Sam "Momo" Giancana ((born Salvatore Giangana) June 15, 1908 — June 19, 1975) was a famous Italian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1956-66. Among his nicknames included "Mo", "Mooney" and "Sam the Cigar" "Sam Flood

Born as Salvatore Giangana to Sicilian immigrants in Little Italy, Chicago, also known as "The Patch." His father, Salvatore Giangana, operated a pushcart and later briefly owned an Italian lemon ice shop, which was later firebombed by gangland rivals of his son. It has been alleged by relatives that Salvatore would have become legitimately wealthy had he not always been forced to bail his eldest son out of prison.

Sam Giancana joined the 42 Gang, a juvenile street crew answering to political boss Joseph Esposito (mobster).[1] He soon developed a reputation for being an excellent getaway driver, a high earner and vicious killer. After Esposito's murder, which Giancana was allegedly involved in, the 42 Gang was transformed into a de facto extension of the Chicago Outfit. Giancana's leadership qualities and knack for making money on the street gained him the notice of Outfit higher ups like Frank Nitti and Paul Ricca.

After serving a term in the Illinois State Prison System, Giancana made a name for himself by forcing Chicago's African-American bookmakers to pay a Street Tax to the Outfit. Giancana's crew is believed to have been responsible for the murder of Teddy Roe, an African-American mob boss from the South Side, Chicago. Roe had allegedly refused to pay the street tax Giancana had demanded and had fatally shot a member of Giancana's crew.

The amount of money that the Southside gambling war had produced for the Outfit was staggering and brought him further notice. It is believed to have been a major factor in his being anointed as the Outfit's new boss when Tony Accardo retired in 1962. Giancana was purported to have been present at the 1957 Apalachin Meeting of the American Mafia.

It is widely reputed and partially exposed in the Church Committee Hearings that Giancana and other mobsters had been recruited by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who had taken power in January 1959. Giancana was himself reported to have said that the CIA and the Outfit are "different sides of the same coin."[

However, Sam's daughter, Antoinette Giancana, has stated her belief that her father was running a scam in order to pocket millions of dollars in CIA funding.[2]

According to the recently-declassified CIA "Family Jewels" documents, Giancana and Miami Syndicate leader Santos Trafficante were contacted in September, 1960, about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA, Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli nor Giancana and Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being a corrput official in the new Cuban government, and who had access to Castro. After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unclear how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was cancelled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs invasion. [3] [4] [5]

At the same time, Giancana, according to the "Family Jewels," approached Maheu to bug the room of his then-mistress Phyllis McGuire, whom he suspected of having an affair with comedian Dan Rowan. Although documents suggest Maheu acquiesced, the bug was not planted due to the arrest of the agent tasked with planting the device. According to the documents, Robert Kennedy moved to block the prosecution of the agent and of Maheu, who was soon linked to the bugging attempt, at the CIA's request. [6] [7]


Downfall
Giancana's behavior was too high profile for the Outfit's taste, and attracted far too much federal scrutiny. He also refused to cut his underlings in on his lavish profits from offshore casinos in Iran and Central America. Both of these factors resulted in much bitterness among the Outfit's rank and file.

As a result, Sam Giancana was deposed as boss by Tony Accardo and replaced by Joey Aiuppa. After several years of exile inside a lavish villa in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Giancana was arrested by Mexican authorities and deported back to the United States.


] Murder Victim
Shortly after returning to Chicago, Giancana was shot in the back of the head on 19 June 1975 while frying Italian sausage and peppers in the basement of his home in Oak Park, Illinois. After falling, his body was turned over and shot a further six times in the face and chin. It was believed by investigators that his murderer was a close friend whom he had let into the house. At the time he was scheduled to appear before a Senate committee investigating CIA and Outfit collusion in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Some have alleged that the CIA was responsible for the shooting as Giancana had a somewhat troubled history with the agency. However, former CIA Director William Colby has been quoted as saying, "We had nothing to do with it."

Most investigators believe that Joey Aiuppa, Giancana's onetime friend and successor as Chicago Outfit boss, was responible for ordering the hit on the disgraced former Godfather.

Giancana had reportedly continued in his refusal to share the profits from his offshore gambling operations and was also scheming about how to regain his former post as boss. According to former Outfit associate Michael J. Corbitt, Aiuppa seized control of Giancana's casinos in the aftermath of the murder, strategically sharing them with his capos.

It is widely believed that longtime friend and associate Dominick "Butch" Blasi was Giancana's assassin. Other Outfit suspects are Harry Aleman, Chuckie English, and Anthony Spilotro.

Giancana was interred next to his wife Angelina in a family mausoleum at Mount Carmel Cemetery (Hillside) in Hillside, Illinois.


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. Influential mafioso-rapper Kool G Rap had once stated that the "G" in his name had stood for Giancana and even released an album called The Giancana Story.


