Inspection that could substantially increase the value inscription that could substantially increase the value of the book or at interest to the story. I never get tired of it. I love sharing stories with old and young. And i look forward to every day. Bookshops have been closing in record numbers. National chains are closing down. 15 years ago, i knew owners of about 300 bookstores. 250 of those closed just in the past 15 years. It is important for these stores to continue, to survive. They add character to the local community. It is a Meeting Place for people, and he keeps history alive. By these bookshops continuing to be in existence. We continue with our American History tv and book to be exclusive booktv exclusive with some of the places cspans cities tour visited in 2016. A lot of people have this image of las vegas, that we always blow up buildings, and we have blown up a lot of Hotel Casinos on the strip and replace them with new ones. This building was just about vacant in the late 1990s and the federal government was ready to let it come down. The mayor at the time was oscar goodman, who had been an attorney who represented a lot of figures allegedly connected to the mob. He said, this is the building effort practiced law, had my first case. It is an important building historically good lets save it. It was the federal courthouse built in 1933. Today it houses one of the leading museums, in our opinion, for organized crime and Law Enforcement. The role they played through United States history and especially in the 20th and 21st century and the development of las vegas, whether or not las vegans and the rest of the world likes it or not, the model played an Important Role in our development. Where we are now is this in a piece of our new museum. This is the courtroom on the second floor of the building. And really, the historical motivation, if you will, for having us museum. Estes kefauverr of tennessee and a 4 other senators conducted hearings on organized crime in america. The smallest city by far they came to was las vegas. They spent an afternoon here. This room, in fact, they questioned the various local casino operators and executives. Wilbur clark, the front man of the desert in, he testified. The owner of a couple of casinos who was on the nevada tax commission. Efauver and his men were aghast at the notion that you could have illegal gambling, that people who mightve had organized crime connections or involved in activity elsewhere could possibly be welcomed here as legitimate businessmen. When kefauver issued his report, he said as a case study in gambling, nevada speaks eloquently in the negative. The problem was in fact it was legal here, whereas in other cities you were shut down. The kefauver hearings were important in American History. Kefauver had been elected by tackling one of the most corrupt political machines in the country. He had great ambitions. He wanted to be Vice President or president. Going after organized crime meant going after a lot of Democratic Party operatives, because organized crime was big in the cities and so was the Democratic Party. Using chicago as an example, the leyple who would form the da machine worked with these people, not necessarily with anything in mind other than getting ahead politically. Kefauver wanted to do. He ends up being the democratic president ial nominee in 1956. For las vegas, people reacted to and said,er hearings my god, this is terrible, we got to get rid of illegal gambling. They are shutting down these places around the country. They going to get where are they going to go to operate casinos legally . Las vegas. Las vegas and that being the beneficiary of the kefauver hearings because of the numbers of people who came here to work in or operate casinos. These hearings are incredibly popular because it is really the first big daytime tv show. In prime time at the time you have milton berle and Jackie Gleason starting out and various shows. Daytime, not so much these hearings are being watched in cities around the country. Not in las vegas, because las vegas doesnt get a tv station until 1953. Seeing these people on tv, these mobsters, gangsters, accused killers, reduced a lot of the perception of them as robin hoods, people who rob on the rich and gave to the poor. Hollywood had created an image, if you will, of mobsters. Maybe they werent so bad, or some of them who were bad, at least they got put away and you did not deal with them. This changes perceptions of organized crime in america. It is a popular show, it is a riveting show, and it is also a transformative show. The hearings were a success and a failure. They are a failure in the sense that organized crime survives, and illegal activities go on in the cities and areas where they are being driven out. Where it does serve the intended purpose, kefauver is a moral reformer. He wants change. And there is change that results, and you can trace the trajectory from kefauver into the 1960s with Bobby Kennedy going after organized crime as part of his brothers administration, and into the 1970s, the organized crime strikeforce, getting rid of the teamsters connections to organize crime and that sort of thing. In that way it is a success. Kefauver hoped the hearings would make him a Major National figure, and they did. Did they take him as far as he wanted to go . No. But they certainly made him more powerful. Partly to his satisfaction among a lot of democratic politicians who were connected to these guys in one way or another, it also made kefauver more hated. The second floor talks about las vegas and the development of organized crime, locally and nationally and internationally in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. What makes las vegas attractive to the mob is that in 1931 the state of nevada legalized gambling and in the early 1940s legalized offtrack betting. Here are all the things that organized crime had been involved in around the country illegally. Here they could run legal casinos. They dont have to pay off people to run them. At the same time, las