[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 33 (Wednesday, February 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2955-S2958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S2955]]
               THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF WALTER SHERIDAN

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, all of us who knew him, respected him, 
and loved him were saddened by the death last month of Walter Sheridan. 
Walter was the outstanding investigator on the staff of the Senate 
Labor and Human Resources Committee for nearly two decades, and before 
that, he had been one of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's most trusted 
and effective aides in the Department of Justice.
  Walter Sheridan lived an extraodinary life, and all of us who worked 
with him have many warm memories of his achievements and his 
friendship.
  I ask unanimous consent that my tribute to Walter last month at Holy 
Trinity Church in Georgetown, an earlier tribute I made to Walter on 
the occasion of his final hearing at the Labor Committee in 1990, and 
other materials may be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the materials were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Tribute to Walter Sheridan, by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Holy Trinity 
                Church, Washington, DC, January 17, 1995

       ``Some men see things as they are and say, `Why?' I dream 
     things that never were and say `Why not?'''
       These words that Robert Kennedy loved were words that 
     Walter Sheridan lived by. And what a magnificent life he 
     lived.
       Walter and my brother were exact contemporaries, born on 
     the same day, November 20th, 1925. It took them a little over 
     thirty years to find each other. But it was inevitable that 
     they would, and now they have found each other again.
       I suspect some grand investigation is under way in heaven, 
     and that Bobby and Carmine Bellino finally decided last week, 
     ``We need Walter up here on this one.''
       My brother loved to tease Walter about his mild demeanor 
     and quiet manner. But as Bobby wrote in ``The Enemy Within,'' 
     Walter's angelic appearance hid a core of toughness. As any 
     wrongdoer well knew, the angelic quality also represented the 
     avenging angel.
       All the Kennedys have lost one of the finest friends we 
     ever knew. Walter Sheridan was an extraordinary investigator 
     and an extraordinary human being. He had a heart as large as 
     his ability, and his courage and dedication to justice and 
     the public interest were unmatched by anyone. Everything he 
     touched he left better than he found it.
       Walter was also family, far and wide. His wife, Nancy, his 
     daughter Hannah, his sons Walter, John, Joseph, and Donald, 
     and all their families and all his fourteen grandchildren 
     know how much Walter loved them and how deeply he cared for 
     them. The Sheridan home was always warm and welcoming, a 
     continuously open house and gathering place for the legions 
     of friends he made across the years.
       Everyone Walter worked with loved him too. He lit up every 
     room he entered, and there was an obvious mutual affection 
     that made people not only want to work with him, but work 
     harder because of him. He had a famous and well-deserved 
     reputation from the Hoffa years for ability, integrity and 
     loyalty--and he was a legend for his modesty about it.
       He lived up to the Sheridan mystique all his life and in 
     everything he later did. You could sense the power of his 
     commitment to justice and honesty in public and private life. 
     You knew he would go to the end of the earth to sustain those 
     standards against any who tried to undermine them. The 
     cynical view that everyone has his price met its match and 
     its defeat in Walter Sheridan.
       As Bobby knew, and as those on the other side learned to 
     their dismay, when the going got tough, Walter Sheridan got 
     going. His highly principled convictions about the public 
     trust ensured the criminal convictions of those who violated 
     that trust. His book about those years is among his lasting 
     legacies--a call for constant vigilance to protect the public 
     interest against corruption.
       In any fight, my brother said, he would always want Walter 
     on his side. You wanted Walter with you in any foxhole, and 
     that is why he always seemed to get the most difficult 
     assignments. He had been in the service in World War II, and 
     his exploits reminded me of a famous slogan of those years--
     the difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a 
     little longer.
       In the Senate years, each time we settled on the subject of 
     a new investigation, Walter would do his famous disappearing 
     act. He'd be away for three or four weeks. ``Walter's gone 
     fishing,'' we would wink and say, and everyone knew what that 
     meant. When Walter surfaced with his catch, all the networks 
     and reporters were there, ready to record it at our hearings.
       Walter knew how to follow a paper trail, find the 
     unfindable document, and make it speak truth to power. Once, 
     when the mine owners persuaded the federal agency to 
     drastically weaken protections for health and safety, it was 
     Walter who uncovered the irrefutable document. The agency had 
     simply tried to write the mine owners' wish list into law--
     complete with the same spelling and grammatical mistakes.
       Walter was also a hero to workers in the many industries he 
     investigated. I especially think of his coal mine safety 
     investigations. Miners and mine safety officials who 
     testified in our Labor Committee hearings would continue to 
     call up Walter for many years, eager to tell him about the 
