Two Identified in Reagans’ Home Deal
Businessmen Holmes Tuttle and Earle M. Jorgensen are among the 20 or so wealthy friends of President and Mrs. Reagan who chipped in at least $156,000 apiece to buy them a Los Angeles estate, according to documents released Tuesday in Washington.
The documents include a 1986 opinion from the Office of Government Ethics that concludes that even if the group of businessmen decided to give the $2.5-million Bel-Air estate to the Reagans, the President probably would not be violating any federal ethics regulations by accepting it.
Ira Revich, chief financial officer of Wall Management Services Inc., the real estate holding company set up for the purchase, said “approximately 20†friends of the Reagans had bought stock in the company.
According to one of the documents, a July 21, 1986, request to the ethics office by lawyers for Wall Management, two Wall Management board members--Tuttle and Jorgensen--are stockholders in the purchase, in which units sold for $156,000.
Tuttle, whose son Robert is director of the White House personnel office, is a Southland auto dealer and industrialist. Jorgensen is chairman of a steel and aluminum company, and both have been members of Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet†of unofficial advisers.
Among the other buyers of the estate, where the Reagans will live after they leave the White House, at least one has lent money to the President’s inaugural committee, half a dozen had given the President or the First Lady gifts over the preceding six years and a number of them were in Reagan’s kitchen cabinet, according to the 1986 request to the ethics office. Many of the individuals are prominent businessmen in the entertainment, real estate, publishing and computer fields.
Federal agencies may regulate many of the businesses, it said, and the President has appointed some of the investors, their spouses or relatives to various commissions or federal posts.
“Assuming all of these appointments occurred prior to the initiation of this proposal, it would appear that they were made independent of this proposal,†said the opinion letter by David Martin, director of the ethics office at the time. “However, once this proposal gets under way, the President and the individuals involved will have to be careful not to take any actions that would reflect adversely on standards of conduct matters.â€
Inside the business of entertainment
The Wide Shot brings you news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
