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Other Reagan Administration Ties to Organized Crime
Ronald Reagan’s relationships with Paul Laxalt, labor racketeers, and Raymond Donovan were not the only cases of close associations between administration officials and organized crime. While we may never know with certainty the true extent of organized crime’s infiltration of the Reagan White House, these additional cases reveal the probable depth of that association:
Reagan’s first National Security Advisor, Richard V. Allen had a series of business deals going with organized crime figures, including Howard Cerny, who had been intimately involved in Robert Vesco’s far-flung financial scams and who had also served as a liaison for the CIA with European organized crime groups.
Former CIA-director William Casey was a partner of Carl Biehl in Multiponics, an agribusiness firm. Biehl was well-known in the New Orleans underworld, where federal wiretaps had recorded him in illicit ventures as long ago as the early 1950s. Multiponics went bankrupt in 1971 after deceiving its investors.
Max Hugel, the deputy director of the CIA, was forced to resign after his connections to organized crime became known. Hugel had been executive vice-president of Centronics Data Computer Corporation. Part of Centronics was owned by Caesar’s World, the casino company, which at that time was under federal investigation for hidden organized crime ownership related to Meyer Lansky’s massive underworld empire. In addition, Centronics had a consultancy relationship with Moe Dalitz and his Las Vegas casinos.
Similarly, William McCann, Reagan’s nominee as ambassador to Ireland, had to withdraw his nomination after it was learned that he was a business associate of Louis Oster, a convicted stock fraud and insurance swindler who had engaged in securities violations as part of illicit dealings with Santo Trafficante and Tony Accardo.
Reagan also maintained very close political and personal relations with Walter Annenberg. Annenberg’s father Moses had a been a partner of major organized crime figures in the Nationwide News Service, which in the 1920s had supplied race results to bookies throughout the country. In 1939 both Moses and Walter Annenberg were indicted on charges of tax evasion and on charges of selling pornography illegally through the mails. Walter Annenberg’s “reward” for pioneering the wire service and the pornography industry in the United States was his appointment as ambassador to Great Britain by Richard Nixon and his role as a regular host of Reagan’s frequent vacation retreats to Palm Springs, California.
And, last but not least, Ronald Reagan maintained a close relationship with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was a frequent guest at White House functions and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition, Reagan wrote him an absolutely glowing letter of recommendation for his casino license hearing in Nevada. Sinatra’s extensive organized crime associations and dealings have been immortalized in a widely distributed 19-page Justice Department report (Washington Post, October 7, 1987: A19).
Source: http://imaginingjustice.org/essays/ronald-reagan-and-the-mob/
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