Interference (71 page)

6
.  When Wexler attempted to obtain a horse-racing license, he was rejected by the Ohio Racing Commission—because of his association with gamblers and underworld figures. Interestingly, accompanying Wexler's application for the license were the names of three people who could vouch for his character, one of whom was Modell's longtime friend George M. Steinbrenner
III of Cleveland, the president of American Ship Building Company and later the owner of the New York Yankees major-league baseball team. Dan Topping and Del Webb sold their interests in the New York Yankees to the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1964. In 1973, Steinbrenner and his “committee of fifteen” purchased the team from CBS. Among Steinbrenner's partners in the Yankees were auto executive John DeLorean, Nelson Bunker Hunt, and Ohio real estate tycoon Marvin Warner.

After Wexler's application was rejected, Steinbrenner, who admitted knowing Wexler, insisted that he had not given Wexler permission to use his name as a character reference.

Wexler had also been banned from racing in Maryland in 1945 when one of his horses was found to be drugged. In 1958, he was denied a racing license in Florida because of his “close contact and relationship with bookmakers and gamblers.” However, a Florida court overturned the state racing commission's decision and granted him the license.

7
.  Bernie Parrish,
They Call It a Game
(New York: Dial Press, Inc., 1971), pp. 209-14.

8
.  For more specific details about Modell's complicated financing of the Browns, see Parrish,
A Game
. Parrish is a former defensive back for the Browns, and the team's onetime player representative to the NFL Players Association. Also, see Peter Phipps's fascinating series in the
Akron Beacon Journal
, 16-18 January 1983, and David Harris's outstanding book
The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL
(Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986).

9
.  The elder Ford had operated union-busting activities in Detroit, particularly against Walter Reuther and the United Auto Workers, with the help of the Detroit Mafia. The chief strike-breaker in Detroit was Santo Perrone, a feared and ruthless mobster who was born in Alcamo, Sicily, and later became one of Jimmy Hoffa's top henchmen. When Perrone went to court for assaulting Reuther and other trade unionists during the infamous “Battle of the Overpass” at Ford's River Rouge Plant in 1937, Perrone was represented by Ford legal counsel, Louis J. Columbo, Sr. Law-enforcement officials allege that Perrone also was behind the 1948 shooting of Reuther.

As part payment for their goon-squad activities, Perrone, who later went to prison for liquor law violations, and the Detroit Mafia received a major share of business in Detroit's trucking industry in concert with Hoffa and the local Teamsters, particularly its steel-hauling operations, which did considerable subcontracting with Ford. Perrone's work in the steel-hauling business netted him $4,000 a month, even while he was in jail. “Perrone's steel-hauling interests were handled by his wife while he was in prison,” Vince Piersante told me. “She probably got some kind of break with the [Teamsters]—like it left the business alone. We also know that other crime families started getting into the trucking business during this period of time.”

Ironically, it was Perrone and his underworld associates Angelo Meli and Frank Coppola whom Jimmy Hoffa turned to after Hoffa's Teamsters' turf was threatened by John L. Lewis and a raiding CIO local. Hoffa made a pact with these underworld figures and former Ford union busters—in return for driving the CIO out of Detroit. This deal became the major turning point in Hoffa's plunge from union reformer to labor racketeer. The myth has always been that Hoffa turned to organized crime in order to unionize
stubborn employers. In fact, he had used the mob to run a rival union out of town.

Another Detroit mobster who worked with Ford was Anthony D'Anna, who received a half interest in a Ford dealership in return for his “cooperation.” And yet another Mafia figure, Joe Adonis, had the controlling interest in a New Jersey firm that received Ford's regional distributorship.

The Kefauver Committee noted that “[o]n some occasions organized gamblers would throw very large funds into union elections in major locals in the Detroit area in the hopes of securing the election of officials who would tolerate in-plant gambling.”

10
.  Vince Piersante vouched for Ford, saying, “Bill Ford's clean, and he runs a stable ownership structure.”

Detroit bookmaker Don Dawson, who was well informed about the Lions' betting habits, agreed with Piersante, telling me that although Henry Ford II was a gambler, Bill Ford was not.

