"To Hell with Them"

Through the shot and shell of 2 1/2 years of pounding by the McClellan committee, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' President James Riddle Hoffa held hardest to his No. 1 point: Hoffa is an innocent victim whose only crime is that he gets good wages and working conditions for his "boys." Last week, in a special report to the Senate, the McClellan committee took dead aim on Hoffa's benevolence to the boys. Said the committee: "In the history of this country it would be hard to find a labor leader who has so shamelessly abused his members or his trust." Among 21 counts of "improper actions" by Hoffa and his lieutenants, and parallel charges based on the record of the committee's 1958 hearings:

P: Hoffa brought New York City Teamsters locals into the union in 1955, with the help of Gangsters John ("Johnny Dio") Dioguardi and Anthony ("Tony Ducks") Corallo, under low wages and poor working conditions. Hoffa authorized labor contracts in Detroit under which Teamsters Union car-washers got as little as $2.50 for a ten-hour day.

P: Hoffa's Vice President Harold Gibbons, in 1958, crudely manipulated votes at a Joint Council 13 election in St. Louis to assure his election as local president.

P:Hoffa's Detroit Lawyer George S. Fitzgerald, in 1955, accepted $35,000 in fees from a land company at a time when the Michigan Teamsters Health and Welfare Fund lent the land company $1,000,000.

P: Hoffa, since 1950, authorized payment of $3,000,000 of Teamsters Health and Welfare Fund money to the fund's insurance brokers in fees and commissions. The brokers were the wife and son of Paul Dorfman--"the corrupt labor leader who introduced [Hoffa] to Midwest mob society." The Dorfmans had no experience in insurance, and no office space "until a few months before Hoffa successfully maneuvered the insurance business to them early in 1950 and 1951."

Summed up the report: "The committee is convinced that if Hoffa remains unchecked he will successfully destroy the decent labor movement in the U.S."

Hoffa's quick reply: "To hell with them."

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