Paterson, New Jersey, 72–74, 87, 148, 171
Patriotic Garibaldi, 216
Pattison, John M., 95
Pay or Die (film), 223
pazienza, 5–6, 70, 114
Peano (minister of the interior, Italy), 185
Peconi, Salvatore, 52
Pecoraro, Giovanni, 26–27, 195
Pecorini, Alberto, 47, 48
Pennsylvania, xvii, 83, 89, 147–49, 158. See also specific city and town names
Pennypacker, Samuel W., 83, 95
Petrosino, Adelina Bianca Giuseppina, 165, 173, 174, 175, 184, 190, 199
Petrosino, Joseph
Alfano and, 119–21
“arrival” of, 65–66
assassination of, 198–99, 229–30
Bingham and, 102, 105, 166, 168–70, 171–73, 185, 190–91
Bomb Squad and, 153–55
Caruso and, 98–99
Cascio Ferro and, 26, 27–28, 178–79, 182, 243–44
child abductions and, xiv–xvi, xviii–xix, 32, 33, 34–35, 96–97, 98, 163
conspiracy theories about death of, 217–18
criticism of, 161–62
danger to, 143–44
daughter of (see Petrosino, Adelina Bianca Giuseppina)
disguises of, xiv, 16–17, 20–21, 65, 73–74, 99, 122, 252 n
early information on Black Hand, 29–30
early life and family of, 1–3, 4–10
eyes of, xiv, 252 n
fake identities of, 174–75, 189, 191, 193
as first Italian detective, 16–19
frustration of, 42–43
funeral of, 211–16, 246
gangster disappearances and, 124–25
insights into Black Hand Society, 142
introduction to, xiii–xiv
Italian immigrants and, xvii–xviii, 10–13, 22–23, 42–43, 80–81, 118, 132, 149, 245–46
Italian police and, 184–85
Italian Squad and (see Italian Squad)
legacy of, 244–46
Mannino case and, 32, 33, 34
mission of, xvii–xviii
mourners for, 208–11, 220–21
music and opera loved by, xiv, xix, 24, 165–66, 252 n, 253 n
niece of, 174
NYPD joined by, 10–14
NYPD’s indifference and, 37, 237
NYPD’s treatment of, 63–66, 70
organized resistance promoted by, 137
photographic memory of, xiv, 252 n
press and, 41–42
reputation and legend of, 23–25
secret mission to Italy, 172–73, 174–75, 177, 178–79, 182–88, 219
Secret Service and (see under Secret Service, U.S.)
in Sicily, 189–200
Society’s warnings against contacting, 110, 130
Theodore Roosevelt and, 16, 18, 201–2
wife of (see Saulino, Adelina)
Petrosino, Prospero, 2, 5
Petrosino, Vincent, 5
Petrosino, Vincenzo, 5, 186–87, 188
Pettaco, Arrigo, 40–41, 229
Petto, Tomasso “the Ox,” 26
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 88, 89, 158
Phillips, David Graham, 167
picciotto, 140
Pinkerton Detective Agency, 87, 148–49, 171–72
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 148
Pittsburgh Post, 160
Pizano, Paulina, 233–34
Pocantico Hills, New York, 159
Poli, Lieutenant (Italian police officer), 192–93
Pozzuoli prison, 244
Profaci, Giuseppe, 172–73
Prohibition, 243, 277 n
prostitution rings, 122
Pulitzer, Joseph, 16, 37, 41
Q
Quarnstrom, Oscar, 17–18
R
racism, 4, 13, 14, 17, 160–61
Raimo, Joseph, 233–34
Redmond, Commissioner, 169
Reeds Station, Kentucky, 158
Regina d’Italia (steamship), 225
Reid, Sidney, 69
Republican League headquarters, 209–10, 212
Riis, Jacob, 15–16
Rockefeller, John D., 158–59, 167–68, 207
Rockland County, New York, 155
Rome, Italy
Alfano and, 118
corruption in, 111–12
government in, 37, 73, 74
leaders in, 191
Petrosino in, 183–84, 185
police in, 47
Trivisonno brought from, 156
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 102–3
Roosevelt, Theodore
assassination plans, 193–94
Bingham compared to, 101–2
missing child and, 86
NYPD reform and, 15–16
Petrosino’s assassination and, 201–2
Petrosino’s reputation and, 18
police brutality and, 123
in White House, xvii, 41, 73, 75, 100
Rotolo, Nicolo, 237, 238
Rucker, George Napoleon “Nap,” 145–46
S
Sacco, Nicola, 245
San Francisco Call, 161
Santoro, Salvatore, 221
Sartorio, Enrico, 82
Saulino, Adelina
Joseph’s death and, 203, 205, 208, 209–10, 211, 212, 213–14, 216, 221–23
Joseph’s falling in love with, 106–8
Joseph’s marriage to, 150–52
Joseph’s trip to Italy and, 173, 174, 175, 178, 184, 190, 192, 199
Saulino, Vincenzo, 105–6, 107, 108, 150
Saulino’s (restaurant), 105–8
Schiff, Jacob Henry, 205
Sirocco, Jack (gang of), 234
Scranton, Pennsylvania, 157
Seaman, Arthur and Grace, 155
Searcy, C. D., 168
Sebastian, Saint, 216
secret service (Bingham’s), 166–75, 204
Secret Service, U.S.
