-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: The Arizona Project Michael Wendland�1977 ISBN 0-8362-0728-9 Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc. 6700 Squibb Rd. Misson Kansas 66202 276 pps. - first edition - out-of-print New revised edition - available amazon.com Paperback, 304pp. ISBN: 0945165021 Blue Sky Press, Incorporated June 1988 --[6]-- 6 The Friends of Barry and Robert Goldwater The team was rapidly settling into the investigation by the end of the second week. Groups of reporters were working a dozen different stories and the files were growing so rapidly that three women were hired to index the various reports and memorandums. With just one exception, everyone got along famously. Reporters, particularly the investigative kind, are not renowned for their humility. The team's organizers had wondered at the beginning whether so many fragile egos could coexist within the confines of such a project. The reporters literally lived and worked together twenty-four hours a day. The nineteenth floor of the Adams resembled a college dormitory, with newsmen wandering in and out of each other's rooms around the clock. The only exception was Peyton Whitely, a handsome, six-foot-four-inch young reporter from the Seattle Times who arrived just after the Arrowhead escapade. Whitely and Greene just did not hit it off. Whitely considered Greene too secretive and arrogant. Greene thought Whitely, who had the annoying habit of saying "huh," not as a question but as an excla[i]mative, whenever someone spoke to him, a prima donna. For a few days, the two warily skirted one another. At dinner, Whitely's "huhs" constantly interrupted Greene's long, detailed stories. Whitely voiced skepticism on the progress of the investigation and complained to other reporters that Greene had blown up at him when he once tried to correct some minor inaccuracies in the files. On another occasion, Greene caught Whitely Xeroxing an IRE file that he had planned to send to his editors back in Seattle. Whitely lasted less than a week. For some time after he left, the other reporters found themselves saying "hub" a lot. The habit was catching. Tom Renner, Newsday's organized crime expert, remained "Deep 'n Dirty," Greene's expression for undercover. Special memos prepared by Renner on his various travels around the state would come into the IRE office almost nightly. Since nobody except Greene had laid eyes on him, the other reporters began to speculate on what he really looked like. Drehsler and Wendland kidded around by pointing to a derelict on the street, winking, and whispering to colleagues"Tom Renner, he's a master of disguise." They continued the game for weeks, fingering every strange looking character they spotted for the elusive Renner. Gradually, Renner became a fixation with some of the office workers. The only signs of his existence were an occasional phone call and the amazingly comprehensive memos he dispatched for the files each day. His "Deep 'n Dirty" status inspired the reporters to draw up a design for a special T-shirt, depicting a heavy-set, trench-coated reporter furtively scribbling in a notebook. A local sports shop took the design and printed the shirts. But Greene, promising to send one along to Renner, refused to let anyone wear them outside the office until the project was done. Drehsler then proposed a second T-shirt, to be given to all IRE news sources. "All it will have on it is a giant bullseye," he smiled. During the late evenings, some of the reporters had laid claim to a small room off the hotel's downstairs bar. It was there that the "Babaluba family" was born. Weary of reading the exhaustively detailed background reports on organized crime families, one night the reporters decided to create their own, disguised as a memo from Renner. The mythical family was headed by "Bobby (Bubba) Babaluba, of Burbank, who is big in barbiturates, barbut, broads, booze, and bookmaking." The family's hit man was "Bill (Bang Bang) Brown, a black, who was known to use a Baretta, baseball bat, and blade, and was linked to the following unsolved murders: Buster Bancom, a Barstow banker; Barney Bioff, his brother; and Beatrice Bankoff, who Bang Bang bang-banged." The memo was placed on Greene's desk the next morning. It ended up, amid much laughter, as a special introductory file for all IRE initiates. Later, reporters wrote an obituary for their mythical mobster: "Bobby (Bubba) Babaluba, 64, died last night while imbibing at the Balboa Bay Bistro near Burbank with a big, boisterous banker from the Bahamas. The bulbous bad guy reportedly barfed his last three bonbons, blinked several times, and bent over the buffet bereft of breath." Not to be outdone, Diane Hayes, a schoolteacher hired to help out with the indexing, and student volunteers Carol Jackson and Nina Bondarook added a follow-up report on the activities of Babaluba's wife: "Following the burial of her beloved Bobby Babaluba, a bereaved Betty (Booby) Babaluba bopped back to Bisbee (Ariz.) for a brief break from her bitter bereavement. While basking in the bright Bisbee sun Booby bumped into Bernard (Baby Face) Burgleburp, a butcher from Baskerville. As fate would have it, Booby and Baby Face became bosom buddies ... browsing the boulevards buying big bottles of brandy and bouquets of buttercups to bind their budding affair. . . ." The phony memo-writing continued. Harry Jones of the Kansas City Star took first prize for this parody of the typical dry style, including coded news sources, that each reporter used for legitimate memos: QS- 112, a knowledgeable source, has just returned from St. Louis, where he interviewed QS- 113 surreptitiously about the mob's ties to the B. V. D. Co., which manufactured IRE's T-shirts. B. V. D., he says, stands for Bianco- Vitale-DiGiovanni. The Biancos are very big into