The Prince is a handbook for gangsters, he said, or did he?
Help!
It is asserted on many a web site that Bertrand Russell 
described Niccolo Machiavelli’s
book The Prince as a handbook for gangsters. If proof is needed, type “Russell, prince, AND gangster” into a browser and reap as ye sowed.
Though this reference is widely repeated, none of the twenty or so web sites that I have checked attribute it. Well, yes, it is attributed to Bertie, but no citation shows where he wrote, said, or published it.
I would like to know where he said that, if he said it at all.
I say “if he said it at all” because the sentiment is not consistent with his judicious treatment of Machiavelli in his History of Western Philosophy which is where I went to confirm the statement.
On the other hand, Russell wrote and spoke in volumes far and wide, and he did like to shock and stir at times. I can imagine he might have said it, but instead of imagining, I would like to know.
Will one of you smart people, please put me right on this?
Why do I want to know? I am working on a study of how Machiavelli is used and abused by those claim his parentage, and the reference to gangsters is so colourful I would like to use it, but I have be sure of the ground.
Bertrand Russell’s statement about Machiavelli as a gangster is quoted in Isaiah Berlin “Against the Current” at page 35. But it is still not sourced though several textbooks are mentioned on the same page and it may be in one of those.
Thanks, Geoffrey. I, too, have seen it said many times, but never have I seen it connected to anything Russell published. Michael