     new births and marriages and grandchildren in their lives. 
     They knew Walter never stopped caring about them, and they 
     loved him for it and made him part of their family too.
       For all his warmth and wit, Walter was rightly feared by 
     certain kinds of industry leaders and government officials--
     by anyone misusing their position or abusing their high 
     office. His mission in many of his Senate investigations was 
     to see that federal regulators did not become captives of the 
     industry they regulated.
       Once, a mine worker who worshipped Walter told us that an 
     official of the Mine Safety and Health Administration had 
     walked into his agency office one day and resigned 
     immediately--when he saw the pink message slip with the 
     notation that ``a Mr. Walter Sheridan'' had called.
       His unique combination of high intelligence, low-key 
     manner, and warm personality was an irresistible asset in all 
     his work, and he loved to tell his war stories. During his 
     investigation of the pharmaceutical industry, two drug 
     company executives told him extensive details they never 
     intended to disclose about their company's operations. They 
     said Walter just kept asking simple, understated questions 
     and nodded politely at their responses. As one of the 
     officials later said, ``It took us about ten minutes after we 
     walked out of the room to realize that Walter Sheridan had 
     just picked both our pockets clean.''
       He had a flair for the dramatic too. For several years, he 
     served as a Special Correspondent for NBC and made 
     documentaries on many issues, including crime and gun 
     control. He liked to tell of the time he went into a gun 
     shop, plunked down a couple hundred dollars, and walked out 
     with an anti-tank weapon. He later loaded and fired it on 
     camera to demonstrate the shocking laxity of our gun control 
     laws. He said he couldn't remember what finally happened to 
     the weapon, but he kept it stored somewhere around the house 
     for a while and thought Nancy finally threw it out.
       Another of his documentaries dealt with organized crime. 
     Walter persuaded a key informant to speak on camera for the 
     first time about the activities of one of the crime families. 
     Later, a few of Walter's friends who had gathered to watch 
     the broadcast at the Sheridans' home thought the informant on 
     the screen looked familiar, and he was. He was sitting on the 
     couch in Walter's living room, watching the program too. He 
     told Walter it was the first time he felt truly safe, because 
     no one would dare try to harm him while Walter was on the 
     case.
       Of course, all of us who knew Walter understood something 
     else as well--that we would never know everything he knew. 
     Business or pleasure, secrets were safe with Walter. Whether 
     working on an investigation or planning a surprise party, 
     nothing ever leaked. On that point we all agreed--Walter 
     Sheridan kept his mouth shut.
       Genius, it is said, is the capacity for taking infinite 
     pains, and Walter passed that test with flying colors. No one 
     worked harder or longer or more effectively. But sometimes 
     even that wasn't enough. One of my brother's and Walter's 
     favorite stories from the McClellan Committee days was about 
     the time they were driving home together after working very 
     late one evening. As they drove past the Teamsters Building, 
     they saw the light still on in Hoffa's office. So they turned 
     the car around and went back to work themselves.
       It has been said that all men are dust, but some are gold 
     dust. And that was true of Walter. In those great years with 
     my brother on the McClellan Committee and in the Justice 
     Department, he was a regular for touch football at Hickory 
     Hill. Everyone wanted to be on Walter's team, including 
     Bobby. To new friends there, he was always ``Walter,'' never 
     ``Mr. Sheridan,'' even though they felt the first name was 
     somehow disrespectful after reading about Mr. Sheridan in 
     ``The Enemy Within.'' Walter made sure that everyone got to 
     play, no matter how young or unathletic. He also mastered the 
     most important rule for those games, which was that there 
     were no rules.
       And in the sad months and years after June of 1968, Walter 
     continued to be a fixture at Hickory Hill, helping Ethel, 
     helping all of us, to carry on. We loved you, Walter, as a 
     brother and as a member of our family.
       In a sense, Bobby lived on through Walter. In the nearly 20 
     years that he worked with me in the Senate, I never met with 
     Walter or talked with Walter or laughed with Walter that I 
     didn't think of Bobby. As the poet wrote: ``Think where man's 
     glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such 
     friends.'' Our glory is that we had Walter as a friend.
       In so many ways, he lived up to the ideals of dedication to 
     family, country, and service to others. His contributions to 
     integrity in government and the private sector are immense. 
     His achievements are proof that each of us can make a 
     difference--and what a difference Walter Sheridan made.
       His life is symbolized in the inspiring words my brother 
     used: ``Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to 
     improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, 
     he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other 
     from a million different 
     [[Page S2956]] centers of energy and daring, those ripples 
     build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of 
     oppression and resistance.''
       You left us too suddenly and too soon, Walter, and we miss 
     you all the more.
                                                                    ____