agribusiness in California. Vitale is a St. Louis mobster of long standing. The DiGiovannis of Kansas City (Scarface Joe and Sugarhouse Pete) are heavy into wholesale and retail liquor. Cotton for B.V.D. comes from a twenty-acre plot south of Arrowhead Ranch near Phoenix. This twenty-acre plot is owned by Pablo Fellicinio, a half-Mexican, half-Sicilian son of an Apache squaw who is rumored to have married into the C. Arnolt Smith family back in the early 1920s. Fellicinio began as a cotton-picker but won ten of the present acres in a high-stakes poker game in 1931 from a nephew of Al Capone. The nephew's name is not known. Incorporation papers were destroyed in a hotel fire in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1 948. The cotton Fellicinio grows is processed through a Greek-Negro originally from St. Paul named Sambo Zarros, who has ties to Detroit's Black Mafia leaders from the late 1960s. Zarros originally was involved in the smuggling of hot piccolos and flutes from Vienna into New York, where several musicians fenced them to members of the Phoenix Philharmonic Orchestra, a major contributor to which has long been Barry Goldwater. A Demaris-Reid book on organized crime, The Cotton Picking Mafia, relates that T-shirts were first invented in the southernmost province of Sicily in 19 42; were brought to the U.S.A. by Lt. Col. Archie Tromboni, a U.S. Army officer who helped liberate Sicily during World War II (with mob help). Originally known as "underwear shirts" in Sicily, they were named after Tromboni, thus T-shirts. Tromboni tried to set up a nationwide T-shirt syndicate but made the mistake of using Las Vegas as his headquarters. It was about this same time in the same city that Bianco, Vitale, and DiGiovanni (B. V. D., remember?) were in the process of importing Nevada sand to beaches near San Diego. Once they had formed and bled that company of its assets, they entered the washing machine business (probably to help them wash illegal gambling profits). This brought Vitale into contact with the ex-colonel, Tromboni, whose nephew, Thomas (Tootie) Tromboni, promptly married Vitale's daughter by an earlier marriage. The nuptial link was not enough, however, to prevent a Vitale hit man from drowning the elder Tromboni in a latemodel washing machine in 1959, enabling Vitale to acquire majority stock ownership in T-Shirt Enterprises, which became B.V.D. Co. in 1964. Of major interest now is how IRE happened to contract with B. V. D. for its Deep 'n Dirty T-shirts, and whether they will shrink when washed. No one topped Jones's memo, which remained tacked on the IRE bulletin board for the duration of the project. Nonsense aside, the project was moving along rapidly. Good, solid contacts had been made with the Intelligence Unit of the Phoenix Police Department, the so-called "I Squad," an elite, twenty-one-man division of police detectives who specialized in keeping track of mobsters and organized crime. Renner had returned from his forays with high praise for the unit. "We can trust them," he told Greene not long after the project began. "Their reputation is spotless." Incredible as it sounded, in a state torn apart by organized crime, the I Squad was the only outfit of its kind in Arizona. Greene and Drehsler made quiet contact with the unit. Operating out of a series of cramped, cubbyhole offices filled with file cabinets and cardboard boxes jammed tight with reports, the squad's organized crime operations were directed by Lt. Glenn Sparks, a political science graduate from ASU. Dapper of dress and soft-spoken, the slightly-built, forty-three-year-old Sparks listened carefully as Greene made the pitch. "We obviously need help," Greene explained. "You're the man and this is the unit that can provide it. What we need is cooperation." Sparks was actually glad to see the team come into his state. Though he knew the reporters' findings could seriously damage Arizona's national reputation, perhaps this group of outsiders could put things in perspective. Things were way beyond control. Organized criminals had been flocking to the state in recent years. The squad was hopelessly undermanned. Despite many unsolved murders, rampant land fraud, and obvious signs of political corruption, nobody in authority seemed to give a damn. Yeah, he told Greene, he'd help, he'd do whatever he could. For starters, the reporters were interested in learning more about the status of the Bolles case. Sparks then told them about a small white card with a childish code. >From this clue the reporters not only learned more about the conspiracy that led to Bolles's murder, but, more importantly, came to understand the hopeless position law enforcement in Phoenix had found itself in during the summer and fall of 1976. Lonzo McCracken was a forty-two-year-old detective with the Phoenix Police Department. He worked with Sparks in the I-Squad and was a good friend of Don Bolles. Besides a sort of professional bond stemming from McCracken's work in investigating land fraud, an area Bolles himself had once concentrated on, the two were bound by something much more personal. Each had a child with severe hearing problems. They saw each other frequently as members of a parents' group for the hard-of-hearing child. Another member of that group was Mickey Clifton, a Phoenix attorney. It was Clifton who provided police with the card. And how he got it shed significant light on the Bolles killing. A moderately successful lawyer who did a lot of his drinking in the same North Central Avenue cocktail lounges frequented by Adamson, Clifton was more than interested in the Bolles case. He knew both the victim and the suspect. So he was surprised when, shortly after the Bolles bombing, Adamson approached him with an incredible tale. Whether Adamson was looking for legal advice or just shooting off his mouth, Clifton