business houses. These men quickly became sophisticated in the operation of a major production, distribution, and service industry. Just as quickly, they acquired, and learned to utilize the leverage of, vast wealth and influence from bootlegging profits and from the sheer size of their organization.

As we know, prohibition ultimately failed. In hearings on the reasons for that failure, a Presidential commission contrasted the relatively law-abiding attitude of voluntary compliance in St. Louis and eastern Missouri with the flagrant disregard of the law and open governmental complicity in its violation in Kansas City.

The reasons for that were that Kansas City was a much younger community than St. Louis. It maintained a frontier mentality, with weak law enforcement and a general disregard for authority.

Even worse, it maintained the corrupt Pendergast political machine, which had achieved near monopoly control over city government comparable to the syndicate's control over bootlegging. Under Pendergast, politics and organized crime blended indistinguishably. The bloc votes of the politically crucial north end area were controlled by the leader of the bootlegging organization, John Lazia.

After returning from a Federal prison sentence, Lazia was accepted as Pendergast's political lieutenant in preparation for a crucial election. By putting his vast bootlegging organization to work delivering votes as efficiently as it delivered whiskey, Lazia received political protection for his liquor, gambling and other illegal activities. Lazia even dictated the affairs of the city's unfortunate police department, making patronage appointments after the department was transferred from State to city control in 1932. Thus, in the early 1930's, Pendergast and Lazia controlled city hall, and the police force of several hundred men had nearly 10 percent ex-convicts among its officers.

The interdependence of corrupt politics and organized crime violence was spotlighted in the city election of March 27, 1934. To preserve their control of public jobs, the city treasury and the law enforcement apparatus, the Pendergast-Lazia organization approached the election like a gang war. Hundreds of thugs physically beat workers for reform candidates away from the polls. Authorities refused to intervene. The day's body count ended with 4 dead, 11 severely injured, hundreds beaten, and thousands deprived of their right to vote. Later in 1934 Lazia himself was murdered. Within days Pendergast displayed his dependence on organize crime by calling Charles Carrollo, Lazia's successor, into his office and renegotiating the previous agreement.

The Pendergast organization allowed illegal gambling and vice activities to operate openly. Every illegal operation paid for this privilege which monthly collection enforced when necessary by Carrollo and his associates. Books were kept and payments made at the offices of the Northside Political Club. Payoffs to prosecutors and individual police officers were taken off the top, with the balance being divided between the syndicate and the Pendergast organization.

Election tactics continued to be the same under Carrollo as they had been under Lazia. In the 1936 election, 50,000 fictitious voters were registered, 1 out of every 4. As a result of this scandal, nearly 300 Carrollo and Pendergast political workers were convicted of vote fraud.

Moreover, through these Federal prosecutions the alliance of corrupt politics and organized crime lost its invulnerability. In 1939, Pendergast and Carrollo were convicted on Federal charges. And the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department was returned to State control to curb rampant abuses which included efforts to tamper with gangland murder evidence to prevent Federal prosecution.

After these reverses, the organized crime group moved to regain the benefits of corruption. Charles Binaggio, who will be referred to in Mr. Bonadonna's testimony later as his father's gang superior, took over the combined political criminal organization which in 1946 attempted to steal a U.S. congressional election by dynamiting the Jackson County Courthouse and stealing the ballots. In the 1948 State election, Binaggio collected political contributions from syndicate members on a promise of return to the wide open corruption of the 1930's. When the State administration failed to cooperate he offered sizable bribes to several police commissioners. In 1950, Binaggio and his bodyguard were slain in their political club under a mammoth picture of President Truman.

That sensational murder, occurring in the then-President's political base, generated national publicity and became a focus of the Kefauver committee hearings.

After the national publicity of the Kefauver hearings the Kansas city organization reduced its profile, but could not completely escape public attention. In 1957, a member of the old Sugar House Syndicate, Joseph Filardo, and a then-relative unknown, Nicholas Civella, were among the attendees at the Apalachin New York meeting of suspected criminal leaders from across the country. In 1961, a Jackson County, Mo., grand jury issued a report criticizing Kansas City as "a criminal playground." One feature which the grand jury found particularly offensive was the fact that beginning in 1953 an admitted arrangement existed between the Kansas City Syndicate and certain persons controlling law enforcement, which allowed the syndicate to conduct gambling, prostitution, and fencing operations in Kansas City in exchange for voluntarily controlling the amount of violence, armed robberies, and burglaries committed in the city.

