J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets

by Curt Gentry

  Reviewing a proposed article for the Reader’s Digest six months after Valachi “turned” but long before he was to testify, Guthman noticed, way down in the bowels of the story, two sentences on “Cosa Nostra.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he confronted Cartha DeLoach, the head of Crime Records. “This is supposed to be secret!”58

  DeLoach withdrew the article, then resubmitted it months later, in slightly revised form. Aware that articles for the Digest had to be received at least three months in advance of publication, and that Valachi would have testified before then, Guthman approved the story.

  But DeLoach didn’t give it to the Digest. He gave it to the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade, which had a much shorter lead time, and on September 15, 1963—twelve days before Valachi’s scheduled appearance before the committee—readers of Parade were treated to “The Inside Story of Organized Crime and How You Can Help Smash It,” by J. Edgar Hoover. The magazine’s featured article, it began, “La Cosa Nostra, the secret, murderous underworld combine about which you have been reading in your newspaper, is no secret to the FBI.”

  Lest there be any doubt as to who deserved the credit for discovering La Cosa Nostra, Hoover wrote, in his monthly editorial in the September 1963 issue of the Law Enforcement Bulletin, that Valachi’s testimony “corroborated and embellished the facts developed by the FBI as early as 1961.”

  But when the Justice Department tried the same thing, the FBI was outraged. Robert Kennedy had given Peter Maas, a family friend, authorization to write a book based on Joseph Valachi’s story. But Hoover prevented Maas from interviewing Valachi until after he had testified. To get around the embargo, Kennedy gave Maas enough advance information that he could write a wrap-up piece for the Saturday Evening Post, to appear shortly after Valachi surfaced. The FBI learned of this as early as May 22, 1963, for on that date Evans memoed Belmont about this development, remarking, “The foregoing clearly indicates that the Department is motivated strictly by political considerations. While they have apparently yielded to our view that Valachi should not be interviewed by the magazine writer, they are, nevertheless, exploiting the whole situation for their own benefit.”

  Using his thick, angry stroke, Hoover blue-inked, “I concur. I never saw so much skulduggery, the sanctity of Department files, including Bureau reports, is a thing of the past. H.”*

  As a TV performer Joseph Valachi was a flop. He sweated, mumbled, and looked more like a kindly old uncle than a drug-dealing killer who took blood oaths. But a number of people watched with keen interest, as the FBI ELSURs indicated.

  September 27, 1962. ELSUR on home of a Miami, Florida, relative of Angelo Bruno. Unknown male: “The hearing is all political, instigated by Robert Kennedy. They’re murdering the Italian name!”59

  The attorney general had preceded Valachi to the stand, with great feeling asking Congress to pass a number of new bills, including one which would authorize electronic surveillance in organized crime cases.

  ELSUR on John Masiello, New York City, and a close associate, Anthony “Hickey” DiLorenzo. DiLorenzo: “They are going to harass people and are definitely going to try to pass that wiretapping law. If they ever get that law passed, forget about it. They probably have miles of tape that they put together. They’ll say well, this is what we got, then they’ll start indicting guys.”

  Masiello: “It isn’t a free country anymore.”*60

  On February 8, 1962, FBI agents listening to the ELSUR of a conversation between the Philadelphia capo Angelo Bruno and Willie Weisberg, an associate, had heard the following conversation:

  Weisberg: “With Kennedy, a guy should take a knife, like all them other guys, and stab and kill the [obscenity], where he is now. Somebody should kill the [obscenity]. I mean it. This is true. Honest to God. It’s about time to go. But I’ll tell you something. I hope I get a week’s notice, I’ll kill. Right in the [obscenity] in the White House. Somebody’s got to get rid of this [obscenity].”

  Bruno then related an old Italian folk tale. There was a king, and his people said he was a bad king. On hearing this, the king went to a very old and very wise woman and asked if it was true, was he bad? And she said no, he wasn’t a bad king. Asked why she said this when everyone else said the opposite, she replied, “Well, I knew your great grandfather. He was a bad king. I knew your grandfather. He was worse. I knew your father. He was worse than them. You, you are worse than them, but your son, if you die, your son is going to be worse than you. So it’s better to be with you.”

