Official and Confidential (72 page)

2
.   Dowdy was being investigated for bribery and was eventually jailed.

3
.   
Illicit FBI tapping was reportedly not restricted to members of Congress. Robert Amory, a CIA Deputy Director in the fifties, said he saw evidence that the Bureau tapped his office phone. Secretary of State Dean Rusk suspected the FBI of bugging him. And, according to former Agent Norman Ollestad, Hoover sometimes bugged his own colleagues. (
WP
, Feb. 7, 1971,
As I Saw It
, by Dean Rusk, NY, Norton, 1990, pp. 197, 559,
Waging Peace and War
, by Thomas Schoenbaum, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1988, p. 280,
Inside the FBI
, by Norman Ollestad, NY, Lyle Stuart, 1967, pp. 68, 105.)

4
.   Gallagher insisted that the bonds in the IRS case had belonged to the Democratic Party and brought him no profit. He believed the charges were a natural sequel to the
Life
magazine episode.

5
.   Zicarelli was overheard in 1964 and 1965 – but not in 1960 – talking with a crony about asking for Gallagher's help with a deportation case. The mobsters also mentioned other public officials in hopeful terms – three judges, a U.S. Senator and a Republican Congresswoman. (Newark
Star-Ledger
, NYT, Jun. 11, 1969.)

6
.   As the Watergate tapes show, Smith's close relations with the FBI were later discussed with President Nixon in the Oval Office. (Transcript, Feb. 16, 1973, p. 7, WHT.)

Chapter 22

1
.   Lombardozzi died in 1992. His comments were obtained through an intermediary, with the help of London attorney William Pepper, in 1990.

2
.   In 1948, when Hoover received a Justice Department request for information on the racketeer Longy Zwillman, he said FBI records reflected ‘no investigation' on the man. This circumlocution concealed the fact that Bureau files contained 600 pages on the mobster. (
Gangster
, by Mark Stuart, London, Star, 1987, p. 141.)

3
.   A review of Anslinger's FBI file suggests that – contrary to the mythology – he and Hoover were friendly toward each other. (FBI 72–56284.)

4
.   McClanahan went to jail for thirteen months, following a trial featuring mob witnesses from Chicago to Las Vegas.

5
.   
In 1949, when members of the Licavoli mob family asked Davidson how they could thank him for having helped a relative, he suggested they donate $5,000 to a J. Edgar Hoover foundation then being set up to combat juvenile delinquency – no connection with the foundation of that name that exists today. The Licavolis made the donation. (H to T, et al., Jun. 29, 1949, FBI 94–8–350–371,
Life
, May 2, 1969, int. Davidson, 1990.)

6
.   At Maryland tracks Edgar dealt with a Damon Runyonesque tipster called ‘Washington Jake.' In California he dealt with Harry Hall, a bookmaker with a prison record. Hall recalled giving Hoover a tip while accompanied by Joe Matranga, son-in-law of a mobster high in the Detroit Mafia. (Int. Jimmy Raftery, 1988, ints. Harry Hall, 1988, 1990, corr. John Hunt, 1993.)

Chapter 23

1
.   Chuck and Sam Giancana's 1992 book
Double Cross
attracted criticism for some of its claims about the assassination of President Kennedy. Portions of the book do appear to have been embroidered, but interviews with co-author Sam Giancana (Chuck's son and his namesake, the mobster's godson) indicate that its principal assertions are based on Chuck's account of what the mobster told him. (Ints. Sam Giancana, 1991, 1992.)

2
.   Guilemo Santucci, a confidant of Costello and Lansky, said much the same. He would talk, recalled his driver John Dellafera, ‘of the good old days, when Hoover and the other big shots would look the other way. He told me they would do Hoover favors and he would do them favors in return. Hoover agreed to this as if they had something on him.' (Int. and written statement of Dellafera, 1991.)

3
.   In the late forties, the FBI did carry out surveillance against Costello, planting bugs at New York's Copacabana Club, where the mobster held court each day. This was highly productive until, out of the blue, the agents were suddenly called off. ‘We were never told why,' recalled former agent Jack Danahee. (Int. 1988.)

4
.   See end of Chapter 8.

5
.   
See Chapter 8.

6
.   Police sources told Hamill they, too, had heard of the compromising photographs.

7
.   Lansky did come under heavy FBI surveillance in 1961, but this was part of the push against organized crime under Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (
Little Man
, by Robert Lacey, Boston, Little, Brown, 1991, pp. 288ff, corr. Lacey, 1992.)

