Posts Tagged ‘MAFIA’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2016 at 12:08 am
On November 25, Fidel Castro, Cuba’s longtime “Maximum Leader,” died at the age of 90.
Old age and disease finally achieved what years of plotting by CIA and Mafia assassins could not.
To his supporters he was a tireless champion of the poor and a foe of American imperialism. To his enemies he was a ruthless dictator who drove his country to economic ruin in the name of a failed ideology–communism.
His reign began on January 1, 1959, when he swept triumphantly into Havana after a two-year guerrilla campaign against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro
Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of Cubans began fleeing to America. The first émigrés were more than 215,000 Batista followers. The exodus increased, peaking at approximately 78,000 in 1962.
In October, 1962, Castro stopped regularly scheduled travel between the two countries, and asylum seekers began sailing from Cuba to Florida.
Between 1962 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans entered the United States under the Attorney General’s parole authority.
By 2008, more than 1.24 million Cubans were living in the United States, mostly in South Florida, where the population of Miami was about one-third Cuban. Their sheer numbers transformed the state’s political, economic and cultural life. And not entirely for the better.
Many of these Cubans viewed themselves as political exiles, rather than immigrants, hoping to eventually return to Cuba after its Communist regime fell from power.
The large number of Cubans in South Florida, particularly in Miami’s “Little Havana,” allowed them to preserve their culture and customs to a degree rare for immigrant groups.
With so many discontented immigrants concentrated in Florida, they became a potential force for politicians to court.
And the issue guaranteed to sway their votes was unrelenting hostility to Castro. Unsurprisingly, most of their votes went to Right-wing Republicans.
John F. Kennedy was the first President to face this dilemma.
During the closing months of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the CIA had begun training Cuban exiles for an invasion of their former homeland.
The exiles’ goal: To do what Castro had done–seek refuge in the mountains and launch a successful anti-Castro revolution.
But word of the coming invasion quickly leaked: The exiles were terrible secret-keepers. (A joke at the CIA went: “A Cuban thinks a secret is something you tell to only 300 people.”)
Kennedy insisted the invasion must appear to be an entirely Cuban enterprise. He refused to commit U.S. Marines and Air Force bombers.
More than 1,400 invaders landed on April 17, 1961 at the Bay of Pigs–and were quickly overwhelmed, with hundreds of the men taken prisoner.
Kennedy publicly took the blame for its failure: “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” But privately he seethed, and ordered the CIA to redouble its efforts to remove Castro at all costs.
To make certain his order was carried out, he appointed his brother, Robert–then Attorney General–to oversee the CIA’s “Castro removal” program.
Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy
It’s here that America’s obsession with Cuba entered its darkest and most disgraceful period.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro–each for its own benefit:
- The CIA wanted to please Kennedy.
- The mobsters wanted to regain their casino and brothel holdings that had made Cuba their private playground in pre-Castro times. They also hoped to use their pose as patriots to win immunity from future prosecution.
The CIA supplied poisons and explosives to various members of the Mafia. It was then up to the mobsters to assassinate Castro.
The CIA asked Johnny Roselli, a mobster linked to the Chicago syndicate, to go to Florida in 1961 and 1962 to organize assassination teams of Cuban exiles. They were to infiltrate their homeland and assassinate Castro.
Johnny Roselli
Rosselli called upon two other crime figures: Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, the Costra Nostra chieftain for Tampa, for assistance.
Sam Giancana
Giancana, using the name “Sam Gold” in his dealings with the CIA, was meanwhile being hounded by the FBI on direct orders of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
Giancana was to locate someone who was close enough to Castro to be able to drop pills into his food. Trafficante would serve as courier to Cuba, helping to make arrangements for the murder on the island.
Rosselli was to be the main link between all of the participants in the plot.
The available sources disagree on what actually happened. Some believe that the Mob made a genuine effort to “whack” Fidel.
Others are convinced the mobsters simply ran a scam on the government. They pretended to carry out their “patriotic duty” while in fact making no effort at all to penetrate Castro’s security.
The CIA’s war against Castro was known as Operation Mongoose–the mongoose being a traditional enemy of the cobra. And those entrusted with this assignment were known as the Special Group.
“We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara later testified before Congress about these efforts. “And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 11, 2016 at 12:38 pm
According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.
Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Really?
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles–and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
- Drug traffickers and human smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States–as they are now doing.
Click here: Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? – The Washington Post
There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
As District Attorney for San Francisco (2004-2011 Kamala Harris created a secret program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.
She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony. It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
Harris is now California’s Attorney General and will soon be its U.S. Senator.
(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(4) CEOs whose companies–like Wal-Mart–systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S.-Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
Without employers’ luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.
