The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino (16 page)

F
OURTEEN

S
ince his release from prison, in 1971, Jimmy Hoffa had become a growing irritant. He had played ball during his first year of freedom, supporting Richard Nixon and saying all the right things about the president’s economic programs. Richard Nixon
was
good for the country, said Hoffa, and, more important, he was good for the Teamsters.

But Hoffa had a constant pain in his stomach, and it could only be cured by exacting his revenge against Frank Fitzsimmons and the other Teamsters, including Tony Provenzano, who Hoffa believed had betrayed him.

The secret condition attached to his pardon that prevented him from holding office until 1980 gnawed at him like a cancer, and after a year of public goodwill, Hoffa decided to fight the ban. He devised a strategy that would challenge the condition on constitutional grounds. How could the president of the United States insert such an onerous clause to a pardon when he didn’t have the authority? Hoffa argued that the condition was not part of his criminal sentence, and it also could very well have violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Hoffa had told only a few of his staunchest supporters of his plan to retake the Teamsters, but more than a year after his release from prison, as word filtered about his plans, he made them public in April 1973 during a banquet in Washington, D.C. The news didn’t necessarily surprise Fitzsimmons and the rest of the Teamster leadership, who heard about Jimmy’s intentions from other Teamsters who earlier attended a testimonial dinner for Hoffa. It was Hoffa’s sixtieth birthday, and the dinner was at the famed Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Russell Bufalino was there to celebrate with his old friend, but Fitzsimmons wasn’t, having cited a previous commitment. The news of Hoffa’s bid for a comeback was virtually ignored by the Nixon administration, which by now was consumed by the Watergate fiasco.

In February 1974, Hoffa began his public campaign to unseat Fitzsimmons, saying he was unfit to lead the Teamsters. During the months prior, Hoffa had obtained an affidavit from John Mitchell, who was now running Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), that stated that neither Mitchell nor anyone in the Justice Department “initiated or suggested the inclusion of restrictions in the Presidential commutation of James R. Hoffa.”

The affidavit also said Nixon did not have any involvement in the restriction. The cost for the affidavit was a suitcase full of cash totaling nearly $300,000 that Hoffa gave to Frank Sheeran to personally deliver to Mitchell.

Sheeran had risen through the ranks to become an important member of the Teamsters since his first introduction to Hoffa years ago. From a Teamster boss in Delaware to a Teamster delegate, Sheeran had also continued his side work for Hoffa, mopping up his enemies. Sheeran was indebted to Hoffa and grateful for the opportunities that Hoffa provided, and he later visited Hoffa in prison but was disturbed to see how the solitary life affected his once proud boss. Hoffa tried to maintain a daily routine that included a regimen of push-ups along with his regular work duties. But prison life was monotonous, with much of your time spent locked in your cell. With each passing year, Sheeran could see Hoffa’s slow, personal deterioration, and he knew his friend could never complete his sentence.

Sheeran would report back to his other good friend, Russell Bufalino, about Hoffa’s progress. Bufalino never shared with Sheeran the reasons why Hoffa needed to remain behind bars. Fitzsimmons was a different and better fit compared to the autocratic Hoffa. He also didn’t have a bull’s-eye on his back that kept the attention of everyone, from the FBI to the media, glued to the Teamsters.

Hoffa would eventually get out, said Bufalino, but it would take a little time. Sheeran understood, and the conversation ended. There were never any long explanations from Bufalino. He was easy to read, even when he wasn’t specific. When Bufalino wanted something done, he’d simply make a call, like the one he made to Sheeran during the summer of 1972.

It was late in the evening when Sheeran picked up the phone, and Bufalino told him to get “his little brother” for an errand. The little brother was a .32 revolver. Sheeran also brought along a “big brother,” a .38. Sheeran wasn’t told the target at first. It never worked like that. But the following day, he learned it was “Crazy” Joe Gallo.

Gallo was a New York–born gangster who had served eight years in prison during the 1960s on an extortion conviction and, following his release, became a bit of a celebrity. His outward personality endeared him to several actors, singers and film producers, and soon Gallo was spotted at local New York restaurants accompanied by one famous face after another. Gallo had supported Joe Colombo’s Italian American Civil Rights League, but the men were rivals, and it was Gallo who was suspected of planning Colombo’s shooting.

Colombo lingered in a coma for months after he was gunned down during one of his Civil Rights League rallies in New York. The shooting didn’t sit well with certain members of the mob hierarchy, so when it was decided to dispose of Gallo, Bufalino handed the task to Sheeran, who simply walked into Umberto’s Restaurant in Little Italy, stood by the bar for a few minutes and then turned and shot Gallo, who had been celebrating his forty-third birthday with his wife and friends. Seriously wounded, a bloodied Gallo picked himself up amid the screaming and confusion and ran toward the front door. Sheeran coldly shot him two more times before Gallo slumped outside on the street corner. Witnesses initially identified two shooters, which was fine with Sheeran.

