Double Cross: Sam Giancana & Marilyn Monroe

Source: People Magazine– Marilyn & The Chairman of The Board

Source:The Daily Review

“In the later years of his life, Frank Sinatra would often reminisce about his loves, his losses and the friends he missed most, including Marilyn Monroe.

While the events surrounding what really happened on August 4, 1962 when the star was found dead from a drug overdose remain a mystery, Sinatra’s close confidant and former road manager Tony Oppedisano, whose memoir Sinatra and Me: In The Wee Small Hours, is excerpted in this week’s PEOPLE, says the singer didn’t believe it was an accidental overdose. “Frank believed she was murdered,” he writes, “and he never got over it.”

According to Oppedisano, Sinatra and Monroe were close friends but not lovers. While Sinatra thought she was beautiful and funny, he writes, “Frank felt she was too troubled, too fragile, for him to sleep with and then walk away.”

From People Magazine

“New York Times Bestseller! “Sam Giancana tells all . . . Controversial . . . ties seven United States presidents to the mob.”—Larry King, CNN

One of the most feared Chicago mobsters Sam Giancana clawed his way to the top of the Mafia hierarchy by starting as a hit man for Al Capone. He was known as one of the best vehicle escape artists, a tenacious business man, and a ruthless…

Source:Amazon– all you need are a lot of sheep, as well as drunk, high, escaped mental patients, to make it as a New York Times bestseller. Which unfortunately is a good way to describe a lot of Marlyn Monroe’s fans who’ll never except the fact that she accidentally killed herself with too much booze and pills, on that tragic night in Los Angeles in 1962.

From Amazon

“Ties between Sam Giancana and Marilyn Monroe as told in the Book Double Cross.”

Source:The Literary Group– Sam Giancana’s nephew.

From The Literary Group

The whole point about Marilyn Monroe’s housekeeper being asleep at Marilyn Monroe’s house the night that she died and that she was next door, or down the hall, tells you how bogus (to be nice) the claim that Sam Giancana had anything to do with the death of Marilyn. The housekeeper would have heard a break in, or at least of heard a struggle between Marilyn and the supposed assassin, or assassins.

Keep in mind, this younger Sam Giancana, is the nephew of the Italian mobster Sam Giancana. So I guess you could say why would young Sam would be accusing his own uncle of murdering one of the top Hollywood Goddess’s of all-time? The answer being why not: it wouldn’t be the first time that someone has used their famous name to make a lot of money legitimately.

Marilyn Monroe had she been alive today and let’s say in her mid, or late thirties with the same personality and physical futures and talents, she would be the OMG, awesome, pop princess, or whatever. She has a lot of fans from this era who look at the world that way. And they have a hard time believing how could anyone that fabulous (let’s say) could take their own life. Which is very hard to believe and I understand that.

But if you knew Marilyn and how irresponsible she was and how unhappy she was and the fact that she did have real mental issues and was even committed even at one point, you know she was a mental train wreck waiting to explode. She drank too much and took way too many pills because of how unhappy she was.

I don’t believe Marilyn killed herself intentionally. I’m not implying suicide here, but when you’re drunk as she was that night and you’re unhappy to begin with and you’re taking all sorts of medication at night to try to get you through the day and you take all of those drugs including the alcohol at the same time, very bad things are going to happen to you. Since you’re not completely aware of what you’re doing you end up finally taking too much.

Marilyn died from an overdose and no one helped her do that. Other than maybe giving her some motivation and reason to feel unhappy. But we’re still not talking about a murder here. One way to look at the death of Marilyn Monroe is to look at what happens to drunk drivers and they get in accidents and kill themselves by accident as a result.

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Remember This: ‘The Real Story- Behind the Clinton Scandals’

Source: Remember This– Bill & Hillary Clinton at The White House 

Source:The New Democrat 

“David Brock, a conservative-turned-liberal pundit, has said he was once a part of an effort to dredge up a scandal against Clinton. In 1993 Brock, then of the American Spectator, was the first to report Paula Jones’ claims. About the book:Amazon.”

From Remember This

The real story behind the Bill Clinton scandals was that most of them were bogus. (To be kind) The Lewinsky affair and the China scandal from 1996 were the only real stories and so-called scandals for Bill Clinton as President, which is nothing compared with Ronald Reagan with Iran Contra and Richard Nixon with Watergate. Or go back to Lyndon Johnson lying to the country about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and the progress of the war.

