Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (36 page)

But money talks, and Joe Kennedy had plenty of dough.

Papa Joe knew Curley had cash flow problems, so he convinced Curley that he should step down as congressman and run for mayor of Boston, again. Curley protested, saying he had no money to properly run a mayoral campaign. Papa Joe said, “No problem.” And he gave Curley a reported $100,000 to run for mayor, and he even paid the salary of Curley's campaign manager. The end result: Curley was elected mayor of Boston for the fourth time, and in 1946, John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress.

JFK served in Congress for eight years, and in 1954, Papa Joe thought it was time to implement step number two in his son's quest for the Presidency. With his father's monetary backing, JFK was elected U.S. Senator from the state of Massachusetts. In 1956, JFK made a run at the Democratic nomination for President, but was beaten back by wily veteran Adlai Stevenson. That turned out to be a blessing for JFK, since incumbent President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was popular with the people. Ike won his re-election over Stevenson in a landslide (59 percent to 41 percent). JFK was certain to have suffered the same fate as Stevenson did at this early point in his career

Everything was going fine for Papa Joe as far as JFK was concerned, but his third eldest son, Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, was also making a name for himself and not in a way that pleased Papa Joe.

In February 1957, Bobby Kennedy (RFK) was appointed the chief counsel for the McClellan Hearings into organized crime. The main problem was, the people that brash Bobby was trying to put in prison were the same men Papa Joe had worked hand-in-hand with for the past 30-something years. Men
like Sam Giancana from Chicago and Carlos Marcello from New Orleans were tight with Papa Joe, and they were aghast and more than a little puzzled as to why Joe's son Bobby was pursuing them so relentlessly.

Papa Joe told his son Bo
bby to lay off his old pals. But Bobby, snarky and headstrong, would have none of that. Papa Joe knew he needed men like Giancana and Marcello to “influence” the next Presidential election at the polls, if JFK had any chance of being elected.

In 1960, through actor/singer Frank Sinatra, who was
friendly with JFK's brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford, Papa Joe reached out to old friend John Roselli, who in turn set up a clandestine meeting with Giancana, who basically ran the city of Chicago, if not the entire state of Illinois. By this time, JFK was running for the Democratic nomination for President, and if he got the nomination, his opponent would certainly be Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's Vice President for the past eight years. Papa Joe did his market research, and he knew it was imperative for JFK to win the West Virginia Primary Election to get the Democratic nomination, and then win the state of Illinois in the general Presidential election, if JFK ever got that far.

In early 1960, Papa Joe met with Roselli, Sinatra, and Giancana several times, mostly at secret meetings at the Cal-Neva Lodge,
where Sinatra was a part owner and Giancana a secret owner, most likely through Sinatra. The deal Papa Joe pitched was basically this: “You help my son get elected, and my son and his administration will leave you guys alone.”

Even though Giancana had been publicly humiliated by Bobby Kennedy at the McClellan hearings (during a tough cross examination, when Giancana seemed to snicker at Bobby Kennedy's line of questioning, Bobby snarled at Giancana and said, “Mr. Giancana, I thought only little girls giggled.”), the lure of having the President of the United States in his back pocket was too good for Giancana to turn down. As a result, Giancana hopped on the “Kennedy For President” bandwagon. Carlos Marcello, on the other hand, hated the Kennedys and absolutely refused to back Joe Kennedy's son. Marcello reportedly even
secretly gave $500,000 in cash to Nixon's campaign coffers.

The first order of business was the West Virginia Primary, which was set to take place on May 10, 1960. Giancana and Sinatra immediately went to work, enlisting the aid of Sinatra's old pal Paul “Skinny” D'Amato from New Jersey. In 1959, Sinatra had a big hit song “
High Hopes
,” from his new movie “
A Hole in the Head
.” Through JFK's friendship with Sinatra, “
High Hopes
” became JFK's campaign song. And as if by magic, as the West Virginia Primary neared, “
High Hopes
” was played incessantly on all the West Virginia juke boxes, radio stations, and television stations.

