The Valachi Papers Read Online Free PDF

of the reports we're receiving."
    Almost at once Hundley found himself in the middle of some bitter bureaucratic infighting. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had gotten wind of what was going on, asked him for a look at the reports. Afterwards, according to Hundley, FBI interest in Valachi became "overwhelming." The FBI formally requested access to Valachi on die ground that the information he had to offer "transcended" traffic in narcotics. Informally, Hundley was told, "We have to have him." Such pressure was startling. "It puzzled me," Hundley recalls. "Here suddenly was the most prestigious law enforcement agency in the world all worked up over one man. They usually don't get that excited."
    But Valachi meant a great deal to the FBI for a very special reason. Prior to the advent of Kennedy as Attorney General, it had been paying little attention to organized crime. In 1959, for example, only four agents in its New York office were assigned to this area, and their work was primarily in-office "bookkeeping" chores collating such routine information as the whereabouts of known racketeers. On the other hand, upwards of 400 agents in the same office were occupied in foiling domestic Communists. Although FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover nominally takes orders from the Attorney General, he had operated under a succession of them as if they never existed. Kennedy was able to change much of this, at least during his tenure. Not only was he knowledgeble and concerned about organized crime and determined to crimp its mushrooming growth, but he also had a brother in the White Flouse. Thus by 1962, again using New York as an example, about 150 agents, the bulk of them drawn from security work, were specializing in organized crime, assigned to specific cases, ferreting out leads, actively engaged in surveillance, etc. Still, embarrassingly caught off guard by Kennedy's initial demand for underworld intelligence data, the FBI high command had been forced to resort to widespread wiretapping and bugging to provide information which it euphemistically ascribed to sources like "confidential informant T-3, known to be reliable in the past." Now all at once here was Valachi, die first warm body to come forward whose statements jibed with this electronic eavesdropping and apparently a hot prospect to fill in the gaps.
    With Kennedy's backing, however, Hundley decided to give the Bureau of Narcotics more time to develop Valachi on its own. But two weeks later, when a progress report from Selvagi proved disappointing because of Valachi's continuing hostility toward the Bureau of Narcotics, the FBI request was granted, and a crack special agent from its New York office, James P. Flynn, entered the picture ostensibly to delve further into the circumstances of the Atlanta murder. For a time Flynn and Selvagi jointly questioned
    Valachi, who was in his glory playing one agent off against the other. He had yet to mention the Cosa Nostra by name, and there have since been charges that he fabricated it. The fact is that the words "Cosa Nostra" had been cropping up on wiretaps, and at least a year before Valachi came along the FBI had reason to believe that it represented what was commonly called the Mafia.
    Valachi dramatically confirmed this. Alone with him for a brief period on the afternoon of September 8, Flynn suddenly said, "Joe, let's stop fooling around. You know I'm here because the Attorney General wants this information. I want to talk about the organization by name, rank, and serial number. What's the name? Is it Mafia?"
    "No," Valachi said. "It's not Mafia. That's the expression the outside uses."
    "Is it of Italian origin?"
    "What do you mean?" Valachi parried.
    "We know a lot more than you think," Flynn said. "Now I'll give you the first part. You give me the rest. It's Cosa— "
    Valachi went pale. For almost a minute he said nothing. Then he rasped back hoarsely, "Cosa Nostra! So you know about it."*
    *It can be argued that Cosa