The hatred towards Bill Clinton from the Far-Right and other hyper partisans in this country, except for the race factor, is not that much different from the hatred that Barack Obama has received as President. What they hate about Bill Clinton is what they hate about Barack Obama. Which is what they both represent, two New Democrats on the Center-Left who represent the changing of America that we’ve gone through as a country since the 1960s. With all sorts of new Americans having their freedom in this country. No longer restricted to living a traditional way of life.

The Far-Right in America lives in the 1950s. The rest of the country lives in the 21st Century as far as how Americans live in this multi-culture and lifestyle country where all Americans are free to be themselves. And no longer having to feel the need to hide who they are or try to be someone else. And when someone from this part of the country rises to power and becomes not just powerful and not just the most powerful person in the country, but in the world, the Far-Right goes nuts and accuses that person of trying to destroy their way of life and seeks out to destroy them.

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Revolution Volume I: The 1960s Counter Culture & Rise of The New Left

Source:Amazon– Roger Kimball’s book.

Source:The Daily Press

“In The Long March, Roger Kimball, the author of Tenured Radicals, shows how the “cultural revolution” of the 1960s and ’70s took hold in America, lodging in our hearts and minds, and affecting our innermost assumptions about what counts as the good life. Kimball believes that the counterculture transformed high culture as well as our everyday life in terms of attitudes toward self and country, sex and drugs, and manners and morality. Believing that this dramatic change “cannot be understood apart from the seductive personalities who articulated its goals,” he intersperses his argument with incisive…

From Amazon

“I’m into the study of revolutions, not the coopting of revolutionary rhetoric to sell capitalist merch. I’ve cut together clips of 1960s radicals discussing the politics of their time to give young people a sense of the intense revolutionary fervor of that era. Americans today have been presented with a flattened out, cliche image of 60s radicalism and have lost any sense of just how tumultuous that period was. This is what America looks like when it’s actually working. I’ll be tracing the history of revolutionary and countercultural movements in America from the 60s to the 90s in an ongoing series of youtube clips. (I added on the Church of the SubGenius at the end but that comes much later.)”

Source:Roger Dolittle– Dr. Martin L. King speaking at the 1963 March On Washington. Perhaps the best speech ever given in American history.

From Roger Dolittle

I believe the best way to look at the New-Left political movement and Students For a Democratic Society, which is definitely part of that movement, is to look at the Irish nationalist movement in Northern Ireland, Britain and it’s relationship with the Irish Republican Army. Or the Palestinian nationalist movement in Palestine and its relationship with Palestine and Israel. SDS aren’t Nationalists, but they were the military wing of their political movement.

Source:Students For a Democratic Society– protesting the Vietnam War.

Radicalism is not new to America, we were founded thanks to a revolution, a revolutionary war with the United Kingdom. And I believe every generation at least in the 20th Century is different with different values from the previous generation, at least when they’re young and then perhaps moderate and become part of mainstream society as they get older and become more experienced. So it’s not radicalism that’s new to America, but perhaps each generation as their own culture revolutionary movements.

I think what’s different from the 1960s with young Baby Boomers and perhaps Silent Generation babies that were perhaps seen as the mentors and role models of the Baby Boomer Hippies and radicals, is socialism and communism and the beliefs that those things aren’t actually wrong and bad and that the Cold War, especially in Vietnam and America’s involvement there was wrong.

I believe what the young radicals in America believed was that the people who were wrong, were the American establishment which was made of Conservatives and Progressives who were seen as trying to push American liberal democracy and capitalism onto the rest of the world, especially in the third world like in Asia and Latin America.

What these young folks believed that the people who were wrong were the people who were running America and they wanted a change. And even a revolutionary change in America as far as how it was governed. And decided to speak out and organize and even use violent means to accomplish their political goals.

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Good Morning America: Robin Roberts- Interviews Raquel Welch: ‘Then and Now (2010)’

Source:ABC News– Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch, being interviewed by ABC’s Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, in 2010.

Source:The Daily Press

“The actress reflects on her life and career in her book, “Beyond the Cleavage.”

From ABC News

“Raquel Welch is an award-winning film, television, and stage actress. She has starred in more than 45 films including One Million Years B.C., The Three Musketeers, and Legally Blonde, as well as the Broadway hit musicals Woman of the Year and Victor Victoria. She is the author of Raquel: The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program, an Icon Face of M.A.C. Cosmetics, and the current spokesperson for Foster Grant eyewear. She lives Beverly Hills.

