Supermob

by Gus Russo

  As with the Giancana rubout, insiders developed their own rumors about Hoffa's disappearance, and oftentimes their whispers included the name Korshak. Just days after the Hoffa disappearance, Korshak's partner in the Bistro, Kurt Niklas, asked Sidney, "What do you think happened to Hoffa?" According to Niklas, Korshak threw him a "steely glance" and warned, "He's dead, and don't ever mention his name again."49 Of course, it was weeks before the press and authorities came to the same conclusion.

  Similarly, Las Vegas investigator Ed Becker noticed a curiosity surrounding Korshak and Hoffa's snatching: "After the disappearance of Hoffa, Kor­shak and Dorfman took off for Europe. They were conveniently not in Chicago. So it was interesting."50

  What Niklas and Becker likely didn't know was just how well Korshak was plugged in to the very man whom the Bureau and other Hoffa experts would later suspect of enticing Hoffa to his doom. According to an LAPD Intelligence report, none other than Anthony Giacalone was not only a friend of Sid Korshak's, but had stayed at his La Costa condo in 1969. 51

  Whatever Korshak's level of knowledge regarding Hoffa's fate, it seemed to give him little comfort after returning from his European getaway with Dorfman. "Korshak started traveling with a bodyguard after Hoffa disap­peared," said a Labor Department investigator who had followed Korshak's career for nearly twenty years. "Lew Wasserman beefed up security at his home around the same time."52

  With Hoffa gone, the mob's infiltration of the Teamsters was virtually unchecked. Consequently, by the spring of 1976, L.A. mafioso Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno cooked up another scam involving the union's health plan, and when the rip-off did not proceed as quickly as he wished, the Weasel brought Sid Korshak into the fray.

  At the time, Fratianno, one of the most feared mob hitmen, was attempting to sell Andy Anderson's West Coast Teamsters a questionable dental plan, which, like the health plan involving People's Industrial Consultants, would see massive skims to the underworld. "I've got to make some money," Fratianno had said to his San Francisco Teamster ally Rudy Tham, the head of freight checkers Local 856, the city's second-largest Teamster union. It was Tham's membership roster that Fratianno hoped to use as foils in the plan. Fratianno explained the operation to Johnny Rosselli: "You pick the dentist and the union gives him a contract to do all the dental work for the members of the locals signed up and their families. Dorfman's company, Amalgamated Insurance Agency, processes all medical claims and authorizes payment, which means he controls the whole thing. So now we can play some games. Number one, the dentists kick back to certain people so many dollars for each member signed up; and number two, Dorfman can submit phony claims and nobody's the wiser. It's a sweet setup, believe me."53

  A frustrated Fratianno waited for months for Anderson to rubber-stamp the plan, eventually turning to Cleveland Teamster boss Jackie Presser for advice.

  "Go see Sid Korshak," Presser said. "Andy's his man. You believe me, Jimmy. This Korshak can take care of the whole thing with one phone call . . . This's the smoothest sonovabitch in the business. There's nothing he can't fix."

  Per custom, Sidney met the Weasel at his Bistro corner table, escorted him outside to the bench Korshak reserved for sensitive negotiations, and heard the pitch.

  After a few minutes, Korshak merely said, "I'll talk to Andy and get it straightened out . . . Jimmy, I'll do the best I can, believe me. But, please, don't call me on the telephone.' "54

  When more weeks went by with no movement, Fratianno took up the matter with Korshak's Chicago patrons, meeting first with street boss Joey "Doves" Aiuppa. Fratianno was thereupon told what so many had been instructed before: that he should have no contact with Korshak. "The less you see him the better," Doves said. "We don't want to put any heat on the guy." Then he summed up Korshak's life, as interpreted by the Chicago bosses: "Let me explain something, Jimmy. Sid's a traveling man. He's in everybody's country, but he's our man, been our man his whole life. So, you know, it makes no difference where he hangs his hat. Get my meaning?"

