Salvatore Lucania
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The story of Charles "Lucky" Luciano has been told many times. Born in Italy in 1897, Salvatore Lucania - that's pronounced "sal-vah-TOH-ray lou-KAHN-ya" - he came to the United States at age 10. Starting off as a two-bit hoodlum, he rose in the criminal ranks until he created "The Five Families" of New York. But it was when he formed the groups of top mobsters called "The Commission" that organized crime became a truly nationwide enterprise. From then on Lucky dictated what criminal organizations did throughout the country. And so began the era of modern organized crime which today has its evil tentacles throughout the nation and maintains an iron-fisted control on business and even our government.

Of course, like all incontrovertible truths of history, not all of this is correct. In fact, some things are flat out wrong.

First, "The Five Families" had been around even though there weren't always five. In New York there had been criminal organizations stretching back into the colonial days. But yes, in the 19th century there was a rise in the influence and power of the mobs, particularly those originating from Italy and Sicily.

Of course, crime families were nothing unique to New York. There were criminal families all over the country. One of the most notorious was the Horrell Brothers of Texas in the mid-1870's. These gentlemen were bad indeed. And of course we have Frank and Jesse James, the Dalton Gang, and later Ma Barker and her boys. But in any case we see that crime as a family run business existed long before Lucky was born.

As to how you define organized crime, well, that's a good question. According to Merriam-Webster it's "a group of professional criminals who work together as part of a powerful and secret organization." So we see that just crimes which are organized are not necessarily organized crime. The Horrell brothers, Frank and Jesses, the Daltons, and Ma Barker organized crimes but don't quite fit the definition. Even though they were professional criminals working together, we can't really say there was any "powerful and secret organization" involved.

But what constitutes a crime, that's pretty simple. Whatever the government decides to make a crime is a crime. Complicating the matter is that governments often make things crimes that a lot of people like to do. And in the history of America, these activities have included drinking, gambling, and ....

Well, we'll stick with these two for now.

One writer who lived through Prohibition called it the most insane era of American history. Of course, he died long before today's really crazy world but he was not far off the mark. In 1918 the US states had ratified the 18th Amendment which made it illegal to sell, manufacture, or transport intoxicating liquors. But it wasn't really until 1920 that the National Prohibition Act (usually called the Volstead Act) firmed up what you actually could and could not sell, manufacture, or transport.

A little known fact of Prohibition is that President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act as a last ditch effort to squelch what most people thought was a dumb law. But Congressmen - afraid to appear against "family values" - overrode the veto, and Prohibition was the law of the land until 1933 when both the law and constitutional amendment were repealed.

For a while common wisdom among historians was that Prohibition did nothing to stop drinking and in fact ended up having people drink even more. So far from accomplishing it's goal, Prohibition made things worse.

Of course, assistant professors have to make a living, too, and so they have to prove that what is accepted wisdom is wrong. By looking at reports of alcohol related diseases, some professors have concluded that drinking dropped more than 50% in the first year after passage of the Volstead Act. Of course, if you do want to keep to the accepted wisdom, you can say that since alcohol was prohibited, a lot of people just quit seeking treatment for alcohol related diseases. If fewer people suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, this statistic doesn't say anything about how many people actually died from drinking poisonous bootleg booze. Prohibition might have reduced the amount that the individuals drank, but it may not have reduced the number of people who were drinking. We can argue forever.

But what isn't disputed is that drinking was still widespread, and so Prohibition meant that millions of otherwise law abiding citizens had become customers of criminal organizations. Bars, now branded "speakeasies", were still around. The popular picture is you would walk up to the door and knock. A small slide would be pulled aback and if you looked OK, you were let in. Speakeasy cruising was popular among young people and in her old age one lady said that part of the fun going to speakeasies was because you weren't supposed to.

There is another tidbit of information that isn't widely known about Prohibition. Throughout all the years the law was in force, it was perfectly legal to drink alcohol. In fact, it wasn't even illegal to buy booze. What you could not do was manufacture, transport, or sell the stuff. Some well-to-do families had stocked up their cellers so thoroughly that all during the Roaring Twenties they continued to drink perfectly legally. One place liquor flowed freely was at the White House.

Of course, just drinking could get a bit dull. And in a day before television, there were other things to do while you quaffed a drink or brew. Among the favorite pastimes that went with drinking were gambling and ...