Hoffa filed his lawsuit in March 1974, alleging he knew nothing about the restrictions on his pardon and, had he known, he would never had agreed to them. Hoffa also argued that since the conditions didn’t come from the president or the attorney general, they were invalid since no one else could legally impose such sanctions. In July 1974, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled against Hoffa, saying that since President Nixon signed the order, it was valid.

Hoffa appealed. A month later, Nixon resigned the presidency.

* * *

IN THE FALL
of 1974, Jimmy Hoffa let it be known that he was going to exact his revenge against Frank Fitzsimmons by calling in pension loans after he won the Teamsters presidency in 1976.

The loans Hoffa was talking about were for casino construction projects in Las Vegas, projects in which members of certain families had majority interests. There were records, said Hoffa, and he was ready to turn them over to the proper authorities. Hoffa’s talk made people nervous, though friends like Sheeran knew it was more bluster on Hoffa’s part, and he made a point of telling that to Bufalino, who by now was growing concerned.

Bufalino asked Sheeran to set up a meeting with Hoffa at a Philadelphia bar and restaurant called Broadway Eddie’s. When Hoffa arrived with Sheeran they were taken to the back, where Bufalino and Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno were waiting for them. They dined over pasta, but during the meal, Bufalino raised the issue of Hoffa’s run for the Teamsters presidency and suggested that Hoffa didn’t have to run.

Hoffa’s response was simple: he wanted to oust Frank Fitzsimmons.

Bufalino’s way was to make his point, hear a response and then move on to another subject. Before turning to Bruno to signal the conversation was over, Bufalino stopped eating and looked Hoffa in the eyes before making his point,
a second time
.

“It would be best for everyone concerned if you reconsidered your position,” said Bufalino.

Hoffa wasn’t going to listen to reason, and before the men said their good-byes, Bufalino pulled Sheeran aside and told him to make Hoffa understand that he had no choice in the matter.

The following night, Bufalino and Hoffa joined a few thousand other friends at the Latin Casino in New Jersey for “Frank Sheeran Appreciation Night.” Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo was there, and the pretty Golddigger dancers and Jerry Vale provided the entertainment. Sheeran sat at the dais with his wife and four children, while Bufalino had a front table next to the dais. Sitting with him were his wife, Carrie; his underboss, James Osticco; and Angelo Bruno.

Hoffa was the keynote speaker, and he spoke about how loyal Sheeran had been to him and to the Teamsters all these years. But the conversation from the night before still resonated, and Sheeran feared for his friend. Sheeran tried having a word with Hoffa, but the conversation was short and brief. Sheeran later told Bufalino there wasn’t much anyone could do to change his mind and stop Hoffa from running.

There were some people, such as Tony Provenzano, who wanted to end Hoffa’s life immediately, and with prejudice. Provenzano had enough of Hoffa’s threats and believed the best way to deal with him was to silence him permanently. Bufalino, on the other hand, didn’t share Provenzano’s thoughts on the subject. Bufalino had known Hoffa for thirty years, and deep down he knew that Hoffa wasn’t a rat. Even when word filtered at the Teamster convention in April 1975 that Hoffa was cooperating with the FBI, Bufalino didn’t believe it, and his faith in Hoffa was restored when Hoffa took the Fifth Amendment during testimony before a grand jury investigating his old Detroit local in May 1975. But others weren’t so sure, and the groundswell within the ranks of organized crime for Hoffa’s untimely end grew stronger. Bufalino kept them at bay, and Hoffa remained alive longer than others had wanted.

F
IFTEEN

T
he U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities was formed in January 1975 to gather information on the CIA and FBI. The Senate wanted to take a closer look at the nation’s intelligence operations after a series of articles that appeared in the
New York Times
in late 1974 revealed that the CIA was involved in toppling foreign governments and spying on U.S. citizens.

The committee, headed by U.S. senator Frank Church, R-Idaho, began holding hearings to confirm whether the CIA had conducted such operations, covert or otherwise, abroad and in the United States.

Following the end of World War II, the nation’s attention was focused on its new Cold War with the Soviet Union, and stemming the tide of Communism was considered the number-one priority for the new agency. Foreign leaders were secretly disposed, and governments were compromised while an ambivalent nation enjoyed its postwar prosperity.

The Church Committee looked at a variety of topics, including the CIA’s plots to kill foreign leaders, among them the assassination attempts against Fidel Castro of Cuba. Surprisingly, the CIA confirmed that it not only tried to kill Castro, but in a shocking admission, the agency admitted that it had recruited members of the Teamsters and organized crime to help in that effort. The committee immediately sought to talk to Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Roselli.

Word that the committee was looking at the mob’s role in the CIA plots became public in the spring of 1975. But then, on June 9, 1975, came the
Time
magazine article. The piece was entitled, “CIA: Mafia Spies in Cuba,” and it rehashed a previous article quoting “reliable sources” that claimed the CIA had recruited Giancana and Roselli to assassinate Fidel Castro. But the new story went a step further, and identified Russell Bufalino and two associates, James Plumeri and Salvatore Granello, as having worked with the CIA to help with the preparation of the Bay of Pigs invasion. According to the story, the CIA learned that Bufalino, Plumeri and Granello had left $450,000 in Cuba before fleeing the island (it was closer to $1 million), and the agency decided to recruit the men to conduct surveillance with their Cuban sources to gauge the potential success of an invasion and to help identify roads leading into Havana. The gangsters supposedly gave little, if any, information.