  When Fratianno started to argue, Aiuppa started laughing. "Jimmy, you're not listening. He's got a permit. We gave him one. Understand? Don't put any heat on Sid. We've spent a lot of time keeping this guy clean. He can't be seen in public with guys like us. We have our own ways of contacting him and it's worked pretty good for a long time."

  But Fratianno was too hot to heed the warning. He went right back to the Bistro and, in an attempt at intimidation, showed up with mob tough guy Mike Rizzitello. Again they sat on the little bench outside the restaurant, as Korshak explained that he didn't actually control Anderson, and that Anderson was not returning calls.

  "Then the guy's going to get hurt," Jimmy warned. "I told you last time, Sid, I don't want no stories. As far as I'm concerned, that's bullshit. You know this fucking Andy better than I know my own brother."

  "Jimmy, I don't want to argue with you," answered an unfazed Korshak. "I'll talk to him again. What else can I do?'

  "Look, we don't want to take this into our own hands," said the imploding mobster. "We're not asking for the moon. All we want's for him to give Rudy what he's entitled to. And by Christ, Rudy's going to get it, one way or another."55

  Continued inaction pushed Fratianno to the next level. When an answer from Korshak was not forthcoming in the following weeks, a dead fish was deposited in Korshak's mailbox, a transgression that was quickly reported back to Joe Batters Accardo. Now, the Weasel was ordered back to Chicago to explain himself to Korshak's closest friend in the Outfit, boss Accardo.

  Joey Aiuppa opened the meeting, telling Jimmy, "I told you last time, we don't allow nobody in the family to talk to this guy. We don't want no fuck­ing heat on him." After hearing the Weasel's denials that he had put the dead fish in Korshak's mailbox, the boss uttered his pronouncement: "Jimmy, Sid's been with Gussie over thirty years and Gussie's with us. Sid's a good provider for our family and we don't want nobody to fuck with him. I appreciate your problem, but we don't want him seen with nobody. We don't want nobody muscling this guy. I can't make it no plainer than that. He's off-limits. That's it, Jimmy."

  Fratianno made one last foray into the West Coast Teamster scam, this time going directly to Andy Anderson at the Teamsters headquarters in Burlingame, California—once again with the menacing Mike "Rizzo" by his side. Once alone with Anderson in his office, Rizzo closed the door behind them. A few menacing words later, and Anderson caved.

  "All right, Jimmy," Anderson said, "tell Rudy to call me and we'll straighten it out."

  "Andy, you do it," warned Fratianno. "We don't want to come back here a second time."

  In short time, Fratianno and Tham got their dental plan, but the victory was short-lived. Like Henry Hill, of GoodFellas (1990) fame, Fratianno became a government witness in 1977 when he was confronted with a raft of charges by the government, and the simultaneous realization that the Los Angeles mob had ordered him killed. In 1978, Fratianno was sentenced to two concurrent five-year sentences, the result of a plea bargain to testify and go into witness protection, where he spent the next ten years. His matter-of-fact accounts of Mafia "hits" and operations helped convict more than two dozen members of the Mafia around the country during the 1970s and 1980s. In one 1980 trial that led to the racketeering convictions of five Mafia figures, Fratianno admitted that he had committed five murders and participated in six. He later admitted to four more hits. He was dropped from the witness protection in 1987 after the Justice Department said further payments might make the program appear like a "pension fund for aging mob­sters." In retirement, Fratianno was the subject of two books, The LastMafioso (1981) and Vengeance Is Mine (1987), both of which he claimed never to have read, and appeared on several television talk shows. Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, the former mob boss who turned government witness, died in his sleep in July 1993, at age seventy-nine in an undisclosed U.S. city, where he was living under an assumed name.56

  In 1980, a federal jury convicted Tham for embezzlement of union funds.r />
  Korshak has been very active in this sort of investment [real estate and private industry] and since he carries considerable weight in determining where Chicago funds are invested it now appears some of the Chicago Family's surplus is in the film industry.

  1977 FBI MEMO57

  Korshak ended 1975 with another show of film business acumen, this time involving the planned remake of the classic 1933 movie King Kong. His actions amplified the FBI's growing interest in the Chicago Outfit's latest infiltration into the movie business.

