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Anniversary of Apalachin #748653
11/15/13 05:46 PM
11/15/13 05:46 PM
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 12
DC
NeimanMarxist Offline OP
Wiseguy
NeimanMarxist  Offline OP
Wiseguy
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 12
DC

Interesting article from Slate yesterday about the significance of Apalachin. http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/11...admit_that.html

Quote:
On Nov. 14, 1957, 56 years ago today, New York state troopers noticed a suspicious number of expensive cars with out-of-state license plates converging on the small town of Apalachin.* The cars, it turned out, belonged to Mafia leaders from across America, who had come to Apalachin for a national summit meeting. The aftermath of the Apalachin Meeting would shed new light on a criminal organization that greatly valued its secrecy. It also forced the FBI to admit once and for all that the Mafia operated on a nationwide scale.

Today, thanks to decades’ worth of mob-related entertainment products, even small children know what the Mafia’s all about (funny nicknames, cannoli, and men kissing other men on the cheek). But for many years before Apalachin, the FBI refused to even admit that the Mafia existed. J. Edgar Hoover felt that communists and domestic subversives were the major threats facing the country, and he directed the bureau’s resources toward neutralizing them. Organized crime was a distraction that the FBI didn’t want.

They couldn’t ignore what happened at Apalachin, though. The small town near Binghamton was the home of Joseph Barbara, a subordinate of Buffalo, N.Y., crime lord Stefano Magaddino. Magaddino suggested Barbara’s house as the location for a meeting that would hopefully settle some of what had been riling the Italian mob. Two New York mobsters, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, had been angling for control of the Luciano crime family. (Costello had it, Genovese wanted it.) After much bloodshed, Genovese emerged victorious, and he called for a nationwide meeting of mob leaders in hopes that the other families would acknowledge his control.

But the meeting hadn’t gone very far before it fell apart. State troopers noticed all the fancy cars parked in Barbara’s driveway, and started taking down license plate numbers. (Some have suggested that one of Genovese’s rivals tipped the cops, in hopes of spoiling Genovese’s crown ceremony.) The assembled mafiosi noticed this, and began to panic. Some fled into the woods, some hid in the basement. Others ran to their cars and tried to drive away. The troopers caught about 60 of them; when questioned, many insisted they were there for a barbecue, or that they had just come to visit their good friend Joe Barbara, who was recovering from a heart attack. When all was said and done, the troopers had apprehended Mafia leaders from New York, New Jersey, Tampa, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and several other locations. A New York state investigative commission eventually brought obstruction of justice charges against 20 of the summit participants, for refusing to explain why they had all come to Apalachin. The men were convicted, but the convictions were later reversed. (Eliot Lumbard, chief counsel to the Apalachin commission, just died earlier this month.)

The whole thing made national news, and it finally forced the FBI to acknowledge that organized crime was a matter worthy of notice. Some believe that J. Edgar Hoover’s reluctance to acknowledge the mob’s existence can be ascribed to the Mafia somehow acquiring photographs of Hoover in drag, and using those to blackmail him into leaving the Mafia alone. There is no evidence to suggest that this is true. What is clear, however, is that before Apalachin, Hoover had scoffed at the idea that criminals were organizing across state lines, insisting that so-called crime syndicates were local fiefdoms, to be investigated by local police.

Apalachin destroyed that fiction, and Hoover begrudgingly established a unit called the Top Hoodlum Program, devoted to investigating organized crime in the United States through wiretaps, human intelligence, and other methods. Even then, the pursuit wasn’t always very avid; in his book Gangbusters, Ernest Volkman noted that Hoover initially instructed every FBI field office to “prepare a list of ten ‘top hoodlums’—no more, no less—and target them for investigation and prosecution.” (The field office in Butte, Mont., “desperately searched for hoodlums to put on the list,” Volkman writes. “Finally it listed ten local juvenile delinquents and vowed a full investigation of their ‘criminal activities.’ Headquarters praised Butte for its diligence.”)

As for Vito Genovese, the disaster at Apalachin was an inauspicious beginning to his stint at the head of the Luciano family, which was renamed the Genovese family in his honor. He was convicted of heroin trafficking in 1959, and died in federal prison 10 years later.


“‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.” - Tony Soprano
Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748696
11/16/13 11:57 AM
11/16/13 11:57 AM
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 486
LittleMan Offline
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LittleMan  Offline
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50 years later and writers are still referring to the Apalachin meeting as a crowning ceremony for Genovese...


You shit-kicking, stinky, horse-manure-smelling motherfucker you! If you ever get out of line over there again, I'll smash your fucking head so hard you won't be able to get that cowboy hat on. You hear me? Fucking hick. -Nicky (Casino)
Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748703
11/16/13 02:21 PM
11/16/13 02:21 PM
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 12
DC
NeimanMarxist Offline OP
Wiseguy
NeimanMarxist  Offline OP
Wiseguy
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 12
DC
It wasn't? I'm reading Five Families by Raab right now and I haven't got that far yet.


“‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.” - Tony Soprano
Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748717
11/16/13 06:15 PM
11/16/13 06:15 PM
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 1,408
Snakes Offline
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Snakes  Offline
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It was basically called for Genovese (and Gambino too, for that matter) to basically say that everything is cool. Costello had been shot and Anastasia killed that same year and they just wanted to reassure the other bosses that everything was under control. And depending on who you believe they may also have been intending to discuss drugs, but they never recorded minutes at Apalachin so who knows what they really ended up discussing.

Last edited by Snakes; 11/16/13 06:15 PM.

"Snakes... Snakes... I don't know no Snakes."
Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748751
11/16/13 11:25 PM
11/16/13 11:25 PM
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 1,357
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Lou_Para Offline
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Lou_Para  Offline
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I seem to remember reading that after having denied the existence of the Mafia for years,Hoover had his nose rubbed in it after the Apalachin bust.As the story goes,in order to save face and continue the myth of the ever-vigilant Bureau,Hoover stated that the Apalachin attendees were actually members of a criminal organization called La Cosa Nostra ,not the Mafia,and of course,the FBI had been monitoring them for years.

Up to this point,the term "Cosa Nostra" had never been used in law enforcement circles,and it remains the term of choice for the Feds to use.

Anybody else hear this? Is it true that the term Cosa Nostra was basically invented by Hoover to perpetuate the illusion of a crime syndicate that only the FBI was able to expose.

Supposedly when Hoover overheard guys on wiretaps saying "this thing of ours",he used this as proof that they were discussing this "new" secret society, thereby demonstrating both the FBI's amazing power,as well as the need for increased funding to fight this new "menace".

Anybody wanna weigh in? Have you heard this about the term LCN before?

Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748754
11/16/13 11:30 PM
11/16/13 11:30 PM
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 94
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littlemango Offline
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littlemango  Offline
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I don't know if it was before or after apalachin hoover had his fbi cronies illegally bug a bunch of social clubs/known mob hangouts to catch up on information because with hoover's insistence there was no national syndicate the fbi was woefully behind. I think it happened after bobby kennedy ripped hoover apart during a senate hearing.

After that, the fbi illegally bugged all the clubs but couldn't understand half of what was going on because they didn't understand the lingo, and I think it was when joe valachi ratted that he told them that la cosa nostra means this thing of ours.

I'm pretty sure I got all of this from Selwyn Raab's 5 families book

Re: Anniversary of Apalachin [Re: NeimanMarxist] #748758
11/17/13 01:17 AM
11/17/13 01:17 AM
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 486
LittleMan Offline
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LittleMan  Offline
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Posts: 486
Cosa Nostra was how the wiseguys referred to their organization. "La" shouldn't have been included. Hoover just jumped at a name that was different from the mafia, so he could act as if he was investigating them all along.

I have no idea if this is accurate or not....but in the Last Testament of LL, Charlie referred to his organization as the Outfit, same as in Chicago. I don't know if that came from Charlie or if it was something Gosch made up.

Finally, has it been discussed on this site if the story of attorney Roy Cohn having incriminating shots of Hoover in drag is true? Personally, I believe it.


You shit-kicking, stinky, horse-manure-smelling motherfucker you! If you ever get out of line over there again, I'll smash your fucking head so hard you won't be able to get that cowboy hat on. You hear me? Fucking hick. -Nicky (Casino)

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