King of the Crescent City: A brief paper on the life of Carlos Marcello

FOREWARD: This being a paper for my history class, it is very brief and does not cover every aspect of Marcello's life. Notably brief in this paper is Marcello's alleged involvment in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. For a more detailed reading about Carlos Marcello, check out any of the books located at the bottom of the paper that I used as sources.

Also, this paper serves as an excellent companion piece to my earlier paper: Who Killa De Chief?: The Mafia, the Assassination of David Hennessy, and the Crescent City Lynchings. Combined, these two papers briefly document the rise and fall of the Mafia in New Orleans.



Born on February 6, 1910, Calogero Minacore would live in Tunis, Tunisia until he and his mother would travel later that year to the United States. It was there where Calogero’s father, Guiseppe Minacore, was able to work as a field hand and had saved enough money to not only bring his wife and newborn son to the United States, but also to purchase a small farm near Algiers, Louisiana. It was while Guiseppe was working on a sugar plantation that he was forced to change his name. The owner of the plantation was also named “Minacore”, so to avoid confusion Guiseppe changed his name to Joseph Marcello. His wife would choose the name Louise Marcello. The name they chose for their son would not only be remembered and associated with organized crime, but also with the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. It was barley into the first year of his life when little Calogero Minacore would then on be known as Carlos Marcello.

Both John and Louise would eventually become naturalized citizens, and the rest of the Marcello children (Carlos would have six brothers, and two sisters) would automatically become citizens due to being born on U.S. soil. But for some reason they never bothered to have Carlos naturalized, an oversight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Marcello grew up working with his father on their farm. He would bring the vegetables they would grow by cart to the various produce markets, most of which were dominated by the local Mafia, located in the French Quarter.

Just about the same time Marcello would be exposed to the Mafia, its longtime leader, Charles Matranga, would retire. Matranga survived a bloody war with the rival Provenzano Mafia faction and a mass lynching over the assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy to become the undisputed leader of the Mafia in New Orleans. In 1925, Matranga retired and Sylvestro Carolla would become leader of the New Orleans Mafia. Nicknamed “Silver Dollar Sam” the scarred, sleepy eyed Carolla continued the tradition that the New Orleans Mafia seemed to have on assassinating public officials by murdering a narcotics agent by the name of Cecil Moore. Unlike his predecessors, Carolla wasn’t subjected to a lynching, but rather a light two year prison sentence. By the time Carolla was boss the 18th Amendment had passed, making the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal. While the American public was distracted by the violence generated by prohibition in New York and Chicago, the violence generated by Carolla and his organization to dominate bootlegging in New Orleans gained little attention.

In 1928, at the age of 18, Marcello left his family’s farm and moved into the French Quarter. Marcello would commit petty crimes until 1929 when he organized a $7,000 bank robbery with three young accomplices. The bank was not far from his family’s farm. His father agreed to hide the stash of money. Fearing the consequences, one of Marcello’s younger brothers, Pete, called the cops and told them where the money was hidden. Marcello, his three accomplices, and even his father were arrested. But the bank, just happy to get all of the money back, dropped all charges.

It wasn’t long before Marcello would be planning his next robbery. In order to get money for guns to hold up the same bank he held up months earlier, Marcello and two other teenage accomplices robbed a grocery store. The score being a success, the gang started to plan their bigger robbery. All was going well until Marcello’s youngest accomplice (13 years old) was recognized by the grocer they had robbed three weeks before and was arrested. The boy spilled the whole plot and Marcello was arrested and turned out to be the only one of the three to be convicted for assault, robbery, and grand larceny. On May 28, 1930, at the age of 20, Marcello entered Angola prison. Marcello was eventually pardoned by puppet Governor O.K. Allen after serving only four years of his nine to twelve sentence.

After Marcello left prison he went back to work for his father. He only did this until he could afford to put a down payment on a rundown bar in Gretna. Marcello named it “The Brown Bomber”, and brought his brother Peter in with him to help run the place. Marcello would soon use his bar as a front for selling marijuana. Through regular payoffs to the Mafia, Marcello was able to keep his bar protected from raids by the local police. Marcello would eventually meet Frank Todaro, an underboss in Carolla’s organization. Marcello started working for Todaro and married his daughter, Jacqueline. It was after his marriage that Marcello and his brother Vincent set up the Jefferson Music Company, where the Marcello brothers would strong arm bars and restaurants in New Orleans to supply their establishments with pool tables, pinball machines, and jukeboxes from Marcello’s company.

It was a chance meeting between New York mob boss Frank Costello and Governor Huey Long that helped drive Marcello’s successes. Costello wanted to expand his slot machine empire into New Orleans and Long, being the virtual dictator of the state, wouldn’t mind the payoff. A meeting between Long, Costello, and Carolla took place to bring Costello’s slot machines into Louisiana. Marcello’s Jefferson Music Company was recommended as a primary vehicle to help install Costello’s slot machines. While this was good news for Marcello, it was soon shattered by trouble with the authorities. Marcello was still selling marijuana out of his bar, where an undercover federal agent had purchased 23 pounds of it. Marcello was sentenced to a year and a day at Atlanta State Penitentiary. But through the political connections of Carolla, Marcello ended up only serving nine months.

After serving a brief stint in Atlanta, Marcello returned to enforce the use of Costello’s slot machines in New Orleans. Marcello, now 30 and a father, reaped the benefits of this highly profitable business. Marcello would also gain interest in the casino business as it gained popularity.

