Libel Suit in L.A. Mayor's Race!

May 12, 1961: Mayor Norris Poulson accused challenger Sam Yorty of being “backed by the underworld” and Yorty responded with a libel suit.   The basis of Poulson's charge was that as an Assemblyman, Yorty supported a bill to legalize bookmaking and as an attorney, he received $12,500 from operators of a Las Vegas casino-hotel for trying to get them a gambling license in Nevada. Also on the jump: A full-page ad for Moral Re-Armament, one of those cultural forces that took root in the 1930s and may be remembered for the Up With People traveling productions that began in 1965 and struggled to survive in the 1980s.