It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy Boston's News Radio.
All right, thanks very much, Dan Watkins. As we move into the ten o'clock hour, we have a guest who have I talked with before and I'm really looking forward to talking with him again. My guest tonight is lou Ferrante Lewis. Welcome back to Night's Side. How are you hi?
I'm bored. Good Dan, I hope you're will too and happy new yet are you? And your listeners?
Right back at you, my friend. Now, you have written, First of all, you've written a trilogy of books, or you're writing a trilogy of books. And this book that we're going to talk about tonight is the second part of the trilogy. Correct, that's correct, okay. And it is about the time frame of nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty five.
That's also right, Yeah, about nineteen eighty I cut it at and it'll pick up nineteen eighty for the third volume to eighty about twenty ath period.
Okay, sixty to eighty. Okay. Now, let's re establish you and your your position and your expertise and your inside knowledge. You remember you remember the Gambino crime family.
Yeah, I was. I was actually an associate who was about to become an initiated member when I went to prison and faced life in prison.
Yeah, okay, So so you did not go through the ceremony, but you were on the cusp of it. And I think that you told me that you got arrested. If I recall in San Francisco, you had you had a a an activity in San Francisco that that got interrupted by the authorities.
Yeah, well, that was one of the counts on the indictment. It was it was a Hobbs Act, which is like a WEEKO indictment.
You're very familiar with the Hobbs Act.
Absolutely.
There's a lot of politicians who get hooked at the Hobbs Act, and a lot of cops would get hooked on the Hobbs Act because they're right, they're functioning under the color of the badge or the color of their title. How did you get hooked on the Hobbs Act? How did that? How did that work in your case?
Yeah?
I guess it was probably based on interstate commerce and it was a racketeering conspiracy because there was a number of four defendants on the indictment with me, it was a Rico case. And and one of the overt acts in the Rico case was we we flew out the samp We did a lot of heights and hijackings at the time, and at one point we flew out to
San Francisco. We had a tip on a Loomis armored car and uh, you know, we shipped our guns and and uh all the accouterments I should say for the best way to say it, for for an armored paw heist in Uh, back then, we shipped it just ups. It was the pre nine to eleven days. We just put it in the box, shipped the ups to where we were going, and then flew down there under bogey names.
Uh.
When we got down there the day before we were going to hit the armored car, the fed swarm the hotel where we were staying and brought us in. So that was the conspiracy to knock off that armored car was one of the over at acts in the indictment. But there were a number of pisces and hijackings other ones.
The people, the people who whacked Roger Wheeler out of Boston, they did the same thing. They shipped everything down. Yeah, pulled over in Tennessee or somewhere by by the local police and have us right some munitions or weapons in your vehicle. So did you know when when that happened, that your life had changed dramatically.
No, I was still mobbed up in my mind. So I'm you know, I said, I'm never gonna rat. However long I have to do, I'll do. I faced the rest of my life in prison. I was eventually indicted three different times, once by the FBI, another time by the Secret Service, and another time by the Nassau County Organized Crime Task Force, which New York sort of like state slash mob a slate state slash federal task force
looking into mob activities. So we were indicted, me and my co defend into a number of times.
Me to double jeopard kind of gets a pass when we're talking about going after the mob. By the way, you.
Know it, Yes, the hotel double jeopardy argument's ridiculous, I asked the judge. I said, I was in state court once and I says, I'm charged with this very crime in my federal indictment. And he said, who cares? He doesn't care. They don't they and the judge, Yeah, yeah, even the whole I have to tell you, and I'm a law abiding citizen. Now I'm pro law enforcement. The guys go out there, they work hard, most of them.
There's a couple of dirty cops out there, but for the most part, ninety nine point nine percent of the people out there, men and women, are doing their best to do as good as they possibly can. So I want to make that clear to your listeners. But having said that, yeah, having said that, though the Rico law is the spin pable where you could be tried for something in the state, beat it, and then they could just bring it in on a larger indictment in the Feds,
and we try you again. And it's happened to a number of friends of mine who will never get out of jail. And that's they did away with double jeopardy. And part of the part of volume two in my book is I talk extensively about Bobby Kennedy and the Kennedy administration and Bobby's uh, Bobby's time as as Attorney General.
