by Bruno, Joe
Being involved in the illegal rum running business also meant that Joe Kennedy had to play ball with some tough customers who were doing the same thing that Joseph P. Kennedy was doing. This is where Joe Kennedy, even though he was born and raised in Boston, became a New York City gangster, if only by association.
One of the men Kennedy had to deal with, almost on a daily basis, was Owney “The Killer” Madden, who was partners with Big Bill Dwyer, called “The King of the Rum Runners.” By partnering with Madden and Dwyer, Kennedy now had a New York City distributor for his Scotch, through several night clubs Madden and Dwyer owned, including the Stork Club and the El Fey Club in Midtown Manhattan, and the famous Cotton Club in Harlem.
In 1924, Kennedy moved his brood of seven children from Boston to the New York City suburb of Riverdale, where Kennedy kept a close eye on his two main moneymakers: Wall Street and the New York City distribution network of his illegal rum running operation. During this period of time, Kennedy also hooked up with known Mafia hoodlum Johnny Roselli, who introduced Kennedy to Kennedy's new rum running partner in the Midwest, one Alphonse “Scarface” Capone.
By 1927, Kennedy was so flush with cash, he decided to make a move out west and get involved with the movie-making business in Hollywood, California. His entry into Hollywood was greased by Roselli, who through fear and intimidation, had basically the entire Hollywood cast of characters under his control.
Soon, Kennedy became the boss of the Film Booking Company (FBO). Kennedy also created the Cinema Credits Corporation, which he used as a conduit to pull in money from his financial cronies up north, in order to invest in the grand schemes abounding in Hollywood.
However, Kennedy, wily stock manipulator that he was from his experience up north, made his first big Hollywood “killing” when he was hired as an advisor to Pathe', a highly profitable newsreel company, that had been around almost since Thomas Edison had invented his Vitascope projector.
Having access to the full scope of Pathe's finances, Kennedy bought in at $30 a share. When Pathe' was sold, Kennedy arranged to have himself paid $80 a share, while the average Pathe' investor only took in a buck fifty a share. This type of stock manipulation is punishable by imprisonment today, but back then, it was just a way of “doing business” that Kennedy had mastered up north. Lawsuits flew back and forth, but Kennedy had stacked the deck in his favor and nothing ever came of the lawsuits.
In researching her book The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; author Doris Kearns Goodwin uncovered old lost letters written by one of the Pathe' investors, Ann Lawler, who ironically came from Kennedy's home town of Boston. Apparently, through Kennedy's manipulation of Pathe' stock, Lawler had lost her entire life savings.
Lawler wrote to Kennedy, “This seems hardly Christian-like, fair, or just, for a man of your character. I wish you would think of the poor working women who had so much faith in you as to give their money to your Pathe'.”
Good old Joe Kennedy must have had a hearty laugh over that one.
While in Hollywood and still married to Rose, Kennedy engaged in the same extramarital affairs that his son, Jack the President, would engage in a generation later. Joe Kennedy's affair with actress Gloria Swanson was an open secret, known by everyone in Hollywood, including members of the press, whom Kennedy paid to keep the news out of the tabloids.
Old Joe even bedded down showgirl Evelyn Crowell, the window of dearly-departed Larry Fay, who was Owney Madden's partner in the popular El Fey nightclub, which featured showgirl Tex Guinan as the main attraction. Fay was also part owner of the Casa Blanca nightclub, a midtown hotspot. On January 1, 1933, Fay was shot to death, shortly after the bells rang bringing in the New Year, by the Casa Blanca doorman, whom Fay had just informed that his pay was being cut. With the unfortunate Fay's marital bed still warm, Joe Kennedy jumped into it with the widow Crowdell - the late Larry Fay and Rose Kennedy be damned.
Kennedy knew his power in Hollywood would be limited unless he owned his own movie distributing company to distribute the movies (mostly mediocre) that he was making. In 1929, Kennedy, now part owner of RKO movies, set his eyes on the Pantages Theatre chain, owned by Pericles “Alexander” Pantages, a Greek immigrant and a self-made man. Kennedy, along with his partner David Sarnoff, approached Pantages and offered to buy him out. However, Pantages turned them down flat, which did not make Joe Kennedy too happy.
