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The Enemy Within CAUTION: DYNAMITE INSIDE An expose “eclipsing the most sensational fiction in every way… a story of murder, arson, acid Windings, pitiless beatings, grand larceny, fraud, embezzlement and extortion, all exposed through exhaustive. detective work and resulting in instances of heroic personal courage and shocking shame.” —Baltimore Sun ABOUT ROBERT KENNEDY AND THE ENEMY WITHIN “Mr. Kennedy exposed himself and his family to terrible danger for three years … an example of courage that calls for more imitation if we are to delay our surrender to the mob.” —New York Times “An objective and thrilling account of a national criminal activity which Bob Kennedy has already played a major part in disclosing.” —from the Foreword by Arthur Krock “Should have a strong impact on public opinion, and may have political and legislative repercussions.” New York Herald Tribune ”Under Kennedy, the largest investigating team ever to work from Capitol Hill was assembled . The Enemy Within has a sharp focus on the highlights of the investigation; it deals with them in crisp style, with insight, honesty and indignation.” —Business Week “The book’s an adventure.” —Victor Riesel in the Saturday Review “Payoffs, beatings, blackmail, kept women, padded expense accounts . These are only a few of the subjects discussed by Robert Kennedy in this book covering the McClellan Committee and its investigations.” —Fort Wayne News Sentinel 1 I hove sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostilityThe against Enemy Within every form of tyranny over the mind of man. THOMAS JEFFERSON, September 23, 1800 All profits coming to the author for this book will be given to help retarded children. ROBERT F. KENNEDY Foreword by Arthur Krock POPULAR LIBRARY • NEW YORK All POPULAR LIBRARY books are carefully selected by the POPULAR LIBRARY Editorial Board from the lists of the country’s major hook publishers, and represent fiction and nonfiction titles by the worlds greatest authors. POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION Published in July. 1960 Copyright i960 by Robert F. Kennedy Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 606206 Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers This is a reprint of the Harper & Brothers book published in February, 1960. To my wife—whose love through this long struggle mode the difficult easy, the impossible possible—this book is dedicated PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied, in critical articles and reviews. CONTENTS FOREWORD by Arthur Krock 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 12 PART I Chapter I THE TIPOFF 15 Chapter 2 THE FALL OF DAVE BECK 27 2 Chapter 3 INTRODUCTION TO JIMMY HOFFA “ The Enemy Within Chapter 4 THE TIME OF THE FIX 52 Chapter 5 THE PALACE GUARD 75 Chapter 6 THE MONEY 96 Chapter 7 THE CAPTIVE UNIONS 119 Chapter 8 “BUT HE GETS GOOD CONTRACTS” 142 PART II Chapter 9 INVESTIGATORS AT WORK 160 Chapter 10 BREAD AND YACHTS 183 Chapter 11 THE RESPECTABLES 206 Chapter 12 ORGANIZED CRIME 228 Chapter 13 “GET REUTHER” 254 Chaptor 14 COMMITTEES AT WORK 285 Chapter 15 CONCLUSION 301 APPENDIX 308 INDEX 311 This book is a report on the work of the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, highlighting some of the typical problems and abuses that were discovered. It is based on the record of the investigations conducted by the Committee’s professional staff, the sworn testimony token before the Committee, and the official reports of the Committee to the United States Senate. FOREWORD “Wine that is salable and good needeth no bush or garland of yew to be hanged before” is a proverb which has lost none of its common sense in the 420 years since Richard Taverner included it in his compendium of folk wisdom derived from centuries of experience. Never did the saying better apply than to a foreword to this book. It is an account of dramatic and sordid crime against organized labor’s rank and file, and generally the people of the United States, committed by gangsters in trades unions and the cowardly or mercenary employers and lawyers who on occasion criminally conspired with them. It is also an account of the calm, dedicated and ceaseless toil of those public servants who exposed this crime before the committee of the United States Senate of which John L. McClellan of Arkansas is the chairman. And because this crushing task of exposure was entrusted by the committee to its young counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, this thrilling, depressing, but still encouraging, history of a model Congressional inquiry could adequately have been presented by him alone. 