Closing Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Hearing on Advertising, 
  Marketing and Promotional Practices of the Pharmaceutical Industry, 
Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Washington, DC, December 
                                12, 1990

       The testimony in these hearings raised troubling questions 
     about the marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry 
     and their corrupt relationship with physicians.
       Commendably, as the committee investigation began to 
     uncover these abusive relationships, both the AMA and the PMA 
     endorsed new guidelines on the eve of the hearings, in order 
     to correct these problems and ensure the confidence of 
     patients and the public.
       The committee intends to monitor these reforms closely, in 
     order to determine whether the abuses covered by the 
     guidelines are truly corrected.
       Finally, I want to pay tribute to the person who deserves 
     the real credit not only for these hearings--but a thousand 
     other contributions to the Senate, the country, and the 
     public interest.
       In a sense, these hearings are his swan song. But he'll 
     never really retire. He was also our chief investigator in 
     the initial committee hearings on this issue in the 1970's. 
     And I have no doubt he'll come out of retirement in the year 
     2000, or whenever the industry steps out of line again.
       There's a famous saying that there's no limit to what you 
     can accomplish in this town if you're willing to give someone 
     else the credit. That may be the secret of how he's been able 
     to accomplish so much.
       We've known each other for over 30 years, and worked 
     together for nearly 20. Robert Kennedy discovered him in the 
     1950's in the McClellan Committee investigations. It turned 
     out they were both born on the same day in the same year.
       My brother took him with him to the Justice Department in 
     the 1960's. He may well have been the best and most tenacious 
     investigator the Senate or the Department ever had. I 
     inherited him from my brother, and he's been the same way 
     ever since.
       As Robert Kennedy once said in the 1950 investigations, 
     ``Investigators are the backbone of the hearings. Without 
     their work, we'd have nothing.'' Those words are still true, 
     and all these years he has continued to make them true.
       We'll have a chance to pay a proper tribute to him at 
     another time. But I wanted to make at least these few remarks 
     now.
       He's also a beautiful human being. His family and some of 
     his children and grandchildren are here today, and I think 
     they know how much we admire him and love him--Walter 
     Sheridan. We'll miss him.
                                                                    ____

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 14, 1995]

           Walter Sheridan Dies; Helped To Investigate Hoffa

                            (By Martin Weil)