Well, we'll start with the gambling.

From the earliest days, gambling - "gaming" as some prefer - had been legal in the American colonies. But beginning in the late 19th century gambling was being faded out state by state. By 1911 gambling was illegal in every state in the Union, and it wasn't until 1931 that Nevada relented and again permitted casino gambling.

Of course, people continued to gamble, and this meant that people who had been honest law abiding citizens were now criminals. Contrary to popular belief, meeting for a friendly social game in private homes or in the back of your local American Legion or Elks Lodge hall was - and in many states still is - against the law. But again as today, friendly poker games seldom had trouble with the police. However, if you wanted bigger and better action you'd have to go to a casino. Since gambling was illegal, so were they.

Illegal casinos were usually set up in rented rooms, all the better to pack up and leave in case the cops got wise. Favorite places were the back rooms of restaurants or clubs. There after you had dinner and saw the show, you could slip back and play roulette, craps, and other casino games.

One exception to the total ban on gambling was horse racing. A number of states permitted on-track betting. But what did you do if the horses were not legal in your state, and you wanted to lay down a bet?

Well, there is no problem so difficult that the American bookie can't overcome They set up their offices and all you had to do was phone in your bet. Some bookies also operated out of casinos or out of "horse rooms". Since starting times of the races were published beforehand, you could lay a bet in Chicago (which had banned horse racing in 1904) for a trifecta in Saratoga up until post time. Then using telegraphs and later the telephone, the results of the races were wired in. In classy joints an announcer would read off near real-time horse positions during the actual race.

Naturally such an operation required a well organized infrastructure and so was made to order for organized crime. In particular arranging the wire connections - the "wire service" - was a lucrative operation.

And finally there is that other activity we mentioned. Like gambling, it was largely legal during much of the 19th century but in the continuing push to make the country moral, it was eventually outlawed. As to what it was, let's just say it was the business of providing men with companionship. And when we say companionship, we mean companionship.

Assistant professors and revisionist history notwithstanding, one thing that cannot be denied is that the government's attempts to make its citizens more moral brought organized crime into the local community. Although it can be hazardous to use fiction as a guide to reality - television has shown this pretty clearly - if you read novels written during the 1920's and 1930's, you can get a good feel how Prohibition affected the day to day living. In Studs Lonigan, once considered a major American novel by James T. Farrell, once considered a major American author, we get a good picture of life during the Prohibition years.

The characters in Studs are typical middle class Irish Americans in Chicago in the early years of the 20th century. What differs from now is the way normal and otherwise law abiding citizens routinely and consciously patronize the criminal outlets. Despite its nominal ban, getting liquor was no problem and even Studs's bombastic Babbitesque father keeps whiskey in his home. Studs's brother-in-law works in an illegal casino (which Studs sometimes visits), and Studs and his buddies even go to the occasional "can house". In one of the best written chapters, on Christmas Eve 1922, Studs and his buddies drive to a speakeasy and nightclub which also offers aforesaid companionship. The "speak" was in South Chicago which was the undisputed territory of Al "Scarface" Capone.

The one rule for the criminal entrepreneurs was you kept to your own territory. "Muscling in" on someone else was a sure path to trouble. The problem was that with the cities growing, neighborhoods began to expand which led to blurring of boundaries of the original areas. Also some of the mobsters were just downright greedy. Inevitably there were the mob wars which continued well into the late 20th century.

It was in 1902 that Giuseppe Masseria arrived in New York from his native Sicily. He soon joined up with the Morello crime family which made their money by counterfeiting, gambling, and burglaries, among other things. Naturally when Prohibition was passed, the Morellos got into bootlegging.

We'll skip the details but Joe (as he was called) climbed up the criminal corporate ladder until he was was the head of the Morello family. Of course, the Morellos weren't the only family in town and soon Joe developed the vision of the United Mob of New York City. Through additional complicated (and bloody) events, he eventually succeeded where he, at least, considered himself the boss of New York crime.

So if anyone can be considered to have organized the Five Families in New York it's Joe Masseria. Today the families are the Colombos, Genoveses, Luccheses, the Gambinos, and the Bonannos. The last two have been the most famous mainly because of the longevity of some of their leaders.

