Editing Charles “Lucky” Luciano (section)

==Connections to the OSS-CIA==
Charles “Lucky” Luciano had well documented ties to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), through his cooperation during World War II. 
===World War II===
During World War II, Luciano cooperated with the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) through “Operation Underworld,” initiated after the 1942 Normandie fire in New York Harbor raised sabotage concerns. Imprisoned at Clinton Correctional Facility for prostitution charges, Luciano, through associate Meyer Lansky, provided intelligence and ensured dockworker cooperation to secure New York’s waterfront against sabotage. He leveraged his influence over figures like Albert Anastasia, who controlled labor unions. Luciano also facilitated contacts with Sicilian Mafia leaders, aiding U.S. preparations for the 1943 Sicily invasion (Operation Husky). Congressman Walter Horan reported Luciano received at least 11 ONI visits, leading to the recruitment of Italian-American informants for psychological warfare and Sicilian cooperation. Declassified ONI records and the 1954 Herlands investigation, commissioned by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, confirm Luciano’s role, noting his contributions led to his 1946 sentence commutation and deportation to Italy.
===Post-war===
Luciano’s CIA connections are less directly documented. After his 1946 deportation, he was linked to the “French Connection” heroin trade, involving Sicilian and Corsican mobsters. A 1998 Congressional Record entry by the Institute for Policy Studies notes the CIA’s collaboration with Corsican gangs in Marseille to counter Communist unions, indirectly intersecting with Luciano’s drug network, which supplied morphine to Sicilian labs. No declassified documents confirm Luciano as a CIA operative or asset, though his anti-communist activities in Italy aligned with CIA efforts to prevent a Communist takeover in 1947, as suggested by historian Tim Newark.
====Sources:====
Wikipedia (Lucky Luciano), The Mob Museum, Congressional Record (1998, Institute for Policy Studies), Tim Newark’s Lucky Luciano — the Real and the Fake Gangster, Ezio Costanzo’s works, declassified ONI records, Herlands report.