Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 280: Sacrifice
The U.S. government has always acted directly and equally. For example, after being fooled by Japan, the federal government's first reaction was to make all citizens believe that the other side was fooling all Americans, not just the slow and cumbersome federal government officials.
Therefore, almost overnight, the domestic television networks were quickly filled with an atmosphere of hostility towards Asian countries. Whether it was CBS, ABS, NBC, Murdoch's FOX, Turner's CNN, TNT, or Tommy's BT TV and VOX News Network, they have all cooperated with the federal government to broadcast various programs that can have a negative impact on the public towards Asian countries, including dramas, movies, documentaries and even discriminatory talk shows. Even newspapers have published hostile reports and various discriminatory cartoons.
There are some stubborn TV tycoons who refuse to cooperate. For example, Turner Sr. initially refused to do such a thing. He believed that the main reason for being fooled was that the Republican government's response was like that of a sloth, and it had nothing to do with other factors.
At this moment when awareness propaganda was needed, he stood up fearlessly. Everyone, including Tommy, could only support him mentally, and then watched as the FCC found various problems with Turner's three TV networks and announced that it was preparing to impose a total fine of more than 7 million US dollars on the three TV networks owned by Turner.
This made old Turner calm down immediately, and he directly canceled the domestic environmental documentary that had been broadcast previously, and instead broadcast documentaries on Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War about the fight against Japanese fascism in World War II.
Of course, this hostile propaganda is mainly concentrated in China and Japan. As for South Korea, which also participated in part of the cooperation, it was not greatly affected. According to Tommy's information, South Korea was slightly intimidated by the United States, so it obediently revealed the content of the trilateral cooperation between China, Japan and South Korea to the United States and terminated the cooperation in exchange for American politicians admitting in front of the camera that South Korea has replaced Japan and become the most important ally of the United States in Asia.
After South Korea did this, the greatest pleasure for Tommy was to sit in front of the TV and watch Japanese news commentary programs on the other side of the ocean. In those programs, the Japanese used almost all the vicious words they could think of on South Korea. The general idea was that Japan was trying to get rid of its status as an economic colony of the United States and was working tirelessly for it, while South Korea was proud of being a colony of the United States and was not hesitant to damage or even betray other countries in Asia for this. Some excited Japanese people who visited the road even roared that South Korea would only understand how shameless and stupid it was to sell out China and Japan after the United States atomic bomb hit its territory in the future.
There is a reason why the Japanese are so angry. America's counterattack against Japan for playing a trick on it was very fierce. A week after learning about the Sino-Japanese cooperation, the then Japanese Prime Minister Uno Sosuke stepped down due to a scandal and was replaced by a new prime minister named Kaifu Toshiki. After he spoke to the United States as soon as he took office, the United States began to ask major TV networks to reduce negative coverage of Japan.
Uno Sosuke's scandal was not worth mentioning. It was nothing more than that he had an extramarital affair with a geisha, but after breaking up, he did not give the geisha a hush money as per the rules. In fact, he did not pay the hush money not because he wanted to default on his debt, but because this guy was too honest and could not afford the money, so he had to keep defaulting on it.
Because the geisha named Nakanishi Mitsuko is a national treasure-level courtesan, according to the rules, the hush money is a huge sum of money, which Uno Sosuke could not afford at all. The main reason he was able to come to power was because he was poor.
Previously, the Japanese government had just been exposed to a scandal in which a large number of senior government officials accepted political black money. A large number of senior officials were forced to resign. For a while, the Japanese people found it too difficult to find a politician with a clean record. Finally, after careful selection and screening many times, they chose Uno Sosuke, who was not involved in the black money scandal, had a clean record after countless checks on his accounts, and did not have much savings. He succeeded the former prime minister who resigned and became the 75th Prime Minister of Japan.
It can be said that a big part of the reason why the Japanese chose him to power was that they thought he was not that greedy.
His sex scandal had been reported in Japan long before he came to power, but the Japanese people didn't care at all and even thought the newspapers were making a fuss out of nothing. After all, compared with the astronomical amounts of black money collected by dozens of politicians, the affair between a poor politician and a famous geisha was not worth mentioning.
The reason why it caused a sensation was all thanks to the American "Washington Post" and VOX News Network. The Tokyo office of the American "Washington Post" got the opportunity to interview the geisha through certain channels. Based on the principle of not wasting, the "Washington Post" not only published an exclusive interview with the scandal heroine Mitsuko Nakanishi in its own newspaper, but also introduced it to VOX News Network, allowing the female geisha named Mitsuko Nakanishi to show her face in front of people in various countries around the world. The two unscrupulous media used deception and seduction to successfully obtain a lot of detailed information about the relationship between the two from Mitsuko Nakanishi, and directly chose to make it public without any regard for the other party's privacy.
