Judyth Vary Baker: Living in Exile

[Magda Hassan]

I find the research about the prohibitively high cost of long distance calls from a payphone in a laudromat clear, compelling and checkable.

I'm afraid I don't regard the fact that the Mob ran "a nationwide telephone betting system that had wagers on everything from college and professional football to the World Series" much of a rebuttal.

How did LHO learn of these mafia "free phones"?

Why would LHO have been given access to mafia "free phones" to make long distance love calls? That's not helping the Mob to make money.

FWIW there were betting lines here that worked in a similar way since betting was illegal until the government set up their own betting agency sometime in the mid- late 1960's. Until that time there were extensive betting lines set upall around the country by organised crime and corrupt individuals in the PMG (Post master General which was the only telephone company at that time here) It was a very good earner for the technicians. They were run mostly out of the back of shops or above shops. They would move periodically to avoid detection, mostly from the PMG as the cops were usually paid and on side or turned a blind eye on orders from their 'superiors'. The lines were outside the normal system and one could make calls anywhere all over the country. If one knew some one involved in the system one could also use it for personal matters as long as it wasn't during business times like Saturday races, evening trots or mid week country races or when ever they had the boxing matches on.

While I don't know the particulars of the laundry referred to by Judyth I have no problem with the general scenario of calls being made on such a system. I know that laundries were used here along with delicatessens, butcher, haberdasheries, greengrocers etc.