never really knew. But Adamson wanted Clifton to know that he had planted the bomb beneath the reporter's car. Further, Adamson said he had been hired to kill one other person, a man named Al Lizanetz, a colorful local character known to police and the news media as King Alfonso. Once an employee of rancher Kemper Marley, Lizanetz had devoted the past two years to a campaign of letter writing and pamphleteering, accusing Marley and a handful of Phoenix businessmen of graft and corruption. Most people had written Lizanetz off as a harmless crackpot, since his allegations were both vague and unsupported. But the person who hired him to kill Bolles, Adamson told Clifton, also wanted him to murder Lizanetz. That person, said Adamson, had given him a small white card to use if he ever needed lawyers or cash. Then, incredibly, Adamson gave Clifton the card, explaining only that he didn't want it anymore. At the top right side of the card was a code name for the man Adamson said hired him: "John Smith." To the left of the code name was written "Yellow 782" and "White 286." These were references to the page numbers in the telepho ne directory's yellow and white pages where Adamson could reach two contacts for "John Smith." Adamson said he was supposed to call these contacts not only for money and legal help, but also if he had some message to pass to "Smith." Apparently, this simple code was too complicated for Adamson. Thus, the full names and phone numbers of the contacts were written in right below the code. The first name was "Dwight Charles Flickinger-258-8831." Flickinger was also an attorney, a law partner of James Colter, the chairman of the Republican Party for the state of Arizona. Under Flickinger's name was written "Max Dunlap�265-5914." Dunlap, who had used a third partner in the FlickingerColter law firm, Benton L. Blake, as his attorney, was the Lake Havasu contractor who was the business partner and protege of rancher Kemper Marley. After Adamson showed him the coded card, Clifton didn't know what to do. He recognized the significance of the names he had seen. This could be proof of a conspiracy. Adamson had not asked him for legal advice. So technically there was no counsel-client relationship. Clifton was sickened by the coolness with which Adamson had confessed the killing but he was also frightened. Now he knew. Was he in danger? Briefly, Clifton debated whether he should keep Adamson's admission secret. But he had known and liked Don Bolles and, in good conscience, could not remain silent. He called Detective McCracken. He was almost in tears. For one thing, he was frightened. Adamson had come to him as a friend. He gave the information to McCracken, asking for anonymity. The card and Adamson's remarks to Clifton pointed to one man: Kemper Marley. McCracken turned over a full report to the department's Homicide Division, which was handling the Bolles investigation. And Intelligence was told to stay out of the case. All of this had transpired the week after the Bolles killing, Sparks told the reporters. It was now mid-October. And Adamson was still the only person charged in the case. "Jesus," Drehsler said. "I can't believe it." Greene wanted information on the Maricopa County prosecutor's office. Specifically, he wanted to know about Moise Berger, who had suddenly resigned as County Attorney a few weeks after the Bolles killing. Greene had heard that the police had a tape recording in which Berger laid open the problems the office was having. There was indeed such a tape, secretly recorded by Detective McCracken on August 4, 1975, when Berger came to the I-Squad to discuss the frustrations lawmen were experiencing with organized crime prosecutions. According to his long, rambling conversation, Berger was a bitterly disillusioned man. "I think what's going on is this," the tape transcript quoted Berger as saying to McCracken. "I think, this is my own personal belief and it's not professional, but I think you guys are being held back." "Like a, City Council or a . . . ?" "Yeah, I think they are secretly keeping you from getting the people you need, and I think the reason is they know damn well, if you had a large enough staff-some of the people you would get. I think this is true over on our side, too. I think those guys on the Board of Supervisors feel the same way, that if we had the people they would be afraid of what we would be doing." "Yeah," McCracken agreed. "I thought about that. I wondered why the state, even at the state level, why they don't put twenty investigators on it." "Yeah, you been frustrated a lot of times on cases," Berger acknowledged. "And I've been frustrated the same way. See, I know these bastards are out to get me." McCracken wanted the prosecutor to be more specific. "You mean the Board of Supervisors, or a . . . ?" "It's not just the Board. You know, I feel like there's a coalition out there of people." At the head of the power structure Berger put Harry Rosenzweig, the longtime GOP power broker and chief financial backer of Barry Goldwater. "It starts with Rosenzweig," Berger continued on the tape recording, "who's pissed off first of all because I didn't do some favors for them. They wanted me to drop some cases, reduce some charges, and I wouldn't do it." "Yeah," said McCracken, wanting him to keep talking. -Rosenzweig, he calls up the Board and tells those guys, don't give the county attorney anything because he's not playing ball. Okay, so that's the way that goes. Then we start finding out that Rosenzweig has got himself involved in some of this." "Yeah, involved," offered McCracken, keeping Berger going. "Yeah, prostitution, I feel that prostitution in this state is being allowed. Now I'm not a moralist, you know what I mean. You know, probably in a lot of respects prostitution is in some ways a good thing." "Yeah. "But