Valachi's Papers - Joe Valachi and the End of Silence
Title: Valachi's Papers - Joe Valachi and the End of Silence
Original Publication Date: 6/14/2023
Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/5XUpe5gBiMk
Description: Welcome back to Organized Crime and Punishment! In this episode, Mustache Chris and Steve dive deep into the captivating history and background of Joseph Valachi, a notorious figure in the world of organized crime. Join us as we explore his fascinating life, from his early days as a low-level enforcer to his unprecedented decision to become a government informant.
We start by examining the infamous "Valachi Papers" – both the groundbreaking memoir and the subsequent movie adaptation. We discuss how Valachi's firsthand account provided unprecedented insights into the inner workings of the Italian-American Mafia, exposing its hierarchy, rituals, and codes of conduct. We delve into the impact of the Valachi Papers on law enforcement, public perception, and popular culture, as the revelations shook the criminal underworld to its core.
Moving on, we explore the extensive literature surrounding Joe Valachi. From investigative journalism to biographies and historical accounts.
Throughout this episode, we unravel the layers of secrecy and intrigue surrounding Joe Valachi, shedding light on his enigmatic persona and the profound impact he had on the world of organized crime. Join us as we examine the legacy of a man who dared to break the code of silence and redefine the landscape of law enforcement's battle against the mob.
#JoeValachi #ValachiPapers #MafiaInformant #OrganizedCrime #TrueCrime #MobHistory
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Begin Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime. With your hosts, Steve and Mustache, Chris.
I'd like to welcome you back to the show today and I'd also like to, as always, welcome back mustache, Chris. Today we're going to discuss the fascinating story of Joe Valachi, and this is where we really start to do some deep. Dives into mafia history and looking at our sources. Today we're going to talk about Joe Valachi and really what became the canonical story of how the early mafia developed and then how it [00:01:00] later began to collapse with one of its very first informants.
What we could also refer to as rats. We're also going to, as a part of that, discuss the movie and the book, the Velo Papers, which was a mixture of myth and legend in history altogether. Joe's story through the book, the movie, and what we know from history is the basis really for how we study and understand the mafia.
For better or for worse. One of the things with the mafia is it's, it really is a gift that keeps on giving, especially for a history that's so new. I mean, we're talking about events here that are less than a hundred years old and they're learning new information all the time about it. It really is. It's a great.
Bit of American history on a lot for a lot of reasons, but I think we'll, we'll start to get into some of those reasons as we, as we go along. And [00:02:00] just to give a little bit of a background on Joe Valachi. Joe Valachi was the first major rat, you might call him, but he was the first person in the mafia to turn government witness.
Uh, and maybe what was so important about that, Well, he was the, one of the, I mean there had been previous guys, I'm trying to remember his name right now. He was a guy in Murder Incorporated. He, he, he turned Rat two, but he never actually got to spell the beans about anything cuz they, they got to him first.
Um, but he was going to, uh, but Joe Valachi actually just. Said some of the, you know, the, some of the deeper secrets of the mob, omerta, how the ceremony works, the structure, the f b I had been wiring wire tapping a lot of these guys, but at the time, you could wire tap them, but you couldn't disclose it. So, They probably had somewhat of an idea of how this thing worked and how it was structured, and, but Joe Valachi put it right out in the [00:03:00] open.
They filled in a lot of blanks for the FBI in terms of, you know, how does, uh, this essentially what is a secret society function and why are they so difficult to penetrate? That's probably the thing that was the most important about Joe Valachi is that he did, he, they had all those indivi individual pieces.
The, the F FBI knew who lucky Luciano was. They knew who. Joe, me and um, Sal Marzano Genevese. They knew who all these people were. They knew that they were linked in some way, but Joe Valachi was kind of the guy who fleshed out the whole skeleton of what they had, and he showed that background of. Where Omerta came from and what omerta the, the code of Silence was all about, and I thought that that was what Joe Vei really.
Blew up about the mafia is that nobody really in [00:04:00] law enforcement knew that. Yeah. And he also coin, he also, uh, made public the term the Costa Costa Nostra, which was what the maf, the mafia doesn't call itself the mafia. They probably do now, but at the time they didn't call themselves the Mafia. And, uh, Costa Nostra, if I'm.
Remembering this correctly means our thing. Yeah. And so, yeah, they would call themselves La Nostra. And even going further back into kind of the, the pre-history, the murky pre-history of Italian Americans in the late 18 hundreds, the early 19 hundreds, they had something from Sicily called The Black Hand, which was.
Basically the coz Nostra or our thing, but um, in a little different format you might say. Yeah. And they were famous for when they did hits, they would put a black hand on the body so people would know who did it. And it was a mysterious uh, yeah. Organization. No one really knew anything about it. Uh, if I'm not mistaken, it started [00:05:00] in New Orleans.
