wasserman lew MCA
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">hhmn 1999 see also doc</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>P</b>resident Bill Clinton’s enemies love to make much of his Hollywood connections, as well as his testimony before a federal grand jury and an odd land deal in which he and his wife lost money.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Yet, they refuse to compare the Clinton record with the case history of Ronald Reagan, whom most Clinton-haters continue to worship and attempt to canonize.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Once again, the President’s harsh critics continue to demonstrate that they have two conflicting standards for public officials: one for those they like and another for those they don’t like.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> For instance, consider the following:</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> Ronald Reagan was an invention of the Hollywood conglomerate, MCA, which was founded in 1924 by Jules Stein,</b> a Chicago ophthalmologist who quickly became friendly with the local underworld. Every facet of Reagan’s life, from his careers in acting and politics to his financial successes, were directed by MCA, which, with the help of the Mafia, was the most powerful force in Hollywood from the mid-1940s until the Bronfman family purchased the company in 1995.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Reagan came to Los Angeles in 1937 to make motion pictures, and, in 1940, MCA bought out his talent agency. Lew Wasserman became Reagan's personal agent; he negotiated a million-dollar contract with Warner Brothers on Reagan's behalf. In 1946, Wasserman became the president of MCA, and the following year, Reagan, with his film career already in decline, became the president of the Screen Actors Guild. <b> By his own admission, Reagan immediately aligned himself with the corrupt Teamsters and other mob-connected unions in an effort to combat Hollywood Reds.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> A sweetheart relationship developed between MCA and the guild, which culminated in July 1952 during Reagan's fifth consecutive term as SAG's president. Reagan and Laurence Beilenson, an attorney for MCA who had previously served as SAG's general counsel and had represented Reagan in his 1949 divorce from Jane Wyman, negotiated an exclusive blanket waiver with SAG that permitted MCA to engage in unlimited film production. The agreement violated SAG's bylaws, which prohibited talent agencies from employing their own clients, and no other talent agency was granted a similar agreement at that time. A Justice Department memorandum indicated that the waiver became "the central fact of MCA's whole rise to power."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> At the end of Reagan's fifth term, he began to have serious financial problems, particularly with the IRS. In response, MCA negotiated a deal with the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas--which was then operated by Chicago mobsters--for Reagan to host a song-and-dance show for two weeks and to receive enough money to cover his back tax debt. When Reagan returned to Hollywood, MCA, through its newly formed Revue Productions, hired him to host its flagship television program, <i>The General Electric Theater</i> for $125,000 a year. He was paid additional fees when he produced episodes for the series.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Despite his status as a television producer, Reagan remained on SAG's board in another violation of the guild's bylaws, which prohibited producers from holding office in SAG. In 1959, when Reagan ran for an unprecedented sixth term as SAG's president, his opponents raised the bylaws issue. P<b>ublicly, Reagan denied that he had ever produced <i>The General Electric Theater</i>--a flat-out lie.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Wasserman had encouraged Reagan to run again. MCA was facing sensitive negotiations with SAG over residual motion picture rights for actors. The issue eventually forced SAG to strike in 1960, and Reagan became the actors' chief negotiator. Labor attorney Sidney Korshak aided Reagan and the studios in the final settlement. Years later, <i>The New York Times</i> characterized Korshak as the link between the legitimate business world and organized crime.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <b> The contract that Reagan and company arranged with the studios is still known in Hollywood as "The Great Giveaway";</b> it provided residuals for actors only from films made after 1960. This greatly benefited MCA, which had purchased the film library of Paramount Pictures in 1959. Now, MCA could keep all the profits.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> In 1962, the Justice Department filed a federal antitrust suit against MCA on the basis that it was both a talent agency and a production company; SAG was charged as a coconspirator.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Reagan was the subject of criminal and civil investigations by both the FBI and a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. A Justice Department memorandum quoted a Hollywood source as saying, "Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Reagan was subpoenaed before the grand jury, but he appeared to experience amnesia during his testimony on February 5, 1962, and failed to recall the major decisions that had been made when SAG had granted MCA the exclusive blanket waiver in 1952. Federal prosecutors were so convinced that Reagan had perjured himself repeatedly during his testimony that they subpoenaed his and his wife's income tax returns for the years 1952 to 1955. Nancy Reagan had been a member of SAG's board of directors since 1951.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The entire transcript of this <a href="https://www.moldea.com/ReaganGJ.html">testimony</a> is contained in my 1986 book, <i>Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob</i> (Viking Press, pp. 167-201), which is now out of print. (Previously, the most influential book about Reagan--which contained only one brief cite in the index to MCA and no mention of Jules Stein--had been written by <i>Washington Post</i> reporter Lou Cannon, whose <b>1982 book,<i>Reagan</i>, had been published by Putnam, a subsidiary of MCA.)</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> However, in July 1962--in the wake of MCA's purchase of Decca Records, the parent company of Universal Pictures--MCA agreed to abolish its talent agency. As a result, all charges against and investigations of the company and its alleged coconspirators were dropped and the record of the case was sealed.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Deeply affected by the breakup of MCA, Reagan, a lifelong Democrat, became an anti-big government Republican. He had been urged to do so by his own political mentor, Taft Schreiber, a longtime MCA vice president, and by MCA's founder, Jules Stein, both of whom were active in Republican politics.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> On December 13, 1966, the month after Reagan was elected governor of California, Schreiber and Stein, along with Reagan's personal attorney, William French Smith (who later became Reagan’s attorney general),<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> sold 236 of Reagan's 290 acres in Malibu Canyon to Twentieth Century-Fox. The purchase price was $1.93 million, or $8,178 an acre—even though Fox's experts had appraised the land at only $944,000, or $4,000 an acre.