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NARA and Its Political Oversight In Congress, An Eye Opener?


Guest Tom Scully

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Guest Tom Scully

NARA is building a new center in Missouri, a $100 million project said to be NARA's largest facility outside the Washington, DC , metro area.

The Irwin Molasky Group is reported to be building the new facility. Irwin is the nephew of the late Willie Molasky, a Race Wire partner of Moe Annenberg. Uncle Willie appeared before the Kefauver Criime Commission in 1950 with his attorney, Morris Shenker.

Born in 1927, Irwin Molasky is said in several books, to have been a Las Vegas development partner with Moe Dalitz, in a group called "DRAM" with the four principals being Dalitz. Adelson, Roen, and Molasky.

Willie's son was Allan Molasky and Allan's son was Mark Molasky. When he ran for Governor of Missouri in 1984, John Ashcroft, who later became the recent US Attorney General, enjoyed the benefit of the fundraising for his campaign by a man named Fred Steinbach, an employee of and partner in several businesses owned by Allan and Mark Molasky and a Molasky cousin.

Steinbach raised at least $1 million of the $1.6 million Ashcrroft raised in 1984 to beat his opponent, Roithman.

Steinbach became mayor of a Missouri residential district, but was forced to step down im 1990 after a female employee accused him of sexual misconduct. Ashcroft publicly distanced himself and the state republican party from Steinbach.

In an unrelated matter, Mark Molasky died in prison from an alleged overdose of pills in 1990 while he was serving a 32 months sentence on a conviction related to sexual molestation.

It appears that the proceeds of the Annenberg Race Wire operation, ended by the Federal and local authorities in 1952, are still influencing contemporary American politics. Could this large contract awarded by NARA to this Molasky Group be approved without the cooperation of the House subcommittee responsible for NARA oversight, chaired by Missouri Rep. Wm Lacy Clay Jr? Rep. Clay's father held the House seat before him, for 32 years. and he was an employee of steamfitters Local 562 before his initial campaign for congress in 1968. He was reported to have received substantial financial support in his 1968 campaign from Local 562.

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NARA is building a new center in Missouri, a $100 million project said to be NARA's largest facility outside the Washington, DC , metro area.

The Irwin Molasky Group is reported to be building the new facility. Irwin is the nephew of the late Willie Molasky, a Race Wire partner of Moe Annenberg. Uncle Willie appeared before the Kefauver Criime Commission in 1950 with his attorney, Morris Shenker.

Born in 1927, Irwin Molasky is said in several books, to have been a Las Vegas development partner with Moe Dalitz, in a group called "DRAM" with the four principals being Dalitz. Adelson, Roen, and Molasky.

Willie's son was Allan Molasky and Allan's son was Mark Molasky. When he ran for Governor of Missouri in 1984, John Ashcroft, who later became the recent US Attorney General, enjoyed the benefit of the fundraising for his campaign by a man named Fred Steinbach, an employee of and partner in several businesses owned by Allan and Mark Molasky and a Molasky cousin.

Steinbach raised at least $1 million of the $1.6 million Ashcrroft raised in 1984 to beat his opponent, Roithman.

Steinbach became mayor of a Missouri residential district, but was forced to step down im 1990 after a female employee accused him of sexual misconduct. Ashcroft publicly distanced himself and the state republican party from Steinbach.

In an unrelated matter, Mark Molasky died in prison from an alleged overdose of pills in 1990 while he was serving a 32 months sentence on a conviction related to sexual molestation.

It appears that the proceeds of the Annenberg Race Wire operation, ended by the Federal and local authorities in 1952, are still influencing contemporary American politics. Could this large contract awarded by NARA to this Molasky Group be approved without the cooperation of the House subcommittee responsible for NARA oversight, chaired by Missouri Rep. Wm Lacy Clay Jr? Rep. Clay's father held the House seat before him, for 32 years. and he was an employee of steamfitters Local 562 before his initial campaign for congress in 1968. He was reported to have received substantial financial support in his 1968 campaign from Local 562.

Hi Tom,

I met one of Rep. Clay's staff from the House Oversight Committee Subcommittee on Information Policy, NARA and Census, who attended our COPA meeting at the Stewart Mott House this morning.

He said that the fact no hearings have been held is a testiment to the fact that there is strong opposition against such hearings from other branches of the government, especially the intelligence community.

Clay apparently attended some of the HSCA hearings and is familiar with most of the issues, but you don't swing hundred million dollar government contracts for your district by being palsey walsey with assassination researchers.

He's in tight with those with the power and money, and as you pointed out, he learned a lot about how the system works from his father.

Of course Annenberg was Nixon's ambassador to the Court of St. James, once held by Joe Kennedy, and besides owning the wire service horse book, he also owned the Philadelphia Inquirer (read by JFK) and TV guide.

John Kennedy's ambassador to England was David Bruce, Hemingway's former OSS pal who he liberated Paris with, and his ambassador to Ireland was a Philadelphia construction contractor and Mick who donated a lot of money to JFK's campaign.

Today I learned a few things about how the system works.

BK

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Guest Tom Scully

Good for you, Bill ! You inspire with your tenacity and patience. My theory is that we live today with the results of authority succumbing to the influence of mob monay, "juice", and intimidation from the 20s to the 50s when there might have been a chance to stop the mature influence of these ill gotten family fortunes and political dynasties.

