Nothing is perhaps more revealing about the man and his personal goals. Whereas many Mafia punks could neither read nor write, Lansky at the age of thirty-nine was still attempting to improve himself. And nothing was more essential to a man who had already handled millions and was fast becoming the National Crime Syndicate’s expert on gambling than a knowledge of mathematics.
*
Lansky knew his promise to win Lucky’s release had to be kept if his future plans were to be successful. ‘The key was Tom Dewey. Long before, when Dewey was special prosecutor, Lansky had noted his ambition. His pledge to Lucky was based largely on his gambler’s hunch that eventually it would be to Dewey’s advantage to release Lucky.
*
Underworld sources like to boast of their political connections, real or imaginary. Yet only the naive will dismiss the boasts out of hand. Organized crime could not exist without political corruption, and enough is on record to prove—in theory at least—that anything is possible.
The boast has been made that Lansky pumped as much as $250,000 into Dewey’s campaign. That no record of such a contribution exists is not surprising. Lansky, say underworld sources, simply followed standard procedure in such matters and used respectable fronts as his agents. Utmost discretion would have been required in any case. Where the goal was the ultimate release of a Lucky Luciano, even more care would have been needed.
To win Luciano’s release, it was considered necessary to first put Dewey under obligation. Then, at the right time, an adequate excuse would be invented, as it has been in similar situations: New evidence has been produced; doctors have come forth to testify the prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness; the prisoner has been shown to have served the state in some fashion, perhaps by giving information that led to the conviction of another notorious gangster.
*
With the world at war, the rules were changed. Emphasis was no longer on local gangsters, and reform sentiment was muted. The only thing that mattered to most Americans was the war effort. The gimmick, therefore, was obvious. If a way could be found for Luciano to contribute, or seem to contribute, to the defeat of the Axis, Dewey would be justified in freeing him.
The beginnings of Operation Underworld are still shrouded in mystery. For obvious reasons, Naval Intelligence doesn’t want to talk about it. On the record neither does District Attorney Hogan. And without his permission any files that remain cannot be examined.
Nevertheless, after much criticism of Dewey—some of it born of politics—arose at intervals, the official version has been leaked to favored writers. According to their stories, the inspiration for Operation Underworld came from Naval Intelligence in the Third Naval District. The Navy was upset over the possibility of espionage and sabotage on the docks of New York City.
A couple of officers got the notion the underworld could be enlisted to keep an eye on German and Italian secret agents. Naturally they turned to the district attorney’s office for advice, and at their first conference they met with Hogan—and Gurfein.
Under indictment and awaiting trial was Joe ‘‘Socks” Lanza, who through illicit labor unions allegedly controlled Fulton Fish Market, a municipally owned institution and the second largest fish emporium in the world. Gurfein suggested Socks might be willing to cooperate under the circumstances, which, sure enough, turned out to be the case. Socks started building an intelligence network, but after a month or so reported that he was having problems. He just wasn’t powerful enough. The only man who could get the job done was—who else?—Charlie Lucky.
It was mid-April, 1942. Dewey was running for governor and considered a sure bet. And here was his ex-assistant, the man who brought in the first tip on Lucky’s alleged prostitution- racket connections, getting word that Luciano—behind bars for five years—was essential to the war effort.
Socks’ message went first to Commander Charles H. Haffen- den, who headed the operation for Naval Intelligence. Needless to say, Haffenden immediately consulted with Gurfein who consulted with Hogan, and the decision was made.
For two years the meetings were held at frequent intervals. If some gangster wanted personal assurance from Lucky, he was brought to the prison. But that seldom happened. It was Lansky’s job to convey Lucky’s orders to the Mafia, and even those writers following the official line admit that “word carried by Lansky would wield the same authority as if Lucky delivered it personally. That was Lansky’s standing in the syndicate.” What the writers don’t say is that the Mafia members knew very well that Lansky was attempting to free the Boss, and they cooperated completely in the effort. Winning the war was secondary to helping Charlie Lucky by obeying Lansky’s orders.
Actually, there was no need to continue the meetings once the decision had been made, but Lansky and Polakoff were making a record—and the personal participation of Lucky was essential if the real goal of their conspiracy was to be achieved.
Little time was wasted in starting the wheels turning that would open the prison gates for Lucky. In February, 1943, At- torney George Wolf—Polakoff, for some reason, took a back seat —appealed to the State Supreme Court for a reduction of sentence to time already served. Wolf, who later represented Costello at the Kefauver hearings, based the appeal on Lucky’s con- tribution to the war.
“Luciano has cooperated with high military authorities,” Wolf said. “He is rendering a definite service to the war effort.”
The judge hearing the appeal wanted to know more, so Commander Haffenden—and Gurfein—were taken into his chambers where in strict security they allegedly disclosed the details of Operation Underworld. Apparently impressed, the judge turned down the application, but he dropped a hint in Dewey’s direction. In his written order he concluded:
“If Luciano continues to cooperate and remains a model prisner, it may be appropriate at some future time to apply for executive clemency.”
As Lansky had said long before, “Dewey put him in; Dewey can get him out.”
