The Kennedy Brothers: The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby (60 page)

31
  Oral history, Charles Spalding, JFKL. O’Donnell,
A Common Good
, p. 184.

32
  Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
, p. 212.

33
  White,
The Making of the American President 1960
, p. 108.

34
  Interview, Raymond Chafin.

35
  Quoted in Ronald Kessler,
The Sins of the Father
(New York: Warner Books, 1996), p. 376.

36
  Hubert Humphrey,
The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), p. 217.

37
  White,
The Making of the President 1960
, p. 112.

38
  O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye,
” p. 147.

39
  See chapter entitled “July 13, 1961, Chicago, Illinois.”

40
  This is based on review of
Granma,
the Cuban Communist party daily, 1—20 March 1960, as well as an interview in Havana with one of Castro’s lieutenants during that period, Ignacio Perez Cerezo.

41
  This account is based on a host of sources, the most important of which is Tad Szulc,
Fidel Castro: A Critical Portrait
(New York: Morrow, 1986).

42
  In mid-December 1963, the CIA’s Florida station known as JM/WAVE launched Operation Duck, in which a crew of exiles infiltrated Cuban waters and placed time-delayed charges under Cuban PT boats. After setting off a small initial charge, the invaders fled. At daybreak the next morning, with a host of Cuban vessels in the vicinity, a second, far larger detonation took place. See David Corn,
Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 111—12.

43
  As quoted in Szulc,
Fidel Castro,
p. 515.

44
  John Pearson,
The Life of Ian Fleming
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 296—97.

45
  See Hinckle and Turner,
The Fish Is Red
, pp. 44—45.

46
  Interview, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, June 1997. At the time of the interview, Alarcón was serving as Cuban president of the National Congress.

47
  Interview, Peter Lawford.

48
  Parmet,
Jack,
pp. 191—92. Kennedy had likened his disease, in a conversation with Joe Alsop in the late 1940s, as “slow-motion leukemia.” Also James A. Nicholas, Charles L. Busstein et al., “Management of Adrenocortical Insufficiency During Surgery,”
Archive of Surgery
, November 1955, p. 736.

49
  Oral history of Janet Travell M.D., JFKL.

50
  See Carl Rollyson,
The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography
(New York: Paragon House, 1991), pp. 134—35.

51
  Norman Mailer, “Superman Comes to the Supermarket,” Esquire, September 1960.

52
  Interview, Lawford. Sinatra repeated this phrase incessantly to his friends and associates.

53
  Sam Giancana, according to his brother and son, had Sinatra under instruction to “pull out all the stops” to get Kennedy elected president. See Giancana and Giancana,
Double Cross,
p. 281, and passim.

54
  Interview, Meredith Harless. She served as Louis B. Mayer’s assistant during the 1930s and 1940s. For an in-depth discussion of this incident, see Rappleye and Becker,
All-American Mafioso,
pp. 132—33.

55
  Interview, Lawford.

56
  Quoted in Christopher Andersen,
Jack and Jackie,
p. 214.

57
  Interview, Harless.

58
  James Spada,
Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets
(New York: Bantam Books, 1991), pp. 191—93.

59
  Interview, Lawford. The author attempted to interview Frank Sinatra on several occasions but Sinatra, through staff, declined.

60
  Interview, Berle. I am grateful to Irwin Schaeffer for having made the introduction.

61
  Christopher Anderson has written that there had been a party the previous evening, July 15, at the Lawford home in which Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson, among other guests, went skinny-dipping. Anderson,
Jack and Jackie,
p. 214.

62
  Otash has since maintained that there were bugs planted in the house prior to the Mafia eavesdropping. Spada,
Peter Lawford,
pp. 310—11.

63
  In its wiretap (ELSUR) of Giancana in Chicago, the FBI learned that Rosselli wanted his apartment (the Diplomat) swept for bugs and was trying to get the most recent generation of bugs from the CIA. See LA 92-113 (transcribed conversation between Giancana and Rosselli), as well as FBI field analysis. FBI numbered files, AA.

