Animal (10 page)

Kennedy had the power he needed, at least in his mind, to take the Mafia down once and for all.
FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover had been reluctantly dragged into the fight by Kennedy, and by the mere fact that Hoover could no longer sell his idea that the Mafia did not exist. “No single individual or coalition of racketeers dominates organized crime across the country,” Hoover had long claimed. But while the director had his agents searching for communist sympathizers under the beds of virtually every home in America, Mafia leaders were tightening their grip on labor unions, the construction and garment industries, and of course gambling, prostitution, and racketeering. Hoover could deny reality no longer, thanks to the sharp eye of New York State Police sergeant Edgar L. Croswell, who, on November 14, 1957, noticed a fleet of black cars driving in a convoy through the small town of Appalachin. Croswell had a good idea where the convoy was headed. Joseph Barbara, a shadowy figure who had been arrested twice for murder, had purchased a fifty-three-acre estate in the small village cradling the Susquehanna River. Croswell decided to set up a roadblock and called for three local deputies
for backup. When word traveled to Joseph Barbara’s home, the gathered Mafiosi scrambled to escape, fleeing through the woods or in their cars. Edgar Croswell and his men were able to identify sixty-three men with ties to organized crime, including heavy hitters like Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, and Joseph Profaci. Despite hard evidence of the existence of organized crime, it would take J. Edgar Hoover another four years to face this major problem head on.

In a memo sent out to all special agents in charge of field offices around the country on March 1, 1961, the
FBI
dictated that,

through well-placed informants we must infiltrate organized crime groups to the same degree that we have been able to penetrate the Communist Party and other subversive organizations. Today the press, television and radio along with the express interests of the Administration keep this phase of criminal activity in a position of prominence in the public eye. Certainly we cannot relax even momentarily our efforts in combating the criminal underworld including the prosecution of Top Hoodlums. The foundation from which we forge our attack must be kept strong and fresh with a full flow of information from well placed informants. All agents in conducting investigations of criminal matters should be constantly alert for the development of new informants and new potential informants who may be in a position to assist us.
¹⁵

J. Edgar Hoover supplied words, but what Bobby Kennedy wanted was action. A month after the memo was issued, the attorney general called a meeting in his office with his deputies, along with his friend and longtime mob investigator Walter Sheridan, and Edward Silberling, head of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Kennedy paced back and forth across the room angrily demanding that more needed to be done to put mob leaders like Raymond Patriarca and others behind bars. Kennedy’s deputy attorney general, Byron White, a future justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, pleaded with his boss for a more methodical approach and warned against acting too quickly without enough information. Upon hearing this Kennedy hit the roof. He blasted his team and demanded that they be more aggressive on organized crime. The attorney general threatened his staffers that they had
one month to produce results or else he would take other action to get the job done.

Bobby Kennedy’s staff no doubt leaned heavily on the
FBI
, which finally inaugurated its Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program on June 21, 1961. The Federal Bureau of Investigation outlined the program as follows: “Criminal Informants—Criminal Intelligence Program: It is now urgently necessary to develop particularly qualified, live sources within the upper echelon of the organized Hoodlum element who will be capable of furnishing the quality information required.”

FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover also pointed out that the “most significant information developed to date indicates organization among the nation’s hoodlum leaders.” Hoover claimed that this information had been obtained from highly confidential sources in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Newark, New Jersey. The intelligence also suggested that a nine-or twelve-member commission controlled all major criminal activities in the United States. The memo listed several alleged Mafia bosses, including Vito Genovese, Thomas Luchese, Carlo Gambino, Joseph Bonnano, Joseph Profaci, and Sam Giancana. In addition, the memo named Raymond Patriarca as “Top Boston Hoodlum,” and identified Joseph Zerilli, John LaRocca, Steve Magaddino, Joseph Ida, and Angelo Bruno as the bosses of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Newark, and Philadelphia, respectively. The feds had also determined (according to a New York source) that Carlo Gambino was the current head of the commission, a position he occupied while Vito Genovese remained in prison. Sources called commission members
avugat
, which is short for the Italian word
avvocato
, which means “lawyer.”

The
FBI
memo broke down the Mafia hierarchy identifying the boss and underbosses of small cities, while large cities like New York had as many as six
Caporegimes
, or lieutenants. The Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program stressed quality criminal informants above all else, and that the program be implemented immediately and greatly expanded. The program also outlined likely personal reasons for informants to turn against the mob, which included concern over possible prosecution of children, wives, or girlfriends, or relief from pressure being exerted by associates or rivals. The feds wanted their agents to identify a gangster’s pain points and do their best to exploit them. The program also stressed
the need to protect those who did come forward. “You should ensure that no dissemination is made of information obtained from such sources unless informant is fully protected,” the
FBI
memo urged agents.

With more than a subtle nudge from Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department, the
FBI
finally appeared ready to take a “gloves off” approach to organized crime. The memo went on to read: This program presents a definite new challenge to the field which to be met calls for new and untried methods and situations may arise which will be evaluated by the Bureau based upon the realization of the need for unusual and extreme methods.

The bureau instructed all offices to designate a squad of special agents to participate in the program. According to the memo, those agents must have demonstrated ability in the field, be mature, aggressive, and resourceful, and possess a keen knowledge of criminal activities in their area. How should a special agent approach a possible mob informant? The bureau suggested that its men conduct background checks of known mob associates that included marital and sexual status, hobbies, and financial affairs. The bureau also would authorize substantial remuneration for informants who provided information on hoodlums of national stature. Another lever worth pulling, according to the memo, was identifying and cultivating compromising positions. “Threats of prosecution and deportation could be one of the most effective methods used against older top echelon hoodlums,” the directive stated. In the nine-page
FBI
memo outlining its Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program, the words “quality criminal intelligence informants” were underlined six times to stress their significance. The battle had now been joined, and the
FBI
was willing to match methods used by an enemy that did not play by the rules.

