Head Butler -- Books: Havana Nocturne
How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution

In Havana Nocturne, T.J. English isn't shy about the scope of the Mafia's ambition for Havana -- "to serve as the front for a far more ambitious agenda: the creation of a criminal state whose gross national product, union pension funds, public utilities, banks and other financial institutions would become the means to launch further criminal enterprises around the globe."

You remember the scene in "Godfather II" when men representing great American corporations meet in Havana to discuss their common interests. Among them are Michael Corleone, "of Nevada, representing our associates in tourism" and "our friend from Florida," Hyman Roth.

Well, why not? Between 1952 and 1959, American investment in Cuba grew from $142 million to $952 million. In terms of American investment in foreign countries, that put Cuba in third place. So if organized crime took a piece...hey, plenty to go around.

But here's the thing. The American companies didn't make it possible for the Mafia to muscle in on casino and hotel revenues. It was exactly the other way around. The Mafia invented Cuba. And that attracted American business. (Like Pan American Airlines, which invested -- and aren't you sure its executives had no idea -- in a Mafia-created hotel.)

And in 330 fast-moving pages -- buttressed by 300 end notes, 25 interviews with those who were there and 11 pages of sources -- English makes the case.

But a great Mafia and business story is not the only reason to read the book.

There's the sex.

Read this book through the prism of hot, illicit sex, and you see the power of the forbidden -- the power to lure tourists, of course. And, equally, the power to compromise politicians, both with exotic freebies and the deed itself.

The best of all the stories? 1957. Senator John Kennedy flies to Havana with his friend and sexcapade pal, George Smathers. The alleged purpose: visit ambassador Earl E.T. Smith (whose wife may have been having a sporadic affair with JFK for 13 years). Santo Trafficante, a very different kind of diplomat, need not be a genius to read Kennedy's interests, so he sets up an orgy for Kennedy at one of his hotels. Three prostitutes. One U.S. Senator. And -- oh -- a two-way mirror that allows Trafficante, in the next room, to watch.

Kennedy, we may be sure, had no regrets. Trafficante had one. That was awesome blackmail material -- he should have filmed it.

Okay, so I'm a child. After all, for decades, male tourists had left their wives at home when they flew south. But this was on a much larger scale, all of it eye-popping, much of it described in dazzling detail here.

And there's the twist: The dirtier the sex, the cleaner the gambling. Lansky and Trafficante were visionaries. They saw themselves as a kind of X-rated Disney operation. They wanted Americans to come to Cuba and have an unprecedented good time -- and to do that, they didn't need more than the house's usual edge at the tables. So Lanksy opened a dealer-and-croupier school for casino workers, hoping to make them as professional as their Las Vegas counterparts.

English tells a sweeping story with more thrust than a mambo dancer. You expect riveting portraits of Mafia figures, but he's just as strong on Fulgencio Batista. And he's very astute about the guy in the background, Fidel Castro.

Few took Castro seriously. Santo Trafficante: "I'm sure Fidel will never amount to anything. But even if he does, they'll never close the casinos. There is so much damned money here for everyone." How wrong he was -- in these pages, the account of Batista's flight from Cuba is every bit as exciting as that scene in "Godfather II". (And more consequential. Lansky may have hidden money, but he seems not to have told his family about it -- when he died, his estate totaled only $57,000.)

Michael Corleone, you'll recall, promised his wife that he'd be a purely legit businessman. In Cuba, that promise was almost fulfilled. "Havana Nocturne" brilliantly explains how and why -- and why, after the Revolution, Fidel Castro would say, "We are not only disposed to deport the gangsters, but to shoot them."

---

-- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com

To buy "Havana Nocturne" from Amazon.com, click here.

To buy the Audio CD of "Havana Nocturne" from Amazon.com, click here.

Copyright 2008 by Head Butler Inc.

Jesse Kornbluth

9/5/08

NO COMMENTS YET

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Name	Email
Subject
Comment