Mafia Spies (2024) s01e02 Episode Script

1
Robert Maheu becomes
the cutout for the CIA.
And so it's his job to recruit
just the right Mobster
to kill Fidel Castro.
Maheu himself was nervous
about the whole operation.
Maheu voiced concerns
with his CIA contacts.
Like, are you really sure
this is the direction
you want to go?
Because this thing's
fraught with peril.
But the CIA at that time
was so arrogant
that it didn't even think
about the operation
falling apart.
Maheu sets up a meeting
in Hollywood
with his connection
to the Mafia.
Johnny Roselli was
an important man
in the Chicago Mob,
who looked
after the business interests
in Los Angeles
and in Las Vegas.
He was one of those kind
of gangsters--
handsome guy,
dressed to the nines.
And he was a charmer.
Handsome Johnny.
He's the most handsome
of all the guys.
So you know what
I was thinking about--
he would be nice for me.
He was dating a lot of the
dancers and the actresses.
He was involved
with Lana Turner.
And then he ended up
marrying June Lang.
Roselli walked
with the Hollywood crowd.
He acted as a fixer
in that realm.
Johnny had
movie-star quality.
He knew how to do things.
He called himself
the Strategist
because he had clarity--
the ability to see,
the awareness.
Maheu approached Roselli
as a person representing
private industries
that wanted Castro out.
Roselli didn't believe
that story for a minute.
Maheu wasn't supposed
to tell Roselli
that he was working
with the CIA.
But in order to explain
to Roselli convincingly
what was going on,
Maheu did say,
this is something we're doing
on behalf of the government.
Roselli was naturally
a little taken aback,
since he wasn't used to being
hired by the U.S. government.
In fact, he was used to being
afraid of the U.S. government.
On the other hand,
they had lost their entire
livelihoods in Cuba.
So the Mafia had every reason
to want to do it.
It was an opportunity
to get back
the enormous presence they had
in the gambling establishments,
the casinos.
Plus, it would ingratiate
themselves with the CIA.
And that was
a very compelling reason
to get involved in this plot.
Maheu was authorized
to tell Roselli
that his clients
were willing to pay $150,000
for Castro's removal.
$150,000
by today's dollars
is a million
and a half dollars.
Johnny Roselli,
from the outset,
said, no, I won't
accept your money.
I just want to work with you
to get rid of Castro.
I'll do this for my country.
Undergirding a lot
of gangster stories
is their own personal
mythology,
which is absolutely
a love of America.
The very first line
of "The Godfather,"
said in the dark
I believe in America.
"I believe in America."
First line.
Roselli's boss, Sam Giancana,
actually made fun of him.
He said, if you start
walking around with a flag,
Roselli would follow you.
At the end of the meeting,
Roselli makes it clear
to Maheu
that he can't do this
all by himself.
He's got to get approval
from the boss of all bosses
in Chicago,
and that's Sam Giancana.
It turns out that
Sam Giancana is interested.
So Maheu lets the CIA know
that he's now made contact
with the mobsters and asks,
should I continue
to go forward?
And he's told, we don't care
if you deal with the Devil.
We want this job done.
They were going
to hire the Mafia
to kill Castro,
which is either a brilliant
or a ridiculous idea.
The CIA is now
in a very dangerous world
with all
these crazy characters.
It's truly
a rogues' gallery.
And Castro is standing
at the center of it.
For the CIA,
what cannot happen
is that the plot
gets found out.
If this comes out, what
will this do to our image
in the eyes of the world?
Secrecy has to be maintained.
So they have to keep a lid
on this top-secret plan.
Miami Beach in 1960
was as hot as nightlife
can get in the United States.
There was
the Fontainebleau Hotel,
the height
of mid-century architecture.
And it became this center
for all kinds of gathering
of the entertainment scene
and also criminal activity.
It was the place in Miami
where the mafiosi meet
with the CIA representatives
to discuss
the assassination of Castro.
So Maheu arrives.
And he's got Roselli with him.
