THE TRUTH : Farewell America 6 Gangs

Farewell America

6
Gangs

I believe (that this nation) is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of public order as his own personal concern.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

"It's like Chicago in the Al Capone days," declared John Irwin, first assistant District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1967, noting that in the past six years there had been 45 gangland murders in the Boston area alone. Writing in the Saturday Evening Post,⁽¹⁾ Bill Davidson added, "On an even higher level, the New England Mafia has contacts among a group of millionaire pillars of the community," and Charles Rogovin, head of the Organized Crime Section of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, remarked, "Since I came here from President Johnson's Crime Commission, I feel as if I've been watching old gangster movies. The other families of the Mafia have become much more subtle in their killing. Their victims mostly just disappear -- and there's no heat, no hue and cry. But here they brazenly shoot them down at high noon on a busy street."
Despite theses remarks, Massachusetts is not first among the criminal states, and neither Boston nor Worcester nor Springfield figure among the key cities in the industry of crime, the foremost industry in the United States. The vigorous action taken by the Justice Department and the FBI against the New England Mafia in the past two years was inspired more by political than by technical considerations. The Empire of Crime remains intact. The annual budget of the private government of organized crime was estimated in 1960 at $60 billion, more than the budget of the Department of Defense ($47.5 billion).⁽²⁾
Organized crime could never have survived and developed on a large scale without the "protection of the law-enforcement agencies."⁽³⁾ Face-to-face with organized crime, or rather side-by-side, stands a police force that often ignores its existence, and sometimes even supports it. On June 15, 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy declared, "The problem of organized crime will not really be solved as long as the attitude of the American people remains what it is -- acceptance of crime and corruption," and as long as Americans are only interested in "getting a bigger TV set, a bigger car, and earning an extra buck."
Robert Kennedy's career began in 1951 as a lawyer in the criminal division of the Justice Department. In 1953, he became one of the five assistants of Roy Cohn, chief legal counsel for Senator McCarthy, chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. He took over Cohn's job when Senator McClellan⁽⁴⁾ replaced McCarthy in 1954. In 1957, with a staff of 65, he became chief counsel of the Senate Rackets Committee, also headed by Senator McClellan. There, he encountered men like Antonio Corallo, who had been hired by a factory manager simply to keep his eye on the workers; dubious business consultants like George Fitzgerald and Eddie Cheyfitz;⁽⁵⁾ industries like Kohler, Inc., a Sheboygan, Wisconsin manufacturer of plumbing fixtures, which in 1897 had cut its employees' salaries by 50 % and given each a bathtub, and pursued much the same policies in 1958. He exposed corruption in the labor unions -- primarily in the Bakers and Confectioners Union, but also in the Mechanics, the carpenters, the Hotel Employees, the New York Postal Workers, the Textile Workers, and even the Garbage Collecters unions. He became an expert on labor racketeering. In November 1957, he received the first annual award as "Outstanding Investigator of the Year" from the Society of Professional Investigators.
When he became Attorney General, Robert Kennedy already had a good idea of the importance of organized crime in the United States. The kingpins of crime, some of them survivors of the Chicago era, others more recent arrivals, had left the gangs for the big cities. The gambling industry alone supported 50,000 potentates, employed the services of 400,000 petty bookmakers, and ruined one million families every year. Gambling had become so big that it was capable of disturbing the national economy. There was also prostitution, the narcotics traffic and commercial pornography, not to speak of hold-ups and murders. This industry of vice, which had already contaminated the trade unions, was also active among the youth of the country. In the decade, between 1950 and 1960, crimes doubled and juvenile delinquency tripled, although the population increased by only 18%.⁽⁶⁾
The war against crime cost the United States $22 billion a year, or $120 per citizen. "Crime pays if it is well-organized. American gangsters have become specialists," noted C. Wright Mills. An expert on the question, Donald R. Cressey,⁽⁷⁾ wrote: "The situation is more dangerous than the situation in the 1920's and the 1930's when the monopolies controlled by organized criminals were primarily monopolies on only the distribution of illicit goods and services. The real danger is that the trend will continue to the point where syndicate rulers gain such a degree of control that they drive supporters of free enterprise and democracy out of' business' and then force us to pay tribute in the form of traditional freedoms. Syndicate rulers are among the most active monopolizers in the American economy." And Cressey continued, "We agree with Senator Kennedy who . . . became convinced that if we do not on a national scale attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us." He wrote this in 1967, when organized crime, more prosperous than ever, was still in control of the empire that Robert Kennedy had tried to defeat five years before.
