Guest Tom Scully Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 I know for a fact, from neighbors and people who were there at the time, that LBJ stayed at Carroll Rosenbloom's beach house on Absecon Island during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. But I can't find a published reference to that anywhere. Is it mentioned in Teddy White's The Making of a President 1964? Which I don't have. Or does anybody have a reference for it other than me? Thanks, BK bkjfk3@yahoo.com Yeah Bill, I can give you some references.....but I'm getting the impression that you have some other agenda here than following the leads where ever they lead. You brought up Rosenbloom, and for that, I thank you. But then you ignored my question to you in my last post here, and you posted you wanted to avoid the subject of Rosenbloom's widow, Georgia, although it is all over the internet that Lou Chesler had had a relationship with her and introduced her to Rosenbloom. Please correct me, because I hope my impression is wrong. There seem to be plenty of connecting relationships to discuss here, with promising potential. Point me in a direction, if you have a suggestion, or pursue these leads yourself, or tell me I am wrong.....nothing to see here.... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...30551-4,00.htmlL.B.J, All the Way Friday, Sep. 04, 1964 ....That afternoon Lyndon jetted once more to Atlantic City, motored to the white stucco ocean-front villa that he and his family had taken over for the week from Hess Rosenbloom, brother of the owner of the Baltimore Colts. He entered Convention Hall after the eulogies of John F. Kennedy, Sam Rayburn and Eleanor Roosevelt had ended. As he sat down in the presidential box overlooking the speaker's rostrum, Lyndon was the absolute monarch of the place, and he looked it—hands on his knees, elbows akimbo, face impassive. .... http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=hes...range=1997,2009 Residents of the White House Move Into a Motel; President's Staff... - New York Times - Aug 25, 1964 From Wednesday night until their departure, the Johnsons have been lent a big' white stucco ocean-front home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hess Rosenbloom. . http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,892461,00.htmlA Fast $70 Million Monday, Mar. 30, 1959 The two high-altitude standouts on last week's gyrating American Stock Exchange (see Wall Street) were General Development Corp. and Universal Controls, Inc. Shares of General Development, the mailorder merchandiser of Florida houses and lots (TIME, May 19), zipped from 59⅛ to 69⅝, and its success boomed the stock of a flock of lesser companies planning Florida land developments. Universal Controls, an electronics maker, moved from 84 to 97. Both stocks have more than doubled since Jan. 1. Last week Universal announced a four-for-one stock split, plus a 10% stock dividend and a boost in the yearly cash dividend from $1 to $1.20 on the present stock. General Development leaked word of a three-for-one split, planned after the company distributes a 25% stock dividend in mid-May. Unknown Giant. The man who benefited most from the fast rise is an up-from-the-sidewalks Canadian financier and promoter, Louis Arthur Chesler, 46, chairman and prime mover of both Universal and General. Lou Chesler came to the U.S. three years ago with $4,000,000, has since run up a paper profit of $70 million on his Universal and General holdings alone. Yet few Wall Streeters know him, since he keeps in the background, trains the limelight on his U.S.-born junior partners. A bulging (6 ft. 2 in., 256 lbs.), blue-eyed son of an immigrant Lithuanian shopkeeper, Chesler grew up in Peterborough, Ont., quit university to go to work on Toronto's Bay Street. As a customer's man for the brokerage firm of Draper Dobie & Co. Ltd., he showed a talent for picking the right stocks, later grew rich underwriting dozens of Canada's new mining projects, chiefly those of Ventures Limited, the mining colossus. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...92461-2,00.html He spotted Universal Products Co. early in 1956 when it was a corporate shell with a treasury of $10 million. Chesler took control by putting up $1,000,000, plus $2,500,000 from millionaire cronies such as Baltimore Colts' Owner Carroll Rosenbloom. ("Who wouldn't pay $1,000,000 to get control of $10 million?" asks Chesler.) With Universal's cash, Chesler bought Baltimore's American Totalisator, which owns and leases 80% of the racetrack "Tote" systems that automatically figure and post bets, odds and winnings. By swapping stock, Universal later acquired General Register Corp. (ticket machines for movies and racetracks) and C. P. Clare & Co. (electronic relays). The company, then renamed Universal Controls, paid cash for Canada's Industrial Wire & Cable Ltd., and Providence's Grant Money Meters Co. (toll-road coin boxes). Universal estimates that earnings for the fiscal year ending in March will rise 56% to about $3,900,000, or $2 per share. That means Universal stock sells at a steep 48^ times earnings; Chesler's $1,000,000 ante in Universal has zoomed to a market value near $25 million. .... http://www.geocities.com/jiggy2000_us/malniktimeline.htmlMarch 10, 1961 Bank of World Inc., is organized in Nassau Bahamas. John Pullman a money courier for Myer Lanksy is installed as President, Alvin Malnik serves as his legal counsel. Former Nevada lieutenant-govenor Clifford A. Jones, Irving Leff, Nig Devine, Eddie Levinson, Phillip Nasser and Phillip J. Matthews are all listed as investors. July 10, 1961 Allied Empire Inc., recieves a $250,000 loan from the Bank of World Commerce in Nassau. Allied would go on to borrow $940,000 between 1961 and 1962. Malnik, Mike Singer and Phillip Nasser were directors of both organizations when the loans were made.... ...1963 B.-The FBI installs a bug in Malnik's business office. An agent is later caught by Malnik servicing the bug providing the young attorney with a layer of protection he would later use to fend off government investigations. January 2, 1963 Alvin Malnik and Clifford Jones join Allied President Phillip Matthews in resigning as directors. Allied changes its name to Riverside Financial Corporation. April 1, 1963 Bahamas Amusement Ltd (ownership split 50/50 between Louis Chesler and the wife of Wallace Groves) receives a exemption to operate a gambling facility anywhere on Grand Bahama Island so long as the casino is built in conjunction with a hotel containing at least 250 rooms. Sir Stafford Sands Bahamas Amusements attorney negotiates an annual license fee of $280,000 per casino and $280 per slot machine. May 24,1963 Metro Mortgage Foundation goes out of business. May 24, 1963 Metro Mortgage Foundation goes out of business. August 14, 1963 The FBI illegally records a conversation between Alvin Malnik and Lansky lieutenant Ben Siegelbaum in which they learn the Lansky syndicate has obtained a confidential report from the justice department concerning the Bank of World Commerce. October 11, 1963 Returns to Florida from Nassau and continues negotiations to acquire Scopitone Inc. October 18, 1963 A.-Malnik closes the Scopione deal and sends a telegram to Phillip Mero announcing the receipt of unspecified funds. Malnik invests $5,000 of his own money and lines up 11 co-investors to provide operating capitol for the companies expansion. Amoung the investors are his older brother Irving. November 1, 1963 Mary Carter Paint Co., acquires the physical property owned by Leo F. Poppel Inc., at a public auction for $25,000. Malnik earned a $54,000 commission for selling Poppel Inc., shares owned by Jay Weiss at a profit..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turki_bin_Abdul_Aziz Turki bin Abdul Aziz (born 1934) is a member of the Sudairi faction of the Al Saud and Saudi Arabia's former Deputy Minister for Defence & Aviation. Prince Turki was at the center of the so called 'Lockheed Scandal, in which a commission was paid to the Price for the sale of AWACS planes to the Kingdom. Prince Turki was the brother-in-law of the 'so called Sheik' Mohammed Al Fassi. His sister-in-law married Miami Beach restauranteur, Sharif (Mark) Malnik, son of Al Malnik. Malnik was the reputed 'heir' of gangster Meyer Lansky. Alvin Malnik is the owner of one of the largest chains of check cashing stores..... http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=28301 ------------------------- Through the intercession of Mike McLaney, Gus Russo interviewed Malnik while preparing for "Dark Side of Camelot" -- but it was on Deep-Background-Only; and therefore didn't appear in "Live by The Sword". GPH ___________________________________ http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopol.../dope_inc08.htm Permindex Unveiled: Resorts International Intertel ...Beginning no later than 1960, Lansky hatched a grand scheme to create a "Hong Kong West" (2) in the Caribbean: an offshore center that would bring together gambling, narcotics, dirty money, and Murder Inc. under one unregulated and "highly respectable" roof. First, Lansky picked the Grand Bahamas Island as the site for a plush casino-resort. Operating through a Canadian "cutout," longtime business associate Louis Chesler, Lansky negotiated a purchase of a large tract of land on the island and oversaw the construction of a grand hotel, the Lucayan Beach Hotel, which was completed and opened for business before the end of 1963. (3) At the time the venture began, casino gambling was illegal in the Grand Bahamas — except for those hotels that received a Certificate of Exemption from the Bahamian government. The most powerful political figure on the island, chief of the so-called "Bay Street Boys," was Sir Stafford