Dark Victory is a well-researched book. The subtitle reads Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob, which one would think would narrow the scope significantly. The outcome, however, is that Ronald Reagan really does not feature all that much. It would be more accurate to call this book Sidney Korshak, MCA, and the Mob. Mr. Korshak is nearly omnipresent in this work. Reagan, though, is more like a background fixture.
The modus operandi for this book coming out in 1986 must have been, on some level, to try to link the Republican Party to the mob via the means of Reagan. It may well be that it was published then to try to sway the 1988 elections toward the Democratic Party. There are many names in this book that tie to the mafia, the underworld, Hollywood, and politics. The connections are clear although keeping track of who is doing what is quite difficult and would probably require a corkboard, some red string and a large wall. What is quite evident, though, is that MCA or the Music Corporation of America managed to move from the realm of radio where it dominated the motion picture business. Reagan was a part of this time and place as he worked with MCA in myriad ways from entertainment to the presidency.
What is made clear from the text is that MCA was about the only show in town. It died a little during the Justice Department’s prosecution of it under Kennedy, but then it grew back like some weed in a garden. It was able to do the things it did in part by holding two differing roles–that of production and talent agency–and eventually got big enough it could push the smaller players around into accepting movies and bands that they really did not want to accept. The punishment was that if they did not make these deals, they would not get access to the bigger stars that would make their venue money.
When it comes to the post-World War II labor unions, it seems that history makes it hard to distinguish labor unions from organized crime. The Teamsters, for instance, represent truckers but are immersed in unsavory connections. MCA is connected to the mob, communists, and labor unions exerting pressure and breaking strikes. A host of other three-lettered movie agencies are involved who are most often opposed to MCA and the things it does since usually it is to their unique disadvantage. Reagan is represented by MCA after his talent agency is bought out by them, and he goes to work for the Screen Actors Guild as the president of that establishment. MCA helps Reagan out at times, and in other moments Reagan is helping MCA or defending it. From the standpoint of labor unions and being an actor, it makes sense that one is going to naturally back the places that are putting food on the table and providing work. Indeed, Reagan seems to see it this way as does most any other labor union.
When pressed under hard questioning, Reagan uses the “I don’t recall” standby. Of course, in hindsight, he did have Alzheimer’s later, so it may well have been that his memory wasn’t that great with which to start. What he did do, after criticizing Kennedy no less for doing something of the same, was that he turned on the mob during his presidency. Sure, there were people he could not or would not go after. On the other hand, with any operation that goes after entrenched crime, there are going to be those who one cannot “get to” at that point. It is simply the nature of organized power that this is so. The narrative actually increases one’s understanding of what Reagan and Kennedy were up against and therefore one better understands the difficulty inherent in the situation.
An unintended consequence is to add additional levels of understanding to the murders of Hoffa and Kennedy through all these connections that Moldea traces. Still, another story that is periphery concerns the format wars between these companies where recording television programs were involved. None of them especially wanted people to be able to record anything on TV, but none of them wanted to be left out of the technology to do so knowing that people would naturally want this ability.
While the main thesis appears to be “look at all these people Reagan is rubbing shoulders with especially mob FRANK SINATRA”, the reality is that to do business in the world and to become president, it would have been almost impossible for Reagan to have encountered only saints on such a path. One does get the feeling he turned a blind eye some of the time. He did help MCA out in several ways. He also says during his presidency that he was tired of labor being invaded by mafia-esque forces and had seen it take place. He does not name any names, but one gets the feeling the implication concerns those with whom his career had flourished.
Whatever else this book was trying to do, it succeeds in making the case against Sidney Korshak. There seems to be literally nothing in here that the man hasn’t touched, and whatever he touches he appears to have enough powerful friends to be able to avoid any unpleasant consequences. The idea that Moldea seems to have is that if he can hook Reagan up with these “dirty people” then that means Reagan isn’t clean. Of course, in another standard, God said that Noah was blameless in his generation, not that he was blameless. This, of course, is not to suggest Reagan IS NOAH or somehow in the same company. It is to point out that one can be surrounded by nasty people and still be right in their spirit. The thesis Moldea is pushing just doesn’t work as perhaps he intended it to as far as Reagan is concerned.
The work of course is dated, and history has other issues that might make a stronger case against Reagan. This piece, however, sits as a who’s who from the fifties to the eighties, however, and allows one a very clear sense of the connections involved and the power brokering that took place. For that alone, Dan Moldea’s work stands out in a way that Joyce’s Ulysses stands out–like a snapshot in time of a city and its people. In this case, however, the city is a nation.
author’s note: Joe Biden makes some appearances within the work as well concerning Reagan’s initiative against organized crime. He is not, as far as the book reads exactly for it, but neither does he seem to be outright against it. He is probably best described as skeptical.
Stuart Briscoe wants to bring life back into the Church. As a minister, of course, this is an appropriate desire. The author died on August 3, 2022, but although he is passed, the character he has chosen is appropriate regardless of his physical presence on Earth or not. Mr. Briscoe has picked Ezekiel to demonstrate how “weird and wonderful” YHVH is.
