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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
The strange Hollywood interlude of the most scandal-ridden man in Washington.
Aug 17, 2005 | Before fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff assumed his role as the most scrutinized man in Washington, he had a brief career as a budding Hollywood producer. He made just one movie, the 1989 Cold War bomb "Red Scorpion." With its blatant propaganda, its collaboration with the apartheid South African government, and financial misdealing, it's notable, even for Hollywood, for being one of the seamiest productions in recent memory.
Last week, Abramoff was arrested by the FBI after a grand jury indicted him and a partner on fraud charges (he's out on $2.2 million bail). In Washington the Senate Indian Affairs Committee has been holding hearings on whether Abramoff, 46, bilked millions out of tribes he represented, and a joint task force is picking through his personal papers, including his credit card records, which show Abramoff purchased trips for members of Congress (including Tom DeLay). His days in the Capitol, it seems, are numbered. (Abramoff's spokesman, Andrew Blum, responded to inquiries from Salon for this article with a written "no comment.")
But long before he became the poster boy for the Beltway's back door, the young Jack Abramoff was at a crossroads. It was 1987, he was in his late 20s, and the presidency of his political hero, Ronald Reagan, was winding to a tarnished close. The Iran-Contra hearings covered the front pages, and Oliver North, whom Abramoff knew and admired, was about to be indicted. The Republicans were disillusioned, and after years of service to the party -- as chairman of the College Republicans from 1981 to '85, he'd mentored Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, had worked for one right-wing think tank, and founded another -- Abramoff apparently was no longer sure he wanted to go into politics full time.
So he took a detour, doing what any other kid from Beverly Hills might when finding himself at a loss: He decided to try his hand at show business. Why not? Hollywood was no more than Washington for good-looking people, as the saying goes, and Abramoff, a student government officer and a football player at Beverly Hills High School, class of '77 (he graduated from Brandeis University in '81), was smart and charismatic and, if not actor handsome, at least physically imposing enough to be a producer. Through his father, a high-up executive at the Diners Club, he'd rubbed shoulders with some of L.A.'s elite.
Abramoff moved back to Los Angeles from Washington after finishing Georgetown Law School, and he and his brother, Robert, formed a production company, Regency Entertainment. They set to work on an action picture, a story about a rogue Soviet Spetsnaz soldier who is sent to quell a rebellion in a fictional African country -- one that very closely resembled Angola -- only to find that he sympathizes with the rebels. "Red Scorpion," starring Dolph Lundgren, would be released in April 1989. The Abramoff brothers raised $16 million for it -- the sources of the funding remain unknown -- an impressive sum for a B-picture with an unproven star. It made a poor impression on audiences and critics. "The movie's reflective moments belong to Mr. Lundgren's sweaty chest," wrote Stephen Holden in the New York Times.
But the story behind "Red Scorpion" is far more captivating. The film was to be a manifesto for Abramoff; a Rambo-like morality tale and a grand indictment of communism -- his Reagan Doctrine parable in action-packed Technicolor. And in the process of conceiving of and making it, Abramoff helped groom an African despot, rose to high levels in the K Street food chain, and got to play international spy.
"There was some indication even in those days that he was not the sort of person who would feel overly constrained by the rules," said Jeff Pandin, who worked closely with Abramoff in the 1980s.
