Pod Insights Infamous America LUCKY LUCIANO Ep. 2 | “Castellammarese War” About this episode After Arnold Rothstein’s murder, Charles Luciano works full time for a Sicilian gangster named Joe “the Boss” Masseria and quickly becomes Masseria’s top lieutenant. Masseria begins to feud with a rival Sicilian, Salvatore Maranzano. By the start of the 1930s, the feud escalates into the mafia’s bloodiest conflict yet, The Castellammarese War. As bodies pile up, Luciano decides he needs to take matters into his own hands.
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1:04 Speaker 01 At the turn of the 20th century, the United States experienced a massive wave of European immigration. For nearly 40 years, people from Eastern Europe, Ireland, Italy, and Sicily braved the rough Atlantic Ocean in the hope of finding a better life. Among those who gazed at the Statue of Liberty as he steamed past was a boy named Salvatore Lucania, better known today as Charles "Lucky" Luciano. As a teenager, Luciano realized success in life would come from the streets, not from a traditional education. He joined various gangs and became friends with up-and-coming criminal legends like Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Vito Genovese, and Frank Costello.
1:49 Speaker 01 Their crimes started small, like petty theft and illegal gambling. But when prohibition came along, they graduated to bootlegging. Luciano made millions. He did it because he was ruthless, and because he was mentored by one of the kings of prohibition, Arnold Rothstein.
2:07 Speaker 01 Rothstein taught Luciano how to become the consummate gangster. He taught him how to treat it like a legitimate business and how to stay out of the limelight. Luciano absorbed the lessons as he climbed the ranks of the underworld. After Rothstein was murdered in 1928, Luciano tied himself more tightly to a man he had worked for for years, the man who controlled East Harlem, Joe the Boss Mazzaria. Unfortunately for Luciano, that was right before the boss found himself embroiled in a war that had its origins in the Old Country.
2:45 Speaker 01 On the island of Sicily in the 1200s, loose clans began to form as a means of protection from the constant flow of invaders. For centuries, the strategically located island had been conquered by the Byzantines, the Arabs, the French, the Spanish, and the Italian city-states. 600 years later, in the mid-1800s, those clans began to shift toward criminal enterprises when Italy unified into a single nation. The Sicilian Mafia still focused on protection, but now it came at a cost.
3:21 Speaker 01 Over time, the clans began to form tight-lipped hierarchical organizations called familias, or families. The families instilled fear in their fellow Sicilians, and in time, they would be collectively known as the Sicilian Mafia. At the start of the 1900s, the Sicilian Mafia had no real interest in expanding to America. They didn't send members to the US to create branches or chapters, but that didn't stop non-affiliated Sicilian immigrants from creating their own gangs when they arrived in the US.
3:56 Speaker 01 Initially, the Sicilian-American gangs didn't resemble their Old Country brethren. They weren't nearly as organized, nor as secretive, as the Sicilian Mafia. But they did take one major cue from the Old Country: protection and extortion rackets. Sicilian hoods prowled immigrant neighborhoods and demanded protection money from desperate families. Before long, the extortion gangs became known as "The Black Hand", and their leaders earned the nickname "Mustache Pete's" because many had bushy walrus-style mustaches.
4:33 Speaker 01 Ironically, one of the famous mustache Pete's did not have a mustache. He was a short chubby-faced man named Giuseppe Joe Mazzaria. Mazzaria traveled to America in 1902 and slowly but surely climbed the ranks of the underworld. He started with the Morello gang and used violence as a means to get to the top. He also had no problem stabbing his own people in the back if it meant becoming boss. By the mid 1920s, Mazzaria controlled East Harlem and parts of Brooklyn, but he also had influence among Italians in the rest of Manhattan. He was an old-school boss who wanted to deal with Sicilians and maybe a few Italians here and there, but no one else.
