Senator Bill Raggio

  

Senator Bill Raggio, Nevada State Senate Majority Leader 

                                       

Thirteen years ago, in November 2010, little-known, far-right Republican candidate Sharron Angle was on the verge of defeating U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in what was shaping up to be one of the greatest upsets in American political history. Though polls showed Democrat Reid to be widely unpopular with Nevada voters, over two hundred high-profile Nevadans, under the organizational title "Republicans for Reid," rallied to provide endorsements that proved instrumental in Angle's subsequent defeat.

 Longtime Republican State Senator Bill Raggio did not join that list; instead, he made a forceful, independent declaration he hoped would open the eyes of his party to the direction it was heading. He explained that he could not endorse Angle because of her "inability or unwillingness to work with others, even within her own party, and her extreme positions on issues such as Medicare, Social Security, education, veterans' affairs, and many others." 

Raggio qualified his decision by saying he did not agree with Senator Reid on much of his agenda. Still, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader, arguably the second most powerful person in the country, Reid would better represent the interests of Nevada than a novice "backbencher" like Angle. As such, Raggio concluded: "I will reluctantly vote for Senator Reid's reelection."

Ultraconservatives, who had been gaining ascendancy in the GOP, were furious. The State Senate Republican Caucus quickly drove Raggio from his longtime leadership role. He subsequently resigned his Senate seat. Disowned by many supporters and even lifelong friends, organizations that had once bragged of Raggio's membership now distanced themselves. 

Though disappointed, Raggio did not back down, publicly sounding the alarm that extremist factions within the state and national GOP would soon take control and that their refusal to negotiate, in a zealous crusade for ideological purity, would fracture, and consequently weaken, the party to a point where it would no longer be acceptable to a majority of American voters. After decades of right-wing pundits perpetuating the belief that government was an enemy of the American people, Raggio said, ultraconservatives were willing to shut it down unless others accepted their nonnegotiable social and fiscal agendas.  

Raggio had always considered himself a conservative champion of individual rights, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, but in a way that would, as he often said, deliver "lean government, but not a mean government." With this philosophy as his guide, he led the State Senate for decades with a willingness to listen and consider the opinions of others, gaining trust on both sides of the aisle. Partisanship was minimal, and legislators generally worked together for the common good. Raggio understood the axiom attributed to President Ronald Reagan: "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally—not a 20 percent traitor."

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Bill Raggio with President George H.W. Bush

I came to know Senator Raggio in 2003 when I was assigned as a staff member to his Committee on Finance at the Nevada Legislature. My first book, A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered, a memoir of my time as a young Marine during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh in South Vietnam, was released the following year. Knowing Raggio had been a World War II-era Marine officer, I slipped him a copy in a hallway one Friday afternoon. He read the book that weekend and asked if I would write his biography.

I spent the next several years researching his personal life and career. During that time, we met frequently for interviews, supplemented by dozens of discussions with his legal and political colleagues—friend and foe. In addition, as a Finance Committee staff member, I observed Senator Raggio daily during biennial legislative sessions over eight years. The result was A Man of His Word: The Life & Times of Nevada's Senator William J. Raggio, published in 2011.

I learned that Raggio's reputation predated his time in the state senate. Upon his election as Washoe County District Attorney in 1958, Raggio had set about cleaning up widespread corruption in the Reno city government and police department, generating threats against him and concerns about his family's safety.

His contentious relationship with Nevada's flamboyant brothel owner, Joe Conforte, culminating in a bungled attempt by Conforte to blackmail Raggio, resulted in a conviction for extortion. The lewd content of the trial made it a sensation for its time, covered by national and international news services. As Raggio's fame for being a colorful and effective prosecutor grew, he received several prestigious awards and honors. In 1967, after being named District Attorney of the Year by the National District Attorneys Association, Raggio was elected its president—remarkable recognition for a prosecutor from a small western county. He was soon sought after by heads of state and other significant government and national political figures.  

In those days, Northern Nevada hosted topline entertainment, and Raggio's outgoing personality resulted in long friendships with some of the country's foremost performers. Most notable among them was Frank Sinatra. When Nevada gaming officials forced Sinatra to surrender his gaming license as a result of hosting a Chicago mobster at his Cal Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe, Raggio remained loyal despite being the top cop in the county where that occurred, raising eyebrows and providing fodder for his political foes.

When Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at Lake Tahoe, but outside Raggio's jurisdiction, Bill Raggio was one of the first people Sinatra called on for assistance. In later years, when Sinatra sought a new gaming license in Nevada, it was Raggio who, in private practice as one of the top gaming attorneys in the state, successfully pled the case before the Gaming Control Board despite evidence that Sinatra had continued to associate with members of organized crime.  

