Soldiers were using flamethrowers to melt the ice around the inauguration stand and, as the snow still fell, open fires were lit along the Mall in an attempt to keep it clear for vehicles.
President-elect Kennedy and his wife were attending a concert in Constitutional Hall and they were not back in their Georgetown home until 3.30 A.M. Ten minutes later the snow abated but the icy-cold wind from the Potomac and the Tidal Basin was whippingup frozen snow that stung the faces of the troops who had just come on duty. It was the early hours of Friday the 20th of January. Inauguration Day.
By noon that day there were still ten degrees of frost, but the crowds had assembled despite the punishing cold. At 12.30 John F. Kennedy appeared on the stand and the crowd cheered their man and the thought that they could soon be back in the warm. But Cardinal Cushing was not the man to forego the opportunity of such an important convocation. As he spoke the sun came out to camouflage the cold. At 12.51 Chief Justice Warren administered the oath.
The President stood there, hatless and coatless, the harsh wind whipping at his hair, leaning forward, a posture that was to become familiar, to emphasize his words, and as he spoke into the microphones the Boston accent seemed suddenly to represent and symbolize the vigour of a new style of administration.
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans … unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and abroad … Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty …”
34,221,463 of his fellow Americans had voted for their new-generation President. And those who watched knew that they had got what they wanted … a knight in shining armour who spoke political poetry not prose. Better even than Lincoln.
In 1960 there were only thirty-five convictions in US courts for offences connected with organized crime, but after John F. Kennedy became President of the United States and his brother Robert became Attorney-General there were hundreds of such convictions. Apart from the growing staff of lawyers and field investigators there was a special group known as the “Get Hoffa squad.” No attempt was made to hide the fact that the Kennedy brothers had declared war on organized crime, and in the slow war of attrition there were signs not only that they were winning but that the syndicates knew it. The Mafia leaders and the men they controlled were not intelligent men. Their thinking was always crude and obvious. Violence, murder, money and sex were their only weapons, and their experience had proved that these primitive weapons always worked.
Senators, Congressmen, judges, lawyers, police-chiefs and tycoons were men. Their motivations were much the same as those of the Mafia bosses. Power, status, money and good living. Rich men lusted after yet more money or power, and simpler men who sat on judges’ benches rationalized their pay-offs as little more than reasonable enhancements of their inadequate pensions. And for all manner of men there was the awareness that their Mafia contacts could fix anything, anywhere. You had only to ask and it was delivered.
It was always Christmas with the Mafia, and you didn’t have to know how it was fixed, whether it was tickets for the big fight or a pretty young blonde for the weekend. They arrived on time and they were always the best. And those were just the crumbs. The votes or the money were the protein at the feast. And you didn’t have to do much to earn it. A word in an influential ear, a vote against unfriendly legislation, a liberal attitude on the bench to an “accidental” homicide, a word to a city gambling board when an application for another casino was meeting opposition. You could easily convince yourself, if you wanted to, that the Mafia was only the working boys’ version of the Ivy League.
There was a feeling too, amongst the racketeers, that the Kennedys themselves were a kind of Mafia. They looked after their own; and who had more patronage to dispense than the President of the United States? But one thing they recognized for sure. The Kennedys weren’t looking for money. They’d already got more than they needed.
There were many meetings in luxury hotel suites and lush casino offices about how to deal with the Kennedys, where all the traditional weapons of suborning the influential were discussed. Only money was excluded from the considerations. The Kennedys were rich but this generation of Kennedys wasn’t greedy. And they didn’t need anything fixed. The President of the United States, whoever he was, commanded all the fixing that the mob had to pay millions of dollars for. But there must be something. Every man had his price. It was just a question of working out what it was.
Sam Giancana was the Mafia capo in Philadelphia and when he appeared before the McLellan Committee he did them the honour of removing his dark glasses. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight and his glasses no longer gave him any protection against being recognized. His big nose, the wide, thin-lipped mouth, and the restless eyes were instantly recognized by all who had reason to fear or hate him. As he sat with his lawyer he was concerned that the cameras should show him as being completely at ease. There was no