Certainly Lucky didn’t expect to be released in 1943. After all, the war was still going and he had served only some eight months in prison. Soldiers and sailors were serving for the duration, and why should Luciano be an exception if his services were of any real value? But the record had to be prepared, the foundation laid. The reference to executive clemency pointed the way and opened the door for Dewey to act at the proper time.
Lansky was well pleased. The prospect of getting out the Boss of the Mafia was very good. Meantime, acting as the voice of Lucky, he extended his control over that jealous society to an unprecedented degree. Even Anastasia expressed himself as happy with the way Lansky was redeeming his promise.
“You're the only bastard with brains enough to do it,” he ac- knowledged.
*
Wild are the tales told about Luciano’s aid to the war effort —including one that he personally led the invasion—but noth- ing has been said about a singular contribution allegedly made by Meyer Lansky. The story is told here in full knowledge it won't, perhaps can’t, be confirmed, but it comes from sources that can only be described as reliable.
As Lucky’s area of influence was the Mafia, at home and abroad, Lansky’s was Florida and the Caribbean with his spe- cial relationship to Cuba. He became chummy with Fulgencio Batista shortly after that ex-sergeant seized power in September, 1933, and that friendship ripened in the following years as Lansky operated the racetrack and gambling casinos in Havana.
The war put an end to empire building, but Meyer planned to resume when the conflict ended. Batista, meanwhile, encountered some political difficulties. To solve them, he legalized the Communist Party of Cuba in 1938. In 1940, the Communists supported him when Batista— 122 tired of supporting puppets—got himself elected president for the first time.
A new election was approaching in 1944, and rumor had it that Batista was ready to make new concessions to the Communists. Fearing a complete takeover by the Reds—a not unlikely development as was proved fifteen years later—President Roosevelt sent stern warnings through diplomatic channels. Batista received them politely but made it clear he would be guided by his own interests.
The President, who considered Batista a gangster, decided— so goes the story—that he needed a gangster who could talk tough to Batista. Informed of Lansky’s role in Operation Un- derworld, and of his friendship with the dictator, Roosevelt in- structed Naval Intelligence—an agency dear to his heart—to send Lansky to Havana with orders to tell Batista to permit an honest election—or else. The U.S. Navy had plenty of ships and men available, and Roosevelt wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
A little awed by his mission, and personally none too happy about it, Lansky spoke to his friend. Batista conceded, none too willingly, and some private plans were made. It was no surprise that in an honest election held in 1944 Dr. Ramoén Grau San Martin, a physician, won in a land- slide against Batista’s handpicked candidate. Expecting defeat, Batista let a stooge take the fall.
Immediately thereafter, Batista was permitted to retire to an orange grove near Daytona Beach, Florida, up the coast from Lansky’s Broward headquarters.
The new administration, while hard on Communists, was corrupt enough. Lansky, whose secret role in eliminating Batista was suspected, found himself still welcome in Havana. And he made preparations against the day that Luciano would complete his war service and would be free to set up a new base of operations.
In underworld circles, the rumor has persisted that Lansky, in exchange for his contribution to American hemispheric secu- rity, was promised immunity against federal prosecution. In support of that theory: In 1953 the IRS recommended prosecution of Lansky for income-tax evasion. The Justice Department, which had final authority, declined to prosecute.
An attempt to denaturalize Lansky and deport him broke down in the higher levels of Justice after years of investigation. Whether the rumor is true or not, Lansky for years seemed immune on the federal level.
On V-E Day, May 7, 1945, Lucky Luciano petitioned Governor Dewey for executive clemency. Dewey turned the petition over to the State Parole Board, a body consisting of his appointees. After some months of apparent investigation, the board recommended unanimously that on the basis of his war effort Lucky should be released. Deportation was a foregone conclusion.
With the way thus carefully prepared, Dewey approved the recommendation. His apologists called his action routine.
It had taken longer than expected, but Meyer Lansky had kept his promise.
*
Yet the Casino Era had begun, dwarfing anything that preceded it. Prohibition, with all its millions, couldn’t compare with the profits that rolled in from gambling—legal and illegal.
The postwar boom, the reaction to the economic hardships of the four years just ended, provided the incentive. New cars, better roads, and planes provided the means. No longer was it necessary to have a gambling joint furtively hidden in the suburbs of a large city. Now regional gambling and vice centers arose, drawing their patrons from the several surrounding states.
And Meyer Lansky, who carefully had laid the foundations over the years, emerged as the single most powerful man in crime.
*
If his hands weren’t full enough with this vast expansion, Lan- sky found himself with domestic troubles. Relations with Anna, after remaining stable for years, worsened steadily as the children grew older. Anna noted with alarm the strange affection the first son, Buddy, held for his father. As if trying to compen-sate for a life the crippled boy could not lead, Lansky told him stories of his adventures in Havana and Las Vegas. Always he would stop talking when she entered the room, but Anna heard enough to believe that her husband was boasting about his career as a gangster instead of trying to hide it.
