our committee has found that organized crime does operate on a syndicated basis across state lines in the united states. that is a much bigger, more sinister and a larger operation than we had ever suspected. that is having very devastating and bad influences upon our economy upon the morale of morals, of our people, and upon politics and government. and thanks for joining us for congress investigates an american history tv series looking back at historic and

significant congressional hearings this week. our focus is organized crime. well, it was in the early 1950s that democrat senator estes kefauver of tennessee and his special committee in interrogated major organized crime figures like frank costello. the hearings held over a series of months, had 600 witnesses and went to 14 cities. many americans learned details about organized crime for the first time in 1951. 12 million us households had tvs and this became a major and early television event. the hearings also made estes kefauver a household name and helped fuel his political career. here to talk about the work of the kefauver committee is daniel holt, associate u.s. historian. mr. holt, thanks for being with us.

the official name of the key flavor committee was the united states senate special committee to investigate crime in interstate commerce in the early 1950s. how ingrained was organized crime into the american business framework? so yeah. the senate or the american people were certainly not new to the idea of organized crime in the early 1950s. there had been, you know, very high profile criminal investigations in the 1930s, going back into the 1920s. and, you know, the kinds of criminal syndicates that grew up in the you know, in the wake of prohibition and bootlegging. there were, you know, famous gangsters of the 1930s, like bonnie and clyde. but by the 1940s and after the war, i think there was definitely a change in scale and

scope of these organized crime, criminal activities. part of it was a matter of the postwar boom. there was a lot of additional money in people's pockets and that kind of thing could certainly feed into, you know, demand for gambling. and that was one of the, you know, kefauver concludes that this interstate gambling carried on over telegraph and telephone is kind of the backbone of organized crime in the country during this period. and it's pretty clear from the committee's work that this is a problem all over the country in cities big and small. and people are very concerned about it. and there is a growing demand by the late 1940s that the federal government begin to take steps to address it. what was the impact of the televised hearings? it really was a public sensation. as you mentioned.

it certainly helped that in the year before the committee began its work that television ownership had begun to expand. so there were just more tvs out there. it ao, you know, they they televised this mostly during the day. there wasn't a lot of program for these television networks during the day. so while they did, you know, sacrifice some some revenue in order to, you know, take away from their commercial programing to have the the the hearings televised during the day, they didn't have a lot of competition. so when people started to to learn that these proceedings were going to be on tv, they attracted a huge audience. and that audience grew as the committee's work went on and on. it got so popular that even lkwho didn't have tvs could find their way to watching them because some movie theaters essentially converted their theaters to project the the live proceedings from television.

there had been newsreel footage shown in movie theaters for some years before this, but this was really the first time that the entire country's attention was focused on a congressional proceeding like this. dan holt, tell us more about senator kefauver and why he took this issue up. senator kefauver was definitely a rising star in american politics in the late 1940s. he had a successful career as a lawyer in chattanooga, tennessee, ran for the house of representatives and served there for five terms. in 1948. he ran in the primary, in the democratic primary in tennessee, and was and was elect over the objections of tennessee's democratic political boss, named e.h. crump, who had kind of been running the show there for a decades. at that point. and to win the democratic primary in 1948, meant to essentially be assured of victory in the general election

over the republican and later on, he entered the senate in 1949, then with a reputation as being an up and coming liberal and for his part, looking for a major issue that he could dive into that would help increase his his national reputation at that time. how was the committee created? the committee was almost not created and it took quite a bit of pull political maneuvering for it to happen. senator kefauver, in january of 1950 introduced a resolution that would have allowed the senate judiciary committee, presumably under his chairmanship, to essentially create a subcommittee that would have done this investigation into organized crime on democrats in the senate were not very excited about doing this. organized crime was generally considered to be a an urban problem around the country.

and democratic politicians were typically the ones who were in charge in in the major cities around the united states. the truman administration was already kind of entering an embattled period, and truman himself had come to political success in kansas city, missouri, under the the watch of a entrenched democratic political machine. so there was this idea that this this hearing was going to not reflect well on democrats around the country. and this was something that would have to be controlled. so within his party, there was folks who weren't interested in this. on the flip side, senate republicans wanted to make sure that they could get involved in this because they saw this as a potential issue for them to run on in the 1950 midterm elections. and then in the following elections. and so there was a rival proposal to have a committee, the congress committee, run this

investigation, ultimately through lots of negotiation. senate democratic leadership came up with the idea of creating a special committee that would be appointed by the vice president, alvin barkley, and that then the membership could be both republican and democrat. and maybe this would make everyone happy, essentially, and give senator kefauver his ability to lead the committee, investigate and as he had planned. now, dan holt, you indicate that senator kefauver was looking for an issue to give him national exposure. did he care about organized crime at that point? i think he did sincerely. i think it was it was a combination of being interested in and taking on an issue. but i also believe there was a sincere interest on his part in tackling this issue. as i sort of mentioned earlier, in the late 1940s, the issue was started to get more and more public attention around the country. you had state and local crime commissions that were doing their own investigating at the local level.

