thumb|[[Gangster|Mobster Frank Costello testifying before the Kefauver Committee.]]

The United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce was a special committee of the United States Senate which existed from 1950 to 1951 and investigated organized crime which crossed state borders in the United States. The committee became popularly known as the Kefauver Committee because of its chairman, Senator Estes Kefauver. The televised hearing helped Kefauver become a household name; he subsequently launched an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1952, and became the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1956. The term capo di tutti capi was introduced to the U.S. public by the Kefauver Commission.

Genesis of the committee

Organized crime was the subject of a large number of widely read articles in several major newspapers and magazines in 1949. Several local "crime commissions" in major cities and states had also uncovered extensive corruption of the political process by organized crime. More than 600 witnesses testified. Many of the committee's hearings were televised live on national television to large audiences, providing many Americans with their first glimpse of organized crime's influence in the U.S. Among the more notorious figures who appeared before the committee were Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, Louis "Little New York" Campagna, Mickey Cohen, Willie Moretti, Frank Costello, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, Meyer Lansky, Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, Virginia Hill (former Joe Adonis–Chicago Outfit messenger and mobster Bugsy Siegel's girlfriend), and four of Irish mob boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson's former policemen in Atlantic City were also called forth.

The committee also investigated Frank Sinatra. At Kefauver's request associate counsel Joseph L. Nellis interviewed him. At 4 AM on 1 March 1951, Nellis met Sinatra in an office at the top of the Rockefeller Center. Kefauver had come into possession of eight photographs of Sinatra with well-known mafia figures. One was of Sinatra with his arm around Lucky Luciano on the balcony of the Hotel Nacional in Cuba, another was of Sinatra seated with Luciano at a night club. He also appeared with the Fischetti brothers in a number of other pictures. Kefauver wanted to determine whether Sinatra should be called to testify before the committee, so he tasked Nellis with setting up an interview. Nellis contacted Sinatra's attorney Sol Gelb, through him the meeting was arranged.

Nellis quizzed Sinatra on his mafia connections. He admitted "knowing" or "seeing", and saying "hello" or "goodbye", to Lucky Luciano, the Fischetti brothers, Al Capone's cousins, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, Abner Zwillman, Willie Moretti, Gerardo Catena, and Bugsy Siegel. In one photograph Sinatra was seen with an attaché case departing a plane. Sinatra told Nellis that it contained razors and crayons. When Nellis suggested that there was over $100,000 in the case, Sinatra denied it, insisting that he gave no money to Luciano and that he did not know what line of business Luciano was in. He denied having any business dealings with any of the aforementioned men. At the end of the two hour meeting Nellis learnt nothing which would have enabled him to subpoena Sinatra before the official congressional hearings. Many of the Kefauver Committee's hearings were aimed at proving that a Sicilian-Italian organization based on strong family ties centrally controlled a vast organized crime conspiracy in the United States, but the committee never came close to justifying such a claim. Rather, the committee uncovered extensive evidence that people of all nationalities, ethnicities, and religions operated locally controlled, loosely organized crime syndicates at the local level. Congress responded to the call, and in 1970 passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act as a direct response to the committee's recommendation. The tremendous success of the broadcast led to the production of a cycle of "exposé" crime films dealing with the dismantling of complex criminal organizations by law enforcement. The first one of these was The Captive City (1952), which had the blessing of senator Kefauver himself: Director Robert Wise took a print of the film to D.C. to show the senator, who not only endorsed it but even appears in the prologue and epilogue, cautioning audiences about the evils of organized crime. Other notable examples of exposé films inspired by the hearings include Hoodlum Empire (1952) and The Turning Point (1952). The committee report was an inspiration for the 1956 James Bond novel Diamonds are Forever.

A fictionalized version of the Senate hearings is a central plot device in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, featuring testimony by Michael Corleone, now the head of his eponymous crime family, and disgruntled Family caporegime Frank Pentangeli. Another version of the Senate hearings is portrayed in the 2025 Warner Bros. HBO Max streaming film The Alto Knights, starring Robert De Niro in a dual role as both Vito Genovese and Frank Costello.

Footnotes

Bibliography

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