Sands. Several meetings between Sands and Chesler and $1,800,000 in bribery later, Lansky received his Certificate of Exemption on March 27, 1963. On January 22,1964, the casino at Lucayan Beach was opened under festive circumstances that Hank Messick described as follows: The international jet set was on hand to give the event some class, but Meyer Lansky's veterans were in complete control. Red Ritter was general manager; Max Courtney was credit manager; Charley Brudner was his assistant; Dino Cellini was supervisor, and so on. As a matter of fact, Dino had operated a school in London to train the dealers and stick men who came originally from Sicily by way of the syndicate casino on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. (4) Phase One of Lansky's "Operation Respectable" completed, the old wizard proceeded with the next steps. First, he cleared the way for a consortium of "legitimate" investors headed by the Miami-based Mary Carter Paint Company to buy into Hog Island (renamed Paradise Island by its owner Huntington Hartford, the multimillionaire magnate of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company) and to receive a Certificate of Exemption for the construction of a hotel-gambling casino. Sir Stafford Sands, now in Lansky's hip pocket, saw these measures through and simultaneously announced that the Bahamian government was undertaking the construction of a bridge connecting Grand Bahamas to Hog Island, to be completed by December 31,1967. (5) What sort of weird entity was Mary Carter Paints and why had Meyer Lansky gone out of his way to open all the doors on Bay Street to it? To begin with the obvious, Mary Carter Paint Company was involved in more than wall coverings. In 1958, it was effectively taken over by merger with the Crosby-Miller Co. — a Florida company about which little is known except that former New York Governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey was one of its biggest investors. (6) Dewey's "Mr. Clean" crime buster reputation, dating back to his days as special prosecutor during the 1940s, was a perfect cover for Lansky's move to Paradise Island. Via the 1958 merger, the president of Mary Carter Paint Company was James M. Crosby. Crosby's brother, Peter Crosby, was a convicted stock swindler and a close business associate of Dino Cellini. Cellini was the first lieutenant to Meyer Lansky and was known as Florida's "connection" to Canadian heroin trafficker Guiseppi Cotroni. So even with Gov. Thomas Dewey's Anglophile profile on the label of every can of Mary Carter Paint, the product was severely tarnished by big-time crime. Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba in 1959 had been a bitter pill for the Lansky syndicate to swallow; however, it taught the old wizard a valuable lesson: don't take politics for granted. Before he socked tens of millions of dollars into his Grand Bahamas dreamland, Lansky would make absolutely certain that he was treading on solid political ground. So, in 1964, Lansky arranged a small scandal centered around the sudden "revelation" that Lucayan Beach promoter Lou Chesler had connections to organized crime boss Meyer Lansky! Chesler left the island no doubt laughing all the way to the bank, and Lansky became invisible..... Alvin Malnik has gone quite oublic, just in the last few weeks: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/200...michael_jac.php http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/deb-peter...y-alvin-malnik/07.06.2009 6:33 pm St. Louis connection to Michael Jackson: Attorney Alvin Malnik By Deb Peterson St. Louis Post-Dispatch TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION: South Florida kingpin and St. Louis native, Alvin I. Malnik, 76, has been getting a lot of face time since Michael Jackson’s death. Malnik — a product of Clark Elementary School, Soldan High and Wash U. — was a friend of Jackson’s for a long time and says the King of Pop asked him to become godfather and parent to Prince Michael II, “Blanket” if anything happened to Jackson. Malnik has been interviewed about his connections to Jackson by NBC’s Today Show, CBS and the Palm Beach Post, among others. Malnik is an attorney who had close ties to mobster Meyer Lansky and was at one time considered Lansky’s “heir apparent.” Malnik has said he signed a document in 2003 saying that he could take custody of Blanket if anything happened to Jackson and that he also agreed in writing to be the executor of Jackson’s estate. Malnik says that Jackson at the time became the godfather of Malnik’s then 11-year-old daughter, Spencer. Jackson and Malnik reportedly had a falling out in the past couple of years. The cause of the estrangement is unclear. Jackson used to seek refuge in Malnik’s 15-bedroom, 35,000-square-foot Palm Beach County mansion in Ocean Ridge. He reportedly would stay there for months at a time with his children and an entourage. Malnik was Jackson’s attorney and said he helped him refinance his debt with Sony and the Bank of America. Malnik also was the owner of the exclusive Forge restaurant in Miami, which he sold to his son Shareef. Jackson sat with Malnik at the head table during Malnik’s 70th birthday bash at the Forge in 2003, which was attended by my predecessor at the Post-Dispatch, Jerry Berger. Berger was a longtime friend of Malnik’s. He wrote about the party that “the invitation to Florida itself was unique: a taped message from the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. But the event lived up to its billing. Jackson, accompanied by a full phalanx of bodyguards, was on hand to welcome Malnik’s guests, including B.B. King, Smokey Robinson, F. Lee Bailey and celeb lawyer Roy Black.” Berger included the names of some of Malnik’s St. Louis pals who were at the shindig: Attorney Martin Green, merger and acquisitions mogul Gilbert Kopolow and L.A.-based sales exec Barry Gelber. He said the Harbour Group’s Sam Fox and his wife, Marilyn, friends of Malnik’s since high school days, were no-shows but were represented by a magnificent floral masterpiece from the Fox den. Malnik also turned up with a connection to St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley. His name was on a list of campaign contributors as having donated $2000 to Dooley’s unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000; Dooley was a St. Louis County councilman at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Howard Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 (edited) I know for a fact, from neighbors and people who were there at the time, that LBJ stayed at Carroll Rosenbloom's beach house on Absecon Island during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. But I can't find a published reference to that anywhere. Is it mentioned in Teddy White's The Making of a President 1964? Which I don't have. Or does anybody have a reference for it other than me? Thanks, BK bkjfk3@yahoo.com Yeah Bill, I can give you some references.....but I'm getting the impression that you have some other agenda here than following the leads where ever they lead. You brought up Rosenbloom, and for that, I thank you. But then you ignored my question to you in my last post here, and you posted you wanted to avoid the subject of Rosenbloom's widow, Georgia, although it is all over the internet that Lou Chesler had had a relationship with her and introduced her to Rosenbloom. Please correct me, because I hope my impression is wrong. There seem to be plenty of connecting relationships to discuss here, with promising potential. Point me in a direction, if you have a suggestion, or pursue these leads yourself, or tell me I am wrong.....nothing to see here.... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...30551-4,00.htmlL.B.J, All the Way Friday, Sep. 04, 1964 ....That afternoon Lyndon jetted once more to Atlantic City, motored to the white stucco ocean-front villa that he and his family had taken over for the week from Hess Rosenbloom, brother of the owner of the Baltimore Colts. He entered Convention Hall after the eulogies of John F. Kennedy, Sam Rayburn and Eleanor Roosevelt had ended. As he sat down in the presidential box overlooking the speaker's rostrum, Lyndon was the absolute monarch of the place, and he looked it—hands on his knees, elbows akimbo, face impassive. .... http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=hes...range=1997,2009 Residents of the White House Move Into a Motel; President's Staff... - New York Times - Aug 25, 1964 From Wednesday night until their departure, the Johnsons have been lent a big' white stucco ocean-front home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hess Rosenbloom. . http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,892461,00.htmlA Fast $70 Million Monday, Mar. 30, 1959 The two high-altitude standouts on last week's gyrating American Stock Exchange (see Wall Street) were General Development Corp. and Universal Controls, Inc. Shares of General Development, the mailorder merchandiser of Florida houses and lots (TIME, May 19), zipped from 59⅛ to 69⅝, and its success boomed the stock of a flock of lesser companies planning Florida land developments. Universal Controls, an electronics maker, moved from 84 to 97. Both stocks have more than doubled since Jan. 1. Last week Universal announced a four-for-one stock split, plus a 10% stock dividend and a boost in the yearly cash dividend from $1 to $1.20 on the present stock. General Development leaked word of a three-for-one split, planned after the company distributes a 25% stock dividend in mid-May. Unknown Giant. The man who benefited most from the fast rise is an up-from-the-sidewalks Canadian financier and promoter, Louis Arthur Chesler, 46, chairman and prime mover of both Universal and General. Lou Chesler came to the U.S. three years ago with $4,000,000, has since run up a paper profit of $70 million on his Universal and General holdings alone. Yet few Wall Streeters know him, since he keeps in the background, trains the limelight on his U.S.