       Walter Sheridan, 69, a prominent federal investigator for 
     many years who played a key role in the epic struggle between 
     the government and Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, died 
     of lung cancer Jan. 13 at his home in Derwood.
       He was a staff member of the Senate rackets subcommittee of 
     which Robert F. Kennedy was chief counsel and on which John 
     F. Kennedy served as a senator. He was also an associate of 
     Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who lauded him yesterday as 
     ``an extraordinary investigator and an extraordinary human 
     being.''
       By 1960, years of contentious investigation and dramatic, 
     nationally televised hearings had made celebrities of the 
     Senate subcommittee's lawyer, Robert kennedy, and Hoffa. 
     Hoffa had become one of the best-known labor leaders of the 
     postwar era.
       After John Kennedy became president in 1961 and his brother 
     became attorney general, Robert Kennedy asked Mr. Sheridan to 
     become his special assistant. In that job, he and a small 
     group of lawyers were made responsible for prosecuting 
     federal crimes associated with the Teamsters.
       The lawyers in the unit described themselves as the ``Get 
     Hoffa Squad,'' and Mr. Sheridan, though himself not a lawyer, 
     was their chief, Arthur A. Sloane wrote in ``Hoffa,'' his 
     1991 biography of the labor leader. In his 1971 book 
     ``Kennedy Justice,'' Victor Navasky also described Mr. 
     Sheridan as the unit's chief.
       In 1962, Hoffa was brought to trial in Nashville. The chief 
     prosecutor and his assistants, accoring to Sloane's book, 
     operated ``under the overall direction of . . . Walter 
     Sheridan . . . who himself was in daily telephone contact 
     with Attorney General Kennedy.''
       In a brief interview last night, Navasky said Mr. Sheridan 
     ``knew the worst things there were'' about Hoffa and 
     ``devoted those years to doing something about that.''
       The trial, on a misdemeanor charge, ended in a hung jury.
       But that trial led to a second trial on a charge of jury 
     tampering, based at least in part on evidence gathered and 
     investigated by Mr. Sheridan, according to Sloane's book. In 
     1964, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and began serving 
     a prison term three years later.
       In 1960, Robert Kennedy published a book called ``The Enemy 
     Within,'' based on his Senate committee investigations into 
     labor matters. In it, he described Mr. Sheridan this way: ``A 
     slight, quiet friendly-faced man'' who ``was one of our best 
     and most relentless investigators.''
       ``His almost angelic appearance hides a core of toughness 
     and he takes great pride in his work,'' Kennedy said.
       ``In any kind of fight, I would always want him on my 
     side.''
       Mr. Sheridan was born in Utica, N.Y., served in the 
     Submarine Service during World War II and later graduated 
     from Fordham University. He was an FBI agent for four years 
     and spent three years with the National Security Agency.
       He was a regional coordinator for John Kennedy in the 1960 
     presidential campaign and had key roles in the political 
     campaigns of Robert and Edward Kennedy.
       As a Senate investigator in the 1980s, he helped show that 
     clinical data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration 
     had been tampered with, which led to new safeguards. He also 
     led investigations into improper payments to physicians to 
     influence how they prescribed medicines. His investigations 
     into mine and on-the-job safety and health and into 
     exploitation of farm workers also were credited with leading 
     to new federal protections.
       From 1965 to 1970, he was a special correspondent for NBC 
     and his unit received a Peabody Award for a documentary on 
     the 1967 Detroit riots.
       He was the author of ``The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa.''
       In his statement yesterday, Edward Kennedy said Mr. 
     Sheridan ``had a heart as large as his ability, and his 
     courage and dedication to justice and the public interest 
     were unmatched by anyone.''
       Survivors include his wife, Nancy; five children, Walter 
     Sheridan of Gaithersburg, Hannah Shorey of Dallas, John 
     Sheridan of Germantown, Joseph Sheridan of Lansdale, Pa., and 
     Donald Sheridan of Harrisburg, Pa.; and 14 grandchildren.
                                                                    ____

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 15, 1995]

   Walter J. Sheridan Is Dead at 69; Helped Build Case Against Hoffa

                            (By David Stout)

       Walter J. Sheridan, a Federal investigator who was an 
     associate of the Kennedy family and pursued the teamsters' 
     union leader James R. Hoffa, died on Friday at his home in 
     Derwood, Md. He was 69.
       The cause was lung cancer, friends said.
       Mr. Sheridan worked closely with Robert F. Kennedy in the 
     1950's when Mr. Kennedy was chief counsel to the Senate 
     rackets committee and John F. Kennedy was a committee member. 
     Mr. Sheridan and Robert Kennedy spent much time investigating 
     labor corruption, especially in the International Brotherhood 
     of Teamsters.
       When Robert Kennedy became Attorney General, he recruited 
     Mr. Sheridan as a special assistant to investigate Federal 
     crimes, particularly involving the teamsters.
       In March 1964, a Federal Court jury in Chattanooga, Tenn., 
     convicted Mr. Hoffa of tampering with a Federal jury two 
     years earlier, and he went to prison. He was released in 1971 
     when his sentence was commuted by President Richard M. Nixon.
       Mr. Sheridan was the author of a 1972 book, ``The Fall and 
     Rise of Jimmy Hoffa.'' Mr. Hoffa disappeared in 1975.
       Mr. Sheridan was an agent for the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation for four years but resigned, he said later, 
     because J. Edgar Hoover's fierce brand of anti-Communism made 
     him uneasy. He was also an investigator for the National 
     Security Agency for three years.
       As a principal aide for the Senate Judiciary and Labor and 
     Human Resources Committees in the 1970's and 80's, Mr. 
     Sheridan led investigations into drug companies that tampered 
     with data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, 
     working conditions in mines and exploitation of farm workers.
       Mr. Sheridan was a regional coordinator for John F. 
     Kennedy's 1960 Presidential campaign. He also worked in the 
     senatorial and Presidential campaigns of Robert and Edward M. 
     Kennedy.
       From 1965 to 1970, he was a special correspondent for NBC, 
     producing documentaries on crime, gun control and other 
     issues.
       He is survived by his wife, Nancy; four sons, Walter, of 
     Gaithersburg, Md., John, of Germantown, Md., Joseph, of 
     Lansdale, Pa., and Donald, of Harrisburg, Pa.; a daughter, 
     Hannah Shorey of Dallas, and 14 grandchildren.
                                                                    ____

