The Money and the Power

[Tracy Riddle]

Has anyone else read The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and its Hold on America 1947-2000 (Sally Denton and Roger Morris)? I bought a copy years ago, then set it aside and forgot about it until recently. Now I'm digging into it and so far it's very good. It ties a lot of conspiracy ends together, and was praised by Peter Dale Scott, Jim Hougan and Anthony Summers.

[Tracy Riddle]

Here's an interesting part. The killing of Bugsy Siegel was the only American mob hit that I'm aware involving a sniper rifle.

"The bullet through his eye was a phenomenal shot. The sofa sat at an angle to the window, and 'the killer almost had to shoot around the corner,' concluded the FBI. The man who cradled the carbine on the pergola, and his partner beside him, were never charged or prosecuted, though their identities would be known by officials in Nevada and Washington. Like [Benny] Binion's casino manager Louis McWillie, they were associates of Jack Ruby - the Chicago hoodlum who moved that year to Dallas."

According to other sources, the rifle used was a 30.06 and the two men were Dave Yaras and Lenny Patrick.

[Tracy Riddle]

Here's a good quote from the book: "'The-Mafia-did-it', launched so prominently by the [Kefauver] Committee and carried forward for decades to come - used to explain everything from the assassination of a President and other political murders to embarassing episodes of individual corruption and scandalous intelligence operations - would serve as yet another mask for the reality not only of Las Vegas but of the nation as well."