Also meeting with them
but in the background
is a street agent by the name
of Jim O'Connell,
representing the CIA.
The CIA is getting
a lot of pressure
from President Eisenhower
to try to assassinate Castro.
So they have to do everything
possible to make this happen.
The Fontainebleau was
Sam Giancana's favorite place.
Sam Giancana was the Chicago
Mob boss put in charge
of a multibillion-dollar
illegal criminal enterprise
called the Chicago Outfit.
They had control
of Chicago, Vegas,
also the West Coast,
Los Angeles.
Sam Giancana was loud,
brash
obnoxious,
probably a little crazy.
Maheu wrote
later that Giancana
didn't come off as thuggish.
You could tell he wanted
attention, and he got it.
When he walked
down the hallway,
you could just sense
his power.
It was just
how he carried himself.
When he walked in, it was
like Jesus Christ walking.
He was a very respected person.
Sam Giancana brings in
Santos Trafficante Jr.
Santo Trafficante Jr., he's
the boss of the Tampa Mafia.
Trafficante is someone that
has very powerful presence
in Miami, South Florida,
and also still very close ties
on the island of Cuba.
Sam Giancana is not
introduced as Sam Giancana.
He's introduced as Sam Gold.
And Santos Trafficante Jr. is
not introduced by his name
but as Joe, the Courier.
The idea being
that he's the courier
who's going to deliver
things to Cuba
so that this execution
can occur.
Bob Maheu outlines
this idea that the CIA,
the American government,
wants the Mafia's assistance
in helping them
destabilize Cuba,
meaning getting rid
of Fidel Castro.
Maheu's first idea was,
we're going to shoot Castro,
like in the movies.
If you're going to try
to pin this on somebody,
you want to have the Hollywood
version of the story.
So we want to have
the guys burst in
with these machine guns.
But the gangsters
essentially told him,
those movies aren't real.
You don't do it that way.
It was
Giancana's suggestion--
well, maybe you can put
poison pills in his meals.
They came to the conclusion
that the best way to do it
would be to poison Castro.
None of them went
to the National Commission
of the Mafia,
which was a big sin
at the time.
But it was smart they didn't.
The fewer people that know,
the better.
Just before the CIA gets
involved with the Mafia,
other attempts
to kill Fidel Castro
were considered by the CIA.
"Honeypot" is a term used in
the spy world that generally
is associated
with covert female agent
to use her sexual charms
to target
a person they want to get
information from.
You met Castro, 1959?
Yes. February 27, 1959.
And I was 18.
Right after the Revolution,
Fidel Castro
visits a German boat
that comes into Havana
on the way to New York.
And he meets Marita Lorenz.
Castro was charmed
by this young woman.
When she travels
back to New York,
he contacts her and says,
come back to Havana.
And they begin an affair.
Marita talks about
this pivotal moment
on "The Geraldo Show."
And you became
pregnant with his baby?
Yes, I did.
According to the story
by Marita,
she was given a drink of some
sort where she was drugged.
And when she came to,
she was no longer pregnant.
She winds up going to Florida,
and that's where
she's recruited.
And the CIA asked you,
Marita, to do what?
Well, they said,
would you do this country
a great deed and, uh
kill him?
So the CIA had a figure
named Frank Sturgis,
who later got involved
in the Watergate break-in.
He was a Cuban exile
who worked
and groomed, as they say,
Marita Lorenz
to go back and kill Castro.
Frank Sturgis starts off as
a police officer for Castro,
ends up, you know, becoming
a staunch anti-Castro activist
and intelligence asset
for the CIA.
I did a film,
"My Little Assassin"
Marita Lorenz.
And I played Frank Sturgis.
- You work for the CIA.
- Mm, let's say I'm a patriot.
You could help
your country, you know?
This is my country.
Sturgis was
a very interesting character.
Some say he was CIA.
He says he was,
they say he wasn't,
but that's how that works.
In early 1960, Marita Lorenz
contacts Castro,
and they decide to get
together again.
Did you try and kill
your lover Fidel Castro?
