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Immerse yourself in the captivating world of Mafia Spies with Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective turned podcaster, as he welcomes special guest Thomas Maier, author of “Mafia Spies.”
Thomas Maier provides unique insights into the JFK Assassination document release, offering a glimpse into the laborious process of sifting through countless pages with extensive redaction.
Explore the intricate web of connections linking the JFK assassination, the Castro-CIA plot, and the involvement of notorious mobsters like Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana.
Journey into the covert operations conducted in Florida, where figures such as Santo Trafficante, head of the Miami mob, played a pivotal role.
Gain a deeper understanding of the motivations driving Castro’s rise to power, the mob’s lucrative interests in Cuba’s thriving casinos, and the subsequent tensions with the U.S. government.
Get an exclusive preview of the upcoming Paramount Plus docu-series, featuring expert commentary, gripping historical recreations, and colorful characters like Antoinette Giancana, offering a multifaceted perspective on this enthralling chapter of American history.
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Transcript
0:00]Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, glad to have you back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective turned podcaster, and I have a guest today and a show that I know all you guys in Chicago are going to be eating up and sharing with all your friends and telling people about because, as we know, there’s this It’s much discussed and many different theories about the murder of JFK and the mob involved and and the plot with Castro and Giancana and Johnny Roselli and and all these things. And I have a man, Thomas Mayer, who got all those JFK, that whole document dump that was released in the last few years and went through all that. And he created a book, Mafia Spies, which is also going to be a Paramount Plus docu-series. So you got to get Paramount Plus app to see that docu-series, I believe. But welcome, Thomas. Thank you, Gary. Thank you for having me. In fact, it comes out July 16th on Paramount Plus. So look forward to it. I mentioned the JFK document dump.
[1:11]Tell us a little bit about what was that like? Like it was how many pages was that? It was just tons and tons of documents, much of which was had a lot of redaction. So that had to be really laborious to go through that. Right. Well, you know, it’s kind of like the little kid that has a pile of horse dung in there and said, you know, there must be a pony in there somewhere.
[1:37]And, you know, there was no smoking gun, if you will, about JFK’s assassination directly. There was no surprises as to who may have done it besides Lee Harvey Oswald, who clearly was the assassin of JFK. But what it did provide was something that was really the missing link in the Warren Commission report, which was the fact that when the Warren Commission looked at, was charged with investigating JFK’s murder, Alan Dulles was put on the commission. He was the former head of the CIA who had been fired by JFK. And ironically, it was Bobby Kennedy who suggested Dulles go on that commission. But Dulles never disclosed to the other commission members that the CIA had the secret, top secret plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. And even though Castro, shortly before JFK’s assassination, had actually said to journalists that, I know that they’re trying to kill me, I know that the CIA, I know that the American government is trying to kill me, and two can play that game. So you better cut it out, essentially. Otherwise, you may pay the consequences.
[3:00]And yet the Warren Commission never looked at really the whole Castro-CIA plot in their deliberations. And so these papers that were released 2017, 2018, they really provided for me a lot of detail about what the CIA was doing in that regards to kill Castro. One of the biggest surprises to me is essentially that we were running a war in Florida, even after the Bay of Pigs, even after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was in 61 and 62, respectively. But the CIA conducted a big operation in Florida, right by the Miami Zoo. And that’s where they were training Cuban exiles and our two characters in Mafia Spies, Johnny Roselli and the Chicago crime boss.
[4:02]Sam Giancana, who were directly involved in the plot to kill Castro. They were involved with the training down in Florida, particularly Johnny Roselli. And so those documents provided a lot of granular detail about what was going on. The other thing that it provided to me were some of the internal memos of the CIA and the FBI and other investigators involved in this, narcotic squads and such, that said that –.