8
.   The U.S. Intelligence/Mafia connection in World War II was a high-risk relationship, the precursor of the arrangement in the sixties, when the CIA and the mob collaborated to plot the murder of Fidel Castro.

9
.   The CIA's James Angleton, said to have been in possession of a Hoover sex picture, served in the OSS in Rome at the end of the war – at the time Lansky's associate Lucky Luciano arrived there, following his release from a U.S. jail in recognition of his services to U.S. Intelligence (
Cold Warrior
, by Tom Mangold, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 22ff.)

10
. The spying on the brothel, near the Brooklyn Naval Yard, occurred because of suspicion that U.S. Senator David Walsh, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, was a patron. Walsh was exonerated, following a controversial probe in which the FBI played a key role. Afterward, Walsh sent Hoover an effusive letter of thanks. (OC 123, 153,
Trading With the Enemy
, by Charles Higham, NY, Delacorte, 1983, p. 88,
NYP
, May 1–22, 1942,
NYT
, Oct. 6, 1942,
Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob
, by Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau, NY, Paddington Press, 1979, p. 199.)

Chapter 24

1
.   Judge McLaughlin and former committee investigator William Gallinaro were outraged when a charge of perjury was brought against Mrs Rosenstiel in an unrelated New York case in January 1971. They believed that this was the work of Rosenstiel himself, using money and influence to obstruct the committee inquiry by discrediting his former wife. The millionaire's attorney in the divorce case, Benjamin
Javits, was disbarred for conniving at his client's attempt to subvert the judicial system. (
NYT
, Feb. 9, 1971,
Village Voice
, Feb. 18, 1971, ints. Wm. Gallinaro, Edward McLaughlin, 1988, [Javits] NYT, Jan. 6, 1971.)

2
.   In 1959, Hoover rebuffed Dr Robert Hutchins, President of the Fund for the Republic, who offered $4 million to help the struggle against organized crime and asked the FBI for advice. Hoover sent William Sullivan to tell Hutchins flatly that none of the mob bosses mentioned by Hutchins – all prominent mafiosi – were known to the FBI. Hoover's advice was that the fund would do better making a study of why blacks committed such a high percentage of violent crime. (Ints. W. H. Ferry, 1988, 1991,
Nation
, Apr. 26, 1971, corr. Jan. 27–Mar. 30, 1953, FBI 100–368336, FBI cross-refs. on W. H. Ferry.)

Chapter 25

1
.   Johnson's biographer Robert Caro concluded in 1990 that it was ‘blindingly clear' there was ballot-rigging, as did the early exhaustive study by Mary Kahl. (
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent
, by Robert Caro, NY, Alfred Knopf, 1990, pp. xxxi, 384,
Ballot Box
13, by Mary Kahl, Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 1983, pp. 231, 241, int. Madeleine Brown, 1989,
People
, Aug. 3, 1987.)

2
.   The accepted wisdom on why Kennedy picked Johnson has been the reconstruction of events by historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger. Drawing on talks with Robert Kennedy, he established that John at first invited Johnson onto the ticket merely as a ploy to unite the party – not dreaming he would accept. He was chagrined when Johnson did accept, a move Schlesinger surmised was because Johnson felt it was his last chance to become a national figure. Had he been free to do so, Robert recalled, ‘Jack … wanted to get rid of' Johnson. Yet when he tried to palm Johnson off with the chairmanship of the party, the Texan turned him down flat. ‘I want the vice presidency and intend to get it,' he was quoted as saying. (See sources for ‘Convention' for this chapter.)

3
.   Lincoln's diary, covering most of the Kennedy service, remained locked in a deposit box as this book was written.

4
.   
On August 18, 1960, Hoover sent an FBI report about Kennedy to his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. Though heavily censored as released, it apparently concerned Kennedy's womanizing. (SAC Washington to H, Aug. 18, 1960, FBI 94–37374, int. Herve Alphand, 1988,
A Hero for Our Time
, by Ralph Martin, NY, Macmillan, 1983, p. 342,
L'Etonnement d'Etre
, by Herve Alphand, Paris, Fayard, 1977, p. 382.)

Chapter 26

1
.   See Chapter 6.

Chapter 27

1
.   Giancana's half brother, Chuck, offered an equally startling and wholly unsubstantiated explanation. By his account, some of the packages contained copies of FBI reports on organized crime – reports that allowed Giancana to think he was getting vital insights into FBI operations against the mob. Soon, however, the mobster realized that there were great gaps in the intelligence he was sent – that the President was withholding key information. From then on, supposedly, his rage against Kennedy knew no bounds. (
Double Cross
, by Sam and Chuck Giancana, NY, Warner, 1992, p. 296, and int. Sam Giancana, 1992.)