           [From the Utica Observer-Dispatch, Jan. 14, 1995]

                 Sheridan, Former FBI Agent Dies at 69

       Utica native Walter Sheridan--once listed among possible 
     successors to J. Edgar Hoover to head the FBI and a close 
     friend of the Kennedy family--died yesterday. He was 69.
       Sheridan worked side by side with the late Sen. Robert 
     Kennedy to fight racketeering, particularly to bring James R. 
     Hoffa to justice. His career as an investigator included four 
     years as a special agent with the FBI, three years each with 
     the National Security Agency and the Senate Rackets 
     Committee.
       Sheridan died at his home in Derwood, Md., of lung cancer. 
     He was born in Utica, Nov. 20, 1925.
       ``He was one of the finest men I ever met in my life. He 
     was sincere, honest, upright,'' 
     [[Page S2957]] said Michael McGuirl of Ballantyne Brae, 
     Utica.
       ``I can't tell you the grief I feel'' over his death, said 
     McGuirl, who has maintained a friendship with Sheridan's 
     family.
       Through his career--which included working five years as a 
     special correspondent for NBC and publishing a book on 
     Hoffa--Sheridan kept his links to Utica.
       McGuirl, who worked 14 years as commissioner for Oneida 
     County Social Services, said Sheridan helped the county 
     receive the country's first Work Experience Program, which 
     helped put people in jobs.
       Sheridan returned to Utica to speak at his class reunion in 
     1973 and the the Knights of Columbus in 1977.
       ``He was a fine assistant to Robert Kennedy and a very 
     intelligent and capable individual,'' said Vincent J. Rossi, 
     Sr., a Utica lawyer who worked with Sheridan on Democratic 
     politics in Utica.
       In response to his death, Sen. Edward Kennedy said 
     yesterday ``all the Kennedys have lost one of the finest 
     friends we ever had. Walter Sheridan was an extraordinary 
     investigator and an extra-ordinary human being. He had a 
     heart as large as his ability and his courage and dedication 
     to justice and to the public interest were unmatched by 
     anyone.''
       Sheridan graduated from Utica Free Academy in 1943, was 
     president of the senior class and a quarterback on the 
     football team.
       Sheridan is survived by his wife, Nancy, and five children, 
     Walter, of Gaithersburg, Md., Hannah Shorey of Dallas, Texas, 
     John, of Germantown, Md., Joseph of Lansdale, Pa., and 
     Donald, of Harrisburg, Pa. and 14 grandchildren.
                                                                    ____

            From ``The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa'' (1972)

        (By Walter Sheridan and Introduction by Budd Schulberg)