and you had an organization called the american municipal association and its leader was at that time the mayor of new orleans. and he called on the federal government to do some kind of action to to really address this problem. there was not it wasn't clear that the truman administration was willing to do this initially. in february of 1950, of the attorney general howard mcgrath organizes a conference on crime and truman makes some statements there announcing that the federal government is going to take this seriously. but i think there was a real opening here for the legislative branch to take the lead based on frustration that there hadn't been more activity by the fbi or the truman administration. and i think i think chief farber believed that sincerely that this was an opportunity to do some good. so we had senator kefauver, the other democrat ites were herbert o'connor of maryland and lester hunt of wyoming. the two republicans, alexander

wiley of wisconsin, and charles tobey of new hampshire, just five members. that seems awfully small in today's numbers. yes. yes. and in some cases, you know, because there was so much travel involved, sometimes the hearings were not held with all five of those members. sometimes it was just one member. they would essentially travel to a city and kefauver would sit as the calling himself a subcommittee of one. it's interesting because those five really worked ultimately, they worked well together. the two republicans were the ranking members of the house. i'm sorry, of the senate judiciary committee and the the commerce committee and so they had a personal stake in this, as i said earlier, because they were looking for an issue that they could campaign on. hunt and o'connor had been former governors, and they had been in the senate since the late 1930s.

and i think all five of them took the job very seriously. and were, you know, for something that became quite sensational. i think they comported themselves with a certain level of seriousness and diligence that even though there was only the five of them, it was a you know, it was a good group to lead this investigation. dan holt, when did the committee disband? kefauver stepped down in may of 1951. so almost a complete year from when the committee began in may of 1950. chief kefauver thought that the committee had done its job and was willing to essentially wrap up operations at that point. but the other members wanted to continue. they believed that there was more work to do, and maybe also as as you kind of suggested, maybe they did not want to necessarily get rid of the public platform that they had developed over that previous year. and so there was a an interim report that came out in may of

1951 that that summarized key favors, general contributions and conclusions, and then an additional report came out in september of 1951, and that's when the committee formally ended its it's operations. well, as we mentioned, millions of americans watched these live hearings on tv and the interest really spiked when the committee went to new york city. here's some newsreel coverage of that. in a setting reminiscent of a hollywood production, the senate crime committee headed by senator kefauver, senators tobey and o'connor, an attorney, halley becomes the sensation of the country. frank ericksen, big time bookmakers, someone from jail where he's serving a two year sentence is the person, station maker, senator keefe. all very hearing. the lawbreaker refused to answer the attorneys. simple question.

that's always we gotta you mr. schumer i business is in jail why go back and prior to being convicted subject has been a judge on the grounds and i appreciate i another alleged underworld leader jordan is continues the defiance of the committee with stubborn determination and almost categorical contempt. i answer on this account with any other i declined to answer and to say what i in the hearing room in new york's federal court building is crowded when virginia hill hauser, the fabulous sweetheart of the slain bugsy siegel, notorious underworld figure, answers her subpoena unfolding in blandest manner. revelations that set the nation wandering. do you ever get any money from any other person whom we might call a gangster rather than they got no.

did you ever get any money from cocktail allowed? no. and did you ever get any money from meyer lansky? i never got money from any of those that i know about. none of those fellas. none of the none of these that i've been reading about. none that i knew. they never gave me anything. none of. of you? no. i don't even speak to that. i mean, i met that charlie once or twice. i don't even talk to him yet. i like him. no. you still about the horse racing? the only thing now, i wouldn't. i don't bet anything now i'm afraid i'll win. and then they'll say, i made more money than i did. i don't know. you mean you just don't want to win anymore? i don't want any more leaving the hearing. the brunet beauty is in a temper while waiting for her car, giving a performance that discloses she's not at all pleased, but her serenity is restored as she exits. the crime hearing's biggest

