WISEGUYS AND THE WHITE HOUSE

Juicy accounts of mobsters and presidents.

Journalist Dezenhall, author of Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War, opens by warning that America’s fascination with mobsters owes much to pop-culture fantasy. It exists, but the reality lacks the “cool and sexually dangerous” efficiency of the movies. With this disclaimer, he proceeds with an often stunning account of gangsters and presidential politics. After summarizing pre-20th-century skullduggery (much corruption, little organized crime), he introduces Franklin D. Roosevelt, probably the first to make use of mobsters. As patriotic as most Americans, they were happy during World War II to order dock union workers and Italian fishing fleets to keep their eyes out for U-boats and spies, but few turned up. Harry Truman owed more to organized crime than other presidents. Loyal to Tom Pendergast’s corrupt Kansas City machine, Truman hit the jackpot when the preferred candidates decided not to run for the U.S. Senate in 1934. Dezenhall maintains that Truman probably never accepted a bribe and considered dealing with mobsters a necessary evil in politics. Eisenhower gets off scot-free, but that the Kennedys pestered surprisingly reluctant mafiosi to assassinate Fidel Castro is beyond doubt. Nixon gets off lightly, except for his cultivation of the notorious Jimmy Hoffa, a rare union leader who favored Republicans. Dezenhall’s expansive definition of “organized crime” is on display in his description of President Reagan, beginning with the young actor riding the coattails of cutthroat Hollywood entrepreneurs and shady lawyers, whose influence he never entirely escaped. As for Donald Trump, the author writes of how the 45th president inherited a real estate empire and loved being rich and ruthless and associating with other rich and ruthless people. Alone among presidents, he boasted that he could deal with gangsters because he was as smart as they were.

Entertaining history in which mobsters often come off better than presidents.