Lewis
McWillie worked as a professional gambler in Memphis, Tennessee (1932-36).
Later he worked in Jackson, Mississippi, and Dallas, Texas (1940-58).
Then he moved to the Deauville
Casino in Cuba.
A fellow worker at the casino was John
Martino.
McWillie was also a business associate of Santos
Trafficante and Meyer
Lansky and later ran the Tropicana
Casino in Havana. In August 1959 Jack
Ruby visited McWillie.
When
Fidel
Castro took control of of
the island McWillie was arrested and then deported to the United States.
After a period in Miami Meyer
Lansky
placed him inside of his
Tropicana Casino in Las Vegas. In
1961 Sam
Giancana
and
Johnny
Roselli recruited
McWillie to look after Frank Sinatra's
Cal-Neva Lodge in Nevada.
On 17th November, 1963,
McWillie was seen with Jack
Ruby
at the Thunderbird
Casino Las Vegas. According to John
William Tuohy:
"Two days after meeting McWillie in Las Vegas, Ruby was back
in Dallas, flush with nough cash to pay off his back taxes."
In
Nomenclature
of an Assassination Cabal
William
Torbitt
claims that the assassination of John
F. Kennedy
was
organized by Louis
M. Bloomfield,
the head of Permindex. According to the author Permindex was comprised
of:
(1)
Solidarists an Eastern European exile organization.
(2)
American Council of Christian Churches led by Haroldson
L. Hunt.
(3)
Free Cuba Committee headed by Carlos
Prio.
(4)
The Syndicate headed by Clifford Jones, ex-lieutenant governor of
Nevada. This group also included McWillie, Bobby
Baker, George Smathers, Roy
Cohn and Fred Black.
McWillie
became a professional gambler in Dallas and Las Vagas.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
John William Tuohy, The
Cal-Neva Lounge (2001)
In 1961
a Chicago hood named Joseph "Crackers" Mendino died of a
heart attack. Over the years, he had worked under everyone from Torrio
to Giancana in the juke box, pinball and gambling end of the business.
Tony Accardo was one of his pallbearers, and anybody who was anyone
in the Chicago outfit was there for the burial, probably the last
big time mob funeral since the days of Al Capone.
At the funeral, Accardo
and Sam Giancana held a meeting and directed Johnny Roselli to plant
in Nevada somebody to watch over Frank Sinatra because the boys had
decided that Sinatra was much to enamored with the Kennedys and wasn't
thinking straight anymore.
When Roselli returned
to the West Coast he called a hood named Lewis McWillie, whom he had
first met back in 1938, when Roselli did a short stint as the Chicago
representative to the Sans Souci Casino in Havana.
McWillie had worked in
Cuba for years, mostly for New York racketeer Meyer Lansky, McWillie
was never clear to anyone on exactly what it was he did for Lansky,
telling the Warren Commission only that he was a "key man"
at Lansky's Tropicana Casino in Cuba. When Castro booted Lansky out
of Cuba, he brought McWillie with him and placed him inside of his
Las Vegas Casino, the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Otherwise, there was
very little known about McWillie, who also used the obvious alias
of Lewis N. Martin. It is known that he had deep contacts within the
New York and Chicago mobs, and, although never a member of any one
specific outfit, the FBI kept him under surveillance and considered
him to be a top mob hit man and enforcer for hire.
Roselli told McWillie
that Chicago wanted him out at Sinatra's Cal-Neva Lodge to keep an
eye on their investment in the place, and to watch over Sinatra and
report his activities back to Roselli.
McWillie did as he was
told, and created a job for himself at Sinatra's casino, working under
the title of "pit boss," but McWillie, a trained card sharp,
was no mere pit boss as he made himself out to be. Instead, he was
a very rich, seasoned, major gambler who traveled in the highest circles
of organized crime, always driven around in a sleek, new limousine
and seldom went anywhere without a bodyguard. Whenever he worked in
a mobbed up casino, it was always as a high level executive, several
times removed from a lowly blackjack dealer on the floor that he purported
to be.
