User:Sammi Brie/Richard A. Mack

Richard Alfred Mack (October 2, 1909 — November 26, 1963) was an American public official and member of the United States Federal Communications Commission in the 1950s.

Early life
Mack was born in Miami in 1909. After attending the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in Wisconsin, he graduated with a business degree from the University of Florida in 1932. After two years selling insurance in Tampa, he returned to Miami and was involved with various companies, including General Motors and Hector Supply. During World War II, he served in the United States Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. By 1947, he was involved with a rock company at Port Everglades.

Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission
On November 9, 1947, Florida governor Millard Caldwell appointed Mack to succeed the recently deceased W. B. "Babe" Douglass on the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission (FRPUC). His naming to the board was a surprise in political circles; he was an unknown who had never held political office. He was also the first South Floridian named to the commission in 20 years.

Federal Communications Commission
President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Mack for a seven-year term on the Federal Communications Commission on May 27, 1955, deciding not to renominate Frieda B. Hennock. Mack came with the recommendation of Florida's two senators, Spessard Holland and George Smathers, and Harry Byrd of Virginia; his name had been in consideration for several committees prior to the FCC recommendation.

Richard Mack scandal
The same day that WPST-TV's studios were formally dedicated, Drew Pearson's syndicated newspaper column alleged widespread corruption within the FCC that influenced the granting of multiple television station licenses, singling out WPST-TV in particular. Pearson claimed FCC commissioner Richard A. Mack was paid several thousand dollars by Thurman A. Whiteside, a Miami-based lawyer retained by NAL, while the Eisenhower administration sought to overrule examiner Herbert Sharfman's recommendation of A. Frank Katzentine; additionally, Mack admitted that Whiteside was a "close friend" and his own legal representation. George T. Baker challenged every claim made by Pearson, telling the Miami Herald that NAL won the channel 10 license "on the merits of our application", while Whiteside said Pearson's column was "incorrect in every detail" but admitted to representing Mack legally in the past. Pearson's column, which also claimed that Mack made a promise to Whiteside that he would vote for NAL, helped spur the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight into furthering an investigation into the commission's practices.

A cross-examination of John C. Doerfer by the subcommittee on February 5, 1958, revealed that CAB chairman James R. Durfee had a 1956 golf trip paid in full by an undisclosed airline amid accusations of "personal misconduct" among four of the seven active FCC commissioners. However, it was former subcommittee counsel Bernard Schwartz, fired by the subcommittee after alleging members were "trying to whitewash" behavior by White House officials, who ultimately doomed WPST-TV. Schwartz told reporters an unnamed commissioner had engaged in bribery regarding an unnamed license application dispute; testifying under oath, Schwartz affirmed Pearson's allegations against Mack and Whiteside, calling the latter a "fixer". Even more damning for Mack was a letter he sent to the FCC in 1951 while still a member of the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission that endorsed Katzentine. The New York Herald Tribune and Miami Herald reprinted it on February 17, 1958, showing that Mack lauded Katzentine as "a pioneer resident of Miami and has been an outstanding business and civic leader for years".

While on the witness stand several days later, Whiteside testified that Mack was a part-owner of Stembler-Shelden Insurance, which not only handled the insurance for WPST-TV but for WCKT owner Biscayne Television. Whiteside admitted to contacting Mack on NAL's behalf and made several personal loans to Mack that totaled $2,650 following his FCC appointment, but he denied exerting pressure on Mack for the license and assailed Bernard Schwartz as "an unmitigated liar" and "a depraved person". Jerry W. Carter, a Democratic official in Florida, also admitted in testimony to have engaged in wire-pulling to help land the FCC commissioner role for Mack. Biscayne's troubles were different but nonetheless incriminating. All three principals in Biscayne were revealed to have also engaged in improper conduct either indirectly or directly with Mack: Knight and Trammell requested two Florida Power & Light officials to engage Mack in phone conversations, while Cox personally talked with Mack concerned over rumor regarding the composition of Biscayne. Such improper ex parte communications with FCC officials on behalf of aspiring television station licensees were so common that the House subcommittee's chief counsel found evidence of them in almost every major TV station case decided by the commission.