Bufalino had never before been implicated in the CIA plots, which were first mentioned by journalist Jack Anderson in 1970. After Anderson’s column appeared, people began to die. Granello was found dead first, in an upstate New York cornfield, shot several times in the head. Plumeri, a longtime Bufalino associate, had been strangled in his car a year later.

The matter seemed to fade away, until the Church Committee decided to take a closer look. On June 19, ten days after the
Time
piece was published, Giancana was entertaining a small group of friends and family at his modest brick home in suburban Oak Park, Illinois. He had just returned from Houston, where he underwent a successful gallbladder operation, and the small affair was a sort of welcome-back-home dinner.

Giancana, sixty-six, had given up his top role in the Chicago mob years earlier. After a lengthy stay in Mexico, he was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury that was probing organized crime activity in Chicago. Giancana testified once and gave prosecutors nothing.

After his party broke up and his guests left, just before midnight, Giancana walked down to his basement kitchen to fry some sausages and spinach. Someone was with Giancana, someone he knew and trusted, because soon after starting his meal, he was taken down by six gunshots to the mouth and neck with a .22 pistol.

Police initially believed Giancana got what he had coming. It was, by all accounts, a standard mob rubout, save the use of a .22 handgun, which was somewhat unusual. Another theory soon made the rounds, and that was that Giancana was done in by the CIA. He was scheduled to testify before the Church Committee, and some thought that Giancana might actually discuss his role in the agency’s attempts to kill Fidel Castro. The aging Roselli, now sixty-nine, had testified a few days earlier before the committee and apparently made such a good showing that the committee wanted to hear more.

But CIA Director William Colby quickly doused any notion the CIA had a role in Giancana’s murder.

“We had nothing to do with it,” he said.

With no leads and few clues, the case quickly grew stagnant.

With Giancana gone, plans were being made in Scranton to address Jimmy Hoffa. For more than a year, Russell Bufalino had fought and lobbied to keep Hoffa alive amid his loud boasts and threats to turn over sensitive information on Teamsters loans and to bare all about the union’s ties to the mob. The threats were more like a defense mechanism for Hoffa against the calls by the Teamster hierarchy and Mafiosi to step aside. Hoffa didn’t just want the Teamsters back; he wanted his revenge against those who stripped him of his title and forced him to part ways with an organization he had helped build while spilling his own blood.

Hoffa no doubt held many secrets from the past. Secrets about the Kennedy assassination, Cuba, the fleecing of the Teamster pension fund and much more. And word filtering through underworld circles was that he threatened to use that information if anyone tried to stop him from regaining his union.

For his part, Bufalino kept reassuring others, including Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello, that Hoffa was simply boasting. But Bufalino’s tone quickly changed after he was named in the
Time
article, and he once again called on his old friend Frank Sheeran.

* * *

T
HE WEDDING OF
William Bufalino’s daughter was scheduled to take place on Friday, August 1, 1975, at William’s home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and among the more than 500 guests would be William’s cousin Russell, Frank Sheeran and their wives.

Sheeran had tried throughout the summer to convince Hoffa to quiet down. Sheeran knew that the only reason Hoffa was still breathing was because of his friendship with Russell Bufalino. About a week before the wedding, Sheeran asked Bufalino for permission to call Hoffa at his cottage in Michigan. Sheeran desperately wanted again to try to talk sense into his friend, and Hoffa agreed to meet with him and Bufalino later that week when they were scheduled to arrive in Detroit.

The plan was for Sheeran and his wife to drive to Kingston, Pennsylvania, to have dinner with Russell and Carrie, and then they’d leave early Tuesday morning in Sheeran’s Cadillac for the twelve-hour drive to Detroit. During dinner, Sheeran mentioned softly to Russell that he was going to be with Hoffa on Wednesday for his planned meeting with Provenzano and Tony Giacalone. A sizable portion of Hoffa’s angst came from his continuing feud with Provenzano, and Hoffa believed if he could make peace with Tony Pro, then the rest was easy. But he wanted Sheeran there, just in case.

Bufalino said nothing and continued to eat. Not long after, the waiter told Bufalino he had a phone call. When he returned, Bufalino tugged on Sheeran’s arm and whispered there would be a change of plans. Instead of leaving early the next morning, they would wait until Wednesday.

Sheeran didn’t make any facial movements or ask any questions. He knew better. When Russell Bufalino said something, consider it an order. Sheeran said nothing to Hoffa. On Wednesday, Sheeran, Bufalino and their wives struck out early for the drive to Detroit. They were near Lake Erie when Bufalino suggested the women take a long smoking break. After they got out of the car, Bufalino and Sheeran drove to a small private airport, where a plane was ready to take Sheeran to Detroit.