on the other hand, we do have it on our books as against the law," Berger said. "And we have a lot of it going on involving some very prominent people. Some of these people are guys like Rosenzweig, who's been involved in it. And I don't think these things are by accident. I think everybody in power, back there behind the scenes, is working together. There is a power structure out there." Briefly, the conversation turned toward Berger's own problems in getting additional manpower and a proposal then being debated before the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors which would appoint a special prosecutor outside of Berger's office, staffed with six investigators. "But why have it that way except that those guys would not be answerable to me," Berger told the police officer. "They would never investigate Rosenzweig or any of these other things. Now they are getting scared. Because you see what's happening. With you working and gradually developing any of this stuff, more and more of it is kind of leaking out, it's coming out front." "Well," said McCracken, "just keep pecking away at it. It's about the only thing we can do, you know." "Yeah. But you end up with the same damn frustrations for years." "Yeah. "And the reason is very simple," said Berger. "The goddamn lid is on the son-of-a-bitch all the way from the very top." Berger did not know the conversation with McCracken was being taped. But the officer did so for good reason. Under Berger, organized crime prosecutions had dwindled to a mere trickle. While the police could make the cases, the prosecutor's office was not taking them to court. McCracken submitted a formal report, dated January 19, 1976, with a complete transcript of the secre t recording. Concluded the officer: "These statements by Berger clearly indicate that he is not his own master and he is told what cases are not to be prosecuted. Considering this is true, it goes a long way in explaining Berger's actions as the County Attorney and his track record." The tape transcript gave the reporters several major new leads and a shopping list of details that needed confirmation. The first person the team wanted more information on was Harry Rosenzweig. For Rosenzweig, a stately, gray-haired man nearing the age of seventy, was clearly the "Mister Big" of Arizona. Rosenweig was "old family," a native Phoenician born and educated in the city when it was still a dusty cowtown. In October 1976, he and his younger brother, Burke, ran Rosenzweig's Jewelers, a venerable old firm opened by their father in 1912, the same year the Arizona Territory was admitted into the Union. Harry's business, civic, and political biography filled two typewritten pages. He was a founder of the North Central Development Company, which immodestly named its impressive downtown financial development the Rosenzweig Center. He was on the board of the Phoenix Art Museum, helped found the city's Better Business Bureau, raised funds for Phoenix's leading charities, served as president of the Downtown Merchants Association, and belonged to the prestigious Phoenix Country Club and the old-line Arizona Club. It was Rosenzweig who masterminded the successful 1952 Senate race of his boyhood chum, Barry Goldwater. Since then, he had been Goldwater's chief financial backer and fund-raiser. He was one of Goldwater's closest advisers during the senator's unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1964 and was a national Republican committeeman, state GOP chairman, and Maricopa County Republican Committee finance boss. Rosenzweig was the only person by Goldwater's side the night the senator's presidential ambitions ended in the crush of Lyndon Johnson's landslide. In state and local politics, Rosenzweig's word was law, thanks to the dozens of legislators, county supervisors, and judges who owed their political existence to his power. Rosenzweig's open second-floor office, its walls filled with "Man of the Year" awards and autographed photographs of his political pals, overlooked the main floor of his downtown jewelry store. Each afternoon he could be seen holding court up there for those who needed favors, while below, nervously pacing between the diamond showcases, the next petitioner waited. But the IRE files also painted a different picture of Harry Rosenzweig. Back in 1952, the year he ran Goldwater for the Senate, Harry had done a big favor for a friend of his, a man known as William Nelson. A reporter from the Arizona Republic had discovered that "William Nelson" was really Willie Bioff, a convicted pimp and extortionist living under an assumed name given him by the FBI after Bioff's ten-year sentence for labor racketeering had been reduced in exchange for testimony against five members of Al Capone's old gang. The reporter, who was tipped to the hoodlum's identity by an anonymous caller, had written a story exposing Nelson-Bioff. The story never ran, thanks to Harry Rosenzweig's power. For a man supposed to be in hiding, the stocky, bespectacled Bioff had been extremely visible, lunching three times a week with Rosenzweig, hobnobbing with the elite of Phoenix society at the stodgy old Arizona Club, and wheeling and dealing his way between Phoenix and Las Vegas as a virtual commuter. How Harry Rosenzweig had met Nelson-Bioff no one could find out. Reporters who had uncovered the relationship years before were simply told that Rosenzweig had always known him as an honorable gentleman whose past was old history. Indeed, when Nelson-Bioff came to Rosenzweig in 1952, telling him of the impending newspaper story, Rosenzweig said he was shocked and saddened. He said he believed that Bioff had reformed. So Rosenzweig went to Gene Pulliam, the crusty, conservative owner of the Republic and persuaded him to spike the Bioff story. A grateful Bioff then gave Rosenzweig $5,000 as