January 7, 2025 • 43 mins
Are you curious about the history of the American mafia and its role in politics? The mafia met its first serious external threat to its existence when U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy decided to take on the mafia with a vow to eradicate organized crime in America. Lou Ferrante, a former heist expert and Gambino crime family mobster, joined us to detail how the mafia came into conflict with the American political elite!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All right, thanks very much, Dan Watkins. As we move
into the ten o'clock hour, we have a guest who
have I talked with before and I'm really looking forward
to talking with him again. My guest tonight is lou
Ferrante Lewis. Welcome back to Night's Side. How are you hi?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm bored. Good Dan, I hope you're will too and
happy new yet are you? And your listeners?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Right back at you, my friend. Now, you have written,
First of all, you've written a trilogy of books, or
you're writing a trilogy of books. And this book that
we're going to talk about tonight is the second part
of the trilogy. Correct, that's correct, okay. And it is
about the time frame of nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's also right, Yeah, about nineteen eighty I cut it
at and it'll pick up nineteen eighty for the third
volume to eighty about twenty ath period.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Okay, sixty to eighty. Okay. Now, let's re establish you
and your your position and your expertise and your inside knowledge.
You remember you remember the Gambino crime family.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, I was. I was actually an associate who was
about to become an initiated member when I went to
prison and faced life in prison.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, okay, So so you did not go through the ceremony,
but you were on the cusp of it. And I
think that you told me that you got arrested. If
I recall in San Francisco, you had you had a
a an activity in San Francisco that that got interrupted
by the authorities.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, well, that was one of the counts on the indictment.
It was it was a Hobbs Act, which is like
a WEEKO indictment.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You're very familiar with the Hobbs Act.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
There's a lot of politicians who get hooked at the
Hobbs Act, and a lot of cops would get hooked
on the Hobbs Act because they're right, they're functioning under
the color of the badge or the color of their title.
How did you get hooked on the Hobbs Act? How
did that? How did that work in your case?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I guess it was probably based on interstate commerce and
it was a racketeering conspiracy because there was a number
of four defendants on the indictment with me, it was
a Rico case. And and one of the overt acts
in the Rico case was we we flew out the
samp We did a lot of heights and hijackings at
the time, and at one point we flew out to
San Francisco. We had a tip on a Loomis armored
(02:37):
car and uh, you know, we shipped our guns and
and uh all the accouterments I should say for the
best way to say it, for for an armored paw
heist in Uh, back then, we shipped it just ups.
It was the pre nine to eleven days. We just
put it in the box, shipped the ups to where
we were going, and then flew down there under bogey names.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
When we got down there the day before we were
going to hit the armored car, the fed swarm the
hotel where we were staying and brought us in. So
that was the conspiracy to knock off that armored car
was one of the over at acts in the indictment.
But there were a number of pisces and hijackings other ones.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The people, the people who whacked Roger Wheeler out of Boston,
they did the same thing. They shipped everything down. Yeah,
pulled over in Tennessee or somewhere by by the local
police and have us right some munitions or weapons in
your vehicle. So did you know when when that happened,
(03:36):
that your life had changed dramatically.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
No, I was still mobbed up in my mind. So
I'm you know, I said, I'm never gonna rat. However
long I have to do, I'll do. I faced the
rest of my life in prison. I was eventually indicted
three different times, once by the FBI, another time by
the Secret Service, and another time by the Nassau County
Organized Crime Task Force, which New York sort of like
(04:01):
state slash mob a slate state slash federal task force
looking into mob activities. So we were indicted, me and
my co defend into a number of times.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Me to double jeopard kind of gets a pass when
we're talking about going after the mob. By the way, you.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Know it, Yes, the hotel double jeopardy argument's ridiculous, I
asked the judge. I said, I was in state court
once and I says, I'm charged with this very crime
in my federal indictment. And he said, who cares? He
doesn't care. They don't they and the judge, Yeah, yeah,
even the whole I have to tell you, and I'm
a law abiding citizen. Now I'm pro law enforcement. The
(04:41):
guys go out there, they work hard, most of them.
There's a couple of dirty cops out there, but for
the most part, ninety nine point nine percent of the
people out there, men and women, are doing their best
to do as good as they possibly can. So I
want to make that clear to your listeners. But having
said that, yeah, having said that, though the Rico law
is the spin pable where you could be tried for
(05:01):
something in the state, beat it, and then they could
just bring it in on a larger indictment in the Feds,
and we try you again. And it's happened to a
number of friends of mine who will never get out
of jail. And that's they did away with double jeopardy.
And part of the part of volume two in my
book is I talk extensively about Bobby Kennedy and the
Kennedy administration and Bobby's uh, Bobby's time as as Attorney General.
(05:26):
And I mean he did away with the Fifth Amendment
by creating uh, uh you know where where if you
take the fifth you could be given immunity and then
you have to testify or you say eighteen months for
a contempt charge. Bobby is the one who legislatively passed
that and got that pushed through Congress. And uh. And
because he was fed up with people during the Rackets Committee,
(05:46):
the McClellan's known as the Rackets Committee, the McClellan committee
before before he was ag he was fed up with
people taking the fifth and he says, I don't I
don't believe in it anymore. I don't want to see
that happen. They're guilty of something. So he really did
away with a lot of our I think our you know,
safeguards what you call.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Bedrock and constitutional provisions.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That's right, that's right, and a lot of times sixth
Amendment right to council. When he was chasing Jimmy Haffer
and I go through this extensively once again in Borgoda
Class of Titans, which is volume two of the book
the trilogy. When he was chasing half a he went
after half as lawyers, and which is you know, going
after He's he's going after a sixth Amendment right to counsel.
(06:30):
And he said, anybody who defends him or his teamsters
is a who And I don't care they they shouldn't
be defending him, and he would try to lock up
the attorneys. So you know, it was a lot of
from I mean the Kennedy's. Who knows about the Kennedy's
more than you and your listeners. They're from up there.
But but you know what I mean. Look, this is
I go deep into it in the book, and I
(06:51):
feel it was. It was a big cause of the
assassination and I get I put all them moving pieces
together and moving parts.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's what we want to talk about in part tonight.
Low And Uh, I think you've You've set the table
very nicely here.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Loufer Ante is my guest. He's been on the program before.
He's written a trilogy of books. Uh, well, he's in
the process of writing a trilogy of books. We talked
about the first book, and now we're going to talk
about his second volume, which is The American Mafia Versus
America's Political Elite and this Uh, you know, I haven't
read this second book, but I know of what you speak.
(07:31):
It's funny. There's the Rico statute. I chased a an
FBI agent up here for many many years. H Paul Rico.
His last name was r I c O. He was
not Italian, by the way, he was a Spaniard. Uh.
And he was probably one of the most corrupt FBI
agents in the in the long historied history of corrupt
FBI agents. Uh here here in Boston. And I used
(07:55):
to chase him with cameras in Washington and uh and
in Boston. Uh uh And this this is a guy
he set up them. He was the guy that set
up the murder of Roger Wheeler, the country club down
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who owned World High Lie in Miami.
And Wheeler was the guy who basically got the boys
(08:17):
from Boston to go down a guy named Joe McDonald
and the second guy, uh named Maderano to go down
and uh and basically put that yeah, other pathway to heaven.
I mean, you know, it's an unbelievable story. And and
Rico eventually there was a heroic police officer out of Tulsa,
(08:39):
guy named Mike Huff cost him his marriage. I mean,
but he was the guy who the Florida State Police
gave him the honor of actually putting his cuffs on
Rico when he was arrested. Uh. And the night the
day that of the morning he was arrested. His wife
is there and she says, Paul, why don't you put
your world high highlight jacket on UH and what you
(09:03):
want to dinner? Well, well, never never got home for
dinner and no, yeah wow jacket.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So yeah, Dan, are you are you familiar with the UH,
the the Linley DeVecchio Gregory Scalfa case from New York,
because it's as close as that, and you also had
obviously Whitey Bull Drup there, but it's as close to that. Yeah,
that situation is as you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think that Hoover. I think Hoover was running the
same operation that he ran here in Boston that he authorized.
I shouldn't say he ran it, he authorized in other
major American cities, and obviously would New York at the
top of that list. My guest, we're gonna get right
to the meat of the matter, and if you have
any question, any question, feel free to get on board.
(09:51):
Lou's going to stay with us until eleven o'clock and
not a minute later. Six one, seven thirty, six one seven, nine, three,
ten thirty. He's a great guest before, would be a
great guest tonight. Coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
With me is Lou Ferrante. Their author of The Mafia
Versus America's Political Elite nineteen sixteen and nineteen eighty Boo
is the is the core of the story America's political elite.
The Kennedy family is.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Well that yeah, that's yeah, it's actually part of it.
So it's the second volume is actually titled Bolgada Clash
of Titans, and probably the largest aspect is the Kennedy
administration versus the Mafia, uh with with Bobby Kennedy obviously
at the forefront of that spearheading the charge. But there's
also I go deep. I take a deep dive into
(10:50):
what happened to Jimmy Hoffer, why he died. I also
get into why Joe Colombo, who was he was killed
in Columbus Circle in Manhattan during a Unity Day rally
for his new Italian Americans. Yeah, Italian American Civil Rights League.
I did a deep dive into that, and once again
I urge your listeners to read the book because I
(11:12):
put together all the pieces. I don't think anybody's ever
done this before. I've read hundreds of books on the subject.
