Moving On Up

Carlos continued to expand his empire and had a reach through corruption of local and state officials from Louisiana to Texas. He was able to expand in both areas of legal and illegal enterprises. As his wealth increased his influence on the national crime Commission also increased. He had placed himself into a position in which he was one of the top money-makers in the world of organized crime. His public claim was that he was simply a salesman for a tomato company. His influence in the world of crime provided him with powers not shared by many of the other Commission members. He could take on new members without the required approval of the Commission, and his use of violence was often unquestioned by fellow Commission members. His credo that was posted in his office presents a clear picture of his beliefs and business practices, "Three can keep a secret, if two are dead". This form of leadership along with his control of the police and public officials utilized fear to keep his family in line. To form an even tighter bond on the Louisiana Family, Carlos placed his blood family members in to key positions of power.

The Kefauver hearing impact had begun to fade away and it appeared as if there would be no limit on the continued Family growth and expansion. Carlos had experience extreme growth in the six years since those hearing and the future looked bright. Then a new investigative committee was formed to examine national organized crime figures and their organizations. Senator John McClellan of Arkansas created a new team to carry out the investigation, and one of the committee members was Robert Kennedy. Carlos involvement in the Apalachin conference had led to the issuing of a subpoena that was served on him calling for his attendance in Washington to appear before the investigating committee. No one who went to the meeting ever publicly disclosed his reasons for attending. For certain, it revealed without doubt the existence of a crime confederation on a scale never before imagined. It also highlighted key members of the mob and, as a direct result, people like Carlos Marcello found themselves called before the McClellan Committee to give evidence about their association with organized crime.

Before any witnesses were called, the committee heard evidence about the Louisiana Mafia from a FBI expert, who had been following the rise of Carlos for years. The expert presented information about the organization of the Family structure and exposed much that Carlos had hoped to keep out of the spotlight. He exposed the major areas that were providing increased funding for the Family, in particular the gaming industry and more important shed light on the connections created by Carlos binding the police and elected officials to Family enterprises. The information presented placed most of the spotlight directly on Carlos. But since Carlos had been through all of this before, he felt he had little reason for concern. His plan to deal with the situation was to follow the same course as he had in the last investigation.

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