Well, let's just say I went
back through the motions and--
How were you going to do it?
Poison him
with botulinum toxin.
Frank Sturgis gives her
the poison pills,
hiding them in a jar
of cold cream.
And then she travels
down to Havana.
There they are,
in a hotel room.
Marita is lying
on the bed with Fidel
and says, wait a minute,
I have to freshen up.
The poison pill has melted
into the cold cream.
She doesn't know what to do.
Castro senses
there's something wrong.
He asked me,
did you come to kill me?
Yes.
Castro reaches over
at a bedside table,
and on the table,
there's a gun.
He handed it to me.
He said, go ahead.
So I took the gun and
He said, you can't kill me.
Nobody can.
She ends up having sex
with Fidel that night.
I mean, this was
like beta testing poisons,
beta testing how to
kill a foreign leader,
and you'd find out along
the way which ways work
and which ways don't.
It wasn't a very
auspicious start.
And so the CIA turns
to another recruit.
Rudy Maxa
in "The Washington Post"
wrote that Johnny Roselli
was destined
to walk on the dark side of
life never seemed in doubt.
Who was Johnny Roselli?
I would say that the answer
to that question
depends upon who's asking it.
Johnny Roselli had
a lot of secrets.
One of the big ones was
that he wasn't born here.
Fourth of July in 1905,
Johnny Roselli was born
in Esperia, Italy, mainland.
His real name is Filippo Sacco.
He loves his mother.
He loves his family.
And like many families
at that time who are poor,
they realize that
a better life awaits them
if they can go to America.
He gets to Boston with
his mother when he's six.
And there,
he suffered from TB.
His father would end up
passing from this illness.
Filippo Sacco is
forced to provide
for his mother and his family.
He's the man now of the family.
He starts as a petty thief
on the street,
starts low-level crimes.
Eventually he gets
into so much trouble
that he realizes that he has
to change his name.
As a good Catholic boy, he's
inspired by a Vatican painter
with the name Cosmo Roselli.
And he becomes John Roselli.
So he changes his name.
But then he gets
popped twice in Boston--
once for grand larceny,
once for a narcotics rap.
He gets out on bond,
he skips bail,
and he hightails it, because he
doesn't want to go to trial,
he doesn't want
to go to prison.
Roselli suffered from TB.
And so he came out West
and settled in L.A.
because of the drier climate.
When Roselli first
got to Los Angeles,
it's during Prohibition.
Reformers had a ball
after World War I,
as they gleefully
ushered in Prohibition.
He was involved
in bootlegging.
And he'd also boosted
a couple trucks, hijacking.
And then Roselli starts working
with my great-grandfather,
Jack Dragna.
Jack Dragna takes over
the Los Angeles family
in 1931.
And what he did
is, essentially,
he brought the extortion
of the Hollywood unions
that was already taking place
back East to Los Angeles.
And now, under Jack Dragna,
Roselli gets involved,
being the liaison
for the Los Angeles family
with Chicago
for the extortion
of Hollywood.
And he was exceptional
at that.
Being among
that Hollywood crowd,
you know, dating actresses,
he lived that lifestyle.
So he had a lot of clout
and notoriety and influence.
But he was running
the Hollywood extortion scam,
and that's why
he goes to prison.
Now, he gets out in 1947.
And in 1948,
Bryan Foy hires him on
as an assistant purchasing
agent over at Eagle-Lion.
He genuinely wanted
to learn the business.
In the census records, 1950,
he put his profession--
you know, he's a scriptwriter.
And then, finally, he became
an associate producer
and was involved
with several different studios
in '51 and '52.
And they made B pictures.
These are people that
are writing their own stories
even while they're living them.
Throughout all this time,
Johnny Roselli was affiliated
with the Los Angeles Mafia.
And then in 1956,
after Jack Dragna died,
Roselli transferred
his membership
to the Chicago Outfit
and started working
with Sam Giancana.
Roselli was a guy
who had charm.