5:17 Speaker 01 He was strictly anti-Irish and anti-Jewish. One of his top associates, Charles Luciano, did not hold with those beliefs. One of Luciano's oldest friends was Jewish immigrant Meyer Lansky, and Luciano owed much of his success up to that time to Arnold Rothstein. Luciano was always going to work with his friends, though at the moment, he had to be discreet. As long as Joe Mazzaria was the boss, Luciano would need to be careful. But a day was fast approaching when that would no longer be necessary. Mazzaria was about to go to war with a rival boss, and blood was going to flow through the streets of New York. Charlie Luciano didn't know that he was going to be one of the first targets of the war,
6:02 Speaker 01 but if he survived, he would have the chance to surpass all mafia bosses before him.
6:16 Speaker 01 From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season, we're telling the story of Charles "Lucky" Luciano. He was a notorious bootlegger, a gunman, a key player in a mob war, and the father of the American mafia. This is episode two, Casta La Marese in War.
6:42 Speaker 01 In the first few years after prohibition was enacted in America in 1920, Charlie Luciano made money selling illegal alcohol and heroin, and he had no idea that a major conflict was brewing. He certainly would have known that tension was building between rival groups, but he likely didn't think it would escalate into a bloody war. The seeds of the conflict were sown in 1925, when 39-year-old Salvatore Maranzano arrived in America. Maranzano didn't flee Sicily because of poverty, like many Sicilians before him, but he was definitely running away. By the mid-1920s, Italy was under the thumb of Benito Mussolini, and Mussolini clashed with the Sicilian mafia.
7:27 Speaker 01 Many mafiosi, like Maranzano, left the island for safety and opportunity. Maranzano had heard of the money that was being made from prohibition, and he wanted a piece of the action. Maranzano hailed from an area of Sicily called Castel Mare di Golfo. Supposedly, he came to America with the blessing of the local mafia boss. Once in America, Maranzano began to build a crew, mostly of men from Castel Mare. Within four years, Maranzano was vying for control over Joe Mazzaria's territory, and Maranzano was willing to make major moves to get it. But instead of going straight at the boss, Maranzano went after one of the boss's top gunmen first.
8:14 Speaker 01 On October 16, 1929, Charles Luciano stood on the corner of 50th Street and 6th Avenue and waited for a girl to arrive. He had a date that night, and he had arrived a few minutes early. At around 6:30 PM, a limousine pulled up next to Luciano. Before he could register what was going on, four men hopped out of the limo with pistols pointed at him. But it wasn't a hit. If it had been, Luciano would have been dead before he felt the pain from the bullets. The men claimed to be police officers. They slapped handcuffs on Luciano, threw him in the limo, and drove away. In the back of the limo, the men slapped tape across Luciano's mouth.
8:56 Speaker 01 They threw him to the floor and beat the absolute hell out of him. Punches and kicks rained down on him, and he tried to shield himself and absorb the blows. But a kick to the head all but knocked him out and painted the car floor with Luciano's blood. The limo eventually drove from Manhattan to Staten Island and deposited its cargo on a random street. Around 1 a.m., nearly seven hours after Luciano had been abducted, a police officer found a bloodied and bruised man stumbling around a Staten Island street. The cop couldn't believe his eyes. Luciano's eyes were so swollen he could barely see.
9:37 Speaker 01 He was bleeding from multiple wounds, the worst of which was a slash to the neck. The kidnappers had tried to finish him off by cutting his throat, and it was a miracle he was still breathing. The officer grabbed Luciano and rushed him to a nearby hospital. While at the hospital, law enforcement discovered the identity of the badly beaten man. Detectives swarmed the place and demanded to know what happened. All Luciano told them was that he had been jumped and left for dead. He didn't know who did it. So if Luciano couldn't or wouldn't give detectives any details, there was really nothing to investigate.
10:17 Speaker 01 The case was closed before it was opened. What happened in the hours between arriving on Staten Island and being found has been the subject of debate for decades. At one point, Luciano said Salvatore Maranzano was responsible for the late-night ride. Supposedly, Luciano was brought before Maranzano, and Maranzano demanded Luciano kill Joe Mazzaria. Luciano said no, and Maranzano's men subsequently tortured Luciano and left him for dead.
