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Chapter 19 Just Your Typical Palace Friday, 14 May 1982 On the helo to Andrews, GB said that last night he was in bed when the phone rang, and [Senate majority leader] Howard Baker said there might be some tie votes on the defense appropriations bill. None occurred, but GB was at the Senate from : p.m. till : a.m., unsuccessfully trying to sleep in his office just off the Senate floor. It would have been terrible under normal circumstances but especially so after returning from across the Pacific. When we landed in Las Vegas, the VP and we senior-staff types took an evasive route to the home of singer Wayne Newton. Back in the s, Newton won fame for his brassy style and boyish grin while singing in a high voice. Today he is just as popular, but his looks have changed: he wears a pompadour, black mustache, and flamboyant clothes open to the navel. Newton is one of few entertainers under sixty who is an active Republican and a strong supporter of RR’s. Frank Fahrenkopf  is his lawyer and, working with Jennifer, wangled a vice presidential visit to Newton’s ostentatious spread. Behind a tall wall made of cement blocks, Newton has a huge house with pillars and porticos, ponds and peacocks, a garage full of Rolls Royces and various custom cars, and a stable full of Arabian horses. We trooped into the house for drinks and hôrs d’oeuvres. GB had to make conversation with Newton, his attractive Filipina American wife Elaine, and a strange-looking couple, both of whom are doctors to the great Wayne. I absented myself to explore the rooms. [In the study was a framed letter to Newton from Ronald Reagan, written by hand the day after the  inauguration, apologizing to . Then Nevada state Republican chairman, Fahrenkopf chaired the Republican National Committee from  to  before becoming chief lobbyist for the gaming industry in Washington. 182 chapter 19 him for some glitch.] Out on the lawn [in itself a luxury and rarity in Las Vegas], Arabians were paraded for the VP to see, each horse with its own handler. Afterward we proceeded down the tawdry Las Vegas strip to the ultraexcessive Caesar’s Palace Hotel, a sprawling place that seeks to tie ancient Rome into the twenty-eighth century. The VP went immediately into a press conference with Gov. Robert List. As I stood watching, I felt a hand on my shoulder: It was [deputy chief of staff ] Fred Bush, beckoning me outside. “The people he’s having dinner with tonight are all Mafia,” Fred said. His source was an advanceman, who took out the guest list for the $,-acouple function benefiting the governor and ran his finger down it: “This guy’s a contractor; this one’s a real estate developer; and this one owns Caesar ’s Palace, for God’s sake,” he said. I replied that, to the best of my knowledge , it isn’t illegal to be any of those things. The advanceman said some local friends had seen some negative comments about the owner of the dinner site, a man who had to sell his interest in Caesar’s Palace to get a gaming license in New Jersey. That, too, isn’t illegal. Fred insisted that only our photographer be present so that we could destroy all shots of the VP with such folk before he might sign them and send them to the mobsters for placing on their walls. After the press conference, we followed after the VP to his suite, which was complete with whirlpool sunken bath, an automatic curtain enclosure for the bed and a mirror high above. Fred made his emotional pitch, which of course shocked and distressed the VP. “How do you know this? Who says so?” Bush asked. John Magaw had reports only on the owner of the dinner site, who wouldn’t even be present. A couple of diners have ties of some kind (social or business) with underworld figures, but John said that is commonplace in Nevada. Bush asked that Governor List come to the suite. They conferred privately , and List reassured the VP. A short while later, GB asked me to come into a briefing John Magaw gave him on the guests. This calmed the issue, but it had been a bad scene. After the dinner, I went with the VP to the door to the suite. All had gone well, we concluded...

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