McClellan Committee hearings, Part 32: "Mafia" (30 June-3 July 1958)

Printed hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Part 32, headed "Mafia." The chairman's opening statement starts with the gathering at Joseph Barbara's home at Apalachin; the first witness is Sgt. Edgar D. Crosswell.

Date

1958-06-30/1958-07-03

Kind

hearing

Source

Internet Archive, scan of the printed hearings (Boston Public Library copy)

Retrieved

2026-10-12

Docket

Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Hearings before the Select Committee, 85th Cong., 2d sess., Part 32 (printed pages from 12191)

Rights

A work of the United States Congress, printed by the Government Printing Office. Public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The Internet Archive item metadata lists the copyright status as not in copyright. Text quoted here is from the Archive's OCR of the print.

Part 32 of the Select Committee’s printed hearings is headed “Mafia” and covers hearings of 30 June to 3 July 1958 in the caucus room of the Senate Office Building, as the printed transcript says (p. 12191). Witnesses in the printed contents include Sgt. Edgar D. Crosswell of the New York State Police, Russell J. Bufalino, Vito Genovese, Joseph Profaci, John C. Montana, James V. LaDuca and Thomas Lucchese, and members of the committee staff. This page records the volume; the first witness is filed separately as Crosswell’s testimony. The later witnesses’ testimony has not been read for this archive.

In his opening statement (p. 12193) the chairman said: “As a starting point for our hearings, we intend to focus on the criminal group which held a meeting at the home of Joseph Mario Barbara, Sr., in Apalachin, N. Y., on November 14, 1957. The discovery of this meeting by the New York State Police had the effect of revealing the scope of the interrelationships of some of the leaders of the national crime syndicate.” He added: “It is important to understand from the outset that this criminal syndicate operation is not a localized one but national in scope. The fact that the gangland meeting took place in Apalachin, N. Y., does not in any way make this a localized New York problem.”

The volume prints a staff list headed “Individuals at Apalachin and Names of Some of Their Contacts and Associates” (pp. 12194-12201). The chairman had it placed in the record “just for guidance and information only,” saying it “will not be accepted as proof” and “is not evidence, and it is simply a memorandum prepared by the staff for information of the committee.” This archive does not reproduce that list. The printed contents also list exhibits, among them a map of where the attendees came from (Exhibit 7), pictures of Barbara’s home and farm (Exhibits 8 and 9) and a chart of the attendees’ activities (Exhibit 5); most are marked as held in the committee’s files and are not reproduced in the print.

The committee’s statements here are the committee’s own, made in 1958, and are not findings of a court. The Second Circuit later reversed the convictions that came out of the grand-jury questioning about the gathering; see United States v. Bufalino.