RECKLESS-Douglas Thompson

and the President a hyper sexualized movie star. As with Hollywood, the willing suspension of belief was required, Reality imposes no such limits, Drawing on essential new material, Reckless shatters the secrets and lives with a revelatory true life thriller focusing on RFK and Robert F. Kennedy both before and after

they bought the White House. All the usual suspects from FBI titan Jay Agar Hoover and billionaire Howard Hughes to CIA rogue agents and mob hitman appear in a narrative which sweeps from wartime London to the salons of Washington, from the bedrooms of Hollywood to the torture chambers and jungles of Central America, and on to revolutionary Cuba and

the tragic, bloody political carousel of Vietnam. The book that we're featuring this evening is Reckless, Sex, Lies and JFK with my special guest, investigative journalist and author Douglas Thompson. Good evening, and welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Douglas Thompson.

into set in a hotel room. Traffic County has set up a camera set up the next door hotel room where the kind of see through see through wall, and the whole plan was to photograph and compromise Kennedy and blackmail them into the way into the future. The problem was that traffic Aunty's helpers hadn't quite got the technology correct and so the photographs never ever came out, much to his ignignation, and that's why he was onto his

lawyer complaining. It's basically saying, if I'd only got the son of a bitch on camera, things would have been much different. He typically of the mob. Of course, he didn't blame his own kind of actions or his own management of the situation. He blamed the the colleagues who had tried to set up this minops mini camera to work and and stop, you know, and stop Kennedy literally and sexual action. Of course, he the colleague, was admonished

in a nasting way. But if Kennedy himself and his friends just carried on without any knowledge that they had been so close to being compromised, and I would think you imagine a future completely ruined before it had really began. In politics in America.

who was also a traffic ante. And throughout the years, Joe Kennedy manipulated people, he manipulated banks, he manipulated situations,

and he was it's now become clear. It's always been rumored that he was a kind of bootlegger during Prohibition, but over the years it's certainly been clear and clear, and certainly with freedom of information in the last ten fifteen years, there's been more detail come out about how close he was working with the mob, working and running his own booze which he imported into It came through into Boston, that came into New York, it came down

from Canada and some of the most prestigious speakeasies, kind of legendary names of going back to the nineteen twenties, of all those you think of all these old Warner Brothers gangster movies with Cagney and George Rapt, Kennedy could have been, could have been a player in any of these these movie scripts. He was that involved, but kept through again through connections through manipulation, as the sailing with

really was his middle name of the press. He became very friendly with Walter Winchell, so, you know, with Kennedy, if there was rumors or scandal about him, that was all quelled in the peer and favors were given. So Kennedy would give Winchell and others, including some of the big papers that Washington Post, New York Times, would give them the dirt and other people to keep himself looking very well, not squeaky clean, but looking clean enough to stay out, but to stay out of jail, stay out

of compromise. And he his his affiliations were always towards those in power. So he did favors, you know, with mobsters who were in power. He did favors for politicians who were in power. Early went on to do that and in a grand way with Roosevelt, who he supported for the presidency. Where at the same time, all the

time thinking of his own political ambition. When and of course the Boston dynasty begins through Joe Kennedy, they'd have been dirty tricks with his, with Fitzgerald's, with his wife Rose Fitzgerald's family in Boston politics. But later on he gets in there and he is using the money all the time to buy influence to buy votes, to buy elections, and this went on, would and would go on for decades,

and his family. His big ambition was for his eldest son, Joe Kennedy, to ultimately become president, and Joe Jr. Was very much trained for it, educated for it, as in second son, John Kennedy was in the slipstream of this, also being well educated and prepared for political office, but not the high office that he's that his older brother

was destined for the Second World War. When America entered the Second World War, very much against Joe Kennedy's fearsome, very fearsome opposition and lobbying against and Kennedy was sort of bought off in a way with giving the US ambassador to London. So he's in London. He's also at that I'm still fighting American involvement in the war. He's

championing appeasement. He's upsetting then MPs like Winston Churchill and Noodling to a degree, say Noodling, he's flirting with Hitler and trying to really see peace with America and letting Europe get on with the war and not involve the States. He did his reputation no good at all because of this. At the same time, he had the tragic thing of his son. Joe was flying with experimental flight with a lot of tea twenty thousand tons of TNT on board, right,

