The Valachi Papers Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nostra is a generic, rather than a proper, name. Although the literal translation is "Our Thing," Valachi, when referring to it in English, would do so in a lower-case sense—e.g., "this thing of ours." There is also evidence that other terms are used in the United States. For instance, while the structure of a Cosa Nostra Familv in Buffalo is identical to one of its counterparts in New York City, it is known locally as "the arm." It is really an academic question since, whatever the term, it adds up to the same thing.
    According to Hundley, Flynn became the indispensable figure in getting Valachi to talk. "Without him," Hundley says, "we could have blown the whole thing. Flynn is an unusual agent with great imagination and initiative. He had a tremendous knack of winning Valachi's confidence. He knew exactly when to be tough and when to baby him along. If Valachi was sick, for instance, he was the one who would bring him his medicine. If Valachi went into one of his depressions, he would always come up with the right thing to snap him out of it. Every so often he would bring some of the delicacies—cheeses and spiced sausage—that Valachi liked. These may sound like small things, but they made all the difference. Flynn practically lived with him for eight months, and Valachi wound up thinking he was the only friend he had—and quite frankly, Valachi was right."
    A successful interrogation is a complex art. Some measure of the problem of dealing with Valachi is contained in a probation officer's report written in 1960 while he awaited sentencing after his last narcotics conviction. "There is little to be said in his favor," the report concluded, "since he has failed to demonstrate any real semblance of moral conscience and social conformity. He has never been quite in tune with the society in which he lives, and at this late date there is little reason to indicate that he ever will."
    For Flynn the key was to isolate the motivations that finally led Valachi to talk and to play on them constantly. "Revenge was a large part of it," he later noted, "but it was also a cold, calculated move for survival. Don't think for a moment that this was a repentant sinner. lie was a killer capable of extreme violence. He was devious, rebellious against all constituted authority, and he lived in a world of fear and suspicion. Fear especially marked him. Fear of what he was doing and at the same time fear that nobody would believe him."
    By the end of September Valachi was placed entirely in the FBI's hands. And until the following January Flynn, subsequently joined by another FBI agent, questioned Valachi at the Westchester County Jail on an average of four days a week. A typical session lasted about three hours, after which Valachi tended to become increasingly jumpy and difficult to manage. During this period it was soon established that Valachi's remarkable memory worked best when he was allowed to tell his story in stretches without interruption even though any one sentence might feature a half dozen unidentified "lies," "hims" and "thems" which had to be tracked down in later interviews.
    After the initial breakthrough, Valachi sketched the broad organizational structure of the Cosa Nostra with comparatively little prodding. And for the first time the Justice Department got a picture of its enormous scope. He revealed that the Cosa Nostra is divided into Family units, each supreme in its own area. These areas include Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. In Valachi's words, resort centers such as Miami and Las Vegas (or pre-Castro Havana) are "loose" or "open." This means that any Family, regardless of its base, can maintain members and conduct operations there.
    The ruler of a Family is known as the capo, or "boss." Next in command is the sub capo, or "underboss." Then came a number of caporegime, or "lieutenants." Each