Chapter Seventeen
1 The kiss of death was meant to show friendliness toward an individual about to be murdered as a means of making him think he was not in danger.
2 Joseph DiPalermo—Joe Beck—was one of the most notorious drug dealers in history. Despite several stints in prison, he operated globally for more than six decades and was reputed to still be actively engaged in selling heroin when he died in 1992 at age eighty-five.
3 Valachi is referring to the Castellammarese War. From February 1930 to April 15, 1931, this clash between the Sicilian old guard and a new wave of gangsters ended with a complete restructuring of power in organized crime. The victors included many of the men who would rule the underworld for decades to come, including Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel, Albert Anastasia, Joe Bonanno, and Joe Profaci.
4 In his 1994 book, Mob Lawyer, Ragano will claim publicly that Jimmy Hoffa requested that Ragano contact the Mafia about murdering the Kennedy brothers.
5 The authors of this work investigated a possible Mob connection to JFK’s assassination for the Killing Kennedy book. No hard evidence was found.
6 The cozy relationship between President Johnson and Director Hoover will reach its zenith just a few months later during the 1964 presidential campaign. At Johnson’s orders, FBI agents will spy on Republican candidate Barry Goldwater’s campaign by illegally wiretapping his plane and headquarters. That was not known until Hoover revealed it to Assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian in 1971.
7 RFK had his eye on politics. There was considerable pressure on Lyndon Johnson to name Kennedy as his running mate in 1964, despite the fact that both men distrusted each other. Instead, on August 24, Kennedy leased a house in New York. The following day he declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. On November 3, 1964, Kennedy defeated incumbent Republican Kenneth Keating in a landslide.