Bresci investigation, 73
Petrosino’s appeal to, 72, 77–79, 85–86, 137
Petrosino’s assassination and, 204, 230
Petrosino’s history with, 72, 75, 76–77
Petrosino’s trip to Italy and, 193
selective protection by, 85–86, 87, 157
suggestion to investigate Sullivans, 170
Sellaro, Vincenzo, 109–12, 114, 215–16
Seminara, Salvatore, 194–95
sequestrazione, 141
Sherman, William Tecumseh, 212
Sibiria (steamship), 52
Sicily and Sicilians
Alfano and, 115–16
Black Hand recruitment and, 71
Cascio Ferro in, 178–82, 195, 196, 197, 219, 229, 230
Catholic Church in, 182
earthquake in, 206
immigrants from, 36, 57, 82, 146
Irish and, 10
language of, 13, 45
Mafia and, 206, 219–20, 244
monetary value of lives of, 82
murder rate in, 179
Muslims in, 179
northern Italians vs., 115, 146
Operation Husky (World War II), 244
Palizzolo and, 125
Petrosino disguised as, 17
Petrosino in, 189–200
Petrosino’s assassination and, 206
Petrosino’s detective work and, 26, 27, 28
police and, 11–12, 40
Sibiria crew, 52
Vachris and Crowley in, 224–25
in White Hand Society, 146
See also Palermo, Sicily
Silva, George, 45
Simonetti, Agent (in Naples), 116–17
Sineni (murderer), 17–18
Sing Sing, 18, 19–20, 22, 233
Siragossa, Antonio, 238–40, 241
Slavonia (steamship), 207–8
smallpox, 2, 21
socialism, 179
Society for the
Protection of Italian Immigrants, 42, 112–13, 204
Society of the Black Hand
Abate and, 132–34
about, xii–xiii
advertising, 121
aldermen and, 170
backlash inspired by, 36–37, 157–64
believed to be myth, xiii, 37, 251 n
Bingham’s appointment and, 102, 105
bombings in 1908, 152–55
Bozzuffi and, 128–32
child abductions, xiii–xv, 31–35, 234, 235–41
Corrao and, 113
courts and, 41
early members of, 19
early reports on, 29–30
evolution of, 58–62
“Executive Committee,” 71
as fad, 51
fighting back by citizens, 134–35
government control by, xiii, 93–95
indifference to NYPD, 168
initiation ceremony, 140
Italian immigrants and, xiii, xv, xviii, 29, 47–48, 83, 146–49
Italian police and, 218–19
Italian Squad’s battle against (see Italian Squad)
lingering of, 243
locations of, xvi
mobsters targeted by, 135–37
in 1915, 233–35
numbers in New York, 47
NYPD indifference to, 37, 71, 157
NYPD secret mission and, 173, 187
out in the open, 30–31
Palizzolo and, 125
Petrosino’s assassination and war against, 203–5, 211, 213, 221, 225–26, 227, 228
Petrosino’s battle against, xvii–xviii, 28, 37–38, 40, 41, 43, 49, 114, 121–22, 124–25, 127, 152, 155
in popular culture, 92–93
schemes of, 56–58
Secret Service and, 76–79
Sellaro and, 109–10, 112, 114
Theodore Roosevelt and, 193–94
as terror franchise, 140
victims of, xvi–xvii, 1, 42–43, 48, 84–91
White, Frank Marshall, on, 219
White Hand Society and, 146–48
Woods’s approach to, 235, 237–43
Sons of Italy. See Order of the Sons of Italy
Speranza, Gino, 112–13, 204
Spinella, Salvatore, 67–68, 253 n
Springfield, Massachusetts, 84
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 140
St. Joseph’s Italian Society, 157
St. Louis, Missouri, 48, 82, 83, 90, 132
St. Louis Dispatch, 32
stokers on steamships, 114–15
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 151, 165, 173, 213, 216
St. Peter’s, Rome, 184
Straus, Oscar, 170
Strong Arm Squad, 242
subway tunnel deaths, 112
Sullivan, Big Tim, 103–5, 167, 170, 225, 245
Sullivan, Little Tim
Bingham and, 168–69, 170
NYPD and, 103, 104, 105, 171
Petrosino’s assassination and, 204, 205
Tammany Hall and, 103, 104, 167
T
Taft, William Howard, 201, 208
Tammany Hall
Baker and, 226
Bingham and, 99, 225
Hearst and, 187
Italian immigrants and, 10, 39
judge in Carbone case, 19
McAdoo and, 39, 99
Petrosino and, 5
Society and, 242
Sullivans and, 103–4, 167
Tassarelli, James, 157
Taxae cancellariae et penitentiarieae romanae, 11
Terrio, John “the Immune,” 136–37
Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), 164
Tisza, István, 87
Tombs (detention center), 51, 122
Tomoso, Nicolo, 35
Train, Arthur, 22, 252 n, 253 n
Trivisonno, Godfrey, 156
troppa bircca, 141
Truglio, Frank, 215
Trunk Murder, 210, 257 n
