Many questions have since been asked about how much Epstein\u2019s famous friends knew of his activities and exactly what Epstein was up to. The latter arguably received the most attention after it was reported that Alex Acosta \u2014 who arranged Epstein\u2019s \u201csweetheart\u201d deal in 2008 and who\u00a0recently resigned<\/a>\u00a0as Donald Trump\u2019s Labor Secretary following Epstein\u2019s arrest \u2014 claimed that the mysterious billionairehad worked for \u201cintelligence.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Other investigations have made it increasingly clear that Epstein was running\u00a0a blackmail operation<\/a>, as he had bugged the venues \u2014 whether at his New York mansion or Caribbean island getaway \u2014 with microphones and cameras to record the salacious interactions that transpired between his guests and the underage girls that Epstein exploited. Epstein appeared to\u00a0have stored<\/a> much of that blackmail in a safe on his private island.<\/p>\n Claims of Epstein\u2019s links and his involvement in a sophisticated, well-funded sexual blackmail operation have, surprisingly, spurred few media outlets to examine the history of intelligence agencies both in the U.S. and abroad conducting similar sexual blackmail operations, many of which also involved underage prostitutes.<\/p>\n In the U.S. alone, the CIA operated numerous sexual blackmail operations throughout the country,\u00a0employing prostitutes<\/a>\u00a0to target foreign diplomats in what the\u00a0Washington Post<\/i>\u00a0once nicknamed the CIA\u2019s \u201clove traps.\u201d If one goes even farther back into the U.S. historical record it becomes apparent that these tactics and their use against powerful political and influential figures significantly predate the CIA and even its precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In fact, they were pioneered years earlier by none other than the American mafia.<\/p>\n In the course of this investigation,\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0discovered that a handful of figures who were influential in American organized crime during and after Prohibition were directly engaged in sexual blackmail operations that they used for their own, often dark, purposes.<\/p>\n In Part I of this exclusive investigation,\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0will examine how a mob-linked businessman with deep ties to notorious gangster Meyer Lansky developed close ties with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while also running a sexual blackmail operation for decades, which later became a covert part of the anti-communist crusade of the 1950s led by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), himself known throughout Washington for having a habit of drunkenly groping underage teenaged girls.<\/p>\n Yet, it would be one of McCarthy\u2019s closest aides who would take over the ring in later years, trafficking minors and expanding this sexual blackmail operation at the same time he expanded his own political influence, putting him in close contact with prominent figures including former President Ronald Reagan and a man who would later become president, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n As will be revealed in Part II, after his death, this blackmail operation continued under various successors in different cities and there is strong evidence that Jeffrey Epstein became one of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Prohibition Era in the United States is often used as an example of how banning recreational substances not only increases their popularity but also causes a boom in criminal activity. Indeed, it was Prohibition that greatly increased the strength of the American mafia, as the top crime lords of the day grew rich through the clandestine trade and sale of alcohol in addition to gambling and other activities.<\/p>\n It is through the bootlegging trade of the 1920s and the early 1930s that this story begins, as it brought together key figures whose successors and affiliates would eventually create a series of blackmail and sex trafficking rings that would give rise to the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, the \u201cLolita Express\u201d and \u201cOrgy Island.\u201d<\/p>\n Samuel Bronfman never planned to become a major producer of liquor but true to his family\u2019s last name, which means \u201cbrandy man\u201d in Yiddish, he eventually began distributing alcohol as an extension of his family\u2019s hotel business. During Canada\u2019s Prohibition period, which was briefer than and preceded that of its southern neighbor, the Bronfman family business used loopholes to\u00a0skirt the law<\/a>\u00a0and find\u00a0technically<\/i>\u00a0legal ways to sell alcohol in the hotels and stores the family owned. The family relied on its connections with members of the American mafia to illegally smuggle alcohol from the United States.<\/p>\n Soon after Prohibition ended in Canada, it began in the United States and, by the time the flow of illegal alcohol had turned the other way, the Bronfmans \u2013 whose business ventures were then being led by Sam Bronfman and his brothers \u2014 were relatively late to an already flourishing bootlegging trade.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were late starters in the two most lucrative markets \u2013 on the high seas and across the Detroit River. What came out of the border trade in Saskatchewan was insignificant by comparison,\u201d Bronfman\u00a0once told<\/a>\u00a0Canadian journalist Terence Robertson, who was then writing a biography of Bronfman. Nonetheless, \u201cthis was when we started to make our real money,\u201d Bronfman recounted. Robertson\u2019s biography on Bronfman was never published, as he died under mysterious circumstances\u00a0soon after<\/a>\u00a0warning his colleagues that he had uncovered unsavory information about the Bronfman family.