(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of their birth, they should not be considered citizens and should–like their parents–be subject to deportation.
(6) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.
Neither should Americans.
(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language–English.
Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish. There is no reason to cater to their hypocrisy.
(8) The United States should vigorously counter the argument that deporting illegal aliens “separates families.” There is absolutely no reason why this should happen. Those American citizens who wish to do so are perfectly free to accompany their illegal relatives to their home countries.
(9) The United States should impose severe economic and even military sanctions against countries–such as China and Mexico–whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Law Enforcement, Self-Help on November 4, 2016 at 12:23 am
“We’ll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail.”
–Dave Barry
Several years ago, a private investigations agency found itself in serious trouble with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
One of its employees had suddenly quit the company–leaving behind a major financial disaster.
That employee–whom I’ll call Pete–had been tasked with sending payroll tax records to the IRS. The company’s owner, Bill, assumed he had carried out his assignment.
Until he learned from the IRS that they had never received the records.
Consider the potential consequences:
- Failing to timely and properly pay federal payroll taxes results in an automatic penalty of 2% to 10%.
- Similar state and local penalties apply.
- Failing to properly file monthly or quarterly returns may result in additional penalties.
- Failing to file W-2 Forms results in an automatic penalty of up to $50 per form not timely filed.
- A particularly severe penalty applies where federal income tax withholding and Social Security taxes are not paid to the IRS.
- The penalty of up to 100% of the amount not paid can be assessed against the employer entity as well as any person (such as a corporate officer) having control or custody of the funds from which payment should have been made.
About 70% of the annual revenue collected by the IRS comes from payroll taxes. Under-reported and unpaid employment taxes account for about $72 billion of the United States tax gap. So the IRS makes the collection of payroll taxes a high priority.
No doubt about it–Bill was facing serious trouble.
What to do?
Fortunately, Steve, one of Bill’s employees, had a B.A. in Communications and had worked as a newspaper reporter.
When Bill told him of the calamity he was facing, Steve offered his best advice: Immediately contest the charge that he had been delinquent in providing the records. And explain to the IRS–in writing–what had happened.
Bill agreed.
First, Steve interviewed him at length to make certain he fully understood the circumstances leading up to his present crisis.
Then Steve sat down and typed up a letter–on office letterhead stationery–to the IRS. Letterhead would give it an official appearance–and Steve wanted every advantage he could get.
Steve offered a straightforward presentation of what had happened: Pete, the number-two man in the company, had been entrusted with submitting payroll tax records to the IRS.
Apparently nursing a grudge against the company, he had, in fact, done nothing of the sort.
Instead, he had dumped the records in a box and stashed this in a locked filing cabinet.
Then he had given notice and left the company. Later, an investigation of his office computer revealed that it had often been used to access pornography.
Steve emphasized that Bill’s company had previously had an unblemished record for meeting its payroll tax obligations on time. And he stated that the newly-found records had been sent to the IRS by registered mail.
Finally, Steve wrote that Bill was prepared to fully meet his financial obligations to the IRS. But he asked that Bill not be penalized for the irresponsible actions of a single, malcontented employee.
The result?
Bill ended up paying only those monies that he legally owed. He was not forced to pay a penalty.
So what are the lessons to be learned from this episode?
- In dealing with an agency as powerful as the IRS, don’t ignore its letters and/or phone calls.
- You have nothing to gain by pretending it will go away. It won’t.
- If you owe money, don’t deny it.
- Remain calm, even if you feel angry or afraid.
- Don’t use profanity or insults.
- Don’t try to play tough-guy with the IRS. Even the Mafia fears this agency.
- If you have a legitimate reason for having missed a payment, say so.
- Remember that everything you say to the IRS–verbally or in writing–is considered evidence given under oath.
- If you lie and get caught, you can face perjury charges as well as those for failing to comply with tax laws.
- Offer to fully pay any monies that you legally owe.
- If these amount to more than you can meet in a single payment, say so. Ask the agency to set up a plan by which you can pay it off in installments.
- If the agency balks at cooperating with you, contact a veteran tax accountant or attorney.
- The best accountants or attorneys for dealing with the IRS are former agents now working in private practice. They not only know the tax laws; they know the best ways to short-circuit an IRS audit and/or penalties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2016 at 9:15 am
Today, America has two major candidates running for President: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Trump is a billionaire businessman and television personality. Clinton is a former First Lady (1993-2001), U.S. Senator from New York (2001-2009) and Secretary of State (2009-2013).
Despite the great differences in their backgrounds, they both share one thing in common: They are fiercely hated by millions of their fellow Americans.
