Sergeant Smack, page 6
Assigned to the operations section, Ike worked long hours re-organizing the section, hoping his hard work would help him make master sergeant once again. But there was no war; so the Army did not need any new master sergeants. Still, Ike’s effort did get him noticed, and he was recommended for and received a commendation ribbon for meritorious service performed from September 13, 1954, to July 27, 1955.
Ike returned to his new assignment at the Infantry School in Fort Benning and served there until 1957 when he was transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. After a couple of routine years at Fort Bragg, Ike got some exciting news: the Army would be sending his unit, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, to Germany. Ike could not only take his family with him, but his personal possessions as well, including his beige top Pontiac convertible. While the Atkinsons got ready for Germany, Ike got some more good news. He had been promoted to his old rank of master sergeant.
When Ike arrived with his unit in Mainz, Germany, a picturesque city located on the West Bank of the Rhine River, political tensions were high. Yet, life for Ike remained largely routine as he adjusted to his new setting. He heard through the military grapevine that gambling flourished at the NCO clubs all across the European continent, so he looked forward to his tour in Germany, expecting it to be another bold adventure.
Winston Churchill, Great Britain’s World War II leader, popularized the term “Iron Curtain” to signify the ideological, symbolic and physical boundary dividing Europe into the two separate and distinct areas after the war. The Cold War had set in, and the Iron Curtain had divided Germany into West Germany and communist East Germany. And the divided city of Berlin was surrounded by East Germany. The U.S., France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union all occupied sections of the city. A new Joint United States European Command (USAREUR) was established on August 1, 1952, with Heidelberg as its headquarters.
More than 85,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Europe. Ike was based at Lee Barracks in Mainz, but all of Western Europe would eventually be his oyster. “I got off the plane, settled my family and headed to the local NCO club. When I got there, I did not see any poker or craps games going on. Where the hell was the gambling? Someone told me that I could find plenty of gambling at the Ramstein Air Force Base at Kaiserslautern, which was a small city about 60 miles from Mainz. I wasn’t working yet, so I drove there in my convertible. Being Black, I must have stuck out like a bubba in Harlem. Later, I would hear some brothers complain about racism, but the German people treated me good. I’m sure I must have had some bad incidents, but I really can’t recall any.
“But, boy, was life good! The dollar was strong, so living was cheap. I knew I would soon be making money gambling, so I got my wife a maid to help her out. Times were still tough for a lot of Germans, so every time the maid came over she brought her son, daughter and her son’s daughter with her, and I had to feed the entire lot. I had plenty of work to do at Lee Barracks, eight to ten hours a day during the week, but when the weekend came I hopped into my convertible and drove like a mad man to Ramstein.
“I was in heaven. I never ran into a gambling den like the one they had at Ramstein. It had the biggest craps and poker games at any U.S. military base in Europe. It was loaded with GIs and the first three days after they got paid was a gravy train for me. On a good night, I could make $1,000 to $1,500. I built a bankroll of $20,000. I lived good and still saved money. For a change of pace, I went to Wiesbaden and Darmstadt, where a lot of gambling went on at the officers clubs on the U.S. bases there.”
U.S. soldiers, sailors, airman and diplomats were not the only personnel gambling at U.S. military establishments. Wherever Ike went, he seemed to bump into defense contractors. “Long before the public learned about Dick Cheney and his ties to Halliburton, I knew about defenses contractors. The Cold War was big business, and wherever there were military bases you could find defense contractors. They always had money to burn, and they didn’t care that my buddies and I were Black. They only cared that our money be green.”
Ike had one thing to worry about, though. “My wife didn’t like Germany and she started drinking. I was gone all the time, either working or gambling, but Atha wanted me home; she was lonely. I gave her money but she was still not happy.”
IKE WAS NOT the only Black gambler and hustler in Europe at the time, and being charismatic, Ike had no problem making friends with many of them, all of whom were like-minded adventurers. Many of his new friends were retired U.S. servicemen who stayed in Germany because of the gambling, friendly women and inexpensive lifestyle. Many of them lived in apartments near the U.S. military bases and became part of his informal social network. Ike could only marvel at some of their gambling skills.