<\/p>\n Samuel Bronfman pictured in 1937 with his sons Edgar and Charles<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Key to Bronfman\u2019s success during American Prohibition were the ties his family had cultivated with organized crime during Canada\u2019s Prohibition, ties that led many prominent members of the mob in the United States to favor Bronfman as a business partner. Bronfman liquor was purchased in massive quantities by many crime lords who still live on in American legend,\u00a0including<\/a>\u00a0Charles \u201cLucky\u201d Luciano, Moe Dalitz, Abner \u201cLongy\u201d Zwillman and Meyer Lansky.<\/p>\n Most of Bronfman\u2019s mob associates during Prohibition were members of what became known as the National Crime Syndicate, which a 1950s Senate investigative body known as the Kefauver Committee described as a confederation dominated by Italian-American and Jewish-American mobs. During that investigation, some of the biggest names in the American mafia\u00a0named Bronfman<\/a>\u00a0as a central figure in their bootlegging operations. The widow of notorious American mob boss Meyer Lansky even recounted how Bronfman had thrown lavish dinner parties for her husband.<\/p>\n Years later, Samuel Bronfman\u2019s children and grandchildren, their family\u2019s ties to the criminal underworld intact, would later go on to associate closely with Leslie Wexner, allegedly the source of much of Epstein\u2019s mysterious wealth, and other mob-linked \u201cphilanthropists,\u201d and some would even manage their own sexual blackmail operations, including the\u00a0recently busted blackmail-based \u201csex cult\u201d NXIVM<\/a>. The later generations of the Bronfman family, particularly Samuel Bronfman\u2019s sons Edgar and Charles, will be discussed in greater detail in Part II of this report.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crucial to Bronfman\u2019s Prohibition-era bootlegging operations were two middlemen,\u00a0one of whom<\/a>\u00a0was Lewis \u201cLew\u201d Rosenstiel. Rosenstiel got his start working at his uncle\u2019s distillery in Kentucky before Prohibition. Once the law banning alcohol was in force, Rosenstiel created the Schenley Products Company, which would later become one of the largest liquor companies in North America.<\/p>\n Though he was a high school drop-out and not particularly well-connected socially at the time, Rosenstiel happened to have a \u201cchance\u201d meeting with Winston Churchill in 1922 while on vacation in the French Riviera. According to\u00a0the\u00a0New York Times<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0<\/i>Churchill \u201cadvised him [Rosenstiel] to prepare for the return of liquor sales in the United States.\u201d Rosenstiel somehow managed to\u00a0secure the funding<\/a>\u00a0of the elite and respected Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers to finance his purchase of shuttered distilleries.<\/p>\n Officially, Rosenstiel is said to have built his company and wealth\u00a0after<\/i>\u00a0Prohibition, by following Churchill\u2019s advice to prepare for Repeal. However, he was clearly involved in bootlegging operations and was even indicted for bootlegging in 1929, though he evaded conviction. Like Bronfman, Rosenstiel was close to organized crime, particularly members of the mostly Jewish-American and Italian-American mob alliance known as the National Crime Syndicate.<\/p>\n Subsequent New York state congressional investigations would\u00a0allege that\u00a0<\/a>Rosenstiel \u201cwas part of a \u2018consortium\u2019 with underworld figures that bought liquor in Canada [from Samuel Bronfman]\u201d, whose\u00a0other members<\/a>\u00a0were \u201cMeyer Lansky, the reputed organized crime leader; Joseph Fusco, an associate of late Chicago gangster Al Capone and Joseph Linsey, a Boston man Mr. Kelly [the congressional investigator testifying] identified as a convicted bootlegger.\u201d Rosenstiel\u2019s relationship with these men,\u00a0particularly Lansky<\/a>, would continue long after Prohibition and Samuel Bronfman, for his part, would also maintain his mob ties.<\/p>\n In addition to his friends in the mob, Rosenstiel also cultivated close ties with the FBI, developing\u00a0a close relationship<\/a>\u00a0with longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and making Hoover\u2019s right-hand man and longtime assistant at the FBI, Louis Nichols,\u00a0the Vice President<\/a>\u00a0of his Schenley empire in 1957.<\/p>\n Despite their similar backgrounds as bootlegger barons turned \u201crespectable\u201d businessmen, Bronfman\u2019s and Rosenstiel\u2019s personalities were drastically different and their relationship was complicated, at best. One example of the dissimilarities between North America\u2019s top liquor barons was how they treated their staff. Bronfman was not necessarily known for being a cruel boss, whereas Rosenstiel\u00a0was known for<\/a>\u00a0his erratic and \u201cmonstrous\u201d behavior towards employees as well as his unusual practice of bugging his offices in order to hear what employees said about him when he wasn\u2019t present.<\/p>\n Rosenstiel was connected to both the FBI and to organized crime<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Such differences between Bronfman and Rosenstiel were also reflected in their personal lives. While Bronfman married only once and was loyal to his wife, Rosenstiel was married five times and was known for his relatively closeted bisexual antics, a part of his life that\u00a0was well-known<\/a>\u00a0to many of his close associates and employees.