The Clinton file (edited for space)
SAMMY FINKELMAN
a wiseguy, To me being a wiseguy was better than being president of
the United States. . ." >>
- Henry Hill, as quoted in the book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi
(originally published, 1985, Pocket Books edition 1990( page 13.
But what if you could be both???
<< In his later years, he was a big contributor to charities,
particularly for young people. >>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Associated Press obituary of Hot Springs, Arkansas resident "retired"
gangster Owen Vincent (Owney the Killer) Madden in the Saturday,
April 24, 1965 New York Times.
Now, in 1965, that probably looked fine. It made Owney Madden look good.
But now read this:
<< Clinton's career began while he was still a student at Hot Springs
High School, where he was president of his junior class, the Beta Club
(for academic achievers) and the Kiwanis Key Club. By his late teens,
Clinton was already a semi-professional politician, so greatly in demand
as a civics club speaker and leader of charitable fund drives that his
high-school principal had to limit his engagements in order to protect
his schooling. >>
- Article by Michael Kelly in the New York Times Magazine of
July 31, 1994, page 25.
Bill Clinton was a << leader of charitable fund drives >>
Putting two and two together, what does this mean? It means that Bill
Clinton was raising money from Vincent Owen (Owney the Killer) Madden.
Now, you say, of course, who was Owney "the Killer" Madden?
<< Here, because Owney Madden is so unknown and was so important for
the history of crime in America, we must pause and describe certain
things about him. He was the big stick that allowed [Damon] Runyon to
loll with the worst murderers. In turn, Runyon made him the founder of
organized crime in America. Upon hearing this phrase, people have a
clear vision of some evil young Italian with overwhelming wisdom who
comes stalking out of the hills of Sicily, murders everybody in Brooklyn,
and, at the end, sits down in a boardroom and tells other gangsters,
who are dressed like bankers, that they should never sell drugs.
"We shall never sell oil," John D. Rockefeller always said.
Organized crime in America, however, was born with an English accent.
Owney Madden was born on December 18, 1891, of immigrant Irish parents
at 25 Somerset Street, North Leeds, at that time dreary wool-mill city
in the northern Midlands of England. He was birth number 202 for the
district, as noted by registrar Isaac J. Bloomfield. His father was
Francis Madden, a cloth dresser, and his mother's name was Mary Madden,
formerly O'Neil. The Maddens lived in an industrial row house and the
father worked as a cloth dresser in a sweatshop. . . . .
. . .Madden was the first natural leader of criminals of his time
because he understood that to succeed in New York a man had to partially
sacrifice one of his most precious possessions, his hatred of other
races. When he saw all those Italians piling off the boats, he did not
cry "Wop!" indiscriminately. Instead he made a friend of one Tony
Romananello and brought him into the Winona Club as a senior criminal.
The clubhouse was on West 47 Street, just off Tenth Avenue and on the
second floor of a brownstone building. Madden had a bar, piano,
crap game and card table. While the walls were thick, the place was not
suitable for containing the sound of gunshots, although that deterred
nobody. People walking down 47th Street usually associated the sound
coming from the Winona as firecrackers, although undertakers did not.
The club was open to criminals of all nations. Madden was raised to
think that the Poles had it right in the first place, that all Jews
belonged fleeing from a cavalry charge. A young man named Little Augie
Orgen changed that. . .
[one of his men killed an enemy of his in a court on 47 St.]
. .When he heard about this. . .He went downtown and met a young thug
on 10th Street and First Avenue named Charley Luciano, who walked him
down a few blocks to Ludlow Street, where in a poolroom doorway, was
another young guy with a mean face, Meyer Lansky.
"What do you want, " Lansky said.
"To say hello to you," Madden said agreeably. >>
- Damon Runyon, A Life by Jimmy Breslin (Ticknor and Fields, 1991) pages
107, 109, 110.
Now Jimmy Breslin's writing is very impressionistic and novelistic, as I
think you can tell even from just this excerpt, and it is a little bit
difficult to tell what is really solid in here and what is not. But he
has no ax to grind. This book was published in 1991 and does not mention
Bill Clinton's name and Jimmy Breslin is a Democrat whose second wife
(his first wife died maybe 20 years ago) is a member of the New York
City Council. I feel that there is something to it when he says that
Owney Madden was the founder of organized crime in America. If he
wasn't exactly that, he was probably something pretty close to that.
