The CIA-Mafia Legend

I don't know how they do it but they do it I don't know how they do it but they do it I don't know how they do it but they do it Brown Derby does it with on a September Day in mid 1960 at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood Private intelligence agent Robert Mayu was grabbing lunch with mob associate Johnny roselli contract spook Mayu had called the meeting to make a proposition to mob operator roselli on behalf of his client The CIA his proposition to form an alliance of convenience between the Central Intelligence Agency

and the organized crime factions in Miami Louisiana and Chicago in order to assassinate their shared opponent Fidel Castro the recently ascended leader of Cuba roselli was probably the best person mayew could have approached handsome Johnny as he was known although working officially for the Chicago outfit operated freely within several Different mob circles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Miami to Chicago roselli was an operator much like Mayu and both men had extravagant and far-flung connections that made this meeting in Hollywood foundationally significant for the two establishment groupings that these figures represented after a productive

meeting in LA roselli and Mayu would host a second gathering this time in Miami at the historic Kennelworth Hotel roselli brought the Bosses into the light there Mayu was introduced by roselli to a man going by Sam gold who was later revealed to be Sam Momo Gian boss of the Chicago outfit and one of the main mob figures in the United States he was also introduced to a man named Joe who was Santo traficante Jr head of the Florida outfit from there the CIA Mafia assassination plots were born those faithful meetings between Robert mayew of

the CIA and Johnny roselli of the Chicago outfit Represented far more than simply a temporary alliance between organized crime and American intelligence you see Mayhew and roselli were representatives of two polls of the subu US political establishment Robert Mayhew came from the world of private intelligence but more broadly from the world of the emerging Cowboy wing of the business Elite this was the world courted by vice president Richard Nixon the rising new money within the oil and gas and Military-industrial spheres of the US Southwest mayu's main client since 1956 had been Texas billionaire Howard Hughes

a military-industrial Titan who had first made his fortune through an elusive oil drill patent Hughes himself had been a long-standing covert backer of Richard Nixon and would continue to be a private sponsor of anti-castro operations as we will soon see Robert mayew therefore was an Envoy from this world helping to further entangle the Nixonian political machine with the nebulous world of organized crime on the other side handsome Johnny roselli represented the organized crime space an often suppressed element of the 20th Century ruling class the American mob originally attached to the Eastern establishment Yankees was increasingly

in the process of a realignment this time towards the rising Cowboys of the South and Southwest this would be especially the case when JFK would Emerge as president in 1960 defeating Nixon and elevating his brother Bobby Archen enemy of the mob to the attorney general position today I want to dissect the 1960 meeting between Robert Mayhew and Johnny Roselle not so much for the meeting itself but more so for the significance of the melding of both of their worlds by looking at the respective factions represented by these two men and their interlaced role in the

Cuba show we get A clearer view into the alliance between intelligence organized crime and private Capital that would define mid-century clandestine history in the United States starting with Robert Mayu I want to untangle Nixon's often understated role in the early Bay of Pigs planning and and the operatives that he brought to the table from his emerging Republican donor Network most exemplified by the likes of Howard Hughes then I will shift to the mafia elements within the United States and their role within the anti-castro Nexus starting with of course Johnny roselli and expanding outwards to untangle

the full Mafia influence on the anti- Cuba program by exploring their deepening ties to the rising Cowboy Elite we begin to understand the true nature of the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent official and and off the books anti-castro operations roselli and mayhugh's meeting in 1960 formally married these two worlds Organized crime and the cowboy billionaires under the offices of getting Castro as tensions grew and the Kennedy White House continuously alienated big oil and organized crime interests interests mind you that often interlocked the anti-castro Coalition shifted to become a wider Coalition against the kennedies themselves

as we will see later on in turn these parties would then later align with Johnson the Democrat cowboy And would eventually be some of the parties to benefit the most from the upcoming Southeast Asian Wars but I'm getting ahead of myself before we get there let me take a moment and unravel the complex dynamics of post-war American organized crime and their role in the whole Bay of Pigs thing and Beyond I will do my level best to stand up for freedom and democracy around the world by keeping the United States of America strong and by

keeping our eyes Wide open as we welcome change in the world but keeping our eyes wide open as Vice President of the United States from 1952 to 1960 in the Eisenhower Administration Richard milhous Nixon fulfilled the unspoken but largely acknowledge role of the VP job exceptionally well that job is as the primary fundraiser for the presidential ticket often the VP pick is used to quote balance out the ticket or in essence to place a foil to the president In place to Plate an opposing wing of the party President Eisenhower a comparatively liberal Republican was thus

balanced out by Richard Nixon an archetypal cold warrior who had built his political brand off of his very public role in the huak McCarthy hearings Nixon and Ike reportedly did not get along personally the young Richard Nixon was often cast aside by Eisenhower as a loud talking nuisance the media claimed that Nixon was chosen To act as Eisenhower's a talk dog essentially to be the hardliner to Ike's image of calm grandfatherly moderation although Nixon did fill the role for Ike of outspoken cold warrior on several occasions as exemplified maybe most famously by the attack on

his motorcade by leftists during a 1958 visit to Caracas Venezuela his Ascent in 1952 and 56 to the presidential ticket was also attributable to another key asset brought by Nixon his deep ties to Republican fundraising networks Nixon brought with him a donor Network that had been cultivated since his early entry into politics after World War I and as Vice President Nixon topped that Network to help build Eisenhower's campaign especially in key states in the South and West that were not privy to the General's Yankee predeliction these contacts largely individual billionaire donors and members of the

local Elites of the South and Southwest would emerge At the end of the General's presidency as Nixon was put in charge of the Cuba show his final assignment as vice president in late 1959 following the end of the Cuban Revolution and the ascent of Castro Nixon would emerge as the White House liaison in the CIA effort to overthrow Castro Alan Dulles director of CIA and a longtime covert backer of Nixon going all the way back to their first meeting in 19 46 on the Queen Mary Cruz liner had secretly tapped the vice President behind Eisenhower's

back in the previous part of this series on Cuba I covered extensively the cia's role in the Bay of Pigs invasion their paramilitary activities and the creation of the operation 40 death squad project in discussions of the Bay of Pigs Nixon's role is often overlooked dick Nixon was in many ways an equal partner to Alan doues in the early plotting against Fidel especially on the assassination side of the equation as we Will see the meeting at the Derby restaurant in September of 1960 between Robert Mayhew and Johnny roselli was much more indicative of Nixon's world

than it was of does' to form the initial CIA Mafia Alliance regarding Cuba the agency topped as previously mentioned Robert Mayu who on paper was a private spook under his firm Robert a Mayhew Associates Mayu was born in Waterville Maine in 1917 he got his start with the FBI in December 194 40 recruited while Studying at Georgetown University Mayu worked in their Counter Intelligence unit during World War II snuffing out foreign spies and flipping them into double or even triple agents now allegedly he was quite successful in this but mysteriously and despite a reportedly solid

relationship with top Gman Jay Edgar Hoover he was sent post-war on a deadend bureau assignment back to his sleepy hometown of Waterville Maine Mayu ultimately left The FBI in 19 47 he was 30 years old and seemingly poised for a long successful career at the bureau what happened the ostensible reason for his departure according to Mayu anyways was to start a business with his wife called Dairy Dream Farms if you'll believe him that is subsequently after this short business sojourn starting in 1952 until 1954 Mayu worked at the small defense plants Administration some sort of

military-industrial complex rubber stamp Agency and finally in 1954 Mayu founded his private detective firm Robert a Mayu Associates now if this all sounds sketchy to you you're definitely not the only one Author Jim hugan in his classic book Spooks which by the way I have to shout out here by name incredibly important book to today's script and a must-read if you're into this type of thing so I I have to highlight it highly recommend anyways Jim hugan theorized in his book Spooks that mayhew's strange Career turn from Gman to Dairy Farmer to government bureaucrat from