<\/p>\n Though for years there were only hints to this other side of the controversial businessman, details emerged years later during a divorce proceeding brought by Rosenstiel\u2019s fourth wife, Susan Kaufman, that would back the claims. Kaufman\u00a0alleged<\/a>\u00a0that Rosenstiel hosted extravagant parties that included \u201cboy prostitutes\u201d that her husband had hired \u201cfor the enjoyment\u201d of certain guests, which\u00a0included<\/a>important government officials and prominent figures in America\u2019s criminal underworld. Kaufman would later make the same claims under oath during the hearing of the New York\u2019s State Joint Legislative Committee on Crime in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n Not only did Rosenstiel organize these parties, but he also made sure that their venues were bugged with microphones that recorded the antics of his high-profile guests. Those audio recordings, Kaufman alleged, were then kept for the purpose of blackmail. Though Kaufman\u2019s claims are shocking, her testimony\u00a0was deemed credible<\/a>\u00a0and held in high regard by the former chief counsel of the Crime Committee, New York Judge Edward McLaughlin, and committee investigator William Gallinaro and aspects of her testimony were later corroborated by two separate witnesses who were unknown to Kaufman.<\/p>\n These blackmail \u201cparties\u201d offer a window into an operation that would later become more sophisticated and grow dramatically in the 1950s under Rosenstiel\u2019s \u201cfield commander\u201d (a nickname given by Rosenstiel to an individual to be named shortly in this report). Many of the people connected to Rosenstiel\u2019s \u201cfield commander\u201d during the 70s and 80s have again found their names in the press following the recent arrest of Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bronfman and Rosenstiel became legendary in the North American liquor business, in part due to their fight for supremacy in the industry, which\u00a0the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0as often erupting \u201cinto bitter personal and corporate battles.\u201d Despite their dueling in the corporate world, the one thing that united the two businessmen more than anything else was their close connection to American organized crime, particularly renowned mobster, Meyer Lansky.<\/p>\n Lansky is one of the most notorious gangsters in the history of American organized crime and is notable for being the only famous mobster that rose to notoriety in the 1920s that managed to die an old man and never serve a day in jail.<\/p>\n Lansky\u2019s long life and ability to avoid prison time was largely the result of his close relationships to powerful businessmen like Bronfman and Rosenstiel (among many others), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. intelligence community as well as his role in establishing several blackmail and extortion rings which helped him keep the law at arm\u2019s length. Indeed, when Lansky was finally charged with a crime in the 1970s, it was the Internal Revenue Service that brought the charges, not the FBI, and he was charged with and acquitted of tax evasion.<\/p>\n Lansky was remarkably close to both Bronfman and Rosenstiel. Bronfman\u00a0regularly threw<\/a>\u00a0\u201clavish dinner parties\u201d in Lansky\u2019s honor both during and after Prohibition. These parties were remembered fondly by Lansky\u2019s wife, and Lansky, in turn, did favors for Bronfman ranging from exclusive protection of his shipments during Prohibition to getting him tickets to coveted \u201cfight of the century\u201d boxing matches.<\/p>\n Rosenstiel also threw regular dinner parties honoring Lansky. Susan Kaufman, Rosenstiel\u2019s ex-wife, claimed to have taken numerous pictures of her ex-husband and Lansky socializing and partying together, photos that\u00a0were also seen<\/a>\u00a0by Mary Nichols of\u00a0The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i>. In addition, Lansky, per Kaufman\u2019s recollection, was one of the individuals that Rosenstiel sought to protect from legal scrutiny as part of his child prostitution and blackmail ring targeting high-ranking officials, and he was\u00a0overheard saying<\/a>\u00a0that if the government \u201cever brings pressure against Lansky or any of us, we\u2019ll use this [a specific recording taken at one of the \u201cparties\u201d] as blackmail.\u201d<\/p>\n Lansky\u00a0was known to address<\/a>\u00a0Rosenstiel as \u201cSupreme Commander,\u201d a title that would\u00a0later be used<\/a>\u00a0to refer to Rosenstiel by another individual deeply connected to the mob and sexual blackmail operations, previously referred to in this report as Rosenstiel\u2019s \u201cField Commander.\u201d<\/p>\n Lansky also had close ties to the CIA and U.S. military intelligence. During World War II, Lansky \u2013along with his associate Benjamin \u201cBugsy\u201d Siegel \u2014 worked with Naval intelligence in what was codenamed \u201cOperation Underworld<\/a>,\u201d an operation that the government denied for over 40 years.<\/p>\n Journalist and noted chronicler of CIA covert activities, Douglas Valentine, noted in his book\u00a0The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World<\/i><\/a>\u00a0that the government\u2019s cooperation with the mafia during World War II led to its expansion after the war and set the stage for its future collaboration with U.S. intelligence.