Friends of Ours

Gil Reavill Provides Back Story On Mafia Summit

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was behind the biggest law enforcement intelligence failure of  the 20th century in repeatedly declaring that there was no such thing as the Mafia.

However, on November 14, 1957 state troopers raided the home of Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, NY where Italian crime bosses from across the country were meeting, and after the historic roundup even the good Director had to capitulate.

In his new book Mafia Summit:  J. Edgar Hoover, The Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting that Unmasked the Mob author Gil Reavill provides the back story on the infamous meeting, and an excerpt is reprinted by the Daily News:  

On the agenda: heroin, Cuba, divvying up Albert Anastasia's piece of the pie. Also, the elephant in the room, how best to recognize Vito's status in the overheated, competitive world of the Five Families of New York City. 

Genovese's presence overwhelms the gathering. The "Right Man" is sitting right there. He wants to be crowned. He wants the capo dei capi, the boss-of-bosses title. With Costello wounded and out of the way, and Anastasia dead, who is there to deny him?

It doesn't look as though a simple "godfather" label is going to do it for Vito. Maybe just plain "God"? How about that? Would that satisfy his unquenchable thirst for power?

Following the Apalachin bust the FBI in 1958 released its so-called Mafia Monograph by which it at long last definitively recognized that "available evidence shows that beyond the shadow of a doubt, the Mafia does exist today in the United States, as well as in Sicily and Italy, as a vicious, evil, and tyrannical form of organized criminality."

Imprisoned Mobster Writes Autobiography

Gerard "the Frenchman" Ouimette, a former enforcer for the Patriarca family in Providence, RI, was sentenced to life in 1995 pursuant to the federal three-strikes-your-out law following an extortion conviction, and has used the time to write his memoirs What Price Providence? about the life as reported by W. Zachary Malinowski for the Providence Journal.

The imprisoned mobster apparently has an ax to grind with law enforcement according to the book's description on Amazon: 

Readers will have difficulty discerning whose behavior is criminal, Gerard Ouimette's, the author, or the Government's.  * * *  This book tells the entire ugly truth, sparing no one. The author has spent over 45 years in prison, the victim of police, prosecutors and judge's corruption and fabrication of evidence and testimony, that has since all been disproven.

Even the late Director J. Edgar Hoover is not spared, and Ouimette recounts that family boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca "used to always refer to him as, That f** Hoover!"

No doubt the FBI considered Ouimette the real deal, and in an April 16, 1979 memo allege the following:

Subject OUIMETTE controls a large group of criminals known as the OUIMETTE faction, whose criminal activities include gambling, loansharking, extortion and property violations such as major hijackings, robberies and burglaries.  Although not Italian, OUIMETTE enjoys the same stature as lieutenants under RAYMOND L.S. PATRIARCA, who controls organized crime (OC) in the Boston and New England area.

According to the document the feds further suspected that Ouimette was responsible “for seven or eight gangland-style murders.”

J. Edgar Hoover Was Warned Of Mafia Commission In 1935; FBI Director Failed To Authorize Further Investigation

The FBI officially declared the existence of the Mafia in 1958 but more than two decades earlier in 1935 a former Army intelligence officer specifically warned the Bureau that the mob families in the cities throughout the United States were governed by a national syndicate based in Brooklyn, NY.  The national syndicate at issue likely was the Mafia Commission established in 1931 by Lucky Luciano, and J. Edgar Hoover was personally apprised of its existence in a pair of "personal and confidential" letters from the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office which are contained in Al Capone's FBI files.  Inexplicably, the Director refused to authorize his men to further investigate it.

Al Capone was convicted on federal tax evasion charges in 1931 and sentenced to ten years in prison, and in 1935 Major Charles E. Russell, a former officer within the intelligence unit of the Army in Europe during World War I, advised the FBI's New York Field Office that the imprisoned gangster's Chicago operations now were being run out of Brooklyn, NY by a national syndicate which further took a cut from mob rackets in all other cities.

