can’t get over when famous gangster lucky luciano was like “hey lansky seems like quite a hassle getting all those nazis offa your terf you want us to help ya out” and meyer “Left Russia Because of Pogroms and Became A Gangster In The US” lansky was like “no. no getting to beat the shit out of nazis is reward enough for us. sorry lucky this one’s personal don’t worry about it”
here’s a quote from a New York Times article abt it
also bonus quote from that article
“quick question about the punching, judge perlman: how about murder instead”
everybody says that “the government” enlisted these mobsters to beat up nazis, but like. no. no that didn’t happen? judge nathan perlman illegally called up a man who could have him shot dead at a minute to say “hey. i’ve scoured the fucking law books tryna find a way to get these fucking nazis out of here, but my legal means have unfortunately run out. so-” and meyer fucking lansky was like “ah say no more boss lemme call a buncha friends and we’ll get this sorted out real quick don’t even bother paying me.“
can you imagine that phone call. like genuinely. how am i supposed to continue living my normal life knowing this happened. people who loooove talking about punching nazis, taKE FUCKING NOTES
this is my favorite Meyer Lansky story.
my second favorite Meyer Lansky story is about the time, many years later, that he was at a meeting of mafia heads and one of them started bragging about how his son was following him into the family business.
Meyer Lansky said “That’s nice. My son works for NASA.”