And I mean he did away with the Fifth Amendment by creating uh, uh you know where where if you take the fifth you could be given immunity and then you have to testify or you say eighteen months for a contempt charge. Bobby is the one who legislatively passed
that and got that pushed through Congress. And uh. And because he was fed up with people during the Rackets Committee, the McClellan's known as the Rackets Committee, the McClellan committee before before he was ag he was fed up with people taking the fifth and he says, I don't I don't believe in it anymore. I don't want to see that happen. They're guilty of something. So he really did away with a lot of our I think our you know, safeguards what you call.
Bedrock and constitutional provisions.
That's right, that's right, and a lot of times sixth Amendment right to council. When he was chasing Jimmy Haffer and I go through this extensively once again in Borgoda Class of Titans, which is volume two of the book the trilogy. When he was chasing half a he went after half as lawyers, and which is you know, going after He's he's going after a sixth Amendment right to counsel.
And he said, anybody who defends him or his teamsters is a who And I don't care they they shouldn't be defending him, and he would try to lock up the attorneys. So you know, it was a lot of from I mean the Kennedy's. Who knows about the Kennedy's more than you and your listeners. They're from up there. But but you know what I mean. Look, this is I go deep into it in the book, and I
feel it was. It was a big cause of the assassination and I get I put all them moving pieces together and moving parts.
That's what we want to talk about in part tonight. Low And Uh, I think you've You've set the table very nicely here.
Uh.
Loufer Ante is my guest. He's been on the program before. He's written a trilogy of books. Uh, well, he's in the process of writing a trilogy of books. We talked about the first book, and now we're going to talk about his second volume, which is The American Mafia Versus America's Political Elite and this Uh, you know, I haven't read this second book, but I know of what you speak. It's funny. There's the Rico statute. I chased a an FBI agent up here for many many years. H Paul Rico.
His last name was r I c O. He was not Italian, by the way, he was a Spaniard. Uh. And he was probably one of the most corrupt FBI agents in the in the long historied history of corrupt FBI agents. Uh here here in Boston. And I used to chase him with cameras in Washington and uh and in Boston. Uh uh And this this is a guy he set up them. He was the guy that set up the murder of Roger Wheeler, the country club down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who owned World High Lie in Miami.
And Wheeler was the guy who basically got the boys from Boston to go down a guy named Joe McDonald and the second guy, uh named Maderano to go down and uh and basically put that yeah, other pathway to heaven. I mean, you know, it's an unbelievable story. And and Rico eventually there was a heroic police officer out of Tulsa, guy named Mike Huff cost him his marriage. I mean, but he was the guy who the Florida State Police gave him the honor of actually putting his cuffs on
Rico when he was arrested. Uh. And the night the day that of the morning he was arrested. His wife is there and she says, Paul, why don't you put your world high highlight jacket on UH and what you want to dinner? Well, well, never never got home for dinner and no, yeah wow jacket.
So yeah, Dan, are you are you familiar with the UH, the the Linley DeVecchio Gregory Scalfa case from New York, because it's as close as that, and you also had obviously Whitey Bull Drup there, but it's as close to that. Yeah, that situation is as you can imagine.
I think that Hoover. I think Hoover was running the same operation that he ran here in Boston that he authorized. I shouldn't say he ran it, he authorized in other major American cities, and obviously would New York at the top of that list. My guest, we're gonna get right to the meat of the matter, and if you have any question, any question, feel free to get on board. Lou's going to stay with us until eleven o'clock and not a minute later. Six one, seven thirty, six one seven, nine, three,
ten thirty. He's a great guest before, would be a great guest tonight. Coming right back on Nightside.
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
With me is Lou Ferrante. Their author of The Mafia Versus America's Political Elite nineteen sixteen and nineteen eighty Boo is the is the core of the story America's political elite. The Kennedy family is.
