Out There in America

...The newspaper, usually noted only for its ultra-conservative editorial position, alleged in the first story of the series that "dirty tricks" by the detective agency "included use of disguises, false identifications, infiltration of political campaigns and...

...The year 1971 was a particularly satisfying year for Indianapolis Repulicans...

...Stevens...

...OUT THERE IN AMERICA All-American City Indianapolis The red, white, and blue signs are posted in prominent positions along every major thoroughfare into the city: "Welcome to Indianapolis, an All-American City...

...Love and his fellow workers won the right to union representation in 1969, after a Federal court ruled that the union election held the year before had been lost because of the massive unfair labor practices of J.P...

...Hoyman talks about the frustration of Darlington:' 'How can you hold people for nineteen years when you don't have a plant...

...hiding a bug in a plastic plant to monitor a Hartke financial meeting in an Indianapolis office building...

...There is stronger evidence that the Statesboro workers are willing to fight to force the company to reopen the plant: They are putting their money where their mouths are...

...The story they told raises disturbing questions about the treatment of inmates in a Navy brig and about Navy and Marine procedures for investigating allegations of prisoner mistreatment...

...In any case, back-pay awards are tax-deductible as a legitimate business expense...

...The special grand jury was selected in October, and before the end of the month an indictment had been returned against five men, charging them with conspiracy to commit theft, burglary, and interception of communications...

...C. Timothy Wilcox, president of the private detective agency, International Investigators Inc., and a former GOP precinct committeeman...

...McClory discussed the case with Navy Secretary J. William Middendorf, who promised to "leave no stone unturned" in efforts to get at the truth...

...Therefore, we strongly recommend that the U.S...

...Bulen, often referred to in the past as Lugar's political godfather, is a key figure in both probes...

...Separate state and Federal grand juries are conducting wide-ranging investigations into political corruption, and the men who once exercised day-to-day power in Indianapolis are now being summoned repeatedly to testify about the exercise of that power—men like L. Keith Bulen, a former Repulican national committeeman with a taste for lavender patent leather shoes and Las Vegas junkets, or Buena Chaney, a prominent Terre Haute attorney and former Republican state committee chairman...

...TERRY CURRY (Terry Curry is a free-lance writer and law student in Indianapolis...

...Two eyewitnesses testified they saw Williams punch Stawnychy repeatedly while the recruit was struggling in a straitjacket and unable to move his arms...

...In Statesboro we still have a goal: Start the plant up again...

...cities, and it was one of the few large metropolitan areas in the nation with a Republican administration, Indeed, Lugar had the dubious distinction of being known as Nixon's "favorite big-city mayor...

...According to recruits who spoke to Stawnychy before he died and brig inmates who witnessed what happened to him, Stawnychy was withdrawn and depressed the night he was brought to the brig...

...This past June the company shut down the plant...

...More than 100 witnesses have been called before the grand jury during the last ten months in that probe...

...The system here is rotten to the core...

...In September, three months after the plant had closed, the TWUA called a meeting at Bryant's Kitchen in Statesboro...

...These are dedicated people who really commit themselves," says Roosevelt Love, who worked as a doffer at the J.P...

...A Marine Corps investigation into the beating, which began after Stawnychy was hospitalized May 13, found no wrongdoing by Marine guards and reported only that Stawnychy became agitated in the brig and had to be subdued, and that the guards who subdued him employed "necessary physical restraint...

...Those allegations include: two 1973 break-ins at the Democratic State Headquarters in Indianapolis and planting there of electronic bugs...

...They are an enormously loyal people...

...The presentation was worked out at the base the night before the Waukegan breakfast meeting by Kelly...

...Stawnychy had no previous history of mental illness...

...The three guards were tried during eight days of proceedings between August 6 and August 14...

...The laid-off workers are entitled to profit-sharing if they give up their right to be recalled to work if the plant reopens...

...The case of Steven Stawnychy would almost certainly have ended with his suicide except for a set of unusual circumstances...

...In addition to the incident involving Stawnychy, twenty-one allegations of physical abuse were lodged against guards in the Great Lakes brig during a two-year period...

...He seemed unable to understand what was said to him or to carry out the simplest orders...

...Witnesses said the guards threw him against a wall, punched him repeatedly in the body and face, and then put him in a straitjacket and continued punching him even though Stawnychy could no longer move...

...Two eyewitnesses testified that they saw Mason knee Stawnychy...

...For Deering-Milliken—and the lesson is not lost on J. P. Stevens—Darlington signifies a nineteen-year stalemate...

