Double Cross

by Sam Giancana

  Amid the glamour of the club’s opening and Mooney’s globe-trotting international intrigues, the FBI intensified its war against the Chicago boss and organized crime in general. In January of 1963, the cry went out from the underworld coast to coast to eliminate the Kennedys. And Mooney, who’d set himself up as the undeclared “boss of bosses,” began receiving pressure from fellow mafiosi—particularly Hoffa and Marcello—to do just that. If he was the man with the wherewithal and government connections to put an end to the Kennedy regime, as he claimed, they wanted him to prove it.

  To Chuck’s private dismay, in early spring the Thunderbolt was sold, bringing fifty thousand dollars above the asking price from two well-known community figures, Rosemont’s Mayor, Don Stevens, and the state highway-construction mogul, Joe Greco. By May, Chuck was out of work. Dejected and with no word from Mooney of some new challenge, he went into the hospital for a hernia operation.

  Lying beneath sterile white sheets, he gazed out the window into a world that now also seemed sterile. He didn’t want time to think; he’d spent most of his life trying not to dwell on the anger, the pain, but confinement in the hospital gave him more than enough opportunity to evaluate his life—as well as Mooney’s. A despair closed in around him. “How can things be so black in a room that’s all white?” He joked feebly to Anne Marie.

  Since he hadn’t mentioned his personal concerns to his brother, Chuck was surprised when Mooney trotted into his hospital room, his face lit with an uncharacteristic broad smile. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I just wanted you to know it’s all taken care of,” Mooney said, smiling mysteriously.

  “What’s taken care of?” Chuck asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “Things,” he replied as he flicked his cigar in the ashtray and looked him in the eye.

  Suddenly, Chuck was transported back in time; he saw his brother’s face in the crowd, one eyebrow slightly lifted—could almost hear the whistling man’s tune.

  “You know I always win,” Mooney said, standing up. And with that, he turned and walked out of the room.

  In June of 1963, the local FBI agents instituted what they called lockstep surveillance of the Chicago boss—meaning, literally, that agents had been assigned to dog his every step. Mooney credited Agents Roemer and Rutland as having masterminded the surveillance technique; Agent Hill, the man Mooney had said he had “a lot of dirt on,” declined to participate, transferring to another assignment. Mooney explained Hill’s change of heart as “smart.”

  There was no attempt made at secrecy under this new program; the G-men openly dogged Mooney’s every move. More than anything, Mooney took lockstep as a sign that the Kennedys were fighting back, that they were out to get him first. Certainly, it was with a new vengeance that the Justice Department now waged war on Sam Giancaria.

  Chuck imagined that the continuous FBI tail would quickly annoy his brother, but he never dreamed Mooney would react by taking legal action. On June 28 of that year, though, at the advice of his attorney and son-in-law Tony Tisci, that’s exactly what Mooney did. He filed suit against the Justice Department in the hope that he’d win a court injunction against the FBI for harassment, on the grounds that the agency was depriving him of his constitutional right to privacy.

  For a reputed mobster to sue the government was unheard of—the headlines in the Chicago papers blared amazement. Chuck, like everyone else in the Outfit, had initially been surprised by the stunt. But Mooney was enormously confident, telling Chuck he’d win his case for what he called “two very good reasons.” First, he said, his civil rights were indeed being violated, and this he could prove in a court of law. And second, but more important, he’d win because by filing the suit he’d essentially called Bobby Kennedy’s bluff. He was certain the attorney general would back down. As he saw it, Kennedy would have no choice: “I’ll be sittin’ on the stand holdin’ a can of worms. And Bobby’ll be scared to death I’ll open it . . . because if I do, all their dirty little secrets will come out.”

  There was some risk involved in Mooney’s strategy, however. By taking the government to court, Mooney knew he’d have to go on the stand himself, swearing that he was a law-abiding citizen. He’d then be cross-examined by government attorneys—attorneys who possessed reams of documents detailing every aspect of his criminal history, enough ammunition to put him away for life. Under oath, Mooney would be forced to answer all questions posed by these attorneys or face binding contempt charges. Nevertheless, Mooney wasn’t worried at all.

