Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [248]
6. At Maryland tracks Edgar dealt with a Damon Runyonesque tipster called ‘Washington Jake.’ In California he dealt with Harry Hall, a bookmaker with a prison record. Hall recalled giving Hoover a tip while accompanied by Joe Matranga, son-in-law of a mobster high in the Detroit Mafia. (Int. Jimmy Raftery, 1988, ints. Harry Hall, 1988, 1990, corr. John Hunt, 1993.)
Chapter 23
1. Chuck and Sam Giancana’s 1992 book Double Cross attracted criticism for some of its claims about the assassination of President Kennedy. Portions of the book do appear to have been embroidered, but interviews with co-author Sam Giancana (Chuck’s son and his namesake, the mobster’s godson) indicate that its principal assertions are based on Chuck’s account of what the mobster told him. (Ints. Sam Giancana, 1991, 1992.)
2. Guilemo Santucci, a confidant of Costello and Lansky, said much the same. He would talk, recalled his driver John Dellafera, ‘of the good old days, when Hoover and the other big shots would look the other way. He told me they would do Hoover favors and he would do them favors in return. Hoover agreed to this as if they had something on him.’ (Int. and written statement of Dellafera, 1991.)
3. In the late forties, the FBI did carry out surveillance against Costello, planting bugs at New York’s Copacabana Club, where the mobster held court each day. This was highly productive until, out of the blue, the agents were suddenly called off. ‘We were never told why,’ recalled former agent Jack Danahee. (Int. 1988.)
4. See end of Chapter 8.
5. See Chapter 8.
6. Police sources told Hamill they, too, had heard of the compromising photographs.
7. Lansky did come under heavy FBI surveillance in 1961, but this was part of the push against organized crime under Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (Little Man, by Robert Lacey, Boston, Little, Brown, 1991, pp. 288ff, corr. Lacey, 1992.)
8. The U.S. Intelligence/Mafia connection in World War II was a high-risk relationship, the precursor of the arrangement in the sixties, when the CIA and the mob collaborated to plot the murder of Fidel Castro.
9. The CIA’s James Angleton, said to have been in possession of a Hoover sex picture, served in the OSS in Rome at the end of the war – at the time Lansky’s associate Lucky Luciano arrived there, following his release from a U.S. jail in recognition of his services to U.S. Intelligence (Cold Warrior, by Tom Mangold, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 22ff.)
10. The spying on the brothel, near the Brooklyn Naval Yard, occurred because of suspicion that U.S. Senator David Walsh, Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, was a patron. Walsh was exonerated, following a controversial probe in which the FBI played a key role. Afterward, Walsh sent Hoover an effusive letter of thanks. (OC 123, 153, Trading With the Enemy, by Charles Higham, NY, Delacorte, 1983, p. 88, NYP, May 1–22, 1942, NYT, Oct. 6, 1942, Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob, by Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau, NY, Paddington Press, 1979, p. 199.)
Chapter 24
1. Judge McLaughlin and former committee investigator William Gallinaro were outraged when a charge of perjury was brought against Mrs Rosenstiel in an unrelated New York case in January 1971. They believed that this was the work of Rosenstiel himself, using money and influence to obstruct the committee inquiry by discrediting his former wife. The millionaire’s attorney in the divorce case, Benjamin Javits, was disbarred for conniving at his client’s attempt to subvert the judicial system. (NYT, Feb. 9, 1971, Village Voice, Feb. 18, 1971, ints. Wm. Gallinaro, Edward McLaughlin, 1988, [Javits] NYT, Jan. 6, 1971.)
2. In 1959, Hoover rebuffed Dr Robert Hutchins, President of the Fund for the Republic, who offered $4 million to help the struggle against organized crime and asked the FBI for advice. Hoover sent William Sullivan to tell Hutchins flatly that none of the mob bosses mentioned