and that exploded over England, over Suffolk in England. So Joe Kennedy is tragically killed. Joe Kennedy Jr. That is, Joe Kennedy Senior, then goes back to the States with his tale between his legs, really but to keep him tweet and keep him sort of in the tent rather than outside the tent. Roosevelt looks after him with appointments there. But at that point, of course, the mantle of who

will become president of the family goes to JFK. And that's where again a whole not new but a newly revived campaign, political campaign begins, all centered again on Kennedy Kennedy, this time John Jack Kennedy and centered on Boston and getting him into into his high political on the ladder, the high political office.

the world. He took over her kind of love life and her professional life, and in terms of her business and making films. They were successful films, but basically Joe Joe Kennedy took all the money, made an absolute fortune in Hollywood, managed to all but bankrupt Gloria Swanson in the process was involved in rumors that he'd had people murdered, which was notch was was a nonsense, but it was.

He was such a disliked character and such a reckless and maverick in Hollywood that the whole of Hollywood was desperate to believe that he was going to be found guilty and stuck in the slammer. But his behavior with Glorious Swanson as the son of other women was just when you look back now, it seems beyond the It seems beyond the pair, because that by that time a large family, by then it had eight children. Rose Kennedy looked the other way. He was having affairs with all

with just about. He seemed to be with everybody, every woman he met, he seemed to go to bed with. But the ongoing relationship with Glorias Swanson was was quite incredible. He took the family. To appease the family, he took them all to the South of France, and it was kind of camped out there in some great stuff and luxury. And next door to him in the South of France, also staying in the next door villa was Marlinie Dietrich with her with her husband and his lover, his male

lover and her family. And of course then Joe Kennedy being Joe Kennedy, and I suppose district being Dietrich. They begin an affair then, and during that time there's a big society dance to science. The evening is staged, which Jack Kennedy is then, I think then twenty one, around about twenty one, and he is there and is entertained along with all the other kids and the people that sat there, and of course MARLINI Ditrich dances with him and sticks her hand down his trousers and tries to

arouse him. Well, and she's been sleeping with the father. I mean, it's just kind of beggar's belief when you see when you kind of see it in black and white now and you think, of course the influence on John Kennedy then, who later on sees his father in a kind of sexual clinch with glorious wantson. You do wonder just how much his own his own later for thundering. It was just a kind of stepping stone, you know, in his mind, it's just something you did as part of being a man.

Midwest money into that. There was money into Boston into clubs and warehouse a lot of warehousing as well, because obviously distribution is in a sense he was ahead of Amazon by UH decades and that they built the contribution centers for for booze and for you know, any kind of contraband. But the result but nightclubs he was involved in buying into nightclubs or a mob run he had percentages.

And then he was also into into Las Vegas and into putting money into clubs and in Vegas and mainly into one, you know, some of the big casinos.

But then Honduras was it was a wide open. Guatemala was wide open. They tried to get into Asia through that way with the idea was to get in from there and then get into Asia. And again Guatemala led to Cuba. Cuba again was just with Batista who was then running the country was corrupt again manipulated into taking a chunk of the gambling with the mob. So it's

a money machine gambling. Gambling attracted the people that could run and be tough, and that's what Joe Kennedy was, So he's investing in much of this as the mob is, and of course all the things that go along, all the prostitution, the protection, rackets, the illegalities where the money is made and the skin is made, all kind of

runs along with gambling. So you've got in sort of in tandem, you've got the mafia's empire is running in a very very swift way through the world, much as Kennedy's politics and business are running very very quickly as well and his influence. So you've got that kind of

too great dynasty. You've got the Kennedy dynasty, and you've got the Mob with their engines both fully you know, fully steamed up, and they're running through that early past half century of America, uh and then expanding as America expanded its influence throughout, you know, into Asia and elsewhere, the Mob were doing the same thing and and still are. I mean the Mob still you know, Aimed came into the UK, went into into Africa, they had they had

casinos running running early days in Russia. So it's it's it's it's expansionist. And strangely enough, for Joe Kennedy trying to be an isolationist during the war is completely expansionist when it comes to running as a business empire making a dollar. And that's the point, both with Joe Kennedy and with the Mafia where you got into trouble was there was somebody got in the way of either of

them in the business of making a dollar. If you let them just get on with it, there was never any trouble for people in their vicinity or working with them. It was only when authority or someone else you know, arrival came on the scene and wanted to get in the way.

