Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, McA, and the Mob

Rating:
Summary: Dark Nexus
Review: Anyone looking for the smoking gun on Ronald Reagan and organized crime will be disappointed. The future president emerges from these pages as the affably forgetful frontman for big business that the knowledgable public has long known him to be. Moldea traces the actor's well-known forgetfulness back to 1952 and investigations into sweetheart deals between Reagan's Screen Actor's Guild and Jules Stein's sinister conglomerate, MCA. What emerges from this is an apprenticeship period in which the future president hones his frontman skills and practices selective memory, while big business comes to appreciate certain show business talents. Not exactly news bulletin material.

On a more newsworthy note, Moldea documents a series of protracted associations between such mob frontmen as Sidney Korshak, Hollywood tycoons like Lew Wasserman, union leaders of many stripes, and political insiders such as Reagan's William French Smith and Paul Laxalt, the Democrat's Paul Ziffren, and even the political left's Jerry Brown who seems peculiarly proud of Korshak's friendship and support. This is not a pretty picture, and while no criminal disclosures are made, there appears no doubt that such high echelon representatives of big business, the mob, and politics intersect at critical junctures far from public knowledge and scrutiny. This is not conspiracy theory, as some apologists would have it. Rather, it's a picture of high-level business conducting itself as business, and only a hopeless naif would believe that no mutual benefit from these associations is involved, as when master fixer Korshak steps in to protect hotel owners from a potntially damaging food-handlers strike. After all, Korshak's juice in these matters certainly doesn't come from a law school diploma, even an Ivy League one.

The implications here go far beyond Ronald Reagan's questionable career to reach into the very bowels of the democracy and what government by the people means. For this reason alone, Moldea's book should be read.

Rating:
Summary: Reagan's Move up Success Ladder
Review: At the time Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild he was a Warner Brothers contact player known as "the Errol Flynn of B's," in short, a lower echelon leading man who performed in feature roles for certain Warners A products. His rise up the success ladder is interesting to observe from this key juncture, and Dan Moldea is there with the roadmap explaining much about Reagan's professional and political behavior.

In Reagan's early days as SAG president the bitterly divisive House Un-American Activities Committee investigations into the motion picture industry began. Reagan appeared as a friendly witness, blaming the industry's labor strifes strictly on the American Communist Party.

Moldea's compelling account fills in important blanks. For instance, the motion picture industry began with heavy influence and control generated by the Chicago Mafia. He reveals that the conflict Reagan and other corporate spokespersons laid at the doorstep of Communists was not as simple as described, and that mob influence surrounded much of what was happening. A blacklist was launched to ostensibly destroy Communist influence in the industry while that of the Mafia was not even a subject for discussion. All strikes were blamed on unpatriotic hotheads parroting the Moscow line.

Later,in 1954, when Reagan's career was in worse shape than in the late forties, and when he struggled amid a shrinking bank account to make ends meet, he was in a position to assist the powerful Music Corporation of America, a powerful agency seeking to launch into film production. Reagan as SAG president led the fight to provide MCA with an exemption that others in the industry were denied. Lo and behold, the MCA agency which represented him as an actor was able to secure a lucrative contract for him as a host and actor for the new television program, General Electric Theater. Reagan's career as an actor meaningfully advanced with MCA in the driver's seat.

Later MCA moved into the studio business, purchasing Universal. Reagan was once more on the scene playing a pivotal role. He became so popular in the hearts and minds of corporate interests in Hollywood and throughout California that before long he was running and winning the governorship of what was then the nation's second most populous state.

Moldea's book reveals how beneficial it was for Ronald Reagan to have friends in high places whose interests he could help advance. The progress definitely worked in both directions. Those who regard the confluence of events between Reagan, MCA and other corporate interests and the sudden comeback his acting career and later political successes as purely coincidental would be rejecting common sense and the basic nature of human experience.

Rating:
Summary: Reagan's Move up Success Ladder
Review: At the time Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild he was a Warner Brothers contact player known as "the Errol Flynn of B's," in short, a lower echelon leading man who performed in feature roles for certain Warners A products. His rise up the success ladder is interesting to observe from this key juncture, and Dan Moldea is there with the roadmap explaining much about Reagan's professional and political behavior.

In Reagan's early days as SAG president the bitterly divisive House Un-American Activities Committee investigations into the motion picture industry began. Reagan appeared as a friendly witness, blaming the industry's labor strifes strictly on the American Communist Party.

Moldea's compelling account fills in important blanks. For instance, the motion picture industry began with heavy influence and control generated by the Chicago Mafia. He reveals that the conflict Reagan and other corporate spokespersons laid at the doorstep of Communists was not as simple as described, and that mob influence surrounded much of what was happening. A blacklist was launched to ostensibly destroy Communist influence in the industry while that of the Mafia was not even a subject for discussion. All strikes were blamed on unpatriotic hotheads parroting the Moscow line.

Later,in 1954, when Reagan's career was in worse shape than in the late forties, and when he struggled amid a shrinking bank account to make ends meet, he was in a position to assist the powerful Music Corporation of America, a powerful agency seeking to launch into film production. Reagan as SAG president led the fight to provide MCA with an exemption that others in the industry were denied. Lo and behold, the MCA agency which represented him as an actor was able to secure a lucrative contract for him as a host and actor for the new television program, General Electric Theater. Reagan's career as an actor meaningfully advanced with MCA in the driver's seat.

Later MCA moved into the studio business, purchasing Universal. Reagan was once more on the scene playing a pivotal role. He became so popular in the hearts and minds of corporate interests in Hollywood and throughout California that before long he was running and winning the governorship of what was then the nation's second most populous state.

Moldea's book reveals how beneficial it was for Ronald Reagan to have friends in high places whose interests he could help advance. The progress definitely worked in both directions. Those who regard the confluence of events between Reagan, MCA and other corporate interests and the sudden comeback his acting career and later political successes as purely coincidental would be rejecting common sense and the basic nature of human experience.