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In July 1968, Reagan used the remaining 54 acres in Malibu Canyon (which were appraised at $165,000) as a down payment on a $346,950 property in Riverside, California, that he was buying from Kaiser Aluminum Company. However, there was a proviso in the contract that said that if Kaiser couldn't sell the 54 acres within a year, Reagan would have to buy them back.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> By July 1969, Kaiser hadn't sold the land. To bail Governor Reagan out, Stein set up the 57th Madison Corporation, which was chartered in Delaware, and personally purchased the property for $165,000.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Stein died in 1981, soon after Reagan’s inauguration as President of the United States.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> As President, Reagan watched as his Justice Department quashed <a href="https://www.moldea.com/MCAMusic.html">major federal investigations</a> of the Mafia’s penetration of both MCA and the entire motion picture industry, which were being conducted by the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Strike Force Against Organized Crime. Two highly respected Strike Force prosecutors, Marvin Rudnick and Richard Stavin, lost their jobs because of their refusal to succumb to pressure from the Reagan Administration.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Where were the future high-minded critics of Bill Clinton back then? And what are they doing now?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><center style=""><p /><div style="text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Dark Victory:</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span></u></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><u>Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob </u></font></font></font></font></div><font color="#000000" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font color="#000000"><font color="#000000"><font color="#000000"><font color="#000000">(Viking Press, 1986)</font></font></font></font></div><p style="text-align: left;"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Dan E. Moldea</font></p><p /><hr width="25%" style="text-align: left;" /><p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Chapter One</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="https://www.moldea.com/line3[1].gif" height="9" width="520" /></font></p></center><blockquote style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <b>P</b><font color="#000000">resident Ronald Reagan's professional life--his acting career, his personal financial fortune, and his rise in politics--has been interwoven with and propelled by a powerful, Hollywood-based entertainment conglomerate named MCA. For nearly fifty years, Reagan has benefited both personally and financially from his association with this sixty-two-year-old company--formerly known as the Music Corporation of America--as well as from his close association with the firm's top executives: Jules Stein, Lew Wasserman, and Taft Schreiber.</font></font><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Everyone involved has greatly profited from this relationship. MCA helped to make its client, actor Ronald Reagan, a multimillionaire; and the favors that were returned by Reagan, the former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the former governor of California, have helped to transform MCA into a billion-dollar empire and the most powerful force in the entertainment world today.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Reagan and his closest friends have portrayed and defended the president's business transactions with MCA, which date back to 1940, as being totally above suspicion. But there remain numerous unanswered questions and allegations about the relationship between Reagan and MCA. These doubts raise delicate issues that involve possible personal and political payoffs--as well as links to major Mafia figures, particularly Beverly Hills attorney Sidney Korshak, who has been described by federal investigators as the principal link between the legitimate business world and organized crime.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> In 1962, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice tried to resolve some of these questions, but their secret investigation was settled out of court before the evidence could be presented. The results of the probe were never made public, and no one close to MCA was ever indicted. However, through the Freedom of Information Act, many of these documents have been recovered and are excerpted in this book.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> These records show that Reagan, the president of SAG and an FBI informant against Hollywood communists, was the subject of a federal grand jury investigation whose focus was Reagan's possible role in a suspected conspiracy between MCA and the actors' union. According to Justice Department documents, government prosecutors had concluded that decisions made by SAG while under Reagan's leadership became "the central fact of MCA's whole rise to power."</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Over the past two decades, Ronald Reagan has refused to answer any in-depth questions about how he amassed his personal wealth--currently estimated at more than $4 million. In 1976, when he first ran for president, and again in 1980 and 1984, Reagan managed to avoid any intense scrutiny of his finances. His financial ties to MCA have been virtually ignored, relegated to the category of ancient history.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Nor has Reagan ever been asked about his personal, financial, professional, or political relationship with Sidney Korshak--who has repeatedly appeared to be involved with Reagan and several of his top advisors throughout their careers.</font></font></p><p /><hr size="1" width="75%" /><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> MCA first began to receive national attention in 1946, when a federal court in Los Angeles ruled against the company for antitrust violations. At the time, MCA was simply a talent agency, booking bands in nightclubs and actors in motion pictures. In rendering his decision, the presiding judge declared that MCA held a virtual monopoly over the entertainment business. This antitrust suit, one of many legal actions filed against MCA over the past fifty years, involved a San Diego ballroom operator who had accused MCA of demanding exorbitant prices from him to book bands for his dances--charging him much more than competing ballrooms were paying for their musical acts. The jury found that MCA's practices had restrained trade in the band-booking business, and it awarded the ballroom owner a $55,000 judgment.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> In deciding against MCA, the judge called the talent agency "the Octopus . . . with tentacles reaching out to all phases and grasping everything in show business." The image of "the Octopus" remained and became MCA's nickname in both the Hollywood trade and the press.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Years ago, a motion picture executive commented, "A studio can't exist for any time without some contact with MCA. I would say it's impossible to operate without them. Jack Warner [the head of Warner Brothers] tried it. He couldn't hold out for long."