Ep 81: Mafia (Part 3)

One of the reasons why many people believe that the mafia was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy is because the mob had motive to get rid of him. Given the performance of the Kennedy brothers on the McClellan Committee – Chief Counsel Robert Kennedy, in particular - most of the bosses in La Cosa Nostra did not expect the Kennedys to suddenly become lenient towards organized crime. Of course, Sam Giancana’s agreement with Joe Kennedy, Sr. likely had the effect of making the mafia hate the Kennedys even more, because, on top of being overzealous law enforcers, they also broke the deal that their father had made.

In this episode, we examine the posture of the Kennedy Administration towards the mafia, once John and Bobby had their hands on the levers of government power. Then, we turn to what the HSCA thought about the likelihood of mafia involvement, before directing our attention to the key mafia leaders who are most likely to be involved in the assassination, starting with Jimmy Hoffa, Meyer Lansky, and Sam Giancana.

Kennedy Administration Takes On The Mob

When Robert Kennedy became attorney general, he significantly increased the attorneys in the Organized Crime and Racketeering section of the Department of Justice. He also provided a list of 80 mafia figures to be investigated, each of whom was assigned an individual FBI agent.^[1] The FBI and the DOJ had more tools to pursue the mafia at their disposal because of recently passed legislation, supported by the Attorney General, that made interstate transportation in aid of racketeering a federal crime.^[2]

Between 1960, the year before Kennedy took office, and 1963, there was a 250% increase in the number of attorneys dedicated to organized crime, a 500% increase in defendants indicted, and a 400% increase in defendants convicted.^[3] This addition of resources made it clear that the mafia was more of a problem in some places than previously understood, like Chicago, for example, where sources described QUOTE “the almost complete influence and control of politicians, police, and even courts …. by the underworld.”^[4]

By early 1963, the FBI was aware of the names of positions and hierarchies within La Cosa Nostra, as well as the identities of the mafia bosses operating out of major American cities.^{[5] [6]}

What Was The Mob Saying About JFK

We know that the FBI had electronic surveillance on many mafia associates. Can any of these recordings shed light on how these people felt about President Kennedy before the assassination?

On February 9, 1962, Willie Weisberg complained to Philadelphia boss, Angelo Bruno, about the Kennedys in a recorded conversation. He said that someone should kill Kennedy and that he would do it himself.^[7] But, it wasn’t clear whether he was talking about RFK or JFK. On May 2, 1962, two New York mobsters, Sal Profaci and Michelino Clemente were talking - and Clemente said QUOTE “Bob Kennedy won’t stop until he puts us all in jail all over the country. Until the commission meets and puts its foot down, things will be at a standstill…”^[8]

In October of 1963, Chicago boss, Sam Giancana and three of his associates were recorded talking about whether Bobby Kennedy played golf, like John did. Then they joked about putting a bomb in RFK’s golf bag.^[9]On Halloween 1963, Buffalo boss, Stefano Magadinno was heard telling his son that President Kennedy should QUOTE “Drop dead. They should kill the whole family, the mother and the father too.”^[10]

HSCA - Did The Commission Kill JFK?

These and other recorded phone calls and meetings from key mafia leaders anecdotally demonstrate that organized crime was intensely opposed to the Kennedy Administration, which is exactly what we would expect given the aggressive posture of the attorney general towards the mob. Of course, the mafia didn’t let President Kennedy off the hook for his brother’s anti-mafia crusade.

This raises the question of whether La Cosa Nostra – at an organizational level - had some involvement in killing President Kennedy.^[11] The House Select Committee on Assassinations found that the Commission, which is the governing body of mob bosses, and its members all had motive for wanting both Kennedys gone. But, most of the Commission members had their hands full with other issues (as noted in the HSCA report). Also, there are no recorded conversations about the Commission being involved in a JFK hit, or even hinting at it, despite the growing use of wiretaps by the FBI.^[12] So, it does not appear that the Commission ordered JFK to be killed.

