Kirk Kerkorian’s Benevolent Engagement with Armenia
Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. Today, we’re going to talk about Kirk Kerkorian, an American-Armenian billionaire who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Armenia in his last two decades of life. So we have Harut Sassounian here. He’s a community leader, publisher of the California Courier newspaper, and president of the Armenia Artsakh Fund.
Now, 20 years ago, Harut was also the vice chairman of the Lincy Foundation, and he managed a lot of the projects that happened at that time for Kerkorian.
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Hovik: Okay. Should we go to the show?
Asbed: Let’s do that. Hello, Harut. Thanks for joining us today.
Harut: Hello, Բարեւ ձեզ։
Asbed: Thanks for coming on the show, Harut. So today’s topic is Kirk Kerkorian. He was an Armenian American billionaire, a true tycoon in the style of Howard Hughes. He’s also a national hero in Armenia, a patriot who wanted to give, give and give to Armenia.
So we wanted to explore his history. And since the 80s, you were in a position to know him very well. And you enjoyed a unique personal trust, not just a business trust, but a personal trust on his part. So that’s why we reached out to talk to you about him and also to help us dispel some stories that never seem to go away.
For example, why he stopped giving. So when Hovik and I discussed this, I said, let’s provocatively call the show “Who Lost Kerkorian?” And have Harut tell the story to us.
Harut: Well, I hope the title does not mislead people.
Asbed: Well, it’ll probably draw them in and then they’ll hear the real stories. But we’re not going to start there. Let’s start, for example, with his origin story, where he started and what made him into the person that he was and the businessman that he was.
Harut: Well, he was born in Fresno. He was the son of immigrants to the United States. His father’s name was Aharon. So from Fresno, they moved to Los Angeles when he was a young kid.
And he went through a variety of… He dropped out of school, I think it was second grade. And he did various odds and job, like delivering newspapers just to make a few dollars at a time. And then when he grew up a little bit more, he became a boxer.
And he was quite a good boxer. And then… During World War II, he ran into somebody, a friend of his, who was flying a plane and somehow he talked him into teaching him how to fly a plane. So he became a pilot.
And during World War II, he learned that the US Air Force needed pilots because they wanted to take brand new Air Force jets that were built at the time in Canada for some reason, and to fly them to England, because that’s where the war was mostly in. So he got paid $1,000 for each plane he delivered. But it was a very risky thing. I mean, that’s only one example of a man who’s taken risks all his life on his business, his money, his life, everything else.
So he flew to England, I don’t know how many, dozens of planes. And it was very risky because the Germans were shooting down the planes as they were arriving because they would be used against them. So I remember one episode where he was getting close to England and the fuel ran out, I think, and he climbed into where the tank is and then he unplugged whatever was blocking the fuel, and he made it. So he got $1,000, which was a lot of money back then, and dozens of flights.
So he started making some money, which he never had. And then after the war, with his pilot license, he started flying passengers to Hawaii And then he also had some episodes of running out of fuel and getting to Hawaii. And then he started flying gamblers to Las Vegas from LA. That’s how he got introduced to Las Vegas.
And he got the bug of gambling. And he became a big gambler, of course, as a risk taker, You have to be a gambler. So he started, he bid on a hotel, a small hotel. He bought it, and then he bought a bigger hotel.
Then he built the biggest hotel in the world, MGM Grand, which had 5,000 rooms. And then at some point, before that, he had the International Hotel. And there was a very tragic incident where the hotel burned down. And Andre Agassi, the famous tennis player, his father was working for him.
He ran into him. One time it was a very interesting incident. He was having lunch, with a girlfriend, and some guys start bothering the girlfriend. And Andre Aghasi’s father was passing by.
And I don’t know, maybe he recognized Kirk. And Andre Aghasi’s father used to be a boxer in Iran. He was in the Olympics from Iran in boxing. So he was a very short, small guy.
And the other guy was a big guy. So Andre Aghasi’s father confronted the guy who was harassing Kirk’s girlfriend and Kirk. So he says, I’m going to punch you. And the guy looked at him, he got scared.
They thought this guy may really be the real thing. And so he walked away. So Kirk was very impressed by this guy who came to his aid. And that led to offering him a job at the hotel.
And then the reason I remember this, because when the hotel burned down, all the workers were left without a job and without income. And Kirk told Andre’s father, you come every month, end of every month, whether you’re working or not working, and I’ll pay you your full salary as long as it takes to rebuild the hotel.
Hovik: In fact, Andre, of course, wasn’t born then, but I think Andre’s middle name is Kirk in honor of that friendship.
Harut: That’s right. I did meet later on Andre when he was a tennis champion. at UCLA Volvo Tennis Tournament. I also ran into Andre’s father at, of all places, the MGM Grand Hotel. He was still working there years later.
And I had a funny incident. I know the subject is Kirk, but there’s an incident with Andre. Andre, for years, would never tell publicly that he was of Armenian origin or Armenian. And he had blonde hair and an all-American kid.
He probably didn’t want to come across like a foreigner. Some Armenians have that problem of acting like they’re natives and born here. So, of course, when I saw that on TV, he would never say he’s Armenian. It bothered me.
So when it was the UCLA Volvo Tennis Tournament, I went to UCLA to the tennis tournament. And when the match was over, we went to a hall where he gave a press conference. So I waited… for several questions. All the questions were about, you know, did the ball fall within the line or outside the line?
Did it hit the net? How did you feel? Tennis-related questions. Of course, I didn’t know much about tennis.
I had no interest in tennis. So after waiting for five, six questions about tennis… I raised my hand and he said, yes, go ahead. So I said, I didn’t want to say are you Armenian, I said, is it true that you’re of Armenian origin?
The minute I said Armenian origin, the word Armenian came out of my mouth. All of a sudden, from the back of the hall, Andre’s father was there, which I didn’t realize. He screamed at me. He said, leave my son alone.
And if you want anything to say, come and see me. So, you know, I’m not a fighter or a boxer. He’s a boxer. But I don’t know, for some crazy reason, you know, once in a while I do crazy things.
I said, okay, since he says, come and see me. So I walked towards him. to confront him. I don’t know what I would do if I caught up with him, but there was a door in the back of the hall. He opened the door and ran out.
He got scared of me. Anyway, years later, when I was checking in at the MGM Grand at the VIP section, he was passing by, and it was years later. He looks at my face. He goes, I know you, don’t I?
I didn’t want to bring up that old episode or anything. We’re supposed to punch each other so I said uh yeah I think I think once we met and just ended the subject. And so anyway coming back to Kirk so Kirk became very uh successful, he took a lot of risks in Las Vegas he At that time, Las Vegas was dominated by the mafia. And you couldn’t do any business unless you played ball with the mafia and gave part of your earnings.
But Kirk was a very tough guy. He was not scared by the mafia as a boxer. And so they basically left him alone, surprisingly. And he and Howard Hughes were the two main well-known names in Vegas. and so he became successful, he at some point, he owned I think 50% of all the casinos in Vegas I don’t know how many there was like 17 of them or something he had and so then then he moved to Los Angeles, Rodeo Drive, he had an office so my first meeting with him happened in 1989 on December 1.
That was almost a year after the earthquake in Armenia.
Asbed: Right.
Harut: So I was then just a publisher, editor of the California Courier. So I reported the news, all the stuff that’s happening in Armenia with the earthquake. Armenians from all over the world were trying to assist and bring aid to Armenia. There were a lot of conversations, a lot of discussions, and it always bothered me that there was not a unified coalition of Armenian organizations, the community, so that we can all help together in an organized fashion.
So that was, Earthquake was in 1988, December 7th. So several months passed like that, and I kept hearing arguments back and forth, people putting each other down. Each group wanted to be the main group helping Armenia and badmouthing the other group. So until it was, I think it was May 89, when all of a sudden I got an invitation to go to St.
John’s Church on Vine in Hollywood, where they invited every single Armenian organization in LA to come and join and see how we can all work together. So that was a nice surprise. I, of course, as an editor, I’m going to report about this unique meeting. I went there and just sat down and waited.
The meeting started. And within a few minutes of meeting starting, I don’t know who started it, but they started attacking each other and criticizing each other. And a few minutes later, they all got up and left. So that wasn’t a good start for unity.
But it made a lasting impression on me because I was thinking about unity. But I was a very young guy then, and I thought those who are going to unite the community are going to be the elderly, wise, old people who have experience in the community. So I didn’t think of taking any action myself. But when I saw months and months were passing and nothing was happening, I thought, well, I’m going to try something since nobody’s doing anything.
I think I also got the word that at some point the word arrived in here that Armenia needed antibiotics. I’m sorry, syringes for antibiotics. And there’s only, I think, two companies still now who make syringes in the United States. One of them is in New Jersey.
Now, syringes are very cheap. They’re like a few pennies. They’re different sizes. So I got hold of the owner of the factory in New Jersey and talked to him because every Armenian was looking for a way of helping.
And everybody was looking for syringes now all of a sudden and nothing else. So when I talked to the guy, the guy said, sir, I didn’t know anything about Armenians until a couple of days ago when an Armenian called me and said, there’s a big earthquake and Armenians and Armenians need syringes. Ask me if I can donate 100,000 syringes. And I told him, yes, I’ll be happy to, even though he knew nothing about Armenians, just a nice guy.