10:51 Speaker 01 Meyer Lansky backed up that version and allegedly used the incident to give Luciano his famous nickname. The weather's getting colder, and maybe some thoughts are starting to drift in the direction of holiday gifts. Even if you're not there yet, it's still time for sweatshirts and hoodies, in most places, which I wear almost every day while I'm working. My newest purchase from Quince is the Flow Knit Performance Hybrid Pullover Hoodie. It's a long name, but it's ultra-soft, lightweight, and amazingly affordable. Three big retailers are charging $118 to $158 for the hoodie. At Quince, it's $45. Same quality, same eco-friendly standards, lower price.
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12:14 Speaker 01 They wanted Luciano to turn on his bootlegger friend, Jack Legs Diamond. The cops used excessive force to get Luciano to cooperate, but Luciano refused. If it really was the cops, their timing couldn't have been worse, because the attack helped spark a war. But the more likely scenario is probably that the attack was the first major strike of the war. Joe Mazzaria's top lieutenant had been tortured and nearly killed. If Maranzano was behind it, then Mazzaria knew he would have to respond accordingly. He just needed to wait for the right opportunity to send his message.
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14:01 Speaker 01 After Luciano's kidnapping, the feud between Mazzaria and Maranzano continued with low-level alcohol hijackings. Mazzaria's men hijacked Maranzano's trucks and vice versa. Bullets were exchanged, but for the most part, they were small-scale skirmishes. However, Mazzaria grew impatient. Gangsters in New York weren't falling in line the way he expected. To enforce his title as "the boss," Mazzaria had instituted a tribute policy. Every crew in New York had to pay him $10,000. As time went on, crews became fed up with sending kickbacks to Mazzaria. Luciano knew that his boss was getting antsy, and as it turned out, so was Luciano.
14:47 Speaker 01 After surviving his attack, Luciano appeared to have been having thoughts of his own about becoming a boss. As boss, he could institute his vision for organized crime, a vision that was heavily influenced by his old mentor Arnold Rothstein. But Luciano knew he didn't have the strength to take control, so he needed to find another way to gain power. Like Rothstein, Luciano liked to work in the shadows as much as possible. It wasn't just a safe business practice, it was how his mind operated. He rarely let anyone in on his thinking. It seemed as though, by the time of his kidnapping, he was ready to make a power play.
15:26 Speaker 01 He found his opportunity in December 1929, just two months after his attack. Forty-year-old Gaetano Tommy Reyna was a leader who rose to power alongside Joe Mazzaria. Both were members of the Morello gang in the 1910s, and they had seized control of Cruz when the gang split up. But Reyna wasn't nearly as powerful as Mazzaria, and by the mid-1920s, he had pledged his allegiance to Mazzaria. As the years ticked by, Reyna became frustrated with how much Mazzaria was demanding in tribute. Those frustrations grew when Mazzaria began asking for more money.
16:10 Speaker 01 In the fall of 1929, Reyna began secretly toying with the idea of switching to Maranzano's side. Whether or not he actually defected to Maranzano is up for debate, but it appears as if, in December 1929, Joe Mazzaria heard that one of his allies was talking to the enemy. How Mazzaria learned the information isn't clear, but it's possible it came from Luciano. Supposedly, Luciano learned that Reyna was defecting and he didn't like it. If Reyna switched sides, it would make the team of Maranzano and Reyna too powerful. If Luciano hoped to rework organized crime in America, the last thing he wanted was for two powerful leaders to join forces.
16:55 Speaker 01 Luciano convinced Mazzaria that Tommy Reyna needed to go, not that Mazzaria needed much convincing. By early 1930, Mazzaria had given the green light to kill Tommy Reyna.
17:09 Speaker 01 February 26th, 1930 was a Wednesday. Every Wednesday night, Tommy Reyna strolled over to his aunt's house in the Bronx for dinner. Reyna loved his aunt's cooking, especially her gravy, or what we would call marinara sauce. The gravy, or sauce, was a special touch of home. After dinner, Reyna stepped out into the cold winter evening. Before he left, Reyna gave his aunt a kiss on the cheek, and she made sure his scarf was neatly tied. They said goodbye, and Reyna's aunt went back inside. Reyna walked down the front steps to Sheridan Avenue. After a few paces, he looked up and smiled.
