L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

This was a sensitive: Wirin’s lawsuit was finally rejected on May 31, 1955. “Judge Rules He Cannot Stop Police Microphones, Lacks Jurisdiction on Use of Public Funds for Installation, McCoy Says,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1955.

Wirin’s attempts to rein: Los Angeles Herald-Express, April 19, 1954; Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1954.

“We would if you …”: Lieberman, “‘Dragnet’ Tales Drawn from LAPD Files Burnished the Department’s Image,” Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2008.

“Far from being a …”: Mooring, “Chief Gives Opinion of ‘Bad Cop’ Films,” The Tidings, October 22, 1954; “Telephone Tap Defended by Chief Parker,” Los Angeles Mirror-Daily News, March 7, 1955. In 1968, Congress passed legislation (known as Title III) governing federal law enforcement’s use of electronic surveillance that adopted precisely that procedure. California, however, declined to follow suit. Until quite recently, California state law criminalized all wiretaps that did not have the consent of both parties, with an exception only for certain narcotics-related law-enforcement matters. See Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs9-wrtp.htm#wt2, accessed July 26, 2008.

In addition to trying: “Police Warned on Secret Wire Taps, Officers Subject to Liability for Illegal Entry, Brown Says,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1954.

The case of Cahan: Lieberman, “Cop Befriends Crook,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2008.

Traynor served notice that: Liptak, “U.S. Is Alone in Rejecting All Evidence if Police Err,” New York Times, July 19, 2008.

“Today one of the …”: “Hidden Mike Barred, Beverly Bookie Case Upset by High Court,” Hollywood Citizen-News, April 28, 1955.

“The positive implication drawn: Earlier that year the Chandlers’ Mirror had bought out Manchester Boddy’s Daily News, creating the Mirror-News. For Parker’s statistics, see “Criminals Laugh at LA Police, Says Chief. Underworld Rejoices in Ruling,” Los Angeles Mirror-Daily News, May 31, 1955.

Chapter Nineteen: The Enemy Within

“He is intent on …”: Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago.

“There is not a: “Mickey Can’t have L.A. Bar, Officers Rule,” Hollywood Citizen-News, October 10, 1955.

“When I was on …”: Cohen, Hecht manuscript, 63, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library.

Several months after: The timing of the meeting between Hecht, Preminger, and Cohen is problematic. Brad Lewis’s Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster places the meeting in the late 1940s or 1950s, well before the 1955 film was made (71). It is nonetheless possible that Preminger was reading Nelson Algren’s book, published in 1949.

On the appointed: Hecht manuscript, 1-3, 18-19, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library.

Not anymore. The postprison: Hecht manuscript, 13-14, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. See also Cohen to Hecht, March 22, 1964, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. Cohen, In My Own Words, 64, offers a slightly different recollection.

According to Hecht, Mickey originally brought him a 150-page typed manuscript that he said he had dictated. “Mickey Cohen Takes Manuscript to Author,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1957, 34. The Newberry Library contains fragments of this apparent manuscript.

LaVonne thought Mickey: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 193, 196.

One night after midnight: The word gilgul means “cycle” in Hebrew and refers to a concept of reincarnation from the Kabbalistic tradition. Hecht manuscript, 16-17, 70-71, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Chief Parker would have: Lieberman, “Cop Befriends Crook,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2008.

By 1956, the Kennedys: The extent of Joseph Kennedy’s involvement in bootlegging is often exaggerated. Contrary to public myth, the Kennedy family fortune was not based on illegal liquor. Joseph Kennedy’s father, P. J., had owned a series of saloons and liquor distributorships well before Prohibition, but it was Kennedy’s financial prowess (and his decision to bail out before the crash of 1929), as well as a series of savvy investments in Hollywood that increased the family’s resources so dramatically in the late 1920s and 1930s. That said, even though it was hardly necessary financially, Kennedy seems to have occasionally dabbled in bootlegging. See Fox, Blood and Power, 19-20; Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 41.

Kennedy had long been: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 62-3, 71.

Soon thereafter, in August: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 72; Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 18-21.

Parker took Kennedy’s visit: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 74.