ABC, Hearst and Disney

ABC = CIA

William J. Casey

William Joseph Casey (1913-1987) was Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. Casey and former officers of the Central Intelligence Agency set up the media holding company Capital Cities in 1954. "According to many investigators, during this period the CIA poured millions into setting up front companies for covert operations in broadcasting and publishing, and it is alleged that Casey funneled some of these funds into Capital Cities to acquire failing media companies and turn them around." "Casey was one of the original OSS crowd. After law school, he went to work for an accounting firm but kept in touch with fellow lawyer John ‘Pop’ Howley, who worked for Wild Bill Donovan’s law firm, Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. When Donovan became head of OSS, Casey and Howley joined him. Casey was John Singlaub’s case officer in the war, while Paul Helliwell was Singlaub’s direct superior. Casey also was a close friend of Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, worked with Ray Cline, and became involved with Lansdale as Santa Romana’s torture of Major Kojima was bearing fruit. This put Casey in a position to know a great deal about the Black Eagle Trust, and one source insists that Casey’s financial skills made him one of the key players, along with Paul Helliwell and Edwin Pauley, in implementing the Black Eagle Trust under the guidance of Robert B. Anderson and John J. McCloy. Following the war, Casey and his old friend Howell founded their own Wall Street law firm." (FTR #451 Petals from the Golden Lily. By Dave Emory. For the Record, Mar. 21, 2004.) Casey was a director of Capital Cities from 1957 until 1981 and was also an attorney for the company. He held 34,000 shares in the company, which were not part of the trust he set up in 1983. (Casey Stake in Capital Cities. New York Times, Mar. 27, 1985.) Casey graduated from Fordham University in 1934. He was head of the Secret Intelligence Brance of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, and was Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1971-1973 during the Nixon administration.

Casey was the house counsel of Glore, Forgan & Co., whose partner, J. Russell Forgan, wrote the act creating the C.I.A., and was also the primary financier of Philip Morris. Casey was later a client of the law firm LeBoeuf Lamb Greene and MacRae, whose counsel, Milton S. Gould, was appointed to head the Tobacco Institute during its shutdown.

Capital Cities, 1959

"Capital Cities Stations - WROW-AM-FM and WTEN (TV) Albany, WCDB (TV) Hagaman, both N.Y. WCDC (TV) Adams, Mass., WTVD (TV) Durham, N.C. and WPRO-AM-FM-TV Providence, R.I. Ownership: Lowell J. Thomas, 16.2%; Frank M. Smith, 12.10%; John P. McGrath, 5.1%; William J. Casey, 4.4%; Leo W. O'Brien, 2.03%; Dean P. Taylor, 2.6%; Mr. Thomas is the CBS commentator. Messrs. O'Brien and Taylor are Congressmen from New York." (Broadcasting Yearbook 1959, p. 403.)

Capital Cities' Takeover of ABC

"On November 21, 1984, the CIA asked the Federal Communications Commission to strip ABC of its five TV and 14 radio station licenses. (ABC has hundreds of affiliate radio and TV stations, but it's legally limited to owning just a few stations, all of which are located in the biggest, most lucrative markets.) The CIA was ostensibly upset because on Sept. 19-20, 1984, ABC News had aired allegations that the agency had contracted for the murder of Ron Rewald, a Honolulu swindler who claimed that his scams were directed by the CIA, of which he claimed to be a secret agent. The story supposedly so enraged then-CIA director William Casey that he asked the FCC to strike the ultimate economic death blow to ABC by revoking its station licenses. In February 1985, the CIA reduced its demands to asking for FCC penalties under the "Fairness Doctrine," which requires the broadcasters to air at least two sides of 'controversial issues of public importance.' In both FCC complaints, Bill Casey's CIA became the first government agency ever to seek such redress from the news media.

"On March 18, 1985, while the FCC considered Casey's complaints, ABC agreed to be acquired by Capital Cities, a media conglomerate with the lowest profile and highest profit margins in the broadcasting business. It was a "friendly" takeover; ABC chief Leonard Goldenson and Cap Cities president Tom Murphy had been close friends for years. Cap Cities also owns daily papers in Fort Worth and Kansas City, trade journals (including Women's Wear Daily) and, at that time, 55 cable TV systems." (The Seizing of the American Broadcasting Company. The LA Weekly, Feb. 20-27, 1987.)