1947 to 54 was simply a cover story or a form of quote unquote sheep dipping used by either the CIA or the FBI to conceal their continued involvement with Mayu and his private intelligence agents I would expand on this point by emphasizing that Hoover the imposing director of the FBI was originally an advocate for absorbing International intelligence functions into his bureau Instead of creating a new CIA Mayu alongside other early gmen turned Spooks such as William King Harvey who we will see come up later under ZR rifle could very likely have been a part of

an effort on Hoover's part to implant FBI loyal moles into the new agency mayu's retirement from the FBI in 1947 also coincided almost exactly with the creation of the new CIA in the same year it was likely not only the FBI that was implanting moles into this new CIA by The way we will see Army intelligence another stakeholder that wanted to undertake the US's spy functions had filled several key roles at the early CIA with their own personnel as well this inter agency mole concept is one that I find very unexplored especially as the CIA

was composed of three primary factions in its infancy former OSS agents which I've covered extensively former FBI agents that will continue to see and former Army Intelligence Officers Robert mayew despite might not being an on the- book CIA agent did act as an arms length asset throughout his career hugan further notes that mayu's file at the small defense plants Administration shows that he had accumulated quote 10 years comp time towards his pension by the time he had joined the spda in 1952 however his official FBI career was only recorded from 1940 to 47 6 and

1/2 years therefore hugan posits that Mayhugh's time working on Dairy Dream Farms was simply a cover to publicly sheep dip him out of government service to later use his Services as an on-paper private spook that remained in reality a Public Employee this sheep dipping Theory gains Credence when we consider that as soon as Mayu founded his private Intel agency in 1954 the CIA immediately put his services on a monthly retainer Robert a Mayu and Associates quickly gained the reputation as the quote Unquote Mission Impossible agency or in other words a firm that could undertake domestic

intelligence tasks for the CIA that were too risky for their own government agents remember the CIA is technically not allowed to operate on us soil mayu's firm helped alleviate that barrier the mission impossible agency was even said to have inspired Bruce Geller the creator of the original Mission Impossible TV show first airing a decade later in 1966 one of mayhugh's first jobs for the CIA in in early 1954 would interestingly see the entanglement of the ostensibly private spook and then vice president Richard Nixon a whole 5 years before the whole Bay of Pigs thing this

would see the two collaborating in a scheme to help ensure the continued us and Seven Sisters dominance over Saudi oil in response to the power moves of an aspiring shipping Titan the man was Aristotle Onasis a billionaire Greek Shipping magnate who had made his initial Fortunes in Argent during World War II buying old discounted ships to take advantage of lucrative wartime shipping contracts transporting material between London New York and Buenos arees Onasis is maybe most known today as the second husband of jockey Kennedy but before this Hallmark marriage the Greek Tycoon had already amassed massive

wealth and Prestige he came to own the largest private yacht in the world at The time the Christina o and eventually became the owner of the iconic Monte Carlo Casino being dubbed the quote unquote king of Monaco this surely rubbed Prince rineer of Monaco the wrong way but Onasis reportedly didn't care having expanded his activities postwar into the lucrative area of oil shipping by January 1954 According to hugan Aristotle Onasis was in the final stages of maybe the most significant negotiations of his career what would Come to be known as the jeda agreements Onasis had

been in top secret negotiations with the Saudi government specifically in regards to the shipping contract for the joint us Saudi owned oil giant aramco under the jeda agreement onassis's shipping firm would be initially given a 10% share of the oil exports from the kingdom with a potential escalation up to 100% throughout subsequent years this monster contract would Place Onasis as the Principal gatekeeper for Saudi crude on the World Market before the jeda agreement Saudi oil exports were handled directly by the four massive American Oil firms that made up the American side of a ramco those

being Standard Oil of California later Chevron Texico mobile and Exxon these Giants with the exception of Texico were all formerly part of the Rockefeller Standard Oil Monopoly and were still largely controlled by the family and their Stakeholders after the breakup these were vertically integrated multinational firms Yankee Oil concerns by all accounts comparatively to the Cowboy oil companies which were usually considered independent due to their singular ownership and limited reach the firms that made up aramco were massive old money Global corporations that had integrated all the processes of petroleum production from extraction to refining to shipping

and to point of Sale therefore Aristotle anasis considered in his own right an independent within the world of oil shipping was threatening the otherwise collusive strangle hold on global energy markets held by the multinationals and at this flash point we see the of Robert Mayhew and strangely enough vice president Richard Nixon as the oil Majors heard murmurs of the ongoing negotiations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia their concerns mounted understand Here that the multinational oil companies especially Rockefeller concerns were deeply embedded into the Eisenhower White House during this period Nelson Rockefeller had an advisory position

in the Oval Office serving as Ike's Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs as I've previously mentioned in other videos Eisenhower CIA in 1953 under Alan dulles's leadership had just conducted a successful coup in Iran to overthrow their democratically Elected prime minister who threatened to nationalize Anglo Iranian oils facilities in the Kingdom Anglo Iranian by the way would later become BP British Petroleum finally there was VP Richard Nixon who had for years been cultivating deep ties to the oil Lobby to fund his political career this cozy relationship between dick Nixon and Big Oil would persist throughout his

time in office but really Nixon's allegiance to Big Oil was made clear by the revelation of his Role in the sabotaging of the jeda agreements According to Jim hugan again Nixon personally worked with the CIA in early 1954 to bring in none other than Robert a Mayu and Associates to help tank The Landmark deal being struck between the Greek shipping magnate and the Saudis Robert Mayu of course at the time was on retainer with the CIA so he was brought right into the White House John G a journalist and private agent at Mayu firm stated

the following quote Nixon ran the thing but he was never more than a frontman for the multinational oil companies he loved these kinds of private intelligence operations because there was always a lot of money at stake and you have to remember one of his main jobs was to raise campaign contributions for the Republicans the oil companies had a lot of dough and the only string tied to it was Aristotle Onasis end quote Nixon was asked to be kept apprised of the schemes On a weekly basis throughout the ordeal in an operation that acted as the

perfect foreshadowing to Watergate mayu's firm conducted illegal wir Toops on Onasis and spread damaging rumors about the shipping magnate Onasis for his part was an easy target for Mayu and CO's attack during the war he had been suspected of Nazi sympathies especially as he worked closely with the Peron government in Argentina a destination famously for many fugitive Nazi war Criminals after the war this whole collaborationist angle on Onasis is a whole can of worms in of itself that I may get into more thoroughly in the future when I dive into this post-war fascist network but

safe to say that the jeda agreement did not improve his case as Onasis hired none other than the Danish German Banker hamar shocked to serve as his intermediary in the negotiations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia some of you may remember shocked From all the way back in part two of my history of the CIA series on operation Sunrise shocked had been one of Hitler's ear early Financial backers helping coordinate Finance capital from the West into the early Reich he was Hitler's economic Minister for the first three years of his Rule and was also president

of the reiches bank until 1939 he did eventually become disillusioned with Hitler's regime and spent some time in a concentration camp At the end of the war for his role in a purported assassination attempt on the furer nonetheless though shocked did play a key role in the rearmament of Germany and the early rise of the Nazi party and I previously noted as well in part two of the CIA series the banker was only spared from the nberg trials doing no small part to osss Chief Wild Bill Donovan and his Lieutenant Alan dulles's sympathetic letters to