sensation comes from frank costello, reputed king of the underworld. he provides a startling bit of dramatic reality. woman mr. costello, deal with bad. it testimony all about the fact that maclachlan yesterday now the mr. harry order is back which i have an awful lot of respect for. i'm not going to answer another question. you're just because i'm not under arrest and i'm going to walk out now, i, i should explain here exactly what the legal situation is. you are under the container and if i die, i form the chairman, instruct you to remain and ask the question. you are thereby become guilty of contempt of that senate committee. i in just a minute, mr. wells just asked about it. mr. costello, you don't mean that i will use every resource in our command to see that he's brought to contempt and that he was arrested by the united states senate. action worthy of gromyko, the

alleged crime king dares the nation's highest elected body to do its worst. so, dan holt, we were watching some newsreel coverage of the kefauver committee in new york city who were some of the major crime figures in that city at the time. so the most important one that they were able to bring in for questioning was frank costello. he had been a reputed mob figure going back into the 1920s and through the 1930s and forties, connected with the the crime syndicate associated with meyer lansky and aks like that in new york. he was connected to organized gambling, but also had in his in his past things like extortion in and bribery and of connections to to murder and those kinds of things to get him in front of the cameras was a bit of a challenge. and but he was one of the main figures that that really brought

attention to those new york hearings, along with other mobsters from the time by one by the name of anastasia. last name anastasia, who was essentiallcharge in charge of the new york waterfront, thought to be the inspiration behind the marlon brando film on the waterfront. later that decade, would you call frank costello an obstinate witness, unwilling witness, yeah. so this was a major problem for a lot of the investigations, for a lot of the public hearings, when members who had known criminal backgrounds decided that they would take the fifth amendment right to not incriminate themselves. and sometimes that was a great deal of the televise hearings as well. costello did show up with the and did say that he would testify initially. he didn't want to be shown by the television cameras, however, and so i think it was between his first day in front of those

cameras, there was an agreement that the camera would only focus on his his body and his hands and in some ways, those hands became the most iconic element of this entire hearings as the camera watched him fidget and sweat. and he was playing with like little pieces of paper with his hands. and he seemed very fidgety and tense, even as his his comportment tried to not let that on. ultimately, he was did go on camera with his face shown, but at one point, he he showed up and claimed that he was not feeling well and he didn't want to he wasn't going to testify. and he got up and left in the middle of the of the questioning again came back and did answer some questions. but it was not an easy process to get him there and to get him to speak on camera. dan holt, what about you talked about political connection with new york city mayor. at the time, william o'dwyer had a role in these hearings.

what was it? right. so one of the key goals that chief oliver established for this committee was to not just understand the criminal element in these cities, but to understand their political connections and the extent to which local crime, local law enforcement, was either not addressing the problem or wouldn't address the problem because of their connections with organized crime. former mayor of new york william o'dwyer, initially connected with the committee and and provided them with a lot of information talking about his experiences in fighting crime in new york city during his time there at the time of the committee hearings, he was actually ambassador to mexico anhe cck from that assignment to testify on camera. but when chief oliver turnedo questioning o'dwyer, it wasn't to praise him for all the work that he had done. it was to question the ways in which he had not taken steps to deal with the gambling problem. in new york city, the people that he was connected to that prevented him from actually

bringing people to justice and to allowing a lot of these these criminal elements to largely act unchecked in the city over the time when he was in charge now there was a bit of sideshow lurid tests emanate from virginia hill, who was a virginia hill had been an associate of the famed gangster bugsy siegel, which people might remember. he was one of the main investors and creators of the flamingo hotel in nevada at the las vegas, nevada. she was connected with a host of other connected mobsters in los angeles, and she was brought in to testify to anything that she could share about her understanding of the criminal organizations, their money, her connections, and receiving money from them, and that kinds of things. but she was also not really very interested in being there and

was able to play very coy when it came to questions about where she got her money from and did she get her money from folks like bugsy siegel and meyer lansky and these types? and she you know, she brought a certain level of flair to the proceedings in that she came very well dressed with, you know, a fur and a wide brimmed hat. but she was also very frank and in being dismissive of the questions coming to her, even when she left, she, you know, kicked some reporters out of the way and let some expletives out. and so she was also you know, i think when you think about what made this tv worthy, i think she was one of the folks who made it very tv worthy besides new york. what were some of the other 14 cities where the hearings were held? so the committee began its work in florida in miami, florida, and they spent quite a bit of time there and quite a bit of energy invested in the the gambling situation in in miami.

