'Last Don Standing' Dives Into Philly Mob Hit Man Ralph Natale's View Of His Boss' Execution From Prison

The New York Daily News offered an excerpt from Larry McShane and Dan Pearson's book about former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Ralph Natale. 

Philadelphia mob hit man/union fixer Ralph Natale reported directly to the family boss, Angelo Bruno — until Natale landed behind bars on arson and drug charges.

On the night of March 21, 1980, in an act of treachery that sent the Mafia family into a death spiral, consigliere Anthony (Tony Bananas) Caponigro targeted longtime Philly mob head Bruno in a shotgun street hit.

In this excerpt from “Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale,” Bruno’s right-hand man Natale recounts learning about the execution while locked inside a Florida jail.

You can read the excerpt via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/read-excerpt-ralph-natale-mob-biography-don-standing-article-1.3002222 

You can also read an earlier post on Ralph Natale via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/03/talking-to-ralph-natale-former.html 

My Washington Times Review of 'Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, And The Wickedest Town In The American West'

The Washington Times published my review of Tom Clavin's Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West.

For those of us who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, popular TV programs were our introduction to Dodge City and Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, two of the Wild West town’s legendary lawmen.

As a kid I was a huge fan of Hugh O’Brian’s portrayal of Wyatt Earp and Gene Barry’s portrayal of Bat Masterson. I was also a fan of the long-running TV series “Gunsmoke,” which featured Dodge City as the town where James Arness’ fictional U.S. Marshall Matt Dillon had his many adventures. A new generation of fans now watch and enjoy the old reruns of these shows on cable stations.

Although the TV shows were entertaining, as I grew older and read history I learned that the shows about Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were historically inaccurate and they were based in large part on books that had exaggerated their life stories. Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson in their golden years also told exaggerated tales about themselves and each other.

The odd thing is that no exaggeration was truly necessary, as the true exploits of Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson are certainly dramatic and interesting enough, as we learn from Tom Clavin’s excellent book, “Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/19/book-review-dodge-city-wyatt-earp-bat-matterson-an/

Newspaper Columnist And Author Jimmy Breslin Dies At 88

Mark Moore at the New York Post reports that legendary New York newspaper columnist and author Jimmy Breslin has died.

Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who chronicled life in New York City for more than five decades and became known as the champion of the common man, died Sunday. He was 88.

Breslin, who may be best-remembered for interviewing John F. Kennedy’s gravedigger, passed away at his Manhattan home after suffering from a number of “problems stemming from pneumonia,” his wife, Ronnie Eldridge, said.

“He had a great life … he died just like that,” Eldridge, 86, a former city councilwoman, told The Post, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

“I’m going to miss him terribly.”

The Queens-born Breslin — who authored the books “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?” about the hapless 1962 Mets, and “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” about the Mafia — was known for his work on several New York daily newspapers: including Newsday, the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Post.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2017/03/19/pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-jimmy-breslin-dies-at-86/

Note: Growing up I wanted to be a newspaper columnist and write crime fiction (which I've accomplished to some degree). Although I didn’t subscribe to Jimmy Breslin's politics and worldview, I used to read and enjoy his columns. I liked the humor and the sidelong observations. I also liked his novels, especially his organized crime comedies, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and I Don’t Want to Go To Jail. He will be missed.

A Little Night Music: The Late David Bowie Performing 'Absolute Beginners'

You can see and hear the late David Bowie performing Absolute Beginners with a good back-up band via the below link:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_cHvtPB2dY

Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Chronicling Ernest Hemingway's Relationship With The Soviets

Nicholas Reynolds, author of a new book on Hemingway, was interviewed on NPR.

CIA archivist Nicholas Reynolds discusses his new book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures. It describes Hemingway's relationship with Soviet intelligence.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

You'd think it might be hard to find new insights into one of the most famous lives in literature, but Nicholas Reynold's new book does just that - "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures," which reveals a secret that a writer who stripped them from the lives of others concealed in his own - that he'd offered to be a spy for Soviet intelligence and tried to spy for the U.S., too, during World War II.

Nicholas Reynolds, a former historian at the CIA Museum, joins us in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.

NICHOLAS REYNOLDS: It's my pleasure.

SIMON: I'll explain in the interest of full disclosure, I'm on the Hemingway Council. Now, Hemingway is perhaps the best known American novelist. And even before he wrote "For Whom The Bell Tolls," he went off to witness the Spanish Civil War and crossed from being a journalist into a participant, didn't he?

REYNOLDS: Absolutely. So Hemingway before the Spanish Civil War was largely apolitical. And it was only in the Spanish Civil War that he starts to develop his own signature brand of politics. And if I had to characterize them in two or three words, I'd say anti-fascism is the governing idea there.

SIMON: And that wound up putting him in touch with elements of the Soviet espionage establishment?

