Hoffa Wars – Dan Moldea

“Then we blamed him for also being involved in the bombing of Tom’s home. He knocked us flat when he told us, ‘McMaster did that, and I promise you boys that he’ll get his.’” The second issue of Teammate, released in October, had twice as many pages as the first and was twice as much in demand.

Along with the sections by FACT, FASH, MATES, and the Unity Committee, there was a special report on the bombing of Gwilt’s home that indirectly accused McMaster of ordering it. Also included was a report by Ralph Nader’s consumer group on the lack of highway safety for truckers. (The report and an accompanying questionnaire were both reprinted in the December issue of Overdrive. ) In addition, the Local 299 dissidents published their legal brief in which Unity Committee members asked for an injunction against the dues increase which was going toward the purchase of Saline Valley Farms.

On the lighter side, “Mr. McMister” was back—a comic strip, a half-page of “Mister McMister” jokes, and the clincher, a full-page advertisement for the “Mister McMister Doll”: “It Walks! It Talks! Take it home, feed it money, and marvel at the way it picks your pocket, steals the food off your table, and the clothes off your back … Just like the real thing!” Copies of the first two issues of Teammate were circulated throughout the country.

As dissidents in other cities read about the problems of the rebels in Detroit, Unity Committees were formed in Indianapolis and Cleveland and discussed in other areas. As McGehee and his colleagues had hoped, the magazine had a tremendous impact. In fact it had to be stopped.

At 12:16 A.M. on November 2, before the third issue was completed, the offices of Teammate were bombed. Firemen arrived to battle the fire and a second bomb went off twenty minutes later, severely injuring several of the firefighters. Like the Gwilt bombing, the Teammate incident was never solved. The police reported that “professionals” were responsible.

3 The Oppressed Become the Oppressors 4 Stacked Decks and Dirty Deals 5 The Enemy Within 6 The Making of Two Presidents and One Angel 7 Teaming Up Against Castro 8 Coincidence or Conspiracy? 9 Mob Wars and Paper-Napkin Contracts PART TWO 10 The 1967 Revolt 11 Rebellion in Detroit 12 Tremors and Explosions—and a Week in the Life of a Steel Hauler 13 Averting the North-South Mob War 14 “Free Hoffa!”

15 The McMaster Task Force and the Nixon Plumbers 16 Rebel Hoffa and the 1974 Shutdown 17 The Blank Check 18 Living by the Sword 19 The Real Hoffa Legacy Postscript Afterword Image Gallery Reference Notes Index Acknowledgments About the Author Introduction I We the people seem to have the freest book trade in the world. Certainly we have the biggest. Cruise the mighty Amazon, and you will see so many books for sale in the United States today as would require more than four hundred miles of shelving to display them— a bookshelf that would stretch from Boston’s Old North Church to Fort McHenry in South Baltimore.

Surely that huge catalog is proof of our extraordinary freedom of expression: The US government does not ban books, because the First Amendment won’t allow it. While books are widely banned in states like China and Iran, no book may be forbidden by the US government at any level (although the CIA censors books by former officers). Where books are banned in the United States, the censors tend to be private organizations-church groups, school boards, and other local (busy)bodies roused to purify the public schools or libraries nearby.

Despite such local prohibitions, we can surely find any book we want. After all, it’s easy to locate those hot works that once were banned by the government as too “obscene” to sell, or mail, until the courts ruled otherwise on First Amendment grounds— Fanny Hill, Howl, Naked Lunch.

We also have no trouble finding books banned here and there as “antifamily,” “Satanic,” “racist,” and/or “filthy,” from Huckleberry Finn to Heather Has Two Mommies to the Harry Potter series, just to name a few. II And yet, the fact that those bold books are all in print, and widely read, does not mean that we have the freest book trade in the world.

On the contrary: For over half a century, America’s vast literary culture has been disparately policed, and imperceptibly contained, by state and corporate entities well placed and perfectly equipped to wipe out wayward writings. Their ad hoc suppressions through the years have been far more effectual than those quixotic bans imposed on classics like The Catcher in the Rye and Fahrenheit 451.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Unique ID: 1b42a2357ba71a4b
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• Title: –
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• Pages: 1141
• Language: English (en)

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