6: IN BED WITH THE MOB

  1. Earlier versions of this chapter were published as “Married to the Mob? Uncovering the Relationship between the U.S. Military and the Mafia in Southern Italy,” in Anthropology Now 4, no. 2: 54–69; and “Yankee City in the Heart of the Camorra: The U.S. Military in Campania,” in Meridione: Sud e Nord nel Mondo: La Napoli degli Americani dalla Liberazione alle basi Nato [Southern Italy: South and North in the World: Americans in Naples from Liberation to NATO Bases], no. 4 (2011), edited by Chiara Ingrosso and Luca Molinari, 243–64.

  2. Roberto Saviano, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System, translated by V. Jewiss (New York: Picador, 2007), 161.

  3. Carlo Alfiero, “Criminal Organisations in Southern Continental Italy: Camorra, ’Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita,” in Rivista papers of the 1st European Meeting ‘Falcon One’ on Organised Crime,” Rome, April 26–28, 1995, http://www.sisde.it/sito/supplemento.nsf/stampe/10.

  4. David Lane, Into the Heart of the Mafia (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 187.

  5. Saviano, Gomorrah, 46–47, 63–67, 120.

  6. Ibid., 161.

  7. Reuters, “EU Sends Italy Back to Court Over Naples Trash Epidemic,” Reuters.com, June 20, 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/20/italy-garbage-eu-idUSL5N0EW2KY20130620.

  8. Edna Buchanan, “Lucky Luciano: Criminal Mastermind,” Time, December 7, 1998, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989779-1,00.html.

  9. Rodney Campbell, The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), 1–2.

10. Salvatore Lupo, History of the Mafia, translated by Anthony Shugaar (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 187.

11. R. Campbell, Luciano Project, vii; Tom Behan, See Naples and Die: The Camorra and Organized Crime (London: Taurus Parke Paperbacks), 50–51; Tim Newark, Lucky Luciano: The Real and the Fake Gangster (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), 164; Lupo, History of the Mafia, 187; Salvatore Lupo, “The Allies and the Mafia,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 2, no. 1 (1997): 21–33.

12. Tom Behan, Defiance: The Story of One Man Who Stood Up to the Sicilian Mafia (London: I. B. Taurus, 2008), 4–5.

13. Lupo, “Allies,” 29.

14. Behan, See Naples, 53. See also Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press (London: Verso, 1998), 127–29.

15. Cockburn and St. Clair, Whiteout, 128.

16. Norman Lewis, Naples ’44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2005[1978]), 125. See also Gigi di Fiore, Controstoria della Liberazione (Milan: Rizzoli, 2012). My thanks to a friend who passed along the reference.

17. Lewis, Naples ’44, 69–70.

18. On Sicily, see esp. Lupo, “Allies,” 26.

19. Lewis, Naples ’44, 109.

20. Ibid., 123.

21. Lane, Into the Heart, 189, 192; Behan, See Naples, 46.

22. Lewis, Naples ’44, 109–10.

23. Cockburn and St. Clair, Whiteout, 128.

24. Behan, See Naples, 54–56.

25. Cooley, Base Politics, 199, 199nn88–89. A subsequent treaty signed in 1995 adds to but does not invalidate the BIA.

26. Daniele Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe (New York: Frank Cass, 2005), 63.

27. See A. Zecca, “Basi e Intallazioni Militari in Campania,” in Napoli Chiama Vicenza: Disarme i Territori, Costruire la Pace, edited by Angelica Romano (Pisa: Quaderni Satyagraha, 2008), 46.

28. Lewis, Naples ’44, 141.

29. Behan, See Naples, 57–58.

30. Ibid.; J. Patrick Truhn, “Organized Crime in Italy II: How Organized Crime Distorts Markets and Limits Italy’s Growth,” cable to Secretary of State, 08NAPLES37, 6 June 2006, Wikileaks.

31. R. Campbell, Luciano Project, 1–2.

32. Francesco Erbani, “La Città degli Abusi,” La Repubblica, July 9, 2002.

33. Saviano, Gomorrah, 187–88.

34. Ibid., 168; Erbani, “La Città.”

35. Paolo Spiga, “Famiglia Cristiana, Grandi Dinasty Mattonare—i Coppola,” La Voce della Voci, October 2010, 21.

36. Erbani, “La Città.”

37. Felia Allum, Camorristi, Politicians, and Businessmen: The Transformation of Organized Crime in Post-War Naples (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 2006), 162, xvi, 172.

38. Sue Palumbo, “Agnano Seamen to Stay in Barracks,” Stars and Stripes, May 16, 1997, 3.

39. Spiga, “Famiglia Cristiana,” 21; Erbani, “La Città.”

40. U.S. Undersecretary of Defense John McGovern wrote, “Congressman Ron Dellums will be the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Tom Foglietta has assumed a new role in the appropriations subcommittee on military construction, which provides funds for the projects. These two friends are in a powerful position to ensure the authorization and the appropriation of the project in Naples.” See Spiga, “Famiglia Cristiana,” 21.

41. F. Geremicca, “Invece di una Nuova Pompei il Villaggio della US Navy,” Diario, September 21/27, 2001, http://dust.it/articolo-diario/invece-di-una-nuova-pompei-il-villaggio-della-us-navy.

42. Andrea Cinquegrani, “Farano un Deserto e lo Chiameranno NATO,” La Voce della Campania, April 6-9, 2001, 7.

43. Geremicca, “Nuova Pompei”; ibid.

44. Ward Sanderson, “Mafia Linked to Navy Site: Developers Accused of Conspiracy,” Stars and Stripes, July 18, 1999, 1, 4.