On May 5, 1947, the upper echelons of the New Orleans Mafia gathered at the Black Diamond nightclub to anoint Marcello as boss of the New Orleans Mafia. After Carolla beat the rap for murdering a federal narcotics agent, the Justice Department would use any means necessary to rid New Orleans of him. Much like Marcello, Carolla was not a U.S. citizen. The Justice Department would use this against Carolla and ordered deportation proceedings against him in the mid 30s. But the already slow process was delayed by World War II. But now that the war was over, the government wasted no time in deporting the New Orleans mob boss. Carolla, along with New York Mafia bigwig Charlie “Lucky” Lucaino, faced exile in Italy. At thirty seven years old, Carlos Marcello became Mafia boss of New Orleans.

From 1950-1951 the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, easier remembered as the Kefauver Committee, had investigated the Mafia throughout the United States. The Committee brought Carlos Marcello before it on January 25, 1951. The expansion of Marcello’s empire into: Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, California, Alabama, and even the Caribbean and Central America made him an essential target for the committee. While sitting in a New Orleans courtroom Marcello would invoke his right of the Fifth Amendment 152 times. While he was well within his rights to plead the fifth, the corruption that had been established in Louisiana outraged Senator Estes Kefauver, the chairmen of the committee. Not being able to establish his citizenship, the United States issued its first deportation order against Carlos Marcello in 1953.

Marcello had another problem besides his approaching deportation order. His old headquarters, the Willswood Tavern, had been exposed by the Kefauver Committee as his base of operations. Marcello would relocate from the Willswood Tavern, where Al Capone’s old chef Provino Mosca worked, and moved to the Town and Country Motel on Airline Highway. A one story building behind the motel and restaurant would serve as Marcello’s new fortress.

Not long after the Kefauver Committee, a group of concerned New Orleans citizens invited ex-FBI agent Aaron Kohn down to investigate the NOPD. Kohn had plenty of experience of brining rural bank robbers like John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson to justice, but this is the first time that Kohn would go head to head with an urban mobster. While investigating the NOPD, Kohn discovered that all of the vice and corruption in the city led back to Carlos Marcello. Kohn received ridicule from the NOPD, former FBI colleagues, and even from New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Kohn was quoted saying: We have been in repeated public conflicts with Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who denies the existence in our city of probable organized crime. He and his staff have blocked out efforts to have grand juries probe the influence of the Cosa Nostra and other syndicate operations. The corrupt Garrison would later achieved fame as the only man who ever tried a person in the Kennedy assassination. Kohn eventually was able to get two grand juries to indict high level NOPD officers on corruption charges. He was also able to get Marcello in the crosshairs of the McClellan Committee, which was investigating corruption in labor and management. This is where Marcello’s infamous feud with the Kennedy brothers would begin.

The McClellan Committee was formed on January 30, 1957, with Robert F. Kennedy appointed as Chief Counsel, and his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, a member of the committee. At first the committee was only concerned with corruption in organized labor. It was here where Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa was brought before and grilled by the Kennedy brothers. It was after the discovery of the secret Apalachin meeting in New York on November 14, 1957, which exposed the existence of the Mafia to the country, that shifted the committee’s focus to organized crime. (Marcello wasn’t at the Apalachin meeting that was uncovered by police, but sent Dallas Mafia boss Joe Civello to the meeting in his place) Marcello was brought before the committee and again reprised his role of pleading the fifth amendment. While Marcello was able to walk out of the courtroom with his head high, knowing that he beat another government committee, Robert F. Kennedy would not forget the brash Marcello.

On the early morning of January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro would overthrow U.S. supported “President” Fulgencio Batista, and took control of Cuba. In the months after the revolution, Castro would disassemble the empire that the Mafia had built in Havana. Castro closed all of their casinos and racetracks, and chased all elements of the Mafia out of his country. He even placed Florida Mafia boss Santo Trfficante, Jr. under arrest and held him in an abandoned casino for months. This is when the “pact with the devil” was formed. The CIA and the Mafia worked together on several occasions to have Castro assassinated. Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, his subordinate Johnny Roselli, Tampa Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., and New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello were the major players in the alliance that the Mafia had with the CIA. Not only did these Mafia bosses work with the CIA, but they also funded several anti-Castro exile groups as well. It is believed by some that it was this alliance between these three groups that was the driving force responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

A year after Castro took power; President John F. Kennedy defeated former Vice President Richard Nixon in the race for the presidency. Robert Kennedy was made Attorney General, and was eager to prosecute the mobsters who escaped them years earlier. To help stall his deportation case Marcello acquired a fake birth certificate that stated he was from Guatemala. While the government was aware that this birth certificate was a forgery, Attorney General Robert Kennedy decided to use this against Marcello. On the morning of April 4, 1961 Marcello, along with his lawyer, paid his tri-monthly visit to the INS office in New Orleans. Marcello was arrested and then kidnapped by INS agents. Marcello was told that he was being immediately deported to where his birth certificate said he was from, Guatemala. Not only was this illegal because the government knew that Marcello’s birth certificate was a forgery, but as part of his deportation order Marcello was supposed to have been given a seventy two hour notice before he was deported. Marcello was not allowed to call his family, or get anything from his home. He was immediately put on a plane and was left for dead in the jungles of Guatemala. Marcello stayed in exile for two months before sneaking back into the United States. In his book, The Enemy Within, Robert Kennedy wrote: If we do not attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us.

After sneaking back into the country, Marcello eventually turned himself in to the authorities on June 2, 1963. He was released the same day and was allowed to return to his home and go about his daily activities. Even though the “kidnap deportation” was illegal, Kennedy had Marcello called to testify before the reconstituted McClellan committee, but he avoided this on the basis of illness caused by his ordeal in Guatemala. His brother Joe and Joe Poretto, one of Marcello’s top men, were however summonsed to the hearing. They both, like Marcello did in the past, plead the Fifth Amendment. On October 30, 1963, Attorney General Kennedy publicly announced the indictment of Marcello on charges of falsifying his Guatemalan birth certificate, and perjury. From this moment on, several witnesses would claim that whenever the Kennedy name was brought up around Marcello, he would burst into violent outbursts, where he would swear revenge against the Kennedy brothers.

