The Godfather Wiki
The Godfather Wiki
Advertisement

Carey Estes Kefauver was an American politician from Tennessee who led an investigation into organized crime in the 1950s.

In 1956, he was selected by the Democratic National Convention to be the running mate of presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Still holding his U.S. Senate seat after the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket lost to the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket in 1956, Kefauver was named chair of the U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee in 1957 and served as its chairman until his death.

Kefauver Committee[]

In 1950, Kefauver headed a U.S. Senate committee investigating organized crime. The committee, officially known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, was popularly known as the Kefauver Committee or the Kefauver hearings.

The Committee held hearings in fourteen cities and heard testimony from over 600 witnesses. Many of the witnesses were high-profile crime bosses, including such well-known names as Hyman Roth. A number of politicians also appeared before the committee and saw their careers ruined.

The committee's hearings, which were televised live just as many Americans were buying televisions, made Kefauver nationally famous and introduced many Americans to the concept of a criminal organization known as the Mafia for the first time ever.

Behind the scenes[]

The Kefauver hearings served as a basis for the depiction of the Senate hearings in The Godfather Part II.

External links[]

Advertisement