Customer Reviews

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

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Crime novels abound. There's no question that we enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction about the gangster element. This is one historical presentation that is certain to please readers.

Unlike other books that often rehash well-known facts about criminals and their actions, Havana Nocturne is an entertaining review of the historical activities of the Mob in Cuba from the mid-1940s until the Castro revolution takeover in 1959. History has often avoided or ignored the Mafia's involvement in Cuba, forgetting that many of the activities there superceded or coincided with the development of Las Vegas.

Rather than a presentation of repetitive facts, however, this book does an excellent job of condensing the political events of the time while also explaining the decades-old Mob interest in Cuba.

Readers will find the story reading like a fantasy as they discover interesting facts surrounding the activities of Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy and the bawdy nightlife of the Caribbean.

For those interested in understanding why the US has avoided involvement in Cuba for 50 years, how Batista ruled Cuba and Castro took control, and how the Mafia nearly rose to power internationally, I strongly recommend this book.

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.

The story of Meyer Lansky and his plans to make Cuba into a mobsters' dream: "90 miles from the United States with a friendly (i.e., corrupt and venal) government". Sound familiar? Then you've seen "Godfather II" as I have and believe you're familiar with this story. But there is so much more to it, and T. J. English writes with gusto, amusement and at times admiration at how the American mobsters, led by The Little Man, Jewish Meyer Lansky, dared to dream they could rule Havana aided and abetted by the amoral and corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista. They weren't counting on the Castro brothers and their compatriot, Che Guevera, who had a different vision for Cuba. They became increasingly disgusted at the exploitation of the Cuban people, particularly as sex workers, for the amusement of the gringo tourists. No one gets off easy here, not JFK, not Sinatra, not the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, all of whom were beneficiaries and abettors of the corruption of the Mob. A terrific read and a history lesson which goes down smoothly.

This wonderfully researched book will be pleasing and enlightening to people who may have two completely differing reading interests. Any Mafia aficionado or student of the history of Cuba, ranging from Governmental corruption to the revolution will be equally mesmerized. The author deftly fits the two stories, which at times precede each other... and at other times post date each other... and of course at times overlap each other... together like a well thought out jigsaw puzzle.

In the eleven years following World War II "direct U.S. business investments in Cuba grew from $142 million to $952 million." (In today's dollars that would be 5-10 times more.) The extent of American interest in Cuba, an island the size of the state of Tennessee, ranked in third place among the nations of the world receiving U.S. investments." The Havana mob which was comprised of American Mafia and their associates, included such historical underworld figures as Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, Albert Anastasia, and others. The author skillfully takes you back to Lucky and Meyer's childhood where they grew up together and forged a lifetime friendship and business relationship that eventually led to Meyer Lansky a Jew to be the actual de-facto leader of the mob's dream expansion into Cuba. In case the potential reader isn't aware of the fact; no person can become an official "made-man" unless he's one-hundred-percent Italian. The reader is adroitly taken back through Meyer's entire life, from his growing up tough, despite never rising past 5-feet-4-inches in height as an adult. His absolute love of gambling... but not needing to gamble... is what eventually made him the Mafia's architect in Las Vegas and Cuba. Meyer's idol as a young man was Arnold Rothstein, who was famous within mob circles for a number of things, but perhaps his biggest claim to fame was that; "HE WAS THE MAN WHO FIXED THE 1919 WORLD SERIES!" "From the beginning, Lansky understood that games of chance hit some men where they could not breathe. Gambling pulls at the core of a man, he once famously uttered. Most of his life would be spent profiting from the truth of this maxim". Along with Luciano, Ben "Bugsy" Siegel, was one of Lansky's best friend's since their teenage years, yet history credits (or fingers) Meyer for ordering the hit on Bugsy that entailed so many gunshots, that his "intact" eyeball was later found fourteen- feet away from his body. This murder, that was made famous in the Warren Beatty movie in later years, was ordered with the belief that Bugsy was "skimming" money from his mob brethren while overseeing the building of the Flamingo Hotel in Vegas.

Assisting and making possible the mob's dream of a gaming and hotel jackpot in Cuba was Major General and later President Fulgencio Batista. Cuban corruption was not only rampant... and expected... but was part of Lansky's plan and budget. Once again the author brilliantly details the payoffs as well as the dishonest banks and businesses. The reader will also be educated on Fidel Castro's life from being a child of a well off family, to law student, to revolutionary leader. Included is his historically famous "HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME" speech.

