The Devil and Sonny Liston

by Nick Tosches

  "No, I don't remember dictating it."

  "Is that your wife's handwriting?" Kefauver asked.

  "I couldn't say."

  "Do you read at all?" Dirksen asked.

  "No, sir, I don't."

  "He says he has no memory of dictating such a letter," interjected Sonny's counsel, Jacob Kossman, as if operating on a slight time delay. (Later Sonny would explain how he had chosen his attorney: "Well," as he put it, "I was downtown and I see him with Blinky.")

  "Nothing whatsoever?"

  "He can't read," Kossman spoke again.

  Bonomi resumed reading aloud from the letter:

  "-are great fellows and I hope they will do all they can to get me a shot at the title. Well, I will close. Hope to hear from you soon. Oh, yes, I have moved out of the hotel. My wife and mother said hello."

  Bonomi asked, "Weren't you referring there to Frank 'Blinky' Palermo?"

  "If I was referring to him, I would have said him."

  "Do you know of any other Franks that are interested in your management outside of perhaps Frank 'Blinky' Palermo?"

  "Besides what?"

  "What is that?"

  "Besides what? There is a whole lots of people interested."

  "Who else named Frank, in April or May of 1960, could get you a crack at the title?"

  "Frank Kerr. I know a million Franks."

  "Who is Frank Kerr?"

  "Some guy in Philadelphia."

  "Was he a manager?"

  "Not that I recall."

  "What is his occupation?"

  "I couldn't say. I don't know."

  "How could he get you a crack at the title?"

  "Through friends."

  "Through friends. What friends did this man have?"

  "I don't know what friends do he have."

  "What other Franks do you know, outside of this man Frank Kerr, who can supposedly get you a crack at the title?"

  "Patterson," Liston said dryly.

  "Frank Patterson? What is his occupation?" Bonomi demanded, as if swept by a strange, sudden belief that all men named Frank were guilty until proven innocent.

  "You said what other man."

  Finally Kefauver interrupted: "It could be Frank Carbo?"

  "Yes," Sonny said, "it could be Frank Carbo."

  "Did you mean Frank Carbo?" Bonomi pursued.

  "I didn't write that, and I couldn't tell." said Liston.

  "Who were you referring to?" Kefauver implored. "Do you know?"

  "No, I don't know."

  "Do you want to tell us," Bonomi said, "in light of that letter, whether or not Frank Palermo acts as an undercover manager for you?"

  "Not that I know of."

  Sonny was asked if he had seen Pep Barone lately. Two or three weeks ago, Sonny said.

  "Did he say anything about coming down here?" Kefauver asked, referring to Barone's subpoena.

  "Well, he said he had to come down."

  "He didn't come."

  "Yes."

  "Did you see him in the hospital since he has been there?"

  "He is getting badder and badder."

  "He is getting bad?"

  "He is getting badder and badder."

  "I don't believe Mr. Barone is licensed in Pennsylvania anymore, is he?"

  "No, sir, he isn't."

  "So you don't have any licensed manager now?"

  "It don't look like it."

  "Who is making your fights for you now?"

  "No one."

  No one. Outis. The baddest motherfucker of them all. Badder than a million Frankies.

  And that was just about the truth of it - no one.

  Carbo himself was hauled down from Riker's to appear before the Senate subcommittee the day after Blinky and Sonny appeared. "This is not a trial, this is not a court," Kefauver entreated. "Do you understand what I have said, Mr.Carbo?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "What is your occupation?"

  "I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds that I cannot be compelled to be a witness against myself."

  "The Chair directs you to answer the question."

  "I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds that I cannot be compelled to be a witness against myself."

  "Were you associated with, or have an interest in a contract with, John Vitale of St. Louis, Frank Palermo of-"

  "I respectfully -"

  "Wait, Mr. Carbo. Wait until I finish the question. You do not know what I am going to ask you."

  But there was really no need for Carbo to wait, for he was willing to say nothing but the words that he held before him, written big on a little paper card.

  "He really thinks you're a great fellow." Carbo's attorney, Abraham Brodsky, told Kefauver as they left.

