• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘My office faced the swimming pool,’ said Witwer, ‘and one of the agents was in there with me one evening. He looked out the window – we had torches by the pool at night – and he saw McClanahan, and he said, “Allan, what’s he doing here? D’you know who he is?” And I said, “Sure.” And he said, “I bet you don’t. He’s a partner of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.” And I said, “Well, tell Hoover that! He has breakfast with him every morning.” I got a kind of shock that Hoover would allow McClanahan to be with him at all.’

McClanahan remained Edgar’s regular poolside companion at the Del Charro until 1959, when he went on trial for tax evasion.4 Another, reportedly, was Johnny Roselli, the West Coast henchman of Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana. ‘I knew Hoover,’ Roselli would say breezily years later. ‘I’d buy him drinks, and we’d talk. It was fun to be with the Director of the FBI like that.’

In the mid-fifties, as Murchison’s two sons became more involved in the business, the family’s money became inextricably involved with Mafia money. The Murchisons’ affairs were probed constantly between 1955 and 1965 – by two congressional committees and no fewer than nine federal agencies.

In the early fifties, according to a Senate committee, 20 percent of the Murchison Oil Lease Company was owned by the Vito Genovese crime family. Handridge Oil, a Murchisonowned outfit, was the subject of a deal with Las Vegas gamblers involving massive security violations. There were also to be deals with Jimmy Hoffa, the crooked boss of the Teamsters Union, and Clint, Jr., established financial ties with Mafia boss Marcello.

It was Edgar who suggested the Murchisons hire one of his own former administrative assistants, Thomas Webb. A seventeen-year FBI veteran, Webb was to have an interest in the Murchison meat deal that was part of the Bobby Baker scandal during the Johnson presidency. According to Baker, he and Webb once traveled together to make a political contribution – cash in a white envelope, no questions asked. Webb, Baker said, was ‘the fixer for the Murchisons in Washington, the bagman.’ Also, according to Baker and others, he ‘worshiped’ Edgar.

It was a Murchison aide who introduced Edgar to Washington lobbyist Irving Davidson. Davidson has been linked to the Teamsters and organized crime. He was involved in the Murchison meat deal and, more recently, was the go-between for Clint Murchison, Jr., and Carlos Marcello during the sting operation that sent the Mafia boss to prison in 1983.

‘I’m a great admirer of Mr Hoover, and I did have access,’ said Davidson. ‘We used to have parties before the Redskin games, at Tom Webb’s house or my house, and Hoover always came to them. He was a darned good friend. I lived around the corner from him, three quarters of a block. I’d go over and say hello to him and Clyde Tolson. If Mr Tolson was sick I’d bring him a Cowboy jersey or some Polish kielbasa.’5

In the late fifties, while monitoring a bug on Murray ‘The Camel’ Humphries in Chicago, surprised agents heard their boss’ name mentioned. Humphries was the head of the ‘Connection Guys,’ the criminal group with special responsibility for corruption of public officials. He was talking, with evident knowledge and interest, about Edgar’s friendship with Clint Murchison.

‘Murchison owned a piece of Hoover,’ Bobby Baker mused in an interview for this book. ‘Rich people always try to put their money with the sheriff, because they’re looking for protection. Hoover was the personification of law and order and officially against gangsters and everything, so it was a plus for a rich man to be identified with him. That’s why men like Murchison made it their business to let everyone know Hoover was their friend. You can do a lot of illegal things if the head lawman is your buddy.’

Everywhere they went, Edgar and Clyde indulged a passion for horseracing. At Hialeah in Florida and Del Mar in California, at Bowie and Pimlico in Maryland, Charles Town in West Virginia and Belmont in New York, Edgar’s face was