"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (52 page)

It was late evening when the meeting let out. George bid his fellow conspirators goodnight and stepped into darkness. He needed to wind down. Most men would head for a bar but he didn't drink while on a major operation. A film was better. That was one of the things he and Lee did have in common: both loved to escape from reality by taking in a movie. The difference was, at least in George's mind, George knew Hollywood films to only be fantasies. Lee foolishly took them far too seriously.

Perhaps that's what distinguishes Lee the most in my mind. I've never met a man who can be so deeply touched by a film!

Still, when George walked three blocks northward to the nearest theatre, he couldn't control himself from laughing at the irony. Playing there was
PT-109,
starring Cliff Robertson as a heroic, lionized, larger-than-life John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

“America's politics will now also be America's favorite movie.”

 

—Norman Mailer, commenting on the election

of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1960

 

On July 6, 1963, James Stewart received a phone call in his Miami office from Santo Trafficante, Jr. in Tampa. As 'Jimmy' happened to be alone at the time, he shifted to the name Santo had previously addressed him by: Johnny Rosselli.

Ordinarily, they'd make a date to meet somewhere between their two Florida cities to talk business in the privacy of some mob-owned club. This time, Santo mentioned that he had preview tickets for a movie to be screened in Tampa the following week. He wanted Johnny to drive up and join him for the event.

Nobody's fool, Rosselli sensed this had to be something big. From the neutral quality of Santo's tone, Rosselli couldn't guess if he'd landed in trouble or if his unique talents were about to be called into play once more for The Organization.

According to the rules of the game, Johnny Handsome knew he was not allowed to ask questions. Cordially, seemingly calm, he accepted. They met in a Tampa theatre lobby, Santo looking as always like a city-clerk in his thick glasses and rumpled suit.

They entered the auditorium and took seats midway down the main aisle. The house was packed. Theatre lights dimmed, a projector's bulb blasted on behind them, and Rosselli watched as the title appeared:
P.T. 109.

Johnny sighed with relief, knowing it was not he who had landed in hot water but the film's subject. JFK was played, at the president's request, by a handsome leading man, Cliff Robertson. He didn't resemble JFK at all. This, rather, was how JFK saw himself and wanted the world to perceive him, now and forever.

Young JFK, or his fictionalized persona, turned disaster into the stuff of legend, leading his crew on a swim to safety. When one sailor couldn't keep up, JFK, refusing to let a single man die, grabbed the fellow by the collar and dragged him along.

How exciting for an audience to see their current president depicted as a man of action worthy of their current fictional favorite, James Bond. No matter that JFK might well have been court marshaled for allowing his P.T. boat to be rammed by an enemy sub, something no officer had ever before let happen.

Santo and Johnny exchanged glances, each aware that it had been incompetence on JFK's part that caused the P.T. 109 to unnecessarily sink; those reports of courage under fire were drastically overstated.

At one point JFK swam away from his men, marooned on an island; Robertson made this seem a courageous gesture in the Hollywood version. Anyone with knowledge of military process understood that this was dereliction of an officer's duty.

“He fucked up, Johnny. And they're cheering him for it.”

“He's the hero of a Hollywood movie now. People always cheer for whatever that kind of guy does, right or wrong.”

From now on, no one in the world would believe that JFK had screwed up royally. For they'd seen the truth, if only in the sense that seeing is believing. Powerfully depicted in a film that put an official seal on the past. Whether what they witnessed had any bearing on reality no longer mattered.

This version of events was the one that had now been immortalized on celluloid. It would be seen everywhere and for years, decades even, be repeated on TV.

An hour later, the Mafiosos sat opposite one another in a quiet corner of a spaghetti house owned by Trafficante. Clams and linguini, the rich smell of choice garlic rising from two steaming plates, lay untouched. After what they'd experienced, neither man had an appetite. Thanks to them and their contacts, JFK had been elected to the presidency of the United States. As an Irish Catholic, he could not have reached that top plateau without such help. A deal had been cut. Now? With Jack's go-ahead, Attorney General Bobby had declared war on The Mob.

