How the John F. Kennedy assassination left Robert Morgenthau alone to lead Bobby Kennedy’s war on the mob, adapted from Andrew Meier’s new book 'Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty'
Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynastyhad seen since 1814, came into the Department of Justice with a battle plan. Bobby’s critics would call it a settling of scores—the list of enemies, headed by Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters, followed closely by Roy Cohn, was long. Atop the Justice Department, Kennedy vowed to galvanize the power of federal law enforcement: “Kennedy Justice” would be activist, the bulwark of reform in his brother’s administration.
Instead, counterintelligence predominated: In New York in the late 1950s, the Bureau had 150 agents working a single spy case. “We were up to our necks with the Soviets,” Richard McCarthy, a veteran FBI counterintelligence agent, would recall. “But the Italians? Not even on the radar.” Few in federal law enforcement had studied the state of organized crime across the country, let alone attempted to curb its rise. But Kennedy and Morgenthau shared a sense as to where they might find allies.
Bobby Kennedy had found his celebrity witness. His chief federal prosecutor in New York was elated: Valachi’s testimony spelled the end ofthe once-impenetrable code of silence—and the start of the war on the Mafia. But for Morgenthau, Valachi’s confessional also marked a far more personal threshold: He and Bobby Kennedy, who at least in their public personae, appeared near opposites, had not only found an easy kinship: Now they would be bound in common cause.
All that fall in New York, in the office of the Southern District, many of Morgenthau’s men had heard the whispers. “There was a rumor RFK planned on quitting soon to run JFK’s reelection campaign,” Bob Arum would recall, “and Morgenthau was slated to take over as the new A.G.” The conversation was congenial, informal. Beyond the wide lawn, at the top of the gentle hill, workmen were painting a new wing on the far side of the house. Morgenthau watched as one performed a balancing act: hanging shutters with one hand while holding a transistor radio in the other. They had just finished the clam chowder and were about to start on the sandwiches. Bobby glanced at his watch, and told Morgenthau and Mollo, “We’d better hurry and get back to that meeting.
At the same time, the workman came over. He was wearing overalls and a painter’s cap, and he held the transistor radio in his hand. “It says on the radio that the President was shot.”Morgenthau’s first reaction “was that this is some sort of nut.” Mollo and Ethel also heard the workman. Bobby did not. He was standing near the far end of the pool. The call with Hoover did not last more than twenty seconds. “There was a look of shock and horror on his face,” Morgenthau would recall.
Morgenthau knew Bobby was preoccupied with Asia: His mind was on Borneo and guerrillas, far from Valachi and the Mob. But Morgenthau could sense it: The high-stakes diplomacy had given Bobby a jolt. And yet, the crackdown was showing early returns: In the first six months of 1963, Justice had indicted 171 racketeers—compared with 24 for the same period three years earlier. The FBI, too, at least in his district, was cooperating. In an outreach that would become characteristic of his long tenure to come, Morgenthau had forged a new alliance with the Bureau.
In February 1964, Morgenthau impaneled a grand jury to target the Lucchese family, the crew that in the first decade after the war had introduced strong-arm tactics to the city’s politics.
By the second week of February 1964, Tommy Lucchese himself arrived at the U.S. Court House. Bobby Kennedy flew in for the event; Morgenthau met him at LaGuardia.
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