Thomas Maier's Blog

What's inside my new book, THE INVISIBLE SPY? Much of it deals with Churchill's spies at Rockefeller Center in the days leading up to WWII.But the biggest scoop is from the Cold War section of THE INVISIBLE SPY.FBI documents show that former CIA chief Allen Dulles, while a member of the Warren Commission investigating JFK's murder, apparently was leaking to a spy friend Ernest Cuneo. It's the first known leak to a figure outside the government.I found these FBI documents while researching my new biography of Cuneo, a former NFL football star who became the first American spy of WWII. Why was Dulles, who lived on Long Island's Gold Coast, acting in such a way? I explain it all in THE INVISIBLE SPY. Many thanks to Newsday for publishing this op-ed piece about Long Island's most enigmatic spy!https://www.newsday.com/.../jfk-assas......

"As gripping as a Bond novel—and every word of it true. The Invisible Spy is a great read on an important moment in history, backed by precise reportage and keen insight. I couldn’t put it down."— Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A LifeTHE INVISIBLE SPY: Churchill's Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War IIby Thomas Maier, author of Mafia SpiesThe untold WWII story of a former NFL player turned White House insider who worked with Churchill’s undercover agents in New York City to conduct the biggest foreign spy operation ever within the US, and inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond, for fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson.As a tough but smart Italian-American kid, Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a City Hall lawyer and “Brain Trust'' aide to President Roosevelt. He was on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell and mingled with the famous and powerful. But his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight.During this time, Cuneo began a love affair with one of Churchill's agents at Rockefeller Center agents – Margaret Watson, a beautiful Canadian woman with a photographic memory ideal for spycraft. In one nighttime attack, Watson was nearly smothered to death by a Nazi assassin inside her women’s dormitory near Rockfeller Center. Cuneo’s transformation from a gridiron athlete into a high-stakes intelligence go-between and political influencer is one of the great untold stories of American espionage. He has remained “invisible” in the public eye – until now, with this unveiled look into his life.From bestselling author and the producer of the hit cable series Masters of Sex, Thomas Maier delves into the little-known tales behind FDR and Churchill, Canadian William “Intrepid” Stephenson who oversaw the Rockefeller Center operation, the OSS’s “Wild Bill'' Donovan and his in-house rival Allen Dulles, and more. The Invisible Spy (HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press; on sale: March 25, 2025) weaves Cuneo’s remarkable personal story with the vivid and insightful portraits of many top figures in his world. Full of action and fascinating characters, this untold story shows how the British launched a far-ranging covert campaign against Nazi conspirators hidden in America, a spy war unbeknownst to many.

The Kennedy saga begins with Patrick Kennedy’s arrival in the Brahmin world of Boston in 1848, a journey emblematic of the Irish immigrant experience. Patrick’s determination and resilience laid the foundation for a family that would come to symbolize both the triumphs and tribulations of the American Dream. His descendants, particularly Joe Kennedy, would navigate the complex social and political landscapes of their time, shedding the brogues of their heritage to ascend the echelons of American society. Joe’s ambition and strategic acumen transformed the Kennedys into a political dynasty, yet their Irish Catholic roots remained a defining, if often understated, influence on their public and private lives.John F. Kennedy’s presidency marked the zenith of the family’s political influence, a period when the Kennedys’ blend of charisma, intellect, and idealism captivated the nation. JFK’s pioneering campaign as the first Roman Catholic president was not just a political milestone but a cultural one, reflecting the broader narrative of Irish Catholic integration into American society. His administration’s support for civil rights and social justice echoed the values instilled by his immigrant forebears, even as the family grappled with the personal and public pressures of their elevated status.The Kennedy legacy is also a story of profound personal loss and resilience. From Joe Kennedy’s heartbreak over the deaths of his sons, Joe Jr. and JFK, to the tragic assassinations of Robert and John F. Kennedy, the family’s narrative is interwoven with themes of sacrifice and endurance. Despite these tragedies, the Kennedys’ commitment to public service and their ability to inspire successive generations remain undiminished. Their story, as Thomas Maier illustrates, is not just one of political ambition but of a family’s enduring quest to reconcile their immigrant past with their American present.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/arts/television/mafia-spies-cia-kill-castro.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwY2xjawEx0SdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQJKfSScFozCSkN8e58qiC4x3sTBNe3QkeI8UA_VKdtkUbQ0IS27WS7nWA_aem_hecpK6ankYbPogqInWQ6Bg

By Chris Vognar

Aug. 9, 2024

The stories have swirled around for years, often in the form of feverish conspiracy theories. The major players should ring familiar by now: John F. Kennedy. Fidel Castro. The C.I.A. The mob. Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie “JFK” raised the delirium to operatic heights; Don DeLillo’s 1988 novel “Libra” gave it a jolt of postmodern cool.