Further digging reveals a more complicated situation with the new NARA building project in St. Louis. The minutes of a fall meeting (pg. 12 ) of the Missouri Development Commission hint of a glimmer of feeble resistance, but it looks like it is a done deal. Rep. Clay always has the option to insert himself on behalf of truth and fairness, but he can use the excuse that 800 jobs were at stake.

Rep. Clay's father's St. Louis background. He served in the district's house seat from 1969 to 2001, 32 years.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=187023 Here is Rep. Clay's father's recent autobiography, it includes only two references to Morris Shenker, and one of those is in a photo caption. IMO, he omits quite a bit of detail on his political sponsors.

What happened with that $100 million NARA project was that the GSA awarded it to Atlanta and Tennessee RE developer Hal Barry. Barry's other projects were hit by the financial implosion and he found himself unable to borrow, even with a guaranteed leasee like GSA/NARA. GSA prefers to designate a private developer to build to suit, and then enters into a lease instead of building and owning.

Hal Barry was about to miss GSA deadlines and had already applied for $5.5 million in Missouri Development Comm. bonds to finance the land purchase and initial costs of the project. Attorney Mello told the Commssion at the meeting linked above that he had represented both the Molasky Group and Barry's company and that Barry was selling the GSA contract completely to Molasky. Recently appointed as interim director by Missouri Governor, Jay Nixon, the Commission's executive Kathleen Steele Danner expressed some reservation about the Molasky Group. Mello assured her that Molasky was a "traditional" RE developer. She was reminded that time was short and the 800 jobs were at risk of going to Illinois instead of St. Louis.

Bottom line seems to be that the GSA won't help to arrange financing for its own NARA project and Molasky is the only one in easy reach with any money, but even it is starting off by tapping a state commission's bond issuing authority. It probably doesn't help theat the appointment of Steele-Danner was controversial because she had a 2007 DUI stop and refused to take the breathalyzer test for alcohol level, complicated by her relationship with another prominent Missouri politician caught driving with a mixed alcoholic drink in the drink holder next to his driver's seat.

Here is the history that no one in authority in Missouri or in Washington is willing to use the power of their office to push back at.:

http://www.molaskyco.com/company.htm (click on the top left photo to view the profile of "the chairman.")

http://obrag.org/?p=1529

Union-Tribune Still Covers-Up Mobster Money Behind La Costa’s Development

by Frank Gormlie on September 11, 2008

in Media, Opinion, San Diego

.....Bauder discovered something about the U-T obit:

It did not mention the background of one of Roen’s major partners in La Costa and other projects, Moe Dalitz. He was among the 20th Century’s most notorious gangsters, as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, known as the Kefauver Committee, pointed out in 1950 and 1951......

....“Local Boy” Hounded for Writing About Mobster Money Behind La Costa

Now, here’s something that Bauder omitted. One of the writers of the Penthouse article that caused so much ruckus was “local boy”, Lowell Bergman, who cut his journalistic muckraking teeth as part of the staff of the ground-breaking San Diego Street Journal, which published from the late sixties into the early seventies....

.... Upshot: The lawyers won.

Wrong – go here for the post. This is incredible. Even so-called alternative internet news gets it wrong.

Now, Bergman’s co-author Jeff Gerth in the Penthouse article went on to work for the New York Times. His Wikipedia site does mention the Penthouse article:....

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z_IlA...urnal&hl=en

Channel 4 buyers get Wall Street Journal scrutiny

Miami News - Google News Archive - Sep 24, 1986

Seeds of Success: Two Lorimar Officials Have Had Ties to Men Of Underworld Repute --- Merv Adelson, Irwin Molasky Relied on Teamster Loans To Build Many Businesses ---

Entertaining at La Costa

By Jonathan Kwitny. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Sep 15, 1986.

Dow Jones & Company Inc Sep 15, 1986

If the Federal Communications Commission and the investing public go along, Merv Adelson will soon become a first-rank power in American communications.

Lorimar-Telepictures Corp., the TV and film company Mr. Adelson runs (producer of "Dallas," among other hit shows) has agreed to acquire nine big-city television stations, six of them network affiliates. The company has agreed to buy the prestigious old MGM movie lot. And although Mr. Adelson isn't an on-air personality, in May he married one -- Barbara Walters.

To pay for the new stations, Mr. Adelson plans to have Lorimar-Telepictures borrow possibly as much as $2 billion, mostly in high-yield bonds to be sold to investors via Drexel Burnham Lambert.

The moves are emblematic of Lorimar-Telepictures' swift rise. Aggressive and innovative, it has emerged as a leader in both production and syndication of TV shows, while also making movies, running a large advertising agency and publishing children's magazines. Now the company, of which Mr. Adelson is the chairman, chief executive and

largest shareholder, is on the verge of becoming a major broadcaster and a $1 billion-a-year corporation. Mr. Adelson's longtime friend and business partner, Irwin Molasky, has come to the top with him as a Lorimar-Telepictures vice president.

But there may be a lingering problem. Messrs. Adelson and Molasky are the same men FBI special agent H. Edgar Strahl described in an internal report 20 years ago. "Neither are known to have arrest records," the late Mr. Strahl wrote in the May 13, 1966, report, "but there is no question as to their close association with the hoodlum element."