Still, not all individual mafia bosses could be ruled out because the FBI lacked quality intelligence on some bosses.^[13] Unlike Giancana and the bosses in New York, the FBI did not have any wire taps on Carlos Marcello or Santo Trafficante. At the end of the day, the HSCA found Marcello, Trafficante, and even Jimmy Hoffa, had QUOTE “motive, means, and opportunity to plan and execute a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. …..the HSCA concluded that it was unlikely that they were involved in such a conspiracy. Nevertheless, the possibility that one or more of them was involved could not be precluded.”^[14]

Since we know that the assassination was not ordered by the Commission, let’s take a look at a few mafiosos who may have had some level of involvement in JFK’s murder.

Jimmy Hoffa

We’ll start with Jimmy Hoffa. Unlike other mafia higher-ups, Hoffa did not come up through the ranks of La Cosa Nostra. He was a union man from the start, rising to the position of vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters by 1952. The Teamsters represented a diverse array of industries from trucking to law enforcement to prison guards. Hoffa would go on to serve as the Union’s president from 1957 until 1971. During that time, he made the Teamsters union the largest union by membership in the United States, with 2.3 million members at its peak.^[15]

Hoffa’s relationship with organized crime began as a result of Hoffa’s attempts to recruit truckers to join the Teamsters union. Beginning in the Detroit area, which in the 1930s and 40s, during Hoffa’s rise, was a powerhouse of American manufacturing, Hoffa made accommodations with the mob.^[16] He then courted mafia leadership so he could get control of the Teamsters union. In doing so, he turned the Central States Pension Fund into a mob slush fund and effectively made it a mafia subsidiary.^[17]

Hoffa’s relationship with La Cosa Nostra grew closer after he was subpoenaed to appear before the McClellan Committee in the Senate.  On March 14, 1957, Hoffa was arrested for trying to bribe an aide to the committee.^[18] Hoffa was eventually acquitted of that charge, but the arrest, combined with the televised clashes with committee counsel, Robert Kennedy, would put a target on Jimmy Hoffa’ back when RFK became attorney general just a few years later. In fact, RFK assembled a team just to focus on him, called the “Get Hoffa Squad”.^[19]

As you can imagine, being subpoenaed to speak before the Senate and then being pursued relentlessly by Robert Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa had absolute disdain towards the Kennedy brothers. According to informant Edward Partin, who came forward only to avoid prison time himself, he heard Hoffa threaten to kill RFK in late Summer of 1962 by throwing a bomb into his car or home.  Hoffa also mentioned to Partin QUOTE “the possible use of a lone gunman equipped with a rifle with a telescopic site…an assassin without any identifiable connection to the Teamster organization or Hoffa himself.” ^[20] Hoffa also said that the assassination attempt on RFK should be in the South and when RFK was riding in a convertible. Harold Gibbons, Hoffa’s top aide, also overheard him discuss killing the Attorney General.^[21]  

Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud in 1964 and began serving his term in 1967. After five years of a 13 year sentence, Hoffa was released from Prison after President Richard Nixon commuted the remainder of his sentence for time served.^[22] This commutation from Nixon stoked claims about Nixon having received bribes in the past from La Cosa Nostra.

Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. Foul play was assumed, but his body has never been found.^[23] It is easy to speculate that the reason Hoffa was killed was to stop him from talking to the Church Committee, which was investigating intelligence agencies at the time. But, there is no evidence that Hoffa had been subpoenaed. And, its also true that Jimmy Hoffa had many enemies, including rivals inside the Mafia.

Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky in as an outsider, but quickly rose to the top of La Cosa Nostra. Lansky is known as the mob’s accountant, which he was. But, he was much more than that. Lansky and his associate, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, helped to grow and organize the mob by creating the  National Syndicate.^[24] 

While Lansky was a member of the Jewish mafia, he introduced money laundering through off-shore banking to the Italian mafia in 1932. During Prohibition, Lansky began working with his childhood friend, Ben “Bugsy” Siegel, and the two of them formed one of the most violent gangs in New York.^[25]

By 1936, Lansky had established gambling operations in Florida and in Cuba. Lansky’s advanced math skills allowed him to understand the precise odds of specific games, which gave the house an edge. Lansky made sure that the games were never rigged. He also began to bribe local law enforcement to ensure that the operations were secure from other criminals and against government prosecutions.^[26]