Urban Legends
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 become the Democratic Party's nominee for the 1960 Presidential election; the alleged point of contact between the elder Kennedy and Giancana is widely alleged to have been Frank Sinatra. (What is not in dispute is that Joseph Kennedy was a rumrunner and bootlegger who had had extensive dealings with the Chicago Outfit during Prohibition.) It is also been suggested that Giancana rigged the West Virginia Democratic primary, at the elder Kennedy's behest, in order to demonstrate that a Roman Catholic candidate could win in an overwhelmingly Protestant State. (The HBO film, The Rat Pack dramatizes these alleged events)

Yes, Joe Kennedy was a rumrunner during Prohibition and did have Mob contacts. But it's doubtful, IMO, that he ever enlisted Momo's help in electing JFK--or if he did, that Momo would agree to help him. Giancana had been humiliated by Bobby Kennedy, who was counsel to the McClellan Committee hearings on organized crime in the late Fifties, and JFK was a member of that committee. No way Momo would forgive his treatment by the Kennedys. His ally, Jimmy Hoffa, steered the heavily Mob-influenced Teamsters Union to Nixon in '60. JFK won the West Virginia primary by burying rival Hubert Humphrey in TV commercials, and by sending in Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. during the campaign to insinuate that Humphrey was a draft-dodger. The man who delivered Illinois' electoral votes to JFK wasn't Momo: it was Richard Daley, Chicago's allpowerful mayor, who used the time-tested method of having his voters go to the polls "early and often."
The HBO movie, "The Rat Pack," is just deliciously trashy--and thoroughly enjoyable. It's got everything you expect in that kind of production: The Kennedys! Joe and Marilyn! Momo! Judith Campbell Exner! Joe Mantegna looks and sounds incredibly like Dean Martin, but Don Cheadle steals it as Sammy Davis Jr. Ray Liotta as Sinatra is...well...Ray Liotta.

It will forever be contested the exact amount of influence that either Momo and Hizzoner (Daley) had on the Kennedy election. Books for both ("American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation" for the Daley bio) make the claim that they were the ones to win the election for Kennedy.

"Who killed Sam Giancana?" is comparable to asking "Who killed the Lake Tahoe assassins?" You have a very narrow list of suspects based on some eyewitness observations, circumstantial evidence, and some wild theories.

The presumption is that Giancana was killed by someone he knew, someone who was close to him, someone who wouldn't make Sam defensive if they were in the house. And that would tend to rule out Aleman and Spilotro. I can't believe Sam would have met with either of them in his home at any time during his term as boss or afterwards. I would think that he would have met them either at the Armory Lounge, his headquarters, or would have sent "a buffa" to talk business with them offsite. Those guys were active enforcers and I don't think Giancana would have allowed either of them in the house without suspicion.

The handgun used to kill Giancana was found a couple miles from the crime scene by a county employee mowing the grass in a forest preserve. It wasn't tossed in an area where it wasn't likely to be found. It certainly wasn't meant to be found, but I don't think it was meant to be discarded in that spot. One theory is that the gun was hastily discarded, and dumped quickly for a reason. Roemer suggests a passing squad car may have spooked the hitter who quickly tossed the gun that same night while driving away from Giancana's house.

Where was he driving? The site where the gun was found would suggest that the suspect drove north from Giancana's house hear 19th and Wenonah in Oak Park toward the adjacent suburbs of River Forest or Elmwood Park. Only two of the four names on your/Wiki's list of suspects would have had any business in that neighborhood.

That leaves Butch (who was working for Joe Batters at the time and lived nearby) and Chuckie (whose house was just a few blocks away from JB's in River Forest). Both had served Sam during his reign as boss and both were close friends seen at the house regularly.

I believe one of the daughters recalls seeing Butch re-entering the house the night of the murder while she was leaving.

Butch, Chuckie, and "The Ant" are all dead. Harry's in jail and not talking.

tony b.

There's also a theory that Dick Cain was the triggerman.

I would be willing to bet a good chunk of change Dick Cain wasn't involved in Giancana's killing. I'm pretty sure Cain was killed in the early '70's BEFORE Giancana.

tony b.

Oh crap... What the hell was I thinking?

Posted on a Monday morning... function not Brain well.

From Joseph Fosco (American News Post)

I'm still not ready to accept Fosco as a primary resource for information about The Outfit...he has too much of an axe to grind. But I do find the hair-splitting, the semantic arguments, and the constant bickering in the comments section to be entertaining.

Regarding the killing of Giancana, here's a post by board member HairyKnuckles from an earlier discussion with information that I would consider to be a primary resource which points to Butch as the trigger man.

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...1061#Post641061

Without citing his sources, the rest of Fosco's essay about who was there and what happened in the house is pure conjecture.

tony b.

Pardon the ignorance, but was Giancana executed as part of a power struggle or as repercussion for his involvement with Kennedy and all of that?