by Peter G. Jimenea
(Warlords' Chronicle of Crime)
Frank Sinatra's mess
I have already wrote the link of US Pres. John F. Kennedy (JFK) and FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover with the Mafia. I believe 1975 is not yet too far to look back to the story of these popular people and their absurd messy-legacy.
As told, it was Attorney-General Robert "Bobby" Kennedy, brother of JFK, who pressured Hoover to turn the FBI heat on organized crime. it is widely believed in the underworld that this ignited the ire of the bosse on why JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Talking about the popular figures in the Mafia organization, one of them was the Hollywood actor and singer Frank Sinatra, better known to friends as "The Voice." He was also instrumental in the presidential election victory of JFK in gangland areas.
Chicago's Mafia boss Sam "Momo" Gianciana who replaced Al Capone was among the close-friends of Sinatra in the organized crime. Gianciana has worked for Capone in 1920s and was imprisoned for offences from bootlegging and burglary.
His post-war rise to Chicago gangland supremacy paved the way for his straight contacts. Sinatra introduced him to Hollywood starlets and enlisted his support in the presidential election of JFK. Like what happened in the Philippines, the Mafia doctored the result in Cook County, Illinois, swinging the photo-finished election from Richard Nixon to JFK.
Under Pres. Kennedy's presidency, the Gianciana-Mafia connection with the administration has expanded. After the "Bay of Pigs" fiasco (failed invasion of Cuba), the CIA talked to John Rosseli and Gianciana about rubbing out Fidel Castro..
The Mafia also longed to regain their Havana gambling and prostitution interest but they did not bite the plan. They doubt these CIA agents as nuts for only professional spies could take seriously that exploding fountain pens and potions to pull out Castro's beard.
Gianciana also secretly shared JFK mistress, lovely Judith Campbell, who bounced between the two men's bed without the president getting wind of it. But FBI Dir. Hoover warned JFK that his affair with Campbell and his connection with Gianciana are about to explode.
Gianciana resented the move of the FBI director. As the heat turned on by JFK's Attorney-General brother Bobby to organized crime was gaining ground, the Mafia boss who believed that he has the administration in his pocket, realized he was wrong. He broke ties with Sinatra and Kennedy.
Feeling the FBI's zeroing-in on him, he decided to tell the Senate Investigating Committee about all the shenanigans. But he never did it. Before his scheduled appearance at the Senate, he was shot dead by an intruder at his home in Oak Park.
Now he will never do so. He forgot that in underworld business there is double-cross, betrayal, jealousy, swindling and other messy things of the wise and clever. Well, in the end, the CIA publicly and the Mafia privately, both pleaded complete innocence of his murder.
In the case of Frankie "The Voice" Sinatra, until his death, he never look eye to eye with Mario Puzzo, the Mafiosi writer who exposed his intimate relationship with the president's wife, Nancy Reagan. It is all about his dropping-by at the White House everytime Pres. Ronald Reagan was out on official tour of duty. On why, just guess the rest!