a "contribution" to Goldwater's senate race. Their friendship blossomed and grew by two: Senator Goldwater and Gus Greenbaum. Soon Bioff was accompanying Goldwater to various social events around the state, often flying aboard the senator's private airplane. Greenbaum, who had come to Phoenix in 1928 from Chicago and had become the controlling power in Arizona gambling, eventually hired Bioff to help him in Las Vegas, where Greenbaum took over the mob's interests in Las Vegas gambling, first at the Flamingo, then at the Riviera. Goldwater several times visited Greenbaum in Vegas. The foursome lost one of its members on November 4, 1955. That's when Bioff's mob associates, angered by his past history of informing and his carelessness with funds, planted a bomb in his pickup truck and blew him to bits. At the inquest into the murder, which remains unsolved, Bioff's widow, Laurie, named Rosenzweig as one of her husband's closest friends. Attending the funeral with Rosenzweig was Senator Goldwater. Questioned by reporters, Goldwater first maintained he knew nothing about Bioff's background. Later, he claimed to be using Bioff as a source of information about labor racketeering. Rosenzweig, reporters later discovered, had borrowed $10,000 from Bioff several days before the murder. He had used the money to finance a cotton venture he and the senator's brother, Robert, were undertaking in Fresno, California. Rosenzweig said he repaid the loan to Mrs. Bioff a few days after the killing. Meanwhile, the fast-talking Greenbaum continued as the guardian of the mob's Vegas interests. For a while, he did well. But then he began drinking and gambling like there was no tomorrow. His lifestyle of booze, broads, and blackjack eventually took its toll on his health. A Vegas doctor gave him heroin to soothe his jangled nerves. Addiction followed. Back in Phoenix for a rest, on December 3, 1958, Greenbaum and his wife were found with their throats slit. Again, there were no arrests, though police learned that the mob had tried to pressure him to retire from Vegas. Unfortunately, Greenbaum was trapped: if he ever did leave, his successor would surely discover the skimming he had done at the Riviera to cover his gambling losses. Goldwater and Rosenzweig attended his funeral, as they had Bioff's. Rosenzweig even volunteered to serve as the appraiser for the Greenbaum estate. Confronted by reporters after the funeral, Goldwater said once again that he had no idea of Greenbaum's background. There were other mob associations in the backgrounds of both Rosenzweig and Senator Goldwater which IRE reporters dug up in old police files and court records. Clarence "Mike" Newman, a childhood friend of both Rosenzweig's and Goldwater's, had inherited Phoenix's gambling action when Greenbaum and Bioff moved to Las Vegas. In 1959, Newman was arrested by federal authorities in a crackdown on the widespread gambling activity in Phoenix. On the day that Newm an was sentenced by Federal Judge David M. Ling, Harry Rosenzweig was in the courtroom, observing the proceedings. Court officials later admitted that Rosenzweig and Senator Goldwater had personally intervened on behalf of their friend, persuading the judge to hand down a light sentence. Newman drew just a six-month prison term. And then there was Morris B. "Moe" Dalitz, the contact man between the mob and the rich Teamsters Union pension fund, who helped consolidate mob control in the Southwest in the late 1940s with the likes of Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Peter Licavoli, Sr. Identified in the 1950 Kefauver hearings as a top U.S. gangster, Dalitz was a golfing partner of Robert Goldwater, and he invited the Goldwater brothers, who were then running the family department store, to open a branch store in his Desert Inn in Las Vegas, a venture which proved extremely lucrative for the Goldwaters. If the information contained in the McCracken-Berger tape was accurate, it appeared that Harry Rosenzweig, Barry Goldwater's close friend and associate, Phoenix's "Man of the Year" in 1975, might be involved in criminal activities like prostitution and in influencing the prosecution of certain criminal cases as the head of a coalition" of men who ran Phoenix. On October 15, Greene and Drehsler decided to pay a call on Don Harris, Berger's appointed successor in the office of county attorney, to see where he stood on the issue of political corruption. A slim, dark-haired man in his late thirties, Harris had been born in Brooklyn and had moved to Arizona with his family at thirteen. As a lawyer, he had done well for himself in private practice, earning upwards of $100,000 a year handling mostly corporate and business clients as well as representing professional athletes in contract negotiations. Since taking the interim appointment, he had appeared on the CBS television program "Sixty Minutes" and had consented to dozens of interviews with magazine and newspaper reporters investigating the Bolles case. In many instances, his remarks extended beyond the case into the nebulous area of speculation. His frequent comments provided plenty of ammunition for Adamson's defense attorneys, who were sure to charge that pretrial publicity had jeopardized their client's chance for a fair trial. Greene and Drehsler picked Harris up at his office for lunch. Harris suggested Durant's Restaurant on North Central Avenue. IRE files identified Jack Durant, the owner of the restaurant, as a past associate of the murdered hoodlum Gus Greenbaum. Greene and Drehsler exchanged glances as they drove to the crowded, single-story eating spot. For several minutes, the reporters made small talk, explaining who they were and why they were in Arizona, that they were looking into gambling, organized crime, official corruption, land fraud, and narcotics. Harris quickly volunteered