When Nazism was on the rise in the late 1930s, Lansky gathered teams of strong Jewish men to break up nazi meetings through fistfights. Some of the nazis were thrown out of building windows. Lansky also helped fight German Nazis by working with the Office of Naval Intelligence to watch out for Nazi infiltrators at loading docs, which Lansky controlled. In exchange for helping the feds, Lansky secured the release from prison of his long-time friend, Ben Siegel.^[27]

Sometime in the late 1940s, Lansky met with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York where it was agreed that Lansky and the mafia would control Cuban casinos and racetracks, in exchange for paying Batista a portion of the income. Batista also agreed to match any hotel investment over $1 Million dollars, dollar for dollar, which led Lansky and the mafia to develop even more casinos and nightclubs in Cuba. The Cuban hotel and casino business was extremely profitable while it lasted.^[28]

Then, in 1959, when Fidel Castro seized power through the Cuban Revolution, many of Lansky’s hotels were looted and destroyed. All casinos were then closed. The properties were seized by the Cuban government, and gambling was made illegal on the island.^[29] But Meyer Lansky’s business wasn’t just in Cuba. He also had a considerable stake in Las Vegas operations.

According to the HSCA Organized Crime Report, Ed Levinson and Ed Torres were responsible for skimming $100,000 per month from the profits of legal gambling casinos to send to Meyer Lansky in Miami.^[30] The name Ed Levinson may sound familiar because Levinson helped Bobby Baker finance both his vending business, and the construction of the Carousel Motel in Ocean City, Maryland.^[31]

In 1970, Lansky fled to Israel to escape federal tax evasion charges. At that time, under the Law of Return, any Jewish person could legally become an Israeli citizen. And Israeli law did not permit the extradition of Israeli citizens. Lansky, who had provided donations in the past to then-Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, was surprised when he was denied citizenship and sent back to America in in exchange for weapons from the Nixon Administration.^[32]

Lansky died of lung cancer at 80 years old in Miami Beach, Florida on January 15, 1983.

Sam Giancana

Let’s move on to Sam Giancana – a quintessential mafia boss. We’ve already talked about Giancana in a few important contexts, namely, his relationship with Joseph Kennedy, Sr. and the work he did for the Kennedys in Chicago during the 1960 election. We also covered how Giancana got involved, through his underling, Johnny Roselli, in the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro, as orchestrated by CIA cut-out, Robert Maheu.

Salvatore Giancana, also known as Mooney or Momo, started from the bottom as a getaway driver in a juvenile street gang in 1920s Chicago. He then graduated to working as a hit man for Al Capone.^[33] Giancana was the prime suspect in three murders that never went to trial and reportedly killed many more people.^[34]

After serving a three year stint in prison for burglary and then a four year sentence for bootlegging, when Giancana was back on the Chicago streets, he successfully took over the numbers game on the South Side from local African American gangsters, Eddie Jones and Theodore Roe; the latter of whom Giancana’s crew murdered. Momo’s takeover of South Side gambling brought in millions to the Chicago Outfit and was one of the main reasons he become the boss in 1957.^[35]

In addition to being the top mob boss in Chicago, Giancana was well-known for his relationships and deals with other mafia dons, especially Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr. In 1954, Giancana bragged to his half brother, Chuck, QUOTE: “In Tampa, I got Santo Junior taking over. I talked to Lansky and the rest of the Commission. He’ll be the boss now…I got Marcello working with just me and Costello. Chicago’s the only city Marcello’s gonna let into Texas unless he talks to me first.”^[36] Giancana stayed in the good graces of Marcello and Trafficante by giving them part of the cash that was skimmed from the Sands, Flamingo, Thunderbird, and Desert Inn casinos in Las Vegas.^[37]

