We stand where he stood ...

... and we should damn proud of it. One of the documentaries I mentioned earlier this week that I saw at CineVegas was "Where I Stand," the story of Hank Greenspun, the founder and longtime publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. (Full disclosure: He's also the founder of Greenspun Media Group, the company that puts a roof over my head, food on my table and clothes on my back, but I'll try to be as impartial as I can.)

I love documentaries in general, because the truth is usually stranger than fiction, but this one really stood out for me because while I knew Hank was a pretty amazing guy, I had no idea just how much he influenced not only Las Vegas history but U.S. and international events as well. Now, of course in a documentary you're only hearing one side of the story, so some of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, but from what the director said, the family had no involvement in the project beyond providing interviews and the like, so I really have no reason to believe the lily was gilded too much in this film.

In a nutshell, Greenspun was a Jewish kid from New York City who moved to Las Vegas to find his fortune in 1943. After spending a short time as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's PR man at the Flamingo, he founded the Sun, wrote an influential front-page column called "Where I Stand," and became a multimillionaire through smart investments in real estate. His son Brian now publishes the Sun, while his son Danny runs GMG, and his daughters are involved in the business world and philanthropy. And his wife Barbara is still with us as well, the matriarch of a great family.

I won't go into too many details, because you really should see this movie for yourself (and negotiations for a distribution deal are ongoing, so it may come to a theater near you, no matter where you are). But to pique your interest, here's a brief rundown of Hank's accomplishments and intersections with history.

• He helped supply arms for the Israeli army to help the country survive after it was granted independence in 1947. Not funding for the arms -- the arms themselves. There's a great anecdote about him sneaking guns and ammo out of a munitions dump in post-WWII Hawaii that illustrates how dirty his hands got. He was convicted of a felony and fined $10,000 for violating the Neutrality Act, but JFK later pardoned him.
• He was one of the first public figures to stand up to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s. McCarthy called him a commie (presumably because he was in the newspaper business and had warred with Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran, a crony of McCarthy) in a speech in Las Vegas, but Greenspun was actually in the audience and grabbed the mike after McCarthy left the podium. He shouted at McCarthy as he left the arena, turned the crowd in his favor, then used his column to rail against McCarthy and all he stood for. And you all know how that turned out.
• He helped integrate the businesses on the Strip. For years, blacks were allowed to perform on the Strip, but not stay in the hotels or eat in the restaurants. When the threat of a strike by the many minority Strip workers led to the fear of a riot, Greenspun used his influence with the casino owners to gather them and hammer out a compromise that effectively integrated the Strip in the early 1960s.
• He helped kick the mafia out of Las Vegas. The mob mostly ran the show until the late 1960s when a guy named Howard Hughes moved to town. Hughes needed a place to stay, and he holed up in the penthouse suite at the Desert Inn. When the DI's owners wanted him to move on because he was taking up space they could rent to people who would actually gamble in their casino, he ended up buying the property. With Greenspun's help as a liaison between the mob's money men and Hughes, the reclusive billionaire bought up a handful of casinos and the mafia's influence dried up in the desert.
• He was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal. Nixon heard a rumor that Greenspun had compromising information about his longtime confidant Bebe Rebozo, who also was a friend of Hughes. The infamous Plumbers were plotting to break into Greenspun's office at the Sun and steal or break into his safe when the whole Democratic Party office thing blew up. At one point on the Watergate tapes, Greenspun's name comes up, and when one of his lackeys said he didn't know who Hank was, Nixon sharply retorted, "Jesus Christ, everyone knows who Hank Greenspun is. He's the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun!"

Let's see ... Israeli independence, McCarthy, civil rights, the mafia, Howard Hughes, Watergate ... have I missed anything? Probably -- he was a crusader against the IRS, he tried to help broker a Middle East peace pact, he owned TV and radio stations here in Las Vegas, and he basically bought up all the land between the Strip and a sleepy little burg called Henderson, the area now known as Green Valley and my back yard.

After seeing the film, I couldn't help but think that Hank Greenspun in a way was a real-life Forrest Gump, except he wasn't a passive observer at so many key points in American history. He actually affected it. It's hard to say how this world would be different if Hank Greenspun hadn't made that long drive from New York to Las Vegas, but one thing I know for sure -- I wouldn't be sitting here typing this if he hadn't.