-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Syndicate Abroad
Hank Messick�1969
The Macmillan Company
London-Tronoto
LCCCN 69-11590
246 pps. � First/only edition � Out-of-print
Prologue:
Command Decision
NEW YEAR'S EVE in Havana and two "high rollers" prepared to quit the game.
General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar and Maier Suchowljansky�better known as
Meyer Lansky�possessed an active sense of realism. International gangsters of
long standing, both had surrendered power before only to rebuild as the
vagaries of man's ignorance created new opportunities.
It was a warm night as 1958 died, and cloudless. Business boomed in a hundred
brothels where virgins�real and alleged�asked top prices. Experience was a
commodity also concealed in the plush casinos where syndicate technicians
cleaned the suckers as they had done for decades in scores of stateside
joints. In the ballrooms of plush hotels subsidized by the casinos, tourist
and Cuban bureaucrat danced the old year away.
Reporters, their stories filed, joined the fun and games. The New York Times w
ould be scooped by no newspaper next day for reporting:
GOVERNMENT TROOPS SUPPORTED BY TANKS AND AVIATION HAVE FORCED THE REBELS TO
WITHDRAW FROM SANTA CLARA, ACCORDING TO REPORTS REACHING HAVANA TODAY.
Perhaps reporters who never learned of the relation of crime to politics back
home should not be expected to recognize a similar combination in a foreign
country.
For behind the official blandness things were happening. As bands in
nightclubs across Havana broke into "Auld Lang Syne," President Batista began
a series of telephone calls. The message to crook and crony was the same.
Only those who had proven their value in the past received the warning.
Presumably they might be useful in the future.
To Camp Columbia, the military fortress in the suburbs of Havana, the chosen
were directed. A ten-foot-high Christmas tree still stood in the lobby of the
Air Force building, and it attracted the wonder of sleepy children who might
otherwise have asked why Santa Claus was fleeing by plane.
The short, stocky Batista, escorted by seven carloads of armed men, arrived
about 2:30 A.M. Once again the hopeless military situation was reviewed.
Contrary to the reporters' stories, the rebels were advancing, and resistance
had collapsed. The decision to run was ratified. Farewells were short. Most
of the men had prepared for this day by stashing their loot in Swiss banks.
Within the hour planes began taking off with the world's latest�and
richest�crop of refugees.
The Dominican Republic was Batista's immediate destination. His home in
Daytona Beach, Florida, occupied for four years during a previous exile, was
not politically practical. Since regaining power, Batista's public image had
suffered. Perhaps later, when the excitement died, and new villains caught
the public fancy, it would be possible to return to Florida and from that
base plot a new coup in Cuba. Meanwhile, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo
offered temporary haven at a price Batista was well able to pay. Within two
years El Benefactor would be dead, shot down like a dog while returning from
a visit to his mistress. Unlike Batista, he proved unable to adapt to the
realities of a changing situation. Long before that happened, however,
Batista moved to the Madeira Islands off the northwest coast of Africa.
Portuguese officials were happy to welcome the wealthy visitor.
At least one effort would be made to get Batista into Florida. Leonard
Bursten of Miami Beach, a man with important friends, conceived a scheme to
have Representative Abraham J. Multer (D-NY) invite the ousted dictator to
testify in Washington before the House Banking and Currency Committee. The
FBI investigated, and the plan was dropped. Later the Department of Justice
found "no sufficient predicate for criminal prosecution."
Meanwhile, as rumors swept Havana, and dice continued to roll, some of the
new refugees headed straight for Florida. Among them was Meyer Lansky. He had
been an international gangster even longer than Batista but, over the years,
had learned how to make himself virtually invisible. The Gold Coast, which he
had looted ten years before, was still open to him as home and headquarters.
It was to Broward County he flew in a chartered plane.
For the short, slender Lansky, the flight marked his second retreat from
Havana. In the late Thirties he had begun building a gambling operation
around the Hotel Nacional, only to have Pearl Harbor interrupt his plans.
Before the war ended, Batista gambled on a free election and lost�making it
impossible for his friend to resume the gambling program when peace returned.
