B. wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2020 3:57 am There may have been more connections to Sicily than we know about.
- A group of around 40 Sicilian men, many believed to be mayors, toured the US in late 1962 and visited US cities where mafia families were located. They initially arrived in Chicago where they were hosted by local Sicilians, including Wisconsin-based mafia member John DiBella, who had purchased Grande Cheese from Chicago mafia members Ross Prio and Tom Oneglia many years earlier.
- John DiBella was inducted into the mafia in Sicily, became a Bonanno member in NYC, then retired to Wisconsin where he ran Grande Cheese. He was a friend of Chicago mafia members Jim DeGeorge and Frank LoGalbo, who also lived in Wisconsin, as well as former Chicago members in Madison. Then there's the Prio / Oneglia connection. It's not surprising he would be part of the group's welcome party in Chicago.
- From Chicago, DiBella sent the Sicilian visitors to California, where they met with the leadership of the San Jose mafia family. San Jose capodecina Angelo Marino contacted mafia figures in Los Angeles and Las Vegas so that the Sicilian visitors could meet with mafiosi there. Marino also told a San Jose member informant that one of these Sicilian tourists was the Mayor of Palermo and an important mafia member in Sicily. This was surely Salvo Lima, who was at this time Mayor of Palermo. This detail and the Sicilian group's meetings with local mafia figures in Chicago and California suggest that many of these Sicilian tourists were mafia members themselves.
- Stefano Magaddino makes reference to this traveling group of Sicilians as well and they appear to have visited other mafia cities in the US aside from those mentioned above.
- It is likely some of the local "Sicilians" who met the touring group in Chicago were members of the Chicago family and probably included some of Chicago's leaders. It is impossible to say whether the Chicago welcome party included only Sicilians or if the San Jose informant assumed/generalized on this point. Either way, John DiBella would have been in a position to make a formal introduction between these men and Chicago mafia members as "amico nostra" given his relationship to both the Sicilian mafia and the Chicago family.
- If Tony Accardo was one of the local Chicago figures who met with the 40 Sicilian tourists, including the mafioso Mayor of Palermo Salvo Lima, this would have given him a whole range of important contacts in Sicily. And this is just one instance that we know about. Sicilians often visited the US and sometimes made a point to network with national mafia figures. Given how long Tony Accardo was a mafia leader in Chicago, it is difficult to know who all he may have made contact with, especially when you factor in his travels to NYC/NJ for Commission meetings and other national events.
This 1962 tour was mentioned, briefly, in several US newspapers, though the attendees in specific cities were not named. In March of 1962, Corriere del Poppolo, an Italian-language paper published in San Francisco, reported that Palermo Mayor Salvo Lima had spearheaded an initiative called "Ritorno in Sicilia" (Return to Sicily), which aimed to stimulate Americans, and specifically Sicilians living in the US, to visit Sicily. The initiative had attracted the support of Sergio Fenoaltea, Italian ambassador to DC. Lima's "Ritorno" also had the support of Giuseppe D'Angelo, President of the Region of Sicily, and aimed to establish committees in several US cities. In 1962, the Director of the Italian government agency L'Agenzia d'Italia (AGIT), Antonio Lezza, established "Inform", a body dedicated to Italians living overseas working with and under AGIT. Corriere del Poppolo reported that Lezza was received in the US by Ambassador Fenoaltea, with the purpose of holding talks in US cities related to the "Ritorno" project and the publication of English-language materials directed at Italian-Americans. Discussions concerning these endeavors were to be held in NYC, Philly, Boston, New Haven, Trenton, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco, and LA with Italian consular representatives and local community leaders. In another article, several days later, Corriere del Poppolo reported that the Italian Undersecretary of Emigration, Giuseppe Lupis, had met with Salvo Lima (President of the "Ritorno in Sicilia" committee), Giovanni Gioia (President of the Provincial Administration of Palermo), Michele Reina (General Secretary of the "Ritorno" committee), and AGIT Director Antonio Lezza to discuss the "Ritorno" initiative, which Lupis expressed interest in.B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:58 pm - A mysterious group of Sicilian politicians / businessmen visited the US in the early 1960s ostensibly to promote tourism to Italy/Sicily. They initially visited Chicago where they met with unnamed local members and were greeted by Bonanno member John DiBella. They also visited Buffalo and the CA Bay Area where they attended a banquet with the San Jose leadership.
- Angelo Marino told one of the San Jose informants that among this group was the Mayor of Palermo, who he said was a made member that stayed the night at Marino's father's house. The mayor at that time was Salvo Lima, so this would seem to confirm the question of his membership. Buscetta said Lima's father was a member in Sicily but didn't know about Salvo's status.
- Tying back to Philly, I believe there's a report about how Vallelunga boss Calogero Sinatra met up with this group as he was visiting his cousin Angelo Bruno in the US at the time.
Given the group included at least one important Sicilian mafia member and they were hosted by different US Families my presumption is these were mafiosi. Wouldn't surprise me if the Chicago meeting included Rockford given their Sicilian ties but aside from DiBella from Wisconsin there's nothing about the attendees.
