The Legacy of Joe Valachi

In 1963, Joseph Valachi appeared as the star witness before a government inquiry into the mob, it was generally referred to as "The McClellan Committee" because Democratic Senator John L. McClellan chaired it. Day after day he spoke about his life, tearing away the Mafia's veil of mystery and exposing its secrets. For the first time the American public heard about omerta and blood oaths, soldiers and buttons, capos and consiglieri, and all the details of a vast, organized criminal syndicate, told by a man who had admitted to being involved in a number of underworld murders. He revealed the existence of five crime families in New York and one in New Jersey. He placed other families in Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Tampa, Boston and Providence, identifying bosses and senior men in each group. As for the size of organized crime, he pointed out that there 2,000 made men in New York alone.

Valachi came across to the committee as a man who displayed little remorse for the crimes he had carried out. When ask about his lack of regret for the crimes and murders he committed he informed the committee that after a period on time in the world of crime, many actions no longer appear as crimes. You associate with people who make their living outside the law and actions that are illegal in the real world take on a different light in the world of crime. He expressed the view that he was just a businessman who had chosen to make his living and establish a career in a world different from what other experience.

Under the urging of the Department of Justice, he started to write his memoirs. The reaction to this activity was the belief that this was a slur on all Italian-Americans. Under heavy political pressure and supported by many well-known Italian-Americans, the Attorney General initiated proceedings to ban the book. A compromise was reached in which the book could proceed, but as a third-person book using Valachi's writings as source material, along with personal interviews between Valachi and the selected writer. Towards the end of his life, his health was letting him down. He suffered from arthritis, high blood pressure, gall bladder problems and prostate cancer. Valachi attempted suicide by trying to hang himself in a shower; he was eventually transferred to a federal penitentiary in Texas. This would serve as Valachi's final home for the rest of his life. He was housed in a large cell near the prison hospital that had its own bathroom, rug, television set, and a small stove. Joseph Valachi and his revelations did not destroy the Cosa Nostra. In fact, it hardly put a crimp in their style. He was an acute embarrassment to Genovese, who no doubt smarted under the humiliation of it all. He also forced the FBI to admit to the existence of organized crime.

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