Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you a unique insight into the Mafia. Today, Gary interviews the noted Chicago outfit expert, Gus Russo, known for his books such as “Supermob,” “The Outfit,” and “Best of Enemies.” Gus Russo tells how Murray “The Camel” Humphreys is an intriguing figure in the Chicago Outfit. He provides insights into Humphreys’ early life, born with the Welsh name of Llewellyn in Illinois, growing up in poverty, and getting involved in petty crime. Gus continues by telling how Humphreys was able to climb the ranks of an organized crime family and become a valued and trusted advisor, political fixer, and business operative in the Chicago mafia known as “The Outfit.” Murray Humphreys was so well connected that when his daughter needed a prom date, he was able to induce Frank Sinatra to fill that role.
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Gary: [00:00:00] Welcome all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a man who is probably one of the most respected mafia historians in the United States, Gus Russo Russo.
You probably have heard of his books Supermob welcome, Gus Russo. I’m really glad you’re here. Hey, Gary. Thanks for having me. Supermob and all of a sudden, let’s see, and The Outfit. And do you have other
Gus Russo: books, Gus Russo? Oh my goodness. Yeah, I’ve got about nine now. I think I’ve done a couple.
I’ve done a couple of the Kennedys and I’ve got a really one that’s been really successful called Best of Enemies, an espionage book that’s being made into a feature. Your film so very excited
Gary: about that. I read something about that. I’d forgotten about that interesting Well, what I’ll do guys is is I’ll have a link to his author’s page on Amazon So you can search among his books and and he is probably Like I said one of the most respected mob historians in the United States today.
Oh along with, , Selwyn Rabb, probably. He ranks right up there with Selwyn Rabb, and, as [00:01:00] far as Chicago’s concerned, to me, he is the man for Chicago, and we all love Chicago up there, and I have to thank, speaking of Chicago, I have to thank my friend, Chicago native Ben Ellickson for sending me this book, The Outfit.
He’s been after me to do this for a while and I don’t know, some of you get distracted by, you know, the glitz and the glamour of New York sometimes. I forget about my Chicago guys, I get back to them periodically. So he’s been, thank you very much for sending me this book because I did some shorts out of the book, a little one minute things for YouTube, just a little quick little stories out of the book.
And now we’re going to do a full interview with Gus Russo Russo. And Gus Russo, I’ll tell you what, the Chicago guys, I’ll get, I’ll get an extra bump up in Chicago when that starts. I promise you that they love you in Chicago. But we’re going to talk about Murray Humphreys, Murray the Camel Humphreys, and I’ve wanted to do this guy for a long time.
He’s an interesting guy, and one reason I feel a connection to him because my family came over [00:02:00] from Wales a lot longer before his family did. His mother and father came from Wales. Now here’s a Welshman who becomes a trusted, highly valued, Maybe upper echelon, if you will, member of the Chicago outfit.
And Gus Russo just said, you know, he said, used to say, well, is this just organized crime or is this the mafia? You know, so they got, they got Jewish guys, they got the Welshman in there. And, so it’s, it’s interesting. So Gus Russo, let’s start talking about Murray, the Camel” Humphreys, I guess. Tell us a little bit about his early growing up years.
I know, you know, something about that, not a lot, but a little bit about him growing up.
Gus Russo: Yeah, well, he was, born in, Illinois and, his parents were, were, lower rent today that they were, you know, in poverty. And, you know, I think, well, his name was, they called him Lou. You know, his name wasn’t Murray.
It was Lou, Llewellyn. He took to the streets at a very young age, doing just petty stuff, you [00:03:00] know, whatever he could do to survive, and got into a lot of trouble that way. I don’t remember all the details at this point, but , he was a hooligan, to a degree, and he pretty much had to be, he was so poor, And he had got into trouble with truancy and, and juvenile crime and, went before judges.
In fact, one judge, , took to him so well, and it was mutual that , Lou took his name from that Judge Murray, judge Murray, whatever his name, whole name was. And so he became Murray Humphreys at that point. And just kept moving up the ladder into, bootlegging or whatever was going on at the time.
