Do you think gangster Lucky Luciano is describing Lyndon Johnson in this vignette?

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Would the members of Education Forum please offer an opinion on the following question?:

Do you think gangster Lucky Luciano is describing Lyndon Johnson in this vignette cited below?

If you answer "yes" or "no" please add a sentence explaining you answer.

Speaking of the politicians, check out this little vignette from pp. 378-379:

REF: Last Testament of Lucky Luciano. Richard Hammer, Dell Pub Co (June 1981)

“One day Luciano had a surprising visitor to his new home, a United States senator. “If you want to see some real crooks, take a look at our senators and congressmen in America. They call somebody a gangster, a racket guy or a crook because he’s doin’ somethin’ against the law, when they’re the worst kind of thieves, within the law. The United States was lendin’ a lot of money to Europe, most of the time puttin’ it into partnerships with the foreign country where there was plenty of profits. The dough would sit in Europe and pile up and they called the account ‘counterpart funds.’ It came to billions of lire in Italy and it was controlled by the American Embassy. So a senator and his family and friends and his staff would arrive in Rome on a U.S. government plane, which they got the use of free, and somebody from the embassy would meet ‘em and hand ‘em a big bagful of lire from that counterpart fund; it happened all over Europe the same way. And these guys from Washington would spend the dough like it was dishwater, payin’ their expenses, buyin’ presents for the family, fur coats and jewels for their wives, you name it.

“This one senator who come to see me in Naples, he drank more booze, took out more airline stewardesses and embassy secretaries, and spent more counterpart funds than any nine congressmen put together, and to top it, he had a yen to be in the White House. He also had a yen to meet me. So we met, and I found out he would steal a red-hot stove. He talked about tryin’ to fix up a way for me to come back to the States. He said he knew my record, but he also knew that Asslinger (Henry Anslinger ed.) was way off base where I was concerned; he said he’d asked the American Embassy guys, includin’ [Charles] Siragusa, to show him proof that I was connected with the drug traffic in Italy, and he said they had come up empty.

“Just before he left my apartment, he happened to look at this ring I wear on my pinky [a star sapphire and diamonds set in platinum] and he said to me, “That’s a beautiful ring. I’ve always wanted one like that.’ I could’ve thrown that hayseed right off the roof. Instead I said, ‘Senator, you can have it and a lot more the day I set foot in New York–permanent.’ We shook hands and he left and that’s the last I ever saw of that chiselin’ son of a bitch.”

(Off to one side of the room during this conversation sat an Italian friend of Luciano’s who spoke no English. But he remembered the meeting clearly, for when it was over Luciano told him the man was an important United States senator. He was not told the visitor’s name, but recently he described him as “a tall, thin man. He wore glasses and he had a very prominent nose. What I remember best about him is his enormous capacity for drinking.”

The author never names the senator, but have you ever seen a better description of Lyndon Baines Johnson? Feelings of emptiness spurred him to eat, drink, and smoke to excess. Sexual conquests also helped to fill the void. He was a competitive womanizer. When people mentioned Kennedy’s many affairs, Johnson would bang the table and declare that he had more women by accident than Kennedy ever had on purpose.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Testament-Lucky-Luciano/dp/B000NRW6PW/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333127810&sr=1-2-spell

Lucky Luciano lived from 11/24/1897 until 1/26/1962:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano

[Pat Speer]

Would the members of Education Forum please offer an opinion on the following question?:

Do you think gangster Lucky Luciano is describing Lyndon Johnson in this vignette cited below?

If you answer "yes" or "no" please add a sentence explaining you answer.

Speaking of the politicians, check out this little vignette from pp. 378-379:

REF: Last Testament of Lucky Luciano. Richard Hammer, Dell Pub Co (June 1981)

“One day Luciano had a surprising visitor to his new home, a United States senator. “If you want to see some real crooks, take a look at our senators and congressmen in America. They call somebody a gangster, a racket guy or a crook because he’s doin’ somethin’ against the law, when they’re the worst kind of thieves, within the law. The United States was lendin’ a lot of money to Europe, most of the time puttin’ it into partnerships with the foreign country where there was plenty of profits. The dough would sit in Europe and pile up and they called the account ‘counterpart funds.’ It came to billions of lire in Italy and it was controlled by the American Embassy. So a senator and his family and friends and his staff would arrive in Rome on a U.S. government plane, which they got the use of free, and somebody from the embassy would meet ‘em and hand ‘em a big bagful of lire from that counterpart fund; it happened all over Europe the same way. And these guys from Washington would spend the dough like it was dishwater, payin’ their expenses, buyin’ presents for the family, fur coats and jewels for their wives, you name it.

“This one senator who come to see me in Naples, he drank more booze, took out more airline stewardesses and embassy secretaries, and spent more counterpart funds than any nine congressmen put together, and to top it, he had a yen to be in the White House. He also had a yen to meet me. So we met, and I found out he would steal a red-hot stove. He talked about tryin’ to fix up a way for me to come back to the States. He said he knew my record, but he also knew that Asslinger (Henry Anslinger ed.) was way off base where I was concerned; he said he’d asked the American Embassy guys, includin’ [Charles] Siragusa, to show him proof that I was connected with the drug traffic in Italy, and he said they had come up empty.

“Just before he left my apartment, he happened to look at this ring I wear on my pinky [a star sapphire and diamonds set in platinum] and he said to me, “That’s a beautiful ring. I’ve always wanted one like that.’ I could’ve thrown that hayseed right off the roof. Instead I said, ‘Senator, you can have it and a lot more the day I set foot in New York–permanent.’ We shook hands and he left and that’s the last I ever saw of that chiselin’ son of a bitch.”

(Off to one side of the room during this conversation sat an Italian friend of Luciano’s who spoke no English. But he remembered the meeting clearly, for when it was over Luciano told him the man was an important United States senator. He was not told the visitor’s name, but recently he described him as “a tall, thin man. He wore glasses and he had a very prominent nose. What I remember best about him is his enormous capacity for drinking.”

The author never names the senator, but have you ever seen a better description of Lyndon Baines Johnson? Feelings of emptiness spurred him to eat, drink, and smoke to excess. Sexual conquests also helped to fill the void. He was a competitive womanizer. When people mentioned Kennedy’s many affairs, Johnson would bang the table and declare that he had more women by accident than Kennedy ever had on purpose.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Testament-Lucky-Luciano/dp/B000NRW6PW/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333127810&sr=1-2-spell

Lucky Luciano lived from 11/24/1897 until 1/26/1962:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano

Luciano was almost certainly trying to malign Estes Kefauver, from Kentucky, who led an investigation into the Mafia in 1950, at a time Hoover said it didn't exist.

[Bernice Moore]

“Just before he left my apartment, he happened to look at this ring I wear on my pinky [a star sapphire and diamonds set in platinum] ''

Given to him by Frank Sinatra.agreed Pat..''Estes Kefauver'' is more likely...b

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Thank-you, Bernice. Let's keep going folks. Who is Lucky Luciano referring to in this vignette?

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Estes Kefauver was tall, thin and wore glasses. And Wiki says he was a heavy drinker and smoker.

Estes Kefauver Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estes_Kefauver

Death

On August 8, 1963, Kefauver, a heavy smoker and drinker,[9] suffered what was reported as a 'mild'[10] heart attack on the floor of the Senate while attempting to place an antitrust amendment into a NASA appropriations bill that would have required that companies benefiting financially from the outcome of research subsidized by NASA reimburse NASA for the cost of the research. Two days after the attack, Kefauver died in his sleep in Bethesda, Maryland, of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.[11] He was interred in the family cemetery in Madisonville. That November, President Kennedy named his widow the first head of the new Art in Embassies Program—Kennedy's last appointment.

Harry Anslinger also testified before Estes Kefauver's committee on organized crime.

http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Reading%20Room%20Documents/Kefauver%203rd%20Interim%20Report.htm

My vote, now, is that Lucky Luciano was trying to slander a dead man Estes Kefauver who no doubt had antagonized him while he was alive. I had originally thought it was Lyndon Johnson being referred to, but I now think it was Estes Kefauver.

Thanks, Pat and Bernice!

Edited March 30, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Tom Scully]

Here... I'll do it for you. We begin....:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cVzNFWV_rvEC&pg=PT645&dq=%22*had+trouble+keeping+his+eyes+off+the+extraordinarily+long,+silk+clad%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5lt2T-LLH5KltwfwisGCDw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22*had%20trouble%20keeping%20his%20eyes%20off%20the%20extraordinarily%20long%2C%20silk%20clad%22&f=false

J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets

books.google.com Curt Gentry - 2011 - 848 pages - Google eBook - Preview

....Kefauver, identified in his FBI file as “a notorious womanizer,” had trouble keeping his eyes off the extraordinarily long, silk-clad legs of the late Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel's mistress....

[David Josephs]

C'mon Tom

No pix?

Let's make it real simple... let's just name the ones who didn't "womanize"

and assume that a man who was aggressive and excessive in most areas of life...

....can in no way run a country.

The "evil" that was LBJ had nothing to do with understanding his sexual nature...

the "evil" lay in the action.

What amazes me is that there was an ounce of truth in anything Lucky said...

Was there really only two

tall,

thin,

glasses,

drinker,

womanizer,

smoker,

with a nose

in the senate

at that time?

Milton Young http://history.nd.gov/ndhistory/politicrealign.html

(edit: I am NOT accusing Milton... just yoking...)

Edited March 31, 2012 by David Josephs