Capital Cities / ABC, Inc., 1994

In 1993, after the release of the "EPA" Report on secondhand smoke, ABC News conspired to brainwash Americans with lies about secondhand smoke and the tobacco industry in such a crude and heavy-handed manner, reminiscent of a Nazi dictatorship, that no intelligent person should have failed to be outraged.

Leonard Goldenson of ABC-TV

Leonard H. Goldenson, age 88, director of Capital Cities / ABC since 1986. Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Company. Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Goldenson qualifies as a founding member of the Lasker Syndicate for his early involvement in their health lobby. It's a classic example of a conflict of interest: he propagandized to serve the interests of himself and his friends, at the expense of the public interest - and none of the media hypocrites who denounce the supposed corrupting influence of cigarette advertising have ever looked askance at this cozy relationship at their own top levels. Like many of the other early members of the Lasker Syndicate, Goldenson has a close connection to the garment industry - his father was a clothing store proprietor in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania. Goldenson was a director of the Lasker Foundation's Research!America. In 1986, Capital Cities Inc, with backing from Warren Buffett, bought ABC for $3.5 billion.

The Goldensons, NINDS and UCP

Here is a classic example of the deliberate creation of an "iron triangle" between a government agency, an advocacy group to lobby for it, and Congress, with their own little clique in control of every phase of the process. The website of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke is not forthcoming about its origins, so United Cerebral Palsy speaks for it by default:

• 1940 Leonard and Isabelle Goldenson worked with Mary Lasker, Anna Rosenberg and Florence Mahoney to help establish the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health. The Goldensons were each appointed to four-year terms on the advisory board for this institute.

• 1945 An ad in the New York Herald Tribune recruiting parents of children with cerebral palsy who were interested in improving services for their kids generated 350 responses from families in New York City and surrounding area.

• 1946 The organization was incorporated as the National Foundation for Cerebral Palsy. 12,000 people assembled from the United States, Canada, Europe and South America to attend the first Cerebral Palsy Conference.

• 1949 The name of the organization was changed to United Cerebral Palsy and affiliates across the nation were formed.

The ads were placed by the Goldensons and New York businessman Jack Hausman and his wife. Hausman's recent obituary notes that "he was a retired textile manufacturer (where he was vice chairman of the board) and a founder of North Shore Hospital, Manhasset, and United Cerebral Palsy of NYC." Goldenson was then a Vice President of United Paramount Theaters (he bought ABC television in 1953). Other early members of UCP were Founder Representative Nina Eaton and Jane Hoving, co-organizer of their first telethon. The organization claims that "It was from this humble, grassroots beginning [! -cast] that United Cerebral Palsy was born as a national orgnanization." Judging by the throng that showed up for their first meeting, they clearly had more widespread publicity than just an ad in a newspaper.

Citizens' Committee for the Conquest of Cancer

Goldenson was a sponsoring member of the Citizens' Committee for the Conquest of Cancer, co-founded by Mary Lasker's crony, Sidney Farber, and co-chaired by Emerson Foote of the American Cancer Society and Solomon Garb, who was a correspondent of Mary Lasker between 1969 and 1981. Other sponsoring members included William McC. Blair Jr., Mrs. William McC. Blair Jr., now vice president of the Lasker Foundation; Elmer H. Bobst; R. Lee Clark; Mrs. Alice Fordyce, Mary's sister; James W. Fordyce, Mary's nephew; Mrs. Paul G. Hoffman, aka Anna Rosenberg; Robert W. Holley of the Salk Institute; Mathilde Krim; Hollywood producer Norman Lear; William Regelson, founder of FIBER, on whose board Mary later served; and Bernard J. Reis, Treasurer of the Lasker Foundation. Garb sent a bullying letter to Curtis H. Judge, President of Lorillard Inc., demanding that "the tobacco industry" lobby for "higher total appropriations to NCI" and that "the Tobacco Research Institute [sic] should allocate substantial sums to finding anticancer drugs in plants." (Garb to Judge, Sep. 20, 1978.)

