viding a reason for them to be in Havana. Why, they hadn't even been aware that Lucky Luciano was in town. They had come because Sinatra had a singing engagement there.
|
Besides honoring Sinatra the boys worked long and hard at their sessions. When Luciano left the United States in 1946, he put Costello in charge of his crime family, just as he had done earlier during the years of his imprisonment. Now, however, Vito Genovese, who had recently been returned to the United States from his self-imposed exile in Italy to face a murder charge (which he beat), was trying to fill the Luciano vacuum. The Luciano-Lansky alliance had called the convention to reassert Lucky's former position of control. Luciano harbored the hope he could bide his time in Havana for a few years while he waited for the proper political strings to be pulled so he could return to the United States.
|
The conference was not a total success for Luciano. Genovese actually suggested to him privately that he ought to retire. Undoubtedly Genovese approached some of the other conferees with the same suggestion. In any event, Luciano easily handled Genovese's effrontery and set up roadblocks against Genovese's ambitions. He stopped Genovese from seizing more power and blunted Genovese-inspired complaints that Albert Anastasia, the chief executioner of the mob was becoming "kill crazy." Apparently Anastasia was pushing for the assassination of Bureau of Narcotics Director Harry Anslinger. Luciano squashed that, but he did not "defang" Anastasia, knowing he would make a potent weapon in any future war with Genovese.
|
However, Luciano lost out on other fronts, such as narcotics. Like Lansky and Costello, and possibly Magaddino and a few others, Luciano wanted the syndicate to withdraw from the narcotics business, but the absence of a vote of confidence on the subject proved deafening. Many of the crime chiefs would not or, perhaps on account of opposition from their own underlings, dared not give up the trade. Luciano was forced to accept a compromise whereby each crime family decided individually what to do about drugs. Personally, Luciano figured abandonment of the narcotics trade by all the mobs would aid his try to get back into the United States, but he now saw his word was no longer law.
|
Another serious matter for decision was the passing of the death sentence on Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, longtime underworld partner of Luciano and Lansky. Siegel had squandered huge sums of mob money building what by then looked like a sure lemon, a plush Las Vegas gambling casino-hotel named the Flamingo. In addition to being a bad businessman, Siegel was a crook, skimming off much of the construction money, and shipping it off to Switzerland. It was Lansky's motion that sealed Siegel's doom: "There's only one thing to do with a thief who steals from his friends. Benny's got to be hit."
|
Later Lansky would do a lot of posturing and insist he tried to save Siegel. It is true he got the hit postponed for a while both to see if Siegel could make a go of the Flamingo and so the syndicate could recover its money. In due course, however, Siegel was assassinated.
|
After the convention, Luciano thought he could stay on in Cuba. His presence, though, was revealed to the U.S. government which put pressure on Cuba to kick him out. The Cuban government, which held the mob and the mob's bribe money in very high regard, resisted for a period of time, but finally was forced to give in. Luciano had to return to Italy, convinced that it had been the double-dealing Genovese who had tipped off the Federal Bureau of Narcotics of his location, just 90 miles from the U.S. shore. Luciano's dream of getting back to America was shattered after the Havana conference. Slowly over the years his influence in the syndicate waned, although he remained an important power as long as Lansky backed him.
|
Hawthorne Inn: Capone headquarters and shootout scene
The Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois, was for almost 50 years a headquarters for the Capone mob and its modern successor, the Chicago Outfit. Located at 4833 22nd Street, it was a two-story structure of brick and tiles which on Capone's orders was made into a fortress. Bulletproof steel shutters protected every window and armed guards stood at the ready at every entrance. The entire second floor, lavishly furnished, was reserved for Capone's personal use. The press labeled the place Capone's Castle.
|
On September 20, 1926, Capone was almost killed in his castle. A stream of automobiles packed with gangsters bossed by Hymie Weiss, the successor to the murdered Dion O'Banion, roared past the place and poured well over 1,000 bullets into the hotel in an effort to assassinate Capone. Capone was sitting with bodyguard Frankie Rio in the hotel's restaurant when the first tommy gun started rattling. Rio threw himself on top of Capone on the floor while a hail of bullets ripped up the dining room around them. While much woodwork, plaster, mirrors, glassware and crockery splintered, Capone and Rio were unscathed. Only another gangster, Louis Barko, rushing in to aid Capone, went down with a shoulder wound.
|
The street had been filled with pedestrians during the lunch hour and all scattered when the shooting started. In all, 35 automobiles parked near the hotel were sprayed with bullets, but only one person was hit, Mrs.
|
|