in Guatemala. The government there was believed to be going well, not believed it was. It was becoming very socialist. They knew the president was a believer in giving everybody in the country a piece of land, a share, you know, a share, and their own lives and daily daily kind of likely of making a livelihood, and this was frowned upon. So he he is assassinated in Guatemala and the new kind of biggerhead has comes in who is is far more equable towards the politics of Washington. It's a repeat,

It's repeated a lot along the way. The mob has a hand in helping the governments. It's thought that the mob were we're kind of in the dark all the went through, but Lucky Liciano during the Second World War were partnered up with the government to protect the docks in New York because he had the influence as he keep the mobsters in there, and they kept the communists and they sort of what they saw as left wing

threats came down. So that continued after the war, continues in Cuba, well, continue in Guatemala, Honduras, and it certainly goes into Cuba until you know, until Castro takes power, until Batista is overthrown.

and we think that's how ridiculous and now amusing. Actually when you go through all the CIA documents through a freedom of information, when you go through the files, there is probably not a wacky idea that wasn't put forward as a plan to kill Castro, and still astonishes me how Castro survived because there were so many different plots and so many ways that he was going to be eliminated were very much extreme prejudice, but nothing ever happened.

The mob again, this guy called Johnny Rosselli, who was the mob's man in Hollywood from from the forties onwards. He was a very much a killer, cold blood it very quick but club, very street smart cluver, and he worked with the CIA, the FBI was monitored by by

Core Mike Rothmother's Los Angeles Police department. They kind of watched him all times because what he Rosselli was doing was usually what was was important in terms of heeneous crime and manipulation of events, and Rosselli was recruited to hit Castro and to set it all up. There have been so many different variations of of what happened or what tried to happen, but basically they there were several attempts. They was a sniper was taken into Cuba to Havana

and nearly got a shot off Castro. There was poisoned foods through an intrigue with a chef who was kind of blackmailed or compromised sexually. There was two or three attempts to kidnap Castro. One attempt in fact, they kidnap somebody who looked like Castro. They you could fill a book with all the various color It's like the Keiftone Cops. The way things went on very very basically. Everything went wrong because there were so many people trying to deny

that they were trying to do anything. You had the government who didn't want anybody to know that the mob were involved. You had the mob trying to cover up their involvement as well, because they want to keep in They're still they're playing two sides. They'd still the mob's most important thing to them was to get back into Cuba and get the gambling going can And they always thought if you know, if Patista was and then maybe

they could do a deal with Castro. Their belief to this day is that everybody is corruptible, so why wouldn't Castro be at some point. So it's a kind of mad cap carry on throughout the whole thing. And basically Castor when he is in power and when he takes power, and when Kennedy becomes president, is it's virtually coming his nose at him. And it makes the point to Kennedy publicly in a speech that Castro says on the record

that Cuba is no Guatemala. And of course, in Guatemala, the president had been killed in Paratemala by supposedly one of his own bodyguards who supposedly took his own life and who supposedly was a left wing communist sympathizer with ties to Moscow, and pamphlets were found in his apartment and supposedly commit indications between the killer, the assassin, and Moscow. As it turned out when everybody investigated, there seemed to be no connection between the bodyguard who supposedly did the

killing and any of this supposed communist sympathies. Basically, he was the patsy, he was the poor guy. He was the one who was found guilty, and the case was closed and the new president was put in. But if you look at the circumstances, and you look at Onto Dallas and you know not about many years later, six years later, the mirror, it kind of mirrors. It looks like a dry run when you with hindsight, it looks like a dry run for the Kennedy assassination.