[4:36]It looked as though there were a number of informants in the Florida area who were sympathetic to Castro. And one of those people may indeed have been one of the people directly involved in the plot to kill Castro. His name was Santo Traficante, and he was the head of the mob in Miami. He was connected with Meyer Lansky. And our two gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, considered him to be friendly. In fact, they brought him into the plot to kill Castro. But whether or not Santo Traficante was a double agent is something that when you look at these documents, it raises the question that he was double dealing, if you will, in this whole story. That didn’t surprise me. You know, he stayed down in Cuba and they put him in jail for several weeks, I believe, right after Castro took over. And then all of a sudden he mysteriously ends up back in Florida. So that’s always like, oh, how do you get out?
[5:39]And, you know, in Mafia Spies, there’s three clips from The Godfather and they talk about drug trafficking in The Godfather famously. Well, I think that was a big motivation with Santo Traficante. There was a lot of money to be made on the trafficking, and he needed the cooperation of Castro and that government because a lot of drugs went through the Caribbean there. And so I think that was a big factor. So in the Paramount Plus docuseries, then, like, for example, where will it start? Well, let’s start with Castro and JFK and their kind of battle of wills around the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban thing.
[6:24]Well, I think particularly because we’re aware that most people, a large part of the audience, wasn’t even alive when this happened. So it begins with understanding just what a shock it was to have Castro take over Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, and how much of a threat that posed in the minds of President Eisenhower and then President Kennedy. The ailing premier of Cuba, Fidel Castro, emerges from his convalescence to address a youth congress and to announce that Cuba is expropriating United States-owned property in that country. Bear in mind, in the late 50s, we had won World War II. We were dominant. For a while, we were the only ones with the atomic bomb. But the Soviets, who were once our ally in World War II, very soon became our rivals. and there was the Cold War that went on for 25, 30 years. And we almost had a nuclear war with Russia.
[7:35]Over the attempts to put nuclear missiles in Cuba. This all took place during the early part of the Kennedy administration. And so we try to explain, at first set it up, and then the reason why the United States wanted to get rid of Castro, and also we explain why the mob wanted to get rid of Castro. You know, the mob ran this very lucrative casinos down in Havana. In fact, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana ran a casino called the San Sushi on the outskirts of Havana. And a lot of entertainers would come down there. You know, bear in mind, before Las Vegas, Havana was the place that during the wintertime in particular, people from the east, places like Kansas City, Chicago, but all in up and down the eastern seaboard. They would go down to cuba las vegas really had not developed quite yet the way we know las vegas these days and so there was a lot of money to be made by the mob in cuba and when they were thrown out by castro they were furious they wanted them dead and then when castro embraces the russians.
[8:53]The U.S. Government wanted Castro dead. Yeah, really. You know, I was reading your book when they first were approaching, is it Bob Mayhew, Howard Hughes’ chief of security? Right. And he said, I don’t want to get involved with these guys. But in the end, he did. So tell us a little story from your book and then from the Paramount Plus. How did they depict Robert Mayhew? Yeah, oh, he’s in there. You know, Paramount paid some extra money so that we could have recreations in docu-series. So there’s a number of journalists and historians. I’m in it pretty prominently as the author of the book. But there’s journalists like Chris Matthews, Tim Weiner. There’s a number of other historians, experts about this time period. We even have, by the way, Sam Jean Connery’s oldest daughter, Antoinette Jean Connery, who arguably is really funny in the show. She is a colorful character. We all know her. In the mob fan world, we know Antoinette. So that’ll be great. Well, you know, let me just tell you real quickly a story about her. When I first interviewed her, I said, Antoinette, I…
[10:20]I know somebody that you know. And she said, who’s that? And I said, Tom Renner. I worked for a long time at Newsday, a newspaper on the investigative team at Newsday. And a fellow named Tom Renner had written a book with Antoinette Giancana called Mafia Princess. And that was a big TV show in the 1980s. I remember when it came out. I was at Newsday. And it was a big deal. It starred Tony Kurnis as Sam Giancana. And such but i said i know tommy renner too and when i’m on the phone with her she said oh tommy renner what i remember about tommy is he looked just like my first boyfriend.
