by Tim Newark
“hophead.” British Ministry of Health report on European meeting on heroin, dated November 21, 1923, London National Archives: HO 45/24817.
CHAPTER 2: HOW TO BECOME A GANGSTER
Dates for Luciano’s arrival in New York vary. The FBI files claim both 1905 and 1907 as dates for his entry. Accounts of the Lower East Side and the crime associated with it appear in contemporary newspapers, especially “The Bands of Criminals of New York’s East Side” by Frank Marshall White, New York Times, November 8, 1908, and “Black Hand Crimes Doubled in Year Just Ended,” New York Times, December 31, 1911. The Dopey Benny quote comes from H. Asbury, The Gangs of New York, New York: Garden City Publishing, 1927. The Jewish quote about living in a tenement block comes from H. Roskolenko, The Time That Was Then, New York: The Dial Press, 1971. For an impression of life in a typical tenement block, visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street, New York, and see their associated publications.
Luciano quotes from Scaduto; Lansky quotes from D. Eisenberg, U. Dan, and E. Landau, Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob, New York and London: Paddington Press, 1979. For failed Masseria shooting, see “Gunmen Who Shot Down 8 Elude Police,” New York Tribune, August 9, 1922. The shooting of Valenti is reported in “Gang Kills Gunman, 2 Bystanders Hit,” New York Times, August 12, 1922, and “Mystery in Rum Street Battle Near Solution,” New York Tribune, August 12, 1922. Several anecdotes relating to Luciano’s early life come from Siragusa letter to Anslinger, January 5, 1954, cited in detail in chapter 15.
CHAPTER 3: UPTOWN GAMBLER
L. Katcher’s The Big Bankroll, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958, still stands as a good account of Rothstein’s life, as he claimed to have spoken to many principals involved with Rothstein, including his widow and Luciano while in prison, although he does not attribute any quotes directly to him. “The Rothstein Case: An Underworld Tale,” New York Times, October 6, 1929, is an interesting feature-length profile.
Luciano quotes from Scaduto; Lansky quotes from Eisenberg et al. The Bendix jewelry fencing story comes from trial testimony dated June 2, 1936, in the New York City Department of Records, Luciano closed-case files, box 13, file 9; Joseph Corbo hijack case in box 11, file 5. Secret Canadian police reports on narcotics smuggling into Canada and the United States. by Howe and Deleglise in 1923 and 1924 are contained in Metropolitan Police file in British National Archives: MEPO 3/425. “Big Six” informant quote from FBI report on Longy Zwillman, dated June 7, 1950.
CHAPTER 4: SURVIVING THE RIDE
J. Bonanno’s A Man of Honour: The Autobiography of a Godfather, London: Andre Deutsch, 1983, is a good source for quotes on Maranzano and Castellammarese War; Lansky quotes from Eisenberg et al. Transcript and digest of Luciano’s testimony at Richmond County Court on October 29, 1929, police memorandum on the ride, May 27, 1936, and memorandum on pheasant shooting, June 2, 1936, all are in the New York City Department of Records, Luciano closed-case files, box 11, file 5; 1931 police photograph in box 11, file 4. Costello’s version of the ride is quoted in G. Wolf, with Dimona, J., Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975; Vizzini’s account of the ride is in S. Vizzini, Vizzini: The Secret Lives of America’s Most Successful Undercover Agent, London: Futura, 1974.
It has been claimed that it was in the early 1920s, as Lucania worked for Rothstein, Diamond, and Masseria, that he first acquired his famous nickname: Lucky. Biographer L. Katz quotes Frank Costello as saying it was Lucania himself who adopted it: “He felt that people are attracted to a guy when he’s lucky. Everyone wants to be with a winner.” It was Lucania who pushed others to use it, he says, and had “Lucky” tattooed on his arm. But this flies in the face of other accounts. People close to him say he hated it, claiming there was no luck in what he did. “I never heard nobody call him Lucky,” said Frank Costello to his attorney, “not even behind his back.” This directly contradicts Katz’s quote. Generally, it is believed the moniker came later after he survived a terrible beating in 1929. In the light of seeing the actual court transcript of Luciano’s statement just two weeks after the ride, and the New York Times article the day after, this all now seems wrong. Luciano was already known as “Lucky” and was happy to use the name. See “‘Ride’ Victim Wakes on Staten Island,” New York Times, October 18, 1929, and Katz, L., Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello, London: W.H. Allen, 1974.
