If you want a serious book that covers Apalachin in detail-- using the primary sources of the police and FBI-- check out The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York.
How can I disregard the words of a mobster, and go solely with an FBI report that came from under the corrupt jurisdiction of J Edgar Hoover who denied the mafia even existed.
I really hate the idea of history being written by Hoover. I can't stress it enough.
If you were an agent working under Hoover's FBI, how could you even write a report that would go against his narrative?
Alfa, you've said the same thing to me, that I just rely on FBI files as sources. I don't know where you're getting this from. Alex even wrote an article in Informer taking on Hoover for disputing the existence of the Mafia, and he points out that he later regretted his denial.
Actually, to be specific, Hoover denied the existence of the Mafia in America as a nationwide conspiracy. Hoover had access to material that should have convinced him that it was a conspiracy, such as the 1928 Cleveland meeting, but he chose to ignore its implications. There are a lot of reasons for that and I suggestion you read the article to see for yourself.
Alex's book, by the way, as he pointed out, uses all kinds of sources from informants confessions to state police to other government agencies to trial transcripts. Junk history books don't tend to make the New York Times bestseller lists, and unlike a previous generation of Mafia books that are full of claims and assertions without putting out their sources, Alex has dozens of pages of sources, just like Critchley did in his book and Dash in his. I dare you to go through his endnotes or my endnotes and find the use of FBI file after FBI file. It's just not true and I wish you'd stop throwing that out there.
And for the record, since you seem to be so down on FBI files, they do not just consist of the opinions of agents but often have actual recorded conversations of the mobsters themselves in their natural setting. Isn't that what we want?