I'm well sowced. If you look at the back of
my book, you'll see all the source notes. And I really, really,
I believe, wholeheartedly I'm the first person to ever put
the pieces together with the mobs connection to the government,
with them as far as the assassination of JFK, why
(11:35):
they did it, and get his closest to who the
main players were, the central figures as possible. Also with
the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, I don't think anybody's ever
explained why he died, the reasons behind it, and who
the main conspirators were up until now as well as
I have. And I say this, you know, obviously refreshingably
(11:56):
free of false modesty, right, But I do believe that,
and I urge you listens to pick up the book
and take a look at it. Also with Joe Colombo
saying thing no one understood why he was killed, and
you mentioned Hoover, and I do believe had had something
to do with the government, I'll give you a little
spoiler alert on that one. Yeah, I mean, I do
(12:17):
believe that the Colombo assassination as soon as the person
fired the gun at Colombo. That person was murdered on
the spot, and there was all kinds of conflicting testimony.
People thought that a cop had shot him, someone dressed
as an officer had shot him, but the cops swore
that they didn't shoot him. Then they tried to blame
it on a Colombo guy who was It was impossible
(12:38):
for him to have done it. He wasn't even close
to the scene. And then I get it to the
heart of it, and I found some incredible adeprint books
and one of them was written by an ex FBI agent,
and he wrote a book about how the Gambino family
was very connected to the CIA at the time and
(12:59):
they would never dealt with the clowns when they could
go to the circus leader, and he felt that they
dealt directly with Carlo Gambino, and Carlo Gambino had every
reason to kill Joe Colombo at the time. And I
tell the story very well. I urge again your listeners
to read the book. And it also to the CIA slash.
FBI may have wanted Colombo dead at the time because
(13:21):
he started the Italian American Civil Rights League and it
was just another thorn in their side. They were already
dealing with Jewish and African American civil rights leagues. Puerto
Ricans were starting to become activists. They didn't want another one.
And there was a lot of talk about Colombo just
you know, going away, and they put tremendous amount of
(13:44):
heat on him and as well as the other four
families in New York. And then something at some point
had to be done, and he gets clipped. But anyway,
I put all the moving parts together, and I wanted
the reader to understand it as best as they possibly
can after all these decades have gone by, and I
had somebody. I talked to somebody who's read just about
(14:05):
every JFK book that's ever come out over the last
thirty forty years, and he told me, he says, Lou,
I've never read anything like this. He says, the way
you put the pieces together, He said, I finally had
it all in front of me. You know, you really
really created like what I would consider this was his
words an indictment.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Okay, let meast a couple of questions. I don't want
you to give it all away, but okay, what role
does Jack Ruby playing this?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
He plays the role that we all know him to play,
which was getting rid of silencing Oswald. And what's interesting
is jay Ed Gohova, contrary to his public stance on
the matter, he made a comment right away, this is
this is a mob hit. He's obviously silencing somebody. He
knew right away. Hoover as soon as he was shot.
Other people knew as well. And Ruby goes deep into
(14:53):
his mob connections. He was very heavily connected with Santo
Traffic Conting in Florida, very heavily connected with Carlos Marcelo
in Louisiana, and both of those mob bosses who I
referred to as the Gulf Coast mob bosses. Uh, their
their their empires, their their fiefdoms being on in the
Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, and Florida. Those two dons were
(15:18):
the only dons when Sinatra had Joseph Kennedy Senior and
Frank Sinatra Sinatra being his liaison to the mob, but
Joe Kennedy had connections as well. They sort of wooed
the mob into believing that if they helped Kennedy into office,
they'd have an easy ride with him in office. They
were the Kennedy's were going to focus on civil rights
(15:39):
for African Americans. They were going to focus on bringing
the slowing down the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, UH,
trying to keep the Soviets behind the Iron Curtain. They
were going to move on from the Mob.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So they essentially convinced the Mob that the administer Kennedy
administration would have bigger fish to fry.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
They did. They convinced all of the bosses except Carlos
must and Santo Trafficante, who originally backed Lyndon Johnson during
the Democratic primary and then when Johnson lost to Kennedy
and became his VP, then they backed Nixon during the
general election because those two Mob bosses, Marcello and Trafficante
did not trust that the Kennedys would keep their word.
(16:18):
So those are the two main players in the Mob
when this has to get done. And UH and Jack
Ruby was heavily connected to both of them, and and
it's all laid out. All my evidence is, Saud, I
don't just shoot from the hip and say, uh, you know,
this is what I think because I went to sleep
last night and I had a Gin and Tonic and
this is what hit me. It's all lost. Yeah, I mean,
(16:40):
it's all, it's all heavily sauced, and I just I
put the pieces together.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Was it the the girlfriend Judith Exner?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
She I mean she was Johnny Rosselli's sort of Johnny
Roselli brought her into the mix. Judith Exner slash Judith Campbell. Yeah,
Johnny Roselli met her in Hollywood, introduced to the Sinatra Sinatra.
Apparently Rosselli had played around with her. Sinatra had played
around with her. Sam g and Connor had played around
with her. So she kind of got around. And at
(17:13):
some point or another she's dating Jack Kennedy and she
becomes sort of like a courier during the Democratic primary
when the mob is shuffling money to Kennedy. Now a
lot of people who try to attack her and say, well,
it's not true. What is true. What we do know
is Jed Hoover had seventy or eighty phone calls back
and forth to the White House between her and Jack Kennedy,
(17:34):
and they eventually approached President Kennedy about it, and Bobby
and said this has to stop. She's heavily connected with
the mobsters and he's worn around with her, and this
is gonna blow up in your face, and basically Hoover
was kind of That's how Hoover used to blackmail people.
You know, he said, well, you know, this came across
my desk and I just wanted you to know it's
safe with me, you know. But that was his way
(17:55):
of telling your wink wink, be careful what you do.
So that was what he did. Yeah, that's what he
did to Jack and Bobby and uh so, I mean, look,
it's it's obvious.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You don't think I'm assuming that Hoover had anything to
do with the hit on on on Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
You know, I couldn't. I couldn't prove that. But I
tell you what I can prove. I don't. I don't
say that he did because I won't. I won't talk
out of you know, I.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Don't think no, no, but I will. I'm interested in
what your thought on it is. Because I don't think
I'll tell.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You what he did. Then well I'll tell you what
he did do. So, I mean, there is culpability there,
but not necessarily you know, an active conspirat up. But
I will, I'll tell you where the culpability lies. So
Hoover is Hoover is having a war with Bobby. When
Bobby becomes a GI. Hoover has had always gone directly
to the president for decades since he was since he
was appointed the head of the FBI, and he always never, never,
(18:54):
he never went through the Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Never, his standard operating procedure, right to the.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Bar correct always, And then Bobby gets in and he's like,
you know, I mean, his first teeth came in when
Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And Bobby says, you're gonna have to go through me,
fan now on, I'm your boss, and he starts really really,
you know, he's abusing him. And I go through that
in the book as well. I mean, he puts a
(19:20):
buzzer on his desk and he says, anytime I buzz you,
I want you to come running to my office. And basically,
you know, Hoover's huffing and puffing up and down the
corridors in the Justice Department, constantly getting buzzed by Bobby,
to the point where one day Bobby says he had
a visitor in his office and he says, you want
to see me get Hoover over here, just for kicks.
And he says sure, and he buzzed them, and you know,
(19:40):
like Hoover was fuming. So now Hoover hates Bobby. And
Bobby keeps telling Hoover, go after the mob, Go after
the mob, go after the mob. And Hoover knows that
he doesn't want to do a deep dive into the
mob because he knows they're all connected to may as, governors, congressman,
senate is where's he gonna go with this? You know,
even do you want me to look into your father
(20:01):
Joe Kennedy Senior during bootlegging? How about his Hollywood company,
how he kept labor relations going through the mob? You
don't want me to do this. So Hoover thought he
was nuts. But Bobby kept punching away at Hoover, saying,
you can't keep chasing communists. You got to go after
the mob. So Hoover hates them. At some point or another,
the Kennedy's make the decision that they're going to retire
Hoover during Kennedy's second term. If Kennedy wins a second term,
(20:24):
Hoover's out the door. And that was like, that was
like killing him, Hoover. And then one better, one better, today,
we don't care who was a homosexual today, but been
during the nineteen sixties. Homosexuality was something that it was
unacceptable in society. And he was dead set on smearing
Hoover as a homosexual. And he even had people look
(20:46):
into his background and it got back to Hoover. So
Hoover hates Bobby, hates Jack. And now all of these
death threats coming from the mob. Hoover's got these listening devices,
illegal listening devices planted in mob hanging out throughout the country.
They were called black bag jobs. And agents would go
in the middle of the night, plant a bug in
a social club and Wove's listening to it. Yeah, and
(21:08):
Hoover's listening to all this, and all these death threats
from the mob start to pass Hoover's desk. And what
is Hoover doing about them? Nothing. He's supposed to at
least inform the Secret Service, at least inform the Attorney General.
Maybe take a trip to Kennedy's office, as he did
with Judas Xner Judas slash Campbell when he found out
he had no problem running over, running, running up Pennsylvania
(21:31):
Avenue over to the White House and telling Jack Hey
I know about this. You know this girl who's you know,
calling you left and right, and she's pooling around with
mobs this. But all of a sudden, all these threats
are passing his desk and he's doing nothing about him.
