Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- I believe that an operation should never be undertaken

unless it can be done so in the deepest,

most permanently impenetrable secrecy.

- It's all right if it isn't disclosed?

- Ever.

- The same ethos exists for both the CIA and the Mafia.

You have to keep secrets.

- With the Mob, the code is,

you don't talk to the authorities.

- I refuse to answer on the grounds

it might tend to incriminate me.

- I respectfully decline to answer the question

upon the ground that the answer may tend to incriminate me.

- I will claim the privilege of the Fifth Amendment

and decline to answer.

- There's nothing worse than someone who flips

and becomes a government witness.

- There's this famous thing that Tony Accardo,

the head of the Chicago Mob, said.

A fish doesn't get caught if he keeps his mouth shut.

* *

- But Johnny Roselli has problems with the feds.

The feds now have this dark secret

of what his real name and background was.

- His big secret is out.

- The authorities leaned on Roselli

kind of like, you feel like getting deported?

You feel like going to prison?

- Johnny is considering all the different ways

that he could avoid both results.

One of the possibilities is,

he reveals the big secret

that the CIA was involved with the Mafia

to try to kill Castro.

And as part of it, he was helping

the federal government.

- To even think about talking about this

was dangerous and puts his life at great risk.

- The worst thing that could happen

is to have your secrets spilled.

The Mafia understood this.

CIA understood this.

- If you talk, you die.

It's that simple.

- But with pressure mounting,

someone is going to cave,

and it will be a filthy mess from which

the United States government never recovers.

* *

[suppressed gunshot]

* *

- There's one weekend at Cal Neva

that leads to Sam Giancana's downfall.

Giancana starts a fistfight

with his girlfriend Phyllis McGuire's manager.

Giancana wasn't even supposed to be there.

- Giancana is banned from being in

any casino in the state of Nevada.

- It becomes a big tabloid display in "Life" magazine

and newspapers all around the country.

[jazz music]

* *

So Tony Accardo reclaims the leadership

of the Chicago Mob.

[indistinct dialogue over TV]

- Giancana's removed as the operating boss.

He becomes just another Outfit member.

He's not in any sort of major leadership role.

* *

- After the fiasco at Cal Neva,

the feds start checking out the finances of this place.

- Course, you're not gonna see Sam Giancana's name

on any of the paperwork,

but he was partners with Frank Sinatra in the Cal Neva.

Not legally, of course.

[reporters clamoring]

- The FBI said, we will

give you immunity

if you talked about the Mob.

- Roemer later explains, "If he lied,

"we can get him for perjury.

"If he told the truth,

his associates would get him."

- If you talk, you end up dead.

[dramatic music]

- He would not talk.

He would not.

* *

- Sam spends the next year behind bars.

* *

- Meanwhile Johnny Roselli

has his own problems with the feds.

They're building a case against him

based upon what they found out

about his illegal immigration status.

But then things get even worse for Johnny

when his name comes up

in yet another scandal.

- The Friars Club is a show business

fraternity-sorority in Beverly Hills.

It's a bunch of these alta cocker comedians

kind of sitting around, talking to each other.

- At the Friars Club, they had a card room.

- Gin rummy was particularly popular.

- That's where the money was.

If you played in that game, then you could do well,

or you could do really bad.

- You're not supposed to gamble

at these games for money.

It's illegal in California.

But of course, people did.

- You couldn't have money on the tables,

so it was all done with little white scraps of paper.

I mean, I'm talking, like, hundreds of thousands

of dollars changing hands over gin rummy.

- You had to be a member or you had to be sponsored

by a member to get in.

Now, Roselli was not a member.

Frank Sinatra was the club abbot.

He had vouched for Roselli.

And that was Roselli's in

to get behind those closed doors

and take part in those high-stakes gin rummy games.

- Eventually one of the friars thought,

we can cheat, and nobody's gonna know it.

It's gonna be flawless.

[drill whirring]

[indistinct chatter]

They would have a device hooked up

to one of the guys at the table,

and there would be a little code.

The guy in the attic is basically saying

who's got what cards.

- They ended up making a lot of money with the scam,

and word kind of got out around

that there was a fix in.