64
  See Richard D. Mahoney,
JFK: Ordeal in Africa,
p. 34.

65
  Drawn from the testimony of Maheu, Rosselli, and Jim O’Connell before the Church Committee. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, pp. 75—76.

66
  Rappleye and Becker,
All-American Mafioso
, pp. 145—47.

67
  As quoted in Szulc,
Fidel,
p. 525.

68
  See David Wise and Thomas B. Ross,
The Espionage Establishment
(New York: Random House, 1967), p. 130.

69
  See FBI Memorandum on Albert Foley, S.J., FBI numbered files, AA. Rappleye and Becker,
All-American Mafioso,
p. 252.

70
  Based on the testimony of Rosselli, O’Connell, Maheu, and Trafficante before the Church Committee in June 1975. Also Hinckle and Turner,
The Fish Is Red
, p. 29.

71
  Interview, Jorge Recarey. Recarey’s father, trained as an attorney, was one of the largest produce merchants in Cuba.

72
  Quoted in Haynes Johnson,
The Bay of Pigs: The Leader’s Story of Brigade 2056
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), p. 27.

73
  Eugenio Martinez was later to achieve Watergate fame as one of the hotel burglars.

74
  See Andy Postal Memorandum for the Record Re: Chronology of Events As We Now Know Them, 12 September 1975. AA.

75
  Summers,
Official and Confidential,
pp. 237—53.

76
  Testimony of Eugene H. Brading, 26 July 1978, HSCA, AA. Brading testified that mob capo Joey Snyder had introduced him to Hoover. He also admitted, under risk of perjury, that he was acquainted with Anthony Spilotro, Marshall Caifano, and Allen Dorfman, all Chicago mob figures. He further testified (p. 45) that, within days of Rosselli’s murder in July 1976, he was paged at the Atlanta Marriott. When he answered the phone, he was informed: “You’re next.” Brading was in Los Angeles, more than 100 miles from his own home, the night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination in Los Angeles and was extensively questioned about this by Los Angeles police. See Peter Noyes,
Legacy of Doubt
(New York: Pinnacle Books, 1973) and David Scheim,
Contract on America
(New York: Pinnacle Books, 1983).

77
  The FBI ELSUR (electronic surveillance) intercept is quoted in HSCA memorandum “Involvement of Organized Crime in Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro” (Secret/Declassified), p. 8. Roemer’s description of Cain is contained in
Man Against the Mob,
p. 210. The author reviewed the Chicago Crime Commission’s entire file on Cain and also interviewed both Jack Mabely (former columnist for the
Chicago Daily News
) and Treasury agent Robert R. Fuesel.

78
  Roemer,
Man Against the Mob,
p. 172. This description of Cain is also based on the Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) files.

79
  Interview, Jack Mabely.

80
  Undated staff memorandum, House Select Committee on Assassinations, AA.

81
  White,
The Making of the American President 1960,
p. 12. This account is based on those of White and O’Donnell and Powers in “
Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye
.” Also interviews, Dave Powers, Kenneth O’Donnell, Ralph Dungan, and Larry O’Brien.

82
  Leo Damore,
The Cape Cod Years of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967), pp. 216—23.

83
  This is White’s judgment,
The Making of the American President 1960,
pp. 9—10.

84
  Interview, Larry O’Brien. RFK took extensive notes on an election form that evening. See Personal Correspondence, file folder DNC 1960, RFKP, JFKL.

85
  Interview, Dungan. O’Donnell and Powers refer to Kennedy’s “sailorish language,”
“Johnny
We Hardly
Knew Ye
,” p. 224.

86
  William Manchester, One Brief Shining Moment: Remembering
Kennedy
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), p. 121.

87
  White, The Making of the President 1960, pp. 13—14.

88
  Interview, Dungan. The next day, 9 November 1960, JFK quoted Daley as saying, “Mr. President, with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you’re going to carry Illinois.” Quoted in Ben Bradlee,
A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 212.