       A specter is haunting America. No, it is not communism. 
     Despite Wallace, Goldwater and the right-wing doomsday 
     criers, it is not even creeping socialism. It is, as readers 
     of this book will find alarmingly documented, an altogether 
     different sort of creeping disease. Creeping, hell, it's now 
     boldly up on two feet and running. Toward what goal? More. 
     More houses? More schools? More daycare centers? Forget it. 
     More money. More power. Power to do what? Enjoy life, liberty 
     and the pursuit of happiness? Not as Jefferson and our 
     eighteenth-century idealists imagined it in those simpler 
     times. today it is the high life, the deal that brings 
     liberty in the form of ``commutation'' from the federal pen 
     and the pursuit of the easy buck--be it at the gangster 
     Xanadus of Las Vegas, or at millionaire retreats built with 
     Teamster money like Moe Dalitz's La Costa Country Club, or at 
     the various White Houses, Dicknixon style. There the Big 
     Money, that unholy alliance of over-and-under-the-table, has 
     enjoyed the friendship of the man who grasped early in his 
     checkered career the sharp-edged triangle of money, power and 
     politics.
       Throughout our history Big Money has been decried, by 
     Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan, both the Roosevelts. 
     . . . There are periodic appeals to our idealism, compassion 
     and sense of community. Reform movements rise and fall like 
     the tides. Today our children's crusade turns its back on the 
     sources of wealth and power and wanders into the desert to 
     smoke its pot and live the good life to the music of Led 
     Zeppelin, James Taylor and Joe Cocker. They have chosen to 
     abandon the system rather than reshape it. The old system, 
     their gypsy life-style is telling us, is a rat-race is a 
     money-game is a war-machine conceived in materialism
      and dedicated to the proposition that the race is to the 
     swift and the poker pot to the swift at hand.
       Left behind to fight the network of graft-organized greed 
     that has infected our profit system are the Walter Sheridans 
     of this land, unlikely Don Quixotes who tilt not at windmills 
     but at syndicates and are willing to take on single-handed an 
     army of hoodlums, fixers, purchasable politicos and business 
     opportunists, to go it alone if their leaders are shot down 
     and a Mitchellized Justice Department moves to deliver them 
     and their witnesses to the enemy.
       I first came to know Walter Sheridan in the early sixties 
     when I went to Washington to discuss with the then Attorney 
     General, Robert Kennedy, the possibility of adapting his 
     book, The Enemy Within, as a motion picture. Our 
     irrepressible producer, the late Jerry Wald, had called me in 
     Mexico to say that Kennedy had chosen me from a list of film 
     writers Wald had submitted. Kennedy had been impressed with 
     On the Waterfront and The Harder They Fall and felt that I 
     would be particularly responsive to the job of dramatizing 
     corruptive power in America.
       It is true that the subject had fascinated me from my high 
     school days. And The Enemy Within, a hard-hitting account of 
     Kennedy's experiences as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets 
     Committee, would give me the chance to write not merely a 
     sequel to Waterfront but a significant extension of that film 
     on a national scale. Kennedy's book presented startling 
     evidence of the collusion between Jimmy Hoffa (plus other 
     crooked union leaders), Mafia racketeers and their 
     ``respectable'' allies in the world of business.
       At Kennedy's home in McLean, Virginia, it took time to 
     break the ice, but gradually we established good rapport. 
     Then, characteristically, young Kennedy asked me when I could 
     begin and how soon my screenplay would be ready. I told him 
     that I had researched the New York waterfront for more than a 
     year before I had begun that script; I would not feel ready 
     to plunge into the writing of Enemy until I had fully 
     absorbed this even more complicated material. ``But it's all 
     in the book,'' Kennedy said with an author's pride. I told 
     him I would like to read the entire hearings of the Senate 
     Committee. ``That's fifty-nine volumes,'' Kennedy warned. 
     ``Millions of words.'' When I held out, he passed me on to 
     his lieutenant in charge of the Hoffa investigation, Walter 
     Sheridan.
       Sheridan turned out to be the most unlikely of G-men. 
     Television and movie fans accustomed to Lee Marvin or Rod 
     Steiger and Efrem Zimbalist as their gangbuster heroes would 
     be badly let down by Mr. Sheridan. So quiet-spoken you 
     literally have to lean forward to hear him, on the surface a 
     diffident, even shy and eminently gentle man.
       But Kennedy's book had indicated the tiger that lurked 
     within the deceptively bland exterior, praising Walter as 
     tireless and unbendable, committed to the principle of 
     integrity in government and labor-management. Outraged by the 