This paper being long and out of control enough, and realizing that this is a paper on the life of Carlos Marcello rather than trying to implicate him in the Kennedy assassination, I’m only going to briefly mention Marcello and the Kennedy assassination.

In the summer of 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald returned to his native city of New Orleans. His mother, a former prostitute, and his uncle were the few members of his family that would still talk to him after his defection to Russia. Oswald’s uncle was Charles “Dutz” Murret, a bookmaker closely connected to Marcello. People have claimed to have seen Oswald in the presence of David Ferrie. Ferrie was a pilot, a scientist, and a paralegal. Ferrie was connected to Marcello because he was helping Marcello with his upcoming deportation case. Ferrie also trained the Cubans that stormed the Bay of Pigs, and hated Kennedy after the failed invasion. After his summer stay in New Orleans, Oswald moved to Dallas, which was controlled by Marcello.

On November 22, 1963, right at the precise moment President Kennedy was assassinated, Marcello was in a New Orleans courtroom facing yet another trial related to his deportation. It was in the middle of The United States vs. Carlos Marcello when a bailiff approached judge Herbert W. Christenberry and whispered something into his ear. The judge then told the court that President Kennedy had been shot. Soon after, Marcello and his brother Joe would be found not guilty on the counts of “conspiracy to defraud the United States government by obtaining a false Guatemalan birth certificate" and "conspiracy to obstruct the United States government in the exercise of its right to deport Carlos Marcello." But the courts were not finished with him yet. On October 16, 1964, Marcello was indicted in connection with jury tampering at his trial for the forged birth certificate. He eventually came to trial on this charge on August 17, 1965, but once again the jury found in his favor.

After beating two major court cases, and with the Kennedy brothers out of office, Marcello’s organization would continue to prosper. Not having to fear deportation at the moment, Marcello no longer had to tip toe around the government. His next run in with the law would be on October 1, 1966. Marcello, after returning to New Orleans from a brief Mafia summit in New York that was raided by the police, punched FBI agent Patrick Collins. Marcello was brought to trial for this and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. But keeping with tradition, he only served six months in a medical facility in Springfield, Missouri.

Again, while this paper is about the life of Carlos Marcello, and not the implication of his involvement in assassinations, it should be noted that Marcello had connections to James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan, the assassins of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Marcello was known for his stance against civil rights, and was known to fund the KKK. According to witnesses Ray was seen at the Town and Country Motel on December 17, 1967. Also, when the FBI raided Ray‘s apartment, agents found a map with the address of LA gangster Johnny Roselli circled on it. Only after a few months after King’s assassination, Robert Kennedy was assassinated as well. In 1968, Robert Kennedy was gearing up to run as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. The Mafia feared that Kennedy would reopen the investigation into his brother’s death, and that he might further pursue organized crime if he were elected. Kennedy was later shot by Sirhan Sirhan, who worked as a groom at the Santa Anita race track controlled by LA gangster Mickey Cohen, who was a close friend of Marcello.

While Marcello was never officially connected to any of these assassinations, he was called before The House Select Committee on Assassinations on January 11, 1978. After the Watergate scandal broke in 1972, the Watergate Committee was formed to investigate. After finding out about CIA and FBI involvement in the scandal, the Church Committee and the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were both formed to investigate the various intelligence agencies of the United States. When suspicions arouse that these very agencies could be involved with the Kennedy assassination the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed in 1976 to reinvestigate the JFK/MLK assassinations, and the attempt on presidential candidate George Wallace. Marcello was called as a witness and not a suspect, so his testimony was given under a grant of immunity, so he didn‘t have to hide behind the Fifth Amendment. It was at this time when a number of Marcello’s associates started to turn up dead. Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana was shot in the back of the head in his basement on June 19, 1975. Johnny Roselli’s decomposing body was found in a 55-gallon steel fuel drum floating in a bay near Miami on August 9, 1976. Roselli had been strangled, shot, and his legs were sawn off. Chicago Mafia hitman Charles Nicoletti was found dead in his car with three gunshot wounds to the back of his head on March 29, 1977. Finally, Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975. What all of these men had in common (besides being involved with the Mafia and allegedly in the Kennedy assassination) was that they either testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, or they were due to testify. Marcello and his associate in Tampa, Santo Trafficante, Jr., would be the only two major Mafia figures to survive the committee hearings. The Committee would later conclude that Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy.

Joseph Hauser was an insurance swindler who was introduced to Marcello in 1976. It was Marcello who helped him dupe insurance companies in New Orleans. But Hauser was eventually caught and pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges. Seeing their opportunity the FBI, who longed to convict Marcello, approached Hauser and told him that if he would cooperate with the authorities, all of his charges would be dropped. Hauser would have to participate in Project BRILAB (short for bribery and labor), a nationwide sting set up to get Marcello. The operation began on April 2, 1979. Hauser, aided by two undercover FBI agents, set themselves up as representatives of a fictitious West Coast insurance company and set out to induce Marcello to use his influence to get key officials in the labor movement and the state and municipal governments to award major insurance contracts to the company, in return for a share of the huge commissions payable on these agreements. Hauser and the FBI agents would wear wires and Marcello's office at the Town and Country Motel complex would be bugged. The FBI recorded fourteen hundred reels of recorded tape of conversations with Marcello. The sting eventually ended and Marcello would be charged with racketeering, conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and interstate travel to engage in racketeering. The main witnesses for the government were Hauser and the two undercover FBI agents, Larry Montague and Michael Wacks. On August 4, 1981, Marcello was found guilty of violating the RICO statute, the next day he was also found guilty of trying to bribe a federal judge. Between the BRILAB sting, and the bribing of a federal judge, Marcello faced seventeen years in prison. Marcello was moved from prison to prison, never staying in the same place for more than two years.

