On the heels of this, the revelations of Abe (Kid Twist) Reles kept public attention focused on organized crime. Reles, a Buchalter crony, belonged to a band of Brooklyn mobsters popularly called Murder Incorporated, which had strong ties with several Cosa Nostra figures, most notably Anastasia. Information from Reles led to convictions in a half dozen previously unsolved gangland slayings. Murder Incorporated has since been portrayed as a sort of specialty house which handled contracts to kill for the entire U.S. underworld. This, according to Valachi, was not so at least as far as official Cosa Nostra executions were concerned. In such matters, he says, it has always relied on its own membership.

This week we set the record straight about a  subject that has been raised by several Gang Land readers in the last few weeks: Murder Incorporated.

Murder Incorporated, the legendary gang of so-called hired killers from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn that supposedly served as an enforcement arm of La Cosa Nostra during the 1930's and 40's, is a myth.

There was never a stable of salaried killers who sat around waiting for murder assignments. The myth began in the 1940's, was reinforced by a 1951 best seller, "MURDER INC," by Burton Turkus and Sid Feder. The myth still  survives to this day for several interrelated reasons:

1. The general lack of knowledge about La Cosa Nostra half a century ago.
2. Certain law enforcement officials with political ambitions who wanted to appear as cutthroat gangsters.
3. Good old-fashioned media sensationalism.

Many murders were committed by a motley group of mainly Jewish gangsters based in Brownsville, but most had to do with battles over garment industry rackets in Manhattan and had nothing to do with La Cosa Nostra. Lepke Buchalter became a major target of the law, he lost his cool, and like many mob bosses of the 1980's and 1990's, began rubbing out anyone who he thought might testify against him.

The Cosa Nostra connection to some of these so-called MURDER INC. hoods  came from their close associations with Albert Anastasia, then-underboss of the crime family known today as the Gambino family. If Jewish hoods wanted to whack someone, they would check with Anastasia and make sure the murder wouldn't screw up any of his schemes. It was a smart political move because of  the power Anastasia wielded.

MURDER INC. was co-authored by Turkus, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn who prosecuted many of the killers. There were no turncoat mobsters then and Turkus simply got some things wrong. He knew there was some kind of national syndicate but he overestimated its organizational structure. Turkus tried to paint a picture of a well-organized nationwide  company with clearly defined roles, goals, and job descriptions.

There is an excellent analysis of MURDER INC. in "East Side-West Side," a book by Alan Block, a Penn State University professor. A key player in Block's research was Abe Reles, a well known informer who helped Turkus win many convictions.

Reles was part of a gang battling for control of rackets in Brownsville that killed off their main rivals to consolidate their control. Reles was associated with Louis Capone, who was in the Anastasia orbit. When the gang wanted  to knock off someone interfering in their rackets, they would, as a courtesy, tell Anastasia. They did not want to inadvertently kill someone who was a friend or associate of a powerful Cosa Nostra leader. They were not hired killers. No one paid them to wipe out their rivals.
Reles, through Capone, sometimes did some favors for Anastasia as a way to curry favor, probably a handful of hits. But there was no payment; Reles was not a hired killer.
He, like all all racketeers, was out to make money through scams and schemes. Murder was simply a means of getting things done.

The affairs of the notorious Buchalter also played a big role in the legend of Murder Inc. He was a big man in the garment district and used muscle to get what he wanted. After prosecutor Thomas Dewey's main target, Dutch Schultz, was wiped out, Dewey turned his sights on Buchalter. As legal pressure mounted, Buchalter went into hiding and tried to cover his tracks by killing anyone he thought might become an informer. Many of these killings have been attributed to Murder Inc., but were really the unraveling of the Buchalter organization.

The prosecutors, the police, and the newspapers at that time, had no idea of the true nature and structure of La Cosa Nostra. The media lumped the disparate group of murders into one major conspiracy and labeled it Murder Inc. In the 1960's, when Joe Valachi broke his vow of omerta and opened a window on mob doings, he put the lie to Murder Inc. But Hollywood and the mob groupies refused to let go of the myth they helped create.

The American public loves a boogie man - be it the Communist threat exaggerated by Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950's or Saddem Hussein in the 1990's. For a time, Murder Inc. was the great American boogie man. It's time to lay this lame myth to rest.