Salvatore Giancana was born in 1908 in Chicago. He grew up in poverty in the Southwest Loop. He joined the '42 Gang' and first stole bananas and peppers and later cars. Giancana was a murderer by the time he turned 15.

After spending four years in jail and being released in 1943, he started working for Anthony Accardo and thus became a member of the Chicago outfit. When Accardo retired in 1957, Giancana became boss of the Chicago outfit.

In the early sixties, he was approached by Joseph Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's father. Frank Costello, a New York mobster, had ordered a hit on Joseph Kennedy. The future president's father promised that JFK would be Giancana's man if he helped him. Giancana took the opportunity. With the promise that they would have their own man in the White House, the mob called off the hit.

However, when John F. Kennedy actually became president, he wanted a clean reputation - he served Giancana and several other mobsters with Grand Jury subpoenas. But Giancana came up with some information about women JFK had affairs with (his evidence included photo and video). With this information, he "convinced" JFK, that a subpoena was not necessary.

Wanting revenge, Giancana came up with a plan to introduce Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe (he had good ties to the show business because he was friends with Frank Sinatra) and then expose an affair between the two. However, Marilyn was first with JFK and then with Bobby Kennedy. She told Giancana that she was in love with Bobby. The gangster simply revised his plan to killing Marilyn Monroe and then putting the blame on the Kennedys. However, he was angered when the newspapers did not even implicate the Kennedy brothers after Marilyn's death.

Afterwards, it became known throughout the mob that Giancana had reached his limits. In 1966, he realized that the outfit was sick of him and decided to go to Mexico to control the outfit's Latin American gambling operations. Giancana was shot on July 19, 1975. A hit man put one bullet into his head to kill him and five to make sure he was really dead. No one was ever arrested in the murder.

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Information on Giancana was found at Crime Magazine.com