Sam Giancana dodged the famous Apalachin raid by simply staying indoors
When police stumbled on the Mafia's 1957 summit at Apalachin in upstate New York, mobsters scattered into the woods and many were arrested. Chicago's Sam Giancana stayed put inside the house and walked away free. He later grumbled that the meeting should have been held near Chicago, where he said police chiefs were on his payroll.
Giancana was born Gilormo Giangana on 24 May 1908 in Chicago's Patch neighbourhood, one of eight children of immigrants from Castelvetrano in Sicily. As a teenager he joined the 42 Gang, a youth crew whose name boasted it was two better than Ali Baba's forty thieves. He built a reputation as a skilled getaway driver and big earner, was investigated in three killings by age 20 without ever being tried, and served prison terms for burglary in 1929 and for bootlegging in 1939.
In the late 1930s he became the first 42 Gang member admitted to the Chicago Outfit. His rise came after 1942, when he persuaded Tony Accardo to seize control of the lottery known as policy, run on Chicago's South Side by Black gambling bosses. The takeover was violent and made the Outfit millions a year, and in 1957 Giancana was named boss, though Accardo and Paul Ricca kept the real authority behind him.
Washington soon took notice. Before a Senate labour committee in 1959, Giancana kept laughing at questions from chief counsel Bobby Kennedy, who retorted that he thought only little girls giggled. Some journalists and associates later claimed he helped John F. Kennedy win in 1960 by steering union support, and that he felt betrayed when Robert Kennedy, as attorney general, pursued the mob; those claims come largely from relatives, a mistress and lawyers and remain contested.
In the CIA's plot against Fidel Castro he went by the alias Sam Gold. His daughter Antoinette has argued he was really scamming the agency out of millions. A 1965 contempt conviction cost him a year in prison, after which he fled to Cuernavaca, Mexico, until he was deported in 1974. He was murdered at his Oak Park home on 19 June 1975, shortly before he was due to testify to the Church Committee.
Source: Sam Giancana