Messrs. Adelson and Molasky were little known until recent years, and inquiries of numerous law-enforcement authorities and journalists have focused mainly on their two partners in many business ventures: Morris B. "Moe" Dalitz, an admitted racketeer for the early decades of his life who was described by a landmark Senate investigation as a charter member of the national crime syndicate; and Allard Roen, a lifelong Dalitz protege who pleaded guilty to securities violations in a major stock-fraud case in 1962.

Messrs. Adelson, Molasky, Dalitz and Roen have been partners in numerous ventures over the years that were financed by loans from the Teamsters union's Central States pension fund, which was mob-run and notoriously corrupt in the 1960s and '70s when the loans were made. The loans totaled more than $100 million.

Neither Mr. Adelson nor Mr. Molasky has ever been charged with a crime. They enjoy the esteem of many colleagues in the entertainment industry, and they say (Mr. Molasky through a Lorimar spokesman) that there is nothing to any suggestions of links to organized crime. Mr. Adelson says the issue was disposed of, in their favor, through a lengthy libel suit against a magazine that had said one of their ventures, the Rancho La Costa resort near San Diego, was established and frequented by gangsters. But the company's decisions to go into broadcasting business in a big way, and to go to the public markets to finance its expansion, give new significance to Messrs.

Adelson's and Molasky's role in their other ventures. The FCC now is reviewing the matter under a statute that calls for it to examine the "citizenship, character,

financial, technical and other qualifications" of buyers of FCC-licensed broadcast stations to determine whether license transfers would serve "the public interest,

convenience and necessity."

The company currently holds licenses for five stations as a result of the February merger of Lorimar, the firm Messrs. Adelson and Molasky helped found, with Telepictures, which owned the stations. The two men had a Nevada station for a few years beginning in the late 1950s.

The libel suit Mr. Adelson points to was against Penthouse magazine over an article linking Rancho La Costa, which Mr. Adelson managed, to organized crime. A jury found in 1982 that Penthouse had not libeled either Mr. Adelson, Mr. Molasky or La Costa. But the trial judge later partially reversed the verdict and ordered a new trial for

Messrs. Adelson and Molasky. In doing so, he said that the jurors "should have reached a different verdict" and that "the facts of the article were denied and there was no evidence that any of the matters in the article relating to Mervyn Adelson or Irwin A. Molasky were true." In an interview, Mr. Adelson draws attention to this statement.

Penthouse, however, argued on appeal that the judge who made that statement should have been removed from the case. Among other things, he had once taken action in behalf of one of the witnesses, former Mafia hit man Aladena ("Jimmy the Weasel") Fratianno, and he had represented a unionist who dealt with Messrs. Dalitz and Roen and the Teamsters and who was later convicted of extortion and murder.

Last winter, Penthouse and the four La Costa partners settled out of court. The partners didn't get money (they had originally sought over $600 million) or a published retraction. But the magazine gave them a letter saying it did not mean to imply that Messrs. Adelson and Molasky "are or were members of organized crime or criminals." It made no such statement about Mr. Dalitz or Mr. Roen.

The four men founded Rancho La Costa in 1962 and received financing for it from the Teamsters Central States pension fund. Although countless unblemished businesses and community leaders have used the resort, it attracted law-enforcement attention for the steady stream of Mafia men and racketeers who also were welcomed, sometimes free, there and at Mr. Dalitz's Las Vegas hotel-casinos.

Mr. Adelson was La Costa's president, and for the most part its managing partner, until Mr. Dalitz retired in 1981. Since '81, Messrs. Adelson, Molasky and Roen have run La Costa as an executive committee. New money from Canada replaced Teamsters financing in 1984.

Mr. Adelson says that his business dealings have all been absolutely legitimate, and that while some people he has socialized with in the past may have been gangsters, he didn't know it. "We're not responsible for every person we meet on the street," he says. "My practice is not to associate with mobsters. If somebody says he's a mobster, I won't associate with him. You can only go by the feeling you have from the meeting you have with them."

Mr. Molasky, 59, evidently still associates with Mr. Dalitz, who is 87. They both keep offices at a Las Vegas development company for which they also got Teamster loans in the past. And in April Mr. Molasky gave details of Mr. Dalitz's physical condition in an affidavit filed in a civil suit in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., arguing

that Mr. Dalitz shouldn't have to travel to testify.

Mr. Dalitz says he has sold his interest in the development company. Mr. Adelson is still a partner in the firm, which has built numerous homes, shopping centers and professional buildings. He says he hasn't seen Mr. Dalitz in a long time, though "not because I'm avoiding him."

Another link with the past is Eli Boyer, a partner in Lorimar-Telepictures' outside auditor, Laventhol & Horwath. Mr. Boyer pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas in 1968 to willfully delivering a false document to the Internal Revenue Service in connection with charges that he helped Mr. Dalitz file false tax returns. (Charges against Mr. Dalitz were dropped after a dispute over electronic surveillance.)

Mr. Boyer stayed on as personal accountant for Messrs. Adelson and Dalitz, as well as for La Costa and for Lorimar Inc., which Mr. Adelson and Mr. Molasky were then helping set up by financially backing producer Lee Rich. Mr. Boyer still works on the accounts, though recently, he says, he has been semi-retired.

Records show that Mr. Boyer declined to certify La Costa's financial statements for 1980 and 1981. In opinion letters and footnotes, he criticized its accounting and offered such comments as, "Because of . . . departures from generally accepted accounting principles, at Dec. 31, 1980, deficit has been understated by $6,206,500."