And then he said, I hung up the phone and an hour later, my phone rings again. I pick up the phone and some Armenian guy and he says, oh, I’m calling to ask you to donate syringes. And the guy says, I already just donated an hour ago, a hundred thousand syringes. And the Armenian guy asked him, who did you donate to?
And he gave the name of one of the major organizations. And this Armenian guy said, oh, no, you made a big mistake. These guys are going to steal your syringes and sell them. Don’t trust them.
Don’t give it to them. We’re the only trustworthy Armenian organizations. We’re the major one, et cetera. Give it to us.
And the guy says, listen, I don’t know anything about Armenian organizations group. The guy asked me for syringes. I said, yes. Sorry, I can’t help you.
I’m not going to give you a second hundred thousand. Hang up the phone. And he says, in another hour, a third group called and badmouthing the first two. And same story again.
So the guy had a very bad taste in his mouth. So when I heard that, I thought, this is terrible. This is awful. Awful that there’s a disaster in Armenia and Armenians here are fighting with each other, badmouthing each other.
That’s because there’s not a central group that brings everybody under one roof. So I decided, I made a plan that I’m going to go and talk to Kirk. Up until then, I had met him just once years ago when Deukmejian was governor. And there was a fundraiser for Armenian millionaires.
There was about several, maybe 10 of them.
Asbed: As political donors for Deukmejian?
Harut: Yeah, for Deukmejian’s campaign. And there were 10 of them. So I’m not a millionaire. I’m just a regular guy.
But one of the guys there was the publisher, original publisher of the California courier, George Mason. So George said, why don’t you come too? Even though there were no journalists there, no media, and just people with money. So I walked in, and right away I recognized Kirk standing about 10 feet away from me.
So I just wanted to say hello to him. I started walking towards him, and before I even reached him, he said, hi Harut. I was shocked. that a man I’ve never seen in my life, and he would know me by face, recognize me, and know my name. So I was curious.
I said, how do you know my name? He goes, oh, I’m a subscriber to The Courier. I read your weekly editorials and there’s your picture with the article. That’s how I recognize you.
So I said, thank you very much.
Hovik: So it seems that he has some exposure to Armenian community stuff at that time. I mean, even though There is a little reference of him being actively involved. How aware was he of Armenian community comings and goings and how active was he in the Armenian community before that meeting with you and his decision to donate to your organization?
Harut: No, he was not active at all. He did not go to any Armenian events. And very rare, later on, he went to one or two of them. I invited to something we can talk later on.
And by nature, this may surprise some people, he was a very shy person. He was just very humble, shy. If you see him in the street, you would think he’s just a regular guy, maybe a homeless guy, and just feel sorry for him. He was not one of those that he walked so bragging and holding his shoulders high.
So he knew some Armenians. He knew Governor Deukmejian. And he knew a few other Armenians. He knew George Mason, the publisher of the newspaper, because George Mason was a stockbroker and he handled a lot of the stocks that Kirk was selling, buying.
He was very active in the stock market.
Asbed: George was an Armenian?
Harut: George Mason, his Armenian name was George Elmasyan. He’s the one who founded the California Courier in 1958 in Fresno. So he hardly ever mingled with the Armenian community. He never went to Armenian events. and he just had few friends both Armenian and non-Armenian he was a tennis player so he would play tennis, sometimes at George Mason’s house, with George and then he had non-Armenian friends who were tennis players He would play tennis with them.
So that was the situation. So in 1989, several months after that disastrous meeting in Hollywood that collapsed, so I decided to approach Kirk. And, of course, Kirk hardly ever met with anybody. He would not even… accept to meet with people, not because he was arrogant or wealthy.
He was just shy. And so I called George Mason. I said, George, can you arrange a meeting with Kirk for me, I have an idea, and George is very reluctant to arrange meetings for for Kirk because if the person he arranged the meeting says the wrong thing and upsets Kirk it’s going to have a negative effect on on his business, George’s business with Kirk so he was very reluctant, he hardly ever arranged a meeting. But for whatever reason, which to this day, I don’t know why, George not only said, yes, I’ll do it, but he didn’t even ask me what your idea is.
Because, you know, he can judge whether it’s worth it or not, but he didn’t ask me. So he arranged and he called me back. He says, Kirk is waiting for you in his office tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. OK, so I prepared my plan and, you know, I didn’t know much about him.
I just knew general things, as people know about Kirk being a wealthy guy. That’s all. Didn’t know anything about his character. So I walked over at 10 a.m. in his office and in the conference room.
He was sitting there and he said, what is your idea? I said, I would like to. I made a list of seven largest Armenian American organizations in the United States. And I would like them to all form a coalition and have them all work together so that we can all help Armenia and not badmouth each other or compete with each other or duplicate each other’s efforts.
So if there’s a word that Armenia needs antibiotics, for example, Without that coalition, everybody in the world was trying to send antibiotics to Armenia a million times more than they need, and then nothing else was being sent. So if we have a coalition, you can divide the labor and responsibility. You can say, you send antibiotics, I send this and that, etc. So I gave him the name of the seven organizations, and he says, you know…
Have these groups agreed to work together? I’ve heard that Armenians don’t work together, which is correct. He was right. He had heard it right.
I said, no, I haven’t talked to anybody because I want to talk to you first. I don’t want to use your name without having your authorization. So he was happy with that. And he said, okay, what is your plan?
Knowing that he used to be a pilot, and owned an airline. He had the MGM Grand Air, which was a luxury airline. So I said, we will fly the humanitarian supplies by cargo planes. So he liked that also because he could relate to planes.
And the fact that I didn’t go to him and say, I want to help Armenia, give me a million dollars or something personal. I said, I’m just going to form a want to bring the groups together. And so he liked that. And so I asked him, he said, my answer is yes, I will fund the airlifts.
He said, I will donate the money for the cargo planes, but you find the supplies to fill the plane. So without knowing anything about what I’m doing, because I’m a journalist, I’m not an I’ve never done humanitarian work or fill cargo planes. I naively said, yes, I’ll fill the plane, not knowing I’m going to fill the plane and not having any money either because he was going to only pay the empty cargo plane. So he said, yes, I’ll do it.
And I asked him, I said, I came to ask you for us to send one cargo plane to Armenia. What is your wish? He said, no, no, no. He says, just start with one and continue sending cargo plane after cargo plane.
I was shocked. I said, how long? He said, as long as Armenia needs help. Wow.
I mean, that was beyond anything I had dreamed about achieving in that meeting. And as I was getting up to leave, he says, I know Armenians don’t like to work together. So when you call the seven group leaders and they don’t want to join, You call me and you and I will do this without them. I said, well, I don’t know.
I will call you. Let me go back to my office in Glendale. I’ll call the heads of the seven groups and then let you know. So I came back to Glendale, made a phone call.
It probably took me an hour to reach all seven leaders. on both coasts, New York, Washington, L.A. And all seven of them said, yes, we’ll be happy to join. I didn’t realize it at the time, but later on, thinking back on reflection, I realized the reason they all immediately agreed to join, because I mentioned that Kirk has approved the project.
Asbed: It’s something.
Harut: Yeah, so that sort of was the driving force. And none of them, of course, had known Kirk or got any donation from Kirk. So this was the first. So they probably thought, well, we’ll get close to Kirk this way and we’ll know him and he’ll know us.
So how many flights to date? Well, the United Armenian Fund, so we started with first flight. First flight left LAX on December 8, 1989, seven days later. By then, we filled the paperwork with the attorney general for an IRS for a nonprofit organization, charity.
They approved it. and I invited all seven heads of the organizations from around the country to come to Glendale we had our first board meeting and we had our first flight now the first flight was uh I will answer your question in a second the first flight was was easy and the next few flights were easy to fill because if you recall a lot of Armenian organizations that collected a lot of supplies canned foods and clothing and different things. And they were holding them in the church halls, school halls, club halls, etc. But they didn’t have the money to fly to Armenia.
So right away, when Kirk arranged a cargo plane, which was at the time, I think, was a little over $100,000. It was much more expensive later on. And it was a DC-8 plane, rather smaller size. So I contacted all Armenian groups.
They all had supplies. They brought it. And I did something without even thinking the consequences, which was positive consequences. I filled one third of the plane in LA.
And I got on the plane myself. flying on the cargo plane. The first time in my life I fly on a cargo plane. Nothing like a passenger plane. And flew the plane, flew to, I think it was New Jersey, and I think Newark Airport.
And I let the Armenian groups at the East Coast know that the plane is coming and we have space in the plane. I mean, I had more supplies in LA, but I did not take all the supplies. And I said, get some supplies from the East Coast organizations and you have one third of the plane to fill. So I wanted to engage the Armenian organizations in the East Coast, not just the West Coast.
And then the reason I filled by both coast two thirds, I left one third empty because I wanted to make another stop in Paris. And I let the Paris Armenian groups know that as a plane, one third empty. So they filled the last third. And so we had a full plane and we landed in Yerevan Airport.
