{"id":200726,"date":"2021-12-06T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=200726"},"modified":"2021-12-04T06:38:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T06:38:15","slug":"how-organized-crime-infiltrated-american-business-after-wwii-and-corrupted-national-politics-from-truman-to-trump-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/12\/how-organized-crime-infiltrated-american-business-after-wwii-and-corrupted-national-politics-from-truman-to-trump-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How Organized Crime Infiltrated American Business after WWII and Corrupted National Politics from Truman to Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Provocative new book documents the unsavory alliance between the Mafia, the CIA, and the corporate establishment that transformed America into \u201cthe world\u2019s most dangerous nation\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Harry S. Truman and Kansas City mafia boss Tom Pendergast in 1919.
[Source: cafnr.missouri.edu]<\/p><\/div>\n

10 Jun 2021 – <\/em>During the years of the Trump presidency, popular and scholarly discussions of the erosion of U.S. political and legal norms frequently contrasted the Trump era with a supposed golden age of U.S. democracy in the mid-20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Marshall\u2019s new book, Dark Quadrant: Organized Crime, Big Business, and the Corruption of American Democracy<\/em> (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) effectively challenges this narrative and the myth of the \u201cgreatest generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book details the largely neglected story of how well-protected criminals organized the corruption of U.S. politics and business at a national level after World War II.<\/p>\n

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[Source: amazon.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Traditional U.S. historians, according to Marshall, have treated corruption as a \u201cbarely detectable eddy in the large current of events, with no lasting political or even moral significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

They ignore the ties between organized crime and dominant political figures, ranging from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson to Richard M. Nixon, along with the role of the mafia and CIA in subverting Third World nations.<\/p>\n

As such, they present an incomplete picture, which plays into belief in \u201cAmerican exceptionalism\u201d\u2014that the country\u2019s politics are more morally pure than other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans,\u201d Marshall writes, \u201cmust arm themselves with greater knowledge of the long-neglected \u2018dark quadrant\u2019 of our national politics in order to shrink its power and strengthen our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harry Truman: The Pendergast\u2019s Man<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Marshall begins his story with Harry S. Truman, a failed businessman and law school student whose political rise was fueled by his backing by the mafia-linked Pendergast political machine in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Kansas City in the 1920s was a center for vice. Thomas J. Pendergast\u2014who was convicted in 1939 on federal tax evasion charges\u2014was the \u201cruling spirit behind\u201d the \u201croaring business\u201d of gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, the sale of narcotics and racketeering,\u201d in partnership with political boss John Lazia, an ally of Al Capone\u2019s Chicago outfit.<\/p>\n

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