Did the Mob Elect Kennedy?

Friends of mine: Slick Hanner

While a UIC researcher earlier this week presented a case that he said debunked the Mob's impact on the Kennedy's election, is that really the case?

William "Slick" Hanner has a book coming out this fall in which he will refute those who claim the mob did not have a hand in the 1960 Presidential election. An excerpt:

In 1960 I was working in a Mafia run strip joint in Chicago's first ward. Although I was a felon and not allowed to vote, my boss Big Joe Smith (not to be confused with big Joe Arnold) told me to register to vote on election day. Me and the strip joint employees where transported to the polls to vote for Kennedy. "Don't make a mistake," Joe said.

Can you imagine if they did this for Nixon who would have won???

Slick's book, "Thief! The Gutsy, True Story of an Ex-Con Artist," is a Barricade Books release due out in fall of 2006.

Tweet

Mob Didn't Turn Out Vote for Kennedy: UIC Professor

Friends of ours: Sam Giancana

No, the Mafia did not win the 1960 presidential election for John F. Kennedy, according to a study by a University of Illinois at Chicago professor.

After Kennedy's razor-thin victory over Richard Nixon in Illinois, which cemented Kennedy's lead in the electoral college, Nixon backers blamed Mayor Richard J. Daley's notorious precinct captains for election-night hijinks. But years later, another argument emerged: Kennedy or his father made a deal with the mob to throw the election in Chicago -- and thus Illinois -- to Kennedy.

Author Seymour Hersh made the argument in a 1997 book, The Dark Side of Camelot. Frank Sinatra's daughter, Tina, and Judith Campbell Exner, reputed former mistress of the late president and of late Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, also made versions of that argument.

To test the theory that the mob turned out the vote in Chicago's 1960 general election, John Binder, a finance professor at UIC, analyzed vote totals for five city wards where the mob reputedly had clout, as well as in Cicero and Chicago Heights.

Those areas performed no differently than the non-mob wards and suburbs, Binder found. "There's really no evidence to support that story," Binder said. "Some of the people telling these stories are nuts."

The Democratic votes in the 1st, 24th, 25th, 28th and 29th wards, as well as in Cicero and Chicago Heights, did not jump any more from Adlai Stevenson in 1956 to Kennedy in 1960 than other comparable wards and townships, he said.

Exner had also said she was sent to deliver money from the Kennedy family to Giancana to help fund union efforts on Kennedy's behalf in the West Virginia primary election in which Kennedy surprised Hubert Humphrey. Binder questions that as well.

"How in God's name is Sam Giancana going to get anything done in West Virginia?" he asked. "They don't have any influence there."

Could the mob's influence in the 1960 Chicago general election have been citywide through the unions as opposed to just the mob-controlled wards? Binder calls that unlikely because Kennedy and his brother had antagonized union leaders during the McClellan hearings.

"There is evidence that unions voted the other way -- they couldn't stand the Kennedys," Binder said.

Thanks to Abdon M. Pallasch

Tweet

UIC Researcher Debunks Mob Impact on 1960 Presidential Election

An analysis of voting totals from the 1960 presidential election debunks claims that the Chicago Mob played a significant role in tilting the election to John F. Kennedy, according to a University of Illinois at Chicago organized crime historian and researcher.

"There is little, if any, convincing evidence to support these extreme claims about the 1960 presidential election," John Binder, author of "The Chicago Outfit," writes in a summarized version of the copyrighted article "Organized Crime and the 1960 Presidential Election."

Binder, UIC associate professor of finance, statistically examined election voting by four groups of Chicago wards and suburbs where organized crime would have been most able to deliver votes for Kennedy if it so desired, including:

- the 1st, 24th, 25th, 28th and 29th wards
- the above five wards and the 45th ward
- the five "Outfit" wards and two suburbs (Chicago Heights and Cicero), and
- all six Chicago wards and the two suburbs

The percentage of voters casting a Democratic ballot in 1960 was compared not only to the percentage voting Democratic in the previous (1956) or the next (1964) presidential election, but also to how the other wards in Chicago voted in 1960.

The findings, detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Public Choice, show that in only one of eight cases is there any evidence of unusually strong Democratic voting that might have been due to organized crime.

"It certainly is not consistent with an all-out effort to elect John Kennedy, because in that case, increased Democratic voting should be evident in more than just 12.5 percent of the tests," Binder said. "The results, as further tests show, are more likely due to a concerted effort to defeat the incumbent Republican state's attorney, which due to straight-ticket voting in some cases, threw a few more votes to John Kennedy," he said.

"Therefore, much of what has been written about the Outfit, the 1960 presidential election and other events involving the Kennedy family appears to be historical myth -- which along with other fascinating myths, should not be taken seriously," Binder said.

Thanks to University of Illinois at Chicago

Tweet

Mama Gets Her shot at 'Mob cops'

Friends of ours: Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Lucchese Crime Family
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

Twenty years after Jimmy Hydell disappeared on a rainy Saturday, his mother will get her chance at revenge against the men she believes delivered him to his death - the so-called Mafia cops. Betty Hydell is set to take the stand this week to testify that Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were looking for her son the day he disappeared.

Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, have been charged with kidnapping Jimmy Hydell and handing him over to gangster Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso. The two ex-NYPD detectives are on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on charges they killed and committed other crimes while secretly working for the mob.

Casso allegedly tortured Hydell, a wanna-be wiseguy, for hours, then fatally shot him after getting him to reveal the name of cohorts who had attempted to kill the Luchese capo, authorities contend.

Testimony last week by Burton Kaplan, a key government witness, has infuriated Betty Hydell further, her daughter told the Daily News.