The Goldensons and Harvard University

In 1994, the Goldensons made the largest gift to Harvard University in the school's history, totaling $60 million, to the medical school. Building B was the Harvard Medical School Quadrangle was named after them. HMS Dean Daniel C. Tosteson, a principal of the Lasker-associated Washington Advisory Group, said thank-you and gave them a medal. Perhaps it was for his meritorious service in spreading propaganda as well. (Ceremony Honors Goldensons. Focus, Oct. 7, 1994. Harvard Medical School.)

Robert P. Bauman

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1985. Chief Executive of SmithKline Beecham p.l.c. since 1989, and Chairman of the Board, Beecham Group p.l.c. (manufacturer of consumer products and pharmaceuticals) prior thereto. Director of CIGNA Corporation, Reuters Holdings p.l.c., SmithKline Beecham p.l.c. and Union Pacific Corporation. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Nicholas F. Brady

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1993. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd. and Darby Advisors, Inc. (investment firms) since February 1994 and January 1993, respectively. Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1988 to January 1993. Chairman of the Board of Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. (investment banking) prior thereto. Director of Christiana Companies, Inc., H. J. Heinz Company and certain Templeton Investment Companies. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) Nicholas Frederick Brady was a grandson of Anthony N. Brady, a financier and a director of the American Tobacco Company.

Warren Buffett

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1986. Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Company. Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (insurance underwriting, newspaper publishing and various manufacturing and marketing activities). Director of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., The Coca-Cola Company, The Gillette Company, Salomon Inc and USAir Group, Inc. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) In 1994, Warren E. Buffett held 13.04% of the company's common stock.

From: Buffett's Circle Includes the Moneyed and Powerful. By Ron Suskind. The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 8, 1991. "What do Citicorp's John Reed, CBS's Laurence Tisch, and American Express's James D. Robinson III have in common with heiress Ann Getty, philanthropist Walter Annenberg and Ron Reagan Jr.?

"They are all part of Warren Buffet's growing network, a formidable collection of corporate heads, financiers, money managers and celebrities. The relationships in many cases have been built over decades, deftly combining friendships with business. Members of the far-flung group, who often look to the Omaha investor as something of a mentor, exchange investment ideas, insights into corporate affairs and profitable connections that have been one key to Mr. Buffet's success.

"The innermost circle, which began as a group of 13 in 1968 and now numbers almost 60, gets together once every two years for a retreat led by Mr. Buffet. Guests at the most recent retreat, a four-day gathering in late September at the Laurel Point Inn in Victoria, British Columbia, included Washington Post Co. Chairwoman Katharine Graham and her son, Donald E. Graham, the company's president; Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Chairman Thomas S. Murphy; former Johnson & Johnson Chairman James Burke; Coca-Cola President Donald R. Keough; Microsoft Corp. Chairman William Gates; and Mr. Tisch of CBS."

Other members of the network include former Salomon Chairman John Gutfreund; New York stockbroker Marshall Weinberg, an original member; John J. Byrne, head of Fund American Cos. and director of American Express; and Nancy Reagan.

"Included on the list of 300,000 shareholders and often spotted at the meeting are columnist Ann Landers, Bill Gates-one of Buffett's friends and bridge partners-homemaking queen Martha Stewart, retired Washington Post chairmwoman Katherine Graham, and Benjamin and Buzz Graham, sons of the late, legendary value investor and Buffett mentor Benjamin Graham." Also actress Debbie Reynolds. (Chairman Buff, by Jade Hemeon. Report on Business Magazine July 2001.)

In 1990, Buffett was a director of the corporate health fascist Wellness Councils of America, which blackmails companies into having workplace "wellness programs." Berkshire Hathaway was the reinsurer of its founders' company.

Buffett is a Life Trustee of the Urban Institute. Other Life Trustees include James E. Burke of Johnson & Johnson, Joseph A. Califano, William T. Coleman of the RAND Corporation, Carla A. Hills, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., J. Irwin Miller of Cummins Engine Company, former EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus, and Cyrus R. Vance. Trustees in 2000 included Katharine Graham of The Washington Post, and Philip Morris director Lucio Noto.

Charles T. Munger, Roderick Hills and five other lawyers founded Munger Tolles & Olson in 1962. Munger is a longtime friend of Warren Buffett, and is now Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Munger also owns the Daily Journal Corp., which publishes the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal. One of Hill's students, Robert Denham, who joined in 1971, was a member of Buffett's management team at Salomon Brothers. (Munger Tolles & Olson A short but sweet history. Excite Careers.)