And then that's when Roselli's ears got piqued,

and he kind of muscled in, and he said, I want a 1/5 cut.

- If Johnny Roselli wants to be in on this scam,

he's gonna be in on the scam.

It's the bully in the schoolyard.

Nobody is gonna say, no, we don't want him.

The FBI had been tailing Johnny Roselli.

They were parked outside the Friars Club,

so they saw a guy climbing out of the skylight onto the roof.

* *

- And that's how they find out,

hey, there's this whole scam going on,

and they've been ripping off celebrities

and members for five years already.

- Johnny's cut was $400,000 by that point.

People lost a ton of money.

- Harry Karl was a shoe magnate who was,

my mother, Debbie Reynolds' second husband.

He's one of the wealthiest guys.

He loved playing cards, and he loved,

more than anything else, gambling.

- Debbie Reynolds told me about Harry Karl

and how he lost so much money.

Debbie Reynolds lost a fortune because of that man.

And you had Phil Silvers, Zeppo Marx,

a couple other biggies lost a lot of money

in that scandal.

- The FBI ended up indicting Johnny Roselli

with some other people.

[tense music]

* *

- He's already got the immigration battle

that comes to a head when he's convicted on that charge.

And now, at the same time, he's got the Friars Club

investigation in which he's eventually convicted

and facing sentencing.

- So he decides, maybe if the judge knows I'm a patriot,

he'll give me some leniency.

He tells his lawyer he's been doing

a lot of work for the CIA.

- He puts his life at great risk.

- His lawyer thinks it's a good idea

to bring in Robert Maheu to testify.

They put him on the stand, and they ask him to verify

that Johnny Roselli was working for the CIA

and that he was doing his patriotic duty

by trying to kill Fidel Castro.

- Maheu testifies,

"I don't know what you're talking about"...

* *

Betraying Roselli.

* *

Even if Roselli's claim was true,

the judge decides,

"I don't think Mr. Roselli is entitled to brownie points.

"I am not going to concede that a court

"should give credit to a person

who attempts the assassination of anybody."

* *

- Johnny's in deep trouble.

If he doesn't do something fast,

he's going to jail.

[upbeat music]

* *

- By the mid-'60s, there are still

anti-Castro operations going on

by people like Tony Varona and Manuel Artime.

- The Cuban exile community

never stopped trying to retake Cuba,

even after the Bay of Pigs.

- But LBJ has decided to get out

of the assassination business

and also stop the boom-and-bang operations.

- I think the Kennedy administration came to an end,

and the operations that continued under Lyndon Johnson

quickly unraveled.

It was clear that Operation Mongoose

had completely failed.

- They closed down Operation Mongoose.

Places like Zenith, the phony front

that's being run by the CIA, that's closed down.

- The CIA, I think, had suffered from exile fatigue.

The exile leaders were all fighting among themselves.

It just was not a professional group.

- You're not backed by CIA or any organization, are you?

- Well, I might--I've heard rumors to that effect,

but nobody can prove it.

- The CIA's proposal was that they would

set up a new base in Central America

for the Cuban exiles.

They would give the exiles some guns and some Jeeps,

and that's it.

They would not direct them,

and they would be autonomous.

And the United States could claim a distance.

[thunder booming, rain pattering]

[dramatic music]

[telegraph beeping]

- [speaking Spanish]

- These autonomous exile militants

mistook a Spanish freighter for a Cuban boat.

- They sank the ship with CIA-supplied equipment,

causing a huge international scandal.

* *

And it basically led to a significant retreat

of the U.S. support for the exile movement.

- Another die-hard CIA official in Miami

concluded that "the bearded devil had won the war."

* *

- Dad was in jail for a year

because of the Fifth Amendment that he had taken,

and then as soon as he got out,

he did leave for Mexico.

He figured there was a lot of trouble brewing

around Chicago.

[airplane engine roaring]

[upbeat music]

* *

- Giancana lived at this castle.

It was in the mountainside of Mexico City.

I forget what it was called.

It had, like, a saint's name, right,

the villa that he lived in?

- While Sam was away from everything,

he just calmed down.

He was very wonderful.

He would go into the garden and start gardening.