In 1989, Marcello suffered a series of strokes. He had become severely disabled and had been showing the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Carlos’s BRILAB conviction. After serving six and a half years, Marcello was freed to the care of his family. He would eventually lose the power of speech and he regressed to his infancy. He was rarely in public and died on March 3, 1993.

After Marcello’s arrest and death there was a power vacuum in the New Orleans underworld. None of Marcello’s brothers wanted to take control of his organization, and most of them officially retired from crime. Remnants of Marcello’s organization allied themselves with men connected to the Gambino Crime Family in New York and the Bruno-Scarfo Crime Family in Philadelphia. The east coast mobsters worked with former Marcello members Anthony Corolla, Nick Karno, and Frank Caracci to take control of New Orleans. Silver Dollar Sam’s son, Anthony Carolla, told the eastern mobsters: Sure, go ahead. Come on in. You won’t get any heat from the Marcellos. They’re finished. They don’t mean nothin around here anymore.

According to Marcello-era criminal Frenchy Brouillette, Anthony Corolla leading a Mafia family in New Orleans was as effective as George W. Bush leading the United States.

The New Orleans Mafia lost a major source of illegal revenue when 4th term Governor Edwin Edwards legalized casino gambling in the early 90's.

Marcello was initially buried in Westlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum, but was moved two years later to Metairie Cemetery.


Sources
-Mafia Kingfish-John H. Davis
-Legacy of Secrecy-Lamar Waldron
-Mr. New Orleans-Michael Randazzo V
-Deep Water: Joseph Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia-Thomas Hunt
-The Enemy Within-Robert F. Kennedy

Do you put the word "the" in front of "God"?: A brief history of domestic crimes committed by the CIA

I remember a senator once asked me. When we talk about "CIA" why we never use the word "the" in front of it. And I asked him, do you put the word "the" in front of "God"?

Those are the chilling last words of Robert De Niro’s CIA epic, The Good Shepherd. Some may dismiss the following line as dramatic context, just merely adding to the climax of the film, but if one looks at the history of the Central Intelligence Agency and the illegal domestic acts committed by it, the message of this quote proves to be disturbingly accurate. Through the following examples it is clear that the CIA is more concerned with power, and it’s domination over the American people, rather than protection of the country. But it’s the ignorance of the American public that allows operations like the following to continue. If the public were educated on the history of the covert actions taken by his/her country, we could hold it accountable for its crimes.

The list of domestic CIA crimes is both long and controversial. For the purpose of this paper, I chose only to focus on the most unbelievable and atrocious of offences. Also, keep in mind that I’m writing only about the operations that have come to light, one can only guess what crimes this alphabet agency continues to hide from the United States public. It’s also necessary to realize that it is illegal for the CIA to be running any sort of domestic operation, which falls under the purview of the FBI.

A good place to start would be with OPERATION HTLINGUAL. Originally named SRPOINTER, HTLINGUAL was a domestic mail opening program that lasted from 1952-1972, and was started under the rule of Allen Dulles as DCI(Director of Central Intelligence). CIA operatives would open mail destined for China and the Soviet Union. But before you try to defend this course of action, thinking that the CIA was just trying to catch Soviet spies, the mail of Martin Luther King, Jr. was also open under the guise of this program.

Another early program of the CIA would be OPERATION ARTICHOKE. Started in 1951, OPERATION ARTICHOKE was a project that involved the CIA, FBI, Air Force, Navy, and the Army. The overall objective of this project can be clearly seen in a memo which stated: Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation? It wouldn’t be long until OPERATION ARTICHOKE would evolve into the infamous PROJECT MKULTRA experiments.

Maybe one of the most disturbing operations covered in this paper, PROJECT MKULTRA was also started in the early 1950’s and was a human experimentation project. The overall objective of MKULTRA was both mind control and the extraction of information from the human brain. The CIA would experiment on unknowing American citizens by drugging them with LSD in attempting to hypnotize them. One of the most infamous cases was the death of Dr. Frank Olson, who was a scientist working for TSS(Technical Staff Services). The CIA invited Dr. Olson, and other scientist from TSS for a simple conference. The CIA served the unknowing participants drinks laced with seventy micrograms of LSD. Thirty minutes into the conference the TSS doctors were made aware that their drinks were spiked with the psychedelic drug, and their behavior was being monitored. Most of the agents reported little effect on their unwilling participants, except for Dr. Frank Olson. Dr. Olson apparently had a “bad trip” and suffered from extreme paranoia and had a nervous breakdown. The CIA sent him to New York to see a psychiatrist, who said that Olson should be placed into a mental institution. On the last night of his stay, Dr. Olson purposely threw himself out of the tenth story floor of his hotel room window, dying on impact. The circumstances of Dr. Olson’s death were not fully revealed to his family, and it would take two decades before Olson’s family received a full apology from President Ford(Melton 5-7). The atrocities didn’t stop there. MKULTRA became almost like an organic phenomenon, giving birth to other sub projects such as OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX, where prostitutes on the CIA payroll would seduce men, and bring them back to “safe” houses installed with two way mirrors. The prostitutes would drug the men with LSD before engaging in intercourse, and the agents behind the mirrors would study the effects. Unfortunately, we know little more of MKULTRA, most of the documents that pertain to this program were destroyed by DCI Richard Helms upon being fired by President Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal.