REYNOLDS: That's exactly right. In Spain, on the anti-fascist side, the only serious support was from the Soviet Union. On the fascist side, that is, the nationalists, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were supporting Francisco Franco.

You can listen to the interview and/or read the rest of the transcript via the below link:

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/520631331/chronicling-ernest-hemingways-relationship-with-the-soviets 

Will Bush Be Vindicated? A Case For The Iraq War

Jeff McIntyre offers a piece in the National Observer in defense of President Bush and the Iraq War.

In the lead-up to the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, all six of the world’s major external intelligence agencies, as well as prominent politicians and senior officials in the U.S. Democrat and Republican parties, were persuaded, by their respective pieces of intelligence evidence, that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In this article, Jeff McIntyre argues the case for President Bush’s military action in Iraq.

One of the most interesting books ever to be published about the war in Iraq was written by Douglas Feith, Under-Secretary of State in the George W. Bush Administration, and is called War and Decision. Unlike many journalists or political opponents of the war, Feith was inside all the decisions and thinking of the Administration at the highest levels, from the inception of the Administration. He was able to draw on personal dairy notes and recollections from the meetings of the key Administration officials, beginning with the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Feith recalls the very first assessments done about America’s role in a post-9/11 world — assessments carried out with senior Administration officials, as they returned to the US on a military plane from Russia, to get around the global grounding of civilian airlines. Part and parcel of that process was a series of thorough and frank analyses concerning the existential threats posed to the US and its interests. An integral part of these analyses dealt with the threats posed by Iraq.

Feith posits that the containment policy through the 1990s to constrain Saddam Hussein had not been successful, that Saddam Hussein had both used and coveted weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), that he had supported terrorists, and that he had a singular history of aggression. In the post-9/11 world, the possibility of terrorism on a massive scale greatly sharpened the Administration’s thinking.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nationalobserver.net/2011/84-1-mcintyre-war-in-iraq.htm 

Note: I agree with Mr. McIntyre. Douglas Feith's War and Decision is one of the best books on the Iraq War. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to understand the war and aftermath.

The U.S. Military and our allies defeated Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military in an amazing display of speed and precision combat. I believe General Tommy Franks and the Iraq campaign will be viewed favorably by future military historians.

Sadly, the war's swift and successful conclusion was overshadowed by the post-war occupation of Iraq. Douglas Feith rightly lays most of the blame on Paul Bremer, who made a number of critical errors. Most egregious was the dismantling of the Iraqi army and dismissing Iraqi Baath Party government officials, which made the country largely ungovernable and fueled the revolt against the occupation forces and the new Iraqi government. Mr. Bremer would have done well to have studied General Douglas MacArthur’s successful occupation of post-war Japan and the allied occupation of post-war Germany.   

Later, thanks to the urging of retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, Senator John McCain, and others, President Bush changed the Iraqi strategy and ordered what has been called the "surge."

The new military campaign, headed by U.S. Army General David Petraeus, soundly defeated the insurgents and persuaded the sharply divided Iraqi factions to come together and govern the country.

Unfortunately, President Obama could not negotiate an agreement with the Iraqi government to have U.S. troops remain there and he withdrew all U.S. forces. Without an American military presence to balance the power and referee, the Iraqi factions battled each other and this gave birth to ISIS and a new insurgency.

I'm hopeful that President Trump's new military team will defeat ISIS in Iraq and elsewhere.

                      

Intelligence Wars: A Discussion with General Michael Hayden About the CIA And NSA

  

I covered a World Affairs Council of Philadelphia (WAC) discussion with former CIA director and retired Air Force General Michael Hayden (seen in the above Air Force photo) last evening for Counterterrorism magazine.  

The WAC offered the below announcement prior to the meeting:

General Michael Hayden, a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is the only person ever to helm both the CIA and NSA.

For 10 years, General Hayden was a participant in some of the most telling events in the annals of American national security, and now, at a time of heinous new threats and wrenching change, General Hayden joins the World Affairs Council to present an unprecedented high-level narrative of America's intelligence wars.

In his book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, he argues that playing to the edge means playing so close to the line that you “get chalk dust on your cleats,” and that by playing back, you may protect yourself, but you will be less successful in protecting America. "Play to the edge" was Hayden's guiding principle when he ran the National Security Agency, and it remained so when he ran CIA. It is an unapologetic insider's look told from the perspective of the people who faced awesome responsibilities head on, in the moment.

Established in 1949 as a forum for discussing differing points of view, the WAC is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to informing and engaging people of all ages on matters of national and international significance. The Council provides its members and the greater Philadelphia community with influential speakers.

General Hayden offered a frank, lively and provocative discussion on U.S. intelligence operations since 9/11 as well as the Russian cyber campaign during the past presidential election.

 I’ll provide a link here to my piece on General Hayden when it comes out.