The Sinatra Files (40 page)

JOHNNY: If he can’t deliver, I want him to tell me, “John, the load’s too heavy.”

GIANCANA: When he says he’s gonna do a guy a little favor, I don’t give a [expletive] how long it takes, he’s got to give you a little favor.

JOHNNY: He says he put your name, buddy, on—

GIANCANA: Aw, [expletive]. Out of a jillion names, he’s gonna remember that name, huh?

JOHNNY: What’s happened, Frank says to me, “Johnny, he ain’t being bothered.”

GIANCANA (pausing, taking a deep breath and then shouting): I got more [expletive] on my [expletive] than any other [expletive] in the country! Believe me when I tell you!

JOHNNY: I know it, Sam.

GIANCANA (still shouting): I was on the road with this broad, there must have been … twenty guys! They were next door, upstairs, downstairs, surrounded, all the way around! Get in a car, somebody picks you up. I lose that tail—boom!—I get picked up someplace else! Four or five cars … back and forth, back and forth!

JOHNNY: This was in Europe, right?

GIANCANA: Right here in Russia: Chicago, New York, Phoenix!

    
A few days later, Hoover summarized Giancana’s complaint in a memo to Attorney General Robert Kennedy
.

SUBJECT: GAMBLING ACTIVITIES
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

    Information has been received that persons connected with gambling activities in Las Vegas are becoming increasingly apprehensive concerning the intensity of investigations into gambling.

In this connection, information has been received indicating that Samuel M. Giancana, a hoodlum figure, has sought to enlist Frank Sinatra to act as an intermediary to intercede on Giancana’s behalf with the Attorney General. In this regard, consideration was allegedly given to making such overtures through the father of the Attorney General. However, Sinatra is reported to have rejected this idea.

Information has been received that Giancana complained bitterly concerning the intensity of investigation being conducted of his activities, and that he made a donation to the campaign of President Kennedy but was not getting his money’s worth. Giancana allegedly indicated he would not donate one penny toward any future campaign.

This is being furnished for your personal information.

    
On December 21, 1961, Johnny Roselli analyzed Sinatra’s relationship with the Kennedys in another talk with Moe Giancana—and obliquely suggested getting tough. (This transcript also was obtained from the National Archives.)

    ROSELLI: He’s got big ideas, Frank does, about being ambassador or something. You know, [Kennedy spokesman] Pierre Salinger and them guys, they don’t want him. They treat them
[sic]
like they treat a whore. You [expletive] them, you pay them and then they’re through. You got the right idea, Moe—go the other way: [expletive] everybody. Every [expletive], we’ll use them every [expletive] way we can. They only know one way. Now let them see the other side of you.

    
On January 4, 1962, Giancana was still grumbling about the situation. According to this edited transcript (also from the National Archives), he and an unknown associate discussed a law limiting appeals by criminal defendants
.

    
GIANCANA: Got a new law where we can’t go back and forth to the courts. Bobby Kennedy’s bright idea.

ASSOCIATE: How about his friend, and your friend, Sinatra?

GIANCANA: Aw, that [expletive]. Johnny Roselli is out there. I told John to tell him to forget about the whole thing and tell him to go [expletive]. Lying [expletive]. If I ever listen to that [expletive] again—if he [Kennedy] had lost this state here, he would have lost the election. But I figured with this guy [Sinatra], maybe we’ll be all right. I might have known this guy would [expletive] me.

ASSOCIATE: Well, at the time, it looks like you done the right thing, Sam. Nobody can say different, after it’s done.

GIANCANA: Well, when a [expletive] lies to you …

ASSOCIATE: What was his motive?

GIANCANA: Who knows.

    
A couple of weeks later, on the evening of January 31, 1962, Giancana discusses the matter with another associate, John D’Arco, a Democratic Chicago alderman, comparing President Kennedy at one point to somebody else who crossed him. (This edited transcript also comes from the National Archives.)

    GIANCANA: He’s like Kennedy: He’ll get what he wants out of ya’, but you won’t get anything out of him.

D’ARCO: That [expletive] Kennedy. Is Sinatra going to work on [him]? GIANCANA: No.

    D’ARCO: I heard that the president, when he is in California, is with Sinatra all the time.

GIANCANA: He can’t get change for a quarter.

D’ARCO: Sinatra can’t?

GIANCANA: That’s right. Well, they got the whip, and they’re in office, and that’s it, and they got the money behind ’em. So they’re gonna knock us guys out of the box and make us defenseless. They
figure if you got money, you got power; if you don’t have money, you don’t have power.

D’ARCO: That’s probably what it is. They’re trying to break you, and they don’t give a [expletive] what happens as long as they stop your income.

    
Bitterness about the Kennedy administration’s crackdown on alleged mobsters ran deep in Chicago’s Italian-American community. Later in this conversation, D’Arco discusses what Frank Annunzio, a Democratic ward committeeman and later a congressman, told an FBI agent questioning him about his relationship with Giancana. The agent was William Roemer, head of the FBI detail investigating Giancana
.

    D’ARCO: Frank [Annunzio] said, “And another thing, Roemer, … the irony of all this is that the Italian-Americans elected Kennedy, and this is the appreciation they get, by him harassing anybody and saying he’s a criminal if he’s Italian…. Why is it you ask about this man when this man was responsible for Kennedy being elected? Without this state, Kennedy was in a lot of trouble. They’d ask for a recount in a few other states and it would have shown that Kennedy was beat. If it wasn’t for the Italian voter in this city, Kennedy would never have got in. They went for him 100 percent, and this is what they get for it.”