Right. And then just kind of worked its way up through the states. Yeah. They, it also, this, this time period really changed when Joe Vela hit the scene in the early part of the 20th century, in the twenties and the thirties. A lot of these Italian gangs, uh, were really connected to the old world. And they were just, that they were gangs.
There was a group of a couple of guys, maybe a lot of guys, but they didn't have the structure. They did. And that's, Joe Valachi entered the, the scene right as the mafia. The Italian American mafia was getting very organized. Yeah, I would say he enters the scene when there's kind of a rev. I would say it's a revolution that's going on in the mafia where they're changing how everything is organized and getting away.
This is getting further on in the movie, but. Like getting away from the old ways in Sicily and they called them [00:06:00] mustache Petes. And getting into like non-traditional markets that the old Sicilian mafia wouldn't, wouldn't dare get involved in. That's probably is the, a really good thing to point out. It's this whole idea of the, the old school gangsters, the ones who were, a lot of these guys were directly from Italy.
But they, some of the newer, the, there was really an older group versus a younger group. And the mustache, Petes, they were the ones who were the, the old timers and they were really entrenched in the old ways from Sicily and Southern Italy. And in the most part, if you look at 'em, a lot of those guys, those mustache Petes came to the US when they were older, where somebody like, uh, Vito Genovese and Lucky Luciano and some of these younger guys, they came to America when they were really young.
So they, uh, they were really, they had kind of that American brashness to them. That's the, that's one of [00:07:00] the key moments here is that. There was two guys primarily in New York City, Joe the boss, Mazari and Salvato Marzano, who were these old school mustache? Petes. Their main bosses were lucky. Luciano, Vito Genovese, who were the kind of a new generation, but.
If I'm not mistaken, Joe, the boss, and Salvador Marzano were only about 10 years older than, uh, Luciano and Genovese to me. I w from re from my reading and watching this movie, the biggest difference between say Lucky Luciano and, uh, vio Genovese. And you can throw like Meyer Lansky. I know he's not Italian, but um, The biggest difference between him and say, Joe the boss is lucky.
Luciano always saw himself as an American and these older guys saw themselves as Italian. So it, it's a identity difference in my opinion. That's the where [00:08:00] Lucky Luciano, yeah, he might look towards Sicily and you know, have some reverence for it, but he's not gonna like listen to these guys in terms of how I'm gonna run my gangster empire in the United States.
These guys can bugger off, they can take care of whatever in Sicily where Marano would look. Probably look to Sicily and seek advice. I, yeah, I think it's a lot of the, it's almost like the old school divide between any immigrant, between the parents and the kids. Like you can almost see it where like a lot of times you'll see the parents will talk to the kids in.
Like their familial language or their, uh, ancestral language. And then you see the kid who maybe he, even if the kid was born in the old country, but they came here super young, and then that kid will go and answer the parent in English and they, it's. It becomes that difference, that cultural difference that you're, that you're speaking of, that they [00:09:00] just, they couldn't see eye to eye with each other on, on these basic things where you have the younger guys who view themselves as.
Italian Americans, but really Americans who wanna be in all these things, and they're not necessarily averse to working with the Jewish gangsters or the Dutch ones or the German ones. They just wanna make money like kind of the American dream type thing.
Steve, here again with a quick word from our sponsors. Yeah. Yeah. That to me is the biggest difference is that there was just a, a big cultural divide and just outlook on, uh, how things should be run. And it was, I mean, there was no compromise between these two visions of what the, uh, American Mafia should be.
Then there's this thing that gets that really, I wonder if this is really the turning point to the, the [00:10:00] whole mafia and now remember the, for the most part, law enforcement, like we were saying, new kind of these things, but this is the, a lot of what we're talking about that we kind of take as. As, um, gospel of the Mafia now, but these are things that weren't really known until Joe Valachi told about them.
And one of the things is the Costella Mar Mae War, which was a yearlong fight between Joe the boss, mazare and Maranzano over the control of the Mafia and the us. And it was fought mostly in N Y C, but it engulfed the mafia, LA Nostra all over North America. Um, Maybe tell us a little bit about that war and we can maybe get into and talk a little bit of how that just totally changed the mafia.
Yeah, so Mariza Marzano comes in the, the image I get is kind of like a conquering war lord, like I'm coming from Sicily. I mean, [00:11:00] he'd been in the States for a little while, but he, he's like you pointed out, he had lived in Sicily for most of his life and he's coming from Sicily and he's gonna take on Joe the boss and.
Joe, the boss has this idea that he's gonna be the boss of all bosses, and at first, Marzano says that that's not the case. He wants to run it with like, uh, an aristocracy of the bosses where the, the five bosses in New York will come to some kind of agreement that quickly changes when he wins the war, as we'll find out later.
