Chapter Ten
A Loss of Faith
My Miami “know your Mafia neighbor” series was an example of media manipulation, me being the media most manipulated. I failed to fully recognize my susceptibility to law enforcement propaganda until the Florida Governor ordered a statewide investigation of illegal gambling and racketeering. His decision was influenced, in part, by my propaganda campaign on behalf of cop sources.
The appointment of a Special Prosecutor gave me a chance to meet the underworld figures named in “intelligence” documents,that was the basis of my “Mafia” reporting. Relying on the information, I had confronted bad guys with a camera. However, some of the people I confronted were not so bad.
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The statewide investigation was akin to a traveling circus. And like the old joke of the guy who refused to quit his circus job shoveling shit behind elephants in order to stay in show business, I followed behind the grand jury shoveling muck to keep my face on television. I wasn’t quite ready to cast cop friends aside, but my faith in them was beginning to wane.
So-called “Mafia” characters like Anthony (Tumac) Accetturo failed to live up to their billing. He was a bad-ass criminal. However, by standards of blood oath Sicilian traditions he was faux Mafia. Tumac ruled a gang of simple-minded criminals by brute force. He was an early version of HBO character, Tony Soprano. In fact, the TV show accurately portrayed the kind of “Mafioso” that I encountered in Miami.
Meyer Lansky was different. The diminutive “wizard of organized crime” was never known as a strong-arm guy. He could read and write, which made him a mob intellectual. When the statewide grand jury first convened, Lansky was the star attraction. As he walked down the corridor of the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale for his first appearance, he was besieged by photographers and reporters.“Do you plan to testify?” they shouted. “Will you take the Fifth? Are you involved in organized crime?” The “wizard” said nothing.
Observing the ludicrous scene, I couldn’t resist asking a question that finally elicited a response. “What is your assessment of Lee Strasberg’s portrayal of you in Godfather Two?” Everybody roared with laughter. Lansky stopped for a moment, smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
“After following me around, John, you should’ve played the role,” he responded.
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Even as my collection of awards grew, I could not rid myself of deep-rooted professional insecurities. As a defense mechanism, I embellished the importance of every bit of recognition that I received. A mid-seventies proliferation of post-Watergate books, news stories, and movies had made muckraking an honorable craft and gave me bragging rights of being one.
I got a huge ego boosts seeing my name in a TV Guide article and an obscure book titled The Investigative Journalist: Folk Heroes of a New Era. The only local television “folk heroes” in the book were a crosstown rival and me. I edged him out by a full paragraph—a cause for celebration.
By then, I had mostly weaned myself off the law enforcement teat and began doing my own digging. Very well, too.