Richard Burke, who served as administrative assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy, has recalled seeing transcripts of some of President Kennedy’s taped Oval Office phone conversations. “One,” he said, “was a long, romantic conversation with the woman then named Judith Campbell.” The screenwriter Bill Richmond, proven by phone records to have been in touch with Campbell during the presidency, told the authors she spoke at the time—though guardedly—of her relationship with Kennedy. Betsy Duncan, a girlfriend of Giancana associate Johnny Rosselli, said much the same (denials—Anthony Summers, “The Unmaking of a Myth,” (London) Sunday Times Magazine, Oct. 6, 1991; White House logs—from JFK Library, in authors’ files; “campaign worker”—int. Evelyn Lincoln, 1992; “romantic conversation”—Richard Burke with William and Marilyn Hoffer, The Senator, New York: St. Martin’s, 1992, 108; Richmond/Duncan— authors’ ints.).
265 “Hell hath”: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jan. 19, 1976; (claims credible/private confidences) see above note.
265 Campbell far from candid: (FS draft: “hooker”) Kelley, 538; (Campbell denied) Exner as told to Demaris, 13, ints. Judith Exner.
265 libel action: Campbell sued over a passage in Laurence Leamer’s book The Kennedy Women. The judge in the case dismissed the suit because—pleading ill health—Campbell would not travel into Los Angeles to take part in a deposition. Though she later began a deposition, she walked out before it was completed. Campbell’s appeal of the judge’s ruling lapsed on her death in 1999 (corr. Campbell’s attorney, James Lesar, 2004); (“definitely thought”) Hersh, 311.
265–66 “call girl”/“she would date”: Jacobs and Stadiem, 134, 60–, 133, int. George Jacobs. According to Jacobs, Sinatra rated Campbell’s sexual services highly, and—before she met John Kennedy—made her available to John’s father, Joe; (“Campbell was notorious”/“because she was”) int. Count Guido Deiro.
266 Campbell and Rosselli: (Rosselli/Vegas) Rappeleye and Becker, refs.; (and Joe Kennedy) ibid., 202, Russo, 66, 126, 362, int. Joe Shimon, 1985; (“possibly in 1960”) Judith Exner testimony, Sep. 20, 1975; (known no mobsters) People, Feb. 29, 1988; (“once briefly”) Exner as told to Demaris, 215; (Rosselli said had known) John Rosselli testimony, Sep. 22, 1975, Hearings, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate, Report of Proceedings, JFK, NYT, Apr. 12, 1976, LAT, Dec. 19, Newsweek, Dec. 29, 1975; (Breen) Rappeleye and Becker, 208.
266 Dexter: int. Brad Dexter. Dexter had an intimate association with Sinatra—he was to play a key role in rescuing the singer from drowning in 1964, and worked for him for several years. An indication that he was well placed to know about Campbell’s Mafia contacts is to be found in Campbell’s own book. Dexter’s then girlfriend, Betty Winikus, arranged Campbell’s dinner with Giancana in Miami in March 1960 (Shaw, Sinatra, 338, Exner as told to Demaris, 120–); (“When Sam wanted”) int. George Jacobs.
266 Judy “mob moll”: Lawford with Schwarz, 147. By Campbell’s own account she met Lawford repeatedly—once in July 1960 at the Democratic convention, when she was with John Kennedy. Lawford, for his part, said he had more than one encounter with Giancana (met Campbell—Exner as told to Demaris, 50–, 62–, 162; Lawford/Giancana—Star, Feb. 17, 1976).
267 Campbell and Giancana: (Sinatra asked her) Exner as told to Demaris, 75, 77, 82, 84.
267 Davis/“We all knew”: Newsweek, Dec. 29, 1975. Davis had spoken with Newsweek on condition he not be named. In his memoir Why Me? published shortly before his death in 1990, he confined himself to writing: “Later the Senator and his party came upstairs and had drinks with us. . . . I was told there were four wild girls scheduled to entertain him.” As discussed in chapter 22, Davis had repeated contact with Giancana when threatened by the mob because of his 1957 affair with Kim Novak (Davis as source—ints. Newsweek sources; loaned car— SAC Los Angeles to Director, Mar. 24, 1960, FBI 100-41413-96; “Later the Senator”—Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, 108).
267 Cahn/“How can Frank?”: Campbell herself said Gloria Cahn was present, and prominent in the group around Kennedy, during his February 1960 visit to Las Vegas. As to the possibility that Giancana was present, the authors note that the Black Book—the list of reputed criminals banned from the casinos—did not come into existence until the following June. Note, moreover, that Giancana was to have no hesitation in defying the ban—he famously did so at the Cal-Neva Lodge in 1963 (Cahn present—Exner as told to Demaris, 84–, ints. Judith Exner; Black Book—Ronald Farrell and Carole Case, The Black Book and the Mob, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, 8, 44).
