AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy

All best,

Edgar

DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/19/59. Personal letter: Kemper Boyd to J. Edgar Hoover. Marked: EXTREMELY CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir:

Per our previous conversation, I’m passing on salient Kennedy family information gleaned from Laura (Swanson) Hughes.

I’ve gained a degree of Miss Hughes’ confidence in the course of establishing a casual friendship with her. My relationship with the Kennedys gives me credibifity, and Miss Hughes was impressed with the fact that I determined the secret of her parentage without actually broaching the topic to Kennedy family members or her other knowledgeable friends.

Miss Hughes loves to talk about the family, but she only discusses John, Robert, Edward, Rose and the sisters in bland terms. She reserves considerable wrath for Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., cites his ties to Boston mobster Raymond L. S. Patriarca and a retired Chicago “bootlegger-financier” named Jules Schiffrin, and delights in telling stories of Mr. Kennedy’s business rivalry with Howard Hughes. (Miss Hughes adopted the name “Hughes” on her eighteenth birthday, replacing the Kennedy-Swanson proffered “Johnson” in an effort to somehow fluster her father, one of Howard Hughes’ most auspicious enemies.)

Miss Hughes contends that Joseph P. Kennedy’s gangster ties run considerably deeper than the “he was a bootlegger” tag foisted upon him by the press in reference to his highly successful scotch whisky import business preprohibition. She cannot cite specific gangster intimates or recall incidents that she has witnessed or heard of second-hand; nevertheless, her sense of Joseph P. Kennedy as “deeply gangster connected” remains inchoately strong.

I will continue my friendship with Miss Hughes and report all salient Kennedy family intelligence to you.

Respectfully,

Kemper Boyd

DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/21/59. Summary report: SA Ward J. Littell to Kemper Boyd. “For editing and forwarding to Robert F. Kennedy.”

Dear Kemper,

Things continue apace here in Chicago. I’m continuing to pursue domestic Communists per my regular Bureau assignment, although they impress me as more pathetic and less dangerous by the day. That said, I’ll move to our real concerns.

Sal D’Onofrio and Lenny Sands continue, unknown to each other, to serve as my informants. Sal, of course, paid back the $12,000 he owed Sam Giancana; Giancana let him off with a beating. Apparently, my theft of Butch Montrose’s $14,000 was never connected to Sal’s $12,000 windfall. I ordered Sal to repay Giancana in three increments and he followed that order. My initial violence directed at Sal proved to be far-sighted: I seem to have the man thoroughly cowed. In the course of casual conversation I told him that I had been a Jesuit seminarian. D’Onofrio, a selfdescribed “Devout Catholic,” was impressed by this and now considers me something of a father-confessor. He has confessed to six torture-murders, and of course I now have those (gruesomely detailed) confessions to hold over him. Aside from the occasional nightmares the confessions have induced, Sal and I seem to be proceeding on an even keel. I told him I would appreciate it if he would refrain from killing and self-destructive gambling while under my stewardship, and so far he seems to be doing that. Sal has provided me with rather tame pieces of anti-Mob intelligence (not worth forwarding to you or Mr. Kennedy) but has not been of help in steering me toward a loan seeker to hoist up the Teamster Pension Fund ladder. This was the sole reason I suborned him as my informant, and he has failed me in that capacity. I suspect that proving the existence of “alternative” Pension Fund books will be a gruesomely attenuated process.

Lenny Sands continues to wear almost as many hats as you. He’s the Hush-Hush stringer (God, what ugly work that must bet), Sal’s junket partner and a general Chicago Mob drone. He says he’s actively engaged in attempting to accrue information on the workings of the Pension Fund and says that he believes the rumor that Sam Giancana pays bonuses for Fund loan referrals is true. He also believes that “alternative,” perhaps coded, Pension Fund books detailing hidden assets do exist. In conclusion, I’ve yet to glean hard information from either Sands or D’Onofrio.

On another front, Mr. Hoover seems to be dodging a potential opportunity to impede Chicago Mob members. Court Meade picked up an (elliptically worded) mention of a robbery on the tailor shop bug. Chicago Mob soldiers Rocco Malvaso and Dewey Di Pasquale apparently clouted $80,000 from a (non-Chicago Mob) high-stakes crap game in Kenilworth. THP agents airteled this Information to Mn Hoover, who told them not to forward it to the applicable agencies for follow-up investigation. My God, that man’s twisted priorities!

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