that he had given up his high-rolling habits in Las Vegas for the duration of his appointment. "I've told the people who provide me with the junkets to stay away until my term is over in ninety days," he said. He was asked what he knew about Gus Greenbaum. "Nothing," he replied. "I was too young when he was around. All I know is that he was the biggest bookie in the state." Slowly, the reporters steered the conversation towards Harry Rosenzweig, who had been so close to Greenbaum. Harris was eager to talk about Rosenzweig, whom he described as a "highly respected man." He confessed to Greene and Drehsler that Rosenzweig and Barry Goldwater, whom he called "Mister America," had been his boyhood idols. Harris was proud of serving on a couple of civic groups with Rosenzweig. The reporters then brought up the police tape of Moise Berger. The existence of the tape had not been entirely secret. Reporters from the Republic had written a story about it several months earlier, though Rosenzweig's name had never made it into print. Harris said he had not read the Republic story, nor a later piece run by the N ew York Times. However, he had read a Time magazine article which referred to Berger's remarks and to an allegation that Berger had been romantically involved with a secretary who worked for a land sales company owned by Ned Warren, the swindler and land fraud artist Berger had been unsuccessfully prosecuting before he left office. Greene wanted to know whether the taped remarks by Berger might warrant an investigation into Rosenzweig's influence. "I don't know about any admissions by Berger," said Harris, as his tone suddenly chilled. "Look, I have only been in office since August 11." Drehsler pointed out that the publicity over the tape had appeared after Harris took office. "I told you, I haven't seen the article." "But you knew that such a tape had apparently been made, or at least that it was being discussed," countered Greene. "I don't know what the hell is supposed to be on any such tape." "Then don't you think you should find out, be more aggressive in seeking out the tape and finding out what it contains?" asked Greene. Harris, looking over his shoulder, became angry and defensive. "Look, I am not going to be a puppet for you guys. If you can show me evidence that there is a tape of some kind, then I'll call a grand jury investigation on Monday morning because Berger may have committed crimes." The reporters knew that the actual tape recording had been destroyed by the police. But a transcript existed. And the reporters had a copy of it. "There is such evidence," Greene said. "We have some information that clearly indicates there was a tape." "Fine, bring it into my office this afternoon." Greene realized that Harris was pulling a fast one. If he was sincerely interested in pursuing the tape, he could simply order the police to provide him a copy of the transcript. No-Greene and Drehsler believed that what Harris really wanted was to get them into his office and trip them into some sort of comment which could later be used to discredit the IRE investigation. The only tape that would come from such a meeting, Greene believed, would be H arris's recording of it. "We're tied up this afternoon," said Greene, "but maybe we can work something out with you next week so you can see what I have. "Fine." But there was something that Harris had said a moment before that the reporters wanted to pick up on. "Look, you said that if such a tape existed, you'd want to investigate Berger. But if what Berger was supposed to have said on it was true, wouldn't Rosenzweig be equally guilty of a conspiracy? What we're wondering, quite frankly, is whether this lack of aggression on your part is due to the fact that Rosenzweig is a sacred cow around here?" Harris vehemently denied it, repeating that if the reporters could show evidence of such a tape, then he would call a grand jury to look into the matter. Again, the reporters felt it wasn't their job to provide the tape transcript. They were newsmen, not volunteer prosecutors. Besides, if Harris really wanted it, he knew where to look. The interview ended without lunch. Harris said he was late for an appointment and had to return to his office. As they dropped him off at the downtown county building, Harris said he wished he had more time to spend with the reporters and would have to invite them out to his house for dinner and a long, uninterrupted talk some night. The reporters agreed, realizing full well that no such invitation would be forthcoming. So far, there was no reason to suspect that the secret transcript they had obtained was unreliable. But to be sure, there was one other person who had to be contacted: Moise Berger, the former county attorney. Berger had left Phoenix in August under a cloud. He had been accused of hiding a large stack of documents indicating payoffs to state real estate officials by land fraud artist Ned Warren, Sr. Berger denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing documents, which had been provided to the county attorney's office by a Warren associate. He claimed that the papers had been "lost" by one of his assistant attorneys. Then the Time magazine story had intimated that he had been involved with one of Warren's secretaries. None of the allegations had ever been proven, but, together with his failure to nail Warren, the state's most infamous swindler, they had seriously damaged his reputation. After relocating in California, where he quickly passed the bar examination, he obtained a job as an instructor at the Western State University College of Law. On October 24, Harry Jones, the Kansas City Star reporter, flew to San Diego. Arriving at Berger's new office at the college, Jones found that he had just missed his source. A secretary said Berger had left for home fifteen minutes