Posted on 04/12/2012 8:15:31 AM PDT by AtlasStalled
Hoover may have had a knack for routing out commies but he was pretty useless in taking on Albert Anastasia as reflected in the FBI's sparse files on the notorious mobster who infamously was whacked in a barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan on October 25, 1957.
Anastasia orchestrated dozens of hits as the head of Murder, Inc. during the Prohibition years, later ran the crime family which gave rise to Carlo Gambino, made a fortune from loansharking, gambling and other enterprises which he laundered through the garment industry, and controlled the Brooklyn waterfront through the International Longshoremen's Association, and yet in nearly forty decades of racketeering the only criminal case ever brought against the mob boss by the feds -- no thanks to the FBI -- was in 1954 for evading a few thousand dollars in taxes on his 1947 and 1948 returns.
Indeed, when the Department of Justice during its tax investigation into Anastasia asked the FBI to provide assistance the supposed law enforcement agency in a gross dereliction of duty had nothing to offer.
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It's a wonder this country survived at all during the mob's reign of terror throughout most of the 20th century with Hoover's laughable tenure at the FBI helm.
Unfortunately, history has a bad habit of repeating itself. Just as the FBI once was absorbed with chasing down purported communists while the mob took over America, it now is preoccupied with supposed terrorists as the Mafia retools. No doubt the war on terror will be judged by history as just as much an overblown folly as the cold war, and the real threat to the country from organized crime once again was ignored. Of course, it's always easier to fight a phony bogeyman than actual monsters.
(Excerpt) Read more at bitterqueen.typepad.com ...
Supposed terrorists,,”angry bitter people clinging to their guns and bibles”.
Read the book “Public Enemies” (do not watch the movie). It DOES NOT paint the FBI in a flattering light!
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