Salvatore "Mooney Sam" Giancana, better known as Sam Giancana, was an American mobster and
mob boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957–1966. Among his other nicknames were, "Momo", "Sam
the Cigar," and "Sammy."
Early life Giancana was born as Salvatore Giangana in
The Patch on Chicago's West Side to Italian Sicilian immigrants from Partanna, in the
province of Trapani. His father, Antonino Giangana, owned a pushcart and later briefly
owned an Italian ice shop, which was later firebombed by gangland rivals of his son.
Criminal career Sam Giancana joined the Forty-Two Gang, a
juvenile street crew answering to political boss Joseph Esposito. Giancana soon developed
a reputation for being an excellent getaway driver, a high earner, and a vicious killer.
After Esposito's murder, in which Giancana was allegedly involved, the 42 Gang was transformed
into a de facto extension of the Chicago Outfit. The Outfit was initially wary of the 42ers,
thinking them too wild. However, Giancana's leadership qualities, the fact that he was
an excellent "wheel man" with a get-away car and his knack for making money on the street
gained him the notice of Cosa Nostra higher-ups like Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, Paul "The
Waiter" Ricca and Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo. In the late 1930s, Giancana became the first
42er to join the Outfit. Family
Sam married Angelina DeTolve, the daughter of immigrants from the Italian region of Basilicata,
on September 23, 1933. They had three daughters, Antoinette, Bonnie and Francine. Angelina
died in 1954 and left Sam to raise his daughters. Sam never remarried after becoming a widower
and was known as a good family man, despite frequent infidelities, and held his late wife
in high regard and respect during their marriage and after her death. All of the Giancana daughters
have married at least once. As of 1984, at least one daughter, Antoinette, had taken
the "Giancana" name again. Rise to power
In 1945, after serving a sentence at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute, Indiana,
Giancana made a name for himself by convincing Accardo, then the Outfit's underboss, to stage
a take-over of Chicago's African-American "policy" pay-out system for The Outfit. Giancana's
crew is believed to have been responsible for convincing Eddie Jones to leave his racket
and leave the country. Giancana's crew was also responsible for the murder on August
4, 1952 of African American gambling boss Theodore Roe. Both Jones and Roe were leading
South Side "Policy Kings". However, Roe had refused to surrender control of his operation
as the Outfit had demanded. What is more, on June 19, 1951, Roe had fatally shot Lennard
"Fat Lennie" Caifano, a made man in Giancana's crew. Over an FBI wiretap during the early
1970s, Giancana said of Roe, "I'll say this. Nigger or no nigger, that bastard went out
like a man. He had balls. It was a fuckin' shame to kill him."
However, the South Side "policy"-game takeover by the Outfit was not complete until another
Outfit member, Jackie "the Lackey" Cerone, scared "Big Jim" Martin to Mexico with two
bullets to the head that did not kill him. When the lottery money started rolling in
for The Outfit after this gambling war, the amount that this game had produced for The
Outfit was in the millions of dollars a year and brought Giancana further notice. It is
believed to have been a major factor in his being "anointed" as the Outfit's new boss
when Accardo stepped aside from being the front boss to becoming "consigliere," in 1957.
However, it was generally understood that Accardo and Ricca still held the real power.
Giancana was required to consult Accardo and Ricca on all important Outfit affairs. No
major business transactions, and certainly no hits, took place without Accardo and Ricca's
approval. Giancana was present at the Mafia's 1957 Apalachin
Meeting at the Upstate New York estate of Joseph Barbara. Later, Buffalo crime boss
Stefano Magaddino and Giancana were overheard on a wire saying the meeting should have taken
place in the Chicago area. Giancana claimed that the Chicago area was "the safest place
in the world" for a major underworld meeting because he had several police chiefs on his
payroll. If the syndicate ever wanted to hold a meeting in or around Chicago, Giancana said,
they had nothing to fear because they had the area "locked up tight."