before. Jones got Berger's address and home phone number and killed a half-hour walking the downtown streets to give Berger time to get home. He dialed the number from a pay telephone booth. Berger answered the call. Jones identified himself, going easy, hoping not to spook his source. He suggested that they meet face to face that evening or the next morning, a Saturday. "Sure," said Berger, "I think I can swing it tonight. Let me check with my wife." So far so good, thought Jones as he waited for Berger to come back to the phone. A couple of minutes passed. Then Berger returned, explaining that he couldn't locate his wife, who must be across the street visiting neighbors. Could he call Jones back in half an hour? "No, I'm in a pay phone. Let me call you." Jones had been that route before, when a source promised to call back and then never did. This was a bad sign. Once a source agreed to talk, it had to be followed through with immediately. Otherwise, he could too easily change his mind. And that's exactly what had happened when Jones called back. "Look, I've thought it over and I really don't want to see you," said Berger. "I don't know anything that would be of any help to you anyway." Jones couldn't let it drop there. He asked about the police tape. Yes, Berger was now aware of its existence. No, he had never bothered to request a transcript; he was sure it was accurate. Beyond that, he had nothing more to say. Bingo. Jones had at least gotten Berger to confirm the meeting with police and the fact of the tape. "On the tape, you said that you had been approached by Rosenzweig and asked to drop some cases," said Jones. "Which cases were they?" Berger hesitated. He didn't want to answer. Jones kept pushing. "I really can't remember. Oh, wait, there was the Erskine case. Yeah, Rosenzweig came to me and asked me to ease up. I wouldn't do it. It really didn't make any difference. The case finally went to a jury and the kid was acquitted." The "kid" Berger spoke of was John Erskine, a nephew of Barry Goldwater's, who had been arrested in 1975 on a charge of selling marijuana to undercover police officers. A telephone is the worst possible medium for interviewing a reluctant news source. It always works to the source's advantage. In in-person encounters, a reporter can usually press a subject as far as necessary. Only rarely does the source cut it short. There's something about personal contact that compels most people to be polite. Berger obviously had nothing more to say. Jones thanked him, gave him the IRE phone number in Phoenix, and urged him to call if there was anything more that he could think of. Berger could not have hung up faster. Meanwhile, other reporters were either en route or arriving daily. As October entered its final week, George Weisz joined up. At twenty-five, just graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with a Master's in public administration, Weisz could have chosen any one of several careers. His father is William Weisz, the Motorola Corporation's board president. George's future was assured if he wanted to go into business. But he didn't. George wanted to be a cop. His thesis was a 400-page dissection of Tucson's notorious organized crime structure. During the nearly three years spent preparing it, Weisz had made contact with a large number of journalists throughout the West. It was Dick Lyneis, a reporter from the River side (Calif.) Press, who first thought of Weisz when the IRE project started. An IRE board member, Lyneis was familiar with Weisz's knack for research and analysis. He knew that the kid had just graduated the past summer and was job hunting, hoping to hook up with a police agency. Lyneis tracked him down in Chicago, where Weisz was staying with his parents, and asked him if he would like to join the IRE team as an analyst-researcher. Weisz was ecstatic. Now he had a chance to do some real work, to follow through on some of the leads he had been developing from school. He accepted on the phone. However, there was one hitch. IRE had no money to pay him. He would have to cover his own expenses. "My father may be rich, but that doesn't mean I am," Weisz explained. "I supported myself through school. Everything I've done, I've paid for." And he was just about broke. He told Lyneis that he just couldn't afford the trip. For two days, he was thoroughly depressed. The IRE people were doing what he had always dreamed of-investigating organized crime and political corruption with a free hand. This was an opportunity that would not happen again. Besides, he hadn't earned anything from the thesis research. What was a few more months of free work? He telephoned Lyneis back and said he'd come after all. He found a free place to stay in Scottsdale at the home of a fraternity brother, and was in Phoenix with four huge boxes of research notes the last week of October. Greene was delighted. Weisz was just the sort of person the team needed. Though he wasn't a journalist, he had the keen mind of an accountant. He could sort through hundreds of pages of corporate and financial records and plot out A to Z. There were a number of individuals and firms that needed such analysis. Weisz was very welcome indeed. After the excitement of the Arrowhead Ranch escapade, the reporters were ready for more. Most newsmen like the world to think they are fatalists and seldom aroused. In truth, like small boys chasing firetrucks, reporters crave action. They were disappointed to learn that Greene had more record checking in mind. "Now we've done well so far," he told the group at the morning staff meeting the day after Weisz arrived. "But where did the leads come from? The files, that's where. So right now, we're going back to them. We've got a lot of holes to fill." One of the first had to do with Arrowhead, its origins and owners. After a few days of record