The Momo and Cain Connection

The story of the CIA'S efforts to enlist Mafia aid in assassinating Cuba's Fidel Castro continues to unfold. In 1960, during the waning months of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, TIME has learned that the agency went to Momo Salvatore ("Sam") Giancana, a high-ranking Mafia don who ruled Chicago's gangland with a bloody hand. The mission: kill Castro. For help, Giancana turned to one of the most nimble and conniving figures in the Mafia: Richard Cain, who had been the Mafia's agent in the enemy camp: a detective on Chicago's police force.

Among his other accomplishments, Cain spoke Spanish fluently. With the consent of the CIA, intelligence sources say, Detective Cain began recruiting Spanish-speaking toughs on the Windy City's West Side. Some of the hoodlums were sent to Miami and Central America for training in commando tactics.

Exactly what the Mafia rangers accomplished against Cuba is still unclear. Some intelligence officials doubt that a single guerrilla from Chicago ever set foot on the island. For his part, Cain later was to boast how he had led hit-and-run raids on Cuban power stations.

U.S. sources say that the CIA spent more than $100,000 on the operation, while Giancana laid out $90,000 of the Mob's own funds for Cain's expenses. When some Mafia officials objected to the payments, Giancana contended that the funds should be considered as "ice" (protection money).

What did Giancana get for his investment? In October 1960, the CIA did him a favor that was beyond the purview of the agency. Giancana was fuming because his girl friend, Singer Phyllis McGuire, was interested in Comedian Dan Rowan. The CIA arranged for burglars to break into Rowan's hotel room in Las Vegas and search for evidence that might cool the romance.

But in 1964, for all the ice he had carefully laid away, Giancana seemed to get no special treatment from the U.S. Government. Haled before a federal grand jury looking into the Mafia's affairs in Chicago, Giancana refused to talk and served twelve months in jail for contempt of court. Released in 1966, the don moved to Mexico for a while but is now back in Chicago.

Cain had been forced to quit the Chicago police in 1960 after he was caught spying on Mayor Daley's commissioner of investigations. Incredibly, he was hired in 1962 by Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogilvie (who was to become Illinois' Governor six years later). Resuming his role as a spy for the Mob, Cain was fired by Ogilvie for his shenanigans in 1964. Finally, in 1968, Cain was jailed for his part in a Mafia operation. Released in 1971, he became the still absent Giancana's man in Chicago.

There, on Dec. 20, 1973, two men wearing ski masks and carrying walkie-talkies surprised him in Rose's Sandwich Shop, a sleazy restaurant that had color stills from The Godfather on one wall. One man held a 12-gauge shotgun under Cain's chin and blew the head off the man whose quarry had once been Fidel Castro.

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