Mobsters and the men and women who pursued them

Killing the Mob by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard is an accounting of the lives and deaths of mobsters and the men who pursued them from the days of Prohibition’s bootlegging and speakeasies, to the underworld’s elite upper echelons, power brokers in modern times.  They lived by violence, and often died by it, fueling newspaper sales with details of their crimes, their hunt by law enforcement, trial reporting, and often inglorious end. Kidnapping, bootlegging, robberies, films, gambling, and drug dealing financed their lives and their lawyers, playing out over the dark winding backroads of Illinois and Wisconsin, to the glittering lights of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. 

Impeccably researched and footnoted, the book is a fascinating look at the mob’s rise to power in Cuba, NYC, Chicago, California, Las Vegas, and Miami.  It touches on John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Marilyn Monroe, Judith Campbell Exner, JFK’s assassination, Bobby Kennedy’s years of pursuit including televised testimony and sad end, as well as many others, and  mention of Herbert Hoover’s wiretapping that lead to his arsenal of notecards detailing politicians’ mob connections. One underworld figure acknowledged the mob never had anything to fear from Hoover. The book is an epic chronicling of criminality, and a timeline of the adage “there’s no honor among thieves,” at least not after they get the kiss of death, and ratting in the safety of witness protection is their only way out. 

After his incarceration for tax evasion, boss of the “Chicago Outfit” Al Capone, aka “Scarface,” got stabbed by fellow Alcatraz inmate James Lucas after he’d tried to bully his way to the front of the Alcatraz barber shop line; he survived. (Note, National Park Service info about Alcatraz Island states Capone was stabbed in the Shower Room after Lucas claims his life was threatened. It’s likely the Shower Room was where haircuts were given.) At night Capone could hear the distant sound of nightlife carried across the water from San Francisco to his island prison, a mile apart. At the age of 46 Lucas later returned to private life, eschewing crime to marry and raise 4 children (presumably his other 6 offspring grew up without him during his jail term).

The story continues to the eroding German North African campaign and Moussolini’s war against the Mafia. Il Duce wasn’t too fond of the Nazis either, but it’s doubtful he was a law and order guy, more likely interested in culling the powerful’s herd (and preventing their coordination with American mobsters serving to end Hitler’s power). Sicilian mobsters following military strategy and tactics in news accounts, become involved with allied forces seeking the ouster of Hitler. For some time they had exported their criminal manpower to the US, taking advantage of “fleeing fascism” refugee status, bypassing annual Immigrant Act caps, and streamlining processing sans traditional scrutiny.  

Imprisoned in the US, Lucky Luciano, a voracious reader, immerses himself in research about military strategy, and turns his prison cell into a tactical center believing there may be advantage to facilitating allied goals in Europe and activating an army of his global criminal contacts. During this period J. Edgar Hoover transitions his manpower from hunting down thug masterminds to routing wartime spies.

At book’s end, O’Reilly and Dugard ominously portend “The fight against organized crime continues, and sadly the war will never be won. Very simply there is too much money to be made in criminal activity, especially narcotics, and too many bad people willing to harvest it.” 

Personally, I’m hoping for the book “A Match Made In Hell” that, if written, would expose politicians past and present who engage in self serving relationships with Syndicate members. Such an effort would be fraught with risk, as deep dive investigations into the underworld are rife with cell hangings and suicides.