20

The sensational publicity created by Apalachin affected me tremendously, because up to then I had been relatively inconspicuous. Publicity can maim and destroy. Apalachin destroyed Joe Barbara. His business license was revoked. His fine estate went up for sale. Joe’s son had to drop out of college because of the harassment and bad publicity. Joe suffered a fatal heart attack.

To understand me and others of my Tradition, one must have an open mind and an open heart. One must learn to think in terms of another culture, whose values are different from standard American culture. The bad publicity generated by Apalachin helped destroy any hope for an intelligent examination of my Tradition. Instead, the publicity perpetuated a myth … the myth of the “Mafia.”

*   *   *

In 1950–1951, U. S. Senator Estes Kefauver held his celebrated committee hearings on organized crime in gambling. The Kefauver Committee made the not-so-startling discovery that illicit gambling outlets existed in just about every major city in the United States. These bookie operations or numbers games, to take but two examples, were run by private businessmen. Because these forms of gambling were illegal, Kefauver, and police in general, referred to these private businessmen as “crime syndicates” and referred to their gambling enterprises as “organized crime.”

Gambling, like moneylending, is one of those human activities that defy government intervention, no matter how well-meaning. That should have been obvious during Prohibition when the government tried to ban the selling of liquor. People didn’t put up with it. They found a way to buy their liquor. It wasn’t the bootleggers’ fault that people wanted liquor. Bootleggers simply filled a demand. The government finally gave in. It allowed private businessmen to sell liquor, taxing their profits. The same can be done with gambling.

It is not my place to denounce or defend these activities. I merely wish to point out that if people, ordinary people, didn’t demand such services as gambling and moneylending, no one would bother to supply these services. If you truly wanted to crack down on gambling, for example, you would have to eradicate the wish to gamble in the hearts of ordinary people.

It is difficult for me, therefore, to take seriously government attempts to dislodge the entrepreneurs who provide such services. Such attempts are misplaced and self-defeating in the long run. If you remove the current private individuals who provide illicit gambling services, for example, other individuals will take their place, because there will always be customers.

Men of my Tradition (Family members), some of whom were involved in illicit gambling operations, understood the human condition and provided these services, which society demanded. The naive view is to believe that a certain group of people, such as Sicilians, somehow force these activities on society, thereby infecting it and corrupting it.

In the book he wrote after the committee hearings, Kefauver stated that behind the “crime syndicates” in this country was a sinister, secret criminal society called “the Mafia.” If Kefauver had merely said that some of the men who ran illicit gambling operations were Sicilian, he would have been partly correct; if he had added that many non-Sicilians also ran gambling operations, he would have been wholly correct.

In conjuring a central, all-powerful, directing body which he called “the Mafia,” Kefauver was totally wrong. In doing so, he perpetuated a myth. Originally, Kefauver’s conclusions applied only to illicit gambling, as one form of organized crime. By extension, however, his pronouncements were applied to any and all forms of illegal activity. Thus, to this day, most Americans still believe that “the Mafia” controls all organized crime in America. This is a fantasy.

There is no institution called “the Mafia.” The term refers to a process, to a special set of relationships among men. I stay away from the word because it creates more confusion than it is worth. The confusion is compounded by the fact that because of its currency, the word “Mafia” by itself has become a buzzword for mobsters in general. One reads in the newspapers of the Italian Mafia, the Mexican Mafia, the Jewish Mafia, and so on. This is a figurative use of the word, quite apart from the descriptive use of the word by Kefauver and the police. As a rule of thumb, however, it is better to use an English word for what you are trying to say.

One may rightly speak of a mafioso way of life, a Tradition if you will, a set of ideals and customs, a mode of thinking, that is peculiar to Sicilians. This Tradition provides a code of conduct for a Sicilian to follow, regardless of the enterprise he’s engaged in. A mafioso way of life may be exemplified by a doctor or a barber, as well as by a numbers runner. Such a way of life, such cultural expressions, are the proper study of sociologists and anthropologists, not just criminologists.

The Kefauver Committee assumed “the Mafia” was a monolithic organization that controlled organized crime in America. Such a body, as defined by the committee, doesn’t exist. Organized crime embraces a lot of people—not just Sicilians, but Jews, Irish, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Blacks, Anglos, you name it—and to posit that these various groups are controlled by one agency is preposterous.

My Tradition may be likened to the stars in the firmament by which a mariner plots his course. The stars enable the mariner to determine his direction, but they do not control where the mariner decides to go. That’s up to the individual.

Out of misplaced zeal, then, the Kefauver Committee contributed to the myth that “the Mafia” is the bogeyman of American society. Anyone connected with or related to this bogeyman was automatically denounced and branded by society as being undesirable.

*   *   *

After the Apalachin cause célèbre, the government intensified its pressure on me. To law officials, I must have seemed like the big one who had always slipped their grasp. I know this must have gnawed at them, quite apart from my actual or imagined offenses against society. In their eyes, I was an elusive rascal.

To avoid their snares, I found myself spending more and more time in Tucson rather than in the Volcano. The Apalachin notoriety made me extremely aware that I might be a liability or pose an embarrassment to some of my Tucson friends. I spoke of this to my Tucson friend Evo DeConcini, a retired Arizona state judge. I told him I didn’t want to jeopardize his career and suggested tactfully that perhaps it would be better for him if we didn’t see each other in public.

