Meyer Lansky In His Own Words

Friends of Ours ^ | 05/30/12 | Friends of Ours

[AtlasStalled]

Throughout the 1960s the G-men eavesdropped on the private conversations of Meyer Lansky by bugging his personal residence where he lived with his wife in Hallandale, FL and the hotel rooms in which he stayed when in New York City according to FBI files. Although Lansky may have had a mind for numbers in handling the casino skimming and money laundering rackets of the Genovese mobsters for whom he worked, his own words reveal a small-minded man who was both embittered by and self-deluded about his station in life. Perhaps the most shocking revelations from the recorded confessions involved jealous rants about the Kennedy family and racist tirades against minority groups.

* * *

Apparently Lansky conveniently forgot during these racist tirades that he was a former enforcer with Murder, Inc. Lansky may have read the classics and got his nails manicured but he still was nothing but a common thug with blood on his hands. Indeed, when Israel sent Lansky packing from the Promised Land towards the end of his life one wonders whether he had the courage and honesty to ask "what profit it a man to gain the world but lose his soul?"

[Williams]

Must say the commentary in the article is a bit over the top.

Lansky’s comments about the Kennedy’s, and his “racist” comments don’t amount to much. Does somebody expect a gangster to be polite?

[yarddog]

So Hyman Roth sent the Corleones an orange because that is all he could afford.

[wideminded]

one wonders whether he had the courage and honesty to ask "what profit it a man to gain the world but lose his soul?"

Probably not a lot of Jews quote Jesus on a regular basis.

[kiryandil]

Wow! So this is what the FBI did before they became Jon Corzine’s buttboys & gophers...