</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Today, MCA is still "The Octopus," even though it is out of the talent agency business and now the owner of the largest motion picture and television production companies in the United States, Universal Pictures and Universal-Television. Headquartered in the stark, imposing, black-steel and glass tower at Universal City on the edge of California's San Fernando Valley, the giant, two-billion-dollar conglomerate has offices in major cities all over the world and owns businesses in book and music publishing, a major record company, transportation systems, home video marketing, recreation services, a savings and loan company, real estate, data processing, mail-order purchasing, retail store merchandising, and cable television.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> But, far and away, MCA's major business is show business. "They own it," comedian Jerry Lewis once quipped.</font></font></p><p><font color="#000000"><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> During the 1950s, MCA's then-television subsidiary, Revue Productions, became the world's most successful producer and distributor of television film series. Each week Revue supplied the television networks with some forty hours of programming, including such top-rated shows as <b><i>Wagon Train</i></b>, <b><i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents</i></b>, <b><i>The Jack Benny Show</i></b>, <b><i>Ozzie and Harriet</i></b>, <b><i>Dragnet</i></b>, <b><i>This Is Your Life</i></b>, and <b><i>Leave It to Beaver</i></b>.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> After MCA bought Universal Studios made plans to produce motion pictures as well as television programs, Revue became Universal-Television in 1962, creating such shows as <b><i>Marcus Welby, M.D.</i></b>, <b><i>Columbo</i></b>, <b><i>McMillan and Wife</i></b>, <b><i>Kojak</i></b>, <b><i>The Six-Million-Dollar Man</i></b>, <b><i>The Rockford Files</i></b>, <b><i>The Incredible Hulk</i></b>, <b><i>Magnum, P.I.</i></b>, and <b><i>Miami Vice</i></b>. Under MCA, Universal Pictures has won three Academy Awards for Best Picture for <b><i>The Sting</i></b>, <b><i>The Deer Hunter</i></b>, and <b><i>Out of Africa</i></b>. And the studio has also produced such financial blockbusters as <b><i>Airport</i></b>, <b><i>American Graffiti</i></b>, <b><i>Jaws</i></b>, <b><i>E.T. the Extraterrestrial</i></b>, <b><i>On Golden Pond</i></b>, and <b><i>Back to the Future</i></b>.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> For years, MCA has been viewed by its clients, rivals, and the business press as the General Motors of Hollywood. Despite the company's vast power within the entertainment industry, most Americans have never heard of MCA. Since the company was founded in 1924, it has cultivated an air of mystery about itself. In an industry that thrives on publicity, MCA's executives have thrived on anonymity. The guiding credo at MCA has always been that publicity is for the clients, not the company.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> It is a show business legend that one of the ways MCA agents tried to remain anonymous was to dress extremely conservatively--in black or dark-gray suits, white shirts, and dark, narrow ties. The top executives set the example, which everyone followed. MCA's management team was credited with bringing a correct, Ivy League dignity to a profession that had previously been characterized by plaid-jacketed, cigar-smoking agents who did nothing more than "peddle flesh." MCA believed agents should look, dress, and act like other businessmen and bankers. With the MCA dress code came the reputation for ruthless efficiency. During the 1950s, competitors derisively called MCA's aggressive agents "the black-suited Mafia."</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"><b> The brains behind MCA was Jules Stein, a Chicago ophthalmologist who discovered that he could make more money booking bands.</b> When Stein and an associate, Billy Goodheart, founded the Music Corporation of America in 1924, they began empire-building--with the help of James Petrillo, the head of the American Federation of Musicians, with whom MCA maintained a sweetheart labor-management relationship. According to Justice Department documents, Petrillo was paid off in return for favors to MCA. Taft Schreiber and Sonny Werblin were among the first two top MCA assistants, followed by Lew Wasserman, who was groomed as Stein's heir and was named president of the company in 1946; Stein then became MCA's chairman of the board.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> The rise of MCA and its move to Hollywood paralleled the rise of the Chicago Mafia and its infiltration of the motion picture industry. While MCA was representing some of the top motion picture stars, Chicago mobsters took control of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the major Hollywood labor union--through Willie Bioff, a small-time hood, who was supervised by Chicago mob lieutenant Johnny Rosselli. The studios made payoffs to the underworld for labor peace--and to keep their workers's wages and benefits to a minimum. But when the studios' payoff man was caught for evading federal income taxes, he plea-bargained with the government, implicating Bioff, but not the Mafia, in the extortion scheme. Bioff was indicted and convicted--and then turned state's evidence against his cohorts, who were also convicted and sent to prison.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> The Chicago Mafia's role in Hollywood did not end with the convictions; it simply changed. Chicago's new liaison in the motion picture industry became attorney Sidney Korshak, who had represented Bioff. Charles Gioe, a top Chicago Mafia figure, had told Bioff that Korshak was "our man . . . any message he may deliver to you is a message from us."</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> A close friend of Stein's and Wasserman's, Korshak quickly became one of the most powerful influences in the entertainment industry and in California politics. One of his key political connections was another former Chicagoan, Paul Ziffren, who at one point was California's delegate to the National Democratic Committee. (He would not seek reelection after his ties to major organized crime figures were exposed by a national magazine.) Korshak also associated himself with top Republican leaders to hedge his bets--and always have friends in power.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> In the late 1940s, Hollywood shifted its attention away from the Mafia's infiltration of the film industry to its infiltration by communists. Ronald Reagan, a young actor who was represented by Wasserman and MCA, was a star player during the investigation and hearings by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), serving as both an informant for the FBI and a friendly witness for the committee.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> After his performance in the war against communism--which included support for IATSE, the union formerly controlled by Bioff that was still run by his same executive board--Reagan was rewarded by being elected as president of the Screen Actors Guild, serving for five consecutive one-year terms.