Part autobiography, part personal philosophy, and full of practical advice for women of all ages, Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage is a book that skimps neither on entertainment nor on good plain advice.

She didn’t hatch out of an eagle’s nest, circa One Million Years B.C., clad in a skimpy fur bikini. She didn’t aspire to fame as a sex symbol. Yet, for many years after making her Hollywood entrance as every man’s fantasy, Raquel Welch was best…

Source:Amazon– Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch’s 2010 book.

From Amazon

Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch on ABC News’s Good Morning America in 2010 talking about her book Beyond The Cleavage. She’s always been a bit of a comedian, or at least someone with a comedic sense of humor and not just gorgeous, with the beautiful body, etc. And she’s also very honest about herself, which is what I believe you see in her book.

Source:ABC News– Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch on ABC’s Good Morning America in 2010, talking about her new book Beyond The Cleavage.

Raquel made one interesting point that stood out with me in this interview and perhaps she made others, but one thing definitely which is really true and perhaps especially in her case, is that men have a tendency with women to not so much listen to what they are saying, but how they say it and watch them say what they are saying.

Take me for example: I simply love watching Raquel talk, because she’s still hot and always has been, but then you look at that big baby-face, with those beautiful round eyes and big cheeks and dimples and sweetie pie voice, she just makes guys simply want to go, aw!

Mariah Carey (speaking of hot baby-faces) has the same effect on me, but they are both interesting as well, so it is not as if I’m not hearing what they say. Raquel is a gorgeous, baby-face, adorable, woman, who still has a great voice and probably still sings very well, but she also has a great personality and is very funny and intelligent. And that is what she also wants the world to see, that even though she’s still a sex symbol and a Hollywood Goddess, that those things aren’t just physical with her, that there is more about her that people should pay attention to.

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Lifetime: Jessica Savitch- Intimate Portrait: The Queen of Nightly News

Source:Pearl Guthrie– Intimate Portrait: Jessica Savitch

Source:The Daily Press

“This show about Jessica Savitch [1947-1983] aired in 1995.

Almost Golden_ The Jessica Savitch Story Almost Golden_ The Jessica Savitch Story Almost Golden_ The Jessica Savitch Story.

Jessica Savitch goes on a tirade. Don’t know if she’s totally in the wrong though, after all the anchor is the one that ends up looking silly, even if its everyone .

Here’s a mostly complete NBC News Digest with Jessica Savitch. This is notable for being one of her last appearances on television before her untimely and .

By request: Jessica Savitch’s three appearances on Late Night: 1. February 22, 1982: for three segments. 2. August 11, 1982: for one segment (sorry about the…

From Pearl Guthrie

“Jessica Savitch accomplished her goal of becoming a network anchor by the age of 30, but at tremendous personal cost. A long-term abusive relationship, a brief, loveless first marriage, and a melodramatic second marriage that ended in her husband’s suicide are some of the traumas with which she dealt. Meanwhile, she skyrocketed through the ranks of broadcast journalism when women were practically nonexistent in the field. This 45-minute video, augmented by interviews with Savitch’s sister, biographer, and several coworkers and by much broadcast footage, makes the argument that Savitch’s troubles began long before the start of her landmark career. As Savitch’s drug use spun out of control, so did her career, culminating in the famously disastrous footage (included here) that led to her firing from NBC. Her accidental death shortly after ended her unrelentingly tragic trajectory. The contrast of Savitch’s broadcasts with early black-and-white home movies makes for a hauntingly visual telling of this pioneer’s story.”

Source:Amazon– Intimate Portrait: Jessica Savitch

From Amazon

This is from the cover photo of the Lifetime Intimate Portrait documentary about former NBC News anchor Jessica Savitch. But the video that this photo is from is not currently available online.

Source:Lifetime– Intimate Portrait: Jessica Savitch (1995)

Jessica Savitch before she tragically died in 1983, was the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News. Only behind Tom Brokaw at NBC News as far as their anchors and when she died was considered the most trusted news anchor in America. Essentially replacing Walter Cronkite with that title.

Jessica was both gorgeous and adorable, but very intelligent and worked very hard at her craft. A true news junky, which is what you almost have to be to be a successful news anchor, as well as a political junky. All traits I love as someone who shares these same traits and she picked up these traits very early on in life, as being the daughter of a news and political junky her father, who she was very close with.