vegas was a new enough community that the auctions that led to the creation of the town of las vegas in 1905, there wasnt really an establishment here where they would have to break in. Other cities like reno, being about 40 years older than las vegas, was a more established community. The land was cheap and plentiful. What was important, it was accessible to southern california, where not only did organized crime have some interests, but the l. A. Area was always booming. There were always people who wanted to drive to las vegas, and here was all this money waiting for them to make it. When we talk about las vegas as wide open, it can mean a couple of things. It was wide open to the mob, to illegal gamblers, to come in here. That suggests that organized crime itself wasnt that organized. When in fact, yeah, there were guys in overall charge who were helping to broker disputes, but if you went up and down the strip, you would find there were people coming here from new york, miami, houston, cleveland, cities throughout the United States. In that sense it was wide open for people to come in. The other thing is that because of the city they developed, because of the entertainment and gambling and image of las vegas, it struck a lot of people as this wide open, wild place. There was one writer, marc cooper, who said, you come to las vegas to be legally certified an adult. Well, what are you doing to certify you are an adult . Doing things that suggests that things are wide open. The case im in front of kind of takes you through the development of organized crime and gambling in las vegas from the 1940s into the 1970s. Down below we have a briefcase that belonged to one of the people who testified before the Kefauver Committee when it came here. He had driven liquor trucks in from ireland ski and bugsy lansky and bugsy siegel in the prohibition era and was involved in casinos out here. And then everything from one of the uniform jackets from the desert in, which organized crime interests from cleveland and then everything from one of the uniform jackets from the desert in, which organized crime interests from cleveland operated, to a placemat from the moulin rouge, which was really the first integrated hotel casino in las vegas. Las vegas was a segregated community, and if you were africanamerican, you could not stay in or patronize a strip or Downtown Hotel casino. Entertainers usually had to stay in West Las Vegas and the moulin rouge, which itself had mob connections, was an attempt in 1955 to integrate the industry and community. The casino closed but helped set some standards that contributed to the Civil Rights Movement that would lead to changes in las vegas and around the country. Below that are photos in magazines featuring frank lefty rosenthal. If you see the movie casino, Robert De Niro is playing a character supposedly based on him. He ran a couple of other casinos on the strip and could never get a gaming license because of his background. The corner here is mostly about the foley bergere, the production show at the Tropicana Hotel for nearly 1 2 century. This is one of the outfits that one of the showgirls would have worn. The headdresses can weigh up to 30 pounds. The guy pictured was the kansas citys mob guy. So, here in this case, a lot of our history is covered. What we have over here is an addition of the list of excluded persons, which became known as the black book. It always has been in a black book. Originally it was a three ring binder. In 1960, the state gaming control board created it because they wanted to get a list of people they saw as just too bad to be in casinos. The original list was 12, all italian mobsters, which led the charges with some justification that there might have been a little bit of discrimination here. One of the 12 was still alive as of 2015. The guy in the mugshots next to the book was anthony, who came from chicago, was accused of murders, and he was the mobs enforcer on the streets of las vegas in the 1970s and 1980s. In the movie joe pesci plays a character based on him. If you seen the movie, he meets a violent and. That is how anthony died. He also had a burglary ring out on the streets that became known as the hole in the wall gang because they literally blew a hole in the wall of a building they were breaking into. And right above it, an example of the kinds of donations we get at the museum, an fbi agent named mark casper arrested him in 1983 in las vegas. These are the handcuffs. In case anybody got a little too interested, the key is there too just in case. This isnt the greatest exhibit in the museum, but its part of thing but kind of talks about what a museum does today. Theres a photo of the Senate Minority leader when he was chairman of the nevada gaming commission. We have on our website and interview where he talked about his days with the gaming commission. It was quite a period for him, he had been through a couple of electoral defeats. What he didnt expect was that this was when the fbi was really going after organized crime families in the midwest and the Teamsters Union. It is when state officials are cracking down, so he ends up ordering the closure of some casinos, having to deal with a lot of public controversy, including the guy pictured right above him. They had this confrontation over rosenthals license that is depicted in the movie casino. Because of how they set up the whole thing. Read ended up one day having to call the police because something was attached to his car that turned out to be something that would blow up the car. He has dealt with a few things in his past that might be a bit rougher than moving on the senate floor. Once we get through the second floor of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, what went on in las vegas, we come to how the mob is brought down in what long essman is doing and ways in which organized crime spreads beyond where we think it might be. Thanks to the federal government and ellen knowlton, the fbi agent in charge here, we were able to get access to wiretaps. What makes