     labor racketeering encouraged by political and business 
     connivance, he would work around the clock day after day to 
     stitch together a collar of evidence to fit even the thick, 
     tough necks of the Jimmy Hoffas.
       Until the Kennedy investigations, the robber barons of the 
     labor movement had carved up their million dollar pies with 
     impunity. It is one thing merely to dream the impossible 
     dream, quite another to gather together for a convincing 
     indictment all the little jigsaw facts buried by professional 
     deceivers. How Walter Sheridan persevered in this quest, 
     despite bribes, threats and government roadblocks, provides 
     an encouraging lining for an essentially discouraging story.
       For months, after Walter sent me the Rackets Committee 
     material, I immersed myself in the testimony of thousands of 
     witnesses who talked (or balked) about pension funds looted 
     of millions of dollars, with a majority of those six- and 
     seven-figure loans going to notorious Mafiosi, of 
     ``sweetheart'' contracts arranged between greedy company 
     executives and union officials on the take (including, as 
     this book makes clear, President Hoffa himself), of once 
     respectable industries and unions infiltrated by a blatant 
     army of extortionists and enforcers, terrorizing the would-be 
     honest into silence or connivance. It was material, I 
     realized, that made waterfront crime-evil as that was--seem 
     like very small potatoes.
       Now I understood more clearly the conclusion Bob Kennedy 
     had reached in his book--that the real enemy within was the 
     increasingly effective alliance of big money, labor 
     racketeers, the mob, and dishonest prosecutors, judges and 
     government officials, without whom billions could not be 
     stolen from our economy--and that this nationwide conspiracy 
     was poisoning the wellspring of the nation. From my talks 
     with Bob Kennedy, Walter Sheridan and their colleagues in the 
     Justice Department, I was convinced of
      their passionate devotion to this theme--and to the 
     conviction that we could never defeat an external enemy 
     unless we first cut from our body politic the growing 
     cancer of corruption that would finally destroy our 
     society as Rome was eaten away from within two thousand 
     years ago.
       When I returned to Washington with all fifty-nine volumes 
     of testimony buzzing in my head, I outlined a possible story 
     line to Bob Kennedy and his staff. But now I felt a further 
     step in research was necessary: to move on from the 
     transcripts to the people behind the transcripts, those who 
     had endured the pressure of belonging to a union whose 
     dictatorship they despised and whose goon-squad violence they 
     feared.
       When I discussed this request with Kennedy he again passed 
     me on to Walter, who, in his calm, cautious way, put me in 
     touch with a fascinating union leader, a highly placed 
     officer who had been secretly cooperating with the Kennedy 
     investigation because he had lived his life as an honest 
     trade unionist and had become disgusted with the wholesale 
     looting of union funds, the terrorizing of union members who 
     protested, the Mafia leaders allowed to pass themselves off 
     as union leaders. The roster of Teamster vice presidents read 
     like a Who's Who in American Crime, and ``Max,'' as we shall 
     call our inside contact, had had a bellyfull.
       Here, through Walter's sensitive liaison, I was to get a 
     one-on-one insight into the ongoing drama--the tension that 
     runs through so much of Walter's book--a man's conscience 
     struggling to keep afloat in a sea of fear. For the next few 
     months I was to meet Max under conditions that reminded me of 
     my World War II days in the O.S.S. We met in Los Angeles, in 
     a small town in Florida, and in Mexico--using pseudonyms and 
     even taking the precaution of meeting in a third, neutral 
     room in case we were being followed or bugged. His nerves 
     were shot and he was drinking himself through the day, 
     terrified of Hoffa and his henchmen, yet driven by the gut-
     conviction that mobsters like Johnny Dio and Red Dorfman and 
     Joey Glimco and Tony Provenzano and all the rest of the tribe 
     were poison to the labor movement to which he had dedicated 
     his life. Through Max, I met other Teamster dissidents, all 
     hating Hoffa's guts and all afraid to face his wrath.
       Thanks to Max, I was able to personify in my script a 
     reluctant, tormented thorn in the tough hide of the composite 
     labor boss I 
     [[Page S2958]] call Pete Bonner. Alas, the film for reasons 
     that bring me very
      close to the spirit of this uncompromising book, has never 
     reached the screen. Jerry Wald, who alone had had the 
     courage to produce it, died suddenly, at a time when 20th 
     Century-Fox was fighting for survival after its 
     spendthrift Cleopatra. A labor tough walked right into the 
     office of the new head of the studio to warn him that if 
     the picture was ever made drivers would refuse to deliver 
