Richard Nixon and the Mafia
In 1946 Richard Nixon, a veteran of World War II and a budding politician, met with Mickey Cohen, a significant figure in the illegal gambling and bookmaking rackets in California, to raise campaign funds for Nixon’s campaign for a seat in Congress. Prior to the meeting, Cohen sought approval to meet with the young candidate from Santo Trafficante. Nixon’s campaign manager for this first political foray was Murray Chotiner, a Mafia lawyer with over 200 clients who were members of organized crime families nationwide.
Later as the United States Senator, Richard Nixon made several trips to Cuba, during which he gambled and stayed in the Hotel National, owned by Meyer Lansky. Nixon’s gambling during these trips was kept from the public and after his nomination to serve as Eisenhower’s Vice President his trips to Havana were curtailed, but the fact of his personal meetings with Lansky was well known, explained as being part of Nixon’s avid support of the Batista regime in Cuba. Lansky and Batista were business partners.
Nixon also maintained ties with Carlos Marcello, who in 1960 provided then-presidential candidate Nixon with a $500,000 donation to his campaign chest, arranged through and delivered by Teamsters leader James Hoffa. Throughout his political career, Nixon maintained close ties with Santo Trafficante as well, both directly and through Nixon’s longtime friend and gambling companion Bebe Rebozo.
During the early days of the Watergate Scandal which ended the Nixon administration in disgrace, the wife of Nixon’s Attorney General, Martha Mitchell, informed the press that Nixon was “involved” with the Mafia, attributing his election in 1968 to Mafia involvement. The administration responded with a series of attacks on her character and sobriety, many of which were successful in depicting her as a deranged crackpot.
Nonetheless, as more and more records are declassified, evidence of Richard Nixon’s career-long alliance with organized crime figures continues to emerge. Nixon’s prime legacy is the Watergate scandal, which most of the public remembers as a burglary gone wrong, ignoring the tendrils of misconduct which permeated the administration in all directions. It should be remembered that five burglars were arrested in the Watergate Complex which revealed the scandal and eventually the distribution of hush money, much of it mob money. One of the arrested burglars was Frank Sturgis, a frequent operative for both the CIA and the Mafia. Years after Watergate, Sturgis, a convicted felon, trained Contras in Honduras for the Central Intelligence Agency.