After the murders of Maritote, Gioe, Labriola and Weinberg, and also after the so-called peace meeting, the tensions between Ricca and Accardo slowly began to fade away but one crucial meeting or situation literally cemented their friendship. On May 30, 1955, Ricca, Campagna, Accardo and Ricca’s lawyer William Stewart went on a fishing trip to the southeast Florida coast and boarded on the “Nellie”, a boat owned by Stewart. During the fishing trip, Campagna started reeling with a 30-pound fish and after short period he felt sudden chest pains and dropped on the floor. Stewart immediately turned the boat around and headed for the coast but Campagna was already dead when they reached the mainland.

Story goes that the main guy who made all the arrangements was Accardo himself who has been in charge of the wake for two whole nights, while Ricca was seated in a car near the grave of his former friend and associate, obviously because Campagna’s death felt hard on his soul. This was probably a way for Accardo to show his respect towards Ricca and the whole West Side group, and to bring back the trust which was previously given to him by the Outfit’s top administration. Less than two months later, Accardo’s longtime friend and protector Tony Capezio also died from a heart attack and again, a huge crowd of people attended his funeral. Some sources say that Capezio’s funeral was mainly visited by the wives of all high-level members, allegedly because they wanted to stay away from all of the publicity and newspaper men. Although I think that the main reason was the remaining or unfinished differences between Ricca and Accardo, mainly because other sources say that Sam Giancana together with Capezio’s longtime associate Claude Maddox appeared at the funeral. Besides that, this means that both Ricca and Accardo lost two of their longtime friends and criminal associates, a situation which signaled the creating of a new friendship and criminal association which was never seen before in the Mafia’s history.


Accardo and Ricca

The peace between Ricca and Accardo was officially established in June 1955, when Chicago’s crime leaders and also representatives from the New York area, met at the Thunderbird Hotel in Miami, Florida to discuss the dangerous situation within the Chicago faction and on who was going to be the successor of the late Campagna. By that time, many associates of Ricca and Accardo from the old Capone days, were either dead or in permanent retirement because of health issues and Ricca was diagnosed as diabetic and he was in his late 50’s, so I believe that he also lacked from strength. On top of that, the younger generation headed by Giancana and Battaglia was coming up within the Outfit’s ranks and both Ricca and Accardo understood the nature of the changing of the guard.

It seems that Accardo decided to take a step back as official boss of the Chicago Outfit but was elevated on even higher position or right next to Ricca, or in other words Accardo was the one who took the position of the late Campagna with Ricca being the top representative for the whole organization. This means that Accardo was probably satisfied with his new position, same as Ricca who in turn remained at the top. The thing was that they also needed to appoint a new day-to-day boss for the Outfit and after the meeting in Miami, at the beginning of 1956 Ricca gathered his underlings at the Tam O'Shanter Restaurant in Chicago, including Accardo, Giancana, Humphreys and Frank Sortino a.k.a. Ferraro. In fact, it seems that right after the conflict in which also included the representative for the whole South Side faction Bruno Roti Sr., old man Roti took a step back and remained as capo only for the Chinatown area while his underling and lieutenant Ferraro became the new South Side representative with Gus Alex as his prime and most trusted lieutenant. On top of that, that same year Jake Guzik also died of natural causes and his position as representative for the Outfit’s non-Italian faction and also the so-called “connection guys” was inherited by Murray Humphreys.


Humphreys

By 1957 Giancana was officially recognized as the new boss for the Chicago Outfit by the all of the national crime bosses, including the national Mafia commission, with Frank Ferraro as his number two guy or underboss. Giancana was the so-called “second” Chicago representative on the national commission, right after Ricca who in turn sometimes accompanied Giancana on some of those same gatherings. In some cases, if Ricca wasn’t available, it was up to Accardo to act as Giancana’s senior advisor and accompanied him on some of the meetings.

The connection between Ricca and Accardo produced the type of criminal duo and also the special type of leadership which controlled the second largest city at the time, and also gave the blueprint for all of their future successors. The Ricca-Accardo leadership resembled a two-headed snake that lurked around the streets of Chicago and swallowed everything which stood in its way, including other cities from around the country, and soon the world. Or someone once said “Truth is as straight as an arrow, while a lie swivels like a snake."


Cheers