Costello denied the allegation that he was involved in narcotics and said he detested anybody who was. Yet with all of the publicity Costello had received in recent months, more and more he was emerging as the nation’s preeminent gangster. It didn’t matter that he claimed to only be a legitimate businessman whose days as a bootlegger and gambler were behind him. The drumbeat of headlines and statements about Costello’s power continued.
There was also another development that didn’t appear good for Costello. Politicians were becoming more vocal and assertive in putting distance between themselves and Costello. O’Dwyer, fresh from reelection in late 1949, decided to resign in 1950 for what were said to be concerns about his wife’s health. He would take a less-demanding job as U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Taking over as acting Mayor was Vincent Impellitteri, the Democratic president of the City Council. O’Dwyer’s leaving opened the field up for another mayoral election, and this time the candidates seemed unanimous in using Costello as a whipping boy, accusing their various opponents of being his stooge.
Impellitteri accused his opponent Judge Ferdinand Pecora, who was running on the Democratic-Liberal line of being the candidate backed by Costello. Impellitteri, who was running as the candidate of the Experience Party, based his claim on a conversation he had at City Hall with publisher Generoso Pope Jr., a friend of Costello, who had said the gambler had told him he was going to back Pecora, something Pope said he was going to do as well.
“I am not questioning Judge Pecora’s character,” Impellitteri said in a radio address. “But I do say he is no more than a respectable front for the lowest, vilest elements this town ever saw.”
“If Pecora is elected,” Impellitteri continued, “Frank Costello will be your Mayor, but the voice will be that of Pecora. Carmine DeSapio, the Tammany leader, and others allied with him in this campaign take their orders from Frank Costello, directly or indirectly.” He referred to an old meeting in 1946 that Costello attended which allegedly was to decide which judgeships were going to be parceled out, a plot that he said failed when news of it leaked to the press.
Impellitteri also argued that Pecora’s attendance in 1949 at Costello’s fundraiser for the Salvation Army was also an indication the judge was in the pocket of the gangsters. Adding to the frenzy, Impellitteri ordered his police commissioner, Thomas F. Murphy, to round up all hoodlums on the spot to assure the electorate wouldn’t be intimidated by goons.
Pecora fired back with a challenge to Impellitteri to a debate in which both men’s qualifications for office would be on display and to hash out what he called the “false issue” of “Costelloism.” Even Republican candidate Edward Corsi, who didn’t really have a prayer in the up-coming election, got into the act. He chided Impellitteri, saying the acting mayor simply did nothing to go against Costello except to walk away from him at a social event.
In the end, Impellitteri won the election but not by a landslide. He pulled 1.16 million votes, to just over 935,000 for Pecora. Corsi got just over 382,000. It is hard to say just how much of a role the Costello factor played in the results. But what was clear as 1950 was coming to a close was that Frank Costello was a toxic figure in New York politics. The mantle of gangster may have worked years ago but now the public, led by increasingly vocal politicians of all stripes, was showing a strong disdain for the Mafia. Runyon had portrayed the Broadway hoods as likeable rogues. But now men like Costello, dubbed “the most influential underworld leader in America,” were being portrayed as the enemy of the people. A year earlier, the American Municipal Association, which represented 10,000 cities around the country, had beseeched the federal government to do something about organized crime. For Frank Costello and the rest of the Mafiosi, the worst was yet to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE BALLET OF THE HANDS
THE NIGHT OF APRIL 6, 1950, CHARLES BINAGGIO, the politically connected underworld boss of Kansas City, and his driver and enforcer Charles Gargotta, were driven to a gambling den and after a short while decided to borrow Nick Penna’s car to go to Binaggio’s political clubhouse. Binaggio, considered the heir to the town’s political boss Tom Pendergast, was an ex-con who had control over the city’s gambling rackets. Binaggio figured he and Gargotta would only need about fifteen minutes to take care of some business at the First District Democratic Club. They never came back with Penna’s car.
Sometime around midnight, an assailant or assailants, shot both men in the head inside the clubhouse on Truman Road, which had recently been named after President Harry Truman. Cops found Binaggio dead seated in a swivel chair at the rear of the club. He had apparently been talking to his killer when he was shot four times in the head at such close range that powder burns were around the entry wounds. His silver cigarette holder had dropped to the floor as blood pooled around it. Gargotta had apparently been running away when he was shot from behind into the left side of his head. In his frenzy to escape, Gargotta tore at the venetian blind on the front door. Robbery was quickly ruled out as a motive: Binaggio had $24 in his pockets, Gargotta had over $2,000. The only reasons police came as quickly as they did to discover the bodies was that a cab driver getting a bite to eat heard some running water inside the club.
Kansas City wasn’t New York or Chicago in terms of the mob structure of the country. But it was a focal point for gambling in the Midwest and Binaggio was considered to be one of the local mob bosses. Both Binaggio and Gargotta were part of a nationwide race wire that communicated horse-race information around the country. They were also believed to be sharing proceeds with the old Capone mob in Chicago, as well as a gambling syndicate out of New York. A nationwide federal investigation had linked both men to Frank Costello.
