Supermob
Page 24
Despite the committee's concentration on Hoffa and typical low-life mob thugs, Bobby Kennedy felt compelled to make a cursory show of interest in the Supermob types. "Bobby was always interested in Korshak," said Tom Zander, a Labor Department investigator who funneled evidence to Kennedy during the hearings. "When he was on McClellan, he asked me about Korshak." 23 Consequently, committee investigator James J. P. McShane obtained files on Marshall Korshak and Gus Alex, and, according to a Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) memo, "Bobby Kennedy was fully briefed on the contents." Brother Sidney was next. On March 28, 1957, Kennedy investigators Walter Sheridan and Pierre Salinger met with Sid Korshak in his 134 N. LaSalle office for a preinterview, in anticipation of Korshak's eventual testimony in Washington.* Regarding the Shefferman-Englander dealings, Korshak explained that he had received a paltry $2,000 for mediating a dispute between the Coca-Cola Company and Englander's unions. In Salinger's background report to Kennedy, he described Korshak as being "extremely close to the old Capone mob."24
After his polite chat with the investigators, Korshak returned to business as usual. His reverie was only briefly disturbed by another blast from his college rival, Lester Velie. In the July 1957 issue of Reader's Digest, Velie, who was likely leaked material by either Sheridan or Virgil Peterson of the Chicago Crime Commission, wrote an article entitled HOW INFLUENCE-PEDDLERS SHORTCHANGE THE UNION WAGE EARNER. In the piece, Velie recounted Korshak's friendships with Charlie Gioe, Nathan Shefferman, and his role in arranging sweetheart contracts for employers such as Englander.
Meanwhile, the Teamsters were preparing to name a new international president to replace Dave Beck, who stepped down in May after receiving federal tax and larceny charges, the result of McClellan Committee revelations. Throughout the summer, Korshak's underworld associates set about assuring that their man Hoffa was guaranteed the open position. When the word came down to Dorfman, he instructed his close friend Johnny Dio (Dioguardi) of New York to organize Teamster "paper locals," which had the sole purpose of ensuring Hoffa's control of the New York Joint Council of the Teamsters.
Any doubts that Hoffa would be a determined leader were dispelled on August 22, 1957, when he did verbal battle with firebrand Bobby Kennedy. In what was a classic example of the immovable object meeting the irresistible force, Hoffa, who viewed Bobby as a spoiled rich kid, sparred for two days with Kennedy, who in turn believed Hoffa to be evil personified. "We were like flint and steel," Hoffa wrote in his autobiography. "Every time we came to grips the sparks flew."25 The great theater that was expected by millions of television viewers was delivered in spades, with name-calling and high sarcasm in great abundance.
"It was just a match of two absolutes," commented historian Ronald Steel. "Bobby Kennedy saw Hoffa as absolute evil. And so he could elevate this struggle against Hoffa into some kind of titanic moral issue, which is why he became so dedicated to it."
Hoffa's nonstop evasion was met with Kennedy's mocking, superior attitude. When the two brawlers needed a breather, there was no bell to save them, so they just stared at each other for minutes at a time, ending only when Hoffa winked. "I used to love to bug the little bastard," Hoffa recalled.
Even during lunch breaks, Hoffa made certain Kennedy knew he meant business as the jousting spilled out into the Senate office building hallways and nearby restaurants, at one point escalating from the verbal to the physical. According to Hoffa, he was walking to a table at a nearby restaurant when he heard someone yell, "Hey, you!" Before he could respond, a hand grabbed him and spun him around. It was Bobby Kennedy. Hoffa's tough union pedigree made him act instinctively.
"My hand shot out and grabbed him by the front of his jacket and bounced him up against the wall—hard," Hoffa wrote. " 'I'm only gonna tell you this one time. If you ever put your mitts on me again I'm gonna break you in half.'"26
When Hoffa's testimony resumed that afternoon, the altercation led to the following Q&A:
Kennedy: Did you say, "That SOB, I'll break his back"?
Hoffa: Who?
Kennedy: You.
Hoffa: Say it to who?
Kennedy: To anyone?
Hoffa: Figure of speech . . . I don't even know what I was talking about and I don't know what you're talking about.
Kennedy: Uh . . . Mr. Hoffa, all I'm trying to find out, I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm trying to find out whose back you were going to break.