[11:05]And she was still in love actually she was still kind of had the hots if you will for johnny roselli and she actually had that in the show so she adds a lot of color and uh to the The whole documentary, she’s really a great character. So you did reenactments of like Robert Mayhew getting hold of Roselli and getting a connection to Roselli and then Roselli getting hold of Giancana and saying, hey, we got this opportunity. Is that kind of how it plays out in your reenactments? Absolutely. Robert Mayhew, as you mentioned, was working for Howard Hughes, who was then the wealthiest man in the United States. He was also a big government contractor. He would build a lot of different military things for the U.S. government.
[11:56]Mayhew was the cutout, is what they call it in the CIA terms. He was the buffer, the intermediary, go-between, whatever you want to call it. But the guys in the CIA who were running it, Allen Dulles.
[12:09]Um other richard bissell who was the number two involved in this story uh they went to ivy league schools they went they joined the cia uh to kind of travel the world it was a fascinating to be a spy and being intelligence it was fundamentally about intelligence it was gathering intelligence mafia spies is about where the cia went into the assassination business what is known as covert operations. And this is really the big move by the CIA into that world. So these guys from the Ivy League, they didn’t want to get their hands bloodied and dirty. So they needed somebody to do the dirty work for them in getting rid of Castro. And so they asked Bob Mayhew, who was a contractor for the CIA, former FBI agent, they said, do you know somebody who could do something thing like this for us and as you mentioned he kind of may you who went to holy cross i went to i went to jesuit school for them as well uh he went home that night and he examined his conscience and basically decided yeah i could find somebody to kill these this guy castro for you and his name is johnny roselli and so uh there was a big meeting that was set up at the fountain blue hotel in in Miami, between the CIA.
[13:39]Bob Mayhew as the go-between, and the mobsters, Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, and as I mentioned, a third gangster, Santo Traficante, who was kind of there partly because he spoke Spanish and he could serve as the translator. So it was this big meeting at the Fountain Blue, and that was the first meeting where everybody agreed to work together to kill Castro.
[14:07]Interesting. Was there any quid pro quo? Did, uh, was this, did the CIA, did you find that in the documents? Had they, did they actually write it down that they promised them anything? Or, uh, was it just, were they just working with the mob guys? Was the outfit guys just working on the come? Shall we say where, well, they’ll owe me now, you know, that’s a big deal in the mob. Now you owe me. I did this for you. I own you. So you remember the details or anything that documents about that? Oh, yeah, sure. There was a lot of testimony. There was later on hearings about this in the Senate. So I took advantage not only of the AFK assassination papers that were disclosed, but there had been court records and particularly Senate and House testimony. And so the two gangsters, Roselli and, and, uh, Gene Connor, they were offered $150,000, which is a lot of money back then, uh, was being over a million dollars today. And, and Roselli said, no, no.
[15:11]You don’t have to pay us. We’ll do this. And Johnny gave the impression that he was a patriot and that he wanted to do this. Now, of course, the mob wanted to get rid of Castro because they wanted to get back into Cuba and open up their casinos once again and rake in all the millions of dollars that those casinos provided. Divided but um there was also the sense that they were getting a get out of jail free card if you know when you play monopoly that card get out of jail free that that in other words they felt well if we help the cia kill castro the government is going to really owe us and they’re going to stay off our backs and in fact a lot of the feeling was that if we help the kennedy campaign which which was strongly supported by Gene Conner’s friend, Frank Sinatra. In fact, Frank Sinatra sang songs for the campaign and such.
[16:11]That if we help the Kennedy campaign, that somehow the Kennedys will get off our back. They’ll go easy on us. And just the opposite happened. And Bob Kennedy came in and became the attorney general. And the war against the mafia really started in earnest under Robert Kennedy. So the expectations of our two gangsters were quickly shown to be wrong. Really, I know there’s a film clip out there on YouTube of Bobby Kennedy and Sam Giancana at a hearing. And Bobby Kennedy, it’s like it’s personal. He’s like making fun of him to his face and saying, well, you’re not a baby, are you, Mr. Giancana? And it was like, oh, my God, this is personal. Only little girls giggle. That’s it. That’s it.