Only after Batista's second coup had the syndicate been able to pick up the
pieces in Havana.
As the plane soared over the Florida Straits, Lansky wasted no time on
regrets. Even yet he was not ready to write off Cuba as hopeless. Every man
had his price�be it money, women, ideals�and presumably Fidel Castro was no
exception. When emotions cooled, when economics became more urgent than
glory�an opportunity to retrieve all or part of the situation might develop.
Like Batista, Lansky believed in the Law of the Possible.
Over the decades many of Lansky's associates had died, gone to prison, or
been stripped of power because they disregarded or failed to understand the
Law of the Possible. The list was long: Arnold Rothstein, Dutch Schultz, Legs
Diamond, Waxey Gordon, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Lepke, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky
Luciano, Mickey Cohen, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Longie Zwillman, and, most
recently, Albert Anastasia.
Lansky had survived, and with the help of silent men around the country had
built an organization that relied more on moxie than muscle, more on greed
than terror. Let the Mafia boys kill each other off and attract headlines�the
silent syndicate turned the bribe into a sophisticated tool that opened the
doors of board rooms and brokers' offices. Members of the organization were
as at home in the secret sanctums of political power�as in the casinos and
handbooks that supplied motive fuel.
The loss of Cuba, if confirmed by events, was annoying but not serious.
Another area of operations could be found. Possibilities ranged from a drive
to legalize Florida gambling�an oft-considered project�to penetration and
control of existing casinos in Puerto Rico.
Illegal casino operations of any size were no longer practical in the States.
Two such centers still operated�in Newport, Kentucky, and Hot Springs,
Arkansas�but it was only a matter of time until public opinion forced the
politicians to close them. No complicated drive by law enforcement would be
necessary. Attacks of virtue on the part of politicians were becoming more
frequent as the public in corrupt cities began at last to realize how it had
been exploited.[1]
Luckily, opportunity stayed a long stride ahead of public indignation. Even
as the old-style sin city became impractical, the jet plane opened new
frontiers. The lure of the roulette wheel could be combined for the first
time with the romance of white sand beaches and Caribbean sunlight and be
within reach of middle-class America.
Looking backward, Lansky could draw a parallel between present potentials and
past techniques. Johnny Torrio in Chicago had proved it was cheaper to buy a
suburb than a city�and equally efficient. He set up brothels and gambling
joints in Cicero, and the suckers came by auto from Chicago in droves. From
this politically secure headquarters Capone gangsters later fought the battle
of Chicago. The lesson had been applied in other areas:
Newport-Cincinnati; Gretna-New Orleans; Jeffersonville-Louisville; Phenix
City-Columbus; and even in Nevada where the "Strip" was outside the city
limits of Las Vegas. Cliff Jones, that old partner in the Thunderbird, and
more recently the Habana-Hilton, had taken care of that problem.
With the jet taking the place of the auto, it was cheaper and safer to buy
control of an island off the continent than to attempt to operate in the
States where protection on local, state, and federal levels was necessary.
Only briefly during the Harding Administration had the boys hit that jackpot.
Of course, as Cuba dramatically illustrated, one chanced a revolution when he
went into a Latin nation. If, say, New England or even Georgia could somehow
be transplanted to the Caribbean, the right combination of factors would be
achieved.
Inevitably, the thought of the Bahamas came to mind. Stability existed there,
by God. The Bay Street Boys, those merchant-politicians, kept the black
majority under firm control. Moreover, the Bay Street Boys had a proper
regard for the dollar�and a tradition of ruthlessness in its pursuit that
carried back to Blackbeard.
The Bahamas were no sudden inspiration. Lansky became acquainted with them in
Prohibition days when as co-boss of the Bugs and Meyer Mob he guarded booze
shipments from Nassau to New York. One of the island's businessmen of that
day, Roland Symonette, had come a long way since he operated the Halcyon S on
the Nassau to Miami run. Rumor had it that when the Bahamas were given a new
constitution, he would be its first premier. Even more important than
Symonette, however, was Stafford Sands, the portly director of development
for the islands.
