Michael McLaney

Michael Julius "Mickey" McLaney (1 February 1915[1] - 9 September 1994[2]) was a mafia-linked US golf and tennis player who made a fortune in the casino business.

Career

McLaney was Louisiana state champion as a young tennis player for eight years running,[3] and in 1962 he won the Grass Court Men's Doubles title at the United States Amateur Championships, with Gardnar Mulloy.[4] McLaney also played excellent golf, declining to turn professional on the grounds that he could make more money as an amateur (he claimed to have once won $250,000 from Carroll Rosenbloom betting on a round of golf).[3] McLaney formed a professional partnership with Rosenbloom, and was in Rosenbloom's owner's box with him at the Colts-Giants 1958 NFL Championship Game.[2]

In September 1958 McLaney was able to purchase a large share of the Casino Internacional at Havana's Hotel Nacional de Cuba, partnering with Rosenbloom.[3] In 1959, following the Cuban Revolution, the hotel and casino were nationalised, and McLaney briefly imprisoned.[3]

One of the more interesting incidents in Michael J. McLaney's life was documented in the book 'Bobby And J. Edgar' written by Burton Hersh. According to this book, after he is released from Cuba's prisons, McLaney flees to the City of Miami, Florida where he immediately gets together to scheme with associates to plan to firebomb the huge Cuban oil refineries once owned by Esso, Shell Oil Company and Texaco which is planned to take place at the very time as the April of 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion takes place.

According to Burton Hersh, the FBI learns of this scheme and quickly alerts the 65th U.S. Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy of this attack. RFK takes off for Florida and interrupts a key meeting of McLaney and his associates on a houseboat where RFK confronts McLaney; according to witnesses, RFK drives his forefinger into McLaney's chest and tells him that there will not be any bombing of these oil refineries because the three oil companies hope to someday recover these former assets in Cuba.

McLaney continued to be active in the casino business,[5][6] moving to the Bahamas and operating a casino in the Cat Cays. In the 1967 Bahamas election McLaney aided Lynden Pindling, and was mentioned in a Life magazine article alleging corrupt connections between Pindling and organised crime.[7] McLaney unsuccessfully sued the magazine's publisher, Time Inc..[8] He eventually moved with his family to Haiti, where he enjoyed a near-monopoly on the casino business under the Duvaliers.[9][10]

References

  1. ↑ AncientFaces, M J Mclaney (1915 - 1994)
  2. 1 2 Russo (2010:526)
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gus Russo (2010), Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, Bancroft Press, p161-2
  4. ↑ United States Tennis Association, U.S. ADULT & SENIOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
  5. ↑ FBI, 1. October 1965, Mary Ferrell Foundation, He has a silent interest in the Carousel Gambling Casino
  6. ↑ Time, 1 October 1973, Accusing a Roosevelt
  7. ↑ William Lambert and Richard Oulahan, Life, 3 February 1967, "The Scandal in the Bahamas"
  8. ↑ Time, Inc., D/B/A Life v. Michael J. McLaney A/K/A Mike McLaney, 406 F.2d 565 (5th Cir. 1969), 11 February 1969
  9. ↑ Marcus Stern, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 October 1994, Hill of plenty: Some Americans living in Haiti look down on slum-dwellers
  10. ↑ The New York Times, October 12, 1994, MISSION TO HAITI: THE RICH; Business Owners Fear Chaos at the Hands of Mobs When Aristide Returns
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