And at one point or another, Uh, there's a guy
who reports to the FBI that Santo Trafficante said Kennedy's
(21:52):
buying it when he comes to down South in November.
And that guy happened to be an FBI informant. He
ran to his his handlers and told him that passed
who his deak Hoover did nothing about it. Now, if
you were about to be fired from the job of
your life that you've been there for decades and Smith
is a homosexual, which once again was unacceptable in nineteen
(22:15):
sixties America. I mean, what are you going to do
about these threats? And maybe hope that they materry a line?
I don't know, you know, I mean, just imagine if you.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Have to put that Liwin in context. I remember, I
think it was sometime in the mid nineteen sixties. They
they ran some sort of a poll in which they
they went to you know, American people, and they said
it has been disclosed today that President Johnson is a
practicing heterosexual. Do you believe that, like, I don't know
(22:49):
sixty five percent of people, No, not possible, No, not
possible even know the difference, you know. Again, but I mean, yeah,
they heard that word sexual. Oh no, not resident.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
People, well that's a true story. People who who lived
at the time, you know. And I was around that time.
He didn't realize that that was concerned, you know, I
mean really uh. And of course you know, Hoover was
was I always used to say about Hoover that the
the only question as to Hoover and his his assistant director, uh.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Clyde Cidelson clid.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Tilson, was who was going to wear the taff of
the gown on Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
That's exactly That's what they say that that's exactly right.
And so Bobby was actually caught, he would call him,
he would call him behind his back jay Edna instead
of Jay Edgar. Uh yeah, and he yeah, and he
would call Clyde Tolson missus, uh, missus j Ed Hoover.
So I mean, you know, Bobby, and that was coming
(23:53):
back to Hoover too, yeah, you know, And and yeah, so,
I mean Hoover was so once again, I mean the
culpability an active conspirator. No, but can you consider him
having quite a bit of culpability, as you know, failing
to report or do anything about the threats that were
coming past his desk that he knew what were real, active,
(24:17):
serious threats. Then it's that's a different story, you know,
And then that that goes into the cover up to.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
My guest is lou Ferrante. Have you seen the DiCaprio
movie in which he plays Hoover.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I did not watch it, only because I am so
I've read probably about thirty books on jay at Khoova
for the research for this book, and I just felt like,
I don't know if Scorsese or DiCaprio were going to
get what I got out of it. I think that
they were going to betray him as a you know,
sort of like an American icon, and I did not
get that.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I don't think so. I think I watched it on
a plane coming back or going to Italy last summer
to get which one. But it was. I thought it
was done pretty well. To be honest with you, I'll.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Watch it then I'll catch up. I got something to
watch now. It's great.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Okay, great, we're gonna take a quick break if you
want to join the conversation. The only I got one
line open at six one seven two five four ten thirty.
You're going to try to get everybody in. I promise,
Steve Paul Brian you'll be the first up six one
seven two five four ten thirty. The book is now available, right.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
It is Borgotta Clash of Titans, the second volume of
the Borgota trilogy. Uh, and read.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Each of the books are the same title.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Well, it's the Borgatta trilogy, so then each one is Borgatta.
The first one is Borgatta Rise of Empire, the second
one is Borgotta Clash of Titans, and the final one,
which is written already but yet to be released, as
Autumn of Empire.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
One Ottoman Empire like.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
An Autumn of Empire. I'm sorry, that's my Bottom of Empire.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Okay, gotch you okay, no problem, all right. Uh we'll
get to phone calls, I promise, right after the news break.
Here at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's Night Side with Dan y w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I guess there's Lewis ferranting. Here's a how many years.
A you do in prison?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I did eight and a half years.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Eight and a half years. His expertise was trucks, tractor
trailer trucks. Uh, money, money, running money, trucks and finally
get caught paid his debt. I think he got some
religion in in prison too, if I'm not mistaken, Is
(26:32):
that correct?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I did? I I came around to the to a
strong belief that there is a higher power. I felt
like I was being punished for something. I felt like
a higher power was leading me. Uh, you know, I
guess through you know, the Nigron furnace, I guess you know.
I mean I had to, I had to be dragged through. Yeah.
So I felt like, yeah, I mean, look, we I
(26:55):
believe heavily in in Uh. The world is round, and
we do create calma as we go through it. And
I had I had created a lot of calma over
the years, bad comma, and I felt like I was
paying for it. And I swore I would create good
karma from then on, y and uh, and hopefully the
world would would repay me in kind and uh, and
I have done that, and I feel it has been
(27:16):
been repaying me. So I thank God for that.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
But I'm just gonna play Yeah, what a funny story
about Roger Wheeler. When we went after Wheeler and UH
and the FBI here, eventually they were hearings in Washington.
Do you see the House government oversych for three years
two thousand and one, two thousand and two, two thousand
and three. And this was before Wheeler had been arrested,
UH for the murder of Roger Wheeler. UH, before Rico
(27:41):
had been arrested for the murder of Roger Wheeler. And
so at that point, you know, he was he was
on in years UH and had done all of his
dirty work. And so one day, you know, during the break,
he's was kind of shuffling to the men's room, and
all the report orders, who really didn't quite understand the
(28:02):
story as well as I had, because I had gone
after him for ten years, were following him to the
men's room, and I on one side of him, and
another reporters on the other side, and the other reporters
peppering him with questions, and the other reporter said, did
you have anything to do with the murder of David Wheeler. Now,
David Wheeler was not murdered. He was the son of
Roger Wheeler, but the reporter, the other reporter got the
(28:23):
names mixed up. Wheeler, not without missing a beat, turns
and looks at me and gives me this look like,
what the hell is he talking about? This weird relationship
with this guy where I didn't like him. I didn't
like him, but at that moment, he at least was
saying to me, well, you at least know the story,
(28:43):
you know, I mean.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Right right right, There was that moment of like you
do it connected for that second.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
For that split second, that yeah, anyway, I thought you'd
appreciate one of us. Let me go to Steve and Gambridge.
Steve first up this hour with my guest, Lou Ferrante.
Go right ahead, Steve.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Hi Dai Hi, Lou, Lou. I read the book that
the movie The Irish Mineral is made from, and I
think that was also of Corsese, who made the movie.
And the book says that the Robert de Niro character
killed Crazy Joe Gallo and Jimmy Hoffer and knew about
(29:23):
the conspiracy to kill JFK. What do you know about
that story?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Yeah, I cover it. I cover that in the half
a section of the second volume of my book right now,
bore got a class of Titan. I talk about it
because I couldn't. It's it's something you can't overlook because
of the hype, because Netflix dumped two hundred million dollars
into making the movie about it. But I will tell
you right now, I was dear friends with Little Vicarina,
(29:52):
who was the boss of the Columbo family. I'm still
close friends, very close, dear friends with Little Victorina Jr.
Who was a happened in the Colombo family. Little Viccinia
is away doing life. They ran the Columbo family, so
I know a lot of people in that family. And
that is the family that killed Joe Gallo, and it
(30:16):
was Sonny Pinto. Sonny Pinto is the one who went
into Umbardo's and he whacked out Joe Gallo. I don't
know why the guy said, I read The Irishman. I
read I Heard You Paying Houses, which is the Irishman
was based on. And I thought that there were a
lot of things that he said that rang true from
my research and what I've heard. And I felt that
(30:36):
he was in the know to some extent because he
was close to Russell Buffalino, who was also involved to
some extent in the conspiracy. He was close with the
guys from the Geneva's family. He was close with guys
from the Detroit Mob. Buffalino was. So this guy was
sort of in the know this sharing. So he did
throw a little few facts around that made sense. But
(30:58):
there's no way. When I read that he claimed he
clipped Joey Gallo, I said, why is this guy Lyon?
And now I have to take everything he said and say,
what the frig is he talking about? And then the
other thing to me too. Yeah, so Sally Sally bugs Forgoglio.
I bet my life On was the trigger man and
he was sent by Anthony pro Provenzano. Uh the Detroit
(31:21):
Mob had something to do with it. I think that
they incinerated him at the Central Sanitation Services in uh
in Ham Trunk, Michigan, which was about a twenty minute
drive from where copp forgot in the car over at
the Red Red mac Macus Red Fox restaurant. Nobody, all
the all the decades that the FBI has been looking
(31:43):
under the under the arizontal bridge under this bridge in Jersey,
that bridge under t I would have told him, listen,
save you save save your save your resources. Save your
bulldozers and your your construction equipment. Nobody's going to clip
somebody and drive twelve hundred miles with the body when
there's a million places to get rid of him in Michigan.
(32:04):
So going into it, before I did my research, I
knew that they would have got rid of them within
minutes of clipping them, which was which would have been
within minutes of taking them from the Red Maccus Red
Fox restaurant, and they would have gotten Usually these guys
got a whole predug. You know, they know where they're
taking you, and they're not going to ship you around
(32:24):
in a barrel and risk going through Highway ninety five,
and you know, why not.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
See if I may one more question? If I may dan,
I've often heard the term a made man. Now is
there an actual ceremony? Does one have to kiss someone's ring?
Can you explain that a little bit more clearly?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Well, well, nobody kisses a ring, but basically, you know,
they draw a little blood off your finger. You say,
you know, you basically swear you're going to die for
the family, and this family comes even before your own family.