    
During yet another talk, Giancana and his colleague Johnny Formosa were overheard discussing how to avenge the slight, according to this excerpt from Kelley’s book:

    FORMOSA: Let’s show ’em. Let’s show those asshole Hollywood fruitcakes that they can’t get away with it as if nothing’s happened. Let’s hit Sinatra. Or I could whack out a couple of those other guys. [Peter] Lawford and that [Dean] Martin, and I could take the nigger [Sammy Davis, Jr.] and put his other eye out.

    GIANCANA: No … I’ve got other plans for them.

    
Eddy M., the bugging subject mentioned in
chapter 5
, also was overheard talking about revenge in 1962, according to this transcript from the National Archives
.

    EDDY M.: I’d like to hit that Kennedy in the kisser with a bomb. If I could just hit Bob Kennedy in the kisser with a stink bomb, some kind of bomb that will explode, I would gladly go to the penitentiary for the rest of my life, believe me. Is that too much to ask?

    
By early 1962, Hoover had enough information to know that something was up between the president and Campbell. He quickly informed the attorney general and a top White House aide
.

SUBJECT: JOHN ROSELLI
ANTI-RACKETEERING

    With respect to the information previously received that Judith E. Campbell of Los Angeles was in telephonic contact with Evelyn Lincoln, the President’s Secretary, the following additional information has been received from the Los Angeles Office.

Campbell has associated with John Roselli, prominent West Coast hoodlum, who is on the second list of forty hoodlums designated to receive intensified investigation.

Campbell states she formerly was employed by Jerry Lewis Productions in a public relations capacity, but is presently a free lance artist. Campbell is divorced from William Campbell, a television producer.

Campbell, when interviewed by Bureau Agents, admitted meeting Sam Giancana, Chicago underworld figure, in Miami Beach, Florida, but refused to furnish names of acquaintances who introduced her to Giancana.

A review of her telephone toll calls reveals four calls in December, 1961, to the Palm Springs, California, residence of Frank Sinatra.

ACTION

1. If approved, that the attached letters be forwarded to the Attorney General and to P. Kenneth O’Donnell, Special Assistant to the President.

2. The Los Angeles Office is being instructed to vigorously pursue the investigation of Campbell to determine the exact nature of her relationship with Roselli and Giancana.

SUBJECT: JOHN ROSELLI
ANTI-RACKETEERING

    Information has been developed in connection with the investigation of John Roselli, one of the second group of forty hoodlums receiving concentrated attention, that he has been in contact with Judith E. Campbell.

A review of the telephone toll calls from Campbell’s Los Angeles residence discloses that on November 7 and 15, 1961, calls were made to Evelyn Lincoln, the President’s Secretary, at the White House.

The relationship between Campbell and Mrs. Lincoln or the purpose of these calls is not known.

Information has also been developed that Campbell has associated with Sam Giancana, a prominent Chicago underworld figure.

Campbell, a free-lance artist, is divorced from William Campbell, a television producer.

This information is being made available to Honorable P. Kenneth O’Donnell, Special Assistant to the President.

You will be advised of all significant developments in this matter.

    
Now it was clear that President Kennedy was consorting with two people with mob affiliations—Sinatra and Campbell. The potential for a disastrous scandal must have been obvious to Hoover and the Kennedys, especially given what the FBI had been hearing in recent months about Giancana
and Roselli. The two men were involved with CIA operatives in a plot to assassinate the president’s principal foreign policy nightmare, Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The public wouldn’t find out about the plot until years later, and it has never been known for sure whether it was a rogue operation or an authorized undertaking
.

In 1975, a Senate committee headed by Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, conducted a sweeping investigation of reports that the CIA had been involved in assassination attempts. Its report described the Castro plot in meticulous detail (though it didn’t name Campbell, discretely describing her only as “a close friend of President Kennedy.”) The excerpts that follow have been extensively condensed and edited to delete repetition and extraneous detail
.

    In August 1960, the CIA took steps to enlist members of the criminal underworld with gambling syndicate contacts to aid in assassinating Castro. Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Director of the Office of Security, recalled that Richard Bissell, CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans and the man in charge of CIA’s covert action directorate, asked him to locate someone who could assassinate Castro.

Edwards and the Chief of the Operational Support Division of the Office of Security [name withheld] decided to rely on Robert A. Maheu to recruit someone “tough enough” to handle the job. Maheu was an ex-FBI agent who had entered into a career as a private investigator in 1954.

Sometime in late August or early September 1960, the Support Chief approached Maheu about the proposed operation. As Maheu recalls the conversation, the Support Chief asked him to contact John Roselli, an underworld figure with possible gambling contacts in Las Vegas, to determine if he would participate in a plan to “dispose” of Castro. The Support Chief testified that Maheu was told to offer money, probably $150,000, for Castro’s assassination. At first Maheu was reluctant to become involved in the operation because it might interfere with his relationship with his new client, Howard Hughes. He finally agreed to participate because he felt that he owed the Agency a commitment.

Roselli introduced Maheu to two individuals on whom Roselli intended to rely: “Sam Gold,” who would serve as a “back-up man,” and “Joe,” whom “Gold” said would serve as a courier to Cuba and make arrangements there.

The Support Chief testified that he learned the true identities of his associates one morning when Maheu called and asked him to examine the “Parade” supplement to the
Miami Times
. An article on the Attorney General’s ten-most-wanted criminals list revealed that “Sam Gold” was Momo Salvatore Giancana, a Chicago-based gangster, and “Joe” was Santos Trafficante, the Cosa Nostra chieftain in Cuba. The Support Chief reported his discovery to Edwards, but did not know whether Edwards reported this fact to his superiors. Maheu recalled that it was Giancana’s job to locate someone in Castro’s entourage who could accomplish the assassination.