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The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy
Rodney Campbell's "The Luciano The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy" is a fascinating two-pronged history. The first story, as the subtitle indicates, has to do with the Navy's recruitment of the Luciano crime family to protect New York's waterfront (including the Brooklyn Navy Yard) from Nazi saboteurs and u-boats. After all, the government reasoned, who is better qualified to protect the docks than the people who have controlled them for decades? This was, as Campbell points out, very pragmatic. However, from a moral and legal view, this was extremely problemmatic.
299 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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September 3, 2010
Rodney Campbell's "The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy" is a well researched and in depth retelling of the unlikely collaboration between Navy Intelligence and the Mafia underworld to secure New York Harbor from espionage and sabotage during World War II as well as the elaborate cover up perpetrated by the Navy to distance itself from Charles "Lucky" Luciano and the other underworld informants that aided in the war effort.
Campbell stays out of the narrative, choosing instead to tell the story straight, with just the facts speaking for themselves. His writing style is a little clunky in the beginning, which made it difficult for me to get into the book, but that quickly changed as I became engrossed in this little known piece of history. I attribute the clunkiness of the prose to the time in which Campbell wrote this book - the 1970's - before creative non-fiction became mainstream and before it was acceptable to insert your voice into non fiction text.
Do not let this deter you from finding a copy of this 30 plus year old book. Sure, it took my local library a while to obtain a copy and when it arrived it was an ugly, musty smelling hardcover book, but it was well worth the wait and the smell. This book has all of the elements needed for a great novel, but it is a true story, one that is not often told. It provides a whole new view of the war effort during World War II. I think more American students would be interested in history if topics like the Luciano Project were a part of the curriculum.
Campbell stays out of the narrative, choosing instead to tell the story straight, with just the facts speaking for themselves. His writing style is a little clunky in the beginning, which made it difficult for me to get into the book, but that quickly changed as I became engrossed in this little known piece of history. I attribute the clunkiness of the prose to the time in which Campbell wrote this book - the 1970's - before creative non-fiction became mainstream and before it was acceptable to insert your voice into non fiction text.
Do not let this deter you from finding a copy of this 30 plus year old book. Sure, it took my local library a while to obtain a copy and when it arrived it was an ugly, musty smelling hardcover book, but it was well worth the wait and the smell. This book has all of the elements needed for a great novel, but it is a true story, one that is not often told. It provides a whole new view of the war effort during World War II. I think more American students would be interested in history if topics like the Luciano Project were a part of the curriculum.
Displaying 1 of 1 review