R. Whitley, the Special Agent in Charge at the New York Field Office, relayed Major Russell's revelations directly to J. Edgar Hoover in a “personal and confidential” letter dated August 3, 1935:

Major Russell stated that the headquarters of the Al Capone syndicate have been shifted from Chicago to Brooklyn, and that the entire racket syndicate field, including vice, gambling, liquor and various other lines, is now controlled and directed by a man named Vito and two men named Totto of Brooklyn.  They have associated with them many notorious racketeers, including "Dutch" Schultz, and the three men are the heads of the syndicate.  At their headquarters they have a group of young men, none of whom appear to be over twenty-four years of age, who are professional killers and whose activities are limited to performing that function for the syndicate.  They have numerous henchmen, including young lawyers, doctors, and various other men of the professional type, as well as the usual gangster type.  They receive a "cut" from all the racketeer operations from Chicago to the east coast and from Boston to below Philadelphia.

Of particular concern to the FBI was Major Russell's claim that this governing board was seeking to infiltrate the Department of Justice for counterintelligence purposes, and Whitely advises Hoover in the August 3 letter:  "he [Major Russell] stated that he was told by these underworld characters that they have available men who can meet all the requirements for appointment to a position in the Department."

In a second  "personal and confidential" letter dated September 10, 1935 Whitely further advises Hoover that "the present headquarters of the so-called Capone Syndicate, controlling racketeering in the Middle West and East, is located in Brooklyn, N.Y., near the Brooklyn Navy Yard."  More specifically:

He [Major Russell] made a rough diagram showing the Lane Democratic Club on York Street, and stated that this is a hangout for some of the minor members of the organization; that two of the so-called "big shots" live on York Street; one of them, known to him as "Mike," lives on the same side of the street as the Lane Democratic Club is located and a block or so south, while another one, known to him as "Charlie," lives on the opposite side of the street some distance north of the location of the Lane Democratic Club.  The Lane Democratic Club is located at about the middle of the block, and according to Major Russell, the actual headquarters of the Syndicate is located in the premises occupied by an ice cream parlor on either one of the two streets between which the Lane Democratic Club is located and at the corner of the street east of Sands Street and parallel thereto.   * * * Major Russell also stated that a favorite hangout for these people is in a grill or cafe, the name of which is the "Seashell" or some similar name.

The FBI visited the locations described by Major Russell, and surmised that the ice cream place to which he referred was Nassau Ice Cream Parlor at the corner of Gold and Nassau streets, and the eatery was the Sea Grill at the corner of North Elliott Street and Flushing Avenue.

The purpose of the national syndicate was to allocate territories and resolve disputes according to Major Russell as Whitely relayed to Hoover in the September 10 letter:

As to the operations of these people, Major Russell stated that as far as he knows, these men do not themselves participate in any activities such as handling "hot" bonds or jewelry or operating any vice or gambling establishments.  They do, however, completely control the so-called "protection" racket.  They have divided the entire Middle West and East into districts, and the City of New York is also divided into districts, and the people operating in the various criminal activities in these districts do so with the permission of the Syndicate and in accordance with the dictates of the Syndicate.  Disputes between various operators of illegal activities in the districts, or disputes between contiguous districts are settled by this Syndicate, and practically daily meetings are held by the heads of the Syndicate in the premises in which the above-mentioned ice cream parlor is located.  It is impossible to operate any of the profitable rackets without the sanction of this Syndicate, and the revenue of the Syndicate is derived from the cut which it takes on all revenue from such activities.

The operational description provided by Major Russell for this national syndicate sounds spot on like the Mafia Commission created only years earlier by Lucky Luciano after the 1931 hits on Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano which ended the Castellammarese War.  The "Vito" to whom Major Russell refers may be Vito Genovese who in 1935 was the underboss to Luciano, and the two "Tottos" may be brothers Generoso Del Duca (1896-1960) and Pasquale Del Duca (1890-1964), both nicknamed "Toto" or "Toddo," who were Genovese family members out of South Brooklyn.  Generoso was a capo who died of a heart attack in the arms of Frank Sinatra after a night of clubbing in Miami, FL with the crooner and Joseph "Joe Fish" Fischetti who was a first cousin of Al Capone and worked alongside the Chicago gangster.

