HIS friendship with Bernard Goldfine, testified Staff Chief Sherman Adams before the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight last month, was "not a casual one nor one of recent origin." It was because he knew Goldfine so well that Adams was willing to vouch for him as "an upright and honest citizen, trustworthy and reliable." Whether Goldfine actually fits that description, whether he is the sort of businessman from whom public officials can accept gifts without having to return favors, remains the central issue in the Adams-Goldfine case despite distracting Goldfine pressagentry. Last week TIME reporters, conducting dozens of interviews and digging through musty court records throughout New England, reported on some of Goldfine's many visible business operations.
From their reports, Bernard Goldfine is far from the openhanded savior of New England industry that he professes to be. Instead, the picture that emerges is that of a man with:
1) a marked talent for easing in and out of companies through dummy organizations and straw men,
2) a phenomenal record of litigation behind him, including at least 89 lawsuits in the Boston area alone,*
3) a habitual disregard for federal and state regulations designed to protect investors and buyers of textiles, including regulations calling for company financial reports, and
4) a fast-running stable of big and little politicians who are indebted to him—and who rarely fail to come to his aid when he needs help.
Specific Goldfine case histories:
Northfield Mills. This mill, with 170 to 200 employees, in Northfield, Vt. (pop. 2,262), is owned by Goldfine but bossed by long distance by Goldfine Secretary Mildred Paperman. In November 1950 the Vermont secretary of state dissolved Northfield's charter because the company had refused to file an annual report. Northfield was reincorporated in 1952.
On June 25, 1952, Northfield received a letter from the Federal Trade Commission charging the company with mislabeling its products. A similar letter came on Dec. 12, 1952, still another on June 10, 1953. Goldfine testified before the House subcommittee that he thought Northfield had settled the FTC complaint then "with the correction of our labeling practices." But Goldfine's son, H. Maxwell Goldfine, talking to a TIME correspondent a few weeks before his father's testimony, had another version of how the hoped-for settlement was sought. He blamed Einiger Mills, Inc., a Goldfine competitor, for prompting FTC complaints. A lawyer named Lester Lazarus, continued "Mack" Goldfine, had done some of the work for Einiger. The Goldfines solved this problem by hiring Lazarus for the Goldfine legal team. The lawyer then went to work on settling the FTC complaint. Lazarus, said young Goldfine, made several trips to Washington, where he entertained FTC people "at least a couple of times a week." Concluded Mack Goldfine: "You can't see people a couple of times a week and wine and dine them without expecting to get at least some consideration."