Newspaper Page Text
■What’s behind gangland murders
Ilf| (EDITOR S NOTE: Leslie
|||j Waller has been a close
■ observer of organized
■■ crime for many years. He
g||a is the author of a number
books, including the
ggß best seller. "The Family."
neuest - "The Swiss
■■ Connection." a nonfiction
Sa study of Swiss banking
organized crime, will
KM* be published in Septem-
SH| ber by New American Li
'Z®* brary.)
I 1 By LESLIE WALLER
H NEW YORK — ( NEA i —
Mafia is alive and well.
m>ven though a lot of its
ijMiienibers have been getting
Shot to death lately.
n The current East Coast
gMyendetta murders—with top
Joe (Crazy Joel
Enpallo heading the list of
Ww’orpses— has police and ci-
alike wondering
■what it all means for the fu
■■ ure of organized crime.
If something this compli
■Hpated and bloody can be
■■summed up in a word, the
is: growth.
UK Where the mob is con-
growing pains, usu
f.;mlly fatal, accompany any
||B najor change. The crime
||l syndicate is heading in a
direction, full st earn
and when a train
|gl ‘ounds a rough curve people
thrown off.
The billions in cash gener
*ted by the mob's criminal
ictivities —drugs, gambling,
I oansharking, fencing of
■ itolen goods and the like —
■ ire still being plowed back
PB. nt o legitimate businesses
are growing at a fan
■H'astic rate because of this
M’orce-feeding. But the bal-
IfHunce between legal and il
»®,egal enterprises is starting
HI .o shift rather dramatically.
■ f Two colorful new figures
the scene, even
■ .hough one is dead, one is
■ permanently crippled and
■ neither is the real behind
the-scenes leader of the se-
■ cret conflict.
The “front men" are the
in recently deceased Gallo and
||l Joseph A. Colombo Sr., who
|®was supposed to have died
assassination last June
IM 28. but miraculously sur-
with extensive brain
IH damage.
|H. Family feuds have some-
HI thing to do with the current
but the conflict
P|runs far deeper. Gallo and
|« Colombo symbolize basic,
contradictory trends in the
I future plans of organized
■ crime.
Colombo, with his bla
gß tantly all-white publicity ap
||B proach, spearheads one mob
I faction that seeks to keep
11 control of the lucrative her-
SB oin and numbers rackets in
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Mob has growing pains
I
1 Xi vl- / w I--' LI
. CARMINE
JOSEPH A. (THE SNAKE) ALBERT GALLO
COLOMBO SR PERSICO <” JOSEPH GALLO
(permonent federal (murdered, 1972) ■
i "” li<,) penitentiary)
Ir
fl * * I iph J
K *— Al
■h I > »
GIUSEPPE H \ JK 'V HH LAWRENCE
MAGLIOCCO V / > '«■ GALLO
(died in 1963) BM I IS (died of cancer,
■ Wv' /■ 19681
Mair 11 - - - ti 88 ''
I
Ik
i ■■K' / .t, " " a
ANTHONY
> JOSEPH STROLLO Z 7
PROFACI (disappeared in I
|a (died m 1962) 1961)
The Split Family Tree
. . . and the man behind it, Boss of Bosses Carlo Gambino.
black and Puerto Rican
ghetto areas.
Gallo, who hoped to
change his “image," repre
sented a faction that wants
to walk away from the so
cially obnoxious drug trade,
concentrate more on its le
gal holdings and become re
spected pillars of society.
To this end, Gallo planned
to elevate black, Puerto Ri
can and Chicano underlings
to management level, let
them pocket the immense
profits and take the unde
sirable publicity, too.
Moving with him, blacks
and Puerto Rican mobsters
have been pressuring their
all-white overbosses for a
heftier cut of the take . or
else. In Attica (N.Y.) State
Prison during 196.3, Gallo
worked closely with black in
mates. He later filed a court
suit charging he'd been pun
ished cruelly and unusually
for defending the rights of
blacks.
