"I killed nobody that
didn’t deserve killing. In all of these here killings there was no
alternative. You couldn’t call them cold-blooded killings…. It was
either my life or theirs."

   

Mickey Cohen
 

 

May 19, 1957
Los Angeles

I suppose in hindsight it’s easy to see why
interviewing Mickey Cohen on live television was a bad idea. But at the
time, as Mike Wallace admits, it seemed like a wonderful coup against
the competition.

If you don’t know anything about Cohen, you might not understand what
an outspoken and profane man he was. But Wallace certainly knew. And
those viewers who skipped Dr. Joyce Brothers on the "$64,000 Challenge"
experienced an obscene tirade from the little mobster.

Unfortunately, the original newspaper accounts give very little of
Cohen’s remarks except to say they were unprintable. "Cohen was
interviewed over a national ABC network show last night and admitted he
has killed at least one man in self-defense," The Mirror said. "He
hurled a series of unprintable charges against [Los Angeles Police
Chief William H.] Parker.

" ‘Gestapo tactics’ was the kindest phrase he used. The laws governing
libel and slander prohibit repetition of the charges in a newspaper,"
The Mirror said.

But some information can be gleaned from news accounts. In addition to
claiming that he had killed a man, Cohen said his gambling operations
once handled $600,000 in bets and that politicians needed him at
election time and allowed him to operate with impunity.

He also said: "My sources of power were higher than former Mayor Bowron’s and former Police Chief Horrall’s."

Former Mayor Fletcher Bowron, who had returned to the Superior Court
bench after being elected mayor in the 1938 recall of Frank Shaw, said
it was beneath his dignity to respond to Cohen’s allegations. Former
Chief Clemence B. "Jack" Horrall, who headed the LAPD during World War
II, said Cohen operated in the county rather than the city. "He tried
to operate in the city and we ran him out," Horrall said. "Cohen’s a
liar."

But ABC-TV made a critical error. Recall that this was before the days
of videotape. Instead, shows were preserved on kinescopes in which a
movie camera filmed images on a TV picture tube, and these were shown
on the West Coast three hours later.  Although ABC executives had no
idea what Cohen was going to say on the live show, they were well aware
of Cohen’s comments and decided to proceed with the West Coast broadcast three hours
later.

Former Mirror reporter Cliff Dektar, who was handling publicity for ABC in Los Angeles, recalls watching the show with The Times TV critic at the network’s studios:

"I hosted Cecil Smith, Times TV  critic
at the ABC TV Center executive viewing room, Prospect and
Talmadge.

"Outrageous, and the phone rang. It was lawyer in NY. l say
nothing (there is a reporter sitting next to me).

"Parker and
[Police Capt. James] Hamilton (the intelligence squad captain) gave ABC and WC head Earl Hudson
opportunity to cancel  WC repeat (kinescope) and get out trouble…Mr. Hudson
declined and Hamilton won a major slander suit against ABC.

"It was a most
interesting event…oh yes…took Cecil and his wife to dinner following."

Parker was furious, and turned down a network offer to respond on
Wallace’s show the next week. "That sort of thing is more insidious
than Confidential," Parker said. "You have to go down to the newsstand
to buy a magazine and you get this in your living room."

"As a police officer, I am used to being shot at. But how can a person
like Cohen be allowed to assassinate my character?" Parker said.

ABC issued an apology the next week, but the controversy continued.

Watch Mike Wallace’s interview about the Cohen incident.

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