Trump’s character has been poignantly summed up by David Brooks, a conservative political columnist for The New York Times:
“The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.”
For Republicans, Hillary Clinton arouses hatred that is often as much directed at her sex as her political views: She’s a bitch, a lesbian, physically unattractive. She’s not feminine enough. She “shrieks” and “shouts” when making speeches. She hates men–and, worse, castrates them.
She will abolish religion and force everyone to become atheists. She will authorize U.N. soldiers to confiscate the more than 300 million guns Americans privately hold. She will throw open American borders to millions of illegal aliens from Central and South America. She will sell out America to whoever pays the highest bribe to the Clinton Foundation.
But 48 years ago, Senator Robert Francis Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
In October, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his wise counsel helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As a U.S Senator he championed civil rights and greater Federal efforts to fight poverty.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished–while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4–when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates have waged war on crime–and the poor. And Democratic candidates have moved to the Right in eliminating anti-poverty programs.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia–and the compassion to fight poverty. At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 5, 2016 at 12:07 am
In 1970, New York Mafia boss Joseph Columbo declared war on the FBI.
The Bureau had arrested his son, Joseph Columbo, Jr., for melting silver coins down into silver ingots. So Columbo, Sr., created the Italian-American Civil Rights League to “combat prejudice against Italian-Americans.”
Columbo appeared at fundraisers and speaking engagements for the League, and gave interviews on talk-shows–such as the one hosted by Dick Cavett.
Joseph Columbo
His message: There was no Mafia–only an FBI slander against decent, hard-working Italian-Americans.
And he sent hundreds of members of the League to picket the East Side offices of the FBI.
His actions generated a massive response from many law-abiding Italian-Americans who felt themselves the victims of prejudice.
During the 1950s and early 1960s Congress had held hearings on the Mafia, making Italian and Sicilian criminals like Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia household words.
Even more enraging had been the depiction of Italians as the villains on the popular ABC TV series, “The Untouchables.” Each week, Eliot Ness and his squad of Treasury agents wiped out a new batch of Prohibition gangsters–who had Italian names like Al Capone and Frank Nitti.
On June 29, 1970, 150,000 people attended an Italian-American Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle in New York City. Several prominent entertainers and five members of the House of Representatives attended.
Under Colombo’s guidance, the League grew quickly and achieved national attention, establishing chapters in 17 states with over 50,000 members.
Shortly after the Columbus Circle rally, then-U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell banned the words “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” (“Our Thing”) from FBI and Justice Department press releases.
“There is nothing to be gained by using these terms,” said Mitchell, “except to give gratuitous offense to many good Americans of Italian-American descent.”
Seal of the Justice Department
In Albany, New York, then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller instructed the state police to likewise ban such terms.
And the Ford Motor Company, which sponsored the popular ABC-TV series, “The FBI,” also fell into line. While the Bureau’s real-life agents fought the Mafia, its fictionalized agents couldn’t say “Mafia” on TV.
In the spring of 1971, Paramount Pictures began started filming The Godfather, which was to become the most influential movie ever made about the Mafia.
Facing the threat of strikes and violence from the League, the film’s producer, Albert Ruddy, met with Columbo. Ruddy promised that “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” would not appear in a film in which almost every major character was a member of the Mafia.
TV’s “Mission: Impossible”–having moved from deposing overseas despots to stateside criminals–similarly referred to organized criminals as “The Syndicate.”
But Columbo was now facing increasing pressure from two sets of enemies.
The first was the FBI–whose agents seethed as they strode through League picket lines near their headquarters at Third Avenue and 69th Street. They were waging war on gangsters, and they resented being called liars and racists.
The second was the Mafia itself. Its older leaders knew there was an all-out Federal drive to destroy the organization. And they feared that Columbo’s in-your-face tactics were goading the FBI and other law enforcement agencies into greater efforts against them.
Of those older leaders, Carlo Gambino, boss of the largest and most powerful Mafia family in New York and the country, was the most important.
Carlo Gambino
Gambino had set Columbo up in his own family in 1964. This after Columbo had raced to Gambino with the news that his own boss, Joseph Bonanno, planned to “whack” Don Carlo and the other four New York Mafia bosses and become the “boss of all bosses” himself.
Bonnano was thus deposed and sent into exile in Arizona, and Columbo found himself a new boss.
Gambino had always lived in the shadows. As Columbo built up the League, Gambino feared that the publicity and attacks on the FBI would rebound against himself and his brethren.
As the date–June 28, 1971–for the second Italian-American Unity Day rally approached, Gambino quietly put out the word: Stay away.
On that morning Columbo posed for photographers at the rally. Suddenly one of them–a black man–exchanged his camera for an automatic pistol and shot Columbo three times in the head and neck.