So, when a black assassin,
Jerome A. Johnson, was
used against Colombo last
summer, many read this as
Gallo’s personal signature.
But, although instant re
venge was predicted, the
Colombo faction has been
thrown into confusion
One delay was Colombo’s
physical condition. So iron
clad is mob discipline, and
so few the subordinates with
real leadership ability, that
no one wanted to make any
major decisions while there
was a chance Colombo could
stage a comeback from
death. Recently he has
grown stronger.
The second fact that held
bloody retribution in check
was the “double take-out”
plan of the Colombo kill.
This classic gambit involves
a “hit man” who is conned
into committing a public
murder by promises of full
protection.
Once he pulls the trigger,
a “take-out” man silences
the hit man forever, plead
ing self-defense or tempo
rary insanity as a motive.
In the Colombo caper, the
take-out man was one of the
victim’s own trusted body
guards. This confusedly
pointed away from Gallo to
ward the Boss of Bosses, 72-
year-old Carlo Gambino.
In the nine months it took
Colombo to regain enough
faculties to help solve the
dilemma, there has been no
dearth of gangland slayings.
On Sept. 19, 1971, James
(Jimmy Doyle) Plumeri,
leading member of the old
Luch e s e family, was
strangled. On March 2, 1972,
Vito Licata was killed and
Frank Giambone wounded.
In fact, police of the New
York-New Jersey area esti
mate that over the past two
years more than 30 Mafia
connected homicides have
taken place.
The first time the business
of organized crime jolted
this violently around a curve
of history was during Prohi
bition, when younger mob
sters were held in check by
the 18th-century Mafia ta
boos against drugs and al
liances with non-Sicilians.
But with the end of Prohibi
tion in sight, this major
source of profits seemed
about to disappear. Some
thing had to be done.
On the night of Sept 11.
1931, and for two days there
after, more than 40 old-time
Mafiosi, including Boss of
Bosses Salvatore Maranza
no, were rubbed out. Over
night the Mafia went from
18th to the 20th century
and made broad alliances
for handling drugs. This new
source of cash effectively re
placed alcohol when Repeal
came in 1933
In the 19505, with the mur
ders of high-ranking mob
sters like Willie Moretti and
Albert Anastasia and the
shooting of Frank Costello,
a brief war of geographic
jurisdiction flared up. But
the current wave of killings
reflects a deep-seated move
to win respectability by leav-
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ing drug profits to those who
will usurp them anyway, in
time.
The new direction of the
mob is now toward legiti
mate investments and enter
prises in the area of so
called victimless crimes —
gambling, stock market ma
nipulation, business and
bank fraud and the like.
The syndicate’s w e 11-
known use of Swiss banking
secrecy highlights the ex
tent to which many legal
businesses are owned, whol
ly or in part, openly or in
secret, by members of or
ganized crime.
Unreported cash moves by
courier to Switzerland from
the criminal and quasi-legal
activities of the mob. It re
turns to the United States as
anonymous Swiss bank
drafts to buy stocks and
bonds, make mortgage and
business loans and otherwise
grease an already well-oiled
legal business empire with
heavy interests in the fields
of real estate, construction,
trucking, clothing, food, re
tailing, entertainment, re
sorts and vending.
Although Securities and
Exchange Commission regu
lations require an investor
who controls more than 10
per cent of a corporation to
reveal his identity, many a
nameless Swiss account
holds up to 9.9 per cent of
the company. Other faceless
accounts own similarly dis
creet percentages.
When the real owners of
these accounts feel the time
is ripe, they reveal their in
terconnection and make
their control felt. Only then
does management realize
who actually owns the vari
ous 9.9 per cent chunks of
the corporation.
But such business chican
ery goes only so far in ex
plaining the present blood
bath. Key mob figures are
eliminated for business rea
sons, but once this happens
the family-vendetta concept
of manliness is challenged
and murders are then com
mitted to regain respect.