Well that yeah, that's yeah, it's actually part of it. So it's the second volume is actually titled Bolgada Clash of Titans, and probably the largest aspect is the Kennedy administration versus the Mafia, uh with with Bobby Kennedy obviously at the forefront of that spearheading the charge. But there's also I go deep. I take a deep dive into what happened to Jimmy Hoffer, why he died. I also get into why Joe Colombo, who was he was killed in Columbus Circle in Manhattan during a Unity Day rally
for his new Italian Americans. Yeah, Italian American Civil Rights League. I did a deep dive into that, and once again I urge your listeners to read the book because I put together all the pieces. I don't think anybody's ever done this before. I've read hundreds of books on the subject. I'm well sowced. If you look at the back of
my book, you'll see all the source notes. And I really, really, I believe, wholeheartedly I'm the first person to ever put the pieces together with the mobs connection to the government, with them as far as the assassination of JFK, why they did it, and get his closest to who the
main players were, the central figures as possible. Also with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, I don't think anybody's ever explained why he died, the reasons behind it, and who the main conspirators were up until now as well as I have. And I say this, you know, obviously refreshingably free of false modesty, right, But I do believe that, and I urge you listens to pick up the book
and take a look at it. Also with Joe Colombo saying thing no one understood why he was killed, and you mentioned Hoover, and I do believe had had something to do with the government, I'll give you a little spoiler alert on that one. Yeah, I mean, I do believe that the Colombo assassination as soon as the person fired the gun at Colombo. That person was murdered on the spot, and there was all kinds of conflicting testimony.
People thought that a cop had shot him, someone dressed as an officer had shot him, but the cops swore that they didn't shoot him. Then they tried to blame it on a Colombo guy who was It was impossible for him to have done it. He wasn't even close
to the scene. And then I get it to the heart of it, and I found some incredible adeprint books and one of them was written by an ex FBI agent, and he wrote a book about how the Gambino family was very connected to the CIA at the time and they would never dealt with the clowns when they could go to the circus leader, and he felt that they dealt directly with Carlo Gambino, and Carlo Gambino had every reason to kill Joe Colombo at the time. And I
tell the story very well. I urge again your listeners to read the book. And it also to the CIA slash. FBI may have wanted Colombo dead at the time because he started the Italian American Civil Rights League and it was just another thorn in their side. They were already dealing with Jewish and African American civil rights leagues. Puerto Ricans were starting to become activists. They didn't want another one.
And there was a lot of talk about Colombo just you know, going away, and they put tremendous amount of heat on him and as well as the other four families in New York. And then something at some point had to be done, and he gets clipped. But anyway, I put all the moving parts together, and I wanted the reader to understand it as best as they possibly can after all these decades have gone by, and I
had somebody. I talked to somebody who's read just about every JFK book that's ever come out over the last thirty forty years, and he told me, he says, Lou, I've never read anything like this. He says, the way you put the pieces together, He said, I finally had it all in front of me. You know, you really really created like what I would consider this was his words an indictment.
Okay, let meast a couple of questions. I don't want you to give it all away, but okay, what role does Jack Ruby playing this?
He plays the role that we all know him to play, which was getting rid of silencing Oswald. And what's interesting is jay Ed Gohova, contrary to his public stance on the matter, he made a comment right away, this is this is a mob hit. He's obviously silencing somebody. He knew right away. Hoover as soon as he was shot. Other people knew as well. And Ruby goes deep into
his mob connections. He was very heavily connected with Santo Traffic Conting in Florida, very heavily connected with Carlos Marcelo in Louisiana, and both of those mob bosses who I referred to as the Gulf Coast mob bosses. Uh, their their their empires, their their fiefdoms being on in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, and Florida. Those two dons were the only dons when Sinatra had Joseph Kennedy Senior and Frank Sinatra Sinatra being his liaison to the mob, but
Joe Kennedy had connections as well. They sort of wooed the mob into believing that if they helped Kennedy into office, they'd have an easy ride with him in office. They were the Kennedy's were going to focus on civil rights for African Americans. They were going to focus on bringing the slowing down the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, UH, trying to keep the Soviets behind the Iron Curtain. They were going to move on from the Mob.
So they essentially convinced the Mob that the administer Kennedy administration would have bigger fish to fry.
They did. They convinced all of the bosses except Carlos must and Santo Trafficante, who originally backed Lyndon Johnson during the Democratic primary and then when Johnson lost to Kennedy and became his VP, then they backed Nixon during the general election because those two Mob bosses, Marcello and Trafficante did not trust that the Kennedys would keep their word. So those are the two main players in the Mob
when this has to get done. And UH and Jack Ruby was heavily connected to both of them, and and it's all laid out. All my evidence is, Saud, I don't just shoot from the hip and say, uh, you know, this is what I think because I went to sleep last night and I had a Gin and Tonic and this is what hit me. It's all lost. Yeah, I mean, it's all, it's all heavily sauced, and I just I put the pieces together.
Was it the the girlfriend Judith Exner?