<\/p>\n According to Valentine:<\/p>\n Top government officials were also aware that the government\u2019s Faustian pact with the Mafia during World War II had allowed the hoods to insinuate themselves into mainstream America. In return for services rendered during the war, Mafia bosses were protected from prosecution for dozens of unsolved murders. [\u2026]<\/p>\n The Mafia was a huge problem in 1951 [when\u00a0the Kefauver Committee<\/a>\u00a0was convened], equivalent to terrorism today. But it was also a protected branch of the CIA, which was co-opting criminal organizations around the world and using them in its secret war against the Soviets and Red Chinese. The Mafia had collaborated with Uncle Sam and had emerged from World War II energized and empowered. They controlled cities across the country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, the CIA forged ties with Lansky not long after its creation at the behest of CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton. The CIA would later\u00a0turn to the Lansky-linked mob<\/a>\u00a0in the early 1960s as part of its consistently fruitless quest to assassinate the Cuban leader, showing that the CIA maintained its contacts with Lansky-controlled elements of the mafia long after the initial meeting with Lansky took place.<\/p>\n The CIA also had\u00a0close connections<\/a>\u00a0to associates of Lansky, such as Edward Moss, who did public relations work for Lansky and was said to be of \u201cinterest\u201d to the CIA by the agency\u2019s then-inspector general J.S. Earman. Harry \u201cHappy\u201d Meltzer was also another Lansky associate that was a CIA asset and the CIA asked Meltzer to join an assassination team in December 1960.<\/p>\n In addition to the CIA, Lansky was also connected to a foreign intelligence agency through Tibor Rosenbaum, an arms procurer and high-ranking official in Israel\u2019s Mossad, whose bank \u2013 the International Credit Bank of Geneva \u2013\u00a0laundered much of Lansky\u2019s ill-gotten gains<\/a>\u00a0and recycled it into legitimate American businesses.<\/p>\n Lansky outside the High Court of Israel where he sought permission to emigrate in 1972. Photo | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Journalist Ed Reid, author of the Virginia Hill biography\u00a0The Mistress and the Mafia<\/i><\/a>, wrote that Lansky was attempting to entrap powerful people through sexual blackmail as far back as 1939. Reid contends that Lansky sent Ms. Hill to Mexico, where his West Coast connections had established a drug ring that later involved the OSS, the forerunner to the CIA, to seduce numerous \u201ctop politicians, army officers, diplomats and police officials.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, Lansky was credited with obtaining compromising photos of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sometime in the 1940s, which showed \u201cHoover in some kind of gay situation\u201d, according to\u00a0a former Lansky associate<\/a>\u00a0who also said that Lansky had often claimed, \u201cI fixed that sonofabitch.\u201d The photos\u00a0showed<\/a>\u00a0Hoover engaged in sexual activity with his long-time friend, FBI deputy director Clyde Tolson.<\/p>\n At some point, these photos fell into the hands of CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton, who\u00a0later showed<\/a>\u00a0the photos to several other CIA officials, including John Weitz and Gordon Novel. Angleton was in charge of the CIA\u2019s relationship with the FBI and Israel\u2019s Mossad until he left the agency in 1972 and, as was recently mentioned, he was also in contact with Lansky.<\/p>\n Anthony Summers , former BBC journalist and author of\u00a0Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover<\/i><\/a>, has argued that it was not Lansky, but William Donovan, the director of the OSS, who obtained the original photos of Hoover and later shared them with Lansky.<\/p>\n Summers\u00a0also stated<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cTo [gangster Frank] Costello and Lansky, the ability to corrupt politicians, policemen and judges was fundamental to Mafia operations. The way they found to deal with Hoover, according to several mob sources, involved his homosexuality.\u201d This anecdote shows that Lanksy and the CIA maintained a covert relationship, which included, among other things, the sharing of blackmail material (i.e. \u201cintelligence\u201d).<\/p>\n It is also possible that Hoover was ensnared by the mob during one of Rosenstiel\u2019s blackmail \u201cparties,\u201d at which Hoover sometimes found himself in attendance with prominent figures of the mafia. Hoover was said to have worn women\u2019s clothing at the some of the events and Meyer Lansky\u2019s wife\u00a0later said<\/a>\u00a0that her husband had photos of the former FBI director in drag. Furthermore, Hoover is\u00a0on record<\/a>\u00a0showing an unusual concern in the FBI\u2019s handling of Rosenstiel\u2019s criminal links as early as 1939, the same year that his close associate Lansky was actively orchestrating the sexual blackmail of powerful political figures.<\/p>\n The blackmail acquired on Hoover and the mob\u2019s possession of the evidence\u00a0has been cited<\/a>\u00a0as a major factor in Hoover\u2019s decades-long denial that nationwide networks of organized crime were a serious issue. Hoover asserted that it was a decentralized, local issue and therefore outside of the bureau\u2019s jurisdiction. By the time Hoover finally acknowledged the existence of national organized crime networks in 1963, it was so entrenched in the U.S. establishment that it was untouchable.