Easy Work

How can anyone make $57,000 by one telephone call? Last week the Senate's permanent investigating committee called in an ex-vegetable huckster named Frank Nathan and asked him point blank. There's nothing to it, said Nathan, nothing to it at all.

One day back in 1948, while thumbing through a War Assets Administration brochure, he noticed that a Government aluminum plant in California was for sale. He called a Brooklyn junk dealer named Joe Labowitz and told him the news. Labowitz, in the words of another witness, "shoehorned in" on a syndicate which was about to buy the plant, and got 20% of the profit. After a while he sent 10%, or $57,000, to Nathan. That was all there was to it.

Nathan was not at all perturbed while being questioned by the committee. But he did look a little anxious afterward. "What time is it?" he asked. When he caught sight of a clock on the wall nearby, his face brightened again. "Good," said he, with obvious relief, "I still got time to get to the track."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.