Momo Salvatore Giancana was born on May 24,1908 in Chicago. Giancana was born in the Patch in the southwest of Chicago’s Loop. Growing up Giancana or Momo as he was called didn't have it easy, not only growing up in poverty but also being beaten by his father. Giancana didn't have it easy at school either he was expelled from one school and left the other after 6 months. Momo returned to Little Italy, but didn’t return to the Giancana home. He spent his adolescence on the streets. Momo was all by himself untill he came across the '42 Gang'.

The '42 Gang' was the biggest of the neighborhood gangs. In the company of pickpockets, hustlers, pimps and swindlers, Momo learned how to steal and how to use a baseball bat. Several of the 42 were murderers by the time they were 15 years old. Mooney was one of them.

During the Prohibition Momo collected whiskey in tin drums and delivered it to a series of central warehouses around Chicago, from where it would be disbursed to customers’ homes and businesses. If people didn't pay Giancana busted some noses. Around 1929 Momo was arrested for burglary in the Patch he was sentenced to 3 years in Joliet Prison. He was released on Christmas Eve, 1932. He was 25 years old. On September 23, 1933 Momo got married to Angeline De Tolve.

In the late 1930s Momo received a 4 year sentence to Leavenworth. By the time Momo was released in 1943, a new boss was in charge in Chicago. His name was Anthony Accardo, a former bodyguard and killer for Al 'Scarface' Capone. In prison Momo had befriended a black guy named Eddie Jones and from him learned about the numbers policy racket, which Jones operated and had been run only in black areas. Jones promised him that, for a percentage, the white syndicate could help spread it into other parts of the city. He wanted Momo to promote it with the powers that be. "It’s a lottery game," he told Accardo. "Capone was offered the same chance years ago and turned it down, losing millions. With a nickel you can win five bucks or as much as a thousand on a two-dollar bet. It’s a game played by everyday people, and everybody plays it." The deal was set and Momo was given the green light. When Eddie Jones was released himself from Leavenworth, he and Momo set the thing up. After Momo learned the mechanics of the racket, he kidnapped Jones and brought him to the basement Oak Park home. His offer was a no winner for Eddie: turn over a $250,000 ransom fee and the entire policy operation, then get out and stay out of Chicago. Within a week the former policy king had not only left the city......he left the country.

Accardo was impressed with the way Giancana had accomplished his task and brought in a new money maker. Giancana became a made member of the Chicago Outfit and because he controlled the numbers game for Accardo he became a very important made member. Because he was a big money maker and capable man he soon became somewhat of an Underboss or streetboss to Accardo. Giancana loved it and he found he didn't just like the power. Momo started socialising in entertainment circles, and his friends included Frank Sinatra, Joe E. Lewis, Phyllis McGuire, Keeley Smith, "Joltin’ Joe" DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Jake LaMotta and Rocky Graziano. Accardo and the rest of the Outfit didn't appreciate this kind of friends because it brought them out into the spotlight and a Mafioso is not supposed to be in the spotlight, but because Momo kept making money and handled his business in a good way they let him be. Giancana and Accardo had taken their gambling operations to an international level and money was pouring in. By the late 1940s The Outfit was skimming millions of dollars of mob dominated gambling casinos in Las Vegas and in Havana, Cuba and it had both political and economic control of at least six heavily populated wards in Chicago and exercised control over mobster and Teamster activities in Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. By the mid 1950s between 1955 and 1957, Tony Accardo decided he was getting bored with being boss and stepped down as boss, but he would remain available as an advisor. Accardo named Momo Giancana new Boss of the Chicago LCN.

Now Giancana was official Boss people came to him for favors and help. One of those people was Joseph Kennedy. Joe Kennedy needed Giancana's help big time: Frank Costello, the New York boss, had put a contract on his life for refusing to perform a number of owed favors for the Mafia. Kennedy explained to Momo that he had meant no insult, but that he was just maintaining a distance from Costello should the Kennedy name be re-linked to the rackets and ruin his son’s career. "You know how it is," he told Momo, shrugging apologetically. Giancana made him squirm a little until, panicky, Kennedy blurted out what Momo wanted to hear. "If my son is elected President he’ll be your man. My son, the President of the United States, will owe you his father’s life. He won’t refuse you, ever. You have my word." Within the week, Momo talked to Costello. With the promise that they would have their own man in the White House, the mob called off the hit on Joe Kennedy. It sounded great, but this would mean the end for Giancana.