<\/p>\n Congressional crime consultant Ralph Salerno\u00a0told Summers<\/a>\u00a0in 1993 that Hoover\u2019s willful ignorance of organized crime for most of his career as FBI director \u201callowed organized crime to grow very strong in economic and political terms, so that it became a much bigger threat to the wellbeing of this country than it would have been if it had been addressed much sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most records place the beginning of Hoover\u2019s relationship with Rosenstiel in the 1950s, the same decade when Susan Kaufman reported that Hoover was attending Rosenstiel\u2019s blackmail parties. Rosenstiel\u2019s FBI file,\u00a0obtained by<\/a>\u00a0Anthony Summers, cites the first Rosenstiel meeting as taking place in 1956, though Summers notes that there is evidence that they had met much earlier. After requesting the meeting, Rosenstiel was granted a personal face to face with the director in a matter of hours. The FBI file on Rosenstiel also reveals that the liquor baron heavily lobbied Hoover to aid his business interests.<\/p>\n During that time, the salacious details of Hoover\u2019s sex life were already known to the U.S. intelligence community and to the mob, and Hoover was aware that they knew of his closeted sexuality and penchant for women\u2019s clothing. Yet, Hoover apparently seemed to embrace the very type of sexual blackmail operation that had compromised his private life, given that he was seen at many of Rosenstiel\u2019s \u201cblackmail\u201d parties in the 1950s and 1960s, including at venues such as Rosenstiel\u2019s personal home and later at Manhattan\u2019s Plaza Hotel. Hoover\u2019s penchant for dressing in drag was\u00a0also described<\/a>\u00a0by two witnesses who were not connected to Susan Kaufman.<\/p>\n Hoover with Dorothy Lamour on the set of The Greatest Show on Earth in 1951<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Soon after their first \u201cofficial\u201d meeting, the public relationship between the two men quickly flourished, with Hoover even sending Rosenstiel flowers when he fell ill. Summers\u00a0reported that<\/a>, in 1957, Rosenstiel was heard telling Hoover during a meeting, \u201cyour wish is my command.\u201d Their relationship remained close and intimate throughout the 1960s and beyond.<\/p>\n Like Rosenstiel, Hoover was\u00a0well-known<\/a>\u00a0for amassing blackmail on friend and foe alike. Hoover\u2019s office contained \u201csecret files\u201d on numerous powerful people in Washington and beyond, files he used to gain favors and protect his status as FBI director for as long as he wished.<\/p>\n Hoover\u2019s own propensity for blackmail suggests that he may have associated with Rosenstiel\u2019s sexual blackmail operation more directly, given he already knew he was compromised and his involvement in the operation would have served as a means of procuring the blackmail he coveted for his own purposes. Indeed, if Hoover was merely being blackmailed and extorted by the Lansky-Rosenstiel connected mob, it is unlikely that he would have been so friendly to Rosenstiel, Lansky and the other mobsters at these gatherings and participated in them with such regularity.<\/p>\n According to journalist and author Burton Hersh, Hoover was also tied to Sherman Kaminsky, who ran a sexual blackmail operation in New York involving young male prostitutes. That operation was\u00a0busted and investigated<\/a>\u00a0in 1966 extortion probe led by Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan, though the FBI quickly took over the investigation and photos of Hoover and Kaminsky together soon disappeared from the case file.<\/p>\n Hoover and Rosenstiel\u2019s deep ties would continue to develop over the years, an example of which can be seen in Rosenstiel\u2019s hiring of long-time Hoover aide Louis Nichols as the Vice President of his Schenley liquor empire and Rosenstiel\u2019s\u00a0donation of over $1 million<\/a>\u00a0to the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, which Nichols also ran at the time.<\/p>\n There is also more than one documented occasion wherein Hoover attempted to use blackmail to protect Rosenstiel and his \u201cfield commander,\u201d none other than the infamous Roy Cohn, the other key figure in Rosenstiel\u2019s sexual blackmail operation involving minors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Decades after his death, Roy Cohn remains a controversial figure in large part because of his\u00a0close, personal relationship<\/a>\u00a0with current U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet reports on Cohn, both in recent and in past years, often miss the mark in their characterization of the man who became closely associated with the Reagan White House, the CIA, the FBI, organized crime and, incidentally, many of the figures who would later surround Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n To understand the true nature of the man, it is essential to examine his rise to power in the early 1950s, when at just 23 years old, he became a key figure in the high-profile trial of Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and later in the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.<\/p>\n Cohn\u2019s dedication to anti-communist activities in the 1950s is allegedly what first endeared him to J. Edgar Hoover who he first met in 1952. During that meeting, as described by Hersh in\u00a0Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America<\/i><\/a>, Hoover expressed admiration for Cohn\u2019s aggressive and manipulative tactics and told Cohn to \u201ccall me directly\u201d whenever he had information worth sharing. From that point on, Cohn and Hoover \u201ctraded favors, effusive compliments, gifts and elaborate private dinners. It quickly became \u2018Roy\u2019 and \u2018Edgar.\u2019\u201d Hersh also describes Hoover as Cohn\u2019s soon to be \u201cconsigliere.