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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge with profound thanks contributions to this work by individuals, historical, and reference sources, without whose valuable advice, guidance, and assistance the book would not have been possible. Our deepest appreciation goes to:

U.S. Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York’s Southern District for insights and observations on the operation of Organized Crime, and to his wife, broadcast journalist Donna Hanover, for details about their life together that shape an intimate portrait of the couple away from the maddening daily swirl and bustle of the prosecutor’s office and the television newsroom.

U.S. Attorney Raymond Dearie of New York’s Eastern District and such other able officials in that office, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward McDonald, head of Brooklyn’s Federal Strike Force Against Organized Crime, his predecessor, Thomas R Puccio, as well as Special Attorney of the Organized Crime Strike Force Douglas Behm. Their help in making available public records on Mafia operations in racketeering and drug trafficking was invaluable.

Ralph F. Salerno, retired member of the New York City Police Department and one of America’s foremost authorities on organized crime. He supervised the investigation into Joe Valachi’s testimony for the McClellan Permanent Senate Subcommittee, served as the only police officer on President Johnson’s Organized Crime Task Force, on a presidential commission looking into campus unrest and campus violence, and as an organized crime consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations looking into President Kennedy’s murder. Mr. Salerno gave co-author Carpozi a thorough indoctrination into the inner workings of organized crime when together they wrote an eight-part serialization for the New York Post entitled “The Mob’s Deadly Hold On New York.”

Queens District Attorney John Santucci for his complete and enthusiastic support in enabling the authors to gather material on the Mafia’s illicit activities in his borough, but especially for information about the mob’s involvement in rackets at Kennedy International Airport.

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon, not only for insights and interpretations of underworld operations in his jurisdiction, but for his recollections and remembrances of his own battles with the Mafia when he headed Brooklyn’s Federal Strike Force Against Organized Crime.

Lieutenant Remo Franceschini of the Queens District Attorney’s Squad, for his always-generous assistance in providing information not only about underworld activity in his own jurisdiction but far beyond the county’s borders to as far-off places as Florida.

Antoinette Giancana, daughter of slain Chicago organized crime kingpin Sam “Momo” Giancana, who roundly denied the story that Mrs. Judith Exner Campbell had been a go-between for President Kennedy and her father plotting the assassination of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and that they were involved in other Mob business (author Kitty Kelley and Mrs. Exner reportedly shared $100,000 from People magazine for this uncorroborated story in the publication).

George Wolf, known as the “Mobsters’ Mouthpiece,” who contributed the untold details in this book (Chapter XXIX) of why and how New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey released America’s Number One underworld leader, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, from prison and arranged for his deportation to Italy. Also counsel to mobsters Frank Costello, Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer, Albert Anastasia, and Johnny Torrio, Wolf further gives us a humorous but penetrating insight into another client, Vito Genovese, in a surprising divorce proceeding.

Burton Turkus, Assistant District Attorney of Kings County, who virtually single-handedly broke up and prosecuted America’s most infamous gang of killers, Murder Incorporated. Mr. Turkus, wrote the first definitive book on the gang after his retirement, Murder, Inc., published by Manor books in 1951. Mr. Turkus was instrumental in providing co-author Carpozi with many insights into the workings of this infamous mob that slew on order, but he contributed even more extensively to the inside story of how the gang’s informer, Abe Reles, met his death in a mysterious plunge from a Coney Island Hotel.

Mickey Cohen, the notorious West Coast Mob chieftain, who made co-author Carpozi privy to heretofore untold tales about gangland operations he headed out of Los Angeles and Hollywood. Mr. Cohen was once the subject of an exclusive three-part series Carpozi wrote about the gangster for Hearst’s New York Journal-American.

Senator Estes Kefauver (D. Tennessee) who conducted the Senate hearings into organized crime in the early 1950s and provided material that enabled the authors to write the Introduction for this book.

And most especially to:

Librarian Christopher Bowen and the Reference Department of the New York Post.

Head Librarian Faigie Rosenthal and the Reference Department of the New York Daily News.

The authors are also indebted for information that helped guide the path this work took to these highly-regarded books and their scriveners:

Organized Crime in America, by Gus Taylor, the University of Michigan Press, 1962.

The Green Felt Jungle, by Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1963.

The Valachi Papers, by Peter Maas, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968.

The Crime Confederation, by Ralph Salerno and John S. Tompkins, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969.

The Brotherhood of Evil, The Mafia, by Frederic Sondern Jr., Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc., 1969.

Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone, by John Kobler, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971.

Honor Thy Father, by Gay Talese, World Publishing Co., 1971.

Recognition also is given to the editors of New York Magazine for the special 1972 edition of their publication entitled The Mafia At War, which excerpted significant passages from several important books on organized crime. That publication featured contributions by such distinguished writers about organized crime as John Kobler, Peter Maas, Nicholas Pileggi, Ralph Salerno, and Gay Talese.

And special thanks to Reed Sparling, books editor of STAR magazine, whose advice and counsel were given to his colleague, News Department Editor George Carpozi Jr., the co-author as the text for this book was shaped day by day over the lengthy period of its production.

To all these invaluable sources, Will Balsamo and George Carpozi Jr. extend heartfelt gratitude.

The authors also very specially wish to extend, together, an immense note of thanks to New York’s CBS-TV’s newscaster Chris Borgen for teaming them up in 1976 which resulted in their joint effort for a book entitled Always Kill A Brother. As a result of that first association, Balsamo and Carpozi collaborated more extensively on this volume.

And the authors wish to thank Sergeant Thomas Krant for his always-total cooperation, along with the NYPD’s Academy Museum which provided invaluable information about organized crime in the realm of guns and photos.

The authors wish to express their thanks to Ronald Deliso and Frank Cascella for their help in translating certain words from English to Italian.

Then, too, one very final salute must go to Kenneth Cobb and the staff of the City of New York Department of Records and Information Services lodged in the Municipal Archives, for their tremendous resourcefulness in providing the authors with editorial and photographic information that helped put this book all together.