She I mean she was Johnny Rosselli's sort of Johnny Roselli brought her into the mix. Judith Exner slash Judith Campbell. Yeah, Johnny Roselli met her in Hollywood, introduced to the Sinatra Sinatra. Apparently Rosselli had played around with her. Sinatra had played around with her. Sam g and Connor had played around with her. So she kind of got around. And at some point or another she's dating Jack Kennedy and she becomes sort of like a courier during the Democratic primary
when the mob is shuffling money to Kennedy. Now a lot of people who try to attack her and say, well, it's not true. What is true. What we do know is Jed Hoover had seventy or eighty phone calls back and forth to the White House between her and Jack Kennedy, and they eventually approached President Kennedy about it, and Bobby
and said this has to stop. She's heavily connected with the mobsters and he's worn around with her, and this is gonna blow up in your face, and basically Hoover was kind of That's how Hoover used to blackmail people. You know, he said, well, you know, this came across my desk and I just wanted you to know it's safe with me, you know. But that was his way of telling your wink wink, be careful what you do.
So that was what he did. Yeah, that's what he did to Jack and Bobby and uh so, I mean, look, it's it's obvious.
You don't think I'm assuming that Hoover had anything to do with the hit on on on Jack Kennedy.
You know, I couldn't. I couldn't prove that. But I tell you what I can prove. I don't. I don't say that he did because I won't. I won't talk out of you know, I.
Don't think no, no, but I will. I'm interested in what your thought on it is. Because I don't think I'll tell.
You what he did. Then well I'll tell you what he did do. So, I mean, there is culpability there, but not necessarily you know, an active conspirat up. But I will, I'll tell you where the culpability lies. So Hoover is Hoover is having a war with Bobby. When Bobby becomes a GI. Hoover has had always gone directly to the president for decades since he was since he was appointed the head of the FBI, and he always never, never, he never went through the Attorney General.
Never, his standard operating procedure, right to the.
Bar correct always, And then Bobby gets in and he's like, you know, I mean, his first teeth came in when Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And Bobby says, you're gonna have to go through me, fan now on, I'm your boss, and he starts really really, you know, he's abusing him. And I go through that in the book as well. I mean, he puts a buzzer on his desk and he says, anytime I buzz you,
I want you to come running to my office. And basically, you know, Hoover's huffing and puffing up and down the corridors in the Justice Department, constantly getting buzzed by Bobby, to the point where one day Bobby says he had a visitor in his office and he says, you want to see me get Hoover over here, just for kicks. And he says sure, and he buzzed them, and you know, like Hoover was fuming. So now Hoover hates Bobby. And Bobby keeps telling Hoover, go after the mob, Go after
the mob, go after the mob. And Hoover knows that he doesn't want to do a deep dive into the mob because he knows they're all connected to may as, governors, congressman, senate is where's he gonna go with this? You know, even do you want me to look into your father Joe Kennedy Senior during bootlegging? How about his Hollywood company, how he kept labor relations going through the mob? You don't want me to do this. So Hoover thought he was nuts. But Bobby kept punching away at Hoover, saying,
you can't keep chasing communists. You got to go after the mob. So Hoover hates them. At some point or another, the Kennedy's make the decision that they're going to retire Hoover during Kennedy's second term. If Kennedy wins a second term, Hoover's out the door. And that was like, that was like killing him, Hoover. And then one better, one better, today, we don't care who was a homosexual today, but been during the nineteen sixties. Homosexuality was something that it was
unacceptable in society. And he was dead set on smearing Hoover as a homosexual. And he even had people look into his background and it got back to Hoover. So Hoover hates Bobby, hates Jack. And now all of these death threats coming from the mob. Hoover's got these listening devices, illegal listening devices planted in mob hanging out throughout the country. They were called black bag jobs. And agents would go in the middle of the night, plant a bug in
a social club and Wove's listening to it. Yeah, and Hoover's listening to all this, and all these death threats from the mob start to pass Hoover's desk. And what is Hoover doing about them? Nothing. He's supposed to at least inform the Secret Service, at least inform the Attorney General.
Maybe take a trip to Kennedy's office, as he did with Judas Xner Judas slash Campbell when he found out he had no problem running over, running, running up Pennsylvania Avenue over to the White House and telling Jack Hey I know about this. You know this girl who's you know, calling you left and right, and she's pooling around with mobs this. But all of a sudden, all these threats are passing his desk and he's doing nothing about him.
And at one point or another, Uh, there's a guy who reports to the FBI that Santo Trafficante said Kennedy's buying it when he comes to down South in November. And that guy happened to be an FBI informant. He ran to his his handlers and told him that passed who his deak Hoover did nothing about it. Now, if you were about to be fired from the job of your life that you've been there for decades and Smith is a homosexual, which once again was unacceptable in nineteen
sixties America. I mean, what are you going to do about these threats? And maybe hope that they materry a line? I don't know, you know, I mean, just imagine if you.
Have to put that Liwin in context. I remember, I think it was sometime in the mid nineteen sixties. They they ran some sort of a poll in which they they went to you know, American people, and they said it has been disclosed today that President Johnson is a practicing heterosexual. Do you believe that, like, I don't know sixty five percent of people, No, not possible, No, not possible even know the difference, you know. Again, but I mean, yeah, they heard that word sexual. Oh no, not resident.
So that's hilarious.
People, well that's a true story. People who who lived at the time, you know. And I was around that time. He didn't realize that that was concerned, you know, I mean really uh. And of course you know, Hoover was was I always used to say about Hoover that the the only question as to Hoover and his his assistant director, uh.
Clyde Cidelson clid.
Tilson, was who was going to wear the taff of the gown on Saturday night.
That's exactly That's what they say that that's exactly right. And so Bobby was actually caught, he would call him, he would call him behind his back jay Edna instead of Jay Edgar. Uh yeah, and he yeah, and he would call Clyde Tolson missus, uh, missus j Ed Hoover. So I mean, you know, Bobby, and that was coming back to Hoover too, yeah, you know, And and yeah, so, I mean Hoover was so once again, I mean the
culpability an active conspirator. No, but can you consider him having quite a bit of culpability, as you know, failing to report or do anything about the threats that were coming past his desk that he knew what were real, active, serious threats. Then it's that's a different story, you know, And then that that goes into the cover up to.
My guest is lou Ferrante. Have you seen the DiCaprio movie in which he plays Hoover.
I did not watch it, only because I am so I've read probably about thirty books on jay at Khoova for the research for this book, and I just felt like, I don't know if Scorsese or DiCaprio were going to get what I got out of it. I think that they were going to betray him as a you know, sort of like an American icon, and I did not get that.
I don't think so. I think I watched it on a plane coming back or going to Italy last summer to get which one. But it was. I thought it was done pretty well. To be honest with you, I'll.
Watch it then I'll catch up. I got something to watch now. It's great.
Okay, great, we're gonna take a quick break if you want to join the conversation. The only I got one line open at six one seven two five four ten thirty. You're going to try to get everybody in. I promise, Steve Paul Brian you'll be the first up six one seven two five four ten thirty. The book is now available, right.
It is Borgotta Clash of Titans, the second volume of the Borgota trilogy. Uh, and read.
Each of the books are the same title.
Well, it's the Borgatta trilogy, so then each one is Borgatta. The first one is Borgatta Rise of Empire, the second one is Borgotta Clash of Titans, and the final one, which is written already but yet to be released, as Autumn of Empire.
One Ottoman Empire like.
An Autumn of Empire. I'm sorry, that's my Bottom of Empire.
Okay, gotch you okay, no problem, all right. Uh we'll get to phone calls, I promise, right after the news break. Here at the bottom of the hour.
It's Night Side with Dan y w B Boston's news radio.
I guess there's Lewis ferranting. Here's a how many years. A you do in prison?
I did eight and a half years.
Eight and a half years. His expertise was trucks, tractor trailer trucks. Uh, money, money, running money, trucks and finally get caught paid his debt. I think he got some religion in in prison too, if I'm not mistaken, Is that correct?
I did? I I came around to the to a strong belief that there is a higher power. I felt like I was being punished for something. I felt like a higher power was leading me. Uh, you know, I guess through you know, the Nigron furnace, I guess you know. I mean I had to, I had to be dragged through. Yeah. So I felt like, yeah, I mean, look, we I believe heavily in in Uh. The world is round, and
we do create calma as we go through it. And I had I had created a lot of calma over the years, bad comma, and I felt like I was paying for it. And I swore I would create good karma from then on, y and uh, and hopefully the world would would repay me in kind and uh, and I have done that, and I feel it has been been repaying me. So I thank God for that.
But I'm just gonna play Yeah, what a funny story about Roger Wheeler. When we went after Wheeler and UH and the FBI here, eventually they were hearings in Washington. Do you see the House government oversych for three years two thousand and one, two thousand and two, two thousand and three. And this was before Wheeler had been arrested, UH for the murder of Roger Wheeler. UH, before Rico
had been arrested for the murder of Roger Wheeler. And so at that point, you know, he was he was on in years UH and had done all of his
dirty work. And so one day, you know, during the break, he's was kind of shuffling to the men's room, and all the report orders, who really didn't quite understand the story as well as I had, because I had gone after him for ten years, were following him to the men's room, and I on one side of him, and another reporters on the other side, and the other reporters peppering him with questions, and the other reporter said, did you have anything to do with the murder of David Wheeler. Now,
David Wheeler was not murdered. He was the son of Roger Wheeler, but the reporter, the other reporter got the names mixed up. Wheeler, not without missing a beat, turns and looks at me and gives me this look like, what the hell is he talking about? This weird relationship with this guy where I didn't like him. I didn't like him, but at that moment, he at least was saying to me, well, you at least know the story, you know, I mean.
Right right right, There was that moment of like you do it connected for that second.
For that split second, that yeah, anyway, I thought you'd appreciate one of us. Let me go to Steve and Gambridge. Steve first up this hour with my guest, Lou Ferrante. Go right ahead, Steve.
Hi Dai Hi, Lou, Lou. I read the book that the movie The Irish Mineral is made from, and I think that was also of Corsese, who made the movie. And the book says that the Robert de Niro character killed Crazy Joe Gallo and Jimmy Hoffer and knew about the conspiracy to kill JFK. What do you know about that story?
Yeah, I cover it. I cover that in the half a section of the second volume of my book right now, bore got a class of Titan. I talk about it because I couldn't. It's it's something you can't overlook because of the hype, because Netflix dumped two hundred million dollars into making the movie about it. But I will tell you right now, I was dear friends with Little Vicarina, who was the boss of the Columbo family. I'm still close friends, very close, dear friends with Little Victorina Jr.
Who was a happened in the Colombo family. Little Viccinia is away doing life. They ran the Columbo family, so I know a lot of people in that family. And that is the family that killed Joe Gallo, and it was Sonny Pinto. Sonny Pinto is the one who went into Umbardo's and he whacked out Joe Gallo. I don't know why the guy said, I read The Irishman. I read I Heard You Paying Houses, which is the Irishman was based on. And I thought that there were a lot of things that he said that rang true from
my research and what I've heard. And I felt that he was in the know to some extent because he was close to Russell Buffalino, who was also involved to some extent in the conspiracy. He was close with the guys from the Geneva's family. He was close with guys from the Detroit Mob. Buffalino was. So this guy was sort of in the know this sharing. So he did throw a little few facts around that made sense. But
there's no way. When I read that he claimed he clipped Joey Gallo, I said, why is this guy Lyon? And now I have to take everything he said and say, what the frig is he talking about? And then the other thing to me too. Yeah, so Sally Sally bugs Forgoglio. I bet my life On was the trigger man and he was sent by Anthony pro Provenzano. Uh the Detroit
Mob had something to do with it. I think that they incinerated him at the Central Sanitation Services in uh in Ham Trunk, Michigan, which was about a twenty minute drive from where copp forgot in the car over at the Red Red mac Macus Red Fox restaurant. Nobody, all the all the decades that the FBI has been looking under the under the arizontal bridge under this bridge in Jersey, that bridge under t I would have told him, listen, save you save save your save your resources. Save your
bulldozers and your your construction equipment. Nobody's going to clip somebody and drive twelve hundred miles with the body when there's a million places to get rid of him in Michigan. So going into it, before I did my research, I knew that they would have got rid of them within minutes of clipping them, which was which would have been within minutes of taking them from the Red Maccus Red Fox restaurant, and they would have gotten Usually these guys
got a whole predug. You know, they know where they're taking you, and they're not going to ship you around in a barrel and risk going through Highway ninety five, and you know, why not.
See if I may one more question? If I may dan, I've often heard the term a made man. Now is there an actual ceremony? Does one have to kiss someone's ring? Can you explain that a little bit more clearly?
Well, well, nobody kisses a ring, but basically, you know, they draw a little blood off your finger. You say, you know, you basically swear you're going to die for the family, and this family comes even before your own family. And then uh, and then everybody kisses on the cheeks and you know you're you're straightened out in the family. So I mean there's no kissing. The ring and stuff was from The Godfather, the movie. Yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah,
Oh the Pope exactly. Oh the Polpe, the infallible Pope.
That's right.
Yeah, but uh no no in the movie Goodfellas. Did you see that movie, lou I saw.
I saw years ago. I was. I actually saw it before it came out. I was close friends Jimmy Robert Demiro played Jimmy Conway, who was really Jimmy Burke. Jimmy Burke was from my neighborhood, and I looked up to him as a kid. And uh he had a son. One son was clipped, one son died on the street. Another son he had became an attorney. He was a really nice kid, legitimate kid. He one time he flagged
down me and Peter Gotty. We were driving in how Beach and he says, hey, guys, I got a he had a VHS tape for for for those of us who are older, we remember what a VHS tape was. And he said, hey, I got a tape of my movie about my father. You guys want to follow me? Back to the house. I'm about to watch it. It just got it. So we went back and we watched Good Fellas a few months before it came out, and I do remember seeing it, but I don't remember exactly whose ring was kissed, and.
No ring gets kissed. But they make a big deal about having killed a made man and that was their death.
Say, oh, that's off limits if you kill somebody who's made, who straightened out unless you had permission to kill him. You know, the boss of a family could tell you somebody's got to go within the family. The father makes the decisions for the children, right, So any boss of a family will say who dies and who lives. But if you clip a maid guy and you didn't have permission,
you're dead. You're going. I mean yeah, I mean, you know, they could give you a pass if there's some circumstances behind it that you know, but ninety nine out of one hundred usually you're going just for the fact that you did it without permission. You know, I know somebody who did it and got away with it. It was during mob war. They went to sit down, they straightened it out because the guy claimed he didn't know and did this and that, and they let him live because
they needed him for the war. But normally, uh, normally a guy goes right away. If you do that, you can't. It's awko limits have a great night, Happy New Year.
I'll take a break, and I guess the current book Clash of the Titans, A History of the American Mafia Borgata bo r g a t A. Remind me what the word bogatta means.
Yeah, bogatta is like it's like a like to think of the word like uh barrio like in Spanish, it's like a poorer neighborhood where close knit people live. And that's the original meaning. And then it became something like formafia's family. They would say borgata or more the way I remember it said on the street would be the bugad like they wouldn't say a crime family. They wouldn't say a mafia's family. They would say, you know, he's with John's bugad or borgatta like an other word, John
would be John Gott. He's with John's bugatt or borgatta. That means he's with John's crew, John's family.
Yeah, my guest, Lou friending, we'll get some more calls. Six one, seven, four, ten, thirty coming right back on night Side. We're going to switch topics at the top of the arrow, So if you want to get a question in, now's the time. Coming back on Nightside.
Now back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World Nightside Studios on.
W b Z the news radio. All right, back to the call as we go. We're talking about the Mafia, America's political elite. The book in question is Clash of the Titans, a History of the American Mafia. How long is this this this volume? This is volume two of the trilogy. Lewis has been out. How long?
Oh? It just came out this morning.
Yeah, just available Amazon and fine bookstores. Let's go next to Paul in Pennsylvania. Paul, you're next on Nightside with lou Ferante.
Garretta had Paul Yelier down there a guest. My question earlier, guest is I just saw a documentary years ago. It was what Albert to Sell Boston Streiber and they played a portion of where he was under hypnosis and it was one of the creepiest things I ever heard. Is your guest ever heard the rumor that he was also a hit man for the mob and that's why when he got locked up laying around and he ended up killed in prison.
No, he was never a hit man for the mob. But but let's uh, let's see what Lou has to say on that. I'm very fniard.
Yeah, I mean nothing. I never heard anything like that either. So if he was, I didn't, I was completely in the dalk about it now.
He would have been. He would have been too unreliable as an individual to have been in that situation. I can tell you the story that with the guy that I worked with or worked on behalf of to get out of prison, a fellow named Joe Silvadi, one of the four people that Rico had had framed up here, along with Joe Barboza from for murder they had nothing to do with when they were convicted, uh, and they were shipped immediately from Suffolk Superior Court to Walpole State Prison.
The strangler was still was already in prison. Uh, and he fashioned himself as to being sort of like a big guy in the prison. Everybody needed to know who Albert de Salvo was. So Savanti was in like a holding room waiting to be processed, and the Salvo came in and uh and said Hi, I'm Albert de Salvo or the Boston Strangler, and Savati said, go get me a sandwich, and Salvo scarried and brought him back a
roast beef sandwich, and Joe told me the story. Uh, and he said, you know, he wanted to let the Salvo know that in the pecking order he wasn't above Joe Savat.
You know, yeah, yeah, it's just the way. Yeah, No, Dan, those guys in jail have a hard time. It's it's a matter of time before they get killed. I wrote a memoir years ago where I talked about me and my co defendants when we were in jail, and there was one of us, one of my co defendants, who could not sleep if somebody was accidentally brought in into the FEDS for let's say, for example, this guy was
brought in from the state charge. He had a state charge where it was rape, and he couldn't sleep till he got him. And then there was another time where the guy was charged federally because he took abducted the girl and took her over state lines. And once again he came to me and the rest of my co defendant and he goes, I got to get him. So we said, look, we'll do it together, you know, this way, make sure he gets away with it. We didn't want him because we knew he was going to do it
one way or the other. But these guys, a lot of times, these guys, you know, I mean, they get clipped in jail.
There's a code of ethics internally, right.
Yeah, you got to think it could be my sister, could be my daughter, could be my mother. You know, the women he strangled, he raped whoever, you know, you know, they they just and a lot of guys are creeped out by that. They don't you know, they don't want them near them. But that's funny the story you said, and that's so true.
Who gets you know, I'm Albert the Salve, he said, you know, I'm the strangler. It's a big deal. Go get me a Sandersom commissary. All right, thank you, Paul, appreciate it. Thanks so.
So.
Let me let me run a theory behind past you, okay. And I don't know if I've ever run this theory behind you in front of it before, But after the Kennedy assassination, that's when a lot of the funny stuff began to happen with Hoover going really going after the mafia.
I think he was. I think Hoover was afraid, and I think that Hoover believed that the mafia was very much the group behind the assassination of Kennedy, and Hoover for a long time had denied the existence of the mafia, if you recall in the nineteen fifties, and I I think he maybe he wasn't unhappy that Kennedy had been clipped, as you would say, but my sense is that he felt he then had to go after the mafia as a consequence of that. Do you buy that theory at all or noo?
It's possible. I'll tell you why. So he did. He contrary to the whitewash the Warren Commission and the Warrant Commission, was completely the conclusions drawn by the Warren Commission was the conclusions drawn by basically Jed Gohova. Because he fed them all of the information that they had, they had to base their conclusions on what he either withheld or what he gave them and what he told them. So he's basically the man giving them the material that they're
then using. Notwithstanding all of obviously the testimony that they would gather on their own, but it's all coming from Hoover. And so Hula manipulated the verdict in that and the verdict was exactly what he said. Within twenty minutes of Oswald's death. It was a low nut and the case is closed. So having said that, that does not mean that Hoover did not do a deep dive into the investigation for his own knowledge. And that's and that's exactly right.
He concluded. He knew it was the mob. He knew Ruby had silenced Oswald, he knew that the mob was threatening the death of Kennedy beforehand. But I also to make a very very clear picture in the book that the mob couldn't have done it without road members of the United States government working with them to some degree. Once again, I urged listeners to read it. Yeah, so there was something going on, But I do agree with you.
I think Hoover knew that they were a threat. Then at that point he kind of slowly dragged his feet a little more over the over, you know, until basically, you know, he started to go after them a little more. But then basically when it really ramped up was after his death. Once he died, That's when the FBI went full blown after the Mob and they started to take
down these guys. But he did, you know, I think I think he knew it and knew there were a serious threat, and also too we had to cover it up. You mentioned something good when you said he was denying the mob for so long? How do then, how then do you say you're the head of the FBI but the mob was somehow involved. Wait a second, you've been denying their existence exactly thirty or forty years. Yeah, now you're going to tell us for president? Yeah, definitely, Luke.
For Anthea, one of my favorite guests. We'll have you back. The book Clash of the Titans, a History of the American Mafia out today, available Amazon everywhere. Get it and read it. Lou Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate you coming on. You're one of my favorite guests. Simple is that I can't pay a higher compliment.
Thanks buddy, Thank thank you so much, Dan and you and you're one of my favorite hosts. Thank you.
Thanks, we'll talk to you and happy New year.
Thank ye.
All right, good night. We came back when we talk about Donald Trump. So I don't know if you call it a news conference. Today but the president elect had a lot to say, and we're going to cover some of it right after the break here at the eleven o'clock hour.