In 1951, the Kefauver Commission had concluded that organized crime, which it referred to as the Mafia, was run by Costello-Adonis-Lansky (the New York Syndicate) and Accardo-Guzik-Fischetti (the Chicago Syndicate). But between 1951 and 1961, the Kefauver Commission found it difficult to obtain reliable information about the nature of the Mafia and the extent of its activities. In 1957, it disclosed that 58 crime lords had met at the Appalachin Conference in upper New York State, but in 1960 the federal government and the Justice Department had little information about what had transpired at the meeting, and many of the participants were unknown to them.⁽⁸⁾
When Robert Kennedy was appointed Attorney General, the Crime and Rackets Section of the Justice Department employed only 17 people. They worked individually, without illusions, and received no comprehensive information on international and organized crime. By 1963, their number had swelled to 60, and they were able to draw on information which was available to the press and the public, but which had never been officially brought to their attention. Robert Kennedy opened federal investigative bureaus in six large cities outside of Washington. These bureaus were charged with gathering information on 1,100 notorious racketeers. In 1961 and 1962, Congress approved seven anti-crime laws authorized by the Attorney General, the most important anti-criminal legislation voted since 1954. The first result was the dismantling of the nationwide telegraphic betting system. In November 1962, a gambling and prostitution establishment in Detroit which had been doing a $20 million-a-year business was raided and closed down. In 1963, the illegal gambling organizations were obliged to cease their activities in many different parts of the country. In the first six months of 1963, 171 racketeers were indicted, as against 24 in 1960.⁽⁹⁾
In October 1963, Robert Kennedy persuaded Joseph Valachi, a member of the crime syndicate who had requested government protection in 1962 and who had been imprisoned since that date for second-degree murder, to testify. The Attorney General revealed that the crime syndicate, known to its members as Cosa Nostra, was directed by a board of between 9 and 12 active members whose names were known to him, and to whom the representatives in the various cities were responsible. On October 19, 1963, he declared to the New York Times that these racketeers were only able to operate by buying the protection of those in whom the communities placed their confidence. He denounced hired killers and the wall of silence surrounding them.
Joseph Valachi was the first member of Cosa Nostra to reveal the activities of this "cruel and calculating" organization. Since 1960, there had been 37 gangland murders in the city of Chicago alone, and 70 bombings in the region of Youngstown, Ohio. Kennedy named the principal ringleaders of the organization and declared that he was determined to put them out of action or in prison. He praised the Los Angeles and New York police departments for their cooperation, but he also cited the example of Newport, Kentucky, the type of American community where crime and corruption prevailed with the consent of the Mayor, several members of the city council, and the local police force.⁽¹⁰⁾ He added that there were many Newports throughout the country, that organized crime had become particularly subtle, that it made the most of modern communications techniques, and that it had tremendous resources at its disposal to circumvent the law. It used extortion not only as a source of revenue, but also to take over control of businesses. It had infiltrated the clothing industry, bowling alleys and liquor stores, juke box companies, vending machines and the construction business. These rackets were often run by telephone, and from outside the state.
The Attorney General declared that he would ask Congress to vote new laws authorizing the use of wire-tapping devices and guaranteeing the immunity of witnesses. "Fighting organized crime is like working a jigsaw puzzle," he said. He emphasized that organized crime affected the entire community, that it was the concern of every citizen. "There is an old saying," he concluded, "that every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. It is equally true that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on."
The McClellan Committee decided that the term "American Confederation" represented the best definition of Cosa Nostra, which might be considered as a sort of private government, and not only as an economic cartel. The Confederation of Crime has its own Code of Ethics. Each member is expected to:
- Be loyal to members of the organization.
- Be rational. Be a member of the team.
- Be a man of honor. Respect womanhood and your elders.
- Be a stand-up guy. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut.
- Have class. Be independent. Know your way around the world.
The Confederation is founded on the following principles:
1) Organized crime is a business venture that seeks every opportunity to corrupt or have influence on anyone in government who can or may in the future be able to do favors for organized crime.