The credibility of Major Russell's claims is underscored by his allegation that the Chicago operations were run by this national syndicate out of Brooklyn.  Johnny Torrio -- Capone's predecessor and mentor in Chicago -- in fact had returned to New York after the Capone trial, and was one of the principal advocates to Luciano for the Mafia Commission.

Major Russell may not have been quite right on all of his underlying facts in describing the Mafia Commission but it's clear he was onto the more fundamental truth of its existence, and may have been the first to so advise the FBI.

Whitely concluded his September 10 letter to Hoover by stating that "no further investigation is being undertaken with reference to the activities of the Syndicate described by Major Russell, pending receipt of instructions from the Bureau."  And no further instructions ever were forthcoming from the Director on the matter, and this missed opportunity to nip the Mafia in the bud perhaps constitutes the FBI's biggest intelligence failure in its otherwise storied history.

Al Capone FBI Files Part 1          Al Capone FBI Files Part 2

Al Capone FBI Files Part 3          Al Capone FBI Files Part 4

Al Capone FBI Files Part 5          Al Capone FBI Files Part 6

Al Capone FBI Files Part 7          Al Capone FBI Files Part 8

Al Capone FBI Files Part 9          Al Capone FBI Files Part 10

Al Capone FBI Files Part 11        Al Capone FBI Files Part 12

Al Capone FBI Files Part 13        Al Capone FBI Files Part 14

Al Capone FBI Files Part 15        Al Capone FBI Files Part 16

Al Capone FBI Files Part 17        Al Capone FBI Files Part 18

Al Capone FBI Files Part 19        Al Capone FBI Files Part 20

Al Capone FBI Files Part 21        Al Capone FBI Files Part 22

Al Capone FBI Files Part 23        Al Capone FBI Files Part 24

Al Capone FBI Files Part 25        Al Capone FBI Files Part 26

Al Capone FBI Files Part 27        Al Capone FBI Files Part 28

Al Capone FBI Files Part 29        Al Capone FBI Files Part 30

Al Capone FBI Files Part 31        Al Capone FBI Files Part 32

Al Capone FBI Files Part 33        Al Capone FBI Files Part 34

Al Capone FBI Files Part 35        Al Capone FBI Files Part 36

Meyer Lansky In His Own Words

Throughout the 1960s the G-men eavesdropped on the private conversations of Meyer Lansky by bugging his personal residence where he lived with his wife in Hallandale, FL and the hotel rooms in which he stayed when in New York City according to FBI files.   Although Lansky may have had a mind for numbers in handling the casino skimming and money laundering rackets of the Genovese mobsters for whom he worked, his own words reveal a small-minded man who was both embittered by and self-deluded about his station in life.  Perhaps the most shocking revelations from the recorded confessions involved jealous rants about the Kennedy family and racist tirades against minority groups.  There seemed to be few in the world whom Lansky liked, and perhaps least of all was himself.

During his life Lansky was perceived by the press and the public as a wealthy man -- some estimates put his net worth at $300 million -- who was among the most powerful gangsters in the country.  However, the reality is that Lansky was just a work horse harnessed by the Genovese family in its various incarnations as reflected by his own unguarded admissions and corroborated by other evidence.   After Prohibition the Italians began consolidating their control over the underworld, and by the end of World War II the Jewish gangsters were either working for the Mafia or resting in peace.   The bosses assigned capo Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo to keep a close eye on Lansky in Hallandale, FL, and everywhere that Lansky went Alo was sure to follow.

After Vito Genovese took over the crime family from Frank Costello in 1957 Meyer Lansky dutifully stepped into line under the new boss.  Congressional testimony by supergrass Joe Valachi in 1963 suggested that Lansky was a proxy for the Genovese family as paraphrased by the FBI in a January 19, 1968 memo:

Joseph Valachi , an admitted member of La Cosa Nostra, in testimony before the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Government Operations, during 1963, stated that  Vito Genovese and Meyer Lansky had common holdings in gambling casinos in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba.  Valachi, a close associate of Genovese, testified that Lansky and Genovese were very closely associated in racket activities over the years and that wherever Lansky operated, Genovese had an interest.

No doubt vast sums passed through Lansky's hands but little of it was his to keep.  His lifestyle hardly suggested any accumulation of great wealth.  He owned a modest home in Hallandale, FL and drove a rented Chevrolet.  The simple living was not an elaborate ploy to keep the IRS at bay but an accurate reflection of his financial means.  Indeed, in conversations secretly recorded by the FBI Lansky made it clear to associates that he worked out of necessity.   For example, while staying at the Volney Hotel at 23 East 74th Street in New York in May 1962, "LANSKY complained that the necessity of making a living was taking a lot out of him," and "remarked how lucky people are that 'fall into it.'"  In another conversation he remarked how "some people became millionaires since the War," and "they shouldn't hold a job."  Lansky clearly did not consider himself a man of independent means who could afford a life of leisure.

Of course, whatever personal wealth Lansky may have accumulated likely was wiped out when Fidel Castro chased the mobsters out of Cuba in January 1959 after overthrowing corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista.  Upon returning stateside with his tail between his legs Lansky solicited a meeting with the FBI for the avowed purpose of providing intelligence on the communist infiltration of Cuba.  The meeting took place on May 22, 1959, and Lansky stated that he "could lose heavily unless the situation changed," and "he could not deny that the possibility of this loss contributed to his decision to discuss the Cuban situation."  Lansky's own losses were likely insignificant compared to the reverses suffered by his Genovese bosses, and perhaps he was required to make a financial settlement with them for failing to read the handwriting on the wall.  After all, it was Lansky's job to be on top of such matters.

Although Lansky later would rewrite history by telling associates that he warned the feds in 1958 that "Cuba was going Communist" the fact is that he did not do so until May 1959, and even then had nothing meaningful to offer.  The G-men expressly noted that the mobster stated only the obvious, and "all of LANSKY's comments were general in nature":

When pressed for particulars LANSKY advised he was not in a position to furnish facts.  * * * He stated he could not name any individuals in the present government who had publicly described themselves as Communists nor could he offer any facts which would set one person aside from the others as a Communist.

Frankly, Lansky's purported concern about a communist Cuba is laughable.  Neither Lansky nor his Mafia overlords cared a wit with whom they conducted business.  In fact, while still in Havana, on January 5, 1959 Lansky gave an interview to Alan Jarlson from The Las Vegas Sun who reported that Lansky "talked freely" about his hope "that the new government will emerge from Fidel Castro's liberation of Cuba and will continue to permit American gamblers to operate."  Similarly, when Lansky left Cuba on January 7, and arrived at Miami International Airport, the casino operator told Joseph Manners, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, that "he expected to continue in business, and did not anticipate trouble from the new government."  Lansky developed his anti-communist animus only after it became clear that Castro was refusing to allow the American mobsters to continue their exploitation of Cuba.

If Lansky thought his new-found anti-communist fervor -- feigned or otherwise -- would curry him favor with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover he sorely miscalculated.  Instead, the feds exploited his gambling losses as an opportune time to investigate him.  A March 23, 1960 memo from the Director to the Miami Field Office states:

You now have residing in your territory one of the very most important individuals in the national crime picture in the person of Meyer Lansky.  Information developed in Bureau investigations over a period of many years indicates strongly that Lansky is a very important individual in a segment of the criminal element.  In pursuing investigations in your Criminal Intelligence Program, you should not overlook the possibility of employing extraordinary investigative techniques with reference to Lansky.  Because of the loss of the lucrative Cuban gambling situation, Lansky is presently in a position of having to make decisions as to his future course of action.  This may be a propitious time for close coverage of Lansky.