As his fame grew, Raggio always kept in mind the people he was elected to serve. Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jude Wanniski marveled at Raggio's wit and ability "to remember the name of nearly every person he ever met:

Bill Raggio representing Frank Sinatra
before the Gaming Control Board.

"In Reno, it's virtually impossible to sit and talk to him for ten minutes without interruption. In restaurants, the cook comes out of the kitchen to say hello to him. On the street, the truck drivers honk at him, cabbies slow down, yell and wave to him. A hotel porter is sifting cigarette butts out of a wall sandbox; Raggio, walking by, hails him: 'Freddie, you find any gold yet?' and the porter turns around and grins."  

 Just before leaving on an Australian vacation in late February 2012, Raggio called me to discuss an upcoming book signing we had scheduled in a few weeks at the Wynn Las Vegas. He assured me that he was happy to attend despite dealing with the pain of a torn Achilles tendon and some difficulty breathing. I was not surprised by his thoughtfulness. It would be the last time we spoke. He died three days later from respiratory failure in Sydney at age 85.

Until the end, despite all it cost him, he never regretted his outspoken resistance to those he felt had "hijacked" his GOP or doubted for a moment that he had acted in the best interest of all Nevadans.

I've recently completed a book manuscript, Nevada Senator Bill Raggio and the Politics of Divisiveness, which describes these momentous changes in the climate of Nevada and national politics over the last four decades. I hope to see it published next year. 

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 Last Monday, October 30, marked what would have been Senator Raggio's 97th birthday. His long and legendary career in public service to Nevada produced countless amusing stories. One of my favorites is the somewhat comical outcome of his first criminal trial.

During law school, Raggio excelled in real property law, owing to his innate mathematical skills, and thought he might concentrate his practice in that field. However, he soon learned that in the early 1950s, most attorneys in Nevada did not have the luxury of specializing in a single facet of the law. 

"In Reno," he later said, "you were always assured of getting nasty divorce cases to cover your overhead — although I never wanted to be a divorce lawyer. I had also decided that I was really not suited for criminal law."

He would revisit that self-analysis after a call from Nevada's finest trial attorney, Peter Echeverria. Echeverria would later serve as a National President of the American Board of Trial Advocates and precede Raggio in the Nevada State Senate, the first senator of Basque heritage, and later become head of the Nevada Gaming Commission. His reputation was impeccable.

In the early 1950s, Echeverria left the prestigious Woodburn firm in Reno, hoping to make a reputation by winning a high-profile case, and found one made to order, with elements of the Old West and a salaciousness the public had come to expect from a good Nevada story. Echeverria asked Raggio to assist. Though he would not be paid, the young attorney jumped at the opportunity to earn experience with the legendary Echeverria.  

On trial for his life was mineworker Ray Milland, who had been charged with murdering a prostitute at Taxine's brothel in Tonopah. The legalization of brothels was then, as it is today in Nevada, left to the discretion of local governments.

Although there were no eyewitnesses to the crime, Milland had been accused of being the killer by a local hoodlum, Bonny Ornelles. Even before the trial began, it was apparent to most of the townspeople, as well as both defense attorneys, that the more aggressive Ornelles had committed the murder. The meek Mr. Milland, self-admittedly a brothel customer that day, was a victim of circumstance.

Echeverria and Raggio spent several days interviewing witnesses in preparation for the case. Whether out of loyalty to Ornelles or fear of reprisal, it was soon evident that their stories were largely contrived.

Judge William Hatton presided over the trial in the old Nye County Courthouse, a rusticated stone structure with a slender silver dome at the southern edge of Tonopah. A mining boomtown earlier in the century that once held a saloon operated by legendary lawman and later "political fixer" Wyatt Earp, Tonapah was now a small nearly forgotten community in the high desert of central Nevada.  While Echeverria handled most of the courtroom work, he did allow his young assistant to cross-examine a few witnesses. The process enthralled Raggio, who would later describe the principals as "colorful local characters, most of whom had few aspirations in life other than hanging around a brothel."

One, in particular, Billy Gallagher, tried to hide the fact that the brothel employed him as an errand boy. Under repeated questioning, Gallagher insisted he did not work for Taxine's but rather did odd jobs around town. When Raggio asked what kind of "odd jobs" he performed, Gallagher replied, "I mow lawns." With that, the courtroom audience and jurors burst into uproarious laughter because, at that time, there was not a square inch of lawn in all of dusty Tonopah.

Milland would be acquitted, and, for years afterward, Raggio half-jokingly insisted that his coaxing of the lawn-mowing lie from a dimwitted Mr. Gallagher was instrumental in swaying the jury. Bonny Ornelles, the likely killer, was never charged with the crime. Raggio believed he died sometime later "of something other than natural causes."