No such confidence existed between the second son and his father; Lansky followed his plan and pushed Paul toward West Point with a determination that knew no compromise. Anna, noting the boy’s good mind, secretly hoped he would become a rabbi, but her husband gave her tentative suggestions no consideration. Paul, while kind to his mother, held himself aloof from both parents.
Sandy was still another problem. Her father adored her, and the little girl was intelligent enough to know it. “You're spoil- ing her,’’ Anna would cry, to no avail. Sandy was spoiled, and she deeply resented her mother’s effort to interfere. Nevertheless, she was a pretty and charming child—when she wanted to be—and Anna was more than slightly jealous of her own daughter.
Lansky was away a lot during those years, and Anna, while suspecting the truth and fearing the worst, was told nothing about his business. Marriage became a mockery she was increasingly unable to accept. Several nervous breakdowns occurred, and in 1945 she was placed in a mental institution. The rest did her good, but her absence caused her to lose any controls she 132 still exerted over the children. Shortly after her release, she suggested they separate.
*
Less than a week after the divorce became final, the big story broke: Lucky Luciano was in Cuba.
Much was written then and later about Lucky’s sojourn in Cuba. Many of the stories were speculative, based on various official guesses, and few came near the truth. Only Meyer Lan- sky and several of his trusted aides knew the real truth, and, for obvious reasons, they weren’t talking.
In the first place, Lucky wanted a base in Havana. He ‘wanted to be close to his family; he wanted to be close to his in- vestments; and he wanted to make himself capo di capi re of the Mafia.
Lansky had no choice but to go along—up to a point. To have refused to make the necessary arrangements would have destroyed all he had worked so hard to gain. Yet Cuba was Lansky country, despite the departure of Batista.
So Lucky found a warm welcome. He invested in a couple of gambling casinos—all small by Lansky standards—and he talked vaguely of future plans. But most of all he enjoyed himself. Those lost years in prison had taken a lot of the steam from the Boss; he felt he deserved a long vacation.
Between visits to the racetrack and dates with the beautiful Cuban women, Luciano summoned the top men of the Mafia to Cuba. Everyone from Joe Adonis to Albert Anastasia to Vito Genovese came to pay their respects to the self-proclaimed new boss of all the bosses. Capos in the hinterlands followed suit, and while there was some grumbling, no one was ready to defy Luciano. The presence of Lansky at his side, representing the National Crime Syndicate, was in itself enough to discourage potential rebels. Lansky controlled casino gambling—and it was proving to be a gold mine. Any capo hoping for a cut of the action didn’t want to offend Lansky.
Lucky noticed the reaction. One day he growled, “The bas- tards seem more afraid of you than me.”
Lansky shrugged. “Maybe they figure I’m your enforcer,” he said. “After all, you’ve been away.”
It was only after Lucky had received the pledges of allegiance from almost all ranking members of the Honored Society that Lansky acted. He sent an informer to have a quiet talk with a Federal Narcotics Bureau agent in Havana. Harry J. Anslinger, then commissioner of Narcotics, told what happened in his book, The Murderers, published in 1961 by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy.
“IT had received a preliminary report,” Anslinger wrote, “through a Spanish-speaking agent I had sent to Havana, and I read this to the Cuban ambassador. The report stated that Luciano had already become friendly with a number of high Cuban officials through the lavish use of expensive gifts. Luci- ano had developed a full-fledged plan which envisioned the Caribbean as his center of operations. The Isle of Pines, south of Cuba, was to become the Monte Carlo of the Western Hemisphere. Cuba was to be made the center of all interna- tional narcotic operations. We had a number of transcribed calls Lucky had made to Miami, New York, Chicago and other large American cities, and the names of the hoodlums who called him. Lucky kept himself busy in Havana.”
*
Following his conversation with the Cuban ambassador, An- slinger wrote, the ambassador immediately telephoned the president of Cuba with an urgent plea to issue an immediate deportation order for Lucky. The president consulted with Lansky—the one man he was afraid of offending. Meyer played it cool, advising the president to wait until given a suitable excuse.
Anslinger takes credit for providing that excuse. He notified the Cuban government, he said, that “‘as long as Luciano re- mains in Cuba, America will not send one more grain of morphine or any other narcotics for medicinal or any other needs.” Now the Cubans had no choice. Lansky sadly reported to Lucky he had to go.
Luciano was disappointed, naturally, but the blame belonged to Anslinger. Lansky had done his best and had proved his loyalty again and again. He was the only man Lucky fully trusted.
Once more the top members of the Mafia were summoned to Havana by urgent messages. The capo di capi re had orders to communicate. Singly and in small groups, he gave the word. He was returning to Italy. From there he would organize the international narcotics trade and make sure a constant supply reached the United States.
Meanwhile, to act as his regent, he was appointing Meyer Lansky. Anyone failing to obey a legitimate order from Lansky would be considered in contempt of the capo di capi re and would answer for such contempt with his life.
Those weren’t the exact words, but that was the mandate handed down by Luciano. And no one objected. Lansky had won the respect and admiration of everyone. He had shown them how to get rich. He had guts and brains. He had loyally served the Boss by keeping his promise to get him out of prison.