2) Insulation serves to separate the leaders of the confederation from the illegal activities which they direct.
3) Members are subject to discipline of a quasi-military nature.
4) The public relations of the organization are of the utmost importance.
5) The structure of the organization must be such that it does not appear to be and cannot be attacked as an organization.
6) Job specialization is essential. The organization counts among its members the corrupters, the corruptees, the enforcers, the executioners, the money-movers, and the button men, representing the lowest echelon of the confederation. The corrupters are as essential to the organization as the negotiators to a trade union. The money movers are assisted by other specialists, who invest the funds of the organization in legal enterprises. The button men carry out the orders passed down through the hierarchy. The organization also has its own "accountants," and "lawyers."
The work of the confederation is greatly facilitated by the structure of the police. There are 420,000 police officers in the United States attached to 40,000 police stations, 50 of which are federal, 200 adjuncts of the state police, and 39,750 under the control of the local police.
The Task Force report entitled "The Police," published in 1967 by the Justice Department, acknowledges that in several cities in the United States a large proportion of police officers are engaged in various forms of criminal or immoral activities, and that a few dishonest policemen may spread corruption throughout the force. Such was the case in Denver, where it was discovered in 1961 that a small group of corrupt policemen had implicated dozens of other officers throughout the city in their criminal activities. The majority of those involved were not, in fact, active accomplices, but their oath and regulations required them to report any suspicious actions, and prohibited them from taking part in any illegal activity.⁽¹¹⁾ The report acknowledges that corrupt police chiefs may set a dangerous example for younger officers. "Corruption then becomes an element of promotion, and the existence of this corruption at the highest level of authority may influence all of the members of the police."
In Chapter 7, "The Integrity of the Police," the report recalls that the Mayor and Sheriff of Phoenix City, Alabama, were forced to resign in 1955, but that political corruption allied with organized crime and vice had continued to spread to several other cities in the state. The Justice Department discovered in 1961 that the head of the gambling syndicate in Syracuse, New York, had been living in that city for 25 years and had never been bothered by the local police.
The state police are no more trustworthy than the local police. Governor Claude Kirk of Florida preferred to hire a private detective agency to investigate crime and corruption in his state. The local police in certain states, California for example, are to all appearances fairly honest, but in other states, for instance Texas, they are thoroughly corrupt.
Many police departments refuse to acknowledge the existence of organized crime and concern themselves only with local and isolated criminal offenses. This attitude has the effect of guaranteeing the immunity of the crime syndicates. Other police departments even cooperate with the confederation by exchanging information with its local representatives.
There are substantial differences in the quality of police personnel in the United States. A white-collar worker earns an average of $7,124 a year. The average salary of a policemen is only $5,321.⁽¹²⁾ In Seattle, a policeman earns $375 a month less than a cable splicer. In Nashville, an electrician makes $3.22 an hour, a policeman only $2.55. The disparity is even greater in the upper echelons. The salaries offered college graduates by the police are rarely competitive with those offered by private industry .The salary of a municipal police chief varies between $7,054 and $17,600 a year (in cities with a population of more than 500,000). Only eight out of the 38 cities with a population of between 300,000 and a million pay their police captains more than $11,000 a year. In only nine of these cities does a sergeant earn more than $9,600. In certain other cities with more than a million inhabitants, Dallas for example, the salaries paid police officers are even lower than these average figures. Nor is there much room for promotion within the official hierarchy. The maximum salary of a San Francisco patrolman is only $600 a year more than the minimum he received when he entered the force.
The excessive decentralization of the police, the dilution of its responsibilities and the diversity of its efforts also created numerous problems with regard to criminal arrests.⁽¹³⁾ The leaders of the Confederation of Crime are "represented, in one form or another, in legislative, judicial and executive bodies all ever the country."⁽¹⁴⁾ The late Chief William H. Parker of the Los Angeles police added, "Despite the most aggressive and enlightened leadership, law enforcement cannot rise above the level set by the electorate."
There are three varieties of official corruption: nonfeasance (failure to perform a required duty at all); malfeasance (the commission of some act which is positively unlawful); and misfeasance (the improper performance of some act).
