Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada, and Sun’s founding publisher, take stage in capital

The Newseum's Las Vegas Connection

The recently opened Newseum in Washington, D.C., shines a spotlight on Las Vegas, with a sixth-floor terrace dedicated to Las Vegas Sun founder and former publisher Hank Greenspun. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and others share their thoughts on Greenspun's impact on both Las Vegas and the journalism profession. See story.

One place you might not expect to see Las Vegas history prominently on display is in the nation’s capital.

Washington, as does much of the nation, often reduces Southern Nevada to stereotypes. It is regarded as a stopover on political fundraising swings through the West or, at worst, a caricature of moral excess.

But as of Friday, when visitors first stepped onto the sixth floor terrace at the Newseum, they encountered another side of Las Vegas story. They met the late Hank Greenspun, founding publisher of the Las Vegas Sun who, from the time he bought the paper in 1950, took on the power structure in Nevada and Washington from his daily column “Where I Stand.”

Journalism’s titans fill the new museum. Exhibits chronicle legendary reporters, editors and publishers, from Edward R. Murrow and Daniel Pearl, to H.L. Mencken and Rupert Murdoch.

Just before visitors pass through the doors to the grand terrace, they see an interactive exhibit about the man once called a “fire-eating editor.”

Visitors hear, in his own words and those of people who knew him, about Greenspun’s legendary battles in the 1950s against Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who smeared loyal Americans with false claims that they were Communists or spies.

Visitors also discover why G. Gordon Liddy, aide to President Nixon, wanted to break into Greenspun’s office safe during the Watergate era of the early 1970s. They find information on Greenspun’s support for the state of Israel and his work to desegregate his own state, once considered the Mississippi of the West.

The Greenspun family, which still owns the Sun, made a $7 million contribution as one of the museum’s founding partners. The broad terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue is named in Hank Greenspun’s memory. Other media donors are similarly honored.

“When you stand up here and look at the National Gallery of Art and look behind us to the Capitol, you realize that you are looking at the culture of America and the democracy of America, two things that make us so outstanding in this world,” Brian Greenspun, son of the founding publisher, said as he stood on the terrace.

“The opportunity for a family in the news business from Las Vegas, Nevada, to have a presence in the nation’s capital with all of these other partners at the museum is too good to pass up,” he said.

The terrace is one of Washington’s few public places where you can enjoy the view others see from more private venues. Here the sweeping panorama of official Washington unfolds: The Capitol dome to the left, the Washington Monument to the right, the great expanse of the National Mall.

Las Vegas’ presence here may be its most prominent representation in Washington.

“This puts us on the map in our nation’s capital,” said Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, who was close to Hank Greenspun and remains close with his family.

“I think the rest of the country has to become more sensitive and recognize that we have quite a role to play, and have played a very prominent role, in this nation’s history,” Berkley said. “Perhaps that’s what the Newseum is going to be able point out to our fellow Americans.”

Historian Michael Green, a professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said Greenspun’s presence in the capital is partly a sign that “Nevada is growing up.”

“The notion that Nevada was just a bunch of gamblers or just a bunch of mobsters takes a hit when we see something like this, and that’s good for all of us,” Green said.

State archivist Guy Louis Rocha said Greenspun’s new position in the capital offers great irony.

For nearly 50 years, Rocha explained, the statue of former Nevada Democratic Sen. Pat McCarran, an anti-Communist zealot on par with McCarthy, has stood inside the Capitol building. (Each state sends two statues for the Rotunda.)

Greenspun fought McCarran much the way he did McCarthy, successfully taking on the state’s most powerful politician, Rocha said.

Now history has put these two men together again, just a mile apart on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Hank Greenspun has now found his place in Washington, D.C., within eyesight of Pat McCarran, his adversary,” Rocha said.

“How amazing that this could have come to pass?” he continued. “Pat McCarran was out to destroy the Las Vegas Sun, Hank Greenspun ... Hank, 48 years later, now has his rightful place in the capital, too.

“I just think the fates have done some wonderful things here,” he said. “McCarran may have got there first, but in the end Hank Greenspun got there.”

As son Brian said: “What it tells me is: We won.”

Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7426 or at [email protected].

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