The Mob and the City

by C. Alexander Hortis

  28. Robert Cooley with Hillel Levin, When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago Then Brought the Outfit Down (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004), p. 126.

  29. Robert F. Simone, The Last Mouthpiece: The Man Who Dared to Defend the Mob (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 2001), p. xi.

  30. Oscar Goodman with George Anastasia, Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas, Only in America (New York: Weinstein Books, 2013), p. 9.

  31. Thomas Hunt, Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2010); Utica Observer-Dispatch, August 19, 1958, June 5, 1959.

  32. Niagara Falls Gazette, December 15, 1959.

  33. Buffalo Courier-Express, July 23, 1960; Bill Bonanno and Gary Abromovitz, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno: The Final Secrets of a Life in the Mafia (New York: William Morrow, 2011).

  34. Dennis Griffin, Mob Nemesis: How the FBI Crippled Organized Crime (New York: Prometheus Books, 2002), p. 36.

  35. New York Times, September 5, 1970, June 29, 1971.

  36. Marchi, quoted in Griffin, Mob Nemesis, p. 38.

  37. Edward Bennett Williams, One Man's Freedom (New York: Atheneum, 1962), pp. 107–108; Costello v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 376 U.S. 120 (1964).

  38. United States v. Bufalino, 285 F.2d 408, 419–20 (2d Cir. 1960) (Clark, J., concurring).

  39. Luciano, quoted in Sid Feder and Joachim Joesten, The Luciano Story (New York: Da Capo Press, 1954), p. 311.

  40. James B. Jacobs, Coleen Friel, and Robert Radick, Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime (New York: New York University Press, 2001), pp. 18, 229–30.

  41. Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York: Putnam, 1993).

  42. Athan Theoharis, J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Attitude (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1995), pp. 23–55; Peter Maas, “Setting the Record Straight,” Esquire (May 1993): 56–58.

  43. Miami Herald, April 8, 2001; David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 12.

  44. This section is adapted in part from Alex Hortis, “‘Plagued Ever Since’: Late in His Life, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover Reflects on His Mafia Denials,” Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement (July 2011): 5–19.

  45. Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), pp. 82–83.

  46. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The FBI: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 121.

  47. Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012), pp. 119–20, 152–57; John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassilev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 84–85.

  48. Jeffreys-Jones, FBI, pp. 161–62.

  49. Herbert Brownell, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,1993), p. 235.

  50. Interview of Robert Kennedy, quoted in Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 121; Weiner, Enemies, pp. 203–26.

  51. New York Times, September 22, 1936.

  52. Although I disagree with several of his conclusions about Hoover, the unpublished thesis of Aharon W. Zorea, “Plurality and Law: The Rise of Law Enforcement in Organized Crime Control” (Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis University, 2005), does a good job of describing some of the politics of federal law enforcement. Thanks to David Critchley for informing me of it.

  53. Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 4 (New York: Vintage, 2013), pp. 9–10, 65, 459.

  54. Charles Morgan Jr., quoted in Ovid Demaris, The Director: An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover (New York: Harper's Press, 1975).

  55. Gentry, Hoover, pp. 116, 380, 445.

  56. The Mafia was prosperous and growing after World War II, and it reopened “the books” to allow more members in the mid-1950s. See chapter 7.

  57. Washington Post, March 19, 1949.

  58. Washington Post, September 22, 1949.

  59. New York Times, April 2, 1950.

  60. New York Times, April 9, 1950; FBI Report, La Cosa Nostra, Kansas City Division, June 7, 1964, in RG 65 (NARA College Park). The requests continued after the Kefauver Committee Hearings. For example, in August 1953, Sheriff Ed Blackburn of Tampa Bay, Florida (home of the Santo Trafficante Family of the Mafia), playing to Hoover's sensibilities, urged the FBI “to declare the Mafia a subversive, un-American group threatening the internal security of the nation.” New York Times, August 14, 1953.

  61. Brooklyn Eagle, April 17, 1950; New York Times, April 18, 1950.

  62. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Roger Bruns, eds., Congress Investigates, 1792–1974 (New York: Chelsea House, 1975), pp. 352–82.

  63. Third Interim Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Senate, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), 149.

  64. New York Times, May 14, 1950, January 21, 1951.

  65. Estes Kefauver, Crime in America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1951), p. 25; Michael Woodiwiss, Organized Crime and American Power (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp. 242, 251.

  66. Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 40, 499.

  67. Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Senate, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), 350–57 (testimony of Charles Siragusa, FBN), 3–11 (testimony of M. H. Goldschein, Department of Justice), 532, 537, 540–41 (testimony of J. Edgar Hoover).

  68. Hoover's insistence that local authorities could simply clean up corruption and deal with organized crime was proven wrong by almost a century of local impotence against the Mafia. The paralyzing effect of corruption on local law enforcement is one of the best justifications for federal intervention. Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (New York: Aspen, 1992), p. 637; Charles F. C. Ruff, “Federal Prosecution of Local Corruption: A Case Study in the Making of Law Enforcement Policy,” George Washington Law Journal 65 (1977): 1171, 1212–15. Moreover, Hoover was motivated much more by the goal of increasing counterintelligence than he was by factors like federalism and local autonomy.