  He said he’d heard that the local FBI agents were ecstatic, thinking they’d somehow managed to trap Mooney Giancana and that the crime boss was in for a big surprise. Instead, it was they who were in for a surprise.

  Attorney General Robert Kennedy claimed that the court had no legal right to rule on the FBI’s conduct of surveillance. On that basis, the prosecution declined to cross-examine Mooney, and the court eventually ruled that the surveillance had to be reduced. Mooney had won.

  But his victory was short-lived; that summer, the court of appeals overturned the earlier ruling and once again the FBI agents dogged his every step. Mooney was philosophical about this turn of events, as well as adaptable. To conduct business, he simply dodged the FBI agents and changed his routine, meeting associates in parking lots, cemeteries, and on street corners. Occasionally, he’d lament the FBI crusade, but largely he said little to Chuck, seething inside, perhaps, but seemingly satisfied to wait his turn at revenge.

  Still out of work, Chuck toyed with the idea of striking out on his own. He had let Mooney know he wanted to go into a legitimate business, preferably in construction. But he’d heard nothing about such an opportunity from his brother and waited in silent frustration, afraid to act on his own without Mooney’s permission or endorsement. He hated to think what his brother’s reaction might be if he dared be so brazenly independent. “I have to be patient and lie low,” he explained to his wife.

  Indeed, any possibility of Chuck going outside the Outfit seemed increasingly remote. He resigned himself to waiting for word from his brother, spending his days miserably idle, frequenting the Outfit bars and dives throughout the summer and fall. But in so doing, Chuck heard the whispered comments. “Mooney’s gonna have to do somethin’ about the Kennedys,” Needles insisted. “Mooney’s gonna fix them,” said Milwaukee Phil.

  The general consensus was that something had to give—and it wouldn’t be Sam Giancana. Chuck refused to submit to curiosity; he didn’t want to know what his brother’s plans entailed. And he refused to worry about what lengths Mooney might go to, mostly because he was far more concerned with his own family’s welfare than any national security issues that might damage the myth of a Kennedy Camelot.

  On November 22, 1963, Chuck turned on the radio in his car and learned that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised: He’d heard everyone from gas-station attendants to guys in the Outfit say, “Somebody should get that goddamned Kennedy bastard.” So finally, he thought, somebody had.

  Several years would pass before Chuck would know the truth; and then, he would hear the entire incredible story from Mooney himself—but even now, deep down, he knew who had been behind the President’s murder.

  Still driving, Chuck saw the roadway and the surrounding countryside blur past him with the nauseating intoxication of a spinning carousel. Mooney’s recent prophetic words now echoed in Chuck’s ears—“. . . it’s all taken care of . . . I always win.”

  Later, when Dallas authorities announced the capture of a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald—a man the media quickly portrayed as a schizophrenic nut—the 1933 assassination of Chicago’s mayor, Anton Cermak, sprang to Chuck’s mind. Initially, Oswald sounded strangely similar to Cermak’s killer, Joseph Zangara. Chuck remembered hearing about Zangara from Mooney when he was a kid. Zangara had been a patsy, set up to appear to be a political fanatic, but was in reality nothing more than a rumrunner who’d owed the Mob too much money t
o refuse a job. Like Oswald, he’d also been described as an excellent marksman.

  As more of the story trickled out over the following days, Chuck found himself dumbfounded that the nation could fall for such an obvious scheme. He’d always believed that the Outfit’s one failing was its predictability. If you knew how they thought, you were never surprised, because their tactics were always the same.

  But when the all-too-familiar name of Jack Ruby sprang across the airwaves, when Ruby killed Oswald right on TV, in front of the entire nation, there was no doubt left in Chuck’s mind. His brother had ordered the hit. The CIA had known it all along. J. Edgar Hoover had turned his head. And the nation would never be the same.

  CHAPTER 21

  Just as the nation changed irrevocably after the fateful day of November 22, 1963, so, too, did the lives of Chuck and Mooney Giancana.

  After almost a year of waiting for a job—a desperate time financially and one in which Chuck morosely spent his time sitting with his brother Pepe, shooting the breeze with old Outfit friends from the Patch—Chuck got word from Mooney to visit several Chicago builders, among them a man named Sam Pezzette.