  The moral of the story, Bruno pointed out, was that Brownell was a bad attorney general, and Kennedy was worse. But “if something happens to this guy…” (both laugh).62

  But by the start of 1963 the laughter had stopped. Because of the ELSURs, the FBI agents were able to chart the moods of the leaders of organized crime in the United States. Early in 1963 they noticed a not so subtle change, nervousness and apprehension giving way to frustrated, barely contained anger, which by the fall of that year erupted into an explosive rage against both Kennedys, Robert and John.

  January 15, 1963. Airtel from SAC Chicago to Director FBI:

  “Chuck English bemoans the fact that the Federal government is closing in on the organization and apparently nothing can be done about it. Makes various and sundry inflammatory remarks about the Kennedy administration.”63

  January 31, 1963. La Cosa Nostra Summary:

  “Permission is being sought [from the Commission] for retaliation against Federal investigators, newspersons and politicians who expose La Cosa Nostra.”64

  May 2, 1963. ELSUR, New York City. Two LCN members, Sal Profaci and Michelino Clemente.

  Clemente: “Bob Kennedy won’t stop until he puts us all in jail all over the country. Until the Commission meets and puts its foot down, things will be at a standstill.”65

  June 11, 1963. ELSUR, Buffalo. Capo Stefano Magaddino and Anthony de Stefano, an underling from Syracuse.

  Magaddino: “We are in a bad situation in Cosa Nostra…They know everything under the sun. They know who’s back of it. They know everybody’s name. They know who’s boss. They know Amico Nostra [the password, meaning ‘Our Friend’]. They know there is a Commission.”

  Magaddino expresses a bitter hatred for Robert Kennedy.66

  September 17, 1963. ELSUR, Buffalo. Magaddino and others discuss Joseph Valachi (prior to his appearance before the McClellan committee).

  Magaddino: “We passed laws that this guy has got to die.”67

  October 1, 1963. ELSUR, Florida restaurant operated by Vincent James Palmisano, alias Jimmy Dee. Dee and others are watching Valachi testimony on TV.

  Dee: “There’s going to be a lot of killings as a result of this hearing.”68

  October 14, 1963. ELSUR, Chicago. The tailor shop. Sam Giancana, Charles “Chuck” English, Tony Accardo, and Dominick “Butch” Blasi are present:

  They discuss golf. Someone asks if Bobby Kennedy plays golf; they know John Kennedy does. Someone suggests putting a bomb in his golf bag.69

  October 15, 1963. ELSUR, Chicago. Buddy Jacobson and Pat Marcy, political front men for Sam Giancana:

  “Jacobson states that he has never seen conditions so bad as they are in Chicago at this time. Jacobson states that Paul Ricca [former head of the Chicago syndicate, pardoned by Attorney General Tom Clark] advised him that the organization must be patient and wait for the pressure to lift.”70

  October 16, 1963. ELSUR, Chicago. Summary:

  “Sam Giancana has issued instructions to all political associates to discontinue their practice of attending weddings and funerals of hoodlum families.”71

  October 31, 1963. ELSUR, Buffalo. Stefano and Peter Magaddino, discussing President Kennedy.

  Peter Magaddino: “He should drop dead.”

  Stefano Magaddino: “They should kill the whole family, the mother and father too!”72

  That same day FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover met for the last time with President John F. Kenn
edy. It was a long meeting, over lunch, and if any record still exists of what was said it has not been made public. In July of 1962 the president had a manually operated taping system installed in the Oval Office, but, according to the Kennedy Library, this particular meeting was not recorded.*

