An Offer You Can't Refuse: the History of Organized Crime in the United States

In this BONUS EPISODE of An Offer You Can't Refuse, Pettengill takes of the matter of an illicit sex trade that thrived in Havana as the Mafia's grip on the local economy tightened. He explores the "shows" at the infamous Theato Shanghai and analyzes it in the context of mid-twentieth century sexual norms to demonstrate how and why the Shanghai captured the imagination of American tourists. Pettengill also explores the career of Roderico "Rodney" Neyra and how his career as a choreographer allowed him to fuse Cuban culture with his dance shows at the Tropicana.

In this BONUS EPISODE of An Offer You Can't Refuse, Pettengill sits down with renown crime journalist, Chris Dalby. Dalby's expertise is grounded in the rise and evolutionary of the Mexican drug cartels. In this interview, we discover that there were numerous similarities between the ethnic-racial groups taken up on this podcast and the situation with the cartels. Racist policies, official stances taken by governing officials, and unintended consequences all led to the empowerment of the cartels, offering one potential view of organized crime in the twenty-first century.

In another BONUS EPISODE, Pettengill focuses on one of the most powerful and important mafioso in American history - Santo Trafficante, Jr. Much like Meyer Lansky, Trafficante was instrumental in the making of a criminal empire in Cuba. But this is not a story that Pettengill can tell on his own. This episode features a Trafficante insider, a liason, the incomparable Joann "Joiew" Gallo.

Pettengill's Havana miniseries begins in earnest with a look at the famed hotel-casinos of Havana and the mobsters who made the envy of the entertainment world. Specifically, Pettengill examines the Sans Souci, the Tropicana, and the Riviera but, like any good historian, he places them within the proper context of the postwar period. It is impossible to understand this world without noting the rise of the American middle class, the mid-twentieth century culture of conformity, or innovations within the airline industry. As Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, and Martin Fox built their famous hotel-casinos, the "Havana in the 50s" culture began to take firm root.

Episode 25 embarks on a new miniseries, one focused on the Mafia's criminal empire in Cuba. While the miniseries will take up a variety of different topics, this episode is primarily focused on the groundwork Meyer Lansky laid to expand his operations into Havana. Nothing, however, would have been possible would have been possible without the help of the Cuban government. And, as Pettengill notes, the United States government had ensured there would be an American-friendly government in Cuba ever since consolidating their power in the region at the turn of the twentieth century. In sum, it is impossible to understand American history in the aggregate without understanding the development of the Havana mob.

In Episode 25, Pettengill moves on to examine the post-World War II era. Specifically, he notes how the world of organized crime began to resemble the postwar economic order. Similar to how corporate giants like Hershey or Anheuser-Busch, flush with cash from their wartime profits, crushed their competition through ruthless takeovers and consolidations, Chicago's Outfit absorbed the "neighborhood gang" when Lenny Patrick assassinated Benjamin Zuckerberg in 1944. Further to the East, Russell Bufalino streamlined everything from illegal gambling to "friendly" labor relations. Pettengill sees the postwar period as a critical turning point for the mob as crime was no longer connected to "place" in the same way it had been in the early and mid-twentieth century.

Frank Sinatra was one of the most successful recording artists of the twentieth century. He was also one of the controversial figures within American mass culture. From the earliest days of his ascent, rumors abounded with respect to his alleged connections to the criminal underworld. In Episode 24, Pettengill examines these connections that intersect American culture, even in a twenty-first century context. But WAS Sinatra connected? Did a Don, ANY DON, make Harry Cohn...or Tommy Dorsey an "offer they" couldn't refuse? The answers are complicated.

This BONUS EPISODE of An Offer You Can't Refuse is the last installment of the Las Vegas miniseries. In it, Pettengill tackles a central, albeit seedy, element of the Mafia's involvement in the city's economy - the sex industry. Pettengill begins the analysis with an overview of American burlesque and chronicles its development to Las Vegas in the early 1950s. He then moves on to discuss the sometimes blurry line between sex workers and Vegas hustlers. Of course, all of this is not without its proper historical context. Pettengill notes that the mid-twentieth century "culture of conformity," an adherence to notions of middle-class values and respectability, was a key feature in the allure Las Vegas' sex industry had for American consumers.

In another BONUS EPISODE, Pettengill delves into the topic of one of the most storied, and mob-connected casinos in Las Vegas - the Sands. Describing the Sands as the "Murders' Row" of casino lineups, Pettengill chronicles the evolution of the casino from the heady days of the Kefauver Crime hearings to the heyday of the "classic" Vegas era, the early 1960s. As Pettengill notes, the fact that the Sands was literally being built with one of the most famous Congressional investigations into organized crime in American history in the political background was a testament to the staying power the Mafia held in Las Vegas.