I mean, this is the temperament

he was getting into.

I remember going to all of these restaurants,

and he'd just sit and enjoy himself.

[light piano music]

- You're in your 60s or 70s.

You're saying, hey, I could have romantic relationships.

I could have food. I could have music.

I could do whatever.

You know, at some point,

you want to just live your life.

- He lived like a king, but he was also invisible.

Nobody knew what Sam was up to.

- He was doing a lot of international business.

He was working with the shah of Iran

and put a casino in Tehran.

He was doing this on his own.

- Roselli later explained about Sam:

"This guy's having a ball.

"As far as he's concerned,

"he never wants to go back to Chicago.

"'My investments are sound,' he told me.

"'I'm enjoying this new life.

"'Let the cocksuckers back there

"'knock each other off all they want.

Who cares?'"

* *

[soft music]

- Meanwhile, for Roselli, things are not going well.

He's broke and facing five years in jail.

* *

- Johnny still has a wild card up his sleeve.

Hoping to get leniency from the court,

he's gonna tell his story to the press.

Roselli promised never to reveal his life as a spy,

but this situation now has left him desperate.

[sly music]

He sets up a meeting with his lawyer

and the columnist Jack Anderson.

- Jack Anderson was an investigative reporter.

He was the Woodward and Bernstein

of the pre-Watergate era.

- Johnny wants to make sure that he never is caught

specifically speaking to the press,

so he tells the whole story to his lawyer.

Anderson sits listening to this.

- Roselli's sending out a message

that this isn't me doing this,

that this is me passing it to someone

who chooses to pass it to someone else

who chooses to publish it.

This is a lot different than me being, oh, I'm a baby,

and I'm gonna fold for the government.

Anderson is writing it all down,

and he puts it all in his newspaper column.

- "The full story reads like the script

"of a James Bond movie, complete with secret trysts

at glittering Miami Beach hotels."

- The Anderson column is a sensation.

And while it doesn't get Johnny out of jail...

It causes problems in many different places,

and suddenly there are ripples all about this scandal.

- The floodgates started opening in the early '70s.

All sorts of intelligence abuses

start coming out in the media, in "The New York Times,"

"Ramparts" magazine, CBS News.

- Authorizing CIA excursions into everything

from simple propaganda

to the overthrow of unfriendly governments.

- They were reporting on CIA and FBI covert actions

that were sometimes criminal, sometimes completely unethical.

They included things like spying on Martin Luther King,

infiltrating domestic political groups,

student groups around the world.

The CIA was involved in assassination efforts.

That's when Congress

started digging into this.

- In 1973, just as Congress begins to examine the CIA,

Roselli is released from prison

more than two years early

for, of all things, good behavior.

- Sam lived in Mexico for eight years.

By that point, he's an old man.

He has some health problems.

And then the Mexican government in 1974

decides they don't like him anymore.

- The president of Mexico was trying to reach out

to Castro's government,

hoping that there would be a visit between them.

But having Sam Giancana in Mexico

with all of these rumors about the attempts to kill Castro

made it impossible for Mexico to allow

Giancana to remain there.

[tense music]

One day, the Mexican authorities

suddenly arrive at Giancana's mansion.

* *

- He was in his robe.

He was in his slippers.

He was in his socks.

I mean, my God, they actually had people

pick him up physically and put him on a plane

to bring him back to Chicago.

- They deport him in that very--

in that very abrupt fashion.

[airplane engine roaring]

[tires screeching]

- In Chicago, he comes into the airport,

and there to greet him is his longtime nemesis,

the FBI agent Bill Roemer.

* *

- Giancana sighed, "I should have known

"you were behind all this.

"I'm out of it, so please, just leave me alone.

If it takes an apology, then this is it."

Roemer later wrote, "At that moment,

I realized that I had won."

* *

- Following all the revelations

of the abuse of law enforcement agencies,

like the CIA,

the Church Committee was created.

- Frank Church was a young and ambitious senator from Idaho

who became chairman of an investigating committee

in the U.S. Senate that was aimed at probing

the background of CIA destabilization

and particularly assassination plots.

