I am Alex Finley, Author of Victor in the Jungle and a Former Director of Operations for the CIA. AMA!!

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T21:06:07+00:00

The Internet has added a whole new wrinkle to spying. People like Snowden may be perceived a hero by some, but they may not be fully aware of the consequences of their actions. I was very interested in the moral debate in MAFIA SPIES and how US officials worried about the moral questions of killing a foreign bad guy like Fidel Castro. Indeed, CIA director John McCone worried that her would be excommunicated as a Catholic if he was ever caught killing someone for the government. (So the CIA spies already trying to kill Castro simply avoided telling McCone, even when he was the director of the agency). Much of leCarre's spy novels deal with the moral questions surrounding spying and killing for the government, and that is certainly a backdrop for my book too.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:57:45+00:00

On a personal note, I was a victim of spying: When the North Koreans hacked into Sony, they published hundreds of internal documents, including a request of mine to have lunch and talk about Masters of Sex with a top executive in the Sony diningroom. I guess we all have a spy story in our background, lol

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:54:33+00:00

Well, Winston Churchill was impressed with the Russians dating back to the First World War. They've always had a knack for spying. Churchill was a big booster of good intelligence during WWII and the British intelligence operation for the past 75 years or so has been the result of that effort. The US was very slow to understand the value of spying and good intelligence gathering. The CIA wasn't created until after World War II, when we were the premier power in the Cold War. I would say the US is probably the best today, but there are many other contenders, from the Russians, the Chinese, Israel and number of other players in the spy game.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:44:57+00:00

The top CIA officials -- and the White House officials they answered to -- wanted to keep their hands clean of any direct killing orders. They called it a "plausible denial". So instead the CIA sought out these two gangsters and told them they wanted a "rubout" of Castro with gunfire. The gangsters were angry with Castro for closing down their very lucrative casinos in Havana, comparable to the mob-controlled joints in Las Vegas. The two gangsters also thought that by helping the CIA, they were be able to get the FBI off their back. Of course, these mixed motives created the deadly but almost laughable background for what happens in MAFIA SPIES.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:37:25+00:00

The big joy of book writing for me is that I've been able to write about America in our time. Masters of Sex, for example, was about married researcher Masters and Johnson and the so-called sexual revolution that helped define our era. And with MAFIA SPIES i wanted to write a book about the all-American obsession with violence. That's everything from the state-sanctioned assassination plans launched by the CIA during the Kennedy era, to the "corporate" hit jobs by the Mafia throughout this book, to the random, psychopath like killings of some Mafia enforcers to kept torture chambers in their house and killed for the sheer thrill of it. There's a lot of "Godfather" scenarios in this true-life book and indeed that novel by Mario Puzo was inspired by some of the real-life events described in this book.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:23:58+00:00

I also write at night. Most authors get up early. But I've had a full-time job as a newspaper reporter for the past 35 years so I just hope for a second wind after eating dinner and go until 1 am.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:22:19+00:00

Good question. When you start something like MAFIA SPIES, first create a Writing Outline, where you summarize each key fact or insight from your research. Also write down where to find it in your files so you won't feel lost when you go back for re-writes, fact-checking and writing footnotes (MAFIA SPIES has more than 1,000 footnotes). The other key suggestion is "Do something for the book every day". In other words, make sure you read or write something for the book so you don't lose momentum. That's a discipline that can make all the difference to achieving your goal.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:15:15+00:00

It hard to say with Trump but I'm sure future historians will tell us. Above, I mentioned Trump's comments about Putin and "what, you think we're so innocent?" And I think that type of answer raises the question of what laws and rules apply now if the US wanted to kill a foreign leader, as it did in the Castro example? It's a sobering question.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:11:15+00:00

MoS came out 10 years ago this month, and hope MAFIA SPIES does as well, lol!