*
Shortly after the new club completed its first season, a stranger walked into the office of Emett Choate, then attorney for Bouche and later to be a federal district judge in Miami.
The stranger piled $250,000 in cash on Choate’s desk and announced that the Club LaBoheme was under new management.
Choate, who had been warned to expect some type of proposal, was startled by the money cascading on his desk from an expensive briefcase, but he refused.
“Better take it,” said the well-dressed stranger. “It’s the best offer your people will get.” Shortly thereafter, two hard-faced strangers walked into Letendre’s office in the club and announced they were his new partners. They were friendly enough, explaining the new club was just too big to be permitted to operate independently. Letendre ordered them out. Before leaving, they gave him some advice.
“You’re marked for murder,” they told him.
Letendre was greatly disturbed by the incident. He had no illusions about the power of the men running the Colonial Inn, although most people assumed the real force behind it was Frank Costello—the new bogeyman of organized crime. He drove to Miami and consulted with a few of his friends in the racket. They treated him as if he were already dead. Rumors spread rapidly, and when Letendre flew home to Woonsocket to consult with Butsy Morelli, then Mafia boss of Rhode Island, he got the brushoff.
“Tf Lansky’s involved, I can’t help you,” Morelli said bluntly.
“Matter of fact, I shouldn’t even talk to you.” Letendre returned to Florida, still hoping to find allies. He conferred with Joe Massei, a top capo from Detroit, and got the same answer. Little Augie Carfano was sympathetic but helpless.
“It’s a syndicate operation,” he said. “I can’t interfere.” More frightened than ever, Letendre returned to Woonsocket. Shortly after midnight on April 23, he left the Blackstone Hotel and started to his “pretentious home,” as newspaper reports described it. As his big station wagon slowed to make the turn from the street into the long driveway, a man stepped out of the darkness and onto the running board. He yanked open the door and fired two slugs from a 38-caliber revolver of the type often issued to policemen.
A neighbor said he heard the shots at 1 A.M. and looked out a window in time to see a man with a pistol in his hand step into a “dark sedan which immediately roared away.” It was an execution in the best tradition of the Bugs & Meyer Mob. And it served to illustrate to Broward County that if the bribe didn’t work, the bullet did.
*
The board members, aware of the friendship between Lansky and Siegel, listened carefully but found nothing to challenge in his presentation.
“I now have information,” Lansky continued in a flat, unemotional voice, “that Ben has put together a personal bankroll of six hundred grand. He plans to join Virginia in Paris within a week. From there he hopes to work out a deal acceptable to us.
The silence was broken at last by Albert Anastasia who harbored an ancient grudge against both Lansky and Siegel.
“Farlo fuort,” said Anastasia. ‘Kill him.”
Carfano, who also had his reasons, seconded the motion. Costello nodded his assent, and Longie Zwillman his. Moe Dalitz said nothing, his eyes on Lansky.
“T’'ve got this thought,” said Lansky. “We owe Ben something. He’s been with us through some rough days. It’s this bitch that got him out of line.
“The Flamingo is a good idea. It’ll work. Before long there’ll be a whole row of resorts out there. We’ll get our money back many times over.” “I agree,” said Dalitz.
“Okay,” continued Lansky. “Let me go out and talk to Ben.
If it doesn’t work. I'll personally make the necessary arrangements.”
The word of Lansky was enough. The meeting broke up with the death sentence—first ever handed down on a member of the board—suspended at the discretion of Lansky.
Next day, Lansky arrived at the Flamingo. Siegel introduced him to Paul Price, the public relations man at the hotel since the day it opened. Siegel and Lansky were soon closeted in the penthouse Bugsy had built as a love nest for Virginia on top of the Flamingo.
Rumors spread that the two men were quarreling bitterly.
No one saw Lansky leave, but he was reported next day in Los Angeles. Siegel had refused to listen to reason. Instead, he counterattacked, offering the plan he had devised earlier of turning over the Flamingo to the Mob to satisfy his debts and retiring with only a small piece as a source of income for the future. Or so Lansky later reported to the syndicate.
Lansky, recognizing that it was impossible to save his friend, promised to consider the proposal. They agreed to meet in Beverly Hills on June 21 to continue the discussion.
In the early hours of June 20, Siegel flew to Los Angeles and spent a busy if frustrating day. Friends reported that he was
tense and worried. The rumors had reached L.A. that he was marked for murder. That evening he drove to Virginia’s home on North Linden Drive. With him was Allen Smiley, an old associate. They were sitting side by side on the sofa when the end came.
Outside in the darkness, a syndicate killer aimed a 30-caliber carbine at Siegel’s worn but still handsome face. The first bullet caught him in the head, knocking out his right eye. The second bullet wasn’t needed, but it, too, struck the head. Still other shots were fired, perhaps as an alibi for Smiley. One went through his coat sleeve.
Twenty minutes later, Morris Sidwirtz, better known as Moe Sedway, walked into the Flamingo. With him was Gus Greenbaum and Morris Rosen. To an awed and frightened staff they announced they were taking over.
When Joe Epstein got the news in Chicago, his first thought was of Virginia Hill. Was she also marked for death? He called her in Paris. Heartbroken and scared, she went into seclusion.