45. Ibid., 1, 4.

46. Geremicca “Nuova Pompei”; Spiga, “Famiglia Cristiana,” 21.

47. Sanderson, “Mafia Linked,” 1, 4.

48. Ibid., 4.

49. Ibid.

50. CNN, “Navy’s Top Officer Dies of Gunshot, Apparently Self-Inflicted,” CNN.com, May 16, 1996, available at http://www.cnn.com/US/9605/16/boorda.6p/.

51. Even a single shot to the chest is a relatively uncommon method of suicide. Veljko Strajina and Slobodan Nikolić, “Forensic Issues in Suicidal Single Gunshot Injuries to the Chest: An Autopsy Study,” American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 33, no. 4 (2012): 373–76.

52. New York Times, “21 U.S. Sailors Seized in Italy in Drug Inquiry,” May 29, 1996, A17; C. Stewart, “Admiral’s Suicide Pre-empts Vietnam Medal Investigation,” Weekend Australian, May 18, 1996; Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “Top U.S. Naval Officer Dies of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound,” May 16, 1996.

53. Sanderson, “Mafia Linked,” 4.

54. E.g. an anonymous blog comment: “I’ve worked in Naples, Italy for less than a year and the word about Admiral Boorda out here is he was the victim of a mafia hit by the commorah [sic]. He helped land a contract with a suspected member of the mafia in building a military base … All the Italians here claim he was murdered.” http://news4a2.blogspot.com/2005/05/adm-jeremy-mike-boorda-may-16-1996-pt.html.

55. Lorenzo Cremonese, “NATO Commander Tells Government: Protect Our Men from Casalesi Clan,” Corriere della Sera, translated by BBC Monitoring Europe, November 6, 2008; Paola Totaro, “NATO Pours Rent Money into Mafia Coffers,” Sydney Morning Herald, November 6, 2008; Paul Bompard, “Nato Officers Rent Villa Owned by Naples Mafia Boss,” Times (London), October 27, 2008; U.S. Treasury, “Treasury Sanctions Members of the Camorra,” press release, Washington, DC, August 1, 2012.

56. Totaro, “NATO Pours.”

57. Cremonese, “NATO Commander.”

58. Totaro, “NATO Pours.”

59. Lisa M. Novak, “Italian Police Ask Navy for Records to 6 Naples Homes Court-Order Could Be Tied to Mafia Probe,” Stars and Stripes, December 17, 2008.

60. Sandra Jontz, “Official Seeks Assurance for Naples’ U.S. Renters,” Stars and Stripes, November 27, 2008.

61. Il Matino, “Sanzioni ai Casalesi: Agli Americani È Vietato Entrare nelle Case dei Boss,” August 3, 2012, http://www.ilmattino.it/articolo.php?id=212167&sez=CAMPANIA; Ermete Ferraro, “NATO’ CERCA … CASALESI,” Ermete’s Peacebook, blog, August 4, 2012, http://ermeteferraro.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/nato-cerca-casalesi/.

62. Comptroller General of the United States, “Improved Procedures Needed for Obtaining Facilities for U.S. Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy by Lease-Construction Method,” report, Washington, DC, January 4, 1970, 2, 16–17.

63. Roberto Saviano, Beauty and the Inferno: Essays (New York: Verso, 2012), 165.

64. Laura Simich, “The Corruption of a Community’s Economic and Political Life: The Cruise Missile Base in Comiso,” in Joseph Gerson and Bruce Birchard, eds., The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1991), 79, 85, 91, 82.

65. 238 F.3d 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2000), Impresa Construzioni Geom. Domenico Garufi v. United States, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, January 3, 2001.

66. Quoted in Simich, “Corruption of a Community,” 91.

67. Mazzeo, “Niscemi, la Mafia e il MUOS,” Antonio Mazzeo Blog, November 19, 2012, http://antoniomazzeoblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/niscemi-la-mafia-e-il-muos.html.

68. Walter Mayr, “The Mafia’s Deadly Garbage: Italy’s Growing Toxic Waste Scandal,” Spiegel Online International, January 16, 2014, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/anger-rises-in-italy-over-toxic-waste-dumps-from-the-mafia-a-943630.html.

69. Ibid.; Steven Beardsley, “Naples Base Seeks to Assuage Fears Amid New Reports of Toxic Dumping,” Stars and Stripes, November 22, 2013.

70. Fabrizio Bianchi, Pietro Comba, Marco Martuzzi, Raffaele Palombino, and Renato Pizzuti, “Italian ‘Triangle of Death,’” Lancet Oncology 5, no. 12 (2004), 710; Kathryn Senior and Alfredo Mazza, “Italian ‘Triangle of Death’ Linked to Waste Crisis,” Lancet Oncology 5, no. 9 (2004), http://www.uonna.it/lancet-journal-acerra.htm; Pietro Comba et al., “Cancer Mortality in an Area of Campania (Italy) Characterized by Multiple Toxic Dumping Sites,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1076 (September 2006), 449–61; Marco Martuzzi et al., “Cancer Mortality and Congenital Anomalies in a Region of Italy with Intense Environmental Pressure Due to Waste,” Occupational Environmental Medicine 66, no. 1 (2009), 725–32.

71. Vice, “Toxic: Napoli,” Vice.com, 2009, http://www.vice.com/video/toxic-napoli-1-of-2.

72. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic, Final Phase I Environmental Testing Support Assessment Report Volume I Naval Support Activity Naples, April 2009; “Naples Water Buffalo Herds Are Quarantined,” Stars and Stripes, March 22, 2008, http://www.stripes.com/news/naples-water-buffalo-herds-are-quarantined-1.76792.