What happened next is open to conjecture, but has been reported in several publications, including the best-selling book Hollywood Babylon, to be the gospel truth.
According to reports, Kennedy employed the services of one Eunice Pringle, a 17-year-old vaudeville dancer who wanted desperately to be a Hollywood movie star. On August 9, 1929, Pringle showed up unexpectedly at the offices of Pantages, inside his theater on South Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Soon after she arrived at Pantages office, Pringle ran into the lobby of the theater, her clothes torn to shreds. She started screaming and pointing at Pantages, who was following her. “There he is - the beast!” Pringle said. “Don't let him get at me!”
When the police arrived, Pringle insisted that Pantages had tried to rape her in a broom closet in his office.
Pantages's confusion turned to anger. He told the police, “It's a lie! She raped herself!”
The Pantages' rape trial turned Hollywood, always seeking the sensational, into a cauldron of hate: hate for Alexander Pantages. The Herald-Examiner wrote that Pringle was “the sweetest seventeen since Clara Bow.”
On the witness stand, Pantages tearfully denied what Pringle said had ever happened. But the dice of public opinion had already been cast against him. Pantages was found “guilty as charged” and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Luckily for Pantages, he was a very wealthy man, and he appealed the verdict. At his first trial, a group of private investigators, whom Pantages had hired, uncovered evidence that Pringle was little more than a base prostitute. But for some reason, the judge (probably an avid reader of the Herald-Examiner) decided that this evidence was not admissible.
For Pantages's second trial, Pantages hired attorney Jerry Geisler, later Hollywood's leading divorce attorney, and San Francisco lawyer Jake Ehrlich. Geisler was able to convince the second judge that Pringle's previous moral behavior was indeed significant to his client's case. The second judge agreed with Geisler, and he allowed the private investigator's finding to be admitted into evidence.
Geisler then argued that it was impractical for Pantages to try to rape Pringle in a tiny broom closet, when he had a large office, with a comfortable couch to do the deed if that was his intent. Geisler was successful in planting in the jury's mind that Pringle was paid by business rivals of Pantages to set him up as a rapist.
At his second trial, Pantages was found “not guilty” by the jury, but he was a broken man in more ways than one. Pantages's legal expenses were astronomical, and his business, because of the bad publicity he had received during two trials, was damaged significantly.
In 1931, Pantages refused Kennedy's offer of $8 million for his businesses. But after months of operating in the red, Pantages finally relented. Only now, Kennedy paid Pantages less than $4 million, much less money than it had cost Pantages to build his “Greek Theatre” empire chain. Mentally beaten into submission, Pantages relented and gave away his theater chain to Kennedy for a fraction of what it was worth. Pantages went into reluctant early retirement, and in 1936, he fell dead at the age of 60.
This story does not end here.
In 1933, Pringle approached a lawyer, and she told that lawyer her story about Pantages raping her was a lie. She said she wanted to come clean and start naming names. Within days, Pringle was dead, and cyanide poisoning was the alleged cause of her demise.
According to Pringle's mother, with her last dying breath, Eunice Pringle had told her that Pringle, through her agent, had been paid $10,000, and promised by RKO studio head Joe Kennedy that he would make her a famous movie
star if she set up Pantages.
So in addition to being a downright creep throughout his life, was Joe Kennedy an accessory to murder too?
No one will ever know for sure.
Right after he purchased the Pantages movie chain, Joe Kennedy was given an offer he couldn't refuse.
In the winter of 1931, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was allegedly in the pocket of Kennedy's rum-running partners in New York City, namely Owney Madden, Big Bill Dwyer, and now Frank Costello, enticed Kennedy with a job to basically be Roosevelt's bag man for campaign contributions for Roosevelt's run for the Presidency. With Kennedy's connections to the underworld, he was able to funnel illegal cash contributions from the mob into FDR's presidential campaign coffers, reportedly totaling $200,000. As a reward for services rendered, when FDR was elected President, he gave Kennedy the plum position of chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
With his access to information inside the Roosevelt administration, Kennedy was able to find out in advance that the fix was in for the repeal of Prohibition. Knowing his pals Madden, Dwyer, and Costello were already making a smooth transition to other illegal activities, including gambling and prostitution, Kennedy decided to go completely straight. No more illegal shenanigans.