When Bobby Kennedy, the other son of Joe and brother of about to become President John F. Kennedy, formed the McClellan Committee to investigate mob activity, Momo thought it was just for show just one more step toward shaping his brother Jack’s "good guy" image upward to the White House. When he himself and several other top mobsters were served subpoenas to appear before the committee Momo was having second thoughts but Joe Kennedy insisted that this was all a masquerade. Momo however was doubtfull and started working on a defence against the Kennedy's. John F. Kennedy was known as a real womanizer, so it didn’t take long, with the help of mob whoremasters and local police on Momo’s payroll, to collect incriminating evidence. As he confessed to his brother, "I got enough evidence to ruin two political careers. I’ve got pictures, tape recordings, film, you name it. The American public would be real happy to see their President being serviced by three women!". On November 8, 1960 John F. Kennedy became President of the U.S. thanks to some more help from Giancana who controlled the Unions and made them vote Kennedy.

After that election things started running wild. First there were the problems in Cuba, Castro had ousted dictator Batista and along with ousting Batista he ousted all the mob's casino's and whorehouses, Giancana's moneymakers were eliminated. Now he felt it was a good time for the Kennedy's to repay their debt and use force to oust Castro and help Giancana get his moneymakers back. In a triangle which consisted of the Mafia, the C.I.A. and the Kennedy's the downfall of Castro was planned. As we all know the plans failed, "the bay of pigs" as it was called embarressed Giancana and the C.I.A. who didn't get enough backing from Kennedy. The Mafia was pissed at Giancana and Giancana was pissed to say the least at the Kennedy's, they had let him down and that was not all they did. Right after the bay of pigs Bobby Kennedy ordered FBI surveillance on Momo. Giancana became paranoid seeing agents everywhere. One time at a busy airport he lost his cool and shouted towards a guy who he thought to be an F.B.I. agent: "Screw your boss Hoover and his boss, Kennedy! I have the lowdown on all the damn Kennedys and one day I’ll tell everything. Then the whole world will know what hypocritical bastards they really are!". Unfortunately for Giancana this never really happened.

In 1965 Giancana was incarcerated in Cook County Jail for nearly a year for not responding to a Justice Department subpoena. Around this time tensions within the Outfit were raging. Giancana had put a lot of strain on the Outfit with his high profile friends and plots. When Giancana was in prison things in the Outfit seemed to relax a bit, but in 1966 Giancana was back on the streets and the Outfit had to start making choices. Feeling that the Outfit had had enough of him Momo took off to Mexico to control the Outfit's Latin American gambling operations. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI made several attempts to roust him from his Mexican hideaway, even harassing his daughters. Finally, in 1974, under pressure, the Mexican government extradited him back to the United States. Summoned to appear before the Senate Select Subcommittee on Intelligence, Momo’s deteriorating health allowed him to postpone his appearance. A series of gall bladder operations kept him bedridden. At last, back on his feet, another subpoena ordered him to appear without alibi in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 1975. However by this time people in the Outfit didn't trust their 'former' boss as they once did. They were afraid he might talk. And so on midnight of July 19, 1975 Momo Giancana was whacked. The killer had shot 6 bullets in Giancana's head, 1 to kill him and 5 to make sure. It had been someone who Momo trusted, letting him in the house and turning his back on him. The reason? The Outfit might've been a little bit wary of Giancana testifying before the senate even if they felt he might not break Omerta...why take the risk? Another reason could be that after all the heat Giancana had brought to the Outfit they had had enough and decided that in order to take the heat away they had to whack Giancana. The order was without doubt given by Anthony Accardo (picture on the right).

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