Another operation that was started in the early 50’s was OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD, where the CIA had influence in both domestic and foreign media. Not knowing how far the CIA had penetrated the news media, many people doubted the existence of MOCKINGBIRD at all. It wasn’t until the Church Committee in 1976, who came to the conclusion:

“The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”(Church Committee 375)

Along with this statement came proof that the CIA has tapped the phones of prominate news anchors and paid an unknown number of television employees to act as informants.

Another domestic operation was OPERATION CHAOS, which was started in 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, but was later expanded and used in full force by President Richard M. Nixon. The purpose of OPERATION CHAOS was to determine if communists were funding and organizing student anti-war protest movements. Agents went as far as to plant people in anti-war protest groups, and tap student’s phones. Students were not only the victims of illegal covert surveillance, as the Black Panther Party and the Women Strike for Peace were also in the crosshairs of the CIA.

In 1962, another gut wrenching operation that was conjured by both the CIA and the Pentagon was OPERATION NORTHWOODS. OPERATION NORTHWOODS was a false-flag program that would have allowed the CIA to fabricate terrorist attacks(which would include hijackings and bombings) in major U.S. cities, resulting in the deaths of innocent Americans. The terror attacks would be blamed on Cuban operatives, thus allowing the United States to invade Cuba and topple the communist government of Fidel Castro, without any retaliation from the Soviets. Thankfully, the plan was turned down by President John F. Kennedy, and was never officially operational.

OPERATION NORTHWOODS was just one of the several plans concocted by the U.S. government to kill Fidel Castro. Hundreds of attempts would later be planned and carried out by every presidential administration since John F. Kennedy. One of the most intriguing plots would include an unlikely ally, the American Mafia. Before Castro and his rebels toppled the U.S. friendly government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, the American Mafia owned most of the casinos and racetracks in Havana. “President” Batista was not only friendly to the U.S. government, but to organized crime as well. The Mafia delivered him a “piece of the action” off the top of the millions they were making off of their brothels and gambling rackets in Havana, so much so that Havana would soon be called “the Latin Las Vegas”. But the party stopped in the early hours of January 1st, 1959, when Castro and his communist rebels overthrew the Batista regime, and took control of the country. Soon after his ascension into power, Castro closed all of the casinos and racetracks and chased all the elements of the American Mafia out of his country. He even placed Tampa Mafia Boss Santo Trifficante, Jr. under house arrested in one of his casinos for several months. So it would be no great surprise that the Mafia wanted Castro dead even more than the American government. The CIA formed an alliance with Sam Giancana (Mafia boss of Chicago), Santo Trifficante, Jr.,(Mafia boss of Tampa) and Carlos Marcello.(Mafia boss of New Orleans) A friendship was forged among this alliance. CIA field agent William Harvey developed a lifelong friendship with Chicago mobster Johnny Roselli.(Russo 386) There were a dozen Mafia/CIA plots, but obviously none of them were successful.

It is this strong friendship between Harvey and Roselli where some conspiracy theorist believe that the Mafia, along with rouge CIA agents, like Harvey, and bitter Cuban exiles all banded together to assassinate President Kennedy. There has been a dramatic flow of evidence in recent years suggesting Mafia involvement in the Kennedy assassination, including a declassified paper from an FBI informant that was sharing a cell with Mafia boss Carlos Marcello in the late eighties, who was imprisoned from the notorious BRILAB sting. When the informant asked Marcello about Kennedy, Marcello responded with : “Yea, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.”(Waldron 773) The informant would later claim Marcello approached him after he calmed down after his tirade and threatened his life if he ever repeated what Marcello had told him. But what about evidence linking the CIA? Well thanks to the JFK Act of 1992, which allowed for that FBI document about Marcello to be declassified, all government documents relevant to the JFK assassination must be declassified by 2017. The CIA has claimed publicly that it has no intention of declassifying the documents it possesses on the JFK assassination. Even though they are trying to find some sort of legal recourse, the CIA has publicly defied an act of Congress.

Another instance where the CIA has been involved with the Presidency is the infamous Watergate scandal, which drove President Nixon from the White House. It is important to note that Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and James McCord were both ex-CIA agents. Most of the Cubans also caught were veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion, who have worked with Hunt in the past. It’s difficult to identify a starting point for the CIA’s involvement in Watergate, because when one is talking about the abuses of power committed by the Nixon administration, Watergate is just the tip of the iceberg. More than a year before Watergate, E. Howard Hunt and fellow burglar and ex-FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy were organizing a break in at Daniel Ellsberg’s physiatrist office to dig up dirt to discredit Ellsberg, who had leaked the Pentagon’s top secret study on America’s involvement in Vietnam. Hunt and Liddy needed fake ID’s, disguises, and tools to break into the office with, all which were supplied by Hunt’s contacts at the CIA. The CIA would also come to the aid of Hunt and Liddy later in a more sinister matter. Columnist Jack Anderson was writing damaging articles about President Nixon and his brother Donald. Liddy and Hunt decided to assassinate Anderson. The two went over various ways to make the columnist’s death look like an accident. A fatal car accident, and a mugging that turned into a shooting were all plots conjured by the two men. Eventually they decided on poising Anderson. Another one of Hunt’s CIA contacts met him and Liddy and gave them a cocktail of deadly poisons. The plan was to let Anderson unknowingly play “aspirin roulette”. One of the two would break into Anderson’s house and drop a poison pill into Anderson’s aspirin or medicine bottle. The two men got cold feet and decided to call off the “aspirin roulette” plot because there was no way they could make sure that Anderson’s wife wouldn’t take the poison pill meant for her husband. The two would eventually drop the idea of assassinating Anderson all together.(Emery 97-98)