these wiretaps possible, what changed was in 1970, Congress Passed the rapid influenced and corrupt organizations act. It enables them to go after the mob and less traditional ways. If you think of al capone, the guy who got al capone was not jay. Edgar hoover. They got him on tax evasion. Now what they are going to be able to do is bug, wire tap, use evidence against rising might have been the bosses but you might not necessarily have been the ones to tell someone to hit somebody. This wall has a couple of different wiretaps people can listen to. Over here is a conversation between alan dorfman and joe lombardo. Joe lombardo was connected to the teamsters. So was dorfman. Dorfman was in charge of the Teamsters UnionCentral States pension fund. He had mob connections through his family, which had been close to al capone. Here they are talking about loans the teamsters made great where the teamsters were important was with very few exceptions, banks would not lend money to casino operators. The theory, they are being gangsters. Are they going to pay it back . Should a Bank Investment they casino . There were bankers in las vegas who realized the benefit to the community and to the bank of lending money. But the teamsters did this and in turn were able to get skimming operations going. It was dorfman who called the operators of the circus circus to help out a friend of his, who ends up coming to las vegas to oversee the skim. The teamsters lend the money to alan glick, who becomes the front man running the couple of other Hotel Casinos in las vegas. Where this is also important, the teamsters and the midwestern families had pretty well replaced new york and miami operators who were tied to meyer lansky. When the federal government through the rico act, when state officials bring down organized crime, its really these people who they get. The organized crime passed force, there was a strike force in the justice department, they end up prosecuting the midwestern crime family leaders and dorfman. Dorfman is eventually gunned down because theres a fear he might testify and he knew too much. Alan dorfman was literally the men who knew too much. In this set of wiretaps, there is a threat to an attorney for various teamsters leaders. Beheading on it, how he could live to his next the heading on it, how he could live to his next birthday. He had a loan to operate the dunes. Representatives of the teamsters were reminding him, he needed to pay. We all think of organized crime as violence, and we should. A lot of the people depicted in this museum who were in las vegas were in the business end. They are skimming money or just operating casinos where the profits go to some organized crime people, some who are not connected, and the casinos here are going to fund all kinds of things going on nationally and internationally from the drug trade to various Violent Crimes or burglary rings. When somebody leaves this museum, i hope they realize that history itself can be fascinating. Not everybody thinks that, unfortunately. And at the history of organized crime and Law Enforcement, its intertwined, there are bad guys on both sides. The good guys are on the Law Enforcement side. Organized crime provided a lot of economic and if it to places like las vegas, but people who come here thinking this is a tribute to the mob are going to have their perceptions changed. Thats what i hope they leave with. The mission was peace through deterrence. Our job was to project a credible threat, to be here that day demonstrating even if they lost as launched a surprise first strike against us, we would be able to ride that out and retaliate force thath enough soviet union,tate even if they launched their missiles first. Him that is that is the nerve center. Of the eye view condition of the missile site. It is from here, the crew would launch the missile in order to do so. Launch the missile, the crew needs a number of things. They have to receive an order theytells them what time need to do that. They will need two keys. One launch key for the commander and one for the deputy crew commander. Launch teams are accrued in the emergency war order. The safe is secured by two padlocks. These are combination padlocks. Along stew a specific officer on the crew. Is the deputy crew commanders lock. The officer who owns the lock knows the combination to the lock. Those, we sete the combination and that combination is classified top secret because it is guarding topsecret equipment. And information. The two officers, after they received the launch order, they remove their locks, retrieve the launch keys, and the crew commanders launch key is then inserted here in the crew commanders console. The deputy crew commanders launch key is inserted here. The placement of these keys is intentional and serves an important purpose. It guarantees both officers have to act together in order to launch the missile. In order to launch the missile, and keys have to be turned held in the on position for five seconds. They have to be turned at the exact same moment in time. Switches are springloaded so if you let go of the key switch, it automatically falls back to the off position. They are also too far apart for able to turn be both keys. This means both officers have to agree that they will launch their missile and then they have to cooperate to do that. It will launch from its underground launch duct. It will then take about 30 minutes to reach the target. When it reaches its target, the target will cease to exist. This small elevator is what the crews and the maintenance teams would use to access the other missiles. We will head another 100 feet underground and we will end up where we cann, walk into the launch duct and stand directly underneath the missile. We will be entering the launch seven. Little level we need to watch our head as we go in. We will be standing directly underneath the missile. When the missile was operational , a stage one mission would have been mounted here. The thrust chambers, it had 2, would have been extending below the cutouts. If you l