Joseph Columbo, after being shot
Seconds later, the shooter was covered by an avalanche of men–one of whom pumped three bullets into him.
The shooter was Jerome Johnson, an ex-con who was linked to mobster Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo. The NYPD and FBI believed that Gambino had given Gallo permission to whack Columbo. And that Gallo had used a black man as the ultimate insult to a man he had long hated.
Columbo remained in a vegetative state until May 22, 1978, when he died of cardiac arrest.
There was no third Italian-American Unity Day rally. And the Italian-American Civil Rights League died with Columbo.
Eventually, the Justice Department and FBI went back to using “Mafia” and “La Cosa Nostra.”
And when Francis Ford Coppola made The Godfather, Part II, in 1974, he inserted both words into a scene where Mafia boss Michael Corleone is interrogated by a Senate committee.
For the Mafia, at least, the era of Political Correctness was over.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2016 at 12:52 am
On June 12, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old former security guard, slaughtered 49 men and women and injured 53 more inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Mateen was then shot to death by Orlando police after a three-hour standoff.
Omar Mateen
It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history–and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
The massacre was widely decried as an act of Islamic terrorism. But many others insisted it was simply a hate crime.
Among those opting for the latter: Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
During his three-hour slaughterfest, Mateen made a call to 9-1-1, pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
On June 20, the FBI released an edited version of the transcript of that call. All references to ISIS were removed.
The Justice Department claimed that it was withholding some details to avoid putting the victims through any more pain–and to not further the propaganda efforts of ISIS.
A firestorm of protest erupted from Republican Congressional leaders, most notably Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Since Mateen’s pledge to ISIS had become widely known, they demanded, what was the point of censoring it in the transcript of his phone call?
An additional reason for the fury aimed at the Justice Department: On June 12, ISIS had, through its news agency, Amag, claimed responsibility for the massacre:
“The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”
Finally, buckling to pressure, on the afternoon of June 20, the FBI released the full, uncensored transcript of Mateen’s call to 9-1-1.
This was definitely not the finest hour of an organization whose motto is: “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”
Seal of the FBI
It was not, however, the first time the Bureau caved in to the demands of Political Correctness.
This occurred almost 50 years earlier–in 1970.
And the man who was responsible for this was not a member of ISIS. Instead, he belonged to another, equally deadly organization: The Mafia.
Joseph Anthony (“Joe”) Columbo was the boss of the Columbo crime family, one of the “Five Families” of the Cosa Nostra in New York.
Joseph Columbo
At 45, Columbo was one of the youngest Mafia bosses in the United States. He was also the first American-born boss of a New York crime family.
But, unlike his fellow bosses, he didn’t hesitate to court publicity–or confront law enforcement.
Summoned for questioning about the murder of one of his “soldiers,” Columbo appeared–without a lawyer–at the office of NYPD detective Albert Seedman.
“I am an American citizen, first class,” he blasted Seedman. “I don’t have a badge that makes me an official good guy like you. But I work just as honest for a living.”
Naturally, Columbo denied having anything to do with the death of his subordinate.
In the spring of 1970, Columbo decided to raise his sights. He moved from attacking the NYPD to taking on the FBI.
Throughout most of the tenure of its director, J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI had avoided tackling the Mafia. From the 1920s until the 1950s, mobsters had operated virtually untouched by the most powerful Federal law enforcement agency.
To this day, Hoover’s reasons for avoiding mob enforcement remain unknown. Theories for this include:
- He feared his agents would be corrupted by Mafia bribes.
- He preferred flashy, easily-solved cases like bank-robbery and stolen car rings.
- The Mob blackmailed him with compromising photos of a homosexual relationship with Clyde Tolson, his second-in-command at the FBI.
Then, in 1961, Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General. As former chief counsel for the Senate Labor Rackets Committee (1957-59) Kennedy had investigated the Mafia’s infiltration of the nation’s labor unions. He had focused especially on its ownership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Unlike Hoover–who denied the Mafia existed–Kennedy was convinced that it did.
J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy
And as the brother to President John F. Kennedy, RFK had the power to needed to force Hoover to attack the crime syndicates.
Throughout the country, the Mafia felt a new heat as FBI agents planted illegal electronic microphones (“bugs”) in their innermost sanctums. Agents openly tailed mobsters–and sent them to prison in large numbers.
Most old-time Mafia bosses decided to take a low profile to avoid the new Federal pressure. They remembered how Al Capone had flaunted his wealth and power–and had fallen victim to the IRS for it.
In April, 1970, Columbo’s son, Joseph Jr., was arrested by the FBI for melting down coins for resale as silver ingots. The Mafia boss decided to retaliate.
