[The 90’s raw: John Davis interview]

John Davis assassination theorist. Home movie footage from San Francisco and an interview with author John Davis.

00:00Copy video clip URL Videographer Skip Blumberg records little boy at home with two adults.

00:20Copy video clip URL San Francisco city skyline. Sun reflects on the water.

01:02Copy video clip URL Construction site. Construction workers pound dirt.

01:30Copy video clip URL A woman and a man named Chris point out Rat Rock island, “the smallest island in San Francisco Bay.” The woman predicts that the bay will be restored in the 1990s. They predict the tides will go higher and lower. They talk about a movie they worked on and that Chris got into the Bay with his camera at one point, but neither of them had the chance to swim in the Bay.

02:37Copy video clip URL Static.

02:43Copy video clip URL Fruit on display in a super market. Various random b-roll of videographer shooting his own reflection in glass, sun glistening on water, the videographer on a ferry going to San Francisco. B-roll of water rushing past the ferry. A military helicopter over head and freighters in the Bay. Sea lions and the ferry passing under Golden Gate Bridge. The Port of San Francisco.

05:21Copy video clip URL A restaurant called Scouzi near the Transamerica Pyramid building offering the “best Chicago red hot west of Wrigley Field.”

05:43Copy video clip URL Various shots: two people on a ferry, one videotaping the other; city skyline; ferry going under a bridge; people on a ferry; train yard; the freighter President Kennedy; smoke from a ship’s exhaust.

07:50Copy video clip URL Change of location. Interior of an apartment. Two women in idle chit chat. One of the women is the Blumberg’s wife, Jane Aaron.

08:19Copy video clip URL Change of location. Interior car. A man called Keith is at the wheel says he’d like to continue documenting a theater project with Indonesians and shoot with Blumberg documenting a theater tour.

09:10Copy video clip URL Change of location. Mark Bulwinkle and Eva Soltes sit at a table drinking tea and eating Miso soup in Berkley, California. Soltes shows off a  sweatshirt Bulwinkle printed years ago, a yellow sweatshirt with a signature Bulwinkle cartoon.  Soltes says a visionary artist is a thinking person who creates works of art. Bulwinkle says he’s very unhappy, but he creates work that makes others happy. “I’m not happy unless I’m miserable.” Keith appears in the shot claiming merely to be a bystander.

11:52Copy video clip URL Change of location. At a zoo an elephant eats hay. A woman pets the elephant.

13:20Copy video clip URL Koala bear in a tree at a zoo. Two women chit chat in idle conversation about the bear’s habits. Two women feed giraffes.

16:54Copy video clip URL Videographer listens to message on an answering machine. A voice on the message, most likely Tom Weinberg, producer of The 90s,  gives the address and phone number for John Davis the author of Mafia Kingfish.

17:25Copy video clip URL Blumberg walks up to Davis’ apartment building and pushes the buzzer. Blumberg enters and goes up to Davis’ apartment. Davis answers the phone and give a telephone interview with Tom Weinberg on the other end. Davis interviews about last year’s 25th Anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Davis says most people believe Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone and that he had confederates. He notes that a lot of misinformation has been given over the years and that the government has withheld a lot of important information. There’s a movement to have it all declassified. Davis notes he is researching this independently and has been doing so for three or four years.

22:33Copy video clip URL He outlines the circumstantial case: the mafia had motive to get rid of the Kennedys because they were under attack by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Kennedy publicly acknowledged that he wanted to be the guy who brought down organized crime. Kennedy used mafia tactics to fight the mafia. He says crime boss Carlos Marcello threatened to kill President John Kennedy. As a result of Kennedy’s death, Robert Kennedy was neutralized because new President Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover wanted nothing to do with Bobby. They each were at odds with him.  Davis adds that Marcello came to the US as an eight month old baby and got involved in crime as a teenager. He was involved in the southern mafia: Texas, Alabama, Mississippi. By the early 1960s he was the second most powerful mafia boss.

32:30Copy video clip URL Davis talks about J. Edgar Hoover’s connection to Marcello. He says Lee Harvey Oswald was allegedly seen in Marcello’s office in 1963. He talks about a low profile mafia guy, Ruby, in contact with Marcello’s deputy in Dallas as well as being close to the Dallas police. The plot to assassinate Kennedy had a double purpose: kill Kennedy and frame a Castro supporter. The mafia wanted to be able to resume their operations there. They were hoping that new President Johnson would invade Cuba in retaliation for killing Kennedy and get Cuba back in US possession.

39:47Copy video clip URL Davis talks about the controversy of the shots fired: there were two gunman from the rear. One that hit Kennedy, one that hit Connally. Texas Governor John Connally says he was hit by a separate shot and one or two people shot from the front, from the grassy knoll. He says a lot of people doubt Oswald fired the fatal shots.

43:07Copy video clip URL Davis talks about Sirhan Sirhan, the man who killed Robert Kennedy. Davis says Sirhan always bet on horses and always lost. He worked at a horse ranch outside Los Angeles. His foreman was in the mafia. Davis notes that the testimony of the medical examiner, Thomas Noguchi, were ignored. Noguchi stated that Kenendy was shot in the back of the head at virtually point blank range. “The powder burns were there.” The shot trajectory was almost virtually straight up. Davis notes that Sirhan was some distance away from Kennedy when he fired. No one saw Sirhan get close enough to fire point blank. Witnesses did see a security guard behind Robert Kennedy with a gun in his hand. “We believe he fired the fatal shot. It could have been that he was trying to fire at Sirhan.” The security guard was hired that particular night. He was not part of Kennedy’s staff. He mentions that a 1979 sting operation, the BRILAB operation, finally nabbed Marcello.

48:52Copy video clip URL The conversation moves to James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King’s assassin, who had contact with the Marcello organization and help from the under world.

51:00Copy video clip URL Davis notes that Hoover had gone on record that he didn’t like Robert Kennedy and didn’t believe their was an organized crime problem. The mafia had a lot on the Kennedy. They had taped encounters between Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy’s relationship with a woman who was girlfriend of a Chicago mob boss. They figured Robert Kennedy would not do anything for fear this information would come out. There was also a conspiracy between the mafia and the government to kill Castro. The was finally revealed in 1975. Also, Johnson’s campaigns were partly financed by Marcello.

55:40Copy video clip URL Davis talks about Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather that awakened the public to a lot of the mafia world, a world the general public wasn’t completely aware of in the early 1960s.

58:16Copy video clip URL Davis says his publisher does not want him to reveal the subject of his new book, but he adds it is about the mafia. He wraps up the phone interview.

59:02Copy video clip URL Davis continues talking, this time to the videographer in the room. He says that Marcello just got out of prison. He’s at home. A legal loop hole got him out early. Tom Weinberg calls back with another question. Davis says he’s never been able to make a connection between Marcello, Noriega and Bush. He says that Blumberg is still in his office shooting video. He hands the phone to Blumberg who talks with Tom.

01:03:28Copy video clip URL Davis’s Mafia Kingfish book.

01:03:40Copy video clip URL When asked if he is scared that Marcello will come after them, Davis says he can’t talk about that publicly he’s already been sued by two of Marcello’s underlings for defamation of character.

01:04:24Copy video clip URL Black video with audio. Camera is left rolling while videographer rides public transportation.

01:05:06Copy video clip URL A subway train. Stops at 14th Street. There’s a shot of the videographer Skip Blumberg.

01:06:19Copy video clip URL END.