Hey guys!
I was doing the reading (I think in the textbook but I don’t remember for sure) and I learned that President John F. Kennedy may have been involved with the mob. This, of course, caught my attention and I did a little more digging. I don’t know how much of this is fact (or just speculating) but I found it to be interesting and thought other people might as well.
The first link is JFK’s father, named Joseph Kennedy, Sr. who was most likely involved in the bootlegging business during Prohibition. Joe Kennedy (supposedly) did business with the well-known gangster from Chicago, Sam Giancana. He stood back to allow his sons to succeed in politics, but his connections may have helped JFK win the election.
The second link is through Frank Sinatra, who was close friends with JFK as well as associates with Giancana. (Some sources I found say that Sinatra was actually a kind of liaison between the two men. In fact, one source quotes Tina Sinatra, Sinatra’s daughter, who says that Kennedy first approached her father because he knew that Sinatra had connections to Giancana and because it would be dangerous for Kennedy to approach Giancana directly.)
Finally, John F. Kennedy and Sam Giancana even had similar taste in women. They both had relationships with a woman named Judith Campbell Exner. In fact, she claimed to have passed envelopes from Kennedy to the mob carrying payoffs or instructions for vote-buying and even witnessed one of the exchanges herself.
Check out the websites, especially the National Geographic article, for more information. It’s actually really interesting. People even think that these relationships led to Kennedy’s assassination, though the House Select Committee on Assassinations could not find any connection.
Side note, something I find somewhat odd is that Robert Kennedy took such an aggressive stance against organized crime. What do you guys think? Was this linked to his family’s involvement?
Hey Julia! Thanks for the post! This was very interesting to me too... It's weird to think that one of the most politically prominent families of the later 1900's was really involved with bootlegging and gangsters. They were clearly a very smart family that didn't let this get as much in the way of their political pursuits because it hasn't tainted the name to the point where JFK and Robert Kennedy go down in history as purely "bad" characters.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question at the end, I also found it super interesting that Robert Kennedy took a huge stance against organized crime. Apparently the number of convictions increased by 800% under Robert Kennedy as attorney general. He would get into heated arguments with the head of the FBI at that time, J. Edgar Hoover, because he had very strong opinions about how this should be run to take a stance against the organized crime. From what I was looking at, it seemed that he did have such a strong opinion about this because of the family history with organized crime. It would make sense that he would have a strong distaste for it if his father was so involved in it prior to the family's big rise to the political stage. He, unlike Joe Kennedy and John Kennedy, doesn't have a record in organized crime, and it seems some sources think that he was pretty ashamed of the history his family had in its involvement so he wanted to rectify the name through his actions against it.
Thanks so much for the post Julia! It was quite intriguing to think about this further!
I wonder how it would have turned out if Robert Kennedy hadn't been assassinated and had run for President. I wonder if that would have affected the election. (Yeah, it's a lot of ifs and wonders but still. It's an interesting thought)
DeleteWow! This was a very interesting post, thanks Julia! It was really strange reading that John F. Kennedy may have had affiliating with the mob because I have always considered him a great and well-rounded man. I would have never have expected that he or his dad would have been doing some shady business. I really hope that this all wasn't true to be honest, because I really respect JKF and would hate to find out that he or the Kennedy family wasn't as respectable as we once thought.
ReplyDelete