[17:04]It’s quite a dramatic moment. And that’s in Mafia Spies, the Paramount show that’s coming up in July. Yeah, you know, it was fun to go through the film research. There’s a lot of film out there, news reports, when Gene Conner was murdered and such. There’s a lot of different film clips. So it was really fun to go through that.
[17:28]Now I’ve got a question for you, a little bit off the wall. I was doing some research on a guy named Richard Cain, who was really close to Sam Giancone, had an Italian last name, but he had adopted an Americanized American or American name. And he had been a Chicago policeman and he supposedly disappeared for a while and was down training people with the anti Castro revolutionaries. Did that play? Does that play in your story? Oh, yeah. It’s it’s a pretty prominent part of my book. Book um so much that you can put into a six-hour documentary so we were aware of that but you know richard kane is not that much in the tv show but he’s a lot in the book okay uh he was a dirty chicago cop but he was very convincing uh the attorney general in illinois uh saw richard kane as a super cop and he had all these connections, but he actually was a double agent for mobster Sam Giancana. And he also spoke Spanish. He also approached the CIA to talk to him.
[18:38]And my book explores the fact that Giancana was not only involved in trying to kill Castro with Johnny Roselli through the CIA, but it was almost as if he had his own operation going on as well with Richard Cain. And so I explore that. And in fact, Richard Cain goes to Mexico later on with Sam Giancana, and Richard Cain winds up getting murdered. And the reason why he gets murdered, I think, is kind of is explored in Mafia Spies. Johnny Roselli, he really he actually did some took some action moves himself. Do you explore that in your docu series? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Johnny Roselli really goes for it. You know, Sam Giancana was the head of the mob in Chicago. There was a lot of pressure. What are you doing? Why are you in Las Vegas? Why are you in Florida? And I think most people, even Chicago, had no idea to the extent that Sam was down in Florida. They thought he was on vacation.
[19:42]With Roselli, though, he really got involved in the training of the Cuban exiles. This was all going on in southern Florida in the Keys. They would go out late at night in boats that were financed by the CIA. Right.
[20:00]And essentially, they would meet other spies and other would-be assassins in Cuba, providing them armaments and such. But what was remarkable throughout this whole story was how much Castro was able to anticipate had been tipped off by informants somewhere that he had so that he knew when they were coming for him often. And so there’s a scene in my book in which Johnny Roselli, the pitch black in the middle of the night, going that 90 miles from the Florida Keys down to Florida. And when they get to the certain part of the shoreline of Cuba, there’s all these boats, these Cuban boats that are waiting for them, these security people. And they start firing at them. And in fact, the boat that Roselli is in starts leaking because it’s been hit with fire. And he winds up having to jump out of his boat into another boat, and they escape. But there’s a number of different incidents in Mafia Spies like that, where they try to provide weapons to kill Castro. And yet, somehow, almost like that game Whack-A-Mole, amusement park ride, or the game where you try to hit the mole, they try to hit Castro, and they never quite got him. He died in his sleep as an old man.
[21:22]Interesting. So, uh, these Chicago outfit guys that did they, uh, they were, you know, you say Traficante was there. And really, if you go to another city in mafia protocol, you have to get the permission of that boss. And so now did Traficante, did he have people, did he assign people to take any more action with Roselli or Roselli just kind of act on his own with the Cubans and I assume Richard Cain because they would have known each other.
[21:54]Well, they were supposed to work in concert with a commission. You know, back then in the 50s and 60s, there was even a question about if there was a mafia. In fact, there’s still some people who wonder whether or not there’s a mafia. But there was a national commission, and that was exposed with a big meeting in upstate New York.
