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THEFT OF THE NATION Criminology Sociology American Studies THEFT OF THE NATION THEFT Th e Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America Donald R. Cressey With a new introduction by James Finckenauer OF THE NATION Organized crime in America today is not the tough hoodlums familiar to moviegoers and TV watchers. It is more sophisticated, with many college graduates, gifted with organizational genius, all belonging to twenty-four tightly knit “families,” who have corrupted legitimate business and infi ltrated some of the highest levels of The Structure and Operations of local, state, and federal government. Th eir power reaches into Congress, into the executive and judicial branches, police agencies, and labor unions, and into such Organized Crime in America business enterprises as real estate, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, linen-supply houses, and garbage-collection routes. How does organized crime operate? How dangerous is it? What are the Donald R. Cressey implications for American society? How may we cope with it? In answering these questions, Cressey asserts that because organized crime provides illicit goods and services demanded by legitimate society, it has become part of legitimate society. with a new introduction by James Finckenauer Th is fascinating account reveals the parallels: the growth of specialization, “big- business practices” (pooling of capital and reinvestment of profi ts; fringe benefi ts like bail money), and government practices (negotiated settlements and peace treaties, defi ned territories, fair-trade agreements). For too long we have, as a society, concerned ourselves only with superfi cial questions about organized crime. Th eft of the Nation focuses on to a more profound and searching level. Of course, organized crime exists. Cressey not only establishes this fact, but proceeds to explore it rigorously and with penetration. One need not agree with everything Cressey writes to conclude that no one, after the publication of Th eft of the Nation, can be knowledgeable about organized crime without having read this book. About the Authors Th e late Donald R. Cressey was professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and served as organized-crime consultant to the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. Educated in Minnesota, Iowa, and Indiana, he was dean of the College of Letters and Science Cressey at Santa Barbara, Professor of Sociology and chairman of the department of anthropology-sociology at UCLA, visiting professor in the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University, and in the law faculty of the University of Oslo. James Finckenauer is the former editor of Trends in Organized Crime. www.routledge.com THEFT OF THE NATION THEFT TheOF Structure THE and NATIONOperations of Organized Crime in America Donald R. Cressey with a new introduction by James Finckenauer ~~ ~~o~:~~~~~up lONDON AND NEW YORK Originally published in 1969 by Donald P. Cressey. First published 2008 by Transaction Publishers Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2009 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2008006864 ISBN: 978-1-4128-0764-7 (pbk) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cressey, Donald Ray, 1919- Theft of the nation : the structure and operations of organized crime in america / Donald R. Cressey. p. cm. Originally published: New York : Harper & Row, 1969. With new introd. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4128-0764-7 1. Organized crime--United States. 2. Mafifia--United States. I. Title. HV6791.C715 2008 364.1’060973--dc22 2008006864 FoR MARTHA, ANN, AND MARY Contents Introduction to the Transaction Edition ix Preface xxiii I Trouble 1 II From Mafia to Cos a N astra 8 III War, Peace, and Peaceful Coexistence 29 IV Educating the Public 54 v Demand, Supply, and Profit 72 VI The Structural Skeleton 109 VII Origins of the Authority Structure 141 VIII The Code 162 IX Some Functions of the Code 186 X Shifting Patterns of Authority and Recruitment 221 XI Corruption ofthe Law-Enforcement and Political 248 Systems XII Search, Destroy, and Appease Notes 325 Glossary 343 Index 357 Introduction: Theft of the Nation by Jim Finckenauer IN THE FALL OF 1963, I was a first-year graduate student studying sociol- ogy and criminology at New York University. Given my interest in the study of crime, I was much taken by the news coverage of the hearings, then be- ing held in Washington, DC, by the Permanent Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Operations, chaired by Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan. Among the witnesses appearing before the committee were Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a small-time hoodlum named Joseph Valachi. Attorney General Kennedy, unlike his predecessors, had given a high prior- ity to combating organized crime from his first days in office. And it was that attention from the very highest levels that helped stimulate the FBI's, until then, somewhat tepid interest in this problem. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had consistently denied for years that there was anything like a nationwide criminal cartel known as the mafia operating in the United States. Joseph Valachi, the McClellan committee witness, was the most prominent ofthe newly cultivated FBI informants developed in the early 1960s. It was Valachi, along with other sources, and most especially the critical fruits of the then just recently expanded FBI electronic surveillance (bugs and wire- taps) that not only informed Kennedy's views, but that largely shaped the McClellan hearings, and most importantly the overall picture of organized crime that emerged following those hearings. It was this Valachi-painted and surveillance-derived picture, when combined with what had been learned from the Kefauver Committee hear- ings in the early 1950s, from the investigative follow-up to the aborted Apalachin, NY gathering of organized crime figures in 1957, and from a series of meetings known as the Oyster Bay Conferences in 1965-1966, that pretty much comprised the state-of-the-art knowledge of organized crime at that time. It was also during this period (the mid 1960s) that President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had successfully defeated Republican candidate Barry Gold- water in the 1964 presidential elections, decided to form a national crime commission. Despite having won the election handily, Johnson recognized ix x INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION the resonance of the crime issue in the law and order campaign waged by Goldwater. The so-named President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice began work in 1965. A task force on organized crime was added to the various task groups of the Commission somewhat later-albeit pretty much as a low budget afterthought. That latter group brought in as one of its consultants, Donald R. Cressey, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Cressey's subsequent report for the task force, "The Functions and Struc- ture of Criminal Syndicates," not only influenced specific recommenda- tions made by the Commission in its 1967 report, but more importantly set out a view of what organized crime in the United States was like that has influenced law enforcement policies and practices, as well as research and writing on organized crime for more than forty years. And it was from his consultant's report that Cressey fashioned Theft of the Nation, first pub- lished in 1969. At that time, I was still a graduate student (finishing a doctorate), but was also working in a research capacity for the New Jersey State Law En- forcement Planning Agency. That agency was one such body created in all states and territories following the recommendations of the aforementioned President's Crime Commission. Among the crime issues facing New Jersey at that time, perhaps not surprisingly, was organized crime. The Newark race riot had occurred only a year or two earlier, and the investigation of that riot led to disclosures about corruption and mob connections. There were also allegations of mob influence in the NJ state legislature. Organized crime was thus a hot topic. So, as part of the background research to help develop a plan for confronting organized crime in New Jersey, I carefully read Theft of the Nation. Although I was naive at that time to fully appreciate Cressey's historical and sociological analyses of the data and information available to him, I found the book to be an impressive piece of research. It was scholarly. It was well-documented. It was persuasive. But then again, I was just a relative neophyte. Now, nearly four decades later, I am at least no longer a neophyte. Whether I am sophisticated enough to judge Cressey's analyses and conclusions will be for others to decide. What is clear to me is that I come to the book with different eyes than I did in 1969. I am honored to introduce this new edition of Theft of the Nation, and given the history just outlined, not just a little bit in awe. INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION xi Several Premises My first premise in approaching this task is that anyone who would rewrite history in the context of contemporary developments and thinking should do so only with caution.

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