Giancana shared several notable secrets he had learned about American intelligence agencies with his half-brother, Chuck. For example, New York mob boss, Frank Costello, who would often meet with J. Edgar Hoover, had tried to bribe Hoover, but he would not accept it. Instead, Costello gave Hoover tips on fixed horse races. Hoover used the information and made money at the racetracks.^[38] Giancana also told Chuck that the CIA was taking 10% of the money that was being made from narcotics flowing through Havana into the United States.^[39]

According to his half brother, Giancana knew Guy Banister well, from Banister’s time as special agent in charge of the Chicago FBI office. Giancana helped tip Banister off to car thieves and QUOTE “Banister’s favorite enemy – Commies”.^[40] He also told his brother Chuck QUOTE “We got him set up with Marcello down in New Orleans when he took over the police department down there.”^[41] Later, after Banister left the police, Giancana said Banister QUOTE “[had] an agency down in New Orleans now and is workin on the Cuban exile thing with the CIA. Maheu and Banister work for the CIA all the time.”^[42] If what Giancana said about Banister is true, that’s a really big deal because Banister’s job with the New Orleans police was to investigate corruption and ties to organized crime within the police force.^[43]

Judith Campbell

In Episode 79, we talked about the relationships between Judith Campbell, Frank Sinatra, JFK and Sam Giancana. This affair is important because the end of it marked the end of the relationship between President Kennedy and anyone who was openly affiliated with La Cosa Nostra.  

Judith Campbell first met John F. Kennedy in February of 1960, when her boyfriend, Frank Sinatra, introduced her. From there, Campbell had an affair with JFK for about 2 years that included multiple meetings across the U.S. There are records of over 70 phone calls between Campbell and the White House in 1961 and 1962. There’s also a check written from Kennedy to Campbell for $2,000.^[44]

Aside from JFK stealing Frank Sinatra’s girlfriend, the Judith Campbell angle is even more interesting because during the last 6 months of her affair with the President, Campbell was simultaneously sleeping with Sam Giancana.^[45] According to Chuck Giancana, Sam said he was the one who introduced Campbell to JFK. And he made that introduction with the hopes that they would have a relationship that Giancana could somehow manipulate.^[46] That seems to be exactly what happened.

Once Giancana found out that Campbell was actually having an affair with the president, it was only then that he began to pursue her romantically. JFK had no idea about Campbell’s relationship with Giancana, other than that they were friends.^[47]

On March 22, 1962, Director Hoover had a private lunch with President Kennedy. We do not know for sure what was said. But, we know that Hoover was briefed on Campbell’s relationship with the mafia right before the meeting. And it’s likely that Hoover shared with the president that Judith Campbell was also romantically linked to Sam Giancana. The last phone call between JFK and Campbell was a few hours after the Hoover lunch.^[48]

The split with Campbell was followed by President Kennedy distancing himself from his former friend, and Sam Giancana’s friend, Frank Sinatra. When Kennedy was traveling in California, Sinatra offered him the use of his home, where Sinatra had a helicopter pad installed and an extra wing of the house built just so it could accommodate the president.^[49] Kennedy told his brother in law, who happened to be a member of the rat pack with Sinatra, Peter Lawford, QUOTE “I can’t stay there [with Sinatra] while Bobby is handling the Giancana investigation.”^[50]

President Kennedy giving Frank Sinatra the cold shoulder and pushing Judith Campbell out of the picture made it clear to the mafia, and to Giancana especially, that the Kennedy Administration would not be letting up its prosecution of organized crime any time soon.

Giancana Dead

On June 19, 1975, Sam Giancana was cooking sausage and peppers in his kitchen, when he was shot dead seven times with a silenced 22 caliber pistol. There were no signs of forced entry, so it has been speculated that Giancana must have known the killer.^[51]

The next day, June 20, 1975, Senator John Tower told the New York Times that the Church Committee had located Giancana shortly before he was murdered. But, that they had not had a chance to interview him. Senator Church confirmed that the committee had planned on calling Giancana as a witness.^[52]  Despite strong speculation that either the mafia or the CIA is the culprit,^[53] the murder of Sam Giancana remains unsolved.

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We continue looking at mafia leaders and focus our attention on Johnny Roselli, Santo Trafficante, and Carlos Marcello.