That's what separated him
from a lot of the other guys
who got their start
in illegal booze
during Prohibition.
He saw himself
as one of Hollywood.
So this Fontainebleau
meeting with Sam Giancana
and Santo Trafficante and
Johnny Roselli and Bob Maheu,
I call this, like,
the kicking off point,
'cause after this,
the U.S. government
now is involved
with the Mafia.
I can't emphasize enough how
important it was for the CIA
to keep this all
very top secret.
They don't want to say words
like "murder" or "killing"
or certainly not
"assassination."
They actually refer
to certain players as A,
as B, as C.
There's always this buffer,
this degree
of plausible deniability.
The assassination plot
using the Mafia
was supposed to disrupt
the control Fidel Castro had
over the society.
It was supposed
to make Cuba ripe
for a victorious
invasion force,
training Florida,
New Orleans, Guatemala.
At this point,
to assassinate Castro,
the CIA, at the behest
of the Mafia,
decided to put poison pills
into his coffee
or into his bouillon.
The CIA's expert in poison
was Sidney Gottlieb.
Sidney Gottlieb was probably
the most powerful
unknown American
of the 20th century.
He had a license to kill
issued by the U.S. government
and carried out
clandestine experiments
that resulted in torture
and death in many countries
around the world.
He was,
as the head of the
chemical division of the CIA,
America's poisoner in chief.
The CIA has a laboratory.
They started working
on these pills.
And this was at the point
where Roselli then
was tapping
into the Cuban exile community
and trying to work
an arrangement with them
to where they could go in with
these pills and kill Castro.
Miami--
gateway to revolution.
Miami at this time
was full of people
who had fled from Cuba
because they hated
what Castro was doing there.
People move there,
especially the landowners
and the wealthy,
because they were stripped
of their land.
Just 90 miles away,
Miami feels the backwash
of the Revolution.
It becomes the location
for all
the anti-Castro activity.
Being in Little Havana,
Johnny Roselli is ingratiating
himself with these groups.
Santo Trafficante already
knows some of these figures
because these are guys
that were living
the high life in Havana.
They have nothing in Miami.
Now they have the opportunity
to join in these efforts
to get back there.
The most important
of the Cuban exile figures
that he meets
is Manuel Artime.
Manuel Artime is a young
leader of the Cuban exiles
and was probably the favorite
Cuban exile of the CIA.
Manuel Artime, people call
the Golden Boy of the CIA,
even though he didn't
speak any English.
He looked like
a movie star in a way.
And Johnny gets to know him.
The agency said in
documents compiled in 1977,
Artime and his group
were supported by CIA.
He was also used by the Mafia
in the Castro operation.
This information
should not be released.
What are you doing
with this outfit, Angus?
Well, it seems
to be some sort of a job
that has to be done in Cuba
to rid Cuba of communism.
It's not just
one exile group.
Dade County Sheriff counted
over 100 different exile groups
that were active
in South Florida
during this time period.
You had the
Movement for the Restoration
of the Revolution
of Democracy,
the Pro-Democracy
Revolutionary Movement.
I mean, they all had
similar-sounding names.
They all had their
charismatic leaders.
They all were competing
with each other.
It was a rollicking Wild West
of an environment.
I grew up on a farm in Cuba.
And the Castro family
lived to the east of us.
And right after
Castro won in '59,
the older kids would tell us,
you know,
Fidel's going to take
it all away from you.
And eventually he did.
So my family moved to Miami.
And my brother Bobby
had gotten involved
with an anti-Castro group.
He had to leave Cuba.
The communists were
going to do him in.
So he left.
Bobby got into the Marines.
He wasn't a boy anymore.
He came back more serious.
And he went to Cuba right away
with an organized group
to take down Castro.
I remember that night,
the CIA was at the house
with Bobby.
And I was in the room.
And they said, okay,
it's going to be tonight.
On September 26, 1960,
Tony Zarba, Bobby Fuller,
Allen Dale Thompson,
they loaded a boat
and they left for Cuba.
When they got there,
they landed 30 miles away
from where they were supposed
to land.