Justice Jackson at the trial now a free man After the war shocked went right back into what he did best International Banking and he worked with a diverse set of clients around the world it made me realize researching this that I really need to do a deep dive on yalar shocked because he really does show up everywhere that'll come in due time anyways for our purposes today in 1954 shock's involvement with Onasis would be weaponized by Robert mayhew's firm and their CIA backers mayhew's in-house Journalist and smear artist John gity was allegedly brought in to

buy space in international newspapers decrying former Nazi shocks involvement with the jeda Accords as a clear indication that Onasis was complicit in the rearmament of Germany and the revitalization of their Cru IAL ship building industry in a purely nixonian manner the smear job was underway ultimately Mayu would claim that onassis's Jetta agreement was foiled not by the wire topping or the Smear campaign but instead due to evidence that he had uncovered of a high level bribe between the Greek shipping magnate and the Saudi royal family and his ability to convince the CIA that this was

an issue of National Security although the jeda agreement ultimately fell apart for anasis he would still profit massively in the coming years from the suaz crisis in 1956 which catapulted the price of oil shipping due to the need to circumvent the Cape of Good Hope to reach European and American markets according to hugan quote he had upwards of a 100 ships at his command and all of a sudden even the smallest tankers were making a million doll profit every time they left the Persian Gulf end quote this whole incident with the jeda agreement although benign

in regards to onassis's massive and ever expanding wealth does remain significant as the in Rory point between Robert Mayhew and Richard Nixon the two would Officially reconnect in 1960 when Mayu would be topped to make the initial contact with the mob on behalf of the CIA and Nixon at the top of the Bay of Pigs planning staff yet I do believe that between 1954 and 1960 VP Nixon and Mayu likely continued to correspond Nixon forever an Intrigue Enthusiast would have likely retained Mayu as his own personal great eminence this theory is further Fur buttressed by

the fact that the private spook Robert Mayu which Shortly after first working with Nixon in 54 begin to work for his most significant and long-standing client that being the one and only Howard Hughes it is also no secret that Howard Hughes emerged in the 1950s as a massive Republican donor specifically aligned to Richard Nixon could Nixon have been the one to recommend Robert mayew to the billionaire Aviator it is hard to say what is confirmed is that sometime in 1955 or 56 Howard Hughes would hire Robert Mayu and for over 15 years the private spook

would act as the reclusive Billionaire's political fixer and gopher or as Mayhew would put it as his eyes and ears since we last Saw Howard Hughes during his 1947 Senate investigation he had gradually descended into a self-imposed isolation although richer than ever following the continued success of the Hughes airplane company and his crown jewel the civilian Airline tww the billionaire had become deeply Paranoid and neurotic despite working together for 15 years Mayu claimed that he never met Howard in person they would always communicate by telephone as the germaphobic paranoid and eventually drug addled billionaire continued

his descent into total isolation according to Hughes biographer Michael Rosen Hughes came to represent quote the very symbol of hidden power in America end quote he would last be seen in public in 1958 then never again As he hid from the public Howard Hughes over the years would also cement himself as one of Richard Nixon's most prominent covert backers author Michael Rosen in his biography citizen Hughes traces the billionaire support for tricky dick to his contempt for the kennedies interestingly enough Rosen claimed that Hughes had a deep-seated resentment and borderline hatred for the kennedies tracing

all the way back to his own early days in 1920s Hollywood after Leaving Houston in 1925 Howard had taken his generational Fortune from the royalties collected off a family controlled oil drill bit patent and funnel that into the early Hollywood studio system within the same ever expanding Pond of tinsel toown was none other than Joseph Kennedy the Kennedy patriarch and a majority owner of RKO Studios a studio that Hughes would come to own later in the 1940s Rosen claims that the two men did not even circulate In the same circles during their time in Hollywood

and likely did not even know each other at the time yet Howard's quiet resentment continued to build the Hughes biographer claims the following about the Kennedy Hughes Feud and about the Kennedy side quote in the beginning they had more money this being the Kennedy now that he Hughes had far more money they had more power they always seemed to have what Hughes wanted back in Hollywood it was RKO later it Was the White House Old Joe had not only bought it for his son jack he had stolen it from Hughes and quote in a sense

Hughes resented the Kennedy patriarch as he was able to buy the power that Hughes could not Nixon therefore was seen as the Billionaire's vehicle into the White House he said as much in a letter contemplating Nixon's narrow loss to JFK in the 1960 election quote you can see how cruel it was after my allout support of Nixon to have Jack Kennedy achieve That very very marginal so-called victory over my man end quote Hughes had all the money in the world but what he lacked was real political power at least in the sense that the Yankees

had power much like the other Cowboys of his generation the Wildcat oil billionaires of Texas and Louisiana Hughes resented the Yankee Elite for their generational wealth and centuries of control over the nation's institutions Richard Nixon and later Lyndon Johnson represented a break From the tradition for the emerging power centers of the Southwest a chance for them to have control of the levers in the city on the Hill Washington DC but first Howard Hughes and his compatriots had to build that Coalition and Hughes by all accounts hitched his fortune to the rising vice president Richard Nixon

first it was the Scandal known as Burger gate where in 1956 Hughes had given a quote unquote loan of $25,000 to Richard Nixon's younger Brother Donald Nixon for the stated purpose of bailing out his failing drive-in restaurant this sketchy loan would resurface later raising questions about potential backdoor financing of of the Nixon camp this would be further substantiated when Hugh's name would appear in connection to Watergate almost 20 years later according to the Lost Vegas son a chief Watergate investigator claimed that Hughes had given a $100,000 bribe to Richard Nixon for quote Favorable treatment of

Hughes Airline and casino Holdings end quote the article continues noting that the $50,000 cash portion of the bribe was paid out by Robert Mayu getting the cash to Nixon through none other than babbe Roso once again Worlds Collide with baby Roso as we saw in the war conspiracy acting as Nixon's own bagman it must have struck Nixon as a relief that his own former compatriot Robert Mayu was now acting as Hughes Bag Man keeping This circle of trust quite small now throughout their 15-year working relationship Robert Mayhew provided Howard Hughes with an outlet into the

dark underbelly of organized crime in turn following his isolation in 1958 rumors would spread of Hughes dealing with both both the mafia and intelligence agencies I need to mention this story here because if it is true it represents one of the most significant Bombshells in the Hughes Cannon this Information was very hard to Source but I found an old newspaper article from The Daily Record in 1976 reporting this little known anecdote the article reports a statement made by DEA informant Larry Blaine jividen jividen main information provided was on a fugitive Financial criminal named Robert vesco

with deep Watergate ties which I really don't have time to get into today it's a whole web on it of itself what does interest me Here however is a reported 1974 letter to the Department of Justice from DEA informant jividen here he claims that Howard hughes's Airline tw's massive expansion into jet airplanes in 1961 which featured the complete introduction of Boeing 707s to their fleet was facilitated by a mob loan from a Swiss bank account codenamed quote unquote rosemark the funds in this account according to jividen had been laundered from quote Casino skims narcotics and

Prostitution end quote this story however only tells one side of the coin during this period in 1960 specifically Hughes was ousted from the president position of tww by the board of directors allegedly over this jet deal you see it appears from my research that Hughes and the board agreed that the introd uction of an all jet Fleet to tww would allow the brand to prosper into the jet age and by all accounts tww did Prosper throughout the 1960s and 7s as It alongside competitor PanAm would usher in the jet age yet Hues in the board

appear to disagree on which planes to purchase the tww board according to the 1964 lawsuit which I linked below appeared to favor the Boeing 707 as the jet of choice I will remind you here Hughes and Boeing had been in Conflict since the 1940s with the whole Owen Brewster Affair and rival Pam's long-standing ties to the Boeing company instead Howard favored the conve 880 a Similar passenger jet but designed by a General Dynamic subsidiary it was even said that Hughes had acquired the rights to build the 880s inh housee using the Hughes aircraft company to

build the 880s that would eventually find their way into the fleet thus leasing them to his own Airline for profit now I will be diving into what I call the General Dynamics octopus and the company's close ties to of all figures Lynden Johnson and Texas more broadly in the last Installment of the war conspiracy coming later down the line but it should be noted that there may have been other forces at work Beyond simply Hugh's resentment of PanAm and Boeing leading to his steadfast reluctance in buying 707s ultimately Hughes was excised from his position and

the board proceeded with the purchase of 707s with the help of the mob's rosemark funds this purchase of Boeing 707s in 1961 would send tww into its golden era during the 1960s with tww being the first airline to operate a fleet of all jet airplanes this poised tww to lead the way into the jet age it is important to note here as well that the 1961 quote unquote rosemark mob loan which is mentioned in the lawsuit as a $72 million loan from a quote group of banks for which the Irving Trust Company acted as an

agent end quote would have been right after Robert mayhew's favor for the CIA in introducing them to the Mob if we are to Take jividen at his word here it appears that the mob may have linked up with Hughes helping take his airline to the next level interestingly jividen claimed that the mob rosemark loan came from a Union Bank of Switzerland account represented by Irving trust the same institution named in the official lawsuit when it comes to the Mob and the Union Bank of Switzerland I immediately think of Meer Lansky the mob's accountant who had