Several days later, she departed with friends for a trip to Monte Carlo, where she tried to kill herself with an overdose of sleeping pills. Several years later, after repeated efforts, she succeeded.
An estimated $600,000 Siegel had given a friend in Vegas for safekeeping before leaving to meet with Lansky was eventually located and confiscated by the syndicate. Hymie Siegel, who represented Lansky in the garment industry, made a search for other hidden loot. He didn’t find any.
*
The new millions now flowing into the Swiss bank accounts of the underworld increased Lansky’s prestige and authority, but at the same time it aroused a certain resentment. Nothing was surer in organized crime than the fact that the higher you climbed the more persons were eager to replace you.
*
While he was spending time in jail, the long IRS probe came to a successful conclusion and Costello was convicted of tax eva- sion. He managed to get out of prison a few times on appeals, and it was 1958 before his last attempt to beat the rap was rejected.
But the publicity had destroyed Costello’s value to the syndicate and caused his Mafia rivals to sharpen their knives in anticipation of taking over his share of the rackets. Sensing that the lid was about to blow off, Lansky called a meeting of the syndicate’s board of directors for November, 1956. It was perhaps the largest meeting since Bugsy Siegel was sentenced to die subject to Lansky’s discretion. As usual, the session was held in the Waldorf Astoria where Costello had lived for years as Mr. Ross.
The New York delegation was sharply divided, as could be expected. Arguing that Costello had earned his place and would soon be forgotten by the press and public were such gangsters as Vito Genovese, Jerry Catena, Tony (Anthony Strollo) Bender, Longie Zwillman, and, of course, Albert Anastasia. The latter was automatically opposed to anything sponsored by Lansky.
Zwillman, who might normally have supported Lansky, had become closely allied over the years in the New Jersey rackets with Catena and didn’t want to do anything to cause a break in his comfortable relationship.
Supporting Lansky was, of course, Jimmy Blue Eyes Alo;
Trigger Mike Coppola, who now lived in Miami Beach; his partners, Joey Rao and Fat Tony Salerno; Thomas Luchese;
George Scalise; and Lansky’s old enemy, Anthony “Little Augie” Carfano. Alo, in briefing Lansky before the meeting, warned that Carfano had his eyes on Costello’s empire.
“You get rid of Frank,’”’ he warned, “and we may have a worse problem on our hands. Little Augie hates your guts.”
But Lansky wanted to take one thing at a time. His real worry was Big Albert, who was eager to cut in on the action in Havana.
Had the matter been left to the New York delegation a civil war might have resulted, so close was the division. But now Lansky’s ancient courtship of gang leaders across the country paid off. Without exception, the men who had begun in Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, and even Chicago backed Lansky. Many of them had pieces of the operations in Las Vegas, and others were getting rich in Havana.
‘They owed little to Costello who, as far as they were concerned, had served the cause only by acting as a lightning rod to attract the bolts that might otherwise have fallen on them. Lansky, on the other hand, had taught them how to be rich—and respectable as well.
Despite impassioned speeches by Anastasia, the odds against Costello never shortened. Albert committed an unforgivable blunder at the end by appealing to Mafia loyalties and trying to divide the syndicate along ethnic lines.
Zwillman became uncomfortable enough to pass a message to Lansky:
“The bastard don’t like Jews. Should I change my vote?”
Lansky scribbled: “Stick with Costello. It looks better that way.” The vote was a formality. Costello was voted out of the National Crime Syndicate by an overwhelming margin. Only one question remained: Should he be hit or allowed to retire with dignity?
And now a new division appeared. Carfano arose to demand that Costello be killed. As long as he remained, he argued, there would be continued heat. Furthermore, he would be a rallying point for dissident elements who might try to revolt against the syndicate. Carfano looked at Anastasia as he spoke, and no one misunderstood his meaning. Alo took the floor to argue against the proposal. Frank, he said, had merely been unlucky. He had done nothing in violation of the syndicate’s rules. Let him retire in honor and Alo would guarantee he would cause no future trouble.
The delegates knew that it was Lansky speaking, although the words came from Jimmy Blue Eyes. At the vote, only Carfano and two of his lieutenants favored Costello’s death.
Informed of the decision, Costello accepted graciously. He was tired of the heat, the publicity. Ahead of him still was an- other jail term for the tax conviction. If the word got around that he had been voted out, maybe the Feds would go easy on him.
Some haggling was necessary before Costello agreed to give up all his rackets, and it was only after Lansky personally intervened to guarantee him a piece of the Tropicana Club in Vegas that an accord was reached. After all, Costello wanted to retire in comfort. The Tropicana was nearing completion under the direction of Costello’s old partner, Dandy Phil Kastel, so its choice was entirely appropriate.
The director’s meeting broke up with Lansky the acknowledged, though unofficial, Chairman of the Board. Yet Lansky knew old wounds had been reopened that would require careful observation in the immediate future. Carfano was angry because Costello had not been killed, and Anastasia was sore because he had been deposed. The two men had only one thing in common—each blamed Meyer Lansky.
