Sam Giancana - Alleged CIA Connections

Alleged CIA Connections

It is widely reputed, and partially corroborated by the Church Committee Hearings, that during the Kennedy administration, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recruited Giancana and other mobsters to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. Giancana reportedly said that the CIA and the Cosa Nostra were "different sides of the same coin."

The association between Giancana and JFK is indicated in the "Exner File" written by Judith Campbell Exner. Exner was reputed to be mistress to both Giancana and JFK and claimed she delivered communications between the two regarding Fidel Castro.

However, Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, has stated her belief that her father was running a scam in order to pocket millions of dollars in CIA funding.

According to the recently-declassified CIA "Family Jewels" documents, Giancana and Tampa/Miami Syndicate leader Santo Trafficante, Jr. were contacted in September 1960, about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA, Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a Mafia member in Las Vegas and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli, Giancana, nor Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee, Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being a corrupt official in the new Cuban government and who had access to Castro. After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unclear how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was canceled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961.

At the same time, Giancana, according to the "Family Jewels", approached Maheu to bug the room of his then-mistress Phyllis McGuire, whom he suspected of having an affair with comedian Dan Rowan. Although documents suggest Maheu acquiesced, the bug was not planted due to the arrest of the agent who had been given the task of planting the device. According to the documents, Robert Kennedy moved to block the prosecution of the agent and of Maheu, who was soon linked to the bugging attempt, at the CIA's request. Giancana and McGuire, who had a long lasting affair, were originally introduced by Frank Sinatra. During part of the affair, according to Sam's daughter Antoinette, McGuire had a concurrent affair with President Kennedy.