GULF COAST CRIME
Most books on organized crime only mention the Gulf Coast passingly, more of a reference note than a subject of scholarly inquest. Compared to its East Coast counterparts, organized crime along the Gulf South lacks extensive scholarship. Gulf Coast Crime intends to bridge the gap in the existing literature, analyzing criminal organizations in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi as being geographically unique.
Inspired by academic works like Lee Bernstein's The Greatest Menace: Organized Crime in Cold War America, this book will not be a "True Crime" expose' or narrative, but rather a dissection of how the states mentioned above both viewed and responded to what they considered to be "organized crime." While each state will be analyzed individually, this will ultimately be a holistic approach to organized crime in the Gulf South by examining the following investigative committees from the early 1950s:

LOUISIANA:
THE KEFAUVER COMMITTEE
JANUARY- FEBRUARY 1951
Formed in January 1950 to investigate the relationship between organized crime and interstate commerce, the Kefauver Committee held hearings in New Orleans from late January into early February 1951. In his retrospective work reflecting on his time on the committee, Kefauver wrote that organized crime in New Orleans was "enormously evil and dangerous." Gulf Coast Crime will demonstrate how the Kefauver Committee was motivated by post-war moralism and nativism, and that "the Mafia" wasn't a secret society imported from Italy, but rather a homegrown alliance of machine politicians, law enforcement, East Coast gangsters, and local hoods.
TEXAS:
CRIME INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE
MARCH 1951 - MARCH 1953
Inspired by the Kefauver Committee and the individual crime commissions popping up in its wake, legislators created a committee to investigate "organized criminal activities in the state of Texas" and the "failure and/or refusal of local enforcement officials to enforce the criminal law...." Gulf Coast Crime will place this Texas Crime Probe into a broader context, illustrating how it suffered from some of the same prejudices of the Kefauver Committee. While criminal networks across the entire state will be analyzed, particular attention will be paid to the murder of Houston gambling figure Vincent Vallone and how Sherrif C.V. Kern used his murder trial to invent salacious stories of the Mafia in Southeast Texas for eager newspaper readers.


MISSISSIPPI:
COMMITTEE OF ARMED SERVES GAMBLING INVESTIGATION
OCTOBER 1951
In Biloxi, gambling wasn't just a moral concern, but a potential threat to the armed services. Concerned parents of airmen housed at Keesler Air Force Base complained about the "circle of thugs" who were taking advantage of the nation's youth via commercialized gambling. One month after the committee bearing his name was disbanded, Senator Estes Kefauver served on the Subcommittee on the Armed Services, with then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson acting as its chair, to investigate the
"gambling evil" that had long been tolerated on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Gulf Coast Crime will not only demonstrate the attempts to echo the conclusions of the Kefauver Committee by tying gambling in Biloxi to alleged New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, but will also analyze the relationship between citizenship, military service, and the participation in vice. Special attention will also be paid to the career of Harry Bennett, one of the gamblers called before the committee, whose 1967 gangland-style murder unleashed an incredibly violent decade for the loose association of criminals the press dubbed the "Dixie Mafia."
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PROJECT TIMELINE
This book is still very much in its preliminary research stage. Thousands of pages of declassified FBI documents, congressional hearings, and newspaper accounts will all be analyzed in concert to deliver a final product. Additional FOIA requests will need to be submitted and fulfilled. A handful of grants will be applied for to assist with research, mainly to support travel costs to both Texas Tech's Southwest Collection, which houses the original files of the Texas Crime probe, and the National Archives, which houses the records of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission from the 1950s and 1960s. Project updates and excerpts will be periodically posted on this website to update those interested.