[22:15]And so theoretically, Gene Conn and Roselli were supposed to tell the other members of that commission what they were up to. They never did. And I think Traficante convinced the other members of the commission later on that he was just asked to help out as a courtesy that he did. So somehow he sweet-talked his way out of that. But yeah, I think there was a big resentment, particularly about Giancana, who was told, don’t become like Al Capone in taking over the Chicago mob. He was told by the elders of the mob, don’t bring a lot of attention to yourself. They chose him because they thought he was a suburban mobster out there married with three teenage daughters who sandwiched mower’s own lawn and stuff like that. So they thought he would keep a real low profile profile. Boy, were they wrong about that. Boy, were they wrong. Boy, were they wrong. What happened with- Taking a famous singer on the newspapers, front page. The reason why it happened, Gary, is that same wife dropped dead screaming at the kids, actually specifically screaming at Antoinette, who’s doing a TV show.
[23:37]I’m the father of three sons. And so as any parent, I’m sure you’ve lost your cool and bring your kids at some point. And she dropped dead. And this was some, Sam Giancana adored his wife. That kind of Madonna whore syndrome, they say. In other words, guys who idolize their wives and put them up on pedestals. And of course, on the side, they have girlfriends. girlfriends but when his wife dropped dead sam was kind of a lost soul of a lot about that and he started hanging out more and more with johnny roselli out in las vegas and that’s where he he begins a relationship with the singer phyllis mcguire who’s a very popular singer she’s part of the mcguire sisters and he also winds up hanging out with sinatra so all this attention that he’s getting in the press, it’s driving the elders back in Chicago crazy. It’s exactly what they told them not to do. And the reason why they did it is because they were so burned by Al Capone, who was kind of like a John Gotti, a guy who courted the press, liked seeing his name in the papers. That was very counterproductive to the mob’s secret desires. So that becomes a big factor in Mafia spies.
[25:01]Now, do you depict Tony Ocardo, who was kind of like the boss behind the boss in Chicago, kind of pulling those kinds of strings, who stayed way back, and Paul Rica, because they would have been the ones that pulled the strings on this getting rid of Giancana and promoting Iupa. Yeah, Paul Rica was somebody who had taken over the Chicago mob. It was called The Outfit by the newspaper. Thank you, Tony Ocardo. His nickname was Joe Batters, and that’s because his preferred method of killing people was with a baseball bat. But it was Ricardo who was really a quiet mobster who wanted to make money. He lived out in the suburbs in kind of a mansion-like house. But there was an incident that’s recalled in Mafia Spies where two local hoods decide they’re going to start ripping off homes in the neighborhood where Ocardo lived.
[26:02]And so to leave a message with the rest of the young hoods in Chicago, they got a hold of these two guys. And that’s recalled in some of the documents and some of the books that have been written about this. To enforce his power, Sam Giancana had some psychopathic killers in his employ. There was one in particular who essentially had like a torture chamber in the basement of his bungalow in Chicago. There’s some horrific murders that took place at the behest of Sam Giancana. And I do delve into this. You know, again, the book is Mafia Spy. So it’s the two themes of the mafia. I really explore a lot about the mafia and the operation of the Chicago mob and such. But it’s also very much a spy book as well. The tradecraft that the spy world uses to use a cutout and the different ways of passing information and clandestine ways of getting back and forth to Cuba and all that. So in some of your reenactment stuff, do you go through some of that in the documentary? Oh, absolutely. Well, I was talking about that meeting between the CIA in the mob at the Fountain Blue Hotel.
[27:26]Some of that is recalled in the recreations. You know, we also meet in the show and certainly in my book even more so a character named Judy Campbell. And I think with the perspective of history, We kind of see her in a way, I think you can see her almost as a Monica Lewinsky. In other words, a young woman who, even like Stormy Daniels to some extent, I guess, but more so like Lewinsky, gets involved with older, powerful men.
[27:59]She is a woman who was married for a short time to an actor living in Hollywood, and Johnny Roselli meets her, and he winds up introducing her to Frank Sinatra, and Judy Judy Campbell has an affair with Frank Sinatra, who in turn introduces Judy to a young senator by the name of John F. Kennedy. And that’s in Las Vegas, the Rat Pack, which is the famous group of entertainers that Sinatra is the head of. One of the members is JFK’s brother-in-law, Peter Lawford. And Judy Campbell is introduced to Jack Kennedy in March of 1960.
