McCain jew trophy wife Cindy Hensley

Big-Time Gangsters Set Up McCain’s Family Fortune

Bronfman family behind the organized crime empire in Arizona that spawned the political career of John McCain

By Michael Collins Piper

In 1976 a crusading Phoenix reporter, Don Bolles, was murdered by a car-bomb after writing a series of stories exposing the organized crime connections of well-known figures in Arizona, including one Jim Hensley.

Five years later “Honest John” McCain arrived in Arizona as the new husband of Hensley’s daughter, Cindy. “From the moment McCain landed in Phoenix,” according to Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, “the Hensleys were key sponsors of his political career.”

The fact is, the people ultimately behind the Hensley fortune are even more interesting and controversial

While it is well-known McCain’s father-in-law is owner of the biggest Anheuser-Busch beer distributor in Arizona—one of the largest beer distributors in the nation—the media has had nothing to say about the origins of the Hensley fortune that financed McCain’s rise to power.

The Hensley fortune, in fact, is a regional offshoot of the big time bootlegging and rackets empire of the Bronfman dynasty of Canada, founded by Sam Bronfman, an early partner of Meyer Lansky, longtime “chairman of the board” of the international crime syndicate. (The Bronfmans cover all bases. Sam’s son, Edgar, today—at least publicly—supports George W. Bush.)

McCain’s father-in-law got his start as a top henchman of one Kemper Marley who, for some forty years until his death in 1990 at age 84, was the undisputed behind-the-scenes political boss of Arizona. But Marley was much more: he was also the protege of Lansky’s longtime lieutenant, Phoenix gambler Gus Greenbaum.

In 1941 Greenbaum had set up the Transamerica Publishing and News Service, which operated a national wire service for bookmakers. In 1946 Green baum turned over the day-to-day operations to Marley while Greenbaum focused on building up Lansky-run casinos in Las Vegas, commuting there from his home in Phoe nix. Greenbaum, in fact, was so integral to the Lansky empire that he was the one who took command of Lansky’s Las Vegas interests in 1947 after Lansky ordered the execution of his own longtime friend, Benjamin “Bugsy�� Siegel, for skimming profits from the new Flamingo Casino.

Greenbaum and his wife were murdered in a mob “hit” in 1948, their throats cut. The murder set off a series of gangland wars in Phoenix, but Marley survived and prospered

During this time Marley was building up a liquor distribution monopoly in Arizona. The truth is that it was the Bronfman family that set Marley up in business. However, in 1948, some 52 of Marley’s employees (including Jim Hensley) went to jail on federal liquor violations—but not Marley.

The story in Arizona is that Hensley took the fall for Marley. Upon Hensley’s release from prison, Marley paid Hensley back by setting him up in the beer business. That company today, said to be worth $200 million, financed McCain’s career. And without Marley’s political support McCain could have never even gotten elected dogcatcher.

But there’s more. McCain’s father-in-law had also dabbled in the dog racing business and he expanded his family fortune further by selling his dog racing track to an individual connected to the the Buffalo-based Jacobs family.

The Jacobs were the leading distributors for Bronfman liquor into the United States during Prohibition into the hands of local gangs that were part of the Lansky syndicate. Expanding over the years, the family’s enterprises were once described as being “probably the biggest quasi-legitimate cover for organized crime’s money-laundering in the United States.”

While John McCain himself can not be held personally responsible for the sins of his father-in-law, the fact is that this “reformer” owes his political and financial fortunes to the good graces of the biggest names in organized crime.

Why McCain Can Tap into the Jewish Vote

John McCain is a New York Giant, not a New England Patriot. He has never come close to a perfect season, but like Eli Manning, he believes he can do it even if nobody else does. Super Tuesday was not quite the Super Bowl -- that comes in November. But the senator has the Big Mo, and that counts for a lot in politics as well as football. Now we'll see if he can show the Manning touch, moving down the field.

Other analogies thrive. Joe Lieberman, who was at John McCain's side Tuesday night, thinks his colleague might be Judah Macabee, a reference to the warrior whose victory over the Greeks is commemorated in the celebration of Hanukkah. "He's got that spirit," Sen. Lieberman told the Forward, the Jewish daily newspaper in New York. The Connecticut senator is credited with helping not only with the Jewish turnout for McCain in Florida, but for helping with the Cubans, who aren't Jewish, too.

Sen. McCain, lacking wide and deep support from the conservative true believers, will have to make up for it with his tested appeal to independents and Hispanics, and hope the true believers will overcome whatever impulse they have to sulk. There's one other important group he might tap into as well. Ever since FDR created the New Deal, which his critics called the "Jew Deal" because so many of his brain trusters were Jews, the Jewish vote has mostly been taken for granted by Democrats. Ronald Reagan persuaded more Jews than usual to vote Republican, but when Al Gore took Joe Lieberman as his running mate Jewish voters returned to the Democrats in droves. Now that may change.

The two senators go back a long way, working on legislative issues together, sharing the worldview that Sen. Lieberman describes as "a feeling that America has a unique role in the world, of taking the Declaration of Independence seriously.[as] a universal declaration of human rights." That means "our foreign policy is always better when it's based on democratic values." The two men became even closer when the United States intervened in Bosnia and more recently in support of the surge in Iraq. Sen. Lieberman endorsed his friend before he was a front-runner, drawn by the McCain emphasis on foreign policy.

What is less well known as an element in the affinity the two senators share is an appreciation of evangelical Christians, for their evangelical support for Israel and for trying to hold a line of decency against vulgarity and the glorification of violence in the popular culture. Prying older Jews away from their loyalty to the Democrats -- Jews, like Southerners of an earlier time, are the most the loyal of yellow dog Democrats -- but younger Jews hold no such blind loyalty. FDR, like Charlemagne and Richard the Lionheart is ancient history. "Mac the Maverick" is 21st century.

Many Jewish voters, for all their loyalty to the party of the New Deal, appreciate Sen. McCain's fervent support for the surge in Iraq, understanding that it's all of a piece with a clear-eyed view of what's at stake in the Middle East. They can appreciate the McCain appraisal of Vladimir Putin, contributor of Iran's nuclear capability: "I looked into his eyes and I saw three letters -- a K, a G and a B." Transferring allegiance from Rudy Giuliani, with his national security bona fides, to John McCain might not be difficult.

Most Jews are registered Democrats, of course, and Hillary and Obama are courting them aggressively. Hillary won most of them in Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and California, but according to exit polls Barack Obama won them in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The memory of Hillary's kiss for Yasser Arafat's wife Suha in 1999, after she accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian women and children, is still fresh in the memory of many Jews.

When doubts were raised last week about the strength of Sen. Obama's resolve in the Middle East, he called several Jewish reporters to reiterate his "pro-Israel positions," his defense of Israeli security and repeated his insistence that Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist before Washington will talk to them. He agrees that Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable and he has been a voice against anti-Semitism in the black community, but his pastor and mentor is a fan of Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism either "a dirty religion" or "a gutter religion," depending on the reading of the audiotape.

But the McCain record on fighting terrorism, and his bold assertion that the fight against radical Muslims is the transforming struggle for the new century, offers Jews an alternative to both Obama and Hillary. Like everything else in this presidential campaign, old loyalties are scrambled like a plate of breakfast eggs.

jew Cindy Hensley

John McCain’s connection to the Jewish supremacist Bronfman family liquor empire

Why McCain Can Tap into the Jewish Vote