Word: lewisburg
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...controversy over the trial has continued for nearly 30 years. Who was telling the truth? Was it the serene and unfailingly courteous Hiss, who went to Lewisburg prison for 44 months and today, at age 73, still professes innocence? Or was it his brooding, tormented accuser, Whittaker Chambers, who died on his Maryland farm in 1961? Despite a dozen books and hundreds of articles about the case, many of them little more than briefs for one side or the other, the question has not been answered conclusively. Now Allen Weinstein, a respected historian at Smith College, has turned up previously...
...Chunky, balding Carmine Galante, 67, who has spent nearly half his life in prison for bootlegging, gambling, narcotics trafficking, extortion, assault and homicide. Known to associates as "Lillo" and "the Cigar," he has an unrivaled reputation for ruthlessness. During his latest term in prison, 15 years at Lewisburg federal penitentiary, even the guards feared him. Says a Mafia defector: "If you don't jump when he says to, there's no second chance." Comparing Galante with Gambino, New York Mafia Expert Salerno says: "If someone got out of line, Gambino would say, 'Lean on him a little,' and then...
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...
...idea behind the book is to get us to see Alger Hiss as do those close to him, as "Al", the disciplined, kind, warm father and husband who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So we learn of Al's love for baseball and his Lewisburg homerun (astounding the other inmates), his enthusiasm for the law, and his bleak days in New York City standing in the unemployment line next to actor Jack Gilford. The best part of the book chronicles Hiss's stay in prison and his troubles after returning to civilian life...
...While in Lewisburg, the elder Hiss made his share of friends, the closest being, surprisingly, the Italian convicts who dubbed him "Alberto" and watched after him. At one point, these friends introduced Hiss to Mafia chieftain Tony Costello, who claimed he had been put away on a bum rap, too. There is the chilling story of two cons, incited by a prison guard, who seriously contemplated killing Hiss until talked out of the idea by one of Alberto's friends. Then, after being released, Hiss faced the frustration of trying to find work with a shattered reputation and a disintegrating...