(You OK? Day 5)
July 2, 2025
We’re going to spend the next three days examining several of the FBI’s recently released records on Carlos Marcello, the one-time Godfather of the New Orleans Mafia, and all-around horrible person. In the book Fatal Hour, G. Robert Blakey, who headed the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and coauthor Richard N. Billings allege that organized crime members were responsible for JFK’s assassination, with Carlos Marcello at the helm. Serendipitously, on November 22, 1963, Marcello had been sitting in a New Orleans courtroom on the final day of his trial for fraud against the government. At 3:20 p.m. Central Time, 102 minutes after Walter Cronkite had announced on national television that President Kennedy had died, the jury returned their verdict of not guilty.
To be sure, the FBI viewed Marcello as, um, colorful. That’s why it’s so fitting that his recently released records look the way they do.
Today’s short post showcases several of the Marcello records. What’s fun about them is that they’re copies of original documents as opposed to copies of copies. This means that we get to see what the scribbles and stamps we’ve become familiar with on Ron Tammen’s records actually looked like in real life. In addition to scrawled names in graphite gray, some scribbles were written in red pencil and others were written in blue. The stamps were in different-colored inks as well, such as teal and magenta.
Not only do the colors make it easier to spot a given scribble in question, but I think they may provide clues into which division made them.
And so, without further ado, I give you several of Carlos Marcello’s FBI docs.
Do any scribbles and stamps jump out at you as looking familiar? And did you notice that MSL makes an appearance on one of them? What other thoughts do you have?
See you tomorrow.
Thanks to the Mary Ferrell Foundation for making these documents available.
