Atlantic City Conference
The Atlantic City Conference, held between 13 and 16 May 1929, was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. It is considered by most crime historians to be the earliest organized crime summit held in the US. The conference had a major impact on the future direction of the criminal underworld and held more importance and significance than the Havana Conference of 1946 and the Apalachin meeting of 1957. It also represented the first concrete move toward a National Crime Syndicate.
Details about the conference are difficult to verify. However, it is thought that crime leaders at the conference discussed the violent bootleg wars in New York City and Chicago and how to avoid them in the future, diversification and investment into legal liquor ventures, expansion of illegal operations to offset profit loss from the potential repeal of Prohibition, and reorganization and consolidation of the underworld into a National Crime Syndicate.
The conference
In early May 1929, Meyer Lansky, the Jewish-American crime syndicate boss, married. He concluded that the resort town of Atlantic City, New Jersey would be an ideal place not only for his honeymoon, but also for a conference of major organized crime figures, allowing Lansky and the rest of the bosses to mix pleasure and business. Together with his closest underworld associates, Italian-American mobsters Johnny "The Fox" Torrio, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello, Lansky planned the conference for the weekend of May 13–16. The organizing host of the conference was Atlantic City and South Jersey crime boss, Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, who provided the hotel accommodations, food, and entertainment for all, while guaranteeing that there would be no police interference.The conference was the first known underworld summit of its kind and the first concrete move towards establishing the National Crime Syndicate that eventually controlled all major organized crime activities across the United States.
The largest delegation came from the New York/New Jersey area. Attendees included Torrio, who had formerly led the largest organized crime outfit in Chicago before turning over control to Al Capone and who had more recently helped organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers in which Lansky, Luciano, and Costello were active.
Luciano and Costello, then part of the Masseria family, attended, along with their associates Giuseppe "Joe Adonis" Doto and Vito Genovese, and Guarino "Willie Moore" Moretti, who handled the Masseria family's Newark, New Jersey interests. Giuseppe Masseria himself was not invited.
In addition to the Masseria family members, Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Frank "Cheech" Scalise, and Vincent Mangano came from the D'Aquila/Mineo Family of Manhattan, while Gaetano "Tommy Brown" Lucchese represented the Reina Family out of the Bronx. Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the bosses of the Bugs and Meyer Mob, took part, as did Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro, also known as the "Gorilla Boys". Abner "Longy" Zwillman, who was based in Newark, attended, as did Dutch Schultz, Bronx beer baron and Harlem numbers king, Owen "Owney the Killer" Madden, boss of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, and Frank Erickson, a Costello associate who had formerly been a lieutenant to Arnold Rothstein.
Chicago was represented by Al Capone, Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, Frank "Frank Cline" Rio, all top members of the South Side Capone Gang and representing Midwest interests. Capone's delegation also included Frank McErlane of the South Side Saltis/McErlane Gang, a Capone bodyguard and only one of two Irish gangsters present.
From Philadelphia came the top Jewish-American bosses, Irving "Waxey Gordon" Wexler, Harry "Nig Rosen" Stromberg, Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, Irving "Bitzy" Bitz and Charles Schwartz. From Cleveland came the "Little Jewish Navy" of Morris "Moe" Dalitz and Louis "Lou Roddy" Rothkopf, along with adopted Polizzi Family member, Leo "Charles Polizzi" Berkowitz, who represented Cleveland's "Mayfield Road Mob". The feared Purple Gang of Detroit was represented by Abe Bernstein and his brother Joseph "Bugs Bill" Bernstein. Boston's most prominent bootlegger, Charles "King" Solomon, was present, while Kansas City's "Balestrere Gang" and the "Pendergast Machine" were represented by boss John Lazia. Delegations from Florida and Louisiana were also present at the time, which would most likely be Luciano and Costello allies, Santo Trafficante, Sr. of Tampa and Sylvestro "Silver Dollar Sam" Carolla of New Orleans.