At that time Karekin Catholicos used to be the bishop of Yerevan so I contacted him and he arranged trucks and workers and we took the supplies to the earthquake zone and distributed to the people who were living in the middle of the winter snow on the ground they were living in tents freezing freezing and we handed them i handed them the the boxes directly to their hands there was no middlemen or intermediaries or we didn’t just leave it there And it was a very emotional trip. The people who got the box, somebody just walks in their tent and hands them a box of supplies. Totally unexpected. They start crying, and I start crying.
I even have shivers right now telling the story. Anyway, I came back. I reported to Kirk that we made a successful trip, distributed a plane load. What are your wishes?
He said, continue. So I continued. I sent several more flights with the supplies that were in the various halls so that went well and then in few months all the supplies ended there were no more supplies and uh so now I didn’t know what to do the uh i didn’t have the money nor the organizations wanted to give a large amount of money to buy supplies. So I was wondering whether we should just shut it down and because we can’t continue anymore.
But it was a shame because we had an empty cargo plane available to us as often as we wanted. And it’s like a mother having a child and then throwing away the baby because there’s no food. So by a miraculous chance, as I was thinking about what to do, I got an invitation from the State Department saying, we’re inviting all charities in the United States to come for an all-day conference to talk about charity.
And I thought, well, since I know nothing about charity, let me fly to Washington spend a couple of hundred dollars on an air ticket and see if there’s anything useful I learned so I went there i sat there there were like 800 people from all over the country I don’t remember seeing any other Armenian even though there are several Armenian charities but I don’t know for some reason they weren’t there so I sat there all day and listening and of course you know then there was a break and during the break the guy next to me was an American guy by the name of Larry Rose and I said hello to him and said hello and I asked him what do you do he says oh I’m the manager of a major charity in Georgia, in the state of Georgia, and we get millions of dollars of supplies from manufacturers And then we donate it to charities for their use.
I thought, wow, this is a miracle. I’m looking for supplies. And this guy is the head of a multi-million dollar supply company charity. So I asked him, I said, I just formed a new charity with our supplies.
We don’t know where to get supplies. Would you give us some supplies? And he said, of course. Tell me what you need.
And if we have it in our warehouse, we’ll donate it to you. And I had the boldness to tell him, okay, I can’t give you a list of what Armenia needs. Armenia needs everything. It’s just a former Soviet, well, at that time it was still Soviet.
It was collapsing, of course, the Soviet Union back then. And I said, the country needs everything. And there was an earthquake and the economy is bad and all that. So I said, can we do something different this time?
You tell me what’s in your warehouse and I will tell you what I need from your warehouse. He goes, we never work like that. We always ask what you need, and we give it to them if they may have it. But he says, I’m flying back tomorrow to Georgia.
I’ll ask the president of the company if he’s willing to work like that. I said, fine. And here’s my business card. So I left back to LA.
The next day, he went to Georgia. And then three days later, I got a big fat FedEx envelope in the mail. that I opened it it was hundreds of pages of all kinds of supplies in their warehouse he gave me the list of everything in the warehouse a giant inventory yeah I mean something they never done before and fortunately it worked so of course I’m neither a doctor nor a specialist in humanitarian aid. I didn’t know what to pick. I didn’t want to pick on behalf of Armenia.
So I took that envelope of hundreds of pages and flew to Armenia, went and saw the government ministers and asked them to mark whatever they want. And next to it, there’s a quantity, whatever quantity they want. So they marked a lot of things, and they kept asking me, what do we have to pay for this? I said, nothing.
It’s free, and the plane, Kerkorian pays for the plane, so you pay nothing. You just receive it. Just tell me what you need. So they marked a whole bunch of stuff, so I came back, gave the list to them, and because they have so much stuff, I decided instead of the next plane to leave from LAX, the next plane I chartered from Georgia, from Atlanta, Georgia, and then…
It was right next to the warehouse. So they filled the plane and flew to Armenia and I went along with the plane. Anyway, so we did that from 1989 to 2015. we sent in that period 159 airlifts, cargo planes. Now, along the way, as I got more and more supplies, oh, I must also add that when I found out about this charity that gives aid to other charities.
I never heard of such a thing. And when I heard of them, I thought, oh, maybe there are others like these people who also give assistance to charities so indeed i found out there are several like that around the country so I contacted every one of them and they all agreed to donate to us so now i have so many so many supplies donated from several sources each one of them giving a lot of stuff so so we we uh We took… The DC-8 was too small by then. I asked Kirk if we can get a larger plane.
He said yes. So we got… I don’t know. I think it was…
Asbed: Was he surprised that you needed a bigger plane?
Harut: Well, I don’t know. He didn’t say anything that was surprised. He always kept his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t a man of many words.
So we got a larger plane. I think it was… C-131. Then we went all the way.
Then I started doing real crazy things. We had so many supplies that I called the State Department and I asked them if they can donate the largest plane Air Force has and cargo plane. They said they need to ask the White House. They checked with the White House.
They called back and said, yes, you can have the this largest Air Force plane.
Asbed: They have those C-130s, I think.
Harut: Yeah, C-130, yeah. Pretty huge planes. And it’s giant. It’s like a football field inside.
And so we send supplies a few times on that huge plane. It didn’t cost Kirk anything. I mean, I was trying to save money for Kirk, even though Kirk never wanted me to save money for him. But it was just a challenge, which I did.
And I went along with the plane. and uh and at some point in in the winter they needed heaters, because it was freezing temperature and I called to buy some heaters nobody was producing heaters in the winter they produce them in the summer and they sell them by the winter So I found a company in South Korea that produced heaters. So I asked them if they could produce heaters for us working seven days a week. And they said yes. So I asked the State Department if I can get a couple of C-130s from the US Air Force that will go to South Korea and pick up the supplies and fly them to Armenia.
And surprisingly, they said yes. So between 1989, the first flight, to 2015, we had sent to Armenia 159 cargo plane loads. Basically 10 a year. Yeah.
I mean, almost on average, like once a month or so. Sometimes more than a month, sometimes more than one month, sometimes less. But after a few years, we realized that not everything is that urgent to be flown by air and spend all the money, again, saving Kirk money. We decided to send it by containers, sea containers.
So the containers went from East Coast or West Coast, depending where the supplies were. They were loaded. They went through the ocean, then Mediterranean, then Black Sea. Then they went to the port of Poti in Georgia, and then from there by rail to Yerevan.
So we sent, I don’t remember now, but several thousand containers. and so it’s much more than probably 159 plane loads in between 89 and 115 we sent to armenia 640 million dollars of humanitarian aid most of it we got for free from American charities says sometimes we had to pay a small fee a handling fee and of course we had to pay for the container, I’m not sure right now I know kirk paid for the for the planes uh I have to check my records to see if also paid for the containers or not but that’s not that important. So 2015 uh Kerkorian passed away at the age of 98. In the meantime I went to to Armenia with Kirk. I think it was 1999, 98.
Asbed: I was actually going to ask you, how did you progress from the planes and stuff to going and meeting with the president of Armenia and arranging for the much bigger donations?
Harut: I went with most of the flights early on. And at some point at the time, the president was Levon Der Bedrosian. And I met him. Of course, we had a few arguments.
There were also some rumors even then starting and the president had heard some rumor that we had brought some useless stuff, which wasn’t true. He didn’t know anything about it. I’m the one who got the supplies and I knew everything. I had a list of everything.
And it went through customs. They inspected everything. So that was the first time I met the president of Armenia, any president. I met him a couple of more times after that along the airlifts.
And then later on, when Kocharyan became president, and Sarkisian became president. I met them just about on every trip I went to Armenia. I spent several hours on each trip with the president, particularly because in 1999, Kirk and I went to Armenia, and that was his first trip to Armenia. And we met with Kocharyan, President Kocharyan at the time.
And Kerkorian told Kocharyan, we are sending humanitarian aid, but Mr. President, is there anything else we can do for Armenia? And without waiting to be asked, he was just offering to do more. And Kucharyan surprisingly said, yeah, we need $100 million for various infrastructure projects.
And of course, it wasn’t up to me to say anything. I was just listening.
Hovik: Was these more specific on which infrastructure projects?
Harut: I heard it was related to the north-south highway. Exactly, I remember now. It was a north-south highway joining Georgia to Iran, building a highway that crossed Armenia from north to south.
Hovik: Sorry, I want to ask this because It seemed like that plan was already in the minds of Armenian leaders as something that needs to be implemented so that when you asked him, he volunteered that information, right? Is that correct? And how developed was that idea that we need a stronger infrastructure, especially north-south communication, especially as politically important as it is right now? And it still is not fully done.
Harut: Yeah, well, I wasn’t aware back then there was such an idea. Of course, I realized the value of it. But I was just listening between Kocharyan and Kerkorian. And what surprised me, but I kept my mouth shut, is that Kocharyan was asking Kerkorian for $100 million without presenting a single piece of paper, a proposal, a timeline, who’s going to do it, how are we going to do it, etc.
And Kerkorian, because he was very emotional, Right away he said, yes, you got it. So he just donated $100 million on the spot. So I leaned over to his ear. I didn’t want the president to hear this.
I said, Kirk, I just want you to let you know that the highway connecting Iran to Armenia and to Georgia, we’re going to have a problem. Because at the time, there were all sorts of restrictions on business with Iran. And because we’re a charity controlled by the federal government, we had to get approval in advance not to violate U.S. laws. And Kirk said, don’t worry about it.
And then he said to me, he said, Harut, let me tell you something. If I had listened to attorneys and accountants, I would never amount to anything. So I just tried to give him my piece of advice. But of course, the president was very happy.
He got what he wanted. And the next day we went and saw Kirk and I went to see Vartan Oskanian. He had already prepared the press release to be sent to the international media announcing it, and being the editor that I am, when Vartan put two copies of the press release in front of me and Kirk, and Kirk didn’t even look at it, and I immediately took a pen and started editing the press release. And…
After about five minutes of editing, Kirk realized that I’m doing something. I’m not saying anything. He said, what are you doing? I said, I’m editing.
He said, no, no, no. Just don’t edit anything. Just let it be. So I said, OK.
But there were some changes to be made. But anyway, so we came back. Bob Dole had a major lobbying firm at the time, and Kirk knew Bob Dole and Elizabeth Dole particularly, and he contacted Bob Dole to draft a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, for the project and submitted to the IRS and the federal government for approval. So…
They finally, after several weeks, of course, they charge a huge fortune for this work. And I don’t want to scare anybody, but I think the cost ends up being, over a one-year period, $1 million. which is a huge amount of money. But of course, my million is not a big amount for Kirk, and he’d rather do something proper and legal than take a chance. So nothing got done during that period because we were waiting for approval.
And after one year of preparing it and sending it to the IRS, and I think it was the Justice Department, The answer came, no, absolutely not. You cannot spend any money that has to do with Iran. So they rejected the project and the MOU.
Hovik: Is there more detail why the State Department was so harsh at that time?
Harut: Well, because they had sanctions. They didn’t want anybody to… But it’s an infrastructure that’s in Armenia itself, not… Yeah, but if they connected to Iran, there would be business trade back and forth.
The road is not going to be empty. There’ll be goods transported both ways. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t remember if they gave any explanation or not.
I don’t remember. That was 26 years ago.
Asbed: And frankly, I don’t even expect a rational answer.
Harut: Yeah. They probably sanctioned. They said, sanctioned, you cannot do it. Probably they said that.
So, of course, I wasn’t going to call Kirk and say, I told you so, because it was bad enough, the news. I didn’t want to make it worse for us. Of course, one way to avoid the problem with Iran was to build a highway from Georgia throughout Armenia and just stop like 10 miles short of Iran and then use Armenian funds or other donated funds.
Hovik: I mean, that’s my point. But it seems like that even the slightest possibility of linking Armenia with Iran was shot down by the State Department.
Harut: Right. Because it was Iran. The minute they heard Iran, it’s out. And in fact, a lot of companies that did business internationally, not just Iran, they had to fill a form every year reporting who are they doing business with, what country, who.
And there were lists of people, not just Iran was on the list. There were individuals in Iran. Some of the leaders were on the blacklist. You couldn’t do business with them either, even if they were in a different country.
So you have to submit that list, your proposal to them. Anyway, so that $100 million initially went nowhere, and it was very upsetting after a year of delay, not just when the project was delayed for a year. So then I was going back and forth to Armenia, and… Then we got in, and we were talking to Kocharyan and to Vartan Oskanian, who was a foreign minister, and it turned out that now they need much more than $100 million.
So they presented a new list of infrastructure projects, which included roads and highways, Asphalting streets in Yerevan and other cities. They wanted money to renovate different museums and cultural centers. They wanted to build housing in the earthquake zone. Thousands of apartment units, most of them were collapsed.
People were living in tents or metal containers. And they also asked $20 million for loans for small businesses to encourage business people and export import. So the whole thing added up to $242 million.
Asbed: How many years was that project overall? Like about 10 years?
Harut: Yeah, it ended up being, you’re right, it ended up being about 10 years to do all that. So we started with, first we started with the loans. I mean, doing major projects in Armenia, something never done before with the government in Armenia and their managers and their officials, they didn’t know how to handle big projects like that. No one had given them that kind of money.
One of the things I did was, when we prepared the new MOU for these projects, and we sent the MOU to Armenia to be signed by them to be legal and official, I went and saw Kocharyan, and I told him, I said, Mr. President, I’m a little concerned about you signing this MOU because this project is going to go beyond your years of presidency. So if a new president comes, he may not comply with any of the conditions we have put in this MOU. You signed it, but you’re no longer there.
A new president will come. So I said, I have a solution for this problem. He goes, what is it? I said, what we’ll do is we’ll add a new law in Armenia and the department has to approve that says that on exceptional situations where a foreign donor is giving a very large amount of money to Armenia, that MOU becomes an international treaty.
Of course, international treaties are signed between two countries, never between an organization and a country. But I told Kocharyan that we need to write a wording, and I wrote the wording of the new law myself. But it fell under the category of international treaties. I think it was 0.8 of the Constitution.
And I put 8A, and I wrote, in case there’s a large amount, et cetera, it should be treated as an international treaty. And I told the president, you don’t have to do anything, Mr. President. I’ll go to the parliament myself.
Take care of it. So he said, fine, go ahead. I went to the parliament and gave it to the chairman of the parliament. He put it to a vote.
I sat there and it passed unanimously. And Armenia has a little unusual law. I don’t know where it comes from, maybe from Soviet time. Whenever they pass a law, they vote on it.
That’s not the end of the approval. They have to bring it the next day and pass it a second time. So it’s called second approval or something. And so the next day I came back to the parliament.
They put to a vote again. Again, it passed unanimously. So now it was an international treaty. That means that it’s not up to the president to abide by the conditions.
Asbed: Is that law still there?
Harut: Yeah, still there. And to my knowledge, that’s the only unique thing that we’ve done that hasn’t been done by anybody. No other donor has done it. No other organization done it.
So it’s still there. Anyway, so we did that. And so we started the project. And of course, Kirk appointed me to be in charge of the project in addition to being in charge of the United Armenian Fund.
And I was going back and forth to Armenia, meeting with the president. And discussing how to do this is something I knew nothing myself about. So one of the things we need to do is get a whole bunch of contractors and start giving the projects to different contractors. So the contractors had to bid on the project and it says a written bid.
And so we reviewed the bids. I reviewed it and the The army and government reviewed it. And I opened the Lincy office in Armenia and hired a local guy to be a manager of their local office. So I benefited from their knowledge and expertise.
So initially, it was a big problem because, let’s say, we had a 10-mile road to be asphalted for a couple of million dollars. The bid would go to five contractors. And I didn’t know this because I didn’t have the experience. And then we would see that one of them was considerably lower priced than the others.
And we had no reason to suspect the quality. So we gave it to that guy. Later on, as I learned how these things are done in Armenia, I found out that when you have three, four, five contractors, They get together before they submit the bid and say, okay, the first one, you underbid it, you get it. Next one, I will underbid it.
I get the second contract and we’ll get the third one, fourth one. So they agree with each other how much to bid. So the minute I learned that, I immediately opened the bid to 50 contractors. I invited every company in Armenia in construction to bid on it.
And it’s much more difficult for them to arrange 50 contractors.
Asbed: It’s tougher to game.
Harut: Yeah, to game it. And by the time the 50th one comes, there’s no project left to be done by them. Anyway, so we did. It was a lot of hard work.
It’s, you know, Armenia being 12 hours ahead of us. Nighttime here is daytime there. So I spent… many, many nights, almost all night awake, talking to contractors, to government people, uh, to my office. And, that’s in addition to when I traveled there and, uh, But we got it done.
We got everything done. Everything was done. We spent the whole amount of money, 242 million. Anytime I heard the slightest rumor about corruption or somebody, you know, taking some money from the project.
I personally intervened and there were contractors that I canceled their contracts because they were doing illegal things. There were contractors that I complained to the president to charge them in court for corruption. The one thing that protected us was that we never gave money in advance to the contractors. We told them, okay, you finish the project, let’s say 10 miles of asphalting.
You finish the project, and then we give you, when you start the work, we come and inspect the quality of the work. And I had to hire people who know about asphalting and what was in it. And then when they finished the project, we gave them 90% of what we had committed to them. We kept the 10%.
And the reason was that sometimes there are… What’s the word? Defects. Yeah, that’s the word I was looking at.
There are defects in the project that you don’t see right away. that only later on when it rains or whatever time passes or from the hot sun, the asphalt starts deforming, et cetera. Then you find out they didn’t do a good job. So the 10% we waited till like a year passed and we inspected again a year later. If everything was perfect, then we paid them the remaining 10%.
Asbed: Is that how you constructed the contract basically that they knew?
Harut: Yeah, that was in advance. It was agreed on. Otherwise they wouldn’t get the contract.
Asbed: Did these people have the capital to actually do the project upfront and then you pay them in installments, let’s say?
Harut: I really don’t know. I assume they got loans from banks or somebody, or they had money. I don’t think there were too many very small mom and pop type contractors. They were probably major contractors.
But it wasn’t my issue, so I didn’t really get involved with it. I was trying to protect the money from being misused by the contractors.