And yet. For all the talk about organized crime, the big bosses and their underbosses, and the "made men", some of the mobsters acted with considerable independence. They were, for all practical purposes, free lance contractors. And one of the best sources of free lancers were the graduates of the gangs who hung out on the streets.

As the 19th century turned, gangs of young hooligans were everywhere. And they, like their elders, were trying to figure out how to make money with minimal exertion. The easiest way for the young hoodlums to get spending money was to demand a weekly fee - sometimes 10 cents apiece - from owners of market stalls or pushcarts. If the money wasn't forthcoming, they gang would tip over the stands and smash the produce.

There was a difference, though, in the kids growing up in the early 20th Century American cities and from their parents and grandparents. The first generation immigrants had grown up in Europe. There in Naples most everyone was Neapolitan. In Sicily they were Sicilian. In Rome, you lived with Romans.

But in New York City, you had people of English, African, Asian, Irish, Italian, Swedish, and Jewish descent and more. In some neighborhoods you could walk a block and be in what looked like another country.

So when young Salvatore Lucania and his Five Points Gang were carrying out their petty thievery and intimidation, they would come into contact with gangs from other neighborhoods. During one confrontation a young Jewish kid, Meier Suchowlański, determined not to be cowed by the Italian gang, just told them to "[Jump] off!" Rather than take umbrage at such effrontery, Salvatore - who had taken the American name Charles and was later dubbed "Lucky" - thought Meyer (as he called himself) was someone he could work with. Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky - to use their adopted names - not only became partners in crime but good friends.

For some reason, American criminals have to have nicknames. For some monickers the choice is obvious: "Fat Tony" Salerno, "Big Jim" Colosimo. Some are labeled by their mode of operation or personality: "Joe Batters" Accardo, "Joey the Clown" Lombardo. Others are dubbed by the press with names that aren't necessarily welcome by the mobsters themselves: Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Jimmy "The Weasel" Frattiano.

As for "Lucky" Luciano, we don't know how he got or who gave him his nickname. One common story is that he was once grabbed by rival gang members who drove him to a remote area, beat him up, and slashed his throat. That Lucky survived would justify his nickname.

Lucky's first venture into major crime was as a dope pusher. In particular, he dealt in the relatively new drug called heroin. At age eighteen, he was arrested and ended up serving seven months. Then he was back on the streets.

Of course, you needed capital for this business and in New York there was one man any promising young crook could go to. That was Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein.

To his dying day Arnold denied he had anything to do with fixing the 1919 World Series. But no one denies he knew what was going on or that he made a bundle by the Chicago White Sox throwing the games. It was from such sure-fire high profit ventures that Arnold got the money to fund other and equally lucrative businesses. He was a great man to go to for money - as long as you repaid him promptly and with a big interest.

Bankrolled by Arnold, Lucky and Meyer expanded their operations. Although nominally Lucky was part of the - quote - "Italian" mob - unquote - and Meyer part of the - quote - "Jewish mob" - unquote - in actuality, both men and their friends worked as a unit and retained the character of free lancers. They would work for anyone. Need to hijack a shipment of booze from a rival gang? Meyer and Lucky would oblige. Need someone to collect money from someone welshing on a gambling debt? Call in Meyer and Lucky. Need someone bumped off? Just call in ....

Well, here things get a bit problematical. Now you'll read books that say such-and-such mobster killed the so-and-so gang member. But with few exceptions it's all a guess. It may be a good guess. It may be an educated guess. It may even be a correct guess. But it's still a guess.

The crooks themselves always seemed to say it was the other guy. When asked point blank if he had ever killed anyone, Meyer replied no. "But some of my associates," he added. "Benny Siegel, he knocked out plenty."

Ben Siegel (he hated the name "Bugsy") was a loose cannon. Although in later years he acquired something of a Hollywood polish, as a young man in New York City, he was a hulking brutal lout who would kill anyone if he had a reason for it. And he rarely needed much of a reason. Benny was part of the gang with Lucky along with Meyer and he specialized in the rough stuff.

At this point we should pause and realize that that much of the jargon of organized crime - including the word "Mafia" - was not really used by the gangsters themselves. But the terms are not necessarily modern inventions. "Mafia" itself was so well known in the 19th century that in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventures of the Six Napoleons", Sherlock tells Dr. Watson, that the Mafia "is, as you know, a secret political society, enforcing its decrees by murder." But the point is "Mafia" was not the word used by the criminals themselves.

On the other hand some terms are modern inventions. You'll read on the Fount of All Knowledge that Joe Masseria called himself il capo di tutti capi. That is "the boss of all bosses". This term, though, doesn't show up until the mid-1950's. That's more than twenty years after Joe was dead and gone.

Yes, Joe checked out in 1931. The trouble was that although Joe thought he was in charge of the Five Families, that didn't mean anyone else did. Leaders of criminal organizations, unlike heads of government agencies, were not established by legislative authority. Instead, if a mob boss really was a leader it's because he had what Caesar Augustus called auctoritas. This isn't "authority" in our sense but carries the meaning of ruling through prestige.

So the other bosses would follow the capo because they wanted to - but only as long as they wanted to. If you wanted to test the boss's real power all you had to do was move in on his territory. And in 1931, another boss, Salvatore Maranzano, who was head of the Bonanno family, began moving in on Joe's operations, taking over his illegal casinos and speakeasies, and hijacking Joe's booze shipments.

So began the Castellammarese War named after the town where many of the mob activities in Sicily were centered. That both men were from Sicily added a distinct character to their philosophy of life and they way they operated.

In fact, students of Roman history will note some interesting similarities in organized crime that came from Italy and the way legitimate business was carried out in Ancient Rome. In Rome if you had a problem you - the client - would go to some rich guy - your patron. You would wait outside his door until he would grant you an audience. He'd then listen to your problem and if he thought you had a legitimate beef, he would take care of it. Sometimes problems were solved by the patron sending a gang of his hired thugs to whoever was causing your problems.

The government of the Roman Empire had no real enforcement branch. Even if you won a case in court you had to enforce the ruling yourself. This included both civil and criminal cases. So by handling all problems themselves, the modern mobsters saw themselves as simply continuing the traditions of their noble ancestors, and Salvatore, who was one of the better educated mob bosses, would often lecture his underlings on the history of Julius Caesar.

And Joe? He was sitting in a restaurant when some men - the number isn't clear - came in and shot him in the back.

The overwhelming consensus is that the men who bumped Joe off were acting on the orders of Lucky Luciano. But why would Lucky turn on the man who was, at least in name, his own boss? One guess is that Lucky felt that Joe was going to lose the war, and he, Lucky, wanted to be on the winning side. Who knows? This may be true.

But we still have to realize that Lucky might never have considered Joe his boss in the first place. He was still free lancing and what seems certain is that the actual hitmen were composed from different gangs of different ethnicity.

Using members from other gangs for changing regimes was in fact de rigueur and Salvatore did it as well. This made sense. If a bunch of guys known to be hitmen showed up at a mob boss's office, it's unlikely the bodyguards would tip their hats and let them in. But if some perfect strangers, flashing phony government credentials showed up, they'd probably be ushered in with courtesy.

Although he profited by them, too, Salvatore Maranzano, now the new boss, didn't understand the free lancer's egalitarian philosophy. You should stick with your own people. Some Sicilian gangsters didn't even want to do business with mainland Italians. You kept everything in the family.

But those young kids! They were all acting like Americans! All they wanted was to make money, and they didn't care who they worked with. Che diamine?

So as soon as Joe was dispatched, Salvatore - we mean Maranzano, of course - began to get worried. He was afraid that the lack of respect for tradition meant that eventually the younger crowd would try to take charge. So he decided there was only one thing to do. Launch a pre-emptive strike against who was now the leader of the younger crowd, Lucky Luciano.

Of course, for every pre-emptive strike, there can be a pre-pre-emptive strike. On September 10, 1931, as Salvatore sat at his desk, four men walked in. They were unknown to anyone in the office, and they got by the body guards by claiming to be treasury agents. Once in Salvatore's presence, they pulled out knives and began flailing away. Then they pulled out guns and after blasting Salvatore, they calmly walked out. On the stairs they encountered Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, who was hurrying to a meeting with Salvatore about bumping off Lucky and his friends. The killers politely informed Vincent that his services were no longer required. Vincent got the hint and rapidly left.

