Pennsylvania Organized Crime Commission

The Pennsylvania Organized Crime Commission appears in the account chiefly through its 1980 report, “A Decade of Organized Crime,” which presented organized crime in Pennsylvania as a network of influence extending beyond the boundaries of individual Mafia families. Its most striking finding was that Russell Bufalino held sway over members of families once associated with other powerful names. The Commission’s account thus serves as a public institutional record of Bufalino’s reach, not merely as background to his private relationship with Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa.

The Commission’s Public Record

The cited report was issued in 1980, amid continuing government pressure on Bufalino. The book draws on it as a formal assessment of organized crime, placing the Commission’s conclusions alongside the narrative’s accounts of personal alliances, business connections, and criminal activity. The report’s importance lies in the scale of the claim it makes: it describes power no longer contained within separate family structures, but gathered under a single figure.

The quoted conclusion is categorical: “There are no more Magaddino…or Genovese crime families—the members in these families are now under the control of Russell Bufalino.” The statement does not simply rank Bufalino among other bosses; it describes a shift in the organization of authority, with members of once-distinct families brought under his control. In the book’s portrait, the Commission’s report gives that consolidation an official documentary form.

Mapping Bufalino’s Reach

The finding presents organized crime as a connected structure rather than a collection of isolated local groups. By naming the Magaddino and Genovese families and asserting Bufalino’s control over their members, the Commission’s report depicts influence that crossed inherited family boundaries. Its framing makes Bufalino a coordinating power whose reach exceeded the territory or membership of one family.

The account also places this assessment against Bufalino’s broad network of contacts. Sheeran describes driving him on business trips across Pennsylvania and New York, and recalls taking him to Apalachin in 1957; later, he recounts meetings at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Lounge in Hollywood, Florida, where figures from around the country gathered. Those scenes are the narrator’s recollections, not findings attributed to the Commission, but they give context to the report’s picture of power operating across regional lines.

Business Interests and Wider Connections

The Commission also identified Bufalino as a silent partner in Medico Industries, described in the account as the largest supplier of ammunition to the United States government. That finding places him not only within a criminal hierarchy but in a concealed business relationship connected to a major government supplier. The word “silent” is central to the portrait: the interest was consequential precisely because it was not openly presented as his.

The surrounding account describes additional dimensions of Bufalino’s business and political connections, including secret interests in Las Vegas casinos and earlier ownership of a racetrack and major casino near Havana, held with the support of Fulgencio Batista. After Fidel Castro toppled Batista in 1959, Bufalino lost substantial property, including those Cuban holdings. These details extend the setting around the Commission’s findings, while the report itself is specifically credited with identifying the Medico Industries connection and describing Bufalino’s control over members of other families.

Significance in the Narrative

The Commission’s report supplies an institutional counterpoint to Sheeran’s first-person recollections of friendship and access. In those memories, Bufalino is the man who asks him to drive, shares wine and meals, and knows his family; the Commission’s assessment depicts the broader power behind that familiar presence. The contrast helps explain why association with Bufalino carried weight in the book: private loyalty connected Sheeran to a network whose influence, according to the Commission, reached beyond a single crime family.

The Commission is not presented through its internal structure, investigative procedures, or individual members. Its role in this account is concentrated in the two findings quoted or attributed to its 1980 report: Bufalino’s control over members of the Magaddino and Genovese families, and his silent partnership in Medico Industries. Together, those findings make the Commission a source for the book’s portrait of organized crime as both a system of personal authority and a set of concealed business relationships.