Power on Earth

Rating:
Summary: Power schmower
Review: Maybe if you remember this man, Sidona, you might better understand his plight than I did.

The first part of this book is wall to wall confusion, reading like the Italian yellow pages. There are also many quotes in Italian, and these might help aspiring linguists, like me. Otherwise, only a few stalwarts will wade through this first half of the book.

Later, in the second half of the book, the pace picks up some, when Mr. (Signore?) Sidona finally gets caught by the law's so-called long arm. Mr. Tosches originally approached Sidona about a book after his fall from grace, while he was "resting" in an Italian prison. Tosches keeps the ball of Sidona up in the air for a little bit longer, with this book, but maybe Sidona's ball deserves to just fall and come to a final resting point.

I say this because, after all, Sidona wanted to play fast and loose, he took his inherent gifts (he was good with numbers, well educated and an avvocatto, a lawyer, and apparently was a personable sort of fellow with all the contacts he had), but what did he do with these talents? Well, he tried to aggrandize himself, and is this any new story? He ran with the wolves and he paid the price, end of story.

Thanks to Nick Tosches for keeping the ball in the air a little longer. This helps the generations following Sidona and his age cohorts to understand the crazy world which precedes them, like a bad reputation. Diximus.

Rating:
Summary: Power schmower
Review: Maybe if you remember this man, Sidona, you might better understand his plight than I did.

The first part of this book is wall to wall confusion, reading like the Italian yellow pages. There are also many quotes in Italian, and these might help aspiring linguists, like me. Otherwise, only a few stalwarts will wade through this first half of the book.

Later, in the second half of the book, the pace picks up some, when Mr. (Signore?) Sidona finally gets caught by the law's so-called long arm. Mr. Tosches originally approached Sidona about a book after his fall from grace, while he was "resting" in an Italian prison. Tosches keeps the ball of Sidona up in the air for a little bit longer, with this book, but maybe Sidona's ball deserves to just fall and come to a final resting point.

I say this because, after all, Sidona wanted to play fast and loose, he took his inherent gifts (he was good with numbers, well educated and an avvocatto, a lawyer, and apparently was a personable sort of fellow with all the contacts he had), but what did he do with these talents? Well, he tried to aggrandize himself, and is this any new story? He ran with the wolves and he paid the price, end of story.

Thanks to Nick Tosches for keeping the ball in the air a little longer. This helps the generations following Sidona and his age cohorts to understand the crazy world which precedes them, like a bad reputation. Diximus.

Rating:
Summary: SINDONA's reach exceeds TOSCHES's grasp
Review: The exploits of the late international financial magus, Michele Sindona would seem ,indeed, to lend themselves to an explosive expose if not a fascinating, in-depth biography. The "vita" of Michele Sindona comprises alleged associations with a Pope, a President, a Prime Minister or two; numerous world-class bankers; the head of Italy's underground government, P-2; and chiefs of the Sicilian Mafia, the international OCTOPUS of organized crime. Sindona begins in Milan as a tax lawyer in 1948. A decade later, he supposedly controls its stock market and the value of the Italian lira. By 1964 he has formed MONEYREX. This was an awesome currency speculation machine with which PLAYERS could make vast amounts of loot manipulating money rates and Organized Crime...perhaps...laundered billions in rackets-acquired profits (particularly a Golden Triangle-based heroin trade). On the way Sindona himself became the richest man since Marcus Licinius Crassus (owner of silver mines from which Roman specie was minted near the time of the Fall of the Roman Republic) and a dark predecessor to Bill Gates as...briefly...the wealthiest man in the world. Avvocato Sindona's "fortuna" peaks in 1979 when he is indicted (69-99 counts; but whose counting?)in the US for misappropriation of bank funds; collusion in numerous fraud schemes and perjury. The assassination of Italian prosecutor Giorgio Ambrosoli...through wicked offices of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra...lands him in a maximum security prison in Italy. On the morning of March 22, 1986,in Voghera Prison, Sindona dies of cyanide poisoning; whether the coup de grace was murder or suicide no one...including Mr. Tosches... can say with certainty. This is the problem with the book. Myriads of facts, myths, fairy-tales and "fronting" fiction comprise POWER ON EARTH. The reader is getting "the kitchen sink", along with dozens of names, acronyms (of GOOD GUY/BAD GUY & UGLY GUY organizations)and plots within plots that make FOCUS impossible. Tosches could easily have focused on Sindona's...allegedly juicy...role with IOR, the Vatican Bank. Or his heist of the Franklin Bank in New York...the 18th largest bank in the US.. and the subsequent crash. His relation with Roberto Calvi...the man allegedly assassinated in London by Masons for embezzlement; his alliance with Licio Gelli...Maestro Venerabile... of "Propaganda Due" the P-2 Masonic Lodge; or perhaps Stefano Bonate, Chief of the Scilian Mafia. The most illuminating part of the book is chapter 6, "SYSTEMS OF EVIL" where Sindona gives a glimmer of an explanation (pp.86-97)of how criminal...especially drug...money is laundered using numbered accounts, "ghost" banks, shell-company real-estate and currency speculation/manipulation. Francis Ford Coppola "modeled" the sinister P-2/Mafia chieftain "Lucchese" in Godfather III on Sindona (and Gelli). It's said that Ian Fleming concocted his arch-criminal, Ernst Stavro Blofeld from a brew of Sindona and several extremely dangerous Sicilian Mafiosi (SPECTRE's signum was THE OCTOPUS). What's clear is that...disappointingly...the reach of Michele Sindona far exceeds the grasp of journalist Tosches. Though he claims, for two years, to have interviewed the man whom he dramatically calls "The Devil" (chapter I: THE THREE BEASTS), POWER ON EARTH reads like a draft rather than a finished product. When the author reaches for unnecessary literary effects, the results are silly and occasionally baffling. They are unecessary. Sindona was a fascinating, brilliant and no doubt dangerous man. Two of his favorite authors were Machiavelli and Nietzsche. Sindona himself seems to have lived and died BEYOND GOOD and EVIL. Sindona's true story will probably never be written. But I contend that POWER ON EARTH...though not a bad effort...is merely a spring-board to something more astute and incisive. "Behind great fortune...is great crime"; this axiom may be the clue to stories about men like Michele Sindona. It seems an accurate ...if cliched...key to the door of POWER ON EARTH.