Where does the FBI come into this paradise of crime? J. Edgar Hoover⁽¹⁵⁾ controls the only police organization existing on the national level. In the 38 years that he has occupied this position, he has known seven Presidents and out-lasted 13 Attorney Generals.⁽¹⁶⁾ As of August 31, 1962, the Federal Bureau of Investigation employed 14,217 people, including more than 6,000 federal agents. Congress has always granted Hoover's budgetary requests. J, Edgar Hoover has become something of a national monument. No one dares to contradict "the Director," nor to suspect him.
The FBI has two principal functions: it investigates violations of federal law, and it presents its conclusions to the Attorney General and the federal attorneys. It is concerned with investigation, not law-enforcement. All of the so-called "federal" crimes fall within its jurisdiction, but the list of these, although it covers some 165 subjects, is limited. The FBI has no jurisdiction over tax violations, narcotics, customs, the mails, or the protection of the President. On the other hand, it is concerned with kidnapping, bank hold-ups, stolen cars that have been driven across state lines, and other interstate infractions of the law. Theoretically, organized crime does not fall within its jurisdiction, since it thrives on gambling, frauds, rackets, and other crimes that constitute violations of state rather than federal law, but the FBI's highly-developed intelligence sources keep it informed about the Confederation of Crime and its activities.⁽¹⁷⁾
Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered the FBI to investigate the inter-state activities of the confederation, but this assignment irritated Mr. Hoover, who was nevertheless instructed by President Kennedy to defer to the Attorney General's wishes and to report directly to him.⁽¹⁸⁾ When, in 1962, Robert Kennedy ordered the FBI to investigate the steel corporations, Hoover consented only reluctantly, and there is some indication that the order was carried out with "misfeasance."⁽¹⁹⁾
The Attorney General would have liked to create a National Crime Commission to bring together and coordinate all the available information on the confederation, its activities, and the movements of its members, but J. Edgar Hoover wants no competition, and he has his own ideas about how a federal law -- enforcement agency should be run.
The FBI has 55 main offices and 500 branch offices throughout the country, but it prefers not to work with the state and local police unless they are considered "honorable" (which singularly limits the possibilities for cooperation). Moreover, "honorable" in this case has a very special meaning.
Mr. Hoover, a puritan Presbyterian and a bachelor who is active in the Boy Scout movement (he is an honorary member of its National Council) has repeatedly declared, "I am opposed to a national police force. I have a total respect for the sovereignty of the states and the local authorities, to whom we furnish a considerable amount of information which helps them to solve local crimes." Hoover believes the FBI should devote itself first and foremost to its original function, that of protecting the nation against subversion and treason, both on the inside and from the outside.
In 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt charged the FBI with the surveillance of the Nazi agents and sympathizers in the United States. When the war broke out in 1941, it coordinated the internal security measures against spies and saboteurs and found its true vocation. When the Second World War gave way to the Cold War, the FBI turned its attention to the Communists. Hoover was charged with the task of "unmasking and dismantling Soviet espionage activities."
On October 19, 1960, Hoover declared, " We are at war with the Communists."⁽²⁰⁾ Certain generals had been forced to resign for similar statements, but even Kennedy hesitated to replace " the Director." Eleven days after Kennedy's assassination, on December 3, 1963, Hoover reaffirmed his creed. A month earlier he had declared, "President Kennedy's closest advisers are either Communists or Communist sympathizers." Hoover repeatedly emphasized the essential role played by the FBI in the struggle against Communism and in the protection of the "American way of life." Since the advent of Castro, the Caribbean area had taken on a special importance for the FBI, which showed a sudden interest in the Cuban exile groups. Hoover considered that "it is more important to prevent or circumvent espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities than to prosecute the individuals who engage in this type of activity . . ." Such a rationale can have far-reaching consequences.
A self-appointed judge of what is good for the United States, Hoover refused to send FBI agents to Little Rock in 1957. Despite the injunctions of Robert Kennedy, he refused to engage his agents completely in the enforcement of civil rights legislation. It was a known fact that local FBI agents in several southern states cooperated with the segregationist local police force. When, on September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in a Negro Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four Negro children, the FBI learned who was guilty, but failed to pass on this information officially, thereby be- coming the passive accomplice of the local police.