I wasn’t born until 1975 so almost everything I’ve seen from her have been old news footage of her, actually a lot of it on YouTube. And she became a star in network news by the late 1970s, a very turbulent time in America with an energy shortage, a weak economy, with high interest, inflation and unemployment rates, the Jonestown tragedy in 1978, the Iran Hostage Crisis, America seeming to be in decline by the summer of 1979 and Jessica Savitch was covering all of these stories.

Jessica Savitch was ahead of her time, because she made it to the top, or very close to it by the late 1970s. When network news was still dominated by men and when women were still coming up in this business and had she not died in 1983 tragically, maybe she’s the lead anchor of one of the network newscasts for 15-20 years. Like Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, or Dan Rather. She was too big and too good to the weekend anchor indefinitely and could’ve gone a lot further, if she just had the time to do it.

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Theodore White: The Making of The President (1963)

Source:Amazon– from Theodore H. White.

Source:The Daily Press

“In the 1960s, writer Theodore H. White changed journalism forever by putting the campaign for the White House under a microscope. The first of his bestselling series on presidential elections, The Making of the President, 1960, earned a Pulitzer Prize and became a TV documentary that won four Emmys®, including program of the year. This collection brings together three television adaptations of White’s influential books for a full, in-depth account of presidential politics during the tumultuous 1960, 1964, and 1968 elections.

Produced by Oscar® nominee David L. Wolper (Roots), these programs feature White’s insightful scripts and rare film footage that reveal the winners and losers in unguarded, behind-the-scenes moments. All the backroom deals, convention-floor drama, and campaign strategy come alive again in three historic races: Kennedy-Nixon, Johnson-Goldwater, and Humphrey-Nixon-Wallace. From preprimary jockeying to the final vote tally, these spellbinding narratives dissect the inner workings of our democracy and trace the path to power.

Journalist and author Theodore H. White served as China bureau chief for Time and as correspondent and editor for The New Republic, The Reporter, and Colliers. He won numerous writing awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and two Emmys.”

From Amazon

“David L. Wolper’s documentary film “THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960”, narrated by Martin Gabel, gives viewers a close-up look at the inner workings of the 1960 campaign for President of the United States, a hard-fought struggle which was won (just barely) by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.

The film made its debut on ABC-TV on December 29, 1963, just a month after JFK’s death.

Directed by Mel Stuart, who also helmed another very fine David Wolper-produced film about President Kennedy — 1964’s “Four Days In November.”

Source:David Von Pein– from Theodore White.

From David Von Pein

The 1960 United States presidential campaign was one of the best ever, because of who ran for President. The Democratic Party nominated the best person they had in Senator John Kennedy and the Republican Party nominated the best person they had in Vice President Richard Nixon. It was literally the best vs the best. Two men that represented the now and future of their party, who were the leaders of their party. It gave American voters a clear choice in who to select to be the next President and who to be the next President early in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The 1960 election gave people another choice as well:Do we want to continue to do what we were doing as a country, have the Federal Government stay the course and not make any big changes, or do we want to try a different path. Senator Kennedy tried and I believe was successful in making the argument that America was stagnating not moving and advancing as fast as it could. And that Vice President Nixon represented this conservative approach of not moving real fast, staying back and seeing how things develop. Where Vice President Nixon tried to make the argument that America wasn’t ready to chart a different course.

Dick Nixon didn’t want to chart a course with a somewhat young and inexperienced Senator that had never been an executive before. Thats the choice that America had for President in 1960. What Jack Kennedy represented for the country was a true vision of where he wanted to take the country and how we would get there. Making the argument that America was sitting still in the 1950s under President Eisenhower who was somewhat conservative. And that the country wasn’t advancing fast enough. And sitting still and even falling behind.

The recession of the late 1950s helped Senator Kennedy make the case that it’s time to move again. And Dick Nixon President Eisenhower’s loyal and influential Vice President represented the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Vice President Nixon I believe didn’t do much to counter this Democratic argument or defend himself. But what he did instead was try to make this campaign about Jack Kennedy’s youth and inexperience. Even though they both came to Congress the same time in 1947 to the House and were friends there. And remained friends when Nixon became Vice President in 1953 and Kennedy was elected to the Senate the same year. And Nixon was only four years older and we’re in the same generation, both men were also Irish.

One difference between Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon, was that Kennedy did offer the country a change of course, that would finish off what was created in the 1930s with the New Deal. But in a different way, focusing on health care, civil rights and tax cuts. Making the case the country was overtaxed.

I believe Nixon didn’t have what’s called the vision thing, at least in 1960. He developed that by 1968 when he was elected President. But 1960 for him was: “This is what’s been working, so let’s continue what we’ve done.”

