A Cigar for the Mafia

When Carlo Gambino died last October at 74, practically every cop, crook and crime reporter in the country wondered who would replace him as the new capo di tutti capi, the boss of all bosses --in other words, the Godfather. Last week, a rash of stories in the New York press--the Times, the Daily News and New York magazine--crowned a new Godfather: longtime Racketeer Carmine Galante, 67.

The New York City-born Galante, nicknamed "Lillo" and "The Cigar," possesses truly impressive criminal credentials. He has spent almost half his life in prison on charges ranging from gambling, narcotics trafficking and bootlegging to extortion, assault and homicide. Galante first gained respect within the Mafia for his suspected involvement in the murder of Carlo Tresca, an Italian-American newspaper editor and enemy of Benito Mussolini; police believed that Tresca was knocked off at the urging of il Duce himself.

There is some question whether the far-flung and decentralized Mafia still has a boss of all bosses (many organized-crime authorities argue that it is more an honorific than an actual executive post). But if the position does exist, is Galante the man?

He may well be, but the evidence is not entirely conclusive. There are indications, besides, that federal authorities were making a concerted effort to get Galante's name into print. The reason: they suspect that Galante is trying to increase the Mob's already heavy involvement in narcotics. The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration seemed particularly interested in publicizing Galante's activities. Writes TIME Correspondent John Tompkins: "A cold call a few weeks ago to DEA intelligence in New York resulted in a great deal of talk on a subject that the agency is usually rather quiet about."

What purpose would going public serve? The spate of stories provided an alert to New York precinct commanders to keep an eye on where Galante lives (an old, unprepossessing apartment house in Greenwich Village); where he eats (facing the door at a small restaurant near the Fulton Fish Market); where he "works" (a dry-cleaning business he supposedly owns in Little Italy); where he plays (his mistress's flat in Manhattan's Murray Hill section). Already this close surveillance has forced Galante to make one change: his 21-year-old daughter Nina used to cart him everywhere in a gold Eldorado, but now that the press has identified (and in gangland parlance "burned") her, Galante has had to switch chauffeurs.

Other than signaling the beginning of its campaign against Galante, the DEA may have been interested in pushing the story for another reason: to save itself from extinction. Early last month Attorney General Griffin Bell, noting that he considered drugs "the biggest crime problem in America," announced that he was looking into the possibility of dismantling the agency, an arm of the Justice Department, and letting the FBI alone handle narcotics investigations.

Little Man. Whatever the motives for singling out Galante, crime watchers agree that after being paroled from Lewisburg in 1974, he first gained control of Brooklyn's Joseph Bonanno family, one of the five major Mafia families in New York, then won the respect of the other New York capi. Says Lieut. Remo Franceschini, New York's intelligence chief for organized crime: "Most of the bosses might welcome a new image, a strong figure who would take the heat and let them get on with business." One boss, Aniello Dellacroce, 62, may have other ideas. Known for his own brand of ruthlessness, Dellacroce may be the only Mafia chieftain who might have the guts to challenge the little old man from Little Italy.

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