In regard to the possible involvement of organized crime in the assassination, something that sticks out to me are FBI wiretaps. I don’t remember which book detailed it, but at the time of JFK’s death and afterwards, the FBI had numerous wiretap operations going inside the crime families of Trafficante, Marcello and Giancana. Virtually no evidence of involvement was observed before or after Kennedy’s killing. I think that suggests pretty strongly that the mob wasn’t in on it, as they’ve proven time and time again that they can’t keep their mouths shut about anything.
So...I think that is a worthy point. It's a check in the "not the mafia" box for sure.
But, I have a few counterpoints to consider, as I'm a bit of a amateur mafiologist.
1. Absence of evidence is not evidence. Everyone agrees the mob killed Jimmy Hoffa, but they don't have that evidence on tape. They don't know who killed Sam Giancana. They didn't have tapes on the Luftshansa heist. The list goes on and on. Those might not be killing the president, but those, particularly Hoffa, are HUGE crimes that weren't captured on tape.
2. While there were wiretapping efforts in place, it is nothing like it is today or has been for the last several decades. It's really only since the late 1970s and 1980s that the mob has been extensively recorded. It has only really been post-RICO act. Federal wiretaps weren't allowed as trial evidence in federal courtrooms until 1968. The amount of recorded evidence pre-1980 is NOTHING like what we've seen since. The idea that wiretaps in place in the early 1960s were anything remotely comprehensive is a function of how we think of wiretapping now. Something may be escaping me, but I'm not aware of any mob case being significantly broken by wiretaps in the 1960s.
3. Related to the previous point, the majority of wiretaps in place at that time were blatantly illegal and off the books. The idea that any agency or individual would have access to all tapes to make such a proclamation of "never caught on tape" is just not feasible. If something had been caught on tape, there is little reason to be confident that it would have been surfaced, since it would have been evidence of law enforcement malfeasance. Remember, in this general era the FBI was EXTENSIVELY and illegally wiretapping the likes of MLK, the Kennedys themselves, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, etc. the likelihood that the FBI would release something they obtained illegally is pretty small.
4. Related to the previous point, Hoover until just five years earlier had denied the existence of the mafia. He was only reluctantly and embarrassingly forced to change course by the Appalachin bust. There has been considerably well-founded speculation that Hoover was compromised by the Mob. While the FBI now has a long and well deserved reputation for mob-busting, they were extremely new to it at the time, and largely dragged into it kicking and screaming by RFK. Evidence that the mob, whose existence Hoover had until recently denied in the face of all evidence, had killed the president, would be damaging to the point of career-ending. Add that professional embarrassment to potential mafia leverage on Hoover and potential to expose illegal wiretapping, and its very uncertain, if not unlikely, that wiretapped evidence would have surfaced after the fact.
5. RFK's war on the mafia was one of overt harassment. They openly followed Giancana on the golf course. They kidnapped Marcello and dropped him in Guatemala. They harassed family members. The mob knew they were under siege at all levels. The biggest cause of being caught on tape by mobsters is complacency, thinking they couldn't possibly be being spied upon. The mob in RFK's crosshairs were intimately aware of being under scrutiny, making it far less likely that they be caught on tape.
6. It's very likely that a mafia plot would be WAY less extensive than it is now talked about being. It would almost certainly have been activated by Marcello in New Orleans, with
possibly some consultation with Trafficante in Florida. Marcello's family, as the first mob family in the US, was widely independent of the commission, and far more likely to act outside the commission. It's highly unlikely the commission would have sanctioned it. If it was a Marcello solo act, few to no other mafioso would have known about it, rendering lack of discussion of it irrelevant. Many have linked the assassination to Chicago, and I think even that is unlikely. In the years since, many mobsters and authors have claimed a much wider mob conspiracy to kill JFK, but having read almost all of it, I believe that is largely the result of self-aggrandizing, equally on both the mobsters and authors. Nothing sells like a link to the JFK assassination. They've all "got a book."
Ultimately, the lack of tapes falls into the same category that can be used to dismiss all the conspiracy plots - there's no actual evidence for it. That doesn't make it a weak argument, that's a strong argument against it.
But to me, it's very silly to claim that the evidence of mafia involvement is weak, while evidence of other domestic conspiracies is strong. The evidence against the mafia is at least as strong if not stronger as it is against LBJ, the formal CIA, Hoover, etc. All the same connections to individual players are there, if not stronger - almost all the favorite players in the "CIA plot" scenario (like David Ferrie or Clay Shaw or Jack Ruby) are way more well documented in their connection to the mob than they are to the CIA. There are just as many "witnesses" coming out long after the fact of things being said or done or planned. Just as much circumstantial evidence.
The difference to me, is that for all the other conspiracies, the accuser ALSO has to press a totally unsupported MOTIVE. That Kennedy was secretly going to pull out of Vietnam. That Kennedy was going to take us on the gold standard, or keep us on the gold standard. That Kennedy was going to reform the Federal Reserve. That Kennedy was going to fire Hoover. Even the motives have to be weaved together out of thin unsupported speculation.
In the case of Marcello/Mafia, there is no such speculation needed. The motive is right on the surface, documented, obvious for the world. Not remotely in dispute. In the case of the "mafia did it" angle, half the work is already done.
And yes, I know aint nobody got time to read all that. But this is one of my "pet things."