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> <b> In 1952, during his fifth term, Reagan engineered a "blanket waiver," exempting MCA from SAG rules prohibiting a talent agency from also engaging in film production</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Reagan's second wife, actress Nancy Davis, was also a member of the SAG board of directors at the time the MCA-SAG deal was made. MCA was the only such firm to have been granted such a favored status, giving it the ground floor in television production. It placed the company in a position where it could offer jobs to the actors it represented. Other talent agencies complained that this situation gave MCA an unfair advantage.</span></font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Soon after Reagan's tenure as SAG president ended, he found himself in serious financial trouble. With his film career on the skids, Reagan was saved by MCA with jobs in Las Vegas and on television. According to Justice Department documents, several government sources believed that the preferential treatment Reagan received from MCA was a payoff for services rendered while Reagan was the president of SAG.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In 1959, the SAG membership reelected Reagan as president of SAG for a sixth term to lead an impending strike against the studios--despite the fact that Reagan had been producing episodes for MCA/Revue's <b><i>General Electric Theater</i></b>. According to SAG's by-laws, producers, even if they were primarily actors, are disqualified from serving on the SAG executive board. Previous board members faced with similar situations had resigned; Reagan refused to do so.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Although MCA and a handful of smaller studios made an early, separate peace with SAG and continued production, the major motion picture companies held out, causing the strike to last six weeks. In the end, according to the president of IATSE, Reagan's final settlement with the big studios came with the help of Sidney Korshak--with whom Reagan had allegedly been associated. The 1960 contract was so unsatisfactory to the SAG membership it has since been called "The Great Giveaway." Reagan resigned in midterm soon after the strike.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> After several abortive attempts to investigate MCA for antitrust violations, the federal government--upon the election of John Kennedy as president and the appointment of Robert Kennedy as attorney general--began a concentrated probe into MCA's business affairs. The government had evidence that MCA had engaged in numerous civil and criminal violations of law and empaneled a federal grand jury to hear the specifics of its charges, which included restraint of trade, conspiracy with SAG to monopolize talent and film program productions, extortion, discrimination, blacklisting, and the use of predatory business practices.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Among those called to testify was Ronald Reagan, who displayed a remarkable loss of memory while on the witness stand. Soon after, the federal income tax records of Reagan and his wife were subpoenaed for the years following the MCA-SAG blanket waiver.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> In the midst of the grand jury's investigation, MCA purchased Universal Pictures and its parent company, Decca Records. The government immediately went to court, seeking to block MCA's takeover of the corporation. However, after lengthy negotiations between attorneys for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and MCA, a consent decree was issued and the case was considered closed. The litigation forced MCA to choose whether it wished to be either a talent agency or a production company. Considering that its production efforts yielded nearly ten times more money than the talent agency, the decision was an easy one: MCA dissolved its talent agency.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Reagan has admitted that the government's breakup of MCA affected his political beliefs, inclining him toward a more conservative, antigovernment stance. Beginning with the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964 and then with his own bid for governor of California in 1966, Reagan's reactionary tone enhanced his image with other conservatives but nearly cost him his job with <b><i>General Electric Theater</i></b>. Among the guiding forces in the shaping of Reagan's political philosophy were MCA's Jules Stein and Taft Schreiber. According to law-enforcement authorities, several of Reagan's campaign financiers were close friends and associates of Sidney Korshak.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Stein and Schreiber--as well as Reagan's personal attorney, Los Angeles labor lawyer William French Smith--made several questionable transactions on Reagan's behalf, making him a multimillionaire overnight. Once governor, Reagan made executive decisions that were greatly beneficial to MCA and other corporations with motion picture studio interests.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> The same year that Reagan was elected governor of California, Paul Laxalt was elected governor of Nevada. Both Laxalt and Reagan had been heavily involved in the Goldwater campaign. The two men, as governors of neighboring states, became close friends while the latter tried to "clean up" Nevada's image. However, during Laxalt's tenure, a scandal broke out in Las Vegas over a corporation that owned several casinos. Korshak was the major target of the federal investigation that followed. Although Laxalt has been linked with Korshak's associates and clients, he has denied any association with Korshak.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Although Laxalt chose not to seek a second term as governor, Reagan did and was reelected. Laxalt returned to practicing law and then opened a gambling casino in Nevada--which failed. Laxalt then ran for the U.S. Senate and won. While serving as a senator, Laxalt ran Reagan's campaigns for the presidency in 1976 and again in 1980. Laxalt then became general chairman of the Republican National Committee.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Meantime, Stein removed himself as MCA's chairman of the board and was replaced by Wasserman--who was succeeded by the head of Universal-Television, Sidney Sheinberg. MCA grew enormously under Wasserman and Sheinberg. Its only major failure was an attempt to mass-produce a home entertainment system-- consisting of video discs, containing motion pictures and other programs, which could be played on machines hooked up to standard television sets. However, MCA's idea was eclipsed by a similar product marketed by its rival RCA and another system developed by Sony, utilizing videocassettes that could do everything the MCA and RCA systems did as well as record television programs. Nevertheless, MCA continued to shatter box-office records with its blockbuster motion pictures while its television productions soared in the network ratings.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> Wasserman also became increasingly involved in politics. He had supported President Jimmy Carter but then had a falling out with him after Reagan announced his 1980 candidacy. Korshak, a Democrat who had supported Reagan during his 1970 reelection bid for governor of California, ha been the target of a four-part series in June of 1976 in the <b><i>New York Times</i></b>, which described him as "a behind-the-scenes 'fixer' who has been instrumental in helping criminal elements gain power in union affairs and infiltrate the leisure and entertainment industries." Although Korshak was not on record as supporting either Carter or Reagan in 1980, his close associate, Democrat Paul Ziffren, became a law partner of William French Smith, who later became Reagan's attorney general.