He publicly declared there was no such thing as the Mafia. This was a fiction created by FBI agents taking out their prejudice on law-abiding Italian-Americans.
Then he sent members of his newly-formed organization–the Italian-American Civil Rights League–to picket the East Side offices of the FBI.
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In History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on June 6, 2016 at 12:01 am
Today, America has two major candidates running for President: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Trump is a billionaire businessman. Clinton is a former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.
Despite the great differences in their backgrounds, they both share one thing in common: Extremely high negatives among voters.
Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric has deliberately or unintentionally offended almost every major American voting group, including:
- Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
- Prisoners-of-War: Speaking of Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain, a Vietnam POW for seven years: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
- Women: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
These insults delight his white, uneducated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
As for Clinton: She continues to be dogged by charges that she used her position as Secretary of State (2009-2013) to enrich herself.
Countries that made large contributions to the Clinton Foundation got an increase in State Department-approved arms sales.
For example: In 2011, the State Department green-lighted a $29 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia, despite its dismal record on human rights.
Years before Clinton became Secretary of State, Saudi Arabia donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. And Boeing, the biggest defense contractor involved, donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation just two months before the deal was finalized.
But 48 years ago, Senator Robert Francis Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished–while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4–when he was shot in the back of the head. His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel. He died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched their baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
The Kennedy family never again roused the same passions among voters as it did during RFK’s short-lived run for the Presidency.
And America has never again since seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates have waged war on crime–and the poor. And Democratic candidates have moved to the Right in eliminating anti-poverty programs.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia–and the compassion to fight poverty. At a time of rising rates of income inequality and corporate crime, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on May 4, 2016 at 4:09 pm
For decades, Americans have been told by police at local and Federal levels: If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t worry about giving up your privacy.
The FBI, for example, has lobbied Congress for an electronic “key” that would allow it to enter a cyber “back door” to eavesdrop on even those emails protected by encryption systems.
Of course, the FBI has long found ways to circumvent the efforts of criminals to remain anonymous.
Decades ago, Mafiosi learned to assume their phones were being wiretapped and their rooms bugged with hidden microphones by agents of the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
And law-abiding Americans have grown used to being under camera surveillance every time they enter a bank, a State or Federal agency, a drugstore or supermarket. Or even walking down a street.
So it must seem ironic–if not downright hypocritical–to such people when police complain that their privacy is being invaded.
And this “invasion” isn’t happening with taps placed on cops’ phones or bugs planted in their police stations or private homes.
No, this “invasion” is happening openly in public–with video cameras and cellphones equipped with cameras.
And it’s happening in direct response to a series of controversial incidents involving the use of deadly force by police.
The most famous of these was the shooting, in August, 2014, of strong-arm grocery store robber Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Ironically, this was not captured on video.
But a number of other incidents were. Among them:
- The shooting of Walter Scott, a black motorist, on April 4, 2015. Scott was stopped for a non-working third tail light. When North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager returned to his patrol car, Scott exited his car and fled. Slager gave chase, firing first a Taser and then his pistol. He hit Scott five times–all from behind. Slager later claimed he had “felt threatened.” Unluckily for him, the shooting was caught on a citizen’s cellphone camera. On June 6, a grand jury indicted Slager on a charge or murder.
- On April 9, 2015, San Bernaradino sheriff’s deputies, after an exhaustive chase, kicked Francis Pusok twice–including a kick to the groin–as he lay facedown on the ground with his hands behind his back. About five minutes after Pusok was handcuffed, hobbled and rolled onto his side, another deputy also kicked him. Three deputies have been charged with felony assault. The footage of this came from an NBC News helicopter.
- In February, 2015, Orlando police officer William Escobar was fired after cell phone footage emerged of him punching and kicking a handcuffed man.
Addressing a forum at the University of Chicago Law School on October 23, FBI Director James B. Comey spoke of rising crime rates in America. And he offered a series of possible reasons for it.
Click here: FBI — Law Enforcement and the Communities We Serve: Bending the Lines Toward Safety and Justice
“Maybe it’s the return of violent offenders after serving jail terms. Maybe it’s cheap heroin or synthetic drugs. Maybe after we busted up the large gangs, smaller groups are now fighting for turf.
“Maybe it’s a change in the justice system’s approach to bail or charging or sentencing. Maybe something has changed with respect to the availability of guns….”
Then Comey offered what he thought was the real villain behind the rise in crime: Cellphones aimed at police.
FBI Director James B. Comey
“But I’ve also heard another explanation, in conversations all over the country. Nobody says it on the record, nobody says it in public, but police and elected officials are quietly saying it to themselves. And they’re saying it to me, and I’m going to say it to you….
