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Salvatore " Mooney" Giancana (1992). 9780446516242, Grand Central. ISBN 9780446516242 ( ; born Gilormo Giangana, ; May 24, 1908 – June 19, 1975) was an American mobster who was boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 to 1966.
Giancana was born in Chicago to Italian immigrant parents. He joined the 42 Gang as a teenager, developing a reputation in organized crime, which gained him the notice of the leaders of the Chicago Outfit, which he joined during the late 1930s. From the 1940s through the 1950s, he controlled illegal gambling, illegal liquor distribution, and political rackets in Louisiana. In the early 1940s, Giancana was involved in a takeover of Chicago's black American lottery payout system for the Outfit. In 1957, he became the boss of the Chicago Outfit.
According to some sources, Giancana and the Mafia were involved in John F. Kennedy's victory in the 1960 presidential election. During the 1960s, he was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Conspiracy theorists consider Giancana, along with Mafia leaders Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello, to be associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In 1965, Giancana was convicted of contempt of court, serving one year in prison. After his release from prison, Giancana fled to Cuernavaca, Mexico. In 1974, he was deported to the United States, returning to Chicago. Giancana was murdered on June 19, 1975, at his home in Oak Park, Illinois, shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the Church Committee.
During the late 1930s, Giancana became the first 42er to join the Chicago Outfit. From the early 1940s through the 1950s, he controlled most illegal gambling, liquor distribution, and other political rackets in Louisiana, through longtime friend H. A. (Hol) Killian. Killian controlled the majority of the liquor license issuance by his associations with longtime New Orleans business associate Carlos Marcello. In 1939, Giancana was convicted of bootlegging and sentenced to four years in Leavenworth Prison and Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex.
The Outfit's South Side "policy"-game takeover was not complete until another Outfit member, Jackie Cerone, scared "Big Jim" Martin to Mexico with two bullets to the head that did not kill him. When the lottery money started rolling in for the Outfit after this gambling war, the amount this game produced for the Outfit was in the millions of dollars a year, bringing Giancana further notice. It is believed to have been a major factor in his being "anointed" as the Outfit's new boss in 1957. Accardo joined Ricca in semi-retirement, becoming the Outfit's consigliere. However, it was generally understood that Accardo and Ricca still had the real power. Giancana was required to consult Accardo and Ricca on all important Outfit affairs.
Giancana was present at the Mafia's 1957 Apalachin meeting at the Upstate New York estate of Joseph Barbara. (1984). 9780380698493, Morrow. ISBN 9780380698493 Later, Buffalo crime boss Stefano Magaddino and Giancana were overheard on a wiretap saying the meeting should have occurred in the Chicago area. Giancana claimed that the Chicago area was "the safest place in the world" for a major underworld meeting because he had several police chiefs on his payroll. If the syndicate ever wanted to hold a meeting in or around Chicago, Giancana said, they had nothing to fear because they had the area "locked up tight".
Hyman Larner was an associate of Giancana's who helped expand the Outfit's gambling and smuggling operations to Panama and Iran, moving the Miami operation's headquarters to Panama where money laundering was more easily facilitated by local banks. These operations were conducted as a partnership between the Mafia and the CIA. By 1966, this partnership had developed into arms smuggling to the Middle East for the Israeli Mossad, all via Panama. Richard Cain, a corrupt police officer, also made "frequent trips" to and from Mexico as Giancana's courier and financial adviser.
In 1959 Giancana appeared before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, where he was questioned by Bobby Kennedy. Under questioning Giancana started laughing, in response Kennedy chided that "I thought only little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana".
According to Giancana mistress Judith Exner and Frank Sinatra's daughter Tina Sinatra, Giancana used his connections to persuade unions to support Kennedy. According to Exner, Giancana bragged to her that Kennedy would never have been elected without him. However, it is alleged that Giancana came to regret aiding Kennedy get elected due to the fact that attorney general Robert F. Kennedy made significant efforts to crack down on organized crime.
Judith Exner claimed to be the mistress of both Giancana and JFK, and that she delivered communications between them about Castro. Giancana's daughter Antoinette has stated that her father was performing a scam to pocket millions of CIA dollars.Television documentary Mafia Women, Discovery Channel.
Documents released in 1997 revealed that some Mafiosi worked with CIA on assassination attempts against Castro. CIA documents released in 2007 confirmed that in September 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu to meet with the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob, Johnny Roselli. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself as an advocate for international corporations. He offered $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli refused any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he called Sam Gold and Joe. "Sam Gold" was Giancana; "Joe" was Santo Trafficante Jr., the Tampa syndicate boss and one of the most powerful mobsters in prerevolution Cuba. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, CIA was desperate to eliminate Castro. So, the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos." Giancana detested Castro, according to his daughter, Antoinette, when she once expressed admiration for Castro her father erupted in anger, calling him a "syphilitic bastard" and asking "do you have any idea what he's done to me......to our friends?".
According to the declassified CIA "Family Jewels" documents, Giancana and Trafficante were contacted in September 1960 about the possibility of an assassination attempt by Maheu after Maheu had contacted Roselli, a Mafia member in Las Vegas and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international businesses in Cuba that Castro was expropriating. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation, though the documents suggest that neither Roselli, Giancana, nor Trafficante accepted any payment for the job. Giancana suggested using poison pills to dose Castro's food and drink. CIA gave these pills to Giancana's nominee, Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as a corrupt official in the new Cuban government and who had access to Castro. After six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be relieved of his role in the mission, giving the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, Giancana and Trafficante made a second attempt using Anthony Verona, the commander of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta." Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. How much work was performed for the second attempt is unknown, as the program was canceled soon after due to the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
According to the "Family Jewels", Giancana asked Maheu to wire the room of his then mistress Phyllis McGuire, singer of the McGuire Sisters, whom he suspected of having an affair with comedian Dan Rowan. Although documents suggest Maheu acquiesced, the device was not planted because the agent who had been given the task of planting it was arrested. According to the documents, Robert F. Kennedy prohibited the prosecution of the agent and Maheu, who was soon linked to the wire attempt, at the CIA's request. Giancana and McGuire, who had a long-lasting affair, were originally introduced by Frank Sinatra.
