Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald

by Douglas Brode

  *

  “It takes a lot to get Ike mad,” Sheffield Edwards, CIA Director of Security, confided to Bob in the former’s D.C. office, “but he’s mad as hell right now.”

  “Understandably so,” Maheu replied. Shef referred to Fidel Castro’s ever more hostile statements about the U.S. in Radio Havana broadcasts. Since seizing power a year and three months earlier, Castro had veered far from his initially hopeful stance as a democratic liberator to something more disturbing to the U.S.’s interests: a hardcore communist. As such Castro left himself vulnerable to what U.S. spies had decoded from messages between Havana and Moscow: the Russian premiere Nikita Khrushchev recently proffered overtures to the Cuban leader about setting up nuclear weapons, pointed at the United States, a mere 90 miles away from U.S. shores. In return, Cuba would receive more financial and military aid than ever.

  Nothing, at the Cold War’s height, could so swiftly spread fear through America’s defense community. The existence of U.S. and Russian nuclear sites equally distant from one another had serious implications. But if this were to become a reality, a delicate balance would be diminished in Russia’s favor.

  “It’ll come as no surprise to you that we’ve had our agents down there attempting to undermine Castro for the better part of a year. It hasn’t worked. Now, we must kick it up a notch.”

  “And you believe I can be of service?” Maheu asked as he considered the situation on that second day of March, 1960. Though he’d left the FBI in 1947 to open offices as a private consultant and investigator, first in Washington D.C. and, after considerable success, California as well, Dick Tracy was often contacted by the CIA to make key connections owing to his great expertise as an arbitrator between difficult personalities.

  “Yesterday, Dick Bissell asked me to come up with someone who might put us in contact with members of the corporation that owns the gambling casinos in Havana.” By that, Maheu knew, Shef meant The Mafia. Even in the intimacy of his own security-savvy office, such a high-ranking government official hesitated to openly admit such a thing. As for Bissell, Maheu knew that any statements from the CIA’s Deputy-Director for Plans would have reached Bissell from Allen W. Dulles, current Director of The Company; this only after Eisenhower ordered Dulles, through his higher ranking brother John Foster D., to ‘do something.’ “Anyway, I ran through some names of people I’ve relied on in the past. Yours, Bob, more or less jumped up and out at me.”

  That sounded reasonable. Once Maheu won over Howard Hughes, the bizarre megalomaniac of a multi-millionaire as a client, it became necessary to spend a lot of time in Nevada, all Hughes’ business interests headquartered there. As one thing leads to another, during off-hours Maheu visited casinos along the Strip, operated by those same “businessmen” in charge of similar properties in Havana, Miami and Tampa.

  Castro’s rise to power, his backing down on the issue of closing casinos reversed owing to Rosselli’s persuasiveness notwithstanding, led to the loss of one hundred million dollars a year from gambling. That didn’t take into account lucrative returns from prostitution and drugs. Castro must be considered as intolerable to The Mafia as, if for different reasons, our government. While the old adage about killing two birds with one stone didn’t apply, Shef Edwards suggested it might be possible, perhaps even necessary, to kill one bird with two stones.

  No question about it, if such parties, unmentionable in public, were going to be brought in on this ‘project.’ Dick Tracy was the man who could cinch the connection. He alone, Shef reasoned, could bring together the opposites that might attract.

  The problem: Maheu didn’t appear convinced. “Tell me, Shef: up until now, have your strategies involved any of these ‘other’ people, or did you assign only Company men to the ‘problem’?”

  “Strictly CIA personnel, up until now.”

  “And aren’t they the best at what they do?”

  “Sure. Problem is, Castro’s top security guys got their hands on a list of our best agents. They can spot one of our guys coming on down a mile away. We need to try something else.”

  “Truthfully? I think it’s a bad idea. Do you recall what Scott Fitzgerald said about ‘the very rich’?”

  “Of course.” Edwards, like Maheu, was a highly educated man. Each had enjoyed university courses in literature as much as those pertaining to political science. Such people could quote The Great Gatsby. “They are very different from you and me.”

