Carlos Marcello: Man Without a Country.
As Marcello tells it, the U.S. Border Patrol shanghaied him out of New Orleans and deposited him near Guatemala City, Guatemala. He said that he daringly escaped from the airport and hid out in “various Guatemalan hellholes” with a lawyer companion frantically seeking to legally return him to home, hearth, and his (alleged) three hundred million dollar a year rackets empire. Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy was following up on anonymous tips that placed the (alleged) Mob boss in numerous Louisiana locales. The tips did not pan out. Kennedy realized that Marcello had been hiding out in Guatemala, with Guatemalan government protection, since the very moment of his “daring escape.”
Kennedy exerted diplomatic pressure. The Guatemalan Prime Minister bowed to it and ordered the State Police to begin a search for Marcello. The (alleged) Mafia sultan and his lawyer companion were discovered living in a rented apartment near Guatemala City. Both men were Immediately deported to El Salvador.
They walked from village to village, ate in greasy spoon cantinas and slept in mud huts. The lawyer attempted to contact a Marcello underling, a pilot who might fly them to more amenable hideouts. The man could not be reached, and Marcello and his lawyer companion, ever fearful of another deportation action, kept walking.
Robert F. Kennedy and his Justice Department lawyers readied legal briefs. Marcello’s lawyer companion wrote briefs and phoned them in to the (alleged) Mafia pasha’s formal legal team in New York City. Marcello’s pilot friend appeared out of nowhere, and (according to this reporter’s confidential source) flew his contraband confreres all the way from El Salvador to Matamoros, Mexico, at treetop level to avoid radar detection.
Marcello and his lawyer companion then walked across the border. The (alleged) Mob maharajah turned himself In at the U.S. Border Patrol Detention Center in McAllen, Texas, confident that a three-judge immigration appeals panel would allow him to be released on bond and remain In America.
His confidence was justified. Marcello walked out of court last week a free man–albeit a man haunted by the awful specter of statelessness.
A Justice Department official told this reporter that the Marcello deportation matter could drag on legally for years. When asked if a suitable compromise might be reached, Attorney General Kennedy said, “It’s possible, if Marcello is willing to give up his U.S. assets and relocate to Russia or Lower Mozambique.”
Carlos Marcello’s odd odyssey continues…
DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/30/61. Personal note: Kemper Boyd to John Stanton.
John,
Thanks for the gin and smoked salmon. It beat the hospital fare hands down and was greatly appreciated.
I’ve been back in Anniston since the 12th. Little Brother does not respect the concept of convalescence, so I’ve been bird-dogging freedom riders and collecting statements for his Cuban Study Group. (We can thank N. Chasco for getting me into the hospital sans police notification. Néstor is excellent at bribing bilingual doctors.)
The Study Group assignment troubles me. I’ve been around the Cause since its inception, and one loose word to Little Brother will destroy me with both brothers, get me disbarred as a lawyer and prevent me from ever obtaining any kind of police/intelligence agency work ever again. That said, you should know that I have deliberately sought out exile interviewees that I have not met before and that do not know that I am covertly Agency-employed. I am editing their statements to show the Agency’s pre-invasion planning in as positive a light as possible. As you know, Big Brother has become virulently anti-Agency. Little Brother shares his fervor, but is also evincing a true enthusiasm for the Cause. This heartens me, but I must once again stress the absolute necessity of obfuscating all Outfit-exile-Agency links to Little Brother, which now becomes more problematic, given his new proximity to the Cause.
I’m going to absent myself from my Agency contract work and concentrate solely on my two Justice Department assignments. I feel that I can best serve the Agency by working as a direct conduit between them and Little Brother. With the Cuban issue undergoing profound policy reassessment, the closer I remain to the policy shapers the better I can serve the Agency and the Cause.