Charles "The Babe" Baron
Charles Baron
BK NOTES: To me this guy is one at the cross roads of a number of various elements in the Dealey Plaza story - a Ford auto dealership, the Chicago mob, General Dynamics and the whole TFX scandal, mob casinos in Havana and Vegas, a Brig. Gen. in the National Guard and a close personal friend of General LeMay, the Air Force Chief of Staff.
Charles Baron
BK NOTES: To me this guy is one at the cross roads of a number of various elements in the Dealey Plaza story - a Ford auto dealership, the Chicago mob, General Dynamics and the whole TFX scandal, mob casinos in Havana and Vegas, a Brig. Gen. in the National Guard and a close personal friend of General LeMay, the Air Force Chief of Staff.
According to LeMay's daughter, Baron was the godfather to her son, Gen. LeMay's grandson.
Baron was also pals with Patrick Hoy and General Dynamics, whose security chief was I.B. Hale, former FBI agent whose twin sons went to school with Oswald and broke into Judyth Cambell Exner's Vegas apartment while it was under surveillance by an FBI stakeout squad. Hale's wife Virginia got Oswald jobs when he returned from Russia.
Baron is a key person on three or four different fronts, and may be the link that ties them together.
More to come on this guy. - BK
Charles “Babe” Baron was a notorious Chicago mobster during the days of Meyer Lansky and Al Capone. He had widespread interests in the underworld but he is best known for his role in the gambling industry.
From Chicago Mafia History
Charles “Babe” Baron was a notorious Chicago mobster during the days of Meyer Lansky and Al Capone. He had widespread interests in the underworld but he is best known for his role in the gambling industry.
Baron may not have been at
the top of the food chain in the American Mafia but he was certainly a powerful
representative of the big guns. For instance, he kept the company of the likes
of Sid Korshak, a mobster who owned the Tropicana in the 50s.
It would seem that the two were such good buddies that Korshak threw a lavish
birthday party for Baron at his hotel. It latter emerged that Baron was a
shareholder at the establishment.
Aside from that, it has been reported that Charles had ties to Al Capone’s gang
which is quite believable considering that he hailed from Chicago. Furthermore,
after Capone exited the scene he stayed loyal to both Llewelyn Morris Humphreys
aka “Curly” Humphreys and Salvatore “Mooney Sam” Giancana. Baron represented
their interests in the mob’s Las Vegas casinos.
When Meyer Lansky opened his Havana Riviera casino hotel in Cuba, he chose
Baron as its general manager. Yes, he was a man who knew his way around the
casino business but that was not the main reason he was hired. He was there to
ensure that the interests of the Chicago mob were well represented.
Baron remained in Cuba until Fidel Castro and his revolutionists invaded its
capital. The mob had invested millions of dollars in hotels and casinos in that
country but Castro was not entertaining its presence. Like many of his partners
in crime, Baron was forced to flee the country and he found a job at the Sands
Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas where he served as the official greeter.
The life and times of Charles
“Babe” Baron are a good example of how mobsters got away with things that would
see ordinary citizens rotting behind bars. For instance, it is a well known
fact that he was a suspect in at least two murders in Chicago during his early
days.
One of them was that of fellow mobster Gus Winkler which is said to have been a
gangster’s duel after a disagreement over a prize fight bet. Baron was never
tried for the murder that took place in 1933 and was only charged with having a
concealed weapon. This is in spite of the fact that he may have admitted to the
killing.
What is even more curious is the fact that his police records seem to have
disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Furthermore, in the previous murder
of an unnamed person in 1929, the grand jury returned a no-bill ruling making
Baron a free man.
The plot thickened in 1960 when he appeared before the Gaming Control Board
seeking a 1% stake in the Sands. He was a man with a criminal record albeit
altered by unknown persons and he kept the kind of company that should have
raised eyebrows.
The Board was informed of his alleged murders and it was also furnished with a
list of Baron’s unsavory associates. Names like Louis J. Lederer, Frank
Costello and John Rosselli featured prominently in the subsequent report.
Moreover, upon questioning Baron revealed that he was a former bookmaker but
claimed that he had changed his ways and was running legitimate businesses.
With such a rap sheet, his application should never have seen the light of day
but surprise, surprise he got his share of the Sands and a spot in the Black
Book.
Charles
Baron
From
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baron
Charles
"Babe" Baron (b?-d?) was an organized crime figure in Chicago, Illinois.
He owned a successful Chicago new car dealership (Charles Baron Ford) as well
as holding the rank of Brigadier-General in the Illinois
National Guard. He was involved in illegal gambling as a handbook
operator for the Chicago Outfit.
Along
with Dave Yaras and Lenny Patrick, Baron served as a protégé to Democratic
Party ward boss Jacob Arvey.
Baron
was an associate of Meyer Lansky. (see: Peter Dale Scott, 1993:199)
He was
also a close associate of Patrick Hoy, a Henry Crown employee
of General Dynamics who was later able to arrange a job for Sidney
Korshak at the Hilton Hotels. [1]
Twice
arrested for murder, including that of bootlegger James Walsh, whom
he shot and killed following a prize fight in 1929, and of North
Side Gang financier 'Smiling' Gus Winkler, on October 9, 1933.[1]
Baron
was identified as an associate of John Roselli during the Kefauver
Hearings, in the 1950s.[1]
According
to Jack Ruby and Baron associate Tony Zoppi, Baron knew U.S. Air
Force General Curtis LeMay. (see: Peter Dale Scott, 1993:199, 355)
A former
general manager of the Havana Riviera in pre-revolutionary Cuba,
Baron was one of the first to be granted a gaming license by the Gaming Control
Act, in 1960, and served as the official greeter of the Sands Hotel and
Casino, in Las Vegas, under Joseph "Doc" Stacher.[2]
References
Demaris,
Ovid
Rothman,
Hal. Neon Metropolis: how Las Vegas started the twenty-first century.
London: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-92612-2
Scott,
Peter Dale. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993. ISBN 0-520-08410-1
From Peter Dale Scott’s “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK” (Thank you Peter)
“…..mob’s
casinos in both Havana and Las Vegas. Zoppi’s chief contacts in Las Vegas were at the Sands, where the
official greeter was Charles “Babe” Baron, the associate of Meyer Lansky
and Jake Arvey who was also a general in
the Illinois National Guard. (5 AH 171; 9 AH 167-68).
By 1978, when the (House Select)
Committee (on Assassinations HSCA) interviewed him, Zoppi himself worked in Las Vegas at the Chicago mob’s Riviera
casino, as did Charles Baron and Ruby’s early friend Dave “Dingy” Halper. It
was in this interview that Zoppi revealed that Baron was a close friend of
General Curtis LeMay, another well-known enemy of President Kennedy; and the
Committee investigators confirmed that “Baron was visiting LeMay the following
week” (5 AH 170)
Inasmuch
as Ruby spent two or three hours at the Dallas Morning News on November 22,
much of it in Zoppi’s office, the Committee surely faied in its own search for
organized-crime links when it failed to explore the possibilty that Ruby used
Zoppi’s office that day for liaison with Las Vegas, the city that Blakey and
the Committee believed………
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