Lucky was now in a position to declare himself boss. But he didn't. He simply continued with the Five Family system Joe had crafted and Salvatore adopted. But Lucky invited the leaders to meetings and asked other mobsters from around the country to attend as well. Eventually the group who accepted Lucky's invitation were dubbed "The Commission" and that's what they're called to this day.

Again remember that the Commission was not some legislatively established body like the President's cabinet. It was simply the group of the country's leading mobsters who had agreed to work together. So more than ever if anyone was to be called the leader, he had to have prestige - the auctoritas - to keep things running. Which is what Lucky had.

Ironically, the time when Lucky became the head of the Commission was also when the government began to crack down on organized crime. In earlier years the attitude was that the crooks more or less kept to themselves and didn't bother the ordinary citizens. So who cares if they killed each other?

But on February 14, 1929, a scant two years earlier, things had changed. A group of men dressed as policemen entered the warehouse owned by Adelard Cunin, better known to posterity as Bugs Moran. Bugs, it turns out was Al Capone's chief rival in Chicago, and he had been hijacking Al's booze shipments, particularly those of high quality Canadian whiskey.

Once in the garage, the "policemen" ordered everyone against the wall. Thinking this was a routine police raid, the seven men complied. As they were doing nothing illegal, they figured they'd get taken to the station and then released. Instead, two more men with machine guns walked in and mowed them all down.

Although this was indeed a group of crooks killing a group of crooks, by its sheer brutality the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" had crossed a line. Immediately, President Hoover decreed the Federal government had to go after Al Capone. This started the dominoes falling.

In New York the governor, Herbert Lehman, was now himself under pressure to "do something" about the criminal organizations proliferating the Big Apple. So he appointed a special prosecutor to specifically target organized crime. That was Thomas E. Dewey, later himself to be governor as well as second only to Harold Stassen as the most famous unsuccessful presidential candidate.

But that was years in the future and for now Tom went after the crooks with enthusiasm. He not only picked out big bosses to target, he asked - and got - the New York Legislature to pass new laws that made it easier to prosecute the bosses in a bunch.

One of Tom's first targets was Arthur Fleggenheimer - better known as Dutch Schultz. Dutch ran the New York and New Jersey numbers racket. The numbers games is essentially the same as today's lotteries although it was (and is) illegal. The winning number is not determined by drawing numbered balls bouncing up in a converted popcorn popper, but is based on the amount bet at race tracks.

Getting Dutch was not easy and he ended up getting acquitted in the first trial. But Tom wasn't going to give up and there was no doubt that eventually he would succeed. The Dutchman, though, had no intention of going to jail, and he told Lucky and the rest of the bosses that he was going to bump Tom off.

But Lucky said no. That would put too much heat on the rest of them. Dutch would have to take his chances. Tough [bananas], said Dutch. He'd kill Tom anyway.

Dutch went so far as to hire some hitmen for the job. They staked out Tom's home and learned his daily routine. One of them even borrowed his sister's baby so he would simply look like a new father out for a walk. Soon everything was ready. All they needed was the word from Dutch.

On October 23, 1935 Dutch went to the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey, to have a late dinner of steak and French fries and tally up the day's numbers takings. As he took a welcome break, a man walked in and fired two shots into Dutch's side. When Dutch staggered back into the dining room, he found his three bodyguards had also been shot. But like him, they were not (yet) dead.

What's really odd is that in this case we know who the actual triggermen were. One was Mendy Weiss - who actually went to the electric chair for another crime. The other was Charles "The Bug" Workman. Charles was specifically tried for Dutch's murder and spent nearly 23 years in jail. Of course, Charles never told who had ordered the hit, but no one has much doubt it was Lucky.

Although Lucky was (more or less) responsible for saving Tom's life, that didn't spare him from Tom's investigation. But Tom found it difficult to gather any evidence that Lucky had actually committed crimes like murder or narcotics pushing. The biggest problem was there were (and are) usually a lot of layers sandwiched in between the top managers and the lackeys. Proving a case against the top boys is almost impossible.

There was one tack that might work. Lucky was often seen with young ladies at his side, and Meyer Lansky once remarked, "Lucky liked women. That was his weakness." Actually those weren't Meyer's exact words but the gist is there.