3 Publishers and authors elect to begin books with aThe foreword Enemy Within for the reason, I assume, that the doors of wine shops of old were garlanded with bush or yew. Or maybe for the reason that a maitre d’hotel advances with a menu to flourish before a guest uncertain of what will agree with both his pocket book and his palate. But I think the convention might be altered in a book apparent by a glance at its jacket to be an authoritative narrative of one of the most famous episodes in modern Congressional history. For I suspect that many, hurriedly turning the early pages to get at the absorbing tale Bob Kennedy has to tell, will read this commentary, if at all, as an epilogue (which most forewords ought to be). Congressional investigations are essential to the intelligent fulfillment of at least three duties of citizens under a government of freedom. Even if these inquiries are pursued without regard for the rights of individuals, at the expense of fair play and the spirit of the American Constitution, they are likely to inform the people of some official infractions of their trust that otherwise would never be known. But when they are conducted as the McClellan inquiry has been, the proceedings not only uncover abuses of government and of the people: they supply the material for corrective legislation; and they reveal to voters, as no other process can, the basic characteristics of members of Congress who have been elected on the superficial showing of campaign oratory and public personality. In this book, a rare combination of the roman policier with an autobiography of a zealous prosecutor who still served the Christian ethic of compassion, and is imbued with the humor which seems to be transmitted unbroken through the Irish genes. Bob Kennedy has supplied materials for the fulfillment of all three of these duties by those Americans who view their liberties as imposing a serious obligation of citizenship. To them particularly I commend the following portions of The Enemy Within, lest they be hastily passed over in the rush and tumult of this absorbing story of organized crime: The recommendation for a National Crime Commission. The structure proposed is unusual because this would not be just another Federal commission, making and issuing dull “studies” of what already is known; creating an expanding system of jobs; providing a forum for speeches of its members as dull as the studies of its staff. This establishment would be a center, disseminating information on the movements of gangsters to the Federal and local enforcement officers who otherwise would not know that a big crime syndicate, for example, had moved from one city to another until the gang (as in Miami) had bought into hotels, race tracks and real-estate projects. The formula for a model Congressional inquiry: A committee which takes “full responsibility for the testimony of its witnesses”; makes “a painstaking effort to confirm privately and in advance even thing you think he will include in his testimony”; forbids the circulation of mere hearsay; gives every witness the right to have counsel in executive as well as open hearings; and equips him with “full knowedge of the purpose of a hearing and why he is being called as a witness.” And though, as the author concedes, no formula of procedure can “prevent a Representative or Senator or counsel from asking an unfair question … or from yelling at or browbeating a witness,” these basic rules when scrupulously enforced by a resolute chairman will produce the model hearing which McClellan and Kennedy sought to conduct and largely succeeded in doing. Also: ”because of limited jurisdiction our Committee could not go into improper activities of business per se . only when there was some direct connection with labor. But even thus restricted . we exposed improper activities on the part of at least fifteen attorneys and fifty companies and corporations . [yet) no management group or bar association (except for the bar association in Tennessee) has taken any steps to clean house.” Bob Kennedy is so much impressed with the policing of internal fiscal corruption by the AFL-CIO that I do not find him sufficiently repelled by the organized violence employed in strikes by a number of unions, which is a corrupt use of their power. He does take the position that union officials must be held responsible for the 4 beatings and other intimidations to which their membersThe Enemy readily Within resort to gain strike objectives, even when there is no evidence that these officials are privy in any way to this crooked use of organized labor’s legalized right to strike. This union corruption, frequently compounded by authorities sworn to maintain law and order, seems to me as reprehensible as some of the financial criminality exposed by Kennedy. But this flaw (or I for one find it so) is a minor one in this objective and thrilling account of a national criminal activity which Bob Kennedy had already played a major part in disclosing and arraigning for due punishment before the bar of justice, and the even more punitive process of outraged public opinion.