  “Uh-huh. Anyway, that goes double for Made Men.”

  “You don’t think they can be trusted?”

  “It’s not that. As I’ve learned, they consider themselves men of respect. That means they hone to a code of honor, no matter how far that may be from anything you and I believe in. Still, if they agree to something, they’ll see it through.”

  “So? What‘s the problem?”

  “We’d be setting a precedent here that I don’t think is healthy for the country. Government agents in league with—”

  “You’ve heard that 'any enemy of my enemy is my friend?'”

  “In all honesty, once too often lately. And, in all truth, I don’t necessarily believe it to be true. We’re supposed to be shutting these kinds of people and their operations down, not—”

  “That’s the FBI’s job. We’re CIA.”

  Appearing uncomfortable, Maheu shifted in his seat, eyes penetrating Edwards. “Then it’s okay to keep the governmental body’s left hand from knowing what the right one is up to?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. Particularly as, ever since the Kefauver Crime Commission began its hearings, there’s been a concerted effort between all agencies to bring down The Mob.”

  “Finally!”

  “’Amen!’ to that.”

  *

  By that, they referred to one of the government’s best kept secrets. In 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt first assumed office, a cost-cutting committee during The Great Depression considered shutting down the relatively new Bureau of Investigation, headed by J. Edgar Hoover. That human bulldog guessed that the only way to head such a move off was to convince America all citizens were in grave danger from criminal elements, and only a federal police force could protect them. Hoover, then, required a worthy opponent. That wasn’t difficult: organized crime, operating out of Chicago and New York City, fit the bill perfectly.

  All Hoover had to do was appear on radio, perhaps the popular show hosted by his friend Walter Winchell (“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea ...”) and tell the truth about this viable threat.

  One little problem prevented that. Hoover and his lover/ assistant, Clyde Tolson, had made the mistake of not only dancing together at a New Year’s Eve Party at which liquor, still illegal, was served. They did so with J. Edgar decked out in a brightly-colored dress. Also, Hoover kissed his longtime companion on the mouth at the stroke of midnight. Unknown to them, a mob photographer had been planted in the boisterous crowd. He delivered the photos to Charles Luciano in Chicago, who roared with laughter, then had more copies printed, sending a batch to his friend, Meyer Lansky, in Manhattan.

  During a phone conversation on New Year’s Day, 1929, the childhood buddies chuckled a lot about Hoover’s tough-guy image as compared to his reality. Yet another set was sent directly to J. Edgar, who received them in a plain wrapper two days later. Staring at the photo in his hand, The G-Man gasped for breath.

  “With love from Lucky” the accompanying note read.

  No further explanation was necessary. If Hoover were to set his men against organized crime, copies of this picture would be sent to every newspaper and magazine in America. This, in those days before the invention of devices that allowed for the easy alteration of photographic images. Seeing, at least then, any photo meant believing. Even if the Bureau somehow survived, Hoover was finished, a laughing stock. That was considered intolerable.

  Days later, Hoover did indeed go on the air alongside Winchell. When directly asked about the issue of a Combination by his ho
st, the guest swallowed hard and lied: “There is no organized crime in the U.S. That is a myth spread by those who would like to undermine the stability of our country. In part by racists who want to discredit those wonderful salt of the earth people, Italians and Jews. Also by Communists, most likely.”

  Still, there had to be some reason for the Bureau, which even now Hoover was in the process of renaming The Federal Bureau of Investigation, to continue in existence. Something Hoover could convince the public was out there, menacing every American. By fate or accident, just such a scapegoat came to his attention. While escaping from prison, a minor bank robber named John Dillinger stole a car and crossed state lines. In so doing he had committed a federal offense, if a relatively minor one.

