Final_Judgment

216 An Opiate for the Masses [155]
Given the frequency of such alliances, there seems a natural attraction
between intelligence agencies and criminal syndicates . . . Both are
practitioners of what one retired CIA operative has called the 'clandestine
arts'—the basic skill of operating outside the normal channels of civil
society. Among all the institutions of modern society, intelligence agencies
and criminal syndicates alone maintain large organizations capable of
carrying out covert operations without fear of detection." 412
Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana's family biographers have written of
Giancana's own elaboration on this relationship. They described how
Giancana showed his brother an ancient Roman coin and declared: "Look,
this is one of the Roman gods. This one has two faces . . . two sides.
That's what we are, the Outfit and the CIA—two sides of the same
coin: 413
ISRAEL, THE CIA AND THE DRUG COMBINE
All the evidence we have covered here suggests that the CIA and the
Meyer Lansky Organized Crime Syndicate were indeed partners in many
areas of mutual concern—not only in Cuba and in the Southeast Asian drug
racket—but also in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
And as we saw in Chapter 6, Lansky's allies in Israel stood much to
benefit from American involvement in Southeast Asia.
While Israel was using America's engagement in and preoccupation
with the Vietnam conflict as a means whereby Israel could flex its muscle in
the Middle East, the Lansky narcotics network was using its partnership
with the CIA during the Vietnam War as a cover for its drug-smuggling.
And as we have seen in Chapter 8, the CIA and Israel itself had long
and close ties equally as incestuous of those of the Lansky Organized Crime
Syndicate and Israel. That Israel had its own difficulties with John F.
Kennedy we have already seen. Likewise with the Mafia and the Lansky
Syndicate. In Chapter 9 we reviewed the CIA's own problems with John F.
Kennedy. Clearly, this alliance of forces against JFK was such that there
was really no way John F. Kennedy could have ever completed his first term
in the White House.