Intermixed with the gambling and Cuban government are riveting scenes of Frank Sinatra transporting millions of dollars in a suitcase from America to Cuba, acting as no more than a "bagman" for his pal Lucky Luciano. You'll feel like a fly on the wall as Sinatra and Lucky are involved in a wild orgy, which is interrupted, when security in the hotel mistakenly lets a nun and some girl scouts in to the room where the orgy is being held. You'll learn about Senator John F. Kennedy's orgy during a trip to Cuba in December 1957, paid for in full by a Mafia boss.

The legendary "MURDER INCORPORATED" is dissected including the story of Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, "who was a "canary" who "sang like a bird". Before he was done singing "he had given details on some two-hundred murders, he had personally participated in or had intimate knowledge of, leading to forty-nine prosecutions. Several top killers went to the electric chair, including the murderous Louis Lepke."

In 1941 "Kid Twist" "was still giving information and building cases for the Brooklyn D.A.'s office. "Next in line to be prosecuted was Albert Anastasia. The D.A.'s office announced that they were on the cusp of "the perfect case" against the feared BOSS of Murder Inc. The most prized informer in the history of organized crime was being held in a room at the Half Moon Hotel, on the boardwalk in Coney Island. He was guarded round the clock by a contingent of six cops, proud members of New York's finest. Somehow, "Kid Twist" took the plunge. The cops said they didn't know how it happened. They were dozing off when "Kid Twist" tried to escape and "fell" six stories to his death. Or maybe he tried to commit suicide. Forever after, some in the press and public believed that cops had been paid off and were part of the hit. "Kid Twist's" demise led to one of the more famous epitaphs in mob history:"

******* "HE COULD SING BUT HE COULDN'T FLY!" *******
*****************************************************

I recall very vividly reading the headlines regarding Fidel Castro's revolution as a boy in 1959 as I unbundled newspapers in prepration for delivery on my route. As an 11 year old, I wondered whether Castro was a "good guy" or a "bad guy." I posed the question to my father and received an equivocal response. I gather, in retrospect, that he didn't know either, and neither did most Americans at the time.

This book presents some of the history of of pre-Castro Cuba from about the middle 1940's from the point of view the "Mob's" securing a foothold there and becoming, by 1959 a dominant force in the tourist, gambling and vice industries. The facts seem to be well documented, and the book reads almost like a novel.

I found the following brief excerpt to be particularly telling:

"Nor was Santo Trafficante inclined to flee [from post-Castro Havana]. In a phone conversation with his attorney, he declared, 'Castro is a complete nut! He's not going to be in power or office for long. Either Batista will return or someone else will replace this guy because there's no way the economy can continue without tourists, and this guy is closing all the hotels and casinos. This is a temporary storm. It'll blow over.'"

Now, nearly fifty years later the Castro strom still has not blown over.

Havana Nocturne is well written, thoroughly researched and entertaining. What it lacks, to me, is any insight into the mindset of the Cuban people generally and why they rallied behind Castro and his ragtag band of revolutionaries. It is clear that the Mob interests in Havana had too much faith in Batista for their own good, and underestimated Castro's determination and charisma.

Highly recommended.

English's Havana fairly reeks with the aroma of cigars, tropical perfume and the scent of money, mob figures from American crime families finally realizing their dream post-World War II, their heyday 1952-1959. All the swaggering figures are here; Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Albert Anastasia, Santo Trafficante, the tough guys who made their fortunes during Prohibition, breeding plans for wealth distribution based on the corruption of an island government, exploitation of union pension funds, public utilities and financial institutions, spreading the wealth among crime families, the emerging Havana Mob based in Cuba. But none of this would be possible without an insider to grease the way. Thus El Presidente Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, a brutal, pragmatic dictator who gains control through a bloodless coup, becomes coconspirator in a grand adventure, at least for the mob and its beneficiaries, the cream of decadent society who harvest the fruits of criminal enterprise, gambling, narcotics and murder all dressed up in flamboyant hotels casinos, nightclub floor shows, resorts, fast cars and women.