267 “I met Jack Kennedy”: Sevano recalled this both in a filmed interview shot for the British ITV network and to the authors in 2004 (int. Nick Sevano, and M/G int., transcript supplied to authors); (“They talked about”) int. Taki Theodoracopulos, 1986.
267 Possible evidence of Giancana role in Kennedy contacts: The Washington Post reported that Senate files “indicate that several of Campbell’s calls to the White House were made from the Oak Park, Illinois, residence of Giancana.” Though White House phone logs reflect some calls by Campbell from Oak Park, they cannot be identified as having originated at Giancana’s home. Campbell acknowledged having visited the house, but said she never phoned Kennedy while there. It was possible, she suggested, that Giancana tried to reach the president by having a trusted female friend call using her name (visited Oak Park— Exner as told to Demaris, 261; name used?—taped ints. of Judith Campbell by Barry Farrell, 1977, and by authors’ colleague, 1991); “I don’t think”: taped int. of Judith Campbell by Barry Farrell, 1977, and see Exner as told to Demaris, 142; (“They deliberately”) int. Brad Dexter.
268–69 Intelligence Committee: (Giancana shot) Blakey and Billings, 391; (Rosselli refused) John Rosselli testimony, Sep. 22, 1975, Hearings, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate, Report of Proceedings, JFK; (Campbell questioned) statement of Judith Campbell Exner, Sep. 20, 1975, Hearings, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate, Report of Proceedings, JFK; (paragraph in report) “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,” Interim Report, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC: U.S. Gov’t. Printing Office, 1975, 129; (did not interview FS) AP, LAHE, Jan. 19, Variety, Jan. 20, 21, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1976; (Safire articles) NYT, Dec. 15, 22, 1975, Jun. 13, 1977, LAHE, Jan. 11, 1976; (Safire questions)NYT, Jan. 7, 1976; (“slam the lid”) NYT, Dec. 22, 1975; (FS “being made available”) SAC New Orleans to Director, Mar. 23, 1960, FBI 94-37314-2; (“Frank asked me”) as quoted in int. of Tita Cahn, Sammy Cahn’s second wife.
Chapter 25: The Go-Between
270 Joe Kennedy approaches mob: (“It’s not the Pope”) Merle Miller, Plain Speaking, New York: Putnam, 1973, 187; (courted Mafia) Russo, 365–, Parmet, 521.
270 lunch at Felix Young’s: Although the meeting reportedly resulted in a large campaign contribution, not all attendees were ready to give the Kennedy camp full support. Some, like New Orleans’s Carlos Marcello, never would be (Summers, Official & Confidential, 269–, Mahoney, 43–, 386, Russo, 356–, 367); (Giancanadid not commit) Jacobs and Stadiem, 140; (Humphreys leery) Hersh, 143, Russo, 372–; (RFK targeted) Schlesinger, RFK, 164–; (Illinois) White, 124, 143, 160; (approach to FS/TV version) Sinatra: The Music Was Just the Beginning,Warner Bros. 1992.
271 golf game: Hersh, 137–, Sinatra with Coplon, 72–, and see Sinatra, Legend, 146. It is not clear exactly when Sinatra was summoned to see Joe Kennedy. Tina Sinatra has placed it both in “late 1959” and in early 1960. Her sister, Nancy, dated it as February 1960.
271 West Virginia: (sure thing?) Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1960, New York: Atheneum, 1962, 101–; (95 percent Protestant) Memories, Apr./May 1990; (allegations) Hubert Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, 214–, La
wrence O’Brien, No Final Victories, New York: Ballantine, 1974, 69–, Hersh, 95–, Kessler, 380, James Hilty, Robert Kennedy, Brother Protector, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997, 144–; (“I knew Joe”) int. Bob Neal.
271 “talked up”/“to get that Joe”: Jeanne Humphreys’s memories were supported by a more than 300-page journal she kept. She and Humphreys’s grandson George Brady were interviewed in 1997 by authors Seymour Hersh and Gus Russo, as was Robert McDonnell, a former attorney for the mob who said he helped arrange a meeting between Joe Kennedy and Giancana in Chicago (Hersh, 135, 143–, Russo, 370–).
271 D’Amato spreading money: Demaris, Boardwalk, 33, int. of D’Amato by Ovid Demaris, 1983, Van Meter, 171, Michael Hellerman with Thomas Renner, Wall Street Swindler, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977, 105–. The Mafia bosses hedged their bets, and also supplied money to the campaign of Kennedy’s opponent, Richard Nixon (Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swan, The Arrogance of Power, New York: Viking, 2000, 213–); (“We got them in”) int. Skinny D’Amato, 1984; (Malandra) Van Meter, photo section and 173; (“one of the people”) int. Robert Blakey.
