Latest / Ridiculous History / The US Navy Teamed Up With Mobsters, Part Two: The Mob Goes to War
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
- 0:27Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
- 0:30Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to super producer
- 0:33Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. What what? Oh? Shout out to the
- 0:37Speaker 1: one and only Mr Noel Brown? What what? Hello? And
- 0:40Speaker 1: uh and uh. Shout out to you folks for joining
- 0:43Speaker 1: us for part two of a very weird story about
- 0:46Speaker 1: the US Navy and the mob. They called me ben
- 0:51Speaker 1: Uh what? Thanks man. We had a we've got some
- 0:55Speaker 1: frenetic energy here, but this is a meaty two partner
- 0:59Speaker 1: for us and and off air or at the very end,
- 1:02Speaker 1: I think it was of part one nal We had
- 1:04Speaker 1: promised to explain the name Baby Shacks. Yeah, Luigi, Baby Shacks.
- 1:13Speaker 1: Pinoccio is alive. He is. He's alive right now. He's
- 1:20Speaker 1: from Rhode Island, living out his twilight years and Martha's vineyard,
- 1:23Speaker 1: no doubt. Uh. We figured out why he has the
- 1:28Speaker 1: nickname baby Shacks. For a while he was called Baby
- 1:31Speaker 1: Shanks and that was incorrect. That bothered him. His name
- 1:35Speaker 1: Baby Shacks and all you said it sounded like it
- 1:38Speaker 1: might be a little untoward every use. Well, he got
- 1:42Speaker 1: the name for two reasons. First, people thought he had
- 1:46Speaker 1: a baby face when he was a youngerhood, but that
- 1:49Speaker 1: nickname was already taken, so they could call him baby face.
- 1:53Speaker 1: And he had a reputation for quote shacking up with
- 1:56Speaker 1: a cavalcade of women, perhaps of the underage variety. I don't.
- 2:03Speaker 1: I I think just uh people who met in the
- 2:05Speaker 1: mob lifestyle. But still baby shacks feels like a grosser.
- 2:08Speaker 1: At one time, I was walking down Ponce where old
- 2:11Speaker 1: office used to be, and I heard somebody with one
- 2:14Speaker 1: of the most disturbing street names I've heard in a while,
- 2:17Speaker 1: Little Daddy. This lady was telling you stop right there,
- 2:21Speaker 1: a little daddy. Yeah, maybe that was just a term
- 2:24Speaker 1: of endearment. Perhaps I don't know. I'm uncomfortable. I I
- 2:29Speaker 1: remained uncomfortable. But yeah, So this is where we're in
- 2:33Speaker 1: Part two. We've kind of got the meeting of the minds,
- 2:36Speaker 1: the aligning of some very unlikely partners towards a common goal,
- 2:41Speaker 1: uh that being fighting the Nazis. Yeah, yeah, and we
- 2:46Speaker 1: we set up a lot of the context for this
- 2:49Speaker 1: thing that becomes known as Operation Underworld. We're just gonna
- 2:53Speaker 1: dive right in. So if you haven't listened, to part two.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Yet go ahead and pause. We'll wait and we'll see
- 3:00Speaker 1: on the other side. Great, welcome back, welcome, welcome. Okay.
- 3:14Speaker 1: So I love how you set this up, because these
- 3:17Speaker 1: really are strange bedfellows, right, this is like the wolves
- 3:22Speaker 1: of the Lions working together. Perhaps some lambs in there
- 3:26Speaker 1: as well. They've decided to truce and not eat each
- 3:29Speaker 1: other or at the very least, you know, mall each other. Um. So,
- 3:34Speaker 1: this Underworld operation, Operation Underworld involves the underworld, you know,
- 3:39Speaker 1: the world of organized crime. And we know even within
- 3:43Speaker 1: the world of organized crime, you have these factions often
- 3:46Speaker 1: aligned along ethnic kind of divides. Right, You've got the
- 3:50Speaker 1: Italian organized crime, You've got the Irish organized crime, and
- 3:54Speaker 1: never the twain shall meet under most circumstances. But again,
- 3:58Speaker 1: pretty universal idea that Nazis are bad. Um So this
- 4:02Speaker 1: kind of became this sort of common cause that they
- 4:05Speaker 1: joined forces with the governments who would be the greatest
- 4:09Speaker 1: enemy of organized crime, you know, folks who would be
- 4:12Speaker 1: normally seeking to put them away. And it's not like
- 4:14Speaker 1: they're aligning with the FBI exactly, but still the Navy,
- 4:18Speaker 1: you know, it's a branch of the U. S Military,
- 4:21Speaker 1: which is all kind of interconnected in that same way.
- 4:23Speaker 1: So we talked earlier about how could this work, you
- 4:28Speaker 1: know down the line where if they're kind of cooperating
- 4:31Speaker 1: and using their underworld connections in league with the government,
- 4:35Speaker 1: how how could they be assured that this would not
- 4:37Speaker 1: be one day used against them. I don't know that
- 4:39Speaker 1: we necessarily are going to be able to answer that question.
- 4:42Speaker 1: It does seems like that whole Nazi problem was enough
- 4:45Speaker 1: to cause them to just kind of roll the dice
- 4:47Speaker 1: on this one a little bit, right. Yeah, then, you know,
- 4:50Speaker 1: we've all been in those situations, maybe not necessarily fighting Nazis,
- 4:55Speaker 1: but where we find ourselves in cahoots with the strangest
- 4:59Speaker 1: people right in our lives. And this happens across every industry,
- 5:04Speaker 1: including the industry of crime. So we're setting up this alliance, right.
- 5:10Speaker 1: The first guy to join in is the president of
- 5:14Speaker 1: the International Longshoreman's Association, a guy named Joseph Ryan, along
- 5:19Speaker 1: with his sidekick Johnny COCKA done m Yeah, he had
- 5:25Speaker 1: a bit of a squint. So next, uh, we have
- 5:34Speaker 1: um the high Lord Executioner as we talked about earlier,
- 5:37Speaker 1: Albert Anastasia, and Anastasia was a big dog and he
- 5:43Speaker 1: was you know, he uh struck fear into the hearts
- 5:47Speaker 1: of even his allies. Um So it was a really
- 5:50Speaker 1: big get to have him on board because he was
- 5:53Speaker 1: kind of the power behind the throne, and with his
- 5:56Speaker 1: word backing the US government, no one was going to
- 6:00Speaker 1: turned down any of these um requests for intel, right. Yeah,
- 6:05Speaker 1: and so their coalition forms, uh cock eyed Dunne and
- 6:09Speaker 1: a guy named Jerry Sullivan are overseeing the west Side waterfront.
