Sam Giancana
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| Sam Giancana | |
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| Born | June 15, 1908 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Died | June 19, 1975 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
Sam "Momo" Giancana (June 15, 1908 — June 19, 1975) was a famous and powerful mafioso and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-66. Among his nicknames included "Mo", "Mooney" and "Sam the Cigar"
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[edit] Early life
Born Salvatore Giancana in Chicago's "Little Italy," Sam Giancana was arrested more than 70 times in his life, but was imprisoned only twice. Giancana's nickname "Momo" was derived from the slang term "Mooney" (which meant "crazy") as Giancana had long had a reputation for very unstable and unpredictably vicious behavior.
Giancana started his criminal career in the 1920s on Chicago's West Side as a member of a violent street gang called "The 42s" (the name came from associating themselves with Ali Baba and the 42 Thieves, an obvious mistake). He soon developed a reputation for being an excellent getaway driver, high earner and vicious killer. These qualities got him noticed by the successor to Al Capone, Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti. It is widely reputed Giancana and other mobsters had been recruited by the CIA during the waning days of the Eisenhower administration to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who had taken power in January 1959. Giancana was himself reported to have said that the CIA and the Mafia are "different sides of the same coin." It is also widely reputed that at roughly the same time Joseph P. Kennedy recruited Giancana to help mobilize labor union voter and financial support behind his son, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy in the latter's bid to secure the Democratic nomination for the 1960 Presidential election.
There are also strong suggestions that during his presidency, JFK maintained close links with Giancana and the Chicago Mafia as he continued the practice of covertly using the Mafia in a bid to assassinate Castro. The two men also shared the same lover, Los Angeles socialite Judith Campbell who also apparently acted as a courier between the two men, passing money and information.
[edit] Downfall
Giancana was forced to step down as Mafia boss in 1966 because of his greed (refusing to share the profits of his Latin American gambling operations—a major violation of Mafia protocol) excessively high-profile personal behavior (openly associating with various popular entertainers like singers Phyllis McGuire and Frank Sinatra) and serious legal problems, serious enough to have had the FBI place Giancana under close, intense and relentless surveillance. In response to these setbacks, the dethroned Giancana spent the next seven years (1967-74) in exile in Cuernavaca, Mexico until the Mexican government (under pressure from the US Justice Department) had him deported to the United States.
[edit] Final days
Returning to Chicago, Giancana was assassinated on 19 June 1975 while cooking Italian sausage and peppers in the basement of his home in Oak Park, Illinois (which had been under close FBI and Chicago Police observation) shortly before he was to appear before a Senate committee investigating CIA and Mafia links to plots to kill Castro. Giancana was subsequently buried in a family mausoleum at Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Hillside, Illinois.
The unknown assassin shot Giancana in the head seven times with a silenced .22 caliber handgun (In his book 'Sinatra: The untold story', Author Michael Munn says the gun used was a .29 caliber weapon). Although some suspected the CIA was responsible for the shooting (as Giancana had a somewhat troubled history with the agency), CIA Director William Colby was quoted as saying, "We had nothing to do with it." Many researchers believe Colby's claim as it seems much more likely that Giancana's onetime friend and Chicago Mafia boss Joseph "Joey Doves" Aiuppa ordered the hit on the disgraced "Momo" because he had become too talkative and Aiuppa feared Giancana would reveal everything he knew about Chicago mob operations during his upcoming Senate committee appearance. It is widely believed that Dominick "Butch" Blasi was his assassin. Other suspects are Harry Aleman and Anthony Spilotro.
[edit] In popular culture
Giancana is the subject of several biographies, one of which, Mafia Princess, was written by his daughter Antoinette and filmed in a poorly reviewed TV movie starring Tony Curtis as Giancana. A 1995 HBO movie named Sugartime depicts Giancana's relationship with Phyllis McGuire of The McGuire Sisters, with Sam being played by John Turturro. Other movie portrayals of Giancana include Oscar winner Rod Steiger in the miniseries Sinatra and Robert Miranda in the HBO movie The Rat Pack. Cable company TNT is working on a six hour miniseries of the life of Sam Giancana.
[edit] Further reading
- Giancana, Sam and Chuck. Double Cross: The Explosive, inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America. New York: Warner Books, 1992. ISBN 0-446-51624-4
- Giancana, Antoinette and Renner, Thomas C. Mafia Princess. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1984.
- Hersh, Seymour M. Dark Side of Camelot. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997. ISBN 0-316-35955-6
- Morgan, John M. Prince of Crime. New York: Stein and Day, 1985.
- Nash, Jay Robert. Bloodletters and Badmen. New York: M. Evans & Co. 1973.
- Sifakis, Carl. Encyclopedia of Crime. New York: Facts On File, 1982. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
- Zion, Sidney. Loyalty and Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob. San Francisco: Collins Publishers, 1994.
[edit] External links
- Sam "Momo" Giancana: Live and Die by the Sword by Joseph Geringer
- Sam Giancana at Encyclopædia Britannica
- Federal Bureau of Investigation - Freedom of Information Privacy Act: Sam Giancana
- Sparticus Educational - Sam Giancana
- Seize the Night: Sam "Momo" Giancana
| Preceded by: Anthony Accardo |
Chicago Outfit Boss 1957-1966 |
Succeeded by: Sam Battaglia |