“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?
“I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, ‘We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.’
“I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.
“So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country.
“And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.”
Apparently, it’s OK for police to aim cameras–openly or concealed–at citizens, whether law-abiding or law-breaking.
But if citizens aim cameras at cops–even without interfering with their making arrests–police feel threatened, to the point of refusing to carry out their duties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 25, 2016 at 12:10 am
The 1983 TV mini-series, Blood Feud, chronicles the decade-long struggle between Robert F. Kennedy (Cotter Smith) and James R. Hoffa (Robert Blake), president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union.
With Kennedy as Attorney General and facing relentless pressure from the Justice Department, the Mafia despairs of a solution. At a swanky restaurant, several high-ranking Mafiosi agree that “something” must be done.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Blood Feud clearly implies that the Mafia was responsible.
[The House Assassinations Committee investigated this possibility in 1978, and determined that Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss of New Orleans, had the means, motive and opportunity to kill JFK. But it could not find any conclusive evidence of his involvement.]
Even with the President dead, RFK’s Justice Department continues to pursue Hoffa. In 1964, he is finally convicted of jury tampering and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment.
U.S. Department of Justice
Hoping to avoid prison, Hoffa phones Robert Kennedy, offering future Teamsters support if RFK runs for President. To prove he can deliver, he tells Kennedy that the Teamsters have even penetrated the FBI.
[In March, 1964, Kennedy met with Hoffa on an airfield at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. He was accompanied by two Secret Service agents from the detail assigned to ex-First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
[FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, no longer afraid to cross RFK, had withdrawn the agents previously assigned to guard Kennedy.
[Accompanying Hoffa were two muscular bodyguards–at least one of whom was packing two pistols in shoulder holsters.
[While the Secret Service agents watched from a respectful distance, Kennedy spoke quietly with Hoffa. The Attorney General showed a document to Hoffa, and the Teamsters leader at times nodded or shook his head.
[The agents drove Kennedy back to Washington. During the ride, he said nothing about the reason for the meeting.
[David Talbot, in his book, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, speculates that it could have been to discuss Hoffa’s conviction for jury tampering.
[But Gus Russo–author of Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK–writes that the reason might have been Dallas.
[Perhaps, he speculates, RFK had wanted to look into Hoffa’s eyes while asking him: Did you have anything to do with the assassination? RFK had, in fact, done this with CIA Director John McCone almost immediately after his brother’s death.]
In Blood Feud, Kennedy confronts J. Edgar Hoover (Ernest Borgnine) and accuses him of illegally planting wiretaps in Mob hangouts all over the country.
J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy
Hoover retorts that this had been the only way to obtain the prosecution-worthy intelligence Kennedy had demanded: “You loved that flow of information. You didn’t want it to stop.”
Kennedy: Why did you keep the FBI out of the fight against the Mob for decades?
Hoover: “Every agency that came to grips with them got corrupted by their money.”
[So far as is known, Hoover never made any such confession. Historians continue to guess his reason for leaving the Mob alone for decades.]
Ernest Borgnine as J. Edgar Hoover
RFK then mentions the CIA’s plots to employ the Mob to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro
[The agency had wanted to please President Kennedy, and the Mafia had wanted to regain its casinos lost to the Cuban Revolution. The role the Kennedy brothers played in the CIA’s assassination plots remains murky, and has been the subject of endless speculation.]
“The CIA, doing business with the Mob,” says Kennedy. “The FBI, leaking information to its enemies [the Teamsters].” Then, sadly: “I guess it’s true–everyone does business with everyone.”
[So far as is known, the FBI did not pass on secrets to the Teamsters. But during the 1970s, the Mafia penetrated the Cleveland FBI office through bribes to a secretary. Several FBI Mob informants were “clipped” as a result.]
In 1967, Hoffa goes to prison. He stays there until, in 1971, President Richard Nixon commutes his sentence in hopes of gaining Teamsters’ support for his 1972 re-election.
Kennedy leaves the Justice Department in 1964 and is elected U.S. Senator from New York. In 1968 he runs for President. On June 5, after winning the California primary, he’s assassinated.
In Blood Feud, just before his assassination, RFK asks: “How will I ever really know if the Mob killed Jack because of my anti-Mob crusade?”
Hoffa schemes to return to the presidency of the Teamsters–a post now held by his successor, Frank Fitzsimmons. He runs the union in a more relaxed style than Hoffa, thus giving the Mob greater control over its pension fund.
And the Mafia likes it that way.
On July 30, 1975, Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant near Detroit. He had gone there to meet with two Mafia leaders.
