Word: giancana
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There are no truly secure pensioners in the Mafia, but the retired Chicago don Sam Giancana, 66, was probably as much at ease one night last week as a man with his past could be. Just back from Houston and a gall-bladder operation, he had enjoyed a festive homecoming dinner in his fortress-like brick house in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. His guests were the handful of people he could trust: one of his daughters and her husband; Charles ("Chuckie") English, his partner in myriad syndicate enterprises over the years; and his loyal courier-chauffeur, Dominick ("Butch...
...party apparently over, the surveillance was lifted; all seemed quiet in the house. But before midnight Giancana went down to his basement hideaway with its small kitchen to fry up a snack of Italian sausages and spinach. It was a snack that would go uneaten. Perhaps one of his guests remained behind, or perhaps he was joined by a new visitor-whoever was there was almost certainly someone he knew well. Giancana was shot seven times at close range in the face and neck...
Thus died a man with the face of a gargoyle and the disposition of a viper, a cruelly violent Mafia chieftain who ruthlessly ruled the Chicago underworld for nearly ten years. Giancana had retired from active Mob affairs several years ago. But he recently recovered his notoriety because of the revelation that he had been recruited for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1960 to assassinate Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro (see following story). Indeed, the Senate committee investigating the CIA was considering calling Giancana to testify, and had already subpoenaed his lieutenant in the plot, John Roselli, to appear this week...
...circumstances seemed to suggest a classic Mafia rubout: the cheery last supper followed by the kiss of death from a trusted friend who had been persuaded to betray Giancana at the Mob's bidding. Though Giancana had so far told the grand jury nothing of value, the Mafia might have been worried that eventually he would. And though he was still a member of the Mafia's nationwide high "Commission," the Chicago local had some months before excluded him from all its activities, believing that the investigations he had inspired had crimped Mob business in Chicago. The gang...
...become Illinois' Governor six years later). Resuming his role as a spy for the Mob, Cain was fired by Ogilvie for his shenanigans in 1964. Finally, in 1968, Cain was jailed for his part in a Mafia operation. Released in 1971, he became the still absent Giancana's man in Chicago...