17:52 Speaker 01 Just down the street, walking toward him, was a familiar face. But the man didn't return the friendly smile. Instead, he raised a double-barrel shotgun and fired. Tommy Reyna's head exploded, and his body fell to the sidewalk. The assassin hurried away, and most believe he was Vito Genovese, an old friend of Charlie Luciano and the future namesake of the infamous Genovese crime family. If so, three things could have been happening at the same time. Joe Mazzaria could have been sending a powerful message to his allies to stay in line. And if Tommy Reyna was defecting, Mazzaria was striking a blow against his rival Salvatore Maranzano.
18:35 Speaker 01 And, quietly beneath those two, Luciano could have been taking his first step on the road to power by using his old friend Vito Genovese to start removing all the competition. Whatever the case, Maranzano decided to respond in kind and send the Sicilian underworld to war. After the murder of Tommy Reyna, Mazzaria took control of Reyna's crew and territory. He delegated a lieutenant to run the crew while he continued to make plans to take out more of Maranzano's allies.
19:14 Speaker 01 One of the Allies was a member of the Castile Mariachi clan named Gaspari Malazo. Malazo immigrated to America in 1911 and established himself among the Brooklyn mafiosi. As tensions rose between Mazzaria and Maranzano, Malazo stayed loyal to his hometown clan and sided with Maranzano. To Joe Mazzaria, that meant Malazo had to die. And Mazzaria's order showed the lengths to which he was willing to go to fight Maranzano in the earliest days of the war. Gaspari Malazo didn't live in New York anymore. He had gone to Detroit to set up a criminal empire like Johnny Torrio and Al Capone had done in Chicago.
19:56 Speaker 01 On May 31, 1930, two gunmen ambushed Malazo at a fish market in Detroit. They blasted him with shotguns, and, in a way, sent him to sleep with the fishes. After Malazo's death, Maranzano called a war council. He knew he needed the full support of his allies, including those from cities like Buffalo, to take down Joe Mazzaria. Everyone agreed that something needed to be done about Mazzaria. Enough was enough. It was time for the Castile Mariachi clan to go to war. In preparation for battle, Maranzano made sure that he and his men were heavily armed.
20:39 Speaker 01 Mazzaria had shown he was willing to strike whenever and wherever, and Maranzano wanted to be prepared. He added armor to his Cadillacs, installed bulletproof windows, and he went so far as to attach a machine gun on a swivel to one of his cars. And in addition to playing defense, he decided on his first offensive strike. Giuseppe Morello, also known as Peter Morello, was Joe Mazzaria's old boss.
21:06 Speaker 01 Morello was one of the original mustache Pete's who had perfected The weather's getting colder, and maybe some thoughts are starting to drift in the direction of holiday gifts. Even if you're not there yet, it's still time for sweatshirts and hoodies, in most places, which I wear almost every day while I'm working. My newest purchase from Quince is the Flow Knit Performance Hybrid Pullover Hoodie. It's a long name, but it's ultra-soft, lightweight, and amazingly affordable. Three big retailers are charging $118 to $158 for the hoodie. At Quince, it's $45. Same quality, same eco-friendly standards, lower price. So whether you're thinking of yourself in the cool temperatures, or thinking
21:48 Speaker 01 of someone else in the future, give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Infamous America. It's the best way to support the show.
22:12 Speaker 01 Black hand protection rackets. His crew was originally called the 107th Street Mob, which later became known as the Morello Gang. When Mazzaria joined the crew, Morello quickly took him under his wing. As Mazzaria rose to power, the aging Morello transitioned into the role of advisor to Mazzaria. By 1930, the 63-year-old Morello was a key component of Mazzaria's operation. If something were to happen to Morello, it would be a major blow to Mazzaria. On August 15, 1930, Morello and two associates sat in a second-floor
22:51 Speaker 01 office on East 116th Street in East Harlem. Just before 4:00 PM, the three men heard a knock on the door. Morello decided he would be the one to answer it. He walked over to the door and cracked it open just enough to look outside. The two assailants on the other side burst through the door and knocked the older man out of the way. They both carried pistols, and they shot Morello five times. As Morello fell down dead, the attackers turned their guns on Morello's friends. One of the friends was shot but would survive. The other jumped up and ran toward the window. He crashed through the glass and flew outside at the same time that he was hit by two bullets.
