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Stuffed Pockets. The fact is that Jimmy can take care of his own troubles. Acquitted fortnight ago by a Manhattan federal court of charges that he conspired to tap the telephones of his fellow Teamster executives, Tough Guy Hoffa is gaining new strength day by day. Teamster membership is up (to more than 1,500,000), and Hoffa is setting up deals right and left with A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions, such as the brewery workers, butchers and carpenters, the effect of which is to undermine the strength of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. He even has in mind calling a new Teamster convention so that he can divest himself of the three court-appointed monitors who are presiding over the promised Teamster cleanup, which is still in the promise stage.
His pockets thus stuffed with pacts, promises and big dreams, Hoffa, by his actions last week, made all the more prophetic the words of the McClellan committee report of 1958: Extraordinary power, "now lodged in the hands of a man such as Hoffa, [is] tragic for the Teamsters Union and dangerous for the country at large." And for James Riddle Hoffa, this was only the beginning.