- I find it reprehensible

that any agency of the government

of the United States should ever have engaged

in an assassination attempt against any foreign leader

of any country with which the United States

was in peaceful relations.

- Up to then, the intelligence committees

were usually quite deferential to the CIA and the FBI.

But after these revelations, reform-minded members

of Congress said, we got to get a better grip

on what the intelligence community is doing.

So this was a complete sea change.

- This was Colby's third day of testimony

before the Senate committee on a single subject,

covert operations, including possible involvement

in assassination plots.

- It was through the Church Committee

that most Americans became aware

of these plots for the first time.

There's a famous photograph of Frank Church holding up

one of these gizmo, James Bond super pistols

that was crafted for some kind of assassination attempt.

- Does this pistol fire the dart?

- Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman.

- Church was representing a genuine desire

on the part of many Americans to figure out

whether the CIA had gone wild.

Was it a rogue elephant?

- There were stories that were broken

about the Castro assassination attempts using the Mafia.

Now they wanted to hear from the mouth of these mobsters.

So the Church Committee in 1975 called Johnny Roselli

and Sam Giancana to testify.

- The idea that Roselli and Giancana

could talk to the Church Committee,

traditionally, you've cast your vote to die

when you did that in the Italian Mafia.

There was a commitment that you were loyal to the organization

and you would never sacrifice the organization

for your life.

- At this point,

Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana

have traveled a long road together.

Johnny tells Sam that he's broke

and that he needs help with his legal fees.

Sam generously offers him help.

Then the conversation takes a much darker turn.

Sam gives Johnny a warning.

He's very concerned about the closeness Johnny

still has with Trafficante.

Sam doesn't trust Trafficante.

But Johnny still has that loyalty to Trafficante.

He feels that he's still a friend.

In fact, when Johnny went to jail,

Trafficante helped out Johnny's family.

Roselli just has trouble believing that his friend

could betray him.

* *

- In Chicago, Giancana's still got his house

that he bought in 1945.

There's been a caretaker family staying there

while he was down in Mexico.

He leaves the caretaker family in the first floor.

He makes the basement his living area,

and that's the area that he uses when he meets with people.

[jazzy music]

[wolf howls]

- * I'm lucky *

* So lucky the arrow missed my heart *

- Late one night, Sam decided to cook himself a meal.

- Most Italian friends of mine,

if it comes around 10:00 at night,

they want a snack.

And that snack is gonna be pasta, sausage, and peppers.

- * I know that love's a lark *

[knock at door]

- Somebody came to the door.

- It would have been someone that he trusted.

- * It's just a tragic picture show *

- * Hey, Cupid, don't be stupid *

* She's lovely as can be *

* I'm beggin' you, don't point that thing at me *

* *

- The assassin put six bullets into Sam's mouth

to send a message.

- * Hey, Cupid, really off your mark *

- If you talk, squeal, give up our secrets,

you're gonna wind up just like he did.

[dramatic music]

- You can't escape from that area in which he was killed.

You'd have to run from the front to the back

to get out of the house.

- Sam Giancana, the Chicago crime syndicate chieftain

recently named in a reported CIA-Mafia plot

to assassinate Fidel Castro, has been shot to death.

- Giancana's execution, police said,

was so big it, had to come from the syndicate dons

in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

- Tony Accardo doesn't like Giancana, hasn't for years.

And, mm, maybe Sam will go, show up at that committee,

and not say anything that'll hurt us.

That's one probability. Other probability?

Maybe he will go and say something that'll hurt us.

- Even though it seems unlikely that Giancana would have

spoken, that he would have betrayed his brethren,

there was enough concern about it

that it looks to me like the Chicago Outfit wanted

to put him out of commission.

- Johnny bitterly blamed the Chicago Outfit

for sanctioning such treachery

against one of its own:

"They fucking killed a dead man.

Sam could barely climb a short flight of stairs."

* *

- After Giancana's killed, the Senate investigators

now suspect that Trafficante

or some of his well-armed Cuban exile friends

carried out the murder.

- The gun, which was thrown out a couple of blocks away

from the murder scene, is traceable to a gun place

down in Florida.

- But it's pretty much accepted that he's killed

because of internal Outfit politics

and he's killed by someone he knows

that's in the house with him that night.