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n The date and circumstances around Cohn\u2019s introduction to Rosenstiel is harder to come by. It is possible that the connection was made through Roy Cohn\u2019s father, Albert Cohn, a prominent judge and an influential figure in the New York City Democratic Party apparatus then-run by Edward Flynn. It was\u00a0later revealed<\/a>\u00a0that the Democratic organization dominated by Flynn and based in the Bronx had long-standing connections to organized crime, including associates of Meyer Lansky.<\/p>\n Regardless of how or when it began, the relationship between Cohn and Rosenstiel was close and was\u00a0often likened to that<\/a>\u00a0of a father and son. They were said to frequently salute each other in public and remained close until Rosenstiel was near death, at which point Cohn\u00a0attempted to trick<\/a>\u00a0his then-barely conscious and senile \u201cfriend\u201d and client into naming him the executor and trustee of the liquor magnate\u2019s estate, valued at $75 million (more than $334 million in today\u2019s dollars).<\/p>\n LIFE\u00a0<\/i>magazine reported<\/a>\u00a0in 1969 that Cohn and Rosenstiel had for years referred to one another as \u201cField Commander\u201d and \u201cSupreme Commander,\u201d respectively. Media references to these nicknames appear in\u00a0other articles<\/a>\u00a0from the period.<\/p>\n Though\u00a0LIFE<\/i>\u00a0and other outlets had interpreted this as merely an anecdote about the nicknames shared in jest between close friends, the fact that notorious crime lord Meyer Lansky\u00a0also called<\/a>\u00a0Rosenstiel \u201cSupreme Commander\u201d and the fact that Cohn and Rosenstiel would later become intimately involved in the same pedophile sex ring, suggests that there may have been more to these \u201cnicknames.\u201d After all, the mob to which Rosenstiel was connected often used military-themed titles like \u201csoldier\u201d and \u201clieutenant\u201d to differentiate the rank and importance of its members.<\/p>\n Once he had made his connection with Hoover, Cohn\u2019s star began to rise even higher in Washington. Hoover\u2019s recommendation of Cohn would become the deciding factor in his appointment as Sen. McCarthy\u2019s general counsel over Robert Kennedy, a rival and bitter enemy of Cohn\u2019s.<\/p>\n McCarthy covers the mic while having a whispered discussion with Cohn during a 1954 committee hearing. Photo | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though Cohn was ruthless and seemingly untouchable as McCarthy\u2019s counsel and helped the Senator destroy many careers during both the red and lavender scares, his antics in relation to his work on the committee would eventually lead to\u00a0his downfall<\/a>\u00a0after he attempted to blackmail the Army in return for preferential treatment for committee consultant and Cohn\u2019s rumored lover, David Schine.<\/p>\n After he was forced to leave McCarthy\u2019s side due to the scandal, Cohn returned to New York to live with his mother and practice law. A few years later New York Judge David Peck, a\u00a0long-time associate<\/a>\u00a0of former CIA director Alan Dulles,\u00a0orchestrated Cohn\u2019s hire<\/a>\u00a0to the New York law firm, Saxe, Bacon and O\u2019Shea, which would later become Saxe, Bacon and Bolan after Tom Bolan, a friend of Cohn\u2019s, became a partner in the firm. Upon his hire, Cohn brought the firm a slew of mafia-linked clients, including high-ranking members of the Gambino crime family, the Genovese crime family and, of course, Lewis Rosenstiel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The connections Roy Cohn built during the 1950s made him a well-known public figure and translated into great political influence which peaked during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet, as Cohn built his public image, he was also developing a dark private life which would come to be dominated by the same blackmail pedophile racket that appears to have first begun with Lewis Rosenstiel.<\/p>\n One of the \u201cblackmail\u201d parties Susan Kaufman attended with her then-husband Lewis Rosenstiel was hosted by Cohn in 1958 at Manhattan\u2019s Plaza Hotel, suite 233. Kaufman\u00a0described Cohn\u2019s suite as<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cbeautiful suite\u2026all done in light blue.\u201d She described being introduced to Hoover, who was in drag, by Cohn, who told her that Hoover\u2019s name was \u201cMary\u201d in a fit of barely concealed laughter. Kaufman\u00a0testified that<\/a>\u00a0young underage boys were present and Kaufman claimed that Cohn, Hoover and her ex-husband engaged in sexual activity with these minors.<\/p>\n New York attorney John Klotz, tasked with investigating Cohn for a case well after Kaufman\u2019s testimony, also found evidence of the \u201cblue suite\u201d at the Plaza Hotel and its role in a sex extortion ring after combing through local government documents and information gathered by private detectives. Klotz\u00a0later told<\/a>\u00a0journalist and author Burton Hersh what he had learned:<\/p>\n Roy Cohn was providing protection. There were a bunch of pedophiles involved. That\u2019s where Cohn got his power from \u2014 blackmail.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Perhaps the most damning confirmation of Cohn\u2019s activities in Suite 233 comes from statements made by Cohn himself to former NYPD detective and ex-head of the department\u2019s Human-Trafficking and Vice-related Crimes division, James Rothstein. Rothstein later told John Decamp, a former Nebraska state senator who investigated a government-connected child sex ring based in Omaha, among other investigators, that Cohn had\u00a0admitted<\/a>\u00a0to being part of a sexual blackmail operation targeting politicians with child prostitutes during a sit-in down interview with the former detective.