“He also developed an association with Meyer Lansky,” says Kaiser. “Through the Lansky connection—as reward for services we’re still not sure of—Marcello was awarded a percentage of the skim from the Outfit’s Vegas casino operations. And they don’t hand that out for nothing.”
Stone nods. “Carlos was also awarded an interest in the mob’s Havana casinos under Batista. He got that cut by providing muscle to Santo Trafficante on Florida real estate deals, a job that the Double Eagles would take on years later. Anyway . . . by 1947, Carlos had become not just a made man, but a bona fide member of the national Commissione, and one of the richest of all the bosses.”
I suddenly recall several images I once saw of Marcello, way back when I was investigating Ray Presley. The mobster known as “the Little Man” was short, but as thick and tough as a cypress stump. His face looked quick to anger, and several photographers had captured his chilling glare during the 1960s and ’70s.
“When Fidel Castro liberated Cuba in 1959,” Stone continues, “Carlos lost untold millions, just like Trafficante, Giancana, Lansky, and the other bosses. Hoping to take those casinos back, they helped fund training camps for the Cuban exiles prepping to retake the country in the Bay of Pigs invasion. That’s probably where Carlos first came into contact with Frank and Snake Knox, who worked as combat instructors at Carlos’s training camp near Morgan City.”
“Ping,” Kaiser says softly, imitating a submarine’s sonar.
“Despite the failed invasion,” Stone goes on, “Carlos was nearing the height of his power. By the midsixties his cash inflow would reach two billion dollars per annum. That’s more than twelve billion in today’s money.”
“Jesus.”
“Carlos owned trucking lines, shrimp fleets, untold amounts of real estate—much of it held by third parties who served as blind trustees for him. Interestingly, a lot of those were poor black families who felt complete loyalty to the old tomato salesman from Jefferson Parish.”
“He was a folk hero to those people,” says Kaiser. “Like Pablo Escobar to the Colombian poor. A benevolent dictator.”
I nod. “They do like their dictators in Louisiana.”
Stone raises a forefinger and points at me. “That’s something a lot of people miss. After Louis the Fourteenth and Napoleon, Louisiana never really assimilated into America, not fully. The law here is still based on the Napoleonic Code. They seceded from the Union in 1861, and in the 1930s they got Huey Long. After Huey was assassinated, they got Carlos Marcello. Carlos had learned the patronage system under the Kingfish, and he perpetuated it with cash in one hand and a gun in the other. He spread the wealth to every official in the state, from the governor and senators down to the lowest justice of the peace, and nobody—but nobody—bucked him.”
“And yet,” Kaiser interjects, “despite all that power, in 1963 Carlos found himself under mortal threat from the attorney general of the United States.”
Stone nods grimly. “As attorney general, Robert Kennedy initiated the most aggressive battle against organized crime in U.S. history. He attacked several mob bosses, but none with more personal animus than Marcello.”
Kaiser takes the baton from his mentor. “In 1959, Carlos was called before the McClellan Committee. Senator John Kennedy was a committee member, but Bobby was its chief counsel. You should see the film. Bobby barks and growls like a pit bull, and Carlos treats him with utter contempt. Carlos pled the Fifth a hundred and fifty-two times and smirked throughout the hearing. He claimed he was nothing but a tomato salesman, and on paper he was—through his Pelican Fruit Company.” Kaiser laughs dryly. “Salary, fifteen hundred bucks per month.”
“Carlos lived to regret that performance,” says Stone. “As soon as JFK made Bobby attorney general, Bobby set out to destroy Marcello. He attacked the don on two legal fronts. The first was an IRS case for back taxes. If fraud could be proved, that would land Carlos in federal prison. But the more dangerous prosecution involved Carlos’s immigration status. Unlike his brothers, Carlos had never bothered to become a citizen, which kept him out of the army and making millions during World War Two. But in the end that cost him dearly. To gain some legal status, he’d bribed the government of Guatemala—the source of his fruit and marijuana imports—to issue an official birth certificate. But that lie also made Carlos vulnerable.”
“I know about Bobby Kennedy illegally deporting Carlos to Central America in ’61,” I tell them. “As a prosecutor, I read quite a bit about his anti-Mafia tactics.”
Stone looks grateful that he can skip the details. “As soon as Carlos got back from that little excursion, Bobby indicted him for falsifying his birth certificate, and United States versus Carlos Marcello was set in motion. Between 1961 and 1963, Carlos did all he could to put off the day of reckoning, while Bobby and the INS steadily ratcheted up the pressure. Marcello’s Washington lawyer was Jack Wasserman, former chief counsel of the INS. He was the best immigration lawyer in the country, but there was only so much he could do. Carlos had bribed the Guatemalans, and Bobby’s team could prove it.”
“If Marcello played that immigration case by the rules,” Kaiser says, “he was guaranteed to lose. And the result wouldn’t be simple deportation. If he was forced out of the country, he would lose his empire. That’s why he had another lawyer on his payroll—a New Orleans lawyer. One who played by New Orleans rules, by which I mean no rules at all.”