After this grand jury disclosure the situation improved greatly. The second in command of the Police Department was convicted for tax offenses, and other suspect employees were gradually replaced. Clarence Kelley was selected as chief after his initial retirement from the FBI and labored to encourage the ideals of honesty, professionalism, and public service which have now made the Department one of the most respected in the country.

Consequently, since the 1960's, Kansas City has enjoyed an atmosphere of honest law enforcement and local government. Federal pressure on organized crime has intensified, first with labor racketeering prosecutions of the Kansas City Teamster organization in the 1960's, and later with the opening of a field office of the organized crime and racketeering section in Kansas City in 1971 to furnish increased investigative and prosecutive emphasis on organized crime. This intensification has resulted in significant prosecutions of many members of the Kansas City criminal organization.

Thus, the early 1970's were consumed with the prosecution of Nicholas Civella and members of his bookmaking organization, who were

intercepted on a court-authorized wiretap in early January 1970. As a result of the murder of a crucial witness and of almost incredible legal maneuverings, Civella and his codefendants were not convicted until 1975 on interstate gambling charges, and did not begin their sentences until 1977, 7 years after the electronic surveillance.

During that time, other significant cases were being pursued. James Duardi and others were convicted for conspiring to establish prostitution and gambling in a northeastern Oklahoma resort area by bribery of the district attorney's office. Despite the principal witness having been shot twice through the stomach and left for dead, all defendants, including the corrupt district attorney and his investigator, received 2-year sentences and served approximately 1 year. This case graphically illustrates how a city like Kansas City functions as a regional center of crime and corruption whenever an economic opportunity presents itself in the surrounding area.

In recent years, great effort has gone into investigations of the mob violence, destruction of the River Quay area and the casino-related offenses to be described by Chief Caron, Special Agent Ouseley, and Mr. Bonadonna. While these matters are being pursued, the violence continues. Only last October, members of the Spero faction were convicted of possession of a six-stick dynamite bomb capable of killing innocent bystanders within several hundred feet. This device was to be used against Carl DeLuna and other persons considered by the Speros to be ranking members of the local organization and responsible for a May 1978 attack on the Speros.

In closing, I recognize that municipal history is not a dramatic form of testimony and I beg the subcommittee's pardon if this statement has been tedious. However, I think it important to express the concept that Kansas City suffers today from mob violence because our ancestors in the community tolerated the gang's violence and corruption because of the votes it controlled and the profit it brought. That marriage of convenience lasted into the 1960's or for roughly two generations. During those generations organized criminals built up an immense degree of immunity because of their criminal expertise, wealth, ruthlessness, and the internal discipline of their organization and their ability to intimidate, bribe and obstruct. It has taken 15 years to make a good beginning on the task of learning the structure of the present criminal organization, identifying its illegal activities and sources of income, and incarcerating its members. Admittedly, that is a frustratingly long time. It is also cruelly but inescapably true that it will take many more years to eliminate the structure of the present gang and reduce it to the level of individual thieves and extortionists. During those additional years there will be more gang murders and bombings. Investigatively, their prevention cannot be guaranteed in any manner consistent with our traditional regard for civil liberties, and the available resources and experience teaches us that very few of those crimes will be successfully prosecuted.

That is a disappointingly, frighteningly high degree of social insecurity for our community, which no longer wants or tolerates organized crime. Fortunately, 15 years of law enforcement pressure

are beginning to have their effect on the Kansas City organization. Its aura of invincibility is beginning to be destroyed. Informants are being developed. Electronic surveillances are producing evidence of sophisticated crimes. Substantial prison sentences are being imposed and served. Criminals now dare to become witnesses against their gang superiors. In fact, we feel that we are approaching the point at which being an organized crime member is becoming a criminal liability rather than an asset. There are realistic successes being achieved and we hope for ultimate control of the problem.

Destroying a permanent social organization even an evil one like organized crime is a slow, difficult task, but with the necessary determination we feel that it can be accomplished.

Thank you, sir.

