I wonder if gunman Thomas Crooks was a pawn of the eternal Mafia as he pumped eight rounds at Donald Trump. Just wait a couple of years and some enterprising journalist or a goombah in the celebrated Witness Protection Program will reveal the true story of Butler, Pennsylvania.
Here’s the creative scenario as I see it: during Trump’s casino days in Atlantic City, he crossed a local Don by not paying his monthly vig to ‘the family.’ Worse, he nailed a waitress who had romantic ties to one of the Don’s hot-headed capos. Sounds absurd? If so, the stock answer is: you are very naïve, my friend.
Will the media ever leave Sinatra in peace?
Last Thursday the Sundance Now cable network premiered the movie Kennedy, Sinatra, and the Mafia, that rehashed the JFK assassination as a Mob rubout. I don’t subscribe to Sundance Now and hopefully not many people do. Still, the Wall St. Journal gave it a half-page promotion with WSJ critic John Anderson rating the documentary “always entertaining.” That doesn’t mean he believed the theory, he was referring to the use of The Godfather clips to reinforce the conspiracy—you know, the Johnny Fontane angle that alluded to Frank Sinatra’s ‘debt’ to the Mob for his movie career (his role as Maggio in the 1953 hit From Here to Eternity). Also recall that it was Sinatra’s early devotion to JFK that created a Kennedy-Hollywood fusion which developed into the ‘Camelot’ myth.
So, here are how the pieces fit together: the Mafia gets Kennedy elected in 1960 with election skullduggery in Chicago and West Virginia. Despite the Mob effort, the ingrate Kennedys pay the goombahs back by launching an anti-Mafia campaign at the Dept of Justice, led by brother Bobby. On top of that, horny Jack inadvertently porks Judith Campbell, the mistress of Chicago boss Sam Giancana (how this ‘romantic’ coincidence happened would be a great Lifetime movie!) So, Jack now has a target on his back via the Chicago Outfit. Add to this stew Frank Sinatra’s anger at JFK’s refusal to continue their relationship because of Frank’s rumored mob ties. Meanwhile J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, has a file on President Jack’s illicit love life and is blackmailing him to keep his job and perks. Poor JFK has so many enemies and so little time left.
Meanwhile, Louisiana mob boss Carlos Marcello is caught in Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s war on the goombahs and deported, leaving him with a distaste for the Kennedys. (We should also note that the CIA reportedly hired the Italian Mob to poison Fidel Castro, a plot that obviously failed.) Now the CIA and JFK had reasons to bury their relationships with La Cosa Nostra.
It should be noted that the New York branch of the Mob, known as ‘The Five Families,’ was not involved in all this presidential subterfuge. But their doom will begin just two months before JFK is gunned down in Dallas with the televised Valachi Hearings in September 1963. If names like Sam Giancana and Carlos Marcello were not yet grist for the media, the Valachi Hearings and all the charts listing Metro New York wiseguys launched a thousand books and movies. America would soon believe that nothing illicit happens in the USA without an Italian American connection, including the assassination of JFK.
Of course, the Warren Commission which investigated the assassination fully blamed Lee Harvey Oswald, but it did note that individual mobsters (like Marcello and Giancana) had the motive and means to kill the president. Conspiracy theorists took this further by linking assassin Oswald with his jailhouse murderer Jack Ruby who supposedly had ties to Italian American mobsters.
Even though Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist the Commission exonerated the Soviet Government, Fidel Castro (who almost smoked JFK’s poisoned cigar), anti-Castro Cubans (JFK abandoned them at the Bay of Pigs), the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
There were no deathbed confessions that we know of from Castro, Khrushchev, or any U.S. government folks. But Mob-watchers claim Giancana and Marcello spilled their guts toward the end. Claims are all you need to drag Italian Americans into any conspiracy.
We are Woke-proof. -JLM
I am really out of the loop…..I have no idea what the word “woke” means….i think i have an idea , it is a bias of sorts similar to a political correctness, but still, observing its usage, it seems all over the map….Well language does evolve but hard to keep up with the jargon…..one of the characteristics of American–English is its fluidity….such as rap….of which I cant deal with. I prefer to stick with a basic lexicon. Even public announcements are getting into the act…..a road sign saying Buzz driving is illegal??? its not drunk driving but buzz driving….again is it all inclusive or what ever , Yes I am still stuck on words, and why I use to enjoy John Ciardi’s public radio program …All about words…which of course dates me……..
One word which never gets old: “mafia.” It used to have a very specific definition (a terrorist/criminal organization in Sicily) but has branched out to include everyone from home-grown gangsters like Al Capone to some fat slob running an illegal crap game in his basement. If your name ends in a vowel, you are “connected” to mafia.
No ifs, ands, or buts. And certainly, not any facts.
Another absurd conspiracy theory is that of the role of organized crime in helping the Allies to invade Sicily during WW2. It has been proven that it is just an overblown rumor with no real evidences.
I have not done any research but I suspect that another fake/overblown conspiracy is that of organized crime controlling the NYC docks during WW2.
From what I have read, Italians “controlled” some of the NY/NJ docks and the Irish others. The 1954 movie On the Waterfront did not make an ethnic distinction. If Scorsese had made the movie it would be an all-Italian circus.
The other thing is that the FBI sprung Lucky Luciano from prison after the French liner Normandy caught fire and sank at its dock. The feds thought the Italian dock workers had started the fire to support Italy’s war effort. Of course, the ‘mafia’ hated Mussolini so that theory was ridiculous. IA dockworkers were 100% loyal to the USA but the FBI’s imagination open the way for the Sicilian invasion-via-the-Mafia hoax.
tell that observation to some of my friends who claimed Lucky Luciano was freed from prison to help the allies in Sicily, along with killing communist supporters at the grass root, after the war….I have no idea….but it all is conceivable…..
FINAL JUDGEMENT written by Michael Collins Pipper, who died alone in a motel room quite mysteriously, has made a very convincing argument that the Italian mob was not directly involved but that a foreign government was involved (and it was not the USSR or Cuba).
FINAL JUDGEMENT written by Michael Collins Pipper, who died alone in a motel room under questionable circumstances, has made a very convincing argument that the Italian mob was not directly involved but that a foreign government was involved (and it was not the USSR or Cuba).