Siegel's Lost Gold Mine and the Coonskinned Senator

In Havana, the collected mob representatives awaited news of the opening of the Flamingo in Las Vegas. When the news arrived it was not good. The weather had grounded planes and the Hollywood crowd that Siegel had expected never arrived. The locals stayed away and the army of people he had hired to greet the expected crowd had very few people to greet. The decision was made that extreme action would have to take place against Siegel. One of the founding fathers of the Commission controlled country-wide crime organization was sentenced to death by the very organization he had helped to create.

Siegel tried to make amends for his debacle in Las Vegas and closed the Flamingo for finishing touches to reopen when they were completed. The Casino did begin to show a profit and it appeared that over the long haul the mob's Las Vegas investment could prove to an excellent move. By the summer, Siegel seemed to be more at ease, perhaps in the belief that this change of fortune could override any thoughts of the mob taking any extreme actions. After all, to the organization the bottom line was always money. Siegel did not realize that his view of the organization was very correct, and if any individual threaded the bottom line through their own greed, that individual would have to be removed. While sitting in his living room Siegel was informed of the mob's decision as to how to handle the Las Vegas problem. A little prior to eleven'o'clock, an assassin fired eight shots through the front window. One struck Siegel in the head ripping out his eye and four more struck other parts of his upper body.

In Las Vegas at the same time some individuals walked into the Flamingo, and informed the staff that from this point on they would run the Casino. Most of these individuals had worked at one time or another for Lansky in areas of gambling. The mob had made it clear that they had full intentions of continuing their investment in Vegas, with changes in the area of organizational leadership. It was clear to Lansky by this time that the potential profits of Vegas could be utilized by the organization to reap new profits and clear money to use in legitimate business. Mob control of Las Vegas was witnessed by the fact that almost all of the major gambling facilities were under mob control. The profits were so large that to limit the amount of violence that could be created through Family competition, Vegas was declared an "Open City." All approved Families could make investments in the area and competition and cooperation between Families became a way of life. The big question in most cases was who really owned what.

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