- 6:13Speaker 1: A guy named Joe Adonnas partners with Frank Costello to
- 6:16Speaker 1: look at the Brooklyn side. And the guy's wife named Venus. Wait,
- 6:21Speaker 1: what you know, don Venus and a donna? It's just
- 6:25Speaker 1: Greek mythology, Yes, Donnas Venus. Okay, yeah, I'm with you.
- 6:29Speaker 1: I'm with you. I think Adonnas is such a cool
- 6:32Speaker 1: last name, a cool surname that that guy probably didn't
- 6:35Speaker 1: need a nickname totally. I bet he was a real
- 6:38Speaker 1: smoke show too. Um. So, you know, when you join
- 6:41Speaker 1: a union, you get something called a union card. You
- 6:44Speaker 1: sign a union card. Um. So they actually that's sort
- 6:47Speaker 1: of your ticket to the dance, right. And so a
- 6:50Speaker 1: lot of these undercover naval operatives were issued union cards,
- 6:57Speaker 1: which granted them a lot of access. They were able
- 7:00Speaker 1: to infiltrate, you know, restaurants and bars and peers and
- 7:05Speaker 1: truck depos and factories and various other of these mob
- 7:10Speaker 1: aligned businesses because you know, I mean, the history of
- 7:13Speaker 1: unionizing is very frost. We obviously know unions all at
- 7:17Speaker 1: all are a good thing when they look after the workers.
- 7:20Speaker 1: But they we know that from the start, with folks
- 7:22Speaker 1: like Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters Union all that, there's always
- 7:25Speaker 1: been this kind of mob influence looming over the history
- 7:29Speaker 1: of organizing workers. So it does kind of give it
- 7:33Speaker 1: a bit of a bad rap sometimes. Yeah, yeah, agreed.
- 7:38Speaker 1: And the Longshoreman's Association played a huge role in this overall, right,
- 7:46Speaker 1: that that sort of marriage of workers organizations and organized crime.
- 7:51Speaker 1: The guy would mentioned earlier, Jerry Sullivan. He would later
- 7:54Speaker 1: go on to describe how, I guess the best way
- 8:00Speaker 1: to put it is, you know, if you're a hammer,
- 8:02Speaker 1: every problem looks like a nail, and the mob has definite,
- 8:06Speaker 1: tried and true business practices, so they enforced things in
- 8:11Speaker 1: a mob way. Uh. Sullivan says. Lasky was solving the
- 8:14Speaker 1: problem for the Navy on the waterfront by the visible
- 8:17Speaker 1: deployment of some of the most ruthless gangsters in the city.
- 8:20Speaker 1: It was expected that the mere appearance of these men
- 8:22Speaker 1: on the piers would serve as a deterrent, a warning
- 8:25Speaker 1: to cooperate with the US war effort would face the consequences.
- 8:29Speaker 1: So they were just intimidating, right, am I reading that right?
- 8:31Speaker 1: And you are totally reading that right. And by the way,
- 8:35Speaker 1: this comes from a fabulous piece on Warfare History Network
- 8:40Speaker 1: by Gregory Peduto project Underworld, The U. S. Navy's Secret
- 8:44Speaker 1: Packed with the Mafia not so secret now, absolutely right.
- 8:49Speaker 1: I mean they this was kind of a desperate times,
- 8:51Speaker 1: call for desperate measure situation pretty much across the board,
- 8:55Speaker 1: because you know, Mobster's gonna mobster. I mean, it's not
- 8:59Speaker 1: like you're gonna all of a sudden start to to
- 9:01Speaker 1: to play nice because you're working with Uncle Sam. And
- 9:04Speaker 1: in fact, that's probably what Uncle Sam wanted. You know,
- 9:07Speaker 1: they wanted them to flex on their behalf so that
- 9:10Speaker 1: they could ensure getting the most accurate intel from some
- 9:13Speaker 1: very terrified, you know, individuals who knew that if they
- 9:17Speaker 1: didn't cooperate that they would have hell to pay in
- 9:20Speaker 1: the form of you know, busted kneecaps or worse. And
- 9:24Speaker 1: this is this is still overseen by Commander Charles R.
- 9:29Speaker 1: Half ended, and eventually this strange alliance creates a mercenary
- 9:36Speaker 1: shadow army. This is oh, this is great. This reminds
- 9:40Speaker 1: me of Shadow Run. Honestly. Yeah, there's just some real
- 9:43Speaker 1: stuff that I want you to know kind of business. Yeah, totally.
- 9:46Speaker 1: You got your street level thugs, the enforcers, the triggerman.
- 9:50Speaker 1: You got people whose day jobs are murdering folks and
- 9:53Speaker 1: other guys who are smuggling stuff. You got kingpins with
- 9:56Speaker 1: international reach. There's a lot of violence because again, these
- 10:02Speaker 1: guys have a very specific understanding of enforcement and they're
- 10:06Speaker 1: not worried about, uh, the constraints that government employees would have.
- 10:11Speaker 1: And that's exactly what we see with you know, black
- 10:14Speaker 1: sites and um, you know what like what do they
- 10:18Speaker 1: call it, like ghost recon kind of you know, I'm
- 10:21Speaker 1: not I'm talking about video games, but you know what
- 10:22Speaker 1: I'm saying, like a lot of these things where they
- 10:24Speaker 1: disavow any knowledge of the operation in the event that
- 10:27Speaker 1: someone's captured or discovered or whatever, and that is so
- 10:30Speaker 1: that they can employ some tactics that are maybe not
- 10:34Speaker 1: officially sanctioned by the US government, and that is absolutely
- 10:39Speaker 1: on full display here under Commander Haffenden, who you know,
- 10:44Speaker 1: couldn't have been blissfully ignorant to to to the fact that,
- 10:48Speaker 1: you know, to make an intel omlet, you gotta break
- 10:50Speaker 1: some arms and legs, oh gosh, and yeah, and definitely
- 10:53Speaker 1: some next too. There's even there are specific examples. Commander
- 10:58Speaker 1: Halfdan sent this guy cock eye done, and he said, hey,
- 11:02Speaker 1: go look into these two, these two dudes that we
- 11:05Speaker 1: think might be German agents, and uh he killed them.