- By far, the likeliest suspect was Butch Blasi.

Blasi had been inside the Outfit for years--

Giancana's driver-bodyguard.

And he's the sort of guy Giancana knew forever

who'd--trusts him so much, he turns his back on him.

Sometimes in organized crime,

that's exactly the guy they send to kill you.

* *

- Butch Blasi was a very dear friend of my father's.

In fact, they were almost like brothers.

You know, my father did a lot for Butch.

Butch lived very well because of my father.

So I don't believe Butch Blasi would

do anything to my father.

- * I know that love's a lark *

- I believe the CIA killed my father that night.

That door to the basement was open almost 24 hours a day.

[suspenseful music]

They might have been able to sneak in.

They could have been hiding down there.

* *

[suppressed gunshot] [body thuds]

Who has more to lose, the CIA or the Mob?

CIA.

* *

They were afraid that he would squeal on them.

- If, in fact, there's any truth to the CIA involvement,

perhaps his own peers are afraid that he

might be subpoenaed before a congressional committee.

And they would not want him to appear there

for reasons of their own,

principally, not to engender any more publicity.

- Although friends and relatives

of the slain gangster

were on hand to pay their last respects,

Outfit bigwigs were conspicuous by their absence

at the services.

Apparently, syndicate majordomos

had passed the word to their soldiers to stay away.

- Roselli is not there.

Maheu's not there.

Trafficante's not there.

Sinatra is not there.

Accardo's not there.

None of the people that have been in Sam's life

in the last few years are there except one person.

* *

- Phyllis McGuire was on an airplane to go to Europe,

and she heard of my father's wake.

So they turned the plane around.

Phyllis came into Chicago to come to the wake,

and she stayed with us, which was very, very nice.

You know, you can't condemn everybody

all the time for certain things.

You've got to find the goodness in some of them.

- Certainly, I think, by the time of his death,

they had moved on from each other.

- Roemer wrote, "I give her credit.

She had the guts to be seen at his funeral."

- Giancana was to be buried next to his wife, Angeline,

in the family mausoleum in Mount Carmel Cemetery.

Ironically, the cemetery contains

the remains of Giancana's one-time boss Al Capone.

* *

- Following Giancana's murder, the Senate committee

is concerned about Roselli's safety.

Investigators decided

to take a statement from Roselli immediately

and to move up his scheduled appearance

before the full committee by a few days.

- Roselli doesn't flinch about testifying:

"They're not gonna do anything to me.

"If they want to kill me, they're gonna kill me.

But they're not going to scare me."

But this isn't what he tells the FBI.

In a memo, an FBI agent recounts,

"It is my recollection that on at least one occasion,

"in the presence of Senator Howard Baker, Jr.,

"Roselli told the senator that he was concerned

"for his safety and his life

"and that he was risking his well-being

by testifying before the committee."

- Johnny Roselli's not an idiot.

If he wasn't scared, there's something wrong with him.

[dramatic music]

* *

- Roselli appears before the Senate investigators.

There is a lot of security all around.

During his testimony, Johnny acknowledges what he knows

about the Castro assassination plot,

but he doesn't go beyond what he already

has told Jack Anderson.

The senators are very anxious to find out more.

In fact, Senator Barry Goldwater

starts quizzing Johnny on specifics

about the Castro plot,

and Johnny sits back and says...

- "Senator, in my business, we don't take notes."

- When Senator Walter Mondale asked who in higher office

wants Castro dead, Johnny wraps himself in the flag.

- "I don't ask any questions how high.

"I was satisfied that I was doing a duty for my country.

I did it for honor and dedication."

- He's very careful not to name who's working with him.

He takes a lot of effort not to implicate

former CIA agent Bill Harvey.

He really does consider Harvey a friend.

He feels that Harvey really was down there

to try to do a job.

* *

During his testimony, Johnny is also asked

about Judy Campbell, and he tries his best

to protect her by taking the high road.

- "I do not know what Judith Campbell

"has to do with this thing.

"You know, it's a little disgusting to me,

"because I really don't like to talk

"about these things, women.

"You are talking about the White House

"and Judith Campbell and all this.

