One of the many truisms of the 1960 presidential election is that the mob elected John Kennedy as president. Unfortunately for its advocates, there is little, if any, truth in this belief.
Our interest in the topic was piqued by Michael Collins Piper's assertion in Final Judgment to the same effect - that the Kennedys made a deal with the mob, such as in Illinois, to get the senator elected president. The assertion is that the mob and the Kennedys made a deal wherein Kennedy would go soft on organized crime in exchange for the delivery of the votes needed for winning the critical state of Illinois. These claims are at best unfactual, and at worst lies.
Piper's source was Sam Giancana himself. Why the former decided that the latter was a paragon of truth is curious to say the least, but I would want someone more substantial and credible than a mobster supporting my claims about organized crime delivering votes for Kennedy.
If you add Gus Russo or Seymour Hersch to the list of sources, you get more substance. However, as John Binder discovered in his research, they are no more credible on the topic than Giancana. For example, Hersch relied on disbarred alcoholic lawyer Robert McDonnell for his version of the mob stole the election story, who by comparison almost makes Giancana look respectable.
Binder looks at the numbers using statistical methods to find support for the hypothesis that the mob delivered the votes for Kennedy. He starts by noting that there were really only 5 wards of 50 where the mob had any palpable control over voting, and they were not populous enough at the margin to provide any national candidate any tangible benefit in statewide voting.
When applying tests of statistical significance on voting patterns across all of Chicago, Binder also finds that the theory that the mob generated votes for Kennedy simply lacks evidence and credibility. His more reasonable conclusion is that mayor Richard Daley's legendary voting machine provided the votes for the presidential aspirant, and explains why the mayor, rather than Giancana, was invited to the White House after the election.
Binder also considers local voting issues as a factor which generated votes for or against Kennedy. His evidences are that all across the nation there was an upswing in Democrat voting, Chicago being no exception to the rule.
Stepping away from ballots and statistics, there is also the laugh test to consider. Is it really reasonable that Kennedy would risk associations with organized crime in a highly competitive race as was 1960's? There is no way that Kennedy would risk the political toxicity which exposure of such a quid pro quo would risk.
Even more damning to the mob thesis is the fact the both Robert and John created a bit of a reputation as being tough on organized crime in the McClellan senate hearings on this very matter in the 1950s. Would the mob trust Kennedy in any alleged deal after all of the energies each brother expended against organized crime? Binder in fact finds that two mob wards under-voted for Kennedy for the very reason that the Kennedys were seen as a threat to organized crime.
If anyone had associations with organized crime, it might have been Nixon whom Jimmy Hoffa endorsed for the very reason cited above, namely that the Kennedys were on the record for their hostility to the mob whereas Nixon was not. And yet this national leader's endorsement was not sufficient to deliver any state for Nixon.
The idea that the mob delivered Illinois to Kennedy is preposterous on statistical and semantic grounds. It is a myth which will probably not die, but for those who seriously study the matter, rather than rely on gadfly histories, they will find no credible evidence for the mob providing any local or national support for Kennedy in 1960.
Reference
Michael Collins Piper, Final Judgment, America First Books, 6th edition, second printing ebook, 2005, illustrated, 771pp source(Microsoft Word - Final_Judgment_x_Build_20 (wikispooks.com) accessed 4/30/2021)
John J Binder, Did the Chicago Outfit Elect John F Kennedy President?, The Mob Museum (website), October 22, 2020, source( Did the Chicago Outfit elect John F. Kennedy president? | The Mob Museum, accessed 5/2/2021)
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