I heard it on the radio.
It was the Cuban radio
that gave out the news.
And they said that the group
that had invaded
the north coast of Cuba
had been captured.
It was a terrible feeling.
They executed Tony
and Allen Dale
as they picked them up,
but there was a big
show that they put on
for the execution of Bobby.
At the execution,
my uncle Clyde was there.
He said there were hundreds
of people at the stadium.
Clyde told me that it was
more like a parade.
Clyde said that they
brought Bobby out
and that Bobby was shaking.
He could hardly hold
his weight.
His knees were wobbling.
It looked like he had urinated
in his pants.
And he looked very pale.
But Clyde said that's
standard execution procedure
the Spaniards
use all the time.
They pumped you full of water.
They drugged you,
and they made you look
like you're afraid to die.
When they put him up there
to be executed,
he took his blindfold off.
And he stood there,
and they executed him.
When he landed on the ground,
he was shaking a lot.
One of the soldiers
walked up to him
and shot him
in the back of the head.
And that stopped that.
It really is a message
that anybody
who tries this type of attempt
to kill Fidel Castro
will face these same type
of consequences.
One of the things that
you'd see again and again
with these efforts
to get Castro
is that he seemed to be
always one step ahead.
And by that, it's not so much
Castro was one step ahead,
as his own security forces.
They were on top
of protecting their leader.
And they were very,
very effective.
Castro swung closely in line
with the communist bloc
and seized almost all
United States property
in Cuba.
In August 1960,
Castro starts expropriating
American businesses.
The U.S. then established
a full-scale embargo.
And so a country which had
been so embedded
in U.S. trade networks
and had such a huge presence
of American companies
all of a sudden had lost
its major trading partner.
The embargo was explicitly
to create deprivation,
hunger, and upheaval
against Castro.
Castro started to reach out
to the Soviet Union
for support.
The Soviet Union says,
tovarisch, comrade,
what can we do for you?
How can we help you?
They helped train
what becomes the DGI,
the General Intelligence
Directorate,
which establishes itself
as a very effective
spy organization.
Castro made sure
that some of the people
who came over
as anti-Castro Cubans
were really his agents.
So it was a real hotbed here--
never knowing
which ones were real
and which ones weren't.
Your candidates
for the most important office
in the free world seek your
votes in this vital campaign.
In 1960,
Massachusetts senator
John F. Kennedy
runs against Eisenhower's
vice president, Richard Nixon.
Castro is a Marxist.
We never were
on the side of freedom.
We never used our influence
when we could have used it
most effectively.
And today Cuba is
lost for freedom.
Kennedy was so obsessed
with Castro.
Castro was such
a personification
of every single thing
that Kennedy hated.
I think he just thought
he was a scumbag.
JFK and Frank Sinatra
first meet
at the Democratic Convention
in 1956
and are instantly drawn
to each other.
And what Jack Kennedy
sees in Frank Sinatra
is the future--
the coming together
of politics and entertainment.
This was
a very close election.
So, to help with the vote,
John Kennedy hitched the wagon
to the star of Sinatra.
Sinatra did so much to help
get JFK elected president.
He and Jimmy Van Heusen,
they did
this "High Hopes" parody,
and that became
the campaign theme song.
All the polls show
that this election
is going to be
impossibly close.
So every vote counts,
and the state of Illinois
now is seen
as a very crucial state.
Joe Kennedy,
who wants desperately
to have his son elected
president of the United States,
knows Sam Giancana
but can't be seen
with Sam Giancana.
So Joe Kennedy goes
to Frank Sinatra and says,
look, I need you to go to
Giancana and ask for his help.
I need him
to work all his magic
around Chicago to get
my son elected
by any means necessary.
Giancana was incredibly close
to Frank Sinatra.
In the early '50s,
Giancana and Sinatra
meet at a charity event.
And around a year later,
they exchanged star-sapphire
friendship pinkie rings.
They had a ball together--
the way they would kid
each other.
They both, I think,
truly liked each other.