Well, almost.
In early 1933, Kennedy took a trip to Europe with FDR's son, James Roosevelt. With Kennedy's pull in the new administration, Kennedy was able to obtain the rights to be the United States representative for Haig & Haig Ltd., John Dewar and Sons, Ltd., and Gordon's Dry Gin Company Ltd. Kennedy began buying loads of this top-shelf liquor for himself, and he stored them in warehouses near the Canadian border. If anyone asked, Kennedy told them this liquor was being stored for “medicinal purposes.”
Yeah, right.
On December 5, 1933, when Prohibition was repealed by the 21st Amendment, Kennedy, through his new company, Somerset Importers, went from millionaire rum runner to being the largest single distributor of Scotch in the United States of America.
And now it was all legal.
Riding the coattails of FDR, Kennedy served Roosevelt's administration in many capacities, culminating in 1938, with his appointment as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Kennedy moved his wife and his brood, which now numbered nine kids, to England. Yet this was the job, despite Kennedy's initial popularity in England, that would eventually end all political aspirations that Joe Kennedy had for himself.
Quite simply, Joe Kennedy was a disaster as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Concerning Hitler and Germany's impending threat to world peace, Kennedy was an appeaser, basically telling the British that Hitler was not such a big problem, and if he was a big problem, Hitler was their problem and of no concern to the United States of America. Joe Kennedy's recommendation to FDR was that the United States not involve itself in Europe's difficulties.
In August 1940, after Hitler had already conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, and France, he turned his sights on Great Britain. And thus the Battle of Britain began, with air strikes from the Germans almost an everyday occurrence on the streets of Great Britain.
In November 1940, Kennedy, with egg smeared all over his face, resigned as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Joe Kennedy was ruined in politics, and he knew it. So Joe Kennedy decided to do the next best thing: propel one of his sons to the Presidency of the United States of America.
Papa Kennedy's first choice was his son Joe Jr. But on August 12, 1944, Naval Aviator Joseph Kennedy Jr. was killed, when his plane vaporized during a mission over southeast England.
Plan B for Papa Kennedy was his second oldest son John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), who had already been declared a war hero in August of 1943, when he escaped death and helped save the lives of his men, when the torpedo boat he commanded, PT 109, was sunk by a Japanese destroyer.
When the war ended, Papa Kennedy went right to work on establishing John's career. His first political move was to get his son elected congressman of the 8th District in Massachusetts. The only problem was, the present congressman, Democrat James Michael Curley, the former three-time mayor of Boston, had every intention of running for congress again.
But money talks, and Joe Kennedy had plenty of dough.
Papa Joe knew Curley had cash flow problems, so he convinced Curley that he should step down as congressman and run for mayor of Boston, again. Curley protested, saying he had no money to properly run a mayoral campaign. Papa Joe said, “No problem.” And he gave Curley a reported $100,000 to run for mayor, and he even paid the salary of Curley's campaign manager. The end result: Curley was elected mayor of Boston for the fourth time, and in 1946, John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress.
JFK served in Congress for eight years, and in 1954, Papa Joe thought it was time to implement step number two in his son's quest for the Presidency. With his father's monetary backing, JFK was elected U.S. Senator from the state of Massachusetts. In 1956, JFK made a run at the Democratic nomination for President, but was beaten back by wily veteran Adlai Stevenson. That turned out to be a blessing for JFK, since incumbent President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was popular with the people. Ike won his re-election over Stevenson in a landslide (59 percent to 41 percent). JFK was certain to have suffered the same fate as Stevenson did at this early point in his career
Everything was going fine for Papa Joe as far as JFK was concerned, but his third eldest son, Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, was also making a name for himself and not in a way that pleased Papa Joe.