The wake funeral for Binaggio was one of those affairs that was a testament to his local stature. Honorary pall bearers included a judge, politicians, former members of Congress, a sheriff and members of the local police board. Also carrying the $2,500 casket—pricey for that time—was local gangster Max Hablen. Newspapers reported that even Costello showed up to pay his respects although local police said they had not heard he had appeared.
The murders of Binaggio and Gargotta were the latest of over two dozen murders in Kansas City in the previous three years. What made the double homicide stand out was the fact that it seemed to link the world of politics and the mob in St. Louis, a combination which the local citizenry and the newspapers saw as an attempt by the underworld to gets its rewards for backing elements of the Democratic political machine. Given the fact that the city had only just weathered a storm of corruption, the civic leaders was outraged over the killings. The Kansas City Star said in an editorial that the killings represented a “National Challenge” and were a “major development in a national threat from organized crime.” Binaggio and Gargotta were killed, the newspaper speculated, as a result of some internal warfare with other leaders in a national crime syndicate led by none other than Frank Costello.
The outcry over the killings reverberated in Washington, D.C., which had just begun to grapple with the problems of organized crime. After the American Municipal Association had a year earlier called on the federal government to combat organized crime, the Kansas City killings became a rallying cry for some against Washington’s inaction. It was up to a relatively unknown senator from Tennessee named C. Estes Kefauver to draft a resolution to create a special committee to investigate the issue. A bookish, bespectacled man with a thin face, Kefauver prevailed in his effort and was named chairman of the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, which had a working budget of $150,000.
Kefauver’s committee launched on what would be a fifteen-month nationwide series of hearings in major cities going after what he called the “life blood of organized crime,” gambling. Miami was the first city to be examined and soon after Kefauver visited Kansas City, a place he said had been struggling to get away from the law of the jungle. By early 1951, Kefauver was ready to move his committee operation to New York and t
hat meant there was one person who would be the marquee witness: Frank Costello.
Some months earlier, Costello had appeared before a different Senate committee looking into gambling, and the event had been rather painless for him. Gambling was an activity Costello had been long associated with, and it was certainly no secret. But now the Kefauver committee posed a different problem. Its brief was wider and could delve into many aspects of Costello’s life. Recent news reports said he was linked to narcotics trafficking and even murder. Costello’s attorney George Wolf thought his client should waive his immunity and not claim the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. But to cover his bases, Wolf asked Costello to ask some of his old friends what he should do. The answer was the same.
“They all advised him not to claim immunity, to tell the truth,” Wolf recalled. “They thought by doing so he might end those rumors which dogged him about narcotics.”
As was the practice with Kefauver, the committee heard from Costello in secret executive session on February 15, 1951, in Manhattan federal court, and as Wolf remembered it things went well. Kefauver asked Costello about his gambling, bootlegging, and slot machines, things that had been public record for years. At one point, the attorney said that Rudolph Halley, the counsel for the committee, asked if a photographer could take a picture of Kefauver interrogating Costello. Wolf agreed and in the session the Senator, for the benefit of the camera, questioned Costello and waved his finger at him. Costello, said Wolf, played the game and wagged his finger in what the attorney said was a joke back at Kefauver.
But Kefauver didn’t take Costello’s action as playful and instead jumped up in anger, telling the photographer to stop taking pictures and then shot an ominous warning at Costello.
“You’ve had your laugh, Mr. Costello, but you will live to regret this,” fumed Kefauver as he walked out of the room, remembered Wolf.
Not long after the executive session ended, but before Costello had a chance to testify in public, Kefauver’s committee issued an official interim report. The document was devastating to Costello, accusing him of being the No. 1 crime boss in the country, who was in charge of all rackets, including drug trafficking. The report, which was completed before any testimony had been taken in public in New York, said there were at least two major crime syndicates in the United States. One of them was a so-called “axis” between Miami and what was left of the Capone group in Chicago led by the Fischetti brothers and one Jake Guzik. The other was a variant that included ties between Miami and New York, headed by Frank Costello and Joe Adonis. The arbiter of any disputes between two alignments were to be arbitrated by Charles Luciano from his perch in Italy. The report stung Costello and Wolf. In discussing strategy for the upcoming public testimony of Costello, scheduled to begin on March 13, the attorney said that they had to be careful about one line of inquiry from the Senate: Costello’s net worth.
“With a man like Frank Costello, a net worth statement would enable them [the government] to ask specific questions about the amount stated,” Wolf explained years later. “That is why the net worth statement was so dangerous for Frank, especially. If he estimated a low figure, they could dig up evidence of expenditures to prove he had underestimated his net worth and was guilty of tax evasion. If he gave a high estimate, they would want to know just where all the money came from.”
Costello told his attorney he didn’t know what his net worth was. He was a man who professed to not keeping records, checking accounts, or investment funds. But given that he had diversified to become a businessman, it is more likely that he knew the value of his assets and any debts. Still, the strategy was that on the question of net worth, Costello was to take the Fifth Amendment and not answer if asked by the committee.
