"This," said Captain William V. Bradley, president of the International Longshoremen's Association, "is the most confused strike I ever heard of. And I have led some strange strikes myself."
The first major U.S. maritime walkout in six years was strange indeed. It tied up 222 ships on all three coasts, threatened fuel shortages in the East and food shortages in Hawaii, and left frustrated federal mediators awash in a sea of conflicting charges and demands. Ranged on one side of the dispute were the owners of 850 of the nation's 941 merchant ships, negotiating in three separate groups—East Coast, Gulf Coast...
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