The memo further reflects Hoover’s lingering questions about the existence of the Mafia, and its relationship to non-Italians such as Lansky.  Already contemplating the distinction between a mob member who must be Italian and a mob associate who can be of any ethnicity Hoover writes:

It is desired also to point out to you the need of continuous alertness to develop the existence or nonexistence of the "Mafia."  Persons who furnish information in this field should be thoroughly interviewed for a determination of what they mean by the use of the term "Mafia."  It is the Bureau’s desire to determine whether or not this is a mere term used to characterize criminal groups made up of a preponderance of persons of Italian birth or extraction, or whether it is a term denoting something of greater significance.   Complete details of any facts available should be obtained from any persons contending that it is an actual organization which can be characterized as being a "Mafia."

The federal investigation on top of his Cuban losses added insult to injury for Lansky, and was a constant source of stress for Lansky and his wife.  When the G-men visited their South Florida home on May 2, 1961 for a spot check Mrs. Lansky "went into a tirade about the 'harassing tactics of the FBI,'" and when agents again returned on May 17 the mobster "said he felt he was being persecuted because of his name."  FBI bugs caught Lansky routinely kvetching about the prying eyes.  For example, in May 1962 while staying at the Volney Hotel in New York City Lansky described the G-men as "racketeers" and the "new mafia":

They're nothing but racketeers, every one of them.  After five years they get out, get on a big corporation's payroll.  Now what happens, you and I . . . let's say I work for IBM.  You came.  They say [redacted] is doing  the same business.  He has no FBI guys working for him.  Pop, they chop his legs off.  They find him with a sweetheart, they find him with this, they find him with that.  This thing's gonna get an investigation.  It's a new mafia.  The investigators are going to get investigated.  It's just a matter of time.  It's the same with those senate investigators.  You remember those McCarthy hearings.  That lying (obscene) with the pictures.

Lansky directed most of his anti-government enmity towards the Kennedys which was fueled by Bobby Kennedy's mob busting campaign and Jack Kennedy's refusal to back the Bay of Pigs invasion to topple Castro.  However, Lansky also was a terribly insecure man who undoubtedly felt like a bug under the long-cast Kennedy shadow.  Lansky grew up poor on the Lower East Side in New York City, his education topped out at the 8th grade, he was a national pariah with whom no person of good standing would associate, and the poor thing was short, slight and ugly.  Lanksy was nothing more than a greedy troll living under a bridge in the Kingdom of Camelot, and his bitterness was palpable at the mere mention of the revered Kennedy name.  For example, FBI eavesdropping on the Lansky couple at their New York City hotel room in May 1962 captured on the following conversation on the Kennedys:

[Redacted] in discussing wiretapping bill presently pending, remarked that wiretapping is okay against the Communists, but otherwise is most sickening.  She stated she believed the "KENNEDYs" were acting sincerely and in their best beliefs.  When LANSKY disagreed , she reminded him that he came up "on the wrong side of the fence," to which subject replied that he was brought up on the "unhypocritical" side.

On another occassion Lansky referred to Bobby Kennedy as "an arrogant punk" who had no right to judge the mob life:

Let me tell you something.  Anyone who hasn't lived, hasn't the right to tell anyone else anything.  He's a young boy, 37 years old.  He hasn't lived yet and he wants to tell others how to live.  He's an arrogant punk.

"Arrogant punk" or not, the mobsters feared Bobby Kennedy.  An FBI bug installed at the Lansky home in Hallandale, FL picked up an associate telling Meyer on August 18, 1962 that "the person everyone is afraid of is BOBBY KENNEDY.  'He is the hatchetman.'"

In order to prop up his ego Lansky routinely pontificated before others on a variety of subjects, and sounded as much a bore as the insufferable Polonius from Hamlet who missed the irony behind his quip "brevity is the soul of wit."  For example, on June 5, 1962 Lansky held court for sycophantic  groupies at his room in the Volney Hotel, and told everyone what a literate man he was even though he had "no education":

LANSKY bragged about his ability to read several books at one time.  He stated he is presently reading a history book, a grammar book, and a book on French quotations.  He stated these are the things you need with no education because you can get mixed up.  LANSKY expounded on various subjects and his listeners expressed awe at his knowledge.

