It’s time to wipe out guilt-by-association tactics

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Tuesday, June 23, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Editor’s note: Billionaire philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian died last week at the age of 98. His life was full. His life was respectable. His life was well-lived.

Las Vegas benefited greatly because Kirk loved this city, its people and its attitude that allowed dreamers to build what they imagined and, then, to imagine so much more.

In short, our city was the beneficiary of all he imagined.

My father, Hank Greenspun, and Kirk were good friends, especially during the early days when the builders of this city took incredible chances, not only with their net worths as they pursued their dreams, but with their most important asset — their reputations, which, not unlike today, were fodder for anyone wishing to advance their own agendas at the expense of others.

Rather than write in glowing terms — as the life of Kirk Kerkorian certainly deserves from all who write about his passing — the Las Vegas Sun can provide a unique insight into Kirk’s life that will give everyone a glimpse into what it was really like in the earlier days when Kirk was taking the risks that made both him and this city that he loved so successful.

I am republishing three columns my father wrote in 1970 and 1971 that reflect a bit of the everyday travails Las Vegans had to endure.

These involve Kirk Kerkorian’s efforts to build where and what no man had ever built before to the dismay and determined opposition of no less than Howard Hughes, and to endure the efforts of some bad actors to denigrate a man who, by nature, cherished his privacy to the point that others felt compelled to do battle for him. My dad never shrunk from such an opportunity.

The first two columns (which ran Sunday and Monday) talked about the building of the MGM Hotel (now Bally’s), and today's discusses allegations of mob association that existed only in the small minds of some hoodlums and on the pages of the other newspaper in Las Vegas.

Where I Stand

Jan. 18, 1970

A country’s greatness depends on the quality of the men who live in it.

If the men in top authority are a gang of buggers, the nation is in peril, for its citizens can be destroyed through the flimsiest of associations.

These damn people who release raw, uncorroborated, unverified information obtained by bugging loudmouths and braggarts are destroying my faith in the courts and the FBI and making it impossible for me to ever accept that wiretapping is essential to the nation’s well-being.

They tell us that hoodlums are untrustworthy, evil characters and then turn around and destroy a man’s reputation and even his business by revealing what some loudmouth mobster has said about him in private conversation.

It’s worse than the late Sen. Joe McCarthy waving that white paper at Wheeling, W.Va., and shouting, “I have here the names of 500 communists in the State Department.”

At least that piece of paper was blank, but these telephone tapes, obtained through illegal methods, are loaded with the means of destroying respectable citizens.

The Review-Journal’s headline yesterday splashed across the top of the page in blue ink read, “Kerkorian linked to Mafia figures.”

A memo from my editor to me read, “I don’t believe this story should be used because it is based on unverified, uncorroborated, flimsy associations.”

Kirk Kerkorian, through his attorney, Bill Singleton, issued the following statement today:

“Mr. Kerkorian authorized me to flatly deny that he ever knowingly associated with any member of any criminal organization.”

And nowhere through the UPI or AP wire story is there any hint that Kerkorian is associated with the Mafia.

The tapes released through a court order are filled with names of Mafia figures. Just a minute portion of it refers to a telephone call made to Mr. Kerkorian in Beverly Hills by a voice that identified itself on the telephone as George Raft.

Raft is a well-known movie actor and has also made many phone calls to me because we happen to be friends, and he seldom comes to town without contacting me.

Kirk would not turn down a call made from Raft any more than I would because of their friendship.

There is no identification of the voices reportedly suggesting that a check for $21,000 be sent to Raft in payment of a gambling debt except the word of the New York district attorney, who stated that Charles “The Blade” Tourine was at one end and Kerkorian at the other.

Tourine once applied for a gaming license at the Riviera Hotel and was turned down by the Gaming Commission. It is rumored that he has interests in gaming casinos in other parts of the world.

It is not being suggested here that Kerkorian has not gambled sometime during his lifetime or made bets on horses or sports events, although I have no personal knowledge of this. But for an incident that goes back more than nine years and that at best can be concluded as the most flimsy of guilt-by-association tactics to become a headline that links an otherwise-respected person to the Mafia is inexcusable and irresponsible.

Kirk is prominent in Western Airlines, MGM and his own public corporation, which owns the International Hotel here.

He made his money operating an airline, which he started many years ago from scratch and sold to TransAmerica for more than $100 million.

To tie him to underworld figures on the basis of an old phone call from Raft obtained through illegal means is reprehensible and unconstitutional.

I doubt there is any nation on the face of the globe whose citizens pay taxes more willingly with less griping than the people of our country. And I also doubt any nation has more stringent constitutional safeguards of the right of privacy of the individual than the good old USA.

So it does become somewhat alarming to learn agencies of government in the world’s greatest democracy actually are indulging in “police state” practices and taking the unverified words of known hoodlums to destroy reputations of some of its most prominent citizens.

If Kerkorian actually sent a check for $21,300 to Raft at the Warwick Hotel in New York, it is his business and his alone, unless it can be proved that such action did constitute a crime.

There is no such proof, nor is there any hint in the story, that a crime had been committed. In fact, the only identification of the voices is made by the district attorney, who doesn’t charge any violation of the law.

This is the danger of wiretapping, and this is the peril to our nation of this illegal use of electronic eavesdropping.

No one, not even the most tyrannical of kings and dictators, ever imagined they could delve into a man’s home to learn the intimate secrets of his household.

It is time law enforcement agencies learned that the citizens of the United States have the right to walk as free men with the dignity that is supposedly bestowed on every individual by the laws of our land.

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun.