Another person who testified at the South Florida hearing was Walter Clark, the longtime sheriff of Broward County. Sheriff Clark was a paunchy, gregarious good ol’ boy who had presided over Broward since he was first elected in 1933. He liked to boast, “Broward has enjoyed the lowest crime-occurrence record of any resort county for its size.” Of course, that record depended on whether or not you counted illegal gambling, of which there was plenty. In front of the Kefauver Committee, Clark feigned ignorance:
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You have never known that there was gambling in those places?
SHERIFF CLARK: Rumors, but no actual evidence on it.
CHAIRMAN: With all of the information around about those places, why didn’t you close them up, and what is the problem?
SHERIFF CLARK: I never had any kick on it. I never had any complaints that they were gambling.
CHAIRMAN: As a matter of fact, it has always been your policy to operate on a liberal sort of basis, as you have told the committee.
SHERIFF CLARK: Yes.
CHAIRMAN: What do you mean by a liberal sort of basis?
SHERIFF CLARK: Well, I am not going around snooping in private businesses and homes.
Clark had a problem: it was later shown to the committee that Jake and Meyer Lansky were major contributors to his reelection campaign. Also receiving checks totaling $750 from Jake Lansky were the Florida Sheriffs Association, Justice of the Peace and Constables Association, Police & Sheriff Association, and Peace Officers Association. These were the official contributions; payments under the table were probably much higher.
Everyone got a piece of the pie: a select corps of three cops from the Hallendale police was paid to supervise the parking of cars outside the Colonial Inn and other carpet joints. And at the end of the night’s business, a call would be made and a posse of Sheriff Clark’s uniformed deputies would arrive to escort the night’s take to the bank. Sheriff Clark’s brother, Robert, owned the armored truck company whose vehicles transported the money.
By the time the Kefauver Committee moved on after a long week of testimony, a system of payoffs to local police and judicial and political figures in Broward County had been thoroughly exposed. Sheriff Clark was disgraced and forced out of office, and Meyer Lansky’s carpet joints in Broward County were raided, padlocked, and shut down for good.
As the Kefauver Committee arrived in New York City for the next round of hearings in the fall of 1950, awareness of its activities was simmering but nowhere near the heights it would reach in the following months. Until now, newspaper accounts of the testimony had tended to focus on issues of local interest, with little emphasis on what was supposed to be the committee’s primary agenda: establishing the existence of a national crime syndicate. In New York, that all changed. For the first time, the full reach and star power of the Mob were put on display, and the Kefauver Committee was finally catapulted from a back-page story to a full-blown cultural event.
In the previous hearings, a name that had been a constant refrain was that of Meyer Lansky—not only in South Florida, where the Lansky name was a mantra, but also in New Orleans, where it was established that Lansky, along with Frank Costello and local interests, was co-owner of the Beverly Club, a popular nightclub-casino. Lansky appeared to be a key intermediary between mobsters in New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and just about anywhere else that the forces of organized crime did business. Which is why the members of the committee were all in attendance when the Little Man himself, in answer to a subpoena, strolled into federal court in Manhattan to testify on October 11.
Given the buildup, the testimony was somewhat anticlimactic—which is probably just the way Lansky wanted it to be. Although the Mob boss was appearing without his attorney, he had been well coached as to his Fifth Amendment privilege—the right to remain silent on the grounds of self-incrimination—which, thanks to the Kefauver hearings, would enter into the lexicon of American discourse and become a lifesaver for criminals of all stripes. Under relentless questioning, Lansky rarely wavered:
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Have you ever been in the gambling business?
LANSKY: I decline to answer that on the grounds that it may incriminate me.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Have you ever been in Saratoga Springs, New York?
LANSKY: I decline to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Will the chairman please instruct the witness to answer?