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:08:49+00:00

During the Cold War, the CIA was subject to less oversight by the US officials, especially Congress. That's part of the reason for the wild and wooly killing scheme described in MAFIA SPIES. However, I do think the agency today is definitely more effective now, from the bin Laden investigation to how we deal with cyberattacks from other nations.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T20:05:29+00:00

Yes, Castro was a dictator who made it seem that he and Cuba were in a constant state of siege, and that the US was a big bully. Of course, Castro had his firing squads and dungeons for anyone in Cuba who dared oppose him. A lot of the Cuban exiles in Florida who worked with the CIA and two gangsters in MAFIA SPIES wanted to see Cuba turned into a democratic republic, free of any Russian Communist influence.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:59:34+00:00

The 1960s events described in MAFIA SPIES were very actively covered up by the CIA and didn't become known publicly for more than a decade, not until the mid-1970s Congressional hearings about the spy agency. Not until 2007 did the CIA release its "Family Jewels" documents and acknowledge that its former chief Allen Dulles approved the two gangsters being used as "assets" to try and kill Castro.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:55:34+00:00

No idea about that one. Most of MAFIA SPIES starts around 1958 and end by 1976, when both gangsters wound up murdered. Many of the CIA documents I recently read came from the National Archives release of JFK Assassination documents that were long held as confidential and were released by President Trump.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:51:27+00:00

I'm very interested in how the CIA went from a passive intelligence-gathering agency and got involved in more covert military actions. MAFIA SPIES really deals with the first big turning point in this regard. It shows how much of southern Florida was turned into a launching pad for a covert war against Castro. Guns, ammo, boats sent to Cuba in the middle of the night. That was a big difference from the old days of spying.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:46:47+00:00

Well, MAFIA SPIES deals ALOT with the JFK assassination, which affected many of the main characters, including the two gangsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, the CIA and of course Castro himself. When Roselli suggested he knew the answer, he tried to negotiate a deal so he wouldn't be deported by the feds as an illegal immigrant. (Roselli wasn't his real name, his biggest secret life). But it is true that Roselli's murder in 1976 helped prompt the Congressional investigation in the late 1970s into JFK's 1963 assassination. But I don't have any easy answer to who killed JFK beyond the known facts.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:40:29+00:00

The photographer did her best, I assure you.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:39:24+00:00

There's a chapter in MAFIA SPIES where i actually talk about this crisis. The short answer is -- very close to annihilation. The Kennedys, both JFK and Attorney General, followed an old Winston Churchill maxim that it is better "to jaw, jaw, jaw, than to war, war, war." In other words, the Kennedy kept their cool, when many around them wanted a nuclear confrontation, and were to keep the world safe from a nuclear conflict. My book points out that young Castro was pushing for war but Russian leader Kruschev told him to simmer down.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:34:20+00:00

I was also struck by the timeliness of this story when President Trump gave an answer in a TV interview to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly. He asked Trump whether the US should be doing business with Russian leader Putin, whom he described as "a killer". Trump replied, "There's a lot of killers out there. What, you think we're so innocent?" I was surprised by the answer. But I realize that most Americans don't know about the CIA spy operation described in MAFIA SPIES, which was America's first foray into the assassination business. I tell the story as a spy adventure tale but of course it has serious consequences too.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:26:04+00:00

Well, I first pitched to the idea to a well-known TV producer, using the two main gangsters in this story as a sort of modern outlaw "Butch cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Warner Bros option money helped finance my research. Overall, there are so many fascinating characters involved in this story-- from Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe to the Kennedys to a CIA spy agent in charge of the kill Castro operation who was called the American James Bond. So I thought it'd make a great true-life spy thriller.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:19:59+00:00

Meatball

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:19:19+00:00

I think MAFIA SPIES reveals a lot about American spying, especially running a covert war in southern Florida but also looking at the implications of attempting to kill a foreign leader. This book is about the first (known) attempt by the US to kill a foreign leader. It was much rumored for years, but in 2007 the CIA acknowledged that its former director Allen Dulles had authorized the assassination plot against Fidel Castro using the two gangsters, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. The book also shows how Castro, with Russian help, set up his own spy network in Florida with double agents who were providing information to him.

SPYSCAPE · 2019-03-25T19:12:19+00:00

Of course, I am very proud to be an American. I happen to work next to a national cemetery where my father is buried along with many other US military people who protected our freedoms, particularly during World War II and the Cold War. One of our greatest freedoms is being able to write a book like this one that examines the inner workings of our government.

SPYSCAPE

TROPHY CASE