[28:45]And they begin what ultimately becomes a two-year affair that continues when JFK is in the White House. Later on, Giancana courts Judy Campbell, and it all comes to the attention of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, who heads the Bureau. And he’s outraged by it, but he’s also a character that kept a file on all of the powerful politicians in Washington. And so now he had a real compromising evidence on his own boss, the president of the United States. And so that’s played out. And that’s a big factor in Mafia spies.
[29:29]Oh, interesting. That would, uh, everybody kind of knows, you know, the basics of that. Those of us of a certain age know the basics of that, uh, menage a trois, if you will. Not exactly. It’s not the correct word exactly, but how she slept with all these different guys. And she was like the Forrest Gump of the mafia back then.
[29:49]A party girl is what they call it. You know, she came from a fairly affluent Southern California Catholic family. But, you know, these were very powerful men. You’re hanging out with Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas. Come on, who wasn’t going to do something like that? But she gets involved in waters that are much deeper than I ever anticipated. And so she claims that she was a conduit for information between Kennedy and Giancana. That’s not really proven. That’s one of the things that she claims. But what is very clear is that her phone calls to the White House were recorded in the logs. And so that’s a matter of definitive evidence there. The other thing is, I go pretty far with Judy Campbell, too, because later on, after the assassination of JFK, Judy Campbell is very upset about it. It looks like she’s suicidal. She’s holed up in a hotel room. And the person who comes to the rescue for her is Johnny Roselli. And whether or not Campbell claimed that she got pregnant by JFK, and actually that was in Campbell’s obituary in the New York Times, that claim, believe it or not.
[31:14]But how Johnny, who, even though he’s kind of a Casanova character who had dated all these actresses, he really did love women in his own way. And he was surprisingly tender to Judy Campbell. So I think my book, Mafia Spies, does provide a little bit of a different perspective on the Judy Campbell episode in this story and makes her come more alive and I think more understandable, particularly in the context of like a Monica Lewinsky. In other words, a young woman who gets involved in a world that’s much where the waters are much deeper and swifter than she ever imagined. Yeah, they were much deeper and swifter than she could ever imagine. That’s a good way to put that.
[32:08]Now, did you did you find in the papers and did your does a docu series or your book? Does it depict? How the CIA then started distancing themselves from the mob, from the outfit guy, because they had to at some point in time, they had to start backing off and distancing themselves until finally they’re going to be called in front of for a hearing to investigate all this thing. And of course, that’s where we know that’s the beginning of the end and it will be the end of that hearing. So how’d you deal with that? Oh, what tangled web we weave. First we practiced to deceive.
[32:46]And so this secret plot to kill Castro remained a secret for the better part of 12, 15 years until the mid-1970s after the Watergate affair. fair. There was more and more interest about what was going on at the CIA. There was a Senate committee that was set up to do this. But also, Johnny Roselli was getting in trouble himself. He was caught up in a card game, a high-stakes gambling card game at the Friars Club, where he had become a member of the Friars Club in Beverly Hills.
[33:28]He was sponsored by his good pal, rank sinatra uh and and but there there was a phony a card game that that was set up so that somebody peeking through the roof through a hole in the roof was able to look at the cards of the other players and the fbi got wind of that and they wound up prosecuting roselli and and he’s fearful now of going to jail and and then they find out that johnny roselli that that’s not his real name uh his real name is filipo sacco and filipo sacco was a young as a young lad had uh immigrated illegally to united states from uh from italy as i said and so now the feds wanted to deport johnny this is how they to some extent got rid of some of the gangsters and upset the apple cart for the mob by threatening to deport him this was something that johnny feared he knew He knew that that would be the end for him if he wound up having to go back to Italy.
