Project Green

To U.S. narcotics agents in Dallas last week came an anxiously awaited message:

TARGET DATE AND HOUR PROJECT GREEN THURSDAY MORNING MAY 21 6 AM EDT.

To other agents across the country rattled similar orders. Project Green was efficiently carried out--and in its bag wound up 21 of the sleepiest-eyed bigtime hoods to be collared in many a long year. For Project Green was aimed at the guests at the Apalachin barbecue.

Grilled Barbecuers. That barbecue was held on Nov. 14, 1957 on the secluded, 53-acre estate of one Joseph Barbara, 53, ostensibly a soft-drink bottler, at Apalachin (pronounced Apple-achin') in upstate New York. A state cop stumbled onto it almost by accident: he noticed droves of big black Cadillacs and Imperials pouring into town from all directions, traced them to the place where they converged, and barged in on 60 of the most senior statesmen in U.S. organized crime. On sight of a uniform, the hoods fled through the woods like so many Br'er Rabbits with Br'er Fox hot on their heels. A few of them have never since been seen in civilized society. Those who were nabbed told pretty much the same story. Each just happened to be driving through Apalachin (from points as far distant as Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas and Tucson), just happened to notice lights on in the Barbara house, just happened to stop in for get-well-quick wishes to ailing Joe Barbara, who is a cardiac case. By equal coincidence, Barbara just happened to have on hand a few steaks (200 lbs.) to feed the boys.

The Apalachin meeting has become a milestone in the history of organized gangdom. It is also a major mystery. The most authentic explanation so far is that the hoods were sitting as judges and jurors in the trial of one of their own, Carmine Lombardozzi, who had apparently tried to muscle in on some of his peers' rackets. But nearly all the barbecuers, called one by one before county and state grand juries, before congressional committees and Government agencies, kept silence. On that silence Project Green was based.

Impossibly Difficult. Studying the mass of uninformative testimony, Justice and Treasury Department officials came up with the idea of hooking the most recalcitrant members on an unusual charge: conspiracy to obstruct justice (possible sentence: five years' imprisonment and/or $5,000 fine each) on the basis of their concerted refusal to talk (three of the 21 were also indicted on straight perjury charges). By that legal device, the Government hopes to put some of the top U.S. thugs out of circulation--certainly a worthy aim. Yet achieving that aim might prove impossibly difficult. Although circumstantial evidence is given substantial weight in conspiracy trials, it must nonetheless be proved that the Apalachin mobsters have refused to talk through group decision, not as individuals just trying to get out of trouble.

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