Volume 39, Number 20 · December 3, 1992
The New Mafia
By Michael Massing
The Gotti Tapes: Including the Testimony of Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano
foreword by Ralph Blumenthal, afterword by John Miller
Times Books, 388 pp., $5.99 (paper)
War on Drugs: Studies in the Failure of U.S. Narcotics Policy
edited by Alfred W. McCoy, edited by Alan A. Block
Westview Press, 358 pp., $45.00
Evil Money: Encounters Along the Money Trail
by Rachel Ehrenfeld
Harper Business, 298 pp., $22.00
The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Operations
by the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International
US Government Printing Office, 794 pp.
The recent trial and conviction of John Gotti on murder and racketeering charges marked not just the fall of the country's most celebrated living mobster but the decline of the American Mafia as a whole. The proceedings served as a showcase for the troubles besetting this once invincible organization. The deed at the center of the government's case—Gotti's part in murdering his rival, Paul Castellano—was one of many deadly feuds to have wracked La Cosa Nostra in recent years. The decision by Gotti's underling, Sammy Gravano, to testify against his boss showed the extent to which the once-sacred code of silence has lapsed. Most telling of all, perhaps, were the secret FBI tapes played at the trial. That the government could penetrate the Ravenite social club in Little Italy, where Gotti held court, showed just how vulnerable the organization had become.
Review, 5292 words
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