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C-SPAN: Q&A With Brian Lamb- Mick Caouette on Hubert Humphrey: ‘The Art of The Possible’

Source:CSPAN– Brian Lamb, interviewing Mick Caoette about his documentary about Hubert H. Humphrey.

Source:FRS FreeState

“Film producer Mick Caouette speaks to Q&A about his documentary, “Hubert H. Humphrey: The Art of the Possible.” Program from Sunday, February 6, 2011.”

From CSPAN

“Producer Mick Caouette talked about his documentary on former Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The film is the story of his life with emphasis on his leadership role in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The documentary also features video from his political years running for the Senate, vice-president, and president. The program featured clips from the documentary. Producer Mick Caouette started working on the documentary eleven years ago, and it was released in the fall of 2010.”

Source:CSPAN– Mick Caouette, talking to Brian Lamb, about his documentary about Hubert H. Humphrey.

From CSPAN

“Mick Caouette is a documentary filmmaker who focuses on U.S. history and Sociology.
“Hubert H Humphrey: The Art of the Possible” follows Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey through his civil rights work, the Vietnam War and his loss to Richard Nixon. The film is available at http://www.shopbs.org and will premiere through APT on PBS fall 2010…

Source:Mick Caoette– about U.S. Senator and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey.

From Mick Caoette

“For the last half of the 20th century, America was consumed by two struggles: the civil rights movement and the cold war. For 30 years Hubert Humphrey stood at the center of both. While he is most remembered for his loss to Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential campaign, Humphrey left behind a legacy that few presidents can match. As a soldier of the New Deal and Great Society, he amassed one of the most prolific legislative records in senate history — from Medicare to the Peace Corps.

But Humphrey’s most significant and enduring achievements were in the area of civil and human rights. This film explores his 1948 speech at the Democratic convention and his pivotal contribution to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In November of 1977, for the first time in U.S. history, Congress held a joint special session to honor a single senator. Special feature – a 1976 Bill Moyer’s interview with Hubert Humphrey.”

Source:Amazon– about former U.S. Senator and Vice President, Hubert H. Humphrey (Democrat, Minnesota)

From South Hill Films

The Art of the Possible, which is the name of a documentary about former Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, I believe is the perfect way to describe Hubert Humphrey. Because that’s how Senator Humphrey saw politics and government: serving the people and trying to solve problems that they face.

Hubert didn’t see government as a debating society, where Democrats and Republicans, Liberals, Progressives, and Conservatives, bashed each over the head. With neither party having enough power to destroy the other party. But he saw government as a way to try to solve problems, analyze the issues, examine what the political situation is between both parties and try to find solutions that can pass through Congress and that the President would sign. And Hubert Humphrey had plenty experience at this. Being in Congress for twenty five years and being the Assistant Leader of the Senate from 1961-65. Leader Mike Mansfield’s deputy and then Vice President from 1965-69.

Hubert Humphrey was pretty busy in that time period with the civil rights legislation. The civil rights debates actually were going on in the late 1940s. When Hubert Humphrey was elected to the Senate and he made his famous pro-civil rights speech at the 1948 DNC.

And the 1964 Civil Rights Act where Humphrey had a big role in getting that bill passed. And ending the Senate filibuster from the Southern right-wing Democrats. And helping to bring aboard some Northern Progressive Republicans.

And as Vice President he had a role in getting the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed as well as Medicare health insurance for senior citizens. But I believe Hubert Humphrey’s legacy in Congress was the civil rights legislation. Who without him those bills never get passed.

Hubert Humphrey had the perfect approach to civil rights, because he saw it as about human and constitutional rights. Which trumps states rights, which was of course the argument that the Southern Dixiecrat Democrats were making. That the states had the right to enforce constitutional rights as they see them. Even if it violates constitutional rights of African-Americans and other racial minorities.

The Republican Party of the 1960s even though they were the opposition party from 1961-69 and were a small minority party in both the House and Senate for the whole decade, deserve a lot of credit in Congress for those bills being passed at all.

Congressional Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, deserve a lot of credit for getting the civil rights legislation passed as well, because they don’t pass in the Senate without Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who without him these bills never get passed in this era.

Hubert Humphrey tends to get lost when we are talking about great politicians and public servants for whatever reason. But without him a lot of important legislation never gets passed. And a lot of Americans would’ve been denied their constitutional rights as a result, just because of their race. Which would’ve been a disgrace in a liberal democracy like America.

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