- 11:12Speaker 1: He just he went and killed him. Like, what do
- 11:14Speaker 1: you mean I took care where you said take care?
- 11:15Speaker 1: You said wink wink, nudge nudge, you know, uh yeah,
- 11:21Speaker 1: and and and again. In that Warfare History Network article
- 11:25Speaker 1: by Gregory Produdo, he had this to say. I love
- 11:29Speaker 1: the way he framed it. Um. He referred to it
- 11:32Speaker 1: as a mob land one way ride. It's never heard before,
- 11:38Speaker 1: but you kind of know what that means. It's nice
- 11:40Speaker 1: and descriptive. You're not coming back. There were also wire
- 11:44Speaker 1: taps being deployed that we're recording some of the reports
- 11:48Speaker 1: of some of these off the books operations. And here
- 11:52Speaker 1: is a quote from actually one of these, uh these taps,
- 11:55Speaker 1: one of these recordings from I believe Mr Kak I
- 11:58Speaker 1: they'll never bother us to get he said with dire finality.
- 12:02Speaker 1: I think we know it that they'll never bother us again,
- 12:04Speaker 1: because there I'm not gonna be around exactly. Well, the
- 12:10Speaker 1: Navy did, officially, you know, kind of frown on this. Um.
- 12:16Speaker 1: They just couldn't keep tabs on somebody like that. And
- 12:19Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to change. He can't. He
- 12:22Speaker 1: can't take the fight out of the mad dog. You know,
- 12:24Speaker 1: you can't do it. And just the thing, Operation Underworld
- 12:27Speaker 1: is a success. It works like warfare. History Network points out,
- 12:34Speaker 1: once the mafia got involved and they had the coalition
- 12:37Speaker 1: solidified and they had united everybody, there was not a
- 12:41Speaker 1: single act of sabotage sus suspect fire that occurred. There
- 12:46Speaker 1: weren't even labor strikes, you know. I think I think
- 12:49Speaker 1: the mob was treating this as um kind of a
- 12:54Speaker 1: co sign from the government and whatever, and wanted to
- 13:00Speaker 1: show that they were good at their jobs, which yeah,
- 13:04Speaker 1: I mean good being a relative term here, and they
- 13:10Speaker 1: actually started kind of going a little rogue, right yeah,
- 13:21Speaker 1: because remember Lucky Luciado is locked up, but he's very
- 13:26Speaker 1: much alive, and he's reading reports about all these Allied
- 13:30Speaker 1: victories and he says, I want to be part of
- 13:33Speaker 1: the action. And he's he's thinking again in Mafio so terms.
- 13:37Speaker 1: He's thinking, you know, I did you a solid I
- 13:39Speaker 1: did you a favor US government. You know, you should
- 13:42Speaker 1: be grateful because I I my people helped you over
- 13:47Speaker 1: there at the port. And uh. And he's thinking more. Yeah,
- 13:53Speaker 1: they'll even owe me more if I step forward for
- 13:56Speaker 1: active duty. He says, I'm gonna volunteer tact a scout
- 14:01Speaker 1: for frontline troops. I'll parachute into this is true, this
- 14:04Speaker 1: is crazy, right, I'll parachute into action behind enemy lines.
- 14:08Speaker 1: And then I'll use my influence to help turn the
- 14:11Speaker 1: tide of the war for the United States. Yeah. Uh,
- 14:16Speaker 1: and you know he he was right, he was reading
- 14:18Speaker 1: it right. The government was grateful. Um, they did look
- 14:24Speaker 1: at this as an opportunity. Um. And uh. It ultimately
- 14:28Speaker 1: ended up kind of working out, maybe not exactly the
- 14:30Speaker 1: way he had planned, but definitely in a way the
- 14:33Speaker 1: benefit of Luciano. By January, the Allies were operating and
- 14:37Speaker 1: offensive in the Mediterranean. Um. They had defeated the Italians
- 14:43Speaker 1: and the Germans already in North Africa. Uh, and we're
- 14:47Speaker 1: now trying to open up a another front um in
- 14:52Speaker 1: Europe to really put the screws to Hitler because the
- 14:56Speaker 1: Germans were busy fighting the Soviets U in Russia. As
- 15:01Speaker 1: we know, they are a very very very important part
- 15:03Speaker 1: of this conflict to you know, in terms of like
- 15:05Speaker 1: I think it was largely Russian troops that were the
- 15:08Speaker 1: first to liberate the concentration camps. And this brings the
- 15:13Speaker 1: mob back around because it addition to crime, the mob
- 15:18Speaker 1: knows another thing very well, the nation of Italy, right,
- 15:21Speaker 1: and so there's this thing called the Casablanca Conference. Then
- 15:27Speaker 1: US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
- 15:31Speaker 1: get together. They chop it up, you know, they nash,
- 15:34Speaker 1: they have some snacks, they jimpa Jabba, and they decide
- 15:38Speaker 1: that the Americans are going to support Churchill's plan to
- 15:42Speaker 1: invade Italy under Mussolini. The Allies are thinking Italy is
- 15:48Speaker 1: the soft underbelly of Nazi Europe, and we've seen it
- 15:52Speaker 1: describe multiple times in previous episodes just as this. So
- 15:56Speaker 1: they say, all right, how do we do this? Well,
- 15:58Speaker 1: if we want to really really sock it to Italy,
- 16:02Speaker 1: then we have to attack the We have to attack
- 16:05Speaker 1: Sicily first, and we're gonna do this with something we'll
- 16:08Speaker 1: call Operation Husky. Another fabulous resource for this one is
- 16:13Speaker 1: Lucky Luciano and w W two's Operation Husky from the
- 16:16Speaker 1: History Reader. Dispatches in History from the St. Martin's Publishing
- 16:19Speaker 1: Group by Tim Newark highly recommend a full read of
- 16:24Speaker 1: that one as well. So they figured out where the
- 16:27Speaker 1: Allies were going to position themselves, and Churchill then was
- 16:30Speaker 1: forced to admit that the Americans did have a pretty
- 16:35Speaker 1: big advantage when it came to the Italians because of
- 16:39Speaker 1: this situation. Yeah. Yeah, because there are a lot of
- 16:44Speaker 1: people in Italy who have a favorable feeling for America
- 16:48Speaker 1: or the United States specifically, and there are also a
- 16:51Speaker 1: lot of citizens of the US who are of Italian descent.