"If it was so, I was not present,

so it would be hearsay on my part if I did hear it."

- Johnny denies using Judy as a courier

to send messages to Sam Giancana.

- Roselli jokes, "I would not give my mother

a message to give to Sam."

- The relationship between Roselli and Judy Campbell

almost parallels the relationship

with the Cuban exiles.

I think he had the same sort of sense of loyalty

that he had with the other people

that he saw were in trouble.

I think his heart goes to her because she had walked

into a dangerous game, and he understood

that she was really naive.

[indistinct chatter]

- Today the Senate CIA investigators

heard testimony from underworld figure John Roselli

about an alleged CIA-Mafia plot

to assassinate Fidel Castro.

- Camera shy and heavily guarded,

as might be expected after Sam Giancana's death,

Roselli slipped up and down back stairs at the Capitol,

trying to avoid the press.

Before the Senate committee waiving immunity,

Roselli was fully cooperative.

For 2 1/2 hours, he told of plotting with the CIA,

starting in 1960, to try to kill Castro

by poison, by rifle, trying to land hit teams

by powerboat--

one of the boats sunk by a Cuban patrol vessel.

Chairman Frank Church found Roselli's firsthand account

vivid but not complete.

- He did fill out the chronology

and gave us a great deal of detail.

- What Roselli didn't know was who gave the CIA its orders.

And it's because of this vagueness of command channels

that the Senate Committee is fighting with the White House

over National Security Council and other documents.

* *

- Even though publicly, Johnny Roselli

was saying he wasn't scared,

the Mob knows about your appearances

before the grand jury.

Sam Giancana has already been killed.

You have to be nervous.

- Someone asks if he worries for his safety.

Roselli replies, "Who'd want to kill an old man like me?"

* *

- Johnny doesn't have much money at this time.

And eventually, he can't afford his legal bills.

He's forced to give up his posh lifestyle

in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas

to live with his sister down in Florida.

* *

He can live a more relaxed life

and not have to worry whether or not

there's assassins in the hedgerow there.

* *

I think what happens in Roselli's later life

is that he says, I'm gonna live my life

in a certain kind of peace and equanimity.

Johnny's found out that his good friend Bill Harvey

has dropped dead of a heart attack.

Johnny calls Harvey's widow.

[line ringing]

- Roselli assures her over a landline,

"Any help you need, anything, you just tell me."

- A sense of mortality and dread

now hangs over Johnny's life.

- He starts ruminating on what his life amounted to.

He thinks of all the sins he committed as a wiseguy

and how he tried to make amends for those sins

by being a soldier in a war against communism,

only to be thwarted by someone he thought was a friend.

* *

- One night, Johnny gets together with Jimmy Fratianno,

his old mobster pal.

- Roselli says to his friend Fratianno,

"Remember when Santo was jailed

"and they grabbed his money when Castro came into power,

then suddenly he was released with all his money?"

"Shimon thinks he's a Castro agent

"spying on Cubans in Florida.

"Sam shared that suspicion.

"That's why Santo sat on his ass

and did nothing with all that shit we gave him."

"He was probably reporting everything

to Castro's agents."

* *

[gunshot]

* *

According to an FBI memo, Roselli tells an acquaintance

that he would like to go back to the church

and would like to make his peace with God.

- At the end of his life,

he returns to something

that meant a great deal to him early on,

which is Catholicism.

[choir singing in Latin]

Don't forget, he takes his name

from a Renaissance painter

that did religious figures in the Sistine Chapel.

[match strikes, fizzes]

* *

- [blows sharply]

- I think he was at peace about what probably

was gonna happen to him.

* *

[engine grinding]

[engine turning over]

[dramatic music]

* *

- I remember very well.

His sister called me,

and she said, have you seen Johnny Roselli?

And I went, no.

* *

He went to the golf course, and he played golf

and disappeared.

- His brother-in-law goes out looking for him.

And then he remembers a joke that Johnny made--

if I'm ever missing, check the airports.

* *

And there is the car.

* *

- Two weeks after they find Johnny Roselli's car,

fishermen find a barrel floating

in Dumfoundling Bay in Miami.