^[1] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 12; https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0012b.htm

^[2] Id. at 13.

^[3] Id. at 20. (From 73 in 1960 to 288 in 1963).

^[4] Id. at 15.

^[5] Id. at 16-17.

^[6] Id. at 19. Even J. Edgar Hoover seemed to take the mafia seriously by February of 1963, when he wrote to the Special Agent in Charge of the New York office to commend him on the office’s recent efforts against La Cosa Nostra.

^[7] Id. at 39-40.

^[8] Id. at 41.

^[9] Id. at 42.

^[10] Id. at 42.

^[11] Id. at 44. (In 1963, there was no mafia precedent for violence against a high level official that was approved by the Commission. The mafia went out of its way to avoid killing law enforcement officers or government officials at all. The closest thing to it was when Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer planned to kill then District Attorney, Thomas Dewey, the same one who ran against Harry Truman for president in 1948. When Flegenheimer asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, they said no. After Flegenheimer ignored the order and moved forward with trying to hire someone to kill Dewey, the Mafia killed Flegenheimer.)

^[12] Id. at 58.

^[13] Id. at 59. (Regarding Trafficante, an FBI Agent who was the second in command for organized crime intelligence operations told the HSCA QUOTE “I do feel that we were never really able to penetrate on him very clearly. Certainly, nothing like we were able to do in Chicago and New York….Regarding Marcello, the FBI agent said QUOTE “That was our biggest gap. You just couldn’t penetrate his kingdom, with the control in that state he has. With Marcello, you’ve got the one big exception in our work back then. There was just no way of penetrating that area. He was too smart.)

^[14] Id. at 61.

^[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa

^[16] Id.

^[17] David E. Scheim, The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, at 60.

^[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa

^[19] Id. (Lamar Waldron, The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination, at 110; https://www.moldea.com/Hoffa.html (In between running the Teamsters and dodging legal threats, Hoffa was also rumored to have been involved in the first plot to kill Castro between the CIA and the mafia – even before Johnny Roselli was brought in by Robert Maheu. Author Dan Moldea claims that there is strong evidence for the Hoffa plots. But, the only thing I could find in support of that was a Time Magazine article from June 1975 that says that the first CIA/mafia plot was in 1959 with Jimmy Hoffa and Buffalo boss, Russel Bufalino, among others.)

^[20] Scheim at 61.

^[21] Id. at 62.

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

^[23] Id.  

^[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky

^[25] Id.

^[26] Id.  

^[27] Id.  

^[28] Id.  

^[29] Id.  

^[30] HSCA Organized Crime Report at 25.

^[31] Solving JFK Podcast, Episode 72.

^[32] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky

^[33] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Giancana

^[34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Giancana

^[35] Id.  

^[36] Sam Giancana and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America, at 283.

^[37] Id. at 283-284.

^[38] Id. at 339.

^[39] Id. at 344.

^[40] Id. at 284.

^[41] Id. at 339.

^[42] Id. at 387.

^[43] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Banister

^[44] Scheim at 63.

^[45] Id.

^[46] Giancana at 374.

^[47] Id. at 390.

^[48] https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/18/archives/kennedy-friend-denies-plot-role-kennedy-friend-denies-role-in-plot.html

^[49] Scheim at 63.

^[50] Id.

^[51] https://themobmuseum.org/blog/chicago-outfit-boss-sam-giancana-killed-50-years-ago/

^[52] https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/21/archives/inquiry-had-planned-to-call-giancana.html

^[53] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01315R000300510028-6.pdf

According to the tell-all book written by Hoffa’s attorney, Frank Ragano, he carried a message from Hoffa to a meeting with two of Ragano’s other clients in New Orleans: Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante. The message was that Hoffa wanted them to kill Kennedy.^[53] Of course, assuming you believe Ragano, this is just a request from Hoffa. It doesn’t mean that Marcello or Trafficante actually did anything because of it. On the other hand, when Hoffa found out that the Teamster’s office had been closed in President Kennedy’s memory on the day of the assassination, he went into a rage and ordered it to be reopened.^[53]