Almost 41 years after the death of James R. Hoffa, and almost 48 years after that of Robert F. Kennedy:
- Labor unions are a shadow of their former power.
- The threat they once represented to national prosperity has been replaced by that of predatory corporations like Enron and AIG.
- The war RFK began on the Mafia has continued, sending countless mobsters to prison.
- Millions of Americans who once expected the Federal Government to protect them from crime now believe the Government is their biggest threat.
- The idealism that fueled RFK’s life has virtually disappeared from politics.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 22, 2016 at 12:10 am
The 1983 TV mini-series, Blood Feud, chronicles the decade-long struggle between Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa.
Having “helped” Kennedy (Cotter Smith) to oust corrupt Teamsters President Dave Beck, Hoffa (Robert Blake) believes that Kennedy should now be satisfied: “He’s got his scalp. Now he can move on to other things while I run the union.”
But Hoffa has guessed wrong–with fatal results. Realizing that he’s been “played” by Hoffa, a furious Kennedy strikes back.
He orders increased surveillance of Hoffa and his topmost associates. He subpoenas union records and members of both the Teamsters and the Mafia to appear before his committee in public hearings.
And he tries to enlist the aid of legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Ernest Borgnine). But Hoover wants no part of a war against organized crime, whose existence he refuses to admit.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s confrontations with Hoffa grow increasingly fierce. In open hearings, Kennedy accuses Hoffa of receiving kickbacks in the name of his wife. Hoffa damns him for “dirtying my wife’s name.”
Kennedy secures an indictment against Hoffa for hiring a spy to infiltrate the Senate Labor Rackets Committee. He’s so certain of a conviction that he tells the press he’ll “jump off the Capitol building” if Hoffa beats the rap.
But Hoffa’s lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams (Jose Ferrer) puts Kennedy himself on the witness stand. There he portrays Kennedy as a spoiled rich man who’s waging a vendetta against Hoffa.
Hoffa beats the rap, and offers to send Kennedy a parachute. But he jokingly warns reporters: “Hey, Bobby, you better have it checked. I don’t trust myself!”
By 1959, Robert Kennedy’s work as chief counsel for the Senate Labor Rackets Committee is over. But not his determination to send Teamsters President James Hoffa to prison.
Cotter Smith as Robert Kennedy
Throughout 1960, he manages the Presidential campaign for his brother, John F. Kennedy (Sam Groom). By a margin of only 100,000 votes, JFK wins the election.
Hoffa thinks that his troubles are over, that “Bobby” will move on to other pursuits and forget about the Teamsters.
Hoffa is partly right: Kennedy moves on to another job. But it’s the office of United States Attorney General.
JFK, needing someone in the Cabinet he can trust completely, browbeats Robert into becoming the the nation’s top cop.
For Hoffa, it’s a nightmare come true.
As Attorney General, Kennedy no longer has to beg J. Edgar Hoover to attack organized crime. He can–and does–order him to do so.
Throughout the country, the Mafia feels a new heat as FBI agents plant illegal electronic microphones (“bugs”) in their innermost sanctums. Agents openly tail mobsters–and send them to prison in large numbers.
And Kennedy sets up a special unit, composed of topflight prosecutors and investigators, to go after just one man: James Riddle Hoffa. The press comes to call it the “Get Hoffa” squad.
Hoffa continues to beat federal prosecutors in court. But he believes he’s under constant surveillance by the FBI, and his nerves are starting to crack.
Convinced that the FBI has bugged his office, he literally tears apart the room, hoping to find the bug. But he fails to do so.
What he doesn’t know is he’s facing a more personal danger–from one of his closest associates.
He tells a trusted colleague, Edward Grady Partin (Brian Dennehy) how easy it would be to assassinate Kennedy with a rifle or bomb.
Later, Partin gets into a legal jam–and is abandoned by the Teamsters. Hoping to cut a deal, he relays word to the Justice Department of Hoffa’s threats against the Attorney General.
Now working for the Justice Department, Partin sends in reports on Hoffa’s juror-bribing efforts in yet another trial. Hoffa again beats the rap–but now Kennedy has the insider’s proof he needs to put him away for years.
Meanwhile, the Mafia despairs of the increasing pressure of the Justice Department. At a swanky restaurant, several high-ranking members agree that “something” must be done.
[Although this scene is fictional, it’s clearly based on an infamous outburst of Carlos Marcello, the longtime Mafia boss of New Orleans.
Carlos Marcello
[In 1961, Marcello was deported to his native Guatemala on orders by RFK. After illegally re-entering the country, he swore vengeance against the Attorney General.