Alleged CIA connections It is widely reputed, and partially corroborated
by the Church Committee Hearings, that during the Kennedy administration, the Central Intelligence
Agency 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." Judith Campbell Exner claimed to be the mistress
to both Giancana and JFK and that 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. Documents released in 1997 revealed that some
Mafiosi worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
CIA documents released in 2007 confirmed that in the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI
agent Robert Maheu to approach the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob, Johnny
Roselli. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA,
instead portraying himself an advocate for international corporations. He offered to
pay $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli declined any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu
to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe." "Sam Gold" was Sam Giancana; "Joe"
was Santo Trafficante, Jr., the Tampa, Florida boss and one of the most powerful mobsters
in pre-revolution Cuba. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro
led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate
him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had
lucrative investments in Cuban casinos." Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union,
and mobsters Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti, and Santo
Trafficante Jr.—all of whom say Hoffa worked with the CIA on the Castro assassination plots—top
the list of House Select Committee on Assassinations Mafia suspects.
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. 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.
Downfall Giancana's behavior was too high-profile for
Outfit tastes and attracted far too much federal scrutiny. He also refused to cut his underlings
in on his lavish profits from offshore casinos in Iran and Central America. Both of these
factors resulted in much bitterness among the Outfit's rank-and-file. Giancana was the
subject of many hours of wiretaps. On one, he was heard to say "We're whacking a lot
of the wrong guys lately." When Giancana was called before a grand jury
in 1966, he was ordered to stay silent, which put him in prison for over a year. Meanwhile,
Giancana was deposed by Ricca and Accardo as day-to-day boss, and replaced by Joseph
"Joey Doves" Aiuppa. International gambling success and dispute
with the Outfit After arriving in Mexico, Giancana managed
to make money from various gambling operations, among them in Iran.
When Tony Accardo demanded that he gave a share of the profits to The Outfit, Giancana
refused, claiming that he did it all by himself and outside the The Outfit's jurisdiction.
In response, Accardo asked someone to "explain him the facts of life. And I mean life." Giancana,
however remained adamant and refused to pay. Return to Chicago and death
After about seven years of exile inside a lavish villa in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Giancana
was arrested by Mexican authorities in 1974 and deported to the United States. He arrived
back in Chicago on July 21, 1974. Giancana had another sitdown with the Outfit
with no resolution. The Outfit requested him to give a share of his money and he refused.
After his return to the U.S., the police detailed officers to guard his house in Oak Park, Illinois.
However, on the night of June 19, 1975, someone recalled the police detail. A gunman later
entered Giancana's basement kitchen and shot him in the back of the head as he was frying
sausage and peppers. After Giancana fell to the ground, the gunman turned him over and
shot him six more times in the face and neck. Investigators suspected that the murderer
was a close friend whom Giancana had let into the house. One reason for this suspicion was
that Giancana, due to his heart problems, could not eat spicy foods. Therefore, he might
have been cooking for a friend. Giancana was killed shortly before he was scheduled to
appear before a U. S. Senate committee investigating CIA and Cosa Nostra collusion in plots to
assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Hit man Nicholas Calabrese told the FBI in
the 2000s that he knew that Tony Accardo was part of the killing and Angelo LaPietra got
rid of the gun. The gun used to kill Giancana was equipped with a silencer that Frank Calabrese,
Sr. and Ronnie Jarret had made. Earlier speculations as to how Giancana died
Some commentators have alleged that the CIA killed Giancana because of his troubled history
with the agency. However, former CIA Director William Colby has been quoted as saying, "We
had nothing to do with it." Another theory is that Trafficante crime family
boss Santo Trafficante, Jr. ordered Giancana's murder due to mob fears that Giancana would
testify about Cosa Nostra and CIA plots to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro. Trafficante
would have needed permission from Outfit bosses Tony Accardo and Joseph Aiuppa to kill Giancana.
Johnny Roselli, whose body was found stuffed in an oil drum floating off Miami, was definitely
killed on Trafficante's orders. Most investigators believe that Aiuppa ordered
the Giancana murder. Giancana was still refusing to share any of his offshore gambling profits
with the Outfit. In addition, Giancana was reportedly scheming to become Outfit boss
again. According to former Mafia associate Michael J. Corbitt, Aiuppa seized control
of Giancana's casinos in the aftermath of the murder, strategically sharing them with
his caporegimes. Longtime friend and associate Dominic "Butch"
Blasi was with Giancana the night he was murdered, and was questioned by police as a suspect.
FBI experts and Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, do not consider him Giancana's killer.
Other Mafia suspects are Harry Aleman, Charles "Chuckie" English, and Charles Nicoletti.