[34:34]And so he intimated that he knew inside information, not only was he willing to talk about the plot to kill Castro, but that he knew about the JFK assassination. And so he had testified somewhat about the CIA plot against Castro, but they were going to call him back to tell them what he knew, may have known about the JFK assassination. And it’s that point where Johnny wound up murdered.
[35:07]Well, so that’s how they distanced themselves from Mr. Roselli. And then Sam falls sometime around this time, Sam will fall. And I think that was probably an internal thing in Chicago because they were just tired of all the heat that he was bringing down. Well, I think that’s the common view of the FBI who were working in Chicago, a guy named Bill Romer. And I think that’s the view of a lot of the cops in Chicago. I know Antoinette Gene kind of disagrees with the suspect that’s often mentioned. Butch Blasey was his name, another Chicago hoodlum.
[35:49]Antoinette thinks it’s the CIA who killed her father, which I don’t think that’s the case. But what I do think is the case is, and this is where I differ, I think Traficante had something to do with it. Why do I think that? Well, Sam Giancana was subpoenaed to testify before the Senate about what he knew about this whole thing.
[36:11]And he had never said anything, unlike Roselli, who was kind of leaking things. Um and there were two investigators who came to chicago to kind of prep sam before he testified and then that night that same night uh he had dinner with one of his daughters uh and some friends and they went home around 10 o’clock at night and sam in his house at oak park which is the sub a suburb of chicago he had kind of like his own man cave down in the the basement it was It was a furnished space, and he had a little place where he could cook himself a little meal of sausages and peppers and such. And somehow that back door, according to Antoinette, was kept open, and an assassin came in and fired five, six shots into Giancana. Um and the the most of those shots were shot around his mouth which was a very clear-cut message that anybody who talks like this anybody who’s willing to talk about what they know it’s going to wind up just like sam so the theory was that it was local and that he had the upset the apple cart he had upset the apple cart and i wouldn’t be surprised.
[37:35]That tony ocardo knew uh that there was going to be something that happened but when the assassin whoever it was that killed uh killed gene khan jumped in the car and apparently uh they could hear sirens from the cops or whatever but the murder weapon itself with the silencer about a mile away uh this the assassin in a car threw it out from the window and they later found the gun that had killed gene kana and that that gun traces back to Tampa which is the home territory of traffic ante and so I’m more in the the belief by some investigators who believe that that traffic ante had something to do with getting rid of Sam gene kana you know just one other aside that always has intrigued me i must admit uh the uh when they went through sam giancana’s uh personal belongings after he was murdered in chicago in his desk they found a a framed a framed photograph of sam giancana and pope pius the 12th exactly how the hell did that happen and apparently there There was a time period when Sam was on the lam.
[38:59]Where they were trying to subpoena him for various different investigations that were going on in the States.
[39:05]And he went throughout Europe, and he somehow arranged to see the Pope in Rome, a private audience with the Pope. And there’s a photograph.
[39:15]This was recorded in Time magazine when Sam was murdered. And that has always intrigued me. In fact, I’ve asked Antoinette about that photograph. I don’t know where that photograph, I’d love to see that photograph of Sam Jean Kahn, the Pope, but I have my suspicions about who may have helped get him into the Vatican. There are very few Americans who had the clout to do something like that. And one of them had a big building in Chicago and was related to a very powerful politician.
[39:51]And so I think I’ve left enough clues there. But I wouldn’t be surprised that he, who had a really good friend, who was the gatekeeper of the Vatican, had something to do with it. But we’ll never know on that score. All right. Knowing somebody and then maybe making a nice donation somewhere might get you into the Pope. I don’t know. I shouldn’t be so cynical. Well, there is a mention. The person that I’m talking about, at the JFK Library, there is a mention of a $25,000 donation. And it’s not clear. It has to… It’s it’s just not clear exactly what that 25 G’s was all about. But you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be much of a fixer, a gangster if you left it too many anything but a few clues.