What Tom did, then, was to specifically go after a Luciano "associate" named David Petillo (or Betillo - it's spelled both ways even in official documents). It was Little Davy (all these guys have nicknames), who went around to the girls and their - ah - "managers" - and demanding a percentage of their income for "protection". As a way to keep the girls in line, Little Davy would tell them he was working directly for Lucky. And if there was one thing you didn't do was refuse to give Lucky a cut.

So Tom realized if he could nail Little Davy and show there was a money connection up to Lucky, he would not only convict Lucky, but also convict him of a unsavory crime. This would send him to jail and send him to jail with ignominy.

The strategy, though, looked like a long shot since Lucky was better known as a dope pusher, bootlegger, and protection racketeer. Besides like the good manager he was, Lucky did not micromanage. As long as he got those nice fat envelopes filled with money from Little Davy, why bother with the actual business?

Tom, though, had a definite plan. First, he'd make things hot for Lucky's lawyers. He managed to get a story written that one of Lucky's lawyers had tried to coach perjured testimony. So that put one of Lucky's best attorneys out of the picture.

Also normally when the girls were arrested in such cases, they would be detained briefly, perhaps fined, and then let go. But Tom slapped them with $10,000 bails - a huge sum for the time. He then offered them a deal. Testify against Lucky or go to jail for seven years. Four of the girls agreed and said that they had seen Lucky with Little Davy and that Lucky had enjoyed the companionship of Davy's efforts.

Despite the national attention he was getting, Tom was actually trying to nail Lucky for state offenses. So Lucky figured he'd finesse Tom by escaping to Hot Springs, Arkansas. At that time Hot Springs was one of the towns that was a vacation spa for big time crooks. It was understood that long as you behaved yourself, you could come and enjoy the luxury hotels and fine dining and whatever else was available.

Unfortunately (for Lucky) Tom had clout and not just in New York. Tom asked for (and got) help from the FBI since interstate flight to avoid prosecution was a newly created federal crime. Federal agents arrested Lucky in Hot Springs, and the governor of Arkansas signed extradition papers. Soon Lucky was back in New York.

Now in one movie about the New York crooks, the screenwriter painted Tom as a corrupt politician, taking bribes from the crooks. This shows the problems when you take movies or television shows as historical source material. Screen writers can (and do) make up whatever they think will make a good story. But there are a lot of people who have the idea that if it wasn't true, then the screenwriters couldn't write it.

Actually there's no evidence that Tom ever took a bribe in his life and in fact he was known for his honesty. But there's no doubt that he was ambitious and to achieve his goals there were some - ah - "vigorous" methods that Tom used that some people have questioned.

When it came to getting testimony the DA's office - again we don't know if Tom actually made the deals himself - offered one of the girls, Nancy Presser, an all-expense-paid vacation to Europe. Then they managed to get another one of the star witnesses, Florence Brown (otherwise known as "Cokey Flo") a Hollywood movie deal, as they did for another of the girls, Mildred Harris. Since all the ladies later recanted their testimony in sworn affidavits, some lawyers wondered if part of Tom's strategy involved suborning perjury - exactly what he had tried to nail Lucky' s lawyer for.

As the jury retired, the reporters at the trial thought the case was weak and expected an acquittal. And when the verdict delivered was guilty they were flabbergasted. Certainly we can accept Lucky was getting a cut of the money - Lucky took a cut from everyone. But as far as having anything to do with actually running the business, much less forcing the girls into unwilling compliance - the actual charge - that's less sure.

Probably a major factor toward Lucky's conviction was when - against the advice of his lawyers - he insisted in testifying in his own defense. True, guilty defendants rarely take the stand and that Lucky was willing to do so was a point in his favor. Less in his favor was his testimony that he had never made a dollar except by criminal means. Nor did it help when he maintained that the specific charges on the dock were the only crimes he didn't commit. So that Lucky was guilty of something isn't to be denied. He was shipped off to prison.

Lucky served briefly at Sing Sing in Ossining and then later was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora up near the Canadian border. Lucky didn't have it too bad. The other convicts made sure the big boss got special treatment, made him special meals, and did his assigned work.

Lucky's visitors were largely his old mob cronies and although their conversations were supposed to be monitored, Lucky more or less kept running the show of the New York mobs. However, the other bosses were getting a bit irritated. Lucky should have stepped down and let one of the others take over. In any case, Lucky coasted along in Dannemora for six years.

