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	The Fifties in America follows the publisher’s successful The Sixties in America. The Fifties, however, has expanded coverage with 640 entries that... prove important enough to make this a priority purchase.
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Fifties in America
Organized Crime

During the 1950's, the broad problem of organized crime was narrowly identified as being exclusively synonymous with an alien, conspiratorial society known as the Mafia.

The 1950's was a decade when both political forces and popular culture perpetuated fears of foreign-based threats to the nation's security and social well being. The threats appeared all the more real as they were played out during an era known as the Cold War and before an audience mesmerized by the latest miracle of television.

In February of 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy announced that he had a list of more than two hundred State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party. His virulent witch-hunt into alleged subversive activities within government, the entertainment industry, publishing circles, and even the military marked one of the darkest periods of American politics. It lasted for four turbulent years until the senator was censured by his colleagues. Three months after McCarthy had initially warned the public about security threats linked to the Soviet Union, a different peril, one having ties to Sicily, was about to be exposed by another U.S. senator.

In May of 1950, Estes Kefauver of Tennessee conducted the first of several widely televised hearings of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. Hearings were held in more than one dozen cities and introduced viewers to such colorful figures as Frank Costello, a reputed New York City crime boss.

Kefauver's conclusions regarding the lack of effective cooperation among law enforcement agencies and the extent of illegal gambling, assisted by local and statewide corruption, were credible revelations. These findings were, however, overshadowed by the more sensational conclusion that organized crime owed its existence to an alien society known as the Mafia. Furthermore, this society was described by the committee as a highly secretive, conspiratorial organization that had infiltrated the ranks of state and local governments; a threat similar in nature to McCarthy's allegations regarding communists.

Ethnic Ties and Stereotypical Portrayals
Organized crime, in fact, included past and present activities of native-born Anglo-Saxons as well as individuals having immigrant Irish, Jewish, Polish, Russian, Asian, Hispanic, and African American backgrounds. Nonetheless, equating organized crime with Italian heritage and the Mafia dominated the public consciousness throughout the 1950's. In 1956, Senator McClellan of Arkansas investigated the relationship between organized crime and the Teamsters Union and eventually produced a star witness, Joseph Valachi, who would solidify the Mafia image for future decades. Newspapers, films, and books of the 1950's mirrored the government's version of organized crime. Stories focused on high-profile ethnic crime bosses in New York and Chicago. Men with names such as Luciano, Genovese, Profaci, Bonnano, and Giancana dominated headlines, were the subject of paperbacks, and often became models for gangster films.

Television seized on this theme with its widely popular show, The Untouchables, which recounted 1920's crime fighter Elliot Ness's battles with Al Capone's bootlegging empire. The series included references to many gangster-bootleggers of the period, practically all of whom had names that ended in a vowel, thus perpetuating the "ethnic" stereotype of gangsters. Not one episode made reference to Kennedy-family patriarch Joseph Kennedy's extensive ventures involving the bootlegging of Scotch whiskey through Canada during Prohibition. The senior Kennedy's son, John Fitzgerald, was a rising star in Democratic politics at the time the series was running and would go on to become president in 1960.

Gambling Revenue and Law Enforcement
By mid-century, the primary source of revenue for organized crime had become gambling. Syndicate interest in prostitution began to wane even before the beginning of Prohibition, due largely to reform movements followed by the passage of restrictive legislation. With the end of Prohibition during the early 1930's, crime syndicates were left with much wealth and with well-established organizational skills. These advantages favored successful ventures in labor racketeering, loan-sharking, and the eventual monopolization of otherwise legitimate concerns such as urban waste collection and construction projects. Though much of their gambling activities centered around illegal slot machines, floating card games, and the like, organized crime groups turned increasingly to the opportunities provided by legalized casino gambling in Nevada.

Organized crime inroads began in Las Vegas when Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel in 1946, which was followed during the early 1950's with large-scale cooperative investments, principally by Jews and Italians. Despite the ethnic mix involved in organized crime, law enforcement circles continued to reinforce the Italian image of the problem.

In November of 1957, a state trooper patrolling around Apalachia, New York, a small rural town over the Pennsylvania border, spotted an unusually large number of cars convening on the estate of Joseph Barbara. Trooper Croswell, who previously had placed Barbara's home under surveillance for "suspicious" activities, called in other state and local officers to assist in a raid on the residence. Many of Barbara's guests tried to flee, but some were rounded up, arrested, and later tried on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. None of the convictions held on appeal when the court found that the raid and subsequent actions were conducted without probable cause to believe that criminal activity was underway. Several credible reasons for the Apalacian meeting existed, many of which did not support the belief that its purpose was that of charting the course of organized crime in the United States. Nevertheless, the official government interpretation claimed that activities there were solid proof of a nationwide Mafia conspiracy. This view of organized crime, sustained by the Apalachia affair, would carry over into the 1960's.

Impact
Televised committee hearings of the 1950's, bolstered by the decade's press, popular culture, and law enforcement activities, firmly established the belief that the sole cause of organized crime was an alien, secret society known as the Mafia. Years later, the influential President's Task Force on Organized Crime endorsed this assessment when it also concluded that the core of organized crime in the United States was controlled "exclusively [by] men of Italian descent."

Further Reading
Abadinsky, Howard. Organized Crime. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2003. Excellent overview of the history of organized crime in the United States.

Bernstein, Lee. The Greatest Menace: Organized Crime in Cold War America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Interesting historical essay describing the politics behind portrayals of organized crime as an exclusively Mafia phenomenon.

Henry W. Mannle

See Also
Cold War; Hoffa, Jimmy; Hoover, J. Edgar; Kefauver, Estes; Kefauver Committee; Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959; McCarthy, Joseph; McClellan Committee; Motorcycle gangs; Turner-Stompanato scandal.