reputedly set up a Series of Swiss accounts to deposit laundered Mafia funds for example a 1969 Orlando Sentinel article claimed that Lansky had substantial Holdings in Switzerland and used Canadian Russian Banker John pulman as his Swiss Banker despite the rosemark funds going towards buying the wrong airplanes Hughes would still seemingly repay the mob for their service in massively inflating his tww position in 1966 Hughes was forced to sell his Tww stock for over half a billion dollars but immediately afterwards from 1966 to 68 he would subsequently purchase several mob-owned casinos in Las Vegas such as

the Sands The Castaways and most famously the Desert Inn from Ohio mobster mod Dallas where he would live full-time in the shuttered penous these purchases could be in a sense interpreted as repaying the mafia for for their 1961 loan for the 707s mayhugh may have created the bridge Between the underworld and billionaire Howard Hughes especially since he had already worked closely with top Las Vegas mobster Johnny roselli in the early 60s back then of course they were both employed by the CIA indirectly anyways and Mayu made the first Contact for Langley to dive into the

underworld when John roselli met with Robert mayew on that fateful day in 1960 in Los Angeles he was represented a national crime syndicate that was in a Frenzy their nest egg in the Havana casinos and resorts which under former president fenio Batista had been their domain had been completely lost through the nationalization push of Fidel Castro in 1959 and 60 conveniently the mob's interest in reclaiming their lost Assets in Havana aligned perfectly with the cia's interest in ousting the Western Hemisphere communist and reestablishing the Yankee businessmen who had also lost assets in the Takeover roselli

acting as A sort of Ambassador within organized crime circles quickly amassed contacts across the United States in diverse mob circles which engra him to different mob interests that had lost Assets in the Caribbean island his main boss Sam ganana of Chicago had lost his comparatively minor Holdings most impacted though were the Southern Mobsters those being Santo traficante Jr of Florida Carlos marchello of New Orleans and of course Meer Lansky in the Bahamas it was said that Lansky quote had his hands in every Casino joint end quote on the island and would eventually do the same

in Vegas Lansky would even personally put up a million dollar bounty on Castro's head for anyone Brave or crazy enough to kill him handsome Johnny as he was known made his way to Cuba in the 1940s where he made a name for himself as a casino operative in the Lansky and Gian con joints by the mid-50s roselli found his way to Las Vegas as one of Gian kan's main men in the emerging mob neutral City in the desert from an organized crime perspective Vegas is best viewed as a massive money laundry at the time although

Vegas was established in the mid-40s it became a sort of replacement for Cuba once the island fell in the late 50s gambling in general had always been a vector for skim operations or in other words purposeful accounting errors made by the Mafia to quote unquote skim tax-free Revenue off the top of Casino profits but even beyond that as we will see gambling establishments were used by organized crime across the world as vehicles to move money covertly in this vein as a gambling expert a schmoozer and a charmer from Los Angeles to Cuba to Vegas Johnny

roselli would emerge as one of the major Liaisons between the national crime syndicate and the respectable American establishment but First let's detour shortly to discuss organized crime as a concept to better understand the purpose it served in the post-war us establishment the concept of organized crime in the United States is one that I have brushed past in previous video videos but never have I taken a proper deep dive into the tangled web of mob land the primary reason for this is that as complicated as intelligence circles can be mob circles are somehow even more Arcane

for that reason I Believe that a good place to start would be the definition of what I mean when I say organized crime from my extensive research into organized crime in the United States and across Europe especially this summer I've really focused on this I can say that crime syndicates in general operate as subterfuge appendages to Big Bus business and legitimate politics what I mean by this is that this underworld of organized crime often operates Completely symbiotically with the recognized respectable power structures almost as a subterfuge arm of the political class this symbiotic connection led

to the persistent reluctance by the authorities politicians and the FBI primarily to acknowledge the existence of these organized crime networks this has also led to the development of several competing terms for this unacknowledged organized crime establishment throughout The years very quickly I think that it would be beneficial for me to disentangle these terms starting with the most reductive and working my way up towards a holistic understanding of organized crime at its most basic form and arguably the first acknowledged term for organized crime in the US was laosa Nostra which translate roughly to our thing and

simply refers to organized crime networks transplanted by specifically Sicilian immigrants in the Late 19th century to the United States this term which was widely adopted sometime in the 1930s usually only applied to the typical Sicilian Mafia figures from first actually New Orleans and then later New York and the Northeast a common misconception is that organized crime in the United States started in the Northeast and by far these Northeastern centers Remain the most famous places for organized crime activity but this is as I said a Misconception as although Mafia circles emerged in New York and the

modern Rust Belt at the turn of the century the first modern conception of lacosa norra arose in New Orleans in the late 1800s and these networks were used primarily by business interest to put down militant labor unions on the docks this version of organized crime as enforcers for industrial interests against union labor remained somewhat localized and fragmented these organizations would Only gain significant prominence and institutional power during prohibition bootlegging booze from Canada down throughout the northern United States in the 20s and early 30s the most famous of these Sicilian lacosa norra figures from the bootlegging

Golden Age were of course lucky luchano and Joe banano of the New York mob to name a couple but even this kosa Nostra definition excluded key members of organized crime due to its Sicilian specification Chicago mob boss Al Capone's family for example was from Naples in southern Mainland Italy not Sicily yet he was arguably the most important mob figure profiteering from prohibition other famous New York Mobsters veto genoves Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia all hailed from Southern Mainland Italy not Sicily therefore laosa norra was an accurate term for the existing organized crime networks in Sicily

before and after World War II but in terms of its Application to an American context it remained overtly limited only encompassing a small subset of organized crime activity confined to a specific subculture of a specific ethnic group this had the effect of Shifting law enforcement and the Public's attention away from the wide variety of mobsters not only from elsewhere in Italy but most prominently from Irish and Jewish communities as well due to the obviously limited applicability of this Terminology the lacosa Nostra Paradigm eventually evolved into the more encompassing term of Mafia today Mafia is used

as a cash all term for any organized crime for example I have used the term in the Chinese context referring to Chang Kai shek's green Gang Network as a Chinese Mafia which in our modern Parliament does evoke the right imagery however when the term came to prominence the mafia was according to official definitions anyways a strictly Italian criminal organization encompassing the Sicilian mobsters of laosan norra as well as the southern Italians that were swept under the rug with the previous definition to the general public the existence of an Italian mafia became undeniable as New York

district attorney and future Governor Thomas dwey a person I've talked about quite a bit actually undertook his war against the Italian Mobsters in his state in the 1930s Leading to Lucky lano's Infamous arrest and incarceration in 1936 on prostitution charges this was over half a decade after a young director of the FBI Jay Edgar Hoover was building his legacy with the first arrest of Al Capone in 1929 oh why not you oh have J go Hoover Edgar ho all right stand back now now now come on of course it would not be his early FBI

arrest that would lead to his long-term imprisonment but a later IRS investigation into Capone's rampant tax fraud that would spell his end that said during the late 20s and early 1930s Hoover's FBI and New York local law enforcement under Thomas dwey appeared to be leading a serious effort to root out the Italian mafia that had been spearheading the smuggling of booze into the United States during prohibition this Spurt of Mafia related arrests was short-lived however and Hoover and Dewey's later dealings with the American Underworld would continue to undercut any serious efforts to reprimand the top

of the organized crime hierarchy and this brings us to the essential problem with the ethnic component of this term Mafia during the prohibition which saw the rise of American organized crime as we know it today the Italian Ian gangsters only formed one half of the Nationwide Network that was unfolding as the prime Bootleggers in this whole network the Italian mafia worked as the Essential Smugglers moving booze across the border and into speak EES across the country however on the other side of the fence in Canada were the liquor distributors which were largely Jewish and Irish

businessmen therefore by popularizing and propagandizing the mafia term the authorities were in a sense shielding The prominent business interest that were profiting from the top of the illegal booze industry and I will argue here that these top business Interests were in a sense part of organized crime therefore by popularizing and propagandizing the mafia term the authorities were in a sense shielding The prominent business interests that were profiting from the top of the illegal booze industry this practice of segregating the mafia complex through the use of exclusively Italian terms will continue to work to hide a