271 FS “interested”: int. John Chernenko—a previously published account of this episode, Chernenko told the authors, was garbled.
272 “If you want”: Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Why Me? 108.
272 “We got back”: int. Brad Dexter, 2001.
272 “used to take messages and money”: Judith Campbell, for her part, claimed that she carried cash to Giancana on John Kennedy’s behalf. The first time she performed such a mission, she said, was on April 8, 1960, a month before the West Virginia primary, carrying what Kennedy told her was “a lot of money” in a “sort of briefcase made of very soft leather.” The money was perhaps sent to Giancana in order to launder it (Anthony Summers’s article, [London] Sunday Times, Oct. 6, 1991).
272 “our errand boy”: interview of Joseph Shimon, HSCA files, JFK.
272 convention: (Martin also appeared) Deana Martin with Wendy Holden, MemoriesAre Made of This. New York: Harmony, 2004, 91, 95, 100; (banquet) Wilson, Sinatra, 157–, Davis, Hollywood, 84, NYT, Jul. 11, 1960; (“just prior”) Athan Theoharis and John Cox, The Boss, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988, 333fn.
272–73 Campbell: Exner as told to Demaris, 162–, 72–. Campbell was certainly with Kennedy during the week of the convention—Los Angeles district attorney’s investigators saw her in his party at a Los Angeles restaurant. She dated the episode with Kennedy and a second woman as having occurred on Monday, July 11. The second woman was perhaps supplied by the madam the police later interviewed (investigators—int. Bill Simcock, 1983); (anthem) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes, I Can, 556, Los Angeles Examiner, Aug. 20, 1960; (jazzy) David Heymann, RFK, New York: Dutton, 1998, 165; (4,509 delegates) White, 151; (record) Hilty, 149, corr. Ric Ross; (bald patch) Spada, Lawford, 228; (FS “really loved”) int. Bob Neal and int. Fred Otash, 1985; (“I was placed”) Gore Vidal, The Last Empire, New York: Doubleday, 2001, 151–.
273 “Well, Frank”: Mahoney, 63. Author Richard Mahoney, to whom Peter Lawford described this exchange, dated it as having occurred on July 16, 1960. A reading of Theodore White’s book on the campaign, however, suggests it occurred on Saturday, July 17 (White, 179); (Humphreys labored) Russo, 378–.
273 “hard, almost impossible”/Lucchese: int. Bill Bonanno, Bill Bonanno, 85–. Unconvinced mafiosi were won over, Bonanno claimed, after Joe Kennedy agreed that Lyndon Johnson would be given the vice-presidential slot. So he was, in an unexpected development that has never been adequately explained. John Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, told the authors in 1992 that pressure over “womanizing, and things in Joe Kennedy’s background” forced her boss to pick Johnson. Hy Raskin, a key Kennedy strategist, recalled John Kennedy telling him: “I was left with no choice. [Lyndon] and Sam Rayburn made it damn clear to me that Lyndon had to be the candidate. Those bastards were trying to frame me.” The full truth, he told his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, “will never be known. And it’s just as well it won’t be” (“womanizing and things”—Summers, Official & Confidential, 271–; “I was left”—Hersh, 126; “will never”—Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966, 46, int. Pierre Salinger, 1997); (“what politicians had”/“We’ll all get”) Russo, 382.
273–74 FS in campaign: (“the one who really”/$50) LAT, Aug. 13, 2000; (“He’d get”) Spada, Lawford, 226; (“If he asked”/plane) LAT, Aug. 13, 2000; (“We’d spread out”) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Why Me, 111; (“Just a simple”) Shaw, Entertainer, 97; (recipes) Hollywood Reporter, Jul. 8, 1960; (Hawaii) O’Brien, Film Guide, 135; (“I wish I had”) Braden, 148; (“We want Sinatra!”) Wilson, Sinatra, 160; (Eleanor Roosevelt) Sinatra, Legend, 146, 148; (offices burgled) Dallek, 286fn, 755n.
274 Hutschnecker/“a whole dossier”: The authors learned details of this episode in 1995 from the late Dr. Hutschnecker, and later—in 2002—from Milt Ebbins (Hutschnecker startled, etc.—ints. Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, 1995–97, detail in Summers with Swan, 219, 520n4, and int. Milt Ebbins; FS leaker—Kelley, 530).
275 election night: (FS at Curtis’s) int. Janet Leigh; (Nixon saying privately) Summers with Swan, 216, and see O’Brien, No Final Victories, 96, White, 24–; (“Frank was drunk”) int. Janet Leigh and see Messick, Show Business, 194.