Kaplan told jurors Jimmy Hydell knew he was going to die and begged Casso to "throw him in the street" so his mom could collect insurance. Kaplan said Casso promised he would, but Hydell's body was never found. "My mother was very upset about this," said Liz Hydell. "She's ready to come to court."

Documents obtained by the Daily News show Betty Hydell first contacted authorities about the two cops she believed were involved in her son's death seven years before the duo was arrested.

Betty Hydell, according to those papers, is expected to describe how, soon after Jimmy left the house on Oct. 18, 1986, her other son, Frank, returned to say he'd been followed by two men in a light blue sedan. He was driving Jimmy's car.

Hydell got in her car and found the sedan parked near her house. She says she pulled up alongside and asked the men who they were. The driver flashed a badge and she remembers saying, "You should let people know what you're doing."

Some time later, an NYPD detective showed up with Jimmy's clothes and a key ring. She didn't recognize the keys, but something on the ring was his. She kept the clothes for years.

At the time, she did not know the identity of the two cops and told no one of her suspicions. She feared retaliation against her Frank Hydell, who had his own problems with the law.

In April 1998, Frank was gunned down outside a Staten Island strip club. Betty Hydell claims she then told law enforcement officials her belief that two cops had kidnapped her son.

By then, she said she could identify them - claiming some years earlier that she saw Eppolito plugging his 1992 book, "Mafia Cop," on a talk show and recognized him as the driver of the car she'd seen the day Jimmy went away.

Thanks to Greg B. Smith

Tweet

'Sopranos' Tour Showcases Hit's Sites

As the tour bus curves out of the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey, Marc Baron prepares his guests for what they're about to see: what Tony Soprano sees during the opening credits of "The Sopranos."

"Get your cameras ready," he tells the group of 51 people as they pass the glorious Manhattan skyline. "Welcome to New Jersey."

One of the biggest stars in "The Sopranos" -- which returns to HBO this Sunday after a nearly two-year hiatus -- is New Jersey itself.

A New York company has capitalized on the show's popularity, offering a four-hour "Sopranos"-themed tour of northern New Jersey. For $40 a head, fans visit the real home of the Bada Bing (a strip club called Satin Dolls) on Route 17 in Lodi and the fake storefront of Satriale's, where Tony and his crew often talk shop, in Kearny.

Film crews are regularly spotted around New Jersey, where fictional mob boss Tony Soprano and his family live and work. The show, which began in 1999, filmed scenes in downtown Newark and Clifton last month.

The company called On Location Tours, which also runs bus tours of "Sex and the City" sites in Manhattan, has taken about 20,000 fans around Jersey since the trips to the Garden State began about five years ago, said company owner Georgette Blau. "This is the new literary landmark tour," she said.

A spokeswoman for HBO declined to comment on the tours, which are not affiliated with the cable network. No matter to "Sopranos" fans, who are shuttled to about 40 different locations.

Some sites are clearly recognizable: the Pizzaland shack and the 25-foot-tall statue of a man holding a roll of carpet during the show's opening credits.

Other less-important "real" sites from the show are quickly pointed out as the bus rolls through the towns of Harrison and Kearny: the auto body shop run by Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, the newspaper box where Christopher Moltisanti steals papers with his name in it, or the high school Anthony Junior vandalizes.

June Gregory, visiting from Philadelphia, stood in front of the diner under the Pulaski Skyway, where in one episode of the show, Christopher was shot.

She decided against taking a photo, but other stops were worthy of pictures by some of the tour participants, who came from far (England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Australia) and near (Brooklyn and Long Island).

Gareth Edwards, visiting from Wales with his wife, said the tour was a highlight of their five-day trip to New York City. "I'm a big fan of 'The Sopranos.' We've got all the DVDs," he said.

They ranked the tour as important as tours of other New York landmarks they visited, including the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center and ground zero. "It's better than a museum," added Edwards, 34.

Cameras clicked at Satriale's, which of course wasn't open, but props were visible inside. Baron said HBO holds a lease on the small building. As he peeked inside, Jim Washer said the show enjoys a cult following in London, where he lives.

Baron, an actor, talked about the show and shared biographies of the actors. He also gave prizes for answering "Sopranos" trivia questions. Many people on the tour knew the answers immediately.

One question: What are three kinds of animals killed on the Sopranos? The answer: Adriana La Cerva's dog, a deer in the famous "Pine Barrens" episode, and Tony's race horse.

As the bus snaked through downtown Newark, Baron pointed out Washington Park, where a group of American Indians protested Christopher Columbus in an episode from the fourth season, and the former insurance building now owned by Rutgers University that fronted as a court building for the show. But perhaps the highlight of the trip was the last stop: a visit to the strip club that serves as home base for the organized crime operation run by Tony and his "capos."

Inside, the purple lights are the same, but the room seems smaller. Dancers wore tops -- unlike in the show -- as they preened around two poles. "I was surprised they had clothes on," said Stacey Thomson of Fort Lauderdale. Participants were taken to a back area where they could buy hats, T-shirts, shot glasses and other trinkets bearing "The Sopranos" and Bada Bing logo.

Baron also pointed out how several buildings near the strip club have been used in the show, including a party store where Bonpensiero meets an FBI agent.

The tour was "something different" for London residents Michael and Victoria Nicholls, both 60, during their first trip to New York. Even though he couldn't answer any of the trivia questions on the bus, Nicholls said he enjoyed the tour. But the big fans said they enjoyed seeing the New Jersey spots where Tony, Paulie, Silvio and their favorite characters hang out.

Thomson and her husband said they are already preparing to have friends over for dinner Sunday to watch the show when it resumes. She'll be making ziti with marinara sauce and Italian sausage. "We'll be taking the phone off the hook," she said. "We won't be answering the door."

Tweet