  Two months later, Carbo, Blinky, along with Truman Gibson, Sica, and Dragna, were on trial in Los Angeles. After all that Carbo and Palermo had been through, this seemed like little more than another dose of the same. The promoter Jackie Leonard, with whom this trouble had started, was a leading witness for the government. Under cross examination by one of Carbo's lawyers, Leonard confessed in court on March 7 that he had offered to testify in behalf of Carbo's defense in exchange for $25,000. This alone, it seemed, should have been enough to blow Leonard's credibility, and the government's case, straight to hell. Furthermore, there was the courtroom appearance of Don Jordan himself, the fighter whose career Carbo and Blinky were charged with conspiring to control through the extortion of Jackie Leonard and of Jordan's manager, Don Nesseth. That career was now on the skids; and Jordan likely would have been far better off, certainly no worse off, if Carbo and Blinky had taken control of it. Not only had Don Jordan lost his title the previous spring, to Benny (Kid) Paret, but he also had lost his share of the purse from that title fight, having signed over in advance his $85,000 guarantee to Don Nesseth in order to free himself from Nesseth's management.

  The trial lasted more than three months. On May 30, 1961, after deliberating for three days, the jury of ten men and two women found all defendants guilty. Robert F. Kennedy, the kid brother of John F. Kennedy, was now, under his elder brother's presidency, the attorney general of the United States. Upon Carbo's conviction, he issued a statement:

  Frank Carbo has been a sinister figure behind the scenes in boxing for more than twenty years. This verdict will be a great aid and assistance to the Department of Justice and local authorities in taking further action against the attempts of racketeers to control boxing and other sports.

  After a delay of more than six months - Judge Tolin died in early June, before hearing motions or sentencing; the government designated and brought in a judge from the Western District of Washington, George H. Boldt to close out the case; all defendants petitioned for new trials and were refused them - Carbo and the others were sentenced on the second day of December.

  Carbo got twenty five years. Palermo got fifteen. Sica got twenty. Dragna got five. Truman Gibson got five years, suspended. Each man was also fined ten grand.

  Carbo was removed to Alcatraz.

  Two nights later, in Philadelphia, Sonny fought Albert Westphal of Hamburg.

  He had now fought and conquered every major heavyweight contender in the world, with the exception of Ingemar Johansson, the Swedish fighter who took the title from Floyd Patterson in 1959 and lost it back to him in 1960. Sonny considered Cleveland Williams, whom he fought in 1959 and 1960, to have been his toughest opponent. But others he vanquished were among the finest and most formidable of fighters: Nino Valdes, Zora Folley, Eddie Machen. On July 18, 1960, while the Kefauver hearings were underway, Sonny had knocked out Zora Folley in three. Little more than seven weeks later, on September 7, after Sonny had been served his subpoena and had before him the unsettling prospect of testifying in Washington, he beat Eddie Machen.

  Folley, a twenty eight year old Texan, was a fighter who had been knocked out only once before, back in 1955.and since then he had lost only one other fight. The brilli
ance of his technique and skill were such, and his prowess so threatening, that Floyd Patterson, the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, would not grant him a title fight.

  The California heavyweight Eddie Machen, who was also twenty eight when he fought Liston, had fought ten of the men Liston had beaten: Cleveland Williams, Howard King, and Benny Wise in 1955; Julio Mederos, Nino Valdes, and Johnny Summerlin in 1956; Zora Folley in 1958; Willi Besmanoff and Cleveland Williams, again, in 1959; Billy Hunter, Wayne Bethea, and Zora Folley, again, in 1960. Machen, like Liston, had fought and won twice against Williams. He had also fought Zora Folley twice. The first fight had ended in a draw; the subsequent fight had ended in the second loss of Machen's career. Like Folley - and, too, like Nino Valdes - Machen was also denied a shot at the title.

  Liston was disappointed by his fight with Eddie Machen, for Machen spent much of the twelve rounds running and backpedaling from Sonny. "It takes two to make a fight" Sonny said afterward. "Machen wouldn't." But Sonny's victory over Machen rendered him the world's number one heavyweight contender as of September 7, 1960.

