Look back in anger
American “elections” have always been every bit as “free, fair, and honest” as they remain today. Which is to say, not at all.
The Electoral College solidified former Vice President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 general election this week. Despite President Trump’s frequent claims, no evidence of widespread voter fraud has been found in swing states such as Georgia or Pennsylvania or any other state, including Illinois.
And blah blah blah woof woof. Ignore that standard-issue, Mark 1-Mod-0 MSM horseshit, it’s not worth bothering about.
But in 1960, some irregularities in Illinois votes, specifically the ones in Chicago, prompted calls for an investigation from Republicans over then-Sen. John F. Kennedy’s victory. The saga played out in the pages of the Chicago Daily News.
Voter fraud in Cook County certainly wasn’t unheard of at the time, but did Republicans have a case? According to scholar Edmund F. Kallina’s article in “Presidential Studies Quarterly,” the answer is yes, but also, no. His research found that Nixon was not “cheated out of Illinois’ electoral votes.”
For a deeper dive into the plan of a few Republicans to hijack the Electoral College, check out this report from the Washington Post.
Yeah, no. Thanks but no thanks for your surely non-partisan recommendation there, pal. As you might expect, the above short Enemedia recap leaves the juiciest, most sordid bits out. Not so with this next account.
A lot has been accused but there hasn’t been any hard-hitting proof that Kennedy actually used the Chicago outfit to obtain the electoral college in Illinois, right? Well according to “The Dark Side of Camelot” by Seymour Hersh, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (JFK’s father) set up a meeting with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana to obtain Giancana’s support for Jack Kennedy’s run for the White House. But one boss? That is just one guy, what is Kennedy going to do with one vote? Well, unlike most people, the Mafia played dirty and they did it by buying votes, Hersh tells us.
You can’t exactly pay voter by voter to cast a ballot for the liberal politician, because the money would run out in a heartbeat with no guaranteed results. Instead, Giancana funneled money to lower-level street thugs as “walking around money.” Nothing illegal there, in fact, Sam just looks like a nice guy, which cannot be further from the truth. But that payday came with an implied promise, “Mafia” reports. The people performing their civic duty would be “persuaded” to vote blue. What made this possible was not only harassment of poll goers but each gangster had a “territory” they ruled. A territory could be as little as a hundred people or as large as thousands, all of which listened to their criminal neighborhood boss. Not exactly from respect or friendliness but out of fear.
Funneling cash to buy votes and harassing conservative voters was among their many tactics to steal the election in Illinois. Combine that with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s alleged ballot stuffing political machine and the state was Kennedy’s. Illinois was won by nearly 10,000 votes and John F. Kennedy was the new President of the United States. But wait, there’s more.
The Mafia Podcast lists testimonies of various anonymous (out of safety) gangsters claiming to have helped also buy the Virginia primary for Kennedy. Giancana even loudly bragged about buying local politicians new office furniture and paid bar owners to keep Frank Sinatra’s campaign song, “High Hopes,” playing frequently throughout pubs.
But one doesn’t contact an unknown gangster for help, which is correct. However, Giancana and the Kennedys had more ties than you’d think. The first being previously mentioned Frank Sinatra, a man who was very familiar with the mafia and a close friend of the Kennedy’s. He was said to be the go-between man for the two during the West Virginia primary rigging according to Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor and author of The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy. Sabato also highlights the connection by citing the story that Joseph Kennedy asked for Giancana’s help over a dispute with another mobster, Frank Costello, and offered “the president’s ear” in return. This is all backed by Sinatra’s daughter, Tina Sinatra, in a “60 Minutes” story, summarized by CBS News.
Tina adds that Joe Kennedy arranged the West Virginia primary rigging through Giancana. Who boasted the request was “a couple of phone calls away.” But the gangster, after all his hard work and dedication was not rewarded with the president’s ear and was turned on through the hiring of Robert Kennedy. While the Kennedy’s didn’t seem to care about the cut ties between the mobster, Sinatra was hung out to dry and was not in Giancana’s good graces, somewhere you never want to be. But Tina Sinatra confirms the beef was squashed by Frank who played in Sam’s night club, Villa Venice, twice a day for an absurd eight straight nights, bringing “Rat Packers” Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin along.
But Sinatra isn’t where the connection stops. All That’s Interesting tells us Kennedy, Sinatra, and Giancana all shared a common mistress, making a go-between connection much more likely. The black-haired beauty, Judith Exner, first enjoyed the presence of Sinatra after a vacation in Hawaii for two. But her life changed dramatically after February 7th, 1960 when she caught the eye of then-Senator John F. Kennedy. Exner spent the next day with Kennedy at Sinatra’s place. Exner claimed that Kennedy called her every day for a month following that encounter in Las Vegas. On March 7, 1960, the night before the New Hampshire primary, Kennedy and Exner made love for the first time in New York City, according to her account. She also testified to be a go-between for the mob for an unprecedented 10 times, where it’s theorized she began another romantic relationship with, this time, Giancana.
As you might be able to see, there are way too many connections between the Kennedy’s and the mob on multiple occasions for something not to be fishy.
Of course, and as usual. Proving yet again, as if further proof were needed, that in big-time American power-politics, it’s filth, sleaze, fraud, and corruption all the way down.
The devastatingly talented crime noir novelist James Ellroy’s great American Tabloid presents an intriguing alt-history theory regarding the skullduggery behind both JFK’s 1960 “election” and his assassination three years later: Kennedy had run afoul of so many rough, violent men and entities like Giancana, the CIA, J Edgar Hoover, the Castro government, and others that the real wonder would have been if he HADN’T been assassinated for his perceived betrayals and broken promises.
Ellroy, in the way of the very best writers, takes a close look at the motivations of all these potential hit-men without ever specifying who the likeliest culprit might actually have been, leaving that to the reader’s imagination. American Tabloid, like nearly all of Ellroy’s work, is an excellent, gripping read, one I can’t recommend highly enough.
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