- 16:55Speaker 1: This led Roosevelt to write to Churchill and a telegram
- 16:58Speaker 1: and say, it is my opinion that our military problem
- 17:01Speaker 1: will be made less difficult by giving to the Allied
- 17:04Speaker 1: military government in Sicily as much of an American character
- 17:09Speaker 1: as is practicable. So so despite being Allies, I mean,
- 17:12Speaker 1: Churchill would not have been fully looped in on this
- 17:16Speaker 1: operation underworld situation, right, this is very much kind of
- 17:20Speaker 1: a back pocket kind of thing. Yeah, but they have suspicions.
- 17:26Speaker 1: They have suspicions. And again, this you know, whole like
- 17:30Speaker 1: Italian American you know, trust or whatever thing really is
- 17:34Speaker 1: just kind of a stand in for some of these
- 17:36Speaker 1: other things. You know, in terms of the position of
- 17:39Speaker 1: the mob in the United States, he would have been
- 17:41Speaker 1: aware of that at the very least. And you know
- 17:44Speaker 1: there were this organized crime in England as well. Uh.
- 17:47Speaker 1: And we know that Churchill had doubts because he did
- 17:51Speaker 1: agree with Roosevelt. But then he also secretly wrote to
- 17:56Speaker 1: the UK ambassador in d C and said, uh, I'm
- 18:02Speaker 1: not I'm not sure that all the Italian American connects
- 18:06Speaker 1: Roosevelt is talking about are on the up and up.
- 18:09Speaker 1: I feel like he's he's talking to his ambassador and
- 18:12Speaker 1: he's going, bro, I feel like they might be saus
- 18:15Speaker 1: I feel like they might be mafia people. And the
- 18:18Speaker 1: ambassador wrote back and said, Italian communities here have an
- 18:25Speaker 1: intimate knowledge and connection with Operational Husky and with Sicily
- 18:30Speaker 1: And he goes on to basically say, yeah, Churchy, I
- 18:35Speaker 1: hear you but we gotta do what we gotta do. Omelets, eggs,
- 18:41Speaker 1: you know, arms, legs, hands, next, Ah, this this is
- 18:48Speaker 1: gonna be a great song once we get the beat done. No,
- 18:50Speaker 1: I defer to you on that one. Thanks playing I'm
- 18:52Speaker 1: on it so our cool improvised song. Aside, it is
- 18:56Speaker 1: undeniable that the Mafia is going to be evolved in
- 18:59Speaker 1: this because this is in many ways, this is pretty
- 19:01Speaker 1: much close to a home game for them, and there's
- 19:04Speaker 1: a very important factor here. The Mafia hates Benito Mussolini
- 19:11Speaker 1: for good reason. We talked about that at the top
- 19:12Speaker 1: of the show. You know, even though they many you know,
- 19:15Speaker 1: these folks are are in America at this point, you
- 19:18Speaker 1: know obviously, but they've got family likely you know, at
- 19:21Speaker 1: home back in Italy. Uh and the kind of headquarters
- 19:25Speaker 1: they are working in league with UM you know, O
- 19:28Speaker 1: G you know Um Costa Nostra, you know, in in Italy,
- 19:32Speaker 1: and Benito Mussolini is brutally cracking down on the Mafia,
- 19:37Speaker 1: essentially causing them to have to go underground. So they,
- 19:41Speaker 1: you know, for practical purposes, are really against this guy.
- 19:45Speaker 1: So Luciano and some of his Sicilian pals, you know,
- 19:48Speaker 1: back home are able to give the Americans some very
- 19:51Speaker 1: important information that helped aid their invasion. There's a report
- 19:56Speaker 1: from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that recommended this as
- 20:00Speaker 1: a kind of, you know, prerequisite for the invasion. It
- 20:04Speaker 1: advised quote establishment of contact and communications with the leaders
- 20:08Speaker 1: of separatist UH nuclei, UH, disaffected workers and clandestine radical groups.
- 20:17Speaker 1: Uh e g. The mafia. That's in it. I love
- 20:21Speaker 1: they said the quiet part out loud after saying the
- 20:23Speaker 1: little veiled kind of version of it e g. The
- 20:26Speaker 1: mafia and giving them every possible aid. Uh. And huge
- 20:31Speaker 1: shout out to all that's interesting dot com here and
- 20:35Speaker 1: um John Kurowski who who fact checked this article about
- 20:39Speaker 1: Operation Husky how mobster Lucky Liciano aid of the US
- 20:42Speaker 1: in World War Two. Great site and great read. Yeah,
- 20:45Speaker 1: I love all this interesting And the US government goes
- 20:50Speaker 1: for it. They get with the mafia associates. Uh. They say, Okay,
- 20:54Speaker 1: give us the pictures, give us the intel on the
- 20:57Speaker 1: coastline of Sicily tell about the harbors. They get all
- 21:01Speaker 1: this information. It's like, uh, it's like the mafia is
- 21:05Speaker 1: an honor student going for that extra credit essay. They
- 21:09Speaker 1: get all that they wanted and more and this information
- 21:13Speaker 1: is crucial to the planning of the invasion amphibious landing
- 21:18Speaker 1: in July. And believe it or not, some of these
- 21:22Speaker 1: Sicilian we'll call them contacts, so it's not to disparage
- 21:26Speaker 1: their good name. Some of these Sicilian contacts get into
- 21:30Speaker 1: the wet work. They fight alongside the US forces against
- 21:33Speaker 1: Germans and against Mussolini's Italian forces. And if you most
- 21:40Speaker 1: of the historical accounts you read about this credit Lucky
- 21:43Speaker 1: Luciano that he had to connects. Again, like we said
- 21:47Speaker 1: in part one, the guy loved to organize stuff. This
- 21:51Speaker 1: is speaking to his skill set, you know. And it
- 21:54Speaker 1: is called organized crime after all, after all, they're pretty
- 21:57Speaker 1: they're pretty good at organizing. Lucky was exceptional. Even in
- 22:01Speaker 1: this rarefied air code name Operation Husky, probably wouldn't have
- 22:06Speaker 1: been as successful as it was without him. Definitely it
- 22:10Speaker 1: would have succeeded without the mob. And you can read
- 22:15Speaker 1: blow by blow accounts of how this went down and
- 22:20Speaker 1: how these these operatives when they were coming in from
- 22:23Speaker 1: the U S side, they got list of names of
- 22:28Speaker 1: people in different crime families, people hanging out in Sicily
- 22:31Speaker 1: doing different rackets, and those guys teamed up. I believe
- 22:36Speaker 1: it was a hundred and eighty one thousand soldiers from
- 22:40Speaker 1: the U. S. Army, six tanks, four thousand vehicles, a
- 22:45Speaker 1: lot of artillery. They they stormed it and the people
- 22:49Speaker 1: at the very front were commander half of ins officers
- 22:54Speaker 1: from Operation Underworld. This was a Mafios production. So this
- 22:58Speaker 1: Mafia safecrack. Paul Alfieri is a real b Any specialist.