When the Watergate scandal finally was exposed, and the blame was climbing higher and higher up the ranks of the White House, Nixon sent his fiercely loyal Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, to talk to DCI Richard Helms and see if he convince the FBI not to pursue the matter of Watergate any further. Helms was hesitant at first, until Haldeman told Helms that the President thought that further investigation of the Watergate break in would open up the whole “bay of pigs” thing for the CIA. This statement enraged the usually calm CIA director, who went on to yell: “THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BAY OF PIGS, I HAVE NO CONCERN ABOUT THE BAY OF PIGS!” The stunned Haldeman would say again to Helms that this is what the President wanted to relay to him. Helms immediately agreed to Nixon’s ploy, and he would contact the FBI. In his book, The Ends of Power, Haldeman would claim that he believed that “the bay of pigs” eluted to the Kennedy assassination, and for fear of exposure, Helms agreed to stall the FBI in their investigation of Watergate.(Emery 192) But some historians see it differently. In his book, Legacy of Secrecy, Lamar Waldron believes that the Watergate break in was fumbled on purpose, to eject Nixon from the White House. Hunt, McCord, and most of the Cubans were all ex-CIA, and some believe that the exposure of Watergate was all a carefully crafted plan devised by Helms to stage a coup d'état against Richard Nixon.(Waldron 724)

Whether it was a CIA conspiracy within a conspiracy or not, the exposure of Watergate had damaging effects on the CIA. Right after the Watergate Committee was done, the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities was formed, which was organized to investigate the crimes of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, such as the FBI, since their complicity in Watergate proved that they were capable of illegal action. When disturbing information started to be uncovered when the investigation of the CIA started, the Church Committee was formed to just investigate the crimes of the CIA. This is when all of the following operations(with the exception of OPERATION NORTHWOODS), discussed in this paper came to light. When CIA involvement in the JFK assassination was deemed a possibility, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed. This is when the systematic elimination of witness started. Harvey’s mobster friend, Johnny Roselli, was called before the HSCA, and he testified that he knew the truth behind Kennedy’s assassination. But before he could be called back to testify, Roselli went missing, and a year later his bullet riddled, burned, and dismembered body was found floating in a drum off the coast of Florida. His boss, Sam Giancana, suffered a similar fate. Giancana was shot in the back of the head in the basement of his own home. Teamster’s boss Jimmy Hoffa also went missing before he was even called to testify. It seems that someone didn’t want these underworld figures talking to the HSCA. While Trifficante and Marcello survived their testimony, one can only guess if it was either the CIA, Marcello/Trifficante, or a combination of both who were involved in this chain of convenient deaths.

By the time the committees were done with their investigations, Jimmy Carter was President. Carter‘s “reform movement”, along the winding down the of the Vietnam War, and the exposed abuses of the intelligence agencies of the United States, caused the CIA and its operations to be minimized dramatically. Several agents were fired, including the legendary Edward Wilson, who after being fired from the Agency became a terrorist and arms dealer. Wilson was later caught by the U.S. for selling arms to Libya, but of course his old employer stepped in and got the case against Wilson dropped. Even though Carter committed his share of atrocities, the CIA really was almost neutered, until the election of Ronald Reagan.

When Reagan became President in 1980, his Vice President was George H.W. Bush, who also just happened to be an ex-CIA Director. Under the Reagan Presidency, the CIA and its covert operations were restored.(Marshall 85-89 ) Reagan was determined to send aid to the Contras who were fighting the communist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Eventually Congress limited the amount of support that the United States could send to the Contras, and then later outlawed it in the Boland Amendment. That didn’t stop Reagan, the head of his NSC(National Security Council), Lt. Col. Oliver North, would broker a deal to sell arms to Iran, and use the proceeds to fund the Contras. Along with helping out the Contras, this is when the CIA had an opportunity to start up a domestic drug trade, to help fund its black operations. The CIA employed known drug smuggler Barry Seal(from Baton Rouge, who also served in the same unit as Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie), to allegedly transport drugs and arms to and from Mena, Arkansas.

Things would go without a hitch in Mena until “The Train Deaths” would occur. In the early morning of August 23rd 1987, teenagers Kevin Ives and Don Henry went out hunting. Their bodies were later found lined up perfectly on a train track, and were both decapitated by an oncoming train. A medical examiner would later conclude that the two boys were beaten to death, and that their decapitation was not the cause of death. The two boys were exactly in the same spot where several people complained of low flying planes dropping off strange packages. Were these two boys in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did they see a CIA sponsored drug drop? Many didn’t think so, but when a local sheriff decided to stick his nose around the private airstrip in Mena, where all of this strange activity was reputedly going on, he was soon afterward poisoned with anthrax. While complicity in the train death’s could never be proved, the Iran/Contra plot was soon uncovered when a U.S. airliner crashed in Nicaragua. The Tower Commission was formed to investigate, and since most of the information linking the President to the conspiracy was shredded by Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hill, North was acquitted and Reagan escaped with committing high treason. Neither the Tower Commission or the exposed CIA domestic drug running operation captured the attention of the United States public like Watergate did, and both the domestic and foreign crimes committed by the Reagan administration and the CIA went ignored by both the public and the media.

The CIA was created just to serve as an intelligence service, it had no business conducting both the domestic and even the foreign operations that it has carried out since its creation in the early fifties. The soul design of the CIA was to collect intelligence in a post WWII era, but it soon evolved into a creature that would topple governments, assassinate foreign leaders, and commit horrifying crimes against the very same people it swore to protect.