Frank was a big fan
of the wiseguys.
And Frank used to say,
I hung around with wiseguys
because that's
who owned the nightclubs.
If the nightclubs were owned
by cardinals and monsignors,
I would have been
hanging around
with cardinals and monsignors.
Starting 1947
until about 1953,
five or six years,
it is the bleak period
in Sinatra's career,
when suddenly he becomes
infamous instead of famous.
His records stopped selling.
He is dropped by MGM,
his movie studio,
dropped by Columbia Records.
He's dropped
by his management.
Drop, drop, drop.
One of the few people
that was still behind him
was Sam Giancana.
Sam was making sure
that Sinatra still got booked
in places that Giancana
controlled or influenced.
So Sinatra was always
very loyal to Giancana.
Frank tells Joe that
he can get this done.
And he goes to Giancana
and asks this favor.
Giancana believes that he can
actually tilt the tables a bit
and get Jack Kennedy
all kinds of votes
in the Chicago area.
Not till the middle of
the next day
was the victory clinched
by one of the closest
margins recorded--
a plurality
of barely over 300,000.
This election
was one of the closest
in American history.
Illinois is one
of those states
that's won by a razor-thin
margin by Jack Kennedy.
The vote in the first ward,
that ward was the breeding
ground of the Mob in Chicago.
And that year it went to the
Democratic party
with a vote
of something like 85%.
The election
may have been a close one.
But a supreme national effort
will be needed
to move this country
safely through the 1960s.
I ask
The Mob certainly felt
like it had helped him
become president.
And people like Sam Giancana
and many others thought,
this is great.
This is the best thing for us.
You know, JFK is going
to leave us alone.
To attest the shattering
of a long-standing
political taboo.
This is vapor paper.
Writing messages
to our agents.
Drop it in water.
Astonishing.
Get your
007 secret-agent pen
and disappearing vapor paper.
You'll get a bang out of it.
During this time period,
James Bond is a sensation.
And the James Bond novels
really did influence JFK.
When President Kennedy
was asked to choose
his ten favorite books
of all time,
he listed
"From Russia with Love"
by Ian Fleming.
"It's not just a question
of blowing up a building
"or shooting a prime minister.
"Such bourgeois horseplay
is not contemplated.
Our operation
must be delicate, refined."
Bond
that smooth, cool--
not about blowing things up,
it's about being smart.
Kennedy resonated
with him tremendously.
Just before he became
president,
Kennedy had a dinner party
in which one of the guests
was his hero, Ian Fleming.
Ian Fleming had been
a British spy who,
during World War II,
consulted with the Americans
in creating their own
intelligence service,
which eventually
becomes the CIA.
Kennedy asks,
what is the best way
to neutralize Castro?
Fleming's answer was,
the way to take him down
is ridicule, chiefly.
The worst thing
that could happen to you
is to really be ridiculed,
to be embarrassed.
The idea sounds
very far-fetched.
He'd thought about printing
out leaflets saying,
these American nuclear tests,
it will be attracted to beards
and may lead to impotence.
And Kennedy, he said,
so what will they do?
Well, the men will shave their
beards, including Castro.
And then he'll have lost
his macho image.
He'll just be any other guy.
I think Kennedy loved
that perspective.
Kennedy wished that the CIA
was more like James Bond.
You had these different
iconic images.
And that then bled in
from entertainment
into the real world.
Jackie Kennedy even
gives Allen Dulles
a copy
of "From Russia with Love"
and says, you know,
you should maybe think
about using some of the ideas
in this book at the CIA.
Allen Dulles is very concerned
whether or not he's going
to remain as the CIA Director.
Dulles was kind of
cherry-picking ideas
from the Bond novels
and then trying to get
his science and technology
Q-types to build them.
The CIA's
Technical Services Division
was the equivalent
of the James Bond laboratory
which made all the gadgetry.
They considered
exploding cigars
Poison cigars
poison pens that you would
actually prick Fidel with
that would have a hidden
hypodermic needle in it.