<\/p>\n Flags fly over the main entrance of the Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1982. Suzanne Vlamis | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rothstein\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0John DeCamp the following about Roy Cohn:<\/p>\n Cohn\u2019s job was to run the little boys. Say you had an admiral, a general, a congressman, who did not want to go along with the program. Cohn\u2019s job was to set them up, then they would go along. Cohn told me that himself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rothstein later told Paul David Collins, a former journalist turned researcher, that Cohn had\u00a0also identified<\/a>\u00a0this sexual blackmail operation as being part of the anti-communist crusade of the time.<\/p>\n The fact that Cohn, per Rothstein\u2019s recollection, stated that the child-sex blackmail ring was part of the government-sponsored anticommunist crusade suggests that elements of the government, including Hoover\u2019s FBI, may have been connected at a much broader level than Hoover\u2019s own personal involvement given that the FBI closely coordinated with McCarthy and Cohn for much of the red scare.<\/p>\n It is also worth noting that among Hoover\u2019s many \u201csecret\u201d blackmail files was a sizeable dossier on Senator McCarthy, the contents of which strongly suggested that the Senator himself was interested in underage girls. According to\u00a0journalist and author David Talbot<\/a>, Hoover\u2019s file on McCarthy was \u201cfilled with disturbing stories about McCarthy\u2019s habit of drunkenly groping young girls\u2019 breasts and buttocks. The stories were so widespread that they became \u2018common knowledge\u2019 in the capital, according to one FBI chronicler.\u201d<\/p>\n Talbot, in his book\u00a0The Devil\u2019s Chessboard<\/i><\/a>, also cites Walter Trohan, Washington Bureau Chief of the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/i>, as having personally witnessed McCarthy\u2019s habit of molesting young women. \u201cHe just couldn\u2019t keep his hands off young girls,\u201d Trohan would later say. \u201cWhy the Communist opposition didn\u2019t plant a minor on him and raise the cry of statutory rape, I don\u2019t know.\u201d Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that those \u201cplanting\u201d minors on their political foes were McCarthy\u2019s allies and close associates, not his enemies.<\/p>\n The question that necessarily arises from revelations regarding Cohn\u2019s activities in Suite 233 is who else was Cohn \u201cprotecting\u201d and servicing with underage prostitutes? One of them could very well have been one of Cohn\u2019s\u00a0close friends and clients<\/a>, Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York, who was said to have been present at some of these parties Cohn hosted at the Plaza Hotel.<\/p>\n Spellman, one of the most powerful figures in the Catholic Church in North America who was sometimes referred to as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Pope\u201d was accused of not only\u00a0condoning<\/a>\u00a0pedophilia in the Catholic church and\u00a0ordaining known pedophiles<\/a>\u00a0including Cardinal Theodore \u201cUncle Teddy\u201d McCarrick, but also engaging in it himself to such an extent that many New York area priests widely\u00a0referred to him<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cMary.\u201d Furthermore, J. Edgar Hoover was said to\u00a0have a file<\/a>\u00a0detailing the Cardinal\u2019s sex life, suggesting Spellman\u2019s involvement in the ring and pedophile protection racket in which Cohn and Hoover were personally involved.<\/p>\n Cardinal Francis \u2018Franny\u2019 Spellman. Photo | Museum of the City of New York<\/p>\n<\/div>\n People close to Cohn often remarked that he was frequently surrounded by groups of young boys, but seemed to think nothing of it. Similar off-handed comments about Epstein\u2019s penchant for minors were made by those close to him prior to his arrest.<\/p>\n Controversial Republican political operative and \u201cdirty trickster\u201d Roger Stone, who \u2014 like Donald Trump \u2014\u00a0was also a prot\u00e9g\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0of Cohn, said the following about Cohn\u2019s sex life during\u00a0an interview<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>\u00a0in 2008:<\/p>\n Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these\u00a0young blond boys<\/b>\u00a0around.\u00a0It just wasn\u2019t discussed<\/b>. He was interested in power and access.\u201d (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Compare this quote from Stone to what Donald Trump, who was also close to Cohn,\u00a0would later say<\/a>\u00a0about Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he was also closely associated:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He\u2019s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and\u00a0many of them are on the younger side<\/b>. No doubt about it \u2014 Jeffrey enjoys his social life.\u201d (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Though it is unknown how long the sex ring at the Plaza Hotel continued, and if it continued after Cohn\u2019s death from AIDS in 1986, it is worth noting that Donald Trump\u00a0purchased<\/a>\u00a0the Plaza Hotel in 1988. It would\u00a0later be reported<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0confirmed by then-attendees<\/a>\u00a0that Trump \u201cused to host parties in suites at the Plaza Hotel when he owned it, where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men\u201d and \u201cillegal drugs and young women were passed around and used.