Final_Judgment

[84] Final Judgment 145
HOOVER'S DEAL
According to Sam and Chuck Giancana, in their biography of Chicago
Mafia boss, Sam Giancana, "Hoover himself had been on the [organized
crime] pad for years." 226
The Giancanas say that Hoover had worked out a deal with Lansky's
boyhood friend and criminal associate Frank Costello. The New York
mobster would pass horse race betting tips to columnist Walter Winchell, a
Hoover intimate. Winchell, in turn, would pass the information on fixed
races to Hoover. Hoover would arrange his real bets through his associates
while making minimal bets on his own ticket at the horse races. According to
the Giancanas, "Hoover won every time." 227
That Hoover was well versed in Lansky's criminal activities there is no
question. His intelligence sources were legendary.
WHAT HOOVER KNEW
Gentry sums it up well, noting that Hoover, although an inveterate
gambler, knew all about what was happening in Lansky's Las Vegas
casinos even though he, Hoover, avoided Las Vegas like the plague:
"[Hoover] knew who was skimming from the casino profits—and how
much they were taking in. He knew where the money went and how it made
its way to the top bosses.
"He also knew that some people, well connected with this place, were
very unhappy with the Kennedys, John and Robert, unhappy to the point
they were talking about killing them."
"Eventually the FBI discovered that most of the `skim’ loot went to
Meyer Lansky in Miami. In a typical month in 1963, the skim from one
casino amounted to $123,500, of which Lansky kept $71,000, then
transmitted the rest to the New Jersey mobster Gerald Catena. Catena
distributed in the north and Lansky in Florida. Each recipient would have a
small percentage of his share deducted for casino employees who kept mum
about the operation. There were also couriers, $300,000 to a Swiss bank,
$100,000 to the Bahamas." 228
(Later in this chapter and in Chapter 11, Chapter 12 and Chapter 15 we
shall discuss Lansky's Swiss bank connections. They are central to the joint
Lansky-CIA-Israeli Mossad operation that resulted in the assassination of
John F. Kennedy.)
Even in the late 1960's, according to Gentry , "Hoover still had a blind
spot so far as [Lansky] was concerned." 229
THE ANGLETON CONNECTION
However, in 1993 author Anthony Summers provided what may be a
critical missing piece of the puzzle. Summers created a media sensation
when he alleged in his new biography of Hoover, Official and Confidential,
and on the PBS series "Frontline," that Lansky blackmailed Hoover with