UK – Huddersfield Daily Examiner – The making of a mobster – the death of a President
Title The making of a mobster – the death of a President
Newspaper: UK – Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Date: January 4, 1992
By Malcolm Robertshaw
“Oh, Las Vegas, you’ll be the death of y!” So go the words of the old Tony Christie song.
But in this story of the life and times of Mafia boss Mooney Giancana, Vegas, Chicago, Dallas and other Stateside hotspots were all “the death of someone” according to the authors’ account of the inside story of the former Al Capone hitman, dubbed “the man who controlled America.”
Truth is often stranger than fiction, they say, and Chuck and Sam Giancana – the mobster’s brother and godson – using information gleaned from conversations with Mooney, relate their understanding of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the death of Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
From the age of 15, Mooney Giancana ran with the unlawful elements of downtown Chicago and a meteoric rise through the hierarchy of The Chicago Outfit – as that branch of the Mafia was known – saw him heading a vast gambling empire and being connected with a cast of famous Hollywood names.
But this gangster’s goal was only an investment for Mooney’s vision of the American Dream – to be the “power behind the Presidential throne.”
The frank disclosures of this collaboration with the CIA – particularly over Cuba and the Bay of Pigs fiasco – and his involvement with the Kennedy family will astonish, while the explained collusion between Jack Kennedy’s father and Giancana which helped to sweep JFK into the White House will no doubt shock.
But most alarming of all are: Mooney’s reported revelations of events which followed Kennedy’s esconcement in the Oval Office. It appears that the President’s attempt to disengage himself from the bosses of organized crime led to the incident which cost Kennedy, his brother Robert and screen legend Marilyn Monroe their lives.
Fascinating, but shocking, Double Cross is more than the biography of a mobster. It is an extremely well-told story which puts a different slant on events which shattered the world.