CHAIRMAN: Mr. Lansky, you are instructed to answer these questions. Can we have an understanding that if, in the opinion of the chairman, any question counsel asks you is not a proper question, I will tell you not to answer it? Otherwise, you are instructed to answer every question that is asked of you.
LANSKY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN: You understand that?
LANSKY: Yes, sir.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Did you ever have an interest in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas?
LANSKY: I decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.
The following morning, with his attorney at his side, Lansky was more forthcoming. He answered questions when Moses Polakoff advised that it was all right for him to do so. Much of his testimony was used as an opportunity for grandstanding on the part of the committee members. In one revealing moment, Republican senator Charles Tobey, the committee’s most self-righteous grand inquisitor, became outraged when he discovered that Polakoff had also represented Charles Luciano. Bristling with indignation, the senator asked Polakoff, “How did you become counsel for such a dirty rat as that? Aren’t there some ethics in the legal profession?” adding later, “There are some men beyond the pale. [Luciano] is one of them.”
Polakoff responded with a passionate defense of his profession, noting, “When the day comes that a person becomes beyond the pale of justice, that means our liberty is gone. Minorities and undesirables and persons with bad reputations are more entitled to the protection of the law than are so-called honorable people. I don’t have to apologize to you or anyone else for whom I represent.”
“I look upon you in amazement,” said the senator.
“I look upon you in amazement,” countered the attorney, “a senator of the United States, making such a statement.”
The exchange went on a while longer, with Lansky sitting idly by, content that his time before the committee was being devoted to a rancorous debate about his old pal Charlie Lucky—who was living in Italy beyond the reach of the committee—and not about his own criminal activities.
Eventually Lansky faced the music. In testimony that stretched on for most of the morning, he admitted to acquaintance with a number of men who had been established before the committee as major underworld figures. Lansky could hardly deny his association with Luciano, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel, Albert Anastasia, and many others that he had been doing business with most of his adult life. On questions of substance relating to his business activities, or even whether or not he had set foot in certain cities where gambling was rampant, he religiously took the Fifth.
One subject Lansky was surprisingly loquacious about was Cuba. The committee knew nothing of Lansky’s current relationship with Batista. Their questions about Cuba all related to the past. Lansky was aware that his activities in Havana were beyond the reach of the committee, which might be why he was willing to talk freely on the subject.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: What business did you have [in Havana]?
LANSKY: I had the racetrack, and a casino, Nacional.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: You operated all of the gambling, is that right? It is legal in Cuba?
LANSKY: Sure, it is legal; yes.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Why did you go to Cuba?
LANSKY: Well…At that time, I was very much interested to try to get the Montmartre Club.
CHAIRMAN: Did you have the racetrack and the casino at the time Luciano was there?
LANSKY: No, no, we stopped when the war broke out. You see, because after that, there weren’t a
ny boats on the sea. And at that time you didn’t have enough planes, and you couldn’t live from the planes coming from Miami. You can’t live from Cuban people themselves.
CHAIRMAN: May I ask, were these big operations, the racetrack and the casino at the Nacional Hotel?
LANSKY: Big operations?
CHAIRMAN: Yes.
LANSKY: Well, we took it when it was pretty well run-down.
CHAIRMAN: But it was a million-dollar operation?
LANSKY: No, nothing like that, senator. A leased proposition, and we tried to develop it. Unfortunately, the war broke out.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Aside from the amount of money involved, the Nacional casino, it was a tremendous and beautiful place in Cuba?
LANSKY: Oh, sure it was.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: It has probably more floor space for gambling than any other place in the hemisphere, doesn’t it?
LANSKY: Well, I guess it does.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: And it is a gorgeous, beautiful big building?
LANSKY: Oh, sure it was.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: With a tremendous, absolutely beautiful restaurant?
LANSKY: That’s right.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: And another place for dancing?
LANSKY: Yes.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: It is quite a layout, in other words?
LANSKY: It is.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: And the track is a good-sized racetrack?