“When ‘the brothers' wanted to fuck Marilyn Monroe, we went an' arranged that for ‘em,” Santo muttered bitterly.

“Then they wanted her shut up. We fixed that, too.”

“It's time to start seriously talking about fixing them.”

They tried to relax. As always, this meant Sinatra on the juke-box, one classic cut after another.

*

Following his big comeback in the mid-1950s, Sinatra soared up the entertainment-biz ladder from star to superstar. If at that point there seemed nowhere higher to go, an even greater status awaited. Until Humphrey Bogart's death in 1957, that actor reigned as uncrowned king of what was known as The Rat Pack, insiders even among Hollywood A listers. Following Bogie's passing, the clique might have floundered had not Sinatra stepped up to accept the mantle.

Immediately, his best buddies became the new power elite: fellow saloon singer/actor Dean Martin, British-born leading man Peter Lawford, the multi-talented African-American singer/dancer/actor Sammy Davis Jr., and the wry/dry Jewish comic Joey Bishop. By the early 1960s
they were co-starring by day in the Vegas-shot movie
Ocean's 11
, headlining together at a casino by night.

“Ring-a-ding-ding,” they chimed. The crowds went wild.

Sinatra garnered a reputation as a man with two distinct personalities. He could be mean-spirited beyond all conception if the liquor rushed too swiftly through his system. Feeling guilty the morning after he'd become a sentimentalist, over-tipping valets who happened to smile brightly at him.

Vegas became a new wild west, they a gang terrorizing the town, no one willing to try and stop them. Women were broads to be bedded. The more out of control they became, the more extreme the public's fascination with it all. Yet, despite shallowness and insensitivity, there was another side to Frank, who fiercely dedicated himself to the then-burgeoning Civil Rights movement.

“It's time to turn this thing around. Let's do it!”

Among the Rat Packers, Davis had grown closest with Peter Lawford, a mediocre contract-player at MGM who owed his sudden stardom to Sinatra's friendship. As it happened, Lawford was married to Patricia Kennedy, JFK's sister. During a fund-raiser for the senator, Lawford introduced Sammy to JFK.

When these two enthusiastically explained JFK's position on civil rights to Frank, the leader of the pack expressed interest in meeting the man and possibly campaigning for him.

This, despite enmities between the Italian-Sicilian crime organization and the Irish, so often in the past cast in the life-theatre of crime as their police antagonists.

“You
gotta
meet Jack, Frank. You just gotta!”

“Alright, Sammy. If you're so enthused, I will be too.”

The young politician and the suave singer were already emerging as key icons for the upcoming decade. Why shouldn't they team up? Sinatra had “High Hopes” rewritten as the JFK theme song during his 1960 presidential face-off with Richard Nixon. JFK introduced Frankie to the fashionable set, people with power and prestige in the political arena. Sinatra helped Kennedy slip off for his secret walks on the wild side.

“You actually know Marilyn Monroe, Frankie?”

“Do I know her? That's putting it mildly, kid.”

“Well ... I'd love to ‘know' her, too.”

There were those in the Rat Pack, particularly Dean Martin, who didn't approve. To Dino's way of thinking JFK seduced Sinatra into becoming the Bostonian's pimp. When he attempted, treading with caution, to broach the subject, Frank waved Dean away.

“I trust him like a brother. Once he's in the White House, we'll all be invited. Now, ain't
that
a kick in the head?”

*

Meanwhile, things were changing in the Mob. Charles Luciano had long since been deported from Cuba to Italy. Certain that drugs would be the next big thing, he set up a Sicilian-U.S. connection, hoping to flood America with heroin, providing a similar source of illegal funds as whiskey and beer had during Prohibition. Charley would follow this up with cocaine.

This ‘connection' would be headquartered in Palermo, where Luciano, his health rapidly fading, lived out his final years. Meyer Lansky, who had retired to Miami Beach to play the role of a kindly grandfather, had to hurry off to Israel when the T-Men came after him once again. This left a new set of young turks fighting for Mob dominance. Vito Genovese and his crime family made a major power grab one month later. Several of his boys whacked Frank Costello, Lucky's last significant representative. This eliminated the final stateside representative of the old days.