For his part, Giancana went into full fund-raising mode. Giancana passed the hat to all his mob cronies for money to be used for whatever needed to be done to ”influence” West Virginia Democrats to vote for JFK. With D'Amato as the intermediary, money was given to every
one and anyone in West Virginia who was influential in getting the Democratic voters out to the polls. Some of the money was given in straight cash and some in the form of desks, chairs, and office supplies to Democratic politicians, with enough votes up their sleeves to guarantee a JFK primary win. The end result was that Kennedy won the West Virginia Primary over Herbert Humphrey by garnering 60 percent of the vote. He was now headed straight for the Presidential elections.

Papa Joe Kennedy knew that winning the state of Illinois was crucial for his son to triumph over Nixon in the Presidential election. This is where Sam Giancana came in very handy indeed.

In late summer of 1960, Papa Joe used his friendship with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to set up three meetings with himself, Daley, and Giancana, which took place at the Ambassador East Hotel in downtown Chicago. At these meetings, the three men discussed the strategy they would employ to guarantee the vote for JFK on Election Day.              

Daley had his own election apparatus in place
, whereby he was able to cajole and use force when necessary to make sure people in Chicago voted the way Daley wanted them to vote. In addition, Giancana used his muscle to do the same thing in the suburbs outside Chicago, especially in Cook County where Kennedy had a victory margin of 450,000 votes—more than 10 percent of Chicago's 1960 population of 3.55 million.

Even with this landslide for Kennedy in and around Chicago, Kennedy won the state's electoral votes by a mere .19 percent of the vote. What made Kennedy's victory in Illinois so amazing was that Nixon won 92 out of the state's 101 counties, but lost by such a large margin in the counties c
ontrolled by Daley and Giancana that it didn't make any difference.

Winning the state of Illinois' electoral votes gave JFK the Presidential election over Nixon. In the popular vote throughout the country, JFK beat Nixon by less than 9000 votes, or 0.2 percent of the 4.75 million votes cast. So it's safe to say, without Giancana's and Daley's help,
JFK would not have been elected President of the United States of America.

What happened next is detailed in the book “Double Cross,” written by
Sam Giancana's nephew Sam Giancana and Sam the elder’s brother Chuck Giancana.

The first indication that Joe Kennedy had screwed Giancana and his pals was when JFK inexplicably named his brother Bobby the Attorney General of the United States. (The laws were changed later so that no President could ever again appoint a relative to a high position in his administration). This made RFK the boss of the best ally organized crime and the Mafia ever had in America: the head of the FBI - J. Edgar Hoover.

For years Hoover did as little as possible to pursue Mafia figures, and for a long time he denied the Mafia even existed. Mafia boss Frank Costello claimed he got on Hoover's good side over the years by relaying information, through gossip columnist Walter Winchell, about fixed horse races throughout the country. Hoover bet heavy on these horse races and made himself quite a bundle of cash. And through Costello's political brilliance, none of it was traceable to the Mafia.

But Hoover was now powerless to do anything to help his Mafia associates. Bobby Kennedy came down hard and quick on the very men who put his brother and himself in power, and he did it with Papa Joe Kennedy's blessing. Papa Joe probably figured by going after and arresting his old pals, it w
ould put them out of commission and unable to do anything about it. That turned out to be the biggest miscalculation Joseph P. Kennedy ever made in his life.

And it cost him his two sons
.

RFK went on
a dedicated mission to destroy the Mafia and organized crime in America, even though these were the same people his father had rubbed elbows with, and made money with, for almost 40 years. RFK instituted hundreds of wiretaps of Mafia figures, including those on the homes and hangouts of Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. RFK even had Carlos Marcello snatched off the streets of New Orleans and immediately deported to Guatemala. Marcello, mad as hell, snuck back into the United States and had his attorneys file suit against RFK. But to no avail.