Oregon Sen. Wayne Morse called for President Eisenhower to seek Mack's resignation as a result of Whiteside's testimony, and said Doerfer "should be thoroughly investigated". Drew Pearson, in a subsequent column, summarized the WPST license scandal by saying "the most important unanswered question... is why [Mack] was appointed to the FCC in the first place" and criticized Democratic senators for having confirmed Mack's appointment without any legitimate scrutiny. On February 21, per a story by Clark Mollenhoff in The Minneapolis Tribune, Eisenhower assistant Sherman Adams notified Mack that his "usefulness in the administration" had ended due to the revelations, hastening Mack's resignation. The subcommittee also called the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to help with the investigation. NAL would quickly find itself directly affected: the CAB reversed examiners' findings recommending National for newly established St. Louis–Florida and Chicago–Florida routes, granting them instead to Trans World Airlines and Northwest Airlines, respectively. When asked if the CAB's actions had anything to do with the channel 10 license scandal, Baker asked, "Who can tell?"

With the channel 10 scandal in public view, the FCC selected retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Horace Stern to preside over a rehearing for the WPST-TV license, the first time an examiner outside of the commission's staff had ever been appointed. Stern's presence drew a brief protest among WPST-TV's attorney, noting that Stern was associated with a law firm representing the owner of WPEN in Philadelphia, but FCC chairman John C. Doerfer swore him in on June 23, 1958. FCC general counsel Warren Baker's list of witnesses to be summoned included Mack, Whiteside, George T. Baker, A. Frank Katzentine, and former Miami mayor Perrine Palmer, Jr., plus the same two executives from Florida Power & Light implicated in the Biscayne Broadcasting license case: chairman McGregor Smith and vice-president Ben Fuqua, who also doubled as a lobbyist. Representatives from Eastern Air Lines were also allowed to participate, having again asked for the FCC to pull the license. Citing a proposal by Pan Am to buy National, the airline was worried that Pan Am would use the station to promote itself "to the detriment of Eastern" and also cited rules that prohibited airlines from acquiring "public service enterprises not utilized in providing air transportation". The deal had another indirect conflict of interest: Stern was the father-in-law of a Pan Am executive, who stood to profit from the deal; Stern was advised to remain as examiner by all parties.

Among the issues Stern was tasked with resolving for the FCC: if Mack needed to recuse himself from voting; if any candidates attempted to influence the commissioners; if the license was voidable; and if any of the applicants should be disqualified. On the rehearing's first day, Katzentine admitted to visiting Mack twice with Perrine Palmer after learning of his NAL vote in advance, "to get him unpledged" and vote on the "merits"; Katzentine also spoke on the phone with Thurman Whiteside, who promised to "release" Mack from a pledge if one existed. Prior to meeting Mack and Whiteside, Katzentine consulted Sen. George Smathers, while Palmer met with Whiteside, who had agreed to lobby Mack on behalf of NAL as a promise made with Robert H. Anderson (at the time heading a law firm representing NAL and later appointed as a circuit court judge). Ben Fuqua testified to speaking with Mack upon McGregor Smith's request, while Smith was approached by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver regarding Katzentine's application; Fuqua also urged Mack to vote on the merits of the applicants. Kefauver recommended Fuqua for lobbying as he knew Mack better than Smith; Fuqua likewise insisted he was a "messenger boy" and that Smith wanted to repay Kefauver for a favor. Whiteside testified that, over an eight-year period, Mack took out 17 personal loans that totaled $10,900, with all but $250 repaid at the start of 1958; Whiteside also denied having been contacted or influenced by Anderson despite being presented with a photostat of his statement to the House Subcommittee saying otherwise. Two days after Whiteside's testimony, on September 25, 1958, he and Mack were indicted on three counts of influence peddling, fraud and conspiracy to "corruptly influence" the awarding of the channel 10 license; Mack called the charges "ridiculous", while Whiteside blamed "Washington politics".

A cross-examination of George T. Baker resulted in Baker assailing Sen. Smathers for lying to the House Subcommittee to "put out a big story", while Katzentine's attorney read from Smathers' statement describing Baker as "over-bearing and abusive" during a visit to his office. Baker also denied knowledge of Whiteside influencing Mack but said, "I'm grateful for what he did if he did it... but he certainly didn't do it at our direction." Meanwhile, Robert F. Jones—a former Ohio legislator and FCC commissioner—testified before the House Subcommittee that North Dade Video paid him $2,000 to lobby commissioner T.A.M. Craven, along with Reps. Emanuel Celler and John Carl Hinshaw, on why an airline subsidiary should not own a television station in a market central to the airline. Craven recused himself from voting, while Jones claimed their discussion was "academic". A brief from U.S. Attorney General William P. Rogers urged Judge Stern to void the WPST-TV license, institute a new bidding process, and disqualify NAL, Katzentine and North Dade Video from consideration based on prior attempts to influence Mack. FCC associate general counsel Edgar W. Holtz largely concurred, calling the WPST-TV decision "improperly made" and asking the judge to make an example with a ruling establishing ethical standards.

