The CIA and Laugh In.

Ah nostalgia. After the horrors of the Bush/Cheney copresidency, it is comforting to read about the good old days when the CIA worked with the mafia to kill Castro.

Over at the post, they are sifting through the CIA declassified "crown jewels". It looks like there isn't much there (the jewels were shared with Sen Church and Rep Pike over 30 years ago). However, the sweet nostalgia became intense when they mentioned an old friend

The project was nearly exposed when Maheu was arrested for arranging the wiretapping of the room of comedian Dan Rowan, who Giancana suspected was having an affair with the mobster's girlfriend. When the wiretap technician was captured, he implicated Maheu, requiring the CIA to ask then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to drop the prosecution.

The girlfriend would be Judith Exner who got around. She claimed she had an affair with John Kennedy.

Dan Rowan was cohost with Dick Martin of "Laugh in" a TV show, which I found quite funny at the time and which introduced Lilly Tomlin, one of the great comic geniuses of our time, and Goldie Hawn, who is beatiful.

Dan Rowan's second most famous line was "say goodnight Dick" so the article has some current relevance -- you can bet your bippy on that.

Update: Wrong girlfriend. AP explains "At one point, Giancana asked Maheu to bug the Las Vegas hotel room of entertainer Dan Rowan to see if Giancana's girlfriend, singer Phyllis McGuire, was sexually intimate with Rowan." Seems like Sam got around too.