checking and analysis, the reporters had filled these holes. The first transaction the IRE team examined occurred in 1955, when Detroit mobsters Joseph Zerilli and William "Black Bill" Tocco and produce broker Carl Jarson purchased the ranch. In his interview with Wendland, Jarson had intimated that the hoodlums had been minority partners in the Arrowhead operation. But files dug out of musty county recorder offices showed otherwise. Reporters found telegrams from Zerilli and Tocco which dictated the arrangements under which Arrowhead would be set up. The telegrams showed they were clearly in command. Around the same time as the Arrowhead purchase, Zerilli, Tocco, and Jarson joined with several other men to form a fruit marketing association. One of their new partners was John Curci, a California and Arizona grower. But further research produced even better information. The records indicated that on July 21, 1955, the Zerilli group first bought 3,900 acres, paying $2.6 million, or about $658 per acre. The terms of the purchase called for a $1.8 million mortgage, a down payment of $5 50, 000, and the remaining $7 10, 000 due on January 3, 195 6. All that was standard enough. What happened next wasn't. For according to the records, on the very same day that Zerilli's combine made its initial purchase-July 21, 1955�it sold 975 of the acres. Zerilli's selling price on his newly bought land was $1,258 an acre, or almost double the per-acre price he had just paid. Who was the buyer foolish enough to pay so much? None other than one Arnold S. Kirkeby of Los Angeles. Kirkeby was an international financier with big mob connections. Before his death in a 1962 plane crash, Kirkeby was linked to Chicago mob interests. He was also the former owner of the National Hotel in Havana, Cuba, where mob moneyman Meyer Lansky had his office and operated the hotel gambling casino. Kirkeby and Lansky also knew Zerilli. Zerilli's sale to Kirkeby meant that, in effect, he didn't have to pay a cent for Arrowhead. Under the terms of the agreement, the 975 acres were sold for $1.2 million. Zerilli got a down payment of just over $750,000�or $200,000 more than the down payment he had to come up with in the first place. The balance of Kirkeby's money was due on January 3, 1956, and thus would help to cover Zerilli's second payment, due that same day to the ranch's original owners. The next owner of Arrowhead bought in some four years later. He was Del Webb, probably Phoenix's best-known citizen. Originally a carpenter who moved to Arizona in the 1920s, he became a respected national developer of shopping centers, retirement communities, office complexes, and hotels. For twenty years (1945-65) he was a part-owner of the New York Yankees. A personal friend of former presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower as well as of ex-FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, Webb was a self-made man and financial wizard, eulogized after his death on the Fourth of July, 1974, as the "personification of the American success story." He was the Roy Rogers of the land development business. Yet there he was in a puzzling business deal with two well-known Mafia hoodlums. The deal was puzzling for a couple of reasons. Greene had Les Whitten and Larry Kraftowitz, two of syndicated columnist Jack Anderson's best reporters, go through the Securities and Exchange Commission records in Washington, since Webb's company was a public corporation. They reported back that SEC records noted a purchase price of $3.8 million. But newspaper clips-from the Arizona Republic's morgue contained an announced price of $5 million. Reporters scouring through public records put the price at $3.4 million. It appeared that there were three different price tags for the ranch. One thing was clear: the Zerilli group had made at least $2 million for land it never had to put up anything for. Webb kept Arrowhead until 1966, when it was sold to Robert Goldwater, the brother of Barry Goldwater, and Joseph F. Martori, the aging patriarch of the prominent Martori family. And again, the IRE reporters found a confusing second real estate transfer which allowed Goldwater and Martori to secure the bulk of the cash needed for a down payment on the ranch. This time, Henry Crown, a Chicago investor, bought 360 acres of land owned by Martori a dozen miles from Arrowhead. The cost was nearly a million dollars, or an unusually high $2,778 per acre. A week later, on September 22, 1966, Martori and Goldwater purchased the main Arrowhead Ranch from Webb for just $685 an acre, only $27 more per acre than Zerilli had paid for it eleven years before. All this led reporters to the ranch's current status. In November 1976, it was a part of the giant Goldmar corporation, owned by Robert Goldwater and the Martori family. Old Joseph F. Martori had died in 1973. Harry Rosenzweig, the Goldwater brothers' chief business and political associate and the man Berger had referred to as head of the Phoenix power structure, was a recent member of the board of directors. So was John Curci, one of Detroit hoodlum Zerilli's partners in the fruit brokering business originally set up in 1955 to market Arrowhead citrus. And Carl Jarson, an original co-owner of Arrowhead with Zerilli, had bragged to Wendland that Goldmar was one of his biggest customers. Thus, while mobster Zerilli, at seventy-three, lived in Michigan and was ostensibly out of Arizona, some of his associates still had business interests in Arrowhead. Putting it all together, IRE had established links between the Goldwater brothers and Rosenzweig and organized crime figures going back more than two decades-associations which were still beneath the surface in the fall of 1976. pps. 73-92 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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