But how can we solve this problem? How can we control a government agency that has apparently run amuck? The answer is simple. Education. Unfortunately, the average American is more interested in watching pregnant teens on television, rather than to learn the history of his/her country. But the American citizen is not the only one to blame, very little of the CIA is taught at any level of education. If some history of the CIA could be taught in schools, than the public can be aware that operations like these were going on. There are several websites that have collections of declassified CIA documents, if they could somehow be advertised more to that public, than the public could keep track of declassified documents. So, if you educate the people, then the people could force Congress, who the CIA answers to, to hold the CIA accountable to it’s past crimes, and to the charter established for the CIA.

But, some people stand by these crimes. Some people think all of these operations were for the greater good. That all of the blood shed by the CIA was in purpose to its ultimate goal, to protect the United States. One could argue that all of these actions were all done to defend the United States during the Cold War. The same people would probably argue that these men should not be punished, but be seen as patriots for breaking the law.

Whether you agree with the legitimacy of the secret operations of the CIA or not, the federal government claims that the crimes stated above, and crimes like them, are no longer being committed by any government agency. But with new revelations coming to light each day about instances of the government lying to its people, I think it’s time we stop taking what the government is telling us at face value. And who is to blame for this? It is us, the public, who sits here and does nothing. Us, the public, who blindly follows our country into war without questioning the validity of it. A current war which message seems to be is that yesterday’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy. When the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, we seem to be a country that is blind.

Who Killa De Chief?: The Mafia, the assassination of David Hennessy, and The Crescent City Lynchings

On a rainy New Orleans evening on October 15, 1890, police chief David Hennessy was walking home after a board meeting. As the chief crossed the corners of Girod and Rampart St., he was struck down by the gunfire of unknown assassins. According to witnesses, even while being hit with a blast from a shotgun, Hennessy was able to return fire with his revolver before his assailants  fled. Hennessy clung to life for nearly a day before succumbing to his wounds. His last four words would unleash a wave of violence upon New Orleans unseen anywhere else in the country: “The dagos did it.”

The assassination of chief Hennessy is considered by most historians to be the first major publicized event involving the Mafia in the United States. To fully appreciate and understand the death of chief Hennessy, and the violence that would ensue soon after, a very brief history of the Mafia in New Orleans is necessary.

Sicilian criminals have been appearing in New Orleans since the start of the Civil War. As early as 1861 the New Orleans newspaper True Delta noted the presence of a large number of Sicilian thieves and assassins that operated in New Orleans. In 1869 the newspaper the Times would print: “well-known and notorious Sicilian murders, counterfeiters and burglars, who, in the last month, have formed a sort of general co-partnership or stock company for the plunder and the disturbance of the city.” With the Mafia gaining a foothold in New Orleans, it was able to expand into New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other major U.S. cities. While gaining power in the city of New Orleans, the Mafia would keep the city’s Italian citizens in a state of terror. Mafia leaders would extort, rob, and assassinate fellow countrymen who would not pay their large sums of tribute. According to The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld by Herbert Asbury, there were about 70 such murders in the span of two decades. Most of the assassinations would involve what the New Orleans police would come to call “the Mafia gun”, which was a shotgun sawed off to about eighteen inches (similar to the weapons found not far from spot where Hennessy was assassinated).

It wasn’t until 1881 when Hennessy, who was just a detective at the time, and his cousin Mike first put themselves in front of the crosshairs of the Mafia. The two cousins captured and arrested Giuseppi Esposito, a violent Sicilian Mafioso, who fled to America from Palermo for mutilating a kidnapped English clergymen. According to Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia by Thomas Hunt, once he arrived in New Orleans, Esposito was recognized as a leader by the various Mafia factions already in place. Esposito, along with his trusted lieutenant Joe Provenzano, quickly took control of the profitable docks of New Orleans along with the city’s various produce markets. Despite his underworld success, Esposito was betrayed and the authorities were alerted to his presence in New Orleans. After the Hennessy cousins arrested Esposito, his organization split into two factions. One was headed by Joe Provenzano, whose organization sought support from the Giardinieri Mafia groups of Palermo. The other faction was headed by brothers Charles and Tony Matranga, along with their underworld associate Joseph Macheca; who sought support from the Stoppaglieri Mafia groups located in various parts of Sicily. This splitting of factions would lead to a number of deaths in New Orleans, including the assassination of David Hennessy.

The relationship between the two rival Mafia factions continued to sour after the Matranga organization was able to muscle in and take control of the docks of New Orleans from the Provenzanos. In the meantime, Hennessy left the police force after being tried for the murder of New Orleans Chief of Detectives Thomas Devereaux. Hennessy, who argued his own case before the court, received a verdict of “not guilty”. In 1888, Hennessy would rejoin the police force of New Orleans as Chief of Police, after being appointed by newly re-elected mayor Joseph A. Shakespeare. Soon after becoming chief, Hennessy met with the leaders of the Matranga and Provenzano gangs and both sides agreed to stop the violence and walked away shaking hands. This would end up being an empty gesture from both parties.

In 1890 the violence between the Matrangas and the Provenzanos came to a crescendo. According to The Crescent City Lynchings by Tom Smith, as a cart carrying Tony Matranga, Rocco Geraci, Bastian Incardona, Salvatore Sunzeri, Vincent Caruso, and brothers Tony and Frank Locascio neared the intersection of Claiborne and Esplanade, they were ambushed and fired upon by six men armed with sawed-off shotguns. Two of the Matranga men were mortally wounded in the ambush, and Tony Matranga lost his leg. When questioned by Hennessy, the men first claimed that they didn't know the identity of their would be assassins. But they all soon changed their story the next day and identified: Joseph and Peter Provenzano, Tony Pellegrini, Nick Guillio, Tony Gianforcaro, and Gaspardo Lombardo as the six men who ambushed them the night before. All of the identified Provenzano men were arrested and brought to trial.

