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At one McClellan committee hearing, Jimmy Hoffa grinned and chuckled in the background as his beefy (284 Ibs.), strong-armed traveling organizer, Barney Baker, rattled off the names of bigtime hoodlums he knew in various cities Across the U.S. Taking the witness chair later on, Hoffa was asked whether he believed Baker really knew all the hoodlums he had mentioned. "I heard him testify," said Hoffa.
Kennedy: Does that not disturb you at all about his operation?
Hoffa: It doesn't disturb me one iota.
Despite this easygoing attitude toward hoodlums, Hoffa promised the committee in 1957 that he would investigate charges of wrongdoing by Teamster officers. But when the committee questioned Hoffa last year, it found that his methods of investigation had been remarkably gentle. Sample : Counsel Kennedy asked Hoffa whether he had looked into charges that Frank Kierdorf extorted money from Flint businessmen, tried to murder an employee of a holdout company by running him down with a car. "I discussed the matter with Frank," said Hoffa, "and he flatly denied it." Had he made any other investigation of Kierdorf? asked Kennedy. Replied Hoffa: "What other investigation would I possibly make?"
General Charge No. 2: The Teamsters have used terror, payoffs and political influence to gain immunity from the law. Items:
Tennessee. The committee reported that "law-enforcement agencies at every level in Tennessee have been shockingly derelict in their civic duty toward Teamster malefactions." Members of a roving Teamster goon squad that terrorized nonunion trucking firms with dynamitings, arson, truck sabotage, bullets and bludgeons had a "scandalous immunity from prosecution because of an underlying and widespread fear of tangling with Teamster union power." When the police did get up courage to arrest Tennessee Teamster Chieftain Glenn W. Smith and several of his men on dynamiting and arson charges, Smith used $20,000 in Teamster funds to bribe Chattanooga Judge Raulston Schoolfield (since impeached) to quash the indictments.
Michigan. "The police are afraid," said a Flint businessman harried by Teamster extortionists. A Detroit police officer testified that "the people of the state of Michigan did not get a fair trial" when Judge Joseph Gillis, who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Hoffa & Co., presided at the trial of a Teamster official.
Kansas. In 1953 an investigation of Hoffa by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee was mysteriously called off after Kansas' Republican ex-Governor (1939-42) Payne Ratner, on retainer as a
Teamster lawyer, interceded with the subcommittee chairman, Kansas' Republican Representative Wint Smith. Congressman Smith explained that he was under "pressure from way up there."
General Charge No. 3: Hoffa has "grossly misused" millions of dollars in Teamster funds.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to defend Teamster lawbreakers from justice and to pay their salaries while they were serving prison terms. Some $2,000 went to pay hotel bills and other expenses for William Hoffa while he was hiding out from the law. Hoffa's Organizer Barney Baker squandered $25,000 in