  “No, Walter, the problem is not some imagined organized crime syndicate. It is the dis-organized crime even now wreaking havoc, destroying lives, causing ordinary people to fear for their life-savings which have been ripped out of widows’ hands by members of this chaotic confederacy of amoral rednecks. John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Babyface Nelson, Clyde Barrow, Machine Gun McCain. These subhuman monsters tear around the countryside in their cars, wielding Tommy Guns, raping, pillaging, taking what they want, leaving devastation in their wake. I plan a nationwide crusade to stop them in their tracks.”

  Actually, most of those rural bank robbers had never shot anyone. In comparison to the Mob, their impact on the American scene was nil. No matter. That was a reality which, if swept under the rug, did not weight heavily on the current vision of the United States as created and presented by the media, this mythic construction accepted by most citizens as the way things were. In those days before television, hearing was believing. Who would ever doubt anything broadcast on Winchell?

  Hoover sent top agent Melvin Purvis and a well-armed task force out to round up or shoot down the rubes. Every time one bit the dust, the public cheered after learning the details from the newspapers or on the radio. Dillinger, who had killed only one man, and that in an accident he deeply regretted, would be posited as “Public Enemy Number One.” FBI agents plastered his photo on the bulls-eyes of their targets for shooting practice.

  F.D.R. sighed. The masquerade had worked. If he dared close down the FBI now, people would perceive him as soft on crime and likely he’d be a one-term president. He caved. Hoover survived.

  Luciano and Lansky had what seemed to be the last laugh. Only that wasn’t quite true. A quarter century later, J. Edgar had, like them, grown old. He might soon retire. Young turks were taking over the FBI, hoping for an Attorney General with guts. One who’d let them take on the Mob, Hoover be damned.

  Things change. As Maheu and Edwards well knew.

  *

  “On some level, we’d be justifying the Mob’s existence.”

  “Does that mean you won’t help me out here?”

  “Before I answer that, Shef, keep in mind, if they do pull this off, from that moment—actually, from the time you first have me, or anyone else, communicate with them—the CIA is in bed with the Mob. Permanently. Have you thought about that?”

  “Of course,” Edwards sighed, clearly displeased.

  “Are you comfortable with it?”

  “Hardly! Then again, these are troubling times. Survival is at issue. ‘Comfort’ is not then my immediate aim right now.”

  Glumly, Maheu took that in. “Well,” he shrugged, “I’ll do whatever you ask. For the good of the country, as always. And hope and pray your call is the right one.”

  “I appreciate that, Bob.”

  “But I have to draw the line somewhere and here it is. You must guarantee me that we—the CIA, the Mob, whoever else gets involved—remove Castro without ’eliminating’ him.”

  Both men knew what Maheu meant: bring Castro down but not kill him. Thou shalt not ...

  “Agreed.” The two firmly shook hands across Edwards’ desk.

  *

  Edwards instructed Bob Maheu to put the project on a back burner and go about his everyday business. Shef didn’t inquire as to what Maheu’s work for Hughes consisted of. Clean or dirty, the CIA honcho did not want to know. Dick Tracy did precisely as told. When work brought him to Vegas, he consciously cultivated relations with Mob boys, deciding on one in particular as his future contact when and if Shef eventually called.

  That occurred several months later. Shef explained that he’d been going over plans with Bissell, Dulles, and J.C. King, Chief of the CIA’s WH Division, ever since their meeting. When the first phase of what had now officially been tagged Operation 40 went into operation, things must run like clockwork.

  Though Maheu knew King to be dependable, he was not happy that so many people had been brought into what in his view ought to have remained a secretive affair. An inner voice warned him to get out quick. But he, a man of honor, had given his word.

  Nausea overtook Maheu when he learned that Gen. Charles Pearre Cabell, Chief of Air Force Intelligence, would also be briefed. When Maheu wailed that this widening circle of high-level participants must be curtailed, Edwards insisted “the Old Soldier is alright.” Cabell had been persuaded to accept a key position as Deputy Director of the CIA while remaining employed as a five-star general at the Pentagon. With that two-pronged sphere of influence, he might just prove invaluable.

  This whole thing is veering out of control! The CIA and the military? Once we also involve the Made Men, anything can happen ... and probably will ...