Mr. Adelson defends the accounting as giving a truer picture than might have emerged from following accounting-industry guidelines. Mr. Boyer says that he, too, really had faith in the partnership and that his negative comments about it were dictated by rules of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Mr. Boyer at first said 1980 and '81 were the only years his firm didn't certify the resort's books. When told of La Costa internal memos indicating otherwise, he said

there might have been other years. Later, at an interview, Mr. Adelson provided a letter from Laventhol & Horwath saying it gave "adverse opinions" to the La Costa statements every year from 1972 to 1981 but adding that "the company was not a public company, so these opinions did not really have any impact on anyone."

As far back as 1966, a La Costa financial consultant, Benjamin Alpert, after meeting with Mr. Boyer, wrote a memo to debenture holders sharply criticizing Mr. Adelson's financial management of the resort and saying there was no point in proceeding with a certified audit. "It is appalling to think that charges incurred by Messrs. Adelson (and others) have been allowed to run for more than a year without being adjusted or paid," the memo said. It added that Mr. Adelson owed La Costa about $30,000 for work on his home billed by contractors and that the resort's solvency was threatened.

The memo told debenture holders that "kiting of checks and issuance of checks without funds cannot be tolerated, and it might be better to close the entire operation rather than be associated with any business that has to rely on practices of this type."

In an interview, Mr. Alpert, whose wife is a La Costa partner, confirms his memo opinion of the resort's management at that time. "They were so goddamn lax that it wasn't even funny," he says. But he says things improved when Mr. Adelson, who "was trying to do too much," got management help. Mr. Alpert says Mr. Adelson's "foresight was unbelievable" and "his creativity is mind-boggling."

As for Lorimar, Mr. Adelson says he doesn't know whether accountants ever qualified or declined to certify its financial statements before it went public in 1981. Since '81, they have been certified.

During the 1981-82 libel trial over the 1975 Penthouse article, Mr. Adelson testified that its harm to his reputation was "ruinous." For years, he said, "people were

turning their heads . . . saying, 'Hey, here is the guy from the Mafia.' . . . People don't talk to me."

He was questioned about his knowledge of his partners' backgrounds and the comings and goings of gangsters at La Costa. His testimony at times conflicted with other evidence, and Judge Kenneth W. Gale repeatedly criticized his answers.

"I know when a witness is being evasive," the judge said on one occasion, out of hearing of the press and public. "He is about as evasive and slippery as I can find." At another point the judge asked, "How can he remember everything that helps him and forget everything that doesn't?"

Asked now about such statements from Judge Gale, Mr. Adelson cites the judge's decision to overturn the verdict for Penthouse and says, "Somewhere along the line, he must have convinced himself that what I said was true." He adds, "I have a lifetime of credibility behind me."

Mr. Adelson, who is 56, said that as a young man he worked in his father's Los Angeles food-store chain, worked for a year as a liquor wholesaler, then moved to Las Vegas in 1953 to open a 24-hour grocery. He said he became a golfing friend of Mr. Molasky, a home-improvement contractor from St. Louis, and of Mr. Roen, manager of the Desert Inn.

When Messrs. Adelson and Molasky saw some building lots by the Desert Inn golf course, he said, Mr. Roen introduced them to the hotel's main owner, Mr. Dalitz, who sold them the lots. They built homes, bought other land and built more homes. When they decided to build the private Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, Messrs. Roen and Dalitz came in as investors.

The project was financed by the Teamsters Central States pension fund. Mr. Adelson explained that he had been asked to arbitrate a labor dispute involving a Teamsters local and that he so satisfied the parties that a union leader offered to get him a loan for the hospital from the Chicago-based pension fund. That, he said, started him and his partners on their Teamsters borrowing.

After he so testified at the Penthouse trial, however, Penthouse produced a recording of Mr. Dalitz telling a La Costa public-relations man how he "opened the door" to the Teamsters. Mr. Dalitz said on the tape, "I suggested to Allard (Roen), let's see if I can go to my old friend that I haven't seen for a long time, Hoffa" -- the late James R. Hoffa, then Teamsters president. "I called him on the phone in Washington and I made a date with him, and I told him our problem and he made us a loan." Under questioning, Mr. Dalitz said he wasn't referring to a loan with Mr. Adelson but to a later one with Willie ("Ice Pick Willie") Alderman, who he said later died in prison.

(Asked about Teamster loans of that period, David Helfrey, the prosecutor at a recent federal trial in Kansas City over Central States pension-fund abuse by gangsters, says, "It's a fair implication of all the testimony that there weren't many, if any, {loans} that went through that weren't controlled by the mob.")

Mr. Adelson testified at the Penthouse trial that he met with Mr. Hoffa at times in arranging pension-fund loans. In an interview, he says he didn't know anything of Mr. Hoffa's criminal connections at the time. Mr. Hoffa was indicted in 1962 and '63 and the next year was convicted of looting the pension fund and jury tampering; he went to prison in '67.

Mr. Adelson also testified that all loan repayments to the Teamsters fund were made on time. Shown documents to the contrary, he conceded at the trial that there had been numerous delinquencies and that the Teamsters fund had bailed La Costa out by lending it more money.