  On March 8, 1961, while Carbo and Palermo were on trial in Los Angeles, he beat Howard King for the second time: a technical knockout after three.

  This second King fight, like the first, was held in Miami. In his account of the fight, Johnny Underwood of the Miami Herald wrote: "The small train wreck which is Sonny Liston's legendary left jab was the softening agent. It brought blood to King's nose in the first round. The setup was a left hook, the finisher a short right cross." Unlike Machen, King did not run from Liston in the ring, though he later regretted his bravery. "It was a terrible mistake," he said. "I’ve got to face reality. He's stronger than me, and any man I've ever fought."

  Sonny did not fight again until after the two Frankies had been sentenced, and, with his victory over Westphal in Philadelphia that December, there was no contender of stature left for him to fight. Furthermore, he had beaten the three contenders whom the champion refused to fight; and the first ranked among them had run from him in fear.

  Floyd Patterson, under the guidance of his wily manager, Cus D'Amato, had avoided facing Valdes, Folley, and Machen under various pretexts of circumstance or business. "What would Machen draw?" D'Amato said. "Floyd and I regard ourselves as professionals. We are interested in the biggest gate." In the case of Sonny, the evasion of a title fight with him was quite simple: the man was a criminal who represented all that was unsavory and evil, and Patterson must not allow either himself, the championship, or boxing itself to be degraded by condescending to acknowledge Liston as a morally acceptable challenger.

  Between the two fights Sonny fought in 1961, the King fight in March and the Westphal fight in December, there were eight months of trouble that coincided with the period of trouble that Carbo and Palermo were experiencing in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.

  On March 30, 1961, in Sacramento, the chairman of the California State Athletic Commission, Dr. Dan Kilroy, announced that Sonny Liston, the top contender for Floyd Patterson's heavy weight title, would not be permitted to fight in California under present conditions. In explaining the decision to bar Liston, the chairman mentioned the Kefauver hearings, the current trial in California of Carbo and Palermo, and the proven, ongoing control of Liston by Palermo. The commissioner said that Liston would have to change managers before he would ever be allowed to fight in California.

  On April 8, Sonny declared his intention of buying back his contract from Pep Barone. He declared that he would pay Barone $75,000 over the next two years in exchange for the contract, which still had almost two years to run. Sonny followed this declaration by publicly daring Patterson to face him in a title fight.

  "That bum Patterson don't want to fight me," Liston complained on April 10, 1961, in one of the letters he "wrote" through the hand of another.

  A few days later, on April 15, Liston formally asked Barone to surrender the contract. While sportswriters and others wondered why anyone would relinquish for $75,000 a contract worth considerably more on the open market, Liston stated bluntly and not without an edge of weary disgust, "I want to get me a new manager that's O.K. with Patterson and Kefauver and the rest of the world."

  Four days later, on April 19, the deal was done and Sonny Liston was a free agent.

  Patterson and D'Amato were unmoved by Sonny's contractual break with Barone, remarking that the mere fact that Sonny "ostensibly" had purchased his contract did not mean that he no longer was affiliated with the dark forces that Barone represented. Sonny, said Patterson, "will still have to prove that he is free of all outside harmful influences" before he would be considered to qualify for a title fight.

  Liston strode one day into D'Amato's office, catching him unawares and frightening him by his sudden huge presence. D'Amato gasped and put his hand to his chest.

  "Is you is or is you ain't giving me a shot at the title?"

  D'Amato composed himself and suggested that Sonny send him a list of proposed managers. D'Amato would choose one whose character he approved.

  "Ain't that nice. What you mean is that you want to control me."

  Sonny made a gesture of appealing to Senator Kefauver himself to choose a new manager for him, but the senator declined. Kefauver did, however, ask the attorney Alfred Klein, a member of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and formerly a member of Kefauver's investigating committee, to guide Liston in his quest for probity.

  Sonny announced the selection of a new manager, and introduced him, at a Philadelphia press conference on May 10. He was George Katz.