Hovik: Harut, We’re talking about a 20-year span, I guess, from the end of the 1980s until, I guess, early 2010s when the projects ended. But… There’s an episode, I think, when he, it’s even in the book, The Gambler, by William C. Rampel, The Gambler, how penniless dropout, Kirk Kerkorian became the greatest dealmaker in capitalist history.
There are several chapters dedicated to Kirk’s involvement in Armenia. And I believe the first time that Kirk actually visited Armenia was in 1999? Yeah. Yeah, so can you tell us more about that visit?
I think it was his first time ever visiting. And you were involved in that episode as well.
Harut: Well, that’s a very interesting visit at the risk of lengthening this interview. I happened to… You know, Kirk was very quiet. He never announced his plans or his…
Whatever he did, he would never plan in advance. He would just get up in the morning and say, OK, today I’m going to do this. He wouldn’t tell any of his staff. So I happened to be visiting Armenia, one of my many Armenian trips.
And I was flying back Saturday morning. Yerevan, London, British Airways, and then London, LA. And it was Friday, and I was having breakfast with some very prominent American Armenians over there, and the word got around that Kirk, tomorrow, is coming to Armenia. And they said, Harut, Kirk is coming to Armenia, and tomorrow you’re leaving Armenia?
I said, well… Yes, I’m leaving because Kirk never told me he’s coming. He never asked me to be there. I’ll be happy to accompany him if he wants, but I’m not going to invite myself.
So the next day, as planned, I flew to London and the flight was delayed. So I checked in a hotel. The next day, I was going to continue flying Sunday to L.A. And all of a sudden, my phone rang.
And it was Alex Yemenijian, who was a board member of Lincy. And he was also the chairman at the time of the United Armenian Fund. And he called me. He said, has Kirk called you?
I said, no. He called my house and my wife gave him my number in the hotel. Because I had called my wife and said, I’m here. So he said, Kirk is coming to Armenia.
He says, in fact, he’s on his way. So I said, I know nothing about it. He said, well, right now he’s in New York. Let’s have a three-way conference and talk about the trip.
So I said, OK. So all of a sudden, I’m now on a conference call with Kirk, Alex Yemenijian, Kirk in New York, Alex in LA, and me in London. And we’re discussing. And I think during the conversation, one of us said to him, oh, We didn’t know you were going.
You were going. That really upset him. He says, what do you mean? I have to tell you everything I’m doing in advance?
He wasn’t happy with that. So I said, do you want me to do anything? I’m in London already. And he said, well, if you come to Shannon, Ireland, By 5 a.m., we’re talking about 10 p.m.
London time. He’s asking me to be in Shannon Ireland by 5 a.m. He says, my plane is going to stop in Shannon for refueling. You can get on the plane and we can go to Armenia together.
Asbed: He was on a charter? Or his own plane?
Harut: Or his own plane. His own private jet, yeah. So I, of course, I said, I said, I’ll be there. And he says, make sure you’re there.
And I wasn’t sure why he said, make sure you’re there. I didn’t realize because I didn’t know nothing what I’m going to get into. So I hang up the phone. And I called the receptionist downstairs.
I said, I would like to go to Shannon. And he says, sorry, there was the World Cup going on back then in France. And all the, oh, first of all, at night, London Heathrow Airport is shut down. So you can’t fly anywhere.
So that was the first problem, first major problem. And then I said, OK, can I charter a small private jet to fly me to Shannon? And they said all private jets are chartered to France because of the World Cup. There are several stadiums in different parts of France that are going from place to place.
So finally I called a wealthy Armenian friend in London. He found a small plane that I could charter right away. I mean, I need to get there right away. So they came from Liverpool or something.
So it was not that far. And the small plane, it had no engine. It was just… propeller so the airport allowed the plane to land because it didn’t make any noise because it didn’t disturb the London people so… oh before I asked for the small jet a small plane I asked the receptionist stupidly is there a boat that will take me to Shannon, is there a train he said no there’s no train it’s He says, yeah, it will take all day to get there. So finally, I stumbled on the small plane.
So I got there and my plane was a little bit late. I was afraid that Kirk being very anxious and impatient. by character, that he’s highly impatient, that he would just arrive and then leave without me. And fortunately, when I asked the airport, they said, oh, there’s bad weather on the way. His flight is delayed.
So I finally arrived, and I went and got on the plane, and we flew together to Armenia. You’re right. It was his first trip to Armenia. And at the airport, there was the president, and there were a whole bunch of media.
And Kirk, when he was a child, five-year-old or something, he didn’t know a word of English back then when he was a little kid. He spoke in Armenian with his parents. So I never heard him speak Armenian, of course, after decades. But when we were in Armenia and the journalists started asking questions in Armenia, he started answering them in Armenian.
Which was shocking. Of course, you can’t answer very sophisticated, complicated things, but things like this, you know, you would say. So anyway, so we went from there. They took us to a, next to Madenataran, there’s a governmental palace for heads of state, which has been shut down for years and hasn’t been used.
So they opened it for Kirk and they brought a crew to do various things for us. So we went in there and… Of course, it was an old building. There was no air conditioning.
And it was hot as hell. It was in late June. And so we told them we can’t sleep. So they brought these huge fans. like three feet wide each with electricity.
We plugged it in. It made so much noise that you couldn’t sleep, the fan. And so somehow we fell asleep. And then Kirk’s room was…
Each room is like a… huge, like a suite, the room. It’s not a little room because it was a palace. So Kirk’s room was just across the hall from me, just facing me. All of a sudden he comes and knocks on my door.
He says, come over. I want to show you something. So I thought, okay, what happened now? So I go to his room.
He shows me the bed and he shows me the pillow. The pillow was roughly about four feet wide, four feet long. It’s a huge pillow. It took half the bed.
It covered half the bed. He says, look now, how am I going to sleep on this bed? He put his head on the pillow. His legs were hanging. on the floor, on the end of the bed.
So anyways, so that was the least of our problems. So the next morning we got up and somebody again knocking on my door and I opened the door. I see a whole bunch of workers from that palace. And they said, well, Sassounian, we need your help.
We have a serious problem. And I said, what is the problem? He says, come with us to the kitchen. So I went to the kitchen.
I said, what’s the problem? He says, well, Kirk has asked for a glass of hot milk and a glass of cold milk. And I see the oven is working, the stove. and they’re boiling milk to give him hot milk. He says, we have hot milk, but we don’t have cold milk.
I said, are you guys fools? The milk was cold before you boiled it. Of course you had cold milk. So I said, bring a pan with some ice, and we poured part of the boiled milk into the pan with ice and made it cold milk.
And then, so we took it to Kirk. And… Kirk said, oh, I brought with me, he said, cereal. And he likes to eat, like most Americans, cereal and milk in the morning.
So he says, ask for a bowl so I can put the cereal in. So I didn’t know how to say bowl. And I know plate is bnag or aman. But bowl is, I didn’t know.
So I told the workers, khorung aman. I made up some words. I don’t know what they say over there. So I went back to my room, and five minutes later, Kirk knocks on my door and says, come over.
I want to show you something. I went over there, and he says, look. I look. In the middle of the room, there’s this huge jar that’s about five feet tall.
When I said, they brought the jar. And Kirk said, here’s what I’m going to do now. I’m going to pour the cereal in the jar. I’m going to pour the milk in the jar.
I’m going to climb inside the jar and eat the cereal. Of course, he was kidding. so oh then the workers came back to me and and showing me a piece of paper he said uh we have a problem and I said what’s the problem he says kirk wants several things to bring for breakfast besides the cereal that he had and they showed me the the paper it had things like kumquat some exotic Hawaiian-type fruits, which they never even heard of. It doesn’t exist in Armenia. So they said, we don’t know what these things are.
We don’t know where to find them. What do we do? We don’t want to say no to Kirk. I said, it’s OK.
Never mind. You have bananas? Yes. Bring bananas.
You have apples? Yes. You have oranges? Yes.
Strawberries? Yes. OK, bring those. Don’t worry about what he asked for.
So I took it to him. He was happy. And so we went and saw Kocharyan that day, and that’s when I discussed, I already described the conversation earlier about the $100 million. And…
Kirk was very unhappy in that palace because that palace is not really like a hotel. So I said, let’s move to the Marriott Hotel, which was just built. And it has all the conveniences. Kirk also, he follows stock market day and night.
And he wanted to know the prices of the stock by watching TV. And of course, in the palace, there was no TV. So we moved. As I was leaving, the staff, the director of the palace came to me.
He says, Mr. Sasounian, I’m going to get fired today. I said, why? He said, because Kirk is leaving the palace.
It means that I’ve done something wrong. And if the president hears about it, he’s going to fire me. I said, no, no, we’ll tell the president that you did nothing wrong. Everything’s fine.
So we went to Marriott, and he got a nice, comfortable, clean room, nice bed, TV, and he turned on the stock market. And so we were there overnight, two nights. We also went to the Genocide Museum, the monument. And his family is from Kharpert.
And they have in different glasses soil from different parts of Western Armenia. So they brought the glass with Kharpert’s soil and they poured part of it in his hand. It was very emotional. At the Genocide Museum, I noticed something that shocked me.