The heavyset Eddie Wooten was an old friend whom Ike had known since 1952, having served with him in the same battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Ike considered Wooten, who had curly hair, dark skin and a broad nose, a gambling all-star; he played all the games of chance well—cards, craps and pool. Wooten was cocky, too. An associate recalled the time he went with Wooten to pick up a friend and had to wait in front of his apartment. The friend was late, and when he showed, Wooten blasted him in a high pitched, mocking voice; “Hey, brother. What’s going on? You know who I am? I am Eddie Wooten, and wherever I go, I am the biggest dude. So I don’t wait for no one!”
Wooten was popular, and he introduced Ike to many of the brothers. There was Berlin (no one knew his real name), another all around card player who had been in Germany, drifting, one of the few in the group who had not served in the military. Berlin was a real chatterbox who could not shut his mouth, even during the most intense moments of a card or craps game. Ike would pick up Berlin occasionally and go gambling at Bitburg, 31 miles northeast of Luxembourg, where Bitburg Air Force Base and Spangdahlem Air Force Bases were located. The intelligent Ed Russell, who was married to a Dutch girl, had a photographic memory for the cards dealt in a poker game, so he didn’t have to resort to cheating to get an edge. John Roy, a New Orleans native, balding, nondescript and always with a smile on his face, was a big time craps shooter and the only White man who regularly hung with the band of brothers.
The hulking Ellis Sutton, whom Ike met during his German tour and who gave him the nickname “Ike,” was still in Europe. Sutton was the best “swing” player Ike had ever seen, and he never seemed to miscalculate in a poker game. “Sutton was a mound of a man with big hands, which gave him an advantage in a card game,” Ike recalled. “So with his skill it was easy for him to mess with the deck. Deal him five cards and he would have six. He always hid an extra card and you would never know it.”
Ellis Sutton came to Germany about 1958, bringing with him Pratt Benthall, a slender, light-skinned gambler from New Jersey. Ike got to meet Benthall before he had a run-in with the German law. Benthall was speeding in the German countryside outside Kaiserslautern and killed a German kid who was walking along the road. Benthall was thrown in jail and his brother had to come from New Jersey and pay $10,000 to bail him out. Benthall returned to the U.S. and managed to avoid going to the jail.
Then there was Peter Rabbit, the nickname of Herman Lee Gaillard, but no one ever called him by that name. Born in La Grange, North Carolina, Peter Rabbit was nice looking, of medium height and build, and one of the best skin players around. Ike met Robert Johnson, a tall, pop-eyed, light skinned brother from Greensboro, North Carolina, at Johnny’s Keller, a popular bar in Kaiserslautern owned by James Wilkins, a Pennsylvania native. When Johnson got excited, a vein would pop up in the middle of his forehead. Ike considered Johnson, a retired Air Force man, one of the biggest hustlers in Europe. He trafficked in contraband PX supplies and could count cards in a poker game like few other gamblers. That is why he drove a Mercedes and could be seen tooling around Germany and France with his good looking Corsican girlfriend.
Later, DEA intelligence and press reports claimed that Atkinson and Johnson were protégés of Wilkins who, the DEA further alleged, was involved in a variety of criminal activities from stealing PX supplies to prostitution to narcotics trafficking. Sources say there was a Black Masonic Club, based in Frankfurt, but according to Atkinson the club was not a front for Wilkins; it was totally legitimate. Its membership consisted of Black GIs in Europe interested in Masonic activities. “Both Jack and I did not belong to any Masonic Club,” Atkinson said. “Johnny (James Wilkins) was a club member, but he did not organize it for criminal activities.”
For a variety of reasons, some from the band of brothers would leave and head back to the U.S., while many others would stay with the group, motivated by the camaraderie and adventure it generated. Later when Ike moved to Bangkok, many of the brothers in his circle would become part of the international criminal enterprise he built.
