# Five Families

## Metadata
- Author: [[Selwyn Raab]]
- Full Title: Five Families
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- Anslinger and the narcotics bureau recognized the general outlines, if not the totality and magnitude of the Mafia’s framework. But the FBI and all other competing federal law-enforcement units ridiculed the intelligence analysis as unsubstantiated rumors and hypotheses by an agency seeking undeserved glory and praise. No attention was paid to Anslinger’s incisive findings. ([Location 1847](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=1847))
- In New York, the subcommittee and the Mafia discovered the power of the new television medium. The three major networks then in existence, ABC, CBS, and NBC, televised the hearings live in a rare coast-to-coast hookup. The parade of shady characters, bookies, pimps, politicians, and slippery lawyers on TV screens captivated the nation, becoming television’s first live spectacular public event, drawing an unprecedented audience of between 20 and 30 million viewers daily. The highlight of the ([Location 1950](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=1950))
- Most big-city detectives resented the FBI’s propaganda apparatus and its unearned reputation for excellence. As a sign of contempt for Hoover’s agents, New York detectives sarcastically referred to the bureau’s initials as standing for “Famous But Incompetent.” Because of the FBI’s zeal in generating meaningless anticrime statistics through the recovery of stolen cars, other wags labeled FBI agents “Fan Belt Inspectors.” ([Location 2555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=2555))
- In 1962, under confusing existing laws and court rulings, federal agencies were prohibited from “interception and disclosure” of telephone conversations. In 1954, during the Eisenhower administration, Attorney General Herbert Brownell gave Hoover the discretion to use bugs—concealed microphones or transmitting apparatus—in “internal security” cases. The authority was intended for use by the FBI against Soviet bloc nations and the Communist Party. Hoover now dynamically interpreted and expanded that authorization to include organized-crime investigations. The FBI’s theory was that it could secretly “intercept,” listen in, on bugs and telephone or wire taps, so long as the contents were not “disclosed.” The information from the eavesdropping could never be used as evidence in a court, but it would provide the bureau with invaluable intelligence and clues about Mafia activities. ([Location 2578](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=2578))
- The electronic spying was a carefully guarded secret and Hoover never officially told Robert Kennedy that he had launched the illegal project, which some agents referred to by another coded name: “the June Files.” For the record, the bureau maintained that its sudden cornucopia of information and insight on the Mob came from informers, turncoats, and intensive leg work by agents. Only one official in the Justice Department, William G. Hundley, the head of Bobby Kennedy’s Organized Crime Section, was discreetly informed that agents might be resorting to illegal and unconstitutional eavesdropping. “Hoover never asked for authorization,” Hundley said. “Occasionally, my counterparts in the FBI would hint in a roundabout way that they had some information from a bug but they were never specific.” Hundley believed that the agents informed him unofficially of the eavesdropping as a bureaucratic cover, which would allow the FBI to claim that the Justice Department was aware of the legally questionable program, should it blow up into a scandal. It was apparent to Hundley that some prosecutors in the department, from careful reading of FBI reports, could deduce that the confidential information could have come only from surreptitious bugs, known as “black-bag jobs.” ([Location 2584](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=2584))
- Because of the legally questionable nature of the bugs and wiretaps, Hundley had kept his mouth shut to protect Kennedy from personal damage if the surveillance program became a political hot potato. “It was one of those things you don’t talk about,” Hundley conceded. “Hoover had never done anything on organized crime. His game plan was to catch up in a hurry with the bugs. Later he could use the information from the bugs to develop informers, make cases and nobody would ever know.” ([Location 2595](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=2595))
- Although not categorically conclusive, Ragano’s assertions are among the starkest signs implicating Mafia bosses in the death of President Kennedy. G. Robert Blakey, an unsurpassed authority on the assassination and on organized crime, characterized Ragano’s information as plausible. “It has the ring of truth,” he added. The Cosa Nostra’s own warped moral code rejects violence against honest officials, and John and Robert Kennedy should have been immune from Mob retaliation. But the FBI’s electronic spy tapes and Ragano’s testimony show that Mob bosses believed that Joseph Kennedy had made a commitment for his sons, and, wittingly or unwittingly, the sons had violated it. The bosses felt they had been double-crossed. By reneging on what the Mafia considered an ironclad bargain, the Kennedys might have been viewed as fair game for their savage vindictiveness. ([Location 2999](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=2999))
- A rock-hard Christian fundamentalist, McClellan possessed an Old Testament sense of righteousness and was generally portrayed as a kind and considerate man, but one who truly believed in right and wrong and punishment for evildoers. ([Location 3435](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=3435))
- The overall legislation was titled the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. For McClellan and Blakey, the essence of the act, the heart of their game plan, were provisions labeled the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations section. The law’s abbreviated title was RICO and its strange name was intentional. Blakey refuses to explain the reason for the RICO acronym. But he is a crime-film buff and admits that one of his favorite movies is Little Caesar, a 1931 production loosely modeled on Al Capone’s life. Edward G. Robinson portrayed the central character, a merciless mobster, whose fictional nickname—serendipitously for Blakey—was Rico. Robinson’s snarling characterization of the rise and fall of Rico became the prototype for movie gangsters. Dying in an alley after a gun battle with the police, Little Caesar gasps one of Hollywood’s famous closing lines—also Blakey’s implied message to the Mob: “Mother of Mercy—is this the end of Rico?” ([Location 3443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=3443))
- To young mafiosi to whom he took a liking he volunteered the philosophy that inspired his success. “You have to be like a lion and a fox,” he lectured attentive recruits. “The lion frightens away the wolves. The fox recognizes traps. If you are like a lion and a fox, nothing will defeat you.” It is doubtful that any of the boss’s untutored disciples realized that Gambino’s parable was plagiarized from Niccolò Machiavelli, the sixteenth-century Italian political realist and cynic, who advocated that princes should rely on deception to seize and retain power. ([Location 3903](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003GY0KK2&location=3903))