The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

viduals and damaging their reputations, the courts
harshly criticized the FBI for its use of entrapment
techniques in the Abscam scandal and in 1981
prompted Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti to is-
sueThe Attorney General’s Guidelines for FBI Undercover
Operations.
The deceptiveness and dishonesty of the Iran-
Contra scheme cast a dark shadow on the Reagan
presidency and made the American people even
more uneasy about their government. The S&L cri-
sis, the largest financial scandal in American history,
had an enormous impact on the U.S. economy. Pres-
ident George H. W. Bush estimated that govern-
ment bailouts would cost the taxpayers $50 billion,
but later accounts estimated that the crisis cost be-
tween $600 billion and $1.4 trillion. The Wall Street
insider trading scandal led to a greater understand-
ing that insider trading was not necessarily restricted
to individuals, but that crime networks could also be
established. The combined effect of all these scan-
dals was to taint the federal government and corpo-
rations in the eyes of the American public, which
came to expect a certain level of corruption from its
elected officials and business leaders.

Further Reading
Barth, James, Susanne Trimeth, and Glenn Yago.
The Savings and Loan Crisis: Lessons from a Regula-
tor y Failure. New York: Springer, 2004. Written by a
variety of banking industry regulators and busi-
ness academics, this book illustrates how the in-
ept banking practices of the 1980’s led to one of
history’s greatest financial calamities.
Davis, Lanny.Scandal: How “Gotcha” Politics Is De-
stroying America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2006. In his highly praised book, Lanny Davis,
      special counsel to the Bill Clinton White House,
      argues that politics in America have become
      driven by vicious scandals involving partisan poli-
      ticians, extremists, and the media, who are bent
      on destroying public officials. Chapter 4, “The
      Scandal Cauldron,” is dedicated to the political
      scandals of the 1980’s.
      Greene, Robert W.Sting Man. New York: Dutton,


2007. Provides details of the FBI sting operation
      and how Melvin Weinberg brought about its suc-
      cessful conclusion.
      Kallen, Stuart.A Cultural Histor y of the United States
      Through the Decades: The 1980’s. New York: Chi-
      cago: Lucent Books, 1998. Discusses the major

scandals of the United States in the 1980’s and the

Iran-Contra affair in particular.

Stewart, James B.Den of Thieves. New York: Touch-

stone Books, 1992. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize-

winningWall Street Journalreporter, utilizes court

documents, testimony, and interviews in this

comprehensive account of the 1980’s Wall Street

insider trading scandals.

Troy, Gil.Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan In-

vented the 1980’s. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-

versity Press, 2005. Each chapter focuses on a year,

from 1980 to 1989, during Ronald Reagan’s cam-

paign and presidency. The book details Reagan’s

reactions to the Abscam scandal, the Iran-Contra

affair, the S&L crisis, and the Wall Street insider

trading scandal.

M. Casey Diana

See also Abscam; Bush, George H. W.; Congress,

U.S.; Congressional page sex scandal of 1983; Elec-

tions in the United States, 1980; Elections in the

United States, 1984; Elections in the United States,

1988; Hart, Gary; Iran-Contra affair; Junk bonds;

Meese, Edwin, III; North, Oliver; Poindexter, John;

Reagan, Ronald; Savings and loan (S&L) crisis; Tower

Commission; Watt, James; Weinberger, Caspar; Wil-

liams, Vanessa; Wright, Jim.

Schnabel, Julian

Identification American artist

Born October 26, 1951; Brooklyn, New York

Schnabel experienced meteoric success in the New York art

scene and became a lightning rod for art criticism.

Julian Schnabel received an art degree from the Uni-

versity of Houston in 1973. By 1981, the brash and

self-promoting artist had unprecedented parallel

shows at the Mary Boone and Leo Castelli galleries

in New York City. All of his works were sold before

the shows opened. He exhibited intensely in Amer-

ica and Europe throughout the 1980’s and had sev-

eral “retrospectives” before the age of forty. Works

that brought three thousand dollars at the begin-

ning of the 1980’s sold for upward of sixty thousand

dollars only a few years later.

Schnabel’s paintings were very large, often ten

feet by fifteen feet or more. They combined a return

to figuration—often quoting religious or mythologi-

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Schnabel, Julian The Eighties in America