Adelson responds

To the editor:

I believe in all our freedoms, including free speech and a free press, both in the newspaper I own and any other medium. But I also believe that an individual has the right to be free from unjustified malicious assaults from writers who feel they can attack without any accountability.

John L. Smith did that to me in his book “Sharks in the Desert” — and Review-Journal editor Thomas Mitchell did it to me in his Oct. 14 column. Therefore, I am grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to respond.

Smith’s book contains a chapter about me which describes my youthful background in the candy machine business in Brockton, Mass. In the same chapter, notorious Mafia characters from the Boston area are listed, including the alleged criminal and infamous fugitive, Whitey Bulger. The book claims that these gangsters were involved in the vending machine business and that I would have had to have paid them off or become their partner to stay in business.

This was a sensational fabrication calculated to sell books regardless of what it did to my reputation.

I was in the candy machine business when I was 16 years old. I borrowed $10,000 from a credit union and started a business. That was 1949. The criminals to which Mr. Smith refers were active in the vending business in 1970. Linking a 16-year-old high school student with these mobsters was complete and utter fiction passed off as truth.

The chapter contains other outright smears. Mr. Smith claims to be a professional journalist and should know how to check sources. He didn’t. The book said that I made loans to underworld figures. I never did. Is it believable that the Mafia borrowed money from a 16-year-old?

I never had any association with any underworld figure, ever. He said I had to answer “sticky questions” before the Nevada Gaming Control Board. No such questions existed. All Mr. Smith had to do was read the hearing transcripts to realize he was wrong. He wrote that the board unanimously recommended denying one of my partners a license. That never happened; they recommended his approval. Smith wrote of my “controversial partners” from Boston. Those partners were an optometrist and two community leaders/philanthropists. Not exactly controversial. But the truth doesn’t sell books, yellow journalism does.

Mr. Mitchell describes Mr. Smith’s errors as “minor” and harmless. In so doing Mr. Mitchell helps his friend while ignoring the record. The court ruled that I satisfied the burden of showing clear and convincing evidence of constitutional malice. The court found that there was sufficient evidence of Mr. Smith’s malicious conduct for me to get my day in court.

Mr. Smith tried to defend his errors by saying that he was preoccupied because of his daughter’s medical condition.

But in discovery he admitted that during this same period he authored 700 articles and two books, all without “errors.”

Regardless of my dispute with Mr. Smith, when I learned of his daughter’s illness I offered advice and referrals to specialists I had access to because of the medical foundations my wife and I had established. He never responded. I also offered to establish a $200,000 medical and educational fund for his daughter, without any strings attached. He refused. He said he wouldn’t be able to write about me objectively in the future. As this case proved, he couldn’t do so in the past, so it was only his false sense of pride that led him to turn down this offer.

My lawyers made a consistent good faith effort at resolution. All I wanted was an apology, a retraction and $1. Not only did he refuse but said that if I didn’t settle on his terms he would file bankruptcy. I had nothing to do with his bankruptcy. His legal fees were in the defense of the indefensible — and mine wasn’t the only libel claim he listed in his filing. He attacked me — vilified me — and then tried to become the victim.

Mr. Mitchell ludicrously suggests that because of the increase in my net worth during this case I couldn’t be damaged. He must mean a wealthy person can’t be defamed and a ranking in Forbes is a defense to libel. Don’t I have the same rights of reputation as anyone else?

I don’t want my children to read that their father was accused of doing business with criminals and took no action to clear his name. Nor do I want charities with which I am active to think that my gifts are tainted by connections to organized crime. Because of the Internet, the written word today lives long after a book goes out of print. In cyberspace libels are immortal and ubiquitous.

Mr. Mitchell began his column by referring to the writers Orwell and Kafka. He would have been better served by citing a religious text, “The Ethics of Our Fathers,” which states, “The crown of the good name surpasses all.”

Sheldon Adelson

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF LAS VEGAS SANDS INC.