And then uh, and then everybody kisses on the cheeks
and you know you're you're straightened out in the family.
So I mean there's no kissing. The ring and stuff
(33:08):
was from The Godfather, the movie. Yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah,
Oh the Pope exactly. Oh the Polpe, the infallible Pope.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, but uh no no in the movie Goodfellas. Did
you see that movie, lou I saw.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I saw years ago. I was. I actually saw it
before it came out. I was close friends Jimmy Robert
Demiro played Jimmy Conway, who was really Jimmy Burke. Jimmy
Burke was from my neighborhood, and I looked up to
him as a kid. And uh he had a son.
One son was clipped, one son died on the street.
Another son he had became an attorney. He was a
really nice kid, legitimate kid. He one time he flagged
(33:48):
down me and Peter Gotty. We were driving in how
Beach and he says, hey, guys, I got a he
had a VHS tape for for for those of us
who are older, we remember what a VHS tape was.
And he said, hey, I got a tape of my
movie about my father. You guys want to follow me?
Back to the house. I'm about to watch it. It
just got it. So we went back and we watched
Good Fellas a few months before it came out, and
(34:09):
I do remember seeing it, but I don't remember exactly
whose ring was kissed, and.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
No ring gets kissed. But they make a big deal
about having killed a made man and that was their death.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Say, oh, that's off limits if you kill somebody who's made,
who straightened out unless you had permission to kill him.
You know, the boss of a family could tell you
somebody's got to go within the family. The father makes
the decisions for the children, right, So any boss of
a family will say who dies and who lives. But
if you clip a maid guy and you didn't have permission,
(34:40):
you're dead. You're going. I mean yeah, I mean, you know,
they could give you a pass if there's some circumstances
behind it that you know, but ninety nine out of
one hundred usually you're going just for the fact that
you did it without permission. You know, I know somebody
who did it and got away with it. It was
during mob war. They went to sit down, they straightened
(35:03):
it out because the guy claimed he didn't know and
did this and that, and they let him live because
they needed him for the war. But normally, uh, normally
a guy goes right away. If you do that, you can't.
It's awko limits have a great night, Happy New Year.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'll take a break, and I guess the current book
Clash of the Titans, A History of the American Mafia
Borgata bo r g a t A. Remind me what
the word bogatta means.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, bogatta is like it's like a like to think
of the word like uh barrio like in Spanish, it's
like a poorer neighborhood where close knit people live. And
that's the original meaning. And then it became something like
formafia's family. They would say borgata or more the way
I remember it said on the street would be the
bugad like they wouldn't say a crime family. They wouldn't
(35:58):
say a mafia's family. They would say, you know, he's
with John's bugad or borgatta like an other word, John
would be John Gott. He's with John's bugatt or borgatta.
That means he's with John's crew, John's family.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, my guest, Lou friending, we'll get some more calls.
Six one, seven, four, ten, thirty coming right back on
night Side. We're going to switch topics at the top
of the arrow, So if you want to get a
question in, now's the time. Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Now back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World
Nightside Studios on.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
W b Z the news radio. All right, back to
the call as we go. We're talking about the Mafia,
America's political elite. The book in question is Clash of
the Titans, a History of the American Mafia. How long
is this this this volume? This is volume two of
the trilogy. Lewis has been out. How long?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Oh? It just came out this morning.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah, just available Amazon and fine bookstores. Let's go next
to Paul in Pennsylvania. Paul, you're next on Nightside with
lou Ferante.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Garretta had Paul Yelier down there a guest. My question earlier,
guest is I just saw a documentary years ago. It
was what Albert to Sell Boston Streiber and they played
a portion of where he was under hypnosis and it
was one of the creepiest things I ever heard. Is
your guest ever heard the rumor that he was also
a hit man for the mob and that's why when
(37:20):
he got locked up laying around and he ended up
killed in prison.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
No, he was never a hit man for the mob.
But but let's uh, let's see what Lou has to
say on that. I'm very fniard.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, I mean nothing. I never heard anything like that either.
So if he was, I didn't, I was completely in
the dalk about it now.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
He would have been. He would have been too unreliable
as an individual to have been in that situation. I
can tell you the story that with the guy that
I worked with or worked on behalf of to get
out of prison, a fellow named Joe Silvadi, one of
the four people that Rico had had framed up here,
along with Joe Barboza from for murder they had nothing
(38:02):
to do with when they were convicted, uh, and they
were shipped immediately from Suffolk Superior Court to Walpole State Prison.
The strangler was still was already in prison. Uh, and
he fashioned himself as to being sort of like a
big guy in the prison. Everybody needed to know who
Albert de Salvo was. So Savanti was in like a
(38:25):
holding room waiting to be processed, and the Salvo came
in and uh and said Hi, I'm Albert de Salvo
or the Boston Strangler, and Savati said, go get me
a sandwich, and Salvo scarried and brought him back a
roast beef sandwich, and Joe told me the story. Uh,
(38:46):
and he said, you know, he wanted to let the
Salvo know that in the pecking order he wasn't above
Joe Savat.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
You know, yeah, yeah, it's just the way. Yeah, No, Dan,
those guys in jail have a hard time. It's it's
a matter of time before they get killed. I wrote
a memoir years ago where I talked about me and
my co defendants when we were in jail, and there
was one of us, one of my co defendants, who
could not sleep if somebody was accidentally brought in into
(39:16):
the FEDS for let's say, for example, this guy was
brought in from the state charge. He had a state
charge where it was rape, and he couldn't sleep till
he got him. And then there was another time where
the guy was charged federally because he took abducted the
girl and took her over state lines. And once again
he came to me and the rest of my co
defendant and he goes, I got to get him. So
(39:38):
we said, look, we'll do it together, you know, this way,
make sure he gets away with it. We didn't want
him because we knew he was going to do it
one way or the other. But these guys, a lot
of times, these guys, you know, I mean, they get
clipped in jail.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
There's a code of ethics internally, right.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, you got to think it could be my sister,
could be my daughter, could be my mother. You know,
the women he strangled, he raped whoever, you know, you know,
they they just and a lot of guys are creeped
out by that. They don't you know, they don't want
them near them. But that's funny the story you said,
and that's so true.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Who gets you know, I'm Albert the Salve, he said,
you know, I'm the strangler. It's a big deal. Go
get me a Sandersom commissary. All right, thank you, Paul,
appreciate it. Thanks so.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
So.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Let me let me run a theory behind past you, okay.
And I don't know if I've ever run this theory
behind you in front of it before, But after the
Kennedy assassination, that's when a lot of the funny stuff
began to happen with Hoover going really going after the mafia.
I think he was. I think Hoover was afraid, and
(40:45):
I think that Hoover believed that the mafia was very
much the group behind the assassination of Kennedy, and Hoover
for a long time had denied the existence of the mafia,
if you recall in the nineteen fifties, and I I
think he maybe he wasn't unhappy that Kennedy had been clipped,
as you would say, but my sense is that he
(41:08):
felt he then had to go after the mafia as
a consequence of that. Do you buy that theory at
all or noo?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's possible. I'll tell you why. So he did. He
contrary to the whitewash the Warren Commission and the Warrant Commission,
was completely the conclusions drawn by the Warren Commission was
the conclusions drawn by basically Jed Gohova. Because he fed
them all of the information that they had, they had
to base their conclusions on what he either withheld or
(41:38):
what he gave them and what he told them. So
he's basically the man giving them the material that they're
then using. Notwithstanding all of obviously the testimony that they
would gather on their own, but it's all coming from Hoover.
And so Hula manipulated the verdict in that and the
verdict was exactly what he said. Within twenty minutes of
Oswald's death. It was a low nut and the case
(42:01):
is closed. So having said that, that does not mean
that Hoover did not do a deep dive into the
investigation for his own knowledge. And that's and that's exactly right.
He concluded. He knew it was the mob. He knew
Ruby had silenced Oswald, he knew that the mob was
threatening the death of Kennedy beforehand. But I also to
(42:22):
make a very very clear picture in the book that
the mob couldn't have done it without road members of
the United States government working with them to some degree.
Once again, I urged listeners to read it. Yeah, so
there was something going on, But I do agree with you.
I think Hoover knew that they were a threat. Then
at that point he kind of slowly dragged his feet
a little more over the over, you know, until basically,
(42:45):
you know, he started to go after them a little more.
But then basically when it really ramped up was after
his death. Once he died, That's when the FBI went
full blown after the Mob and they started to take
down these guys. But he did, you know, I think
I think he knew it and knew there were a
serious threat, and also too we had to cover it up.
You mentioned something good when you said he was denying
the mob for so long? How do then, how then
(43:06):
do you say you're the head of the FBI but
the mob was somehow involved. Wait a second, you've been
denying their existence exactly thirty or forty years. Yeah, now
you're going to tell us for president? Yeah, definitely, Luke.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
For Anthea, one of my favorite guests. We'll have you back.