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> During the presidential campaign, Reagan met privately with known associates of organized crime and appointed others to his personal campaign staff. Several of these people were later given high positions in the Reagan administration after his election. President Reagan talked tough about the organized crime problem in the United States, while surrounding himself with many who were closely linked to those who have created it.</font></p><p><font size="+1" face="Times New Roman"> To illustrate this web of power and manipulation, this story has been organized chronologically, minimizing whatever reader confusion might result from the proliferation of names, events, and dates contained in the narrative. The common thread through this story is the corporation MCA. In tracing its history, I have concentrated on the parallel and sometimes intertwining careers of Ronald Reagan, Lew Wasserman, and Sidney Korshak--and how these three men have affected political, business, and labor history in America.</font></p></blockquote></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2635094/EXCLUSIVE-Revealed-MAFIA-helped-Ronald-Reagan-White-House-Shocking-documentary-reveals-Mob-connections-catapulted-presidency-probe-thwarted-highest-levels.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, how the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House. Shocking documentary reveals Mob connections that catapulted him to the presidency - and how a probe was thwarted at 'the highest levels'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Reagan owed his acting and political career to Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, chief of entertainment behemoth MCA, who was in bed with the Mob </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An investigation into the relationship between MCA and the Mafia was halted and Federal prosecutors believe it was one of the 'political favors' that can be traced back to Reagan's White House</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything,' one secret Justice Department document revealed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the producer of the documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, one MCA executive had ties to Mob boss John Gotti</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by MCA,' he asserts, and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Mob was probably working Nancy Reagan too, according to the producer. 'She was a driving force behind Reagan'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By JERRY OPPENHEIMER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED: 14:22 EST, 21 May 2014 | UPDATED: 04:42 EST, 22 May 2014</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> e-mail </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">119</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View comments</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A shocking new documentary screened exclusively by MailOnline exposes the chilling conncections between the Mafia, one of Hollywood's most powerful entertainment companies and its head honcho Lew Wasserman and President Ronald Reagan and his Justice Department. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the mid-1950’s to the early 1960’s, Sunday evenings were reserved for millions of families to sit in front of the tube and watch the General ElectricTheatre on CBS hosted by genial Ronald Reagan, whose movie career had since dried up. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Television had offered him another chance.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What viewers didn't know was that Reagan was given this new opportunity of visibility and stardom in a highly lucrative and rare deal. Along with a big paycheck, he was made part-owner of the popular program that he hosted for eight years, making him extremely wealthy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scroll down for exclusive video</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thick as thieves: Hollywood powerhouse Lew Wasserman was Ronald Reagan's mentor, once described as 'the Godfather of the film industry.' A new documentary seen exclusively by MailOnline explores Wasserman's connections to the Mafia and how that influenced the man who would be president and his First Lady<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thick as thieves: Hollywood powerhouse Lew Wasserman was Ronald Reagan's mentor, once described as 'the Godfather of the film industry.' A new documentary seen exclusively by MailOnline explores Wasserman's connections to the Mafia and how that influenced the man who would be president and his First Lady</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His mentor, close friend and the power behind the deal was Lew Wasserman, the very private head of the Music Corporation of America, better known as MCA, a Hollywood entertainment behemoth. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under Lew Wasserman's brilliant and often brutal leadership, MCA's hugely financially successful forms of mass entertainment have been popular for generations of couch potatoes and movie-goers: from Leave It to Beaver to Miami Vice on television; from American Graffiti to Jaws on the big screen.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a talent agency in the beginning, its rich acting stable had included Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda and Bette Davis. Wasserman had personally signed and represented many of them. Charlton Heston once described Wasserman as the 'Godfather of the film industry.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ronald Reagan, however, was the brightest star in Wasserman's personal firmament.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Driving force: According to the film's director, Nancy Reagan was 'the driving force behind Reagan. The mob was probably working her too. She was the one who was pushing him into everything'<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Driving force: According to the film's director, Nancy Reagan was 'the driving force behind Reagan. The mob was probably working her too. She was the one who was pushing him into everything'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's a case that one participant in the film declares ‘dwarfs the Watergate scandal’.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Reagan nor Wasserman were ever prosecuted, let alone interrogated as a result of the events presented in the film because both were so well-insulated. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reagan died in 2004 at 93 after suffering from Alzheimer's for a decade, and Wasserman died in 2002 at 89. He was said to be one of the largest contributors to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seven years before Wasserman’s death, President Clinton -- who like Reagan got a lot of campaign and financial support from Hollywood power brokers -- presented Wasserman with the nation's highest civilian honor in a ceremony at the White House, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, produced and directed by Philadelphia filmmaker Shawn Swords, whose previous highly acclaimed documentary revealed the shady business practices of popular TV icon Dick Clark, will soon have it's world premier.