-born junior partners. A bulging (6 ft. 2 in., 256 lbs.), blue-eyed son of an immigrant Lithuanian shopkeeper, Chesler grew up in Peterborough, Ont., quit university to go to work on Toronto's Bay Street. As a customer's man for the brokerage firm of Draper Dobie & Co. Ltd., he showed a talent for picking the right stocks, later grew rich underwriting dozens of Canada's new mining projects, chiefly those of Ventures Limited, the mining colossus. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...92461-2,00.html He spotted Universal Products Co. early in 1956 when it was a corporate shell with a treasury of $10 million. Chesler took control by putting up $1,000,000, plus $2,500,000 from millionaire cronies such as Baltimore Colts' Owner Carroll Rosenbloom. ("Who wouldn't pay $1,000,000 to get control of $10 million?" asks Chesler.) With Universal's cash, Chesler bought Baltimore's American Totalisator, which owns and leases 80% of the racetrack "Tote" systems that automatically figure and post bets, odds and winnings. By swapping stock, Universal later acquired General Register Corp. (ticket machines for movies and racetracks) and C. P. Clare & Co. (electronic relays). The company, then renamed Universal Controls, paid cash for Canada's Industrial Wire & Cable Ltd., and Providence's Grant Money Meters Co. (toll-road coin boxes). Universal estimates that earnings for the fiscal year ending in March will rise 56% to about $3,900,000, or $2 per share. That means Universal stock sells at a steep 48^ times earnings; Chesler's $1,000,000 ante in Universal has zoomed to a market value near $25 million. .... http://www.geocities.com/jiggy2000_us/malniktimeline.htmlMarch 10, 1961 Bank of World Inc., is organized in Nassau Bahamas. John Pullman a money courier for Myer Lanksy is installed as President, Alvin Malnik serves as his legal counsel. Former Nevada lieutenant-govenor Clifford A. Jones, Irving Leff, Nig Devine, Eddie Levinson, Phillip Nasser and Phillip J. Matthews are all listed as investors. July 10, 1961 Allied Empire Inc., recieves a $250,000 loan from the Bank of World Commerce in Nassau. Allied would go on to borrow $940,000 between 1961 and 1962. Malnik, Mike Singer and Phillip Nasser were directors of both organizations when the loans were made.... ...1963 B.-The FBI installs a bug in Malnik's business office. An agent is later caught by Malnik servicing the bug providing the young attorney with a layer of protection he would later use to fend off government investigations. January 2, 1963 Alvin Malnik and Clifford Jones join Allied President Phillip Matthews in resigning as directors. Allied changes its name to Riverside Financial Corporation. April 1, 1963 Bahamas Amusement Ltd (ownership split 50/50 between Louis Chesler and the wife of Wallace Groves) receives a exemption to operate a gambling facility anywhere on Grand Bahama Island so long as the casino is built in conjunction with a hotel containing at least 250 rooms. Sir Stafford Sands Bahamas Amusements attorney negotiates an annual license fee of $280,000 per casino and $280 per slot machine. May 24,1963 Metro Mortgage Foundation goes out of business. May 24, 1963 Metro Mortgage Foundation goes out of business. August 14, 1963 The FBI illegally records a conversation between Alvin Malnik and Lansky lieutenant Ben Siegelbaum in which they learn the Lansky syndicate has obtained a confidential report from the justice department concerning the Bank of World Commerce. October 11, 1963 Returns to Florida from Nassau and continues negotiations to acquire Scopitone Inc. October 18, 1963 A.-Malnik closes the Scopione deal and sends a telegram to Phillip Mero announcing the receipt of unspecified funds. Malnik invests $5,000 of his own money and lines up 11 co-investors to provide operating capitol for the companies expansion. Amoung the investors are his older brother Irving. November 1, 1963 Mary Carter Paint Co., acquires the physical property owned by Leo F. Poppel Inc., at a public auction for $25,000. Malnik earned a $54,000 commission for selling Poppel Inc., shares owned by Jay Weiss at a profit..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turki_bin_Abdul_Aziz Turki bin Abdul Aziz (born 1934) is a member of the Sudairi faction of the Al Saud and Saudi Arabia's former Deputy Minister for Defence & Aviation. Prince Turki was at the center of the so called 'Lockheed Scandal, in which a commission was paid to the Price for the sale of AWACS planes to the Kingdom. Prince Turki was the brother-in-law of the 'so called Sheik' Mohammed Al Fassi. His sister-in-law married Miami Beach restauranteur, Sharif (Mark) Malnik, son of Al Malnik. Malnik was the reputed 'heir' of gangster Meyer Lansky. Alvin Malnik is the owner of one of the largest chains of check cashing stores..... http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=28301 ------------------------- Through the intercession of Mike McLaney, Gus Russo interviewed Malnik while preparing for "Dark Side of Camelot" -- but it was on Deep-Background-Only; and therefore didn't appear in "Live by The Sword". GPH ___________________________________ http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopol.../dope_inc08.htm Permindex Unveiled: Resorts International Intertel ...Beginning no later than 1960, Lansky hatched a grand scheme to create a "Hong Kong West" (2) in the Caribbean: an offshore center that would bring together gambling, narcotics, dirty money, and Murder Inc. under one unregulated and "highly respectable" roof. First, Lansky picked the Grand Bahamas Island as the site for a plush casino-resort. Operating through a Canadian "cutout," longtime business associate Louis Chesler, Lansky negotiated a purchase of a large tract of land on the island and oversaw the construction of a grand hotel, the Lucayan Beach Hotel, which was completed and opened for business before the end of 1963. (3) At the time the venture began, casino gambling was illegal in the Grand Bahamas — except for those hotels that received a Certificate of Exemption from the Bahamian government. The most powerful political figure on the island, chief of the so-called "Bay Street Boys," was Sir Stafford Sands. Several meetings between Sands and Chesler and $1,800,000 in bribery later, Lansky received his Certificate of Exemption on March 27, 1963. On January 22,1964, the casino at Lucayan Beach was opened under festive circumstances that Hank Messick described as follows: The international jet set was on hand to give the event some class, but Meyer Lansky's veterans were in complete control. Red Ritter was general manager; Max Courtney was credit manager; Charley Brudner was his assistant; Dino Cellini was supervisor, and so on. As a matter of fact, Dino had operated a school in London to train the dealers and stick men who came originally from Sicily by way of the syndicate casino on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. (4) Phase One of Lansky's "Operation Respectable" completed, the old wizard proceeded with the next steps. First, he cleared the way for a consortium of "legitimate" investors headed by the Miami-based Mary Carter Paint Company to buy into Hog Island (renamed Paradise Island by its owner Huntington Hartford, the multimillionaire magnate of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company) and to receive a Certificate of Exemption for the construction of a hotel-gambling casino. Sir Stafford Sands, now in Lansky's hip pocket, saw these measures through and simultaneously announced that the Bahamian government was undertaking the construction of a bridge connecting Grand Bahamas to Hog Island, to be completed by December 31,1967. (5) What sort of weird entity was Mary Carter Paints and why had Meyer Lansky gone out of his way to open all the doors on Bay Street to it? To begin with the obvious, Mary Carter Paint Company was involved in more than wall coverings. In 1958, it was effectively taken over by merger with the Crosby-Miller Co. — a Florida company about which little is known except that former New York Governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey was one of its biggest investors. (6) Dewey's "Mr. Clean" crime buster reputation, dating back to his days as special prosecutor during the 1940s, was a perfect cover for Lansky's move to Paradise Island. Via the 1958 merger, the president of Mary Carter Paint Company was James M. Crosby. Crosby's brother, Peter Crosby, was a convicted stock swindler and a close business associate of Dino Cellini. Cellini was the first lieutenant to Meyer Lansky and was known as Florida's "connection" to Canadian heroin trafficker Guiseppi Cotroni. So even with Gov. Thomas Dewey's Anglophile profile on the label of every can of Mary Carter Paint, the product was severely tarnished by big-time crime. Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba in 1959 had been a bitter pill for the Lansky syndicate to swallow; however, it taught the old wizard a valuable lesson: don't take politics for granted. Before he socked tens of millions of dollars into his Grand Bahamas dreamland, Lansky would make absolutely certain that he was treading on solid political ground. So, in 1964, Lansky arranged a small scandal centered around the sudden "revelation" that Lucayan Beach promoter Lou Chesler had connections to organized crime boss Meyer Lansky! Chesler left the island no doubt laughing all the way to the bank, and Lansky became invisible..... Alvin Malnik has gone quite oublic, just in the last few weeks: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/200...michael_jac.php http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/deb-peter...y-alvin-malnik/07.06.2009 6:33 pm St. Louis connection to Michael Jackson: Attorney Alvin Malnik By Deb Peterson St. Louis Post-Dispatch TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION: South Florida kingpin and St. Louis native, Alvin I. Malnik, 76, has been getting a lot of face time since Michael Jackson’s death. Malnik — a product of Clark Elementary School, Soldan High and Wash U. — was a friend of Jackson’s for a long time and says the King of Pop asked him to become godfather and parent to Prince Michael II, “Blanket” if anything happened to Jackson. Malnik has been interviewed about his connections to Jackson by NBC’s Today Show, CBS and the Palm Beach Post, among others. Malnik is an attorney who had close ties to mobster Meyer Lansky and was at one time considered Lansky’s “heir apparent.” Malnik has said he signed a document in 2003 saying that he could take custody of Blanket if anything happened to Jackson and that he also agreed in writing to be the executor of Jackson’s estate. Malnik says that Jackson at the time became the godfather of Malnik’s then 11-year-old daughter, Spencer. Jackson and Malnik reportedly had a falling out in the past couple of years. The cause of the estrangement is unclear. Jackson used to seek refuge in Malnik’s 15-bedroom, 35,000-square-foot Palm Beach County mansion in Ocean Ridge. He reportedly would stay there for months at a time with his children and an entourage. Malnik was Jackson’s attorney and said he helped him refinance his debt with Sony and the Bank of America. Malnik also was the owner of the exclusive Forge restaurant in Miami, which he sold to his son Shareef. Jackson sat with Malnik at the head table during Malnik’s 70th birthday bash at the Forge in 2003, which was attended by my predecessor at the Post-Dispatch, Jerry Berger. Berger was a longtime friend of Malnik’s. He wrote about the party that “the invitation to Florida itself was unique: a taped message from the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. But the event lived up to its billing. Jackson, accompanied by a full phalanx of bodyguards, was on hand to welcome Malnik’s guests, including B.B. King, Smokey Robinson, F. Lee Bailey and celeb lawyer Roy Black.” Berger included the names of some of Malnik’s St. Louis pals who were at the shindig: Attorney Martin Green, merger and acquisitions mogul Gilbert Kopolow and L.A.-based sales exec Barry Gelber. He said the Harbour Group’s Sam Fox and his wife, Marilyn, friends of Malnik’s since high school days, were no-shows but were represented by a magnificent floral masterpiece from the Fox den. Malnik also turned up with a connection to St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley. His name was on a list of campaign contributors as having donated $2000 to Dooley’s unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000; Dooley was a St. Louis County councilman at the time. In October 1952, The Mary Carter Paint Company, a Delaware company with Tampa Bay Headquarters begins operation but is probably “Mafia” front source The Grim Reapers page 119-123 becomes Resorts International in 1968. According to Ed Reid “she [Mary Carter] didn’t exist, but it’s a good feminine handle on which to hang one’s hat.” If one searches Mary Carter at NARA, there are three hits all of which are dated August 18, 1976 See http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/21214/jfksnew.txt .......While the main names which come up are Robert Maheu, Meyer Lansky and Howard Hughes, the subject line of these documents do not list Richard Nixon, who was very involved in events in the Bahamas which tie directly to something called Paradise Island, and not years later in 1968 either. Allen Dulles is another person associated with the Mary Carter Paint Co. It was quite awhile before I lost interest in the Howard Hughes as a big fish in possible involvement in the Kennedy Assassination, as far as I know his only culpability in events around the time of the JFK assassination was the very big loan Howard Hughes gave Donald Nixon, although some may dispute this, the claim has been made that Nixon lost a lot of votes in the 1960 election due to the fact that it was not a well kept secret that Hughes had “loaned” the money to Donald Nixon. Allegedly at a Nixon appearance in Chinatown during the 1960 Presidential Campaign a Chinese sign placed directly in front of Nixon said “What about the Hughes loan,” or words to that effect. While Hughes was allegedly involved in attempts to buy Robert Kennedy’s campaign staff after Bobby’s assassination, I believe Hughes is a red herring, but that is just an opinion http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&am...ewport&pg=1 Re Mary Carter Agreements: The Unsolved Evidentiary Problems in Texas John H Martin http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=18019 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=17786 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...do?docId=104655 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...do?docId=110871 Edited August 28, 2009 by Robert Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Mauro Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Another interesting connection to Michael Jackson and Resorts International and their private security firm Intertel, is via Pepsi Cola. Wallace Groves took over Pepsi from Loft Candies(???) during the 1930's. Of course Jackson was signed by Pepsi to a multi million dollar contract during the mid 1980's. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,762567,00.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/01/obituari...in-bahamas.html PS- Intertel which boasted the NFL and Time Magazine as clients was staffed by former Kennedy Justice Department operatives. Robert Peloquin, Walter Sheridan along with a few other's from RFK's "Get Hoffa" task force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted January 31, 2010 Author Share Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) Colts & Saints - & their former owners This year's Superbowl between the Colts and the Saints must have John Mecom, Sr. and Carroll Rosenbloom turning over in the graves. George DeMohrenschildt worked for John Mecom, Sr. in Yougslovica in 1957-8, while LBJ stayed at Carroll Rosenbloom's Jersey Shore beach house during the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Both Mecom and Rosenbloom are certainly intersting "deeply political" characters who played with the Big Boys but whose roles are hard to define. Here's de Mohrenschildt explaining his work for Mecom to the Warren Commission: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=19018 Namebase: MECOM JOHN W SR Borosage,R. Marks,J. The CIA File. 1976 (105) Brewton,P. The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush. 1992 (194, 314, 317) Domhoff,G.W. The Higher Circles. 1971 (260) Hepburn,J. Farewell America. 1968 (251, 335) Lundberg,F. The Rich and the Super-Rich. 1969 (41) Marrs,J. Crossfire. 1990 (280, 282) Moldea,D. Interference. 1989 (145) Russell,D. The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1992 (271, 592) Sale,K. Power Shift. 1976 (139) Weinberg,S. Armand Hammer: The Untold Story. 1989 (163, 203) Wise,D. Ross,T. The Espionage Establishment. 1967 (144) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Mecom,_Sr.. John W. Mecom, Sr. Born January 13, 1911 Died October 12, 1981 City of Houston, Texas Occupation Independent oilman Spouse(s) Mary Elizabeth (d. 1996) Children John W. Mecom, Jr. John W. Mecom Sr (January 13, 1911 – October 12, 1981) was an American businessman. John Whitfield Mecom Sr found success as an independent oilman by acquiring abandoned oil wells and then making them profitable. He also developed new fields from Louisiana to Saudi Arabia. He was once ranked as one of the top oil independents; however, he filed for bankruptcy in 1970. After reorganizing his John W. Mecom Company, he reopened his company, which he subsequently ran with his son, John W. Mecom Jr., former owner of the New Orleans Saints NFL football team. In 1965, Mecom's private plane was mistakenly shot down by the Egyptian air force. While he survived, the incident strained U.S.-Egypt relations, Mecom being a friend and donor of Lyndon Johnson. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925023,00.html DIED. John W. Mecom Sr., 70, former oilfield roustabout whose success at turning abandoned wells into profitable operations, along with his initiative hi developing new fields in locales from Louisiana to Saudi Arabia, once ranked him with independent Oil Tycoons J. Paul Getty and H.L. Hunt; of a heart ailment; in Houston. An unpretentious man who never had a chauffeur (but who occasionally donned a chauffeur's cap to drive his wife around in a limousine), "Big John" at times was estimated to be worth more than $200 million, but in 1970 filed two bankruptcy petitions. Out of that period of reorganization emerged a Houston-based oil firm, John W. Mecom Co., with Mecom as chairman and his son John Jr., owner of the New Orleans Saints football team, as president. 