Good point about Franks political connections, they were not only a protection, but an asset he could trade on..., apparently, he used to meet J.Edna on a park bench in NY.., and doesn't THAT raise a lot of interesting possibilities! As for Lansky, I see him more as a sort of comptroller or glorified accountant. Since everyone trusted him ( he knew any cuteness would be fatal), he was often tasked with disbursing the profits in complex deals. In the book "Little Man" by Robert Lacey we see a pretty pathetic sort of guy, an abysmal failure as a husband and father, ratted out by his own daughter, despised by his youngest son, and so broke at the end of his life his eldest handicapped son died in a cut rate nursing home