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But MailOnline has been given an exclusive screening of the complex film which includes candid interviews with, among others, two former top Justice Department prosecutors and an ex-FBI agent who were spearheading the ill-fated top-secret probe of MCA. These men lost or left their jobs when their investigation was suddenly ordered shut down at 'the highest levels in Washington,' according to Swords and those he interviewed on camera over a two to three year period. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Power player: MCA chairman Wasserman held sway over Hollywood. With his clout, he helped get Reagan elected president of the Screen Actor's Guild, Governor of California and then President. Federal investigators were pursuing his mob ties when the investigation was suddenly halted<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Power player: MCA chairman Wasserman held sway over Hollywood. With his clout, he helped get Reagan elected president of the Screen Actor's Guild, Governor of California and then President. Federal investigators were pursuing his mob ties when the investigation was suddenly halted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Stavin, a former veteran federal prosecutor who was assigned to the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Los Angeles and was an integral member of the MCA-Mafia probe team, declared in the film for the first time:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'It's my belief that MCA and its' involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance. I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'At the time, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and Edwin Meese was the Attorney General of the United States [Stavin's ultimate boss]. A little known fact was MCA and Lew Wasserman supported Ronald Reagan when he wanted to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the launch of Mr. Reagan's political career.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'I would like to think that the people in the highest levels of this government were not protective of MCA...But I'm not so sure about that.' </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stavin left his Mafia crime-fighting career to which he was dedicated because, as he said on camera, </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'I was unable to fulfill the duties for which I took my sworn oath.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another veteran federal Strike Force prosecutor involved in the probe of organized crime infiltration at MCA, Marvin Rudnick, known for his bulldog tenacity, was shockingly fired by the Justice Department and considered 'rogue' because he wanted to continue to pursue the suspected MCA bad guys, even if the trail led to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Disillusioned: Richard Stavin, a former federal prosecutor, left his Mafia crime-fighting career because he was unable to fulfill his duties. 'It's my belief that MCA and its involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance,' he says. 'I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA'<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Disillusioned: Richard Stavin, a former federal prosecutor, left his Mafia crime-fighting career because he was unable to fulfill his duties. 'It's my belief that MCA and its involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance,' he says. 'I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the investigation was mysteriously ordered closed. He was later reinstated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'For the Justice Department to kill the case was a little extraordinary,' Rudnick declared on camera. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'You wonder where it starts and where it ends. We did not get the investigation done because of intereference from high up.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Special Agent Thomas G. Gates, who was heading up the FBI end of the investigation, declared in the film: "The powers trumped what we were trying to to do. The players within MCA tried to stay as low-key as they could. I don't know how much influence Wasserman was able to put on President </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reagan when he was in office because he [Wasserman] was always a backdoor participant, but we knew who he was associating with."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gates stated that information about the probe 'was leaking out that shouldn't have happened' from the Justice Department in Washington.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film's director, Shawn Swords, asserted to MailOnline that the Mob or MCA actually had a mole in the Justice Department. "It was somebody who was feeding information to the Mob and MCA. The FBI knew it was one of twelve people, but they couldn't finger the guilty one.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Along with Rudnick's firing, and Stavin's quiting after his part of the MCA probe was shut down, all of the sealed files and wiretap documents were said to have mysteriously disappeared from a supposedly secure federal government warehouse in Maryland.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who was pulling the strings behind all of these questionable events, the more than two-hour documentary essentially asks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video playing bottom right...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Click here to expand to full page</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As an unnamed Hollywood source was once quoted in a Justice Department document: "Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Shawn Swords said about Reagan and MCA, 'One hand washed the other. That relationship was so incestuous, and Ed Meese, who was the attorney general [appointed by President Reagan] who headed the Justice Department was really good friends with the board of directors at MCA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by them and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means. MCA backed every political campaign he ran. That's the shocking history -- that MCA was prevalent in his career and that they did so much quid pro quo for each other.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Ronald Reagan was an opportunist. His whole career was guided by MCA -- by Wasserman and [MCA founder] Jules Stein who bragged that Reagan was malleable, that they could do what they wanted with him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'That thing about Reagan being tough on [organized] crime -- that's a fallacy.