After his release from prison in 1966, Giancana fled to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to avoid further grand jury questioning. He was arrested by Mexican authorities on July 19, 1974, and deported to the United States. He arrived back in Chicago on July 21, 1974.
Giancana signed a card to his wife as "Mooney".
On September 23, 1933, Giancana married Angeline DeTolve, the daughter of immigrants from the Italian region of Basilicata, while living in The Island, Chicago. They had three daughters: Antoinette, born 1935; Bonnie Lou (La Bonita), born 1938; and Francine, born 1945. In 1945, they bought a house in Oak Park, Illinois. Angeline died on April 23, 1954, leaving Giancana to raise his daughters.
In summer 1963, Giancana stayed with Phyllis McGuire in one of the Cal-Neva Lodge chalets while the McGuire Sisters were there to perform in the Celebrity Room, which led to a scandal that cost Frank Sinatra his ownership in the Cal-Neva, as well as his part ownership in the Sands Hotel.
Within days of Giancana's murder, Michael J. Corbitt, the police chief of Willow Springs, Illinois, and a mobster associate, was told by Chicago Outfit's Caporegime Salvatore Bastone that "Sam sure loved that little guy in Oak Park... Anthony Spilotro. Yeah, he was fuckin' crazy about him. Sam put Tony on the fuckin' map, thought he was gonna be a big fuckin' man someday. Did you know that after Marshall Caifano got out of Vegas, it was Sam who wanted Tony Spilotro out there? Even lately, with all the problems with the skim and all, Sam always stood behind the guy. Tony was over to Sam's house all the time. He lived right by there. Did you know Tony even figured out a way where he could get in through the back of Sam's place without anybody seeing him? He'd go through other people's yards, go over fences, all sorts of shit." When Corbitt asked for the reason for the murder, Bastone quipped, "There's never just one reason for shit like what happened to Sam. There's a million of 'em. Let's just say that Sam should've remembered what happened to Bugsy Siegel."
Another theory is that Santo Trafficante Jr. ordered Giancana's murder due to fear he would testify about the Mafia's involvement in CIA plots to kill Castro. Trafficante would have needed permission from Outfit bosses Accardo and Joey Aiuppa, but Giancana's murder coincided with the discovery of the decomposing remains of Johnny Roselli in an oil drum floating off Miami; he had been shot and chopped up before being dumped in the sea. Some suspected that Roselli was killed on Trafficante's orders.
There were rumors that the CIA killed Giancana because of his links to it. Former CIA Director William Colby said, "We had nothing to do with it." During the Scelso deposition, John Whitten said he suspected William Harvey, a CIA assassin who was in the area.
(1984). 9780380698493, Morrow. ISBN 9780380698493 According to Antoinette Giancana, during part of the affair, McGuire had a concurrent affair with President Kennedy. (1984). 9780380698493, Morrow. ISBN 9780380698493
Downfall
When Giancana was called before a grand jury on June 1, 1965, he remained silent despite having been granted immunity, which resulted in his jailing for contempt for more than a year, the duration of the grand jury. Meanwhile, Giancana was deposed as operational boss by Ricca and Accardo, and replaced by Joseph Aiuppa.
Personal life
One of the most violent criminals in U.S. history, Giancana acquired the nickname "Momo," from the slang term "mooner," meaning "madman."—encyclopedia.com
Death
After Giancana returned to the U.S., police detailed officers to guard his house in Oak Park, Illinois, but on the night of June 19, 1975, shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the Church Committee, which was investigating CIA and Cosa Nostra collusion, a gunman entered the house through the basement and shot Giancana in the head and neck seven times with a .22-caliber pistol. At around 11 p.m., Joseph DiPersio, Giancana's caretaker, found his body on the floor of the basement kitchen where he was said to have been frying sausage and peppers. A week before his death, Giancana had gall bladder surgery in Houston.
Other theories
Although longtime associate Dominic "Butch" Blasi was with Giancana the night he was murdered and questioned by police as a suspect, neither the FBI nor Antoinette Giancana believes he killed Giancana. (1984). 9780380698493, Morrow. ISBN 9780380698493 Hitman Nicholas Calabrese told the FBI during the 2000s that he knew that Tony Accardo was part of the killing and Angelo LaPietra got rid of the gun, which used a suppressor made by Frank Calabrese Sr. and Ronnie Jarret. Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob
In popular culture
Movies
Television
Non-fiction
Fiction
Music
See also
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Sources
Further reading
External links
Categories: 1908 Births, People Murdered In 1975, 1975 Deaths, American Expatriates In Mexico, American Male Criminals, American People Convicted Of Burglary, American Prisoners And Detainees, Bootleggers, Burials At The Bishop's Mausoleum, Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chicago Outfit Bosses, Deaths By Firearm In Illinois, American Gangsters Of The Interwar Period, Assassinated Cia Agents, Mafia Hitmen, Murdered American Gangsters Of Italian Descent, Murdered Chicago Outfit Members, People Associated With The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy, People From Oak Park, Illinois, People Murdered By The Chicago Outfit, Prisoners And Detainees Of Illinois, Prisoners And Detainees Of The United States Federal Government, Unsolved Murders In Illinois, 20th-century American Murderers
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