parallel power structure at the top of the organized crime Financial Pyramid which undeniably intermingled extensively with big business these forces of course also happen to be the ones interfacing with the legitimate political world in Washington DC yes but also across the country in most major cities for example during prohibition much of the illegal alcohol that entered the United States was produced by the liquor Giants Shenley and Seagrams owned by the Rosen steel and bronfman families on the other side of the the Border in The same New York neighborhoods that Italians lucky luchano and Frank Costello

operated were also a young Myer Lansky and Bugsy seagull engaging in the same bootlegging activities as their Italian counterparts yet the mafia at the time remained in establishment conceptions anyhow a strictly Italian Affair take also for example a man like Joseph Kennedy the father of John and Bobby Kennedy it has also often been theorized That Joe Kennedy made part of his family fortune largely from bootlegging working through the bramman and Rosen steel liquor Empires north of the Border Joe Kennedy would remain particularly close to Lewis Rosensteel after prohibition as he continued to work in the

import of liquor and this is not even speaking of Joe Kennedy's extensive ties to organized crime in Hollywood during the 1920s yet as an Irish American he was once again excluded from the Italian Mafia consensus and allowed to establish the Kennedy family as apparently legitimate members of the American Elite the same could not be said about their Italian counterparts the reason that I spend so much time deconstructing the Italian-American Mafia myth is because this myth remains prevalent in establishment history circles to this day despite the overwhelming evidence of the existence of what many have come

to Call a national crime syndicate which emerged in the late World War II years and remained present throughout most of the Cold War to this day the concept of a national crime syndicate a multiethnic geographically dispersed network of symbiotic crime continues to be disputed by reputed sources as a conspiracy theory of sorts this line of thinking continues to perpetuate the original myth of an Italian American exclusive network of organized crime Jay Edgar Hoover for example the FBI director despite famously arresting Al Capone in the late 20s refused to acknowledge the existence of any organized crime

until until at least 1961 this is including even Italian organized crime and at that time his definition remained a limited once again Italian mafia depiction now why would this myth continue to be perpetuated even into modernity when all the signs seem to show there was this massive amorphous organized crime Network in short and as I will continue to show throughout the rest of this video and into future videos the denial of a broad multiethnic National crime syndicate served to obscure the Deep Financial ties between the overt us Elite and the largely Jewish dominated Financial Circles

of American organized crime specifically the moneya laundering networks that as Whitney Webb puts it in one nation under blackmail quote transform dirty money into seemingly Clean investment Capital end quote by hyperfocusing on the Italian aspect of this Paradigm we only get the boom and bang side of the story without the money trail that inevitably interlocks with among other areas legitimate business federal law enforcement intelligence agencies and the governments of the United States Latin American countries and maybe most controversially and maybe most explosively the state of Israel often the American national crime Syndicate is described as

Italian muscle backed by Jewish finances and that is not entirely incorrect Myer lansi the mob's accountant for example was only formally prosecuted by law enforcement in 1972 when he was an old frail man for nearly five decades it was an Open Secret that Lansky remained the main accountant and moneyman for the ever expanding National Crime Network that was until 1970 when Lansky was hit with federal tax evasion charges from there He immigrated to of all places the state of Israel under the law of return in alleged poverty he lived there for 2 years then he

was deported back to Miami to finally stand trial despite over overwhelming evidence of tax fraud and his contemp of court for the last 2 years Lansky somehow walked free thanks to the help of his lawyers arguing on technicalities Lansky was allowed to retire quietly in his native Miami highlighting his lifelong evasion of law Enforcement the focus instead throughout most of the accountant's career turned instead towards Lansky's closest Ally lucky luchano the Fall Guy of sorts who had been deported to Sicily in 1946 by the man who had built his political Legacy off his arrest now

New York Governor Thomas dwey luchano would interestingly help establish the French heroin connection through contacts with corsak gangsters after his Exile there in Marseilles the French mob was Employed much like they had in New Orleans at the beginning of the syndicate's history as strikebreaking thugs to keep the dope flowing to the US and the war materials flowing to Southeast Asia for the French War there that I've covered extensively behind the luchano connection back in the United States Lansky helped establish the financial channels that as I have shown throughout my videos and will continue to show

often interconnected with Legitimate business and intelligence agencies therefore the likes of Lucky luchano could be prosecuted but the likes of Lansky could not due to the fundamental ties to the Overworld inherent in Lansky's dealings and the disconnected nature of lano's Street dealings organized crime was and likely remains to this day simply a slush fund and an enforcement arm for the legitimate Overworld of quote unquote respectable business and politics like Any network this National crime syndicate was organized amongst several competing nodes of power working mostly cooperatively but also sometimes competitively for more power within the system

amongst these Mobsters much like amongst the business Elite shared class interests kept different factions in line when it came to opposing shared existential threats such as overzealous law enforcement and the threat of socialism especially within organized Labor at its most broad level and again this is largely from my own research the main nodes of power within the national crime syndicate could be broadly organized into three columns firstly the New York mafia run by the five families the bonanos columbos gambinos genoves and lucases New York also had deep ties with the Montreal Power Center under the

katron family where much of the French Connection dope headed for the Northeast was routed next was the Chicago outfit For the purposes of our story under the legendary Sam Momo Gian rumors remain that Joe Kennedy as previously mentioned allegedly worked with Sam Gian during their bootlegging Heyday building significant ties to his outfit during the prohibition it was rumored as well that it was with Sam Gian kan's help that Joe Kennedy was able to sway the vote in Chicago for his son JFK in the 1960 election against Nixon rumors of ballot stuffing continue to persist to

This day and definitely persisted in the Nixon Hughes Cowboys Camp long into JFK's short term Gian kan's outfit expanded in the immediate post-war years to the Southwest through their Assumption of the wire Services there this would include Texas and La Hollywood where Joe Kennedy and Texan Howard Hughes had significant influence finally the third node was the Florida mure maybe most associated with Miami and Myer Lansky postwar in this node we Could also include Carlos marello of New Orleans although he was also close to the Texas Mia and Santo traficante of Tampa Florida a close Ally

to Lansky and a clear power broker in terms of neutral Turf we have pre-revolutionary Cuba where these Mobsters invested much of their bootlegging profits after the end of prohibition into the islands booming gambling and tourism industry and then most famously afterwards in Las Vegas the center of Mafia gambling and the Main Dumping Ground and laundromat for hot cash this is of course a very rough outline as always there are overlaps between these nodes and there are oversimplifications within my model but what I've presented in my view is a sort of cheat sheet to understanding mob

allegiances Visa the evolving landscape of Cold War power politics now if we continue on this line of thinking with a national crime syndicate let's ask the question how does such a complex Network Get created in the first place well after the end of prohibition the mob Diversified their bootlegging profits into other avenues most prominent of these were narcotics prostitution and gambling according to Peter Dale Scott it was gambling that initially allowed the originally localized organized crime settings in the Northeast to expand into the rest of the country through the horse racing wire service this is

a bit of a messy topic and what could turn Into a huge digression so to keep it simple in the postwar Years horse racing represented a massive share of the American gambling Market horse racing was more accessible and less regulated than casino gambling however in order to have accurate Bing lines reported on horse races across the United States to Bookies in different locations the racetracks required a reliable Telegraph Wire service dedicated to delivering up to-the-minute betting lines to other Locations of course for an expanding organized crime ructure that was already deeply invested in horse gambling

control of the wire Services meant control of new markets that those wires reached throughout the 1930s wars were fought between rival gangs for control of the wire services in major US cities in Chicago for example Sam Gian kan's outfit won the wire service war with future Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby playing a key role in that conflict Have you ever wondered maybe how Jack Ruby a Chicago mob ended up in Dallas well he was sent according to Peter Dale Scott alongside a codery of Gian con cronies both to expand the wire service and to

