Organizing the crime of our time Although organized crime has played a major role in our popular culture—in fiction, non-fiction and film—it’s been given short shrift by historians; especially academic ones. However, I would argue that few forces had more influence on our lives in the last half of the twentieth century. The mob’s corruption of unions—both national and local—crippled the labor movement. Their canny development of Las Vegas has helped spread gambling to the rest of America. And in 1963, they staged their own violent coup against the first presidential administration that seriously threatened to curtail their power. For most of us, it’s hard to conceive of mobsters fundamentally changing the course of our nation’s history. When this possibility was first considered by the Warren Commission—and then dismissed—it was thought that only a nationwide “syndicate” of crime leaders could have pulled off something so audacious. But in fact, the three masterminds behind the assassination were more like independent Japanese warlords. They answered to no one and each reigned supreme over a distinct region—albeit one had a region that extended across half the country. They were far from household names or the warring east coast families that garnered much of the press coverage in those days. But each was in the sights of Bobby Kennedy’s justice department and each had a compelling reason to act in 1963. Each had also gained tremendous political insight over the course of a decades-long tenure as mob boss. Their relationship with local elected officials went beyond bribery. In some cases, they recruited them, helped get them elected, and sustained them with campaign contributions or covert cash. Their influence went from state office-holders and legislative leaders to judges and even down to the lowest-level ward heeler. Some conspiracy deniers say it’s ridiculous to think that crime leaders would risk virtual annihilation by putting a hit on the highest officeholder in the land. But I would argue that their intimate knowledge of politicians gave them the confidence to proceed. All they had to do was groom Lee Harvey Oswald with the sort of international intrigue that would make any talk of conspiracy radioactive. You may ask how a mob boss could come up with the ingredients for that intrigue. Ironically, it was supplied by the government, as I’ll explain in a later post. https://kickstarter/projects/379377956/assassination-theater
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 03:32:58 +0000