Raggio now had an exciting criminal trial "under his belt" and a proper and popular verdict. Though stimulated by what he had experienced, he was still looking for his professional niche because the Milland murder trial awakened in him certain realities concerning a thorny facet of the legal profession:

"In criminal cases," he later said, "justice is not always served. A truly professional attorney will feel obligated to ensure proper procedures are followed — even if they believe or know their client committed the crime. The innocence or guilt of defendants in the few criminal cases I defended was so indisputable that I was never put in a position of moral ambivalence." In other words, he had never defended an individual he knew to be guilty.

Bill Raggio represented so few criminal defendants in his career, thus escaping that ethical dilemma, mainly because he would spend the next eighteen years trying cases from the opposing side as a prosecuting attorney. He would go on to become one of the most highly respected prosecutors in the nation—not a bad ending for someone who once felt he was "really not suited for criminal law."                  

Bill Raggio and the JFK Assassination

  

I've been fortunate over the years to have become acquainted with many interesting and accomplished people. Among those who have honored me with the title of "friend" was the late-Nevada State Senator Bill Raggio, the subject of my 2011 book, A Man of His Word. 

Before joining the Nevada Senate, Raggio exercised his brilliant legal mind and no-nonsense approach to the law as District Attorney of Washoe County. There, he not only took on notorious local crime figures but also cleaned up rampant corruption in the Reno Police Department and City Council. This put him and his family in danger from reprisals; his children were often escorted to school by trusted officers and his house was guarded at night. 

As his reputation grew, Raggio was honored by the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) as District Attorney of the Year 1967, an honor magnified by the fact he served a small, western state county, competing with high-profile, “Big City” DAs. He was subsequently elected as president of that prestigious organization.

The elegant Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans was chosen as the site of the March 1968 meeting of the NDAA and, as the new president, Raggio hoped to make the event the most memorable in the organization’s history. It would prove to be just that, though due less to his organizational efforts, than the mercurial personality of the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Jim Garrison.

Bill Raggio and Jim Garrison 1967

First elected in 1961, Garrison immediately established a reputation for being eccentric and flamboyant. The local media loved his regular raids on Bourbon Street bars and strip clubs. In January 1963, Garrison was convicted of misdemeanor criminal defamation during a widely publicized trial, after he publicly accused eight criminal court judges of racketeering and conspiring against him in a conflict over his office budget. Despite this, he was well-liked, not only by the public but also by Raggio and other members of the NDAA—at least at first. 

In a 2008 interview, excerpted from the book, Raggio explained:

I was a rather close friend of Jim Garrison as a result of holding offices in the association. I had taken him under my wing, if you will, to introduce him to other association members, in order to get him involved. He was, to say the least, a unique individual. 

The meeting that preceded the New Orleans affair was held in Los Angeles. My hotel room was next to his, and it was during that meeting that I first observed some strange behavior. It appeared Jim had, for want of a better word, an “obsession” with underage girls — some appearing to be as young as sixteen-years-old. Today we would call him a predator. Surprisingly, when I mentioned my concerns about this to him, he did not deny his behavior. Because of this, I rather backed off from Mr. Jim Garrison.

Throughout 1967, Garrison developed a conspiracy theory about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy four years earlier. His evidence most often consisted of information volunteered by strange, shadowy characters, including one he identified as “Mr. X,” a high-level Washington DC official (a sort of precursor to the anonymous “Deep Throat” informant a few years later during the Watergate investigation). Garrison’s theory was basically that the president’s murder represented a coup d'état at the highest levels of government aided by the Mafia and implicating members of the CIA, Secret Service, FBI, and then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who feared Kennedy wanted to dismantle the CIA and pull the United States out of the Vietnam War, the latter producing a financial blow to the bottom line of the military-industrial complex.

Raggio and other board members were becoming increasingly alarmed by Garrison’s erratic behavior. As the host-city member of the NDAA, he would have certain ceremonial duties at the event. Their concerns were somewhat assuaged when Garrison’s assistant assured Raggio that his boss would not use the convention to promote his views concerning the assassination. With that pledge, they agreed to go forward with their plans to hold the meeting in the Big Easy.  

Once the delegates arrived, problems arose. Vice President Hubert Humphrey had been invited to be the featured speaker, but on the morning of the banquet, Humphrey’s secretary called and advised Raggio that the Vice President was canceling his speech that evening. Though the secretary did not say it, Raggio sensed it had to do with Garrison's conduct. Raggio quickly called Garrison to a meeting of the executive officers and told them the Vice President has canceled.

Raggio later recalled:

Garrison then said, ‘I'm going to be the speaker instead of the Vice President.’ I asked him what he intended to talk about.  He replied that he was going to discuss the intrusion of federal courts into state affairs and the activities of President Johnson in concealing vital evidence about the Kennedy assassination.  ‘I'm going to tell them,’ Garrison fumed, ‘about the f***ing President and the f***ing Vice President.’