On another occasion during his stay at the hotel "MEYER remarked that Saturday or Sunday he intends to go over to the museum and buy a photograph of 'Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer' which is selling at $12.50."

Apparently Lansky hoped that a little culture would mask his mob stench.  The self-delusion which gripped Lansky was shockingly apparent when on multiple occasions he savagely spoke with racial slurs of blacks and Latinos as "lousy minority groups" who are criminal by nature.  For example, in June 1962 when discussing race with some associates at his New York City hotel room, Lanksy said the following with respect to blacks:

 If you find a person stealing who doesn't have enough to eat, there a reason.  But tell me why you steal if you've got money in your pocket.  You see these n***** [n-word] kids stealing.  Their parents are ignorant, no education.  There's a certain spark in them.

He further stated that "n****** [n-word] are getting even with white people through welfare and they're laughing at the white people."

And then when comparing Scandanavians against Latinos he stated:

They're not only physically healthy, but their lives are more healthy.  They're cleaner.  They're not as criminal as some of the other nationalities.  The Latins are more criminal. They had to steal to subsist.

Apparently Lansky conveniently forgot during these racist tirades that he was a former enforcer with Murder, Inc.  Lansky may have read the classics and got his nails manicured but he still was nothing but a common thug with blood on his hands.  Indeed, when Israel sent Lansky packing from the Promised Land towards the end of his life one wonders whether he had the courage and honesty to ask "what profit it a man to gain the world but lose his soul?"

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 1          Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 2

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 3          Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 4

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 5          Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 6

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 7          Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 8

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 9          Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 10

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 11        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 12

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 13        Meyer Lansky FBI File Part 14

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 15        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 16

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 17        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 18

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 19        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 20

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 21        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 22

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 23        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 24

Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 25        Meyer Lansky FBI Files Part 26

06/17/12 UPDATE:

The FBI recently released nearly 3,000 additional pages from its file on mob boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, and included is a report dated July 11, 1983 – several months after Lansky’s death -- which confirms that Meyer Lansky was little more than a working stiff  for the Genovese crime family with no independent power.

 According to the report the FBI interviewed a confidential informant on July 6, 1983 in Dallas, TX, and “[t]he source stated that Lansky had to do business through Vincent Alo, aka Jimmy Blue Eyes, in order to get anything done though the LCN, Alo being a capo in the LCN,” and “Alo, in turn, cleared what Lansky wanted to do, whatever that was at the time, though his boss at one time (first name unknown (FNU) [redacted] and currently [redacted] both of [redacted].”

Apparently, during his post-Cuba years Lansky was involved with little more than running gambling cash from Europe and the Caribbean through Swiss banks into mob fronts in the United States, and Lansky wanted Joseph Francis Nesline -- a wig salesman from Washington, D.C. -- to take over this job upon his death:

The source interpreted Lansky’s information of Nesline as meaning that Lansky wished Nesline to take over the operation in terms of moving illegally, obtained cash from casinos and gambling junkets from Europe and the Caribbean to the United States, and insuring that everyone who was to get a portion, got their fair share.  * * *

The source advised that [redacted] and others were close associates of Lansky’s, however, they were used more as bagmen, and did not have the extensive and long-term associations that Nesline had with the LCN.  Therefore, Nesline would be a more trusted individual in terms of being introduced to and working with Lansky’s LCN connections that facilitated the filtering of illegal gambling money into the United States.

Lansky’s may have begun his mob career with a bang but sounds like it ended with a whimper.

Reports On The Death Of The Mafia May Be Greatly Exaggerated

After every big mob bust some paper runs a lame story about the waning days of the Mafia.

Over the last year the feds have been picking off reputed Patriarca mobsters for their alleged roles in extorting strip clubs and other businesses in Providence, RI, and this time -- yes, really, this time for sure -- the final nail has been driven into the crime family's coffin as reported by Milton J. Valencia for The Boston Globe:   

No more than 30 made, or sworn-in, members make up an organization that in its heyday was more than 100 strong, law enforcement officials say. Investigators, legal observers, and court records describe an organization that continues to erode, as made members and associates abandon the code of silence and cooperate with investigators. The younger crop is addicted to drugs, and the older, wiser members have either died or have gone to jail, officials said. "This is not your father's Mafia," said Massachusetts State Police Detective Lieutenant Stephen P. Johnson, who oversees organized crime investigations as head of the Special Service Section.