The book Clash of the Titans, a History of the
American Mafia out today, available Amazon everywhere. Get it and
read it. Lou Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate
you coming on. You're one of my favorite guests. Simple
is that I can't pay a higher compliment.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Thanks buddy, Thank thank you so much, Dan and you
and you're one of my favorite hosts. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Thanks, we'll talk to you and happy New year.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
Thank ye.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
All right, good night. We came back when we talk
about Donald Trump. So I don't know if you call
it a news conference. Today but the president elect had
a lot to say, and we're going to cover some
of it right after the break here at the eleven
o'clock hour.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All right, thanks very much, Dan Watkins. As we move
into the ten o'clock hour, we have a guest who
have I talked with before and I'm really looking forward
to talking with him again. My guest tonight is lou
Ferrante Lewis. Welcome back to Night's Side. How are you hi?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm bored. Good Dan, I hope you're will too and
happy new yet are you? And your listeners?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Right back at you, my friend. Now, you have written,
First of all, you've written a trilogy of books, or
you're writing a trilogy of books. And this book that
we're going to talk about tonight is the second part
of the trilogy. Correct, that's correct, okay. And it is
about the time frame of nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's also right, Yeah, about nineteen eighty I cut it
at and it'll pick up nineteen eighty for the third
volume to eighty about twenty ath period.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Okay, sixty to eighty. Okay. Now, let's re establish you
and your your position and your expertise and your inside knowledge.
You remember you remember the Gambino crime family.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, I was. I was actually an associate who was
about to become an initiated member when I went to
prison and faced life in prison.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, okay, So so you did not go through the ceremony,
but you were on the cusp of it. And I
think that you told me that you got arrested. If
I recall in San Francisco, you had you had a
a an activity in San Francisco that that got interrupted
by the authorities.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, well, that was one of the counts on the indictment.
It was it was a Hobbs Act, which is like
a WEEKO indictment.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You're very familiar with the Hobbs Act.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
There's a lot of politicians who get hooked at the
Hobbs Act, and a lot of cops would get hooked
on the Hobbs Act because they're right, they're functioning under
the color of the badge or the color of their title.
How did you get hooked on the Hobbs Act? How
did that? How did that work in your case?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I guess it was probably based on interstate commerce and
it was a racketeering conspiracy because there was a number
of four defendants on the indictment with me, it was
a Rico case. And and one of the overt acts
in the Rico case was we we flew out the
samp We did a lot of heights and hijackings at
the time, and at one point we flew out to
San Francisco. We had a tip on a Loomis armored
(02:37):
car and uh, you know, we shipped our guns and
and uh all the accouterments I should say for the
best way to say it, for for an armored paw
heist in Uh, back then, we shipped it just ups.
It was the pre nine to eleven days. We just
put it in the box, shipped the ups to where
we were going, and then flew down there under bogey names.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
When we got down there the day before we were
going to hit the armored car, the fed swarm the
hotel where we were staying and brought us in. So
that was the conspiracy to knock off that armored car
was one of the over at acts in the indictment.
But there were a number of pisces and hijackings other ones.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The people, the people who whacked Roger Wheeler out of Boston,
they did the same thing. They shipped everything down. Yeah,
pulled over in Tennessee or somewhere by by the local
police and have us right some munitions or weapons in
your vehicle. So did you know when when that happened,
(03:36):
that your life had changed dramatically.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
No, I was still mobbed up in my mind. So
I'm you know, I said, I'm never gonna rat. However
long I have to do, I'll do. I faced the
rest of my life in prison. I was eventually indicted
three different times, once by the FBI, another time by
the Secret Service, and another time by the Nassau County
Organized Crime Task Force, which New York sort of like
(04:01):
state slash mob a slate state slash federal task force
looking into mob activities. So we were indicted, me and
my co defend into a number of times.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Me to double jeopard kind of gets a pass when
we're talking about going after the mob. By the way, you.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Know it, Yes, the hotel double jeopardy argument's ridiculous, I
asked the judge. I said, I was in state court
once and I says, I'm charged with this very crime
in my federal indictment. And he said, who cares? He
doesn't care. They don't they and the judge, Yeah, yeah,
even the whole I have to tell you, and I'm
a law abiding citizen. Now I'm pro law enforcement. The
(04:41):
guys go out there, they work hard, most of them.
There's a couple of dirty cops out there, but for
the most part, ninety nine point nine percent of the
people out there, men and women, are doing their best
to do as good as they possibly can. So I
want to make that clear to your listeners. But having
said that, yeah, having said that, though the Rico law
is the spin pable where you could be tried for
(05:01):
something in the state, beat it, and then they could
just bring it in on a larger indictment in the Feds,
and we try you again. And it's happened to a
number of friends of mine who will never get out
of jail. And that's they did away with double jeopardy.
And part of the part of volume two in my
book is I talk extensively about Bobby Kennedy and the
Kennedy administration and Bobby's uh, Bobby's time as as Attorney General.
(05:26):
And I mean he did away with the Fifth Amendment
by creating uh, uh you know where where if you
take the fifth you could be given immunity and then
you have to testify or you say eighteen months for
a contempt charge. Bobby is the one who legislatively passed
that and got that pushed through Congress. And uh. And
because he was fed up with people during the Rackets Committee,
(05:46):
the McClellan's known as the Rackets Committee, the McClellan committee
before before he was ag he was fed up with
people taking the fifth and he says, I don't I
don't believe in it anymore. I don't want to see
that happen. They're guilty of something. So he really did
away with a lot of our I think our you know,
safeguards what you call.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Bedrock and constitutional provisions.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That's right, that's right, and a lot of times sixth
Amendment right to council. When he was chasing Jimmy Haffer
and I go through this extensively once again in Borgoda
Class of Titans, which is volume two of the book
the trilogy. When he was chasing half a he went
after half as lawyers, and which is you know, going
after He's he's going after a sixth Amendment right to counsel.
(06:30):
And he said, anybody who defends him or his teamsters
is a who And I don't care they they shouldn't
be defending him, and he would try to lock up
the attorneys. So you know, it was a lot of
from I mean the Kennedy's. Who knows about the Kennedy's
more than you and your listeners. They're from up there.
But but you know what I mean. Look, this is
I go deep into it in the book, and I
(06:51):
feel it was. It was a big cause of the
assassination and I get I put all them moving pieces
together and moving parts.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's what we want to talk about in part tonight.
Low And Uh, I think you've You've set the table
very nicely here.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Loufer Ante is my guest. He's been on the program before.
He's written a trilogy of books. Uh, well, he's in
the process of writing a trilogy of books. We talked
about the first book, and now we're going to talk
about his second volume, which is The American Mafia Versus
America's Political Elite and this Uh, you know, I haven't
read this second book, but I know of what you speak.
(07:31):
It's funny. There's the Rico statute. I chased a an
FBI agent up here for many many years. H Paul Rico.
His last name was r I c O. He was
not Italian, by the way, he was a Spaniard. Uh.
And he was probably one of the most corrupt FBI
agents in the in the long historied history of corrupt
FBI agents. Uh here here in Boston. And I used
(07:55):
to chase him with cameras in Washington and uh and
in Boston. Uh uh And this this is a guy
he set up them. He was the guy that set
up the murder of Roger Wheeler, the country club down
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who owned World High Lie in Miami.
And Wheeler was the guy who basically got the boys
(08:17):
from Boston to go down a guy named Joe McDonald
and the second guy, uh named Maderano to go down
and uh and basically put that yeah, other pathway to heaven.
I mean, you know, it's an unbelievable story. And and
Rico eventually there was a heroic police officer out of Tulsa,
(08:39):
guy named Mike Huff cost him his marriage. I mean,
but he was the guy who the Florida State Police
gave him the honor of actually putting his cuffs on
Rico when he was arrested. Uh. And the night the
day that of the morning he was arrested. His wife
is there and she says, Paul, why don't you put
your world high highlight jacket on UH and what you
(09:03):
want to dinner? Well, well, never never got home for
dinner and no, yeah wow jacket.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So yeah, Dan, are you are you familiar with the UH,
the the Linley DeVecchio Gregory Scalfa case from New York,
because it's as close as that, and you also had
obviously Whitey Bull Drup there, but it's as close to that. Yeah,
that situation is as you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think that Hoover. I think Hoover was running the
same operation that he ran here in Boston that he authorized.
I shouldn't say he ran it, he authorized in other
major American cities, and obviously would New York at the
top of that list. My guest, we're gonna get right
to the meat of the matter, and if you have
any question, any question, feel free to get on board.
(09:51):
Lou's going to stay with us until eleven o'clock and
not a minute later. Six one, seven thirty, six one seven, nine, three,
ten thirty. He's a great guest before, would be a
great guest tonight. Coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
With me is Lou Ferrante. Their author of The Mafia
Versus America's Political Elite nineteen sixteen and nineteen eighty Boo
is the is the core of the story America's political elite.
The Kennedy family is.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Well that yeah, that's yeah, it's actually part of it.
So it's the second volume is actually titled Bolgada Clash
of Titans, and probably the largest aspect is the Kennedy
administration versus the Mafia, uh with with Bobby Kennedy obviously
at the forefront of that spearheading the charge. But there's
also I go deep. I take a deep dive into
(10:50):
what happened to Jimmy Hoffer, why he died. I also
get into why Joe Colombo, who was he was killed
in Columbus Circle in Manhattan during a Unity Day rally
for his new Italian Americans. Yeah, Italian American Civil Rights League.
I did a deep dive into that, and once again
I urge your listeners to read the book because I
(11:12):
put together all the pieces. I don't think anybody's ever
done this before. I've read hundreds of books on the subject.