1. JOHN MECOM, JR. http://www.muckety.com/John-W-Mecom-Jr/82426.muckety http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/New-Orleans-Saints-LP-Company-History.html Address: 5800 Airline Drive Metairie, Louisiana 70003 U.S.A. Telephone: (504) 733-0255 Fax: (504) 731-1888 http://www.neworleanssaints.com Statistics: Private Company Founded: 1966 Employees: 130 Sales: $139 million (2002) NAIC: 711211 Sports Teams and Clubs; 711310 Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events with Facilities Company Perspectives: This organization will remain as dedicated to serving the community as we are to winning championships. We vow to make the most of this opportunity to make a difference as a good corporate citizen. Key Dates: 1966: Owner John Mecom, Jr., founds the New Orleans Saints franchise on All Saints Day. Company History: The New Orleans Saints LP, a professional football franchise, came into existence in 1966, when the National Football League's president, Pete Rozelle, authorized the league's expansion. A private enterprise, the Saints organization, first owned by John Mecom, Jr. John W. Mecom Sr (January 13, 1911 – October 12, 1981) was an American businessman. John Whitfield Mecom Sr found success as an independent oilman by acquiring abandoned oil wells and then making them profitable. He also developed new fields from Louisiana to Saudi Arabia. He was once ranked as one of the top oil independents; however, he filed for bankruptcy in 1970. After reorganizing his John W. Mecom Company, he reopened his company, which he subsequently ran with his son, John W. Mecom Jr., former owner of the New Orleans Saints NFL football team. In 1965, Mecom's private plane was mistakenly shot down by the Egyptian air force. While he survived, the incident strained U.S.-Egypt relations, Mecom being a friend and donor of Lyndon Johnson. "Obituary:John W. Mecom Sr.". TIME magazine. October 26, 1981. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925023,00.html. Retrieved 2007-05-10. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081889/index.htm Dec. 9 1968 A Rich Man Is Odd Man Out John Mecom Jr., owner of the New Orleans Saints, has everything he wants except favor among the NFL inner circle and a winning team Edwin Shrake "There could hardly be any argument that John Mecom Jr. is better off than most. He is young, handsome as a singing cowboy, owns more racing cars than the ordinary man owns neckties, has a lovely wife and family, a large home in Houston, a ranch on the Mexican border stocked with eland and other exotic creatures and he has his personal professional football team to play with. What would you give this man for Christmas—a hotel? Forget it, he's got a few. One thing Mecom does not have is acceptance into the inner circle of National Football League club owners and executives. He is allowed to attend their meetings if he pleases, a privilege he earned by paying $8.5 million for a franchise that went into business last season in New Orleans. You may notice him standing in the lobby of the Gotham or the Waldorf in New York, chatting with Art Modell of Cleveland or Tex Schramm of Dallas. But they are probably talking business. Despite the success of the Saints at the gate—and their relative success on the field—Mecom is still treated like a new boy at a prep school. It is not simply that Mecom is recently arrived in the game. For several years he was spoken of as a potential franchise holder. If the conflict with the AFL had continued and the NFL had ever decided to expand into Houston, Mecom would most likely have been selected as the representative to stand up against Bud Adams and the Oilers. That was when Mecom seemed to be highly favored in Pete Rozelle's court. In those days Mecom, Bedford Wynne and George Owen were a threesome at NFL gatherings, where their hands could be seen grabbing checks, massaging shoulders, snapping lighters to others' cigarettes. Owen, once a partner with Wynne and Mickey Mantle in a Dallas nightclub, was a smooth and likable front man for Mecom. Wynne, an attorney and one of the original minority owners of the Dallas Cowboys, had the connections to open doors that would have remained closed had the only calling card been Mecom's financial statement. It may never be known how much money Mecom spent to buy a seat at the club-owners' table, but it was considerable, just as was Wynne's influence. When Mecom finally was voted his franchise, he set up a committee to run the operation. The members of the committee were Mecom, Wynne and Larry Karl, former assistant general manager of the Cowboys. The committee did not last through the Saints' first training camp. Mecom began to complain about the bills that were flooding in, including such items as a $50,000 bonus to a punter, Tennessee's Ron Widby, who was cut and eventually picked up by Dallas, where he is now one of the best in the league. After a disagreement with Tom Fears, the coach, Wynne left the training camp and the Saints organization. A couple of months later Karl followed. To replace them, in came Bert Rose as general manager at Rozelle's request, according to Mecom. Rose had worked for Rozelle when the NFL commissioner was general manager of the Rams and had himself been the first general manager of the Minnesota Vikings. Rose started looking for places to trim the New Orleans budget. He decided he could do without several employees, one of whom was George Owen, who was by then on the Saints' payroll as director of player relations. Mecom decided he would rather do without Rose. Rose was fired and has since moved to Philadelphia, which has become pro football's Siberia. Former Chief Scout Vic Schwenk, who does not get along especially well with Fears, replaced Rose last March. One problem he has had to deal with was the trade Mecom made for Dave Parks, a fine receiver who had played out his option at San Francisco. When the Saints and 49ers could not agree on proper remuneration for Parks, the matter was turned over to Rozelle. The commissioner ordered New Orleans to give up top 1968 draft choice Kevin Hardy plus the No. 1 draft choice for 1969. There were screams that Rozelle was punishing Mecom for the treatment of Wynne, Rose and Karl. However, a player of Parks's quality is worth quite a price, and the Saints paid it. Mecom's punishment has been more in the nature of exclusion, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. One NFL owner had been particularly chummy with Owen and Mecom. Suddenly he stopped calling. "When we played them, I saw him on the field before the game and asked what was wrong," Owen says. "He turned around and said, 'George, from now on our relationship is strictly business.' The only owner who invited us out to dinner this year was Bill Ford at Detroit." Although he would prefer to be liked by the NFL's inner circle, Mecom no doubt will be able to struggle through life somehow and keep having fun. He has built excellent practice quarters for his Saints out near the New Orleans airport. The executive offices are downtown at Lee Circle in a three-story brown building with two floors of black iron-lace balconies. The building is next door to another building, which is covered with ivy except for the doors, windows-and turrets. A sign in front of that building says: U.S. OIL OF LOUISIANA, INC. That is another Mecom company, and the two buildings are connected by passageways…. Carroll Rosenbloom Born March 5, 1907 Died April 2, 1979 (aged 72) Golden Beach, Florida Cause of death drowning Residence North Carolina Occupation Owner Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams Spouse(s) Velma Georgia Frontiere Children Steve Rosenbloom Chip Rosenbloom Lucia Rodriguez Carroll Rosenbloom (March 5, 1907–April 2, 1979) was the American owner of two National Football League (NFL) franchises, the Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams. He graduated from the Baltimore City College and attended the University of Pennsylvania and played halfback for the Quakers for two years beginning in 1927. During his time at Penn, Rosenbloom was a member of the Jewish fraternity ZBT. [1] One of the assistant coaches on that team was future NFL commissioner Bert Bell. After a career in business primarily selling khaki uniforms to the U.S. Army during World War II, Rosenbloom became the majority owner of the Baltimore Colts on January 11, 1953. Rosenbloom was the lead man of a five-man ownership group that was awarded what remained of the defunct Dallas Texans, who had left a string of debts upon their demise the previous year. Adopting the nickname of the city's earlier professional incarnation, the Colts, Rosenbloom hired Keith Molesworth as the team's head coach one day after taking control. The Colts won three of 12 games in their first season, but Rosenbloom endeared himself to his players by awarding them a $500 bonus after the season. Molesworth was replaced after the season, but remained as the team's chief talent scout. After first considering one Cleveland Browns' assistant, Blanton Collier, he hired another, Weeb Ewbank on January 14, 1954. Over the next few seasons, the team began to add key draft players, such as future Hall of Famers Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore and, perhaps most importantly, free agent quarterback Johnny Unitas in 1956. After first considering getting rid of Ewbank, Rosenbloom relented with the end result being that the Colts enjoyed their first winning season in 1957, beginning a streak that would last throughout Rosenbloom's ownership with the team. In 1958, the Baltimore Colts won the NFL Championship, winning a classic overtime battle with the New York Giants, 23–17. This game is often referred to as "The Greatest Game Ever Played". Unitas had led a furious drive for a game-tying field goal in the final minutes that sent the game into overtime. In that period, running back Alan Ameche entered into Baltimore sports lore by plunging into the end zone for the winning score. Baltimore repeated as champions in 1959, but by the end of the 1962 NFL season, had slipped enough that Ewbank was fired. In his place came the then-youngest head coach in NFL history, Don Shula, who finished with a winning record in his first season, then went 12–2 in 1964. The latter season would end in bitter disappointment for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns, 27–0, in the NFL Championship game. In 1965, injuries to both Colt quarterbacks resulted in running back Tom Matte moving behind center, but a loss to eventual champion Green Bay in a playoff game ended the season. After the team slipped somewhat in 1966, they bounced back the next year with an 11–1–2 season. Their one defeat came in the regular season finale against the Los Angeles Rams, keeping them out of the playoffs. The 1968 team won all but one of their regular season games, then gained revenge on Cleveland with a 34-0 win in the NFL Championship game. Two weeks later, the Colts lost Super Bowl III to Joe Namath and the New York Jets, with Rosenbloom reportedly complaining that Shula "couldn't win the big one." Shula would leave the Colts for the Miami Dolphins after the 1969 NFL season, but Rosenbloom successfully argued that Miami had tampered with Shula, and the Colts were awarded Miami's first-round draft choice.