Mr. Dalitz testified that as a youth in Detroit he had known both Mr. Hoffa and Meyer Lansky, the syndicate's late financial expert, who he said came to Mr. Dalitz's

parents' home for Sabbath dinners. During Prohibition, Mr. Dalitz bootlegged whiskey with Mr. Lansky's group, then built a corrupt gambling empire in the Midwest and Cuba.

In 1949 he moved to Las Vegas, where he helped take the place of another Lansky associate, Benjamin ("Bugsy") Siegel, who pioneered mob gambling there but was slain that year.

Mr. Dalitz testified at the Penthouse trial that all his business after 1949 had been legitimate. But Sen. Estes Kefauver's 1951 crime investigation stated that he still ran illegal Midwest casinos and that because of his gang Cleveland had been plagued with "ruthless beatings, unsolved murders and shakedowns, threats and bribery." (The committee also cited Mr. Molasky's uncle, the late William Molasky of St. Louis, as a major figure in illegal mob gambling.)

Mr. Adelson's other partner, Mr. Roen (born Rosen), is the son of Frank Rosen, who, Mr. Dalitz said at the Penthouse trial, was a "good friend" who ran illegal horse betting in Cleveland. After watching the son from childhood, Mr. Dalitz said, he brought him to Las Vegas to run daily casino operations. In 1964, well into the Dalitz-Roen-Molasky-Adelson partnership, Mr. Roen was sentenced to two years' probation, suspended sentence and a $10,000 fine in a stock-fraud conspiracy case. (Mr. Roen didn't return a reporter's calls; Mr. Dalitz cut short a telephone interview after a few questions.)

At about the same time, when the Dalitz-Roen casinos became a target of a federal investigation of alleged "skimming" of cash revenue, Messrs. Dalitz and Roen and accountant Boyer invoked the Fifth Amendment before grand juries. Skimming charges weren't brought, but law-enforcement reports continued to cite Mr. Dalitz as a pioneer of skimming.

Mr. Dalitz and Mr. Boyer were indicted in 1965 on charges of conspiring to hide from the IRS the repatriation of a small part of what the Justice Department called Mr. Dalitz's "untaxed millions" overseas. Mr. Boyer was accused of helping concoct a stock trade to hide Mr. Dalitz's $15,000 profit for arranging a $50,000 loan of Panama-based funds to a Nevada company partly owned by the late Roy Cohn.

The defendants contended they were being illegally prosecuted with evidence gained through intelligence-gathering bugs not authorized by a court. Eventually, charges against Mr. Dalitz were dropped at the same time as Mr. Boyer pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor part of the indictment, signed an agreement not to question the government

further about its bugging, and was fined $1,000. He and his lawyer say an accounting-institute ethics panel let him retain his professional standing.

Among La Costa's diverse guests were numerous gangsters, and they sometimes were "comped in," or given complimentary lodging, food, drink and services. Anthony ("Tony Pro") Provenzano, a labor racketeer who later was convicted of a 1960 murder, was comped in. Mr. Lansky came at least twice.

Salesmen from the Bahamas organization of convicted securities-law violator Wallace Groves, who owned a casino run by the Lansky crowd, came to run land sales. Records introduced at the Penthouse trial show that in 1968 Messrs. Dalitz, Roen, Molasky and Adelson ordered a special welcome for a visit by Mr. Groves himself.

For many years Allen Dorfman, a Chicago gangster who helped direct Teamster Central States pension fund investments, had a home at La Costa and sat on its board. The Adelson and Dorfman families socialized, according to testimony at the Penthouse trial by Mr. Adelson's first wife, Lori, for whom Lorimar was named. Mr. Adelson testified in December 1981 that Mr. Dorfman "seemed to have a good reputation," and Lori Adelson said she still considered him "a friend."

Mr. Dorfman had been imprisoned for nine months in 1973 for taking kickbacks from Teamster borrowers. He beat similar charges in 1975 after a witness was murdered. In 1983,

Mr. Dorfman was slain after a second bribery conviction.

Asked in an interview about Mr. Dorfman, Mr. Adelson says now, "It becomes obvious the man. . . .(pause) Whatever was, was. What I knew at the time of the case is reflected in the answers I gave."

Other gangster guests, according to documents introduced at the Penthouse trial, included Louis ("Lou the Tailor") Rosanova of Chicago, who was comped in at least three times and flew on the partners' airplane. An Orange County, Calif., district attorney's report used at the trial said Mr. Rosanova had been taped telling how, at a meeting at the resort, he, Mr. Dorfman and Anthony ("Tony the Ant") Spilotro planned a hotel shakedown racket. (Mr. Spilotro was murdered in June just before his scheduled racketeering trial.) Mr. Adelson testified that he met Mr. Rosanova several times. In an interview, he says, "I had absolutely no knowledge of what Rosanova did."

In 1974, Crocker National Bank called in loans to La Costa ($1.1 million) and Mr. Adelson ($75,000), and denied their applications for more credit. A bank investigatory memo cited collection problems, check kiting and "constant overdrafts and drawings against uncollected funds." Another bank memo said "these people are very demanding and unusually difficult to deal with."