Hoffa: Figure of speech . . . figure of speech.
For all intents and purposes, the interrogation duel ended as a draw.
On August 28, 1957, one month before the Teamster convention, the OCID (Organized Crime Intelligence Division) unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) watched surreptitiously as the Teamsters' executive board met with Jimmy Hoffa and three powerful residents of the Windy City at L.A.'s Townhouse Hilton Hotel. An LAPD memo in the files of the Chicago Crime Commission gives further details of what the OCID witnessed: "According to information given to the LAPD, three men are with Hoffa for the purpose of aiding his cause in becoming President of the Teamsters Union. It is claimed that the men in question are: Murray Humphreys, Marshall Caifano, and [Humphreys aide] Ralph Pierce—all of whom are well-known Chicago hoodlums. It is stated that a member of the Executive Board is being taken before these men singly, and they are advising members of the Executive Board in no uncertain terms that Hoffa is to be the next President of the Teamsters Union."
To no one's surprise, Hoffa became president at the October 4, 1957, Miami IBT convention. Allen Friedman, a muscleman for the Cleveland Teamsters local, described a coronation that mimicked the 1934 IATSE convention that anointed George Browne. "The delegates who elected Hoffa, usually the business agents, trustees, secretary-treasurer, and presidents of the various Teamster locals, had been carefully rigged," Friedman wrote. "Hoffa's men had meant to cover their tracks. They had stolen ballots that went against them and rigged both the seating and voting so inappropriate voting took place. Then they tossed the documents into the incinerator, blaming the maid for the action."27 According to one report, Curly Humphreys, who was known to frequent the Sea Isle Hotel in Florida, was on hand one month later at Miami Beach's luxurious Eden Roc Hotel to watch from the shadows as Hoffa accepted the Teamster presidency before seventeen hundred roaring delegates.
In the aftermath of Hoffa's election, the Chicago underworld's personal friendships with Teamster officials only grew stronger. The wife of Korshak's controller, Curly Humphreys, witnessed the goings-on. Jeanne Stacy Humphreys remembered that Curly became close to John T. "Sandy" O'Brien, the international vice president of the Teamsters, whose wife, Marge, just happened to be the secretary of the Teamsters Pension Fund. Humphreys also maintained a close personal relationship with Hoffa, who often vacationed at Humphreys's Key Biscayne home. FBI bugs heard Curly tell Joey Glimco, "Hoffa was the best man I ever knew." According to Humphreys, whenever the Outfit told Hoffa to do something, "He just goes boom, boom, boom, he gets it done." Humphreys added, "One thing I always admired about the guy, they tried to fuck him, but he never took a bad attitude about it." On occasion, Humphreys even lent his legal expertise to Hoffa. "I worked on this case for him," Humphreys said, "and paid out a lot of money for him and never got it back." Despite the warming relationship with the new Teamster boss, both the hoods and the Supermob would wait a suitable amount of time before making withdrawals from their new bank. But once they commenced, they would be ravenous.
On October 30, 1957, barely four weeks after Hoffa assumed the Teamster presidency, Korshak appeared before Bobby Kennedy and the full committee. With Kennedy conducting all the questioning, Korshak deftly explained his dealings with Shefferman and Englander by pointing out that the lower wages were complicated by the variant costs of doing business in different areas of the country. Surprisingly, Kennedy seemed satisfied with Korshak's answers.
The only other major point of interest was Korshak's labor assistance given to Jake the Barber's brother, Max Factor
, in Los Angeles. The union organizer at Max Factor Cosmetics, Michael Katz, knew enough to find Korshak at the Beverly Hills Friars Club, where he was lunching with Jake the Barber.
"I believe I was in the Friars Club in California," Korshak explained. "I received a telephone call from Mr. Katz. He met me in front of the place. He told me that he was organizing the company, and that he was having difficulty getting together with management. He understood that one of the Factors was from Chicago. He asked if I would arrange a meeting with management."
Korshak giving testimony before the McClellan Committee, October 30,1957 (Corbis/Bettmann)
"Which Factor was that?" Kennedy asked.
