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Inside LaborD I C C C I Congess CripplingK I LO L L: Anti-Racket Forces?Bv VlfTOK KIKSKLftWASHINGTON, DC, — Time has come to talk— .« ! w 'lt;• before President-elect Nison's crimetask force disbands to make merry at the Inauguration festivities |t has one more search to make—in theCi mg; esvTime has come to discover who are the solons who hav* consistently slashed anti c rime appropriations; who have peanut ed allocations by trimming $20 million from the anti-Cosa Nostra forces.Who in the Congress has fought the use of acomputer to memorize and track the multi-hillion-dollar activities ot some 21 Mafia families?”Be the most scientific count, there are 2.000 men in tl s :I inscrutable vice operation And the under n a im cl Organized Crime and Racketeering Section has hut 117 men and woman in all -onl\ 75 of themlawyers.Why, for example, when the utterly nonpartisan Henrv Petersen, the section’s crusading chief, urged that t s office ie given 100 lawyers (though he could use 2wi was the appropriation hacked back to 90 men ’I • would cost some $10 million With no reflection on wf |e ig cranes, for whose survival I pra\ regulai Iv, and redwoods, which I do admire, why is there i: e -|i« • .vildlife than on life among the w;ld menof the Cosa Nostra?Petersen s 7. lawyers must evaluate the constant flow of doc uments, reports, and surveillance dispatches(and, finally, actually prosecute) which cover the activitios of 2,(KMl of the crudest and wiliest men in theunderw or Id.Mobs Have ThousandsThese are the 2.000 ac tuallv in the Mafia organi ration ’’ there are thousands of outsiders whom thev u^e to run narcotics, rob banks, and act as couriers toSwitzerland and Panama to deposit money in anonv mous accounts, etc The 2.iMfo also direct the infiltration of some labor, operate do-it vourself unions in a score of cities\t a recent Ml CIO I xecutive Council session,one ot labor's toughest leaders and organizers, Harrv Van \rsdale, treasurer of the ‘MUl.lMMf-membcrInternational Brotherhood ot f lectrical Workers, re ported that the mob has such an aggressive a labor machine ot its own. he wanted national help to tight it m the Northeast.And ct, the Organized Crime Section has a labor desk made up of eight to 10 lawyers at the moment—and thev are not full tune W'hv not*’The I abor Dept.'s office of I abor Management and Welfa • Pens on Reports Compliance division has but 150 investigators to cover the land \!1 but the under-s./ed dozen do evervthing else but investigate—thev mnduc t union elections, they go after delinquent re p rts tb. y do accounting and they dig into mounds of pa per workAnd when the Justice Dept.’s coordinated strikeforces, “invented” b\ Hcnrv Petersen—human synthesis of justice and honestv — need labor specialists as the squads hit the big cities, the best the l abor Dept. Compliance Division can send them totals 12 or 13 men.Mobs Have ThousandsThese 12 to 13 men have the expertise to probe r t keterruig and Cosa Nostra invasion of unions. Yet. these 12 to 13 men are all who can be spared to cover eight or 10 cuties.How d es Congress expect the ine ming administration to fight back w.th a thin line of 120 to 130 men?1 or one thing the Se-ate, early this vear, forced the House to approve the use of electronic eavesdrop png in f ghtmg the ( si Nostra as well as the Communist espionage rings This omnibus Law Enforce merit Assistance and Criminal Justice Act gives the m orning Attorney General John Mitchell authority to use this type of electronics under strictly controlled court order.
Newspaper Details
Port Arthur News
Port Arthur, Texas, US
Mon, Dec 23, 1968
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Madison H.
NA, 25 May 2023
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