—Apalachin was something that shouldn’t have happened, I observed, hoping that Evo would grasp more than what I actually said.

Evo replied that Apalachin was not going to break up our friendship, that our friendship was open for all to see. He even quipped that if while making my way to his house a policeman should ask me where I was going, I should say I was going to visit my friend Evo DeConcini.

The loyalty of my Tucson friends encouraged me while I awaited developments after Apalachin. The town’s sunny, dry climate was very good for my bones. But I couldn’t altogether regain that excellent health that I enjoyed as a younger man. Friends had been telling me to slow down ever since my first heart attack in 1951.

That stroke occurred while I was leaving the Rialto movie house in Tucson. I was with my son Salvatore and a friend. When we reached the sidewalk, I felt dizzy and grabbed the wall. Salvatore and my friend propped me up. They took me to St. Mary’s Hospital, where I remained for almost a month.

After several weeks, friends began sneaking me bottles of cognac. I had accumulated five or six bottles when my doctor, Harold Kohl, Sr., discovered my cache.

—Too much cognac is no good for you, he said drolly. I’ll have to take two of these bottles from you. That way, we’ll each have a little. A little cognac will do you good, and will do me good, too.

I had survived my first heart attack, and I felt euphoric. I promised myself to take it easy. But how calm can one remain in the Volcano? Less than a decade after that first heart attack, the stress and pressure on me seemed as great as ever. Going off to Tucson for the winter had provided me some relief from this constant strain.

In the newspapers I read about the formation of the New York State Investigation Commission, which was issuing subpoenas in connection with the Apalachin meeting. Since it was a state commission, it had no jurisdiction outside New York. In 1958, therefore, Arizona was where I wanted to be.

Late that year, my Tucson lawyer, Lawrence D’Antonio, told me an FBI agent wanted to see me. The FBI agent had approached D’Antonio’s law partner, Ray Hayes, because the two knew each other. According to Hayes, the FBI agent wanted to arrange a discreet meeting with me, perhaps to talk about Apalachin. Hayes assured me his FBI friend just wanted to talk and could be trusted to keep his word.

It smelled fishy, but I wanted to avoid more publicity. Perhaps if I talked to this FBI agent, the FBI wouldn’t make a big public flap over me in Arizona. I agreed to see him at my house. Initially, I had wanted my lawyers to be present, but the FBI agent told Hayes he wanted to see me alone. The FBI agent promised I wouldn’t be arrested.

At the appointed hour, when I went to answer the front doorbell, I saw that about six FBI agents had surrounded my house. One of them handed me a federal warrant demanding my appearance in federal court in New York City, and they arrested me.

The timing of the arrest, as well as the whole operation, had been planned meticulously. They arrested me late on a Friday afternoon, knowing that if I had any trouble raising my bail I would be stuck in jail the entire weekend. Bond was set at $75,000—one of the highest bonds ever set in Arizona up to then.

Luckily, my bank was on the same block as the federal courthouse in Tucson. I signed a personal check, and my lawyer had just enough time to rush to the bank and cash it.

I was free on bail, but I still had to appear in New York City. Through my New York lawyer I found out that the federal warrant that I had been handed was improper. The FBI had obtained the warrant based on a list of prospective witnesses that might be called before a federal grand jury in New York City. But since the grand jury had not yet called for me, the warrant was premature.

I was apprehensive about returning to New York to clear up the matter. When I got there, my lawyer quickly corrected the warrant impropriety, but there was more in store for me.

While my lawyer, Harry Oshrin, went to the court clerk’s office, I waited for him in a coffee shop across the street. At the counter, I noticed a man sneaking looks at me. Then another man came up to me and handed me a subpoena from the New York State Investigation Commission. The subpoena said I had to appear before the New York Crime Commission that very day.

The fog lifted. Everything became clear. The federal warrant handed to me by the FBI in Tucson was but a ruse to lure me to New York so I could be handed another warrant to appear before the state commission.

As the state troopers prepared for the court case stemming from Apalachin, they realized that although they had found my driver’s license at Apalachin, none of them could testify in court that he had actually seen me there. They had some old photographs of me, but none of them could personally identify me. The two men at the coffee shop were state police agents. They wanted a good look at me so they could positively identify me as having seen me in Apalachin.

*   *   *

The following year, in 1959, a federal grand jury indicted me along with the Apalachin visitors on a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. The government based its tenuous case on the fact that no one would answer questions as to the purpose of the Apalachin meeting.

All the defendants were found guilty, but the verdict was later overturned in appeals court. It’s not a crime to visit with your friends.

I never stood trial, however. My case was severed before the trial even began. While waiting to go on trial, I had my second heart attack. A court-appointed doctor examined me to make sure I was indeed sick.

This second heart attack stunned me far more than my first heart attack. I could trace its derivation almost directly to the turmoil in the Volcano and to Apalachin.

Often in my life, I’ve had people tell me they wish they were Joe Bonanno, that they had Joe Bonanno’s power, his influence, his wealth. Such people don’t know what they’re talking about. If they want to be like me, they also have to assume the pressures, the anxiety, the tension inherent in my life-style. None of the people who say they want to be Joe Bonanno has ever told me he’d like to have Joe Bonanno’s blood pressure.