This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you here weekday afternoons on the Drive. Matthew Burkebeck is an investigative journalist and author of six books, including The Quiet Don, Deconstructing Sammy, and The Deadly Deadly Secret, as well as A Beautiful Child. As you can tell, he seems to be fascinated with what's going on with mob culture. His newest
creation is called The Life We Chose. It's about William Big Billy Delia, and I'll go ahead and let you, matt enlighten us as to who Big Billy is. So Billy Delia was the head of the Buffalino crime family, which was based in northeastern Pennsylvania beginning of nineteen ninety four, but before that he had spent thirty years with Russell Buffalo, who was obviously at the head of the family, but he was arguably the most powerful in evential organized crime
figure in the twentieth century. Buffalino went back to the nineteen twenties. By the nineteen fifties, he had casinos in Cuba. In the early sixties he had been recruited by the CIA, and he's so called Cia mafia plots to kill Fidel Castro in nineteen seventy five. He was one of the chief suspects and the disappearance of Jimmy Haffa in During the latter part of his career, he had Billy Gillia by his side, and Billy became his so called son.
And it's all written about in the life We chose with Matthew Birkbeck who has written all about this, and that these were more powerful than even the Gambinos or the Marcellos. Yeah, you know, it's funny, I asked Bill. I asked Gillia this question. I said it was Russell ever on the mafia commission, and he said Russell wasn't on the commission. He said
Russell was above the commission. Whenever there was the major decision to be made with an organized crime circles throughout the nation, they always conferred with Russell. Russell's power came from his association with the Teamsters Union. He placed his cousin there in the nineteen forties with Jimmy Haffa, William Buffalo, and William Buffalino
became the general counsel. So that made Russell and incredibly important within the nation, particularly in the teamsters, their unions, strikes, loans through the pension funds and whatnot. So he was politically powerful. He was called in to even mediate over you know, entertainment issues, business, political or whatever. Russell. It was no one more powerful than Russell in the twentieth century.
The book is about William Billy Delia and the name of the book is The Life We chose an unparalleled portrait of crime, power, money and family. And as there was this connection with the CIA and try to unseat Fidel Castro, I gather there's a Kennedy connection here too. Yeah, Russell and Bobby Kennedy hated each other. Russell have testified before the Rackets Committees in ninth late
nineteen fifties, and Kennedy took particular interest in Buffalino. And in this report that was written in the early nineteen sixties by the committee, they called Buffalino one of the most powerful and violent mobsters in the country. So there was there was no love lost between them or with any of the other Kennedys.
There's a scene in a book in nineteen eighty eighty one where they send Russell's going to prison and they're trying to get him apart, and they said Muhammad Ali and his trainer Angela Dundee to go speak with Ted Kennedy about a pardon for Russell Buffalano. When he finds out it's about Russell, he fell us in both out of his office in Washington. So that gives you an idea
of the relationship between the kenned Dais and Buffalo Leader. And was there a relationship with John or any involvement in that infamous plot that had always been suspected never proven. You know, Billy I spent over a year with Billy Gilliam, and you know he hinted at things with the Kennedy's. I tried to stay away from the Kennedy's given so much has been written about it about it, but he did hint towards it. But you know, Billy became Billy
became an incredibly powerful individual himself. When Russell was in prison in the nineteen eighties, Billy became the day facto hit of the family and he assumed Russell's
position as the negotiator, the mob's negotiator. And you know one instance he actually in nineteen eighty eight, he was called to mediate a situation involving Donald Trump in the Mob in which Trump wanted Michael Jackson to perform in Atlantic City at his casinos and Jackson's manager said no. So Trump went to two big time mobsters in California and a threatened the manager Nate fold and Billy, and Billy put an end to it. But also what he became Michael Jackson's co
manager for his services and Selina dispute with Trump. So for the next year or so, Billy Delia, it was Michael Jackson's co manager who was on tour with him on the bad Tour. Did Michael Jackson know that this guy had mob connections? Michael Jackson knew. I spent a lot of the time with Billy. She's in the book and you can see, you know,
there are a number of conversations that they had with each other. Billy was said officially to be a security consultant, but everybody knew behind the scenes that he was now Frank Bileos, who was the manager, he was now his partner. The name of the book is The Life We Chose. It's about William Big Billy Delia, and it's written by Matthew Birkbeck, who's with us now Matthew. Then there's the other entertainer, Frank Sinatra, who's spent a
lot of time trying to distance himself with his relationship with various mobsters. Yeah. So there's there's a scene in the book UM when Billy just the book is basically about it's really a father in the son's story UM with an organized
crime setting, but Billy needs Sinatra. In early nineteen seventies in New York, he goes into a restaurant UM that Sinatra had favored in with Buffalino when he take a table in the back and it and Russell, Buffalino's told that it was Sinatra's table, and you know, Russell tells him he doesn't really care and if Sinatras shows up, you know, it's only come see me. And Sinatra showed it up and he ends up sitting down with Russell and
with Billy. Um. So it's a pretty interesting it was a pretty interesting scene. It's also there's a photo in the book that's never been seen before, UM with Russell and Sinatra. So Sinatra, I mean, it's well documented Sinatra's relationships various mobsters that went back for many, many years, and the fact that he knew Russell Buffalino was no surprise, No, and I
don't I don't see a problem with it at all. I want to say, probably a lot of Synatra's career would not have happened if it had not been for various organized crime members getting him singing lessons, getting him gigs, that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, they just permeated the entire
entertainment industry. As you're reading the book, because Billy, when he becomes the head of the family in nineteen ninety four, you know, Billy's called on to handle a number of issues under the table involving people like Tony Brax, did this rapper name corrupt? Big time male model Fabio? The TV show Baywatch, and the producers that were behind that. So it's a fascinating read into how you know, the world isn't black and white. You know.
The one thing I learned during this book is that there's a lot I always knew there was some gray in life. There's a lot of gray area, and it's like Billy Bilia that populate that area. And the book The Life we Chose Matt bergback is with us in my career, early in my career, I had. I had some business dealings with a live DJ.
He was kind of a goofy kid, but ended up dating Carlos Marcello's granddaughter and got to meet Carlos Marcello at one of the family gatherings and I said, well, what is it like being in the midst of all of that? And he said, they're all really nice guys. Was a big Billy, A nice guy, you know he was, and he's a fearsome individual.
I knew who he was. The thing about Billy his dad. He had been arrested in two thousand and six for money law drink charges, and various government agencies wanted to talk to him, FBI, Service, Home Insecurity, but particularly the FBI because he didn't want to talk to him about Jimmy Haffa and when he knew at halfa and Billy wouldn't talk to anyone, So you know, he had an associated actually reach out to me in twenty twenty
and then we started talking and it took about three four months to get him going. But he's charming. I mean, he was charming. I could see him. You know, he wasn't born into this life like a lot of guys are. He kind of fell into it because he met Russell and came to love Russell. But he could have been a success in any other
industry, you know, public relations, marketing, whatnot. On the flip side of that, you know that since he was the head of an organized crime family, that he was involved in some very heavy and brutal things. But when you meet people and I even grew up you know, I grew up in Brooklyn and we had neighbors that were in the mob, and you know, on the surface, they're just regular people. You know, you do not really privated that world. But if you cross them, that's when
they're no longer nice guys that you know, that's exactly true. That's the point where they basically, you know, flip a switch and they become that guy that you think they are. Yeah, the life we chose as the book. Matthew Burkebeck is the investigative journalist that has written it. It's a fascinating read, especially if you love this behind the scenes stuff about organized crime
in the United States. And I thank you for joining us, matt I thank you thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to the Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media Presentation