"Strange Bedfellows" Topic

With spies and saboteurs threatening the New York waterfront, the Office of Naval Intelligence entered into an unusual World War II alliance—with some of the era's most notorious mobsters.

Naval History Magazine: link

Interesting article indeed.

I am familiar with this "Strange Bedfellows" relationship from many tellings of the story over the years.

For those who have not yet checked out the link, it is a very current US Naval Institute article about the relationship between the jewish mafia on the East Coast and US Naval Intelligence during WW2.

My own father, being a Chicago Jew in the liquor industry immediately after the end of Prohibition, wound up having his own stories about some of the more famous/notorious gangsters of that age (namely "King Cohen" of L.A. link ). So stories about these related topics are of particular interest to me.

Thank you for the link, sir!

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

The Mafia are the best "enforcers" because they don't have to follow the law. They are judge, jury, and executioner with plausible deniability for the intel services (at least most of the time). I wonder just how much the Mafia was blackmailing and extorting the government.

Intel agencies are always (or should be) close to organized crime. They need them to "sub-contract" activities they cannot legally commit to and recruit others to do the same.

They generally have no allegiance to their home country. In foreign countries, intel agencies use them to help overthrow their government and guarantee them a "piece of the action" when a new administration is installed. I worked at one of the three letter agencies during the Cold War.

They were also probably afraid of another Black Tom explosion: link

Wolfhag