expand the Chicago outfits influen there this same process is how our man handsome Johnny roselli the Gan Conor mobster who met with Robert Mayhew of the CIA to set up the Castro hit ended up in Los Angeles on behalf of the Chicago outfit these emissaries were Sent during the wire service boom right after the second world war in the latter 1940s the wire service allowed bosses such as Sam G and kanana to expand their reach into a quasi National Syndicate in the East a different connective tissue brought the factions together that being the International Brotherhood

of teamsters and their crooked head none other than Jimmy hofa it's no secret that Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters Union was deeply embedded in organized crime and That the Union's gold standard pension fund was repeatedly looted by organized crime as their own personal slush fund however an often overlooked aspect of the teamsters mob Alliance is the veritable Empire offered to the National crime syndicate through the partnership the IBT had locals across the United States brick-and-mortar offices where Mobsters could operate out of and receive cover under do nothing cover jobs with the Union Jimmy hofa Originally from Detroit

was able to Parlay his influence between Gian kan's outfit the five families in New York and lands Network in Florida to expand the reach of his Union across the US haa was the key piece to a truly National crime syndicate his Trucking Union provided key logistical capabilities to the Mobsters trafficking illicit Goods across the country haa truckers for example allegedly work to deliver guns to mob and CIA backed Guerilla soldiers In Florida destined for Cuba During the Revolution ha's importance in the whole network would be elevated to National headlines when John Kennedy's hard-nosed brother Robert

began his veritable Crusade of firstly Jimmy hofa and later organized crime in general throughout the late 50s and into his brother's presidency when he served as attorney general Bobby Kennedy's zealous pursuit of the national crime syndicate in America was an act of pure bravery but In many ways it also spelled he and his brother's undoing so in summary the national crime syndicate in place by the mid1 1950s represented a formidable political force for the Overworld legitimate establishment similarly to a private intelligence firm but on a national scale the underworld emerged as a powerful Ally to

be courted by private and public interests to undertake operations that were too compromising for the CIA directly Bobby Kennedy's Quest to take down organized crime therefore did not only threaten the Mobsters themselves but also a wide array of Overworld political and business figures within the super mob Nexus by working closely with the mob through corrupt Arrangements these business and political Elites were in a sense marrying themselves to the Mob underworld and thus personally investing themselves in the continued smooth operation of this criminal underbelly Between the legitimate world and the underworld lay an elect few who

I will call emissaries that bridge the gap between both spaces Robert Mayhew the Howard hu spook and Johnny roselli the mobster contact at the Brown Derby restaurant were both emissaries in their respective camps linking two sides of the American establishment so in 1960 when Robert Mayhew was tasked by the CIA to reach out to the Mob he reached out to a man that was arguably the most Connected mafoo in America at the Brown Derby restaurant in September 1960 Mayu presented the contract to his mob contact a plot to kill Castro handsome Johnny roselli was a

mobster but more more so than that Johnny roselli was an operator born in South Central Italy in 1905 as philipo Sako Johnny immigrated to Boston as a child where he would eventually begin his mob career attached to Sam gian's outfit in Chicago in the early 20s completely distancing himself From his biological family he would fully commit himself to Gian con's machine and become one of his most Dependable soldiers later that decade roselli was sent on an assignment to Los Angeles where he would expand Gian con's gambling interests eventually serving as his Emissary on the west

coast during the wire service takeovers of the 1940s in Los Angeles the gregarius roselli helped create ties between the emerging Hollywood stars of the time and the Chicago m m most famously of course was The Rat Pack A group of famous actors and entertainers most prominently Frank Sinatra Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr and Peter Lawford who produced mostly cheap be movies together and eventually would become Mainstays of the mob dominated Las Vegas scene during their early careers handsome Johnny the Las Vegas mafioso was likely rubbing shoulders with these Rising figures in La it goes without

saying that Johnny roselli was Charming good-looking Suave and well-connected and as Author Jim hugan calls him the Don Giovani of the mafia this interconnectedness with the entire mob Nexus placed roselli as a perfect asset for Mayu to reach out to on behalf of the CIA to organize the Assassin attempts on Castro not only did he have contacts within Cuba itself that the CIA could tap to ideally undertake the future assassination he also coordinated with two well-placed top Mobsters for The CIA as previously mentioned Sam Gan con of Chicago his boss and Santo traficante of Tampa

a Lansky associate and soon to be major collaborator in the agency's secret war against Castro to get from the highest echelons of Langley down to Mayhew and hansome Johnny the plan to assassinate Castro trickled down through the CIA bureaucracy before we get to the schemes themselves I thought it'd be interesting to follow the scheme from planning all the way down to Execution to give an idea of how the CIA bureaucracy worked and all the diverse stakeholders involved in these operations this small microcosm is indicative of the larger Coalition of interests at play in the anti-castro

M year interests that we will continue to track throughout the upcoming episodes starting at the top were of course vice president Richard Nixon and CIA director Alan Dulles the top planners and directors of the anti-castro project Then delegated by Dulles was as previously mentioned in another episode the infamous deputy director of plans Richard Bissell who was the top bureaucrat behind all CIA covert Ops for the assassination plots Bissell interestingly selected a somewhat obscure section of the agency to coordinate the operation he turned to the office of security and tasked one Sheffield Edwards as the main

working level manager of the CIA Mafia Assassination plots Edwards interestingly was a former armyman joining the agency in 1947 while it was still the Central Intelligence group under General hoit Vandenberg these early days of American intelligence saw the installment of army officers into senior intelligence roles to the likely dismay of the gentleman spook from the OSS and the upper crust of the East Coast establishment I have to note here that Sheffield Edwards actually Graduated from the prestigious West Point Military college in 1923 the same year that CIA head of the Western Hemisphere division JC King

the man put in charge of early operation 40 activities by Bissell also graduated it is interesting to note that Richard Bissell entrusted the two most critical elements of the early anti-castro operations to former Army Intelligence Officers given the upcoming prominent but often understated role of Army Intelligence in future Cuban Exile groups such as Alpha 66 and early militia movements adjacent to the Kennedy assassination the inclusion of former army officers in these early Castro assassination programs serves to foreshadow the future involvement of Pentagon resources in the secret War now one more note on Sheffield Edwards before

we move on is that he actually got his start at the CIA working on Project Bluebird which would later be Renamed to project artichoke this was one of the cia's first operations involving brainwashing and the use of hallucinogens in illegal experiments this was before MK Ultra and actually was a precursor to and in a lot of ways was actually more sickening than even MK Ultra ended up being his role in Bluebird would likely have put him in close contact with the cia's master chemist when Sydney got Le the architect of the cia's Mind Control programs

and The main producer of poisons in the Castro assassination plots tasked with assassinating Castro Sheffield Edwards tossed one of his agents a man named James oonl but known by his nickname Big Jim to make the initial contact with Robert Mayu Big Jim was a former Gman having served in the FBI until 1947 before joining the cia's office of security in 1951 serving as another potential Hoover mole within the agency Big Jim leveraged his former contacts in The bureau especially with Robert mayhe who was being paid on retainer by the CIA oconnell then presented the contact

to his old colleague Mayu put up $150,000 of agency cash as a reward for the Assassin and from there the schemes took a life of their own oconnell instructed Mayu to present the job to John roselli as if he were representing an independent cabal of private businessmen who were fronting the aforementioned 150 Grand and not an Officially sanctioned intelligence operation interestingly Jim hugan in his book spooks theorizes that it remains a distinct possibility that this whole alleged CIA assassination plan was in reality paid for by Business Leaders and that the CIA origin story that has

since been popularized could have indeed in a Twist been the cover for said business plot either way we will never know the truth especially as we will see in the next episode the oil tycoon community in The southwest especially concentrated in Texas would emerge as key financiers in future anti Cuba plots to such a point that distinguishing between the CIA and the business Elite becomes almost impossible originally after meeting initially with John roselli and later expanding the group at the fountain blow hotel to include mob bosses Sam Gian con and Santo traficante the plotters contemplated