But “Mafia Spies,” the new docuseries now streaming on Paramount+, takes a different tack. Based on Thomas Maier’s nonfiction book of the same name, it lays out the true story of how the C.I.A. collaborated with the mafia to plot the assassination of Castro. Much of this is documented in files about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that were released in batches by the National Archives in 2017 and 2018, and which Maier used as the basis of his book.

Maier — who is also a producer on the series — and the showrunners, Tom Donahue and Ilan Arboleda, turn the archive data into a narrative that prompts one double take after another and is often intentionally funny. But however improbable some of it seems, the guiding premise is that it all really happened. One goal of the show is to debunk the many conspiracy theories that swirl around this era of history.

“If we had relied on conspiracy theories, you just wouldn’t believe it,” Donahue, who also directed the series, said in a video interview alongside Arboleda. “As they say, the truth is stranger than fiction.”

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The six episodes of “Mafia Spies” feature a labyrinth of plots and a sprawling cast of mobsters, spies, politicians, revolutionaries and entertainers. But the big picture is actually pretty simple.

The C.I.A., led at the time by Allen Dulles, wanted to eliminate the new Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro — or, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower put it, he wanted Castro “sawed off,” according to the historian Stephen Kinzer, who is featured in the series. Through a “cutout” (or middle man), Robert Maheu, a businessman and lawyer, the C.I.A. enlisted organized crime leaders, chiefly the Chicago Outfit’s Sam Giancana and John Roselli, to assassinate Castro. (The mafia had its own reasons for wanting Castro dead: After he seized power in 1959, Havana’s casinos were no longer a cash-cow haven for them.)

Spoiler alert: They didn’t succeed. Castro died of natural causes in 2016 at the age of 90. “He’s the last man standing,” Donahue said. “Ultimately, that’s the punchline.” At the same time, President Kennedy shared a lover, (Judith Campbell), and a pal (Frank Sinatra) with Giancana, and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy zealously went after the mob even as the mob tried to do the C.I.A.’s dirty work. The “Mafia Spies” web is remarkably tangled.

The series encompasses major historical events, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. But there’s nothing dry about “Mafia Spies,” except perhaps the martinis slurped down by the C.I.A. honchos during one of the series’s piquant re-enactments. It may be grounded in fact, but “Mafia Spies” is also quite cheeky.

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Arboleda and Donahue lean into the entertainment value of the story. The music and graphics riff off everything from James Bond movies to the “Mission: Impossible” TV series from the 1960s. After we learn that Maheu claimed to be the inspiration for “Mission: Impossible,” we see a stylized rear-projection shot of the actor playing Maheu that matches a nearly identical shot of Peter Graves from the classic spy series. When one high-ranking mobster is shot in the head, his blood splatters over a poster for the Cold War thriller “The Manchurian Candidate.”

ImageTomas Maier, whose book “Mafia Spies” inspired the series, is also a producer and commentator.Credit...Paramount+

Donahue was immediately struck by the potential for humor in the story, which also includes Sinatra, the singer (and Giancana girlfriend) Phyllis McGuire, and the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. The C.I.A. and its mob partners tried everything from poison pills to a lethal “honey pot” — a woman enlisted to seduce and murder — to achieve its goal. Nothing worked.

“When I read the book I thought, ‘This is the Keystone Kops,’” Donahue said. “That was the tone we wanted from the beginning. You can’t take this too seriously, even though it’s life and death. The C.I.A. is just a bunch of bumbling idiots in this.”

Arboleda added: “We knew we had to play that for comedy.”

Though the series is critical of conspiracy theories in general, and particularly those spawned by “JFK,” it probably wouldn’t exist without that movie. Congress mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in the National Archives largely because of the controversy surrounding Stone’s film.

Maier found a trove of information for “Mafia Spies” when thousands of those Kennedy assassination documents were released. Among them were details on the extent of the anti-Castro planning overseen by Robert Kennedy when he was attorney general. They also shed light on numerous assassination schemes plotted by the C.I.A. to get Castro.

“It was almost like a Whac-A-Mole game,” Maier said in a video interview. “They kept trying with all the poisons and the explosions and all these various different attempts to kill him. How did he evade that?”

  I'll be at Authors Night Saturday August 10 at the East Hampton Library, signing copies of MAFIA SPIES (now a TV tie-in edition for the series on Paramount+Showtime) as well as my brand new novel MONTAUK TO MANHATTAN, hopefully destined for the screen as well. A few years back, I was at the same event signing copies of my 2019 book ALL THAT GLITTERS about the Conde Nast media empire. During this year's event, I'll also be interviewed by WLIW about my two new books  sometime around 6PM. Make sure to catch MAFIA SPIES either by streaming on Paramount+ or on cable with Showtime. 

 

A decade ago, a TV show from a book I wrote called MASTERS OF SEX debuted on Showtime and ran for four seasons. Tonight, another TV show from a book I wrote called MAFIA SPIES debuted on Showtime, and they were even nice enough to remember MASTERS OF SEX in the promos. On Thursday July 25 at 7pm, I’ll be at Theodore’s Books in Oyster Bay to talk about it!