*
Meanwhile events were moving faster now as old mistakes began to catch up with the few men who still offered a threat to Meyer Lansky. Zwillman was first to go. Under heavy pressure from the IRS and facing a Senate probe of his vending machine rackets, Zwillman gave evidence that he was old, tired, and ready to make a deal. Gerald Catena, who shared the New Jersey jungle with Zwillman, asked permission to eliminate Longie.
Catena was an exception to the general run of Mafia hoods— smart, businesslike, and efficient. Somewhat reluctantly, Lansky gave his okay. If Zwillman crumbled, he would expose much that Lansky wanted hidden. Furthermore, he had opposed Lansky in the decision to remove Costello.
On February 27, 1959, Zwillman was found dead in the basement of his twenty-room home in West Orange, New Jersey. Police called it suicide. Federal officials, hot on Zwillman’s trail, said nothing for publication. Privately they called it murder.
Genovese was next to go. Indicted on July 8, 1958, he was convicted early in 1959 on narcotics charges and sent to prison for fifteen years. Those writers who had made Vito boss of all the bosses in their stories continued to insist that he operated the rackets from prison. When Genovese died in prison in 1969, there was great speculation as to who would succeed him. Meyer Lansky found it all very amusing.
Remaining was Carfano, and Lansky decided he could not wait for events to catch up with Little Augie. For with Genovese’s death, Carfano began an attempt to take over the National Crime Syndicate. He had hated Lansky since being supplanted as gambling boss of Florida, and his new moves were aimed directly at the Little Man. On the night of September 25, 1959, Carfano dined at a restaurant on Lexington Avenue.
Tony Bender was with him, as was Mrs. Janice Drake, a former beauty queen who called him Uncle Gus. A telephone call came to him at the bar, and Carfano got very excited. He returned to the table, threw down a roll of bills, and announced:
“I’ve an appointment in Queens and I have to get there in a hurry.” Taking Mrs. Drake by the arm, he vanished into the night.
The caller who caused Carfano to dash away so hurriedly purported to be Jimmy Blue Eyes. Carfano, who had been discreetly courting Alo in an effort to win him away from Lansky, was eager to continue the courtship. If he could make an ally of Alo, Lansky’s influence with the Mafia would be seriously impaired. Upon hearing that Alo wanted to talk to him, Carfano threw caution aside and rushed out into the night. As had others, Carfano underestimated Lansky’s hold on certain individuals who valued his friendship above ethnic loyalties.
At La Guardia Airport, Carfano picked up two men who explained that Alo had gone on to his apartment. They were to take Carfano to him. The eager Little Augie didn’t hesitate as the men climbed into the back seat.
When they reached a lonely stretch of street, the men in back fired several shots into the heads of Mrs. Drake and Carfano.
The 1959 black Cadillac leaped the curb and came to a stop.
When police arrived, there was, of course, no trace of the kill- ers.
Police later identified the killers tentatively as Jimmy Blue Eyes’ boys, but proof was lacking. Valachi, as usual, blamed Vito Genovese. Tony Bender disappeared two years later and hasn’t been seen since.
Meyer Lansky now ruled as Chairman of the Board of the National Crime Syndicate with no one left to contest that fact. The process of elimination which had begun with the betrayal of Lepke was complete.
Yet the only thing certain in this world is change, and even as Lansky disposed of his rivals, a bearded rebel came out of the mountains and overnight caused the Cuban gambling empire to crumble.
“You win a few and lose a few,” commented Alo. “Where do you go from here?”’ “The Bahamas,” said Lansky.
*
For Lansky the fall of Cuba and the elimination of his rivals marked the end of an era. By the old standards, he had no more worlds to conquer. Yet the challenge remained, to adjust to new Situations, to anticipate new developments, to plan for the future.
The men with whom he had worked, and sometimes fought, were old, rich, and tired—or dead, deported, or in prison. A new generation was coming along—young men who might be college trained, who carried no criminal record dating back to Prohibition, who had never been arrested for illegal gambling.
And the style of crime, thanks largely to Lansky, had also changed. The Mafia might carry on in traditional fashion, with crude attempts at extortion, robbery, blackmail, but they would serve, as always, to attract the heat. The real leaders of crime in the coming years would be quiet, respectable, and almost invisible.
There had been no way to disguise Lansky’s role in Cuba. It had depended almost entirely upon his personal relations with the dictator. In the future there would be no such obvious connection—for Lansky or for the bright young men he would recruit. Indirection, insulation, and high-level graft would protect them. The gray area between legal and illegal activity would be widened, and inevitably that which society had frowned upon in the past would become accepted. The National Crime Syndicate as an organization would merge with the business world until one was indistinguishable from the other.
In short, what Lansky planned in his weeks of seclusion was the economic conquest of the nation. The Bahamas would be his laboratory.
*
The Coordinated War on Crime launched by Bob Kennedy meant the end of wide-open gambling in such remaining stateside centers as Newport, Kentucky, and Hot Springs, Arkansas.