Um, But yeah, breeding about this war is pretty crazy. Like hundreds of people were killed and people were switching sides back and forth. It, it does, it reminds me of, uh, a civil war going on in the, the United States, almost like a country within a country, and Arizona ends up. Winning at the end with the help of Lucky Luciano cuz he turns on his boss, Joe, the boss, kills him with an agreement with, uh, that Mariza is gonna win the war because [00:12:00] Marzano said what I pointed out earlier, that the five families are gonna kind of run this as like a aristocracy of, uh, elites.
Buddy then he changes Marzano. He's, um, highly educated. He was studying to be a priest. He knew the classics. He modeled himself as sort of like a conquering Roman. Yeah. He was obsessed with Julius Caesar and they, they touched on it in the movie where he gives Joe Valachi, uh, I believe it's Caesar's campaigns in North Africa and.
Just basic. He knows that Joe's not very well educated, but he tells him like, try reading it and um, yeah, he kind of sees himself as a conquering warlord really. Um, I mean, what was Julius Caesar? That's what he was, he was a politician. Yes. But he's most famous for conquering lands. Joe Vichi, he really interested me because he was so different.
He was Italian. Uh, he was born here though, so he was really, in a lot of ways [00:13:00] separated from these guys. And I get the gist from reading the book and watching the movie badge. Joe Vichi wasn't. Going to be an up and comer in these, in the, uh, organization that he really was basically a soldier in every way of the word.
He was not going to be a leader or a boss, or even like a low level manager. No, he was semi-literate. He came from a family, I believe. There was 17 kids, but only six of them survived. Uh, there was very low emphasis on education and his growing up, but he was a, a great driver, apparently great getaway driver.
And that's how he kind of got into this. Um, he was part of a game. He just a small time criminal. Yeah. But he was a good, he was a really good driver and they showed him the movie and I mean, you always need a good getaway driver. So that's kind of how he got. Into it. He was never gonna rise up though.
Like I said, he was kind of semi, [00:14:00] semi-literate. He was kind of a dullard, to be honest with you. After all of this Marzano, he wins the war and he really reorganized the entire mafia in the US and he's really the one who organized the traditional five families in New York. And. In a way he was really trying to unite the tribes, so to speak.
And if, if I'm not mistaken, the really the point of the five families was to give everybody these five major. Gangs, you could call them their own turf so that we wouldn't get another war like this major war. Because like you said, this was not like a little gang squabble. This was hundreds of people getting killed all daily.
Yeah. And on the streets, like people just mowing down people with Tommy guns and you know, in busy supermarkets it was, this is, it's not good for the mob to have this happening because, You don't [00:15:00] want it like spilling out to regular people and then it becomes an issue where they start getting the, the police really have to start doing something about this, where the government really has to take this serious, um, yeah, so he sets up the five families, but then he immediately, almost immediately breaks his promise that he made to Lucky Luciano and he calls himself, um, I can't pronounce it.
What's, what's it? The boss of all bosses? Yeah, the Kapo. Tuti ka, which just means the boss of all the bosses. Oh. And he's gonna be kind of the, I mean, you could almost call it an emperor because each of those five bosses are the five families. They're kind of like kings and their own rights. But Marzano is putting himself above all of them, uh, which is a really interesting way to go about it.
I mean, it kind of makes sense where you have one guy's responsible for slightly making the decisions like it. I. If you look at how the kind of the Persian empire [00:16:00] ran, like he, there was a king of kings, but the Persian empire was pretty hands off. But there was certain things where the, you had to do for the king of Kings.
I think that's what Arizona was trying to, uh, set up and keeping everybody happy. But the whole problem was, the reason this whole war happened in the first race was cuz Joe, the boss, called himself the boss of bosses. And luckily Luciano was like, This guy, he immediately went back on his deal and they end up killing him too.
And then Lucky Luciano sets up what is basically the modern mob now. Yeah. And part of the reason that, um, Marzano wanted to, to be the boss of the bosses was to have a system to. Deal with the squabbles. And that's sort of the next thing. And the, the military structure that Marzano kind of puts in where you have bosses and under bosses and crew bosses and then soldiers [00:17:00] and where they would each answer to the boss or the capo.
And then that coppo would have to really, if they had a squabble with another family, they'd have to go through the boss of all bosses. To iron that out, which in Yeah, in a, in a way, that's a good thing. What Luciano kind of brings to the table is that they're gonna set up a commission where all of the, they call it the commission where all of the five, the heads of the five families and some of the families from places around the US like Detroit and Los Angeles and Buffalo would come together and.
They would, um, kind of conci solve their problems. Yeah. It, it kind of reminds me a little bit of how the, the, the, uh, uh, Polish Lithuania empire ran where, yeah, there was like a king, but they weren't really in charge. It was like this group of [00:18:00] aristocrats and they would. Pick a king who's kind of a, it, it changed over time, but it got to the point where the king had literally no power at all.