- When they open it up, they see a corpse in there.

It's been strangled, chopped up,

and all of the limbs have been sawed off.

* *

- John Roselli, the second and last known

key underworld figure in an alleged CIA plot

to kill Cuba's Fidel Castro, has been murdered.

A year ago, mobster Sam Giancana

was gunned down just before he was supposed

to testify about the plot.

Roselli's body has now been found

in a bay off Miami Beach.

Fishermen discovered it wrapped in chains

and stuffed in an oil drum.

Florida authorities say it was obviously a gang-style killing

and the body was not meant to be found.

But gases from decomposition caused the barrel to float.

- At first, it seemed clear

that the Mob had killed Roselli.

It had all the trappings of a classic Mob hit.

But very quickly, people started

to question that assumption.

They wondered if the CIA might have been involved.

- Attorney General Edward Levi has asked the FBI now

to investigate the murder of mobster John Roselli.

- At first, officials assumed

that the one-time organized crime figure

had been the victim of a gangland assassination.

However, some people questioned whether it was

just a gangland murder.

- Is there any connection between the murder

of Roselli and Giancana

and the assassination plots against Castro?

- Well, that's the kind of thing that people think about.

But I--

when you find out, let me know.

- Moreover, Roselli's lawyer has thrown doubt on the theory

that the murder was a simple underworld killing,

insisting that Roselli, who was 70 years old,

had retired from the rackets and would not have been

a likely target for a gangland murder.

One thing that is clear is that the murder

was a very professional job,

and no one concerned holds out much hope

that they'll ever figure out who did it and why.

* *

- The way they killed Johnny was to choke him quick.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

But who's to say that the CIA

couldn't emulate a Mob killing?

So in the end, no one knows whether it was

the Mob or the CIA that killed Johnny Roselli.

- Rudy Maxa in "The Washington Post":

"The day after Roselli's body was scooped

"from its crude coffin,

"his brother-in-law in New Jersey, Peter Cardillo,

"told me, 'Down deep, in a way,

"'I probably hope it was connected

"'with the Castro affair.

At least then, Johnny, he would have died for a cause.'"

* *

- Johnny Roselli is a center point

in so many amazing stories, from Las Vegas

to the plots to kill Castro.

He's almost the image of what you expect to see

if you start to watch "Casino" or some movie.

He is the smooth, suave operator,

good-looking, flashy suit.

When he gets involved not just with the Mob

but then later with the CIA,

he finds a new calling.

- I would say that John Roselli loved America.

I think that John Roselli loved the idea

of coming from nothing

and making something of yourself, right?

That's the American dream.

- Roselli, I think he had a deeper character

than a lot of the other people,

and I really do think it has to do

with an honor code.

And, you know, in some ways, arguably,

he kind of dies for it.

[engine grinding]

* *

For the Mob, the great victory for these people

is to not die in jail or to not be whacked.

And the only two that didn't end up

either whacked or in jail

were Accardo and Trafficante.

- The fact that Tony Accardo had a long career

in organized crime and still died peacefully

shows just how successful he was

at his, shall we say, chosen profession.

- As for Santo Trafficante, here we are 60 years later,

and we can't answer definitively

whether he was a double agent.

- It would be almost inconceivable to me

that Trafficante was spying for Castro.

Of all the mobsters who were involved in Cuba,

Trafficante was the one that had the most to lose

by the Revolution.

But anything's possible.

The underworld is a universe based on deception.

And maybe we'll never know what's true

about Santo Trafficante.

* *

- If you were really conducting an affair

with President Kennedy,

how could it have been kept a secret for so long?

- Well, I think a tremendous amount

is being revealed right now

that many journalists turned their heads against.

They had no intention of writing anything

about Jack Kennedy and his private life.

They did nothing but write about, really,

the myth of Camelot.

I was supposed to be on a show this afternoon,

and Bill Boggs, I believe his name is,

he would not interview me.

* *

- So she was booked on the show,

and the book came through.

Over the weekend, I'm reading the book,

and, Jesus.

She's introduced to JFK by Sinatra.

Sinatra's hanging out with Sam Giancana,

the head of the Chicago Mob.

All manner of salacious things are happening.

