McClellan Hearings

The McClellan Hearings, more commonly known as the Valachi Hearings, investigated organized crime activities across America and centered on Teamsters head and mafia associate, Jimmy Hoffa in 1957 and other leading mafia figures of the era such as Sam Giancana of Chicago. The hearings were initiated by Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan.

Overview

The first American mafia informant, Joseph Valachi appeared before the McClellan Committee in 1962 and gave the American public a firsthand account of mafia activities in the United States and Canada. Before Valachi, federal authorities had no concrete evidence that the American Mafia even existed. In 1962, Valachi, a low-ranking member of the New York based Genovese crime family, was in a federal prison serving time for narcotics offences. In October 1963, Valachi testified before Senator John L. McClellan's congressional committee on organized crime that the Mafia did exist. [ [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875227,00.html Killers in Prison] , Time, October 4, 1963] [ [http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873080,00.html "The Smell of It"] , Time, October 11, 1963] Although the low-ranking Valachi's disclosures never led directly to the prosecution of many Mafia leaders, he was able to provide many details of its history, operations and rituals, aiding in the solution of several uncleared murders, as well as naming many members and the major crime families. Valachi testified in vivid and minute detail on his day-to-day life in organized crime in a first-time-ever public account of life as a soldier of La Cosa Nostra, including its rites of initiation. [ Maas, Peter. 1968. "The Valachi Papers". New York: Putnam's] These televised hearings brought home to average Americans the savage violence and intimidation routinely used by the mafia to further and protect its criminal enterprises. ["International Drug Trafficking: Law Enforcement Challenges for the Next Century" by Thomas A. Constantine; Administrator, United States Drug Enforcement Administration]

Revelations

According to Valachi, the original bosses of New York's Five Families were Charles Luciano, Tom Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, Joseph Bonnano and Vincent Mangano. Vito Genovese was the underboss of the Luciano crime family and Albert Anastasia the underboss of the Mangano family. (Valachi is apparently wrong on at least one point - Joseph Adonis ruled Brooklyn for many years before Mangano assumed power.) Maranzano had himself crowned "Boss of Bosses" in an elaborate ceremony. [ [http://www.benbest.com/history/schemers.html A Covert History of the 1960's Era] by Ben Best]

Aftermath

On the heels of Valachi's disclosures, the United States Congress passed two new laws to strengthen federal racketeering and gambling statutes that had been passed in the 1950s and early 1960s to aid the Federal Bureau of Investigaztion's fight against mob influence. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 provided for the use of court-ordered electronic surveillance in the investigation of certain specified violations. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Statute of 1970 allowed organized groups to be prosecuted for all of their diverse criminal activities, without the crimes being linked by a perpetrator or all-encompassing conspiracy. Along with greater use of Agents for undercover work by the late 1970s, these provisions helped the FBI develop cases that, in the 1980s, put almost all the major traditional crime family heads in prison. [cite web|url=http://www.policyalmanac.org/crime/archive/fbi.shtml|title=History of the FBI]

Notes

References

*Maas, Peter. 1968. "The Valachi Papers". New York, Putnam.
*Kelly, Robert J. "Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States". Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
*Sifakis, Carl. "The Mafia Encyclopedia". New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
*Sifakis, Carl. "The Encyclopedia of American Crime". New York: Facts on File Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0
* Dan E. Moldea, "The Hoffa Wars", Charter Books, New York: 1978 (ISBN 0-441-34010-5).
* Charles Brandt, "I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and the inside story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the last ride of Jimmy Hoffa", Steerforth Press, Hanover (NH, USA) 2004 (ISBN 1-58642-077-1).

External links

* [http://www.history.com/media.do?id=cd6track04&action=clip/ Mafia Hearings on Capital Hill]