With support from both DC and Rome, Lima made his tour of the US in September and October of 1962. This was how the Omaha World-Herald (September 09, 1962) described the planned tour (the tour was also reported briefly in some other US papers):
On October 03, 1962, the DC Evening Star reported that the "Ritorno" traveling group was to hold a gala in DC as well:
Now, this actually wasn't Lima's first time in the US. In 1961, Lima, accompanied by Paolo Bevilacqua (Palermo politician who was originally from Pietraperzia, where possible Chicago member Santo Virruso was from. Bevilacqua succeeded Lima as Palermo Mayor in 1964) toured the US for several weeks with a group that included the Mayors of Rome, Milan, Turin, and Bologna. They visited Philly, Baltimore, and Boston. In the latter city, they were received by Teddy Kennedy, who had personally visited Sicily and met with Lima earlier in 1961. In DC, they were received by Ambassador Fenoaltea. In NYC, they were feted at a ceremony by Mayor Robert Wagner, which included a large group of leaders of the NYC Italian community. Following this, Lima was honored at a banquet in NYC at the Commodore Hotel in Midtown hosted by Vincenzo Martinez. Martinez, from Marsala, Trapani, ran the Italian-language paper Il Progresso italo-americano (owned by Generoso Pope, said to have been a close personal friend of Frank Costello) and was also the Secretary of the Macaroni Employers Association at one point. Martinez has also been stated to have been close to both Frank Garofalo and Carmine Galante; I'm not sure myself if he was a Bonanno member or a Trapani member. In 1965, Martinez was arrested in Sicily in an Italian bust of a narcotics trafficking ring that included Giuseppe Genco Russo, Frank Garofalo, Rosario Vitaliti, and Frank "Tre Ditti" Coppola (Italian authorities stated they had begun monitoring the movements of known mafia members in 1962, leading to this bust). Several days after the Commodore Hotel banquet for Lima, police confiscated two letters from Garofalo that mentioned Lima's visit and the banquet.
Lima's 1961 and 1962 visits to the US were discussed briefly in a recently published doctoral dissertation by historian Vincenzo Cassarà, at the University of Florence, titled "Salvo Lima: L’anello di congiunzione tra mafia e politica (1928–1992)". Cassarà argues that, though these visits were ostensibly about the life of Italians living in the US, Lima used these activities as an opportunity to "renew the old mafia relations" between the US and Sicily. Lima, of course, told the Giornale di Sicilia that he wished to counter the "negative propaganda" about Sicily's backwardness from figures such as Danilo Dolci.
The fact that B's information points to Chicago being the first stop on the 1962 visit is interesting. It seems that Lima covered the East Coast already in 1961; in 1962, he may have returned to focus on the Midwest, Buffalo, and the West Coast. We don't know who met with Lima in Chicago apart from Wisconsin-based Bonanno member John DiBella; apart from Rockford, it's possible that Milwaukee, Madison, or Springfield could've sent representatives. For Chicago itself, admin/senior members such as Giancana, Accardo, Ricca, or Ferraro would've probably been too hot (Ricca was the only non-Sicilian in that group, but he retained major personal and political ties to Naples). Some guesses would be elderly Chicago member Giuseppe Priola (from Ficarazzi, father of Rockford member Phil Priola), Phil Bacino (from Ribera), "Little Joe" Aiello (longtime official in the Hod Carriers Union [LIUNA] and President of the Società San Giuseppe di Bagheria in Chicago), Wisconsin-based Chicago members Jim DeGeorge (former capo, from Ribera) and Frank LoGalbo, LA/Gary-based member Tony Pinelli (former capo, from Calascibetta, one-time head of the Calascibetta Society in Chicago), or Chicago Heights member Salvatore DiGiovanni (suspected as a former capo by the FBI; from Caccamo), as well as Sicilian members of the Northside crew such as capo Rosario Prio (from Ciminna), Tony DeMonte, etc. Given that the visit was ostensibly to promote tourism to Sicily, I also wonder if Nick Nitti could've been involved. Nitti (not Sicilian, Barese; longtime Outfit associate and grandfather of reputed current Chicago member Jason Nitti; entirely unrelated to Frank Nitto) ran the Nitti Travel Agency with Accardo's son Anthony Ross Accardo. Nick Nitti was a frequent traveler to Italy, and later in the 60s accompanied Tony Accardo, Genovese member Gaetano "Tony Goebbels" Ricci, and Paul Ricca's sister Emily De Lucia on a trip to Italy (unknown who they might've met with there). In the following decades, Chicago had links to all 4 major Italian mafia organizations (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unità), and I personally suspect that the Nitti Travel agency was an important conduit and cover for the Chicago mob's ties to Italy. Nick Nitti also seems to have been responsible for booking travel and hotel accommodations for Chicago members domestically, as he told the FBI that he had often done so for Phil Alderisio (who appears to have functioned as a liaison between Chicago and some other LCN families).
Now, here's another interesting thing. In September of 1962, the FBI received intel that the Nitti Travel Agency had booked a two-day convention at the mob-connected Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas for something called the "Oak Park Fellowship Club". The FBI was informed by a CI involved in the planning of this that the organization was "composed of only those individuals of Italian extraction". The group had chartered an aircraft from Chicago and was due to arrive in Vegas 10/03. The FBI subsequently had the CI who supplied this intel contact a "Robert Nitti" (referred to erroneously in the FBI document as the son of Frank Nitto, who, so far as I know, did not have a son named Robert. This was either Nick Nitti or an actual Robert Nitti who was the son of one of Nitti's apparent relatives Vito Nitti) at the travel agency, while an agent listened in, to confirm that the deluxe suite at the Dunes should be reserved. Nitti instructed the CI to reserve the suite, but when the CI asked Nitti to state the name of the actual guest to put down, Nitti replied to use Nitti's name and that when the actual guest arrived "You might know him. You'll see him when he gets there". So, at exactly the same time that Lima and his group were in the US and had visited Chicago, the Outfit booked a mysterious convention just for Italians at the Dunes. Quite possible that Accardo and other high-ranking Chicago members did not want to be seen meeting in Chicago with Lima and his delegation and instead choose to do it behind closed doors in Vegas.