I'm well sowced. If you look at the back of
my book, you'll see all the source notes. And I really, really,
I believe, wholeheartedly I'm the first person to ever put
the pieces together with the mobs connection to the government,
with them as far as the assassination of JFK, why
(11:35):
they did it, and get his closest to who the
main players were, the central figures as possible. Also with
the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, I don't think anybody's ever
explained why he died, the reasons behind it, and who
the main conspirators were up until now as well as
I have. And I say this, you know, obviously refreshingably
(11:56):
free of false modesty, right, But I do believe that,
and I urge you listens to pick up the book
and take a look at it. Also with Joe Colombo
saying thing no one understood why he was killed, and
you mentioned Hoover, and I do believe had had something
to do with the government, I'll give you a little
spoiler alert on that one. Yeah, I mean, I do
(12:17):
believe that the Colombo assassination as soon as the person
fired the gun at Colombo. That person was murdered on
the spot, and there was all kinds of conflicting testimony.
People thought that a cop had shot him, someone dressed
as an officer had shot him, but the cops swore
that they didn't shoot him. Then they tried to blame
it on a Colombo guy who was It was impossible
(12:38):
for him to have done it. He wasn't even close
to the scene. And then I get it to the
heart of it, and I found some incredible adeprint books
and one of them was written by an ex FBI agent,
and he wrote a book about how the Gambino family
was very connected to the CIA at the time and
(12:59):
they would never dealt with the clowns when they could
go to the circus leader, and he felt that they
dealt directly with Carlo Gambino, and Carlo Gambino had every
reason to kill Joe Colombo at the time. And I
tell the story very well. I urge again your listeners
to read the book. And it also to the CIA slash.
FBI may have wanted Colombo dead at the time because
(13:21):
he started the Italian American Civil Rights League and it
was just another thorn in their side. They were already
dealing with Jewish and African American civil rights leagues. Puerto
Ricans were starting to become activists. They didn't want another one.
And there was a lot of talk about Colombo just
you know, going away, and they put tremendous amount of
(13:44):
heat on him and as well as the other four
families in New York. And then something at some point
had to be done, and he gets clipped. But anyway,
I put all the moving parts together, and I wanted
the reader to understand it as best as they possibly
can after all these decades have gone by, and I
had somebody. I talked to somebody who's read just about
(14:05):
every JFK book that's ever come out over the last
thirty forty years, and he told me, he says, Lou,
I've never read anything like this. He says, the way
you put the pieces together, He said, I finally had
it all in front of me. You know, you really
really created like what I would consider this was his
words an indictment.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Okay, let meast a couple of questions. I don't want
you to give it all away, but okay, what role
does Jack Ruby playing this?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
He plays the role that we all know him to play,
which was getting rid of silencing Oswald. And what's interesting
is jay Ed Gohova, contrary to his public stance on
the matter, he made a comment right away, this is
this is a mob hit. He's obviously silencing somebody. He
knew right away. Hoover as soon as he was shot.
Other people knew as well. And Ruby goes deep into
(14:53):
his mob connections. He was very heavily connected with Santo
Traffic Conting in Florida, very heavily connected with Carlos Marcelo
in Louisiana, and both of those mob bosses who I
referred to as the Gulf Coast mob bosses. Uh, their
their their empires, their their fiefdoms being on in the
Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, and Florida. Those two dons were
(15:18):
the only dons when Sinatra had Joseph Kennedy Senior and
Frank Sinatra Sinatra being his liaison to the mob, but
Joe Kennedy had connections as well. They sort of wooed
the mob into believing that if they helped Kennedy into office,
they'd have an easy ride with him in office. They
were the Kennedy's were going to focus on civil rights
(15:39):
for African Americans. They were going to focus on bringing
the slowing down the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, UH,
trying to keep the Soviets behind the Iron Curtain. They
were going to move on from the Mob.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So they essentially convinced the Mob that the administer Kennedy
administration would have bigger fish to fry.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
They did. They convinced all of the bosses except Carlos
must and Santo Trafficante, who originally backed Lyndon Johnson during
the Democratic primary and then when Johnson lost to Kennedy
and became his VP, then they backed Nixon during the
general election because those two Mob bosses, Marcello and Trafficante
did not trust that the Kennedys would keep their word.
(16:18):
So those are the two main players in the Mob
when this has to get done. And UH and Jack
Ruby was heavily connected to both of them, and and
it's all laid out. All my evidence is, Saud, I
don't just shoot from the hip and say, uh, you know,
this is what I think because I went to sleep
last night and I had a Gin and Tonic and
this is what hit me. It's all lost. Yeah, I mean,
(16:40):
it's all, it's all heavily sauced, and I just I
put the pieces together.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Was it the the girlfriend Judith Exner?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
She I mean she was Johnny Rosselli's sort of Johnny
Roselli brought her into the mix. Judith Exner slash Judith Campbell. Yeah,
Johnny Roselli met her in Hollywood, introduced to the Sinatra Sinatra.
Apparently Rosselli had played around with her. Sinatra had played
around with her. Sam g and Connor had played around
with her. So she kind of got around. And at
(17:13):
some point or another she's dating Jack Kennedy and she
becomes sort of like a courier during the Democratic primary
when the mob is shuffling money to Kennedy. Now a
lot of people who try to attack her and say, well,
it's not true. What is true. What we do know
is Jed Hoover had seventy or eighty phone calls back
and forth to the White House between her and Jack Kennedy,
(17:34):
and they eventually approached President Kennedy about it, and Bobby
and said this has to stop. She's heavily connected with
the mobsters and he's worn around with her, and this
is gonna blow up in your face, and basically Hoover
was kind of That's how Hoover used to blackmail people.
You know, he said, well, you know, this came across
my desk and I just wanted you to know it's
safe with me, you know. But that was his way
(17:55):
of telling your wink wink, be careful what you do.
So that was what he did. Yeah, that's what he
did to Jack and Bobby and uh so, I mean, look,
it's it's obvious.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
You don't think I'm assuming that Hoover had anything to
do with the hit on on on Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
You know, I couldn't. I couldn't prove that. But I
tell you what I can prove. I don't. I don't
say that he did because I won't. I won't talk
out of you know, I.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Don't think no, no, but I will. I'm interested in
what your thought on it is. Because I don't think
I'll tell.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
You what he did. Then well I'll tell you what
he did do. So, I mean, there is culpability there,
but not necessarily you know, an active conspirat up. But
I will, I'll tell you where the culpability lies. So
Hoover is Hoover is having a war with Bobby. When
Bobby becomes a GI. Hoover has had always gone directly
to the president for decades since he was since he
was appointed the head of the FBI, and he always never, never,
(18:54):
he never went through the Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Never, his standard operating procedure, right to the.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Bar correct always, And then Bobby gets in and he's like,
you know, I mean, his first teeth came in when
Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And Bobby says, you're gonna have to go through me,
fan now on, I'm your boss, and he starts really really,
you know, he's abusing him. And I go through that
in the book as well. I mean, he puts a
(19:20):
buzzer on his desk and he says, anytime I buzz you,
I want you to come running to my office. And basically,
you know, Hoover's huffing and puffing up and down the
corridors in the Justice Department, constantly getting buzzed by Bobby,
to the point where one day Bobby says he had
a visitor in his office and he says, you want
to see me get Hoover over here, just for kicks.
And he says sure, and he buzzed them, and you know,
(19:40):
like Hoover was fuming. So now Hoover hates Bobby. And
Bobby keeps telling Hoover, go after the mob, Go after
the mob, go after the mob. And Hoover knows that
he doesn't want to do a deep dive into the
mob because he knows they're all connected to may as, governors, congressman,
senate is where's he gonna go with this? You know,
even do you want me to look into your father
(20:01):
Joe Kennedy Senior during bootlegging? How about his Hollywood company,
how he kept labor relations going through the mob? You
don't want me to do this. So Hoover thought he
was nuts. But Bobby kept punching away at Hoover, saying,
you can't keep chasing communists. You got to go after
the mob. So Hoover hates them. At some point or another,
the Kennedy's make the decision that they're going to retire
Hoover during Kennedy's second term. If Kennedy wins a second term,
(20:24):
Hoover's out the door. And that was like, that was
like killing him, Hoover. And then one better, one better, today,
we don't care who was a homosexual today, but been
during the nineteen sixties. Homosexuality was something that it was
unacceptable in society. And he was dead set on smearing
Hoover as a homosexual. And he even had people look
(20:46):
into his background and it got back to Hoover. So
Hoover hates Bobby, hates Jack. And now all of these
death threats coming from the mob. Hoover's got these listening devices,
illegal listening devices planted in mob hanging out throughout the country.
They were called black bag jobs. And agents would go
in the middle of the night, plant a bug in
a social club and Wove's listening to it. Yeah, and
(21:08):
Hoover's listening to all this, and all these death threats
from the mob start to pass Hoover's desk. And what
is Hoover doing about them? Nothing. He's supposed to at
least inform the Secret Service, at least inform the Attorney General.
Maybe take a trip to Kennedy's office, as he did
with Judas Xner Judas slash Campbell when he found out
he had no problem running over, running, running up Pennsylvania
(21:31):
Avenue over to the White House and telling Jack Hey
I know about this. You know this girl who's you know,
calling you left and right, and she's pooling around with
mobs this. But all of a sudden, all these threats
are passing his desk and he's doing nothing about him.