23:36 Speaker 01 He fell two stories down to the pavement and died on the sidewalk. The killers fled and left the bosses to tally the score. Two of Mazzaria's men were dead, which included an old friend and mentor. If Tommy Reyna was considered a Maranzano ally, then two of Maranzano's men were dead. But the murder of Joe Mazzaria's old friend and advisor took the conflict to a new level. Mazzaria was furious and wanted revenge, and he would look to Chicago to get it.
24:12 Speaker 01 Al Capone had run with the New York street gangs in the years before prohibition, just like Joe Mazzaria, Charlie Luciano, and many others. Capone moved to Chicago in 1919 to be the top lieutenant to Johnny Torrio. In 1925, Capone took over for Torrio as boss of the criminal syndicate that was known as "The Outfit," and he presided over the ongoing war between The Outfit and its rival, the Northside Gang. Joe Mazzaria knew that Al Capone had an enemy who sided with the Castile Mariachi clan, a bootlegger named Joe Aiello. For years, Capone and Aiello had traded bullets in the streets of Chicago, but neither could eliminate the other.
24:56 Speaker 01 Then, Mazzaria called Capone and told him to eliminate Aiello as soon as possible. By October 1930, two months after Giuseppe Morello was killed, the feud between Capone and Aiello had become so hot that Aiello was ready to leave Chicago entirely.
25:15 Speaker 01 Aiello bounced from hideout to hideout in the hope of escaping before Capone discovered his location. On October 23rd, Joe Aiello left his hideout and started to walk to a taxi. After taking two steps, the sounds of Tommy guns roared through the streets of Chicago. Capone assassins had set up in a second-floor window across the street from Aiello's hideout. Joe Aiello was hit nearly sixty times, which made him thoroughly and completely dead. The conflict that was becoming known as the Castilla-Moreeza War had spread well beyond the boroughs of New York and showed no sign of stopping.
25:58 Speaker 01 As the war escalated and bodies continued to drop in the streets of New York, Charles Luciano remained mostly on the sidelines. While he was still Joe Mazzaria's top lieutenant, he seemed to focus his attention on keeping the business running. After all, prohibition was still in effect and Mazzaria's bootlegging operation still needed to make money. And as always, Luciano didn't limit himself to booze. Going into the 1930s, he was still very much involved in trafficking heroin. In August 1930, around the time Giuseppe Morello was killed, and maybe as an excuse to get out of Maranzano's crosshairs, Luciano went to Germany to help expand his drug operation.
26:41 Speaker 01 Mazzaria, like most mobsters, didn't approve of drug dealing. Virtually every other form of crime was fine, but for some reason, drugs were frowned on. Luciano had to operate that part of his business on the sly, as he had done with Arnold Rothstein. And like Rothstein, Luciano knew that too much bloodshed was bad for business. Luciano did his best to stay off the war's front lines and in the shadows, but he couldn't remain there for long. The fall of 1930 saw a wave of high-profile deaths. In November, Al Minio, a high-ranking mobster and key Mazzaria ally, was gunned down in his Bronx apartment.
27:25 Speaker 01 Minio’s second-in-command was killed right next to him. A few months later, another Mazzaria ally was shot and killed in front of a candy store. As Luciano watched friends and associates get murdered in the streets, he noticed a change in the air. By the start of 1931, it was becoming increasingly obvious that his side was losing more men than Maranzano’s side. Worse, some of Mazzaria’s people had started to defect. The guy who took over Al Minio’s crew after Minio was killed almost immediately became a Maranzano ally. The tides of war were changing, and Luciano realized he could be the next casualty.
28:07 Speaker 01 Not only that, but law enforcement had taken a more noticeable interest in the war. While they likely didn’t care that a bunch of gangsters were killing each other, they did care that citizens were getting caught in the crossfire. The unnecessary bloodshed of bystanders meant the cops were starting to crack down. More cops was bad for business. The war needed to end, and Luciano decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. By the beginning of March 1931, the Castilla-Marese War had been raging for just over a year. An unknown number of people had been killed, and the violence and bloodshed stretched
28:50 Speaker 01 from New York to Chicago to Detroit. Even though the tide of war had shifted in Maranzano’s favor, it seemed like there was no end in sight. Charlie Luciano knew that the only way to bring the war to an end and get back to business was if either Mazzaria or Maranzano were eliminated. It was obvious to Luciano that the one who had to go was his boss, Joe Mazzaria. Maranzano must have heard that Luciano was questioning his loyalty to Mazzaria, or Maranzano was simply taking a gamble. Regardless, in March, Maranzano sent word to Luciano that he wanted to talk. Luciano and his associate, Vito Genovese, met with Maranzano in Brooklyn.