they had the history of that. He's almost got thrown out the Navy through his father, through Joe Kennedy's influence, he stayed there. He was moved out of Washington to a less sensitive area. He continued the affair. He continued the affair in later years. There was always a he was very much a connection there. There was also a situation with a kind of communist ring in Washington, and

which again Kennedy has compromised and has an affair. It's covered up, it's smoothed over, but all the times there are people monitoring him, and the reckless behavior is it is astonishing. I mean, he had a very poorly controlled Addison's disease. He was given anabolic steroids for this. There has been psychiatric testimony in books and evidence and put

forward that this affected his thinking and so on. But you do have to wonder whether the consciences he with Joe Kennedy sor and with Jack Kennedy, because he's meeting women, he is having affairs with them while he is trying to become a senator, a congressman. He's doing it, doing it before he becomes a senator, He's doing it before he becomes president. He's doing it almost on the eve of his inauguration as president. He's doing it through continually

throughout his presidency. It's the it's almost when you're writing in the book, right you you reckless behavior, but you're almost thinking how many more women are there? I mean, it's it's it's how many more pages do you have to write about the women? Because it's almost an embarrassment of of of kind of riches in a sense of material.

But of course, the the mob wanted to get him early on, and and you know, traffic Anti's idea of photographing and compromising him in Cuba was a here perfectly legitimate idea from their point of view, which didn't work out. There were pictures of him taken outside an apartment of a lover in the middle of the night. This was

again all covered up. Pressure was put on from on high because it seems that nobody could quite comprehend what was happening the LAPD in California throughout the Kennedy's kind of association with California anytime the presidential not when he got the nomination in Los Angeles at sixty. The lap D is doing is basically covering up his affair with marlmon Roe. It's covering up his affair with other actressies

who some of couples still alive. He's covering up his tracks, basically looking after him, almost babysitting the candidate, then babysitting the president when he was in California, much as the

babysat Bobby Kennedy. You know, his brother who was then Attorney General and helped him and helped Bobby Kennedy with his work against the mob and his difficulties with covering up his brother's affairs, and of course all at this time the DAK Kennedy is heavily involved with Frank Sinatra with a movie set with the scandals, and not a word of this is appearing and in it was the head of it in European newspapers and magazines often blind items,

and the occasional blind item in American gossip columns, but certainly it's it's sanitized in terms of the mainstream.

So you've got two two conflicting bro brothers with two conflicting kind of ideals at that point, and the Joe as Kennedy seniors the whole time trying to pull his son back saying don't stop going after them, but hearing after hearing Bobby Kennedy in public, he abuses Sam Hannah, who is the mob boss in Chicago, probably the most powerful mafia man in America. He is friends Giacanna with Frank Sinatra. Gia Kanna is friends with Joe Kennedy Senior.

Jia Canna has promised Joe Kennedy Senior that he will help him buy votes and influence votes to put his son in the White House. At the same time, Bobby Kennedy is is what's the world? He is kind of belittling Sam Giacnna publicly laughing at him for having a shrill laugh and the voice at some hearings, angering and very much angering Sam gia Kanna, who isn't at this point in two minds where he will well, he will help.

So Joe Kennedy is then at this point having to blurt and promised make promises about gian Canna that the more that his son will back off from the mob, that if Kennedy becomes president, the mob will get an easy ride. There won't be this this terrible onslaught to have them put behind bars and basically to stop making money which was a great threat, always the great threat to the mob.

became extremely complicated and difficult. There were secret meetings between Jia Canna and Kennedy, Giacanna and Sinatra, Sinatra and Joe Kennedy, I mean Joe Kennedy met Sinatra in a golf course and they basically did a deal whereby the more the Mob would be entertained in their request to have an easy time in return for her votes or vote manipulation.

What complicated all of this was that one Sinatra evening in Las Vegas, Jack Kennedy had been campaigning and been introduced to one of Sinatra's girlfriends, a lady called Judith Exner. Now Judith Exner became an obsession with John Kennedy unfortunately for Kennedy. Well an interesting way, I mean for history. Really, she was also the mistress of Sam Jiacana, the mafia boss.

