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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Kefauver Hearing In Las Vegas, David Schwartz Nov 2020

The Kefauver Hearing In Las Vegas, David Schwartz

Executive Vice President & Provost Faculty Publications

The U.S. Senate’s Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, chaired by Tennessee Democrat Estes Kefauver, focused attention as never before on gambling-related crime as a national problem. Popularly known as the Kefauver Committee after its telegenic chairman, the committee captivated the nation in 1950-1951 with its televised hearings. It retains its relevance today, particularly in Las Vegas, where The Mob Museum occupies the building in which the committee met during its sole trip to Las Vegas.


It Took A Fire To Change Us, David Schwartz Jun 2020

It Took A Fire To Change Us, David Schwartz

Executive Vice President & Provost Faculty Publications

Everyone who was in Las Vegas on the morning of November 21, 1980 remembers what they were doing when they heard that the MGM Grand was burning. It was the worst disaster in the city’s history, and, at the time, the second-worst hotel fire in the nation’s history. (The 1946 fire in Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel, which claimed 119 lives, had that dubious honor.) All told, the MGM Grand fire would claim 87 lives. Thursday night had ended normally. At 7:15 Friday morning, a fast-moving fire erupted from the hotel’s deli, racing through the casino and sending toxic smoke through the …