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70. Sidney Korshak: The Man Who Kept The Secrets

One of the great hidden figures of 20th-century organized crime, attorney Sidney Korshak was thought by many to be the most powerful man in Hollywood for the last half-century. Until his death last year, he remained an impeccably dressed enigma whose power reached deep into the lives of Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, and Ronald Reagan

By Nick Tosches
Vanity Fair, April 1997

EXCERPT...

Enigma. The Englishing of a Latin rendering of a Greek word, ultimately from ainos, Ionic and poetical, for “fable.”

So where does the fable of Sidney Korshak end? Where does the truth begin? Where—between the “little baby” who “always tried to help people” and the man who was “the most important contact that the Mob had to legitimate business, labor, Hollywood, and Las Vegas”—does the real Sidney Korshak lurk? Or are they one and the same, a Janus of good and evil?

During our mutual musing one evening, Joe Kraus of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society wondered aloud if the mystery could ever be solved.

“One thing you can be sure of,” I said, “is that he was brilliant. He was invaluable.” All his life, I said, all around him, they went down in their own blood. Gioe was murdered by his own in 1954. Bioff was blown up in 1955. Alex Greenberg was hit in 1956. Gus Greenbaum, the manager of the Riviera, was murdered in his bed, his throat cut from ear to ear, in 1958. Giancana in June of 1975, Hoffa in July. Even Rosselli, what was left of him, his legs and torso sawed apart, found in an oil drum floating in Dumbfoundling Bay in the summer of ’76. Ray Ryan, blown to hell in 1977. Dorfman, slain in 1983.

Sidney Korshak, who moved among these men, who knew the secrets that they knew—not only the secrets of the forbidden anatomies of Vegas and Hollywood, of politics and the Mob, but also the vaster secrets, of the fates of the Kennedys and such, that Giancana knew and Hoffa knew and Rosselli knew—and more, the secrets of the fates of those men themselves. Sidney Korshak, who lived unseen in the unseen heart of the beast, and who at the same time “entertained beautifully in Bel Air.” Sidney Korshak escaped—no, prevailed, prospered, in blessed fortune—without so much as a scratch.

The relative anonymity and subdued respectability that Korshak had cultivated since 1950 was jeopardized in the summer of 1976 when a four-part front-page series by Seymour Hersh and Jeff Gerth appeared in The New York Times. Though, like the forces of the government for so many years, the series could not conclusively indict him on anything, it did have its effect. Korshak, escaping the glare, entered Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, where he remained for the duration of the series, “suffering,” it was reported, “from diverticulitis”—in this case, a linguistically interesting ailment, it and “diversion” sharing the same root.

Nat Hentoff, writing in The Village Voice, came to the defense of Korshak, “a citizen whom the government has not been able to nail and so now is delighted to try in the press. Sy Hersh is protected by the First Amendment. Even a Sidney Korshak should be protected by some of the others.”

Jeff Gerth told me that, in the researching of the story, there appeared to be a leak from the accounting department of the Times back to Chicago, where his movements seemed to be closely monitored through the paper trail of his expense reports. And perhaps it is no more than mere coincidence, but all the documentation gathered by Hersh and Gerth was subsequently lost during a transfer from one Times office to another.

In a 1978 report, California state attorney general Evelle Younger included Korshak in a well-publicized list of organized-crime figures with ties to California. In the spring of 1979, during a statewide racetrack strike, Korshak was asked to step down as a labor negotiator, “only because of the press of his other business.” That summer, the Justice Department began an investigation of the Riviera, reportedly focusing on Korshak.

CONTINUED...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/1997/04/The-Man-Who-Kept-The-Secrets

PS: Thank you for the kind words, tomp. The only reason worth bringing up this history is to break the stranglehold secret government -- including that of its handy hit men friends in organized crime -- have on democracy. Otherwise, it's just too much, even for Hollywood to believe.