new acronym, "LCN," to go along with FBI. Unfortunately, the press was unimpressed and never picked up on it, preferring to stick with
Cosa Nostra
or, to Hoover's continuing discomfort, with
Mafia
. The addition of the
la to cosa nostra
just added a note of silliness to the matter; in literal translation it meant "the our thing."
|
Even Peter Maas, author of
The Valachi Papers
, seems to draw back somewhat from the FBI-inspired formalization of the term, noting in a footnote, "It can be argued that Cosa Nostra is a generic, rather than a proper, name." He goes on: "It is really an academic question, since whatever the term, it adds up to the same thing."
|
The fact remains that Cosa Nostra is an overblown phenomenon with supposed rituals more often ignored than honored within the mobs. It would be hard indeed to visualize the Chicago Outfit, the descendant of the Capone mob, and probably the most ethnically integrated crime family of all, going in for such nonsense as blood rituals and oaths and formal dogmatic ties to old Sicily. When in recent years the L.A. crime family sought to induct a new member it discovered there was no one around who either knew the words to the oath or could use the Italian dialect.
|
It is of course too late to purge Cosa Nostra from the crime lexicon, but it must be remembered it is nothing more than an alias for Mafia. And both Cosa Nostra and present-day Mafia are distinctly American, having little to do with the Old World Mafia (other than for business reasons, such as narcotics). In that sense Cosa Nostra represents the new Mafia, one that purged with blood the old Mustache Petes who did not understand the melting pot that is organized crime in America.
|
It would even be wrong to regard Cosa Nostra as an Italian-American invention. The organization of Cosa Nostra, if not the actual name, which again is no more than "this thing of ours" talk between mobsters, was as much Jewish-made as Italian. It was Meyer Lansky who insisted to Lucky Luciano that there was a need to give a special name to the Italian members of their new national crime syndicate. He said, "There are lots of these guys who ain't able to give up all the old ways so fast. You gotta feed 'em some sugar that they'll understand. You've got to give the new setup a name; after all, what the fuck is any business or company without a name? A guy don't walk into an automobile showroom and say, 'I'll take that car over there, the one without a name.' "
|
They settled on the name Unione Sicilliano, even though it was the name, with slight variation in spelling, of a long-established Sicilian fraternal organization. Thus while both Luciano and Lansky when talking to other big shots used the terms
outfit
or
syndicate
, the lower-rung Italian mobsters spoke of "Unione" or "arm" or "office" or "mob'' or "Mafia''or even "our thing."
|
Cosa Nostra has thus matured from its genesis as legend to reality. The Cosa Nostra or Mafia exists. It is not merely, as some writers have put it, "a state of mind." The Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, exists not so much in the eyes of the beholder as in the eyes of the belonger.
|
Costello, Frank (18911973): Prime minister of the underworld
A murder mastermind and cunning crime strategist, he was also dapper, a gambler, an ex-bootlegger, an almost very wholesome fellowthat's what Frank Costello was.
|
The engaging tales about Costello are legion. He told anyone who'd listen that he and Joe Kennedy up in Boston went way backto bootlegging, in fact. And he was always groomed to staid perfection. There was the time he was on trial and his lawyer asked him to stop wearing $350 suits, which were hurting his case with the jury, and to switch to clothes from the plain pipe rack. Costello was adamant. "I'm sorry, counselor," he said, "I'd rather blow the goddamn case."
|
A psychiatrist might deduce much from the behavior of a gangster whose obsession with "looking aces" was more important than avoiding a criminal conviction. And yes, Costello did have a psychiatrist, Dr. Richard H. Hoffman, an expert with a Park Avenue clientele. After two years of treatment the newspapers found out about it, and Hoffman admitted he was treating Costello. He said he had advised him to mingle with a better class of people. Angrily, Costello broke off with Hoffman, saying he had introduced Hoffman to a better class of people than Hoffman had introduced him to.
|
Of course, Costello's "better class of people" were in the political world. He exercised more political pull than any other major executive within organized crime and the national syndicate. Frank Costello stood for the "big fix." He bought favors and thought nothing of spending the mob's money in advance to make sure he could get them when needed. Scores of political leaders and judges were beholden to him. He dangled more of New York's Tammany Hall bosses on a string than any mayor or governor or president. The press described him as "owning" them all, from Christy Sullivan to Mike Kennedy, from Frank Rosetti to Bert Stand, and from Hugo Rogers to Carmine DeSapio. Costello had done them favors, had raised money for them, had delivered votes through political clubs he controlled when such actions really counted. And when it came time for political appointments Costello practically
|
|