With the
FBI’S
new program came new power. Later in 1961, and at the urging of U.S. attorney general Kennedy, Congress passed the Interstate Travel in Aid of Racketeering Statute (
ITAR
), which shifted many of the mob’s criminal enterprises, such as gambling and extortion, under the jurisdiction of the
FBI
.

While efforts to develop Mafia turncoats were ongoing, the
FBI
hit pay dirt in March of 1962, when agents first installed electronic microphone surveillance inside Raymond Patriarca’s office at the Coin-O-Matic Distributing Company at 168 Atwells Avenue in Providence. The operation was conducted under the supervision of
FBI
special agent John Kehoe, Jr.,
out of the bureau’s Boston office. Logs and tape recordings of conversations inside Patriarca’s office were hand delivered each day to Kehoe, who would dissect and break down the information. Kehoe was employing a practice that had first been used by the
FBI’S
Intelligence Division to hunt communists in the late 1950s. Under the cover of national security, Hoover’s men broke into the homes and businesses of suspected Soviet sympathizers to tap telephones and plant listening devices, which they monitored from safe houses nearby. Electronic surveillance—or
ELSUR
—could very well have been deemed illegal by civil libertarians. The feds called the practice “extralegal.” Still, agents deployed on the bugging jobs were ordered to leave their
FBI
badges and other identification at home. If they happened to get picked up by local police, the
FBI
would invoke plausible deniability of the agents’ activities.

Questions of law were of little concern for J. Edgar Hoover. Despite his initial reluctance to take on the mob, or even confirm its very existence, Hoover was downright giddy over the prospect of destroying the New England Mafia through Raymond Patriarca’s own words. Hoover quickly shot off a memo to the special agent in charge (
SAC
) of the Boston office, praising him for “the wealth of worthwhile information” obtained through the use of the hidden microphone and authorizing the Boston
SAC
“to give immediate consideration to submitting recommendations for incentive awards and commendations for the (
FBI
) personnel responsible for the success of this matter.” The
FBI
director sent another memo just two months later, authorizing that the wiretapping of Patriarca’s office be extended for another four months, because it “has shown that Patriarca exerts real control over the racketeers and racketeering activities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.” Hoover went on to state that the
FBI’S
gypsy wire provided further evidence to strongly suggest that Patriarca was a member of the commission, the Mafia’s governing body. All memos were kept confidential, as Hoover and the
FBI
made a concerted effort, at least publicly, to ascribe the successful collection of information about Patriarca to a human source. The feds had even given the Patriarca wiretap its own informant identification number—
BS
837
C
*.

Because of his distrust of Director J. Edgar Hoover, Bobby Kennedy made sure the
FBI
was not the only law enforcement agency targeting Patriarca. The
IRS
and U.S. marshals were also keeping a close eye on the
Man. The marshals had set up shop in a two-story apartment building across the street from Patriarca’s office. They took countless rolls of film of the comings and goings of various Mafia soldiers and mob associates. Most of the gangsters drove cars with borrowed license plates. Marshals would then track down the real owners of the plates and lean on them for information regarding their underworld friends. The operation worked for a while, until one of Patriarca’s spotters looked up at the building and noticed the sun reflecting from a camera lens. The gangsters charged into the building, only to be met by the shiny badges of the U.S. Marshals Service. A young marshal named John Partington got the opportunity to meet Raymond Patriarca face to face while serving him a subpoena. Partington, who would later play a major role in Joe Barboza’s life, was at that time an army veteran and former police patrolman in his hometown of Cumberland, Rhode Island, who had been working for the U.S. Marshals Service for only a short time. In his 2010 memoir,
The Mob and Me
, Partington described the 1962 meeting with Patriarca: “No sooner had I crossed the doorstep than two “made men” intercepted me,” he wrote. “Raymond Patriarca was eating a slice of pizza and peered around the corner to see who the intruder was. As I reached for my badge inside my coat pocket, Patriarca dove back into his office, dropping the pizza on the floor. His bodyguards pinned me against the wall. They thought I was going to assassinate him.”
¹⁶

Partington quickly identified himself as one of the bodyguards checked his identification. The Mafia boss then emerged from the back room and accepted the subpoena with great disdain.

“Anytime you want me, kid, I’m here,” Patriarca told Partington. “Don’t ever go to my house on Lancaster Street since I don’t want my wife upset,
capise
?”
¹⁷

At this point, Partington had no idea that the
FBI
had bugged Patriarca’s office. After Partington’s visit, Patriarca was captured on tape complaining to his attorney. “A goddamned boy scout just left after serving me papers,” he shouted into the telephone.

Patriarca had always been conscious of the overwhelming burden his reputation had brought on his family. He had once sued the
Providence Journal-Bulletin
for libel, and had even gone to the lengths of paying for a large advertisement to criticize the newspaper’s coverage of him.

Since my release from prison in 1944 after completion of a sentence for a crime committed in 1938 when I was thirty years of age, my time has been continuously and assiduously employed in honest endeavors. The tranquility of my family has many times and oft been rudely disturbed by the rehashing of my criminal record in your news columns. I, more than you, deplore that record. How bitterly I realize the truth of a great poet’s words: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred in their bones.” Your newspapers seem to take a fiendish delight in their unwarranted and unjustifiable characterizations of me … what can I, with my criminal record expect from a newspaper which often has paraded in its obituary columns the peccadilloes of many former decent Rhode Island citizens.
¹⁸