Does that, does that, does that comparison work? Yeah, I think that, uh, initially Marzano wanted it to be more Persian Empire King, but it would, it, it was just never gonna happen. But one thing that I think is cool about the way he set that up is that, Really the, for the way that law enforcement worked back then.
Every single layer from a soldier to a crew boss to an underboss, to the boss, to the boss of all bosses, it kept insulating the higher you went up. And it really wasn't until Joseph Lac came around that they could start at. Cracking into those higher echelons because you could always say, well, hey, that was the soldier who did the bank robbery or was doing [00:19:00] prostitution or whatever.
That wasn't me. Even though they were kicking the money upstairs, it really wasn't until the. Eighties and the nineties where the, the Ricoh Laws racketeer influenced and Corrupt Organizations act became federal law, that prosecutors could come in and start dismantling this organization that had really, uh, insulated themselves from very much, uh, uh, actionability, you might call it, from law, law enforcement.
And the way they set up the system, as you pointed out, it's kind of like. Peeling layers off an onion. This is what gave the Italian mafia such a, an advantage over all the other type of, uh, um, mobsters slash gangsters, cuz the Jewish mafia didn't have this highly structured organization. The Irish mob never had it, and the various other ethnic groups didn't have it where, and also the mafia also had this ability to.
If the boss died or something happened to the [00:20:00] boss, it could seem almost seamlessly just be replaced. Where if you look at other ethnic group, Uh, other ethnic groups, gangs, that's usually not what happened at all. But the reason this happened is because of this structure that they brought from Sicily and modified it a bit and applied it to the states.
And by the time you get to the boss, the Boston can legitimately say, I didn't tell anybody to do anything cuz he really didn't have to tell anybody to do anything. These guys, a lot of these guys would just do this stuff on their own initiative and obviously they would control it to a degree, but, It would be hard to pin anything on them.
That and, and all of that. And then they, I think what, what you're saying too, what they brought over from Sicily is they brought that structure that these were established families. And like you said, if, if something happened to the boss of one family, it was almost like a medieval kingdom. They, they could.
Put in a new boss where in a lot of other or organized crimes and gangs, [00:21:00] if a boss, the person who's kind of the glue of the, of the whole thing dies or goes to jail, a lot of times it can just fall apart from there. It's very rare. Like somebody like, um, Al Chapo. Who runs the whole organization. It was like essentially he wasn't even in jail.
And yeah, most organized crime was very different than this. This really hierarchical setup that the Mafia did. Yeah, and well, and there was really good reasons to keep silence too, which is one of the big reasons why they were so difficult. And so, Difficult to infiltrate and so difficult, uh, I mean, so successful is a lot of guys legitimately did not say anything, and there was like two reasons for it.
Either they, they did truly believe that being a rat is the worst thing in the world, or they knew if they ratted, that was it. Like their whole thing. Family would. That probably is the big difference in what maybe opened the door for someone like Valachi to [00:22:00] become a a government witness, is that the mafia in the US and maybe that's kind of becoming Americanized.
They don't seem like they were as. Apt to kill like somebody's whole family maybe, because that would bring down too much heat on them. You know? That's kind of maybe the thing that would've gotten serious law enforcement attention is somebody's whole family gets killed. Or maybe it's just that idea of, you know, the.
Um, they just didn't feel like they had the heart, like in Sicily and those old guys from Sicily, like, yeah, you break Erta, that's a hundred percent, you're gonna have your whole family killed for that. And we see other gangs and um, ethnic mafia do that, but it seems like it's more of a thing that comes from.
A very different point of view and becomes harder and harder when you, for some reason, I don't know, and maybe I'm wrong in this, I don't know what you [00:23:00] think, Chris, but once you come to like America or North America, it becomes harder to enforce that. Yeah, I would say that. And I mean, and there was practical, like the mafia did.
They weren't going around, let's say like the cartels, slaughtering just entire towns or villages or what have that just never happened with the American Mafia. They would go after family members sometimes, depending on the, the situation, but it was pretty rare. For the most part. It was like kind of a. It was a rule actually, but it was a, something that was just enforced.
Like you don't go after kids. You don't go after wives. Because a lot of the times, I mean, the kids didn't really, the kids didn't do what the father did, you know? And a lot of these guys had kids themselves. So they figured like if we kill their kids, then. They might come and kill our kids, my kids. Right.
So I mean, it, it's one thing that's a little bit more little admirable about the American mafia is the fact that a lot of the violence, for the most part didn't really [00:24:00] spill out on the streets. It was kept in-house. I found too that a lot of these people in the mafia, and I think it's kind of a, a, a little bit of the American dream, that when you come here, You people don't necessarily want their kids to be involved in that kind of thing, that they don't, you know, whether it's a person who comes from another country who immigrates and they have to work, work their butt off at a, a traditional job, they want their kids to do better.