they found that, you know, one of the you know, we talked about this organized crime in interstate commerce and the real instrument of interstate commerce in these gambling organizations was the the telegraph and racing news services that existed that essentially delivered the results from racetrack ex around the country also were able to deliver back and forth odds and the bets as they were being made. and so in miami they spent a lot of time trying to understand the syndicate that was in charge of this this racing news network and how that supported the gambling establiment there. and in that case, the connections went all the way up to the governor of florida. governor fuller. and that created a lot of ill will between the governor and kefauver going forward. the committee went to kansas city, the backyard of president truman, which i think was one of the reasons why democrats weren't that excited about being

there when they got there. they they were following up from the previous year. there had been a high profile murder of a man named charles banaji, who had been really closely connected to the democratic machine in kansas city. so kefauver, in the hearings there, pursued as much as they could in understanding the connection between the gambling rings and the government. he stopped short of really kefauver stopped short of accusing the mayor of kansas city or the governor of missouri from doing any for any wrongdoing in that case. but it was still really important investigation. they also went to chicago in the fall of 1950. what was notable about that was democratic leader scott lucas had essentially gotten assurances from kefauver that ey would not go to ccago until after the elections that fall. but in the interim, to investigators who had been prepared to assist the committee with information were found murdered. and so kefauver took it upon himself to bring the committee there early. they were closed hearings at the

time, but just because they were closed didn't mean that the the information didn't get out into the press and, you know, he learned an awful lot there about the, you know, the gambling and the the existence, the ongoing existence of al capone's organization and its role in distributing information over the telegraph or and organizing all those gambling operations. and dan holt, those chicago hearings benefit. did everett dirksen, didn't they it who was running for the senate in 1950 as a republican? this is i think this is true. you know, so lucas was very wary of having these hearings dig up dirt on the democratic party in chicago that year. and sure enough, after the hearings took place, scott lucas, who has been who had been the democratic leader in the senate, lost his election to everett dirksen to the republic. and who would go on to, you know, a very long and really important career in the senate? well, one of the other places

that the kefauver committee visited was las vegas. this is from the c-span archives, a little bit from the mob museum in there. a a lot of people have this image of las vegas that we always blow up buildings and we have blown up a lot of hotel casinos on the strip and replaced them with newer ones. this building was just about vacant in the late nineties and the federal government was ready to let it come down. the mayor at the time was oscar goodman, who had been an attorney who represented a lot of figures connected to or allegedly connected to the mob. and he said, no, this is the building where i first practiced law, had my first case. this is an important building historically. let's save it. it's a three story building. it was the federal courthouse built in 1933. and today it houses one of the

nations leading museums, certainly in our opinion, for organized crime and law enforcement. the role they've played throughout the united states history, but especially in the 20th and early 21st centuries and the development of las vegas, because whether or not las vegas like it and whether the rest of the world likes it or not, the mob played an important role in our development where we are now is the centerpiece of our museum. this is the courtroom on the second floor of the building and really the historical motives, if you will, for having this museum in 1950. senator estes kefauver of tennessee and four other u.s. senators conducted a series of hearings on organized crime in america, and they went to 14 cities. and the smaller city by far that they came to was las vegas, and they spent an afternoon here and in this room up there. in fact, they questioned various

local casino operators and executives. so most midway had been connected to lansky and siegel came in and testified. wilbur clark, who was the front man at the desert in. he testified bill moore, who owned a couple of casinos and was on the nevada tax commission and kefauver and his men were just aghast at the notion that you could have legal gambling, that people who might have had organized crime connections or at least been involved in illegal activity elsewhere, they could possibly be welcomed here as legitimate businessmen. and when kefauver issued his report, he said that is a case study in legal gambling. nevada speaks eloquently in the negative. well, the problem with this was that, in fact, it was legal here, whereas in other cities you were shut down and the kefauver hearings are important in american history. the key father had been elected to the senate by attacking one

of the most corrupt political machines in the country. in memphis, the crump machine and he had great ambitions. he wanted to be vice president or president and going after organized crime meant going after a lot of democratic party operatives because organized crime was big in the cities. so it was the democratic party. so to use chicago as an example, all the people who would form the daley machine were working with these people, not necessarily with any particular vice in mind, other than getting ahead politically. well, that's what kefauver wanted to do, and it does end up making him a household name. he ends up being the democratic vice presidential nominee in 1956. the impact for las vegas, that's kind of interesting is that around the country, people react to the kefauver hearings and they're saying, my god, this is terrible. we've got to get rid of organized crime. we've got to get rid of illegal gambling and they're shutting down these places around the country. where are they going to go to

operate casinos legally? las vegas. and really in the fifties, las vegas ends up being the beneficiary of the key forfeiture hearings because of the numbers of people who came here to work in or even operate casinos. and we're back with the associates. senate historian dan holt. mr. holt, how busy was vegas in 1950? was it anywhere close to what we know it as today? i think it was quite busy. you know, those early hotels were coming up gambling was already big business in las vegas. you know, earlier i talked about members of the senate who weren't very excited about this investigation to happen. and one of those was senator pat mccarran of nevada. he was not really looking forward to this new upstart kefauver coming into his backyard and and making noise about mob connections to the hotels and things going on