It seemed that the Matrangas would come out on top of the assassination attempt since all of the key figures of the Provenzano gang were coming up for trial. Even though all six of the Provenzano men were found guilty of murder on July 20th, 1890, their band of newly hired lawyers were able to convince Judge Joshua G. Baker to give the six men a retrial. Their retrial date was set for October 17th, 1890. Apart from being granted a new trial, it was also discovered that Chief Hennessy would also testify in favor of the Provenzanos. This angered the Matranga brothers and Joseph Macheca, who openly made threats on Hennessy’s life if he chose to testify.

On October 15th, two days before the start of the retrial for the Provenzanos, Police Chief Hennessy was assassinated. The murder of Hennessy sent shock waves through the city, and rallied an anti-Italian sentiment that would end in bloodshed. One of the first responses from the city was the arrest of over 200 Italian men, who had no connection to the murder. On October 18th, Mayor Shakespeare appointed the Committee of Fifty to investigate the crime. Threatening letters were sent to various leaders of the Italian community. Pinkerton detectives even went undercover as prisoners so that the accused could talk to them more openly. It eventually came out that Charles Matranga and Joseph Macheca were the ringleaders behind the assassination. Eventually the suspects were narrowed down to nineteen men: Antonio Bagnetto, James and John Caruso, Loretto Comitz, Rocco Geraci, Bastian Incardona, Joseph Macheca, Gasperi and Antonio Marchesi, Charles Matranga, Pietro Monasterio, Pietro Natali, Charles Patrono, Charles Pietzo, Emmanuelle Polizzi, Frank Romeo, Antonio Scaffidi, Salvatore Sunzeri, and Charles Traina. Only six of these men had connections to the Matranga organization, the rest had no known ties to any criminal organization. Since there were a large number of defendants in the Hennessy case, the men would be divided up and tried separately with two trials. The first trial began on February 16th, 1891. All nine accused men received “not guilty” verdicts on March 13th of the same year.

Joy rang out in the Italian community. Everyone thought since the trial was over, and all of the men were found not guilty, that all of the animosity towards Italians would come to an end. Others were not so thrilled to hear the verdict. Determined that the Mafia either paid off or threatened jurors, a massive meeting was held at the statue of Henry Clay on Canal St. on the morning of March 14th. Enraged citizens, members of the Committee of Fifty, and community leaders were all in attendance. According to The Crescent City Lynchings by Tom Smith, the most radical leaders of the lynch mob included: Walter Denegre(lawyer), James D. Houston(politician), William S. Parkerson(lawyer), and John C. Wickliffe(editor of the New Delta newspaper). By noon of that day eleven of the nineteen men accused would be murdered. The mob stormed the New Orleans Parish Prison and hung: Polizzi, Scaffidi, Monasterio, Macheca, Antonio Marchesi, Bagnetto, Rocco Geraci, Romero, Traina, Comitz, and Caruso. The eight other men were able to escape with their lives, including Charles Matranga.

The overall reaction to what would be called The Crescent City Lynchings divided the country. About half of the country supported the lynchings, while half were against it. Mayor Shakespeare himself was quoted saying: The Italians have taken the law into their own hands and we had no choice but to do that same. A New Orleans grand jury decided not to indict anyone because so many people took part. The Italian government was outraged. They demanded that the leaders of the lynch mob be brought to justice. Threats of war between the United States and Italy spread. Thousands of men started to enlist, causing this to be the first unified response from the North and South since the Civil War. Thankfully, war with Italy was averted and the families of the lynched defendants would receive $25,000 in reparations.

Because of the Hennessy assassination, the Provenzano trial was pushed back until January of 1891. Later that month all charges against all of the men accused of ambushing the Matranga cart were dismissed. The Provenzanos quickly returned to their war with the Matrangas over control of the docks, but were soon ironically stopped by mayor Shakespeare. According to The Crescent City Lynchings by Tom Smith, mayor Shakespeare threatened: “I will use every means at my command to wipe from the face of the earth every member of your gang who tries to raise a hand against a person of this community.” With that the Provenzano organization was finished. With complete underworld dominance, Charles Matranga would be the head of the Mafia in New Orleans until his retirement in the 1920s. His organization would evolve, modernize, and later be run by the likes of Sylvestro Carolla and Carlos Marcello.

SOURCES

-The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld-Herbert Asbury

-The Crescent City Lynchings: The Murder of Chief Hennessy, the New Orleans "Mafia" Trials, and the Parish Prison Mob-Tom Smith

-Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia-Thomas Hunt

The Top 10 Movies of 2010

In honor of 2011 I present you with my top 10 films of 2010.

10.) The American

9.) Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps



8.) Black Swan



7.) Inception

6.) Shutter Island

5.) True Grit

4.) The Ghost Writer

3.) The Town

2.) Mesrine: Killer Instinct/Public Enemy #1

(I realize that both of these films came out in 2008, but they didn't get a decent release in the United States until this year, so I'm counting them.)

1.) Animal Kingdom

I rarely do this, but the following films didn't make it on my top 10 list, yet are still some of the best movies of this year. I guess you can consider this a "Grand Prix" list.

-Four Lions

-The Social Network



-Casino Jack/Casino Jack and the United States of Money

-Easy A