Celebrities flock to Cuba, beautiful women adorning the arms of hard-core murderers in expensive suits, the hypnotic beat of the mambo drowning out the cries of the poor and dispossessed. In the paradise English describes so beautifully, the images are stark, the glamour and glitter of money and excess contrasted with devastating poverty and neglected social programs endured by those Cubans not caught up in the magic of power and profit. Is there no one to speak for them? Of course there is: the revolutionary voice of Fidel Castro. The Havana Mob isn't the driving force behind Castro's revolutionary zeal, but it certainly offers fertile ground for discontent, an easy target for the rag-tag army determined to wrest their country back from a corrupt government and the American plunderers who dance under the stars, assassinating one another in the dark of night.

Like moths to flame, enthusiastic celebrities gather to partake of Cuba's notorious nightlife, racetrack and gambling venues, George Raft, Errol Flynn, Eartha Kitt, Ava Gardner and mob sycophant Frank Sinatra. Even John F Kennedy enjoys a Havana romp, thanks to the generosity of the mob. Dressed to kill, the quasi-nobles of graft live out their dream, at least for a few lucrative years, the usual competition breeding discontent in an organization ruled by ambition and violence. English builds his case, a corrupt economy ultimately brought down by guerilla fervor, the glitter and beauty vanquished by rampaging crowds, crime bosses left bleeding in the streets, others scattering to rise another day in other locations, indestructible as roaches. Newly purified, Cuba incorporates remnants of the past, classic cars, a few still elegant hotels and a people's government that delivers a different kind of repression. The truth more fascinating than any movie's fictionalized account, the island comes to life in Havana Nocturne, if only for a while. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

T.J. English serves up a fascinating brew of Mob lore and Cuban history in this hard-to-believe, difficult-to-put-down account of wiseguys in a Caribbean paradise. Led by criminal mastermind Meyer Lansky, legendary goodfellas Lucky Luciano and Santo Trafficante swooped in on Cuba after WWII in an effort to transform the island, ruled by the corrupt right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista, into a fiefdom of La Cosa Nostra. Establishing a string of glamorous casinos on the Havana waterfront, the mobsters created a gambler's paradise and a money launderer's dream. For a while, the casinos with their often salacious nightlife attracted mainstream American politicians (look for a shocker about JFK's visit to the island), writers, great mambo musicians, and ordinary Americans looking for a good time, and generated millions for the bad guys. The men who ran organized crime did not imagine that a tiny, very disorganized group of ragtag intellectuals under Fidel Casto, who launched his small and seemingly ludicrous "July 26 Movement" by invading Cuba's Sierra Maestra in a leaky boat, could stop them. But stop them he did -- and here is the often grim, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately incredible story of how. Eminently readable and highly recommended.

As an historian, I have long been fascinated by the Cuba of the 1950's and the role the Mafia played in it--maybe because I was too young at the time to ever see it. However, I do remember, as a teen, Castro's rise and the revolution he brought to Cuba. Anyone who has seen "The Godfather Part II" has seen a Hollywood fictionalized version of how much of this happened.

"Havana Nocturne" is a well researched, mostly gripping non fiction account of how two totally different philosophical and polictical forces regarding the destiny of Cuba emerged on a collison course that became history as we know it. In a sense, T.J. English provides the real story behind "The Godfather Part II".

The background stories and factoids regarding the most infamous mafiosos of our time from Meyer Lansky to Bugsy Siegal to Lucky Luciano to Santo Trafficante, to Albert Anastasia are fascinating and addicting. Equally, tidbits and historical details of American celebrities from Sinatra to Lucille Ball, Tony Bennet, JFK, George Raft, Ginger Rogers, and many others who became involved in the Cuban expansion of the 1950's are especially entertaining.

Two major storylines emerged for this reader. The first is the wonderment of the vision of the Jewish mob leader Meyer Lansky who envisioned one day controlling the entire Caribbean as a gambling, money laundering, economic arm of the Mafia--with Cuba as the foundation for this dream. Even though the dream was hatched in the 1920's, and put on hold due to the Great Depression and World War II, English explains that Lansky and Luciano never gave up the dream--they just deferred it.

English details the corruption in Cuba that was rampant from its independence in 1898 and how the people docilely accepted strong man after strong man as leaders who most often were puppets or at least sympathetic to American economic interests in Cuba. This corruption of leadership was epitomized by Lansky and the mob controlling and supporting Fulgencia Batista through more than two decades in a partnership that resulted in unprecedented casino development, hotel building, and tourist expansion in Cuba's history.

