Ep 79: Mafia (Part 1)

So far in our expedition to uncover the truth about who killed President Kennedy, we’ve looked at the Secret Service, finding that there were numerous instances of security stripping and anomalies in Dallas, many of which were tied back to a single agent - Winston Lawson, but there was no clear explanation for why Agent Lawson took the actions that he did.

We also analyzed the role of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, finding that, while Hoover failed to relay a couple of mafia threats to the Secret Service, he did not likely have foreknowledge of the assassination. However, Hoover was likely involved in a cover-up after the fact with Lyndon Johnson, based on the transcript of the November 23^rd 1963 conversation between the two men.

In that recorded phone call, which was mysteriously erased (we only have the transcript from part of the call), Hoover told Johnson that there was an Oswald impostor at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. Johnson then used that supposed meeting to link Oswald to the Soviets and to apply pressure to Earl Warren and Richard Russell to join his presidential commission, with the express goal of stopping conversations about a Soviet conspiracy - in order to save millions of American lives. In other words, Johnson lied about Oswald going to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City and he knew that he was lying.

After Hoover and the FBI, we then put the microscope on Lyndon Johnson. While this finding is somewhat disputed by a minority of the JFK Assassination research community, I found the story of Mac Wallace as the planner of the JFK Assassination (as told by Billie Sol Estes) to be unpersuasive. However, the deep dive on LBJ revealed that he did have motive, means and opportunity. It’s just that there is no hard evidence to show that Johnson was involved in any planning or foreknowledge. But, when it comes to the assassination cover-up, the Johnson Hoover November 23^rd call makes it clear that Johnson was involved in that part of the crime.

We now turn our attention to the fourth potential culprit in the Kennedy Assassination: the Mafia. Over the next few episodes, we will zoom in on La Cosa Nostra in search of clues that potentially link the mob to the assassination. In this episode, we look at a brief history of the mafia leading up to 1963, including whether the Chicago mob played a part in the Kennedy-Johnson ticket winning the election in 1960.

Early US Mafia History

Beginning in the late 1800s, organized criminals began immigrating to the United States from Italy. The groups originated as secret criminal societies hundreds of years earlier in Southern Italy, specifically, Sicily, Calabria  and Naples.^[1] Between 1880 and 1920, there were 5.3 million Italian immigrants who came to the US.^[2] In Italy, the groups had various names. But, in the United States, they were known as the mafia, the mob, the black hand, the organization, the Syndicate, and La Cosa Nostra.^[3]

Typical mafia crimes included extortion, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, narcotics, loan sharking, and racketeering.^[4] That word racketeering will come up a lot during this series on the mob. It is defined as the perpetrators setting up fraudulent, coercive or extortionary schemes to repeatedly collect a profit.^[5] For example, the most common one was a protection racket, where the mob would tell a local business that they were protecting it from some threat that was not real, in exchange for money.

Another hallmark of the mob was their willingness to use violence. They used this tool to maintain internal discipline and loyalty, to limit law enforcement investigations by witness intimidation, and to influence court outcomes by intimidating prosecutors and jurors. The mafia was sophisticated enough to always have legitimate legal businesses as a front, so that they could carry on their illegal activities behind the scenes.^[6]

Mafia During Prohibition

From 1920 until 1933, the United States made alcohol illegal with the addition of the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution. Of course, making booze illegal did little to decrease the demand of grown adults to consume a beverage that they had previously been able to have their entire lives. It was during prohibition that the mafia came in to the spotlight, due to its bootlegging and illegal alcohol manufacturing in defiance of the 18^thAmendment.

Prohibition also caused the mafia to expand their network beyond just Italians. The mob began to work with Jewish and Irish gangsters as well. In New York, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and J. Edgar Hoover’s friend, Frank Costello, teamed up. The Italians, however, did most of the bootlegging.^[7]

On the other hand, many mafia related groups did not work together, which led to violence anytime some other bootlegger infringed on a group’s territory. Al Capone was one of the most violent characters who came to prominence during prohibition. In January of 1925, at 26 years old, Capone became the boss of the Chicago Outfit when, Johnny Torrio, who had been the boss, was gunned down.^[8]

On February 14^th, 1929, four mobsters who worked for Al Capone went to visit the rival gang – the North Siders. Two of the men were disguised as police officers and initiated a fake police raid at the trucking warehouse headquarters of the North Siders. The two fake cops affiliated with Al Capone then had the men line up along a wall, at which point the other two men gunned them all down.^[9] In total, seven people were killed in the incident which came to be known as the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. The unwanted attention generated from the slaughter led Italian mobsters to begin to coordinate their efforts to avoid bloody conflicts in the future.^[10]