89
  Interviews: Doris Mulcahy (whose husband was a “Democratic associate” of Inglese) was one of the women working at the Armory Lounge that night. The Lounge was then owned by Joey Aiuppa, the Outfit’s boss in Cicero. Rosselli’s fingertip ability with facts and figures was evident fifteen years later, on 24 June 1975, when he testified about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro before the Church Committee:

SENATOR GOLDWATER: Mr. Rosselli, we’ve had CIA agents, we’ve had FBI agents, we’ve had other members of the government here, and all of them came in with their notes and files, and referred to them in answering our questions, and it’s remarkable to me how your testimony dovetails with theirs. Tell me, Mr. Rosselli, during the time that all this was going on, were you taking notes?

MR. ROSSELLI: Senator, in my business, we don’t take notes.

90
  See Roemer,
Man Against the Mob
, p. 145.

91
  Ovid Demaris,
Captive City
(New York: L. Stuart, 1969).

92
  O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye
,” p. 224.

93
  Ibid., p. 195. Sworn testimony of Donald Pecock before the Illinois Election Laws Commission. See also Mike Royko, chap. 4, “The Machine,” in
Boss: Richard J Daley of Chicago
(New York: Dutton, 1971).

94
  Milton L. Rakove,
We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent: An Oral History of the Daley Years
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979).

95
  Ibid., p. 106.

96
  Manchester,
One Brief Shining Moment,
p. 121.

97
  Hersh,
The Dark Side of Camelot,
p. 140.

98
  Interview, O’Brien. He later stuck to the story: “There was a degree of hanky-panky in Illinois, but I always felt that whatever it was — and I had no knowledge of it — it happened in the southern part of the state.” Quoted in F. Richard Ciccone,
Daley: Power and Presidential Politics
(Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1996), p. 142. Ethel Kennedy’s quote is contained in Thompson and Myers, The Brother
Within,
p. 12.

99
  Oral history of John Seigenthaler, JFKL.

100
  Ibid. Also Thompson and Myers, The Brother
Within,
p. 21.

101
  Oral history of Robert F. Kennedy, JFKL.

102
  See Thompson and Myers, The Brother
Within,
pp. 39—40.

103
  Oral history, Seigenthaler.

104
  This portrait of Robert F. Kennedy is based on several interviews, the most significant of which were with Kenneth O’Donnell, Dave Powers, William P. Mahoney, and Ralph Dungan.

105
  Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
, p. 242.

106
  Ibid., p. 243.

107
  Giancana and Giancana,
Double Cross
, pp. 294—95.

108
  
Wall Street Journal
, 19 December 1960.

109
  Quoting Harold Gibbons in Steven Brill,
The Teamsters
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 30.

110
  Oral history, Seigenthaler.

111
  Ibid., p. 243.

Ordeal: 1961

1
  Mahoney,
JFK
:
Ordeal in Africa,
pp. 69—70.

2
  John Ranelagh,
The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), pp. 288—96.

3
  Mahoney,
JFK: Ordeal in Africa,
p. 59.

4
  In
The Dark Side of Camelot,
Seymour Hersh states that “Jack Kennedy knew of and endorsed the CIA’s assassination plotting against Lumumba.” He offers no evidence of this claim, which is entirely contrary to this author’s research. Hersh further states that Lumumba was “murdered during Kennedy’s thousand days in the presidency.” Lumumba was in fact murdered two days before Kennedy became president. Among Hersh’s other claims is that “Jack Kennedy had personally authorized Richard Bissell to set up ZR/RIFLE before his inauguration” (p. 192). ZR/RIFLE was in fact created in early November 1960, two and a half months before Kennedy took office. See HSCA staff Memorandum from Mason Cargill, 21 May 1976. Also Staff Summary, 7 June 1976.

5
  See news release, The Fontainebleau Hilton Resort and Towers.

6
  Interview, Joe Shimon.

7
  House Assassinations Committee staff memorandum, p. 8, AA.