there. it might not have been quite the, you know, the full glitz and glamor that we think of when we see las vegas today. but i think those operations were already well up and running and there was a lot of connections between what was going on in las vegas and members of these organizations, criminal organizations in los angeles were also the kefauver committee went and held hearings. so these five senators did they have a large staff on this committee? and who were some of the chief investigators? so the staff was fairly large at one time. they had over 40 members on staff, which in some ways feels quite large for the for congress during that time when committee staffs were not that big, i think overall they would probably have said that they could have definitely benefited from even more staff members across the investigation. but, yes, they they depended on some really great work by the the councils and investigators. and it shows kind of how earlier

experience ences were really important to the committee doing its work. so the chief counsel was a man by the name of rudolph haley. he had been he was a new york lawyer. well, well-established, had worked under truman's committee that the truman commission i'm sorry, the truman committee that had studied the defense program in the 1940s, trying to uncover fraud. and in efficiency in the defense operations. also, you had someone, harold robinson, who had been the chief investigator in the california crime commission that existed in the 1940s. and so he was a really important figure because he already had a lot of connections and understood who to talk to in order to to learn as much as possible about these criminal operations in the cities where they visited, they also benefited greatly from, you know, on the ground, investigators such as downey rice, who had also had he had been an fbi agent for some years and had also had experience with

the truman committee, he eventually he at the end of the committee under wen o'connor, continued it after kefauver was able to move up and become, i think, the chief counsel or associate counsel. and so these individuals and their ability to have connections with local reporters, local law enforcement, local crime commissions was really important for the committee to do the kind of work it did. it's almost hard to believe that it could have been able to be as successful as it was without a lot of that legwork and that staff work. so it sounds like it was a bit of a mixed bag when you went into a city across the country, some of the politicians maybe didn't think it was a good idea, but some of the law enforced organizations did. so, yeah, it really depended from place to place. so when when they went to detroit, for example, the mayor of detroit at that time was one of the members of that american association, and he was glad to have the commission come and to

do its investigation and to even be, you know, testify on television, because he believed at this point that the the crime problem really needed a federal presence in other places, local law enforcement were ought before the committee and chastised then for for turning the other way. and i mentioned that that one of those first committees in my committee hearings in miami there was a famous sheriff who was brought before the committee. and the committee had a lot of questions about why this particular sheriff's personal financial situation improved greatly over a very short amount of time while he was sheriff in intimating, of course, that he was taking bribes from the gambling organizations in order to allow that stuff to happen in their backyard. so it really depended on where you went and to the extent that, you know, leaders and police force were on the take, so to

speak. but in some cases, you know, i found it was really a great thing to see in the archives. there were thank you notes to patrolmen in chicago because the committee depended on their assistance in finding witnesses and serving process on them to get them before the committee. so sometimes there was that cooperation and some of those some of the leading figures were the subject of investigation because of their failure to act in the in the years earlier. but in some cases, there was definitely, i think, some cooperation that helped. well, you mentioned that the kefauver committee received many letters. here's one from the southern u.s. this is author and professor tammy ingram. this letter is vergeneric, but i really love it because this person was very impassioned. it cut off her signature there. but this is a lady named wanda from alabama who wrote this pleading letter to kefauver saying that e south was in trouble, that this has been going on for a long time. the situation is dire. she does not offer a lot of

detail, but it's a very she's obviously very upset about what ever it is that she she knows most of the letters he received that were very specific. they named names. they had dates. they had specific information about what was going on and where and when. the correspondence files organized by state and can just scan the boxes and look and see that the southern states are full. they're thick files of letters from people detailing these kinds of activities and over and over again, people are making the same kinds of complaints about their local problems. these are local problems that they would always say they are linked to problems in other cities, other states, other parts of the country. they know the kefauver committee is looking at interstate commerce. they know that they've got to get his attention to this. they really tended to highlight that. and as i mentioned earlier, they would often include newspaper clippings to document their claims, to say, i'm not just just pulling this out of thin air. this really is happening. and we know that it's happening

around here. there were many, many people writing with complaints about about being city to. but there are also letters from places like birmingham muscle shoals, gadsden, alabama, colbert, georgia, savannah, georgia. seneca, south carolina. chattanooga, tennessee. port arthur, texas. galveston, texas i could go on and on and on and the queries were all very similar. dear senator, they began, and then each letter outlined complaints about illegal gambling, prostitution and intimidation, sometimes violent intimidation by a small group of racketeers and their employees. but the men and women who wrote these letters also linked those activities to the things i mentioned earlier, to political corruption, to labor racketeering, or to just meddling in local whatever the local business was, and to colbert and security concerns.