"This was a Mr. John Factor [Jake the Barber]. Mr. John Factor was in the club at this particular time. I asked Mr. Katz to wait. I walked in and told Mr. Factor what I had just learned from Mr. Katz. Mr. Factor said the only one that he knew at the plant was his half brother, and that he was in Europe at the time, so he couldn't or wouldn't talk to anyone else. I went out and communicated that to Mr. Katz."
Korshak explained that his contact with Katz was accidental and should not be taken to mean he was in the employ of Max or Jake Factor, Royston Webb's observations notwithstanding. Korshak said that he probably told Katz as much. "I would have told him I have no interest whatsoever in the Max Factor Company, and that John Factor wasn't interested in the Max Factor Company," Korshak told Kennedy.28
For reasons unknown at the time, Kennedy's "interrogation" of Korshak came off as a lovefest in comparison to his treatment of Hoffa. At the close of questioning, Kennedy went so far as to compliment Korshak, calling him "very cooperative." And when Kennedy wrote his memoirs of the probe, The Enemy Within, he failed to mention Korshak's name at all—this despite the fact that both the FBI and Kefauver had made Korshak one of their chief labor-corruption targets.
With Bobby Kennedy's crusade behind him, Sid Korshak returned to business as usual. In January 1958, Korshak, Joe Accardo, Curly Humphreys, Sam "Mooney" Giancana, and Jackie "the Lackey" Cerone met at Gian-cana's Armory Lounge in Chicago's Forest Park suburb to work out Ac-cardo's looming problems with the IRS. It seemed that the most powerful underworld boss in America was having difficulty explaining his vast income—he needed a legit job quick. Also in attendance were representatives from the Fox Head Brewing Company, which was heavily invested in by Humphreys. The FBI's informants revealed that Korshak drew up a bogus contract for Accardo, saying that he was a "salesman" for Premium Beer Sales Inc. For his services, Korshak received a $500 fee, but later told the FBI that he only reviewed the contract.29 Interestingly, Accardo's daughter Marie Judith Accardo would soon be seen working as a secretary in Korshak's Chicago office.
"Sidney and Accardo were extraordinarily close," said a longtime Chicago attorney friend of Sidney's. "When Marie was growing up, Accardo wanted her protected when she went into the workforce, so he sent her to work for Sidney and Marshall. The point is that Sidney was so close that Accardo trusted his daughter with him. And Sidney was not a guy to trust around women."30
While in Chicago, Korshak attended to his legit clients as well. When the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper moved its headquarters in 1958, circulation director Louis Spear called Korshak to halt a strike by paper haulers who refused to unload papers that were now shipped by river to the new shorefront location. As Spear recalled in 2004, Korshak placed one call, and the strikers returned to work.31 In New York that year, Korshak helped restaurateur Toots Shor resolve problems with his workers' union.32
Gus Hops on the Bus
Although Bobby Kennedy seemed quite satisfied with Sidney Korshak's testimony, he was nonetheless spoiling for a fight with one of Sidney's early sponsors, Gussie "Slim" Alex, ostensibly a "salesman" for the mob-owned Atlas Brewing Company. He later claimed to work for Blatz Brewing of Milwaukee, owned by Schenley Industries, a Sid Korshak client. A Greek hood who ran vice rackets in Chicago's Loop district, Gussie was, like Korshak, a direct subordinate of the gang's labor and political Einstein, Curly Humphreys, and was soon to become the Chicago Outfit's master courier, supervising the transportation of the Las Vegas casino skim to Swiss banks. The committee drew up a subpoena for the vaunted hood, but the trouble was, the committee staff couldn't find him to serve it. Alex and his wife, the former Marianne Ryan, had disappeared from their beautiful riverfront 4300 North Marine Drive apartment in late October. Just as the hoods had gone into hiding during the Kefauver probe—tabbed Kefauveritis—they did much the same when Bobby called, and one of those suffering from "Kennedyitis" was Gussie Alex.
Committee investigators in Chicago were told that the best way to find Alex was to talk to Sid Korshak, who was known to all to be tight with Gussie. In Chicago, local investigators referred to Korshak as "Gussie's man."33 It was quickly determined that Alex's sister was married to Korshak Teamster associate Joey Glimco, and that Alex had taken over numerous Outfit financial machinations from Jake Guzik, for whom he used to bodyguard, when Guzik died in 1956. A confidential 1958 FBI report stated, "Gus Alex had moved up to an important position in the crime syndicate of Chicago . . . Sidney Korshak, well-known Chicago attorney, was the person who advised top racketeers in Chicago insofar as their legitimate enterprises were concerned . . . Gus Alex was the hoodlum closest to Korshak and . . . this was the basis for the belief that Alex had moved into a high echelon of the syndicate."