The predictions by some about the end of a particular mob family -- or even the Mafia generally -- are about as silly as the claims by others that there never was such a thing as "this thing of ours."

Of course a mob family can have its ups and downs depending upon a number of factors ranging from the strength of  its leadership to pressure from law enforcement.  However, Anthony Cardinale  -- a criminal defense attorney who has represented former Patriarca bosses  Francis "Cadillac Frank" and Gennaro Angiulo -- aptly notes that "as long as there are criminals who need protection, there will be organized crime":  "'As long as there's drugs going on, and bookmaking, there will always be a mob,' he said. 'Even with all the risks involved, there will still be somebody policing the bad guys, and that's what the mob guys do.'"

Even the FBI on prior occassions has naively predicted the waning days of the Mafia.  Of course, infamous director J. Edgar Hoover denied its very existence for decades.

Following the record bust in January 2011 of more than 120 suspected mobsters involving seven Northeast Mafia families the FBI promptly declared victory over the Mafia, and in the New York Field Office  recklessly slashed the number of agents assigned to the crime families as then reported by Jerry Capeci for The Huffington Post:

Six weeks after the feds loudly proclaimed that they are still pursuing mobsters with a vengeance, the FBI has quietly cut the number of New York squads that investigate the notorious Five Families. There used to be five, one for each. That's been cut to just three. It's not just re-organizing either. The total number of mob-busting agents is also cut by some 25 per cent, Gang Land has learned.

Mob watchers and mob busters were shocked by the FBI's inexplicable move.   After all, there's still 700 made guys and 7,000 mob associates in NYC, the Genovese crime family continues to operate unscathed, hundreds of unsolved gangland hits still haunt the streets, and billions in mob money parked in real estate and business fronts remains unrecovered.  Mission accomplished with so much left on the table?  Hardly.

Indeed, to the extent that the FBI has made some inroads with some families -- i.e., Bonanno, Colombo, Lucchese -- its own agents fear that the cut-and-run mentality now pervading management at the storied agency simply will allow the ever-resourceful, ever-evolving mobsters to regroup as reported by Josh Margolin for the New York Post:  "Sources inside the FBI and other federal agencies told The Post they fear the shakeup will let the families regroup."  After all, it's called organized crime for a reason, and numerous previous reports on the demise of the Mafia always have been greatly exaggerated in retrospect. 

By "the end of the last century, prosecutors and FBI officials all too frequently proclaimed that even the mob's sacred stronghold in New York was crushed" as reported by Selwyn Raab for The New York Times in commenting on the January 2011 record roundup:

[I]n the early 2000s the Justice Department dropped Cosa Nostra investigations as a priority, reassigning hundreds of agents to antiterrorist units. In New York, the linchpin in the F.B.I.'s crusade against wise guys, the number of agents and Police Department investigators assigned to battling the five families in combined task forces declined to about 100 from a high point of 450. Last [January's] indictments demonstrated how effectively the borgatas had regrouped.

Gratuitous declarations about the death of the Mafia ignore its fundamental character which is to exist as an organic entity independent of individual members.  Raab further writes:

Above all, though, the mob's ability to survive is a legacy from Charles (Lucky) Luciano. He was a brilliant criminal executive who created the framework, culture and ground rules for the American Mafia 80 years ago. Luciano realized that other ethnic gangs were loosely organized, usually involved in just one type of crime and easily obliterated when their leaders were imprisoned. Hence his cardinal principle: the organization — the family — was supreme and not reliant on a single individual or one racket. Whenever a boss or a capo was removed, a replacement would be waiting in the wings to keep the loot flowing. * * * There have always been, and always will be, ambitious, greedy wise guys who are willing to risk long prison sentences for the power and riches glittering before them.

