Roselli Probe
By RON ISBEREQUE
Newsweek Writer
Sen. Gary Hart (D., Colo.) made an unannounced trip to Miami Friday for a private meeting with homicide detectives to underscore the strong interest of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in the John Roselli murder investigation and to insure that federal agencies cooperate with local police.
The FBI was ordered into the case last week by Attorney General Edward Levi after pressure from the Senate committee.
"We're not here to solve the crime," Hart said. "We want to find out if there is any connection between (Roselli's) death and his testimony before the Committee."
HART SAID he also hoped to meet with local officials of the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Roselli, 71, organized crime figure who testified three times before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the past year about his recruitment by the CIA in a plotted kill of Fidel Castro, was found dead two weeks ago, stuffed in an oil drum floating in Dumfoundling Bay.
Hart said the Senate Intelligence Committee is concerned about the possibility that Roselli's death is connected to his testimony, although he did say there was no evidence indicating Roselli might have been killed to prevent him from talking about other CIA-organized crime plots.
"It is one of many possibilities that have come back," Hart said. "That's not to say we would have called him back if some new facts arose."
Hart would not speculate as to what he would have to say if he had not testified. "Any evidence important to what happened," he said.
The murder of Roselli, who first testified in April, renewed the Intelligence Committee interest in the death of Chicago organized crime leader Sam Giancana, who was shot to death in his home in June of 1975 just at a time when Intelligence Committee investigators were tracking him down.
However, Hart Friday said Michael Madigan, a committee attorney who in June of 1975 was preparing to interview Giancana about his involvement with Roselli in the Castro plot.
Giancana and Tampa organized crime figure Santo Trafficante played "accompanying roles" in the CIA-inspired Castro assassination plot, another committee staff member revealed.
"We are reviewing what Roselli said about Giancana and Trafficante," said another staff member, but Trafficante was never called because the committee considered Roselli's testimony the most important.
CHICAGO AREA investigators speculated that Giancana's death was part of an internal gangland struggle.
Nevertheless, Hart told The Post Friday that while Roselli's death "touches upon the committee's much larger concerns," including "truth in foreign policies techniques," said the 1972 presidential campaign's manager for George McGovern's primary bid.
Asked if he was satisfied with the committee's own investigation of Giancana's death, Hart refused to comment. He said that before the committee adjourned he would "be the absence of any continuing evidence which prevents us from going to Page 28 Col. 6.