And a lot of these mobsters mafia guys, they had, they didn't want their kids to be eaten. Running and gunning. They wanted their kids to go to college or to get a good job. They didn't want very few. A few of them really got their kids involved in the, in their rackets. Yeah. That is really interesting too, where like they, yeah, they want something better for their kids.
There's only like a, I mean, John Gotti's kids are pretty famous for [00:25:00] getting involved in it, but. I don't think, if I'm not mistaken, I don't think God, John Gotti really wanted them to get involved in it. They just kind of saw what Dad did and I wanna do the same thing that Dad did. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's always gonna be, certain people are going to get attracted to that sort of thing.
But like, um, Carlo Gambino, who really doesn't play into this Valachi papers, but I, he was a first generation, uh, mobster and. I think all of his, none of his kids, they, uh, one or two of them might have been peripherally involved in the mafia, but most of them were just completely legitimate white collar workers.
And it's, it's, it's good for the organization too, because if you're just promoting your kids and extended family members, the nepotism starts creeping in, right. And people get jealous. And, you know, we're dealing with people that. You know, they don't, for the most part, don't really have any quorums about killing somebody [00:26:00] or starting a war or what have you.
Um, so it, it does make a lot of, I just thought of that right now, like it makes sense to not really want to have your family involved because you'll start getting accused of that, uh, type of nepotism. When Joe, whenever Joe Vei goes and he spills his guts to the, and he doesn't really spill his guts, at least in the movie the way it's portrayed.
I, um, don't recall in the book, but I, I have the feeling that the FBI, as much as Joe Vei, once he decides to flip, it was hard for him to do it. But maybe let's talk about why did Joe Valachi decide to, uh, Become a rat, if you will. Yeah. So Joe Valachi, he gets busted for, um, I believe he was dealing heroin and went to jail.
And at the time they were cracking down really hard on the, uh, drug trafficking, even just minor stuff. So he was going How long was his prison sentence again? I can't remember. It was a long time and [00:27:00] was in excess of 10 years. It might have been 15 or even 20 years, which he wasn't a young guy when they brought him in.
Yeah, and I mean, this is where the, the mafia has this touchy, iffy feeling about dealing drugs or certain families like Banded and other families kind of encouraged it, but they all kind of took the money. Paul ca uh, Castellano is probably the famous one. He's like, oh, you can't deal drugs. But he was taking drug money from drug dealers and that's kind of what led to his, his demise cuz of that, uh, hypocrisy.
But yeah. So Don Vito, uh, Vito Genovese. Is worried that Joe Vivace is gonna rap because of how long his prison sentence is, right? This is one of the reasons that the mob didn't really want these guys dealing drugs, especially like made men, because the prison sentences for so long there's way too much incentive to talk.
So even before talking to Joe about what was going on, and he sends Hitman to go kill him, and they tried to kill him in the, uh, shower [00:28:00] and he ends up getting, uh, a meeting with Don Vito, who. Basically gives him the kiss of death. Um, I don't know if that's like an actual thing. I guess I assume, I think it's Joe said, said it was, gives him the kiss of death.
Then Joe basically makes up his mind. Well, it's like, I'm, I'm gonna rat. At least I can get separated from these guys. Like, I'm not dying for somebody who doesn't even believe that I'm not a rat. I think that's a good way to get into kind of Joe's psychology. I, I honestly think that, I mean, Vito was acting crazy and Vito was never gonna get outta jail either from the, from this, the way it look like.
He was pretty old and he got a pretty long sentence. But I guess the, the, maybe a Vito hadn't been so crazy, like kind of paranoid and tried to kill Vichi. But then again, he thought Valachi was a rat even before he thought Valachi was involved in getting. [00:29:00] The, the whole, the whole family busted up. Yeah. But I mean, based on what I've read and what I've saw, I don't really understand how, uh, Vito Geneve thought that, and maybe it was paranoia.
And this is something that had kind of followed Vito his whole life, this, uh, paranoia and this quick temper and not. Really thinking things through, like he was up on a murder charge. He was, he used to be, he was a boss at one point and he ended up getting up on a murder charge and having to flee the, the country to Sicily and then ends up coming back.
Um, so this is, this type of behavior had followed, uh, Vito. His whole life, Vito, he went, it was right around World War ii and Vito became a real bit real tight with Mussolini while he was over there, and that really tainted him when he came back because Lucky Luciano for everything the, uh, you could say about Lucky Luciano, he was a r a [00:30:00] war hero in his own right.
He didn't go fight overseas, but. German infiltrators tried to come into the docks in New York City to Spy and Sabotage, and Luciano locked that down and the government was, they were very appreciative of what it, what he did. They kind of. Screwed him a after the war, but Luciano went a long way to helping win World War ii.
