J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (89 page)

After that, no one again referred to FBI agents on overhears as Boy Scouts.

But the Mafiosi didn’t blame FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who had left them alone for so many years. They were sure that he was only a reluctant warrior, acting on the orders of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Hoover, however, did not go undiscussed on the tapes. The Philadelphia agents probably thought long and hard before deciding whether to send the transcription of one ELSUR to SOG. It consisted of a conversation between Angelo Bruno, capo of the Philadelphia family and a commission member, and one of the Maggio brothers, who was an associate and in-law:

Maggio: “Kennedy is going to leave, they are going to make him a special assistant…They want him out of the way, he is too much, he is starting to hurt too many people, like unions. He is not only hurting the racket guys, but others, anti-trust…But the only reason he won’t leave, which I heard before, you see he wants Edgar Hoover out of that.”

Bruno: “Edgar Hoover.”

Maggio: “He wants Edgar Hoover out of the FBI because he is a fairy. I heard this before…Listen to this. Edgar Hoover is not married and neither is his assistant, read back in his history.”
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But they talked even more about the expletive-deleted Kennedys, and as time passed the remarks grew increasingly venomous.

On May 10, 1963, J. Edgar Hoover celebrated his fortieth anniversary as director of the FBI.

Later that same month, on a Friday afternoon, the FBI gave the Justice Department a single copy of its two-volume report on “skimming” in Las Vegas casinos, the result of an intensive, eighteen-month-long investigation, most of it conducted through electronic means, although Nevada law prohibited both wiretapping and bugging.

Only three people in the Justice Department saw the report: William Hundley, who headed the Organized Crime Section; his assistant, Henry Peterson; and the investigator Jack Miller, who took the report home with him to read over the weekend. Robert Kennedy did not see it.

By Tuesday, the mob had a verbatim copy of the report, as the FBI learned from its electronic surveillances.

Hoover angrily charged the Justice Department with loose security and implied that one of the three men was responsible. However, there were other possibilities. Hundley suspected that the FBI had learned that some of their bugs had been discovered, only days earlier, and that “they turned the report over to us so we would be the fall guys.”
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But others had another theory, pointing out that FBI reports had fallen into the hands of organized crime figures long before Kennedy’s men arrived at Justice. There was a rumor, often heard in the underworld, that Meyer Lansky had his own man very high up in the FBI. William Sullivan had his own suspect, someone close to both the
director and Tolson, who was reputedly living far above his means.

This was one case the FBI never solved. When Sullivan left the Bureau, in 1971, the leaks were still going on.

There was still another dimension to the Las Vegas skimming report: anyone reading it had to realize that microphones had been used. Quite possibly Hoover, in turning it over to the Justice Department in its raw form, intended to further entrap Robert Kennedy. Kennedy later claimed, “That was the first and only time I found out about FBI bugging when I was Attorney General, and I had the FBI stop right away.” To make sure they complied with his prohibition, the attorney general had Nicholas Katzenbach ask Courtney Evans, “Am I absolutely assured that this is stopped?” and Courtney responded, “Yes, it’s been stopped.”
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The FBI did stop the bugging, Katzenbach much later learned, but only in Las Vegas, where the casino operators filed suits against the government.

In September 1963 the Justice Department informant Joseph Valachi “surfaced” during the televised hearings of Senator McClellan’s permanent investigating committee. A
soldato
in the Vito Genovese crime family who was serving time in the Atlanta federal penitentiary for heroin trafficking, Valachi had turned informant in June 1962 and his turnabout been kept secret from all but a few persons in law enforcement, but the mob had known—from at least the spring of 1963—that he was “blabbing to the Feds.”
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Valachi provided an astonishing amount of information for a lowly foot soldier, but almost all of it, and much more, was already known to the FBI from its electronic surveillances. Hoover’s chief concern with Valachi was publicity: the director wanted the FBI, rather than the Justice Department, to get the credit.

To accomplish this he tried making an end run around the attorney general. As the Justice Department’s press secretary, Ed Guthman had to approve all articles and statements before their release, including those of J. Edgar Hoover’s ghostwriters. Well aware of the FBI director’s tricks, Guthman had learned to read, and consider, every word.

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!
”
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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!”
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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).
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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!”
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That same day FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover met for the last time with President John F. Kennedy. 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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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