  In 1975, according to King Kong chronicler Bruce Bahrenburg, "Paramount was looking for another 'big' picture in the same league as their recent blockbuster, The Godfather and the forthcoming The Great Gatsby."58 When the Kong project was announced in the trades that year, Lew Wasser­man's Universal Pictures sued the new film's director Dino DeLaurentiis for $25 million, claiming Universal alone held the rights to the remake of the original 1933 RKO production. Universal simultaneously filed suit against RKO, which had sold the rights to DeLaurentiis, after it had supposedly already done the same to Universal.

  DeLaurentiis then countersued Universal for $90 million, and the legal morass became more entangled with each successive day. "The legal issues surrounding the copyright to Kong," Bahrenburg wrote, "are as puzzling as a maze in a formal British garden."59 With the lawsuits casting a shadow over the film, Paramount nonetheless went ahead in early January 1976 with principal photography, making it imperative that the legal issues be resolved. Although the courts had failed to bring about a deal, there was, of course, one man who was famous for just that, and given Sidney Korshak's great connections at both Paramount and Universal, he was the natural choice to mediate the dispute. Or as DeLaurentiis later said, "The only way to get through to Lew is to talk to Sidney."60

  With DeLaurentiis's office located on Canon Drive, just a few steps from Korshak's Bistro, it was merely a matter of walking up the street to enlist Sidney. According to a source close to the production, a luncheon was arranged at Korshak's Bel-Air home between executives of Paramount and Universal (MCA).* "Sidney was the court," said the source. "In a couple hours, a deal was arrived at that made everybody happy. Sidney had done more over his lunch hour than dozens of high-priced attorneys had done in eight months." The source, a producer at Universal, added that Korshak was paid a $30,000 fee for his two-hour business lunch.61 DeLaurentiis himself would later corroborate the fee.

  There may have been a hidden agenda at play that explained both Kor­shak's and DeLaurentiis's desire to get the movie going. In a recently released memo describing a tip from an undisclosed source, the Los Angeles FBI Field Office noted:

  [Source] indicated that Korshak was bringing in laundered money, skim money, mob money from the Chicago-Las Vegas areas for the purpose of producing a revival of the classic film King Kong, which is a joint venture between Paramount Studios, a subsidiary corporation of Gulf &C Western, Universal Studios, which is a subsidiary of MCA, and [deleted]^ of Rome, Italy. According to [source], Korshak is alleged to be handling $12 million in illicit funds gathered through skimming in Las Vegas and Syndicate money in Chicago . . . [Source] further points out that Korshak is also handling "laundered" money controlled by mob interests in Chicago and Las Vegas in the production of a second movie in production now at United Artists, which is being produced by Joseph Levine, entitled ABridge Too Far.

  It is [source's] understanding that King Kong has been budgeted at 25 million dollars and that at the rate of production expenditures thus far, it will exceed 25 million dollars. [Source] offered that the excessive costs of the production would add to the concealment of illicit funds, in his judgment.*'62

  Variety later reported that Universal agreed to allow Paramount to make the film, with Universal maintaining the rights to a future remake. "I am very pleased," DeLaurentiis told the press, "and would like to thank MCA's Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg for their understanding and generosity in making such accommodations possible." And as per custom, Sid Kor­shak's name never surfaced in connection with the resolution.

  Despite the coverage given to the Kong settlement by the fourth estate, the press nonetheless avoided addressing the "elephant in the room": Why did Universal cave so quickly, and with no equivalent benefit? Some have posited that DeLaurentiis's production of Universal's The Brink's Job in 1978 (another film that required Korshak's intervention with the Teamsters) was the quid pro quo.* However, the word among insiders was that Korshak had decreed that DeLaurentiis give Universal a percentage of the Kong profits. 63 DeLaurentiis's assistant to the producer Fred Sidewater said, "The settlement cost Dino five million dollars." Sidewater also clarified that the unpublicized subtext to all the arguing was marketing rights. "The reason for all the fights was that they wanted to put the ride in Universal's theme park after all the success with the Jaws ride. We gave them the merchandising rights as a compromise."64 Although panned by critics, the $24 million movie made $46 million in profits. But Universal's King Kong thrill ride, which operated for over two decades, undoubtedly made more profit than Dino's movie.