And, you know, Kennedy's dead.

Who is gonna refute these?

These are all allegations.

* *

And I announced to the producer,

no, I'm not interviewing.

Why?

I said, look, we had Sinatra on this show.

- To the birthday party.

- This book makes Frank look bad.

I did it out of loyalty to Frank

and, on a second level,

Jacqueline Onassis.

Three days later, a letter comes from Frank Sinatra.

"Dear Bill, my sincere thanks to you

"for your refusing to talk to the hustler with the agent.

"I think you showed great class and marvelous taste.

"Good luck and take care,

Francis Albert."

Oh, boy.

At that time, in 1977, the FBI and the Secret Service

were denying Kennedy had any affairs,

even though it turns out, a lot of it was true.

But I had no reason to know it was true.

- Judith had been used by all these powerful men

but then was not believed when she wanted to tell her story.

The expense of believing in the myth of these powerful men

is that she was discredited

when at least a lot of her story was true.

In America, we can be so susceptible to the mythology

and trying to preserve that.

- The Americans had this self-view,

and I think still do, that everything we do is good.

- This was the mindset.

You know, we were a grand superpower.

We could play the game of risk and win.

But the secret war against Castro and Cuba failed,

and Castro survived for decades.

- You have to tip your hat,

either admiringly or grudgingly,

to him and his security services.

They probably survived more serious attempts

by a more coherent and powerful foreign intelligence agency

than anybody in human history.

- [speaking Spanish]

[crowd cheering]

- He was inflated by all these other people

trying to neutralize him.

Left to his own devices, he might have been forgotten.

But paranoia inflates things.

And then it becomes part of government policy.

- [speaking Spanish]

[crowd cheering]

- [speaking Spanish]

- The true last man standing is Castro.

* *

- Today the last historic political figure

of the Cold War is gone.

[horns honking, crowd cheering]

- The front cover of the "Miami Herald,"

one word, very simple: "Dead."

People here are not protesting. They are celebrating.

- The literacy campaign was an incredible achievement.

You know, he created world-class public medicine,

creating a social welfare state.

So the Cuban Revolution benefited

the lives of many, many Cubans over generations.

That said, after the collapse of the Soviet Union,

the Cuban economy went into a tailspin.

- The tragedy for Cuba is that they have the machines

but no petrol to run them.

- And there were immense food shortages.

- Castro's Cuba is a land of contradictions.

It has free medical care, but political opposition

is suppressed, and the economy is a disaster.

- Some good things can be said about him.

Some very bad things can be said about his regime.

- [speaking Spanish]

- But Fidel Castro, for better or for worse,

was the longest significant dictator

in Latin American history.

He put a little Caribbean island nation

on the world map,

and Cuba has played, since 1959, 1960,

a world role that is far greater

than its physical size.

- I always like to say my hero is Fidel Castro.

He wore fatigues, never had a shave,

had the best cigars in the world,

and owned a Caribbean island.

I mean, how good does it get?

That's Fidel Castro.

[crowd cheering]

* *

- The moral of the story is...

that it's probably a lot harder to change

the world than you think.

* *

A superpower that had all these advantages

believed it could implement its will, and it couldn't.

- They felt, with Castro's grandiose ego,

that to humiliate him would be worse than death.

The irony of that is, that had a boomerang effect,

and it humiliated them.

It became a permanent state of humiliation

for the forces of power that were trying to kill Castro.

* *

- We should not have involved ourselves with the Mafia.

An organization that does so is losing control

of the security of its information.

- If I read you correctly, you're saying

it's the involvement with the Mafia

that disturbed you and not the decision

to assassinate a foreign leader?

- Correct.

- What ended up contouring a lot of these things

was an individual's personal demons.

What were their ego demons?

What were their self-storytelling demons?

What were their family dynamic demons?

What were their sexual demons?

Whatever that is, there was an awful lot of that

at the center of this.

When the demons are in the driver's seat

and they're given power...

* *

Time and time again,

we see that the country isn't able to really

pull ourselves back from the brink...

* *

Of a handful of people.

And to me, that is what undergirds

a lot of this story.

* *

- And so the plot goes forward.

* *

* *