So there we have it that the future president and later the President of the United States is sleeping with the same woman as the head of the godfather of the Chicago mafia. It's probably one of the more lunative tri sexual triangles in American history. But of course it gave a lot of power to the other great figure of this whole era, j Edgar Hoover, who if the Los Angeles Police Department and Intelligence Division had dirt on starlets and politicians, it was only their collection was only

rival by that of Hoover. And Hoover he had wide taps on everybody. He knew who Giacana was speaking to. He knew that the Kennedys were speaking to. There are tapes of these conversations, you know, Mike Rothmanther and I had access to some conversations that were had which which basically what they do is they back up the connection, they back up the support, and they validate lots of rumor, because if you've got the voices, you've got the of

people as speaking and plotting. You don't really hear people plotting assassinations or or or detail of great nefarious activity. But you hear them discussing, manipulating events and being being kind to each other and doing people a favor, very careful on how and what they do. But it's it's a kind of it's a language. It's a language of it's like a chess language of chess. It's a sign language. And they know how to move the pieces just by an inference of pause or the mention of a certain name.

And I think that's so you've got running the kind of American underworld or that underbelly of of of government. The whole time you have these these a different government. You have an underworld government working at the same pace as the the Washington government. What today people would call it deep state and have all kinds of names for it, in conspiracy and so on. But then it was far more blatant. Was it was kept away from the public. Certainly,

people in Washington knew what was going on. People around the Kennedy White House knew what was going around. People around Joe Kennedy knew what was happening. It's like Jack Kennedy, he didn't hide. Prinstance, the sex thing which today today without the me too movements and so on, Kennedy just cuddling an intern would have been would have it would

have been seen him out the door. Whereas then at that time he's having sex with different in terns on different days, sometimes two in the same day, and then having someone else visiting him in the evening. It kind of begs belief, where were the secret Service? Who's what is going on here? And this is all happening as

though it was acceptable. I think by the kind of the latter end of the Kennedy residency, a lot of these things had happened in the late fifties and had happened during his term in office, were beginning to oh kind of brush into the freeway, so that they were coming in the freeways, be coming into one lane, and eventually there was that lane was going to smacking everybody on that all the traffic was going to smash up

to something. Because I don't think it could have been the lids could have been kept on it much longer. And obviously political opponents and they knew about it, they knew things, so the dirt would certainly I think would have come out in some sort of you know, the next election would have been thrown around.

Marlon is then married to Joe DiMaggio, a baseball star who is who they meet at that when Kennedy sort of quite obviously is flirting with Domaggio's wife to Magic, gets very angry about it, takes Marlon away, but but Kennedy has got hold of Marlon's telephone number during their conversation, and the approaches made of the affair begins and carries on great lenth she she then Marlon is obsessed with Kennedy as he is with her, and she's back in California.

Kennedy's and watching, and there are many many phone calls logged from Marlon to the White House and to Bobby Kennedy as well. Marlon gets involved sexually with Bobby Kennedy. They becomes a kind of a real turmoil for everybody involved in it because she is used basically by the Kennedys as a plaything. The promises are made. She you know,

famously sings Happy Birthday, mister President. But that evening after the Happy Birthday, Mister President performance, she is disabused by the by Bobby Kennedy that they will have anything to do with her. I mean, she at that stages thinks that they that Bobby Kennedy will leave his wife for her, that Jack Kennedy might come back to her. You know, it's a whole messy, messy thing. And she's also threatening to go public later on and throws various tantrums, mainly

tantrums on the telephone. In an earlier book I did with Mike Rothmeller, Mike had the OCID files on the death of marlonon Row and Peter Lawford. In that book, Peter Lawford explains how he went with Bobby Kennedy to Marlin's home in Brentwood and just outside Los Angeles and confronted Marlin about what she was wasn't going to say,

I'll go public with the weekend that Marlon died. In the book, it explains how love for how it went back, and that Bobby Kennedy gave Marlon a passive the camera down a glass containing something, and within seconds or very certainly within within a minute, Marlon was commotos and very quickly afterwards Lorford said she was dead and they left the premises, at which point the L A P. D O c I D Squad read by Captain James Hamilton,

came in. And Hamilton was a great friend of Bobby Kennedy's and had protected Kennedy family and began the cover up which went on to us for sixty years. So the the the Marlmon Row thing hole, when I say thing, the whole relationships was about to explode at the time of Marlon's death, and kind of the suspicions, the rumor and the kind of the detriatis from that from that situation, it hang around like a very bad smell right the way all the way across America to Washington from then on.