  Born in 1904 and raised in South Philly, Katz had a background in local politics and boxing. He had done his share of politicking as a secretary for both Republican and Democratic officials, and he had been a boxing manager since 1928.His most notable boxer had been a welterweight contender named Gil Turner.

  Sonny stated at the press conference that, with Katz as his manager, he now had broken with, and was free of, what the Senate committee and Floyd Patterson had described as undesirable elements in his management. Klein stated that his office at the state athletic commission had conducted a thorough investigation of Katz and found no valid reason not to approve him as Liston's manager.

  The contract with Katz was for a term of two and a half years, and it entitled Katz to ten percent of Sonny's net earnings.

  At about half past five on May 17, Sonny was hanging out on the corner of Fortieth and Market streets, when a patrolman named James Best came by and told him to move along.

  "Why don't you arrest me?" Sonny said to the cop.

  And that is exactly what the cop did. Sonny was brought in on disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. At the station, these charges were reduced to loitering - corner lounging, they called it here - and he was kept for four hours before he was freed.

  On June 12, in the dark before dawn, twenty-nine-year-old Dolores Ellis was driving through Fairmount Park in the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdowne. Two men in another vehicle came abreast of her car, directed a spotlight toward her, announced that they were police officers, and motioned her to stop. One of the men ordered Dolores out of her car, and she complied. When a park guard, John Warburton, happened by, the two men quickly turned off the car lights and sped away. The guard, in pursuit at eighty miles an hour, fired a warning shot and caught them after a half-mile chase. There, sitting behind the wheel, was Sonny Liston. With his companion, a twenty six year old man named Isaac Cooper, Sonny was booked on an array of charges, including impersonating a police officer.

  His new manager came to his defense: "Sonny is a fun-loving person who likes to play pranks."

  Although Dolores Ellis would subsequently file a damage suit against Liston, alleging more than five grand worth of mental stress and anguish, all charges against Liston and Cooper relating to the Fairmount Park incident were dismissed in Magistrate's Court on the first of July, when Magistrate E. David Keiser said that the whole unfortunate matter had been an "erro
r in judgment."

  None the less, five days later, Sonny was ordered to appear at a hearing of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission to offer cause why his license to fight "should not be suspended or revoked." At that hearing, on July 14, the unanimous decision of the three-man commission was delivered aloud by Alfred Klein: the license of Charles (Sonny) Liston was hereby suspended indefinitely for actions detrimental to boxing and the public. In addressing Liston, Klein said that the fighter would be allowed to appeal for reinstatement at "such time as you have rehabilitated yourself and shown that you have respect for the law."

  Since Pennsylvania was a member of the National Boxing Association, the suspension of Sonny would be honored throughout the NBAs forty eight state jurisdiction.

  "You are at the final crossroads of your career," Klein told Liston. "What you do after today will determine the course of the rest of your life."

  A year earlier, during his first and only fight in the town of Denver, Liston had made the acquaintance of Father Edward P. Murphy, a kindly Jesuit priest whose flock of parishioners was predominantly black. Now, days after his suspension, he turned to the good Father Murphy to help bail his ass out.

  That phrase they had used: "such time as you have rehabilitated yourself ..."

  "Liston Begins Educational Rehabilitation Program,'' read the New York Times headline of an Associated Press story datelined Denver, July 20.The story reported that Sonny was now under the tutelage of Father Murphy, who had taken him in to live at the rectory of the St. Ignatius Loyola Church.

  Geraldine joined Sonny in Denver, and they rented a house near the church. There was talk of Sonny's converting to Catholicism, as Floyd Patterson had done five years earlier. As a young girl, Geraldine had taken instruction in the Catholic Church, and now, with the Reverend Murphy, her interest was renewed.

  Sonny's friend and sparring partner, Foneda Cox, whom Sonny had summoned to move from St. Louis and join him in Philadelphia, now came to live with Sonny in Denver. He said that "Father Murphy was a great guy. He just tried to keep Sonny straight"; and "Sonny thought a lot of Father Murphy, and when Sonny thought something of you, he tried to do what you would advise him to do." Foneda thought a while, or anyway was silent. "If Sonny had been able to spend more time with Father Murphy, he might still be living."