Another decision of that historic Havana gathering: Charles “Lucky” Luciano, another young friend of Lansky’s, would be kingpin of the mob, calling the shots as he bided his time in Cuba, hoping to return to the U.S. Still, Lansky could have had reasons to be optimistic that good times would return as soon as his jail time was up. Shortly after, Siegel was shot dead in his girlfriend’s home in Beverly Hills. The unfortunate consensus at the mafia’s Havana Convention, held just before Christmas 1946 at the Hotel Nacional, was that Bugsy Siegel, his friend since childhood, must be “removed.” Mob leaders from around the nation had become convinced that Siegel was skimming money from the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Just the year before, Lansky’s good friend, President Fulgencio Batista, had retaken the Cuban government in a military coup and was running the show. In the spring of 1953, as mob mogul Meyer Lansky began a three-month sentence in the Saratoga County Jail in Ballston Spa – his only jail term ever – he may have dreamed of the welcoming warmth of Havana.

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