The mobsters and terrorists next door

The founder of the federal witness protection program talks about hiding killers in the suburbs and why even al-Qaida members can become law-abiding citizens.

By Suzy Hansen

Feb 28, 2002 | Since 1967, when Gerald Shur created the federal Witness Security Program, or WITSEC, almost 7,500 witnesses and their 14,000 family members have been relocated in the United States. That means that some of those 21,500 people -- former Mob hit men, Colombian drug gangsters, international terrorists, and their families (and lovers) -- might be shopping, getting takeout and attending PTA meetings in a quiet suburb near you. And, of course, the viability of WITSEC demands that you never know about their criminal past.

Shur retired from the U.S. Department of Justice's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section in 1994. During his 30-year tenure, he oversaw WITSEC's protection of 6,146 witnesses and their dependents. Shur offered freedom and anonymity to every Mafia witness since the 1960s (like Henry Hill of "Goodfellas" fame), members of Pablo Escobar's notorious Medellín cartel and Islamist terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in exchange for their testimony.

Not surprisingly, Shur came under fire for championing a program that lets seasoned criminals loose in society, even though 82 percent of them never commit another crime. For the most part, these criticisms of WITSEC are well documented in "WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program," Shur and journalist Pete Earley's collaborative account -- part memoir, part investigative history -- of Shur's years commanding the program. It's an entertaining and informative book, calibrating all the thrills of the criminal underworld with the finer frustrations of coordinating a controversial program among the many bickering departments in government. But for all the dirty details from WITSEC "snitches," one of the best, and most tragic, tales in the book is the story of Witness X, the wife of a Brooklyn mobster, who explains how her life fell apart after she was thrust into the program.

Shur and Earley spoke to Salon from their homes about how WITSEC convinced Mafia witnesses to break the code of "omertà" or silence, why international terrorists make good WITSEC candidates and how Shur himself at one time became a WITSEC participant.

This question is for Pete Earley: Were there certain criticisms of WITSEC that you were particularly curious about?

Earley: By its nature it is a very controversial program because you're taking people who are -- and this is not a word that Gerry uses, but I do -- snitches, and you're rewarding them.

Shur: That's a word that I always tell people not to use in front of me. These people are finally doing the right thing. They're cooperating.

Earley: Gerry says that he doesn't like the word "reward," but you're in essence letting them off the hook a little lighter than someone else to get the bigger fish.

Shur: Actually, it's not WITSEC that lets them off lighter. That has to do with another process. When we decide to put somebody in the witness program, we have no input into what their sentences would be.

How bad was the Mafia in 1961 when you started working for the Justice Department?

Shur: They dominated the criminal activity of most major cities. They were in over 50 different industries. In many areas, they controlled the movement of goods; in New York, they controlled things down to electrical permits, the garbage industry and building La Guardia Airport. They dominated many unions in the United States.

There are two positions inside La Cosa Nostra that make it different than organized crime. One is the corrupter, the person who's supposed to go out and bribe people -- councilmen, cops, agents -- so he can keep the operation going. The other one is the enforcer, the one who maintains the internal integrity of the organization, kills informants and witnesses and follows the code of omertà ["law of silence"].

Earley: The other thing you should realize was that not only did the Mafia have tremendously more power than it does today, but law enforcement knew very little about it. We've all seen "The Godfather," we've all seen "The Sopranos," but the truth is, until Joe Valachi [a 30-year veteran New York criminal and member of the Vito Genovese crime family who identified 317 mob members] came forward in the 1960s, nobody knew about any of that.

Shur: J. Edgar Hoover specifically didn't want to admit there was such a thing as the Mafia. So the FBI did not have a lot of resources devoted to fighting organized crime until Bobby Kennedy became attorney general and ordered it.

What made Valachi different? Why was he one of the first people to break this code of silence?

Shur: He was going to be murdered. He was in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, having been convicted on a narcotics case involving a very notorious racketeer named Vito Genovese. Then, one day, Valachi actually got this kiss on the cheek that you hear about, indicating that he was going to be done in. He decided that he knew who was going to kill him, picked up a lead pipe one day, whacked this guy over the head [in the prison yard]. He killed the wrong guy. Valachi goes to the warden and says, "Get me the feds, I want to talk to them."

Earley: What you discover when you talk to these Mafia types is that everybody wants to look in the mirror and feel good about themselves. They all had an explanation for turning against their former pals. Their general explanation was that they'd fallen out of favor and were about to get killed, or were going to do big time in a penitentiary. This was their way out.

Shur: That's one of the principal incentives. They would say, "They're going to kill me," or "They took away the moneymaking part of the business," or "I went to jail and did time and they didn't treat my family right."

Next Page: The witness who demanded a new penis

• View blog reactions