- 23:04Speaker 1: So during the phase of Project Underworld that took place
- 23:08Speaker 1: in New York City, UH, he was crucial. He was
- 23:11Speaker 1: a very important key player. Uh. He was what you
- 23:14Speaker 1: might call a cat burglar um and he was able
- 23:18Speaker 1: to infiltrate uh enemy safes and attain all of these
- 23:23Speaker 1: important classified documents, uh ciphers, you know, the keys that
- 23:28Speaker 1: you would need to crack you know, codes you know
- 23:30Speaker 1: the enemy. This was a time where there wasn't really
- 23:32Speaker 1: encryption the digital sense that we know today, So it
- 23:35Speaker 1: was all about these you know, literal kind of like
- 23:38Speaker 1: codes and and and uh code breaking and all of
- 23:40Speaker 1: that was a really important part of military intelligence at
- 23:43Speaker 1: the time. Um. You have to have the key to understand,
- 23:46Speaker 1: you know, the pattern and be able to like pull
- 23:48Speaker 1: out the actual intel from these uh, these these documents
- 23:52Speaker 1: that would appear as gobbledegook. So he actually earned an award,
- 23:58Speaker 1: I guess a major reward, the elite, the Legion of Merits. Yeah.
- 24:04Speaker 1: So this is a mob guy who is raiding the
- 24:08Speaker 1: headquarters over in Sicily with the help of the U.
- 24:11Speaker 1: S Army. Uh, and they say, Okay, we're gonna put
- 24:15Speaker 1: together a group of insurgents. We're gonna build our own army.
- 24:20Speaker 1: Because everybody loves Lucky Luciano in the criminal underworld in Sicily.
- 24:25Speaker 1: Every time they're asking someone for help, they bring up
- 24:28Speaker 1: Luciado's name and boom hearts and minds, gentlemen. And this
- 24:34Speaker 1: plan to make an insurgent army would probably have worked
- 24:38Speaker 1: very well, but the timing was the timing was off
- 24:43Speaker 1: because other things were happening in the war. General Patton
- 24:47Speaker 1: beat them to the punch. On July twenty, he captured
- 24:51Speaker 1: the city of Palermo, the capital of Sicily, just two
- 24:56Speaker 1: hours before these other forces were do to come in
- 25:01Speaker 1: and wreck stuff. So, if anything, Operation Underworld was throwing
- 25:06Speaker 1: gas on an already healthy fire, right, And so just
- 25:09Speaker 1: thirty eight days after the invasion, Allied forces, including the Mob,
- 25:15Speaker 1: succeed in driving Mussolini's forces out of Sicily, and the
- 25:19Speaker 1: battle for that part of Italy is over. It's done,
- 25:23Speaker 1: they won, you know, and now we have to remember
- 25:30Speaker 1: here's what I think. I think for part of this. Yeah,
- 25:32Speaker 1: Lucky Luciado's patriot, he sees is doing the right thing
- 25:35Speaker 1: by the at least part of his pitch for him
- 25:38Speaker 1: going to Sicily in person was to get out of prison,
- 25:42Speaker 1: right like, at least a little bit. Okay, this is
- 25:45Speaker 1: a guy who thrives on crimes of opportunity, I mean,
- 25:48Speaker 1: no question about it. So he is okay, I'm glad
- 25:52Speaker 1: to say that because he's still trying to get out
- 25:55Speaker 1: of prison. This whole Sicily invasion that's dependent upon his reputation.
- 26:00Speaker 1: It happens while he's locked up by the same people
- 26:02Speaker 1: he's helping. If you think about it, and uh, let's
- 26:06Speaker 1: go back to the mob. Attorney Moses Polakoff, very cool
- 26:11Speaker 1: name in May of Polakoff says, you know, my client
- 26:17Speaker 1: has done an invaluable service, has helped you win Sicily,
- 26:22Speaker 1: has helped in a very real way, strike a blow
- 26:25Speaker 1: in World War Two, and I believe that should at
- 26:28Speaker 1: least get him parole. So the State Parole board makes
- 26:34Speaker 1: a favorable report, and this report makes it to the
- 26:39Speaker 1: desk of the governor, a governor named Dewey who used
- 26:45Speaker 1: to be a former prosecutor who made his name by
- 26:48Speaker 1: arresting a ton of people in uh in Luciano's sex rings.
- 26:55Speaker 1: My how the turntables, as they would say on the office,
- 26:58Speaker 1: it would say office. That's very true. So January three six,
- 27:03Speaker 1: the governor signed off on Luciano's parole. He had served
- 27:07Speaker 1: only nine and a half years of a thirty to
- 27:10Speaker 1: fifty year sentence. Oh how morality just goes out the
- 27:15Speaker 1: window and Uncle Sam has something to gain, you know.
