jane is a huge player in the life of richard daley. must have made a run at her. >> interesting story. i forget how old she is but she is older now and called her apartment, one of the interesting things about the book, i was raised in catholic grade school, never tell a lie because they're too hard to remember. anyone i would interview or try to interview, i would always tell them the same thing and much easier to keep track of. i called the apartment and i said hi, jane, i am writing a book and you are very important person i would like to interview you, i would like to get my calendar, you can hear her patting down the hall in her slippers, patting down the hall, she had one of those big oil calendars you could hear, and i have some days for you, what are you thinking, i am pretty flexible. before you tell me the dates, what is your book about? and i said i am writing a biography of richard daley and the phone went -- she hung up on me. i called her back and she didn't answer. >> how big a part did she play? she is a major figure in

first thing richard daley did when he was elected mayor was disbanded the unit. the very next day. little happened as far as organized crime enforcing in chicago until wilson came after the scandal. he resurrected joe morris and his right hand, bill duffy, and that is very effective intelligence division, a very effective effort against organized crime that lasted through the tenure, seven or eight years of wilson being the superintendent of police. and then it kind of fizzled out. and up until this period of time weird little from the federal government. '60s, bill roemer and intelligence squad from the fbi began activity as a result of mcclellan and the committee hearings here in chicago. the outfit was involved in a lot of heroin distribution. so slowly but surely the federal government started to get in, but not the fbi. well, to some extent, to a limited extent. and i believe it's because j. edgar hoover was afraid to attack the mobs in the major cities because they were all integrated into the political structure. so if he was to attack the outfit in chicago, it would've been

. >>> plus, i've got a letter to a mayor who is no richard daley. >> but sequester is not symbolic, iting.

. >>> plus, i've got a letter to a mayor who is no richard daley. >> but sequester is not symbolic, it is real. and real people are suffering. >>> good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry and we have a lot to get to on the program today, but first we want to get everyone up to date on the latest situation on the ground in oklahoma. because last night we all sat breathless watching video like this one coming in live, less than two weeks after a tornado destroyed so many homes and buildings and lives in moore, oklahoma. and then five new tornados hit the oklahoma city area and st. louis area, causing flash flooding and a new round of damage. this morning the details are still coming in, but already there are reports of five people dead and at least 70 injured due to the storm. for more, we go live to nbc news's janet shamlian on the ground in oklahoma city. janet, you were there last night as the tornados hit. tell us how people handled the danger and where you were. >> reporter: good morning to you, melissa. yeah, we were here doing "nightly news with brian williams." the reason we were h

. -- richard daley's election.kind of begin to connect the dots. >> you know, i grew up on the northwest side of fulton and central in chicago here. when i wanted to move to doing something -- i grew up with all of this, grew up in the 60's and 70's, so all the people that listen to this talking about are things that i grew up with. so when i moved the wrote three novels. what to move to nonfiction and tackle something that was familiar with that i could understand. something about detroit, but i realize that all know about detroit. the one to do something about chicago where when i read state street or south parkway were never succumb i knew when i was talking about. i started to dive into going into these different people. algren, says, you know, second city, all of these various things. a lot of great work had been done on this. the definitive book. everyone of these topics. but what i found was that they were all kind of written into wonderful books were missing something. they talked about these people and eve

[laughter] >> keith, you offered richard m. daley the chance to speak on the record about his wife and career and he turned you down on some level that is it disappointing but not a surprise? >> i hoped he would chat with me but when you think it through i do think he is a very savvy man and politician. and richard nixon used to talk about plausible deniability. there was no upside to him talking to me. if you would talk to me and i wrote a book he did doglike then it is hard for him to say i don't like the book were as i write a book he did not like and he never talked to me he could say i don't even know the guy. he wanted to reserve the right to say he did not like the books. >> what has he said? >> nothing publicly. [laughter] >> what do you hear? you have private sources you interviewed about 140 people? what do you hear? >> i have heard nothing official but unofficially close friends have come to talks like this and bought the book and asked me to sign it simic anybody ask you to sign it to rich? [laughter] >> no. they have not