  69. Hearings before the Special Committee (testimony of Hoover), 537 (emphasis added).

  70. Neil J. Welch and David W. Marston, Inside Hoover's FBI: The Field Chief Reports (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), pp. 80–85.

  71. The CAPGA investigation was shut down by Attorney General Tom Clark because the FBI was using wiretaps of dubious legality. This may have also frustrated the FBI from investigating organized crime. William E. Roemer Jr., Roemer: Man against the Mob (New York: Ballantine, 1989), pp. 19–22.

  72. Robert Kennedy, quoted in Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 120.

  73. Binghamton Press, November 21, 1957, quoted in Gil Reavill, Mafia Summit: J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting That Unmasked the Mob (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2013), pp. 140–41; Binghamton Press, August 13, 1959.

  74. FBI Report, Activities of Top Hoodlums in the New York Field Division, January 8, 1959, in FBI FOIA File on Top Hoodlum Program (copy in possession of author).

  75. William C. Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 120–21

  76. Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, Hoover's FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1997), p. 303.

  77. Oliver “Buck” Williams, A G-Man's Journal: A Legendary Career Inside the FBI—From the Kennedy Assassination to the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: Pocke
t Books, 1998), pp. 4–7.

  78. Ed Reid, The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969). Reid's Grim Reapers is an early journalistic book on the Mafia, which is not critical of Hoover. Hoover's recommendation of this book further reflects genuine regret that the FBI missed the Mafia.

  79. The FBI's official historian Dr. John Fox discovered Hoover's handwritten note. Although we disagree on Hoover's record on the Mafia, I thank Dr. Fox for supplying me the note without any preconditions.

  80. Unfortunately, Mr. Rosen died in 2005 before I could interview him. Mr. Rosen had a distinguished career in the FBI, and led key investigations of civil rights violations and murders in the South. Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI (Washington: Turner Publishing, 1997), p. 217.

  81. William Hundley, quoted in Demaris, Director, p. 142.

  82. Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field: Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958), 12223 (testimony of Martin Pera).

  83. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January 1962.

  84. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September 1963; New York Times, August 31, 1963.

  85. New York Times, November 16, 1957.

  86. Gordon Hawkins, “God and the Mafia,” in National Affairs 14 (Winter 1969): 24–51. For other examples, see Richard Warner, “The Warner Files: God and the Mafia,” Informer: The Journal of American Crime and Law Enforcement (April 2013): 69–71.

  87. As David Critchley had pointed out, Joe Valachi's thousand-page handwritten memoirs in prison are consistent with his testimony, and they have been substantially corroborated by other mafiosi. David Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 167, 293.

  CHAPTER 9: THE ASSASSINATIONS OF 1957

  1. New York Police Department DD5, Files of the Central Intelligence Bureau, May 17, 1957, in Box 5, Office of the District Attorney (Manhattan) Albert Anastasia Files, 1954–1963 (hereafter “Anastasia Files”) in New York Municipal Archives, New York, NY (hereafter “NYMA”); New York Times, March 6, 1956, May 3, 1957.

  2. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Senate, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963), 291–92 (testimony of Joseph Valachi); Peter Maas, The Valachi Papers (New York: Perennial, 2003), pp. 210–12; New York Times, October 10, 1963.

  3. People against Genovese correspondence files in Box 12, in District Attorney (Kings County), Murder, Inc. Case Files (hereafter “Murder, Inc. Files”) (NYMA); New York Times, February 15, 1969.

  4. Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005), p. 61; Investigative Case File on Vito Genovese, 1950–51 (statement of Anna Genovese), in Box 87, in Record Group 46, Records of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereafter “NARA Washington”); New York Times, March 17, 1932; New York Sun, June 25, 1932; Schenectady Gazette, March 17, 1932. See Lennert Van't Riet, David Critchley, and Steve Turner, in Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement (January 2014): 52–96.

  5. Raab, Five Families, p. 82; NYPD Report, Death of Material Witness, Peter LaTempa, February 10, 1945, and Letter of Chief Deputy Sheriff to Acting District Attorney, December 7, 1944, in People against Genovese, Box 12, in Murder, Inc. Files (NYMA) (documents posted by author, May 28, 2013, at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/americanmafia/files/La%20Tempa%20Investigation); New York Times, February 10, 1945; Brooklyn Eagle, June 6, 1946.

  6. Collier's, April 12, 1947.

  7. FBI Memorandum, La Cosa Nostra, August 8, 1963, in Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record Group 65, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereafter “NARA College Park”).

  8. Memorandum, Interview with Commissioner Cavanagh, Re: Richard W. Hoffman, March 8, 1951, in Box 77, Investigative Files, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereafter “NARA Washington”).