- 27:18Speaker 1: It really goes to show that it's all kind of
- 27:21Speaker 1: a it's a it's a very relativistic kind of way
- 27:24Speaker 1: of looking at um, you know, good and evil, right,
- 27:28Speaker 1: and these very dewey. Governor Dewey is very careful about
- 27:33Speaker 1: how he phrases his decision. So Luciano, again, for those
- 27:38Speaker 1: of us, played a long at home. He had been
- 27:40Speaker 1: sentenced to thirty to fifty years in prison. At this
- 27:43Speaker 1: point he's been imprisoned for a little under ten years,
- 27:46Speaker 1: nine and a half a long time, but still not
- 27:48Speaker 1: still not all the time. He was meant to serve.
- 27:51Speaker 1: And this is what Governor Dewey says. He says, this
- 27:54Speaker 1: is coming to us by the from the MOB Museum
- 27:56Speaker 1: dot Org, which we're very much looking forward to visiting.
- 27:59Speaker 1: He doesn't say this guy is great. He says, quote
- 28:03Speaker 1: Luciado is deportable to Italy. Uh pond entry of the
- 28:08Speaker 1: United States into the war. Luciado's aid was sought by
- 28:11Speaker 1: the Armed Services in inducting others to provide information concerning
- 28:15Speaker 1: possible enemy attacks. It appears that he cooperated in such
- 28:20Speaker 1: an effort, though the actual value of the information procured
- 28:25Speaker 1: is not clear. And he goes on to talk about
- 28:27Speaker 1: how this is definitely not a pardon because he's definitely
- 28:32Speaker 1: a criminal. Uh, and he's not, you know, a documented
- 28:37Speaker 1: US citizen. That's what he says. That's what the governor says.
- 28:41Speaker 1: So we're going to give him a ticket to Italy.
- 28:44Speaker 1: And this is essentially like what a deport is being
- 28:49Speaker 1: deported kind of, but like in a good way, because yeah,
- 28:52Speaker 1: it's like his sentences commuted, right. Uh. Yeah, it's weird.
- 28:56Speaker 1: And a lot of Dewey's political rivals don't like it,
- 29:00Speaker 1: you know what they say, They say, he got to
- 29:03Speaker 1: you the mob bribed you, that's why you're letting this
- 29:05Speaker 1: guy go. And it even goes into Senate hearings N
- 29:09Speaker 1: one and there were there's a lot of murkiness that
- 29:14Speaker 1: goes down in those Senate hearings, like a lot of
- 29:18Speaker 1: neither confirmed nor deny what Luciano did. What we see
- 29:23Speaker 1: here as a cover up begins, you know what I mean.
- 29:26Speaker 1: The Navy doesn't want to say, yeah, we got we
- 29:29Speaker 1: got in bed with organized crime to win a war.
- 29:32Speaker 1: Mm hmm. But but again, you know, it's like the
- 29:35Speaker 1: dead ends justify the means and all of that. But
- 29:45Speaker 1: what happened when Luciano went to Italy? You know, did
- 29:50Speaker 1: did he go back to his old ways? He is
- 29:52Speaker 1: technically on parole, but for all intents and purposes, it
- 29:55Speaker 1: seems like he's kind of got a pass um. So
- 29:59Speaker 1: how did he conducts himself? Yeah, yeah, this is a
- 30:03Speaker 1: nice denu male to the story, right. So, like you said,
- 30:09Speaker 1: he tries to lay low and his name eventually gets
- 30:15Speaker 1: back in the news and there are these rumors that
- 30:19Speaker 1: he is running a band of thieves known as the
- 30:22Speaker 1: La Marca Gang and they are kind of a Robin
- 30:26Speaker 1: Hood enterprise, but they're running a human trafficking ring, and
- 30:31Speaker 1: there are gossip columns that says in Paris and he's uh,
- 30:36Speaker 1: hanging out with an ex lover, former show girl named
- 30:40Speaker 1: gay or LoVa. And then there's other stories that say
- 30:43Speaker 1: he makes it to Mexico. It turns out a lot
- 30:47Speaker 1: of this is just scuttle but right, a lot of
- 30:49Speaker 1: this is just rumors. And you know, like when people
- 30:52Speaker 1: say they've seen Elvis or Kurt Kobain or Jim Morrison
- 30:57Speaker 1: or something. But there is one that or not to
- 31:00Speaker 1: be correct. In October of that year, Lucky Luciado made
- 31:06Speaker 1: his way to Cuba. He sure did. Um. At that time,
- 31:11Speaker 1: the Mob was making waves into Cuba in the casino
- 31:16Speaker 1: and hotel industry, specifically in Havana UM. So it really
- 31:20Speaker 1: was kind of a home away from home for old
- 31:23Speaker 1: Lucky Luciano, and he was president at one of the
- 31:27Speaker 1: biggest mafia meetings in history, referred to as the Havana Conference,
- 31:33Speaker 1: because I mean, you know, let's let's face it, the
- 31:34Speaker 1: Mob is so ubiquitous and far reaching. At this point,
- 31:38Speaker 1: they're kind of like their own government, you know, and
- 31:41Speaker 1: they operate again. At this point, they've they've leagued up
- 31:45Speaker 1: with the government. I mean, how much more um, I
- 31:48Speaker 1: guess validation do you need? And also just in terms
- 31:51Speaker 1: of like too big to fail or too big to
- 31:54Speaker 1: actually be brought down. It wasn't until many years later,
- 31:56Speaker 1: with like Rico laws Um that they were actually able
- 32:00Speaker 1: to target the government was actually able to target the
- 32:02Speaker 1: mafia successfully, which is largely led to it holding much
- 32:06Speaker 1: less sway than it did in these days. But this
- 32:08Speaker 1: really was the kind of like, you know, heyday for
- 32:11Speaker 1: the mob. Yeah, yeah, very much. So his timing is great,
- 32:15Speaker 1: and Luciado meets with these different mob big wigs, some
- 32:20Speaker 1: you'll recognize from earlier parts of this story, like Frank Costello,
- 32:24Speaker 1: and he green lit a hit on a guy named
- 32:27Speaker 1: Benjamin Bugsy Siegel because Seagull was not doing a good
- 32:34Speaker 1: job running the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. And when
- 32:37Speaker 1: you work for the mob, you don't really have an
- 32:41Speaker 1: HR department who gives you write ups, so so he
- 32:44Speaker 1: killed up. But the conference was supposed to have ended
- 32:47Speaker 1: on a pretty good note. Uh for a second, Luciato
- 32:52Speaker 1: was once again feeling lucky, and then everything went wrong
- 32:57Speaker 1: because it turned out the entire time he had been
- 32:59Speaker 1: in Cuba Harry and Slinger, who was head of the
- 33:02Speaker 1: U s Bureau of Narcotics. And by the way, he
- 33:04Speaker 1: was a real pill not a good person. Uh. He
- 33:08Speaker 1: had been targeting Luciano the entire time he had been
- 33:12Speaker 1: had he had people following him. Uh. He was convinced
- 33:16Speaker 1: that Luciano was all the way back from Italy very
- 33:20Speaker 1: close to the US because he wanted to start a
- 33:23Speaker 1: drug ring and become king in the underworld again boss
- 33:28Speaker 1: of Bosses. Yeah, and I mean, and you know again,
- 33:31Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that I know about this
- 33:34Speaker 1: scene came from shows like Poor Gum Bayer and movies
- 33:37Speaker 1: like The Godfather, and I know that it was, I
- 33:39Speaker 1: mean a big plot point. And The Godfather is like
- 33:42Speaker 1: getting into drugs was sort of a new thing at
- 33:45Speaker 1: the time, and like, um Don Corleone you know, didn't
- 33:49Speaker 1: want to do it. He didn't want to get into drugs.
