TRIUMPHS AND TRIALS OF A MOB BOSS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540022-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: July 17, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540022-8
MINI HERZ LD
17 July 1983
LA
Triumphs and triads
of a mob boss
As rivals eye his turf, an ailing Santo Trafficante
may face his first 'term= in an American ,jail.
By ANDY ROSENBLATT_-
Herdd std writer been locked up in a
Once, Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante e
U.S. prison. Now he teering charges. Eachs ctwo arries c a
wore hand-tailored suits and. expensive hats maximum sentence of 20 years.
as he strutted to appearances before grand ? -'They. are chicken - - - ? cases,"
juries and congressional committees. his attorney, Henry Gonzalez, says
Once, he ate at Miami's best restaurants, with a sneer. But Gonzalez iswor-
enjoying spicy dishes, paying the check with ried. He says his client can't get a
$100 bills. fair trial in Tampa. Too much pub- 1
Now, when Trafficante, at 68, greets visit licity. Too many retired jurors who
tors, he wears baggy cotton pajamas. He eats don't like Italians, he says.
Every other day, he puts on a surgical Of a dying breed
mask, attaches a clear plastic catheter to the
valve that's been inserted in his stomach and
drains the poisons from his body. His dis-
eased kidneys no longer work.
An era is coming to an end.
Trafficante has long been considered the
state's lord master of racketeering, oversee-
ing an empire financed by illegal gambling,
loan sharking, extortion and, some _say,
drugs.
Now he faces trials in Miami and Tampa
on separate racketeering indictments. Other
mobsters are eyeing his turf.
Santo Trafficante is a very sick man.
He spends his days moping around his
daughter's home in Tampa, reading the
newspapers, calling doctors and his lawyer
when he's bored.
Sometimes he wakes before dawn and
reaches for the nightstand, his hand,=covered
with age spots. groping for a bunch-of tiny
plastic vials. They contain the old man's
breakfast: an assortment of multicolored
pills.
Trafficante can moan about his health for
hours. "He's a hypochondriac," says Frank
Ragano. his friend and former attorney.
Others say he is scared of dying, scared of
going to jail. Santo Trafficante. has never
Friday, Gonzalez filed 24 motions
asking that the Tampa charges be
dismissed, that the Justice Depart-
ment drop "surplus and inflamma.
tory language" from the indict.
ment, that the FBI turn over its
tapes. He also filed reports from
several physicians who declared
that Trafficante is "somewhat con-
fused," -"mildly demented," in a
"precarious medical condition," too
sick to stand trial.
If his doctors and friends are
right, Santo Trafficante is dying. If
the Justice Department is right, he
is using his illness as an alibi.
Trafficante's poor health has
spawned speculation about a suc-
cessor. But Mafia watchers concede
that no one in Florida can fill his
shoes. For Trafficante is one of the
last old-time Mafia dons. He has
lived through Prohibition, pre-Cas-
tro Cuba, the Lansky era.
He is bright, crafty, street-smart
and he reads books about his politi,
cal heroes, Richard Nixon and Huey
Long. Trafficante, the son of poor
immigrants, inherited a Tampa
gang from an illiterate father. Then
he quietly extended his influence
while dodging bullets, buying off
local cops and evading the FBI.
"I've been a gambler all my.life,"
Trafficante once told a congression.
al committee "Y'm used to taking
chances."
This is the man who:
? Was recruited by the CIA, at,a -
secret meeting-in the Fontainebleau
Hotel, to poison Fidel Castro. -
? 'Was used by mob genius
Meyer Lansky to protect organized
crime's control of Havana's bawdy
casinos. -
? Was tailed by the FBI to a
meeting at Miami International Air-
port with Washington, D.C., lawyer
William Borders. The two men al-
legedly discussed a plot to bribe
U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings.
? Checked out of a New York
hotel an hour after his rival, Albert
Anastasia, head of Murder Inc., was
shot dead . in the hotel's barber
chair.
? Traveled to Southeast Asia as
the mob's emissary to meetings
with some of the world's biggest
heroin dealers. -
Trafficante is so well insulated
that few people understand how
this man who reportedly accumu-
lated great wealth can still own an
eight-year-old Chevrolet, can dis-
play great tenderness to his family
but deadly vengeance to his foes,
can enjoy the 20th Century's com-
forts yet live by an arcane, 100-
year-old Sicilian code.
`Devoted,' naive
Who is Santo Trafficante?
"An awful lot of people have had
their last supper with him," says
FBI agent Wendall Hall, who fol-
lowed Trafficante for years. "He's a
[mob] statesman, a general. But we
still don't know much about him."
"He's an enigma," says former
FBI agent John Ambler.
"He's a devoted father and
grandfather," says Trafficante's
son-in-law, Dr. Richard Valdes, a
Tampa dentist.
CCTvT1''::
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540022-8