As old doors closed, however, new ones opened. The British in 1960 legalized gambling and naively assumed they could keep out American gangsters. Lansky used the same methods in England that were working in the Bahamas. His trusted aides moved in, organized the casinos, and were replaced in time with respectable fronts whose ties with crime were not so well known. The British could, and did, deport the George Rafts and Dino Cellinis, and having done so could reassure themselves that they had cleaned house. Meanwhile, gambling became a virus in the bloodstream, and no scandal was likely to cause its abolition.
*
Brook was ordered to find a hotel and arrange for it to install a casino. Working with him on the project was Adrien Jedai, a Cairo-born financier who owned half of the world’s largest casino, the Casino du Liban in Beirut, Lebanon. It was understood that Lansky owned the other half, but, of course, no one could prove it.
A new hotel was to be built on the site of the old London- derry Hotel. Brook and Jedai won the right to operate the Park Lane Casino on the first floor. Shortly after it opened in 1966, Brook was indicted on that income-tax probe in Miami.
The British weren’t happy when the news reached England.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Sportsman Club of New York agreed to organize junkets. On one of them, Angelo Bruno, Mafia boss of Philadelphia, flew over accompanied by Morris Lansburgh of the Eden Roc in Miami Beach. The British put both men on a stop list which was supposed to prevent them from returning. The Bahamian government followed suit—a move that was embarrassing when Lansburgh leased the King’s Inn on Grand Bahama from D. K. Ludwig. When Lansburgh kept coming over anyway, the Bahamians explained he had been given a special pass to conduct business.
Ironically, an organization known as the Jewish Defense League began a boycott of Park Lane on the grounds it was connected with such Arabs as Jedai. All good Jewish gangsters were urged to stay away.
Brook went to Paris for a weekend and upon returning to England was denied admittance. The English had decided he was a gangster. Somehow, he managed to get back into the States, but when he cashed a $50,000 check on a British bank, special agents of Intelligence located him. In 1968 he was convicted on the tax charge and sentenced to a year in prison.
But he had served his twofold purpose in getting the casino opened and allowing the British the satisfaction of kicking 2
out a suspected gangster. The men who replaced him had no such obvious connections. And Harry Brook was but one of many men used by Lansky for such purposes.
*
The theory was that if Papa Doc could be removed, a puppet could take his place who would make gestures of cooperation with the United States and permit the casino to operate undisturbed. When the invasion failed, there was nothing to do but wait.
Following Kennedy’s death, a new syndicate effort to get along with Papa Doc began. By this time Lansky had developed some friends in the Johnson administration. One of them was Bobby Gene Baker, secretary to the Senate Majority and President Johnson’s right-hand man.
Baker was taken in tow by three of Lansky’s top aides:
Clifford Jones, former lieutenant governor of Nevada; Ed Levinson, who had worked in Lansky’s casinos from Newport to Las Vegas; and Benjamin Siegelbaum, a Miami Beach wheeler dealer who had worked with Hoffa and had connections in Las Vegas.
Complicated deals were worked out that, among other things, paid Baker a penny a pound on all meat slaughtered in Haiti for exportation. Playing an important role was Senator George Smathers of Florida, who claimed the dis- tinction of being a personal friend of both Nixon and Johnson. Smathers had defended Batista to the end, and now he was prepared to use his influence in support of Papa Doc.
This influence was useful in arranging a $2,600,000 loan to Papa Doc in 1964 from the Inter-American Development Bank. The Alliance for Progress, now very frustrated, gave financial aid to the poverty-stricken country. It was taken for granted that most of the money would find its way into the dictator’s personal bank accounts in Switzerland.
By now the little black doctor called himself President for Life, Protector of the People, Maximum Chief of the Revolution, Apostle of National Unity, Benefactor of the Poor, Grand Patron of Commerce and Industry, and Electrifier of Souls. Voodoo was legalized but heavily taxed, and a picture of Papa Doc had to be displayed every time Baron Samedi was summoned from the dead.
Meanwhile, a former college professor, Raymond Joseph, organized hundreds of refugees from Haiti in the United States and fought an undercover war with Duvalier’s secret police, the dreaded Tontons Macoute.
Joseph’s people, with secret aid from the Central Intelligence Agency, planted informants in the presidential palace and broadcast intimate details of Papa Doc’s daily routine. This was intended to convince the Haitians that the rebels had a better deal with the demons than did their President for Life. (So effective were the broadcasts that the Tontons Macoute slipped into the studios of WRUL in New York one night and substituted pro-Duvalier propaganda for the tapes prepared by Joseph.
The station actually broadcast the first one before the deception was detected.)
*
The haul was enough to raise the hair of a high roller. Each piece of equipment, from dice tables to roulette wheels, had built-in electronic devices operated by remote control.
When operating, the equipment nullified the law of averages and made certain the sucker would lose each and every bet.
*
A patient man was Meyer Lansky. At age sixty-eight he was trim and alert. Save for his three ulcers, he was in perfect health. His personal ambitions had long been satisfied, but there was still pleasure to be obtained in operating the machinery he had created. No one, perhaps not even Lansky, could accurately estimate his wealth or power. His empire in 1970 was literally world-wide, and was growing every day.