Daniel B. Burke

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1967. Member of the Executive and Finance Committees of the Company. Retired President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of the Company from June 1990 to February 1994. Prior thereto he was President and Chief Operating Officer. Director of Avon Products, Inc., Consolidated Rail Corporation, Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Rohm and Haas Company. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) Daniel Barnett Burke was born in Albany, N.Y., and grew up in that area and in Vermont. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1950, and Harvard Business School in 1955. Thomas S. Murphy hired him to manage an Albany TV station owned by Capital Cities in 1961. He was a former chairman of New York Presbyterian Hospital. Two of his sons have held top posts at NBC Universal, Disney, TBS, Comcast and the Weather Channel. His older brother, James E. Burke, was Chairman of Johnson & Johnson from 1976 to 1989. Thomas S. Murphy was James Burke's classmate at Harvard Business School. (Daniel B. Burke, Leading Media Executive, Dies at 82. By William Neuman. New York Times, Oct. 26, 2011.) His father, James Frank Burke, was manager of the New York Life Insurance Company in Utica and Albany, N.Y., and Boston, Mass., and retired in 1956 as inspector of agencies of the northeastern division of the company. He was born in Rutland, Vt., and graduated from the University of Vermont. (Area Obituaries. Bennington Banner, Nov. 3, 1966.)

Frank T. Cary

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1986 Former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of International Business Machines Corporation. Director of Celgene Corporation, Cygnus Therapeutic Systems, Inc., DNA Plant Technology Corporation, ICOS Corporation, Lincare Holdings Inc. and SPS Transaction Services, Inc. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) Cary was also a director of the Morgan Guaranty Trust from 1969 until at least 1978. Another Lincare director, Dr. Frank D. Byrne, was a Madison, Wis. area anti-smoking activist.

John B. Fairchild

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1968. Executive Vice President of the Company and Chairman of the Company's Fairchild Publications Group. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Frank S. Jones

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1988. Ford Professor of Urban Affairs, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1992. Ford Professor of Urban Affairs at MIT prior thereto. Director of CIGNA Corporation, Polaroid Corporation and Scientific Games Holdings Corp. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Ann Dibble Jordan

Ann Dibble Jordan has been a director of Capital Cities/ABC since 1988; Former Director of Social Service Department, University of Chicago Medical School; former Assistant Field Work Professor, University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration; former Director of Social Service, Chicago Lying-in Hospital, University of Chicago Medical Center. Director of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Hechinger Company, Johnson & Johnson [since 1981], National Health Laboratories Incorporated, Salant Corporation and The Travelers Inc. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Ann Dibble Jordan is the second wife of former President Bill Clinton's crony Vernon Jordan. In 1998 he was on 10 boards of directors, for which he received approximately $1.1 million. She and Jordan married in 1986. Jordan's stepdaughter Antoinette Cook Bush is a director of CNA Financial Corp., a subsidiary of Laurence Tisch's Loews Corp. (Jordan's 10 Board Positions Worth $1.1 Million. By Brett D. Fromson. Washington Post 1998 Feb. 6, p G01.)

Jordan is on the 2001 Board of Directors of Citigroup. Other directors include Cummins Engine Company directors John M. Deutch and Franklin A. Thomas. Fellow CC/ABC director Thomas S. Murphy, and Ralph S. Larsen, the Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, are on the International Advisory Board of Salomon Smith Barney.

Jordan is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution. Fellow trustees include Elizabeth E. Bailey, Philip Morris director since 1991, and former Rep. John Edward Porter. Honorary Trustees include D. Ronald Daniel, former trustee of the American Health Foundation; Robert D. Haas, Chairman of the Board of Levi Strauss & Co.; Henry B. Schacht, former CEO of Cummins Engine Company; and Cummins director Walter Y. Elisha.

Anti-smoker Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) was a co-founder and the chairman, president and CEO of ADP until elected to the US Senate in 1982. Ann Dibble Jordan has been on the board of directors of ADP since 1993; Joseph Califano, an anti-smoker since the Johnson administration, has been on its board since 1982; and Laurence A. Tisch, Chairman of Loews Corp. and former President, chairman and CEO of CBS, has been on its board since 1972.