But then you have Don Vito coming back from Italy, who's rubbing shoulders with Mussolini. That must have caused some friction, and a lot of these mafia guys went to the wars too. Yeah. And like the other important thing too that Lucky Lucio had done was at any point he really could have shut down the docks.
Like back in the day the mafia ran the docks in one way or another, and they could have just called stirred up a general strike and caused a lot of chaos during the war. And if those dogs weren't open, the [00:31:00] supplies aren't going overseas, and the government knew that. So that's. You know, that's why they talked to, uh, Luciano and they came to this kind of agreement.
One thing I think, and it's a little controversial, but it, I think it's worth talking about, is a lot of the movie is, is really a two man play between Valachi and the F B I agent, who's his, uh, who's taking Valachi story. And so this, the Valachi. Turn state's witness in 1968, and this movie comes out in 1972. And I wonder was, and there's a lot of conversation and dialogue between the F B I agent and Valachi and the F B I agents all high and mighty, and you know the, I'm the good guy and you're the bad guy.
And I wonder how that kind of. Sat in people's mouths in the, in the sixties and in the seventies when there was a [00:32:00] real growing distrust in the government based on Vietnam and Watergate. Well, Watergate hadn't quite happened yet, but a lot of things had been coming out where, uh, the hippie movement where people st had started to get a real distrust in the government.
And I wonder, How people would've taken that back then. I'm, I mean, I mean, Nixon's silent majority was still there too, right? And these people were for the most part, pro. No, I wouldn't say they were like pro F b I, but they weren't. Uh, As anti-government, anti and law, law enforcement, uh, I say some of the other groups that you were talking about, but yeah, it would've been interesting to see.
I would love to, maybe I'll read a review that came out at the time and wonder if they touched on this as kind of glorification of the F B I. I'd love to throw that out too to people. Kind of break the fourth wall here of people who are listening, who are maybe of an age who remember that, uh, what were they thinking?[00:33:00]
I remember my father saying something when we watched the movie that they watched it on tv, the, the Senate hearings of Valachi, and it's was like watching their uncle. Spilling the beans on all this stuff. Uh, kind of the uncle who you thought, well, maybe the, maybe he was, uh, in the mafia or something, but just, you know, you would've never known it.
But then you have this guy who lo seems like an old uncle or an old grandfather, and he is just talking about like this most vile criminality. Yeah, it would. Yeah, I would, we should, I'm gonna look that up actually. I want to, and please tell us if you were alive at the time and watched any of these hearings, cuz I'd be really interested to hear just kind of how you viewed it.
Do you think that if something like that happened nowadays, If somebody goes, and if something like this happened nowadays, could it even happen nowadays where somebody like Joe Vichi comes out [00:34:00] and completely blows up an organization, would people even care? Or are we kind of too jaded now and. The, uh, almost into the second half of the early second half of the 21st century.
We, we just don't believe this sort of thing anymore. We just don't care. I mean, I would say it would probably get politicized in some way or another. I mean, you could say Julian Asge is similar to Joe Vichi and there's like, what? Half the country hates the guy, and then the other half of the country thinks he's a great guy.
I, I would assume something similar like that would probably happen or somebody like Snowden who maybe because he broke a, a part of government conspiracy, we won't get into all of that, but somebody, most of what Snowden came out and said was proven to be true, but in a lot of ways what he did it, it compromised things to a certain degree and people will disagree with that.
But it's, it sort of is kind of in that vein of [00:35:00] Joe Valachi of. Tearing back a curtain on something that was not very pretty. And it's also like if there's parallels between the mob and the government, in a lot of ways the government doesn't like people when they, you know, expose some of the dirty laundry and some of the secrets of how all this runs, like Snowden or Asange and.
I mean, the mo mob doesn't like it either. When Joe fci, uh, Joe FCIs telling, uh, how this whole thing runs, how Costa Nostra our thing works. Um, I mean, there's a, there's tons of parallels between how the government kind of runs and how the mob runs. It really is. It's a, I think of Joe Vichi and I just thought of this, which maybe we can hash this out.
Joe Vici is maybe more of a whistleblower than he was a rat. So to speak. Do you think about the, that the person who blew blew up Enron and said like, this is all, uh, total house of Cards. And [00:36:00] there, there was one for, uh, the who did that in the tobacco industry. And we see that all the time where when somebody comes out and layers lays out the really.
Ugly truth of what's going on in organizations. A lot of people are going to herald it. And there's gonna be a lot of people who have a lot, who have a lot of problems with what the person's doing with entrenched interests. And there's, its up debate too, like, is Joe Valachi a rat? Uh, a rat, or is he, like you said, a whistleblower?
I mean, to me, a rat is somebody who gets caught doing a crime that they. You know, like doing, and they said they'd signed up for the mafia and they figured, well, I can get 10 years knocked off my sentence if I start spilling the beans about breaking Erta. But I mean, in Joe's defense, like Don Vito was trying to kill him, what else was he supposed to do?