Lansky had survived the wars of his youth, wars that had cut down such men as King Solomon, Dutch Schultz, and Bugsy Siegel. He had eliminated his rivals—Anastasia, Zwillman, Carfano, and the rest. Lepke had died in the electric chair, and Zwillman had died in a garage. Luciano and Adonis had been deported, and Costello deposed. In later years he watched the FBI pursue the hapless Mafia while he built a modern, sophisticated organization that relied on moxie rather than muscle, that had friends in high places and low, that literally controlled the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars. Lansky owned men, not property, and the men who took orders from him ranked high in business and finance. He had financed revolutions, influenced American foreign policy, and changed the economic and social lives of people in many nations.
‘The process that began in 1929, when bankrupt businessmen turned to bootleggers for cash and credit, had continued over the decades, and in 1970 the lines separating the legal and the illegal had become almost indistinct.
Lansky could walk his dog on Collins Avenue completely confident that, by virtue of brains and guts and iron self-discipline, he had left his mark on his adopted country and on the world.
Regardless of what the future might bring, he was—in the eyes of those who mattered—Chairman of the Board.
*
Epilogue
In November, 1970, after this book was in production, word flashed around the world that Meyer Lansky was in Israel.
Lansky refused to discuss his plans, but reporters noted that as a Jew, Lansky could invoke the Law of the Return of 1950 and acquire instant citizenship. Such a move would not be without precedent.
In 1964, Lansky’s old associate, Joseph “Doc” Stacher, pleaded guilty and was convicted of income-tax evasion. On July 31, Stacher was fined $10,000 and given a five-year prison sentence. The sentence was suspended on condition he go to Israel and remain there. He did.
Al Mones, a nationally known gambler and Lansky associate, fled to Israel after being indicted in Miami in 1970. He is offcially a fugitive from justice. In 1967, two of Lansky’s lieutenants on Grand Bahama Island—Max Courtney and Frank Ritter—vanished mysteriously from the Bahamas and turned up in Israel. Both were under indictment in New York, and both had been declared “undesirable” by the new Bahamian government, although they subsequently decided they were too young to retire and returned to New York to face the music.
Moreover, Lansky knew that his own indictment was but a matter of time in connection with the “skimming” of funds from the Flamingo in Las Vegas. The probe began in New York in 1969 with the seizure of financial records relating to gam- bling junkets to the Flamingo. It moved to Miami where Lansky and some of his top aides were questioned by a federal grand jury. Other sessions were held in Los Angeles.
Then, in October, 1970, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was convicted on charges of obstructing justice as a result of Morgen- thau’s probe of Alvin Malnik’s Scopitone deal. Alo accepted a five-year prison term. In asking for the maximum sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Naftalis told the judge that Alo is considered ‘‘one of the most significant organized crime figures in the United States. He is closely associated with Meyer Lansky of Miami who is at the apex of organized crime,’ Naftalis added. When Lansky learned what was going on, he simply decided to leave the country.
Perhaps moved to seek comparisons with Cosa Nostra ties to Sicily, some observers have speculated that men like Lansky have been attempting to buy themselves a final, ultimate sanctuary in Israel—a place where they can be respected and left alone.
Certainly Jewish gangsters have long and openly supported Jewish causes and the State of Israel. On the night Lansky’s ex-partner, Bugsy Siegel, was executed, the Flamingo was taken over by Moe Sedway. When asked how he so conveniently happened to be in Las Vegas, he explained he was there to arrange a United Jewish Appeal fund drive. As previously noted, men like Joe Linsey and Lansky make contributions to Brandeis University. And in Miami Beach, known gangsters have pledged large amounts in the huge “‘Bonds for Israel”’ rallies.
Lansky has many friends in Israel. On his frequent visits to Israel, the press termed him a “philanthropist”? and “Miami Beach socialite.”” The multimillion-dollar Dan Hotel, to which he was repaired in November, was built by the so-called Miami Group. In addition to the Dan Hotel—largest in Israel with one thousand air-conditioned rooms—the Miami Group built the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the Accadia Hotel in Herliya, and the Dan Carmel in Haifa. Among other Israeli enterprises, it has drilled for oil wells, built factories, and announced plans for a skyscraper complex to rival Rockefeller Center.
That Lansky could continue to direct his international empire from Israel no one doubted. Indeed, shortly after his arrival, a stream of couriers, some of them old and trusted aides, began journeying to Israel. The FBI noted wryly the departure and return of such men as Hymie Siegel, Yiddy Bloom, Harry “Nig Rosen’ Stromberg and, of course, Jake Lansky.
Members of the Miami Group led by Max Orovitz—the man in whose Miami Beach office the casino on Grand Bahama was planned by Lansky—also appeared suddenly in Israel. They announced they were there to look after their “investments.”
At sixty-eight, troubled with ulcers and having no worlds left to conquer, Meyer Lansky could walk his dog in Tel Aviv as easily as Miami Beach. Behind him in the States he left an efficient organization staffed by a new breed of lieutenants, college trained, with no criminal records, who might go for decades before being identified.
Thanks largely to the genius of one man, the Syndicate International had become a terrible reality.
Hank Messick
