The Mob and the City (58 page)

43
.
Miami Herald
, April 8, 2001; David K. Johnson,
The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 12.

44
. This section is adapted in part from Alex Hortis, “‘Plagued Ever Since’: Late in His Life, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover Reflects on His Mafia Denials,”
Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement
(July 2011): 5–19.

45
. Curt Gentry,
J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), pp. 82–83.

46
. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones,
The FBI: A History
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 121.

47
. Tim Weiner,
Enemies: A History of the FBI
(New York: Random House, 2012), pp. 119–20, 152–57; John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassilev,
Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 84–85.

48
. Jeffreys-Jones,
FBI
, pp. 161–62.

49
. Herbert Brownell,
Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,1993), p. 235.

50
. Interview of Robert Kennedy, quoted in Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds.,
Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 121; Weiner,
Enemies
, pp. 203–26.

51
.
New York Times
, September 22, 1936.

52
. Although I disagree with several of his conclusions about Hoover, the unpublished thesis of Aharon W. Zorea, “Plurality and Law: The Rise of Law Enforcement in Organized Crime Control” (Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis University, 2005), does a good job of describing some of the politics of federal law enforcement. Thanks to David Critchley for informing me of it.

53
. Robert A. Caro,
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 4
(New York: Vintage, 2013), pp. 9–10, 65, 459.

54
. Charles Morgan Jr., quoted in Ovid Demaris,
The Director: An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover
(New York: Harper's Press, 1975).

55
. Gentry,
Hoover
, pp. 116, 380, 445.

56
. The Mafia was prosperous and growing after World War II, and it reopened “the books” to allow more members in the mid-1950s. See chapter 7.

57
.
Washington Post
, March 19, 1949.

58
.
Washington Post
, September 22, 1949.

59
.
New York Times
, April 2, 1950.

60
.
New York Times
, April 9, 1950; FBI Report, La Cosa Nostra, Kansas City Division, June 7, 1964, in RG 65 (NARA College Park). The requests continued after the Kefauver Committee Hearings. For example, in August 1953, Sheriff Ed Blackburn of Tampa Bay, Florida (home of the Santo Trafficante Family of the Mafia), playing to Hoover's sensibilities, urged the FBI “to declare the Mafia a subversive, un-American group threatening the internal security of the nation.”
New York Times
, August 14, 1953.

61
.
Brooklyn Eagle
, April 17, 1950;
New York Times
, April 18, 1950.

62
. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Roger Bruns, eds.,
Congress Investigates, 1792–1974
(New York: Chelsea House, 1975), pp. 352–82.

63
.
Third Interim Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce
, Senate, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), 149.

64
.
New York Times
, May 14, 1950, January 21, 1951.

65
. Estes Kefauver,
Crime in America
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1951), p. 25; Michael Woodiwiss,
Organized Crime and American Power
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp. 242, 251.

66
. Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton,
The Rosenberg File
, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 40, 499.

67
.
Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce
, Senate, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), 350–57 (testimony of Charles Siragusa, FBN), 3–11 (testimony of M. H. Goldschein, Department of Justice), 532, 537, 540–41 (testimony of J. Edgar Hoover).

68
. Hoover's insistence that local authorities could simply clean up corruption and deal with organized crime was proven wrong by almost a century of local impotence against the Mafia. The paralyzing effect of corruption on local law enforcement is one of the best justifications
for
federal intervention. Richard A. Posner,
Economic Analysis of Law
(New York: Aspen, 1992), p. 637; Charles F. C. Ruff, “Federal Prosecution of Local Corruption: A Case Study in the Making of Law Enforcement Policy,”
George Washington Law Journal
65 (1977): 1171, 1212–15. Moreover, Hoover was motivated much more by the goal of increasing counterintelligence than he was by factors like federalism and local autonomy.

69
.
Hearings before the Special Committee
(testimony of Hoover), 537 (emphasis added).

70
. Neil J. Welch and David W. Marston,
Inside Hoover's FBI: The Field Chief Reports
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), pp. 80–85.