At Vito's invitation, sixty-six mobsters descended on the small-town of Apalachin, New York for a summit meeting in which Genovese planned to stake out his dominance over all organized crime. Things went south when the isolated farmhouse was raided by police, sending mobsters running off in all directions. This November disaster allowed Sam Giancana to make his own influence felt. Having reached the top of the ladder in Chicago, he made the point that if that big meeting had taken place in the Windy City, no such travesty would have occurred.

As Mob members were dragged before grand juries, Gold's words echoed in their ears. By 1959, he had become The Man. Gold was God, to Mafiosos and their small circle of friends.

Among those accepted into his sphere of influence was Frank Sinatra. However warmly Frank felt about Charley, who would pass away at age sixty-two in 1962, no question Frankie's immediate loyalty shifted during this period. Before long, Frank would broach a subject of great seriousness and much controversy.

“Sam, can we set up a conference? This could be a biggie!”

Word had reached Sinatra, indirectly through JFK's aged father Joseph, that his son needed a favor. Frankie's support had been appreciated. That might not be enough to put Jack over the top. The final decision would come down to two states and, more specifically, two areas within those states. In Illinois, key districts of Chicago. Likewise, West Virginia territories.

Was it possible that Mr. Sinatra might speak of this with Mr. Giancana? The Syndicate had always operated out of Chicago; West Virginia served as yet another Mob headquarters. The situation certainly seemed serendipitous.

“Wow, that's a biggie. But, yeah, I can try.”

Still a naïve kid at heart despite that cruel façade, Sinatra all but danced with delight. To be the go-between, the key link connecting the next president and The Mob.

Ring-a-ding-ding! The thrill of it all ...

*

Tenuously, Old Sam listened. “But can we trust them?”

“I'd stake my life on it.”

“That may be the case!” Giancana's dark eyes darted about mirthlessly as he spoke in cautious terms.

“This guy's become like a brother to me.”

“I don‘t know, Frankie. I mean, he's
Irish
. Not that I give a fuck about race. Like, what would we do without the Jews? Charlie always had Meyer. Today, Willie Moretti's in bed with Longy Zwillman. But The Micks? Jesus! I just don't know.”

“Maybe that was then; this, now. Things change.”

“Do they? Maybe. But you know what some people say? The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“So you won't—”

Behind a sprawling mahogany desk, Sam shifted in his seat. “Yeah, I will. We'll bring in both districts in Chicago. Down south, too. Put your guy in the White House. When Frankie asks for a favor, he gets it. With me, as with Charley.”

Sinatra moved forward, warmly grasped Sam Giancana's hand, and kissed his ring finger in deference. “Thank you.”

“I want you to listen, now. If this works out like you say, we'll be thanking you. Because once he's in the cat seat, he'll have to remember every single day who put him in that position.”

“Capiche!” Sinatra firmly shook Giancana's aging hand. He perceived no problem. JFK was hardly a fool.

Surely, he'd get the big picture ...

One week later, Sam Giancana met with Joseph Kennedy, Sr. Apart from their ethnicities the two had a great deal in common. Both were known to be shrewd, unsparing, and hard as nails when it came to business. Just as the Mob had always relied on movies and alcohol as fundamentals in building wealth, so had Kennedy. In a shadowy room, during one of the most secretive meetings ever held in the history of America, the two came together.

“So: You really think your kid's tough enough for this?”

“Sure. He hates the same as I do.”

“Well,” Giancana sighed, grinning. “This whole thing can be arranged. But it's gonna cost.”

Relaxing somewhat, the elder Kennedy smiled back. “Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I mean, I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay for a landslide.”

*

Shortly thereafter, JFK won the election by one of the tightest margins in presidential politics. No sooner had the Kennedy era begun than Frankie was wined and dined in the White House. JFK's wife didn't care much for him so Sinatra came to think of Jacqueline as a snob, turned off by him being Italian.