The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Lew Wasserman.md

category	tags	summary	born	died	location	relations
Business & Finance	Person OrganizedCrime	Wasserman was a major contributor to and sat on the board of the Reagan presidential library, along with Edwin Meese and others.	1913-03-22	2002-06-03	Cleveland, Ohio	type with role start fn head_of Music Corporation of America president from 1946, later chairman; per Moldea 1946 2

Lew Wasserman was the Chairman of Music Corporation of America Corporation. He was a powerful figure in Hollywood and a long-time political supporter of Ronald Reagan. Wasserman represented Reagan during the actor's early days in Hollywood, and along with Jules Stein, MCA's founder, negotiated the sale of Reagan's California properties at hugely inflated prices, which helped make Reagan a millionaire.¹

Wasserman was a major contributor to and sat on the board of the Reagan presidential library, along with Edwin Meese and others. He was involved in raising $80 million to build it.¹

Wasserman was connected to organized crime. He was on the MCA Board of Directors during the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation into alleged mob ties to MCA. Edward Sciandra reportedly wanted to go to Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg (President of MCA) and tell them who they were up against.¹

Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan were known to celebrate New Year's Eve with Wasserman and his wife, Edie. Howard Baker returned to MCA's board of directors in March 1989, just in time to help Wasserman celebrate his seventy-sixth birthday.¹

Blanket waiver and the 1962 action

Moldea wrote that Wasserman was groomed as Jules Stein's heir and was named president of MCA in 1946, when Stein became chairman of the board.²

A Justice Department document quoted by Moldea stated that "Wasserman and Schreiber could sell SAG anything" because of their relationship with Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild. The 1952 blanket waiver allowed MCA to operate in television production through its talent agency and a new production company, Revue Productions, headed by Taft Schreiber.²

Moldea wrote that the government began a concentrated probe of MCA's business affairs after the election of John F. Kennedy and the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general. He wrote that the government went to court after MCA bought Universal Pictures and Decca Records, and that a consent decree followed, under which MCA dissolved its talent agency.²

Moldea wrote that Sidney Korshak, the Beverly Hills attorney whom federal investigators described as a principal link between legitimate business and organized crime, was a close friend of Wasserman and Stein. He quoted Wasserman in the New York Times series of June 27 to 30, 1976 (Seymour Hersh with Jeff Gerth) calling Korshak a "very good personal friend" and saying of the underworld allegations, "I don't believe them."² On July 15, 1962 Wasserman filed an affidavit denying that MCA had violated any law.²

Wasserman's employment agreement with MCA Inc. is dated December 6, 1988 and was amended November 26, 1990.³ An Associated Press report of December 30, 1990 stated that, in the Matsushita purchase, Wasserman alone was to receive a new preferred Matsushita stock that saved him $100 million in capital gains and estate taxes, and that Judge Manuel Real declined to block the sale.⁴

Footnotes

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1. Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎

2. Moldea, Dan E. Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob. New York: Viking, 1986, chs. 25 and 32. https://archive.org/details/dark-victory-ronald-reagan-mca-and-the-mob ↩︎

3. Seagram Co. Ltd., Form 10-K405, filed September 27, 1996, exhibits 10(bb) and 10(cc). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/88188/0000950123-96-005242.txt ↩︎

4. Associated Press, "Japanese firm closes purchase of MCA," December 30, 1990. https://www.deseret.com/1990/12/30/18898485/japanese-firm-closes-purchase-of-mca-br/ ↩︎