- 33:50Speaker 1: Ultimately what led to his downfall because he wouldn't play
- 33:53Speaker 1: play ball with uh whatever that rival gang was that
- 33:56Speaker 1: was trying to get him to agree to do to
- 33:59Speaker 1: sell heroin and stuff like that because he thought it
- 34:01Speaker 1: was bad for the community. You know. Um, So this
- 34:04Speaker 1: idea of trafficking drugs really was relatively new for the mob,
- 34:08Speaker 1: and some folks weren't into it. Yeah, exactly right there.
- 34:13Speaker 1: You know, you see this sometimes where people say, well,
- 34:16Speaker 1: that's a dirty line of business, right, like we we're
- 34:20Speaker 1: just criminals. We're upstanding criminals rights, right, we have a code.
- 34:24Speaker 1: We have a code. Yeah, yeah, like like thieves in
- 34:27Speaker 1: law in Russia. But so the news about the Havana
- 34:33Speaker 1: conference breaks in the United States, and it kind of
- 34:38Speaker 1: breaks because Frank Sinatra shows up at the conference. He
- 34:44Speaker 1: does that's the concert. Oh yeah, and uh and so,
- 34:51Speaker 1: and Slinger is still like super mad about this. He's
- 34:55Speaker 1: kind of a hater. Uh. He goes to the State Department, says,
- 34:59Speaker 1: you have to force Cuba to deport Luciado. The Cuba
- 35:02Speaker 1: government says, now, we're not doing it, and Slinger goes
- 35:05Speaker 1: over over everybody's head. He goes straight to President Truman,
- 35:09Speaker 1: and Truman cracks this deal. They cut off shipment for
- 35:16Speaker 1: medicines to Cuba and they say, we're not going to
- 35:20Speaker 1: let these medicines get to your people unless you arrest
- 35:24Speaker 1: like I Luciado and send him, pack him back to Italy.
- 35:27Speaker 1: That is greasy, that's dirty, pool Man and Cuba as
- 35:31Speaker 1: you can tell doesn't have a choice, so Luciado has
- 35:35Speaker 1: to get arrested. Yeah, it isn't interesting how like, you know,
- 35:37Speaker 1: trade embargoes and all that stuff are used throughout history
- 35:40Speaker 1: as a as a way of, you know, collecting folks
- 35:44Speaker 1: for doing things you don't like. Yeah, and it's you know,
- 35:47Speaker 1: it's it's morally very dirty because you're talking about collective
- 35:50Speaker 1: punishment innocent people, you know what I mean. But that's
- 35:55Speaker 1: that's the card they pull. And so it's February. Lucky
- 36:01Speaker 1: is arrested at a restaurant in Havana, and the head
- 36:07Speaker 1: of Cuba's secret police at the time says he was
- 36:11Speaker 1: arrested because they thought he might cause public disorder. And
- 36:14Speaker 1: then Lucky Luciado, who has a charming way of speaking,
- 36:20Speaker 1: tells tells a reporter for a wire service U p I.
- 36:24Speaker 1: He tells his side of the story, and he says,
- 36:27Speaker 1: you know, if the Cuban government doesn't want me here,
- 36:29Speaker 1: I'll just leave. He says, quote, if I'm gonna have
- 36:32Speaker 1: trouble on this side, I'll go back to Italy. I
- 36:34Speaker 1: just want to be nice and quiet. I want to
- 36:35Speaker 1: be kicked around like this for no reason, which is
- 36:39Speaker 1: just I don't know if you didn't know all the facts,
- 36:43Speaker 1: you could identify with him. And anyway, this pursuit of
- 36:48Speaker 1: Lucky Luciado continues when he gets back to Italy and
- 36:54Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Narcotics has a campaign again stant
- 37:00Speaker 1: for the rest of his life until he passes away
- 37:04Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. So what do you think, Crime Boss,
- 37:09Speaker 1: War Hero? A little bit of column A, A little
- 37:12Speaker 1: bit of column B. I mean you contained multitudes, that's
- 37:14Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, this this whole story is bonkers because
- 37:18Speaker 1: it really shows again, you know, like I said before,
- 37:21Speaker 1: the kind of moving target that is morality, you know
- 37:25Speaker 1: what I mean, Like the ends justify the means and
- 37:28Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Like it really calls into question
- 37:31Speaker 1: like is the U. S. Government really that different from
- 37:34Speaker 1: organized craft? Right? Dare I say in my best Rod
- 37:38Speaker 1: Serling voice that doesn't even really sound like Rod Serling,
- 37:41Speaker 1: but um, yeah, it really. I mean that's that's why
- 37:43Speaker 1: I think the story is so interesting. It's such a
- 37:45Speaker 1: fascinating kind of intersection of these two worlds, both of
- 37:52Speaker 1: which are kind of populated by mercenaries and fox. Yeah.