The Italian mob bosses put in a call to Frank Sinatra, and they ordered Sinatra to contact RFK immediately and tell Bobby all this nonsense had to stop at once. Sinatra did as he was told, but that only made RFK more steadfast in his mission. At this point, certain mob bosses said Sinatra should be “hit,” as a message to RFK that they were not fooling around. However, it was Giancana himself who saved Sinatra's life. Giancana told those who wanted to whack Sinatra, “Leave Frank alone. I like the way he s
ings ‘Chicago, My Kind of Town.’”

RFK's wiretaps picked up communications throughout the country that showed how much the Mafia was angry at his double cross. Carlos Marcello was so enraged, he told an associate concerning RFK, “Don't worry about that little Bobby son-of-a-bitch!
He's going to be taken care of!”

Giancana, who had lost the most face of all th
e Mafia bosses because of how he acceded to every Joe Kennedy wish, was heard saying, “I never thought it would get this fucking rough. When they put the brother in there, we were going to see some fireworks, but I never knew it would be like this. This is murder.”

On Dec. 19, 1961, less than a year after JFK was sworn in as President, Joseph P. Kennedy suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body and left him barely able to communicate, although people close to him said his intellect was unimpaired. At this point, even if he wanted to stop his son Bobby from trying to decimate the Mafia, he was not capable of doing so.

Joseph P. Kennedy was alive during the assassinations of his two sons; first JFK, in 1963, in Dallas, Texas, and then RFK, in 1968, in Los Angeles, California. There is very little doubt that both killings were aided and abetted by the very men whom Joe Kennedy and his brood had turned their backs on. Stooges like Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan were the faces of the two killings, but it is doubtful either man actually fired the killing shots.

Basically in a catatonic state from the day he was stricken, there is some doubt as to whether Joe Kennedy was fully aware of the killings of his two sons. Some reports said he sat impassive

both times, showing no emotion. Others close to the family said that when he was told of the
murder of his son, the President, a small teardrop trickled down the side of his face.

On November 18, 1969, Joseph P. Kennedy died in his Hyannis Port, Massachusetts home, at the age of 81.
In contrast, neither of his murdered sons reached the age of 50; JFK was 46 and RFK was 43, respectively, when they were murdered.

M
idnight Terrors, The

There's an old boxing
joke where a guy says, “Hey, you wouldn't believe it, but I went to a boxing match last night and a hockey game broke out.”

Well, imagine a New York City street gang that formed a baseball team so that they could expand their criminal empire. In th
e Gay Nineties in New York City that actually happened, and the street gang was called The Midnight Terrors.

The Midnight Terrors wer
e a group of young teenage boys who terrorized the streets of the First Ward in the 1890's. The First Ward was located on the southernmost tip of Manhattan. It ran eastbound on Liberty Street from the North River (now called the Hudson River), then continued on Maiden Lane, south to the Battery and all the way east to the East River. Governors, Bedloes, and Ellis Island were also part of the First Ward.

The Midnight Terrors were first called “The Dalton Gang,” after its leader, 14-year-old “Chief” Dan Dalton, who commanded his gang from their headquarters on Broad Street. Other gang members included 14-year-old Bob Trail, 14-year-old Joe Hamill, 17-year-old Jim Styles, 19-year-old Al
Morrett, 14-year-old Pete Oliver, and the baby of the bunch, 11-year-old Pat Kane.

Because he was so tiny, Kane's specialty was to grease his body,
and then slither down the skylight of the business the gang was robbing. Once inside, Kane unlocked the front lock and let the rest of the gang in. The gang also specialized in the late-night muggings of any poor sap dumb enough to walk the streets of the First Ward after dark. Each gang member carried a pistol and a straight razor, which they weren't hesitant to use. The gang's name was changed from “The Dalton Gang” to “The Midnight Terrors,” because the gang did all its business late at night while the rest of the city was sleeping.

The biggest problem for the Midnight Terrors was boredom, especially during the day. One sunny afternoon, Dalton and a few of his gang members attended a local semi-pro baseball game. Dalton was quite impressed by the speed and ferocity of the event.