2
.   A communication in Hoover's Official and Confidential file, dated March 30, 1962, advised him that the dismantling of the alleged marriage involved a Reno divorce, followed by another in New Jersey when the first was invalidated. A papal annulment was granted in 1953, the writer claimed, following pressure from Cardinal Cushing. (OC 13.2.)

3
.   See
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
, by Anthony Summers, NY, New American Library, 1986, for a full account of the surveillance and of the actress' death.

4
.   The phone logs, however, record several calls after August 1962, some with the word ‘No' by them, and others without it.

5
.   The only such photograph ever published was taken by a photographer affiliated with the White House, and it was
withheld until 1987, when it appeared in the June issue of
Life
.

Chapter 28

1
.   Hoover responded by planting press leaks to discredit Yarmolinsky. (See Yarmolinsky entry in sourcing for this chapter.)

2
.   Yevgeny Ivanov, the Soviet Naval Attache at the center of the Profumo scandal, was in reality a GRU (military intelligence) agent. He said in 1992 that Moscow advised him it indeed had an interest in Novotny. Ivanov himself talked with her in London. (
The Naked Spy
, by Yevgeny Ivanov, London, John Blake, 1992, pp. 144ff.)

3
.   The FBI used Mollenhoff in the early sixties as a go-between to pass Bureau information to members of Congress. In 1970, when Mollenhoff was an aide to President Nixon, he would write to Hoover to warn that the
Los Angeles Times
was planning a series critical of the FBI. (Theodore Sorensen, Oral History, JFKL, Transcript, Feb. 27, 1973, p. 5, WHT, corr. Edwin Guthman, Jun. 1991, Mollenhoff to H, Feb. 23, 1970, White House Staff files, NP.)

Chapter 29

1
.   Some theorized that Johnson wanted a ‘lone nut' version because he feared rumors of Soviet involvement could lead to nuclear war. This may have been a factor.

2
.   Hoover tried to discredit citizens who publicly challenged the ‘lone gunman' thesis. He authorized the mailing of a phony anonymous letter attacking the attorney Mark Lane and ordered circulation of a photograph that allegedly showed Lane engaged in sexual activity. The photograph and memo went to at least one member of the Warren Commission: Congressman Hale Boggs. (Baumgartner to Sullivan, Feb. 24, 1964, IC 6, p. 762, H to SAC NY, Oct. 16, 1964, FBI 100-11844, DeLoach to T, Sept. 26, 1966, Mark Allen FOIA release Civil Action 81–1206, [photo] blind memo, Feb. 29, 1968, Fred Graham Papers, LC, ints. Graham, 1990, and Thomas Boggs, 1988,
Mother Jones
, Aug. 1979.)

3
.   
Also excised from the original address book page is a (scoredthrough) name that appears to be ‘Gandy.' It may be pure coincidence that this was the name of Hoover's secretary (Helen Gandy). But the record suggests Oswald was so angry with what he saw as FBI harassment before the assassination that he intended to complain to ‘the proper authorities.' It is possible that, like countless callers over the years, Oswald had tried calling Hoover, was brushed off by Gandy and scrawled her name in his address book. While under arrest he made ‘derogatory remarks' about Hoover personally. (WC docs. 205, 16.64, WR IV, 466ff.)

4
.   Two reporters, Alonzo Hudkins of
The Houston Post
and Hugh Aynesworth of
The Dallas Morning News
, later said that the ‘informant number' published by Hudkins – S–172 – was fabricated, by Aynesworth, according to his own account in 1976. Their different accounts failed to satisfy students of the case. Other concerns aside, the number S–172 is very close to the code by which the FBI did refer to security informants at that time. In 1975, Dallas FBI Agent Joe Pearce told Bureau Inspectors that Oswald had been Hosty's ‘informant or source.' (
Esquire
, Feb. 1976,
New Times
, Jul. 11, 1975, HSCA Report, pp. 185ff, McNiff to Adams, Dec. 31, 1975, FBI 62–116395.)

5
.   The Commission did not even interview Deputy Sheriff Sweatt. It seems that the FBI, for its part, failed to tell the Commission about a similar allegation, by former Army Intelligence Colonel Philip Corso. (DeLoach to Mohr, two memos, Feb. 7, and another, Feb. 10, 1964, FBI 1977 release, no serial, Rosen to Belmont, Feb. 7, 1964, FBI 105–82555, ints. Mary and Julian Sourwine, 1991, int. Corso, 1992.)