71
. The CAPGA investigation was shut down by Attorney General Tom Clark because the FBI was using wiretaps of dubious legality. This may have also frustrated the FBI from investigating organized crime. William E. Roemer Jr.,
Roemer: Man against the Mob
(New York: Ballantine, 1989), pp. 19–22.

72
. Robert Kennedy, quoted in Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds.,
Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years
(New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 120.

73
.
Binghamton Press
, November 21, 1957, quoted in Gil Reavill,
Mafia Summit: J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting That Unmasked the Mob
(New York: Thomas Dunne, 2013), pp. 140–41;
Binghamton Press
, August 13, 1959.

74
. FBI Report, Activities of Top Hoodlums in the New York Field Division, January 8, 1959, in FBI FOIA File on Top Hoodlum Program (copy in possession of author).

75
. William C. Sullivan,
The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI
(New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 120–21

76
. Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant
(Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1997), p. 303.

77
. Oliver “Buck” Williams,
A G-Man's Journal: A Legendary Career Inside the FBI—From the Kennedy Assassination to the Oklahoma City Bombing
(New York: Pocket Books, 1998), pp. 4–7.

78
. Ed Reid,
The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America
(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969). Reid's
Grim Reapers
is an early journalistic book on the Mafia, which is
not
critical of Hoover. Hoover's recommendation of this book further reflects genuine regret that the FBI missed the Mafia.

79
. The FBI's official historian Dr. John Fox discovered Hoover's handwritten note. Although we disagree on Hoover's record on the Mafia, I thank Dr. Fox for supplying me the note without any preconditions.

80
. Unfortunately, Mr. Rosen died in 2005 before I could interview him. Mr. Rosen had a distinguished career in the FBI, and led key investigations of civil rights violations and murders in the South.
Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI
(Washington: Turner Publishing, 1997), p. 217.

81
. William Hundley, quoted in Demaris,
Director
, p. 142.

82
.
Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field: Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field
, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958), 12223 (testimony of Martin Pera).

83
.
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin
, January 1962.

84
.
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin
, September 1963;
New York Times
, August 31, 1963.

85
.
New York Times
, November 16, 1957.

86
. Gordon Hawkins, “God and the Mafia,” in
National Affairs
14 (Winter 1969): 24–51. For other examples, see Richard Warner, “The Warner Files: God and the Mafia,”
Informer: The Journal of American Crime and Law Enforcement
(April 2013): 69–71.

87
. As David Critchley had pointed out, Joe Valachi's thousand-page handwritten memoirs in prison are consistent with his testimony, and they have been substantially corroborated by other
mafiosi
. David Critchley,
Origin of Organized Crime
, pp. 167, 293.

CHAPTER 9: THE ASSASSINATIONS OF 1957

1
. New York Police Department DD5, Files of the Central Intelligence Bureau, May 17, 1957, in Box 5, Office of the District Attorney (Manhattan) Albert Anastasia Files, 1954–1963 (hereafter “Anastasia Files”) in New York Municipal Archives, New York, NY (hereafter “NYMA”);
New York Times
, March 6, 1956, May 3, 1957.

2
.
Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics
, Senate, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963), 291–92 (testimony of Joseph Valachi); Peter Maas,
The Valachi Papers
(New York: Perennial, 2003), pp. 210–12;
New York Times
, October 10, 1963.

3
.
People against Genovese
correspondence files in Box 12, in District Attorney (Kings County), Murder, Inc. Case Files (hereafter “Murder, Inc. Files”) (NYMA);
New York Times
, February 15, 1969.

4
. Selwyn Raab,
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005), p. 61; Investigative Case File on Vito Genovese, 1950–51 (statement of Anna Genovese), in Box 87, in Record Group 46, Records of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereafter “NARA Washington”);
New York Times
, March 17, 1932;
New York Sun
, June 25, 1932;
Schenectady Gazette
, March 17, 1932. See Lennert Van't Riet, David Critchley, and Steve Turner, in
Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement
(January 2014): 52–96.