  It is probable that the president mentioned his forthcoming trip to Texas—the 1964 campaign had already unofficially begun—and that the FBI director discussed whatever the current menace was, at length. Since neither welcomed confrontations, it is a fairly safe guess that neither spoke of what was really on his mind: Kennedy, that he wouldn’t have to put up with this old bore much longer; Hoover, the rumors that he would be replaced during Kennedy’s second term. They were more than rumors. Robert Kennedy had been especially indiscreet, and “it caused great bitterness on Hoover’s part,” according to Courtney Evans. “That, I think, embittered Hoover more than anything else.”73 The schism between the FBI director and the attorney general, which had grown most noticeable during 1963, was, William Hundley felt, due to the fact “that Bobby mentioned to too many people who complained to him about Hoover that, ‘Look, just wait,’ and we all got the message that they were going to retire him after Jack got re-elected and Hoover hit seventy. And it got back to him.”74 Hoover had too many spies and too many bugs not to have heard the talk, not once but repeatedly. Hoover would reach the mandatory retirement age of seventy on January 1, 1965. There would be no presidential exemption. The plan was to retire him with “a great deal of honor,”75 as Ed Guthman put it. He’d be out just after the election—it was a foregone conclusion that Kennedy would win—Hoover told Tolson, who repeated his remarks to William Sullivan. And, according to Sullivan, “he was very, very unhappy about it.”76

  Any differences between the attorney general and the FBI director were felt most acutely by their liaison, Courtney Evans. Evans’s position in this instance was not merely sensitive but nearly untenable, for there was more to the rumor than the talk that the president intended to replace Hoover. Although there had yet been no mention of it in the press, Drew Pearson had the story and was only waiting for further confirmation before running it. Justice Department scuttlebutt—quite possibly originating with Bobby himself—had it that the man President Kennedy had chosen as J. Edgar Hoover’s replacement was Courtney Evans.

  The telephone call caught Robert Kennedy at lunch at Hickory Hill, a break in what was planned to be a daylong conference on organized crime. He would, to the day of his own death, never forget or forgive that call or the one that followed.

  HOOVER: “I have news for you.”

  ROBERT KENNEDY: “What?”

  HOOVER, very coldly and matter-of-factly: “The president has been shot.”

  ROBERT KENNEDY, in shock: “What? Oh. I—Is it serious? I—”

  HOOVER: “I think it’s serious. I am endeavoring to get details. I’ll call you back when I find out more.”

  Hoover was, Robert Kennedy later recalled, “not quite as excited as if he was reporting the fact that he’d found a Communist on the faculty of Howard University.”

  Thirty minutes later, Hoover called again, simply stating, “The president’s dead.”77

  * * *

  *In an interview with Ovid Demaris, the civil liberties lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr., himself a native southerner, noted, “As a white Southerner, I know that most Northerners who came South became two hundred percent Southerner in those years. Just because a person’s born someplace else doesn’t mean that he’s not the biggest Confederate battleflag-carrier ‘Dixie’-hummer in the United States of America.”1

  *LBJ’s Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, noted in an interview with the author that Hoover “had three fairly obvious prejudices.” He was racist, he upheld traditional sexual values, and he resented acts of civil disobedience—and King offended on every count.6

  *The same memo, though unable to show that King shared any ideological or political links with the Communist party, did reveal that he had Communist blood flowing through his veins. Bureau records noted that the minister had thanked Benjamin Davis, Jr., a party official, for donating blood when King was being treated after an assault.

  *The identity of the agents “Solo” was first revealed by David J. Garrow in his exceptionally well-researched book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis. Garrow is also the author of a companion volume, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

  *The occasion proved to be a disappointment, though pleasant. When King realized that Jacqueline Kennedy was to be a third for lunch, he suspected that nothing of substance would be discussed. He was correct.

  †Following orders from the Kremlin, Hoover explained, Levison was guiding Dr. King, thus affecting the course of the civil rights movement. In a hearing, he described the party in the United States as “a Trojan Horse of rigidly disciplined fanatics unalterably committed to bring this free nation under the yoke of international communism.” He may well have been jousting with his boss, for the attorney general had recently said that the American Communist party “couldn’t be more feeble and less of a threat, and besides its membership consists largely of FBI agents.” Kennedy had been horrified to discover that Hoover had assigned over one thousand agents to internal security, merely a dozen to organized crime.13

  ‡Kennedy had, of course, ordered that any FBI contact with the White House be routed through Justice.

