About this Item
No, the image posted with this listing -- the jacket of RCA Victor "Red Seal" LP record LM-2101, "Jan Peerce Golden Moments of Song," is not a mistake (though this offering is indeed not a book, but rather a 12-inch, 33-1/3 rpm vinyl record, both sides of which play fine despite the heavy vinyl showing some white "frosty" patches and even some after-market rainbow toning to verso) -- please read on: Robert Aime Maheu, World War Two veteran of the FBI whose later work for the CIA was said to have been the model for the TV show "Mission Impossible," became the reclusive Howard Hughes' right-hand man in Las Vegas in the 1960s, though he never met Hughes face-to-face, receiving his instructions via memo and telephone. Maheu died in August, 2008, and the estate sale was held at his Las Vegas home Nov. 15, 2008. We attended in person. No one else showed any interest in Maheu's books or records. Knowing popular singer and operatic tenor Jan Peerce played Las Vegas a number of times in the 1950s (probably including both the Stardust and the Desert Inn, which was supposedly owned by Wilbur Clark but actually controlled by mob-connected Moe Dalitz), we picked up this record jacket, turned it over, and -- sure enough -- found it hand-dated "1957" to verso, inscribed in blue ink to "the Moe Dalitz family / Love & affection," and signed "Jan Peerce." (Morris Barney "Moe" Dalitz -- 1899-1989 -- began his bootlegging career in Michigan in 1919, capitalizing on his access to the trucks of his family's laundry business. He developed a partnership with the Maceo syndicate which ran Galveston and supplied liquor from Canada and Mexico. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Dalitz turned to gambling and operated illegal but protected casinos in Steubenville, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky. His investments in Las Vegas began in the late 1940s. When the original developer of the Desert Inn, Wilbur Clark, ran out of money, Dalitz and the Cleveland Mayfield Road Gang bailed him out, Dalitz becoming the real owner. He also ran the Stardust Resort & Casino for a time after the 1955 death of Tony Cornero. Dalitz sold the Desert Inn to Howard Hughes in 1967. With Allard Roen, Irwin Molasky and Merv Adelson, Dalitz in the 1950s founded Paradise Development, which built The Boulevard Mall and the Las Vegas Country Club. He also later helped build the Las Vegas Convention Center.) But the biggest surprise lay INSIDE this jacket, where the heavy vinyl disc turned out to be not the original RCA Victor recording of vocalist Jan Peerce, but rather a recording pressed by the Nahas Blumberg Corp., Houston, Texas, with typewritten label which reads "A Salute to Phil Harris at Johnnie Mitchell's Balinese Room Opening / (A prelude and the actual recording used in the Room opening night) / Written and Narrated by Fred Nahas." Galveston's Balinese Room was part of the gambling empire of Sam & Rosario Maceo; it was raided by the Texas Rangers in 1957. How Robert Maheu acquired this souvenir from the Dalitz family we do not know, but surely a unique piece of Las Vegas mob history, offered as found. Now reduced from $485. Seller Inventory # 006106
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Bibliographic Details
Title: A Salute to Phil Harris at Johnnie ...
Publisher: Nahas Blumberg Corp., Houston, Texas
Publication Date: 1957
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