I saw tears coming down his eyes. And this is a very tough man. You know, he’s not scared of the mafia. He’s not scared of anybody.
He’s faced the toughest people in the world. And he cried in the Genocide Museum. That was a very touching moment. It shows that he was Armenian in his heart.
He cared about his Armenian origin and the genocide. Of course, he knew about the genocide. So, one last little episode. Oh, in the morning when we’re leaving the hotel to go someplace, and all of a sudden we see hundreds of people lined up in front of the hotel.
Long line of people. And of course, we didn’t know why, but as we approached the door, they were all outside the door, long line. As we approached the door, people started talking to us. Of course, they’re talking in Armenian, which I understand.
And they’re saying, oh, translate to Kirk, tell him that we are his long lost distant relatives. Every one of them, hundreds of them. And they were saying things like, oh, my father served with Kirk in the Soviet army and crazy things like this. I mean, he never served in the Soviet army.
He doesn’t have relatives in Armenia. So anyway, we said thank you politely and kept walking. And when we got away from the people, I turned to Kirk without any smile on my face. I said, Kirk, I have a question to you. why is it that everybody in line claimed to be your relative and nobody claimed to be my relative?
He chuckled of course because because they see a billionaire they want to relate to the billionaire not someone like me. So later that evening when we came to the hotel there was a guy, an artist sculptor quite prominent… He had brought a wooden box. It was sitting on the floor.
And he said to Kirk, asked me to translate. I translated. He said, I made the… bust of you, of kirk, a bust made of some kind of a metal or stone and then put it in a box all sealed for you to take with you and kirk all his life is hated photos being taken gifts being given he refused passionately everything that’s like that he never wanted thank you he never wanted the gift nothing So now, you know, we spent all day running around and we’re tired. And so I asked Kirk, I said, Kirk, why don’t you go to your room?
I’ll deal with this. And Kirk never wanted anybody to do anything for him. He wanted to handle everything himself. So he said, no, no, no, I’ll take care of it.
So he said, how much money you want for this? Because he always knows people are after money. So, I don’t know, somehow we end up with a dollar amount of $2,000. So, Kirk, in his life, he never owned a credit card.
He always had tons of cash in his pocket, $100 bills, a stack of them. And he also didn’t have email. Anyway, so he pulls from his pocket a stack of $100 bills and counts them 20 of them, and gives it to the guy. And later on, I was surprised that he accepted this bust, that he’s totally a guest.
By then, I knew him well. And he said, Harut, here’s what I’m doing. I don’t want to leave this behind because they’re going to put it someplace. I’m going to take it with me and destroy it.
Hovik: Harut, in fact, I think that In support to underscore how modest and humble of a man Kirk was, I believe I saw his gravesite, and I believe he shares a gravesite with his father, and it’s very nondescript. There is no huge gravestone, and he literally shares a gravestone, and it’s just his name on it. And in fact, in Armenia as well, I know that he was made national hero of Armenia, but I can’t imagine that he welcomed that idea as well.
Harut: Well, you reminded me a very interesting story. So when we were in Armenia, the president said, we’re going to give you the Medal of National Hero. and kirk of course the last thing he needs is a medal he hates it so so they they put it in a bin in a little box and gave it to him and later on oh this was this one on his second trip so he went toward me twice in his life on the second trip again he went one day he just decided to go he didn’t even tell me so I wasn’t with him the second trip So later on, I was told that the president gave a medal. And when he came back, I said, Kirk, they gave you a national hero medal.
He said, yeah, I don’t have it. I said, what happened to it? He said, I left it in the taxi. Some taxi driver in Yerevan has a medal of national hero.
Asbed: Wow. Wow. This is not a story I’ve heard before. I assume that’s going to come up one day.
Harut: Yeah.
Hovik: On eBay, yeah. You know, I was in Armenia during the 2000s, and the stories about corruption were pretty prominent. And of course, we’ve also… Anyone critical of the Kocharyan government had to mention the fact that Kirk Kerkorian’s money was being stolen.
It was being mismanaged. So there are various different reports. I mean, some crazy ones. They’re wild stories.
So what can you tell us about… How diligently was that money managed? I mean, I know that construction in any, especially like large construction projects in any country can be fraught with some risk. But how well managed do you think those projects eventually were?
And how much credence should we give to all these wild claims about corruption and so forth?
Harut: Yeah, well, I know a lot about this. I’ve heard all these wild, crazy stories, and the ones you just mentioned, they’re total lies. And there’s even one, some person, I don’t know who they are, wrote a letter in Armenian words and signed Kerkorian’s name. Kerkorian never wrote anything in Armenian.
He didn’t know how to write in Armenian. The signature was fake. They never liked that. Kerkorian hardly wrote a letter to anybody in his life, let alone a letter chastising Kocharyan.
Let me tell you, yes, there was a lot of money. And of course, in Armenia, both back then and even now, there’s a lot of corruption. So I had to be very, very tough, careful, and just controlling every little thing. Whenever I saw that somebody was trying to play games with us, and there were all sorts of games.
It’s not just stealing money. There’s also things like when you build housing, And you give housing to people. They turn around and sell the house. Or the mayor of Gyumri, he takes some of the houses and gives it to his relatives.
And I know this personally because my uncle’s family lives in Gyumri. And when I was in Gyumri, the mayor came to me and he said, one of the apartments, I’m going to give it to your uncle. I told him, absolutely not, because we had a criteria for who gets those houses. Then not even just an earthquake survivor.
It has to be like handicapped or a veteran or elderly or ill, something like that, you know, very in dire situation. And my uncle was none of those things. So I told him, absolutely not. I’ve fired contractors, as I said before.
I even complained to the president about the governor of Shirag, that Gyumri is the major city in Shirag. And I asked him to get rid of them because the And back then, I think the governors were not elected. They were appointed by the president. So three months later, I came back, and that governor was still there.
So I told the president, I said, Mr. President, I told you, I don’t want this guy. And you told me you will, but he’s still there. So if you force me, I’m going to cancel the projects.
Unless you fire this guy. So when the president saw that that was serious, and he didn’t want to lose the project, so he removed the guy from his position. That’s the good news. The bad news is Kocharyan brought the guy, made him one of his assistants in the palace.
So I learned from many such experiences that when you fire somebody, that person doesn’t disappear. He just goes out the door, comes through the window. So now, this isn’t really corruption. The only way that people played a little bit with the money that I knew is a contractor would hire subcontractors and would give part of the money from his share of the money to the subcontractor.
That’s not really corruption. The same thing happens here. There’s contractors and subcontractors. But to my knowledge, I mean, whenever I came across a situation of corruption, I fought it.
I’ll tell you a personal incident. One of the contractors early on came to me. and said, Mr. Sasounian, this contract that’s for $10 million, if you arrange it so that I get the contract, I will put $1 million in a bank account for you. So of course, that’s not how we work in this country.
And some of us are very diligent about being clean handed. So I told the contractor, I said, listen, I know for you, doing business like this is normal. They give money, they take money and all this. But what you don’t know is that’s not how we do business in the United States.
And I’m going to forgive you once this first time because you don’t know any better. You think everybody’s like you. And then if you give me a million dollars, I’ll leave the contract. But if I hear one more instance where you… are doing something improper, suggesting something improper, you will not get any contracts from us.
So that happened to me personally. I was told this personally myself. But other than that, I confronted a lot of people to the degree that our manager was a Hayastantsi, very clean, good, competent guy, He constantly warned me, he says, Harut, you’re confronting some of the most dangerous people in Armenia. They may do something to you.
I said, I don’t care. I’m not that brave, but I don’t care. I said, I’m going to protect Kirk’s money. This guy, from his heart, he’s generous.
He’s a good Armenian. He wanted to help Armenia. I’m not about to let his money be stolen. So as far as I know, nobody stole any money from the projects.
We did the project. We completed the projects. Now, the other rumor, which is false also, that people talk about constantly, is why did Kerkorian stop the projects? Because they stole his money.
That’s the argument. Nobody stole his money. The projects… We’re finished.
We completed the projects. It was on time. It was good quality. We inspected everything.
And we finished spending all the money. So I forgot to list the projects. Also, we built about 20 schools throughout the country. That’s another episode where I had an argument with Kocharyan.
Initially, it was 10 schools. Later on, we added them. So even though Kerkorian strictly told me, he said, Harut, don’t interfere in their decision-making in Armenia. Just oversee it, but don’t interfere in their decision-making.
Of course, I’m the last person not to interfere in anything. I interfered in everything. But Kirk didn’t know that, and Kirk thought I’m doing what he said. So I’m sitting with Kocharyan, and I’m presenting to him the idea of 10 schools to be renovated.
And he says, oh yeah, we know about this. I picked the 10 schools, which 10 schools we’re going to renovate. I go, what are they? He names 10 schools, all of them in Yerevan.
So I tell him, even though Kirk says don’t interfere, I tell him, no, I don’t accept this. You have to do some of them in Yerevan and the rest in the regions, in the Marzes, outside of Yerevan. No, no, no, no. You know, I have a good reason, he said to me, why I did all those schools in Yerevan.
I go, okay, what’s the reason? I know they always come up with craziest things that I shoot down. He says, because I’ve allocated budget for this year’s budget from the parliament for the schools outside of Yerevan. And the schools in Yerevan don’t have a budget.
That’s why all the schools are going to Yerevan. I said, Mr. President, please do not tell me those things. I know.
Every year, Parliament allocates budget to all sorts of things. People never receive that money. That money is never spent, never received. It just stays on paper.
I said, unless you do some of the schools outside Yerevan and some in Yerevan, I’m going to cancel the school project. He said, OK, let’s do five in Yerevan and five outside of Yerevan. I said, OK, I accept that. So I was a very hands-on person.
I was aware of every little thing, every little project, every dollar spent. We got reports.
Asbed: Harut, ultimately, so we’re talking about the $242 million that got spent that was all these projects and everything. Kirk was, of course, a billionaire. Why didn’t he give $2 billion instead of $200 million, let’s say? Why didn’t he continue with new projects?
Hovik: Yeah, and to add to that, eventually, even in the book it mentions, and it’s a fact that after the change of power, after 2008, with Serge Sarkisian, his investments did taper down. So what was the real reason why he decided to spend less on Armenia? The book, The Gambler, mentions that… you know, this is after he had this fall and after everything started going down in his life, but he said that, I think the book quotes Yemenijian saying that his generosity, he felt that his generosity was being taken for granted by the Sargsyan government. Can you tell us more about, you know, why he decided not to invest anymore, like Asbed said as well?
Harut: Well, let me clarify a few things. First of all, What they asked us to do, what they asked Kirk to do is $242 million. We did that 100%. We finished it.
So the projects were not stopped. They were finished. In fact, when Kocharyan was gone and Serge came, we had not finished the schools. I went to Kirk and asked him.
At that time, the whole amount was not $242 million. I asked him if he would give another $11 million. to do another 10 schools. There was 10 schools originally, so we made 10 more schools. He said yes.
And even though at that time the stock market had crashed and his wealth, which used to be 17 billion, was almost nothing. At some point he was contemplating declaring bankruptcy at the time. So that was the very wrong time to ask any money from him. But he was very gracious and very generous.
He gave another 11 million. And Lincy was shut down. But I offered to him that if we would give the money to the United Armenian Fund, since I was in charge of the projects in Armenia, the Armenian Fund would get the money because we don’t want to send the 11 million to Armenia. So we control the money and I oversee the projects like I did before.
So he agreed to give you the money. So he never canceled anything. He never stopped anything. We spent all of the money, all of the money that we had.
Now, later on, as you said, he fell and he wasn’t all mentally alert as he used to be. And…
Asbed: Yeah, at this point, we are talking about a man at 90, basically.
Harut: Well, much older than 90. He was getting close to 95, 98. So he had a will. I’m being told, but I’m not sure some people who know that there was an original will, then there was a second will.
But anyway, the will that I have a copy of, it says… All the money that I have, which at that time was $2 billion, all the money I have, it will be donated to charity. That’s all it says. It doesn’t say anything about what kind of projects, what country, where, who, no names, nothing. $2 billion to charity.
He appointed three trustees, and it’s up to them to decide. This was very strange, and I know all about this, because for years Kirk would hear that, especially when he was closing down Lincy, people would say things that they would hear something I think he even got some letters saying why don’t you do a perpetual endowment so the money is always there and they spend interest by law if you have an endowment you have to spend at least 5% a year of the money so it lasts a long time like the Carnegie, Rockefeller Foundation, going on over 100 years, still going on.
So when I asked Kirk one day when I were alone, I said, what do you think about leaving the money for an endowment? He said, absolutely not. I’m totally opposed to endowment. Why?
Because he said, when you have an endowment and you pass away, people who are in charge of the endowment, you don’t even know who they are because they’ve come and changed over the years. They’re going to spend the money the way they want to. And I don’t want that. It’s my money.
I want to spend the way I want. Now, that’s what he said. Of course, I had the best argument to argue with him, but I wasn’t going to argue with him because it’s his money. He does whatever he wants, as opposed to a lot of Armenians who constantly I hear saying, oh, Kirk should have done this, Kirk should have done that.
I tell them it’s not proper for you to say what Kirk should have done. That’s the money he earned. He can throw it all away in the ocean. He can gamble it away.
He can do whatever. He can do it to anybody he wants. It’s not up to you, whether you like it or don’t like it. It’s his money.
So I had the perfect answer for him, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t say it because it’s his money. What I was going to tell him is that under IRS law there’s something called designated donation which means that when you give money you write down what is the money for and anybody who uses a penny of that money for something else they can they can get arrested and taken to court. It’s a crime.
So if he didn’t want the money to spend on things he didn’t want, all he had to do is specify what the money was for. That way, they would spend the money on what he wanted. Now, to make matters worse, here’s a man that I just explained to you that he didn’t want other people to spend his money as they wish. What does he do?
At a later age, when he’s mentally not fully there, he writes a will that doesn’t designate anything to anybody. He just leaves it to the trustees to spend as they wish. except that it has to go to a charity. That’s the requirement.
Asbed: I’m going to guess they’re not Armenian trustees.
Harut: One of them is Armenian. One Armenian and the other two are not Armenians.
Asbed: Who is that? Do we know?
Harut: Well, the Armenian is Dr. Israelian from UCLA.
Asbed: I see. Okay.
Harut: And the other is Tony Mendeke. And I think the last one is a female attorney by the name of Rubin, if I’m not mistaken. So the three trustees, they decided where the money goes. There’s no limits on where the money is spent, where it goes to nothing.
Of course, at the beginning there was a problem because a lot of people came forward after his death and claimed to be one of his wives and one of his kids.
Asbed: Children, yeah.
Harut: Children, all this. They filed lawsuits and they got some money out of the will. When I say some money, in some cases it was millions. uh, they got, but still two billions, a lot of money. There was a lot more left and they gave the money and, and the trustees never announced, uh, who they gave the money to.
Uh, they don’t know.
Asbed: Is that money lost basically?
Harut: Uh, no, I don’t think it’s lost. I think they donated the money to various charities, but we don’t know where, for example, I know, I know one example because it made it in, in, in the media. That’s how I know. Uh, Kerkorian lived in Las Vegas most of his life.
So the trustees, knowing that, they wrote a check from the will for $25 million and sent it to University of Las Vegas Hospital, I think. Okay. With a note saying, please do not disclose the donation to anybody. So, of course, if you receive that kind of money, you follow the donor’s wish and you don’t disclose the donation.
So in the president’s office, there’s a clerk or something, some staff. He opens the envelope and there’s a check for $25 million. And he picks up the phone and calls the Las Vegas Sun, the local paper, and says, we just got a donation from Kerkorian’s will for $25 million. And Las Vegas Sun put that on the front page as a major donation from Kerkorian from Las Vegas.
So when it was disclosed, of course, the trustees were very unhappy, but they did not say return the money. You broke the Other than that, I’ve heard things here and there, money to this and that, but I don’t have the list.
Asbed: Harut, was there a timetable on which they were supposed to spend this money?
Harut: Yeah, there was a timetable. If I remember correctly, it was two years, maybe three, I think it was two years. But the timetable got ruined by all the lawsuits. The lawsuits, yeah.
The judge ruled that before the lawsuits are settled, you cannot give any money to anybody. Mm-hmm. Because if somebody is suing for money and you already give away the money, then if they win the lawsuit, there’s no money to give. So they were supposed to spend everything in two years, but they spent it probably in three, four or five years, I think.
Hovik: We know that UCLA also received a lot of money. The UCLA Medical Center… I think 100 million. There was also this Promise Institute at UCLA.
Asbed: The Promise Institute, yeah. That Israeliana is director of, I think.
Harut: Yeah, let me explain that. So in 2011, I think it was, or 2010, late 2010 or early 2011, Kirk one day woke up and decided, today I’m going to shut down the Lindsay Foundation. He’s like that, very impatient, and on the spot he makes decisions, and he wants it done, same minute. Now, I got a call from his office.
I was in Glendale, of course. I went to Beverly Hills to his office right away and said, come over, we want to talk to you. So when I get there and I see everybody’s cleaning their desks and out and all sad faces and uh the guy was kirk’s uh top system tony mendicak i met with him he said kirk just called and said shut down everything today and shut down lindsay i i know i know i know a lot about irs laws and charities And I know that shutting down any charity, let alone a major charity with a lot of money, at that time, in the Lindsay Bank account, there were $210 million dollars.
The amount varied depending on how much money he cashed in stocks and how much money he spent already, et cetera. But there was sometimes much more, sometimes much less, sometimes 50 million, 10 million. It so happened that on that day there were 210 million. And Kirk being highly impatient, Because not only was he an patient, but he was also a patient of UCLA Hospital.
Because at advanced age, every time he needed treatment, he would go over there and they would treat him. Or sometimes they would come to his home in Beverly Hills and treat him. So he was very grateful because if you’re a multi-billionaire, nothing matters to you except your health. Everything else is secondary.