- 37:56Speaker 1: No true story, true story. And this is where we're
- 38:01Speaker 1: going to leave it today. What a ride? You know.
- 38:03Speaker 1: Shout out, not just to use super producer Max Williams,
- 38:07Speaker 1: but shout out to all the amazing Mob nicknames. You know,
- 38:11Speaker 1: I don't. I think we should save the other strange
- 38:15Speaker 1: nicknames we found for a future episode. Uh, you got
- 38:19Speaker 1: to do three. Let me do a couple here, Okay, yeah, yeah,
- 38:23Speaker 1: let's see. Uh we've got Joseph Joe Bananas Banano, so
- 38:29Speaker 1: I get it. Okay, Gay, we've got John Jackie knows Demico,
- 38:35Speaker 1: like I think my personal favorite. Um, let's see, it's
- 38:40Speaker 1: really it's it's a it's a tough one. I'm gonna
- 38:43Speaker 1: go with Israel. Ice pick Willie. I pick Willie. And
- 38:49Speaker 1: his name wasn't Willie or will his name was Israel.
- 38:52Speaker 1: That's great. That reminds me. I was talking to Max
- 38:55Speaker 1: off airman. Um. I can't remember what led to it. Uh,
- 38:59Speaker 1: maybe were stranded somewhere on the road for really that time,
- 39:02Speaker 1: want to win a little nuts and just like wrote
- 39:05Speaker 1: fifty nicknames for you and our pal Matt Frederick and
- 39:08Speaker 1: like insisted on pitching them to you, you know, insistence
- 39:12Speaker 1: require what um the well, to be clear, they were
- 39:16Speaker 1: not all winners, folks, but I think I think collectively, um,
- 39:20Speaker 1: our favorite one was Maddie both hands Frederick two hands.
- 39:25Speaker 1: Not only two hands, he's got those, but he's he
- 39:28Speaker 1: uses them both in equal measures. Uh that there was
- 39:32Speaker 1: I think, um, uh we maybe talked about this before,
- 39:35Speaker 1: but there's an episode of Monty Python where there's this
- 39:38Speaker 1: composer being interviewed on like a chat show and his
- 39:42Speaker 1: nickname is two Sheds, and they go into this whole
- 39:45Speaker 1: thing about like how he has two sheds and and
- 39:49Speaker 1: he's like, I'm not here to talk about my sheds,
- 39:51Speaker 1: and the interviewer it keeps, you know, diverting the conversation
- 39:54Speaker 1: back to insisting that he described his sheds as opposed
- 39:58Speaker 1: to me. I'm here to talk about my work, my music,
- 40:01Speaker 1: not the sheds. Um. And also I think, like, you know,
- 40:04Speaker 1: two hats is good. Maybe wears two hats. I like
- 40:08Speaker 1: nicknames with numbers, you know, there's a specificity to it
- 40:12Speaker 1: as well. It's like anytime I'm at a Chinese restaurant
- 40:15Speaker 1: and there's uh something on the menu that has a
- 40:17Speaker 1: number involved my three cup chicken, how specific? Sign me up?
- 40:23Speaker 1: I don't even know what's in the cups, but we
- 40:26Speaker 1: hope that you have enjoyed this two parter. We wanted
- 40:29Speaker 1: to start off strong with three. We hope your week
- 40:33Speaker 1: is going well and we can't wait. Uh, we can't
- 40:36Speaker 1: wait to be back with you next week. We've got
- 40:39Speaker 1: even more well. I mean, it's in the name of
- 40:42Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous History, sure is. And you too can
- 40:47Speaker 1: become a Ridiculous Historian. We'll give you your Ridiculous History
- 40:50Speaker 1: Union card. All you gotta do is go to Facebook, uh,
- 40:54Speaker 1: find the group Ridiculous Historians and boom you're in. And
- 40:59Speaker 1: with that, also want to thank Christopher Rajaciotis Eve's Jeff Coat,
- 41:04Speaker 1: Mr Alex Williams who composed this banging track. Who else? Oh,
- 41:10Speaker 1: Jonathan trick Yeah, of course, the Strickster, the trickster. He's
- 41:15Speaker 1: a very puckish figure. The quister. That's another trickster. God,
- 41:19Speaker 1: we should know that by now. Um, we gotta yeah,
- 41:21Speaker 1: he should be Uh, he'll'll be arriving any day now
- 41:24Speaker 1: he's been he's been bugging other podcasts. Um, but we'll
- 41:27Speaker 1: we'll have him back. So he's busy. It's it's he's
- 41:30Speaker 1: a busy man. It's not like it's our choice, but
- 41:32Speaker 1: it'll happen one Way or another um. In the meantime,
- 41:35Speaker 1: you can also find all three of us on the
- 41:37Speaker 1: social media if you wish. I am at how Now
- 41:40Speaker 1: Noel Brown exclusively on the Instagram. I neither tweet nor
- 41:45Speaker 1: uh nor TikTok uh. I'm still working on that Pinterest board.
- 41:49Speaker 1: But um, I have a feeling it's a bit of
- 41:51Speaker 1: a fool's here. What about you, Ben? Yeah, well, of
- 41:53Speaker 1: course you can find me on Farmers Only. If that's
- 41:55Speaker 1: not your speed, go to Instagram. In a burst of creativity,
- 41:58Speaker 1: I've at Ben Bulling b w L I N and
- 42:01Speaker 1: can get a preview of all kinds of weird secret
- 42:04Speaker 1: projects that I'm currently working on. You can also find
- 42:07Speaker 1: me on Twitter, where I'm at Ben bullin hs W. Hey.
- 42:11Speaker 1: You might say I don't want to go to Twitter
- 42:13Speaker 1: just to see you, man, I agree. I agree. The
- 42:16Speaker 1: only reason I'm on Twitter is because I hear Max
- 42:18Speaker 1: Williams hangs out there. Yes, I'm hanging out there at
- 42:22Speaker 1: a t L underscore Max Williams. All right, let's go
- 42:25Speaker 1: in vade sicily, let's do it. We'll see you next time, folks.
- 42:36Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
- 42:38Speaker 1: Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
- 42:41Speaker 1: your favorite shows.