Raggio was shocked by the outburst, telling Garrison that, as the organization’s president, he not going to allow him to speak:

Garrison kept accusing me of censorship, but I finally made it clear to him that he was not going to address the banquet. Garrison then said, ‘In that event, I am canceling the dinner.’ He then turned to an assistant and said, ‘Cancel the banquet, bolt the doors, guard them, and don’t let anybody in.’ He then stormed out of the room.

The NDAA board of directors unanimously backed Raggio’s decision not to let Garrison speak. Raggio then requested a refund from the hotel management for the cost of the banquet. “The manager said he could not do anything about that,” Raggio said, “because Garrison had been the one who made the arrangements. I suspect many people were not in accord with Jim Garrison, but because he was so powerful in Orleans Parish, they were fearful about standing up to him.”

That night four hundred of the nation’s top prosecutors, and their spouses, went without dinner, and Garrison’s behavior toward the NDAA turned into a major news story — one highly unflattering to the state. Governor John McKeithen came from Baton Rouge to New Orleans the next day to meet with Raggio. He apologized on behalf of the State of Louisiana—but was not willing to offer any criticism of Garrison’s actions. Raggio told a reporter afterward: “Jim was a friend of mine ever since he was elected as DA… but his conduct today was completely irrational; he is an entirely changed man.”

Raggio would later remark that Garrison compulsively needed to be in the limelight, and thought he was smarter than everyone else was, adding:

Yet, I always found the mindset and the values in New Orleans to be curious. There was a certain flavor about the place. Most public officials ended up affording themselves the privilege of largess. They expected to go to restaurants, bars, any kind of services, and not have to pay for it. Jim Garrison had many friends there, and, despite everything he did, I guess it should not surprise me that he became a judge. It seemed that everyone in the state lived in fear of him.  

Raggio’s observations were echoed by many over the ensuing years, especially after DA Garrison embarrassed himself in the 1969 trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw, who he had accused of being an assassination co-conspirator with Lee Harvey Oswald—and which ended in an acquittal that took the jury less than an hour to render. Garrison was defeated in his reelection bid but would recover politically a decade later when elected as a judge of the Louisiana State Circuit Court of Appeals where he served until he died in 1992.

During that time, he would be branded not only as peculiar but as a con artist, especially after he sold the film rights to his 1988 book On the Trail of Assassins to film director Oliver Stone for $250,000. Stone would use it as the basis for his 1991 film JFK starring Kevin Costner and a high-profile Hollywood cast. Stone was not reluctant to include in the film Garrison’s blatant distortion of facts and evidence, justifying that by saying he was producing a “counter myth” to the Warren Commission findings. He portrayed Garrison as a hero being undermined by members of a vast conspiracy, ranging to the highest levels of government.

Political commentator, George Will, wrote at the time that Garrison "staged an assassination 'investigation' that involved recklessness, cruelty, abuse of power, publicity mongering and dishonesty, all on a scale that strongly suggested lunacy leavened by cynicism." He added that Oliver Stone was a person of “negligible conscience,”  and bemoaned how such baseless gibberish was undermining trust in the government.  

Former Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick, Sr. (father of the entertainer), who had defeated Garrison in his reelection bid, said it was “one of the grossest, most extreme miscarriages of justice in the annals of American judicial history." Connick, Raggio would later say, “proved to be an honest and highly respected public servant and member of our National District Attorneys Association.”    

Even a fellow assassination conspiracy author, David Lifton,  called Garrison "intellectually dishonest, a reckless prosecutor, and a total charlatan;"  adding that he had done great damage to those trying to establish more legitimate, fact-based, counter-arguments to the Commission findings. Journalist Rosemary James of Newsweek, when comparing the “real” Jim Garrison to Costner’s film version in JFK, supported what Bill Raggio had earlier concluded: “He went from a highly intelligent eccentric to a lunatic in the period of one year.”

Bill Raggio and Melvin Belli  1967.

The 1968 NDAA dinner debacle in New Orleans would be Raggio’s last contact with Garrison.

Another member of the NDAA during Raggio’s presidency of the organization was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade, who could not have held a more contrary view of the Kennedy assassination than Garrison’s, missed the opportunity to try Lee Harvey Oswald for the President’s murder after Oswald was killed by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby inside the Dallas Police Department’s headquarters. Wade did, however, receive national attention for obtaining a March 1964 conviction of Ruby, which included a sentence of death (Henry Wade would later become more famous as the respondent in Roe v. Wade).

Coincidently, Raggio’s good friend, famed San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli, acted pro bono as Ruby’s defense attorney at that trial. Despite the conviction Wade obtained, the verdict was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court in their belief Ruby was not afforded a fair trial in Dallas due to publicity surrounding the assassination. Ruby would die of cancer before his retrial began.

