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Many of the Kefauver Committee's hearings were aimed at proving that a Sicilian-Italian organization based on strong family ties centrally controlled a vast organized crime conspiracy in the United States, but the committee never came close to justifying such a claim.
Warren accused Kefauver of being an "ambition-crazed Caesar who is trying desperately and futilely" to be a presidential candidate. The committee's summary, which implicated the governor in illicit gambling activities, proved to be Warren's political downfall.
- Senator Kefauver
- Published Reports
- Committee Hearings
Carey Estes Kefauver, born July 26, 1903, in Tennessee, was a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Yale University law department. Following the death of U.S. Representative Sam Reynolds in 1939, Kefauver (a Democrat) was elected to complete Reynolds' term in the House. He was reelected to that office four times. In 1948, he was...
First Interim Report - Aug. 18, 1950 The first interim report of the committee describes what it learned of organized crime in Florida, cooperation of some law enforcement officers with gangsters and encroachment on Florida rackets by outside syndicates. Second Interim Report - Feb. 28, 1951 The second interim report provides basic information on t...
The twenty-one lengthy volumes of Kefauver Committee hearing transcripts are available in a variety of digital formats - including PDF, EPUB, Kindle and plain text - through the Internet Archive at Archive.org (contributed by Boston Public Library). We have provided links to the hearing volumes and summaries of their contents below: Part 1. Florida...
February 28, 1951 - Preliminary report from the Senator Estes Kefauver investigation that had begun on May 11, 1950 into organized crime is issued, stating that gambling take was in excess of $20 billion per year. Organized crime was rampant, a growing problem in cities across the United States.
Origins. In 1949 the American Municipal Association, representing more than 10,000 cities nationwide, petitioned the federal government to combat the growing influence of organized crime. First-term senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee drafted a resolution to create a special committee to investigate the issue.
The pervasive reach of organized crime in the United States has made it a target of investigations and legal action since the nineteenth century. Two of the most noteworthy attacks were the Kefauver investigation in the 1950s and the Knapp Commission hearings in the 1970s. Both investigations brought a new focus to this fight; the Kefauver ...
In May 1950, a little-known U.S. Senator named Estes Kefauver, a 47 year-old Democrat from Tennessee, began a series of investigative hearings on organized crime.