275 popular vote: The precise number of votes cast for Kennedy varies somewhat in the literature. The authors have used the figures reported in Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 (White, 350, 386, but see Dallek, 294); (line open) Kelley, 281; (“It’s gonna”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 167.
275 “we’re going to”: Mahoney, 81, 390n88. This is not quite the “few close friends” quote that Kennedy has been cited as having used the following day, but as he reportedly relayed it immediately after the call—according to his aide Ralph Dungan (Benjamin Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, New York: Norton, 1975, 33); (Giancana had presided) Mahoney, 81; (“Votes weren’t bought”) Russo, 396; (“guys stood”) Sam and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross, London: Macdonald, 1992, 290; (“I know”) Russo, 398, and see Wilson, Sinatra, 161.
275–76 votes “stolen”: Hersh, 140–. Blakey was a special prosecutor under Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and later chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He went on to become director of the Cornell Institute on Organized Crime, and is currently a professor of law at Notre Dame.
276 Joe Kennedy’s deal with mob: (“lay off”) Hersh, 146; (“Eventually”) ibid., 139–, Roemer, Man Against Mob, 158; (senator “with a yen”) Gosch and Hammer, 378.
276 Luciano/“We were playing”: int. Sal Vizzini. Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger rated Vizzini “one of the most effective undercover agents the Bureau ever had.” At great risk, he penetrated the Luciano organization for more than two years—from early 1959 to late 1961 (Anslinger—Vizzini with Fraley and Smith, foreword; penetration—ibid., 33, 216, int. Sal Vizzini, and see Valentine, xvi, 192); (Adonis deported) Cook, 347; (Adonis murderer) Cook, 139, Sterling, 87; (“hello & goodbye”) Messick with Nellis, 236, AmericanWeekly, Jul. 27, 1952.
276 records suggest: SAC New York to Director, Apr. 15, 1954, FBI 62-83219-17, rereviewed and released to authors, 2004, “Correlation Summary,” Jun. 8, 1964, FSFBI. One FBI document suggests Adonis was one of Sinatra’s original backers—plausible because he was part of the Luciano mob, close to Willie Moretti, and long operated in New Jersey; (“do what he could”) Hellerman with Renner, 106.
276 “Joe Adonis expects”/“Costello should”: Winchell syndicated column, Dec. 16, 1960. Costello had been jailed on tax evasion charges, and was in prison for much of the time from May 1956 until June 1961, when he was released after having served most of a five-year term (Katz, 199–).
277 Kennedy family at odds: (“dangerous”) Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys, London: Pan, 1985, 271–; (family dispute) Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978, 1
42; (RFK pursuing Giancana) “Title: Samuel M. Giancana,” Sep. 12, 1960, FBI 92-3171, section 4; (interrogated/taken Fifth) Schlesinger, 165; (“Can you believe?”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 126; (“really hated”) Penthouse, Mar. 1984; (mobsters amazed) Cohen as told to Nugent, 236; (RFK made clear) Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, New York: Marlowe, 1998, 192.
277 Pursuit of Giancana: (close to top) Director to SAC New York, Apr. 12, 1961, FBI 92-3171-238; (surveillance/“lockstep”) Blakey and Billings, 208–, 254, Roemer, Mob, 153–, 257–, Roemer, Accardo, 221–; (double-crossed, as he saw it) e.g., logs of convs., Dec. 6, 21, 1961, Jan. 4, 1962, Misc. ELSUR Refs., vol. 1, HSCA Subject Files, Frank Sinatra, JFK, int. Bill Roemer, 1985.
277 Threat to FS: (knife Lewis?) corr. Mark Gribben and see Giancana and Giancana, 167–; (Lewis) the Lewis maiming was covered earlier, as was the threat to Davis.
278 order to kill Arnaz: Demaris, Last Mafioso, 122–. Taking the relevant sources together, the chronology suggests spring 1961 as the most likely date for the Arnaz episode. Sinatra knew of Giancana’s rage, confronted Arnaz, and at one point—in his cups—talked of killing the producer himself. In Italy, the Bureau of Narcotics discovered that Sinatra had written to Lucky Luciano about the Arnaz series. The fact that Sinatra had quarreled with Arnaz made the newspapers at the time (FS talked of killing—Kelley, 287; FS letter to Luciano—Siragusa to Anslinger, May 20, 1961, LLBN, int. Sal Vizzini; made newspapers—Variety, Dec. 8, 1960, Apr. 4, 1961, Russo, 353).
278 Shavelson background: Shavelson, refs., int. Melville Shavelson—Shavelson had written the screenplay for one of Sinatra’s movies, Double Dynamite (1951), and would direct him in another, Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
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