When later asked about Melvin Belli’s reasons for defending Jack Ruby, Raggio would say:

Mel, nor I, for that matter, ever felt there was enough real evidence of a conspiracy theory regarding President Kennedy’s assassination.  Mel sought to convince the jury that Ruby shot Oswald because he was mentally ill. More importantly, Melvin Belli was a megalomaniac, the consummate attention-grabber, and he defended Jack Ruby to get publicity.

If Oswald had lived, Melvin would have wanted to defend him. That was the kind of guy he was. As far as publicity, that would have been the ultimate prize.”

 

Raggio’s extraordinarily broad circle of personal acquaintances extended beyond the legal profession to distinguished government officials and the most famous stars in the entertainment industry. In knowing Bill Raggio, it always seemed I was only 2-degrees of separation from some of the most notable people in the world. He was larger-than-life and I am forever grateful he chose me to capture so many such stories about these fascinating connections.

More later...

  

Happy Birthday Senator Bill Raggio

 

William John Raggio, Jr. was born in Reno, then the picturesque “City of Trembling Leaves,” on  October 30, 1926—just a few hours short of Nevada Day.  He was a fourth-generation Nevadan and descendant of immigrants from northern Italy who had arrived penniless; but, by hard work and thrift, saved enough to become successful landowners. These values, along with an abiding respect for the country that provided them such a golden opportunity, were passed along and instilled in Bill Raggio, whetted through the Great Depression and a World War that encompassed his early life.

By the 1960’s, Raggio was nationally recognized as a brilliant and gutsy district attorney, fighting endemic corruption in the local city government and police department, and personally prosecuting some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in Nevada. His lively confrontations with local brothel owner Joe Conforte over the years became the stuff of legend. But all of this came at a personal cost, with the lives of Raggio and his family disrupted by threats of violence to the point where trusted police sentries kept watch, often for weeks at a time, at the Raggio home on Robin Street each night and often escorted his three children to school for their protection.

After an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate, Bill Raggio was elected to the Nevada State Senate in 1972.  Once there, he spent long hours learning his job, impressing colleagues with his dedication and work ethic, and was soon chosen as Senate Minority Floor Leader. As a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, Raggio carefully studied the intricacies of the state budget and became widely admired for his prodigious intellect and extraordinary retention, even among those who did not share his conservative political views.

In 1987, when Republicans won a majority in the Senate, Bill Raggio became Floor Leader and Chair of the Finance Committee, guiding that governing body over most of the next two decades with a willingness to listen and consider the needs and opinions of others. His charisma, patience and sense of fairness—balanced, when he felt it necessary, with an intimidating presence and an occasional calculated fit of temper—steered colleagues to acceptable compromises and kept the Legislature functioning.

His longevity in these legislative posts was all the more remarkable because of the dramatic political power shift during his tenure to Clark County. Despite southern Nevada legislators comprising a significant majority of seats in the Senate, northerner Raggio kept his leadership position largely due to his cleverness and experience, which allowed him to play the political game like an accomplished chess master—always several moves ahead of his rivals. During this time, he often was referred to, by both admirers and critics alike, as "Nevada's Shadow Governor."

Travelers arriving at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport invariably pass by the bronze bust of Senator Raggio, smiling back at them from a pedestal behind a velvet cord.  Raised lettering on the wall behind the bust proclaims him to be “Father of the Airport Authority.” His success as the driving force in establishing that governmental entity, which broke the stranglehold of longtime, local monopolies; revolutionized the tourist industry in northern Nevada, and was just one of his many significant accomplishments in shaping the State.

Of all those accomplishments, he was most proud of his prominent role in the creation and passage of the Nevada Education Reform Act, one of the most complex and controversial pieces of legislation ever to challenge state lawmakers. Yet, he was able to lead them through that maze with his encyclopedic knowledge and talent for synthesizing a discussion down to its essence.

He was also an ardent supporter of Nevada’s colleges and universities. Students at the University of Nevada, Reno are reminded of this daily by the looming presence of the William J. Raggio College of Education Building.  In Clark County, his contribution as an outstanding role model for those entering the legal profession is seen in his name on the largest classroom facility at the Boyd School of Law.

As a life-long Republican, Senator Raggio was dedicated to maintaining low taxes, but understood that circumstances change and increases were sometimes necessary. During the 2003 legislative session, he was challenged by, what he termed, “far right” conservatives within the Senate’s Republican caucus. This split was largely the result of his decision to join Republican Governor Kenny Guinn, and over two-thirds of the Legislature, in voting for a tax increase to keep Nevada schools open. It was a tough choice, Raggio later said, but necessary because Nevada’s children deserved teachers, books, and decent classrooms “like those of us who had come before.”

