I still don't understand the Mickey Cohen story. As I understand it, Jack Dragna was the official LCN boss of Los Angeles. Yet Cohen went out there with backing from New York and set up his own crew but was NOT under Dragna's authority. Clearly the Commission in NY had no respect for Dragna. Can anyone explain that whole deal?
Cohen was originally part of Siegel's organization. Siegel outranked Dragna in Syndicate importance. So Dragna had to eat s*** while Siegel was alive. Cohen and Dragna were theoretically equivalent in power while Siegel lived.
After Siegel's death all bets were off.
But Cohen also had good connections with powerful people like Costello, Lou Rothkopf and Anthony Milano. So when Dragna made his attempts to remove Cohen from the planet, he didn't have the full backing of the syndicate. He had some backing from elements in Chicago and New York. Evidently the syndicate took a "kill what you eat" approach to the Dragna-Cohen conflicts.
Probably it would have been even more dangerous for Dragna to ask for more help because that would have further confirmed his status as a third-tier player.