The most important thing is that both The Washington Post and VOX News Network replaced the word "hush money" with "breakup money", which is the most fatal blow to Uno Sosuke. If it is a hush money, it means that the man paid the money in exchange for the other party being a geisha and not making his relationship public. Moreover, the Japanese geisha industry has always had the tradition of offering hush money after breaking up. Most people think it is normal that Uno Sosuke did not pay hush money. After all, not everyone is a billionaire who can offer a large sum of money. Especially geishas also have different grades. The more famous the geisha, the higher the fee they receive.
However, both The Washington Post and Vox TV replaced this word with breakup fee, deliberately giving viewers and readers the illusion that Uno Sosuke had played with Japan's national treasure-level geisha for several months for free, and then didn't give her a penny after that.
This is simply incomprehensible to the Western people. Originally, the American people are not opposed to the ambiguous affairs between politicians and women. From Roosevelt, Ehrenhower, to Kennedy after World War II, which president did not have some gossip? But no matter how many gossips there were, there has never been a situation where the president did not leave a penny after playing with a woman. Therefore, Uno Sosuke's bad behavior shocked a large number of people in Western countries. The head of a country is so shameless. Did the Japanese choose such a shameless bastard to represent their national image?
Subsequently, other well-known American newspapers followed up with reports, which in turn formed a backlash of public opinion and created a trend in Japan, causing more and more Japanese people to become dissatisfied and believe that Uno Sosuke had damaged the country's international image. In the end, Uno had no choice but to resign.
The so-called victim, the female geisha Mitsuko Nakanishi, actually tried to contact The Washington Post and VOX News Network after seeing the report, believing that there were problems with the wording of the news report and that the editing completely distorted her original intention. However, this time neither the newspaper nor the TV station paid any attention to her and did not give her another chance to speak. After all, they just wanted to teach Japan a parent-child lesson on how to listen to dad.
In other words, she was already a victim from the moment the American media found her.
Why would American newspapers and TV networks care whether a Japanese woman's intentions were distorted? So the result was that the Japanese Prime Minister who played a trick on the United States stepped down, and the unfortunate geisha was hated by the Japanese people and boycotted by the geisha industry. They believed that she had brought shame to Japan internationally. Some extremists even threatened to let her commit suicide to apologize, and even her children announced in the newspaper that they would cut off ties with her.
"I heard your laughter outside the door. To be honest, I have forgotten the last time I laughed so heartily." Just as Tommy was watching the Japanese news program on the TV in the conference room and laughing from time to time, a hearty voice came from the direction of the door.
Tommy turned his head to look over, then immediately stood up and went to greet the people who were led in by Sophia. He took the initiative to bow and extend his hand to the tall German old man who came in first: "Mr. Shriver, this is a surprise, because Mr. Bean didn't mention that you would come from New York."
"Maria is about to give birth. She lived with my wife and me in New York for a while. This time, she took Mr. Bean's private plane to return to Los Angeles for a prenatal check-up as scheduled. I happened to hear that our young man was going to do something, so I thought that as a shareholder, I should occasionally sit down and chat with young people to prevent their brains from lacking exercise and atrophying early." The old man, whom Tommy respected as Mr. Shriver, said with a smile.
Sargent Shriver is the real California investor behind Tommy, or in other words, he is the recognized representative of the California tycoons who invested in Tommy. Yes, although Shriver has lived in New York for a long time, he is the boss of a bunch of wealthy people in California. Whether KeyBank, VOX and many Internet projects can get timely financial support basically depends on Shriver's decision. Even KeyBank can do some dirty little business in Africa, the backyard of France, and has not been knocked on the door by the French, thanks to Shriver's influence in France.
Now 73 years old, he is the former U.S. ambassador to France, former director of the White House Economic Office, current member of the board of directors of Banque de California, current chairman of the board of directors of Bank of the West, a subsidiary of Banque de California, a lifetime partner of the New York White Shoe law firm, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, brother-in-law of President Kennedy, and founder of the Peace Corps, the largest international cultural infiltration and espionage organization in the United States.
Normally, he should have been the heir to the political legacy after the death of the Kennedy brothers, because he had enough influence between the two parties and was well-known internationally. He himself thought so, so he participated in the vice presidential election in 1972 and prepared to run for president in 1976. However, the matriarch of the Kennedy family, his mother-in-law, Rose Kennedy, insisted that the youngest son, Edward Kennedy, who became the Majority Whip of the U.S. Senate at the age of 37, should inherit it all.