  Pezzette’s firm gave Chuck the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent for construction. He soon discovered that he thrived on haggling with suppliers and tradesmen, and enjoyed meeting the continual challenge of scheduling and production.

  That he could be really good at the business was, for Chuck, a revelation. He suddenly had an identity, an expertise, outside the Outfit. And that fall of 1964, armed with a new self-confidence and the blueprints for an ambitious large-scale building project, Chuck decided to pay his brother a visit.

  He wanted nothing more than Mooney’s blessing, having already secured financing for the $3 million project through both an area bank and the Chicago developer Jack Pritzker, owner of the Hyatt Hotel chain. But because Mooney was his brother and because it was “the right thing to do,” Chuck offered him a third of all profits from the project as a courtesy or “tribute.”

  It was customary in the Outfit to pay tribute to one’s sponsor or mentor. Paying tribute assured having a partner whose name could be far more valuable than any financial backing—lending protection and stature to the project.

  But Mooney refused Chuck’s offer with a simple “Thanks, but no thanks . . . keep it all for yourself.” And so Chuck left having gained his brother’s nod of approval and something more—his independence. For the first time in his life, at the age of forty-two, Chuck was striking out on his own.

  Chuck brought in Sam Pezzette and made him his partner. First, they built homes in Rosemont, the west Chicago township where the Thunderbolt had been located. Then, they parlayed that success into other projects, constructing and selling thirty-eight apartment buildings. With his share of the profits from the sale of these apartment buildings, Chuck went it alone, financing the development of a shopping plaza. All this he accomplished without Mooney’s financial backing—and he was proud of that. By 1966, for the first time in his life, Chuck felt independent, removed from the shadow of his brother’s influence.

  No longer technically “connected” to the Outfit, Chuck anticipated no further scrutiny from the G-men. However, to the FBI, he was still Mooney’s brother, still a Giancana, and his change of employment had done little to cool their interest in his affairs. The agents were convinced Sam Giancana and Outfit money had bankrolled Chuck’s new enterprise.

  Mooney had his own troubles to contend with in the three years following the Kennedy assassination. There were rumblings among his younger, less powerful underlings, complaints that he was unfit for the job, that he was too “hot-tempered” and “high-profile” to run the day-to-day business of Chicago’s Outfit. Mooney told Chuck he had that under control, but what continued to irritate him was the scrutiny of the FBI. The G-men continued to shadow him relentlessly, despite the fact that Bobby Kennedy—still attorney general until Katzenbach was appointed in 1965—no longer took a personal interest in gangster busting. In fact, after his brother’s assassination Kennedy never again met with his special task force on organized crime.

  But even with the loss of Bobby Kennedy, the man who’d given the FBI its Outfit-busting mandate, the bureau was still capable of dealing a powerful blow to Chicago’s Outfit. Launching a highly publicized grand-jury investigation into interstate racketeering in May of 1965, the Justice Department targeted Chicago’s Sam Giancana for destruction.

  The following month, Mooney, who’d been granted immunity but refused to talk, was found in contempt of court and sentenced to the Cook County jail. The incarceration would drag on for a full year, until Mooney’s release on Memorial Day of 1966, with the termination of the grand jury.

  It was a long year for Chuck, as well. Mooney had sent word during his prison stay that his younger brother shouldn’t visit. “No reason to bring on any more heat from the G than you already have,” he said. Chuck found himself balancing the logic of Mooney’s statement with his strong desire to see his brother. Ultimately, logic won out and he comforted himself with the thought that the imprisonment couldn’t last forever.

  Chuck hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Mooney until he finally saw him, immediately following his release from jail.

  His brother had gone to Chuck’s suburban home, saying he wanted to outfox the G-men who’d been tailing him since his release. It had always been a place where Mooney felt comfortable, where he could relax, have some pasta, share a few laughs, and talk openly. Neither Chuck nor his brother considered the possibility that the FBI might be bugging their conversations. Such an idea had never been mentioned, perhaps because Mooney believed that only he and the CIA would resort to illegal wiretapping.