\u201d<\/p>\n Andy Lucchesi, a male model who\u00a0had helped organize<\/a>\u00a0some of these Plaza Hotel parties for Trump said the following when asked about the age of the women present: \u201cA lot of girls, 14, look 24. That\u2019s as juicy as I can get. I never asked how old they were; I just partook. I did partake in activities that would be controversial, too.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Roy Cohn was only at the beginning of his career when he waded his way into the underground sexual blackmail ring apparently led by Lewis Rosenstiel. Indeed, when Cohn first met Hoover, he was only 23 years old. Over the next three decades or so, before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1986 at the age of 56, Cohn built a well-oiled machine, largely through his close friendships with some of the country\u2019s most influential figures.<\/p>\n Among Cohn\u2019s friends were top media personalities like\u00a0Barbara Walters<\/a>, former CIA directors,\u00a0Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy<\/a>, media moguls\u00a0Rupert Murdoch<\/a>\u00a0and Mort Zuckerman,\u00a0numerous celebrities<\/a>, prominent lawyers\u00a0like Alan Dershowitz<\/a>, top figures in the Catholic Church and leading Jewish organizations like\u00a0B\u2019nai B\u2019rith<\/a>\u00a0and the World Jewish Congress. Many of the same names that surrounded Cohn until death in the late 1980s would later come to surround Jeffrey Epstein, with their names later appearing in Epstein\u2019s now-infamous \u201clittle black book\u201d.<\/p>\n Reagan meets with Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, and Roy Cohn in the Oval Office in 1983. Photo | Reagan presidential library<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While President Trump is clearly connected to both Epstein and Cohn, Cohn\u2019s network also extends to former President Bill Clinton, whose friend and longtime political advisor, Richard \u201cDirty Dick<\/a>\u201d Morris, was\u00a0Cohn\u2019s cousin and close associate<\/a>. Morris was also close to Clinton\u2019s former communications director, George Stephanopoulos, who is\u00a0also associated with<\/a>\u00a0Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n Yet, these were only Cohn\u2019s connections to respectable members of the establishment. He was also known for his deep connections to the mob and gained prominence largely for his ability to connect key figures in the criminal underworld to respected influential figures acceptable to the public sphere. Ultimately, as New York attorney John Klotz stated, Cohn\u2019s most powerful tool was blackmail, which he used against friend and foe, gangster or public official alike. How much of that blackmail he acquired through his sexual blackmail operation will likely never be known.<\/p>\n As Part II of this exclusive investigation will reveal, Cohn and Epstein, and the sexual blackmail operations they ran share many things in common, including not only many of the same famous friends and patrons, but also connections to intelligence agencies and consortiums of mob-linked businessmen, the modern-day equivalents of Samuel Bronfman and Lewis Rosenstiel who have since rebranded as \u201cphilanthropists.\u201d<\/p>\n Part II will also reveal that Cohn\u2019s operation was known to have successors, as revealed by a series of scandals in the early 1990s that have since been swept under the rug. The significant amount of overlap between Epstein\u2019s and Cohn\u2019s covert activities in sexual blackmail and their ties to many of the same powerful individuals and circles of influence strongly suggest that Epstein was one of Cohn\u2019s successors.<\/p>\n As will be shown in the final installment of this report, Epstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive and sophisticated operation that offers a frightening window into how deeply tied the U.S. government is to the modern-day equivalents of organized crime, making it a racket truly too big to fail.<\/p>\nSamuel Bronfman and the Mob<\/h2>\n
![\"Samuel](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/bronfman-archival_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLewis Rosenstiel\u2019s dark secret<\/h2>\n
![\"Lewis](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Rosenstiel-photo_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe \u201cUntouchable\u201d Mobster<\/h2>\n
![\"Meyer](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/AP_208352653229_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nJ. Edgar Hoover: Blackmail Victim?<\/h2>\n
![\"J](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/hoover_hollywood_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Making of a Monster<\/h2>\n
![\"Joseph](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/AP_5404260142_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhat happened in Suite 233?<\/h2>\n
![\"Plaza](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/AP_070228023563_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Francis](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Spellman-Cohn-Children.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Roy Cohn Machine<\/h2>\n
![\"Roy](\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/get-attachment-2_edited.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFeature photo | A composite image shows from left to right,\u00a0Lewis Rosenstiel, Jeffrey Epstein, and Roy Cohn. Graphic | Emma Fiala<\/h4>\n