Chairman NUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. DeFeo, for an excellent statement and very interesting bit of history connected with the current events. I have several questions and I will propose that we ask questions of you, Mr. DeFeo, before we go to our next witness. You have given us a description of the organized crime history up to the 1960's. Can you bring us up to date on the organized crime power structure in Kansas City today?

Mr. DEFEO. Senator, there were a series of electronic surveillances in the Kansas City area during the period of May 1978 to February 1979, which I understand may be a part of this record. Those electronic surveillance applications and the affidavits supporting them describe the leadership of the Kansas City organized crime family and particularly the persons utilized as its enforcers in connection. with violence and intimidation. If I might pass the buck to some extent to Special Agent Ouseley of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who was the affiant on many of the applications. I believe that he can probably best explain the material contained therein.

Chairman NUNN. Do you want to defer that question to him, then? Mr. DEFEO. If I may.

Chairman NUNN. We will wait until his presentation on that. Your statement was filed with instances of political corruption. Can the mob exist without using corruption of political officials?

Mr. DEFEO. Senator, If I may, I would like to answer that in a lawyerly like fashion, to wit: Yes and no. The situation in my opinion is that like any social organization, organized crime has a strong instinct for self-preservation. Its only natural enemies are other rival gangs or law enforcement. Other rival gangs can be dealt with by violence. Law enforcement cannot be because that would provoke a community reaction. Therefore it is inevitable that organized crime will attempt to utilize corruption to neutralize law enforcement as a threat to its existence.

Historically speaking, that effort to neutralize law enforcement has unfortunately been all too successful in the history of law enforcement in this country. However, there are circumstances such as I think exist in Kansas City at the present time where we are fighting the effects of past law enforcement and official corruption, which do not any longer exist to any substantial degree, and organized crime continues to exist based on its past momentum and success even though we do not have a current corruption situation.

Chairman NUNN. What resources would you ask for if you could get all the resources you needed to do your job properly in combating organized crime in the Kansas City area?

Mr. DEFEO. Obviously Senator, I am best qualified to speak from the prosecutive point of view, because I am a prosecutor heading a prosecutive office dedicated exclusively to organized crime activity. We presently have six attorneys assigned in Kansas City who service the Kansas City area and surrounding States. We have several more in the process of being assigned. Very candidly, I think those are adequate prosecutive resources to deal with the problem in Kansas City. With regard to the investigative agencies, I think that we are very, very far from the point of reaching the point of diminishing return. Obviously, with more investigative manpower, more investigations could be made, more prosecutions and more successes.

Chairman NUNN. Are you familiar with Mr. Bonadonna, who will be a witness before our subcommittee later in the week?

Mr. DEFEO. I am, Senator.

Chairman NUNN. Since he will be a witness before us, were you able to verify and corroborate Mr. Bonadonna's statements when he was a Federal witness before you or when working with you?

Mr. DEFEO. Yes. Senator, I have reviewed the statement which was prepared for this committee and I am familiar with his testimony which was given at the trial of Joseph Cammisano and I might say that I have reviewed both that testimony and his statement to this committee in its entirety and to my knowledge and belief, it is completely accurate, factual, and reliable.

Chairman NUNN. Do you believe that Mr. Bonadonna possesses the factual information himself from firsthand knowledge to inform this subcommittee concerning certain segments of the Kansas City mob?

Mr. DEFEO. I think unquestionably he does. His father was an admitted and known member of the Kansas City criminal organization. He has had exposure to these people throughout his lifetime and I think he is eminently qualified to inform the committee.

Chairman NUNN. The subcommittee has many legislative purposes in this hearing. One of them is to look into the possibility of amending Federal statutes to include strike force attorneys within the purview of Federal assault statutes. You may be somewhat biased in that respect, but do you feel that kind of possible legislation would do some good?

Mr. DEFEO. Senator, I might say that in terms of fearing retaliation during my prosecutive career, I have never had that fear because I felt organized crime was a rational, calculating organization and therefore should anything happen to me, they might have to worry about someone truly competent replacing me. So I never had that personal worry. But on the other hand, I do think that any litigating attorney who is in the posture of possibly offending or alienating potential defendants should have that kind of protection. I think that the problem is more acute when one enters into prosecutions of what are normally called emerging organized crime groups, those that have less internal discipline, those that aren't as rigidly controlled wherein individual members might take individual violence against a prosecutor or a judge such as happened in the unfortunate case of Judge Woods.