U
Umberto I, King, 72, 74, 95, 191
United Bootblack Protective League, 215
United States government
House of Representatives, 84
Petrosino’s request for help from, 72, 77–79
See also McKinley, William; Roosevelt, Theodore; Taft, William Howard
uomo di rispetto, 115–16, 181
U.S. Steel Corporation, 148
V
Vachris, Anthony, 96, 162, 173, 175, 223–28
Valentino, Rudolph, 212
Valpetroso, Baroness Clorinda Peritelli di, 180
Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 245
Vazanini, Giuseppe, 83
Verdi, Giuseppe, xix, 214–15
Vetere, Giacento, 209
Victor Emmanuel III, King, xvii, 37, 117–18, 206–7, 222–23
Vigilance League, 42, 137
Virginia, 160
Volini, Carlo, 156
Volpe (police informant in Palermo), 194–95
W
Walston, Pennsylvania, 83
War of Italian Unification (1859), 106
Washington Post, 37, 54, 60–61, 62, 64, 73, 85, 91, 142–43, 204, 206–7, 218–19, 242
Washington Square Association, 170–71
Washington Times, 36
watch of death, 141
Weisbard, Meyer, 210
Wellsville, Ohio, 243
Wenzler, Ignace, 87
Wesson, Daniel B., 85–86
Westchester County, New York, 60–61, 83, 89, 134–35, 140, 159
West Virginia, 81, 113, 147, 156, 157–58, 159
White, Frank Marshall, 41, 47–48, 76, 219, 234, 241
White Hand Society, 146–48, 156–57, 161
white wingers, 7, 8
Williams, Aleck “Clubber,” 7–8, 10, 14, 41, 123, 174
Woods, Arthur
Italian Squad and, 103
Mule and, 154
as NYPD commissioner, 231–33, 234–35, 237–43
Petrosino’s assassination and, 218
Petrosino’s letter to Bingham and, 185
Petrosino’s wedding and, 151
Progressive movement and, 102–3
Vachris and, 227
World War I, 233, 245
World War II, 244
Z
Zarcone brothers, 237
Zarillo, Donato, 140
Introduction
IN THE MIDDLE of the snowless English winter of 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander overseeing the forthcoming invasion of Europe, was anxious to get the hell out of London. It was January, less than six months before D-Day, and it seemed to him that every Allied officer and VIP in the capital felt personally entitled to barge into his bustling office and bend his ear. The visitors never stopped, interrupting him and his staff, whose typewriters and footsteps and male voices created a constant, purposeful buzz in the rooms at 20 Grosvenor Square. The American ambassador, John Winant, was forever knocking on his door. Churchill was incorrigible. Today—he glanced down at his appointment book—Noel Wild of Ops (b) was due in, the head of an obscure sector in Eisenhower’s sprawling command: deception.
The general had been an early skeptic of deception, the shadow bureau of spies running around the Continent claiming they could fool Hitler and turn the tide of war. General George S. Patton, who much to his own disgust had been drafted into the effort as head of an imaginary one-million-man army called FUSAG, summed up the initial feelings of Eisenhower—and the current attitude of many other military and political leaders: “This damned secrecy thing is rather annoying,” he wrote, “particularly as I doubt if it fools anyone.”
Eisenhower had changed his mind about deception after witnessing its effectiveness firsthand in the Mediterranean. But in January 1944 he had many actual objects to worry about: destroyers and French railroads and the landing vessels called LSTs, which were maddeningly scarce and threatened to sink the invasion before it began. These very real and important things, not espionage, were what consumed his d
ays.
As he strode through his headquarters, bald, handsome and electric with physical vigor, Eisenhower appeared confident, “a living dynamo of energy, good humor, amazing memory for details, and amazing courage for the future.” His staff loved his relentless optimism, but inwardly and in his private letters to Mamie, the general agonized about what was about to happen. He was smoking four packs of Camels a day, and a journalist would later describe him as “bowed down with worry . . . as though each of the stars on either shoulder weighed four tons.”