Then on February 9, 1942, a French ocean liner, the Normandie, was sitting in New York Harbor. At 2:30 in the afternoon a fire broke out on board and rapidly spread. The ship soon capsized, and sabotage was suspected.

It was later found out that a welding torch had thrown some sparks and set the fire. But the sinking still worried a lot of people in Washington. In January 1942 alone, twenty-one boats had been sunk off the Atlantic coast. These even included big ships like destroyers. How could the submarines be operating that close to America?

The Navy suspected that U-Boats were getting refueled and resupplied from fishing boats from America. This would mean there were spies or even home-grown Nazi sympathizers in New York. But it was also known that organized crime was controlling much of the dock's businesses. What, they wondered, could they do?

Then a naval intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Haffenden, had an idea. Rather than worry about the mob, why not work with it? If the wise guys were not involved in the sabotage, they might cooperate. But how to make contact?

Mobsters sometimes need lawyers. And some of them are not just mouthpieces but are perfectly respectable members of the bar. So Commander Haffenden contacted Joseph Guerin, who was the lawyer for Joseph "Socks" Lanza, a middle level mobster but who nevertheless had a lot of control over the docks. Socks agreed to help out and provide information. He said that the Navy could put agents in the markets and on the fishing boats to look for spies and report on any suspicious activities.

Not surprisingly, Socks had trouble getting other mobsters to cooperate. They were naturally suspicious about someone letting government agents in and thought that Socks was turning states evidence to counter his own legal problems. Socks mentioned the problem to Commander Haffenden and said that if they got Lucky to give the OK, everyone else would fall in line.

Commander Haffenden contacted Moses Polakoff, Lucky's old lawyer who had defended him during Tom's investigation. He said he didn't really have any interest in Lucky anymore, but the Navy said it was important. When they met, Moses told Commander Haffenden that it was no good them going to Lucky directly. They needed to get someone who Lucky knew and trusted to broach the subject. That someone was Meyer Lansky.

Meyer agreed at once to talk to Lucky. So he went up to Dannemora and was allowed to see Lucky in private. It's also assumed that in addition to their patriotic discussions they were also talking about routine mob business. But Lucky told Meyer to pass on the word that the dock workers were to cooperate with the government.

Lucky was moved to what has been incorrectly described as a minimum security prison, Great Meadows, outside of Fort Ann. Great Meadows is now and was when Lucky arrived a maximum security facility and about a four hour drive from New York City. Why they moved Lucky isn't clear although it did make it a somewhat shorter drive for the people driving up from New York.

What specifically did Lucky and the rest achieve for the US government? Some say nothing. Even Meyer said he didn't know exactly what they had done. But in the official records the assistance was deemed "useful".

In any case, the assistance was good enough to get Lucky out of jail. Ironically, it was Tom Dewey, now governor of New York, who signed the commutation order that on January 3, 1946 made Lucky a free man.

Lucky was not pleased when he heard the deal meant he would be freed, yes, but also that he would also be deported. Although deportation is standard procedure when foreign nationals are released from prison, Lucky always insisted he was a US citizen.

Probably, though, he wasn't. True, if Lucky's parents had become naturalized, that would have been different. If you were an immigrant who became a citizen, your kids would automatically be citizens as well. For instance, Bob Hope was born an English citizen in London, but his dad and mom moved to America and took out citizenship. So Bob became America's most famous comedian and at the same time was still eligible to receive a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. But in any case, Lucky was ruled to be an Italian national.

But being free in Italy was better than being in prison in New York. So Lucky set sail and in February, 1946 he landed in Naples.

His stay, though, was relatively brief. Eight months later, Lucky attempted to circumvent his deportation by moving to Cuba where Meyer had struck an - ah - "understanding" with Cuban president Fulgencio Batista. The mob could set up the casinos - which were perfectly legal - and they gave Fulgencio what we might call "expeditionary fees".

It's pretty much accepted that in Cuba Lucky continued his criminal activities - particularly his heroin smuggling. He also got a cut of the gambling profits and all in all was having a good time.

The Life of Lucky didn't last long. The next year the US Government told Fulgencio that Lucky was funneling narcotics to America. Boot him back to Italy or the US would cut off all supplies of prescription drugs. The fact that Lucky specialized in heroin was unfortunate since virtually all Americans did (and do) look on heroin as a dangerous drug to be banned. Lucky was forced to leave, and he returned to Italy.

