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Organized Crime | Sam Giancana was the boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 who was recruited by the CIA through Robert Maheu and Johnny Roselli in 1960 to participate in assassination plots against Fidel Castro, was subpoenaed by the Church Committee, and was shot seven times in his Chicago home kitchen on June 19, 1975 - one day before he was scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee. | 1908-05-19 | 1975-06-19 | Chicago, Illinois |
Salvatore "Sam" Giancana (May 19, 1908 - June 19, 1975) was the boss of the La Cosa Nostra from 1957, one of the most powerful organized crime figures in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1960 as part of the agency's operation to assassinate Fidel Castro and was the target of an intense Federal Bureau of Investigation campaign under Robert Kennedy's direction as Attorney General. He was murdered in his home kitchen on June 19, 1975, one day before he was scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating the CIA-organized crime anti-Castro plots.1
Criminal Career
Giancana rose through the Chicago criminal organization under Al Capone's successors, beginning as an enforcer and driver for mob figures during Prohibition and rising through the organization's ranks over the following decades. He became the Chicago Outfit's boss in approximately 1957, at which point the Outfit controlled substantial gambling, labor racket, and criminal operations across Chicago and the Midwest, with significant interests in Las Vegas casinos and Cuba before the revolution.
His personal style differed from the older generation of organized crime leadership. Giancana cultivated connections to the entertainment world - he had a long relationship with singer Phyllis McGuire and was known in the celebrity circles around Frank Sinatra - presenting a more public-facing image than his predecessors.1
CIA Anti-Castro Operations
In September 1960, CIA officer Robert Maheu - a former FBI agent used as an agency cutout for sensitive operations - approached Johnny Roselli about the CIA's desire to assassinate Castro. Roselli introduced Maheu to Giancana and Santos Trafficante, Jr. as the organized crime figures with Cuban casino experience and existing connections in the Cuban underworld who could provide operational support.
Giancana agreed to participate. The CIA's Technical Services Division developed poison pills intended for Castro's food. Multiple plots were attempted through the early 1960s without result. When William Harvey replaced Maheu as the CIA's primary handler for the operation in 1961, Giancana's role became secondary to Roselli's, but his participation in the anti-Castro infrastructure was documented.
The CIA-Giancana relationship created significant friction with the FBI. In 1962, when the FBI was running intensive surveillance of Giancana - a priority of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's organized crime crackdown - the CIA asked the FBI to pull back its surveillance because Giancana was an operational asset. The FBI resisted. The incident documented that the CIA was using organized crime figures the FBI was simultaneously trying to prosecute, and that the two agencies' programs were in direct conflict.1
Church Committee and Death
The Church Committee's 1975 investigation into CIA assassination plots subpoenaed Giancana to testify. He appeared before the committee in late spring 1975 in closed session. He was scheduled for additional testimony in June 1975.
On June 19, 1975, Giancana was in the kitchen of his home in Oak Park, Illinois, cooking sausages at approximately midnight when he was shot seven times with a .22-caliber pistol equipped with a silencer. He was shot once under the chin and six times around the face and neck in a tight pattern - a professional execution signature. He died at the scene. No one was ever charged with his murder.
The timing - one day before scheduled Senate testimony - was widely noted. Whether the murder was carried out by organized crime figures who feared his testimony, by intelligence actors seeking to prevent disclosure, or by some combination, was never established. Johnny Roselli, the other primary CIA-organized crime contact, was murdered in August 1976 shortly after his own Church Committee testimony.1
Historical Significance
Giancana's murder removed a primary witness to the CIA-organized crime anti-Castro collaboration at the moment when that collaboration was coming under Senate scrutiny. The Church Committee found that the existence of the CIA-mob plots had been deliberately concealed from the Warren Commission, meaning that neither Giancana's nor Roselli's testimony before the Warren Commission was ever sought - and that their murders foreclosed the possibility of full testimony before the Church Committee as well.
The HSCA identified Giancana as one of the organized crime figures with both the motive and the means to have organized President John F. Kennedy's assassination.2
Footnotes
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Church Committee (U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975. Roemer, William F. Man Against the Mob. Donald I. Fine, 1989. ↩︎
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House Select Committee on Assassinations. Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. Government Printing Office, 1979. Giancana, Sam, and Chuck Giancana. Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America. Warner Books, 1992. ↩︎