Word: longs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After the Shah had set off for a ceremonial visit to Manhattan and a month's visit around the U.S., Harry Truman settled down to routine. A little fat from his long desk-bound summer, he had been roped into a reducing contest with Brigadier General Wallace Graham, the White House physician, and his portly military aide, Major General Harry Vaughan. The President still had three pounds to lose by Thanksgiving Day (to 175). Then, after accounts were settled (at $10 for every overweight pound), he would head for three weeks at Key West and his first real vacation...
Nobody shot at Frank Costello, and he fired no shots himself; he had long since quit packing a gun. He was a big shot from the start-a fixer, conniver, ship operator and financier-who did his work in an office at 405 Lexington Avenue, made business trips to Montreal to buy liquor from Canadian and European exporters, took enormous risks and made enormous profits. He also kept himself so shadowy and unobtrusive a figure that when U.S. Attorney Emory Buckner made a desperate but unsuccessful effort to smash the liquor racket, Costello was erroneously charged with being an accomplice...
Kastel & Costello. Long before prohibition was over Rumrunner Costello began transferring his interest and rum profits to safer fields. In 1928 he formed a lasting partnership with Dandy Phil Kastel, a dapper little enterpriser who had whetted 'his wits as manager of a Montreal restaurant and operator of a Manhattan bucket shop. Costello and Kastel formed the Tru-Mint Novelty Corp. and gave the enthusiastic New York public a chance to play slot machines. He told Kastel: "If a guy named Hershey could make all that dough on a 5? candy bar, maybe there's an angle here...
Helpful Huey. It was not the end of the slot-machine king. Costello had cultivated Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, a man he suspected of having liberal views on certain types of financial matters. The friendship paid off. Within a few months, Huey had granted Costello and Kastel a concession to operate their slots in Louisiana, and a new river of nickels began jingling into their coffers...
...Philip Kastel, which is my associate, to go down there and work the thing out. He went down and he incorporated . . . [Huey Long] wanted to get himself about 25 to 30 thousand dollars per year to donate toward some fund . . . There was supposed to be a tax to the state and that tax was going to some relief of some kind . . . That was his proposal, but it never happened because he died." How did Costello happen to be singled out for so profitable a deal? "Maybe I was the lucky one," he dryly told the jury...