Let me go back now to Hot Springs, Arkansas:
When Owen Vincent (Owney the killer) Madden, died in April, 1965. . .
<< Owen Vincent Madden, Prohibition whiskey baron, nightspot owner,
killer, and gray eminence in our community for many years, was laid to
rest in a handsome casket, as his obituary noted, amid a profusion of
flowers. The local politician who spoke the eulogy recalled that "this
community's prosperity and welfare were uppermost in the heart of this
man, who for thirty years gave his all to Hot Springs. We know not and
care not what they said about him in New York, Chicago, or Washington."
Mourners in snappy clothes appeared from all over the nation, and his
pallbearers, as was only fitting, included such respected local citizens
as the chief of police. >>
- The Bookmaker's Daughter by Shirley Abbott (Ticknor and Fields, 1991)
page 273.
Back somewhere in the late 1950's Owney Madden had opened casinos in Hot
Springs - completely illegally.
<< Flaunting their mob connections, Owney Madden and a group of
investors opened Las Vegas-style casinos in the resort city, including
one called the Vapors - a name that amused my literary minded friends in
New York. My hometown had become so flagrant, so raucous, that we could
read about it almost weekly in the New York Times. >>
- The Bookmaker's Daughter:A Memory Unbound by Shirley Abbott (Ticknor
and Fields, 1991) page 272.
They were kept in operation partially because of payoffs to the
Governor, Orval Faubus, whom you may have heard about in some other
connection - the the Little Rock school crisis of 1957. The whole Little
Rock crisis was probably contrived so that he could get re-elected. It
was how he won his third 2-year term, breaking tradition. In all, he
was Governor from the 1954 to the 1966 election. The casinos were not
closed until 1967 or 1968, during the Administration of Governor
Winthrop Rockefeller and after Owney Madden's death.
There wasn't much known about all this later, you know:
When Joseph Valachi, the first important Mafia informer, testified
before Congress in September, 1963. . .
<< . . .Senator McClellan visited him privately in the D.C, jail,
just before the hearings began. According to Valachi, he requested
that he please skip any mention of Hot Springs, in McClellan's
home state, and the Senate testimony contains no reference to that
then-notorious city. >>
- The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas, (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968) page 20.
** I didn't put that in that book. It's ALWAYS been there. **
<< We know not and care not what they said about him in New York,
Chicago, or Washington. >> - the Bookmaker's Daughter, page 273.
Bill Clinton's step-uncle Raymond was an important member of the
machine. His Buick dealership was a sort of headquarters for it:
<< He made his Buick dealership "a gathering place for powerful,
politically savvy men in Hot Springs," Kelley writes. "The big wheels." >>
- article by Michael Kelly in the New York Times Magazine of July 31,
1994, page 24. (It's on page 159 of her postumously published book,
"Leading with My Heart" published in 1994 by Simon and Schuster. These
lines probably escaped Bill Clinton's censorship - he reviewed and
completed the manuscript after her death - because this is actually
attributed to Toni Karber, so if it was missing from the book, it would
become obvious that Bill Clinton had censored the book, and there were
maybe more important things he wanted to censor, add or alter. Alternatively,
this could have been added later by the ghostwriter, James Morgan.)
During approximately the 1955-65 period things were such in Hot Springs,
Arkansas so that the city was nicknamed Little Vegas - but it was all kept
out of the national press, or the paart taht could easily be researched
years later, even though slot machines were on many street corners.
There were actually two separate machine eras. Things were interrupted
there for a couple of years by a reformer, Sid McMath, who became mayor
of Hot Springs, Arkansas, as a result of the "GI Revolt" in 1946 and who
was later elected Governor in 1948. But he was defeated in 1952 through
a contrived highway scandal. (In 1954,Orval Faubus was elected to
replace Governor Cherry.)
Now, Bill Clinton was close to Raymond Clinton:
<< While governor, Clinton frequently referred to Raymond G. Clinton as
the most commanding male presence in his life, on several occasions
referring to him as a father figure. >>
- On the Make: The Rise of Bill Clinton by Meredith L. Oakley (Regnery
Publishing, 1994) page 25, in parenthesis.