If you don’t have your health, you have nothing. So he was very grateful that they treated him. So he told Tony Mendicek, write a check for $210 million and give it to UCLA. Just like that?
Just like that. Of course, he never asked for my opinion, my suggestion. If he had asked, I would have told him, why give all of it to one university? You can have 10 different Armenian chairs in different major universities.
You can set up scholarship funds or Armenian students, etc. But again, it’s his money. He does what he wants. Whether we like it, don’t like it, we have nothing to say.
So he gave $210 million, not $100 million, $210 million. the money he had. The only thing that after a long conversation with Tony Mandekick and he had to get Kirk’s approval, I told him that we wanted to finish the schools that we had started And we needed some money because if they shut down and gave all the money away, we wouldn’t be able to finish the school. And so I said, if you can give $11 million to an Armenian fund charity that I headed, Then we can finish the schools. And he said, but Kirk said, and once Kirk says something, it’s finished.
He never wants to discuss it. He says something once, it’s end of the story. So I said, we need to do this. It’s important.
He says, OK, let me call Kirk. I need his approval. And most of the time, they don’t even call Kirk again. They don’t go back to him because they know the answer.
At this time, when I insisted, Tony was nice enough to call Kirk and Kirk says, yes, go ahead and give the $11 million to, you know what I mean, fund. So that we got the last minute. But coming back to the law about the charities, you cannot just shut down a charity like that. It takes months and months to shut down a charity.
Why? Because first of all, you need to hire an auditor. They have to audit all of your assets and your bank accounts, your projects, and everything else. That takes some time.
And then you have to fill a whole bunch of paperwork with the Attorney General of California. You send it to them. And of course, the Attorney General’s staff is not just sitting there empty-handed waiting for your paperwork. They have a million things to do.
So it takes months for them to look at it. And then if they have any questions they ask you, then you go back and provide them more information. If they have no question, everything is fine. And then they say, go ahead, you can shut it down.
So that’s what happened. I think in November he wanted to shut down. I think it was shut down in March of the following year.
Asbed: Okay. Are we talking, what year are we talking about?
Harut: 2011.
Asbed: 11. So he was 94 at the time.
Harut: Yeah.
Asbed: Or 95. Okay.
Harut: But he had decided that he was going to close it down. No doubt in his mind. because something was very firm about.
Asbed: Okay. So it’s not that he actually just stopped giving to Armenia. He actually just wrapped up and stopped giving and closed shop.
Harut: Right. Okay.
I mean, one thing I can tell you, this man who never praised anybody, he wasn’t like, he never did small talk, was a very serious guy. uh when he came back from Armenia the second time I talked to him and he had seen some of the projects that we had done by by then and he said harut you turned Yerevan into a European city I was stunned hear a man like that would say such kind words to me so I turned to him because I felt close to him and I said kirk you’re not being fair to yourself without your money there’s nothing I could have done so he says okay let me change my sentence says it’s my money and your effort that we accomplish what we accomplished I said
Hovik: I’ll take that yeah I think that just I want to reflect that Here’s what I was thinking of. And I don’t know how much of a chance encounter it was or, you know, when you, Harut, reached out to Kerkorian and I don’t know how much, like, if you had calculated, like, whether you had 5% chance of getting a response back from him initially or 1%, but I just can’t fail to notice the fact that how fleeting that moment was when, you know, you approached him and he said, sure. And then the result of that was hundreds of millions of dollars, a very important aid for Armenia. I’m sure that people in Gyumri remember Kerkorian’s legacy.
I’m sure that everyone in Armenia remembers Kerkorian’s legacy, especially during those, you know, early formative years of Armenia. And I think the lesson, you know, what lessons can we draw from this? How can we foster future generations and future, you know, benefactors who can help Armenia and, you know, for it to be less of a chance. A little more systematized, maybe.
Or at least create more opportunities where we can have new Kerkorians come to light. Yeah,
Harut: I just remembered I was going to end, but I remember a couple of interesting things very short. First of all, since Kirk never wanted any pictures, any photos, any statues. Now, after his death, they put a statue in Gyumri for Kerkorian, which a lot of people visit. The other incident I just remembered.
One time I was in a taxi going through Yerevan. All of a sudden I noticed this huge building on top of the building with letters, each letter 10 feet high. It says Kirk Kerkorian University. I was just completely shocked.
So I told the taxi driver to take me to that building. So I go to the head of the university. I said, I would like to talk to you. He says, come in.
So I said, I was shocked because I know Kerkorian would never want… Kerkorian never wanted his name on a university or any other building anywhere. So I said, why did you… And it’s a law school.
Imagine a school of law, and the guy, the head of the university, is doing something wrong by illegally calling it Kerkorian University. I mean, what kind of an example to the law students this guy is setting? So I was surprised. This guy says to me, oh, I got permission from Kerkorian.
I knew that couldn’t be First of all, Kirk would never give permission. And secondly, how did this guy even ask for permission? So I thought he was going to give me a line like, oh, one time I ran into him by accident in Vegas or someplace. I asked him, he said yes to me.
So there’s no record, nothing. But it’s his word against my word. That’s what I thought he was going to say. But to my shock, the guy says, no, no, no.
I have a letter from Kerkorian. that says that, called the University, I said, can I see the letter? Again, I expected him to say, oh, I can’t find it right now. I don’t know where it is. Not to show it to me.
But to my surprise, he went to his desk and pulled a piece of paper, brought it to me. He said, here, here’s the letter. I look at the letter. I couldn’t believe it.
It’s three, four lines. Every word is misspelled. It’s like somebody who was a foreigner. It’s not even like a Native American with some wrong grammar or something.
And then I look at the bottom. There’s this signature. It’s not Kirk’s signature, because I know Kirk’s signature. So the whole thing was fake.
So I told the guy, I said, listen. It’s really shameful that you would do such a thing. The guy doesn’t want his name. He doesn’t know about it.
This letter is fake. And you’re running a law school. You’re teaching legal things to your students. I said, you have to take this down.
And of course, he wasn’t happy. And I wasn’t sure that he would take it down because that name on the top of the building brought him a lot of students and a lot of income. So it wasn’t easy for him to comply. So I went to Kocharyan.
I said, Baron Kocharyan, call this guy, tell him to take the name down, or you’re going to shut down the university. So he called, and those letters were taken down. I mean, huge letters. Each letter was 10 feet high on the top of the roof.
You can see from anywhere in Yerevan. So one last thing, and so it takes one more minute. The United Armenian Fund was shut down in 2015. because the board decided they didn’t want to continue anymore of the seven organizations. But knowing how important it is, the aid that we were providing to Armenia, and I was committed to it, it was like my baby.
So I decided on my own to continue doing what we were doing as a major organization. So I applied to the IRS under a new name called Armenia Artsakh Fund. And with nobody, no organizations, no donors, nothing. Just me and the assistant that was working with me for years, the two of us.
And we continued. So I’m pleased to report to you that 2015, when we shut down the UAF, we had, I think, reached $640 million of aid. now we’ve reached one billion and 59 million dollars of aid in 35 years so i’m very happy we’re still sending medicine of course with a lot of difficulty uh there are hardly any donations uh we’re begging people and or any amount hundred dollars thousand dollars here there and uh we’ve uh We’re volunteering our services. But we know we’re saving a lot of lives in Armenia.
And one last thing, and those who think… who see my interviews and my articles, and I’m very critical of the current prime minister, and they’re a little bit surprised that I’m still helping Armenia, given my dispute with the leaders. I tell them that disagreement with the leaders is no reason to punish the people of Armenia who need the medicine to save their lives. It’s such an important message. We’re helping the people of Armenia, not the leaders of Armenia.
So as long as I can, I will continue helping and doing what I do. Since 2015, because of the shortage of money, we only send one thing to Armenia, that’s medicine, which is life-saving. That’s the most important thing.
Asbed: Harut, does the Armenia Artsakh Fund have a website?
Harut: We set up a website, but we have not really, I don’t know what the word is. It’s not off the ground. Yeah, it’s armeniartsakhfund.com, but there’s no information in there.
Asbed: Okay. Okay. Well, we’ll talk about that when that happens.
Harut: Well, if anybody wants to contact me and they can contact you and make a donation, I will be very happy.
Asbed: Definitely. Well, thank you for all your work. All this history is gold, basically. It’s just amazing Armenian history.
Thank you for all your time with us also.
Harut: Thank you for your time.
Asbed: We’ll talk again soon, I hope. Stay well.
Harut: Thank you.
Asbed: Bye-bye. All right. Well, that’s our show. This episode was recorded on January 21, 2025.
We’ve been talking with Harut Sassounian, who is the chairman of the board of trustees of HyeID. He’s also the publisher of the California Courier newspaper and the president of the Armenia Artsakh Fund, which is a nonprofit organization which has delivered over a billion dollars of humanitarian assistance to Armenia and Artsakh since 1989. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik: And I’m Hovik Manucharyan.
Asbed: And you’re a little sick today.
Hovik: Yeah, sorry. I’ve been sick for a whole week, actually.
Asbed: I’m sorry for that. So find us on social media and follow us everywhere. And don’t forget to comment, share, and like our shows. You are making a difference.
Thank you very much.
Hovik: Thank you.