Very revealing video, DB.

Talese and Maas show a tendency: when a Mob figure "opens up" to a respected writer, the writer gets gaga about his "closeness" to the Mob guy, and tends to print everything the Mob guy says verbatim, and to portray him in a favorable light. Prosecutors are no better. In the Gravano case, they were more interested in nailing Gotti than in providing justice for Gravano's victims--including the 19 that he murdered.

Meyer Lansky, when he was fighting extradition from Israel in the early Seventies, got close to an Israeli writer, Yuri Dan, who he authorized to write his "biography." Lansky filled him with so much BS that his eyes probably turned brown.