This internal political rift widened and, during the 2008 Republican primary election, the Tea Party faction ran their own candidate in a heated, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign to oust the incumbent Raggio. Rather than discounting these challenges, Senator Raggio embraced them as an opportunity to remind his fellow lawmakers that they were elected “not just to serve Republican or Democrat constituents, but in the best interest of all the people of Nevada,” and that inflexible political positions, no-tax pledges, and narrow, overly-simplistic answers for solving the broad and complex issues facing the State, were an abdication of their duty to thoughtfully vet information, and make informed decisions.

During the 2010 election for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat, Raggio was among more than two hundred prominent Nevada Republicans to endorse Democratic Senator Harry Reid against his Tea Party opponent. Nevertheless, he became the lightning rod for ire when Reid won reelection. Two weeks later, the Republican Senate Caucus stripped Raggio of his leadership position. On January 5, 2011, Senator Raggio announced the end of his 56-year-long career in public service.

From presidents and other luminaries in the political, legal and business world, to sports figures and entertainers, including his warm personal friendship with Frank Sinatra, Bill Raggio seemed larger than life. And no legislator in the annals of Nevada history left a larger footprint on the political landscape.  A product of the old school of Nevada politics, he as never an ideologue; but rather a pragmatist who recognized early on in his political life that compromise was not an act of betrayal or surrender, but the only way to achieve results in the legislative process. For Bill Raggio, integrity, courage and compassion were not merely worthy and attainable virtues, but essential to the healthy governance of Nevada and our nation.

On New Year’s Day 2011, just a year before his death from a respiratory illness, eighty-four-year-old Raggio reflected on his life: “There are very few things I would have done differently, even now knowing the consequences, but I have always tried to keep my word on things that I believed. I am honored and privileged to have had the sustained support of my constituents, and must acknowledge that it’s been a great ride.”

Happy 94th birthday, Senator. It was a great ride for us too.

Michael Archer is the author of A Man of His Word: The Life & Times of Nevada’s Senator William J. Raggio, as well as several books on the Vietnam War and its aftermath. His articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Nevada Review and the Political History of Nevada—2016.

This piece is drawn from an opinion article published in the Nevada Independent two years ago.

Éirinn go Brách,

I have several Irish forbearers, including my maternal grandmother, Lizzie Connor, who, as a young girl, along with her mother, Kitty, arrived in this country in the late 19^th century at San Francisco after an arduous voyage around The Horn.

From the time I was  a kid growing up in a north Oakland Irish-Catholic enclave, I attended many weddings and family gatherings, my own and others, in that tightly knit little community, and they were almost always to the accompaniment (in sequence) of: drinking; the rekindling of old (sometimes ancient!)  grudges; gimlet-eyed glaring followed by mumbled insults (usually involving the mention of a person’s name followed by the symbolic—and occasionally genuine—spitting on the floor; then the inevitable fistfight followed by months, or even years, of being prohibited from playing with certain neighbor kids or cousins.

As such, I’ve come to recognize the perfection in this observation often credited to Irish poet William Butler Yeats (but, alas, not found in any of his writings):   “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! And to you all—Slàinte!

 (Wedding photo: Elizabeth Rose Connor and James Michael Casey—circa 1907)

Tortured Soul: Confession of an Oakland Raider Fan

On this day (January 14) in 1968, the Oakland Raiders played the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II. As mentioned in my book, A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered, I was at the time temporarily assigned to a small Marine outpost in a village two miles from the Khe Sanh Combat Base, so remote that I was beyond the range of the Armed Forces Radio broadcast of the game. Up the road at the combat base, Marines had access to superior radio equipment and were listening to the game. My friend there, Steve Orr, would surreptitiously provide me with clipped voice score updates over our, otherwise, secure base defense radio network.

It was obvious to me by about 5 AM (January 15 in Vietnam) that Oakland would be defeated. At almost precisely that time, exactly a week later, my little unit would be attacked by hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers. After two days of fighting, we were able to get back to the relative safety of the combat base, abandoning the village and our headquarters compound to the enemy.

But on that January 15 morning, my only problem was an overwhelming sense of homesickness caused by the fact that I had only been in Vietnam for six weeks and would’ve given anything to be sitting in front of the TV in my parents living room watching the game with friends and family.

Coincidentally today, I read this article (link below) about the state-of-the-art opulence offered by Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, the Raiders’ new home in the coming season. It took me back to years before 1968, to the year 1960, when the Raiders first came to Oakland as part of the newly founded American Football League. It was an occasion of incredible civic pride for our humble, blue-collar town, that perpetually lived in the shadow of its elegant, urbane and world-famous (Thanks Tony Bennett. Did you even consider for a moment the lyrics: “I left my heart in Oakland”?!!) neighbor, San Francisco; with its well-established big-league football and baseball teams: the 49ers and Giants.