Stern's ruling, delivered on December 1, 1958, sided with Rogers and Holtz and urged a full voiding of the license, determining Mack was the only commissioner influenced by direct lobbying and viewed his personal loans with Whiteside as possible extortion. Quoting heavily from the Bible and Latin literature, Stern harshly criticized NAL, Katzentine, and North Dade Video, but declined to disqualify them; Stern also refrained from commenting on L. B. Wilson, Inc., which largely escaped scrutiny and criticism during the rehearing. The front page of the Miami Herald declared "NAL Hold On Ch. 10 Seen Lost", but while some of the station's staff expressed concerns about being taken dark, the majority largely remained confident in both Baker and WPST-TV's future. Baker declined to comment, but WPST-TV attorney Norman Jorgensen promised to contest Stern's ruling before the FCC, telling the Herald, "[T]here will be litigation. You can bet on that." Meanwhile, the Miami Church of Religious Science announced the securing of funding for a license application, having made the decision to apply based on "a sudden thought".

After a motion to move the trial from Washington to Miami was denied, and after postponement at the request of defense counsel, federal judge F. Dickinson Letts denied a final request for a delay from the defense on March 26, setting an April 7 opening date for the Mack–Whiteside trial. To avoid creating any undue publicity for the trial, the FCC agreed to suspend a future rehearing on the WPST-TV license until after the trial concluded.

The trial lasted 14 weeks; jury selection alone took three days in the highly publicized trial, as more than half of the 73 prospective jurors had already heard of the case. Katzentine complained that the defense was harassing him by ordering him to Washington "at once" to testify. Senator Kefauver also testified, revealing that, in addition to having lobbied McGregor Smith and Ben Fuqua to persuade Mack, he had also talked to several FCC members in the interest of having a ruling on the merits. Government testimony also raised the fact that Whiteside had endorsed a $1,500 loan to Mack made by the First National Bank of Coral Gables. Defense testimony wrapped up in late June, and the court record of the trial ran 6,700 pages long. Television Digest criticized the trial for its dullness and slow pace and having not revealed any new information other than what had already been established; it noted that its "cast of characters was ready for full rerun" and declared that "...the end of the marathon construction job was nowhere near in sight".

The case ended on July 10, when judge Burnita Shelton Matthews declared a mistrial because of a hung jury. One juror out of twelve refused to join the others in a guilty verdict and could not be persuaded. The news greatly enthused Mack's father, a Fort Lauderdale hotel manager, while Whiteside's attorney hailed the holdout juror, 40-year-old government engineer John A. Sakaley, as a "man of great courage and stature". The expensive case, however, had begun to take its toll on the parties. Whiteside's attorney claimed that his client had fallen in "extreme financial hardship" for paying all the expenses of all the witnesses. Katzentine died in March 1960 of a heart attack at the age of 58, being remembered as a crime-fighter. Despite this, it remained business as usual at WPST-TV itself, with programs such as Youth Asks Business and the Sunday evening public affairs show Important leading what the Fort Lauderdale News called "the area's biggest package of local shows".

Mack and Whiteside appealed the judge's denial of their motions for acquittal, but a federal appeals court rejected the bid in September 1959, allowing the Department of Justice to proceed with its plans for a new trial. Appeals with the U. S. Supreme Court were rejected twice in December 1959 and January 1960, respectively, effectively forcing a retrial. Mack's physical and mental health, however, deteriorated to the point where he was admitted to the psychiatric institute at Jackson Memorial Hospital under court order on January 28, 1960. Doctors cited his "lacking in competancy [sic] and capacity to conduct his personal or other affairs and to exercise judgement" made worse by alcoholism. Mack's father signed a petition stating that his son's mind was "wandering"; Mack had already been given psychiatric treatment twice and was hospitalized following a fall the preceding October. Mack's wife filed for divorce, claiming he refused to support her and started drinking to excess. Charges against Mack were dropped, allowing Whiteside to be retried separately; Whiteside was found not guilty by October.

Twenty-two days later, on November 26, Richard A. Mack was found dead in a Miami apartment; released from the Jackson Memorial Hospital psychiatric institute earlier in the year, Mack failed to find another line of work and lived alone with almost no money to his name. The News noted Mack's death, attributed by homicide detectives to natural causes and likely to have taken place four or five days earlier, "completed a chain of tragedy" for the central figures in the WPST license scandal: Thurman A. Whiteside, Frank A. Katzentine, George T. Baker and Mack himself. Mack was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.