And I think it did color a lot of the attitudes towards Kennedy because whether you believe they were instrumental directly instrumental in her death, people people believe that they had in some way put her in harm's way. And I think that was the kind of start of the tarnishing of Camelot, if you like, of the of this

golden this golden Kennedy era. And of course they the assassination of Kennedy, and I think that is the kind of brings down a courton, a sort of iron courton on all the scandal, all the bad behavior, the reckless behavior of Kennedy, of Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, of Teddy Kennedy. It certainly if Joe Kennedy senior, because the you know, the assassination is such a shocking event. I mean, it's

on telligence. I mean it's it's still today. You can you can majority of people can imagine it, can see in their own mind that footage because it's been played so many times, and it's it's it's it's because we view it through that that event, the history of the Kennedy's, I think for decades, the myth that has been allowed to sort of predominate in our thinking and and her view of of what what happened. It's only now and

it's it's I think people were cynical then. I think were possibly time is allowed America to catch up with the rest of the world and being more cynical about what the Kennedys were about about the And I keep using the one manipulation, and I think and it was, I mean they manipulating themselves. They used their own charm, their own their kind of good look, their ability to

talk to anyone, to convince anybody of their argument. And they There's an interesting theory put forward to it that quit strange enough by the wives who I'm sure Kennedy flirted with, of all his kind of white house colleagues and associates, his political supporters, that all the men, all their their husbands, and their brothers, their uncles and fathers,

they all wanted to please Kennedy as well. They all wanted to be part of the inner circle, to be to get that beaming smile, to get a pattern that he was a great one for patting people on the shoulder or taking them by the arm, that tactical or tactile kind of of association. And because of that they the charm overrode all the all the you know, they kind of misdeeds if you like. And I think his his you know, they talk about Camelot and the chivalry

and the knights and round table all the stuff. But you think how unchivalrous was the treatment of the women who were used and and and kind of h then discarded without much of a thought. And I think people were as well if someone was I think the case of Lyndon Johnson, who was helpful to the Kennedys in getting Texas to vote for Kennedy and get Tennis, well, basically Lyndjohn's helping get in the White House with the Texas vote, but then he's he sidelined Lin John's sideline

until he is useful again in certain situations. So the the the history of the Kennedys is not a good one. Peter Lawford is that. I think it's an interesting metaphor for that they used him. He married into the family, he's a favored son in law, he or well, he pimps, no question about it. He pimps for for for the Kennedys. Shirley Annefield, who was a British actress, was seen on The Johnny Carson Show by Jack Kennedy, who've fancied her.

He gets Peter Laufer to invite her to a presidential event and she, I mean I talked to her at good length about it. She had no illusions that he wanted to go to bed with her. She avoided that on their first meeting official because she was filming the next day and kind of sidestepped that assignation because her agents said, don't get involved, you'll just be tagged as

another actress who slept with Jack Kennedy. And shortly afterwards she's invited out to Peter Lawford's place in Santa Monica and California where Kennedy will be for a party, and so she it was just ongoing. So Peter Laffer, you know, he provides Marlon Roe, he tries to provide her man Field, He provides countless other actresses. But when low Food's time, kind of he's divorced. He's no longer a member of the Kennedy family. Jack that he has been assassinated. Bobby

Kennedy's been assassinated. Peter Lowford when he dies in the Alley nineteen eighty four of the He's interred in Westwood Memorial Park, strange enough around the corner from marlmon Roe on the thing. The bill for this this kind of space is put down to the Kennedy family that they will they will meet the bills of Peter Lowford's life or after life, I should say, in West Hollywood.

off its tail, they would cut off its head. Tell us about this incredible conversation.