And at one point or another, Uh, there's a guy
who reports to the FBI that Santo Trafficante said Kennedy's
(21:52):
buying it when he comes to down South in November.
And that guy happened to be an FBI informant. He
ran to his his handlers and told him that passed
who his deak Hoover did nothing about it. Now, if
you were about to be fired from the job of
your life that you've been there for decades and Smith
is a homosexual, which once again was unacceptable in nineteen
(22:15):
sixties America. I mean, what are you going to do
about these threats? And maybe hope that they materry a line?
I don't know, you know, I mean, just imagine if you.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Have to put that Liwin in context. I remember, I
think it was sometime in the mid nineteen sixties. They
they ran some sort of a poll in which they
they went to you know, American people, and they said
it has been disclosed today that President Johnson is a
practicing heterosexual. Do you believe that, like, I don't know
(22:49):
sixty five percent of people, No, not possible, No, not
possible even know the difference, you know. Again, but I mean, yeah,
they heard that word sexual. Oh no, not resident.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
People, well that's a true story. People who who lived
at the time, you know. And I was around that time.
He didn't realize that that was concerned, you know, I
mean really uh. And of course you know, Hoover was
was I always used to say about Hoover that the
the only question as to Hoover and his his assistant director, uh.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Clyde Cidelson clid.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Tilson, was who was going to wear the taff of
the gown on Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
That's exactly That's what they say that that's exactly right.
And so Bobby was actually caught, he would call him,
he would call him behind his back jay Edna instead
of Jay Edgar. Uh yeah, and he yeah, and he
would call Clyde Tolson missus, uh, missus j Ed Hoover.
So I mean, you know, Bobby, and that was coming
(23:53):
back to Hoover too, yeah, you know, And and yeah, so,
I mean Hoover was so once again, I mean the
culpability an active conspirator. No, but can you consider him
having quite a bit of culpability, as you know, failing
to report or do anything about the threats that were
coming past his desk that he knew what were real, active,
(24:17):
serious threats. Then it's that's a different story, you know,
And then that that goes into the cover up to.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
My guest is lou Ferrante. Have you seen the DiCaprio
movie in which he plays Hoover.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I did not watch it, only because I am so
I've read probably about thirty books on jay at Khoova
for the research for this book, and I just felt like,
I don't know if Scorsese or DiCaprio were going to
get what I got out of it. I think that
they were going to betray him as a you know,
sort of like an American icon, and I did not
get that.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I don't think so. I think I watched it on
a plane coming back or going to Italy last summer
to get which one. But it was. I thought it
was done pretty well. To be honest with you, I'll.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Watch it then I'll catch up. I got something to
watch now. It's great.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Okay, great, we're gonna take a quick break if you
want to join the conversation. The only I got one
line open at six one seven two five four ten thirty.
You're going to try to get everybody in. I promise,
Steve Paul Brian you'll be the first up six one
seven two five four ten thirty. The book is now available, right.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
It is Borgotta Clash of Titans, the second volume of
the Borgota trilogy. Uh, and read.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Each of the books are the same title.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Well, it's the Borgatta trilogy, so then each one is Borgatta.
The first one is Borgatta Rise of Empire, the second
one is Borgotta Clash of Titans, and the final one,
which is written already but yet to be released, as
Autumn of Empire.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
One Ottoman Empire like.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
An Autumn of Empire. I'm sorry, that's my Bottom of Empire.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Okay, gotch you okay, no problem, all right. Uh we'll
get to phone calls, I promise, right after the news break.
Here at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's Night Side with Dan y w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I guess there's Lewis ferranting. Here's a how many years.
A you do in prison?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I did eight and a half years.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Eight and a half years. His expertise was trucks, tractor
trailer trucks. Uh, money, money, running money, trucks and finally
get caught paid his debt. I think he got some
religion in in prison too, if I'm not mistaken, Is
(26:32):
that correct?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
I did? I I came around to the to a
strong belief that there is a higher power. I felt
like I was being punished for something. I felt like
a higher power was leading me. Uh, you know, I
guess through you know, the Nigron furnace, I guess you know.
I mean I had to, I had to be dragged through. Yeah.
So I felt like, yeah, I mean, look, we I
(26:55):
believe heavily in in Uh. The world is round, and
we do create calma as we go through it. And
I had I had created a lot of calma over
the years, bad comma, and I felt like I was
paying for it. And I swore I would create good
karma from then on, y and uh, and hopefully the
world would would repay me in kind and uh, and
I have done that, and I feel it has been
(27:16):
been repaying me. So I thank God for that.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
But I'm just gonna play Yeah, what a funny story
about Roger Wheeler. When we went after Wheeler and UH
and the FBI here, eventually they were hearings in Washington.
Do you see the House government oversych for three years
two thousand and one, two thousand and two, two thousand
and three. And this was before Wheeler had been arrested,
UH for the murder of Roger Wheeler. UH, before Rico
(27:41):
had been arrested for the murder of Roger Wheeler. And
so at that point, you know, he was he was
on in years UH and had done all of his
dirty work. And so one day, you know, during the break,
he's was kind of shuffling to the men's room, and
all the report orders, who really didn't quite understand the
(28:02):
story as well as I had, because I had gone
after him for ten years, were following him to the
men's room, and I on one side of him, and
another reporters on the other side, and the other reporters
peppering him with questions, and the other reporter said, did
you have anything to do with the murder of David Wheeler. Now,
David Wheeler was not murdered. He was the son of
Roger Wheeler, but the reporter, the other reporter got the
(28:23):
names mixed up. Wheeler, not without missing a beat, turns
and looks at me and gives me this look like,
what the hell is he talking about? This weird relationship
with this guy where I didn't like him. I didn't
like him, but at that moment, he at least was
saying to me, well, you at least know the story,
(28:43):
you know, I mean.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Right right right, There was that moment of like you
do it connected for that second.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
For that split second, that yeah, anyway, I thought you'd
appreciate one of us. Let me go to Steve and Gambridge.
Steve first up this hour with my guest, Lou Ferrante.
Go right ahead, Steve.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Hi Dai Hi, Lou, Lou. I read the book that
the movie The Irish Mineral is made from, and I
think that was also of Corsese, who made the movie.
And the book says that the Robert de Niro character
killed Crazy Joe Gallo and Jimmy Hoffer and knew about
(29:23):
the conspiracy to kill JFK. What do you know about
that story?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Yeah, I cover it. I cover that in the half
a section of the second volume of my book right now,
bore got a class of Titan. I talk about it
because I couldn't. It's it's something you can't overlook because
of the hype, because Netflix dumped two hundred million dollars
into making the movie about it. But I will tell
you right now, I was dear friends with Little Vicarina,
(29:52):
who was the boss of the Columbo family. I'm still
close friends, very close, dear friends with Little Victorina Jr.
Who was a happened in the Colombo family. Little Viccinia
is away doing life. They ran the Columbo family, so
I know a lot of people in that family. And
that is the family that killed Joe Gallo, and it
(30:16):
was Sonny Pinto. Sonny Pinto is the one who went
into Umbardo's and he whacked out Joe Gallo. I don't
know why the guy said, I read The Irishman. I
read I Heard You Paying Houses, which is the Irishman
was based on. And I thought that there were a
lot of things that he said that rang true from
my research and what I've heard. And I felt that
(30:36):
he was in the know to some extent because he
was close to Russell Buffalino, who was also involved to
some extent in the conspiracy. He was close with the
guys from the Geneva's family. He was close with guys
from the Detroit Mob. Buffalino was. So this guy was
sort of in the know this sharing. So he did
throw a little few facts around that made sense. But
(30:58):
there's no way. When I read that he claimed he
clipped Joey Gallo, I said, why is this guy Lyon?
And now I have to take everything he said and say,
what the frig is he talking about? And then the
other thing to me too. Yeah, so Sally Sally bugs Forgoglio.
I bet my life On was the trigger man and
he was sent by Anthony pro Provenzano. Uh the Detroit
(31:21):
Mob had something to do with it. I think that
they incinerated him at the Central Sanitation Services in uh
in Ham Trunk, Michigan, which was about a twenty minute
drive from where copp forgot in the car over at
the Red Red mac Macus Red Fox restaurant. Nobody, all
the all the decades that the FBI has been looking
(31:43):
under the under the arizontal bridge under this bridge in Jersey,
that bridge under t I would have told him, listen,
save you save save your save your resources. Save your
bulldozers and your your construction equipment. Nobody's going to clip
somebody and drive twelve hundred miles with the body when
there's a million places to get rid of him in Michigan.
(32:04):
So going into it, before I did my research, I
knew that they would have got rid of them within
minutes of clipping them, which was which would have been
within minutes of taking them from the Red Maccus Red
Fox restaurant, and they would have gotten Usually these guys
got a whole predug. You know, they know where they're
taking you, and they're not going to ship you around
(32:24):
in a barrel and risk going through Highway ninety five,
and you know, why not.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
See if I may one more question? If I may dan,
I've often heard the term a made man. Now is
there an actual ceremony? Does one have to kiss someone's ring?
Can you explain that a little bit more clearly?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Well, well, nobody kisses a ring, but basically, you know,
they draw a little blood off your finger. You say,
you know, you basically swear you're going to die for
the family, and this family comes even before your own family.
And then uh, and then everybody kisses on the cheeks
and you know you're you're straightened out in the family.
