The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino

by Birkbeck, Matt

  After losing the election, Batista divided his time over the next four years traveling from Cuba to Florida and New York, where he maintained residences and nurtured friendships. And among those he developed deep friendships with in the United States was Russell Bufalino. When Batista retook control of the country in a coup in 1952, his government was immediately recognized by President Dwight Eisenhower, and within months, he reached agreements with the Mafiosi and several American corporations, promising to match dollar for dollar any investment over $1 million in a hotel and casino. The point man for the organized crime interests was Meyer Lansky, a Jewish gangster allied with Luciano who was now the brains behind the entire Cuban operation.

  As Cuba’s economy, and fortunes, improved, so too did the fortunes of its corrupt president. Batista secured a cut, typically 10 percent to 30 percent, of casino revenues. He also took bribes from U.S. companies eager to win contracts for various construction projects, including those for new airports and highways. The astonishing cash infusion led Cuba to quickly become a playground for the wealthy, and at its height, the money flowing through the island produced a take for the mob that exceeded $1 million per day from the casinos alone. Lansky, ever the businessman, insisted that the spoils from Cuba be shared, and nearly every major organized crime boss in the United States would have some interest in a Cuban hotel and casino, including the Sans Souci, Sevilla-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville, Capri, Nacional and Plaza.

  Russell Bufalino was no exception, and he counted pieces of the Sans Souci and the Plaza hotels along with co-ownership of a dog track and a shrimping business. But Bufalino also had something the other mob leaders didn’t have—a long-standing friendship with Batista. The two men had become so close that during the hot Cuban summers, Batista would send his children to northeastern Pennsylvania to vacation under Bufalino’s protection.

  By 1956, Bufalino’s lucrative business interests included his holdings in Cuba; his infiltration of the Teamsters union, particularly its Central States pension fund; his choke hold over the garment industry; and a host of other businesses in Pennsylvania and New York. He was also the recognized leader of the northeastern Pennsylvania family, having taken over for John Sciandra in 1949. Joseph Barbara still ran New York’s southern tier, but he was in ill health, having suffered two heart attacks within a year.

  Now in his midfifties, Bufalino was duly recognized by other mob leaders as one of the most important gangsters in the country. Yet few outside organized crime circles knew or heard of him, and those who did had a hard time understanding why a crime boss from Kingston, Pennsylvania, could wield more power than a boss from New York or Chicago. But he did, which is why Bufalino was called upon to quell what could have been the greatest mob war since 1931.

  * * *

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON on November 13, 1957, when New York State Police sergeant Edgar Croswell and trooper Vincent Vasisko arrived at the Parkway Motel on Route 17 near Binghamton, New York. They had been called to investigate a bad-check charge, and once inside the motel, Croswell recognized a man talking to the motel owners, Warren and Helen Schroeder. It was Joseph Barbara’s son, Joseph Barbara Jr.

  Croswell was all too familiar with the elder Barbara and his business interests in central New York. Barbara Sr. had lived in the region for nearly two decades. He owned a Canada Dry bottling plant and several other legitimate businesses. But Croswell knew about Barbara’s history as a contract killer in Buffalo for Stefano Magaddino before relocating to central New York in the mid-1930s.

  And if anyone doubted his violent side, they just had to look at his arrest record. Barbara had been picked up by the Pennsylvania State Police and charged with murdering a Sicilian from Montedoro, Calogero Calamera, on January 4, 1931. Calamera was walking along a Pittston street for a late-night walk when he was approached by two men and shot six times. Before he died, he told police he had outstanding issues with Santo Volpe and Charles Bufalino and gave descriptions of the two men who shot him. Police arrested Barbara, but later dropped the charges.

  Barbara was arrested again a year later, again on suspicion of murder, but that charge was later withdrawn when a witness recanted. In February 1933, Barbara was arrested yet again after the body of a bootlegger and hijacker, Samuel Wichner, was found in the trunk of a car in Scranton with a noose around his neck and the other end of the rope fastened to his knees. Before his demise, Wichner had told his wife he met with Barbara at his home the night before to discuss a bootlegging business venture with Barbara and Santo Volpe but was told to come back the following night.

  Barbara was charged again with murder, but like his other arrests, the charge was later dropped due to lack of evidence.

  In 1946, six years after assuming control of the central New York territory, Barbara was charged with illegal acquisition of sugar, which was used to make alcohol. He was found guilty and fined $5,000. Following that arrest, he remained out of sight and spent much of his time at his estate in nearby Apalachin, a small hamlet just west of Binghamton that played host to several important meetings. In 1956, men in silk suits and late-model cars converged on the Barbara estate. The official reason was to pay their respects to Barbara after he suffered a heart attack, but Croswell learned Barbara hosted a meeting of the Commission, the appointed national leadership of La Cosa Nostra, which brought the heads of the five most important families throughout the United States and representatives from other families to his home to discuss business. The estate was in the country, with little if any police presence and isolated from the big cities. It was also a relatively easy commute from Buffalo for Stefano Magaddino, who remained a powerful force within organized crime and served as the de facto host.

  Barbara had also used his home for important meetings within his own family and lent it out to others to iron out intrafamily disputes. For nearly two years, men flew into the Binghamton airport and registered in local hotels under assumed names to meet at the Barbara estate.

  When Barbara’s son left the Parkway Motel on November 13, 1957, Croswell asked Mrs. Schroeder about her conversation. She said that Barbara Jr. had reserved three rooms for that night and the next and that the rooms were held under his father’s Canada Dry Bottling Company. Barbara didn’t say who the rooms were for but said the men were part of a Canada Dry convention his father was hosting at his home.

  Suspicious, Croswell and Vasisko waited till dusk before driving to Barbara Sr.’s Apalachin home. They followed the single road as it wound up toward a hilltop, and when the troopers arrived, they spotted several cars, all with out-of-state license plates. The troopers quickly copied the plate numbers and, upon returning to their barracks, sent the numbers by teletype to the Binghamton office of the U.S. Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit. While waiting for a reply, they went back to the Parkway Motel, where they spotted a Cadillac. After writing down that plate number, they went inside to talk to Mr. Schroeder and asked if he could get one of Barbara’s guests to sign a registration card. Schroeder said that Barbara left implicit instructions that none of his guests were to sign and that he’d take care of the bill the following morning.

  The troopers returned to their car and waited outside the motel until 2:30 A.M. They came back around noon the next day with an agent from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax unit. They had learned that the Cadillac, which was still parked, belonged to the Buckeye Cigarette Service Company Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio. Croswell went inside the motel but was told by Mr. Schroeder that all of Barbara’s guests had departed. The troopers rushed to the Canada Dry bottling plant, and then to Barbara’s home in Apalachin.

  The single-lane road split into two driveways near the house, with one leading to a four-car garage and side parking lot, while the other driveway wrapped around the home to a backyard barn. The estate itself was ranch style and made of stone. Several cars were parked in the front, and the troopers were jotting down some of the numbers from the license plates when about a dozen m
en walked out front from the rear of the home. Croswell called out to them but they ran, and Croswell immediately called in for reinforcements. Within minutes, police quickly set up a roadblock at the bottom of the lone road that led to the house to stop anyone from getting in, or out.

  With more and more police arriving, some of the men scattered into the nearby woods, while others hopped into their cars and sped down the road, only to be stopped at the roadblock. When asked why they were at the house, nearly all said they were there to visit their sick friend Barbara. The police took the men into custody, including several who had been captured after fleeing into the woods. One by one they were identified, and when the police finished, they knew this was more than a sick call.

  * * *

  IT WAS JUST three weeks earlier, on October 25, 1957, when two men walked into a barbershop in New York City and shot Albert Anastasia to death.

  Anastasia’s long-simmering feud with Vito Genovese had finally reached a climax, as did Genovese’s battle with Frank Costello, who months earlier avoided a similar fate after being shot and wounded as he walked out of his New York apartment. With Anastasia gone and Costello in hiding, it was time to quickly make amends. So Genovese called on Russell Bufalino to schedule a meeting of the Commission to make a peace.

  The first call Bufalino made was to Stefano Magaddino. With the New York families on the verge of all-out war, Magaddino had the influence to gather everyone together, and they all agreed to meet at Barbara’s country estate in Apalachin, New York.

  By November 5, the meeting was set, and Barbara ordered nearly $500 worth of meat and cold cuts from a local store to be delivered to his home on November 13. Bufalino handled all the organizational duties, from notifying the guests and helping to arrange their transportation. A week before the meeting, Bufalino was in New York City making final arrangements with the heads of the New York families. He then left for Scranton, where he stayed at the Hotel Casey with several other men before driving up to Apalachin. Other attendees arrived by car or by plane, landing at the nearby Binghamton Airport.

  When the meeting began, Genovese made his case to the Commission members, recounting his early years with Lucky Luciano, Anastasia and Costello and how he, Genovese, should have been given a leading position upon his return from Italy after World War II. His relative demotion was insulting, he said, and the insult festered for more than a decade. But now, with Anastasia dead and Costello agreeing to retirement, Genovese wanted the Commission’s recognition as the new boss of what would be called the Genovese family, and a seat on the Commission.

  Other business was up for discussion, including the garment industry, the Teamsters and narcotics. Earlier that year, in June, a struggle ensued between the warring factions for control of a portion of the New York City drug trade. One man, Frank Scalise, who had been associated with Lucky Luciano, was shot and killed in front of his Bronx home.

  The men were in the middle of their discussions when Croswell and the state police happened upon the meeting, and the more than sixty gangsters in attendance fled.

  Among the men arrested were Carlo Gambino, who assumed control of the Mangano family in New York that would eventually bear his name; Paul Castellano, a Gambino capo régime, or captain, who in later years would succeed Gambino but meet his end when an upstart named John Gotti plotted his execution in a hail of bullets in front of a New York steak house; John Scalish, the driver of the Cadillac registered to the Buckeye Cigarette Service, and the head of the Cleveland mob; and Santo Trafficante Jr., the head of the South Florida family and majority owner of the Sans Souci casino in Havana. Trafficante was using a nom de plume, Louis Santos. Others in attendance included Stefano Magaddino; Sam Giancana, of Chicago; Nick Civella, of Kansas City; and representatives from families in Milwaukee, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

  Also arrested were the Commission chairman, Joseph Bonanno, of New York, who was found by police hiding in a cornfield, and Vito Genovese, who tried to make his escape with Bufalino and several other men inside a 1957 Black Chrysler Imperial driven by Bufalino. The car, which was registered to the Medico Electric Company, was stopped at the roadblock at the end of the driveway.

  Some sixty-four men were arrested, and the story made front-page news across the nation. A grand jury was convened on January 14, 1958, to determine if the men in attendance had broken any laws, and the ongoing investigation produced a treasure trove of intelligence.

  They learned that Joseph Barbara, for instance, had business relationships dating back years with several men from Pittston and Detroit and maintained a ledger with debts due to a number of people. He owed $2,500 to Charles Bufalino; $10,000 to Louis Pagnotti, the owner of a Scranton coal company; $15,000 to Angelo Polizzi, the Detroit mobster; and $10,000 to Santo Volpe.

  The official “Report on the Activities and Associations of Persons Identified as Present at the Residence of Joseph Barbara, Sr., at Apalachin, New York on November 14, 1957, and the Reasons for Their Presence,” was submitted to New York governor W. Averell Harriman on April 23, 1958, and it concluded that the meeting had been planned in advance, was called to discuss mob business—most likely the murder of Anastasia—and that it had been organized by Russell Bufalino.

  Apalachin was a milestone in the annals of organized crime, wiping out previous myths and misconceptions about the Italian Mafia, particularly the very public stance by the FBI that the Mafia even existed, and displayed once and for all the vast organizational network that connected family to family and city to city.

  Several mob factions seethed over what they believed to be a major breech. Bufalino escaped blame, but there were attempts on Stefano Magaddino’s life, including an attempted bombing of his home. Aside from the embarrassment, the public for the first time now knew that, yes, there was an organized syndicate of mob families and, even worse, many of the men were now publicly identified.

  The press that followed the astounding breakup of the national mob meeting followed the story for weeks, infuriating the Mafiosi and embarrassing the U.S. government, and the government wasted no time trying to prosecute several of the attendees, including Bufalino. On December 4, 1957, the FBI sent a telex reporting that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had begun investigating Bufalino’s citizenship.

  INS, Philadelphia is conducting ‘large scale’ investigation of BUFALINO with view to deporting him. INS has information BUFALINO has claimed birth in Pittston, Pa. in 1903, though actually born in Italy. INS has located birth record Luzerne County, Pennsylvania which it believes forged, and through arrangements made by INS Washington, is taking record to Washington for examination by FBI laboratory. INS investigation now aimed at gathering all available information re foreign birth in preparation for interview of BUFALINO in near future.

  On December 16, 1957, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service filed a motion of deportation against Bufalino, claiming, as the FBI reported, that he was not born in Pittston but in fact was born in Sicily. The deportation officer assigned to his case reported that the decision was based on a number of factors, including Bufalino’s “failure to establish good moral character, his lying under oath regarding his birthplace and other false testimony and his two fraudulent entries into the United States in 1956.”

  Bufalino was ordered deported, but he appealed the decision, and he would find himself fighting the government for the next decade. Of more immediate concern was a subpoena to testify before the McClellan Senate Committee.

  * * *

  LED BY SENATOR John McClellan, of Arkansas, the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management was created before Apalachin to study organized crime’s influence in labor racketeering. After Apalachin, the committee now had a road map and subpoenaed many of the gangsters that attended the meeting. The committee’s chief counsel was Robert F. Kennedy, who would lead the questioning. Anticipating that nearly e
very gangster subpoenaed to testify before the committee would claim their Fifth Amendment rights, Kennedy used the sessions to show the world everything he could about the men, that they truly existed, controlled vast businesses and were nothing more than an organized group of hoods and criminals. His bitter confrontations with Jimmy Hoffa, one of 1,500 witnesses who would eventually testify, captured the nation’s attention.

  Unlike the bombastic Hoffa, who reveled in the back-and-forth with Kennedy, Bufalino had little to say. It didn’t matter, since it was Kennedy who did all the talking.

  “The first witness this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, is Russell Bufalino,” said Kennedy. “Would you tell me where you were born?”

  “I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me,” said Bufalino.

  “Mr. Bufalino, our interest in you centers around your attending the meeting at Apalachin and also your union contacts. I think that we have some information that would indicate that you played a very prominent role in setting up the meeting at Apalachin; that you did it with the assistance of Mr. Barbara. I wonder if you would make any comments on that before we start to develop the facts that we have.”

  “I respectfully decline to answer the question on the ground that the question may tend to incriminate me.”

  “According to our information, you were born on October 29, 1903, in Montedoro, Italy. That is in Sicily. Is that correct?”

  “I respectfully decline to answer the question on the ground that the question may tend to incriminate me.”

  “And yet despite that fact, the records at Luzerne County in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., show that you were born October 29, 1903, in Pittston Township, Pa.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Yes.”