IKE HAD DODGED the court marshal bullet once, in 1952, so it would seem highly improbable that military lightning would strike twice. But it did, in 1959, during Ike’s German tour. During a two-month period, Ike and Eddie Wooten had gambled several times in the officers club at the U.S. military base at Wiesbaden. Wooten was no longer in the service and had never been an officer. Ike was in the Army but was not an officer at the time. They should not have been gambling there, but neither the club management nor the officers seemed to care. After all, green is green. Nothing would have happened except that one of the gamblers who had been steadily losing a lot of money to Ike and Wooten, became a sore loser and decided to blow the whistle on them. Wooten was arrested, convicted and spent five months in jail. Ike was court marshaled again. He was not thrown out of the military, but his rank was reduced from six to three stripes and his pay was docked accordingly. “I had a good lawyer, who was recommended by some of the friends in my unit. It was not the type of charge that got a soldier with my record and length of service thrown out of the military.”
“It was another devastating blow to my military career. Captain Hill, the same man who had the dispute with his wife over the German girlfriend, said to me: ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ He told me that the military police had actually been watching me for a couple of months, collecting evidence against me. Demoted in rank, I now had to work under a soldier who had been under me. When I would see my new boss, he would say to me: ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr. Operations himself.’ It didn’t bother me, though; I just laughed. I really had no business in that officers club. I had done wrong. But worst of all, I got caught.”
Four years later, shortly after his retirement from the Army while visiting a friend at Fort Bragg, Ike felt the impact of the incident. At the security gate, Ike was told to park his car. After a 30-minute wait, a captain appeared and asked Ike to come to his office. When they got there, the captain asked:
“Are you Leslie Atkinson?”
“Yes, I am.”
The captain then pulled out some paperwork and began reading off a list of names.
“Do you know Eddie Wooten?”
“Uh, uh.”
“Do you know Ellis Sutton?”
“Yes.”
“Robert Johnson?”
“Yes.” Ike now sensed that the interrogation had something to do with gambling.
Then the captain said, “I have an order from my commanding officer. You will not lose your commissary privileges, but every time you come here we will be watching you.”
For Ike, it was no sweat. He wrote off Fort Bragg like a bad debt and did not go there anymore. Little gambling was going on at Fort Bragg anyway.
IKE COMPLETED HIS two-year tour in Germany and then was reassigned back to Fort Bragg, the permanent home of the 82nd Airborne. He had spent 18 years in the military and was almost ready to retire. Since he had been around military bases all of his adult life and would, as a retiree, enjoy military privileges such as access to the PX, he began to look for a suitable house close to a military base. Finding nothing he liked, he decided to return to Goldsboro, the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Because of his gambling talents, Ike had saved from $40,000 to $60,000, and he used it to build his own home in the newly developed Neuse Heights.
After retiring, Ike had no intention of finding a steady, routine job in the civilian sector. Gambling was his chosen profession, and he would continue the adventurous life he had pursued in the military. Ike’s pal Eddie Wooten had organized a regular high stakes poker game in Kaiserslautern, Germany, as well as in Madrid, Spain, where the players included U.S. Embassy staff and well-connected American businessmen and members of the Spanish elite who did not mind losing their money. Ike could go to Charleston, South Carolina, about 150 miles from Goldsboro, and take a first-class flight on the so-called Embassy Flight, which the U.S. diplomatic core used, and fly directly to Madrid, Spain, and then on to other major cities worldwide. In fact, one could travel around the world via the Embassy Flight. From Madrid, Ike often took a military hop to Ramstein Air Force Base near Kaiserslautern and usually head for Eddie Wooten’s place in the city, unless, that is, he wanted to stay and gamble at the Ramstein Air Base’s NCO club.
Ike would fly back and forth between Charleston and Madrid every few weeks. Sometimes he would hear of a big game in some exotic locale, such as Greece or Turkey, and he would use an Embassy Flight to fly there. He had a valid passport and a military ID and, of course, could fly on a military plane so long as space was available. If some of his buddies did not have military privileges, no problem. He would fix them up with phony military documents. “When I came home to see my family, I put more money in our savings. I was doing more than okay; I was living the life of a Cool Hand Luke… a professional hustler.”