CHAPTER 5: WAR OF THE SICILIAN BOSSES
Descriptions of the Castellammarese War shootings of Morello, Masseria, and Maranzano are from contemporary newspaper coverage. For the death of Masseria, see “Racket Chief Slain by Gangster Fire” New York Times, April 16, 1931, “Rivals Here Kill ‘Joe the Boss,’ Capone’s Agent,” New York Herald Tribune, April 16, 1931, and “Police Mystified in Slaying of ‘Boss,’” New York Times, April 17, 1931. One authority claims that Luciano wasn’t even at the lunch meeting, but sent his assassins to carry out the hit; see D. Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America, London: Routledge, 2008, on this and the myth of Luciano’s modernizing of the Mafia. Valachi’s testimony of events is published in P. Maas, The Canary That Sang: the Valachi Papers, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1969.
Alongside Bonanno and Valachi, the third great witness to the Castellammarese conflict is Nick Gentile. His memoirs were published as Vita di capomafia, Rome: Editori Riunti, 1963, but an earlier unpublished translated transcript of this has survived. It is little different from the book and appears to have been produced in Palermo, Sicily, in 1947. Gentile was a senior mafioso in New York in the 1930s and became a major narcotics dealer, but he felt betrayed and ignored by the other chief mobsters of the period, and this may explain why it is alleged that he became a U.S. government agent in the mid-1940s. This typescript—a copy of which was supplied to me by crime historian James Morton—looks like an intelligence report and may well have been typed up by OSS agents in Palermo at the time. In the 1950s, Gentile carried on with his narcotics dealing but was turned by an FBN agent in 1958 and was subsequently ostracized from the Mafia.
For death of Maranzano, see “Alien-Smuggler Suspect Slain in Park Av Office,” New York Herald Tribune, September 11, 1931; for his people-smuggling business, see “Seek Official Link in Alien Smuggling,” New York Times, September 12, 1931. For interesting analysis of sources for the Castellammarese War, see Rick Porello’s AmericanMafia.com Web site articles beginning 6-10-02, including the suggestion that “Buster from Chicago” was in fact Valachi; for other identification of Buster, see M. Dash, The First Family, New York: Random House, 2009.
CHAPTER 6: TOP OF THE PILE
Peter Ross’s homecooking Barbizon-Plaza anecdote comes from interview memorandum dated April 3, 1936, in the New York City Department of Records, Luciano closed-case files, box 11, file 7; the police memo on Luciano’s family home is in box 11, file 5. Description of the May 1933 Park Avenue convention comes from Scaduto, forming the opening chapter of his book and defining Luciano’s character as a master criminal. Scaduto credits Nick Gentile and Joe Valachi as sources for it, but I have not been able to corroborate this. For Broadway gunfight, see “2 Women Wounded as Gangs Open Fire,” New York Times, May 25, 1933.
Dewey quotes from R. Hughes, Thomas E. Dewey: Attorney for the People, London: Constable, 1940; Dewey and Schultz story in B. B. Turkus, and S. Feder, Murder, Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate, London: Victor Gollancz, 1952. Fabrizzo/Waxey Gordon assassination attempt on Lansky and Siegel described in FBI profile of Siegel dated July 22, 1946; its details vary from those related in Mogul of the Mob. Gang warfare between Waxey Gordon and Luciano reported in “Held in Shooting of 3 Pedestrians,” New York Times, September 11, 1933.
CHAPTER 7: LUCKY IN HOLLYWOOD
Numerous reports on Thelma Todd’s death from the Los Angeles Times, including “Body of Thelma Todd Found in Death Riddle,” December 17, 1935, “Miss Todd Reported Seen Long After ‘Death Hour,’” December 19, 1935, and “Hotel Left by Di Cicco,” December 20, 1935. See also As
sociated Press reports from Los Angeles in the New York Times, December 17, 18, 25, and 26, 1935. The definitive study of the case is A. Edmonds, Hot Toddy: The True Story of Hollywood’s Most Shocking Crime—the Murder of Thelma Todd, London: Macdonald, 1989; see also T. Adler, Hollywood and the Mob, London: Bloomsbury, 2007. California drug problem articles published in Los Angeles Times, November 6 and 8, 1926.
CHAPTER 8: CITY OF SEX
All accounts in this chapter taken from primary evidence held within the sixty-six Luciano closed-case file document boxes in the New York City Department of Records: July 3, 1931, informant’s letter to Sixty-seventh Precinct and related telephone conversation of September 1, 1931, contained in box 2, files 2 and 1; July 7, 1935, letter about homosexual prostitutes in box 3, file 19; Balsam & Co. brokers protection racket case, box 11, file 5; Danny Brooks and Flo Brown record of Fredericks, Davie, and Luciano conversations, summary of all pretrial testimonies in box 13, file 3; further Flo Brown testimony in box 14, file 13; Al Weiner complaint of extortion, box 12, file 7; statement of Mildred Curtis, box 5, file 36; testimony of Thelma Jordan in box 15, file 5; story of Pauline Burr in box 4, file 2. FBI memorandum on Luciano dated August 28, 1935. See also E. Poulsen, The Case Against Lucky Luciano, New York: Clinton Cook, 2007, for a good summary of the vice context of the trial. Gentile quotes from previously cited source.