     the prints to the theaters. And, if they got there by any 
     other means, stink bombs would drive out the audiences.
       With Bob Kennedy's encouragement, I tried to produce the 
     film myself. One film star phoned to say he loved the script, 
     then came to my house drunk to tell me he was afraid he might 
     be killed if he did it. There have been ever-increasing ties 
     between the mob and some of the film studios and, of course, 
     those studios rejected it out of hand. Finally, I had firm 
     interest from Columbia, the company that had released On the 
     Waterfront. On the eve of the meeting with Columbia 
     executives to which I had been invited, every one of the 
     people who was to attend that conference received a letter 
     from William Bufalino, whose activities on behalf of Hoffa 
     are a matter of record (as Sheridan's book confirms). 
     Bufalino is, among other things, a lawyer, but this letter 
     was disturbingly extra-legal. It stated flatly that 20th 
     Century-Fox had wisely abandoned the project as soon as all 
     the possible eventualities had been pointed out to them, and 
     he felt confident that Columbia would be smart enough to do 
     likewise. On the morning of the meeting, a studio secretary 
     called to tell me that it had been canceled, indefinitely. 
     Apparently Hoffa and Bufalino had decided what the American 
     people could and could not see. And the Hollywood ``front 
     office''--notorious for its vincibility--had meekly complied.
       But that was only a taste of the frustration that Walter 
     Sheridan had suffered over the years as he battled against 
     the invisible empire. The jury tampering in Nashville reads 
     like Police Gazette fiction, but it's all too true. The 
     Chicago trial, in which Jimmy Hoffa was finally convicted of 
     stealing more than a million dollars from his Teamsters 
     Pension Fund, is the stuff of high social drama. And the 
     trials and tribulations of Ed Partin, the big and tough 
     Teamster from Baton Rouge who turned on Hoffa, helped to 
     convict him, and then was offered a million dollars if he 
     would perjure himself and retract his testimony--or be 
     destroyed if he refused; all of this must be read, and then 
     reread and digested, to be believed.
      And remembered. The incredible cast of those working to gain 
     a pardon for Hoffa, and a buy-off or conviction of Partin, 
     includes governors, federal judges, Louisiana Mafiosi, 
     Chicago gangsters, Pension Fund lawyer-grafters, senators, 
     congressmen, administration officials, con-men, sleazy go-
     betweens. Even Audie Murphy and George Murphy get into the 
     act, not to mention gun-totin' William Loeb and his 
     infamous Teamsters-financed Manchester Union Leader.
       Here is the enemy within, in all its star-spangled unglory.
       The enemy walks among us, not as an underworld fugitive but 
     as an adornment of cafe society, enjoying the best tables in 
     New York and Miami, Las Vegas, Hollywood and Acapulco. You'll 
     find him chumming with the celebrities at Le Club or ``21'' 
     or the Sands, or in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills 
     Hotel. Instead of fearing government pressure, he'll boast of 
     his in with the White House. And the ``cream'' of our society 
     don't shun him, they invite him to their parties. And they 
     hope he will return the favor.
       In this painstaking book, Sheridan faces up to the reality 
     that, after all the convictions and sensational disclosures, 
     corruption flows on. George Jackson rotted in jail for nearly 
     a decade for heisting $70. Jimmy Hoffa cops a million, bribes 
     juries, runs with the most dangerous gangsters in America 
     and, thanks to the intervention of his good friend Dick 
     Nixon, does an easy five. This, after the parole board had 
     rejected Hoffa's appeal three times in a row. This, in an 
     election year when Nixon has become anathema to the 
     legitimate labor movement and the Teamsters wind up as his 
     only big-labor support.
       The Nixon-Hoffa friendship, beginning when Nixon was Vice 
     President, was emphasized again by his recent attendance at 
     the executive board meeting of the Teamsters. And his 
     Secretary of Labor gave fulsome praise to that gang-ridden 
     union at its most recent convention. ``A strange love 
     affair,'' The New York Times has described it. One might call 
     it something even stranger. Sheridan doesn't go in much for 
     adjectives. He's fact man and his step-by-step account of the 
     Hoffa-Nixon romance will make you want to weep for an America 
     that is now challenged--as Bob Kennedy had begun to challenge 
     her--to reach deep down and rediscover her soul.
       Will the dry rot of moral decay leave the field to the 
     Hoffas, the J.T.T. and the Syndicate? The enemy within seems 
     to grow stronger every day. Whether or not a Jack Anderson, a 
     Ralph Nader, a Walter Sheridan can arouse our people from 
     their complacency is the question on which the future course 
     of America may depend.
     

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