John Roselli

Maybe I just find that interesting, but here's something that you will find interesting.

Do you remember Johnny Roselli, that mobster that was hired by the CIA to kill Castro, the one that was tied to Sam Giancana and Marilyn Monroe and Sinatra and the Kennedys? Right.

Okay.

Well, get this.

Johnny Roselli, as I mentioned in the episode where I covered him, was a close personal friend of Edgar R. Burroughs, the man who created Tarzan.

The two had lunch together almost every day at big society clubs, and Roselli visited, ba-da-da-da, Roselli visited, Roselli visited the Tarzan sets more than once.

This means that Johnny Roselli, who we have covered extensively, go back and listen to the mafia episodes, listen to the Marilyn episodes, he would have at the very least absolutely met and had acquaintance with Irving G. Reeves, Frank Reeves's oldest brother.

At worst, he may have been friends or known him personally, okay? The eldest brother of Frank Reeves.

There's a lot of organized crime involved in boxing matches, and that was certainly the case in 1931 when Lee Francis went along to work.

It's also incredibly likely that this event was attended by either one or both Charlie Baran and Johnny Roselli, who are intimately tied to the Chicago Outfit's boxing racket all across the United States, but especially in the, th- on the West Coast and back in Chicago.

Here's what's also interesting about Lee Francis claiming that this is the fight she attended.

Um, th- this, this boxer, uh, would, would be the one that Jean Harlow had her infamous affair with, Max Baer, um, which ended up in a public humiliation for the MGM studio and a forced abortion for Jean Harlow.

She was just a maid, and that's how she ended up with a bunch of mansions.

After that, by 1934, Forrester would claim that she was running up to six of McAfee and Crawford's 31 brothel system, of which Lee Francis was also a part.

Forrester's name during this time would become tied to Drack- Jack Dragna and Johnny Roselli, who again, we've talked about extensively, um, we've talked about extensively.

Johnny Roselli had connections all across Hollywood, to Marilyn Monroe, the CIA, the, the Castro subine- assassinations, potentially the JFK assassination, the death of Marilyn Monroe, like crazy, crazy stuff, and this was someone that Lee Francis and Anne Forrester were working with.

Bottles containing liquids, chemicals that they still don't know everything they've got.

The 55-gallon drum stuck out when this scene was being processed because, well, remember one of the crime guys, one of the mobsters in the 70s, Johnny Roselli? 55-gallon drum, right? Yeah.

Out in Key Biscayne Bay.

You could put a body in one of those.

He was, right at that moment, on federal parole out of Los Angeles.

He had close ties to Sam Giancana and contract killer Johnny Roselli.

And just two months earlier, he legally changed his name to Jim Braden.

Under his parole, Braden was forbidden from leaving California.

so that the CIA had plausible deniability.

He also worked with a mafia guy by the name of Johnny Roselli.

And he also worked with the Chicago mafia, which is where Ruby came from.

Ruby was originally in the mafia in Chicago.

But, uh, you know, and, and, and when the CIA chose to use cutouts, somebody they had some pull with, that they could control and manipulate due to the fact that they were doing a lot of illegal shit, who did they choose to do their dirty work for them, Joe?

Uh, a lot of the times, the mafia, you know? J- Johnny Roselli, uh, is an example of one of many.

Correct.

And it wasn't always about money, because as we'll see tonight, what Castro did in Cuba after taking control and kicking out all the gangsters, taking over all the casinos, that put a big dent in a lot of people's pockets, okay?

They did it through Mayhew.

They did it through, uh, Johnny Roselli, and Santos Trafficante, and Sam Giancana.

And all those meetings, those come up in the files release, okay? But that was all based on killing Castro.

So the same apparatus that was designed to kill Castro is in place to use bits and pieces of it to kill JFK.

Sam Giancana, days before he's supposed to testify, the num- one of the top three or four mob bosses in the country.

Jimmy Hoffa vanishes in Jun- July of '75.

Johnny Roselli testified to Church.

He was due for more in front of House Select Committee.

Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, who was heavily involved in the CIA's covert plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, is shot in the back of the head in his own kitchen right before he is scheduled to testify to the Senate.

Then there's mobster Johnny Roselli, who had threatened to expose the CIA mafia alliances.

He goes missing and is later found dismembered, stuffed into a 55-gallon oil drum floating in the bay.

Richard Cain, a corrupt ex-cop linked to both the Chicago mob and the CIA's anti-Castro operations, is gunned down in a sandwich shop.