From then on - and probably at the insistence of the US - Lucky was kept under close surveillance. But the story is he kept with the illegal drug racket and at one time he smuggled the drug concealed in children's dolls.

Lucky had never been a monogamous person and preferred to have lots of and short term girlfriends (often very short term). But in Italy, Lucky met Igea Lissoni, a lady twenty years his junior. Some books say they were later married, but others say they weren't. In any case Igea adored Lucky and the feelings were evidently returned. Sadly, Igea died age 42 in 1959 of cancer.

By all accounts Lucky was genuinely homesick, and he was always gracious to American tourists. The actor Marc Lawrence (who played one of the henchmen in Diamonds Are Forever) met Lucky who struck up a conversation so he could once again hear a New York accent. Lucky would also give autographs to anyone who asked.

But in America some of Lucky's partners began to get irritated at paying him so much for services they considered increasingly minimal. They cut back the amount they sent him although he still was living well.

Lucky's biggest drop in his income came in 1959 when the mob's best friend, Fulgencio Batista, flew off from Cuba while Fidel Castro moved in. Fidel, originally not so much a communist as anti-American, shut down the casinos, and booted the mobsters out. Worse for Lucky, his convenient funnel for shipping heroin into America was now gone.

Well, what do you do? Remember, in his mind Lucky was a loyal American. And what do Americans like? Why, the movies, of course!

So Lucky got into contact with an American producer about making a movie about his life. His American friends were not pleased. Making a movie about the mob is not keeping to the law of omerta or silence that was inviolate. The bosses warned him they might have to take - ah - "action" if he continued with his plans. Lucky, though, figured he'd go ahead with the project, anyway.

Now there is the story that just before meeting with the producer, someone slipped Lucky a poisoned mickey. And at the airport he collapsed. This is unlikely since Lucky had been having cardiac and blood pressures problems for some time and was once hospitalized for heart disorders. Today almost everyone agrees he fell to a massive heart attack. Lucky was, after all, a smoker and at age 64 he made it about as long as he could expect.

When Lucky died, the papers reported he had been on the verge of being arrested for a $150 million narcotics racket. But we can't say the government was vindictive. According to Lucky's wishes, he was buried in the family mausoleum in Saint John Cemetery in Queens, New York - under the name of Salvatore Lucania.

References

"How Prosecutors Brought Down Lucky Luciano", Joseph Greaves Journal of the American Bar Association, November, 1, 2015

The Mafia at War: Allied Collusion with the Mob, Timothy Newark, Frontline Books, 2012.

Report on Investigation of Luciano Pardon, William Herlands, September 17, 1954.

People vs. Luciano, Supreme Court, New York County, 164 Misc., 167 (N.Y. Misc. 1937).

People vs. Luciano, Court of Appeals of the State of New York, 277 N.Y. 348, 1938.

"Lucky Luciano: Criminal Mastermind", Edna Buchanan, Time, Monday, December 7, 1998.

"The Moment 'Lucky' Luciano's Luck Ran Out", Daily Mail, May 28, 2012.

Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling, John Scarne, Simon and Schuster, 1974.

"Actually, Prohibition Was a Success", Mark Moore, New York Times, October 16, 1989

Lucky Luciano: Chairman of the Mob, Presenter: Jack Perkins, Director: Bill Harris, Narrator: Danny Bonaduce, Writers: Andrew Berg and Daria Valensise, 1996.

"Moses Polakoff Is Dead at Age 97; Was Lawyer for Lucky Luciano", Shawn Kennedy, The New York Times, June 14, 1993.

"Normandie Burns at New York Pier", Life Magazine, pp. 28-29, February 23, 1942.

"Where Do Mob Nicknames Come From?", Daniel Engber, Slate, February 7, 2009. Web.

Kill the Dutchman! - The Story of Dutch Schultz, Paul Sann, Arlington House, 1971. Reprint: Da Capo, 1991.

"Racketeering and the Federalization of Crime", American Criminal Law Review, Vol. 22.213, pp. 213 - 266, 1984.

"Lucky Luciano Dies in Exile", Arthur Everett, Associated Press, January 25, 1962.