 Apalachin, NY

By 1950, the mafia was a big enough problem that Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings on the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Organized Crime. From these hearings, the committee established that QUOTE “there was a national and highly successful syndicate known as the mafia, involved in a wide range of criminal activities throughout the United States and abroad.”^[11] This led to some anti-gambling legislation and the creation of a new Organized Crime and Racketeering department within the Department of Justice, which got little support from other agencies.^[12]

Although the Kefauver Committee created some tools for the federal government to go after organized crime, it was still not a law enforcement priority. This was largely because the extent of the La Cosa Nostra enterprise was unknown. The mafia leaders were skilled at putting layers between themselves and the low level thugs who actually committed the crimes. But the chance discovery of a meeting of organized crime heads in Apalachin, New York changed the calculations of the federal government about how seriously they should take the mafia.

On November 14, 1957, Sargeant Edgar Crosswell of the New York State police noted that a large number of people were converging on the estate of Joseph Barbera, Sr, many of whom had license plates from far away. Sgt. Crosswell was suspicious of Barbera because he was linked to, but not convicted of, two homicides in northern Pennsylvania. While Croswell did not have cause to go on private property, Croswell and a few other officers detained and identified 63 people, all of whom were of Italian heritage, who had been visiting the Barbera estate. The Apalachin meeting attendees came from 10 states and included Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana.^[13] This Apalachin meeting is such a big deal, that it’s even mentioned by the narrator in the movie Goodfellas.

McClellan Committee

It turns out that this meeting in rural Southeast New York was a national gathering of La Cosa Nostra. Because many of the mob representatives who went to Apalachin were involved in union affairs, some of them were called before the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Fields, also known as the McClellan Committee for the name of its chairman, Senator John McClellan.^[14]

There were two brothers who worked together on the McClellan Committee from the time it began in 1957, John Kennedy, who served on the committee as a senator, and Robert Kennedy, who was chief minority counsel to the Committee on Government Operations. After the Democrats won the 1954 midterm elections, Robert Kennedy became the chief counsel of the Committee. Many of the hearings were televised at a time when the popularity of TV was exploding and there were not that many channels from which to choose. John Kennedy came across as fair and intelligent on television, which bolstered his national profile.^[15]

Senator McClellan gave Bobby Kennedy the reigns of the committee. At just 31 years old, he led a new Committee on union intimidation of organized labor, which served 8,000 witness subpoenas and had 253 active investigations. After the committee wrapped up in 1960, Robert Kennedy wrote a book about unions and organized crime called The Enemy Within.^[16] Many of the same mobsters Kennedy pursued on the McClellan Committee, like Jimmy Hoffa, who Robert Kennedy once got into a shouting match with during a hearing, would become targets of RFK when he ascended to the role of Attorney General.^[17]

As a result of more attention on the mafia from the McClellan hearings and the  intelligence gathered from the Apalachin, New York meeting, the FBI began to dedicate personnel in some cities to obtaining intelligence on the mafia, specifically people who attended the Apalachin meeting. In 1959, the FBI began to use an intelligence gathering tool against La Cosa Nostra that was encouraged by Director Hoover: electronic surveillance.^[18]

1960 Chicago Presidential Election

When the smoke cleared and the results were tallied for the 1960 presidential election, Democrat John F. Kennedy had 303 electoral votes and Republican Richard Nixon had 219. The national popular vote was much closer, with JFK beating out Nixon 49.72% to 49.55%.^[19]

It has been argued by some historians that the 1960 election in Illinois was handed to Kennedy by organized crime. Illinois was one of the last states to report its results, a 9,000 vote victory by Kennedy.^[20] But, Kennedy already had 34 more electoral college votes than he needed, which means that he still would have won without the 27 votes from Illinois. However, that analysis misses the dynamic of the unpledged Democratic Party delegates from Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, who were threatening to withhold their vote for Kennedy unless he made concessions on civil rights. There were 26 of these unpledged delegates.^[21] In total, 14 of them ended up voting for the segregationist senator, Harry Byrd.^[22] So, if Kennedy had not picked up the electoral votes from Illinois, it would have only taken 7 of the other 12 unpledged delegates to flip the election to Richard Nixon.