They were going to put LSD
on a microphone
when he went to give his
regular weekly radio address
so that he'd get high
during the address
and he'd start
bumbling like a fool.
One idea that came up
was to, like, have these
gigantic fireworks displays
that would somehow
convince Cubans
that it was the second coming
of Christ.
It sounds crazy,
but that's the mood
that had taken over
at the CIA.
In the end,
these crazy ideas didn't turn
out to be practical,
so they stuck
with poison pills.
Johnny Roselli
is in the Cuban exile
community in Miami
trying to find a contact
to carry out the plot
to kill Castro.
In Little Havana,
one of the people
that Johnny relies on
is Tony Varona.
Tony Varona was
a Cuban politician
who was pushed
out of Cuba by Castro.
And he was one of the leaders
of the Cuban exiles in Florida
trying to get rid of Castro
and get back into Cuba.
Santo Trafficante,
Maheu, and Roselli
meet at Varona's house
in Miami,
and they read him
into the plot.
Varona knows someone
who can get
the CIA's poison pills
into Fidel's bloodstream.
That was Juan Orta.
Juan Orta was very close
to Castro.
He was director general
for the Castro regime.
He was connected enough
that he could drop some kind
of pill into Castro's drink.
Maheu then brings the pills
to Miami,
where Roselli and Giancana
and Trafficante are meeting
with some of these exiles.
You have Johnny
and Sam Giancana
and Santo Trafficante
all there
to see Frank Sinatra
performing.
Giancana was aware
that Sinatra
was kind of like
a fanboy for him,
but he wanted to make sure
that he didn't have
Sinatra around
when they were talking
about the plans to kill Castro.
He tells the other mobsters,
don't say anything about this
in front of Sinatra.
He's got a big mouth.
Eventually, after the show,
Maheu arrives
at the Fontainebleau.
And he's got another guy
named Joe Shimon with him.
Maheu's associate,
Joe Shimon,
was a crooked Washington cop
who befriended Roselli, too.
They all go up
to a hotel room.
And inside,
who's waiting for them?
Tony Varona.
Traficante was there
to translate.
Maheu opens up
this attaché case.
There's $10,000
and these poison pills
going to Juan Orta.
While all this was going down,
Sinatra calls up
to the hotel room.
Sam realizes
that it's Sinatra,
and he tells everyone
to ignore it.
Joe Shimon said,
"Frank must have called
our suite 20 times trying
"to get together with Sam.
He wouldn't leave Sam alone."
Frank Sinatra was
fascinated by Giancana,
but Giancana has
business on his mind.
After a time, the pills
were delivered to Cuba.
Now, with these pills
in his possession,
Juan Orta is going to find
the best opportunity
to do the deed.
So, one night,
Johnny Roselli's eating dinner
in Hollywood.
It's been quite a while
since Johnny's heard anything
about the attempt
to poison Castro.
Johnny gets a message
to call Tony Varona.
On the phone, Roselli
finds out this guy Juan Orta
seems to get cold feet.
Orta is not able
to implement this plan.
He wants to bail out.
He was nervous
about getting caught.
So that idea fell apart.
Now the whole process
had to start all over again.
Part of the CIA's plan,
the assassination of Castro,
so far had failed.
Part two
the invasion of Cuba--
soon to be known
as the Bay of Pigs--
was still full speed ahead.
After Kennedy took office,
he quickly reappointed
Allen Dulles
as head of the CIA.
Kennedy immediately
is presented
with the well-developed plan
for the invasion.
Allen Dulles tells him,
we have hundreds
of Cuban exiles
being trained in Guatemala
and Fort Knox and New Orleans.
Kennedy, he came in
a young man, smart fellow.
He knew foreign policy,
but to go up
against the national security
apparatus,
I think, is rather
intimidating for anybody.
So Kennedy is sandbagged
into going along
with the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Through the Mafia's involvement,
the CIA believes that Fidel
will be dead
by the time
the invasion takes place.
And so they are not paying
close attention
to what could go wrong.