staging a quote Gangland hit in effect a plot where Castro would Be gunned down in the street while exposed in Havana this would be reminiscent of the 1930s Gangland slangs so assoc associated with the Al Capone outfit and lano's Murder Inc of old the man allegedly considered for this Gangland hit as theorized by Jim hugan was none other than Rolando masera a Cuban Exile known in pre-revolutionary Cuba as elre mfer as far as the fanatical Exile Cuban Community went was arguably one of the most bloodthirsty of Them all as a senator in Batista's Cuba elra

or the tiger as it's translated was allowed to form a paramilitary squad independent from the Cuban Army that would roam the countryside and suppress descent for Batista after leaving Cuba following a short alliance with Castro M Farah did as other Batista government officials did once in the US he sought new sponsors to reform his paramilitary Squad interestingly M farer did not end up employed by the CIA the main Benefactor of early anti-castro operations instead finding private backers for Guerilla activities throughout the secret War LT gray would really hit his stride after the Bay of Pigs

within privately funded anti-castro organizations as we will see in the next Parts however the Gangland hit on Castro contemplated by Mayu roselli and his mob Associates was not pursued deeming it to be too risky also the members rightfully estimated that it would be difficult to Find recruits for this likely suicide mission as the wouldbe Assassin was very very unlikely to make it out of Cuba alive after such an operation instead reportedly Sam Gian con and John roselli proposed that they Instead try to kill Castro using poison allowing the potential assassin to administer the toxins into

Fidel's food and escaping before the effects kicked in ultimately this suggestion by Gian kanana would start a reported Obsession by the agency And their mobster allies to poison the Cuban leader luckily for Gian kanana and his plotters the CIA and specifically deputy director of plans Richard Bissell had already put into motion the development of poisons but for an apparently completely different reason once again here the CIA spy plane program intersects with the anti-castro operations two projects both directed by Richard Bissell you see with the roll out of the U2 program Bissell had Ordered the development

of poison on pools of cyanide to be used by YouTu Pilots if they were downed over Soviet airspace this task was undertaken by the technical service division essentially the research and development branch of the CIA headed by the previously mentioned Sydney gotle gotle honestly deserves his own episode as one of the major directors of the cia's Criminal Mind Control and brainwashing experiments under Bluebird Arch choke And later MK Ultra gotle a biochemist by trade had been working to perfect the ideal toxin for the past decade or so and had reached a point in the early

60s where his arsenal of poisons was extensive and sophisticated in the last days of the Eisenhower presidency gotle have been topped to deliver poison on pools in a briefcase to the newly emergent Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of the agency's ongoing efforts to assassinate their nationalist Pan-africanist prime minister Patric lumumba Gotti's poison would ultimately not be used as lumba was brutally murdered by Belgian backed Rebels in the Breakaway state of katanga in January 1961 ultimately disappointed by his nonr in the assassination of the congales leader gotle was immediately put back to work in

an attempt to kill another third world leader of course that being Fidel Castro what you will notice here is that the assassination plot of Fidel Castro Extended far beyond the presidential election of 1960 it has been speculated and I believe as well personally that the Nix and Dulles assassination plots against Castro were originally planned to take shape before the 1960 election in order to give Nixon a massive boost right before the election day think of this as a sort of October surprise scenario where Castro is killed right in time for Nixon to assume the presidency

with a landslide election victory in Reality however the plot to kill Castro did not materialize in the winning months of 1960 even worse for Nixon and for Dulles for that matter the Nixon ticket lost loost the presidential election by the slimmest margins in history to that point with the young JFK and his Cowboy vice president Lyndon Johnson assuming the White House in January 1961 Kennedy was not a dove towards Cuba at first having publicly stated on the Campaign trail that he believed that the Cuban Exiles should be armed however the young president was cautious and

wanted any activity against Cuba to be done with as little or no connection to official US Government channels as possible officially the US and Cuba were at peace any official hand in anti- Cuba operations could spark an international crisis which it would during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 largely blow back from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the ongoing harassment of Cuba during this interm period between Kennedy's Assumption of office in January 1961 and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April the CIA and the mob continued to push forward with their assassination

plots using got Le's provided poison and using CIA chosen mobster Santo traficante Jr's agents as potential assassins this is where in the earliest days of Kennedy's presidency the CIA began to craft its Legend now I call it a legend because this is the exact terminology that intelligence agents use when describing a cover Story concocted by the agency to shroud the true identity and purpose of an asset the cia's legend which remains widely disseminated to this day and even I have fallen for it at times is the widely propagated story that the CIA is a blundering

bureaucracy that although well-meaning continues to flounder under the ambition and weight of its various Plots as former New York Times journalist and Pitzer Prize winner Tim Winer puts in his best-selling National book award winning history of the CIA which you have surely all heard of titled Legacy of Ashes the agency has left nothing but a quote unquote leg Legacy of ashes in its wake since its creation Tim winer's narrative is in a sense the same narrative that we glean from the surface level agency sponsored version of their history as an almost Cartoonishly devious agency that

cannot seem to achieved any of its goals regardless of the best efforts of its agents I say that this legend or mythology whatever you want to call it started here because this is exactly the mainstream history that we all learn about the CIA specifically about the CIA Mafia plots let me show you what I mean and then we can discuss why such a legend would be beneficial to the agency moving forward now the first CIA Mafia Plot using John Roselli's contacts included Robert Mayhew delivering six poison tablets to the gangster to be given to Fidel

when he is dining at his favorite restaurant this fairly tame plot ultimately failed as did every other attempt by the CIA some sources estimate that the CIA in total attempted to kill Castro 600 times with the leader dodging each event let's go even further according to Steven kinzer in his book poisoner and- Chief writing about Information that was Declassified during the church commission and the house select committee on assassinations the early CIA Mafia assassination plots included the following outlandish gadgets and Mission Impossible style schemes cooked up from got Lea's technical service shop for example how

a plan to spray LSD from an aerosol can onto Castro's microphone so that while he gives a radio address he would blunder the administration of a toxin That would make Castro's beard fall out as it was believed that he derived much of his Charisma from his facial hair how about a box of fake poison cigars his favorite to be delivered to Fidel to smoke and then eventually perish how about a poison lined skim diving suit to be provided to El Presidente during his routine skim diving session s or how about this one an exploding sea

shell as well so that when he goes diving he can be killed with an exploding con shell And these go on and on and on what we have here is a spy agency that we all know is ruthlessly competent at overthrowing regimes throughout the 1950s under Eisenhower and would become ruthlessly successful at assassinating leaders and peasants alike throughout the 1960s and70s utterly failing almost comically to killed the recently installed leader of a third world Caribbean island Fidel Castro right in their backyard not to mention the Schemes themselves beyond the poison pills take on an almost

filmic quality resembling the spy stories in the movies more than reality remember Robert mayhew's private intelligence firm inspired the Mission Impossible TV show these figures in a sense became Larger than Life so thus what we are left with with all these wacky CIA plots gone wrong is a legend of an incompetent spy agency that despite trying the most creative ideas continued to fail under Its own weight is that not a convenient narrative especially as the agency and its allies would begin to turn on Kennedy following their second major reported failure in the same year the

