Anthony Anastasio
(Tough Tony)
Brother of syndicate chieftain Albert Anastasia,
Tough Tony took control of the astoundingly lucrative Brooklyn
docks
through the International Longshoremen's Association for which
he was a vice president
and head of the powerful Local 1814.
Through Anastasio's iron grip of this union,
millions of dollars each year were funneled into syndicate coffers
from kickbacks on dues,
stolen merchandise from precious cargoes, and payoffs from many
shipping companies.
Tough Tony ruled the great shipping port for three decades through
the mere threat
of his brother Albert, head of Murder Inc.
It was claimed that he could wreck the country's imports and exports
if he so desired
and even cause sabotage to important ships to make a syndicate
point.
One story, a canard, has it that boss of bosses Lucky Luciano,
imprisoned in Dannemora during W.W.II,
the most severe prison in New York, wanted a transfer to a more
relaxed penal institution.
When his request was denied, he ordered Albert
Anastasia to talk to his brother.
Tough Tony then arranged for the French luxury liner, Normandie
, to be blown up
so that federal authorities would quickly realize that Luciano
could, in the tradition of Cagliostro,
"afflict as well as heal."
Because of the explosion, the tale goes on,
Luciano was transferred to more comfortable prison surroundings.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
An exhaustive investigation concerning the Normandie's explosion
which caused the ship to capsize
at its mooring docks failed to support this story,
one that Anastasio himself spread to increase his own lethal prestige.
Anastasio was the first to identify his brother's body after Albert
was slain at the Park Sheraton Hotel in 1957.
He then rushed to Frank Costello where newsmen later found both
men sobbing and embracing each other,
dispelling any notion that Costello had ordered the killing of
Anastasia.
Tough Tony Anastasio's influence along the New York docks waned
after his brother's mob execution
but he was allowed to hold on to his position by Vito Genovese,
who had been behind Anastasia's murder. Tony Anastasio died of
natural causes in 1963.