-Caveat Lector- Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.moldea.com/Four-12.html";>Four-12</A> ----- 12. Finding gold in Los Angeles Copyright © 2000 by Dan E. Moldea After spending two-and-a-half days with Jack Tobin and his files, I went to Santa Monica on Thursday, August 23, to visit with Larry and Vesna Leamer, two close friends from Washington who had recently moved to California. Looking at the books in Leamer's library, I grabbed a copy of Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon's highly-touted and reputedly definitive biography, Reagan, which had been published in 1982. However, in Cannon's index, there were no cites to MCA or its founder Jules Stein and only a brief, anecdotal reference to Lew Wasserman, Reagan's personal agent who wound up succeeding Stein as MCA's chairman of the board. Then, looking at Cannon's title page, I was shocked to see that his hardback book had been published by Putnam, MCA's publishing subsidiary--prior to Neil Nyren taking over as its publisher. "How could a reporter like Lou Cannon miss the Reagan-MCA connection?" I asked Leamer, who simply shrugged. "Either Cannon is stupid, or he just plain pulled his punch because his publisher was owned by MCA. Take your pick." Later, after hearing me mention the 1980 Knoedelseder-Farley article in the Los Angeles Times, Leamer shuffled through some papers on his desk and pulled out a large clipping from Daily Variety, "New Info on Reagan, MCA Waiver Probe," dated April 18, 1984. Written by staff reporter David Robb, the article explained previously untold details of Reagan's relationship with MCA, culminating with his testimony before a federal grand jury in February 1962 in which he was questioned about his relationship with the corporation. The story was so remarkable that I had to sit down to read it. And, when I finished, I read it again. "Does this Robb guy live in L.A.?" I asked Leamer. "Just call Daily Variety and asked for him." I looked up the telephone number in the phone book and called the paper. When the receptionist answered, I asked for Robb. "Dave Robb," a stern voice answered. "Is this the David Robb?" I asked. "Yeah." "My name is Dan Moldea. I'm an independent journalist and author from Washington, and I'm interested in your fabulous story about Reagan and MCA last April. Do you have plans for dinner tonight?" Reluctant, at first, to help someone he didn't know, Robb finally relented, telling me to meet him at Patty's, a popular diner in Tuluca Lake in the San Fernando Valley. Tall and thin with green eyes and a round face, the 35-year-old Robb and I could have passed as brothers. However, Robb was extremely gruff and suspicious. When I first saw him and introduced myself, I gave him a copy of The Hoffa Wars, which had my name on the cover and picture on the back flap. Not good enough for Robb, he wanted to see some real identification and demanded my driver's license. Obliging him, I pulled out my wallet and showed him everything I had, including my student I. D. card from Kent State. After a very pleasant dinner and a quick stop at a poker club in nearby Commerce, we went to Robb's apartment in Hollywood where he showed me a huge box, containing 6,000 pages of unsorted Department of Justice documents about Reagan, MCA, and the Screen Actors Guild that he had received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was an absolute gold mine. Even though Robb invited me to sleep on his couch, I wound up spending the entire night skimming through this wonderful material, which included a complete transcript of Reagan's 1962 testimony before a grand jury. The following day, Robb--who, despite his tough-guy exterior, turned out to be one of the finest people I have ever known--allowed me to photocopy anything I wanted; so I copied everything, most of which had not been published in Robb's only article about this subject. And, even though I had been extremely critical of Lou Cannon for missing--or ignoring--the Reagan-MCA connection, the fact was that none of the dozens of other books about Reagan had addressed this matter either. * * * Briefly, Ronald Reagan had come to Los Angeles in 1937 to make motion pictures. In 1940, MCA bought out the talent agency that represented Reagan; Lew Wasserman, a rising star in MCA, became Reagan's personal agent, negotiating 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. A sweetheart relationship developed between MCA and SAG, 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 represented Reagan in his 1949 divorce from actress Jane Wyman--negotiated an exclusive blanket waiver from SAG that permitted MCA to engage in unlimited film production. The agreement violated SAG's bylaws, which prohibited talent agents from employing their own clients. At the time, no other talent agency could receive a similar arrangement. A Justice Department memorandum in Robb's FOIA cache indicated that the waiver became "the central fact of MCA's whole