[In September, 1962, during a meeting with several mob colleagues, he flew into a rage when someone mentioned Kennedy.
“Take the stone out of my shoe!” he shouted, echoing a Sicilian curse. “Don’t you worry about that little Bobby sonofabitch. He’s going to be taken care of!”
[When one of his colleagues warned that murdering RFK would trigger the wrath of his brother, President John F.Kennedy, Marcello replied: “In Sicily they say if you want to kill a dog you don’t cut off the tail. You go for the head.”
[Marcello believed that the death of President Kennedy would render the Attorney General powerless. And he added that he planned to use a “nut” to do the job.]
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Blood Feud clearly implies that the Mafia was responsible.
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AMERICA’S POISONED CUBAN LEGACY: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2016 at 12:08 amOn November 25, Fidel Castro, Cuba’s longtime “Maximum Leader,” died at the age of 90.
Old age and disease finally achieved what years of plotting by CIA and Mafia assassins could not.
To his supporters he was a tireless champion of the poor and a foe of American imperialism. To his enemies he was a ruthless dictator who drove his country to economic ruin in the name of a failed ideology–communism.
His reign began on January 1, 1959, when he swept triumphantly into Havana after a two-year guerrilla campaign against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro
Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of Cubans began fleeing to America. The first émigrés were more than 215,000 Batista followers. The exodus increased, peaking at approximately 78,000 in 1962.
In October, 1962, Castro stopped regularly scheduled travel between the two countries, and asylum seekers began sailing from Cuba to Florida.
Between 1962 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans entered the United States under the Attorney General’s parole authority.
By 2008, more than 1.24 million Cubans were living in the United States, mostly in South Florida, where the population of Miami was about one-third Cuban. Their sheer numbers transformed the state’s political, economic and cultural life. And not entirely for the better.
Many of these Cubans viewed themselves as political exiles, rather than immigrants, hoping to eventually return to Cuba after its Communist regime fell from power.
The large number of Cubans in South Florida, particularly in Miami’s “Little Havana,” allowed them to preserve their culture and customs to a degree rare for immigrant groups.
With so many discontented immigrants concentrated in Florida, they became a potential force for politicians to court.
And the issue guaranteed to sway their votes was unrelenting hostility to Castro. Unsurprisingly, most of their votes went to Right-wing Republicans.
John F. Kennedy was the first President to face this dilemma.
During the closing months of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the CIA had begun training Cuban exiles for an invasion of their former homeland.
The exiles’ goal: To do what Castro had done–seek refuge in the mountains and launch a successful anti-Castro revolution.
But word of the coming invasion quickly leaked: The exiles were terrible secret-keepers. (A joke at the CIA went: “A Cuban thinks a secret is something you tell to only 300 people.”)
Kennedy insisted the invasion must appear to be an entirely Cuban enterprise. He refused to commit U.S. Marines and Air Force bombers.
More than 1,400 invaders landed on April 17, 1961 at the Bay of Pigs–and were quickly overwhelmed, with hundreds of the men taken prisoner.
Kennedy publicly took the blame for its failure: “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” But privately he seethed, and ordered the CIA to redouble its efforts to remove Castro at all costs.
To make certain his order was carried out, he appointed his brother, Robert–then Attorney General–to oversee the CIA’s “Castro removal” program.
Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy
It’s here that America’s obsession with Cuba entered its darkest and most disgraceful period.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro–each for its own benefit:
The CIA supplied poisons and explosives to various members of the Mafia. It was then up to the mobsters to assassinate Castro.
The CIA asked Johnny Roselli, a mobster linked to the Chicago syndicate, to go to Florida in 1961 and 1962 to organize assassination teams of Cuban exiles. They were to infiltrate their homeland and assassinate Castro.
Johnny Roselli
Rosselli called upon two other crime figures: Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, the Costra Nostra chieftain for Tampa, for assistance.
Sam Giancana
Giancana, using the name “Sam Gold” in his dealings with the CIA, was meanwhile being hounded by the FBI on direct orders of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
Giancana was to locate someone who was close enough to Castro to be able to drop pills into his food. Trafficante would serve as courier to Cuba, helping to make arrangements for the murder on the island.
Rosselli was to be the main link between all of the participants in the plot.
The available sources disagree on what actually happened. Some believe that the Mob made a genuine effort to “whack” Fidel.
Others are convinced the mobsters simply ran a scam on the government. They pretended to carry out their “patriotic duty” while in fact making no effort at all to penetrate Castro’s security.
The CIA’s war against Castro was known as Operation Mongoose–the mongoose being a traditional enemy of the cobra. And those entrusted with this assignment were known as the Special Group.
“We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara later testified before Congress about these efforts. “And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.”
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