[2] During Don McCafferty's (known as "Easy Rider") first season, Baltimore was victorious in Super Bowl V, beating the Dallas Cowboys 16-13. Jim O'Brien's game-winning 32-yard field goal with five seconds remaining decided the game, after Dallas quarterback Craig Morton's late interception helped set up the field goal. In 1971, Rosenbloom moved the team's training camp to Tampa, Florida, angering the local population. Although the team reached the AFC Championship game, Rosenbloom spent the next offseason completing a historic swapping of teams with new Los Angeles Rams owner Robert Irsay, with Hugh Culverhouse, future owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, helping to broker the deal.[3] In 1979, Rosenbloom drowned while swimming in the ocean behind his Golden Beach, Florida, home. An investigation into his death found no evidence of foul play and determined his death to be an accidental drowning. Four years after his death, in the premiere episode of the PBS series Frontline, Rosenbloom's death was cited as an example of the seamy side of the National Football League. Using interviews with reported mobsters who claimed Rosenbloom's legs had been held to cause his drowning, the report showed gruesome autopsy photos of Rosenbloom's body. Following his death, Rosenbloom's wife Georgia Frontiere inherited the Rams,[5] moving the team to Anaheim for the 1980 season, and finally moving the Rams again to her native St. Louis in 1995. ^ "Carroll Rosenbloom". www.jewsinsports.org. http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sp...ball&ID=161. Retrieved 2009-09-02. ^ Olsen, Jack. "The Rosenbloom-Robbie Bowl," Sports Illustrated, November 9, 1970. ^ Maule, Tex. "Nay On The Neighs, Yea On The Baas," Sports Illustrated, August 14, 1972. ^ Los Angeles Rams – Sports E-Cyclopedia. ^ Zimmerman, Paul. "L.A. Goes Marching Behind Georgia," Sports Illustrated, August 13, 1979. Edited January 31, 2010 by William Kelly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hogan Posted August 8, 2010 Share Posted August 8, 2010 And Terry, thanks for pointing out the INTERTEL connection to the NFL, as that's new to me, and especially interesting since Peloquin and Company served as security for Resorts International when they were the first to bring casino gambling to Atlantic City. Hey Bill, the article says HBO is wagering its reputation on this show. And no, its not Tom Hanks and Reclaiming History. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/boardwalk-empire-hbo-drama Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted August 8, 2010 Author Share Posted August 8, 2010 (edited) And Terry, thanks for pointing out the INTERTEL connection to the NFL, as that's new to me, and especially interesting since Peloquin and Company served as security for Resorts International when they were the first to bring casino gambling to Atlantic City. Hey Bill, the article says HBO is wagering its reputation on this show. And no, its not Tom Hanks and Reclaiming History. http://www.guardian....mpire-hbo-drama Hey Michael, I haven't even read your link yet but I know what it's about. Boardwalk Empire - right? Nucky Johnson, Al Capone, Lansky, the gang's all here, Sopranos grandfather's flashbacks. It is based on a non-fiction book by a real Atlantic County - NJ judge Johnson, no relation to Nucky, and its supposed to be really good. I don't know. I hope it works. That is it, isn't it? BK Edited August 8, 2010 by William Kelly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hogan Posted August 8, 2010 Share Posted August 8, 2010 And Terry, thanks for pointing out the INTERTEL connection to the NFL, as that's new to me, and especially interesting since Peloquin and Company served as security for Resorts International when they were the first to bring casino gambling to Atlantic City. Hey Bill, the article says HBO is wagering its reputation on this show. And no, its not Tom Hanks and Reclaiming History. http://www.guardian....mpire-hbo-drama Hey Michael, I haven't even read your link yet but I know what it's about. Boardwalk Empire - right? Nucky Johnson, Al Capone, Lansky, the gang's all here, Sopranos grandfather's flashbacks. It is based on a non-fiction book by a real Atlantic County - NJ judge Johnson, relation to Nucky, and its supposed to be really good. I don't know. I hope it works. That is it, isn't it? BK Yes, that's it. I knew you knew about it. Now you can read the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 (edited) ....Moldea's investigation into NFL gambling even led to gruesome autopsy photos of Rosenbloom being published and broadcast on TV, while Russo alleges a golfing connection between old man Joe Kennedy, President Kennedy and Mike McLaney, their Palm Beach neighbor. If you read all the quotes below, you eventually get to Bert Bell, Jr., for whom the NFL Bert Bell Award is named, and a Philadelphia football personage, whose son, Bert Bell III, took the photo that is my avatar on the Education Forum. .... Bell's nephew, George D. Bell, was close to GHW Bush, along with Fitzgerald Bemis(s), and James C Wheat, Jr. While personally providing just 2 percent of the $50 million start up capital, with the balance raised in 1973 through Wheat's, "Wheat First", Bush's roommate, Robert C. Macauley, a man who, in 1973 had no past, except for traveling, drinking and playing piano, created Virginia Fibre / Macauley & Co., and quickly sold a 50 percent interest to Greif Bros. and it's chairman, John C. Dempsey, and was appointed a director of WR Grace, because he met the Chairman of Grace in a Miami bar while playing Piano. Macauley founded Americare and became a multi-millionaire long before his death at age 87, last December. http://www.vahistorical.org/arvfind/bemissser1.htm.FitzGerald Bemiss Papers, 1943-1997 Collection Number Mss1 B4252 c 1-500 Series 1. Correspondence, n.d., 1943-1997, with or about George H. W. Bush ...G. Bush to F. Bemiss, brief note concerning Kipling’s If; also mentioning James C. Wheat and George Bell [likely Philadelphia investment banker and fellow Yale alumni George deBenneville Bell, Sr., who died in June 1992] (copy).... http://articles.philly.com/1992-06-15/news/26029481_1_board-member-chairman-of-investment-firm-yale George Debenneville Bell, 68, Chairman Of Investment Firm June 15, 1992|By Kimberly J. McLarin, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER George deBenneville Bell, 68, chairman of the investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott Inc., died Saturday at his home in Gladwyne. Publisher Walter Annenberg, who knew Mr. Bell for many years, called him a wonderful father, husband and private citizen. "George was an oustanding citizen," Annenberg said. "He was always concerned about other people. He had a record of serving other people in various causes and in the organizations in which he was an active participant." Mr. Bell, who was raised in Wynnewood, was a member of a prominent Philadelphia family. His father, John C. Bell Jr., was a governor of Pennsylvania and a former chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Mr. Bell's uncle, deBenneville (Bert) Bell, was the first commissioner of the National Football League. Mr. Bell attended Episcopal Academy and graduated from St. George's School in 1942. He graduated from Yale in the Class of 1945W, which designates that he served in the military and returned to Yale to complete his bachelor of arts degree. He was a lieutenant, serving in the Air Force from 1943 to 1945, and was a pilot in the training command. Mr. Bell spent 24 years on Wall Street, rising to partner at Drexel & Co. for 10 years, then partner at Dillon, Read & Co., from 1971 to 1973. He joined Janney Montgomery Scott Inc. in 1974 as senior vice president and director. In 1978 he became executive vice president and in 1982 was named co- chairman of the board of directors. He was named chairman of the board of directors in 1991. He was a former governor of the Investment Bankers' Association and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He was a governor of the American Stock Exchange at the time of his death. Mr. Bell was active in several other professional associations, including serving as chairman of the Eastern Pennsylvania Group (IBA), a governor of the Association of Stock Exchange firms, a governor of the Bond Club of New York and a governor of the Bond Club of Philadelphia. He was a board member and a vice chairman of the Philadelphia-Washington-Baltimore Stock Exchange. Mr. Bell was active in many community and social organizations. He was a board member of Lankenau Hospital, the Fox Chase Cancer Center, the Main Line Board of Health and the Sanford Foundation, among others. He was active in a variety of athletic clubs and was past president of the Racquet Club of Philadelphia. An avid sportsman, he won five father and son court tennis doubles national championships. He was a member of the Gulph Mills Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club and Merion Cricket Club and was a member of the U.S. Seniors Golf Association. Mr. Bell is survived by his wife of 39 years, Roberta McVey Bell; a daughter, Sophie B. Ayres; sons, George deB. Jr. and James T.; his mother, Mrs. John C. Jr.; two sisters, and two grandchildren.... http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/15/obituaries/george-deb-bell-68-an-investment-banker.html?pagewanted=1 George deBenneville Bell, chairman of a Philadelphia investment banking firm, died Saturday at his home in Gladwyne, Pa. He was 68 years old. Mr. Bell died of cancer, his family said. Mr. Bell was chairman of Janney Montgomery Scott, where he had worked for the last 19 years. Before that he was an investment banker on Wall Street. He had worked for 21 years at Drexel and Company, where he rose to partner and senior vice president, and three years at Dillon, Read & Company, where he was a partner and vice president. He served on the boards of 10 companies. He was also a governor of the American Stock Exchange and former governor of the Investment Bankers Association and Philadelphia Stock Exchange and an officer of other professional organizations. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Bell grew up in Wynnewood, Pa. He served as a first lieutenant in the training command of the United States Army Air Corps in World War II. After the war he graduated from Yale University and attended the University of Pennsylvania law school. He was a past president of the Racquet Club of Philadelphia and five times won father-and-son national championships in the United States Court Tennis Association. Surviving are his mother, Sarah of Bryn Mawr, Pa.; his wife of 39 years, the former Roberta McVey; two sons, George Bell Jr. of Glen Cove, L.I., and James T. Bell of Manhattan; a daughter, Sophie Ayres of Laurel Hollow, L.I.; two sisters,... http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_14/b3675029.htm George Bell: The Year of Living Painfully Excite@Home has lost value and alienated its partners. CEO George Bell is facing the greatest adventure of his life BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : APRIL 3, 2000 ISSUE ...Leave it to Bell to strike a savvy political compromise. George deBenneville Bell Jr. grew up in a distinguished Philadelphia family with a long line of prominent politicians, lawyers, and financiers. His grandfather was governor of Pennsylvania, albeit briefly, and served as chief justice of the state Supreme Court for 11 years. His great-grandfather was district attorney in Philadelphia from 1903 to 1907 and Pennsylvania's attorney general from 1911 to 1915. George's father, George Sr., became co-chairman of investment bank Janney Montgomery Scott Inc. and became close friends with former President George Bush while the two of them were at Yale University. Growing up among CEOs, chief justices, and presidents, George Jr. clearly faced great expectations. Even going to Harvard University wasn't considered that impressive in his family. ''The worst thing I did was go to Harvard,'' he says. Not that it wasn't a good school, it's just that his father went to Yale and his grandfather went to the University of Pennsylvania. Bell, however, didn't feel any pressure to follow his father into finance. That's because his older sister, Sophie Ayers, excelled in the field. She joined First Boston, now Credit Suisse First Boston, in 1977, when there were few women on Wall Street. She is now a managing partner at Russell Reynolds, recruiting top finance executives. ''In many ways, she was the first-born son,'' says Bell. ''She cleared the way so I could go my own way.'' Early on, Bell explored career options far from finance and politics. At Harvard, he studied English, and wanted to be a writer. He had several fiction and nonfiction pieces published, including a fictionalized story about Robert Louis Stevenson's life in Western Samoa. ''It was very well done,'' says David McKean, Bell's roommate in college and now chief-of-staff for Senator John F. Kerrey (D.-Mass.).... http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20120409,00.html May 29, 1989 Vol. 31 No. 21 With An Entrepreneur's Energy, Americares' Bob Macauley Brings Help to the World's Needy By Kim Hubbard, Toby Kahn ....Macauley's sense of solidarity with those less fortunate took root when he was a child. His father, Milton, was a well-to-do Greenwich, Conn., paper broker; his mother, Ella, a housewife heavily involved in an overseas foster-parents program. Bob and his two sisters were instructed to send their old clothes and part of their allowances to foster siblings in Poland and Latvia. "My mother was a crusader," Macauley says. "I was always socially conscious." He did not, however, always act that way. At 17, Macauley dropped out of Andover, joined the Air Force and entered what his wife, Leila, now 67, refers to as his "self-interest phase." He drifted to Miami after flying cargo planes in World War II, drank to excess and made a living playing the piano in beer joints. He sobered up long enough to attend Yale, where he earned a B.A. in international relations, but after graduation he resumed his hedonistic life-style. "The only thing I knew how to do was play the piano, so I went to Europe and played golf and tennis all day and the piano at night." It was during Macauley's carefree period that he first met Leila Lindgren, a young teacher and war widow with an infant son. Macauley asked for her hand the night they met. Smitten herself but wary of Bob's hard-living ways, Leila declined—for the moment. "He was very impetuous and not very stable," she says. The two kept in touch, however. Leila remarried and had a daughter, Mindy (now 27 and a lawyer); Bob stopped drifting and built a lucrative career as a salesman for a New York paper company. He finally quit drinking in 1964 ("I wasn't an alcoholic, but close," he says), and in 1965 Leila, twice widowed, finally accepted his 20-year-old proposal. Family life, Macauley says, steadied him and also helped him focus the vague charitable urges he had retained from childhood. In 1969 Macauley "really got into the philanthropic world," as he puts it. After reading a newspaper about the plight of Vietnam war orphans, he took the $5,000 he had earmarked for a new car and, after a unanimous family vote, sent it to the orphans instead. Soon he was persuading his friends to help out, and the Shoeshine Foundation (named after the orphans' method of earning pocket money) was established to shelter war orphans. Macauley's professional ambitions escalated after his marriage as well. In 1973, on the strength of his expertise in the paper business, he managed to borrow $50 million and established the Virginia Fibre Company in Amherst, Va. The company flourished, and by the time Macauley dreamed up AmeriCares in 1982, he was in a position to pledge roughly 10 percent of the privately held company's pretax income to charity work. To this day, Macauley's company is the foundation's primary donor. Last year, Virginia Fibre kicked in $2.4 million. Macauley's first AmeriCares mission came about by accident—or perhaps by divine intervention. In 1981 Pope John Paul II heard about Macauley's fund-raising efforts for Covenant House, a shelter for runaways in New York City. He summoned Macauley to a private meeting and asked for help getting medical supplies to Poland, which was then under martial law. "I was in awe of him," Macauley says. "So I said, 'Certainly, Your Holiness.' What else could I say—'No, Pope?' " .... Dealer's digest: Volume 39 books.google.com 1973 - Snippet view Virginia Fibre Corp. placed $13000000 of series A senior mortgage notes due in 1981, $10,- 900000 of series B notes due in 1980 and $7775000 of convertible notes also due in 1989. Wheat, First Private Sales Private sales of bonds, preferreds and common which have been publicly announced or reported for the past week is as follows, with the number of issues shown in parentheses in each case. The total is as follows, with the number of issues shown in parentheses in each case. Securities acted as agent. Virginia Fibre, again acting through Wheat, First Securities, was also responsible for the only equity placements of the week: $4000000 of 5% preferred and $1000000 of common. In all, then, the company placed... Fund raiser's guide to private fortunes books.google.com Arnold Schoenthaler, Benjamin Lord, Taft Group (Detroit, Mich.) - 1988 - 471 pages - Snippet view Current Employment: chmn, ceo, dir: Greif Brothers Corp Wealth: In 1986, John Dempsey's fortune was reported to be about $300 million. On December 31 , 1987, Mr. Dempsey was listed as beneficially owning, directly or indirectly, ... Business week: Issues 3068-3077 books.google.com1988 - Snippet view John C. Dempsey Delaware, Ohio 614-363-1271 Sales: $355 mil. Profits: $21 mil. Market value: $505 mil. ... This devout (portrait of Jesus overlooks conference table) 74- year-old still jogs, and says he has no plans to retire. ... http://articles.courant.com/1991-08-11/news/0000213206_1_mill-gamble-paper For Founder Of Relief Group, A Willingness To Gamble Paid Off August 11, 1991|By ANN MARSH; Courant Staff Writer As a young man, Robert C. Macauley played piano in bars throughout Europe after World War II. He remembers going again and again to a casino in Cannes to gamble. "I'd take whatever I had and play it all on number 36," Macauley said. "I just had a good feeling about 36." After months of losing his weekly pay of about $300, his number finally came up. He walked out the door with $16,000 in his pocket. "It was more money than I ever had," Macauley said. "So