And Raymond was tied to organized crime:
<< According to Lt. Butler's testimony before the McClellan Committee,
the Chicago gang "took over coin machine and amusement companies in
Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas" including slot machine, pinball, and
jukeÄbox routes. >>
- Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy by
David Scheim (Domald I. Fine, 1988) page 84.
Cross reference to:
<< "Just through talk, every person in town knew what was going on," said
Clay White, who for 23 years was an FBI agent based in Hot Springs and
is now the town's sheriff. "The violations of the law were more or less
accepted,"White said, adding that even Clinton's uncle Raymond, who
owned the local Buick dealership "ran some slot machines that he had
scattered throughout town." >>
- July 20, 1992 Macleans Magazine.
Even Clinton's uncle?
This is spin.
It was in this mileau that Clinton got his start in politics - a job in
a 1966 Gubernatorial primary campaign, and a patronage job in Washington
with Senator Fulbright.
BTW, Clay White, who told Macleans magazine that even Clinton's uncle
(or the reporter interpreted it as << even, >>) had some slot machines in
Hot Springs, is the *same* person who told Robert Lacey, biographer of
Meyer Lansky, details about the FBI surveillance there in 1963.
Oh, you want to know what that was:
<< In 1963 we initiated the VEGMON caperÄÄVegas money. We traced the
money as it poured out of Las Vegas. The money got to Chicago, to
Miami (where Lansky was residing), and to New York, Cleveland,
Detroit, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Tampa, amd Milwakee. It also reached
lesser places such as New Orleans (where Carlos Marcello had a piece),
Providence, Rhode Island (where Raymond Patriarca had a hunk) and
St. Louis (the home site of Morris Shenker, a court attorney who has
represented many of the St. Louis and Kansas City mobsters).
The Las Vegas office bugged one of the mob-run casinos (the Fremont)
and learned that Ida Devine, the wife of Irving "Niggy" Devine, owner
of the New York Meat Company, which supplied the hotels in Vegas, was
being used as the prime courier for skim money.
So the Bureau conducted a nationwide surveillance of Ida. She left Las
Vegas by train. On January 10, she arrived at Union Station in Chicago.
There she was met by George Bieber. Bieber was the law partner of our
friend, Mike Brodkin. Whereas Brodkin was extremely close socially and
professionally to Gussie Alex, Bieber worked hand in glove with Felix
"Milwakee Phil" Alderisio.
Bieber escorted Ida to the Ambsassador East Hotel on Goethe Street, a
couple of blocks from Gussie's condominium on Lake Shore Drive. It is
one of the posh Chicago blocks, next door to the Ambassador West, the
home of the famous Pump Room where Gussie and Margaret dined frequently
with Sidney and Bea Korshak.
Bieber and Ida spent a couple of hours at the hotel, When they
reemerged, they went back to Union Station where Ida left on the 4:43
en route to Hot Springs, Arkansas. . . >>
- Roemer: Man Against the Mob: The Inside Story of how the FBI Cracked
the Chicago Mob by the Agent Who Led the Attack by William F. Roemer
Jr., (Donald I. Fine Inc. New York, 1989) page 131-132.
Now, you see, the people being investigated knew that they were being
investigated. This is how it happened:
<< The picture was growing more complex when, one day toward the end
of April, 1963, the FBI agents listening to a conversation coming
live from Eddie Levinson's office in the Fremont were amazed to hear
Levinson reading out to Niggy Devine the contents of a confidential
Justice Department memorandum which the agents themselves had only
just received. Written in Washington the previous week, the memo
summarized the findings of the Fremont bug and the surveillances that
accompanied it, including details of the cross-country train journeys
of "the lady in mink."
"My God, Niggy," exclaimed Levinson. "They know about Ida!"
Levinson's consternation was hardly greater than that of the listening
FBI agents as, following Levinson's progress, word for word, through a
copy of the document that they themselves held in front of them, they
participated in the only known read-along in the thinly documented
history of secret surveillance.
Four days later, the FBI's bug in the Fremont office went dead, and the
FBI was to find itself the object of attack in a court action for
illegal entry, invasion of privacy, and violation of constitutional
rights. The suit against the FBI was framed and filed by Levinson's
formidable Washington lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams. >>
Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life by Robert Lacey (Little,
Brown and Company, 1991) page 298.
Yes, that's the same law firm that now represents Bill Clinton.
All this means, of course, they had at least one spy in the Justice
Department working under RFK - and if so, were in a position to cover
up some things later. An FBI electornic surveillance transcript from
August 19, 1963 indeed indicates there were such spies.
<< Siegelbaum: . . .it's counterintelligence information. I was supposed
to drop a copy to you. . . .
Malnik: What is this a copy of?
Siegelbaum: This is information they got from the Justice Department,
from somebody, highly intelligence [sic] - somebody the boys know.
Ya know, they can be informed. Just like you have your contacts, they
have their few friends. This is from Justice. >>
- excerpt from F.B.I. Electronic surveillance (illegal bugs) of a
conversation on Monday, August 19, 1963 between Lansky associate
Benjamin Siegelbaum and Miami lawyer Alvin Malnik.
And here's an idea as who might have been the chief mole:
<< Few corners of the federal government would make a more fascinating
study than the Criminal Fraud Section of the Justice Department and its
presiding genius, the 45-year veteran John Keeney. The most senior
career lawyer in Justice, assistant attorney general Keeney joined the
department in 1951 in the internal security division of the organized
crime section. In 1973, he became the chief professional in the Criminal
Division, deciding among other things which cases to prosecute and which
to drop. Not since J. Edgar Hoover has one man in Washington known where
more political bodies are buried, and been in a position to bury them.
Keeney was on top of Jean Lewis's referral right from the beginning. His
phone log for September 9, 1992, shows a call from Charles Banks. In his
Senate deposition, Banks denied ever talking to Keeney about the
Whitewater case, but he suggested that his deputy Mac Dodson might have
made the contact. >>
- article by Rebecca Borders and James Ring Adams on page 33 of the
March, 1996 American Spectator entitled Filling in the Blanks.
I think this may fill in more blanks than even they can imagine.
The year 1951, when Kenney entered the Justice Department, was also at
the height of the Kefauver hearings and I think a disinformation
campaign was going on at the time.
For example. . .
<< . . . .Incidentally ÄÄ one thing you guys got wrong. You been putting
that Joe Bananas up as a number one man. He's a punk. He just runs
errands. You're on the wrong track there.
WHITE. Well, his name keeps coming up as a big wheel.
WILLIE. That's a lot of crap. I'm giving you the straight tip ÄÄ he's
in the club all right, but he's a punk. That shows you guys don't know
what you are talking about.
WHITE. Naturally - we're not on the inside. We can't know everything.
All we know is what we can see from the outside.
WILLIE. Yeah, that's right. You got the right pitch, George, but don't
louse yourself up by falling for all that crap about guys like Bananas.
He's just a punk, a messenger boy! >>
- excerpt from a (off-the record?) conversation between Colonel George
White of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Narcotics and Willie
Moretti, (Moore) during a lunch break at the Kefauver Committee hearings
on December 13, 1950 as printed in Mafia by Ed Reid (Random House, 1952)
page 36.
Yes, that Willie is Willie Moretti, the *supposedly* too-talkative
Jersey mobster with syphillis. Or so people have been given to think.
This transcript looks like it was taken down verbatim, which would mean
either with a recorder or with stenographic notes - in any case this was
sent by George White to Ed Reid. In this conversation Willie Moretti
admitted he was a member of the Mafia, but specifically said that Joe
Bonnano was not an important person - which we all know now was a lie.
Moretti at this time was being garrulous, especially with reporters
where it didn't exactly count, and Frank Costello evidentally spread
around word that he had syphillis and that he was keeping him under
control - the real purpose, of course, was to get him to say things.
Vito Genevese later arranged to kill him because Costello et al could
not explain to others in the Mafia exactly what he was doing. This was
probably part of a campaign to become the real boss, since he was
technically Luciano's deputy. Luciano, of course, was in Italy.
Eventually the others did to him what they did to Lucky Luciano - using
their law enforcement contacts, they sent him to jail. * And the regency
continued, although the regent (Frank Costello) bowed out of it after
he was shot by Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, (who was recently prosecuted
after perhaps finally really losing his ability to think. During his
trial, one witness cited the killing of Moretti as an example of a
"mercy killing" which, he said would have happened if Gigante had really
lost his marbles. Lies piled upon lies, you see, cleverly woven together.)
* It was apparently a real case, but it was also a gift. Top mobsters
just didn't get successfully prosecuted (unless the fixers had fixed
it, of course.)