one person in muscle shoals wrote a letter to key favors, saying that he was certain that communal arts were running the mob in muscle shoals. another person, this person called himself or herself an american, wrote this this rather odd and paranoid sounding note to the committee, saying that that communism was the brother of the black market. another man wrote a letter to keep our calling racketeers parasites and saying that he thought they were an even bigger threat to democracy than communism was. a number of people in phenix city were saying that to him as well. this is a huge problem. we're not really too concerned about what's going on in the cold war and we see that as a problem. but the real war is right here in phenix city. now, the accusations, as this one sort of indicate, it's i don't know, we probably is difficult to read it. there but i'll leave it up so you can scan it for people with good eyesight. sometimes the accusations were

were so outrageous that kefauver and his colleagues didn't pay much attention to them. a few of them i thought i had an image of one and i couldn't pull it up. somebody had written in the margins and this is a crackpot. and some of them were. there were also letters from people who seem to have personal vendettas against certain local officials said they would write to him and say, you know, john doe is into this and you need to come and get him and hoping that kefauver would come and investigate him. so. so some it whether it was true or not, there was some other motive behind it. but i was struck by i thought there'd be of that in the papers and there certainly is a good deal it but it's obvious that they were also receiving a lot of really good information, detailed information information, as i said earlier, that sometimes people volunteer and sometimes kefauver solicited from people that he trusted. so the american public was reacting to these hearings. oh, yes, the archives for the committee are filled with thousands of letters from people

across the country sharing their experiences with with crime in their in their communities willing to share whatever information they knew about those who were leading the gambling operations, willing to share whatever information they knew about law enforcement, who was who was being cooperative with the gambling organizations in many cases? you know, a lot of the replies for these things that were it's not just organized interstate crime, people were writing into the committee to tell about the ordinary crimes of robbery and assault that were going on in their communities. and, you know, frequently the committee had to respond back to say that as a federal invest nation, they were mostly the best they could do, especially with the resources available to them, was to examine organized crime in interstate commerce, places where the federal government would have a role to play. and they usually encourage these folks to try to, you know, find help in their local and their

local communities. and i should say, you know, possibly as a result of all a lot of this correspondence. one of the main conclusions that the committee has at the end is that the real work of dealing with this crime wave of late 1940s, early 1950s, had to be addressed at the local level. the federal government would do itbest to coordinate. the federal government should support in any way it can. but it did say in no uncertain terms that the ultimately the to these problems was going to be at the state and local level. well, speaking of the federal level, fbi director j edgar hoover testified in front of the kefauver commission, our committee in, january of 1951, the gambling problem must be viewed as a phase of the entire crime. picture organized gambling. gambling is a vicious, evil corrupts our youth, and blights the lives of all adults. it becomes a springboard on

other crimes embezzlement, robbery and even murder. but like any other type of crime, it can be controlled if the laws against gambling presently on the state and local statutes books were earnestly and vigorously enforced, organized gambling could be eliminated. could be eliminated within 48 hours. in any community in this land, no criminal. the gambler and his allies included, can long stand up before boy determined in an informed public opinion that in my opinion is the basic answer to the gambling problem. an aroused public opinion which will act on a local level through local law enforcement authorities to wipe out the menace. dan holt of the us senate. up to that point, what was the fbi's approach to organized crime? it didn't really have much of an approach was kind of the

problem. the fbi had certainly grown in stature and and, you know, manpower in the 1930s. but in those cases, hoover had spent a lot of the the agents, agencies, energy dealing with high profile crimes like the kidnaping of the lindbergh baby major. you know, bank robbers and that kind of thing. by the time you get into the 1940s, hoover is very fast in kind of almost infatuated with countering intelligence issues, questions about alleged communist subversion and in american politics and culture. and he doesn't take much time to to dedicate bureau resources to organized crime. and this is one of the reasons why the there's kind of a bit of a grass roots ground swell for there to be some kind of action and action by the legislative branch because there's frustration that hoover has not

spent enough time giving attention to organized crime and understaing its operations and its connections and what could be done to to deal with it. so by the time senator stepped down from the committee in may 1951, did they make any recommendation in that report, in that interim report, they did. and so, as i mentioned, they're one of the first ones was to encourage greater enforcement at the local level. they encouraged the proliferation of those local crime commissions. and that did happen that i think of about 70 new crime commissions were created around the country afterwards when it came to the federal level, the main excuse me, the main approach that the committee recommended was to deal with the distribution of information over these race, rang, wire services and the telegraph things that were allowing the