Once when Gussie applied for an apartment in an exclusive Lake Shore Drive complex, attorney Korshak wrote a letter of recommendation, saying about the infamous gangster, "He is a man of excellent financial responsibilities who will be an excellent tenant."34 On another occasion, Alex used Sidney's brother Marshall's name when applying for memberships in Chicago's exclusive Standard Club and Whitehall Club. According to the FBI, Alex had claimed employment with Marshall as a front "for the last five years."
In fact, the relationship had only strengthened over the years, thanks in part to the friendship of their spouses. Alex and Ryan had met in the late forties, when Alex happened into the College Inn, where Ryan was moonlighting from her contract modeling gig at Marshall Field's Department Store. By all accounts, there was an instant attraction between the handsome, debonair hood and the copper-blond beauty, who was well aware of Alex's line of work. When word of their relationship got back to Marshall Field's, Ryan was fired. After Gussie Alex and Marianne Ryan were married in Santa Barbara, California, in 1950, Alex introduced his bride to Sidney, whose wife, Bee, was an established model. Over the next decade, Bee and Marianne produced numerous fashion shows in the Chicagoland environs.
The new Mrs. Alex was a perfect match for Korshak's wife, Bee. Not only were they married to "connected" Chicago men, but they were both drop-dead beautiful, young, blond models. Just as Gussie had used the Korshaks for references, his wife similarly used Bee Korshak's name when applying for modeling work. Chicago Tribune crime reporter Sandy Smith recalled that the paper ran a picture of Bee with Marianne when they attended a theater opening together. When Smith showed the picture to Sidney Korshak, he candidly admitted to Smith that he had known Gus Alex quite well for many years.35 Throughout the fifties, the Alexes and the Korshaks became best pals, often seen dining together at Table One of the Pump Room and vacationing in Europe. The association held other benefits for Ryan, who, after her eventual divorce from Alex, moved to California, where she became a wardrobe assistant for one of Bee Korshak's best friends, singer and television star Dinah Shore.
Bee Korshak striking a pose, 1957 (Chicago Tribune)
Model behavior: Bee Korshak(r.) and Marianne Ryan Alex attend a 1953 Chicago premiere (ChicagoTribune)
When Korshak moved in on Las Vegas, he often booked Shore into prime lounges via his ABC Booking Agency. In a 1963 FBI interview, Korshak told the agents that he, his wife, and their two teenage sons "were taking off with Dinah Shore, television entertainer, and her oldest child, for a two-month tour of Europe." George Schlatter, the executive producer of Dinah's hit TV serie
s, recently described Dinah's friendship with the Korshaks. "Dinah was close to Sidney and Bee, who is a hell of a lady," recalled Schlatter. "Very, very funny, gaudy—she and Dinah were like the Green Berets of fun. When I became the producer of the Dinah Shore Show, we started using couturier clothes, and Dinah and Bee would go to Europe and come back with a boatload of clothes. They just had the best time ever."36 When Shore wrote her cookbook Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah in 1971, she used a number of Bee's recipes, calling her "indefatigable," and "a dear friend of longstanding." Shore added, "Once we even traveled through Europe—not by road map—but by the stomach, literally deciding where we wanted to go and when, according to what restaurant we'd heard about."37
When Korshak hosted a fifty-first birthday party for Chicago Ford dealer Charley Baron at Las Vegas' Tropicana Hotel, he enlisted Dinah to perform. 38 In 1962, when Dinah divorced George Montgomery, Bee was her "corroborating witness," testifying that Montgomery was "remote and withdrawn."39 Dinah described her friend Sidney Korshak to the LosAngelesTimes in 1969, calling him a "friendly man, sweet and sort of shy. He's not the kind you'd catch doing the Watusi." Like Korshak's other friends, Shore couldn't help but be aware of the furtive side of his life, saying that, at a party, Korshak would suddenly get an important phone call. "He disappears," Shore said. "He's gone for the evening."40
Dinah Shore with Bee Korshak at Shore's divorce hearing (photographer unknown)