Heads on Their Shoulders

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, began screaming: "Off --with her head! Off--" "Nonsense!" said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

Alice in Wonderland

Like Lewis Carroll's splenetic Queen of Hearts, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' President James Riddle Hoffa is addicted to off-with-their-heads attacks on his enemies, who are legion. But as happened with the Queen, the intended victims still seem to keep their heads on their shoulders.

Last week, fresh from a flop series of speeches in Wisconsin, where he tried to lop away at the neck of one of his bitterest foes. Democratic Presidential Hopeful Jack Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa. as outwardly confident as the driver of a 14-wheel rig, swaggered into Manhattan's Madison Square Garden (capacity: 18,000) for a rally billed as dramatic evidence of Teamster solidarity. Again he whaled away at Kennedy ("the handsome young man who never knew what it was to work with his hands"), as well as at Arkansas' Teamster-investigating Democratic Senator John McClellan, the Landrum-Griffin bill, radio, TV, the press, etc. But the meeting was a dud: of the 150,000 Teamsters in the New York area, only 10,000 showed up. "Frankly," explained a Hoffa aide, "it was a disappointing turnout, but we didn't want to put on the muscle."

Hoffa's head-hunting--along with its failure--was dramatically demonstrated in another way last week. Uncovered by the New York Herald Tribune's Reporter Earl Mazo was a Hoffa political purge list, containing the names of 87 Senators and Representatives running for 1960 reelection. Sent several months ago to Teamster leaders around the country, it cited four Democratic Senators (McClellan, Mississippi's James Eastland, West Virginia's Jennings Randolph and Tennessee's Estes Kefauver) and five Republicans (South Dakota's Karl Mundt, Ida ho's Henry Dworshak. Colorado's Gordon Allott. Nebraska's Carl Curtis and Kansas' Andrew Schoeppel). Although Hoffa professes to be an all-out civil rights integrationist, he urged support for Ar kansas Supreme Court Justice Jim John son ("a professional segregationist, but pro-labor") against McClellan and for Tennessee Segregationist Judge Andrew ("Tip") Taylor against Kefauver.

Hoffa's House heads included such lib eral Democrats as Oregon's Edith Green (her sins: being Kennedy's Oregon cam paign manager and her "ugly" role on the House Labor Committee). Missouri's Richard Boiling ("bad actor"), Michigan's James O'Hara ("bad actor"), and Indiana's John Brademas ("bad actor").

Again, the results were hardly what Jimmy Hoffa could have hoped for. Campaigning hard in Wisconsin, Democratic Presidential Hopeful Hubert Humphrey unhappily and often observed that he had every bit as much right to rate Hoffa's enmity as Jack Kennedy. And many an unlisted Senator and Representative felt downright injured at being left off Hoffa's purge sheet. For it was clear and becoming clearer that having Jimmy Hoffa and his hoodlum henchmen going after a politician's head could be a pretty good way for that politician to stay in office.

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