gambling operations to operate across lines which in his opinion, was all it was doing was increasing the revenue and the the the ill gotten gains that these organizations had, which was then being used to to feed their other operations like extortion and racketeering and bribery and that kind of thing. so his main proposal was to to essentially make it illegal to send betting information, telegraph wires. this was much more difficult to do in practice. it was hard to get the support of western union and the telegraph operators to do so. a lot of the other recommendations though, were a more kind of vague levels of put together more federal information, essentially, maybe create a while while this committee was going to sunset. maybe there should be created essentially a federal crime commission to continue its work and continue creating developing

new information and new sources that could be used to assist these local organizations that, like i said, he really thought was going to be the place where this this problem was going to be ferreted out. were there repercussions for some of the organized crime figures, some of the folks, some of them had already been had already been on the radar of of law enforcement. gambler and another gambler in new york, i didn't mention named frank erikson was already being, i think, charged with perjury because he had been done and testify before another previous investigation about the use of telegraphs in interstate commerce, in gambling operation. as frank costello was already, i think on the radar of law enforcement. i think the key thing about the well, one thing i should say, too, is, you know, the committee tried to when folks would not want to testify, there were.

there were repercussions in terms of contempt citations and contempt and prosecutions by the senate and not all of those ended up being supported. they were overturned later on. but the other thing to keep in mind is that the committee wasn't doing a lot to create new information or new charges about crime in the united states. it was really drawing on a lot of work that had been done at that local and state level and bringing it to more popular light. and so in that sense, you know, they weren't there's no real stories of particular criminals who were outed because of the committee. and then and then, you know, prosecuted, hadn't been on the radar before. i will say, though, in some states, even even governors and mayors who were on the list of people that the committee was charging with not doing its job, ultimately did then take actions

to actually enforce local laws. governor fuller in florida, for example, had a lot of back and forth in the press, ill were ill will and and tough words with kefauver. but he did, in fact, instruct sheriffs around the state to start actually taking steps to shutting down some of these gambling operations. so i do think that there was a th there was an uptick in enforcemt at followed, even if none of the it wasn't about bringing to justice the individuals that testified. well, as dan mentioned earlier, senator kefauver stepped down after a year as chair of this committee. here's what he had to say on the committee in his hearing in new york city. spent a great deal of time and taking the testimony of former district attorney and mayor and now ambassador william o'dwyer. it's not the province of the committee to pass a bond or to go in all of the activities of

the of mr. o'dwyer as mayor of the city of new york. undoubtedly he made many noteworthy achievements. we were interested, of course, in what he had done in connection with a law enforcement across persecution of racketeers and gangsters and in the administrate of his office as mayor in regard to law, enforce, it is the matters that were brought out in connection with the committee. the conflicts of testimony are, of course the subject of grand jury investigation and in york county by mr. hogan and also certain aspects of the problem are being considered by ervin staple, the united states district attorney, until conclusive findings have been made or the matter settled one way or another by these. courts, i do not feel that on the record as it now stands

until there has been a settlement of the issue that i could vote for, the compromise of william o'dwyer for ambassador to mexico if it were not presented to the united states senate. now up on capitol hill, the capitol visitor center has a display right now on historic congressional investigations, including the kefauver committee. they have his raccoon skin cap, a trademark for him allowed daniel boone what did this mean this commission and these hearings to senator kefauver later political career. so he tried to capitalize on his his fame from this as much as he could he clearly was interested in making a run for the white house and he was a household name as said throughout 1951. he would appear on game shows, on television. he then did. he did become or he did start to plan his run for t white house

in 1952. unfortunately for him, he could only ride that that popular sentiments so far in the democratic primary because of the way that nominees nominations worked at that time. popular primaries were not the most important way to get the nomination. he succeeded in the primaries that he ran in, but he wasn't able to build the you know, he started out as a kind of an independent minded politician who didn't always sit well with the the democratic establishment. and that ultimately came to to hinder his ability to win the nomination in 1952, because so much of that nomination of at stevenson really depends on the legwork developing support among party organizations around the country and and kefauver did not have that in 1952 he still was popular enough so that in 1956 he was able to earn the nomination as vice in that

