Meyer Lansky
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Meyer Lansky (born Majer Suchowliński, July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983) was a New York gangster who, with Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the so-called "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States.
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[edit] Emigration and childhood
Born in Grodno, Russian Empire (now Hrodna, Belarus) to Polish Jewish parents, his family emigrated to the United States in 1911 and settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. While Lansky was in school, he met a young Lucky Luciano, who shook down other kids for protection money. When Lansky refused to pay, Luciano fought him, but came away impressed with the younger boy's toughness, creating a bond that would make them friends for life.
Lansky met Bugsy Siegel when he was a teenager. They also became friends for life and, together with Luciano, formed a lasting partnership. Lansky was instrumental in Luciano's rise to power, when he helped in the killing in 1931 of Salvatore Maranzano. As a youngster, Lansky's life was saved many times by Siegel, a fact Lansky always appreciated. The two of them managed the Bug and Meyer Mob adroitly, despite its being one of the most violent Prohibition mobs.
[edit] Adult crimes
Lansky had established gambling operations in Florida, New Orleans and Cuba by 1936, the year Luciano was convicted and sent to prison. As Alfred McCoy records,
- "During the 1930s, Meyer Lansky "discovered" the Caribbean for northeastern syndicate bosses and invested their illegal profits in an assortment of lucrative gambling ventures... He was also reportedly responsible for organized crime's decision to declare Miami a "free city" (i.e., not subject to the usual rules of territorial monopoly)." [citation needed]
Lansky also became a big investor in Siegel's Las Vegas project. After Al Capone's 1931 conviction for tax evasion, he transferred illegal funds from his casinos to Europe, where he opened up a numbered bank account following the 1934 Swiss Banking Act.[citation needed] Later, according to Lucy Komisar, he would even buy an offshore bank in Switzerland, which he used for money laundering through a network of shell and holding companies. ("Offshore Banking: The Secret Threat to America," Dissent, Spring 2003)
[edit] War work
During World War II, Lansky would be instrumental in the Office of Naval Intelligence's efforts to recruit the criminal underworld into keeping an eye out for German infiltrators and submarine-borne saboteurs.[citation needed]
In the 1930s, Lansky and his gang stepped outside their usual activities to break rallies held in sympathy of Nazi Germany. Lansky himself recollected that at a rally in Yorkville (a neighborhood in Manhattan dominated by German immigrants) he and about 14 others:
- The stage was decorated with a swastika and a picture of Hitler. The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. We threw some of them out the windows. . . . Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up... We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults[1].
[edit] Breach of parole
After Luciano was paroled on the condition that he return to Sicily and never leave Italy, Luciano secretly moved to Cuba, from where he began to resume his control over the American mafia operations. He also ran a number of casinos with the sanction of the dictator Fulgencio Batista (who received a percentage).[citation needed] With the rise of Castro in Cuba, the casinos were shut, and Lansky moved on to elsewhere in the Caribbean, particularly the Bahamas.
[edit] Project's failure and consequences
Siegel's projects in Las Vegas were failing miserably and all mafia bosses, Lansky included, were summoned to a secret meeting in Havana. While everyone else wanted Siegel killed, Lansky begged for a second chance for his friend. He was able to persuade the bosses to give Siegel a second chance, but Siegel's casino kept on losing money and a second meeting was called. This time, the casino was able to turn in a small profit during the month of their second meeting, and that, together with Lansky's pleading and Luciano's hopes their old friend could still do good in Vegas, convinced them to give Siegel a third chance. That small profit turned out to be only a small hurrah and led to a third meeting in Cuba. Despite Lansky's insistence they give Siegel another chance, he was killed in 1947.
[edit] Later years
Lanksy's direct involvement in organised crime is now generally accepted to end with the sale of the Sands hotel in Las Vegas to Howard Hughes in 1967.[citation needed] Lanksy's 'points' (hidden interest) in the casino netted him just over US$1 million. Much of his money was eroded in subsequent years through legal expenses, especially in regard of his failed bid to gain citizenship in Israel. Lansky's last years were lived in notably straitened circumstances and he left little in his estate, the income from which dwindled within a very few years to zero as his domestic oil investments collapsed.
[edit] Death
Lansky died of lung cancer.
[edit] Popular culture
- The character Hyman Roth in the film The Godfather Part II (1974) is based on Lansky who was portrayed by Lee Strasberg.
- The 1981 NBC mini series, The Gangster Chronicles, the character of Michael Lasker, played by Brian Benben was based on Lansky. The reason for the name "Michael Lasker" was due to Lansky's still living at the time.
- The film Bugsy (1991), a biography of Bugsy Siegel, included him as a major character, played by Ben Kingsley.
- In the 1991 film Mobsters, he is played by the actor Patrick Dempsey.
- A 1999 made-for-TV movie called Lansky was released starring Richard Dreyfuss as Lansky, Eric Roberts as Bugsy Siegel, and Anthony LaPaglia as Lucky Luciano.
- Meyer Lansky is portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 2005 film The Lost City.
- Lansky was rumored to have photographic proof that J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual; conspiracy theorists believed this was the reason he wasn't aggressive in pursuing organized crime. However, there is no known evidence that Hoover was in fact gay.
- Manny Wiesbord, the mob chieftan played by Joseph Wiseman on Crime Story, was based on Lansky.
[edit] Further reading
- Lacy, Robert. Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
- Messick, Hank. Lansky. New York: Berkley Publishing Company, 1971.
- Cohen, Rich. Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams.
- Fried, Albert. The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. ISBN 0-23109683-6
- Rockaway, Robert A. But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 1993.
[edit] References
- Piper, Michael Collins. Final Judgement: the Missing Link in the Kennedy Conspiracy. Washington, D.C.: Wolfe Press, 1994.