  According to Korshak friend and Hilton Hotel general counsel E. Timothy Applegate, Korshak's performances regarding Valachi and Kong ingratiated him with the producer. "While eating at the Bistro, Sidney told me how Dino DeLaurentiis thought the sun rose and set on him," recalled Apple-gate. "He told me how he had helped Dino with King Kong, and that Dino later gave him a new Ferrari for his help. Sidney, who was over seventy at the time, said, 'What the hell am I going to do with that?' "65

  In 2005, Universal finally began production on its Kong remake, with Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson at the helm.

  Sid Korshak's latest triumph added still more luster to an already vaunted reputation. Toward the end of 1975, actor David Janssen's wife, Dani Greco Janssen, was inspired to further refine Joyce Haber's demarcation of Kor­shak's "A-list" to include an exclusive subset that she called The Big Six, consisting of the Korshaks, the Ziffrens, and the Wassermans.66 In March 1976, Korshak exerted his power in Las Vegas again, this time in another broadside against his foe Howard Hughes's Summa Corporation. On this occasion, Korshak orchestrated a seventeen-day strike by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union against a group of casinos and hotels, six of which were owned by Summa. Typically, none of the hotels or casinos that employed Korshak's services were affected.67

  On May 4,1976, Korshak renewed his passport, falsely writing on the form that his "permanent residence" was 69 W. Washington Street in Chicago—which was actually his brother's law office—and advising that he planned to travel throughout England, France, and Italy for two months in the summer of 1976. *

  *The tax dodge courtesy was also offered to millionaire movie stars, who have since become incorporated in the Netherlands and receive their income as tax-free loans. With Wasserman viewed as the most adept at the offshore schemes, many top actors had still one more huge incentive for signing up with MCA.

  *Harry played "Steve" in episode #7.16, "Overture in A-flat," which aired December 31, 1964.

  ^[Hit! opened on September 18, 1973, and told the story of a federal agent whose daughter dies of a heroin overdose, and his determination to destroy the drug ring that supplied her. The ambitious action flick received some good, but overall mixed, reviews.

  *Czar had an interesting career herself, appearing in a number of Elvis Presley movies, including Girl Happy (1965) and Spinout (1966), and becoming a B-movie queen in such low-budget classics as Ray Dennis Steckler's Wild Guitar, playing opposite the legendary Arch Hall Jr.

  *The Soviet ballistic-missile submarine (SSB) K-129 sank off Hawaii on April 11, 1968, probably due to a missile malfunction, and was later located by the CIA in 16,500 feet of water. Hughes's contribution to the partnership was the Glomar Explorer, a sixty-three-thousand- ton deep-sea salvage vessel built specifically for the top-secret operation. The ship was built under the cover story that she was a deep-sea mining vess
el, ostensibly intended to recover manganese nodules from the ocean floor. Half of the sub was eventually raised, and the bodies of the Soviet sailors recovered inside were buried at sea.

  * Among the many recipients of Hughes's money over the years (in addition to Nixon) were Lawrence O'Brien, Senator Joseph Montoya (who was a member of the Senate Watergate Committee), Bobby Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

  †The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hughes Aircraft was owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which sold it to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion. The court rejected suits brought by the states of California and Texas, which claimed they were owed inheritance tax on the Hughes estate.

  *Giancana had recently undergone two problematic gallbladder surgeries and was simultaneously called to testify before a Senate committee looking into the Castro assassination plots of the early sixties that linked both the CIA and the Chicago Outfit.

  *DeLaurentiis's biographers, while acknowledging Korshak's role, claim that the meeting took place over dinner at Bluhdorn's office. (Kezich and Levantesi, Dino, 218) tThe deleted producer is most definitely Dino DeLaurentiis.