Final_Judgment

[60] Final Judgment 121
survival—that is, John F. Kennedy—would only be a logical course of
action.
This especially, of course, in light of the fact that the man who
succeeded Kennedy—Lyndon Johnson—had long and often proven a history
of personal affinity for Israel and its international interests.
JOHNSON'S LANSKY CONNECTION
Johnson, too, had a long and sordid record of involvement in criminal
activities—including murder—that have finally begun to surface. The record
is far too complex to examine here—besides which, popular literature on the
subject is quite complete.
Nonetheless, it is certainly worth noting that one major Johnson backer
was Meyer Lansky's Louisiana henchman, Carlos Marcello. According to
John W. Davis, Lansky's man Marcello funneled at least $50,000 a year in
payoffs to then-Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson who, in turn, helped kill in
committee all rackets-related legislation that might have been harmful to the
Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate. 150
There are indications, however, that Johnson's ties to Lansky and his
associates go even deeper. When Lansky himself was living in Israel, one of
his American cronies, Benjamin Sigelbaum, came visiting. 151
It was Mr. Sigelbaum (not to be confused with Benjamin "Bugsy"
Siegel whom Lansky had ordered killed in 1947) who was involved with
longtime Johnson intimate Bobby Baker in two major dealings: the
purchase of a bank in Tulsa, Oklahoma and in Baker's controversial Serv-U
Vending Machine Company. 152
Another of Baker's business collaborators, was Edward Levinson, who
operated the Fremont Casino in Las Vegas as a front man for longtime
Lansky friend and business partner, Joseph (Doc) Stacher (who ultimately
died in exile in Israel). 153
What's more, author Robert Morrow, a former CIA contract agent, has
revealed that one of Baker's closest associates, with whom he was reportedly
"thick as thieves," was a mob courier named Mickey Weiner who was "a
complete user of [Baker's] office, of all the [Baker] facilities on [Capitol]
Hill." 154 Needless to say, Baker's office and Baker's "facilities" were one
and the same with those of Lyndon B. Johnson.
It was this same Mickey Weiner who, as we shall see in Chapter 7, was
one of Meyer Lansky's chief couriers between his Miami banking
operations and his European money-laundering center at the Banque de Credit
International (BCI) in Geneva, Switzerland.
(BCI, as we shall see in detail in Chapter 7, Chapter 12 and Chapter 15,
was operated by an Israeli banker, Tibor Rosenbaum, former Director for
Finances and Supply for Israel's Mossad.)
Mr. Baker, who served time in federal prison for his criminal activities
during his time as Johnson's protégé (and as his reputed bagman), would
have been the one person who could have sent Lyndon Johnson to prison if
he had revealed all.