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Getting the Feel of the High W ireis t * ts 'f olt; c .-is f*s4rFundsBy VICTOR RIESELmen attached to each strike force.WASHINGTONAlmostanyday. m the world’s finestrestaurants, or chi-chi hotels, orbest town houses and suburban estates, a new class of millionaireshosts its new milieu, new clients and new political allies. The hosts and hosted are the consultants and directors of today's $110 billion pension funds — tens of thousands of them run by unions.Some are as clean as a scrubcooperationtant secretary of labor for Labor-Management Services,WillieUsery, a budget was developed toput 88 new investigators into the field and back them up with 42researchers and clerks.nurse’s palm. Some are as dirty and looted or exploited as an oldfashioned waterfront crimp jointNow the“new”Atty. Gen. JohnMitchell wants to probe into them to learn whether any of them arefor Cosa Nostrasources lor cosa Nostra money. I his will take digging. There are 159,000 active funds on file with the Labor Department’s Office ofLabor-Management and Welfare-Pension Reports. Some 33.300 are pension- and profit-sharing systems. Certainly the Mafia is in some themThis will take some petty cash — $2 million to be exact, for the 1970 fiscal year — about $700,000 less than was stolen (according to the General Acounting Office) from the New York City poverty program. Now it’s up to Congress.If the solons do give the Labor Department the $2 million, its enforcement office under Frank Kleiler will computerize its files.Thus the field men will be abletoprocess 51.000menthe data piling up inunion reports on their general treasuries and three times that many pension funds. In all,some laser light will be thrown on the accumulation of some $30ofpocket deep.John Mitchell plans no frontal attack on the funds or theirsomebillion directly or indirectly underunion supervision.on me iunas or tneir newwealthy oligarchy made up of actuaries, barristers and investment consultants. The attorney generalwill count on his anticrime taskforces. There are eight now. Soon lie hopes to put another 12 suchWithout this information, the national labor leaders and the Justice Department and its organized crime section can have the investigational agility of a herd of dinosaurs. There are small locals inside the AFL-CIO,oftask teams into the field. In each, working with the FBI, the InternalRevenue Service, the JusticeDepartment’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section and other inwill be menindependent unions recognized status, racket unions operated by veterans of Murder,Inc., units fully chartered bystates and the Cosa Nostra, which have legal pension funds.theButvestigatory agencies.from the Labor Department.___the Labor Department welfare and pension reporting compliance office has but 175 probers and back-upNow Mr. Mitchell andIf Congress comes up with that$2 million, it won’t bepersonnel.bis crusading Henry Peterson, racketeering section chief, wantspent on catching the penny ante till-diggers.The new teams will go after thecrowd now “legally” exploiting theswiftest growing lt;$8 to $10 billionthepoolpooraLabor Department team of four pinch pennies, that istIlt;(!titccctt1rrtttr(irfcIafdArreoiiorMlWPthIf Congress doesn't trv to Hclayingf
Newspaper Details
Amarillo Globe Times
Amarillo, Texas, US
Wed, Apr 30, 1969
Page 30
Full Page
Clipped by
Madison H.
NA, 25 May 2023
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