At about that same time,
McWillie was in frequent contact with Jack Ruby, the man who silenced
Lee Harvey Oswald forever. In fact, one of the last persons Ruby spoke
to before he leaped on to history's stage, was Lewis McWillie. The
little that is known about their odd relationship is that, according
to what McWillie told the Warren Commission, he and Ruby had known
each other from their childhood days in Chicago, and McWillie was
Ruby's host for an eight-day vacation in Cuba in August of 1959. That
same year, the Dallas Police department's Office of Intelligence listed
Jack Ruby and "Chicago-Las Vegas hood Lewis McWillie" as
being among those connected with mob run gambling in Dallas.
Gray haired and stylish,
McWillie impressed the easily impressible Ruby, who admired McWillie
and called him "a very high (class) type person" who reminded
Ruby of "Like a banker or a man who understood and enjoyed the
finer things in this life, which we are given."
Yet, after Ruby gunned
down Oswald, the FBI asked him to draw up a list entitled "people
who may dislike me" and at the top of the list was Lewis McWillie.
On Sunday, November 17,
1963, five days before Kennedy was gunned down, Ruby showed up at
the mob owned Stardust Casino in Las Vegas where he invoked McWillie's
name to cash a check and was later seen at the equally mobbed up Thunderbird
Casino with Lewis McWillie. Two days after meeting McWillie in Las
Vegas, Ruby was back in Dallas, flush with nough cash to pay off his
back taxes.
(2)
William
Torbitt,
Nonmenclature
of an Assassination Cabal (1970)
From
1960 to 1963, the ruling hierarchy of Lionel Corporation was General
John B. Medaris, Roy Cohn and Joe Bonanno (Joe Bananas), a top Mafia
man from New York, Las Vegas, Tucson and Montreal, Canada. Lionel
Corporation during this period did over ninety percent of their business
with the space agency and army ordnance furnishing such items as electronic
equipment, rocket parts, chemical warfare agents and flame throwers.
Also, during this period, General Medaris, though having retired in
1960, remained on active duty as special advisor to Army Intelligence
in the Pentagon. The Lionel Corporation management was in direct contact
with Louis Mortimer Bloomfield who, among other things, was a lawyer
with offices in Tangiers, Morocco and Paris, France. Bloomfield was
also the president of Heineken's Brewers, Ltd., Canada. General Medaris
was a director of one of the land speculation companies of Bobby Baker
and Senator George Smathers in Florida. Joe Bonanno (Joe Bananas)
in his capacity as a Mafia leader, was associated in the Havana and
Las Vegas gambling with L.J. McWillie, Clifford Jones and others.
In addition to J. Edgar
Hoover's close association with Roy Cohn, he was also a long time
friend of General Medaris. Joe Bonanno (Joe Bananas) had been a personal
informer for J. Edgar Hoover for over a decade during 1963. Grant
Stockdale, ex-United States Ambassador to Ireland and former George
Smathers Administrative Assistant and a stock holder and officer in
Bobby Baker's vending machine and Florida land transactions, knew
and was closely associated with almost all of the top figures in the
cabal. Shortly after President Kennedy's assassination on November
22, 1963, Grant Stockdale was pushed, shoved or fell from the fourteenth
story of a Miami building and was killed immediately in the fall.
As an officer in the Bobby Baker enterprises, Grant Stockdale had
particular knowledge of a good part of the workings of the cabal and
his death was one of a series made necessary to protect the group
from public exposure...
Fred Black of Washington,
D.C. was a lobbyist for North American Aircraft and business associate
with Bobby Baker and Clifford Jones. Black has confirmed the connection
between Jones, McWillie, Baker, Ruby and ex-Cuban President, Prio.
After November 22, l963,
Black publicly told many people in Washington, D.C. he had informed
J. Edgar Hoover that an income tax conviction against him must be
reversed or he would blow the lid off Washington with revelations
of the assassination conspirators. Lobbyist Black prevailed upon J.
Edgar Hoover to admit error before the Supreme Court where his case
was reversed in 1966. Hoover did well to rescue Black from the conviction.