And Don Vito on top of that, [00:37:00] wasn't just trying to kill him. He wanted to humiliate Joe, which why is Don Vito really? Lowering himself to the, uh, the, the small time cog in the machine. Don Vito's going out of his way to just make a, a fool out of him. Joe Vichi said that, um, he would kill himself if Don Vito gave the word, but Don Vito wanted, wanted.
Joe Vichi to get whacked and made a fool out of, and I think you kind of can see why, uh, somebody like Joe Vichi might just say, well, you know, no, I'm not gonna put myself up to this. Yeah. So we seen the like movie, like in terms of emerita and keeping your word it, think about how Joe got into the mob really.
Uh, Marito gave him, made him a made man. I assume at the time they were a little bit more quick in making people, cuz there was a war going on and they needed. Bodies, maybe Joe [00:38:00] in a different situation. Probably he might not even ever get me. I could be wrong. Um, cuz he wasn't particularly a good earner and he wasn't really kind of psychotic, so he couldn't really use him for hits.
He was just a guy that was there. Um, But you turn around and you make, you take this blood oath and you're holding a image of a burning saint. And you know, if I break the silence, I'm going to, I'm gonna burn in hell for the rest of my life. And you know, it goes on literally like three months later, lucky Luciano, who took the same oath is killing the boss.
And imagine what that kind of does to a person who just signed up for blood oath and then watching, you know, the top rank eyes just saying, screw it. Like it doesn't matter. Yeah. It, it is really, it, it is fascinating. The, the story of Joe Vici that, like you said, he wasn't somebody who earned, he was a bagman.
He was the gopher really, of somebody who drove and. [00:39:00] Did all of that stuff. He wasn't somebody who was ever going to be ambitious. And he wasn't ambitious in jail. He just wanted to do his time. Yeah. He just wanted to be left alone and just do his time and he wasn't, you know, wasn't left alone. And, but I mean, he, the more I read about job too, he kind of seems like a vmr like in jail, he gets even a longer sentence because, He thinks this random prisoner that's coming up to him is a hit man that Don Vito had sent, and he ends up killing him.
And so they, he gets a, you know, he gets a life sentence, slapped onto his, uh, slapped onto his sentence, and then the way he got busted with the drugs and he got busted when he was a minute, man. He just, I don't know, he seems kind of like a, I don't know, a buler. Does that make sense? Yeah. He was really in it, the best place he could be as a driver.
He had a. Little restaurant that was his front, but otherwise, most of the stuff he did is Don Vito would say, go drive my [00:40:00] girlfriend here, or go pick up this package there. Like that's all the stuff he was really doing. It's, it's not like he was running these major operations or anything, and he didn't even really do many hits.
No, he probably was at, um, I think he was at some hits. I don't think he actually did any. He hits himself, but he was the driver. So when the hit was done, it was his job to, you know, get outta town as fast as possible. I wonder what, uh, you think of the movie, because the movie was really at an interesting place.
It was done by Dino de Lois, and it has a very foreign film to it. If you watch it, it is. Quite different than any other mafia movie you'll watch. It has more of a play aspect to it, and I thought watching it, that this is probably the kind of movie that you really would like. Yeah, it, yeah, I did it. I, I really enjoyed it.
Uh, Charles Bronson hits it out of the park. Um, it has like a, a very kind of spaghetti western kind of feel to it. Yeah. [00:41:00] Uh, Just because some of the actors or voices are doved and, but I mean, for the most part, the performances are all fun. And I mean, the guy plays, uh, Marzano. He has this like, this really weird accent where, um, I don't even know how to describe, how would you describe it?
I think he was almost overplay. An Italian accent, even though the guy was Italian, like it wasn't a natural Italian, you know, inflected English. It was somebody who was acting to have an Italian accent. Yeah, but he, I don't know. I liked him too, cuz he was fun to watch on screen. Like I enjoyed his, uh, performance and.
I mean, it's, it's for a movie, there's really not like a ton of violence, but there's like one scene in particular that's like, really, it's like really far out there. People should go and watch that, watch this movie and you'll know the scene we're talking about exactly. But we're not gonna mention it. And [00:42:00] this podcast to keep it, uh, minivan safe, but without showing a single thing.
It's one of the most horrific scenes I've ever seen in a movie. Yeah, it's, it's, it's rocks got wrenching, eh? Yeah. And I mean, I think Bronson, he really does a good job carrying the movie. He gives a really great performance. Um, I, I've always thought Bronson's been a pretty underrated actor anyways. I know he's famous for playing like the Death Wish guy and the endless sequels, but when Bronson's on, he's, he's.
Very good actor. He, he's very sub subdued, which is, uh, not something you typically see out of people who are famous for action movies. I could see a lot of people lumping Bronson in with Nicholas Cage because they kind of have people either love him or hate him in a lot, in a similar way to Nicholas Cage and me love him.
