Mafia Spies from Page to Screen with Thomas Maier

About this episode

Mark Valley interviews Thomas Maier about the true story of CIA and mafia collaboration in assassination attempts on Fidel Castro.

From bestselling author and the producer of the hit cable series Masters of Sex, Thomas Maier, comes a true story of espionage and mobsters, based on the never-before-released JFK Files. In this episode Mark talks with author and journalist Thomas Maier about his book Mafia Spies--A fact based look at a sensational event in intelligence history when the CIA approached the mafia to assist in the assassination attempts on Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba's Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination. Mafia Spies revolves around the outlaw friendship of these two mob buddies and their fascinating world of CIA spies, fellow Mafioso in Chicago, Cuban exile commandos in Miami, beautiful Hollywood women, famous entertainers like Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack in Las Vegas, Castro's own spies in Havana and his double agents hidden in Florida, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI snooping, and the Kennedy administration's "Get Castro" obsession in Washington. Thomas Maier is among the first to…

People in this episode

Host: Mark Valley

Guest: Thomas Maier

Topics covered

• espionage
• mafia
• CIA
• assassination
• history
• JFK
• intelligence

Keywords

• Mafia Spies
• Thomas Maier
• CIA
• Fidel Castro
• assassination
• JFK Files
• Johnny Roselli
• Sam Giancana
• espionage
• history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CIA, FBI, National Archives

Books & works: Mafia Spies, Masters of Sex, Montauk to Manhattan

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