Even though many peripheral members of the Kennedy family in the political arena told Mrs. Rose at the time that Edward Kennedy's path to the presidency had almost been ruined because of the scandal of drunk driving that resulted in the death of a girl in the car, and that Shriver was the best choice for the Kennedy family, if they continued to insist that Edward inherit the Kennedy family's huge political legacy, many politicians on the sidelines would be shaken and turn to look for another trustworthy candidate to rely on.
Unfortunately, the old-fashioned Irish matriarch did not listen to the advice of her followers, and Edward Kennedy did as those loyal ministers had expected. He first lost his position as Senate whip, and then completely lost the hearts of the people in the Democratic Party because he refused to accept the Democratic Party's call to run for vice president in 1972. The Democrats turned to Jimmy Carter, a replacement with a better image. In 1976, her brother-in-law Sargent Shriver and her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy became opponents in the party primary in the 1976 presidential election. This farce was more like Sargent Shriver completely drawing a line with the Kennedy family, for which he had worked for more than 40 years, rather than Shriver wanting to run for president.
After the split, Shriver, with his previous work experience and connections as ambassador to France, was hired as executive president when the Banque Nationale de Paris established the Banque de California in the United States. He transferred the work to the West, which would never have any connection with the Kennedy family. Later, he led the acquisition of Bank of the West and became chairman of the board of directors of Bank of the West.
Today, most of his investment businesses are concentrated in California.
Oh, by the way, Shriver's daughter Maria Shriver is now a news host at Tommy's VOX TV network and is currently on maternity leave. Her husband is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Walking in after Shriver was Stephen's father, Pete Bean, who was Tommy's closest uncle in California. Tommy gave Pete Bean a warm hug and said, "Long time no see, dear Uncle Pete, did you receive the gift I sent to you and your wife? I promise, it is the best Cuban scarf and cigars you can buy in Miami."
Tommy is much closer and more familiar with Stephen's father. In recent years, many of Tommy's businesses are in the start-up stage. On the surface, it seems that Stephen is busy, but in fact, it is this old man who helps him to build connections and find investments behind the scenes. Sargent Shriver was introduced to Tommy by Pete Bean. Both of them worked in the Kennedy administration and later the Lyndon Johnson administration, one as Assistant Secretary of Health and the other as Director of the White House Office of Economics. They also worked together to promote the establishment of the Special Olympics and have a deep friendship.
Pete Bean patted Tommy on the back and said with a smile, "How should I answer? The honest answer is that before I had a chance to taste it, my wife, who was worried that tobacco would harm my health, gave it to someone else. The scarf is very beautiful and she liked it very much. She asked me to thank you, but she will also remember the cigar incident and asked you to be careful."
The last person walking was Stephen Bean, who was as obedient as a little boy facing a priest. Tommy and him waited until the two old men were seated before they sat down at the conference table. After Shriver sat down, he watched the Japanese news on TV and asked Tommy curiously, "You laughed just because of this? I thought your favorite football team won."
"No, I'm happy about another piece of news. New York's number one lawyer Roy Cohn has finally passed away. I used to get horrified when I thought of the combination of Roy Cohn and Rupert Murdoch, but now the symptoms have completely disappeared." Tommy heard Shriver's question, picked up the remote control, muted the TV, and said with a smile.
Shriver pretended to be surprised and said, "That terrorist in the judicial world, Roy, has been dead for a long time. I remember Stephen told me that you once told him that sooner or later you would find a group of gay men infected with AIDS to play games with that number 0."
Roy Cohn in Tommy's mouth can be said to be famous or notorious. He inherited his father's career as a prosecutor at the age of 21. In the 1950s, he and Senator McCarthy launched the terrible McCarthyism and Lavender Scare in the United States. After McCarthy lost power, Cohn returned to New York to work as a lawyer until his death. Because of the loss of his political life, Cohn can be said to have given up the gentle disguise of a lawyer and perfectly played the role of a crazy litigator. In the first few years after returning to New York to work as a lawyer, he did everything he could to win the case, instructing his investigators to steal evidence, blackmail clients, intimidate witnesses, defraud, fabricate false evidence, tamper with testimony, and even bribe judges.
They were even capable of driving a car in downtown New York and forcing the opposing witness to stop his car and threaten him.
The reason why he dared to be so unscrupulous was not only because he was a lawyer, but also because his father Albert Cohen was a judge of the New York State Supreme Court. The father-son combination was almost a perfect match, which made Cohen's winning rate in New York almost 100%. From New York senators and congressmen to the five major families of the New York Mafia, almost all of them were his clients. In addition, he had served as the personal legal adviser to two presidents, Nixon and Reagan. This made him rampant in the New York judicial community and he was known as the King of New York.
