The FBI Director Who Denied the Mafia Existed for Decades

Hoover's staunch position, maintaining that only localized gangs operated in the U.S., allowed the Mafia to flourish relatively unmolested by federal law enforcement at a national level for much of the mid-20th century. It wasn't until the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, where state police famously busted a major summit of Mafia bosses in upstate New York, that overwhelming evidence forced the FBI to concede the existence of a national crime network. This event, coupled with subsequent revelations by defectors like Joe Valachi in the early 1960s, finally led the FBI to launch dedicated operations against what it then officially recognized as La Cosa Nostra.