In February 1957, Bobby Kennedy (RFK) was appointed the chief counsel for the McClellan Hearings into organized crime. The main problem was, the people that brash Bobby was trying to put in prison were the same men Papa Joe had worked hand-in-hand with for the past 30-something years. Men like Sam Giancana from Chicago and Carlos Marcello from New Orleans were tight with Papa Joe, and they were aghast and more than a little puzzled as to why Joe's son Bobby was pursuing them so relentlessly.
Papa Joe told his son Bobby to lay off his old pals. But Bobby, snarky and headstrong, would have none of that. Papa Joe knew he needed men like Giancana and Marcello to “influence” the next Presidential election at the polls, if JFK had any chance of being elected.
In 1960, through actor/singer Frank Sinatra, who was friendly with JFK's brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford, Papa Joe reached out to old friend John Roselli, who in turn set up a clandestine meeting with Giancana, who basically ran the city of Chicago, if not the entire state of Illinois. By this time, JFK was running for the Democratic nomination for President, and if he got the nomination, his opponent would certainly be Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's Vice President for the past eight years. Papa Joe did his market research, and he knew it was imperative for JFK to win the West Virginia Primary Election to get the Democratic nomination, and then win the state of Illinois in the general Presidential election, if JFK ever got that far.
In early 1960, Papa Joe met with Roselli, Sinatra, and Giancana several times, mostly at secret meetings at the Cal-Neva Lodge, where Sinatra was a part owner and Giancana a secret owner, most likely through Sinatra. The deal Papa Joe pitched was basically this: “You help my son get elected, and my son and his administration will leave you guys alone.”
Even though Giancana had been publicly humiliated by Bobby Kennedy at the McClellan hearings (during a tough cross examination, when Giancana seemed to snicker at Bobby Kennedy's line of questioning, Bobby snarled at Giancana and said, “Mr. Giancana, I thought only little girls giggled.”), the lure of having the President of the United States in his back pocket was too good for Giancana to turn down. As a result, Giancana hopped on the “Kennedy For President” bandwagon. Carlos Marcello, on the other hand, hated the Kennedys and absolutely refused to back Joe Kennedy's son. Marcello reportedly even secretly gave $500,000 in cash to Nixon's campaign coffers.
The first order of business was the West Virginia Primary, which was set to take place on May 1
0, 1960. Giancana and Sinatra immediately went to work, enlisting the aid of Sinatra's old pal Paul “Skinny” D'Amato from New Jersey. In 1959, Sinatra had a big hit song “High Hopes,” from his new movie “A Hole in the Head.” Through JFK's friendship with Sinatra, “High Hopes” became JFK's campaign song. And as if by magic, as the West Virginia Primary neared, “High Hopes” was played incessantly on all the West Virginia juke boxes, radio stations, and television stations.
For his part, Giancana went into full fund-raising mode. Giancana passed the hat to all his mob cronies for money to be used for whatever needed to be done to ”influence” West Virginia Democrats to vote for JFK. With D'Amato as the intermediary, money was given to everyone and anyone in West Virginia who was influential in getting the Democratic voters out to the polls. Some of the money was given in straight cash and some in the form of desks, chairs, and office supplies to Democratic politicians, with enough votes up their sleeves to guarantee a JFK primary win. The end result was that Kennedy won the West Virginia Primary over Herbert Humphrey by garnering 60 percent of the vote. He was now headed straight for the Presidential elections.
Papa Joe Kennedy knew that winning the state of Illinois was crucial for his son to triumph over Nixon in the Presidential election. This is where Sam Giancana came in very handy indeed.
In late summer of 1960, Papa Joe used his friendship with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to set up three meetings with himself, Daley, and Giancana, which took place at the Ambassador East Hotel in downtown Chicago. At these meetings, the three men discussed the strategy they would employ to guarantee the vote for JFK on Election Day.
Daley had his own election apparatus in place, whereby he was able to cajole and use force when necessary to make sure people in Chicago voted the way Daley wanted them to vote. In addition, Giancana used his muscle to do the same thing in the suburbs outside Chicago, especially in Cook County where Kennedy had a victory margin of 450,000 votes—more than 10 percent of Chicago's 1960 population of 3.55 million.