I chartered a sloop. It was a big boat, and I got three French couples who were great friends of mine and we told the guy, `We'll keep sailing until all the money runs out.' " For the next month, Macauley and his friends hopped between islands in the Mediterranean, swimming and riding bicycles until the money dried up off the coast of Yugoslavia. Then Macauley found his way back to New York. Today, Macauley, 67, uses a cane to support his arthritic legs and his travel is restricted by his health. But for Macauley, his gambles have paid off. In between puffs on his pipe, Macauley will sometimes tell in his deep, theatrical voice that starting up both his Virginia paper mill and AmeriCares, his private international relief agency, were like playing at the gaming tables. Both enterprises were risks he took at about the same time in his life. After returning from Europe, Macauley worked for most of his early career at his father's paper company, the M.L. Macauley Co. in New York, and was also vice president of the Great Northern Paper Co. for several years. In the early 1970s, Macauley decided to start his own business. While searching for a site for his mill, Macauley said, he visited Appalachia. "I saw what the terrible deprivations were," he said. "There was a 32 percent unemployment rate. So I decided if I was going to build a mill, I'd like to build sort of a sociological experiment -- sociological in the sense that to function in this country, you can't exploit people. The charter I drafted [for the company] was taken from the Sermon on the Mount." In addition to creating employment, the mill, built in Riverville, Va., entirely with borrowed money, offers profit-sharing to its 300 or so employees. "It was really an experiment," Macauley said. "We had a terrible struggle for five years. We had a terrible debt load." But the Virginia Fibre company became one of the most profitable corrugated paper manufacturers in the country, Macauley said. At about the same time plans for Virginia Fibre were shaping up, Macauley and his family began sending small amounts of money to an American man named Richard Hughes, who was trying to help street children in Vietnam. The orphans were nicknamed the Shoeshine Boys because they earned money by shining shoes for U.S. servicemen. Macauley eventually became president and founder of the Shoeshine Boys Foundation. "When Saigon was falling, I kept thinking, `What is going to happen to these kids?' I knew I had to get them out of there," Macauley said.... http://www.russbaker.com/archives/Village%20Voice%20-%20Breaking%20The%20Faith.htm Village Voice - March 20, 1990 Vol. XXXV No. 12 Breaking the Faith – A Close Look at Covenant House By Russ Baker http://russbaker.com/2010/05/21/a-thousand-points-of-blight/ THE VILLAGE VOICE January 8, 1991 A Thousand Points of Blight ArmeriCares, George Bush’s Favorite Charity, Dispenses Bitter Medicine Around the World By Russ W. Baker ...According to AmeriCares, all 40 of the biggest pharmaceutical firms contribute. Many have more at stake than taxes; they maintain operations in the same Third World countries where AmeriCares is active in supplying counterinsurgency programs and share an ideological bond with the group. Some, including Richardson-Vicks, GD Searle & Co., Eli Lilly, Sterling Drug, and Merck & Co., have affiliated philanthropies that have made large donations to other right-wing foundations active in covert-type operations, including the contra supply effort. And some companies are particularly close to the White House: on leaving the CIA in 1977, George Bush spent a year on the Eli Lilly board. Although Robert Macauley says his goal is to spread love throughout the world, the study of his Connecticut home is filled with books about war and military affairs, according to visitors. His study of power began in Fairfield County, where he and the young George Bush became friends and schoolmates, going from kindergarten to Phillips Andover and, eventually, to Yale. After graduation, Bob Macauley joined his father’s paper brokerage, where he was a salesman. And a good one. “He could charm the Virgin Mary out of her drawers,” says one of his former customers. Another ex-client describes Macauley as “smooth, a charmer … a BS artist.” Macauley, according to those who know him well, has alternately charmed and exaggerated his way to the top. He wooed his clients at New York hot spots, where he told wild tales. “Everybody in the world he knew, or said he knew,” recalls one. “He couldn’t stop talking about the Kennedys-this one and that one.” Macauley told customers about meeting Pablo Picasso in postwar Paris. Picasso, he said, excused himself and went off to make love to some young women, then came back to continue their chat. According to one source, Macauley also claimed that he’d served in the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, during the Second World War (a statement Macauley now denies making). In Paris, Macauley met Peter Grace when, according to Stephen Johnson, the mogul wandered into “either a cathouse or a saloon where Bob was playing the piano. They’re both cut from the same cloth. They’re both very aggressive, very bang-gang, do-it-now kind of guys.” Macauley eventually launched his own paper mill, which today helps fund AmeriCares. When he formed the Virginia Fibre Corporation in 1973, Macauley put up just $1 million of the $50 million total. He has managed to retain 93 per cent of the capital stock. “I can do pretty much what I want,” he told Forbes in 1985. Virginia Fibre has made Macauley a wealthy man: annual sales are about $100 million, and net profits climbed rapidly from $3 million in 1986 to a formidable $20 million last year. Nine per cent of the company’s pretax profits go directly to AmeriCares, $1.835 million last year. To ensure tight control of AmeriCares and Virginia Fibre, Macauley places his best players on both teams. The officers of the mill and charity are nearly identical, and Virginia Fibre executives frequently go on AmeriCares missions. President Charles Chandler is also an executive vice-president of AmeriCares; Virginia Fibre VP Clark Johnson is also a VP of the charity. AmeriCares board member Bert Schwarz is a Virginia Fibre board member, as was Father Bruce Ritter, who was also on the AmeriCares board until the Covenant House scandal forced him to resign (see “The Ritter Connection,”) The charity is also funded by Macauley’s 17 per cent share of the voting stock in Greif Brothers Corp., a closely held Delaware, Ohio, packaging manufacturer. Greif, a considerably larger firm, has made heavy loans to Virginia Fibre, and owns convertible nonvoting stock in the company that gives it the right to take Virginia Fibre over. Both Macauley and Charles Chandler sit on Greif’s board. The company has sales exceeding $400 million and has 102 plants scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada. Macauley has told people his Greif stock is worth several hundred million. He is also a favorite of Greif chairman John Dempsey and is rumored to be in line to succeed him. According to one major shareholder, Greif corporate meetings are frequently dominated by Macauley, who spends most of his time talking about AmeriCares. (Macauley also put Father Ritter into Greif. The biggest portion of a secret Covenant House trust fund set up to benefit Ritter was, according to The New York Times, made up of Greif Brothers stock Ritter purchased in 1982 on Macauley’s advice. By 1990, it was valued at $627,000.) Greif is distinguished in part by its meshing of religion with business. Every year the back cover of its annual report features a photo of a conference table with a portrait of Jesus centered above it. The caption: “Beneath this portrait and at this conference table for the past 42 years have been made the major decisions of the corporation.” In addition to Greif, AmeriCares’s most devout supporters include the Reverend Pat Robertson, the fundamentalist former presidential candidate. Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network runs Operation Blessing, which distributes tens of millions each year to relief groups, including AmeriCares and the Knights of Malta. Robertson has sometimes been AmeriCares single largest contributor, especially during the years in backed the contras. (There’s another odd wrinkle to the tale: Robertson was also once employed by Peter Grace’s company in Latin America. Grace and Robertson later served together on various political committees, including the one that planned the April 15, 1985, Nicaragua Refugee Fund dinner at which President Reagan began a new campaign to restore official funding to the contras.) Although AmeriCares is Robert Macauley, nobody better illustrates its ideology than advisory committee chairman Peter Grace, whose $7 billion-dollar conglomerate is involved in chemical production, cocoa processing, oil and gas exploration, and other businesses in 44 countries. He’s also the president of the Knights of Malta in the U.S. Grace has packed his company’s board with people involved in various ways with rightist political activity. (At least eight Grace directors have been Knights of Malta.) In addition to Macauley, the Grace board is stocked with the likes of Roger Milliken, chairman of Milliken & Company and a large contributor to right-wing groups (including the John Birch Society and Western Goals, a private intelligence-gathering agency that kept data on U.S. activists and supplied it to police departments, which are barred from keeping such files; the group honored Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson at a 1984 dinner).... Edited September 14, 2011 by Tom Scully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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