History
US Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy links arms with his son, John Fitzgerald. Photo: Bettmann Archive
Having grown up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, headquarters of both the “Cherry Hill Gambinos” and heroin importation and distribution for the entire country – and having served in the White House communications office during the Reagan administration – Eric Dezenhall is well placed to write a book about the secret and not so secret shared history of gangsters and governments in the United States.
After initially explaining who he, and many people, have in mind when the term “wise guys” is employed, for example Italian Americans, he offers a potted history of 19th century racketeering before prohibition (the period between 1920 and 1933 where production and sale of alcohol was prohibited in the US) brought politicians and mobsters together in a way that catapulted American organised crime into a modern phenomenon.