Two of the underworld's most powerful leaders, Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano of New York, were not invited. Nor was Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, then Maranzano's top lieutenant and aide and later one of the architects of the "National Crime Syndicate" and the La Cosa Nostra Commission. The old guard represented by Masseria and Maranzano, often derisively referred to as "Mustache Petes", maintained traditional old world principles that restricted them from working with other ethnic gangs outside of the Italian underworld, contrary to the inclusive and cooperative approach that other leaders, such as Luciano and Torrio, wished to promote.
The conference started off with an embarrassing incident for some delegates. The first hotel Nucky Johnson had chosen, the exclusive Atlantic City Breakers Hotel, refused to provide accommodations to guests who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. When the hotel's management found out that some guests were trying to check in with Anglo Saxon aliases, they were refused admittance. Johnson rushed over to the hotel when he heard about the problem, and engaged in a loud argument with Al Capone, who blamed Johnson for not making the proper arrangements. Johnson pushed Capone into a limousine and ordered every one to follow him. They headed for the Ritz-Carlton and Ambassador hotels, where Capone continued to rage at Johnson, ripping several framed paintings and photos off the walls of the hotel to throw at Johnson.
For the first three days there were a constant round of parties at the hotels with Nucky Johnson supplying plenty of liquor, food and girls for entertainment. For the guests who brought their wives or girlfriends, Johnson provided the women with fur capes as gifts. Meyer Lansky, who was the new bridegroom and guest of honor, received the Presidential suite at the Ritz Hotel, with a constant supply of champagne for him and his wife Anna.
There were several important items to discuss among the attendees, such as constant competition for imported and bootleg liquor profits among the gangs, what to do about the liquor business if Prohibition ended, development of gambling operations, and what to do about the Chicago violence problem. The Atlantic City delegates conducted their more serious discussions and business privately in conference rooms atop the Ritz and Ambassador Hotels.
Important decisions were made to stop competing with each other during the remainder of Prohibition and cooperate in pooling their resources to maximize profits and develop a national monopoly in the illegal liquor business. One of the most important discussions was what to do when Prohibition ended. The bosses decided to reorganize themselves and their gangs into cooperative organizations, investing in legitimate breweries, distilleries and liquor importation franchises. Making investments in the legitimate liquor business and owning nightclubs, bars and restaurants to distribute the liquor and maximize profits would give the Syndicate some security against the loss of business if and when Prohibition was repealed.
The delegates also held discussions about taking a larger interest in illegal and cooperative gambling activities such as bookmaking, horse racing and casinos. The New York and Chicago representatives laid out a plan to tie in the national wire service for horse racing bettors with the Daily Racing Form and to lay off bets throughout the United States. This idea was introduced to the conference delegates after Al Capone ran into Chicago businessman and underworld associate Moses Annenberg, who controlled the mob that controlled distribution of William R. Hearst's newspapers in the Chicago area. The crime families in New York and Chicago would oversee and direct operations for this cooperative and very lucrative venture. New York bosses Costello and Lansky were chosen as directors to coordinate the operations along with Chicago representatives. New York's future layoff king and gambling czar Frank Erickson was chosen to oversee the organization of the operation along with Chicago's Annenberg.
Another important topic was the ongoing violence in Chicago. The underworld wars in Chicago and to some extent New York had brought about a public outcry for law enforcement to stop the violence while heightened media and law enforcement attention was placing pressure on underworld operations around the country. Most of the pressure was due to the recent St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. With former Al Capone boss and mentor Johnny Torrio taking the lead and Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and the other delegates backing him up, Capone was chosen as a sacrificial lamb to ease the heat brought on the underworld and its leaders. Al Capone was convinced after much debate to allow himself to be arrested on a minor charge and sent to prison for a short period of time, deflecting the media and law enforcement pressure for the good of the whole underworld. After the conference was concluded, Chicago underworld boss Al Capone and his bodyguard Frank Rio went to Philadelphia, where two friendly police officers arrested them for carrying a gun. Al Capone and Frank Rio were sentenced to a year in prison, but were released and back in Chicago after several months.
Not all discussions were held behind closed doors; delegates also continued their conversations out in the open, with some delegates taking off their socks and rolling up their pants for walks along the beach. This made the Conference no great secret, with local newspapers carrying photos of Al Capone and other prominent delegates as they cruised down the Jersey shore boardwalk and beaches, dipping their feet into the water.