The credit had been extended by United States National Bank in San Diego, which Crocker took over after USNB collapsed in scandal. Bank documents show that Crocker officials believed the original decision to grant credit had been influenced by large Teamsters deposits. Eric Eitreim, the Crocker vice president involved at the time, says Mr. Dorfman -- fresh out of prison for taking pension-fund loan kickbacks -- vainly threatened Crocker with the loss of $20 million in Teamsters deposits if it cut La Costa's credit line.

At the Penthouse trial, Mr. Adelson denied that Teamsters deposits had had anything to do with his or La Costa's credit at the bank. But Penthouse produced a letter to the bank on La Costa stationery, bearing Mr. Adelson's purported signature, saying the Teamsters were giving the bank large deposits "under the control of Rancho La Costa Inc." Mr. Adelson testified that he hadn't seen the letter but that his secretary might have signed his name to it.

Though Mr. Adelson brought a glamorous show-business crowd to La Costa, the resort's reputation haunted it. In a May 6, 1976, report to the San Diego County grand jury called "Organized Crime Problems -- San Diego County," the county sheriff cited "the increase of the organized crime element moving into La Costa." And in 1978, California's attorney general listed Mr. Dalitz as one of the state's 92 leading organized-crime figures.

At the Penthouse trial three years later, Mr. Adelson testified that he had known Mr. Dalitz "for 25 years as a man of good will, a man of high repute, a man of standing in the community." Later, though, Mr. Dalitz testified that he himself "might have" told Mr. Adelson of his criminal career. "But there was no unfavorable reaction at all," he added.

Mr. Adelson also testified that before the Penthouse article, he had "never been aware of any investigation" of La Costa or of Mr. Dalitz. However, Penthouse lawyers produced a tape recording of Mr. Adelson complaining to La Costa's public-relations firm about investigators' interest in La Costa. "Going through the last 20 years or better," Mr. Adelson said on the tape, "we have had skimming allegations, we have had the Kefauver committee, we have had all kinds."

Mr. Adelson long wanted to get into show business, says film-industry spokesman Jack Valenti. In 1969, a Beverly Hills business manager introduced him to Mr. Rich, a producer of TV shows for ad agencies. Mr. Rich says Messrs. Adelson and Molasky put up a $450,000 loan, quickly repaid, for half the stock of the firm they called Lorimar, while he put in his time and talent for the rest.

Lorimar's first success was "The Waltons," created by Earl Hamner, who now works on its "Falcon Crest." Fred Silverman, then CBS programming chief, says Mr. Rich showed "Waltons" to him, he loved it, and the firm was on its way. "Lorimar was a very tiny little company at that point, operating out of Lee Rich's back pocket," Mr. Silverman says.

Many lucrative TV series followed, among them "Eight Is Enough," "Dallas" and "Knots Landing." Less profitable were Lorimar's movies, though some, such as "Sybil" and "Being There," won critical acclaim. As it grew, the firm acquired two ad agencies, now merged as the Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt subsidiary.

Lawyer-producer Jack Schwartzman, who used to work for Lorimar, calls Mr. Adelson "one of the top two or three businessmen I've known in my lifetime. I've never known two guys who worked as hard as they did. Lee (Rich) was the creative mind, the salesman, the guy who supervised the production, and Adelson was more the financial."

Early this year Lorimar merged with Telepictures, a fast-growing producer and supplier of programming to independent TV stations. The move brought in an animation unit and magazines such as "Us" and "Barbie." It also brought Telepictures' five TV stations (operating with four FCC broadcast licenses). Because 12 licenses is the limit, after the firm buys the nine new stations it will have to shed one of the old ones.

Mr. Adelson has voting power over about 8% of the Lorimar-Telepictures stock, including 4.7% that he owns, Mr. Molasky's 1.4% share, and Molasky-family and other trusts. At Friday's price of $19.625 a share, Mr. Adelson's stock is worth $42.1 million and Mr. Molasky's about $12.2 million.

Merrill Lynch analyst Harold Vogel has termed Lorimar-Telepictures' assets and management "high quality" and said the firm appears capable of above-average long-term growth. He looks for earnings of $1.55 a share in the year ending next March and $2.10 the following year but says the forecast is tentative pending the outcome of the TV-station purchases.

In another uncertainty, Lorimar faces the future without one of its longtime assets. Last April, Mr. Rich left to become chairman and chief executive of United Artists. The producer "was the heart of the company," says Mr. Silverman. "His absence will be felt within a year."

Lorimar-Telepictures' agreement to buy nine big-city TV stations (six of them network affiliates) is its latest bold move to expand. The FCC, weighing the company's applications to transfer station licenses, says it has received two petitions in opposition. One is from the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, which is concerned about a labor contract dispute; the other is from Ferris Traylor, a shareholder of Wometco Broadcasting (the owner of one of the stations), who says the sale would be unfair to Wometco's minority holders.

The applications come in an atmosphere of controversy over how rigorous FCC scrutiny is. Several members of the House communications subcommittee that oversees the FCC are reported worried over what subcommittee counsel Thomas Rogers calls the FCC's recent tendency "to look on them (license transfers) as financial transactions that regulators should step out of the way of."