And, but yeah, from a young guy, he was on the streets,
Gary: surviving. Everybody, everybody was, was poor and a street criminal during those years. Then prohibition came along. Now you mentioned that judge Murray, didn’t he, like try to get him to go into the law? Actually. Did I read that?
Gus Russo: Yeah. Well, yeah, as I, as I recall, I think, forgive me, it’s been, , you know, 25, 30 years since I delved deep into it, but yeah, he, he [00:04:00] certainly.
Got Murray interested in law and he tried to get him to, think about becoming a lawyer because he, Murray was a brilliant kid, right? Everybody who met him knew it in a minute. This guy’s got a high IQ but he did in your and him a lifelong love of, of reading law books. That, and, interviewing his family and his ex-wife, wife, and everything.
They said he read voraciously, but it was always like Martindale Hubble. That’s all he read. He had stacks of legal books behind him, and he devoured these things. Why he became so obsessed with the law is beyond me, but, , that was his thing. And, but it, it held him in good stead when he Needed to know how to work, you know, to advise the gangsters on getting out of trouble and he, he had so many great legal, contraptions that he worked out for the mob that, , he was called the Einstein, you know, of the mob, but he, yeah, he just loved law books and thanks to
Gary: Judge Murray.
I read something about how he kind of noticed that double [00:05:00] jeopardy thing early on, and they didn’t really think about that back then, back in those old days of double jeopardy and, and how he moved Jake Guzik’s body, front, because he knows that it’s going to expose people who, hung out or went to this restaurant and he moved his body.
So this guy was always thinking when he was, well, yeah,
Gus Russo: he was. He was the one who came up with using the 5th Amendment before Congress, you know, up until that point, you could use the 5th in a courtroom, but, , his research, when they got called before, I guess, it was either Kefauver or one of the investigations before that, and he told these guys, just read these little cue cards I’m going to give you, these little index cards, and take the 5th Amendment, and the people, the congressmen on the dais, they said, you can’t do that.
And the, and Crowley said, I think we can, you’re going to find out we can. They did their research. They found out Crowley was right, but they were so stymied. They had, they never expected a criminal to plead the fifth in Congress. And his court just went up a [00:06:00] notch with the mobbing after
Gary: that.
Really? Oh man, I bet. You know, you mentioned prohibition, of course, as I started to say, All these guys, once prohibition hit, then that’s, you know, that became full employment for young gangsters. And that’s what they said. So did I suppose is that when he first met got in with Capone and and the outfit.
Yeah,
Gus Russo: you know, keep them. I’ll get to that didn’t you keep in mind prohibition was one of the great ironies of all time because, you know, when the temperance societies started to push for prohibition, they’re thinking was it would clean up. Crime and it had just the complete opposite effect. It made all the street hooligans millionaires
Gary: and organized.
Gus Russo: Yeah. So, you know, after a prohibition came in, these guys were. They had these great networks of contacts and, for distribution and everything. And they said, what do we do with this world that we’ve developed here? We can’t do [00:07:00] booze anymore, but we have all this great interstate network of distribution.
And that’s when people like Humphreys came up with a lot of ideas for how to, you know, keep moving with organized
Gary: crime. Yeah, I was reading how he got into labor racketeering pretty early too.
Gus Russo: Yeah, yeah, he realized, yeah, that, I don’t, yeah, I doubt he invented it, but he certainly perfected it, the idea of the sweetheart deals, where he would go to the corporate heads and say, I will keep the unions in, in check for you, so they won’t strike or ask for, rate increase, wage increases, and then he went to the unions and, and said, Okay.
If you let us take care of you, you know, we’ll represent you and get you wage increases. So he was lying to every, he was lying to them, to the mm-Hmm. workers and, , he was paid by the owners and of the companies, or the mob was, but that was his strategy to play them up against each other.
And and it worked for a long time.
Gary: You know. You know,