For the FBI to have taken their eye off the Mafia over the last decade was nothing short of reckless which cost billions of dollars to the legitimate economy and incalculable heartache to its victims.  Indeed, "organized crime is like a chronic disease," and "if it is not managed and controlled, it will kill us" as reported by Edwin Stier for the New York Post:  "We must be honest with ourselves that it will always be there, and we must be willing to devote the resources necessary to keep it in check."

The end of the Mafia?  Someday, perhaps.  Like when world peace is declared and the lion lays down with the lamb.  Until then, wake up and smell the coffee.

FBI Was MIA On Albert Anastasia

J. Edgar Hoover may have had a knack for routing out commies but he was pretty useless in taking on Albert Anastasia as reflected in the FBI's sparse files on the notorious mobster who infamously was whacked in a barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan on October 25, 1957.

Anastasia orchestrated dozens of hits as the chief executioner for  Murder, Inc., later ran the crime family which gave rise to Carlo Gambino, made a fortune from loansharking, gambling and other enterprises which he laundered through the garment industry, and controlled the Brooklyn waterfront through the International Longshoremen's Association, and yet in nearly forty decades of racketeering the only criminal case ever brought against the mob boss by the feds -- no thanks to the FBI -- was in 1954 for evading a few thousand dollars in taxes on his 1947 and 1948 returns.

Indeed, when the Department of Justice during its tax investigation into Anastasia asked the FBI to provide assistance the supposed law enforcement agency in a gross dereliction of duty had nothing to offer.

On January 30, 1953 the Tax Division within the DOJ advised the FBI that it was building a case against Anastasia , and requested "any information which might be developed as a result of the Bureau's water-front investigations which might be of assistance in the income tax case against the subject."  Incredibly, according to an internal agency memo dated Feb. 10, 1953, the FBI admitted it had nothing to share because it did not have Anastasia under investigation:

[Name redacted] of the Investigative Division advised that no investigation concerning Albert Anastasia was being conducted by his Division.  No Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 case involving the subject has developed up to the present time.  [Name redacted] was called by Special Agent [name redacted] Domestic Intelligence Division, at 4:00 P.M. , January 30, 1953, and was informed that the Bureau did not have Albert Anastasia under investigation but in the event that any information was developed through the New York water-front investigations concerning Anastasia it would be directed to the attention of [name redacted].

Anastasia ultimately pled guilty in the tax case -- after first killing a few witnesses including a husband and wife -- and spent less than a year in prison. 

The deep level of distrust between the lawyers at the DOJ and the agents at the FBI was reflected in a Dec.  16, 1954 memo from Assistant Director L.V. Boardman to Hoover in which Boardman recounts a conversation he had that morning with Warren Olney, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ's Criminal Division, during which Olney told Boardman that "there were many members in the Department who did not like the FBI" and specifically referenced an apparent misunderstanding in connection with the Anastasia tax case.

Of course, to take down Albert Anastasia required someone more powerful than a cross-dressing FBI Director absorbed in paranoid delusions of a communist takeover, and even once the mob boss was taken out it's clear from his FBI files -- or more accurately the lack thereof -- that even nervous nellie Hoover and his merry band of G-men didn't have a clue as to what was happening on the mean streets of New York.  Indeed, much of the thin file was composed after Anastasia's death and relies as much on open source material (i.e., newspaper clippings) as original investigative work.  It's as if the FBI really didn't want to know.

It's a wonder this country survived at all during the mob's reign of terror throughout most of the 20th century with Hoover's laughable tenure at the FBI helm.

Unfortunately, history has a bad habit of repeating itself.  Just as the FBI once was absorbed with chasing down purported communists while the mob took over America, it now is preoccupied with supposed terrorists as the Mafia retools.  No doubt the war on terror will be judged by history as just as much an overblown folly as the cold war, and the real threat to the country from organized crime once again was ignored.  Of course, it's always easier to fight a phony bogeyman than actual monsters.

Download Albert Anastasia FBI Documents Part 1

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Further reading that may be of interest:

J. Edgar Hoover Biopic Punts On Gay Question

Feds:  The Mafia Is No Longer A Top Target