at the expense of the reputations of now dead but quite decent people casts no flattering light on the conservative movement. AND, since when do we have some special interest in the assassination of JFK by a communist or of RFK by a Palestinian nutcase who had belonged to Students for a Democratic Society???? No assassination in our nation has been adequately justified and we have no more and no less of an interest in the JFK and RFK assassinations than does any other American.

Keep our eyes on the prize. Insist that each and every Senate Republican resist any attempt by Obozo to nominate and see his nomination replace Scalia on the SCOTUS and we will need no conspiracy theories and our constitution will be as safe as it was the day before Scalia died. There SHOULD be an autopsy ad we should follow where the actual forensic evidence leads us slowly and deliberately and with appropriate regard for the actual provable truth. Build a roster of potential SCOTUS nominees who are qualified ad absolutely trustworthy such as former Acting US Attorney General Peter Kaisler, Georgetown Constitutional Law Professor Lee Liberman Otis and Northwestern Law Professor Steven Calabresi, for three examples.