rise to power." At the end of Reagan's fifth term as SAG president, he began to have serious financial problems, particularly with the IRS. MCA negotiated a deal with the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, which was owned and operated by associates of the Chicago Outfit, 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 film company, Revue Productions, selected him to host its flagship television program, the General Electric Theater for $125,000 a year. He was paid additional fees when he produced episodes for the series. Despite his status as a television producer, Reagan remained on SAG's board of directors in another violation of the guild's bylaws, which prohibited producers from holding office in actors' guild. In 1959, when Reagan ran for an unprecedented sixth term as SAG's president, his opponents raised the bylaws issue. However, Reagan denied, on the record, that he had ever produced any episodes for the General Electric Theater, which was an outright lie. In fact, Wasserman had encouraged Reagan to seek his sixth term. MCA was facing sensitive negotiations with SAG over residual television and motion-picture rights for actors. The issue eventually forced SAG to strike in 1960, and Reagan, as president, became the actors' chief negotiator. The contract that Reagan arranged with the studios is still known in Hollywood as "The Great Giveaway." It did provide residuals for actors--but only for films made after 1960; the studios kept everything before 1960, which was worth billions of dollars. This greatly benefited MCA, which had recently purchased Paramount Pictures's huge film library in 1959. (Later, the president of IATSE during the 1960 SAG strike told me that labor lawyer and Mafia mouthpiece Sidney Korshak, a close friend of Lew Wasserman, was directly involved in the negotiations with Reagan.) In 1962, the Justice Department filed a federal antitrust suit against MCA, alleging that it was both a talent agency and a production company; SAG was charged as a coconspirator. Reagan became the subject of both criminal and civil investigations by 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." Reagan was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, but he experienced amnesia during his testimony on February 5, 1962, failing to recall details of his role in the SAG-MCA blanket-waiver decision in 1952. Federal prosecutors were so convinced that Reagan had perjured himself repeatedly during his testimony that they subpoenaed his and his wife's federal income-tax returns for the years 1952 to 1955. His wife, actress Nancy Reagan, had been a member of the SAG board of directors since 1951. However, in July 1962--in the aftermath of MCA's purchase of Decca Records, the parent company of Universal Pictures--MCA agreed to abolish its talent agency as part of a consent decree with the Kennedy Justice Department. 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. Meantime, Universal quickly became the biggest film producer in the entertainment industry. Claiming that he was deeply affected by the breakup of MCA--which, in fact, had turned the company into an even more powerful multi-billion-dollar international corporation--Reagan, supposedly a lifelong Democrat, became an anti-big government Republican, just like his political mentors at MCA: board chair Jules Stein and vice president Taft Schreiber, both of whom were active in Republican Party politics. In return for Reagan's long-time loyalty to his benefactors, MCA, through its cooperation in selling Reagan's Malibu properties, helped Reagan to become a multi-millionaire--and, then, the governor of California. * * * On September 1, 1984, I left Los Angeles, feeling triumphant as I returned to Washington. Jeff Goldberg and I began working on our 20,000-word article about Reagan and MCA, trying to get it published before the November 6 Presidential election, in which former Vice President Walter Mondale was challenging Reagan's bid for reelection. Barred from approaching monthly magazines because of their tight deadlines and knowing that the daily newspapers would try to steal our story, Goldberg and I went to the new editor of City Paper, Mark Perry, an old frien d from Washington Independent Writers. Perry, another member of our Thursday night poker group, agreed to publish our story, "That's Entertainment: Ronald Reagan's Four Decades of Friendship With World Showbiz Colossus MCA," which appeared in the October 5-11 issue. But, despite our best efforts in this little publication, we had absolutely no impact on the election. The President slaughtered Mondale, whose running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, along with her husband, had been linked to New York mobsters in a major story by Jon Kwitny at the Wall Street Journal. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER =========CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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