There were investigations into the allegations of illegal votes in Chicago. Two grand juries indicted five lower level Democratic Party officials for vote buying and vote fraud. There were also 677 contempt charges which alleged that Democratic precinct officials intentionally made mistakes in tallying votes. But, those charges were thrown out for insufficient evidence.^[23] In 2006, researcher John Binder, looked into the voting records in Chicago in attempt to answer this question and found that, if there was any voter fraud, it did not impact the election, except for arguably in one of the eight districts that he reviewed.^[24] 

Richard Nixon also suspected voter fraud in Illinois, but he didn’t contest it because he worried that a challenge would backfire. Nixon said in his memoir, QUOTE “And what if I demanded a recount and it turned out that despite the vote fraud Kennedy had still won? Charges of ‘sore loser’ would follow me through history and remove any possibility of a further political career.”^[25]

So, there is evidence of voter fraud, most notably, in the form of the grand jury that brought 677 contempt charges which were later dropped. However, the statistical evidence is not an absolute slam dunk to prove fraud, as noted by John Binder’s research.

Giancana’s Help in Chicago?

By the late 1940s, the Chicago Outfit controlled over 100 unions.^[26] At the height of Al Capone’s empire, a man named Murray “the Camel” Humphreys oversaw 61 of them.  His wife, Jeanne, told author Seymour Hersh that her husband was against supporting President Kennedy because he had worked with Joseph Kennedy, Sr. during prohibition as a bootlegger and he did not trust him.^[27]

As a quick aside, the issue of whether Joseph Kennedy, Sr., the father of John and Robert, was a bootlegger who sold illegal alcohol during prohibition is disputed. As we just heard, Jeanne Humphreys said that was the case. And, apparently, Al Capone’s piano tuner also overheard Kennedy, Sr. meeting with Capone.^[28] On the other hand, professor David Nasaw, who wrote a book on Kennedy, Sr., says that stories about Joseph Kennedy’s bootlegging were QUOTE “just farcical.”

According to Nasaw, his certainty that Kennedy, Sr. was not a bootlegger is based on Richard Nixon’s opposition researchers failing to bring this claim up during the 1960 election.^[29] We know for sure that Kennedy Sr had many other ways of making money. For example, he was a bank president, he owned a Hollywood movie studio in the 1920s and he made a lot of money shorting stocks right before the 1929 Stock Market Crash.^[30] Still, even Professor Nasaw says that rumors of Kennedy Sr working with the mafia on issues related to alcohol may be true. He just makes the distinction that Kennedy Sr never did any actual bootlegging during prohibition.

If Joe Kennedy Sr did get the mafia to help with extra votes in Chicago, the big question is ‘why would organized crime be willing to help John F. Kennedy of all people?’ Remember, John Kennedy was a Senator on the McClellan Committee that investigated the mafia’s takeover of unions, where he presented himself as being against organized crime. And Robert Kennedy, who was the chief counsel and leader of the committee was extremely rude during the hearings to Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago mafia since 1957. When Giancana smiled and took the 5^th amendment in response to one of RFK’s questions, RFK said to Giancana, QUOTE “I thought only little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana.”^[31] Jimmy Hoffa, the leader of the Teamsters union, who also appeared before the McClellan Committee, and then faced criminal charges because of it, was intensely against the Kennedys.

Did He Help?

So, Joe Kennedy Sr had a lot of convincing to do if he was to get Sam Giancana’s help. According to Robert McDonnell, an attorney for the Chicago mafia, Joe Kennedy contacted his old friend, William Tuohy (TWO-EE), who was the chief judge of Cook County, Illinois. Kennedy asked Judge Tuohy to set up a secret meeting with Sam Giancana. While Judge Tuohy did not know Giancana, he reached out to Robert McDonnell, who did know Giancana, and who Tuohy used to work with in the State’s attorneys office. McDonnell told Seymour Hersh that sometime in the winter of 1959 or 1960, Judge Tuohy asked him to set up a meeting with Giancana, at which point, McDonnell gave Tuohy the name of a local mob affiliated politician to contact. A few days later, McDonnell was summoned to meet with Giancana at the Armory Lounge in Forest Park, where it was agreed that Giancana and Kennedy, Sr. would meet privately in Judge Tuohy’s chambers.^[32]

McDonnell says that, sometime after 5pm, he entered Judge Tuohy’s chambers where he was introduced to Joe Kennedy, Sr. About twenty minutes later Sam Giancana and an associate walked in to the judge’s chambers through the courtroom entrance. At that point, Judge Tuohy and McDonnell left Kennedy, Sr. and the two Chicago Outfit representatives alone to do their business.^[33]

Judge Tuohy’s sons, Patrick and John, told Hersh that they remembered Joe Kennedy, Sr. coming to dinners at their home. And their dad went with Kennedy, Sr. to a Chicago Bears football game in 1947.^[34] Similarly, according to Thomas King, Kennedy, Sr.’s general manager at Merchandise Mart, Judge Tuohy was very close with Joe Kennedy, Sr. The Merchandise Mart was a Chicago department store which Kennedy, Sr owned. Thomas King told Hersh that that he witnessed multiple meetings between Tuohy and Kennedy, Sr. but he didn’t hear the conversations.^[35] Given the statements from McDonnell, Tuohy’s sons, and King, it does appear that there was a clandestine meeting and some sort of arrangement between Giancana and Kennedy, Sr.

