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Wiseguys and the White House: Gangsters, Presidents, and the Deals They Made

2025

Synopsis

Gangsters and presidents have long captured the American imagination, but how much does the underworld actually affect presidential power? How deep are their “connections”? As Eric Dezenhall reveals in this eye-opening history, in some instances, one couldn’t have functioned without the other. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Richard Nixon to Joseph R. Biden, the mob has done presidential dirty work, including attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, harass America’s enemies, and put our chief executives in office.

Wiseguys and the White House documents when mobsters and presidents have traded favors—and double-crossed each other, including:

The deal cut with Lucky Luciano to protect the waterfront during World War II.

How the Chicago Outfit (and Frank Sinatra) got one Kennedy elected, only to be pursued by another.

How LBJ and the FBI used a mob hitman to hunt down the killers of Civil Rights activists in Mississippi.

Reagan’s association with Lew Wasserman, the powerful and influential Hollywood mogul.

Trump's blatant ties to construction and gambling cartels.

Biden’s early links to “the Irishman” Frank Sheeran, the labor union official and enforcer for Jimmy Hoffa and Russell Bufalino.

Combining exhaustive research, including newly released government records and the private recollections of leading gangsters, Wiseguys and the White House offers insight into the myths about the power in America and the drive for recognition and respectability that unites consiglieri and commanders-in-chief alike.

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I Heard You Paint Houses

"I heard you paint houses" are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews, Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brand...

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