I'd been abused and disabused by Bobby Kennedy's authorities. And they have a conversation with Carlos Marcello, Sam Giacana, Rosselli, Johnny Rozil and various other MOB figures, but Smartcello basically saying, you know, in the Sicilian way, you have to you know, if you want to you have to get rid of Bobby Kennedy, who's wagging the tails. You have to cut off their heads, which is JFK. And therefore that would be their revenge and their retribution for what they believed

was that the ultimate betrayal they they had delivered. And that's the one thing you can't do to save the Mob. You make a promise, you keep to the promise, and you certainly don't betray them. And they felt they had been severely betrayed by JFK. And all the documents, all the files now languishing, and all kinds of of the

people basically museums now. But when you hunt it all out and put it all together, the documents are there which indicate, I think with much doubt that the the Mafia were instrumental in arranging and organizing the fascination of John F. Kennedy.

a stoop in their vernacular, stool pigeon. Roselli played golf on a pretty regular basis in Flowlia, and then one day he's found his body in a oil drum floating in the ocean and had been basically assassinated in such a way to send a message with you bullets shot in the head, and that was the end of Johnny roletse Early, who had been for many many years one of the sort of top lieutenants in the American Mob.

Sam gia Kanna was about to had never really said anything or publicly or potentially implicated anybody else, but there was again there was this great fear. There was so much pressure on him to fear before Congress and to give testimony and to tell the truth about what had happened about the assassination. Because if there had been at that time, if you can imagine the outcry and the the the kind of the whole government enterprise that would

come down and dump on top of the mob. I mean, they would not been able to operate in anywhere at all. So Giacana was again he was at home in Chicago and cooking his supper himself when a hitman came in and again in a very mob fashion, short and very professionally, two or three times he and he is dead. So all those kind of loose ends. There were several other names, incidental names, people who may have known bodies that were

suddenly certainly found mysterious assassinations or killings. And they only last week and here we are in twenty twenty four Mike Rothmo was telling me that law enforcement people he knows in Nevada because of climate change, have been watching the waters and lake meat go down and so far

that somebodies have been appearing. And he said, basically bodies anymore, but they anticipate finding bodily remains and more often as the waterline goes down, because the mob do tidy up, carry up, the mistakes and potential potential hazards are made to go away, and the easiest way to get It's the old thing. If two people have a secret, if one is dead, you know that somebody there's not a secret to be held anymore.

I don't think the more he was blown up, I think seventy six because basically the again, the hierarchy of the all believed he was skimming off the take in Vegas, and they weren't, you know, they weren't getting the full return. So it's it's it spins that the story. The character's changed, but the kind of theme of the story tends to

say the same throughout. And again you look at the corruption, you know, we hear about, we read about today in foreign countries, in Washington and London, in Moscow, the oligarchs and so on. It's it's an ongoing correlation between power, a criminal enterprise, which one has the upper hand and at any given time and the Kennedy's h people said to you know, reviewers of the Book of a Reckless have said, the well, it was a different era, it

was a different time, people had different attitudes. But I can't I still can't equate what you would have thought American or world or any just decency and treatment of

bare minded treatment of people is an ongoing thing. And I don't think there were any different people at that time, but just the ones who you know we're writing about and talking about today were in their ways corrupt, often despicable people who for their own aggrandizement or benefit power for money, sexual lease of our sexual enjoyment, we're willing

to use other people and to abuse them. And I suppose if there's any there are a great lessons from uh, from reckless of and the thing with that, I think it seems so much more enormous now because you have the ability after decades of of of freedom of information, of interviews of people feeling willing to speak and to come forward with information that you you've got the detail of the activities of the Kennedies off the mob of the very you know, not just big time hitment, but

all the little pawns and people moving around. And because of that, and they're all put together in one in one volume, if you like, it seems like an indictment because and it seems because it's happening, and it happens

over what is a relatively short period of time. You know, the Joe Kennedy, it's it's you've got a power structure over decades, but with John Kennedy, you're really looking at over you know, less than twenty years, maybe even just fifteen years of political influence and an activity, but so much, so much is put in eye. And I understand the argument that after the Second World War, the war, you know, the world is readjusting, you're trying to find itself again.

But it's the opportunist who took over. And it's the opportunist who were running a button reckless and who were talking about because they became the the the leading figures of the time became you know, they became the bosses.

everything else. That of course, the Kennedy is assassinated, Bobby Kennedy is but the world it moves on very quickly. I'm not saying that new bad guys appear just as much as new good guys. But there's a triumph and that that the system still seems to over overwhelm the people who try and abuse it.