For most Christians, Ezekiel is a “wild ride” because it touches on mysteries that common Christianity has lost touch with or worse, treats as topics that are not to be discussed. Briscoe is an early author of this type of work, and so there are a few errors present. For one, he totally avoids the clear astrological associations being pointed to in Ezekiel by proxy of the creatures that Ezekiel first describes. (A zodiac wheel is, after all, a wheel.) Secondly, he is not certain why it is that YHVH strikes Ezekiel dumb. The details are included in the narrative:
“Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be unable to speak and will not be a man who reprimands them, since they are a rebellious house.” –Ezekiel 3:26
Ezekiel’s imposed silence is to keep his anger from getting the better of him, and then speaking to Israel in a way that a reprover might. This is done presumably because YHVH all ready knows their hearts and this path simply is not going to be open to them. Briscoe might be playing at being a skeptic on this matter, since he is showing how YHVH sometimes proceeds by methods that appear contradictory.
Other than these minor points of contention, Briscoe does a laudable job in telling the story of Ezekiel in a contemporary way that makes the narrative accessible. The heaviest theological lifting he does is to show how the vision of Ezekiel’s temple is never actually constructed. He offers several theological views for why this might be so, but informs the reader he himself is not going to take the risk to explain the discrepancy.
The rest of his telling of the story of Ezekiel makes it clear that the life of the Prophet was not easy, and builds steady momentum and pressure on the point up until, as the astute reader of Ezekiel knows, his wife dies as part of the larger lesson to Israel. Another good point made as this is occurring is how Jeremiah is also doing something similar, and how YHVH is looking for someone to fill the gap. Briscoe points out apparently neither Jeremiah nor Ezekiel counts as these gap fillers, perhaps because they are not numbered as “people who have lived in Jerusalem”–at least not in the sense that the penitence YHVH is looking for is demanded or meaningful.
By the time Ezekiel is preaching to the dried bones that come back to life, it becomes clear that Briscoe is addressing the Christian churches in no small way. Many congregations are dead, and they talk about much but do little. This fact becomes something of an uncomfortable joke in the book for Briscoe. He is looking, it seems, for something a little like Ezekiel to happen where the houses that are “dead” come back to life and are made into an army. “Christian soldiers” would seem to be the call, although not necessarily in a military sense. Certainly, revival. Ezekiel, although a ministry first and foremost about “woes” becomes, after the woes have been rendered, a Prophet that is concerned with eventual revival. Some of what he sees, Briscoe lets us know, overlaps with John in the book of Revelation. It may be, we are reminded, that some of what Ezekiel saw was about the end times as opposed to anything that was to be prior.
The most impressive thing about this book is for the time in which it was written, it reveals much. The edition used for this review was written in 1979 although the first printing appears to be 1977. For any work like this to exist in the 70s as a Christian mainstream book is, indeed, wonderful and weird. One understands that Briscoe must have had some special calling in order to have been able to write it.
Victor Ostrovsky’s other book review, By Way of Deception, can be read here. This, might be a necessary step to understand this work, Black Ghosts, as it is a “fictional work” although given Ostrovsky’s background, it might not be all that fictional after all.
The premise of the book is that on the eve of a nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the United States there is unrest in a former KGB intelligence unit that has the designation of the Black Ghosts. It turns out that a former leader of the group is staging a prison break, and is not happy with what has happened to Russia politically as a result of his imprisonment and so intends on re-taking the unit and then utilizing it to reboot Tzarist Russia via a plan to kidnap the US president and to kill the Russian president and replace him in a coup.
Of course, there are those who are opposing this plan who are a ragtag bunch of former soldiers and intelligence operators. Edward is one of them and though he has been out of the game for some time, his friend Larry has been very much in it. When Larry shows up badly wounded on his doorstep with a mysterious woman, Edward finds himself unwillingly dragged back into the world of intelligence he has tried to leave. Before he knows it, he is off to Russia to try to stop Peter Rogov, the former head of the Black Ghosts, from carrying out his plans to disrupt both countries and to return the world back to the threat of the Cold War standoff which it is on the verge of overcoming.
The technological backstory in this book has some surprises in how the media will be used once Rogov is in place. Keeping in mind this was written before the modern era of de-platforming and its ilk, in many ways it displays a kind of prescience.
If one is looking for a stellar spy story to rival Ian Fleming in this book, one is going to be disappointed. It is more in league with a Tom Clancy read. If one has seen any movie from the 90’s one has the basic story plot. Russia bad. United States, good. New World Order, bad. Nukes, bad. Guy willing to use them to bring back terrible times, check. No, there is nothing especially new about any of this, but putting Russia at the head of the New World Order is somewhat different. The idea of sleeper cells of former KGB agents is also not different, but has a distinct “Black Water” signature as a unit which makes that part of the story also interesting.
Another piece present here concerns the actual industrial military complex that are referred to as “metal eaters”. They are a force that causes the plot to move and by the end of the book we are left with unanswered questions as to their involvement. This is likely meant to create the structure for a sequel, but to date, no sequel appears to have been written.
As previously mentioned, what makes the book more interesting is not the plot or the characters but the fact that Ostrovsky may well be here writing something that is more like a confessional than fiction. One should read it with a discerning eye, and not merely for the sake of entertainment alone.