For the public sessions, which actually began in December 1950, the Senate committee began using television to broadcast the sessions. A relatively new device, television had begun to make inroads as a news medium, although its use was in its infancy. Two of Costello’s closest associates—Joe Adonis and Willie Moretti—preceded him in testifying publicly. Moretti’s session on December 14 seemed in some ways comical, and The New York Times ran a sub-headline that read “Moretti Praised by Committee for Rags-to-Riches Saga of Dice and Horse-Playing.” But a day earlier Adonis had a much tougher time, refusing to answer any questions about his business or income.
Moretti didn’t avoid talking about gambling and the horses, in fact he relished doing so. He recalled starting shooting craps as a kid in Philadelphia, graduating to horse racing, and taking a fling as a featherweight boxer before marrying in 1927 and settling down in New Jersey. His gambling income varied from year to year, swinging from $15,000 one year to $45,000 in another. In 1950 his only winnings were about $11,000 at the track since he was preoccupied with preparing for his appearance before the committee. Kefauver asked him how he made money at the track, and Moretti was ready with an answer.
“Bet ’em to place and show,” Moretti explained. “You’ve got three ways of winning. Come out to the track some time and I’ll show you.”
Asked about the gangsters he knew, Moretti again was open in his answer, acknowledging decades of friendships with the likes of Capone, Luciano, Costello, Genovese, Erickson, and Kastel.
“Everything’s a racket today,” said Moretti. “Everybody has a racket of his own. The stock market is a racket. Why don’t they make everything legal?”
Adonis didn’t engage in any lengthy, friendly colloquy with the committee. Instead, he was more confrontational. He told the committee from the beginning that he would be taking the Fifth Amendment on most questions, although he did admit using a number of aliases. But each time he was asked a question of substance he took the Fifth.
Prodded at one point by Halley, the committee counsel, if he was afraid to answer questions, Adonis snapped back “I am not afraid of anything.” Kefauver warned him that he would likely be cited for contempt of the Senate, which several months later was exactly what happened.
The formal New York City hearings for Kefauver’s committee were set to begin on March 12, and the list of witnesses expected to be called included the upper echelon of the Mafia and associates: Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Joseph Profaci, Thomas Lucchese, Albert and Anthony Anastasia, Vincent Mangano. Also on the list were Frank Erickson and the mob moll Virginia Hill.
* * *
Frank Costello’s long awaited public appearance before the Kefauver Committee took place on March 13, 1951. The setting was rather modest for such an event. Costello walked into the twenty-eighth floor hearing room in Manhattan federal court, which seemed too small for the crowd, which included television cameras and a battery of newsreel photographers. He wore a powder-blue suit and was, as always, impeccably tailored. George Wolf, his loyal attorney since the Aurelio scandal of 1943, accompanied him. From the beginning, Costello’s appearance was contentious, with Wolf decrying the presence of the television cameras and asking that they don’t photograph his client.
“Mr. Costello doesn’t care to submit himself as a spectacle,” Wolf told Senator Herbert R. O’Conor. “And on the further ground that it will prevent proper conference with his attorney, in receiving proper advice from his attorney during the course of the testimony.”
Wolf was referring to the cameras possibly picking up his private conferences with Costello, of which there would be many, during the course of the testimony. Wolf also wanted radio coverage cut off for the same reason. O’Conor agreed to keep TV cameras off Costello but wouldn’t bar radio coverage, saying the microphones could be silenced when Costello and Wolf conferred. While it wasn’t known at the time, the TV cameras focused not on Costello’s face but just his hands on the table, a shot that, as events bore out, would be more telling than any of his visage.
After Costello was sworn in and gave his address as 115 Central Park West, Wolf took over and read a statement on his client’s behalf, which can only be characterized as one of protest about the i
nterim report issued by the committee some days earlier. In his statement, Costello felt he was being ambushed by the committee. Back in February, Costello said he testified truthfully and candidly about his life in an effort dispel stories that he was the leader of a national syndicate in charge of vice. Based on what Kefauver had told him about his having answered questions “forthrightly” about his career [although with some vagueness about the Prohibition years], Costello felt he was going to get a fair shake from the Committee. That is until the interim report came out naming him the head of one of the two crime syndicates in the U.S.
“While I realize the committee’s pretenses of fairness were empty words, I was not prepared for the shocking discovery that the report was completed before I had even begun to testify and that nothing I could have said or done would have changed it one iota,” said Costello’s statement, which had obviously been sculpted with Wolf’s help. “I was informed that chief counsel not only admitted that the report had been prepared before I started to testify but that it was, to use the chief counsel’s own language, ‘based upon inference upon inference’ and without a single shred of direct evidence against me, after over a year of an extensive investigation, aided by virtually every local and federal investigating agency in the United States.”
Costello then went on in the statement to remind the committee that a “man is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” He then asked to have “this last opportunity of proving that your charges against me are unjustified and that they should be retracted.” In the end, Costello begged that he be treated as a human being.
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