FBI Files - The Patriarca Papers - Entry 29 (Patriarca Claims He Paid Off Senator Pastore)

Name: Go Local Prov
Price range: $

Monday, February 22, 2016

GoLocalProv News Team

John Pastore, former Governor and US Senator

In one of the biggest blockbusters of the FBI Files on Raymond Patriarca, an April of 1963 FBI Memo from the Boston Office of the FBI to the FBI Headquarters, Director J. Edgar Hoover unveils a revelation that Patriarca claimed that he paid off U.S. Senator John O. Pastore. The alleged bribe would have been paid to Pastore when he served as an Assistant District Attorney in Rhode Island.

The FBI document states:

“PATRIARCA stated that many years ago when the now U.S. Senator JOHN PASTORE was Assistant District Attorney in Rhode Island, he got plenty of money from PATRIARCA and his associates and particularly when he, PATRIARCA was concerned with a jail break which resulted in a murder charge. PATRIARCA said that after that they helped PASTORE become Governor for the State of Rhode Island.”

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

The jail break incident referenced was previously reported by GoLocal. The FBI files (a December 27, 1957 memo) outlined that Patriarca was arrested in September of 1944 by the RI State Police “on charges of accessory before the fact to murder, two counts, in connection with the April 19, 1930 Easter Sunday attempted jail delivery at the Rhode Island State Prison which charges were subsequently dismissed.”

Ultimately the RI Supreme Court ruled for Patriarca on the 1944 arrest citing that the charges were filed after the statute of limitations.

The Memo went on to state:

When PATRIARCA and his attorneys were in Washington, D.C., apparently referring to the time he testified before the McClellan Committee, they attempted to see PASTORE in the U.S. Senate Chambers. PASTORE apparently found out they intended to visit him and took a plane to New York before they arrived. PATRIARCA was very critical of PASTORE because of this.

At the same time, they happened to meet U.S. Congressman John Fogarty, and this time invited PATRIARCA and his attorneys to a party. PATRIARCA declined the invitation because of the possible bad publicity. However, his attorney CURRAN and CURRAN’s associate did attend the party.

They then continued to discuss Rhode Island politics and RAYMOND stated it would be a long time before an Italian is again elected to the Governorship of Rhode Island.

SEE FILES STARTING AT PAGE 91 BELOW

Pastore served two terms in the Rhode Island General Assembly - elected in 1934 an 1936. “Mr. Pastore then gained an appointment as an assistant state attorney general, and by the early 1940's his oratorical skill was winning over juries in criminal cases,” wrote the New York Times at the time of Pastore’s death in 2000.

Pastore served as Governor of Rhode Island for six years and United States Senators for 26 years. He made national news in the 1964 Democratic Convention when he gave a powerful speech as in the keynote address at the Convention.