In the 1995 movie Sugartime, Dominic "Butch" Blasi, as portrayed by Elias Koteas, is shown
murdering Giancana. Giancana was interred next to his wife, Angelina,
in a family mausoleum at Mount Carmel Cemetery, in Hillside, Illinois.
Michael J. Corbitt's account Within days of Giancana's murder, Willow Springs
police chief and Outfit associate Michael J. Corbitt discussed the murder with capo
Salvatore Bastone. Bastone told him, "You know, Sam sure loved that little guy in Oak
Park... Tony Spilotro. Yeah, he was fuckin' crazy about him. Sam put Tony on the fuckin'
map, thought he was gonna be a big fuckin' man someday. Did you know that after Marshall
Caifano got out of Vegas, it was Sam who wanted Tony Spilotro out there? Even lately, with
all the problems with the skim and all, Sam always stood behind the guy. Tony was over
to Sam's house all the time. He lived right by there. Did you know Tony even figured out
a way where he could get in through the back of Sam's place without anybody seeing him?
He'd go through other people's yards, go over fences, all sorts of shit."
Corbitt responded, "Sam wouldn't open the door for just any son of a bitch. I mean there's
Butch, Chuckie English... He'd let them in alright, but shit, no way they'd ever do anything
to hurt Sam. No way." Bastone then said, "Yeah, Sam and Butch were
real close. And the same thing with him and Chuckie. Besides, neither one of them had
the balls to do somethin' like that. There's only one guy that had the balls to do Sam."
When Corbitt asked for the reason, Bastone quipped, "There's never just one reason for
shit like what happened to Sam. There's a million of 'em. Let's just say that Sam should've
remembered what happened to Bugsy Siegel." In popular culture
Giancana is the subject of the biography Mafia Princess, written by his daughter Antoinette.
This book was later adapted into the 1986 TV film Mafia Princess, starring Tony Curtis
as Giancana. The 1995 TV film Sugartime depicts Giancana's
relationship with singer Phyllis McGuire of the McGuire Sisters, with Giancana being played
by John Turturro. Rod Steiger portrayed Giancana in the 1992
TV miniseries Sinatra. Robert Miranda played Giancana in the 1998
TV film, The Rat Pack. Influential mafioso-rapper Kool G Rap once
stated that the "G" in his name stands for Giancana. Kool G Rap released an album in
2002 called The Giancana Story. Giancana plays a major role in James Ellroy's
fiction, most notably American Tabloid and its sequels The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's
a Rover. Giancana is a central figure in the Max Allan
Collins novels Chicago Confidential and Road to Paradise.
Giancana is a character in the Robert Randisi Rat Pack novels.
News footage of Giancana is featured in the film JFK.
Giancana is portrayed under the name "Joseph Palmi" in the 2006 film, The Good Shepherd,
starring Matt Damon. Palmi may be a mix of the several other mobsters involved with the
operation. Matt Damon's character, Edward Wilson, is depicted in proposing Palmi to
assist in the assassination of Fidel Castro. Giancana is mentioned in the song "Dope money"
by The Lox. "Bring Drama 'cause Giancana got Kennedy Killed". "Dope money" is song number
six, on The LOX second Album, Ryde or Die Vol. 1.
Giancana played a major role in the 1965 J. X. Williams film Peep Show and has a personal
performance credit for this on the IMDb movie data-base.
Giancana may be mentioned in the Shyne song "Edge" on his second album "Godfather Buried
Alive." "Fuck comma rap's, Sam Giancana", although this is sometimes rendered as "... same
G and canna". The fictional character Louie Russo from The
Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner, could be based on Sam Giancana.
The character Mob Man from The X Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" is likely
based on Giancana who is present at a planning meeting on the assassination of JFK.
Giancana is a notable character in Norman Mailer's historical fiction "Harlot's Ghost".
Serge Houde portrays Giancana as a major nemesis of the Kennedy family in the 2011 television
miniseries The Kennedys. Giancana features in the first episode of
UK history TV channel Yesterday's documentary series Mafia's Greatest Hits.
The fictional character "Sam" in the novel The Outlaw Sandra Love is based on Giancana.
See also
Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro Notes
References
Further reading
External links Sam Giancana at Encyclopædia Britannica
Federal Bureau of Investigation - Freedom of Information Privacy Act: Sam Giancana
Seize the Night: Sam "Momo" Giancana Sam Giancana at Find a Grave