Paul Laxalt
 Paul Laxalt    (politician) | ||||||||||||
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| Born | Paul Dominique Laxalt August 2, 1922 Reno, Nevada, U.S. | |||||||||||
| Died | August 6, 2018 (Age 96) | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Santa Clara University, University of Denver | |||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | |||||||||||
| Children | 6 | |||||||||||
| Spouse | Jackalyn Ross | |||||||||||
| Party | Republican | |||||||||||
| Relatives | Adam Laxalt | |||||||||||
Nevada politician with significant ties to organized crime. One of Ronald Reagan's closest friends in politics.
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Paul Dominique Laxalt was an American attorney and politician who was the 22nd governor of Nevada from 1967 to 1971 and a United States senator from Nevada from 1974 until 1987. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of Ronald Reagan's closest friends in politics. After Reagan was elected president in 1980, many in the national press referred to Laxalt as "the first friend".[1]
Laxalt described it as: "During the last six years, I’ve literally had one foot in the White House and one in the Capitol building because of the unique relationship I’ve had with this presidency."[1]
As a long-time public official in Nevada, where organized crime figures were prominent in the early Las Vegas gaming industry, Laxalt came under scrutiny for his relationships with mobsters like Morris (Moe) Dalitz and Allen M. Dorfman, and financial connections with de-licensed Nevada casino owner Delbert Coleman. Dalitz was once made special assistant to then-Governor Laxalt.
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Background
Laxalt attended the University of Santa Clara in California. When World War II broke out, Paul joined the U.S. Army and served as a medic, seeing action in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. After the war, he graduated from Denver University School of Law. Laxalt's first attempt for public office was in 1950 when he ran for District Attorney of Ormsby County, Nevada, turning out the incumbent D.A. He served from 1950 to 1954. Laxalt's first run for statewide office came in 1962 when he ran for Lieutenant Governor.
Even after he won election as lieutenant governor of Nevada in 1963, Laxalt said his world view was so narrow, "I didn’t even know the New York Times really existed. That’s a fact."[1]
Career
Three years later, Laxalt ran for governor, winning the job the same year Ronald Reagan became chief executive in neighboring California.
In his four years as governor, Laxalt tried to improve the gambling industry’s image by encouraging corporations to buy casinos. One of the investors Laxalt worked most closely with was Howard Hughes. Laxalt also takes credit for helping break a short convict strike by walking into the state prison and negotiating directly with inmates. He signed fair-housing legislation for Nevada and, despite his conservative image, recalls with pride that he supported collective bargaining rights for state workers.[1]
After his election to the Senate in 1974, Laxalt supervised Reagan’s national campaigns in 1976, 1980 and 1984, and he was national chairman of the Republican Party.
In 1977, he led the fight against President Jimmy Carter's proposal to transfer the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government. Despite being in the minority in the Senate, Laxalt helped build a coalition opposed to the Panama Canal Treaties.
Libel lawsuit
In 1984, Laxalt filed a $250-million libel suit against the McClatchy newspapers of Sacramento over a story suggesting that Internal Revenue Service agents had found evidence of illegal skim ming at a casino Laxalt owned from 1972 to 1976, the Ormsby House in Carson City. A few days before it was to go to trial, Laxalt agreed to drop the suit in exchange for an ambiguously worded joint statement with McClatchy that allowed both sides to claim victory. He thus avoided a lengthy trial that would cut into campaign time and might have hammered away at his associations with Nevada gambling figures tied to organized crime. [1]
Jimmy Hoffa clemency
The libel suit generated hundreds of pages of pretrial depositions and exhibits that provided more details of Laxalt’s Nevada days. Laxalt wrote a letter to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971 asking that convicted Teamsters Union President James R. Hoffa be freed from jail. Laxalt was writing, he said, on behalf of his friend, Al Dorfman, a millionaire insurance executive and Teamster consultant. Dorfman, who was convicted in 1972 of taking kickbacks for loans from Teamster pension funds, had well-established mob ties and in 1983 was shot to death gangland style in Chicago after his conviction of conspiring to bribe Nevada Senator Howard W. Cannon. Cannon was never accused of accepting a bribe.[1]
“Dear President Dick,” the letter began, “the other day I had an extended discussion with Al Dorfman of the Teamsters, with whom I’ve worked closely the past few years.”
As a result of that conversation, Laxalt wrote, he had become convinced that Hoffa "has been and continues to be a political prisoner"of the U.S. government. The Teamsters "represent by far the greatest investment in Nevada. Their activities have been ‘above board’ at all times and they have made a material contribution to our state. . . . I cannot believe that the man who organized this group is the criminal type so often depicted by the national press."
Hoffa was granted presidential clemency in 1971 and in 1975 he vanished, the presumed victim of a mob murder. Later the Justice Department initiated legal action to have the government seize the Teamsters, charging that the union was controlled by organized crime.
Del Coleman
The libel suit also revealed that Laxalt intended to become partners in a casino with financier Del Coleman, who earlier had been stripped of his gambling license after signing a consent decree to charges of stock manipulation. With Coleman’s help, Laxalt then got more than $2 million in loans from a Chicago bank for his casino project without putting up any security in return.[1]
Promoting the "War On Terror"
He attended the 1984 Washington Conference on International Terrorism.
Event Witnessed
| Event | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Washington Conference on International Terrorism | US Washington DC | A key conference in establishing the "War On Terror", 5 years after the seminal Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism |
