NCJ Number
126559
Date Published
1989
Length
508 pages
Annotation
This book tells the story of the Jackie Presser family, from the birth of labor racketeering in the 1930's through the Watergate scandal and into the Reagan Administration.
Abstract
Jackie Presser rose from a car thief to a White House dinner guest with the help of both the Mafia and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While indisputably taking orders from organized criminals, he climbed the ranks of the nation's biggest labor union. He secretly served as the FBI's top organized crime informant, codenamed ALPRO. Jackie was the son of Teamsters union power Bill Presser, the thrice-convicted labor racketeer who was despised by the Kennedys but who helped Nixon compile his notorious "enemies list." It was not until the 1970's when Jackie Presser hooked up with the FBI as a top informant that his career skyrocketed. Presser's career as ALPRO was difficult, since the U.S. Justice Department's Strike Force and the FBI clashed over how to handle him. The Justice Department sought to prosecute him, while the FBI wanted to protect him as a valuable informant. The book's view of the Teamsters Union is based on the author's unique access to secret grand jury material, classified FBI reports, confidential investigative files of the Department of Labor, top secret FBI informant files, and interviews with Presser intimates. Notes, bibliography, and index