Gus Russo
journalist

Gus G. Russo (born 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American author and researcher of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Russo was part of a team of researchers that worked on the 1993 Frontline Lee Harvey Oswald documentary, Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?, for PBS. He is the author of Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, a book which states that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed the president in retribution for Kennedy's policies toward Fidel Castro and Cuba.
Russo has also written books about the Chicago Outfit and mob lawyer Sidney Korshak. In The Outfit, Russo points out that while the Mafia is responsible for heinous crimes, they are not the only "business" that engages in destructive and illegal activities. The Mafia's "upper world" counterparts, big business, has been responsible for many crimes themselves (white collar crime), have escaped punishment, and still operate without being prosecuted.
Co-authored by Stephen Molton, Brothers In Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder states that Castro's regime employed Oswald in retaliation for plots against the Cuban leader.
Personal life
As of 2013, Russo was a resident of Catonsville, Maryland.
The public source identifies “Gus Russo” as journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Russo and journalist.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5620762. VIAF identifies the subject as 16853609. The Library of Congress control number is no99011844. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1993 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gus Russo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.