Mafia Allies: The True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob in World War II

Lucky Luciano and his mafia cohorts contribution probably was negligible to the war effort, but he must have contributed something to get his 30 to 50 year prison sentence commuted. His contribution probably came from securing ports on the east coast from sabotage. Both Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano attribute the destruction of the Normandie in Pier 88 in 1942 to Albert Anastasia (The Mad Hatter or Lord High Executioner) due to hatred of the navy. According to author Tim Newark Luciano's efforts towards the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 was not significant. An interesting tidbit I found in this book that I haven't found in any other mafia book was Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky informed police in New York state that Vito Genovese and other mobsters were planning a conclave in Apalachin, New York, which resulted in a police raid. Shortly thereafter Luciano set up Genovese in a narcotics deal that sent Vito to prison for the rest of his life. I have to admit that parts of the book I found to be tedious reading. There have been several books written on the mob, but this is the first one I know of that deals specifically with the mob's supposed contribution to the war effort.

The Mafia is the most powerful criminal network in the world - but it was nearly destroyed by Mussolini, prospered in the U.S., and has even had condoned relationships with the U.S. government. Eyewitness accounts, intelligence documents, and newly available source material lend to an in-depth coverage of Mafia history and politics which reveals events not surveyed elsewhere. Both specialty collections covering terrorism and organized crime and general-interest public lending libraries will find MAFIA ALLIES engrossing. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Author Tim Newark establishes himself as an authority on military-Mafia cooperation during the Second World War and on the historical context of that unholy alliance. His book is well organized, readable and very informative. Readers will encounter details of the underworld's early fight against Nazis and Fascists, of the mobsters who attempted to rehabilitate their images by aiding (or appearing to aid) the war effort, and of the Allies' willingness to embrace Old World Mafiosi as they attempted to penetrate Hitler's Fortress Europe. The excitement Newark generates during his well documented discussion of Mafia-Navy cooperation to secure U.S. Atlantic waters and ports fizzles out a bit as the story moves across the Atlantic to deal with U.S. and British efforts to enlist Mafia aid in the Sicily landings. The author's myth-busting conclusions are entirely justified by the facts but anticlimactic. A couple of caveats: - Casual readers might be put off by the frequent use of extended quotations. (However, many are very interesting and worth the momentary distraction from the narrative.) - Hardcore mob historians will certainly be put off by the frequent use of excerpts from the suspect "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano." (While the supposed Luciano quotes add to the color of the story, they subtract just a bit from its credibility.) (Along the same lines: The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy by Rodney Campbell, McGraw-Hill, 1977.)

With Mafia Allies, Tim Newark presents an absorbing account of the often shaky collaboration between Allied intelligence organizations and the American and Sicilian underworlds during World War II. It's an admirable work providing new details and shattering some popular myths along the way. Beginning with Mussolini's repression of the Sicilian Mafia and carrying on through the efforts of New York mobsters against Nazi and Fascist sympathizers, to Luciano's involvement in securing the waterfront, and on to the conquest of Sicily and the headaches inflicted afterward to the AMG through black marketeering and corruption and the Mafia's postwar involvement with Giuliano and the Sicilian Separatist movement. It's a great book, though I at first found the quotes from the dubious "Last Testament of Lucky Luciano" somewhat distracting.