The first thing Murdoch did when planning his American business was to invite Cohen to be his personal legal advisor in the United States with a high salary. In return, Cohen helped Murdoch to quickly complete the political and business relationship with President Reagan, which enabled Murdoch's business to quickly expand in the United States.
So when Tommy talked about the creepy combination of Roy Cohn and Rupert Murdoch, he was definitely not kidding. The way many American newspapers died after being targeted by Murdoch was that Roy Cohn first found the problems in the newspaper group, and then dug it up, expanded it and detonated it. When the boss was in a state of panic, Murdoch would play the role of a helpful kind-hearted person and make a shining appearance. The two sides would join forces to swallow up the other.
Fortunately, this guy contracted AIDS because of his homosexuality. Even after trying all the HIV-resistant drugs on the market, he could not survive.
"Stephen! What did you say to Mr. Shriver? When the hell did I say I was going to find..." When Tommy heard Shriver say that the other party's death was related to him, he immediately looked at Stephen angrily, and then explained to the old man helplessly: "It has nothing to do with me. I can't ask Roy Cohn, that control freak, to screw someone. I don't have the ability or the interest. I can only say that Roy Cohn met a few gay men in poor health at a bad time and in a bad place. Everything is arranged by God."
Shriver laughed when he heard Tommy's explanation. "Of course, kid, everything is arranged by God. Murdoch's personal legal advisor has now been replaced by Frank Untermyer, who comes from an American legal family. Compared to Cohen, this has indeed made everyone feel relieved. If you need legal support, my firm should not be so scared as to not dare to accept the order now."
"Tommy, why don't you tell me how you can help me?" Compared to Shriver, the Jewish man Pete Benn was more serious and practical. He rarely wasted time on jokes. Seeing that the two Germans, Shriver and Tommy, were still about to continue talking about Roy Cohn's ass, he took the initiative to interrupt their conversation.
Tommy didn't rush to speak, but turned his head to look at the door. Through the glass, he could see Paige guarding the door of the conference room outside. Sophia had already left to do other work, and there was no one around:
"Next, I will take advantage of this trend promoted by the government to attack Murdoch. I have made some preparations for this. We all know that if I attack Murdoch, there will definitely be politicians who have received checks from Murdoch who will jump out to speak for him. Whether it is the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, there are a lot of politicians who have received checks from him. I have done research, from the president to the mayor, there are a lot of them. So if I don't want to be scolded by those people, I must let them understand that shutting up and keeping silent is a wise choice. For this reason, I have prepared a bait that is neither too big nor too small, ready to throw it out to fish, to lure politicians who are eager to jump out to speak for Murdoch and earn checks, and then choose one of the politicians who jump out, and use thunderous means to kill him with a fatal blow, completely destroying him and making him lose his reputation. Only in this way can other politicians who are ready to continue to support Murdoch be cautious and learn to shut up."
"You mean, you want to talk to me about what kind of bait is more likely to get fish to bite?" Pete Bean nodded with satisfaction after hearing Tommy's words, and then asked back.
In fact, his son Stephen is already very outstanding, at least much better than those guys in New York who have fallen to the point of relying on family trusts to receive pocket money every month and still insist on calling themselves celebrities and socialites. The 600 million assets left to Stephen by his father has now grown to 900 million, and the investments are concentrated in emerging industries such as computers and the Internet. Although Pete Benn is not a full-time businessman, he understands that if an emerging industry explodes, the appreciation of assets will be terrifying, and the Internet era is about to come. It is impossible to estimate how much money his son's investment can turn into, so most of the time, he likes his son very much.
Most of the time, it was when there was no Tommy for comparison. Once Tommy was present, Pete had the illusion that his son, compared with Tommy, was as casual and simple as a prize given out by redeeming credit card points.
Listening to the business warfare tactics Tommy talked about at this moment, you can know that this is totally not something that a twenty-something American youth should consider. Before trying to start a war, he first prevents Murdoch's behind-the-scenes supporters from jumping out. He wants to use this trick to make those politicians continue to support Murdoch behind the scenes even if they continue to do so, and dare not jump to the front.
"No, what I want to talk about is that the fish that bites the hook should preferably be from the Democratic Party." Tommy looked at Pete Bean: "Because at this time, we can't anger the Republicans and completely tie them to Murdoch. We need to divide them, so we can only choose one that is easier to control..."
"Sacrificial victim."
Stephen's face changed when he heard Tommy's words, but Pete Benn and Sargent Shriver's eyes lit up in an instant.
