The Valachi Hearings – The Profumo Scandal

Busy month for scandals, revelations and upheavals. September 1963 was no different, it seems. On this September day, the McClellan Crime Committee hearings were in full swing on Capitol Hill, with star witness, organized crime figure Joseph Valachi, ready to commit bombings and testify about the activities of one of the most secret societies in America to date; the Cosa Nostra, or Mafia as we know them.

Valachi was scheduled to testify publicly later in the week, but that didn’t stop bombs from falling. Testimony came from a number of other witnesses who revealed previously unknown inner workings of the Mafia. It all made for great TV and compelling radio.

While he revealed the existence of these syndicates and that they were referred to as “families,” he also revealed the names of the Five Families of New York City. According to Valachi, the original bosses of the Five Families were Charles Luciano, Tommaso Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, Salvatore Maranzano, and Vincent Mangano. At the time of his testimony in 1963, Valachi revealed that the current bosses of the Five Families were Tommy Lucchese, Vito Genovese, Joseph Colombo, Carlo Gambino, and Joe Bonanno. These have been the names most commonly used to refer to the New York Five Families ever since, despite years of overthrow and changing bosses in each.

And on the other side of the Atlantic, another scandal rocked the British government. The name Christine Keeler was Topic A in conversations in London this month. Keeler was a prostitute (aka: Call Girl – Good-time Girl – Working Girl) who was linked to affairs with John Profumo, the Minister of War, and Soviet agent Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy in London. Keeler was accused of passing secrets to Ivanov via pillow talk with Profumo, and the scandal erupted into a political crisis for the MacMillan government that ultimately ended the career of John Profumo and briefly threw Downing Street into chaos.

Less hysterical, but no less controversial, was the news that President Kennedy had requested permission for grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and that Congress had passed a tax cut package approved by Kennedy.

And all that, and much more, happened on that September 23, 1963, as reported by NBC Radio News On The Hour and a special report on the Valachi hearings.

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