Cuba Libre

My friend Ignoto says that if he wins the lottery, his prize will be two weeks in Havana before Castro. I assume he is channeling Talleyrand, who did or not say that "Only those who lived before the revolution knew how sweet life could be." (link).

Ignoto can get a reality check from Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba, then Lost it to the Revolution (link) (in England The Havana Mob (link)). As summarized by David Margolick, it’s an account of an unlikely dream team: Meyer Lansky, the Polish-born American gangster, an Cuba’s own prince of kleptocrats, Fulgenco Batista (link).

At least as refracted through Margolick, English appears to have provided one more powerful illustration of a point we had all learned from The Sopranos, or Goodfellas, or Casino or Donny Brasco –the mob is a business, and not always a very good one, at that. The unlikely protagonist of the story is Lansky, supposed financial wizard and business visionary who worked, inter alia, to keep the game reasonably honest (so the high rollers would come). One loser may be Lansky’s unfriendly co-venturer, Santo Trafficante, who got to watch as Senator Jack Kennedy disported himself with three prostitiutes, then kicked himself (Trafficante) for not catching the show on saleable film.

Margolick reports that Batista’s “winnings amounted to as much as $15 million a year”—in all, some $300 million. But if Lansky was so smart, how come he came away with substantially nothing, even leaving a cash stake of $17 million behind? Look for his estate to claim reparations after Castro finally exits.