Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Harry Reid, former governor recall battling mob in Las Vegas

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responds to a question during an interview at his office in the Bellagio Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responds to a question during an interview at his office in the Bellagio Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019.

Former Nevada Governor Bob List attends a criminal justice reform roundtable at the Hope For Prisoners offices Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. List was governor from 1979 to 1983. Hope For Prisoners is a nonprofit organization that helps ex-offenders reenter the workforce.

Former Nevada Governor Bob List attends a criminal justice reform roundtable at the Hope For Prisoners offices Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. List was governor from 1979 to 1983. Hope For Prisoners is a nonprofit organization that helps ex-offenders reenter the workforce.

Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Nevada Gov. Bob List were major targets of organized crime when the mob controlled and skimmed profits from some Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and 1980s, the pair said in interviews this week on Nevada Newsmakers.

“It was a very twisted and difficult time,” List told host Sam Shad.

Following the recent release of the crime movie “The Irishman’, Reid and List told stories of escaping death and ultimately playing large parts in eliminating mob control of gaming in Las Vegas.

“The Irishman” is a saga about the death of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa. It includes a major scene about organized crime figures seeking loans from the Teamsters union pension fund that Hoffa controlled to finance construction and expansion of Las Vegas resorts in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The Teamsters had a lot to do with a time when Nevada was desperate,” Reid said. “I say Las Vegas was desperate for an infusion of money. They got it from the Teamsters. Even though there were some shenanigans with the loans, none of them were bad. They were all good loans.”

List, elected governor in 1978, sometimes wore a bullet-proof vest because of his wariness of the underworld. He recalled the struggle in trying to squeeze mob influence out of Nevada gaming.

“In one week, we received wire taps from the FBI showing a number of casinos where there was skimming going on by the underworld,” List said. “And so we went after it very aggressively.

“It was a very difficult time,” List said. “I was under a lot of threats and we took a lot of heat. And ultimately, we prevailed in every single place, kicking people out, taking their licenses and then relicensing new management and ownership to come into those hotels and resorts.”

Reid’s wife, Landra, famously escaped death when mobsters attempted to blow up Reid’s family car in 1981. Reid blames former mob associate and Las Vegas casino executive Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal for the attempted car bombing.

“Lefty Rosenthal was the only person I was ever afraid of,” Reid said. “I was not afraid of him physically. I was afraid of what he would do.”

“He was the kind of guy who wouldn’t hurt you himself,” Reid said. “He’d hire somebody to do it.”

Rosenthal was considered a top sports handicapper. His time in Las Vegas was the focus of the 1995 Martin Scorsese’s film ‘Casino.’

It is a movie that Reid will never see.

“Lefty Rosenthal was a bad guy,” Reid said. “I’ve never watched the movie ‘Casino’ because they tried to make him something that he wasn’t — a good guy — I’m told. So as a result of that, I’m not going to that movie and will never see it.”

Memories of the near-death of his wife remain vivid for Reid.

“I can still remember that,” he said. “Fire trucks came. Police cars were there. I can remember my 5-year-old boy looking out the window at all that. I can imagine it had a tremendous impact on him.”

The attempted car bombing haunted Reid when he went to Washington, D.C., as Nevada’s U.S. senator, winning election in 1986.

“I remember that when we went to Washington, we started our car with a thing like a garage-door opener,” he said. “We’d press a button and it would search for a bomb, and if there was no bomb, it would start the engine. I remember that. So going to Washington was a relief to me.”

Reid was the chair of the Gaming Commission when List was elected governor.

Soon after List’s inauguration in 1979, the existence of FBI wiretaps on mob figures hit the national media. In those tapes, a mobster said Reid “was in the pocket” of the mob, List recalled. List did not believe it and said he helped steer Reid through the scandal.

List said Reid “came under tremendous pressure, and I came under tremendous pressure as governor that I should ask for his resignation.”

List refused to do that because he believed Reid when Reid told him he didn’t have ties to the mob. List was a Republican and Reid a Democrat.

An FBI investigation exonerated Reid, List said.