  *According to the FBI in-house description, these were people “who in time of national emergency, are in a position to influence others against the national interest or are likely to furnish material financial aid to subversive elements due to their subversive associations and ideology.” Section A included, among others, labor leaders, teachers, lawyers, doctors, newsmen, entertainers, and “other potentially influential persons on a local or national level.”17

  *The letter was sent July 20, perhaps in an effort to help protect the beleaguered law officers of Albany, Georgia. On that same day, town officials sought an injunction against the desegregation demonstrations being led by King. His supporters, it seemed, were endangering the lives of local police officers and FBI agents.

  *The British secretary of state for war, John Profumo, had shared the favors of a gorgeous call girl, Christine Keeler, with quite a few other men, including a Soviet diplomat. As the scandal grew, the president demanded to be shown everything his State Department was learning. Judith Campbell and Sam Giancana could not have been very far from his mind, although he had a more immediate concern. He’d briefly bedded one of the girls involved in the Profumo affair.

  *Jones, a high-flying entertainment lawyer, was considered unstable by RFK, in part because of his mixed marriage to a rich white woman. He had also failed to come to the attorney general’s defense when he was criticized by the writer James Baldwin. And his FBI files depicted a kind of life in the fast lane that Kennedy found distasteful.

  *The New York SAC had received a somewhat milder—and nuttier—rebuke for reporting that Rustin was not working with the Communists. “While there may not be any direct evidence that Rustin is a communist,” the director replied, “neither is there any substantial evidence that he is anti-communist.”37

  *Special Agent Regis Kennedy would head the New Orleans portion of the FBI’s investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

  †On February 26, 1962, the Dallas SAC memoed FBIHQ, “There is no evidence of illegal activity by Joseph Francis Civello.” Civello, who had attended the Apalachin meeting, was boss of the Dallas organized crime family and especially close to Carlos Marcello. The report also stated, “Texas is not a place where the Mafia has the kind of control it has elsewhere.”

  *Fearing Genovese had put out a contract on him, Valachi had killed another inmate who resembled his supposed executioner, then, in exchange for the charge being reduced to second-degree murder, agreed to become an informant. Despite the Justice Department deal, it was SA James P.
Flynn who deserved full credit for getting Valachi to talk and keep talking.

  *Hoover not only tried to stop publication of The Valachi Papers (he failed, the court siding with Maas); he did his best to discredit the book, its author, and its subject. For example, he downplayed Valachi’s importance when testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee with the following on-the-record dialogue:

  ROONEY: “There is very little of that you have not known for years?”

  HOOVER: “That is correct.”

  ROONEY: “Has Valachi ever been of any assistance to the Bureau…?”

  HOOVER: “There has been no person convicted as a direct result of any information furnished by Valachi.”

  All this directly contradicted the claims of Attorney General Kennedy, who called the Valachi data “the biggest intelligence breakthrough we have ever had.” But by the time of Hoover’s appearance before the committee, January 29, 1964, he wasn’t much concerned with what his nominal superior thought, for by then the attorney general’s brother, the president, was dead.

  *Only a few of the Kennedy-sponsored crime bills were passed. The wiretapping bill wasn’t among them. The FBI ELSURs later overheard Roland Libonati, Sam Giancana’s congressman, brag, “I killed six of his bills. That wiretapping bill, the intimidating informers bill.”61

  *Is is highly unlikely that the president would have dared tape the FBI director, since he probably assumed, as did many others, that he carried a miniature detection device. (Apparently he didn’t, although he was fitted for a body wire, by the FBI Laboratory, sometime in the 1960s. Neither the date nor the reason is known.) Kennedy supposedly installed the recording device following the Bay of Pigs debacle, when Pentagon brass denied that they had ever told him that the invasion would succeed. To date, only a small number of the Kennedy White House tapes—said to total some 230 hours—have been made public, and seven which are listed on the logs were never received by the Kennedy Library.