Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution

I looked forward to getting this book as I have always had an interest in Las Vegas, and the Mob in general. Most of the information about the Mob in the Cuba era that I have, is found in several books and magazines. When I read about this book I was glad to have a source which would have all of the bits and pieces in one volume. After I started reading this book I was pulled up short due to what was written about the founding of the modern Las Vegas and the area known as the "Strip". On page 36 it was written about Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, "Together, they flew to a dusty, nondescript Nevada town know as Las Vegas, rented a car, and drove through the desert. It was a hot, isolated location with little to offer except for one thing-gambling was legal in the state of Nevada." What was written so far was all well and good, but when I read the next line I didn't know if the reader was being put on, or the author just didn't want to spend the time to write a more accurate account of what happened next. He wrote, "Lansky asked Siegel: "What if we built a luxury hotel-casino out here and started a local gambling boom?" "It took Ben a while to warm to the idea, but once he did he went at it with gusto." "Siegel was given the go-ahead to build an elaborate hotel-casino that he would eventually call the Flamingo." What? I couldn't believe my eyes. The same half-truth, mostly myth story about the founding of Las Vegas. This founding story, or ones similar to it, has been written by every two-bit, hack writer since after the Flamingo opened. With this history lesson about the founding of the gambling empire by the Mob in place, I now had doubts about the accuracy of the reported events that composed the rest of this book. The following is my opinion of a more historically and accurate version of what could have been written re Bugsy and the Flamingo. The building of the Flamingo hotel-casino is often cited as the time when Las Vegas began to change from being a gambling town with dusty streets and Old West themed hotels and casinos. Plans were underway to develop new hotels/casinos, and to turn Las Vegas into the destination as a sophisticated gambling center. Legend has it that the transformation was initiated by Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. However that myth is only partially true. Hal Rothman, a UNLV professor of history, said that William "Billy" Wilkerson might not get the credit he deserves in Las Vegas history. The inveterate gambler had an idea but he wasn’t able to pull it off. In January, 1945, Wilkerson bought 33 acres of land from Margaret M. Folsom for $84,000. It was miles from downtown, where most of the other hotel/casinos were, so the new hotel/casino project would not be perceived as a competitor to the existing establishments. Wilkerson envisioned creating the largest, most sophisticated resort in Las Vegas. It would be a multi-storied hotel with 250 rooms. The adjoining casino would be the height of sophistication, geared toward the upper crust. At night, men would wear tuxes or at least suits, and women would be dressed in high fashion and bedecked with furs and jewels. Those customers would gamble away fortunes surrounded by luxury. He (Wilkerson, not Siegel) decided to call the resort the Flamingo, after the exotic pink birds he saw once on a trip to Florida. Even before construction began, Wilkerson began running into financial problems. He needed $1.2 million for the project but, after using up several bank loans, and not being able to get more, he came up $400,000 short. Desperate, he decided to see if he could make up the difference with gambling. He couldn’t. He lost almost everything, and had to find investors quickly.In late 1945, mobsters Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and his "partners", Myer Lansky, Moe Sedway, and Gus Greenbaum came to Las Vegas. They were lured by the legal gambling and off-track betting allowed by the State. Siegel, and his partners purchased a downtown casino, the El Cortez for $600,000, but their expansion plans were stymied. Unfriendly city officials who were aware of their criminal background didn't want them around. Since they weren't wanted in town, "The Boys" began looking for a site outside the city limits. Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum who were running the El Cortez at the time were advised about Wilkerson's developing hotel-casino project. Hearing that Wilkerson was seeking extra funding, Siegel and his partners, posing as businessmen, approached Wilkerson and bought a two-thirds share in the project using the $766,000 they received from the resale of the El Cortez a year after they bought that hotel-casino. Sedway told Myer Lansky (Mob financial genius) about the troubles Wilkerson was having with the project. Because Wilkerson found himself backed up into a corner of a financial wall, Lansky sent G. Harry Rothberg to Vegas with a business proposition. On Feb. 26, 1946, Wilkerson sold two-thirds of the Flamingo project to Rothberg i.e. "The Mob" for one million dollars. “Bugsy” Siegel, the handsome dapper dresser and cold-blooded killer became the mob’s front man. Almost immediately Siegel began muscling into the day-to-day management of the construction, and worked at trying to force Wilkerson out. But Siegel mismanaged the construction. Cost overruns due to theft, skimming, elaborate construction details, and design changes amounted to more than $6 million. When Wilkerson learned that Siegel had sold 150% of the project to investors, he decided it was time to sell out his share, and he did so for $600,000. Three months after Wilkerson was free of the project Siegel was gunned down in Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills residence. With Bugsy now out of the way, Sedway and Greenbaum immediately took possession of the Flamingo. So now I ask you as the reader of both versions of the founding of the Strip, which appears more accurate and credible to you. If you buy and read "Havana Nocturne" I suggest you read it mostly for it's entertainment value, and not as an accurate historical document.

I loved this book for a lot of reasons but it didn't make me want to take my clothes off and go dancin' in the rain. In fact, after reading this account of Havana I wonder when it was that Ricky Martin thought such frivolity would be a good idea. The history of the city and the lifestyle surrounding it's golden years seemed exciting but a little dangerous.Author T.J. English did a wonderful job of researching the happenings in Cuba in his non-fiction winner, "Havana Nocturne." I relish well- researched histories and with about 330 end notes, some 25 insider interviews, and 11 pages listing the books, articles, essays, transcripts, reports, documentaries, television programs, institutions, and FBI files that English relied on for his information, this book certainly qualifies.Usually that much research material produces a book with the trudging characteristics of a Russian epic that takes several years to read, but not Havana Nocturne. English has deftly woven the information into a tight record of a couple of decades of activity, and produced an entertaining account of what the Mob and the Cuban government was involved in, all the while naming those who participated in some highly nefarious schemes. All the familiar big-city Mafiosi characters are here, along with the hangers-on from Hollywood, Tampa, Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago and Las Vegas-- those who loved the glamour and excitement of a glittering Havana especially prepared to lure them in.Famous Americans such as John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Steve Allen, Lucille Ball, Marlon Brando, George Raft, Graham Greene, Errol Flynn, Dorothy Dandridge, Ava Gardner, Eartha Kitt, Ginger Rogers, Tony Martin, Johnny Mathis, Donald O'Conner, and Tyrone Power, among many others, became real aficionados of the wild Cuban lifestyle and spent a good deal of time sampling it. Give English credit. He's not a muckraker and lurid details of their visits are sparse, but their presence is acknowledged.Fulgencio Batista's turbulent career as dictator and his repressive regime through the 1950s is brilliantly chronicled as is his open-pocket acceptance of the Mob's movement into the biggest luxury hotels and gambling casinos in Havana. English parallels the lush life and Batista's corrupt governmental activities with the story of a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro who lives in the Cuban mountains, plotting to overthrow Batista and implement his own ideas for the Mob. The author tells of the Revolution, the ouster of Batista, and the double-cross Castro executes against the American mobsters, a move that virtually sent Cuba into an economic downward spiral from which it has never recovered.This book was a pleasure to read. The writing is taut: the activity is crisply presented. There are many characters involved but the author never loses the reader to the playbill. I haven't enjoyed a book this much for some time. I highly recommend it.

A very enjoyable, well written history of the Mob's infiltration of Cuba and of how Castro's revolution saw the back of them. A must for those interested in Mob history.

Excellent book. Absolute page-turner!! Almost missed my stop a couple of times commuting to work and back home.

Good in parts. Not so in others.

Excellent!Delivered quickly.

I have only read a few chapters but how interesting this story is - I wonder if the world knew what was really going on in Cuba in the 40s & 50s