CHAPTER 12

1
.  The Universal film library had been purchased by MCA, the Hollywood entertainment conglomerate, in 1962 after MCA bought out Decca Records, the parent company of Universal Pictures. The U.S. Justice Department, which had filed an antitrust action against MCA, forced the Hollywood company, among other demands, to sell the entire Universal library, with the exception of fourteen movies that MCA was permitted to keep.

2
.  Doris Kearns Goodwin,
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga
(New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1987), p. 804.

3
.  Gene Miller, a reporter for
The Miami Herald
, also obtained the Benton package and was the first to report its contents.

4
.  McLaney had originally testified, erroneously, that Rosenbloom had bet on the Colts, whom he claimed had won the game. He also erroneously stated that the opposing team was the Pittsburgh Steelers. Explaining these discrepancies, McLaney's attorney simply said, “He had the wrong game. It was a different one.”

5
.  Taliaferro told me that he was so badly hurt he required surgery. The orthopedic surgeon who handled the knee operation was Danny Fortmann, a former guard with the Chicago Bears.

The Colts lost that final game with the Rams of the 1953 season, 45-2.

6
.  The
Tribune
story also included a quote from Rozelle—a quote that had been apparently fabricated. Rozelle had supposedly said, “Halas has asked me to track down the validity of these rumors. This we are now doing. We are always alert to protect the honesty of professional football. As of the moment, the investigation continues. There now is nothing to report. When there is, we will make public immediately all the facts.” Rozelle denied ever being interviewed by the
Tribune
and was reportedly upset with Halas's statement because it violated the league's rule that forbid NFL personnel from commenting on internal investigations in progress.

7
.  Bob Curran,
The $400,000 Quarterback Or: The League That Came in from the Cold
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), p. 42.

CHAPTER 13

1
.  In 1968, John Gordy became the president of the NFL Players Association.

2
.  In 1986, Hornung told
Sports Illustrated
“that there were 10 or 12 other Green Bay Packer players who regularly wagered on NFL games in the team's glory days … betting on games by players was rampant throughout the league.” See
Sports Illustrated
, 10 March 1986. Hornung refused to be interviewed for this book. He told me, “I feel like if I do it for one person, I should do it for everybody.”

3
.  Rozelle had also received a character reference for Rosenbloom from New York attorney Roy M. Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's right-hand man.

In September 1963, Cohn was indicted for perjury in connection with a Desert Inn stock deal he had with Morris Dalitz and the Mayfield Road Gang. Rosenbloom, Chesler, and McLaney had purchased the Hotel Nacional in Cuba from Dalitz and his partners. Cohn's first trial ended in a hung jury, but he was acquitted of the charge in July 1964.

CHAPTER 14

1
.  McCrary, who had handled public relations for Richard Nixon and Bernard Goldfine, was in charge of publicity for both Chesler and his Bahamian casino operations. He had also been named as Seven Arts' vice president for public relations. Another public-relations man, William Safire, became McCrary's partner, handling publicity for the Bahamian government. Safire left the following year to join the presidential campaign staff of Richard Nixon. After's Nixon's election, Safire became his top speech writer. Safire later became a columnist for
The New York Times
.

2
.  By 1960, the General Development Corporation was worth over $50 million. Among Chesler's other partners in Devco were Eliot Hyman and Ray Stark, who had founded Seven Arts. Devco's banker was Boston financier Serge Semenenko, who, along with with New York businessman Charles Allen, had negotiated the sale of Warner Brothers' film library to Associated Artists, which was soon bought by Seven Arts.

Allen had helped Wallace Groves arrange his financing for the creation of the Grand Bahama Port Authority. Semenenko was also directly involved in the $2 million payoff to Sands and arranged for Seven Arts' purchase of its 21 percent of Devco. Chesler's attorney, Morris Mac Schwebel, told me, “Allen originally brought the Bahamas deal to Chesler, who became fascinated with the islands. Then, Chesler got Seven Arts to put the $12 million into developing the islands.”

3
.  Hank Messick,
Syndicate Abroad
(London: Collier-Macmillan Co., 1969), p. 70.

