Witsec by Pete Earley Read Free Book Online Page B

Genovese, who suspected Valachi of being a police informant. When prosecutors said they were going to seek the death penalty for Saupp’smurder, Valachi offered to talk. In return, he was given a life sentence.
    “Bobby Kennedy had a special relationship with the McClellan Committee, and Senator McClellan began pressuring him to have Valachi testify before his committee,” Hundley recalled. “This was going to be the first time Valachi had ever appeared in public. I opposed having him testify because I was still hopeful we might be able to make some criminal cases based on what Valachi had told the FBI, but frankly we weren’t having much luck. A lot of what Valachi said was hearsay, or we were barred by the statute of limitations from going after people he named.”
    Kennedy and Hundley met privately with Valachi, and he agreed to testify before the committee. “Kennedy and I cut a deal with Valachi that the press was never told. It was a handshake agreement. Kennedy told Valachi that if he testified before Congress, the government would put him and his girlfriend on a Pacific Island after we were done with him.” Kennedy had already picked out an island in the western Pacific that had once been held by the Japanese but was now under U.S. control. “Valachi would be safe there and be able to serve his life sentence.”
    Valachi’s testimony in September and October 1963 was so riveting that crowds gathered on sidewalks outside store windows where merchants put television sets so people who didn’t own them could watch the proceedings. A big, hulking figure, Valachi chilled viewers as he matter-of-factly described in his raspy voice cold-blooded murders he had participated in. Hundley believed Valachi had killed at least forty other gangsters. “If Genovese wanted someone knocked off in another crime family, he used Valachi,” Hundley said, “but Valachi would never admit it to mebecause he knew there was no statute of limitations on murder. Instead, he always took the position that he was driving the car and someone else did the actual killing.” One morning Hundley took him aside and urged him to confess that he had been a “hitter.”
    “Joe, under the law, the guy who drives the getaway car is just as guilty as the hit man,” Hundley told him, “so why don’t you cut out this nonsense about being the driver and tell the public the truth?”
    Later that morning, a senator asked Valachi if he was sugarcoating his testimony about the murders he had witnessed. “Senator, it is my understanding that the person driving the car is just as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger,” Valachi replied, “so if I were a hit man, there would be no reason for me to hide it. But Senator, I’m telling you, I was only a driver.”
    Hundley, who was sitting near Valachi, was struck by how convincing he sounded. “This guy had no formal education. But in those few minutes, he had twisted the information I had given him and used it to his advantage to make his claim even stronger. He was incredibly street-smart.”
    The LCN was not nearly as impressed. When a tabloid reporter asked a known Brooklyn gangster for his opinion of Valachi, the mobster pointed out that Valachi’s nickname was “Joe Cago.” Valachi claimed he had been given the nickname as a kid because he used to build scooters out of cargo crates. “They called me ‘Joe Cargo,’ ” he said, and when he later joined the mob, Cargo was corrupted to Cago. But the Brooklyn gangster said the word
cago
in Italian meant “shit,” and “this is exactly what Joe Valachi is.”
    A month after Valachi testified, Hundley, Shur, and other OCRS attorneys were briefing Robert Kennedy in his office about ongoing LCN cases whenthe attorney general excused himself for a lunch meeting. A few minutes later, Shur got a frantic call in his office from Miriam.
    “President Kennedy has been shot!” she told him.
    A stunned Shur turned on his radio and heard newscasters