INVESTIGATIONS: Willing Willie

From the time he started to work at the age of five, Willie Moretti kept his eyes peeled for the fast buck. His first job with a Harlem milkman paid 25¢ a week. Later, as a teen-ager with plenty of savvy, big-city cunning and a marked talent for crap-shooting, Willie managed to do a little better—though he did spend a year in the reformatory for assault. But it wasn’t until he took to betting that Willie really hit his stride.

Last week, a portly and well-heeled 56, and still an avowed and unashamed gambler, Willie dropped in on the Senate’s Kefauver Committee for a chat. Unlike his younger brother, Salvatore, and three old Jersey cohorts, Joe Adonis, James (“Piggy”) Lynch and Arthur Longano, who had come before the committee and promptly clammed up, Willie was in an expansive and talkative mood. He painted a lively picture of his rags-to-riches career, even showed pictures of some of his prized possessions: a laundry business in Paterson, N.J., a $400,000 house in Deal, N.J., a $45,000 house in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., a 1948 Cadillac, a 1949 Lincoln. He added casually that for incidental expenses he usually kept about $30,000 in cash around the house.

To all questions about his earnings, Willie replied simply: “I gambled.”

The Sure Thing. The committee was staggered by Willie’s report of election winnings in 1948. Said he: “I didn’t win too much on horses that year. But I had a sure thing going for me. I had President Truman … I win $10,000 on that Dewey don’t carry New York City by 640,000, even money.” Asked by the eager committee how he bet this year, Willie looked puzzled. “There’s no outstanding candidate this year, is there? . . . Just the race track this year.”

Willie had quite a few ideas on morality. When asked about the “mob,” he shot back: “People are mobs that makes 6% more on the dollar than anybody else does,” and added: “Jeez, everything is a racket today. The stock market is a racket. Why not make everything legal?” The audience laughed and Willie was pleased.

The Bipartisan Policy. When the committee read off a list of hoodlums and racketeers, Willie admitted cheerfully that he knew almost all of them, from Lucky Luciano on back to Al Capone. Asked who had introduced him to Capone, Willie stared in disbelief, said: “Listen, well-charactered people, you don’t need introductions; you just meet automatically.” Asked what political clubs he belonged to, he answered simply: “I don’t belong to any; I am bipartisan.”

After two hours of merry conversation, Willie was dismissed. He turned to the committee cordially: “Don’t forget my home in Deal if you are down the shore. You are invited.” As a last thought, Senator Kefauver asked if Willie had any inside tips on horses. Willie smiled expansively on the committee: “I have a great following,” he said. “Follow me and see what I do.”