election again, with stevenson running against eisenhower or being defeated by eisenhower. but i think it's after he was able to put that his presidential ambition to bed, he really develops a reputation for being a hard working senator who really does the work required in order to, you know, represent his his constituents in tennessee to continue investigating major issues. they would still turn to him in the early 1960s to ask his opinions on, you know, the the ongoing into organized crime. and so he really became, i think, a a very solid senator after that, even if he didn't have quite the public profile that he had earlier in his career. dan, hold, do you can you surmise these organized crime hearings may have hurt him with the party leaders, the deciders

of the nominations? i think it certainly didn't help him along the way when it came to the investigation itself. excuse me. you know, he was able to to to develop that popularity outside of the party. so in early 1951, for example, the the investigation was running out of money. and it was and he very easily got the senate to extended for another few months. and appropriate more money for its operations so when the party you know the party leaders weren't very happy about it they couldn't really do much about it and they had to kind of bow to that public popularity in the long run. i think, you know, i, i don't know if it hurt him in the long run so much as it wasn't enough. it wasn't going to be the kind of issue that was going to be able to develop the support among party leaders that were going to really launch him into thwhite house as he as hoped. did these hearings enter pop culture in any way they really

did. to the extent that, you know, one, everybody in the 1950s could talk about having seen them. and i think we don't appreciate that nearly as much today that, you know, a government investigation can can have that level of public popularity and engagement also think it was really important that you know one of the things that came out of this is the in the conclusions of the committee kefauver really brought forward this idea that there was a nascent syndicate known as the mafia and that this was controlling crime throughout the country and it had to be dealt with. critics point out that kefauver, that their committee didn't really do the it didn't really prove beyond any shadow of a doubt the existence of the mafia. to the extent that it was hard to demonstrate that there was really a nash organization that was controlling crime throughout the country as opposed to criminal operations going on all

over the country. and disparate places. that being said by the 1950s, there's more high profile arrests of mafia figures. you have more congressional investigations dealing with things like racketeering and gambling into the 1960s. and i think none those would really take place without the background knowledge of the kefauver committee and the work that it had done in popularizing this as a problem in the mid early to mid 1950s. so the final question, united states senate special committee to investigate crime in interstate commerce in 1950 and 1951, the kefauver committee. was it successful and what do you think its legacy is? you know, i i think on the if you would define success as being able to you know, i think most congressional investigations would try to determine success by what legislative outcomes were able to flow from it. and in that sense, it's just not

a terribly successful investigation despite all the public, very few of the recommendations of the commission in its report i keep calling the commission of the committee in its report become put into legislation. the chief. if one of the recommendations had a lot to do with tracking the money of these criminal organizations. a lot of the investigation involved trying to understand, you know, these folks who didn't pay their income taxes on all of this, this funding and its how all of that funding made its way into politics. and there wasn't a lot of change, i think, in the immediate term with how a lot of that operated. it takes much more investigation and operations in the sixties to get real new laws on the books to tackle the mafia and organized crime. on the other hand, i think every and every investigation hopes to connect th the broader american public in a way that

the kefauver committee does to allow people to to see the information that is out there in a new light and to bring it together in a way that's coherent and and available to them to kind of understand the extent of a problem. and i thinhat sense, the kefauver committee is very successful and holds up well against other investigations of the period. i'll also add that the committee is very successful in my mind, in that it did all of this work in a sober minded, fair, as much as fair as they could, way. that contrasted greatly with the ongoing investiga tions in the 1950s into communist subversion and led by joseph mccarthy, which are often held out as the the polar opposite of of a committee with the chairman who stepped over bounds unfairly accused people. the kefauver committee, i think, built a reputation for being a very fair minded and sincere and well-organized organization.

and i think, you know, in terms of its legacy, i do think it's, you know, if you're going to talk about federal action related to the mafia, the mob, organized crime into the sixties and seventies, you have to start with this committee, even if it didn't immediately have successes. i think it's really a jumping off point for the public attention moving forward into the late 19, into the 1960s and 1970s. are the records of the key flavor committee available on the u.s. senate. historians website. so there are a lot of records, and so they are not available on our website they are available at the center for legislative archives and they are open for research. if decide that you want to go look at them. i plan on spending a lot of time there or taking a lot of pictures of documents to be able to digest later, because there is a wealth of correspondence, a wealth of memos detailing the

operations of local law enforcement and criminal connections in various cities. there's an awful lot of stuff in there. and just on how an investigation to the extent to which they try to make sure their information was organized properly, that communication was always being shared properly. and you can really learn a lot about. what a mid-century investigate mission is like. but those are those are maybe too many to put up on the senate website at the moment. dan holt is the associate u.s. senate historian. thanks for taking part in toda'y

explorers in the sort of interior west. so as i told you all last time, we've proceeding pretty chronologically up to this point. this lecture is going kind of spin us out onto a