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Reagan's movie career was fading and Wasserman had difficulty getting him starring roles, a decision was made that would launch his political career. In 1947, with the aggressive support and backing of the Godfather at MCA, Reagan was elected president of the powerful Screen Actors Guild, known as SAG, a position in which he would serve for some seven terms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bulldog: Strike Force prosectutor Marvin Rudnick was fired by the Justice Department and considered 'rogue' because he wanted to continue to pursue the suspected MCA bad guys, even if the trail led to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bulldog: Strike Force prosectutor Marvin Rudnick was fired by the Justice Department and considered 'rogue' because he wanted to continue to pursue the suspected MCA bad guys, even if the trail led to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SAG's bylaws had always banned talent agencies like MCA from producing any form of entertainment, such as TV programs and movies. But during Reagan's fifth year as the guild's president a secret blanket waiver was negotiated with SAG, and it gave MCA and Wasserman the platinum opportunity to not only market talent as agents but also to move into TV and film making. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the waiver was granted, MCA formed MCA Television Limited that handled syndication, and then Review Productions to make TV and films, and got the jump on any competitition, making it a Hollywood powerhouse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Reagan ran into financial difficulties it was MCA under Wasserman that got him lucrative land deals that made him even wealthier. The General Electric Theater that Reagan hosted and for which he even produced programs was an MCA-Review property. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, with support and campaign financing from MCA and associates, some with shady ties, MCA benefited from some of his executive decisions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fast forward to the mid-1980s when Reagan was in the Oval Office. MCA was then in negotiations to sell out to the giant Japanese company Matsushita Electric Industrial for billions of dollars. From that deal Wasserman reportedly was to benefit to the tune of $500 million.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SAG swag: Ronald Reagan held court at the Screen Actors' Guild for seven terms. At one point he was able to change to rules to greatly benefir MCA and Wasserman's bottom line by allowing the management company to produce TV and film projects<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SAG swag: Ronald Reagan held court at the Screen Actors' Guild for seven terms. At one point he was able to change to rules to greatly benefir MCA and Wasserman's bottom line by allowing the management company to produce TV and film projects</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the big danger for him and his company, dubbed the 'Octopus,' because its tentacles were in virtually all aspects of the entertainment business, was an ongoing U.S. Justice Department probe into suspected organized crime influence at MCA and in particular Wasserman's long purported ties to Mafia figures.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the probe became public, it would most likely have impacted Wall Street and MCA's publicly held stock, and possibly driven away the Japanese buyers and the lucrative purchase. Wasserman, according to the documentary, wasn't going to let that happen.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Justice Department-FBI investigation into Mob ties within MCA started by chance when organized crime strike force prosecutor Marvin Rudnick came across intelligence that a man by the name of Salvatore Pisello was in the hierarchy of MCA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A red flag instantly went up. How and why, Rudnick wondered, was a high-ranking soldier in the Gambino Mafia family of New York who was known to his associates as 'Sal The Banker', 'Sal the Swindler,' and 'Big Sal,' doing businesss in MCA's offices in Universal City.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thwarted: FBI Special Agent Thomas G. Gates, who was heading up the FBI end of the investigation, declared in the film: 'The powers trumped what we were trying to to do'<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thwarted: FBI Special Agent Thomas G. Gates, who was heading up the FBI end of the investigation, declared in the film: 'The powers trumped what we were trying to to do'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pisello had just been sentenced to four years in prison on tax evasion charges, and Rudnick at a hearing in U.S. District Court in L.A. stated that evidence had been uncovered linking him to 'criminal activity in the record industry.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pisello had denied any involvement in organized crime, and declared, 'I'll go to prison for 20 years if anyone can prove that. I go to church every Sunday and the only organization I ever belonged to was the Holy Name Society.' Regarding his MCA connection, he declared, 'I'm in the record business for one year and I'm supposed to have destroyed the industry.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But his connections and dealings became the target of several federal grand jury probes. MCA denied knowing anything about his alleged organized crime links, and claimed to have no idea how he got in the door.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The investigation though led to other crime figures involved with MCA before it got shut down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another source interviewed on camera in the documentary, investigative reporter William K. Knoedelseder, Jr., author of Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business and the Mafia, published in 1993, had for a dozen years been covering organized crime and other corruption in the entertainment industry for The Los Angeles Times. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He began writing revelatory stories for the paper about Rudnick and Stavin's investigation, and was the first to report that Pisello 'wound up in high-level meetings with MCA officers' negotiating lucrative record deals 'that would place him among the best-paid executives in the industry.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But like Rudnick and Stavin, the series of stories was a newspaper career-ender for Knoedelseder. He was ordered by editors to stop writing about MCA, and he quit his job, according to a 2006 book called 'Supermob' that also dealt with Reagan, Wasserman and the Mafia, and it noted that the publisher of the LA Times at the time had gotten his job 'thanks to Lew Wasserman's kind intercession.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rudnick had also been ordered to drop his end of the investigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'I was told by my boss not to introduce evidence that was embarrassing to MCA,' he stated in the documentary. 'My office was being told by somebody higher up to stop the investigation to show how Pisello got into MCA which was the most important part of the case. MCA executives weren't cooperating because somebody high up in MCA was trying to kill the deal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'For MCA to be doing business so closely with Pisello was a primary example of what the Strike Force should be doing, and when the Strike Force looked the other way and turned it down, then you know darn well interference took place. As a prosecutor we should be investigating the people who are interfering, not just walking away from it and this is what I tried to do.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point, Rudnick realized he was being followed as he made his investigative rounds. When he told his superiors in Washington, their response was, 'We got your back.