Fred Black, while socially drinking with acquaintances in Washington
has, on numerous occasions, been reported to have told of J. Edgar
Hoover's and Bobby Baker's involvement in the assassination through
Las Vegas, Miami and Havana gamblers. He named some of these as the
Fox Brothers of Miami, McLaney of Las Vegas, New Orleans, Havana and
Bahamas, Cliff Jones of Las Vegas, Carlos Prio Socarras of Havana,
Bobby Baker and others. He stated there was also a connection in that
some of the gamblers were Russian emigres.
Don Reynolds, Washington,
D.C. businessman and associate of Bobby Baker and who had a number
of questionable business transactions with Walter Jenkins on behalf
of Lyndon Johnson, also gave testimony concerning Bobby Baker's involvement
with the principals and he has stated on numerous public occasions
that this group was behind the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy. Black was a stockholder with Baker in the Waikiki Savings
& Loan Association in Honolulu. The other members were Clifford
Jones and his law partner, Louis Weiner. There was the Farmers and
Merchants State Bank in Tulsa where Jones joined Baker and Black in
a stock deal and brought in a Miami pal by the name of Benny Sigelbaum,
a courier of funds and documents to the Swiss banks for Permindex
and the Syndicate.
Of all the enterprises,
none could compare with the controversial Serv-U Corp., a Baker-Black
controlled vending- machine firm. Ed Levinson, president of the Fremont
Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, was also a partner. Grant Stockdale, President
of Serv-U and his money is covered later. Formed late in 1961, Serve-U
Corporation provided vending machines for the automatic dispensing
of food and drink in companies working on government contracts. In
the next two years, Serv-U was awarded the lion-share of the vending
business at three major aerospace firms - North American Aviation,
Northrop Corporation and Thompson Ramo Wooldridge's Space Technology
Laboratories. Baker and Black each bought stock in the company for
$1 a share, while the others paid approximately $16 a share.
(3)
Lewis McWillie was interviewed by Donald
Purdy of the
House
Select Committee on Assassinations in
September, 1978.
Donald Purdy: How
would you characterize your relationship with Jack Ruby in the 1950's
in Dallas?
Lewis McWillie: 1950's,
I wasn't around him a real lot, you might say, he would come out to
my apartment and swim in the pool and he was a kind of a leech, you
might say.
Donald Purdy: Kind of a
leech?
Lewis McWillie: Leech.
And he was just a hard fellow to get rid of.
Donald Purdy: You say he
came over uninvited?
Lewis McWillie: Yes, he
came over uninvited after so long a time and he would hang around
the pool everyday and swim and have dinner with me and different things.
Donald Purdy: Did you ever
have to ask him to leave?
Lewis McWillie: I don't
recall. I could have. I don't recall it, though.
Donald Purdy: Were you
and Jack Ruby friends during the 1950's?
Lewis McWillie: Yes, we
were friends.
Donald Purdy: Were you
aware that Jack Ruby considered you one of his closest friends?
Lewis McWillie: I would
have to say so, yes, on account of the favors I had done him.
Donald Purdy: What was
the reason?
Lewis McWillie: The favors
I have done him.
Donald Purdy: So he liked
you because you had done favors for him?
Lewis McWillie: I helped
him.
Donald Purdy: How had you
helped him other than getting Mr. Julius Schepps to help him? Did
you help him in any other way?
Lewis McWillie: I helped
him with, he had a union problem, he called me in Las Vegas in the
early part of 1963.
Donald Purdy: We will go
into that in more detail in a little while.
Lewis McWillie: All right.
Donald Purdy: Were you
aware that Jack Ruby included you on a list of people who might dislike
him?
Lewis McWillie: He put
me on a list of people that might dislike him?
Donald Purdy: Yes.
Lewis McWillie: No, I am
not.
Donald Purdy: Was there
any reason that you could think of that Jack Ruby might think that
you disliked him?
Lewis McWillie: No way.
Donald Purdy: Did Jack
Ruby idolize you?
Lewis McWillie: In a sort
of way I would think so, yes.
Donald Purdy: Why did he
idolize you?
Lewis McWillie: I guess
because I had helped him keep his business open.
Donald Purdy: What contacts,
if any, did you have with Jack Ruby's family, friends and business
associates?
Lewis McWillie: I didn't
even know his family or friends, I didn't know his family. He told
me that he had a brother who was sick and his sister was ill, someway.
He didn't elaborate.
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