In addition to Judge Tuohy helping connect him with the mob, Kennedy, Sr. may have had support from legendary singer, Frank Sinatra. According to Sinatra’s daughter, Tina, a meeting was called by Joe Kennedy, Sr. in late 1959 at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. Joe told Sinatra QUOTE “I think you can help me in West Virginia and in Illinois with our friends. You understand, Frank, I can’t go. They’re my friends too, but I can’t approach them. But you can.” Tina Sinatra says that her dad then met with Giancana on a golf course where he told him QUOTE “I believe in this man and I think he’s going to make us a good president. With your help, I think we can work this out.”^[36]  

Despite this statement to Sinatra, as we just discussed, Joe Kennedy, Sr. did go and meet with Giancana in person. What do we know about whether a deal was actually struck?

Former FBI special agent William Roemer, Jr., said in his memoir that he overheard Sam Giancana discussing mob support in the election in return for a commitment from the Kennedy Administration QUOTE “to back off from the FBI investigation of Giancana.”^[37] Likewise, Judith Campbell, who was linked to John F. Kennedy first, but went on to be romantic partners with Sam Giancana, while she was still seeing JFK, says that Giancana told her after the 1960 election, QUOTE “Listen, honey, if it wasn’t for me your boyfriend wouldn’t even be in the White House.”^[38]

According to Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the FBI wiretaps that he reviewed during the HSCA demonstrated QUOTE “beyond doubt, in my judgment, that enough votes were stolen … in Chicago to give Kennedy a sufficient margin that he carried the state of Illinois.” Blakey added that the mafia provided money to the Kennedy campaign, which was delivered from Giancana to Kennedy by a special courier, Frank Sinatra.^[39]

McDonnell, the lawyer friend of Judge Tuohy’s who set up the Giancana/Kennedy meeting told Seymour Hersh QUOTE “I don’t know what deals were cut. I don’t know what promises were made. But, I can tell you, [Giancana] had so many assets in place. They were capable of putting drivers in every precinct to help out the precinct captains to get the voters out. And they had the unions absolutely going for Kennedy. I realize that today the unions don’t vote as they’re told to vote. But in the days of 1960, they did….There was no ballot stuffing. I’m not suggesting that. They just worked – totally went all out. Kennedy won it squarely, but he got the vote because of what [Giancana] had done. I’m convinced in my heart of hearts that [Giancana] carried the day for John F. Kennedy.”^[40]

While it is not clear whether Sam Giancana helped Kennedy win Illinois by fraud, or by good old fashioned voter turnout, or perhaps a combination of both, it is well established that Giancana and Kennedy, Sr. had a deal. Giancana kept his end of the deal. As we’ve seen, with Bobby Kennedy’s rise to Attorney General and aggressive pursuit of La Cosa Nostra, Joe Kennedy, Sr. did not.

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We continue our study of the Mafia, by looking at the Kennedy administration’s actions toward IT, and the motives and actions of the major players in the American mafia, as related to the Kennedy Assassination.

^[1] HSCA Organized Crime Report, at 3; https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0006a.htm

^[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States

^[3] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 3.

^[4] Id. at 4.

^[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering

^[6] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 4.

^[7] Id. at 5.

^[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone

^[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone

^[10] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 5.

^[11] Id. at 6.

^[12] Id. at 6-7.

^[13] Id. at 7.

^[14] Id. at 10.

^[15] https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2017/spring/jfk-congress

^[16]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Committee_on_Improper_Activities_in_Labor_and_Management

^[17] Id.

^[18] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 10.

^[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_election

^[20] Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, at 132.

^[21] Hersh at 133.

^[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_election

^[23] Hersh at 133.

^[24] https://www.newswise.com/articles/researcher-debunks-mob-impact-on-1960-presidential-election

^[25] Hersh at 134.

^[26] Id.

^[27] Id. at 143.

^[28] https://www.history.com/articles/joseph-kennedy-wealth-alcohol-prohibition

^[29] Id.

^[30] Id.

^[31] Hersh at 134.

^[32] Id. at 136.

^[33] Id.

^[34] Id. at 137.

^[35] Id.

^[36] Id. at 138.

^[37] Id. at 140.

^[38] Id.

^[39] Id.

^[40] Id. at 136. McDonnell called Giancana “Mooney”, which was another nickname of his in addition to Momo. I have used Giancana to avoid confusion for the listener and to avoid having to explain another nickname.