CHAPTER 9: LUCKY ON TRIAL
All primary evidence for trial taken from Luciano closed-case files in the New York City Department of Records: setting of bail court transcript in box 12, file 4; trial summary of examination and cross-examination of Luciano, box 13, file 2; Dewey’s copy of transcript of trial minutes, June 3, 1936, box 56. Testimony on Luciano’s tax returns in box 20, file 32; letter about Madges brothel in box 3, file 19. Dewey quotes from R. Hughes, Thomas E. Dewey: Attorney for the People, and numerous contemporary newspaper accounts, including “Lucania Convicted with 8 in Vice Ring on 62 Counts Each,” New York Times, June 8, 1936.
CHAPTER 10: NAZIS IN NEW YORK
All primary sources for trial appeals in this chapter taken from Luciano closed-case files in the New York City Department of Records: recantation of Flo Brown in box 16, files 9 and 13; Thelma Jordan’s testimony, March 1939, box 15, file 5; Dewey’s testimony about retrial, box 15, file 12; 1938 judge’s report on trial, box 20, file 24. Lansky quotes from Eisenberg et al; Zwillman quote from FBI memorandum dated November 30, 1938; Costello quoted from Wolf. Katcher quotes from New York Post article, 1938; Resko quotes from Reprieve, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1959.
Accounts of Fascist activity in New York appear in: “27 Hurt as NY Fascisti Invade Socialist Hall,” New York Herald Tribune, August 17, 1925; “Six Men Stabbed in a Fascist Riot,” New York Times, August 17, 1925; “Green Warns Labor of Fascist Menace,” New York Times, December 23, 1925; Tucker, M., “Carlo Tresca,” Greenwich Villager, April 22, 1922; link between Tresca and Mob mentioned in “Carlo Tresca Assassinated on Fifth Avenue,” New York Herald Tribune, January 12, 1943; “Mussolini Foes Kill 2 in Bronx Fascist Feud,” New York Herald Tribune, May 31, 1927, and “Kill Two Fascisti in Bronx Street,” The World, May 31, 1927. See P. V. Cannistraro, Blackshirts in Little Italy, Bordighera, 1999, for an excellent short account of the Fascist politics in New York. On Nazis in America see A. Stein, “More Fond Memories of Menahan Street,” Times Newsweekly, Ridgewood, N.Y., July 29, 2004, and Max Hinkes’s story in R. Rockaway, But He Was Good to His Mother: The Life and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters, Jerusalem, 2000.
CHAPTER 11: TALKING TO THE DEVIL HIMSELF
For the burning of the Normandie, see “12-Hour Fight Vain,” New York Times, February 10, 1942, and “Giant Vessel Afire at Pier, Is Kept Afloat,” New York Herald Tribune, February 10, 1942. The primary source for the deal between Lucky Luciano and U.S. Naval Intelligence is the Herlands Report of 1954 in the Thomas E. Dewey archive, University of Rochester Library, New York. Produced as a secret report, it was never published. New York State Commissioner of Investigation William B. Herlands was one of Dewey’s original racketbusting legal team in the 1930s and headed the inquiry at the request of Dewey to scotch rumors of duplicity following the early release of Luciano. Some fiftyseven major witnesses were interviewed—including Haffenden, MacFall, Marsloe, Hogan, Gurfein, McCook, Polakoff, Lanza, and Lansky—giving sworn testimony of their involvement and producing a total of 2,883 pages of evidence, which was edited down to a 101-page report with appendices. Lansky’s recollection of conversations with Haffenden and the whole World War II project come from the Herlands investigation interview conducted on April 13, 1954. FBI report on Luciano in Great Meadow prison, June 25, 1942. For more detail and extensive documentation, see T. Newark, Mafia Allies, St. Paul: Zenith Press, 2007. Haffenden’s son, Charles Radcliffe Haffenden Jr., says of the whole affair: “I was but a young lad of fourteen when all of this occurred. U.S. Naval Intelligence would not support my father in this effort, and basically turned their back on what he was doing.”