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dapper Don: Mafia boss John Gotti was found by investigators to have ties to an MCA executive<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dapper Don: Mafia boss John Gotti was found by investigators to have ties to an MCA executive</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Rudnick, 'MCA decided to reach out and try to kill our case which they eventually did. MCA sent people out to follow me while I was driving, they stopped a wiretap that was legal. They were able to interfere with all kinds of official acts, but nobody at the highest levels of the Justice Department seemed to care or wanted to stop it. It went all the way to the top.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the course of the investigation before it was shut down by powers in Washington the probers found another alleged Mob connection at MCA -- Eugene Giaquinto, who was the head of MCA Home Video. Wiretaps had caught Giaquinto talking to 'La Cosa Nostra people in the East,' and the FBI agent Gates stated on camera that 'Wasserman was Giaquinto's mentor and promoted in the MCA's Home Entertainment Group which was very powerful.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Stavin, Giaquinto, who was an executive at MCA for some two decades, had ties to Mob boss John Gotti, and it was learned by the investigators that when a power struggle between two division heads at MCA had erupted it was allegedly resolved by Gotti, dubbed the 'Teflon Don,' and the 'Dapper Don,' who was Boss of New York's Gambino Family at the time. He died in prison in 2002. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one bizarre spin-off to the whole complicated case, Gotti was asked to kill a planned movie in which the actor James Caan, who starred in "The Godfather" reportedly was to play the role of Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Giaquinto, a target of the MCA-Mafia probe, reportedly was involved in trying to get the film blocked. Caan dropped the project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deal with the devil: GE Theater saved Ronald Reagan's career and a big payday. MCA's Wasserman set up the deal and after that Reagan owed the mogul big time, says the documentary producer<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deal with the devil: GE Theater saved Ronald Reagan's career and a big payday. MCA's Wasserman set up the deal and after that Reagan owed the mogul big time, says the documentary producer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the book Supermob, Giaquinto was identified as the source who went into action to get the MCA-Mafia probe brought to an end. The author quoted the source as recalling Giaquinto going ballistic and declaring, 'I'm calling [Attorney general Ed] Meese and getting this thing stopped right now.' The book also quoted an attorney for several MCA executives who had been cooperating with Strike Force prosecutor Marvin Rudnick as saying, 'There was [talk] about how Ed Meese wanted certain actions taken because Nancy Reagan had a friend in high places in the entertainment industry.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Swords, 'The Mob were probably working her, too. She was on the board of governors for the Screen Actors Guild. She was a driving force behind Reagan. Apparently she was the one who was pushing him into everything.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mrs. Reagan turns 93 this coming July 6.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the once liberal democrat Reagan became a popular screen star and later switched political allegiance and became a conservative Republican political hero to millions, Wasserman was little known to the general public. A tall and gaunt man of mystery who sported oversize eyeglasses and dressed like a mortician -- black suits, white shirts, black ties, Wasserman made his army of underling agents dress similarly. In the business of entertainment , they were considered 'the black-suited Mafia.'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wasserman was seen as frighteningly ruthless with a temper that made powerful men cringe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His mentor in the begining of his career was Jules Stein, an opthalmologist from the Windy City who in the early years of the Roaring '20s had founded the Music Corporation of America, which booked bands in the midwest, and had close ties to shady figures, reputedly members of the Chicago Mob.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A poor boy from a Russian immigrant family, Wasserman grew up in Cleveland, worked as a movie house usher at night, and after getting his high school diploma -- he never went to college -- joined up with what was known as the Mayfield Road Gang, an Italian-led Mafia organization with ties to the Jewish mob -- helping to run a casino.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Connections: President Bill Clinton -- who like Reagan got a lot of campaign and financial support from Hollywood power brokers -- presented Wasserman with the nation's highest civilian honor in a ceremony at the White House, the Presidential Medal of Freedom<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>+10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Connections: President Bill Clinton -- who like Reagan got a lot of campaign and financial support from Hollywood power brokers -- presented Wasserman with the nation's highest civilian honor in a ceremony at the White House, the Presidential Medal of Freedom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moving up the career ladder in Chicago, Wasserman was recruited by founder Jules Stein who saw him as a bright boy with good ideas and made him an MCA talent agent. Stein was well-connected: his MCA was booking bands for the flashy nightclubs and crooked gambling houses run by legendary crime boss Al Capone. By then, Wasserman had taken a wife -- his attorney father-in-law reportedly was a reputed Mob mouthpiece.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the late '30s, Stein and Wasserman followed the adage of Horace Greeley and went west, setting up shop in the ritzy center of the entertainment industry -- Beverly Hills, around the same time that the Chicago Mob was putting down roots in the movie capital.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of all the incredible acting talent in the MCA stable of clients, the first to ever receive a $1 million movie contract was Ronald Reagan-- a deal Wasserman negotiated for him with Warner Brothers Studios in 1941. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wasserman apparently saw a future for Reagan far beyong the acting world. Wasserman was just 36 when Stein anointed him MCA's president, the youngest to ever hold such a position of power. It was in the late '40s that Wasserman saw MCA as a major player in the new technology known as television.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Hollywood, where all movies and their characters have an arc, Wasserman's rise to power ended after the Justice Depatment's organized Crime Strike Force investigation was killed. The sale of MCA went through to the Japanese for $6.5 billion in 1990. Wasserman had a role in management for a time. But when MCA was sold again to the Seagram Company in 1995 for $5.7 billion, </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wasserman wasn't even told. By then his power was gone.</font></div></div><div>
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