Ann Dibble Jordan was a director since 1990 of National Health Laboratories Inc., which pleaded guilty of making false claims to CHAMPUS (Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Armed Forces) and other government programs, and paid a $1 million fine and settled civil claims for $100 million. Other directors included David J. Mahoney of the American Health Foundation; Paul A. Marks, the President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 1980, NHL director since 1991; and Linda Gosden Robinson, relative of James D. Robinson of American Express. National Health Laboratories subsequently merged with Hoffmann-La Roche; it is now Laboratory Corporation of America.

John H. Muller, Jr.

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1971. Chairman of the Executive Committee of General Housewares Corp. (manufacturer and marketer of cookware and cutlery products) since 1992; Chairman of the Board from 1990 to 1992; Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer thereof prior thereto. Director of General Housewares Corp. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.)

Thomas S. Murphy

Chairman and CEO of Capital Cities/ABC from 1954 to 1986, when Disney bought the company, and a director since 1957. Lowell Thomas, his business manager Frank Smith, "and a few other investors" helped Murphy found Hudson Valley Broadcasting, which eventually became Capital Cities. Previously he was an executive with Kenyon & Eckhardt from 1949 to 1951, and Lever Brothers from 1951 to 1954. He was a director of the Johnson & Johnson Co. from 1981 until 1998; Texaco; and of IBM, which was involved very early in anti-smoking activism; and Chairman of New York University Medical Center Board (1994). His bio is laden with that smarmy term, "social responsibility," which is a code word for Politically Correct fascism.

Murphy was a director of Texaco from 1994 to 1998. Other Texaco directors included John Brademas, an 11-term former congressman from Indiana, President Emeritus of New York University, and a director of the Tisch's Loews Corp.; William Wrigley, a director since 1974; and others who have ties to New York University (3), IBM (2), Campbell Soup (2), Xerox, Boeing, International Paper Co., the Dana Corp., General Electric, and Springs Industries.

Letter from Steven C. Parrish, General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Philip Morris to John Martin of ABC News, with carbon copies to Roone Arledge and Thomas Murphy, concerning ABC's lie that PM had "no immediate response" to blather from anti-smoking vermin Rep. Richard Durbin and FDA Commisioner David Kessler: "As you obviously know, not only did Philip Morris have a response, it was provided to you more than 12 hours before the story aired the next day. I find this deliberate distortion to be reprehensible, but, unfortunately, based on recent activities by you and ABC News, I do not find it to be surprising."

Murphy joined the board of directors of Disney in 1996 after its merger with ABC.

Murphy was a member of Salomon Smith Barney's International Advisory Board in 2000. Other members were Richard B. Cheney, then the Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company and now the Vice President of the United States; John S. Reed, director of Philip Morris and the former head of Citigroup; and Ralph S. Larsen, Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson. Donald Rumsfeld, now the US Secretary of Defense, was the Chairman. (Umberto Agnelli joins Salomon Smith Barney's International Advisory Board. Citigroup press release, May 22, 2000.)

Murphy is on the 2001 International Advisory Board of Salomon Smith Barney, along with Ralph S. Larsen, the Chairman and CEO of Johnson and Johnson. Fellow CC/ABC director Ann Dibble Jordan is on the Board of Directors of Citigroup, as are two directors of Cummins Engine Company, John M. Deutch and Franklin A. Thomas.

Murphy is a Life Trustee of New York University Hospitals Center. Other trustees are Alice Tisch, Laurence A. Tisch, and Thomas J. Tisch; and Pei-yuan Chia, former executive of Citibank under John Reed who resigned following the money-laundering scandal.

Murphy is a Life Trustee of New York University School of Medicine Foundation. Trustees include David Baltimore, President of the California Institute of Technology; Mamdouha Bobst; Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Alice M. Tisch and Thomas J. Tisch.

Thomas S. Murphy Jr. is a Trustee of Taft School, as is William I. Miller, a director of Cummins Engine Company and great-grandnephew of Cummins' founder.

Wyndham Robertson

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1990. Vice President for Communications, The University of North Carolina. Director of The Equitable Companies Incorporated and Wachovia Bank of North Carolina, N.A. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) The Wachovia Bank has continuing ties which go back many decades with the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

M. Cabell Woodward, Jr.

Capital Cities / ABC director since 1982. Retired Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of ITT Corporation (diversified multi-national enterprise). Director of Black & Decker Corp. and Melville Corporation. (Capital Cities / ABC director bio, 1994.) in 1970-1971, he was a director of the First National City Bank.