  9. United States v. Frank Costello, 511 U.S. 1069 (1956).

  10. New York Times, May 3 and May 4, 1957; John Johnson Jr. and Joel Selvin with Dick Cami, Peppermint Twist, The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the ’60s (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012), p. 62; Paul David Pope, The Deeds of My Fathers: How My Grandfather and Father Built New York and Created the Tabloid World of Today (New York: Philip Turner Books, 2010), pp. 81–82, 247–48.

  11. New York Times, May 4 and May 5, 1957.

  12. Ibid.

  13. New York Times, May 3, 1957, May 16, 1958.

  14. New York Times, August 20, 1957; Long Island Star-Journal, May 3, 1957.

  15. Valachi, quoted in Mass, Valachi Papers, p. 243; Bill Bonanno and Gary B. Abromovitz, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno: The Final Secrets of a Life in the Mafia (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), p. 172.

  16. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 252 (testimony of John Shanley); FBI Report, Crime Conditions in the New York Division, December 3, 1962, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  17. FBI Memorandum, La Cosa Nostra, August 8, 1963, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  18. Joseph Bonanno with Sergio Lalli, A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 184.

  19. Bill Bonanno, Last Testament of Bill Bonanno, p. 173.

  20. George Wolf with Joseph DiMona, Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld (New York: Morrow, 1974), pp. 258–60.

  21. New York Times, May 4, 1957.

  22. New York Times, May 21, 1958.

  23. New York Times, May 28, 1958.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Wolf, Frank Costello, p. 260.

  26. New York State Crime Commission, Public Hearings (no. 5) (Albany, NY: n.p., 1953), 1698 (testimony of Umberto Anastasio).

  27. Bonanno, Man of Honor, pp. 166, 169; Nicolo Gentile, Vita di Capomafia (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963), p. 136.

  28. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 20 and April 27, 1951.

  29. Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 171; FBI Report, The Criminal “Commission,” December 19, 1962, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  30. Gentile, Vita di Capomafia, pp. 116–17.

  31. Ibid.; Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 121.

  32. Gentile, Vito de Capomafia, p. 117.

  33. Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 141.

  34. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 296–97 (testimony of Valachi).

  35. FBI Memorandum, Criminal Intelligence Digest, February 11, 1965, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  36. See chapter 2.

  37. Life, July 1, 1957.

  38. New York Times, June 18, 1957 and April 7, 1959; Albany Knickerbocker News, June 18, 1957.

  39. FBI Memorandum, Criminal Intelligence Digest, February 11, 1965, and FBI Report, La Cosa Nostra, Newark Division, October 3, 1967, both in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  40. General Investigative Intelligence File, Albert Anastasia, February 25, 1954, and General Investigative Intelligence File, Albert Anastasia, March 31, 1955, in FBI Freedom of Information Act File (hereafter “FBI FOIA File”) on Anastasia (copy in possession of author); United States Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics, Mafia (New York: Collins, 2007), pp. 287, 289, 292; New York Times, October 26, 1957.

  41. NYPD Report, List of Property on A. Anastasia, October 1957, NYPD Report, Christening at Essex House, Albert Anastasio, May 13, 1957, and NYPD DD5, Interview of Albert Anastasio Jr., November 1, 1957, all in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA).

  42. NYPD DD5, Interview of Albert Anastasio Jr., Nove
mber 1, 1957, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA); Kenneth C. Wolensky, Nicole H. Wolensky, and Robert P. Wolensky, Fighting for the Union Label: The Women's Garment Industry and the IGLWU in Pennsylvania (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002), pp. 52–53, 84, 180–182.

  43. NYPD DD5, Interview with Members of Deceased's Family, October 25, 1957, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA).

  44. Joe Valachi, quoted in Maas, Valachi Papers, p. 249.

  45. NYPD DD5, Subject: Investigation of Anastasia's Mortgage, November 5, 1957, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA); New York Times, October 26, 1957.

  46. NYPD DD5, Interview with Harry “Champ” Segal, June 4, 1957, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA); New York Times, October 29, October 30, 1957, February 1, 1958.

  47. NYPD Notes of Interview with Joe Silesi, October 9, 1961, and November 6, 1961, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA).

  48. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 348–49 (testimony of Valachi).

  49. NYPD Notes of Interview with Joe Silesi, October 9, 1961, and November 6, 1961, in Box 3, Anastasia Files (NYMA); FBI Memorandum, American Gambling Activities in Cuba, February 28, 1958, and FBI Report, Tampa Office, Santo Trafficante Jr., September 22, 1960, both in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  50. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 349 (testimony of Valachi); Joe Valachi, quoted in Maas, Valachi Papers, p. 249.

  51. FBI Report from Los Angeles Office, La Cosa Nostra, December 13, 1963, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  52. See chapter 3.

  53. NYPD Notes of Interview with Joe Silesi, October 9, 1961, and November 6, 1961, and NYPD DD5, Subject: Santo Trafficante, November 13, 1959, both in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA); FBI Memorandum, American Gambling Activities in Cuba, Top Hoodlum Program, February 28, 1958, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  54. NYPD Notes of Interview with Anthony Coppola, October 25, 1957, in Box 2, Anastasia Files (NYMA); New York Times, October 26, 1957.