LANSKY: Yes, the track was a good-sized racetrack. I think it had one of the most beautiful clubhouses in the country.
The committee stayed on the subject of Havana for a while, believing perhaps that it was an opportunity to loosen Lansky’s tongue—a transparent strategy that Meyer effectively undermined by noting, “I spent four years in Havana, and about six months a year. I mean, to me, Havana used to become very tiring.” He said no more on the subject and finished his testimony.
Lansky made one more appearance before the committee five months later, when Kefauver and his crew returned to New York in March 1951. This final appearance was uneventful, and it was overshadowed by other more sensational developments.
In early March, Willie Moretti was called to testify. An attendee of the Havana conference, Moretti was the man who had initiated Frank Sinatra into the universe of the American Mafia. In front of the committee, the balding, fifty-one-year-old New Jersey mobster talked incessantly, offering such pearls of wisdom as “They call anybody a mob who makes six percent more on money” and, concerning his many gangster acquaintances, “Well-charactered people don’t need introductions.” When Moretti was thanked by Senator Tobey for his frankness, he answered, “Thank you very much. Don’t forget my house in Deal if you are down on the shore. You are invited.”
Moretti’s testimony revealed nothing of any consequence, but his prattling on nonetheless alarmed many in the Mob. On October 4, while the Kefauver Committee was still ongoing, Moretti was having breakfast at Joe’s Restaurant in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, when unknown gunmen opened fire. He was hit multiple times and died in a pool of his own blood. Someone had shut Moretti’s mouth for good.
By far the most memorable moment of the Kefauver hearings—one that would forever occupy a special place in the history of the Mob in America—was the appearance of Frank Costello. By the time he was called to testify, the Prime Minister of the Underworld was in no mood to play ball. Costello refused to take the stand as long as television cameras were present in the hearing room. Television was a relatively new phenomenon—less than 20 percent of the American public had a set in their homes—but Costello and his attorney rightly surmised that having his face so strongly identified with a probe into the activities of organized crime would result in guilt by association. A compromise was worked out: cameras would be allowed in the hearing room, but they could not show Costello’s face.
And so unfolded perhaps the first major event in television history. Costello’s hands were shown, but his face was not. His disembodied voice—a raspy baritone that was the result of a youthful operation on his vocal cords—seemed to emanate from some mysterious place. The result was both sinister and mesmerizing. Millions of people in cities large and small became addicted to Costello’s testimony, which on television consisted of a voice and hands. Store owners wanting to capitalize on the event placed television sets in their shop windows. People gathered on the sidewalks to watch, and the hearings became a national phenomenon.
By the time they were over, the Kefauver hearings had helped elevate the Mob into a new kind of American mythology. The names Luciano, Costello, and Lansky were now as well known as those of some movie stars. The results may have been succor to the egos of some mobsters, but the effect on their pocketbooks was devastating.
For Meyer Lansky, the results were akin to a hostile takeover. He expressed his bitterness directly to Senator Kefauver in a private backroom session before his final appearance. Lansky had heard through various sources that Kefauver liked to gamble, so he asked the senator, “What’s so bad about gambling? You like it yourself. I know you’ve gambled a lot.”
“That’s quite right,” answered Kefauver, “but I don’t want you people to control it.”
Lansky took this as a disparagement of his ethnicity. “I’m not a kneeling Jew who comes to sing songs in your ears,” he snapped. “I’m not one of those Jewish hotel owners in Miami Beach who tell you all sorts of stories just to please you…I will not allow you to persecute me because I am a Jew.”
Lansky’s defense of his ethnic origins might have gone over well at the weekly meeting of the B’nai Brith, but in the halls of justice he was just another arrogant hoodlum—Jewish, Italian, Irish, or otherwise. By the time the Kefauver Committee wrapped up public hearings in early 1952, the Little Man was hurting. He was indicted on gambling charges in the state of Florida and faced similar charges in New York State as a result of his casino operations in Saratoga Springs. The future looked grim.