Bay of Pigs how serious was the agency at succeeding in these assassination plots or how about this one did they even take place at all I want to direct you all to is a seemingly throwaway line in Peter Dale Scott's excellent deep politics in the death of JFK as I Believe that what Scott touches on here holds a significant key to understanding firstly the apparent failure of the mafia CIA plots on their surface and secondly the underlying nature of this relationship between the CIA and the mob Scott States the following quote February 1960 was also

the month in which Bobby Kennedy published the enemy within which named little known Gian kanana and tropicante as Mobsters soon afterwards the CIA gave both men Protection by involving them in the Bay of Pigs assassination plots end quote what Professor Scott is suggesting here is that the CIA involved the mob figures in their Castro assassination plots as a sort of scheme to provide them protection from federal law enforcement once the heat was starting to fall on them that law enforcement was definitely not Hoover's FBI which as we will see in great detail in the next

episode was in many cases Allied to these same Mobsters No the CIA was likely attempting to preemptively protect their useful Assets in the National crime syndicate from future Attorney General Robert Kennedy who had for the past half decade been leading a crusade against organized crime and specifically Jimmy hofa that war was about to escalate massively if John Kennedy won the upcoming election in November of the same year which he ultimately would accomplish and from that high office attorney general Bobby Kennedy would continue to try to prosecute organized crime but this time coming against National Security

interests in the CIA and FBI this protection wouldn't effect freeze prosecution of Mafia figures due to reasons of quote unquote National Security many researchers have also zeroed in on the cia's main mob Ally throughout the secret war against cast and their main mob Ally later in Southeast Asian heroin trafficking as Well that being Santo trafficante Jr and they've zeroed in on the fact that he was a potential sabur of the Cuban assassination schemes researchers such as Jim hugan point to traffic's cushy treatment by Castro After the Revolution where he was jailed in what was essentially

a luxury resort and allowed to leave the island to seek refuge in Florida without any recourse as proof that trafficante was acting as a double agent for Castro adance of this line of Thinking claim that trafficante as a central figure of the murder plots was keeping the Cuban leader apprised of all developments so that he could avoid the schemes this is most cited in regards to the original poison pill plot where Castro seemingly by coincidence stopped eating at his favorite restaurant the day that the poison pill was going to be put into his meal trafficante

status as a double agent remains in question especially given his continu close Contact with the agency throughout the anti-castro operations and as we will see much later as the major importer of Southeast Asian heroin during the Vietnam and Laos Wars another interpretation is that trafficante could have just been more plugged into the cia's activities than other mob figures and more apprised of the inner workings according to a January 7 1981 article in the Chicago Tribune Los Angeles mobster Jimmy the weasel frano Rel a Conversation he had with Johnny roselli years after the whole anti-castro show

had died down roselli I will remind you had been Sam Jan's Emissary to La so it would make sense that he'd be in contact with frano while out there anyways the LA mobster notes that roselli told him that quote this whole thing here being the attempt to assassinate Castro had been a scam Santo tragante never did nothing but bull everybody all those Wild games the CIA dreamed up never got Further than Santo he just sat on it conned everybody into thinking that guys were risking their lives sneaking into Cuba having boats shot out from under

them all bull end quote the article continues by stating quote although Robert Mayu and Joseph Shimon who was a Robert Mayu employee at the time and the CIA officials involved knew all their was to know about the conception of the various assassination schemes none knew anything about the actual execution of Them beyond what roselli had reported end quote so what we are left with in this incredibly revealing article is the conception that all those far-fetched failed CIA mob assassination attempts against Castro that are still widely publicized to this day never took place at all according

to Johnny roselli the man at the center of these alleged plots roselli of course blamed Santo trafficante Jr as he quote conned everybody into thinking that guys were Risking their lives and end quote this of course feeds into our two potential theories on trafficante in the trafficante as double agent scenario Roselli's claim indicates that he was simply stonewalling all the attempts on Castro's life in the assassination Legend Theory the one that I'm positing wherein the CIA invented these far-fetched assassination stories as a cover for bringing the top Mobsters into the agency as assets trafficante was

Playing his side of the ruse perfectly telling wild stories of poison skim diving suits and exploding con shells while in reality not undertaking any of these operations and of course both scenarios allow the CIA to paint itself as the always failing never quite successful Mission Impossible like spy agency instead of the true picture of the CIA as a ruthlessly effective regime change machine that had throughout the previous decade successfully overthrown Half a dozen legitimate governments across the planet now one final note trafficante in mid 1975 Johnny roselli and Sam ganana two of the three major

Mafia figures involved in the anti-castro assassination plots were called to testify before the church committee on June 19 1975 days before he was to testify before the committee former Chicago head Capo Sam Gian con was shot dead by a gunman in his own house with a 22 caliber pistol Johnny Roselli would end up testifying at the church Commission in June and September 1975 where he gave many of the details I covered today he also claimed that he himself had traveled to Cuba in the 1960s to kill Castro himself this was the first time that the

CIA Mafia plots were made public for the next year roselli left LA and Vegas fearing the same fate as his former boss Sam Gian kanana and sought refuge in Miami in April 1976 almost a year after his first Testimony he was called again to the Church commission he testified without worries in August of that same year roselli was called for a fourth time however he had apparently gone missing since July 28th and on August 7th Johnny roselli 71 at the time was found stuffed into a 55g oil drum floating in the bay near Miami as

for Santo traficante the alleged double agent and the alleged stonewaller and longtime CIA asset was not called before the church commission Instead trafficante was called before the house select committee on assassinations in 1978 where he downplayed his relationship with the CIA stating that he had only acted as a Spanish interpreter and that he had no role in the murder of JFK trafficante was allowed to walk free and of the three members of the cia's original Mafia hit squad traficante was the only one to die of natural causes in 1987 at age 72 to Me trafficante

appeared to have the most developed relationship with the CIA working with the agency in some capacity for nearly a decade and really being the main American mafioso to make the leap to the Southeast Asian heroin trait the truth regarding the CIA Mafia Alliance likely went with him to the grave as Sam ganana was not given a chance to testify and roselli appeared to be left in the dark going off of his comments related in the 1981 Chicago Tribune article by Frao nonetheless we will see these three figures continue to crop up as we dive further

into the anti Nexus in the upcoming episodes there also Remains The Inevitable question of the timing of all this these outlandish assassination plots and the shift of the Bay of Pigs invasion planning from a Cuban exil Le Guerilla Warfare campaign towards a conventional amphibious assault this all took place in the months leading to the election and the first few months of Kennedy's presidency it's almost as if the agency was reorienting their plans towards failure a failure that would materialize with the fail Bay of Pigs invasion and as revealed later the string of failed assassination attempts

a failure that would fall squarely on the young president's lap a failure that would allow for the total proliferation of plots against not only Cuba and Castro but JFK himself but first we need to turn our attention to Texas where the Cowboy Center was Rising the main pole opposing the young president hello patreon subscribers as always thank you very much for your your patience in this part my apologies that it took so long but there is good news the next one is on the way very soon and it is going to be even longer than

this one uh so I hope you enjoyed the episode today what you can expect to see next will actually be a 2 hourish documentary about uh George HW Bush Texas and sort of the oil Lobby in the United States uh its impact on the Kennedy administration um and policy in Cuba for example amongst other things so it's going to be specifically about Bush we're finally introducing uh Bush as a central character to our story and he's a key character in the history of the CIA as I'm sure you all know and we're going to be

diving deep into the Bush family history and all that good stuff that is all actually written and done And complete so after this I'm going right into recording that editing it right away and getting it out as soon as I can but again the editing process takes so long I'm only one person finding these clips takes a very long time assembling it takes a long time so um hoping to get it out in the next few weeks because um we need to keep this rolling I'm hoping to get uh 11 or 12 videos done this

year this video you're watching right now is number eight of The public videos excluding that little patreon bonus video but hoping to get another three or four done by the end of the year uh really going to go into a sort of Grind Mode here to get these out uh I have all the research done so it's just about um for this next one editing it and then the ones after writing and editing so it it should be possible and I'm calling this season two of eyes wide open what you've witnessed this year this is

season 2 when it comes to an end On January uh 1st 2025 that'll be the end of season 2 and I'm hoping to start rolling these videos out actually on YouTube this is the first time I'm announcing it officially um they're going to be starting to roll out in early November on a weekly basis and then by the end of December 2024 uh the entirety of season 2 should be on YouTube to prepare for season 3 in 2025 which will hopefully be another 10 to 12 videos so a lot to look forward to in The

future my apologies again for the delays I spent a lot of time this summer really digging into some research um that will really shine through hopefully in these next few parts this one here was really just me having to do a primer on the mafia it's something I've been reading a lot about organized crime is not really my area of expertise again mostly intelligence um Affairs but with the mafia being so interconnected with uh The Cuba operations or being so prevalent in so many mainstream stories about the Cuba operations I felt like I had to

sharpen my knowledge of how American organized crime developed and uh that interplay with the CIA so hopefully you all enjoyed that I've been rambling long enough thank you so much again for the ongoing support and patience more on the way I promise the next script is done and it's actually like 25 to 26 pages so again it should Be nearing 2 hours anyways a lot to look forward to thank you so much as as always and take care