Word: mafia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Covering the Mob," claims TIME'S New York-based Correspondent Sandy Smith, "is as safe as covering a Sunday-school picnic." The principal reporter for this week's cover story on "The Mafia at War," towering, jovial Smith has exposed much of organized crime's invisible empire, and in the process has become one of the best-known crime reporters in the nation...
Smith has made the Mafia his beat since the early 1950s, when he covered Chicago's underworld as a pavement-pounding police reporter, first for the Chicago Tribune and then the Chicago Sun-Times. During that period he cultivated unrivaled sources on both sides of the law. Smith also became known for the unorthodox tactics he used in his dogged pursuit of the Mob, which included crashing gangland soirees. When Smith showed up uninvited at a $20,000 wedding reception for the daughter of Sam ("Mooney") Giancana, the reputed Mafia chieftain pleaded for privacy. "Look at that kid," said...
...also done stories on corruption in government and radical protest. But his main beat remains the Mafia. Says Smith: "Everyone thinks there's something very special about covering organized crime, but there really isn't. It's like any other reporter's job; you roll up your sleeves and do it." Smith was not the only expert on the story. The task of reporting was shared by New York Correspondent John Tompkins, a co-author with Criminologist Ralph Salerno of a recent book on the subject, The Crime Confederation...
...amenities, like child-care centers, nursery schools and parks, has promoted a spirit of cooperation among its denizens, a spirit that began leaking from the Village long ago. The rate of street crime is very low-because, some artists maintain, the district overlaps into Little Italy, and the Mafia does not like petty rip-offs in its own backyard...
...M.S.I, gains were most pronounced in Sicily, where the party picked up eight seats for a total of 15 in the regional legislature. The Christian Democrats, by comparison, lost seven seats, which left them with 29. The Sicilian vote was interpreted as a response to a wave of Mafia terrorism...