4
.  Orovitz had been Chesler's chief executive officer in General Development since 1956. Plans for the Bahamian casino were made in Orovitz's Miami office in 1962. Both Lansky and Chesler were present at the meeting. Others
known to have been included in the decision-making process were mobsters Mike Coppola, Charles Tourine, and Dino Cellini, as well as bookmakers Frank Ritter, Max Courtney, and Charles Brudner.

5
.  Since 1956, Schwebel had served on the board of directors of all Chesler's companies and was the vice president of Associated Artists before it was merged into Seven Arts. In 1958, Schwebel had been named the president of Universal Controls.

6
.  Lansky's associates in the skimming operation comprised some of the top Mafia figures in the United States, including Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia, Carlo Gambino of New York, Sam Giancana of Chicago, Steffano Maggadino of Buffalo, and Joseph Zerilli of Detroit.

7
. 
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Operation of the Business of Casinos in Freeport and in Nassau
, 31 October 1967, p. 54.

8
.  Bernie Parrish,
They Call It a Game
(New York: Dial Press, Inc., 1971), p. 209.

9
.  Bob Curran,
The $400,000 Quarterback Or: The League That Came in from the Cold
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), p. 45.

Chesler's ultimate demise resulted from actions by his own attorney Morris Mac Schwebel and other stockholders in Seven Arts, the company that owned 21 percent of the hotel/casino in Freeport. The stockholders were hoping to have their company traded on the American Stock Exchange, and Chesler's detractors believed that the SEC would block the move with Chesler in control—because of his public ties to the underworld. At the time of Chesler's ouster, Seven Arts stock was being traded only on the Canadian exchange.

The only two stockholders to support Chesler were Seven Arts directors Carroll Rosenbloom and Maxwell Rabb.

Chesler's May 1964 ouster was engineered by Serge Semenenko and Charles Allen. Essentially, Chesler's position in Devco was contingent on his continued control of Seven Arts. With his grip on the film company loosening, Chesler attempted to borrow money from Semenenko's Boston bank in order to buy more stock in the company. But, instead, Semenenko loaned enough money to Seven Arts' other dissident stockholders to squeeze out Chesler.

Under new leadership, Seven Arts then put its stock in Devco on sale. Chesler desperately tried to raise enough money to buy it but failed. Groves bought Seven Arts' stock in the Bahamas and gained total control of Devco. Chesler's seat on the Devco board was filled by Lansky associate Max Orovitz, who began operating the casino.

10
.  For years, Hamilton was the nemesis of Southern California Mafia leader Jimmy Fratianno. He had been responsible for publicly naming Fratianno as the “Mafia's Executioner on the West Coast.”

Hamilton also headed the LAPD's 1962 investigation of the suicide of Marilyn Monroe.

CHAPTER 15

1
.  Werblin's partners were New Jersey investment banker Townsend B. Martin; Leon Hess, the owner of Hess Oil and Chemical Company; Wall
Street broker Donald Lillis, the president of Bowie Race Course in Maryland; and Phil Iselin, the president of Korell Company, a New York textile firm and dress company. Martin, Hess, and Iselin were directors of Monmouth Park along with Werblin. Iselin was also Monmouth's vice president and treasurer.

2
.  During the 1961-62 MCA antitrust investigation, witnesses surfaced who stated that Kintner, in the presence of NBC board chairman Robert Sarnoff, told Werblin, “Sonny, look at the [NBC] schedule for the next season; here are the empty slots, you fill them in.” Werblin did so, rearranging the NBC prime-time schedule and replacing set programming with MCA productions while the NBC programmers watched with their hats in their hands. When Werblin finished, MCA had fourteen shows on the air—eight and a half hours of MCA-produced programs on prime-time television. Soon after, Kintner was named the president of NBC.

In a Justice Department memorandum, attorneys wrote that “NBC is completely ‘snowed under' by CBS in the program ratings … NBC's personnel are far inferior to CBS's in caliber and cannot turn out the quality product. Because of this, NBC is forced to rely on MCA's stable of stars and upon MCA's show production facilities. Hence NBC sticks close to MCA.”

Prosecutors under Attorney General Kennedy who pursued the 1962 case against MCA described NBC's relationship with MCA as “a conspiracy” and considered naming NBC as a coconspirator in the litigation, according to Justice Department documents.