Robert Kintner, past executive

Vice president and president of ABC between 1944 and 1956; president of NBC from 1956 to 1966; cabinet liaison in the Lyndon Johnson administration, 1966-67. Identified as an intimate in the Lasker circle by John Gunther in Taken at the Flood, the Story of Albert D. Lasker; Harper & Brothers, 1960. (Robert Kintner biography. Museum of Broadcasting.) Mrs. Robert E. Kintner was a fund-raiser for the American Heart Association. (8th Annual Ball For Heart Fund Is Planned Here. New York Times, Apr. 1, 1963.)

The Hearst Corporation

Frank Knox

Frank Knox was General Manager of all of William Randolph Hearst's papers until 1931, when he joined the Chicago Daily News. He was a political crony of Albert Lasker who was appointed Secretary of the Navy in World War II, and in whose office Adlai Stevenson and Ed Lasker served.

Frank Bennack

"[T]hirdly, and in increasing order of importance... Frank Bennack and Leonard Goldstein were very good friends... and fourthly, and most importantly, ... they both supported enthusiastically and ran the United Cerebral Palsy Campaign nationally." (Raymond E. Joslin, President of the Hearst Entertainment and Syndication Division).

"Prior to becoming the corporation's chief executive in January 1979, Bennack served as executive vice president and general manager of the Hearst Newspaper Group... Bennack has received honors for his charitable work from such organizations as the American Heart Association,..."

"Better Homes & Gardens is teaming with the American Heart Association for a three-year marketing program designed to educate [sic] consumers on heart health... Hearst Corp. is pursuing a similar project. This month, Hearst will publish a test issue of Living Well, a magazine produced as a joint venture between Good Housekeeping and the American Medical Association." (Meredith takes heart - Plans 3-year program with Heart Association. By Scott Donaton, PSA Bibliography. no date.)

"The Hearst Corporation is one of the nation's largest diversified communications companies. Holdings include newspapers such as the Albany Times Union, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Houston Chronicle, and magazines like Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, The Oprah Magazine and Esquire. Hearst is the majority owner of a broadcast television company with 28 stations, also headquartered in New York City. These stations comprise the largest ABC affiliate group and the second largest NBC affiliate group." Other interests include newspaper features distribution. (Ganzi to succeed Bennack as the Hearst Corporation's President and CEO in June 2002. Hearst press release, Dec. 5, 2001.)

Frank A. Bennack Jr., President and CEO of the Hearst Corporation, has been a director of American Home Products, a pharmaceutical preparations company (now called Wyeth) since 1988. Fellow directors include Robin Chandler Duke, the widow of Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke and Chairman of Population Action International; a director since 1975, who resigned in 1999 when President Clinton appointed her the ambassador to Norway; and also a director of International Flavors and Fragrances. She was a correspondent of Mary Lasker from 1986 to 1993. Robert W Sarnoff, director since 1969, retired chairman and CEO of RCA; and William Wrigley, director since 1981 who died in 1999. He was the President, CEO and member of the board of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company; his father was one of Albert Lasker's business partners.

Robert I. Levy, the former Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, joined AHP as the president of Wyeth-Ayers Research in 1992, and became Senior Vice President of Science and Technology until his death in 2000.

The Museum of Television and Radio

The Museum of Television and Radio was originally founded by William Paley in 1975. Frank A. Bennack Jr. is the 2002 Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Other Trustees include Joan Ganz Cooney, a director of Johnson & Johnson from 1978 to 2001; Barry Diller; Henry A. Kissinger; Norman Lear (emeritus); Rupert Murdoch, a director of Philip Morris since 1989; Thomas S. Murphy (emeritus); and Dan Rather of CBS News.

The Museum of Television and Radio 6th International Council Meeting, Oct. 30, 2001. "The Museum's International Council was formed in 1995 by the trustees of The Museum of Television and Radio, principally its chairman, Frank A. Bennack Jr., president and chief executive officer, The Hearst Corporation,..." Also Henry A. Kissinger, Barry Diller, and Thomas S. Murphy. (Press release, Oct. 30, 2001. The Museum of Television and Radio.)