  Alone in Chuck’s rambling ranch home, the two brothers now reminisced about the old days. Mooney’s gaunt face and thinning hair saddened Chuck; the past year hadn’t been kind. But as much as Mooney looked different, little had really changed. In many respects, he was still the same cocky punk from the Patch—a charming, albeit sometimes sinister, rogue who, twinkle in his eye, liked nothing more than to display a new piece of stolen jewelry while extolling the virtues of a good game of golf. Chuck was relieved to find that Mooney’s old 42-gang brand of confidence remained intact—that the arrogant swagger still lingered in his stride.

  “I’m leaving,” he suddenly announced in a tone filled half with pleasure, half with what Chuck thought was a tinge of regret. He sat back and lit a cigar.

  “Leaving? Where are you going?” Chuck exclaimed, practically rising out of his leather chair in surprise. Mooney’s words sounded more final than those of a man simply going for a drive.

  “I’m leaving for Mexico,” Mooney replied.

  “Mexico . . . what the hell for? For who? Why?” Chuck’s string of questions poured out so rapidly, he startled even himself. He suddenly remembered Mooney leaving for Joliet—and realized that here he was some thirty-odd years later, and a grown man on top of it, and yet he felt the same panic, the same sadness he’d felt as a child at the prospect of losing his brother.

  “Slow down,” Mooney said, grinning. “Jesus, you’d think I was bein’ run outta town on a rail.” He chuckled, then said, “Sure, I’ll miss Chicago, but it’s gonna be terrific, Chuck.” He paused. “Didn’t you wonder why Hanrahan didn’t go after me again? If he had . . . they coulda kept me in jail forever.”

  Chuck shook his head. He was aware there’d been quite an uproar when U.S. Attorney Hanrahan had backed down and refused to go forward with reimmunization procedures—on orders from Washington, the papers had said. There’d even been a rumor, which Chuck had laughingly dismissed, that Mooney was going to “turn,” that he was going to help the feds nail his fellow bosses.

  “Well, they would’ve reimmunized me; that’s what Hanrahan and the local G wanted to do . . . but the CIA pulled some strings with those cocksuckers at the Justice Department. All I gotta do now is take Dick Cain and work deals for the CIA and the Outfit
. . . all over the world. We’ve got some big-name companies ready to act as fronts and supply the financial backing. There’s lots of money . . . billions . . . to be made in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and south of the border. I’ll still be runnin’ things like I always have in Chicago. . . . I’m puttin Teets Battaglia in charge here. He’ll do what the hell I tell him to.”

  Chuck nodded in agreement. Mooney and Battaglia went back a long way.

  “Overseas is where it’s all headin’, Chuck,” Mooney continued. “I’ve got Trafficante on board for Asia. The Vietnam War is gonna make a lot of guys rich. I’ve got Marcello in line for the shit from Latin America. Gambino and I’ll be workin’ together on Europe and the Middle East. As far as Chicago’s concerned, Teets and Accardo and Ricca can handle it just fine without me here.” He put his feet up on the table in obvious self-satisfaction.

  “Yeah, the government’s sure been good to you,” Chuck retorted sarcastically.

  “Hey,” Mooney said sharply. He leaned forward and knotted his hands into two tight fists. “Forget about the fuckin’ G-men . . . I’m talkin’ CIA. They’re different. Like night and day. We’ve been partners on more deals than I have time to tell you about. You should know that by now, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I guess I’ll never understand, huh?” Chuck challenged, irritated by Mooney’s cavalier know-it-all attitude.

  Glowering, Mooney stood up from his chair, cigar in hand, and marched across the room. When he reached Chuck, he lowered his voice and hissed, “Maybe this will help.” He fixed Chuck in a steely, impenetrable gaze. “We took care of Kennedy . . . together.” He lifted his cigar to his lips and a cruel smile curled like an embrace around it.

  There was a deadly silence in the room as Mooney stalked back to the comfort of his chair. Chuck felt as if his mind had just gone blank, become an empty slate of shock, and, still, a million questions rushed in just as quickly. He finally knew for certain what he’d secretly feared all along; his brother had been right—the government and the Outfit really were two sides of the same coin. But hearing the truth—and hearing it directly from Mooney—left him speechless. He saw his hands tremble as he reached for the reassurance of a cigar.