Charles Bronson, uh, he's probably top three [00:43:00] favorite actors of mine. He's also in one of my favorite movies too, once Upon a Time In The West, which was a spaghetti. What, like the magnum Opus Spaghetti We Western that Sergio Leoni, uh, directed and Charles Bronson starred in that movie. And there's just huge parts of that movie.
Uh, I think eventually one day maybe we'll do like a Western series. We'll get down and down the road and we'll do that one. It's a, it's a movie where a lot not much is said and Bronson. Does a brilliant job. He doesn't even have a name in the movie. Uh, just conveying all different types of emotions with his, uh, steely eyes.
One problem that I had with the movie, and it was actually a problem that Charles Bronson had with the movie, is that they're really telling about 40 years. Of a story, but Charles Bronson plays somebody where he starts off and he is in his late teens, early twenties, and then he is playing somebody almost into their seventies.
And I think in a way that didn't work. And [00:44:00] I think what they could have done is maybe had somebody young play Joe ve. Yeah. When he, in his younger time. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that could have worked better than having Charles Bronson, because he always looked like 40 something Charles Bronson in the whole movie.
Yeah. I, things like that. Don't, I don't know. I, I've never really been, I. Much of a stickler for thing, for that type of stuff, but I could see why people would have an issue with it. It's like you see Bronson like the first time he goes into jail, and I think he's like in his early twenties where Joe would've been in his early twenties at that time and Yeah.
Yeah. He looks like he's 40 years old. I, I think they put a little dye in his hair and that was about it. Yeah, that was in all the characters, they never really, they always looked the same. And I think they could have done, they maybe could have separated that out a little better. And then you have a supposedly 70 year old, Joe Vici when he is going to the [00:45:00] jail in the sixties.
And, um, besides gray hair, he's completely ripped. Look, you know. Oh yeah. Looking like a 40 year old man, you know, in good shape. Yeah, that was, yeah. Brons has always been in pretty good, like most of his life. He's been in, always been in pretty good shape and he's not like the typical like muscle guy. He's.
He's, he looks like slim and athletic and, uh, like you pointed, just fit. Doesn't look like a 70 year old man, like a 70 year old man. Don't, I don't care how much you work out, how much you take care of yourself, you're gonna have a little bit of a gut and the muscles are gonna sag a little bit. Your skin's gonna look a little leathery.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that, that, that was kind of a mess to the movie, but I, I mean, it was minor, but it also kind of led in it. I, I think it, it gave you more of that play feel to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it, it, it, yeah, it for a movie that's kind of based on what happened, from my understanding, it's pretty accurate to the [00:46:00] story that Joe told it.
It has kind of, um, Like you pointed like a play field to it. It's not, it almost seems kind of like a fantasy. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think it does. I think that, I think that's a really great way to describe it is it does have kind of a fantasy feel to it. To me that's what made it a little bit more, that's what made it enjoyable because a lot of the mob movies that will end up talking about are like super gritty and super have like a super realistic kind of tone to them.
And you know, this is, it gives you something a little bit different. Throughout this entire series, we're going to be hitting on some, some certain themes that will just keep coming up time and time again. And, uh, as I was putting brainstorming these, I was thinking is why was the mafia so powerful and why does the mafia have such a mystique to it?
And is the mafia an American folklore or legend? And is the mafia sort of the new Western and old West that, um, [00:47:00] And those are tho these are just some of my ideas and I thought maybe today we could just tackle one of these. Why does the Mafia have such a mystique? If you look at the, what the Mafia was able to accomplish, and I mean a relatively short period of time, it's, it's pretty incredible in terms of like running a lot of labor unions, uh, gambling.
They basically built Vegas, um, And potentially maybe being involved in the assassination of the president. We'll get into that later. Yeah. So if you look at like, somebody like Lucky Luci, uh, Luciano, he's extremely intelligent and he had this will to power where he is willing to take risks and risk everything to, uh, to get his vision of the mob.
And if you look at Capone, it's just a, a general, it's just a very interesting story how this guy came about and. Was one of the richest Americans of all time built on a criminal empire, and everybody knew that the empire was criminal, yet nothing was done about it. Like very, they did end up getting him later, but [00:48:00] I mean, people kind of.
People liked Al Capone for a long time, when even when he was alive, and it changed as he got older. Um, it, and the, the mystique, I think too is the fact that the mob is kind of a country within a country. They live by their own rules. They don't live by the government's rules. They don't live by, um, what the, the police and the F B I and what typical society tells, tells them what they should be doing.
They, they have their own thing as they, as they. Call it. We're gonna leave it at that for today. I just wanna mention though, the best thing you can do to help us in this podcast is if you enjoy what you're hearing, tell a friend, tell a couple of friends about the Organized Crime and Punishment Podcast so that your friends can become friends of ours.
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