 |
The United States government collaborated with the Italian Mafia during World War II and afterwards on several occasions.
| |
The United States government collaborated with the Italian Mafia during World War II and afterwards on several occasions.
During the early days of World War II, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence suspected that Italian and German agents were entering the United States through New York, and that these facilities were susceptible to sabotage. The loss of SS Normandie in February 1942, especially, raised fears and suspicions in the Navy about possible sabotage in the Eastern ports. A Navy Intelligence Unit, B3, assigned more than a hundred agents to investigate possible Benito Mussolini supporters within the predominantly Italian-American fisherman and dockworker population on the waterfront. Their efforts were fruitless, as the dockworkers and fishermen in the Italian Mafia-controlled waterfront were tight-lipped and distant to strangers. [1] The Navy contacted Meyer Lansky, a known associate of Salvatore C. Luciano and one of the top non-Italian associates of the Mafia, [2] about a deal with the Mafia boss Luciano. Luciano, also known as Lucky Luciano, was one of the highest-ranking Mafia both in Italy and the US and was serving a 30 to 50 years sentence for compulsory prostitution in the Clinton Prison. [3] To facilitate the negotiations, the State of New York moved Luciano from the Clinton prison to Great Meadow Correctional Facility, which is much closer to New York City. [4] [5]
The State of New York, Luciano and the Navy struck a deal in which Luciano guaranteed full assistance of his organization in providing intelligence to the Navy. In addition, Luciano associate Albert Anastasia—who controlled the docks and ran Murder, Inc.—allegedly guaranteed no dockworker strikes throughout the war. In return, the State of New York agreed to commute Luciano's sentence. [6] Luciano's actual influence is uncertain, but the authorities did note that the dockworker strikes stopped after the deal was reached with Luciano. [7]
In the summer of 1945, Luciano petitioned the State of New York for executive clemency, citing his assistance to the Navy. Naval authorities, embarrassed that they had to recruit organized-crime to help in their war effort, declined to confirm Luciano's claim. However, the Manhattan District Attorney's office validated the facts and the state parole board unanimously agreed to recommend to the governor that Luciano be released and deported immediately. [8] On January 4, 1946, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the former prosecutor who placed Luciano into prison, commuted Lucky Luciano's sentence on the condition that he did not resist deportation to Italy. [9] Dewey stated, “Upon the entry of the United States into the war, Luciano’s aid was sought by the Armed Services in inducing others to provide information concerning possible enemy attack. It appears that he cooperated in such effort, although the actual value of the information procured is not clear.” [10] [7] Luciano was deported to his homeland Italy on February 9, 1946. [11] There was a media hype of Luciano's role after his deportation. The syndicated columnist and radio broadcaster Walter Winchell even reported in 1947 that Luciano would receive the Medal of Honor for his secret services. [12]
Italian Americans were very helpful in the planning and execution of the invasion of Sicily. The Mafia was involved in assisting the U.S. war efforts. [13] Luciano's associates found numerous Sicilians to help the Naval Intelligence draw maps of the harbors of Sicily and dig up old snapshots of the coastline. [14] [15] Vito Genovese, another Mafia boss, offered his services to the U.S. Army and became an interpreter and advisor to the U.S. Army military government in Naples. He quickly became one of AMGOT’s most trusted employees. [16] Through the Navy Intelligence’s Mafia contacts from Operation Underworld, the names of Sicilian underworld personalities and friendly Sicilian natives who could be trusted were obtained and actually used in the Sicilian campaign. [17]
The Joint Staff Planners (JSP) for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted a report titled Special Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in Sicily that recommended the “Establishment of contact and communications with the leaders of separatist nuclei, disaffected workers, and clandestine radical groups, e.g., the Mafia, and giving them every possible aid.” The report was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington on April 15, 1943. [18]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2018) |
There was considerable public controversy during the late days of the war and afterwards surrounding the connection between the U.S. Government and the Mafia. [19] [20] In 1953, Governor Dewey, pushed by allegations that he sold Luciano his pardon, ordered a confidential investigation by the state's commissioner of investigation, William Herlands. Herlands released his 2,600-page report in 1954, which offered proof of Luciano's involvement with the Navy without finding any wrongdoing by Dewey. [21] Naval officials reviewed the report and requested Dewey to not release it on the grounds that it would be a public-relations disaster for the Navy and it might damage future similar war efforts. Dewey agreed, and the report was not released until after his death in the mid-1970s. [20] [22]
Notable scholars of the topic such as Selwyn Raab and Tim Newark have questioned the effectiveness of the Mafia in their help during Operation Husky. [23] [24] Raab states that Luciano could not have helped during the invasion of Sicily, as he was out of touch with the Sicilian Mafia, and neither he nor the Cosa Nostra had any significant contribution to the Allied victory in Sicily. On the other hand, another scholar on the topic, Ezio Costanzo, alleges that Congressman Horan revealed that Luciano was visited 11 times by Naval Intelligence officers throughout his sentence. [25] In addition, Costanzo states that Commander Haffenden of Naval Intelligence Section F (foreign intelligence) stated in numerous reports how his men were interviewing many native-born Italians and that they were cooperating because of Luciano. [26]
Charles "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points Gang and was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for the establishment of the Commission in 1931, after he abolished the boss of bosses title held by Salvatore Maranzano following the Castellammarese War. He was also the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family.
The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia that took place in New York City, New York, from February 26, 1930 until April 15, 1931, between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. The war was named after the Sicilian town of Castellammare del Golfo, the birthplace of Maranzano. Maranzano's faction won and divided New York's crime families into the Five Families; Maranzano declared himself capo di tutti i capi. However, Maranzano was murdered in September 1931 on orders of Lucky Luciano, who established a power-sharing arrangement called the Commission, a group of Mafia families of equal stature, to avoid such wars in the future.
The Havana Conference of 1946 was a historic meeting of United States Mafia and Cosa Nostra leaders in Havana, Cuba. Supposedly arranged by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the conference was held to discuss important mob policies, rules, and business interests. The Havana Conference was attended by delegations representing crime families throughout the United States. The conference was held during the week of December 22, 1946, at the Hotel Nacional. The Havana Conference is considered to have been the most important mob summit since the Atlantic City Conference of 1929. Decisions made in Havana resonated throughout US crime families during the ensuing decades.
Carmine Galante was an American Mafioso who was acting boss (unofficial) of the Bonanno crime family of New York City. Galante was rarely seen without a cigar hanging from his mouth, leading to the nickname "The Cigar" and "Lilo". He was assassinated on Commission orders in 1979 while dining in a restaurant.
The Apalachin meeting was a historic summit of the American Mafia held at the home of mobster Joseph "Joe the Barber" Barbara, at 625 McFall Road in Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957. Allegedly, the meeting was held to discuss various topics including loansharking, narcotics trafficking, and gambling, along with dividing the illegal operations controlled by the recently murdered Albert Anastasia. An estimated 100 Mafiosi from the United States, Italy, and Cuba are thought to have attended this meeting. Immediately after the Anastasia murder that October, and after taking control of the Luciano crime family from Frank Costello, Vito Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting.
The Five Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War.
Thomas Gaetano Lucchese, sometimes known by the nicknames "Tommy", "Thomas Luckese", "Tommy Brown" or "Tommy Three-Finger Brown" was an Italian-American gangster and founding member of the Mafia in the United States, an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. From 1951 until 1967, he was the boss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the Five Families that dominate organized crime in New York City.
A Mustache Pete is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who came to the United States as an adult in the early 20th century.
Calogero "Don Calò" Vizzini was a Sicilian Mafia boss of Villalba in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. He was considered to be one of the most influential and legendary Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954. In the media, he was often depicted as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of Cosa Nostra.
A series of meetings between Sicilian Mafia and American Mafia members were allegedly held at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily, between October 12–16, 1957. Also called the 1957 Palermo Mafia summit, the summit discussed the international illegal heroin trade in the French Connection. The FBI believed it was this meeting that established the Bonanno crime family in the heroin trade.
The New Orleans crime family or New Orleans Mafia was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in the city of New Orleans that had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century. These activities included racketeering, loan sharking, murder, etc. The New Orleans Crime family reached its height of influence under bosses Silvestro Carollo and Carlos Marcello. However, a series of setbacks during the late 20th century reduced the organizations power and local law enforcement as well as the FBI deconstructed what remained of the crime family.
The Commission is the governing body of the American Mafia, formed in 1931 by Charles "Lucky" Luciano following the Castellammarese War. The Commission replaced the title of capo di tutti i capi, held by Salvatore Maranzano before his murder, with a ruling committee that consists of the bosses of the Five Families of New York City, as well as the bosses of the Chicago Outfit and, at various times, the leaders of smaller families, such as Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit, and others. The purpose of the Commission was to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and serve to mediate conflicts among families.
Operation Underworld was the United States government's code name for its co-operation with the Italian-American Mafia and Jewish organized-crime figures from 1942 to 1945. The operation aimed to counter Axis spies and saboteurs along the U.S. northeastern seaboard ports, to avoid wartime labor-union strikes, and to limit theft by black marketeers of vital war supplies and equipment.
Nicola Gentile, also known as Nick Gentile, was a Sicilian mafioso and an organized crime figure in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also known for publishing his memoirs which, violating the mafiosi code known as omerta, revealed many details of the Sicilian and American underworld. Gentile was born in Siculiana, a small village on the south coast of Sicily in the province of Agrigento. He immigrated to the United States arriving in New York at age 18, in 1903. Gentile fled the country in 1937 while out on $15,000 bail after an arrest for heroin trafficking and returned to Sicily to become a boss in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. In the US, he was known as "Nick" and in Sicily as "Zu Cola".
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group.
Santo Sorge was a Sicilian Mafioso living in the United States. His exact role has never been very clear; he was one of the great 'unknowns' of the Sicilian and American Mafia. He was one of the highest-level Sicilian Mafia leaders in his time. His counsel was sought in important decisions affecting the American Mafia as well. He traveled extensively between Italy and the United States.
Lucky Luciano is a 1973 Italian/French/US international co-production crime film about the Sicilian-American gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano, played by Gian Maria Volonté. It is directed by Francesco Rosi, and written by Rosi, Tonino Guerra, Lino Iannuzzi, and Jerome Chodorov. The cast also stars Rod Steiger, Vincent Gardenia, Charles Cioffi, and Edmond O'Brien. Charles Siragusa, the real-life federal narcotics agent who pursued Luciano, plays himself in the film and also served as technical consultant. The film is a French and Italian co-production, filmed on-location in Italy and New York City.
The Sicilian Mafia was less active during the era of Fascist Italy and it was fought by Benito Mussolini's government. In June 1924, Mussolini instructed Cesare Mori to eradicate the Mafia from Sicily and on October 25, 1925, appointed Mori prefect of the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
Umberto "Albert" Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, he eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family.