IT IS NOT KNOWN whether Fulgencio Batista watched the Kefauver hearings on television. Undoubtedly, he monitored them closely through the pages of the New York Times and also in the weekly newsmagazines. A devout observer of U.S. political and cultural events, the senator tended to view his former home and neighbor not as a separate country but as a fat, sometimes inattentive relative whose moods needed to be constantly monitored and massaged. The Mob, in particular, was a subject close to his heart. Through Lansky, Batista had a vested interest in the fortunes of the American underworld. From his estate outside Havana, he would have followed the Kefauver hearings the same way investors follow the fortunes of the New York Stock Exchange: with fingers crossed and an ear to the ground.
In the media, the hearings were presented as an unmitigated disaster for the Mob. The New York Times suggested that the Kefauver hearings were potentially “the biggest blow to organized crime since passage of the Twenty-first Amendment,” which ended Prohibition. It was true that in the wake of the hearings, illegal casinos, bookmaking operations, wire-service syndicates, and narcotics routes were all shut down, but the senator from Daytona was astute enough to see beyond the headlines.
Having been born and raised in the shadow of the United Fruit Company, Batista recognized a capitalist imperative when he saw one. Nothing had happened during the Kefauver hearings to change the central precept of American commerce: as with any business, the Mob needed to keep money in circulation to survive. Lansky, Luciano, Costello, and the others had committed themselves to a corporate strategy. As principles of operation, the generating and reinvesting of capital were the first and second commandments. Batista knew that the Mob still needed a place to hang its hat. Now, more than ever, it needed avenues of investment that were beyond the reach of hillbilly do-gooders like Estes Kefauver. In this regard, Havana never looked better.
The senator had one problem. If the argument were to be made that the time had arrived for the full-scale investing of dirty money in Havana, Batista was not yet in a position to reap the benefits. In March 1951, he
took steps to remedy the problem. Around the same time that Lansky testified before the Kefauver Committee for the third time, Batista announced himself as a candidate for president in the June 1952 Cuban elections.
The announcement was met with a curious lack of enthusiasm. Most Cubans knew, of course, that Batista would be running. It was assumed that his reentry into local politics as senator from Las Villas was a prelude to larger ambitions. In some quarters, Batista was still popular, especially within the military. He also had followers in the rural provinces, where he was seen as a guajiro (peasant) at heart. But much had changed since Batista first went into self-imposed exile seven and a half years earlier. Cuba’s decade-long experiment with constitutional democracy had opened the door to a rambunctious collection of competing factions. The Auténtico Party was backing a candidate handpicked by President Carlos Prío, who had decided not to run for reelection. The Ortodoxo Party had a strong following among the unions and the student groups at the University of Havana. And then there was the national Communist Party, a wild-card faction that Batista had manipulated effectively in the past.
Throughout the latter months of 1951, Batista campaigned around the island. A huge billboard was erected in the middle of a traffic circle in Havana. A gigantic depiction of the candidate, looking dapper in a linen suit and two-tone shoes, towered over his campaign slogan: “Este es el hombre”—This is the man. Batista was such a recognizable figure that it wasn’t even necessary to show his name on the billboard. Even so, his campaign sputtered. In December, the weekly magazine Bohemia printed the results of a public opinion poll that showed Batista running a distant third in the race.
What happened next has been a source of debate in Cuba ever since the events occurred. In later accounts, Batista would claim that he was approached by a group of young military officers who said they had uncovered evidence that Carlos Prío was planning to stage a coup d’état and would call off the elections and hold on to the presidency through paramilitary force. Prío denied that any such conspiracy ever existed. In any event, Batista met secretly with many of his followers in the military throughout the early months of 1952. In March, while the country was preoccupied with the annual pre-Lent carnival that unfolded with music, dance, and street celebrations, Batista made his move.
Havana Nocturne Page 10