Sure, author Gertrude Stein had once said of Oakland: “There is no there there.” And yes, the town had, at first, wanted to call the team the Oakland Señors, a somewhat less-intimidating name than they later decided upon. And sure, the pirate logo they adopted was grounded in a bit of our town’s history, sort of. Although Oakland’s seaport had not been a haven for the more traditional dangerous, swashbuckling buccaneers, it was home to many nameless “oyster pirates,”--as described by native- son author Jack London—who were actually more like nocturnal, shellfish burglars.

Adding to this embarrassment, the Raiders, like some poor relative, didn’t play a single game in Oakland their first two years, but in much-resented San Francisco, at Kezar Stadium, in Golden Gate Park, or Candlestick, when the haughty 49ers deigned to fit them in.

But none of this magnified our civic inferiority complex, because there was now a professional football team with the word “Oakland” in its name.

I attended my first Raider game when I was 12, at Kezar Stadium in the autumn of 1960. Our parents were able to afford it because if you visited a Safeway store you could get a two-for-one coupon for tickets.  Fans sat on long, concentric rows of ancient, backless, wooden benches, so treacherously sliver-laden that we soon learned the hard way keep our hands in sight at all times.

Running back James D. “Jetstream” Smith was our hero that day, taking handoffs from quarterback, and later Raider legend, Tom Flores. The Raiders starting left guard was Don Manoukian, a Reno High and Stanford graduate, who had been lured away by the Raiders from a lucrative professional wrestling career in Japan, where he was the perennial bad guy called The Great Manouk. In today's NFL, where offensive linemen are more likely to be 6’ 6” and close to 300 pounds,  Don helped anchor the interior of the Raider offensive line at barely  5’ 7”  (listed as 5’9” on the team roster) and 240 pounds. I had the privilege of getting to spend some time with him before he died in 2014 at age 80, and he was unquestionably the finest storyteller I will ever know.

Before moving into their permanent Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 1966, the Raiders physically (finally!) arrived in Oakland, playing at a temporary facility called Frank Youell Field, named after the city’s most prominent undertaker.  There, on November 21, 1965, I was one of 19,000 fans watching the Buffalo Bills behind quarterback, and later US Senator, Jack Kemp, defeat Flores’ Raiders 17-14. (Photo: Youell Field 1965, Raiders v Bills)

On a dare, one of the loonier members of the group of kids I hung out with then, ran on to the field after the final whistle, snatched Kemp’s helmet out of his hand, and headed for the exit with the Buffalo QB in hot pursuit. The kid won the dare, but the helmet was later returned to the Bills. I later learned that because those pre-merger AFL teams were operating on such razor-thin budgets, players were responsible to pay for any equipment they lost. It would not be the last time a Raider fan, never known for their social decorum and cuddly dispositions, would seek to annoy visiting quarterbacks.     

Two Novembers later, I was on my way to Vietnam and upon my return would remain an avid—some might say “rabid”—Raider fan until Al Davis moved the franchise to Los Angeles in 1982, an unthinkable act of disloyalty, only made worse by the traditional disdain which Northern Californians held for anyone choosing to live south of the Tehachapis—home of those much-loathed sports rivals the  Dodgers and, for many years, the Rams--and thus forever tainted by that association.

And so, to all you Las Vegas Raider fans shelling out those exorbitant PSL, ticket and concession costs, feel free to put your hands on that seat next season. I’m guessing you won’t be getting any splinters.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/psl-sales-at-raiders-las-vegas-stadium-soar-228m-over-projections-1933419/

Lecture: Senator Bill Raggio

I always enjoy the chance to speak about the late Senator Bill Raggio, who possessed a combination of intellect, charm, wit and courage of conviction the likes of which may never be seen again. The event will be held at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City on Thursday, November 21. For more information on how to reserve a seat, please visit this link:

                                         Nevada State Museum Event

Honored at West Point

Last Thursday evening, I had the honor of attending a dinner at the United States Military Academy, West Point, to receive a literary award, the Military Order of St. Louis, for my Khe Sanh trilogy, A Patch of Ground, The Long Goodbye and The Gunpowder Prince. The dinner was hosted by the Knights Templar Priory of Saint Patrick in the Hudson Valley of New York, and was attended by many distinguished retired and active members of the military, including several generals.  Past recipients of the award include best-selling writers Thomas Fleming, James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers) and Philip Caputo (A Rumor of War). Among this year's nominees were several best-selling writers and historians, as well as Pulitzer-winning journalist. I would not have been there except for the efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Black. His contributions, including advancing my nomination, are something for which I will forever be grateful. In 1968, then-Captain Black was commander of a company that included my friend Tom Mahoney. Tom is the subject of my book The Long Goodbye and Captain Black not only oversaw what proved to be a futile effort to retrieve Tom’s body from under a deadly enemy ambush, but later wrote an eloquent and heartfelt letter to Tom’s mom (see below). In the audience were my old Khe Sanh siege buddies Michael Reath and Michael Maier (just to be clear, not everyone at Khe Sanh was named Michael😉). Both New Jerseyites, their escorting of me to West Point was not only greatly appreciated and entertaining (we still, even after all these years, maintain the dark sense of humor we'd developed at Khe Sanh in order to stay sane during the unremitting enemy shelling), but was also vital to my safe arrival there, given the mindboggling level of traffic and bewildering highway system in northern Jersey. This honor, as well as the genuinely warm welcome and humbling respect I enjoyed from my hosts and attendees, will remain a highlight among so many wonderful memories I have collected over the years.

A Real American Hero

Each afternoon, Disney World in Orlando, Florida randomly selects a veteran from among its visitors to be guest of honor in a daily ceremony to lower the American flag and then to carry it in a parade down Main Street.

Earlier this year they saw a man with his family wearing a hat denoting him as a Vietnam veteran and asked him to be that guest of honor.  His name is Bruce Bird and, in my opinion, they could not have selected a more deserving person.

Fifty-one years ago, on July 6, 1968, during the bitter fighting in the final hours before Khe Sanh Combat Base was abandoned, ending fifteen months of horrendous battle there, Bruce volunteered to risk his life to retrieve the body of my friend Tom Mahoney from under a North Vietnamese Army ambush. Bruce was a veteran of intense combat and so knew full-well the dangers he faced.



As he crawled within a few yards of Tom's body, Bruce was shot through the neck by an enemy sniper. As he lay in the tall grass watching the blood flowing out, he later said “It was like in the movies, with my life flashing before my eyes.” Just as he lost consciousness, platoon leader Lieutenant Frank Ahearn and another Marine pulled Bruce back to safety. A corpsman quickly bandaged his neck wound and managed to get him aboard the next medevac helicopter to a hospital in a rear area.That unusually rapid (and lucky) sequence of events resulted in Bruce’s life being saved.

A few years ago, I tracked Bruce down while I was researching and writing The Long Goodbye: Khe Sanh Revisited, and he provided vital information.

So, its time to finally Stand Down, Marine. Your loyalty and courage echoed across the subsequent decades and in the end--as if somehow fated--you appeared at just the right moment to help ensure that the memory of Tom’s last days will not be left behind in the shadows of history.

If Disney World was looking for a real American hero to lower the flag, they certainly found one that day.

The Nevada Historical Society presents “Sinatra in Nevada, Part II” at 5 pm on Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Join Nevada historian and former director of the Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs Michael Fischer as he moderates a discussion about Frank Sinatra’s close personal relationship with Bill Raggio. As Washoe County District Attorney, and later state senator, Raggio’s integrity and reputation as a public servant was held in the highest regard by the public and his legal and legislative colleagues. But, his friendship with fellow Italian-American Sinatra, whose lifelong association with members of organized crime, eventually costing Frank his gaming license at the Cal Neva-Lake Tahoe, raised more than a few eyebrows.  

Sinatra: "Any report that I fraternized with goons or hoodlums is a vicious lie!"  
In this group are murderer-turned-FBI-informant, Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno,
 and New York Mafia Bosses, Carlo Gambino and "Big" Paulie Castellano.

Bill socialized with Frank often, and was the first one Sinatra called to help him organize the ransom and recovery when his son Frank Jr. was kidnapped at Lake Tahoe in 1963. In 1981, Sinatra chose Bill Raggio as his private attorney to represent him before the Nevada Gaming Commission in regaining a gaming license.  

Some of the evening’s discussion will address how Raggio walked a fine line in maintaining this friendship, and how much Bill may have known about Sinatra’s involvement with Mafia bosses, a claim Sinatra repeatedly denied throughout his lifetime; but was well-established in FBI files released after his death under the Freedom of Information Act. 

Among those participating in the discussion will be Michael Archer, author of Bill Raggio’s biography A Man of His Word; and highly respected, longtime Nevada journalist, formerly with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, Guy Farmer, who was familiar with the case against Sinatra at the Cal Neva and, at one point, listened in on an obscenity-laced telephone conversation as Sinatra threatened the Board’s director Ed Olson.

It should be a lively and interesting conversation, so come early and check out the wonderful historical exhibits the Society has to offer.

The Nevada Historical Society is located at 1650 N Virginia St, Reno (on the University of Nevada campus). Wine and cheese will be served starting at 5 PM with the discussion beginning at 5:30. A nominal admission fee may be required. For further information please call 775-688-1190.