by Karen Maguire
HOW ACCOUNTANTS CAN HELP FIGHT THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM Declassified, Disclosed, and Sometimes Disputed: Criminals Helped Win World War II
D
uring World War II Meyer Lansky, the Mafia’s accountant, served as the linchpin in an unlikely alliance between the U.S. military and the Mafia to defeat the Axis powers. In 1942, Lansky negotiated the transfer of organized crime boss Lucky Luciano from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, to Great Meadow Correctional Facility, located downstate in Comstock. Great Meadow’s proximity to New York City allowed visitors from the Office
of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to visit with Luciano and Lansky. The two sides negotiated a deal in which the organized crime figures agreed to help the Navy in exchange for Luciano’s release. Code named “Operation Underworld,” the effort involved both Italian and Jewish criminal organizations. These organizations are credited with keeping all ports along the Eastern seaboard free from sabotage, black market looting, worker strikes, and Axis spies from 1942 until the end of World War II in 1945. In addition, Luciano and Lansky
provided a network of organized crime colleagues in Italy that assisted the U.S. military in its invasion of Sicily in 1943, code named “Operation Husky.” Lansky personally escorted Sicilians chosen by him and Luciano to the ONI’s Counter-Intelligence Unit so they could provide information on the ports, waterways, coastlines, and villages of Sicily. They were not alone. Other organized crime figures provided similar assistance to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the British Secret Intelligence Service.
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