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.