Robert Kennedy had been aware of Hoover's power since entering the Justice Department in 1953, but he needed him, and he was obliged to postpone his retirement, although Hoover was 65. In August 1962, he even defended the FBI chief against the attacks of Wilbur H. Ferry, vice-president of the Fund for the Republic, declaring, "Let's leave that to the experts. Mr. Hoover is my expert."⁽²¹⁾
It has been written that Bob Kennedy was "too politically sophisticated to clash openly with the honors-encrusted FBI Director." Serious criticism of Hoover or the FBI is still regarded in the United States as something close to treason, and it is tantamount to political suicide. Hoover's sources of information, and the files at his disposal, are in fact more important than those available to comparable organisms in totalitarian states, where the heads of the intelligence services have the power to dismiss the Chief of Police.⁽²²⁾ The FBI has files on 200 million people, only 20% of whom have ever been arrested. It keeps up-to-date dossiers on all the leading political and business figures. A great many Americans have reason to fear the FBI, which has confidential information about the lives and activities of the most diverse and the most insignificant citizens.
To the icy courtesy of the Attorney General, Mr. Hoover replied in October 1962, before his favorite audience, the American Legion, that "the Communists have infiltrated every sector of our society."⁽²³⁾ Why this obsession with the Communist bugbear? Ever since its creation by Theodore Roosevelt, the FBI has been at war with what it calls "the forces of evil." By this is meant not so much the overall category of doers of evil, and in particular high-class criminals, but liberals. Hoover himself once said, "This term liberalism should not be taken lightly . . ." The obsession with Communism has the effect of maintaining the American people in a state of tension. The FBI knows perfectly well -- at least we assume that its directors are sound of mind -- that it has little to fear from a Communist Party of only 10,000 members, all of whom are known to the FBI and under constant surveillance, and which has been infiltrated by more than 1,000 FBI informers. The FBI is represented on the Central Committee of the American Communist Party, and at one point it even appointed its security chief. It has been estimated that the FBI, through the dues paid by its agents, is the most important single contributor to the Communist Party in the United States.
Hoover's attitude is based more on morality than on politics. When US News and World Report asked him, "Some people say that the Communist Party cannot possibly represent a danger for the United States," he replied, "Emphatically, 'No.' Members of the Communist Party, USA are active participants in the international criminal conspiracy which is totally alien to our way of life and completely dedicated to enslaving the world." He was thus expressing the point of view not of the government he was supposed to represent, but of the anti-Kennedy faction. Hoover's extremism, his puritanism and his technical competence had the effect of placing, in a passive way at least, the efficient machinery of the FBI at its disposal.
Hoover is a perfectionist as far as the efficiency and the quality of his employees are concerned. The FBI recruits highly-qualified men and women whose integrity is above reproach. Carefully screened before they are hired, they are well-paid⁽²⁴⁾ and thoroughly trained. Each is a specialist, and his responsibilities are narrowly defined and rigorously supervised. The autonomy of an FBI man is strictly limited, even in technical areas. When the principal objective is security or secrecy, each subordinate must control all of the details in his area or activity, and each supervisor must control all of his subordinates. The FBI encourages its employees to inform on one another not only for professional misconduct, but also for deviations from the exemplary moral standards to which every member of the bureau is expected to adhere.⁽²⁵⁾ FBI employees are bound by a multitude of rules and regulations, some of which even concern their mode of dress. If he wants to stay on the good side of the Director, the well-dressed G-man must wear a dark suit, a shirt with French cuffs, and a handkerchief in his pocket.⁽²⁶⁾
The FBI hierarchy is strictly observed. FBI agents are totally subordinated to their superiors, and through them to the Director. Carlos Marcello, one of the leaders of the Confederation of Crime, was arrested in New Orleans on September 22, 1966 and charged with striking a federal agent, Patrick J. Collins, Jr. Marcello declared that he could hardly have known that Collins was an FBI agent, since he was in shirtsleeves.⁽²⁷⁾ Such a violation of bureau regulations could only have been committed with the knowledge of the hierarchy. Even J. Edgar Hoover is capable of making an exception to the rules if there is sufficient justification. There have been other slip-ups. A crime is a federal offense for the FBI only when the Director deems it such. The FBI only intervenes in the affairs of the local police when they do not share the Director's views about "Communists" and "degenerates."
Does the honorable Mr. Hoover, we wonder, ever adorn his French cuffs with the cuff links that his Attorney General in the Kennedy years, another man with an eye for detail, gave him one year for Christmas -- simple gold cuff links inscribed with the Seal of Justice?

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