The Disney Corporation

Gary L. Wilson

"Gary L. Wilson, the Marriott Corporation's chief financial officer and a pioneer in sale-and-leaseback financing, was named executive vice president and chief financial officer yesterday of Walt Disney Productions Inc." He was also elected to the Board of Directors of Disney. "Alfred Checchi, a real estate financing specialist with Bass Brothers Enterprises who worked with Mr. Wilson for several years at Marriott, made the initial contact to determine if Mr. Wilson would be interested in coming to Disney, Mr. Eisner said. Mr. Checchi will complete six months as a special consultant at Disney later this month, a Disney spokesman said. The Bass family owns 25 percent of Disney's stock... Mr. Wilson, who was raised in Alliance, Ohio, was an executive with a diversified industrial company in Manila, the Trans-Philippines Investment Corporation, before joining Marriott as treasurer in 1974... He received an M.B.A. in 1963 from the University of Pennsylvania and an degree in accounting a year earlier from Duke University." (Financial Officer Named by Disney. New York Times, Aug. 1, 1985.) Checchi and Wilson, along with Bush insider Fred V. Malek, bought Northwest Airlines after its smoking ban left it financially struggling, then used their political pull to ban smoking on all domestic airliners to protect it from competition.

The Bass Management Trust held 6.02% of Disney in 1994.

The Walt & Lilly Disney Foundation was a "$100,000+ Excalibur Contributor" to the American Cancer Society in 2000.

Diane Disney Miller

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, is on the Board of Sponsors II of demented attorney John F. Banzhaf III's anti-smoking group ASH. (His boards have always been notable for the number of corpses who continue to serve on them, presently including Ann Landers and Joseph L. Melnick.) Board members who are still among the living include former HEW Secretary Joseph A. Califano and former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan.

Michael Eisner

"In a way, it's only bashert, says Litvack, that Disney's and ABC's futures be tied together. After all, they both have a common past. Network founder Leonard Goldenson helped Walt Disney finance his dream of a theme park in southern California back in the '50s. In return, Goldenson got a share of the park plus the promise of a series: 'The Wonderful World of Disney.' It's a small world after all: Michael Eisner, the head honcho of Disney who helped engineer the deal with ABC, served as an ABC executive some 20 years ago." (Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to a merger they go! -OR- Disney, ABC: It's a small world after all. By Michael Elkin. Originally appeared in the Jewish Exponent, Philadelphia, 1995.) Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, joined ABC in 1966 at age 23.

Michael Eisner's biography at the Museum of Television and Radio notes his service on the board of the American Hospital of Paris Foundation, and on the University of California Los Angeles Executive Board for Medical Sciences. Another biography notes that his mother, Margaret E. Eisner, was president of a medical research institute. This is the Irvington Institute for Immunological Research, which began as a home for rest cures, then was connected with New York University after antibiotic treatments became available, and finally switched to purely basic research in immunology. His father, Lester Eisner Jr., was an administrator of HUD, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were clothing manufacturers. A third bio notes that "Eisner used his family connections to get his first job in show business" at NBC in 1963.

"Margaret 'Maggie' Eisner, the widow of Les, who died in 1987, and mother of Michael D. Eisner, head of Walt Disney Company, died July 31 following a short illness. A 1935 graduate of Pine Manor, she and Les were married in 1937. In 1994-95 she established the Lester Eisner Jr., Class of 1934 Scholarship, and she was a regular supporter of Annual Giving. The late Richard W. Dammann '32 was a brother; Douglas M. Freedman '90 is a grandson, and Amy Freedman Lieberman '92 is a granddaughter." (Princeton University Class Notes: September 11, 1996.)

Eisner genealogy at Shepaug School: Lester Eisner Jr. was married to Margaret E. "Maggie" Dammann, and one of their children was Michael Dammann Eisner.

The Eisners and Philip Morris

Michael Eisner's father, Lester Eisner, was an old friend of Joseph F. Cullman 3d, and of Mary Lasker's stepson, Edward Lasker. Eisner's relatives, the Dammann family, owned American Safety Razor, and in 1959, Philip Morris began its merger with ASR. Michael Eisner's uncle (his mother's brother), Richard Weil Dammann, joined the PM board of directors, followed in 1961 by Edward Lasker.

See Also:

cast 10-27-11