29:35 Speaker 01 During the meeting, Luciano offered to personally arrange Mazzaria's death, but on three conditions. First, Luciano would become boss of Mazzaria's gang. Second, Maranzano would stop retaliating against Mazzaria's crew. And third, moving forward, everything would be more equal. A single boss could not control everything in New York. Maranzano agreed to the terms, and Luciano said he needed two weeks to take out Mazzaria. Maranzano responded, "Good. I'm looking forward to a peaceful Easter."
30:15 Speaker 01 April 15, 1931, was a bright sunny day in New York. The winter snow had thawed, and the crisp spring air let everyone know that summer was on the horizon. Joe Mazzaria decided it was the perfect day to go to his new favorite seafood restaurant in Coney Island. He hopped in his bulletproof sedan and headed east. With him were two bodyguards and his trusted lieutenant, Charles Luciano. The party arrived at around 1:00 PM. Mazzaria, known to be something of a glutton, ordered lobster and spaghetti with red clam sauce. At the end of the meal, in keeping with Italian tradition, the men drank red wine straight from Tuscany.
30:59 Speaker 01 Luciano suggested they play peanuckle. While the men shuffled the deck and passed out the cards, the other patrons left the restaurant. Before long, the only people who were still in the quiet restaurant were Luciano, Mazzaria, and the two bodyguards. Luciano looked around and saw that the waiters were nowhere to be seen. The owner was missing, and the owner's mother-in-law, Anna, was back in the kitchen. It was Anna's cooking that Mazzaria loved so much. Luciano glanced at his watch and saw it was about 3:30 PM. He told Mazzaria he needed to use the restroom, then he excused himself. While in the restroom, Luciano heard the restaurant's front door open.
31:43 Speaker 01 He heard a rush of feet, and then the staccato pops of gunfire. He heard the sound of feet running out of the restaurant, followed by a loud crash to the floor. Luciano waited a second, then he washed his hands and calmly walked back into the dining room.
32:02 Speaker 01 When Luciano returned, he saw Mazzaria lying on the floor. His body was riddled with bullets, and a pool of blood began to form under him. Mazzaria was alone. His two bodyguards had mysteriously vanished, which meant they were probably in on the hit. Luciano slowly approached Mazzaria's body. For a decade, Luciano had worked for Mazzaria and had killed who knows how many people to help Mazzaria reach and keep his spot at the top. Now, Joe the Boss Mazzaria was dead, and Lucky Luciano had orchestrated the entire thing. Luciano knew it had to be done. One more killing was the only way to establish peace.
32:45 Speaker 01 And there was a kind of peace afterward, just not the kind Luciano expected. Luciano met the new boss and discovered he was the same as the old boss. Sixty years before legendary musician Pete Townsend wrote the immortal lyrics for the song "Won't Be Fooled Again", Lucky Luciano was one of countless people in human history who lived them. He had fomented revolution and survived a war, only to learn that very little had changed. He quickly believed that at least one more killing was needed. Unfortunately for Luciano, his new boss, Salvatore Maranzano, believed the same thing.
33:35 Speaker 01 Next time on Infamous America, Salvatore Maranzano proclaims himself boss of all bosses within the American mafia. Charles Luciano begrudgingly accepts Maranzano's title. But after a few months of Maranzano's reign, Luciano decides another change is needed. Meanwhile, Maranzano decides it's time for Lucky Luciano's luck to run out. Next week on Infamous America, New York isn't big enough for both bosses.
34:14 Speaker 01 Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched, written, and produced by Joe Guerra. Original music by Rob Valier. Early research and writing by Michael Byrne. I'm Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.
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