In 1946, when Lansky was still debating what to do following Batista's first
defeat, he had considered the Bahamas. Sands, however, had failed in a bid to
get official approval for a casino system, and Lansky decided the islands
were not yet ripe for development. A more immediate opportunity offered
itself on the west side of the Gulf Stream. Moving into the Colonial Inn just
south of Gulfstream Park, he created a plush casino complex with the aid of
state and local officials.
Looking back as the plane thundered toward Florida, Lansky could believe he
had been shortsighted. Under the Kefauver blight Of 1950 his Broward casinos
had withered and died. At the time it hadn't seemed a great loss, because
Batista was back in Cuba and preparing to return to power. Now, however, he
was ready to reconsider. He had watched developments on Grand Bahama Island
carefully since 1955, and of late the feeling had grown that a unique
opportunity existed there.
Over the busy decades Lansky had achieved wealth and power unmatched in
syndicate history. What challenges remained?
Law enforcement officials were still divided in 1959 as to whether such an
animal as organized crime existed. La Cosa Nostra, that vastly simplified
half-truth, had not yet been invented. While some sociologists warned
occasionally of the relation of crooks to politicians, no one wanted to talk
of the financier as a third partner in the firm. To do so would sound
un-American somehow.
Eisenhower was still President, and the McCarthy era was more than a memory.
In fairness to officials who, at best, see only a small part of the action,
it should be said that the truth was so complex as to be beyond belief. Only
an expert could understand the real nature of organized crime, and
unfortunately the few experts were such men as Meyer Lansky.
With his great intelligence and limited appetite�to quote an official
admirer�Lansky understood the importance of the episode in time when
circumstances combined to supply young rebels with ample bootleg profits at
the very moment bankers and businessmen were desperate for cash. As a leader
of those rebels he knew how that unique opportunity had been exploited and
how a steady flow of gamblers' money over the years had financed expansion
until the National Syndicate controlled much of the national economy.
Long after personal ambitions were satisfied, Lansky found pleasure in
operating the machinery he had helped design. It had proved flexible enough,
but new tests were becoming scarce. He was fifty-six years old. There was
plenty of time for quick adventures in Florida or Las Vegas, but there was
only enough time for one significant campaign. Why repeat the easy conquests
of the past? Why not, instead, shoot the works and go for a victory that
would have meaning for the future?
Cuba had just demonstrated once more how temporary were political coups if
unaccompanied by social change. Why not, therefore, utilize the vast
resources of organized crime-its skills, its wealth, and if necessary its
muscle-to effect the socioeconomic conquest of a nation?
As the lights of the Gold Coast began to glitter below the plane, the
chairman of the board reached a decision. Regardless of what Castro might do,
the Syndicate International would concentrate upon the Bahamas. Money, time,
and infinite patience would be invested. Insulation, indirection, and
intrigue would be employed. Man's greed would, as always, be a major ally.
Back in Havana, the news of Batista's flight spread across the sleeping city.
The population reacted cautiously next morning. Hours passed before the more
reckless began breaking parking meters in search of coins. When no one
stopped them, the petty-cash looters turned to slot machines in the more
convenient casinos. Reporters who had ignored the gangsters' role in
government now tried to compensate by writing of angry mobs sacking hated
casinos.
Soon Castro's advance guard restored order, and the city settled back to
await the whim of its new master. It proved to be a general strike, which
closed the casinos along with everything else. Later they reopened, provoking
a cabinet crisis, which Castro resolved by assuming the office of premier.
Months passed before Lansky finally wrote off Cuba as a lost cause and
ordered his rear guard to withdraw.
Meanwhile the conquest of the Bahamas had begun. Lansky was driving a troika,
confident as ever that the more successful the syndicate, the more nearly
invisible he became.
To understand the campaign as it developed, it is necessary to go back in
time to learn more of the forces that became involved. Very little was held
back, and in this, Lansky's last hurrah, much that had been long hidden was
revealed.
pps. 1-7
--[note]--
1. For an account of the cleanup of Newport see Syndicate Wife.
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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