  Like Maheu, James P. O’Connell had been a Special Agent for the FBI before becoming involved with the CIA. Unlike the now-entrepreneurial Maheu, O’Connell had joined up, serving as Chief Operational Support Division, Office of Security. Shef Edwards decided at this point to remove himself as much as possible from the work Maheu would be doing so as not to get his hands dirty. He appointed O’Connell as “case officer” assigned to facilitate the “special intelligence operation” in any way Maheu might find use for him. O’Connell enthusiastically greeted Bob Maheu at their first meeting, appearing completely sincere while offering to serve as Bob’s right hand. Nonetheless, Dick Tracy did feel vaguely betrayed at having been passed off to someone else.

  A short while after committing to the project, Maheu woke in the middle of the night with a chill running up and down his spine, thinking: This whole thing is doomed to failure. If I could get out, I would. But I’m past the point of no return!

  *

  “Johnny Handsome? That you?”

  Rosselli knew the caller at once: Maheu, recognizable from his voice, at once scratchy, tinny, yet strangely sweet. Also, no one else ever referred to him by that nickname on the phone.

  “Yeah. Dick Tracy?”

  Other men called Bob that owing to his resemblance to the fictional character. Rosselli had a personal reason: besides the pop-art offerings, Maheu bore an uncanny resemblance to Ralph Byrd, the actor who played the comic-strip-cop, wearing the signature trench coat and perky hat, in several low-budget movies for producer Bryan Foy that Rosselli had overseen.

  “It’s been a while.”

  While the expression “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” had not yet been coined, that pretty much summed up the way things worked. A big small town, everyone got to know everyone. Not surprisingly, the former Fed and the active Mafioso shared the same watering-holes. And, in a couple of instances, women: those tall, stately, available showgirls who performed for the public, then went to bed with men of power.

  “Too long.”

  “Thinking the same thing myself. Can we get together?”

  As Maheu had to finish up some work at his D.C. office and Rosselli couldn’t leave Vegas until Friday, they made plans to get together for drinks in Los Angeles Saturday night. Rosselli kept a suite in the City of Angels: Maheu, a business office.

  Despite the casualty with which that invitation had been extended, Rosselli understood that something big was up. So Maheu, once in Rosselli’s apartment, with a shot-glass full of prime Scotch in his hand, got right to it:
he had been employed by several well-known legitimate business interests that dealt in varied goods and services, all partaking of the Cuban market previous to Castro. There appeared only one way to recover their losses and that was by figuring some way to put Castro out of power.

  Maheu never mentioned the term “Mafia.” No need to. Both men knew the score. Rosselli admitted the absence of Castro would be in the best interests of his business associates back east. Maheu then confided that the people who employed him would pay $150,000 if Rosselli’s own “associates” could arrange for a “disposal.” Rosselli admitted that this was an attractive sum but he did not have authority to accept the offer. This could only be settled by his superior. Before any details could be discussed, a top-level meeting must be arranged.

  Maheu agreed, knowing precisely who he would have to speak with: Sam Giancana, aka Sam Gold, the mobster’s mobster.

  On November 23, 1960, Rosselli met again with Maheu in a quiet cellar club in downtown Manhattan’s Little Italy. This time Maheu brought along James P. O’Connell. Though Rosselli had not previously met this man, he knew O’Connell’s reputation as a former FBI agent. As an ice breaker, O’Connell half-kiddingly asked Rosselli if he were related to a guy who once worked in Chicago, “Johnny Roselli.”

  “Well, yeah, of course that was me. My parents lived in Boston; back in ’22, a ‘situation’ caused me to hurriedly head West.” Rosselli did not explain further; he had murdered a man and gone on the run. Maheu and O’Connell already knew that. “I decided to change my name. My saintly mother always adored art so I picked a Renaissance painter. We had a print of ‘Madonna With Child and Angels’ in our home. Cosimo Rosselli was the artist. Freakin’ fool that I am, I mis-spelled it then.”