Since this kind of killing
is even more irrational than
Page 17
Two arrested
in theft try
Sheriff’s deputies arrested
two men and were looking for a
third in connection with the
break-in at Griffin Academy
here last night about 11 o’clock.
Arrested were Jerry Stowe,
24, of Route 2, Dobbins Mill
road; and Jackie Parker, 29, of
Route 2, Searcy avenue.
Deputies Tommy Whaley and
Albert Busbee on patrol spotted
the two they said were at
tempting a break-in. They said
Parker was caught outside the
building and Stowe was
arrested a little later.
Bloodhounds were brought
here from the Diagnostic and
Classification Center at
Jackson to try to pick up the
trail of a third suspect. The men
were attempting to break into a
soft drink box.
School officials said no money
is kept in the building.
business rub-outs, it is hard
er for authorities to predict
how far it can go before the
traditional Mafia outsider is
brought in to mediate. The
last time this was necessary
was in 1961 when the Gallos
rebelled within the Profaci
family, now controlled by
Colombo, and started an in
ternal war. Top Boston Maf
ioso Raymond Petriarcha
was supposedly called in to
settle this jurisdictional dis
pute.
Whatever the next few
months hold in store for in
dividual members of the two
families, there is no doubt
what lies ahead for organ
ized crime. Whoever else
dies, the trend is now zeroed
in on legitimizing the secret
army of publicity-shy mob
sters who crave respectabil
ity as much as they crave
power. Their children, grad
uates of good colleges, often
have no idea where the fam
ily money comes from. And
their fathers want to keep it
that way.
Public figures like the Gal
los and Colombos come and
go. They create headlines,
rivet our attention and mis
direct the energies of law en
forcement agencies. But the
secret army remains as an
onymous as its Swiss bank
accounts.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.I
— Griffin Daily News Thursday, April 27, 1972
I Barnesville
| will lose
| rail depot
g: The railroad depot at £
g Barnesville is scheduled
® to be removed. £
The Barnesville News-
£ Gazette reported this £
K week that George Otis
£ Roberts, who has some of :$
S his antiques located at the
station, has been notified
that the Southern Rail- £
£ road plans to remove it £
from the right of way as £
£ soon as he vacates it on £
July 29. £
£ “Barnesville citizens £
are quite concerned to £
£ think of Barnesville £
£ without the Depot £
£ Station,” the News- i-j
--£ Gazette said. “Mr. £
£ Roberts has met with the £
£ City Council to see if there £
£ was anything that could £:
£be done. This is one of the £
£ old landmarks and £
£ suggested as a City £
£ Museum, since the build- £
£ ing cannot be sold.”
Carter makes plea
WASHINGTON (UPI) - Gov. Jimmy Carter has called
for local planning groups to have broad authority to
coordinate federal economic development activities in
their areas.
Carter testified Wednesday before the subcommittee of
the U. S. Senate Public Works Committee, and offered two
amendments to a bill under consideration that would set
up a national system of regional development
commissions.
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Mr. Lummus dies
Mr. Charlie Grover Lummus,
86, died early this morning at
Westbury Medical Care Center
in Jenkinsburg. He had been a
patient for several years.
Mr. Lummus was a former
resident of Jackson. He was a
retired farmer and a member of
the Macedonia Baptist Church.
Survivors include three
sisters, Mrs. Troy Hardy of
Gray, Mrs. J. E. Bond and Mrs.
Carl McMichael, both of
Jackson.
Funeral services will be
conducted Friday afternoon at 2
o’clock in Haisten’s chapel in
Jackson. The Rev. R. W.
Jenkins will officiate and burial
will be in the Cedar Rock
cemetery. Haisten Funeral
Home of Jackson is in charge of
plans.
Wyoming’s
nickname
Wyoming is nicknamed the
“Equality State” because it
gave wopien the right to vote
in 1869, one year after it was
organized as a territory and
51 years before women could
vote generally in the United
States.