[40:44]And, you know, right after he got killed, that guy you were talking about with the torture chamber in his bungalow base was mad. Sam DeStefano and he got killed and Richard Kane got killed around this time. I mean, they took out everybody that was close to Sam Giancana in a short period of time. So it was a house cleaning. Well, you know, Gary, I want to confess something that previous to writing Mafia Spies, most of the books that I’ve written have been about America in our time. One of the books that I wrote was a book called Masters of Sex about the sex researchers. Oh, yeah. Masters and Johnson. So that was all about love and sex.
[41:27]And so by doing Mafia Spies, I wanted to go on the absolute other human spectrum of emotions away from love and sex to all American violence here. I mean, we’re talking about the Mad Sams, the psychopaths. We have the calculated mobster killings in terms of power and who’s going to run things. We saw that in The Godfather as an example. But there’s also, the book itself is about state-sanctioned assassination. It’s about state violence in the context of possible nuclear violence and such. So Mafia Spies, in many ways, is an examination of violence, all-American violence. What could be more all-American than that, unfortunately? And so I, but I really wanted to explore it. And so there’s a lot of murderers in, in a lot of active verbs, uh, in Mafia’s eyes.
[42:31]Good. I really look forward to finishing your book. I hadn’t got about fourth of the way through it when we got this set up, but I’m going to, I’m hooked now. And then I really want to watch this paramount plus series guys, you guys out there, you’ve been talking on Facebook and the podcast group about a Chicago outfit movie. Well, here you go. Here is a movie that is going to has a docu series. Actually, that’s going to have really high quality reenactments going to be like you’re watching a real movie. I’m sure, because I know these guys do a good job in their reenactments and it’s going to have Tony Ocardo. It’s going to have Sam Giancana. Johnny Roselli is going to have all the main players in the 60s and around this one central situation that is well documented. And our friend Thomas Mayer has gone into it in great depth. And so I really highly encourage you to get this book and make sure you tune into this Mafia, this Paramount Plus series, Mafia Spies.
[43:31]Thomas, you got any last stories to say about this? Yeah. Well, yeah, there’s three clips from The Godfather that are in Mafia Spies. It’s produced by Paramount, which produced also The Godfather. And the person who plays Johnny Roselli, the actor, he was in The Sopranos. So I think we have a real gangland lineage here in Mafia Spies. It airs July 16th on Paramount Plus, and then later on the following week on Showtime. So I think there’s plenty of opportunity to watch it. Six hours. It’s loaded with stuff. I’ve seen it all. It’s terrific. It really is. It’s a great series. But the thing that I think is where it’s really different is also that a lot of documentaries, they’re almost like term papers and such. I think what’s different with Mafia Spies is we follow the two gangsters as the window into this very complicated world. So it’s always through the window of Sam Giancana and particularly Johnny Roselli that we tell this story. And therefore, I think it’s a lot more understandable. It pulls things together in an understandable way. And so that’s why I think Mafia Spies on Paramount is going to be so well received.
[44:52]All right. Thomas Mayer, I really appreciate you coming on and telling us about this docu-series. And I know my Chicago guys are going to be holding their breath until they can get this movie on TV.
[45:06]Thanks a lot, Thomas. Thank you so much, Gary. Well, guys, be sure and tune into that. I know I’m going to. I’ve got Paramount Plus. You may have to get the app, and if you’ve got Showtime, you’ll be able to get it on Showtime. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles, so watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street. And if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website and get that hotline number. And, you know, hand-in-hand with PTSD is drug and alcohol addiction. If you have a problem with that, former Gambino soldier, Anthony Ruggiano has a hotline on his website and on his YouTube page. And he also is a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida. So you might have Anthony Ruggiano as your drug and alcohol counselor. Wouldn’t that be cool? Well, maybe not so cool, but because you’re in rehab, but anyhow, I really appreciate y’all tuning in. And Thomas, I really thank you for coming on the show. I really, I was so excited when I got the message from your publicist that you wanted to do the podcast. Gary, thank you so much. Mafia Spies, the book is now available, comes out today, as a matter of fact, and the TV show will be on July 16th on Paramount+. All right. Thank you.