Mafia Spies

March 15, 2019
A pulpy, precisely rendered account of the CIA's dalliance with organized crime in pursuit of Fidel Castro.Former Newsday investigative reporter Maier (When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, 2014, etc.) provides fresh eyes and an urgent tone in this unsettling narrative. "Historically," he writes, "the CIA's murder plot against Castro marked America's first foray into the assassination business....The tradition of gentlemen spies engaged in gathering intelligence...had now transformed into the killing games of covert operations, carried out by gangsters and other CIA surrogates." The author makes his rendition of an oft-referenced tale compelling by focusing on statements by key figures who fought to preserve their secrecy. Maier credits "recently declassified files about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy" for this verisimilitude. The labyrinthine narrative veers from Castro's 1959 revolution to Watergate and the 1975 Church Committee investigation of the intelligence agencies. Essentially, CIA go-between Robert Maheu approached Mafia members Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli to pursue assassination plots against Castro. Other CIA officers helped Roselli set up a formidable network of training camps for Cuban exiles in Florida, but their plans were disrupted following the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban missile crisis. Roselli and others defied Attorney General Robert Kennedy's ban on further covert action, continuing to scheme assassination plans and commit speedboat raids. Maier focuses on the dramatic personalities of Giancana, the brutal head of Chicago's Outfit, and Roselli, a suave Hollywood "fixer" who claimed to have taken the CIA's assignment out of patriotic fervor. The gangsters' friendship with the Rat Pack provided a back-channel and electoral assistance to JFK, and their disappointment with his presidency would fuel conspiracy theories after his assassination, though Roselli hinted at connections to a vengeful Castro instead. Maier's writing is approachable (if occasionally repetitive), almost breezy, despite the dark undertones and the violence surrounding Giancana and Roselli, both of whom were murdered in the mid-1970s.As he has done before, Maier offers another deft translation of murky American history, focused on dynamic, improbable protagonists.

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Starred review from March 1, 2019
This is a standout in the field of spy nonfiction. Maier, a Newsday investigative journalist for 30 years, uses a slew of documents (including the National Archives' recently declassified files about the Kennedy assassination, along with sworn court testimony, congressional hearings, and CIA and FBI documents) to make what is a totally credible case that two gangsters worked with the CIA in the early 1960s to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. Not only does Maier give beyond-solid evidence for the strange alliance of politicians, mobsters, movie stars, entertainers, and Cuban-exile commandos in Miami seeking to bring down Castro, he also makes the whole book crystal clear (a rarity in spy nonfiction) and enormously fun. The focus is on Hollywood/Las Vegas gangster Johnny Roselli and Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana, longtime friends made spies by the CIA. Fans of The Godfather movies and of spy novels in general will love how Maier portrays the ties between Sinatra and Giancana, the lush mobster weddings, and the intricate web of deception that drew so many, including Marilyn Monroe, into the mix. Maier includes fascinating details, like plans for exploding cigars, poisons, and drive-by shootings from speedboats. Nothing was off-limits when it came to this CIA-mobster plot. Maier succeeds brilliantly here in bringing this outrageous, long-hidden (if rumored) bit of history to vivid and fact-supported life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)