-Caveat Lector- USA: Book Review - Corruption in Las Vegas *****THE MONEY AND THE POWER The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000 By Sally Denton and Roger Morris Illustrated. 479 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95 ***** As they see it, Las Vegas is "the nexus" of "international corruption at the highest levels of business and government": a "shadow capital at the beginning of a new millennium" embodying the "culture and values and the near-complete rule of money in American life," a "Rosetta stone for deciphering significant but still entombed or encoded chapters of our national past." "Read through the rise of Las Vegas, the seemingly familiar story of organized crime and corruption in America takes on new implications," Mr. Morris and Ms. Denton write. "The compromising of politics and government is earlier, wider, more decisive and more often the play of rival factions beyond the visible parties and personalities, the penetration of business and finance deeper and more permanent, the dominance of society more insidious and enduring." The authors suggest that the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy shared a Las Vegas connection and that Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were "beholden to Las Vegas power and influence" as well. The new corporate face of Las Vegas, with its theme park casinos geared toward families, they imply, does not signify the demise of mob power there, but merely conceals another stage in the evolution of the city, "increasingly a playground and laundering center for foreign organized crime." As for Watergate, Mr. Morris and Ms. Denton argue that it was less about what they call "comparatively minor offenses such as obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty or failure to produce subpoenaed evidence" than "a Medusa´s head of entangled, intrinsic corruption" tracing "a lineage to the Strip: partisan warfare by covert gangs grown as decisive in American politics as any party or platform; payoffs far larger than any sums revealed by Watergate testimony; collusions with the syndicate much older and more constant than any unsavory associations surfacing in the investigation; corporate alliance with crime and government intelligence more pervasive and powerful than the shadows thrown by any hearing." Such high-decibel allegations tend to be made in "The Money and the Power" with little or no credible sourcing. Ms. Denton and Mr. Morris (who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon and who wrote the critically acclaimed 1989 biography "Richard Milhous Nixon") appear to base many of their arguments on the Oliver Stonian theories of writers like Peter Dale Scott (the author of "Deep Politics and the Death of J. F. K." and "Crime and Cover-Up: The C.I.A., the Mafia and the Dallas-Watergate Connection"), who posit all manner of hidden connections between organized crime, United States law enforcement agencies, the drug trade and foreign policy. Ms. Denton and Mr. Morris frequently accept, at face value, the assertions of their sources, however dubious or biased those sources might be. They cite, for instance, a gangster´s boast of "delivering to President Jimmy Carter the vote of Nevada Senator Howard Cannon on the Panama Canal Zone Treaty" without making independent efforts to verify the credibility of this assertion, and they quote a man named Michael Ventura, identified only as "a frequent visitor" to Las Vegas, as saying that the Mormon church "has a great deal in common with the Mafia." In another chapter, the authors quote "one historian," who calls Ronald Reagan´s ascension to the White House a "slow motion coup d´état" - that is, a coup that "transformed the nation" and helped give Las Vegas "the opening to its own national empire beyond the wildest dreams" of its nefarious founding fathers. Only a footnote reveals that that "historian" is really Mr. Morris himself, writing in another poorly documented book, "Partners in Power" (1996), which alleged that Bill Clinton used to attend cocaine parties and had shadowy links to a drug smuggling operation run out of Mena, Ark. Although "The Money and the Power" offers vivid portraits of some of the fascinating people who have played a role in Las Vegas´s short, electric history - including Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Senator Pat McCarran, Gov. Paul Laxalt, Jimmy Hoffa and Steve Wynn - the authors are overly intent on turning all their subjects into representative men. Howard Hughes´s life, they write, "paralleled in many ways the course of the country over the same 70 years": "From the sweaty wildcatting of turn-of-the-century Texas oil fields to clammy, closed-door intrigues of the cold war and big-money politics, Hughes´s progress was an allegory of the nation´s passage." They add that John F. Kennedy´s "career paralleled the rise" of Las Vegas, that Lee Harvey Oswald "came out of a history molded by the Strip," and that Jack Ruby, too, "embodied Las Vegas´s essence and its enveloping influence in Dallas as elsewhere." Of course, it is the authors´ contention that Las Vegas itself is emblematic of something larger: what they call in this tendentious and often hysterical book "a pervasive and swelling American corruption," the "glorification of mass taste and tastelessness, aspiration, delusion, despair, a glossy if coarse mercenary despotism." New York Times, April 13, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