But Ike’s hustle was not above board. To tilt the odds of winning in his favor, he went to New York City and bought loaded dice and a magnet that he could place under a craps table and influence the course of the game. “From an early age, I knew that to win in gambling consistently, you have to give yourself an edge or leave the game alone. That’s why I would never go to a casino and gamble where I have no control of the games and would not have the odds in my favor.”
Ike and Robert Johnson took their shady game to Rota, Spain, a town of about 27,000 people south of Madrid in the Andalusia region. Rota is the home of a joint Spanish-U.S. naval base and also hosts U.S. Marine and Air Force units. With so many military personnel, Rota was a hot gambling haunt that Ike and Johnson frequented when they could get away from Madrid. They hoped to break (clean out) a slick gambler known simply as Chief, a chief petty officer at the U.S. Naval Base at Rota. Heavyset and legendary for the amount of money he carried on him, Chief took on all gamblers but nobody could beat him; in fact, Ike and Johnson had earlier lost thousands of dollars to him. After half an hour and three huge bets, the hustlers broke Chief, taking him for $38,000. A magnet placed strategically under the gambling table helped Ike and Johnson achieve their objective.
IN RETIREMENT, THE charismatic Atkinson continued to meet and befriend retired military servicemen who shared his gambling passion and enjoyed the life of a hustler. In 1964, Ike hit it off with Daniel Burch, a tall, slender light-skinned brother who sounded southern, although his hometown was Akron, Ohio. Born in 1940, Burch became the youngest member of the band of brothers. When he left the Army in 1961, he wanted to be a professional gambler, but did not know anything about it. “In the Army, when payday came around, I’d gamble and lose every dollar I had earned,” Burch explained. “I decided to stay in Germany because it was such an exciting place. I met a couple of hustlers named Jimmy Merrill and Norman Young, and they taught me the ropes about gambling. I specialized in craps and began hustling. I bought some magnetized dice and a magnet and I was in business.”
In 1964, Ike and Burch met Jimmy Smedley, a likeable laid back ex-soldier who was living in Kaiserslautern. Smedley was the odd man in the band of brothers, an old fashioned sucker who did not have a clue about gambling, except how to lose his money. Smedley’s apartment became a hangout and crash pad for army buddies coming to town or passing through; a place they would gamble, drink and party all night long. Smedley always seemed to be at some stage of inebriation. When his pad got crowded, Smedley’s Dutch girlfriend would have to make room in the bed she shared with Smedley for one of his buddies. Jimmy Smedley and Herman Jackson became two of Ike’s closest friends. In a short while, all three would be operating in an exotic locale, using a different hustle.
CHAPTER THREE
Bangkok Calling
HERMAN JACKSON HAD retired in December 1962, a little over a year before Ike did. The two old friends kept in touch, and whenever their paths crossed, they fraternized and enjoyed each other’s company. Jack was not much of a gambler and what he knew about the game he learned from Ike. Yet Jack had a way of sniffing out opportunity, and this knack complemented Ike’s social and entrepreneurial skills.
In early 1966, Jack hopped the Embassy Flight to visit a friend named Smitty in Korea, but upon arrival at Bangkok, he was bumped off the flight to make room for diplomatic personnel. Jack did not mind the idea of waiting for the next available flight. He had a liking for Thai women ever since he had ogled some attractive Thai international stewardesses in the Los Angeles airport, having noticed the emblem on their lapels indicating they were from Thailand.
In the mid-1960s, no place on Earth offered an American male traveler better opportunities for hustling women and having a good time than did Bangkok. Once considered a backwater of Asia—an exotic locale known for its friendly people, Buddhist temples, beautiful flowers and languid klongs, or canals, the city changed to become a major tourist destination. Most of the visitors came from the U.S., even though a war raged in neighboring Vietnam.
