Pricenomics has a long, fascinating article about the origins of the Witness Protection Program.
Gerald Shur was struggling to convince his witness to testify. The year was 1961, and Shur, an attorney focused on organized crime at the Department of Justice, was talking to the owner of a New York trucking company who claimed that Johnny "Sonny" Franzese demanded half the profits of his business. Franzese's men had vandalized his trucks and beaten him unconscious with baseball bats until he complied, and now the owner hoped that Shur could offer him a way out. But when Shur suggested testifying against Franzese, the witness responded, "Testify?"
He had good reason to be incredulous. For Franzese, a member of one of the "Five Families" of the New York mafia, extorting a small business owner represented low-level crime. An associate wearing a wire would later record Franzese discussing the best way to commit murder: he would cover his fingertips with nail polish, wear a hairnet, and dismember the body so that he could run it through the garbage disposal.
The article includes a review Witsec: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program, "a rare insider's account of the Witness Protection Program."