An FCC staff lawyer says the agency does investigate and cites two recent cases in which it has done so. He declines to comment on the Lorimar-Telepictures applications.---

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A Note from John Judge

Friends,

Here is a set of talking points (attached and below) regarding the need for oversight hearings on the JFK Assassination Records Act as well as the need to pass the Martin Luther King, Jr. Records Act and implement recent open government directives and executive orders from the Obama administration that cover related records. Upcoming meetings this week include:

Lunch for lobbying group, March 18 1:00 pm Rayburn Building, Cafeteria, Basement level

Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and NARA hearing on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act

Thursday, March 19, 2:00 pm

Rayburn Building, Room 2154

Meeting with staff of Subcommittee

Friday, March 19, 10:00 am

Rayburn Building, Room 2157

Hope you can be there with us.

OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT

FUTURE LEGISLATION FOR RELEASE OF HISTORIC RECORDS

Why we need oversight hearings:

  • The JFK Records Collection Act (Public Law No. 102-526) mandated oversight hearings following termination of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) to implement ongoing release of records by all agencies and to review the effectiveness of the Review Board process. Section 5, (g) PERIODIC REVIEW OF POSTPONED ASSASSINATION RECORDS -- (1) All postponed or redacted records shall be reviewed periodically by the originating agency and the Archivist consistent with the recommendations of the Review Board under section 9©(3)(B). Section 7 (l) OVERSIGHT -- (1) The Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate shall have continuing oversight jurisdiction with respect to the official conduct of the Review Board and the disposition of postponed records after termination of the Review Board; and shall have access to any records held or created by the Review Board.

  • The stated purpose of the JFK Records Act is as follows:

Section 2, (a) FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS -- The Congress finds and declares that --

(1) All government records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be preserved for historical and governmental purposes;

(2) all government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure, and all records should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination;

  • A range of executive agencies have not yet complied or have failed to fully implement the provisions of the JFK Records Act in the following ways:

The Assassination Records Review Board, prior to its termination in 1998, released a Final Report which names the specific agencies that failed to comply in any substantial way with transfer of JFK assassination related files before the Review Board’s termination. These agencies have not subsequently complied with additional releases. Other agencies failed to carry out their responsibilities in effecting and securing release of records of foreign governments, preventing their release.

Certain records and categories of files were never initially transferred to the ARRB for review because they were not recognized as meeting the definition of “related records”, they were missing from record files, or they had been destroyed both in the past and illegally after passage of the Act. Attempts to garner more information or release of such files has been obstructed in large part by the originating agencies following the termination of the ARRB. In cases where newly discovered related records have been found or acknowledged to exist their requested release has been evaluated by the standards of the Freedom of Information Act rather than the presumption of release and limited options for postponement under the guiding legislation of the JFK Records Act, usually resulting in denial of access.

While mandated annual reviews of records for release by various agencies has continued to result in additional disclosures over time, it is also the case that many postponed records, some never reviewed, have not been released by dates certain specified by the JFK Records Act. All related records are to be released in 2017.

Additional issues include digitization of the collection, ease of public access in its current location, provision for copies of the record in NARA regional offices, incomplete releases of records or empty file folders without postponement slips and appeal procedures for additional review by the Archivist when new records or categories are discovered.

Recently, Senator John Kerry and Rep. John Lewis announced their intention to introduce legislation originally drafted in 2005 to release files on the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This Records Act is modeled after and hopes to improve upon the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, and to broaden the scope of the related records to include both the life and the murder of Dr. King. Since the two pieces of legislation are closely related, it might make sense to combine an oversight hearing when the King Records Act is introduced to consider both.

In addition, President Obama initiated an Open Government Directive in January (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf) through the Office of Management and Budget that requires all government agencies to identify at least one “high value data set” of records for release to the public. These are being stored at www.data.gov and hundreds of thousands of sets are already online. In our view, records that qualify as related records in the JFK assassination history qualify as a high value data set both historically and because the JFK Assassination Collection at the National Archives is still the most requested record set since it’s early releases.

President Obama also issued an Executive Order on Classified National Security Information on December 29, 2009 (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information.) The following section appears to apply directly to both JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. records still held by federal agencies, as well as those segregated for the House Select Committee on Assassinations:

Sec. 3.3. Automatic Declassification. (a) Subject to paragraphs (B)–(d) and (g)–(j) of this section, all classified records that (1) are more than 25 years old and (2) have been determined to have permanent historical value under title 44, United States Code, shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed. All classified records shall be automatically declassified on December 31 of the year that is 25 years from the date of origin, except as provided in paragraphs (B)–(d) and (g)–(i) of this section. If the date of origin of an individual record cannot be readily determined, the date of original classification shall be used instead.

In our view and in practice the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act and a similar Nazi War Crimes Record Release Act, using independent review boards and a presumption of release standard have worked far better than the Freedom of Information Act regarding historical records of extensive public interest and should be replicated and form a new method for encouraging government transparency and declassification. Introduction and passage of the proposed Martin Luther King. Jr. Records Act will be an important step in that direction.

Finally, the JFK Assassination Records Review Board in its Final Report laid out a set of recommendations for the future:

1. The Review Board recommends that future declassification boards be genuinely independent, both in the structure of the organization and in the qualifications of the appointments.

2. The Review Board recommends that any serious, sustained effort to declassify records requires congressional legislation with (a) a presumption of openness, (2) clear standards of access, (3) an enforceable review and appeals process, and (4) a budget appropriate to the scope of the task.

3. The Review Board recommends that its "common law" of decision, formed in the context of a "presumption of disclosure" and the "clear and convincing evidence of harm" criteria, be utilized for similar information in future declassification efforts as a way to simplify and speed up releases.