CHAPTER 12: LUCKY GOES TO WAR
Naval Intelligence gathering of information about Sicily is based on the findings of the 1954 Herlands Report, including quotes from Haffenden, MacFall, Wharton, Marsloe, Polakoff, and Lansky. For Marsloe’s testimony regarding Sicily and working with underworld contacts, see Herlands investigation interview with him on June 3, 1954. For Wharton’s claim that Luciano was prepared to go to Sicily to help the war effort, see Herlands investigation written statement by Captain Wallace S. Wharton, June 23, 1954. Del Grazio story comes from Kefauver, E., Crime in America, London, 1952, based on testimony taken during the Kefauver Senate Committee inquiry into organized crime in 1950.
A copy of the Special Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in Sicily, a report prepared by the Joint Staff Planners for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 9, 1943, is in the British National Archives: WO 204/3701. The British SIS Handbook on Politics and Intelligence Services for Sicily in 1943 is in WO 220/403.
The Don Calo Vizzini/Luciano handkerchief story originates with M. Pantaleone, The Mafia and Politics, London, 1966; N. Lewis repeats it in The Honoured Society, London: Collins, 1964. “The Daily Journal” of the Forty-fifth Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, the Operations Report of the Third Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, and the narrative of the Operations of the Third Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop Mechanized are all in Modern Military Records, NARA, College Park, Maryland. Luigi Lumia’s memory of Don Calo interrogated by U.S. troops at Villalba appears in L. Lumia, Villalba, storia e memoria, Caltanissetta, 1990, a copy held in Biblioteca Centrale della Regione Siciliana. For more detail and extensive documentation, see Newark, Mafia Allies.
For Dewey’s statement on Luciano’s deportation see Herlands Report, and “Dewey Commutes Luciano Sentence,” New York Times, January 4, 1946, also M. Berger, “Deportation Set for Luciano Today” New York Times, February 9, 1946, “Luciano Taken on Ship,” New York Times, February 10, 1946, “Luciano Departs for Italy with 3,500 Tons of Flour,” New York Herald Tribune, February 11, 1946, “Pardoned Luciano on His Way to Italy,” New York Times, February 11, 1946. FBI teletype memorandum dated February 25–27, 1946, gives a detailed report of an anonymous FBI agent visiting Luciano on board the Laura Keene. All FBI Rosen memoranda, as dated in main text, addressed to E. A. Tamm, also an assistant director of FBI, who passed them on to Hoover.
In January 1953, New York radio station broadcaster Michael Stern claimed that Governor Dewey had been paid large sums of money to give Luciano his parole. When Dewey set a lawyer on Stern, the broadcaster implied that Hoover had given him the information while dining with him at the Stork Club. Hoover was furious to be caught up in the allegations, denied knowing Stern or meeting him at the Stork Club, and called him a “name dropper who should be told to put up or shut up” (FBI memorandum from director, March 10, 1953). Memorandum of January 5, 1953, says that Haffenden was helping his associates get a cut from their half-million-dollar corporation known as the Sightseeing Yachts Incorporated, which
had a monopoly over mooring rights in New York City.
CHAPTER 13: CUBA FIASCO
The majority of this chapter is based on memoranda held in the FBI files on Luciano. FBI Rosen report on Luciano in Mexico dated July 10, 1946; see also Excelsior newspaper article, March 26, 1946, “Vice Czar Intends to Return to Mexico,” and New York Journal American story on Luciano on September 5, 1946. “Italy’s dead” quote is from “City Boy,” Time, July 25, 1949.
February 10, 1947, memorandum from Rosen to Tamm recording Luciano observed by two SIS FBI agents on February 8 in Havana. Feature on crooked gambling in Cuba, Tiempo en Cuba, February 9, 1947. “‘Lucky’s’ Luck Runs Out Again,” by Henry Wallace, Havana Post, February 23, 1947. Letter of February 25 from U.S. embassy in Havana to FBI director, says Luciano arrived in Cuba on October 29, 1946. Special agent James P. McMahon and another unnamed agent are credited with spotting Luciano on February 8 and were recommended for letters of commendation. Undated FBI radiogram received late February stated that U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics was taking action to get Luciano out of Cuba. “Wrong Friends,” syndicated column by Robert C. Ruark about Sinatra, February 20, 1947. “Linked to Luciano—Three Name Suspect in Ragen Death,” Washington Post, March 14, 1947; Mob interest in Ragen explained in FBI profile of Bugsy Siegel dated July 22, 1946. Second Luciano interview with FBI dated March 19. See also FBI report on whole affair sent from Havana, March 22, 1947. Stacher quotes from Eisenberg et al.
