Commonwealth Club Event: "Abuse of Power" by Mark Shaw

Join the Commonwealth Club of California on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025 to hear Mark Shaw discuss how he thinks Mafia Dona Carlos Marcello used "patsies" to mastermind the deaths of JFK, Dorothy Kilgallen and RFK, which he details in his new book, Abuse of Power: Connecting Robert Kennedy's Assassination with the Murders of JFK and Dorothy Kilgallen Exposes Who Was Responsible and Why Sirhan Sirhan Deserves a New Trial.

HOW TO WATCH:
This event is $10 for online tickets, and you must register at the link below, at which point you'll be emailed a link to the online event - https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0FVb000008MQLpMAO

NOTE: This event is free for members of the Commonwealth Club of California. Membership costs just $10/month and you can cancel at any time. To become a member, go to: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Bestselling author and noted historian Mark Shaw returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to discuss his latest research and his newest book. They strengthen his conclusion that New Orleans mafia don Carlos Marcello was the point person pulling the strings behind the murders of JFK and famed journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. And, for the first time, he also links Marcello to the murder of Robert Kennedy. In his previous books, Shaw established the connections between Marcello, Oswald, Ruby and Kilgallen and Marcello’s use of Kilgallen’s lover to silence her before she could expose Marcello’s involvement in the JFK assassination. In his latest book, Abuse of Power, Shaw lays out compelling evidence that Marcello’s pattern of using patsies to exact his revenge culminated in his setting Sirhan Sirhan up to take the fall for the assassination of RFK on June 6, 1968.

Shaw’s new research includes his examination of the JFK assassination records recently released by the federal government. In those files is a December 1985 FBI transcript in which Carlos Marcello was taped “confessing” to his role in JFK’s death: “Yeah, I had the son of a b---h killed. I’m glad I did. I wish I could have done it myself.”

Shaw investigates whether Marcello decided on a similar approach when it became clear in early 1968 that RFK could become president. Shaw says that since Robert Kennedy, as attorney general, had ordered Marcello deported in April 1961, charging him with racketeering, Marcello had no intention of allowing RFK to get in his way again and so had Bobby killed.

Shaw alleges that Marcello used his “associate,” mobster Mickey Cohen, who controlled the Southern California racetracks, including Santa Anita, and knew the layout of the Ambassador Hotel where RFK was killed, to “recruit” 24-year-old Sirhan just as the mafia don had recruited Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate JFK. Evidence for Shaw’s allegation is a never-before-published, eyewitness, video-taped account from John Shear, a celebrated paddock captain at Santa Anita Racetrack. He had hired Sirhan to work as a “hot walker” at the racetrack and considered him “easily manipulated.”

Shortly before RFK was killed, Shear noticed that Sirhan was all dressed up, had money and was hanging around nearby Hollywood Park Racetrack with “two hoodlums” despite being poorly paid and having gambling debts. Shaw says that shortly after RFK’s murder, it was Shear who first identified Sirhan for the LAPD and the FBI from the photo of Sirhan being shown on TV—but Shear was never contacted by either the LAPD or the FBI about Sirhan, pointing to a cover up.

Then, just as twice before regarding JFK’s and Kilgallen’s deaths, the trail of evidence quickly and suspiciously went cold. Join us as Shaw makes sense of the newfound evidence and heats up his call for justice in the murders of JFK, Dorothy Kilgallen and Robert Kennedy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

• Mark Shaw is an investigative reporter, former defense attorney, a former legal analyst for USA Today and CNN, and the author of over 20 books. To date, Shaw has published six books touching on the JFK assassination including Melvin Belli: King of the Courtroom in 2007 and The Poison Patriarch: How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK in 2013. Nearly three years later, Shaw penned the bestseller, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much (2016) about the life and times and the death of legendary media icon Dorothy Kilgallen and her coverage of the assassination. He followed up that book with Denial of Justice (2018) which exposed never-before-published evidence about the assassination and Ms. Kilgallen being denied justice when she was murdered. He tied these narratives together in his books Collateral Damage: The Mysterious Deaths of Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Kilgallen, and the Ties that Bind Them to Robert Kennedy and the JFK Assassination (2021) and Fighting for Justice (2022), and updated his theories with more evidence in his latest book, Abuse of Power (2025).
• George Hammond, the moderator, is a retired lawyer who now serves as the Chairman of the Humanities Forum at The Commonwealth Club of California. He's the author of six philosophical books on issues in rational idealism, theoretical physics, Plato's theory, early Christianity, the Soviet Union, psychology, and constitutional law.

ABOUT THE EVENT HOST:
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Every year, they present more than 450 forums on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy. Their stated mission is to be the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues important to the membership, community and nation. To learn more, go to: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/who-we-are
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