4. The Review Board recommends that future declassification efforts avoid the major shortcomings of the JFK Act: (a) unreasonable time limits, (B) employee restrictions, © application of the law after the Board terminates, and (d) problems inherent with rapid sunset provisions.

5. The Review Board recommends that the cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive problem of referrals for "third party equities" (classified information of one agency appearing in a document of another) be streamlined by (A) requiring representatives of all agencies with interests in selected groups of records to meet for joint declassification sessions, or (B) devising uniform substitute language to deal with certain categories of recurring sensitive equities.

6. The Review Board recommends that a compliance program be used in future declassification efforts as an effective means of eliciting full cooperation in the search for records.

7. The Review Board recommends the following to ensure that NARA can exercise the provisions of the JFK Act after the Review Board terminates:

a. that NARA has the authority and means to continue to implement Board decisions,

b. that an appeals procedure be developed that places the burden for preventing access on the agencies, and

c. that a joint oversight group composed of representatives of the four organizations that originally nominated individuals to serve on the Review Board be created to facilitate the continuing execution of the access provisions of the JFK Act.

8. The Review Board recommends that the Review Board model be adopted and applied whenever there are extraordinary circumstances in which continuing controversy concerning government actions has been most acute and where an aggressive effort to release all "reasonably related" federal records would serve usefully to enhance historical understanding of the event.

9. The Review Board recommends that both the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Executive Order 12958 be strengthened, the former to narrow the categories of information automatically excluded from disclosure, the latter to add "independent oversight" to the process of "review" when agency heads decide that records in their units should be excluded from release.

10. The Review Board recommends the adoption of a federal classification policy that substantially:

a. limits the number of those in government who can actually classify federal documents,

b. restricts the number of categories by which documents might be classified,

c. reduces the time period for which the document(s) might be classified,

d. encourages the use of substitute language to immediately open material which might otherwise be classified, and

e. increases the resources available to the agencies and NARA for declassifying federal records.

(for full text see: http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/arrb98/part12.htm).

These recommendations should be considered and guide any oversight hearings and should lead to implementation of some if not all recommendations.

There is also public support for this effort reflected in over 275 signatures on an online petition for oversight hearings at http://www.petitiononline.com/JFKACT/petition.html

Contacts: John Judge, Coalition on Political Assassinations 202-583-5347 or copa@starpower.net

William Kelly, 609-893-7014 or bkjfk3@yahoo.com

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  • 1 month later...

Congress of the United States

Washington, D.C. 20515

Congressional Transparency Caucus

Our Principles

March 2010

Transparency in government is crucial to our democracy because our government derives its power from the informed consent of the governed. We believe:

1) The American people have the right to public access to all of their government's information. All of the federal government's information, with a few well-defined exceptions, should be freely available online.

2) The American people have the right to analyze their government's information. The federal government's information should be published in its raw format, downloadable in bulk and machine-readable, so that citizens and watchdog groups can collaborate on new ways to examine it. The government should adopt consistent data standards so that different agencies' forms, filings, and records can be all searched together. All documents should be published at permanent Web addresses so that links to them remain valid.

3) The American people have the right to interactive access to federal laws, regulations, and rules. All federal laws, regulations, and rules should be published online in a format that makes them easily searchable, sortable, and downloadable, so that citizens can electronically participate in the development of laws, regulations, and rules.

4) The American people have the right to track all federal spending and scrutinize the federal budget. Data on how taxpayers' funds are spent, and the federal budge itself, should be searchable, with every earmark and appropriation electronically identified.

5) The American people have the right to demand, transparent performance standards for all federal agencies. Federal agencies should track their goals and achievements using a format that is electronically searchable, sortable, and downloadable, so that spending data can be associated with performance.

6) The American people have the right to aggressive, independent oversight. Inspectors general at federal agencies should be kept independent and active, and should regularly evaluate transparency in government. The House and Senate committees on government oversight and operations should conduct regular hearings and investigations on transparency. Disclosures by regulated entities – such as filings by lobbyists, federal contractors and grantees, banks, and public companies – should be published online, in formats that make them easily searchable, sortable, and downloadable. Citizens should scrutinize these disclosures and collaborate to expose corruption, fraud, and other abuses.

7) We must institutionalize a culture of open government. For the government's default setting to change from a presumption of secrecy to one of openness a cultural shift must occur. Through education and outreach, Congress should strive to encourage decision-makers throughout all branches of the federal government to chose openness over secrecy.

Melissa Bean, D-Ill.

Bruce Braley, D-Iowa

Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah

Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas

Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich.

Bill Foster, D-Ill.

Wally Herger, R-Calif.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.

Steve Israel, D-N.Y.

Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Walter Jones, R-N.C.

Jim Jordan, R-Ohio

Doug Lamborn, R-Colo.

Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill.

Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa

Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo.

Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

Walt Minnick, D-Idaho

Scott Murphy, D-N.Y.

Jared Polis, D-Colo.

Mike Quigley, D-Ill.

Tim Ryan, D-Ohio

Aaron Schock, R-Ill.

Mark Souder, R-Ind.

Jackie Speier, D-Calif.

Mark Steven, Kirk, R-Ill.

Greg Walden, R-Ore.

Some of these Congressmen are on the Oversight Committee responsible for NARA and JFK Act.

They all can't be bought off.

Edited by William Kelly
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