So I mean there's no kissing. The ring and stuff
(33:08):
was from The Godfather, the movie. Yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah,
Oh the Pope exactly. Oh the Polpe, the infallible Pope.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, but uh no no in the movie Goodfellas. Did
you see that movie, lou I saw.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I saw years ago. I was. I actually saw it
before it came out. I was close friends Jimmy Robert
Demiro played Jimmy Conway, who was really Jimmy Burke. Jimmy
Burke was from my neighborhood, and I looked up to
him as a kid. And uh he had a son.
One son was clipped, one son died on the street.
Another son he had became an attorney. He was a
really nice kid, legitimate kid. He one time he flagged
(33:48):
down me and Peter Gotty. We were driving in how
Beach and he says, hey, guys, I got a he
had a VHS tape for for for those of us
who are older, we remember what a VHS tape was.
And he said, hey, I got a tape of my
movie about my father. You guys want to follow me?
Back to the house. I'm about to watch it. It
just got it. So we went back and we watched
Good Fellas a few months before it came out, and
(34:09):
I do remember seeing it, but I don't remember exactly
whose ring was kissed, and.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
No ring gets kissed. But they make a big deal
about having killed a made man and that was their death.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Say, oh, that's off limits if you kill somebody who's made,
who straightened out unless you had permission to kill him.
You know, the boss of a family could tell you
somebody's got to go within the family. The father makes
the decisions for the children, right, So any boss of
a family will say who dies and who lives. But
if you clip a maid guy and you didn't have permission,
(34:40):
you're dead. You're going. I mean yeah, I mean, you know,
they could give you a pass if there's some circumstances
behind it that you know, but ninety nine out of
one hundred usually you're going just for the fact that
you did it without permission. You know, I know somebody
who did it and got away with it. It was
during mob war. They went to sit down, they straightened
(35:03):
it out because the guy claimed he didn't know and
did this and that, and they let him live because
they needed him for the war. But normally, uh, normally
a guy goes right away. If you do that, you can't.
It's awko limits have a great night, Happy New Year.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'll take a break, and I guess the current book
Clash of the Titans, A History of the American Mafia
Borgata bo r g a t A. Remind me what
the word bogatta means.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, bogatta is like it's like a like to think
of the word like uh barrio like in Spanish, it's
like a poorer neighborhood where close knit people live. And
that's the original meaning. And then it became something like
formafia's family. They would say borgata or more the way
I remember it said on the street would be the
bugad like they wouldn't say a crime family. They wouldn't
(35:58):
say a mafia's family. They would say, you know, he's
with John's bugad or borgatta like an other word, John
would be John Gott. He's with John's bugatt or borgatta.
That means he's with John's crew, John's family.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, my guest, Lou friending, we'll get some more calls.
Six one, seven, four, ten, thirty coming right back on
night Side. We're going to switch topics at the top
of the arrow, So if you want to get a
question in, now's the time. Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Now back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World
Nightside Studios on.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
W b Z the news radio. All right, back to
the call as we go. We're talking about the Mafia,
America's political elite. The book in question is Clash of
the Titans, a History of the American Mafia. How long
is this this this volume? This is volume two of
the trilogy. Lewis has been out. How long?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Oh? It just came out this morning.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah, just available Amazon and fine bookstores. Let's go next
to Paul in Pennsylvania. Paul, you're next on Nightside with
lou Ferante.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Garretta had Paul Yelier down there a guest. My question earlier,
guest is I just saw a documentary years ago. It
was what Albert to Sell Boston Streiber and they played
a portion of where he was under hypnosis and it
was one of the creepiest things I ever heard. Is
your guest ever heard the rumor that he was also
a hit man for the mob and that's why when
(37:20):
he got locked up laying around and he ended up
killed in prison.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
No, he was never a hit man for the mob.
But but let's uh, let's see what Lou has to
say on that. I'm very fniard.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, I mean nothing. I never heard anything like that either.
So if he was, I didn't, I was completely in
the dalk about it now.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
He would have been. He would have been too unreliable
as an individual to have been in that situation. I
can tell you the story that with the guy that
I worked with or worked on behalf of to get
out of prison, a fellow named Joe Silvadi, one of
the four people that Rico had had framed up here,
along with Joe Barboza from for murder they had nothing
(38:02):
to do with when they were convicted, uh, and they
were shipped immediately from Suffolk Superior Court to Walpole State Prison.
The strangler was still was already in prison. Uh, and
he fashioned himself as to being sort of like a
big guy in the prison. Everybody needed to know who
Albert de Salvo was. So Savanti was in like a
(38:25):
holding room waiting to be processed, and the Salvo came
in and uh and said Hi, I'm Albert de Salvo
or the Boston Strangler, and Savati said, go get me
a sandwich, and Salvo scarried and brought him back a
roast beef sandwich, and Joe told me the story. Uh,
(38:46):
and he said, you know, he wanted to let the
Salvo know that in the pecking order he wasn't above
Joe Savat.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
You know, yeah, yeah, it's just the way. Yeah, No, Dan,
those guys in jail have a hard time. It's it's
a matter of time before they get killed. I wrote
a memoir years ago where I talked about me and
my co defendants when we were in jail, and there
was one of us, one of my co defendants, who
could not sleep if somebody was accidentally brought in into
(39:16):
the FEDS for let's say, for example, this guy was
brought in from the state charge. He had a state
charge where it was rape, and he couldn't sleep till
he got him. And then there was another time where
the guy was charged federally because he took abducted the
girl and took her over state lines. And once again
he came to me and the rest of my co
defendant and he goes, I got to get him. So
(39:38):
we said, look, we'll do it together, you know, this way,
make sure he gets away with it. We didn't want
him because we knew he was going to do it
one way or the other. But these guys, a lot
of times, these guys, you know, I mean, they get
clipped in jail.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
There's a code of ethics internally, right.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah, you got to think it could be my sister,
could be my daughter, could be my mother. You know,
the women he strangled, he raped whoever, you know, you know,
they they just and a lot of guys are creeped
out by that. They don't you know, they don't want
them near them. But that's funny the story you said,
and that's so true.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Who gets you know, I'm Albert the Salve, he said,
you know, I'm the strangler. It's a big deal. Go
get me a Sandersom commissary. All right, thank you, Paul,
appreciate it. Thanks so.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
So.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Let me let me run a theory behind past you, okay.
And I don't know if I've ever run this theory
behind you in front of it before, But after the
Kennedy assassination, that's when a lot of the funny stuff
began to happen with Hoover going really going after the mafia.
I think he was. I think Hoover was afraid, and
(40:45):
I think that Hoover believed that the mafia was very
much the group behind the assassination of Kennedy, and Hoover
for a long time had denied the existence of the mafia,
if you recall in the nineteen fifties, and I I
think he maybe he wasn't unhappy that Kennedy had been clipped,
as you would say, but my sense is that he
(41:08):
felt he then had to go after the mafia as
a consequence of that. Do you buy that theory at
all or noo?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's possible. I'll tell you why. So he did. He
contrary to the whitewash the Warren Commission and the Warrant Commission,
was completely the conclusions drawn by the Warren Commission was
the conclusions drawn by basically Jed Gohova. Because he fed
them all of the information that they had, they had
to base their conclusions on what he either withheld or
(41:38):
what he gave them and what he told them. So
he's basically the man giving them the material that they're
then using. Notwithstanding all of obviously the testimony that they
would gather on their own, but it's all coming from Hoover.
And so Hula manipulated the verdict in that and the
verdict was exactly what he said. Within twenty minutes of
Oswald's death. It was a low nut and the case
(42:01):
is closed. So having said that, that does not mean
that Hoover did not do a deep dive into the
investigation for his own knowledge. And that's and that's exactly right.
He concluded. He knew it was the mob. He knew
Ruby had silenced Oswald, he knew that the mob was
threatening the death of Kennedy beforehand. But I also to
(42:22):
make a very very clear picture in the book that
the mob couldn't have done it without road members of
the United States government working with them to some degree.
Once again, I urged listeners to read it. Yeah, so
there was something going on, But I do agree with you.
I think Hoover knew that they were a threat. Then
at that point he kind of slowly dragged his feet
a little more over the over, you know, until basically,
(42:45):
you know, he started to go after them a little more.
But then basically when it really ramped up was after
his death. Once he died, That's when the FBI went
full blown after the Mob and they started to take
down these guys. But he did, you know, I think
I think he knew it and knew there were a
serious threat, and also too we had to cover it up.
You mentioned something good when you said he was denying
the mob for so long? How do then, how then
(43:06):
do you say you're the head of the FBI but
the mob was somehow involved. Wait a second, you've been
denying their existence exactly thirty or forty years. Yeah, now
you're going to tell us for president? Yeah, definitely, Luke.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
For Anthea, one of my favorite guests. We'll have you back.
The book Clash of the Titans, a History of the
American Mafia out today, available Amazon everywhere. Get it and
read it. Lou Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate
you coming on. You're one of my favorite guests. Simple
is that I can't pay a higher compliment.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Thanks buddy, Thank thank you so much, Dan and you
and you're one of my favorite hosts. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Thanks, we'll talk to you and happy New year.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
Thank ye.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
All right, good night. We came back when we talk
about Donald Trump. So I don't know if you call
it a news conference. Today but the president elect had
a lot to say, and we're going to cover some
of it right after the break here at the eleven
o'clock hour.
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