The second major storyline and most interesting to this reader was how the efforts of one genius, Lansky, ultimately entered on a collision course with the dreams of another visionary, Fidel Castro, as to what the future of Cuba would look like. English deftly interweaves the two stories of Lansky's empire building through corruption and graft with the slow starting but hard charging finish of Castro and his Revolution that ultimately changed Cuba, the mob, and world history to some extent.

It is all depicted in "Havana Nocturne"...the dreams, the empire building, the corruption, the killings, the machinations of mob and governmental leaders, and the growth of a people's revolution that soon turned bad. All the dirty laundry of the time from gambling, cheating, sordid sex, drugs, murder for hire, and celebrity involvement in this cesspool of criminal corruption is revealed for the reader.

Certainly of interest is how historically close Batista came to eliminating Castro forever and let the chance slip away along with the one significant miscalculation of Lansky and the mob that Castro could never gain power and if he did, he would continue the graft just as every other Cuban leader had.

Although the pacing is uneven at times, the history in this book is fascinating to read. English has commendably researched the topic from lengthy interviews with survivors of the period, to well documented sourcing of biographies, news accounts, and hisories to bring the reader a wonderful account of what was and what might have been Cuba today. I recomend this to anyone interested in the era.

This is a situation where this book deserves two ratings. One is a 5 for purely the writing, excitement, and entertainment value. it is extremely well written, reading more like a crime novel than a true historical account of the events leading up to the Cuban Revolution. Here lies the problem. As a historical account it has serious limitations. To be brief only a few examples will be given here.
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1) English comes to general conclusions which simply don't fit the complexity of what happened in Cuba. One example is his bold statement that Castro became a Communist during his tenure in Mexico City. There is simply nothing that supports this assertion. Antonio de La Cova in "The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution" (a much better historical account of the events that led to the Revolution and Castro himself) cites examples of Castro's day of imprisonment on the Isle of Pines that leads to the conclusion that his conversion to marxisim (if such a conversion actually existed) occurred much earlier. Nonetheless if English is correct it only shows once again that it is only myth that US policy turned Casto to Marxism. English does a good job of showing that the opposite is true. From Mathews article in the New York Times to Castro's fundraising visits to US cities, it is clear that Castro owes much of his success to the US.
2) The greatest disappointment is that English falls into the trap of using tired and old cliches to describe the Cuban exile community. He seems to insinuate that the mass exodus that occurred in 59 and into the early 60s were primarily "Batistianos". Again, where is English getting his statistics from? Many of those that left Cuba during that time had supported the revolution and wanted Batista removed. They left because the biggest "deceiver" in this tragic story was Castro.

English (again just an old cliche) refers to the pandering of the Cuban voting bloc. Perhaps we should also call then "pandering" when politicians from all persuasions look how best to serve the needs (votes?) of specific minority groups. English also mentions,"the celebration evoked the early days of 1959, when Cubans reveled over the fall of Batista" in referring to the festivities in Miami that followed the announcement that Castro was seriously ill. One can only conclude that English must be delusional on this subject to compare such completely different events. Again he then makes the general statement, without any backing, that "exiles, who continue to dream of the day when they would return to Cuba and reclaim all they had lost...". Let me remind Mr English, and others, that the revolution occurred 50 years ago this year. Can he explain to me which of those exiles is still living who dream of going back. Most of that generation is now gone, never having returned to their beloved island and extremely loyal to the United States. They have raised children that may or may not return, AS VISITORS, to the "Pearl of the Antilles". If they do it will not be to "reclaim all they had lost".

3) That last example is Mr. English's statement that the average Cuban wage was 12 dollars a month. Again I have no idea where or how he came up with this figure.

In summary, this is an excellent read, from a purely crime novel perspective. It should not be read as an accurate potrayal of the Cuban tragedy.

Havana Nocturne is pretty well written and researched. It is not a perfectly written academic book by any means but Mr English does a decent job. The faults are that he makes too many assumptions on what Meyer Lansky's and Batista's motivations were. There are some bizarre leaps where he even verbalizes the thoughts of Lansky. That had me thinking, "WTF?".

He does an incredible amount of research and interviews but the book has me thinking that he tries to make the research fit his assumptions on what really happened and not vice versa. I'd fit the book in with books which sensationalize history without being completely faithful.