Lacey, Robert. Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life. London: Century, 1991. 547 pages.

This biography of Meyer Lansky (1902-1983), believe it or not, is fundamentally sympathetic. Author Robert Lacey grew close to Lansky's frail son Buddy before Buddy's death in 1989, and admits that two years earlier, on his first research trip to Israel, the evil genius he had been pursuing was failing to materialize. Lacey had discovered uncensored U.S. documents which had been furnished by the U.S. in 1971 to help Israel consider Lansky's petition for citizenship.

"The documents left no doubt that the man was a crook, that he had made his living on the wrong side of the law, that he knowingly consorted with men of violence -- that he was a gangster. But here was no Satan. Meyer Lansky had not dealt in drugs -- or prostitution or loan-sharking or stolen property. He had not been a director of Murder, Inc., killing or ordering hits to contract. He was not the head of a shadowy underworld corporation, laundering money and infiltrating legitimate business. It was remarkable, in fact, looking at the evidence, what Meyer Lansky had NOT done. There was nothing here to sustain the notion of Lansky as king of all evil, the brains, the secret mover, the inspirer and controller of American organized crime -- the man whom I had set out to write a book about." (p.442)
ISBN 0-7126-2426-0

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