...The Special Master issued a rather strong relief which included reimbursing the union for all negotiating expenses," TWUA's Hoyman says...

...Well, I've worked South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, and I've never seen anything like this place...

...How can they be afraid of being fired when they're already out of work...

...Stawnychy then began to cower in fear, and was taken to the second-floor sick bay to receive first aid...

...But," Scott Hoyman points out, "it may be entirely academic with the closing of the plant...

...On June 15, at a breakfast meeting with military representatives in Waukegan, McClory received a report that stated in part, "Seaman recruit Stawnychy had to be physically restrained while in the correctional center and did receive minor injuries consisting of cuts and bruises as a result...

...Stalemate in Statesboro Statesboro, Georgia "They hate the word 'union.' They'll fight a union with all four feet...

...Of these, only one allegation of harassment and one attempted suicide were made the subjects of formal investigations...

...And the recommendation would impose a fine [of up to $10,000] for each future violation of the decree [and if the violation is of a continuing nature, further fines of] up to $5,000 per day, including bodily attachment of company officers...

...Stevens over Statesboro...

...In 1956, Roger Milliken decided to shut down his Darlington mill the day after employes at the plant voted 256 to 248 in favor of a union...

...Stevens Statesboro plant...

...There were also fifty-one allegations by inmates of harassment, and three instances of attempted suicide in the brig...

...With the rendering of the verdicts, the case was officially closed...

...But people out at the Statesboro plant stood together...

...The battle is far from over...

...The first defendant to be tried was Corporal William T. Mason, twenty-two, who was accused of kneeing Stawnychy in the face...

...Their presentation initially convinced McClory that no guards had been at fault, and he publicly accepted the official Navy and Marine Corps version...

...The Fauver report said: "This Court found that respondent's history was one of persistent, long continued, flagrant violations occurring after and in spite of repeated declarations of illegality by Board and reviewing Courts...

...Not one of these allegations was ever formally investigated, and most were not even reported to the commanding officer of the Marine barracks...

...interception of Democratic Party mailings, and a mysterious safe burglary at an Indianapolis tavern, which unexplainedly attracted the attention of several national crime experts, including a fingerprint expert reportedly hired for the job by G. Gordon Liddy...

...Although a team of FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents—under the direction of U.S...

...Both investigations occurred in July, after the Stawnychy case had attracted wide attention and made mistreatment of brig inmates the serious offense in the eyes of base officials that it should have been all along...

...The Indianapolis Star, following a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 series on alleged police corruption in the city, charged in a series of articles last summer that a private detective agency employed by Republican Party officials had waged a three-year campaign against the state Democratic Party...

...Although the National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly come down on the side of the TWUA in regard to Statesboro, Stevens simply defies the rulings...

...The normal remedy for bad bargaining is that the NLRB says, 'Don't do it again.' This time—it's not a precedent, but it's still unusual—the Special Master is making a recommendation to the court that the company ought to pay the Labor Board for its costs and pay the Special Master...

...Like their counterparts in Nixon's palace guard, the political hacks and bosses of the past decade in Indiana, and particularly in Indianapolis, are being toppled like dominoes by charges of corruption and pre-Watergate Watergating, including allegations of burglaries, electronic buggings, and mail tampering...

...He also asked the committee to look into the method by which allegations of physical mistreatment are investigated, and he suggested a review of the possible connection between physical and mental mistreatment and the subsequent suicides of three persons besides Stawnychy —John McCabe, twenty, who shot himself in June 1969, six months after allegedly being beaten in the Great Lakes brig and developing severe psychological problems...

...In the Popovich case, there was conflicting testimony...

...Also mentioned during other hearings was a mysterious former CIA man named William Harvey, who was alleged to have been a go-between in the CIA-Mafia plot to assassinate Fidel Castro...

...The Navy and Marines, who had taken no action against any guards in connection with beating of Stawnychy, began an elaborate attempt to convince McClory that the incident had been a minor one and that no brig guards had been at fault...

...Mason was found guilty, but not of kneeing Stawnychy...

...Now, however, the euphoria of 1971 among Indiana Republicans is as rare as a Nixon supporter in Congress...

...the young mayor won re-election by more than 50,000 votes...

...The Marine Corps investigation on which the report to McClory was based was conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Robert D. Kelly, who failed to interview a single brig inmate...

...Since 1968, the union has been tied up in court cases with J.P...

...Witnesses said that Stawnychy was beaten in the brig by seven or eight Marine guards and Navy medical corpsmen, that the beating included being kneed in the face, kicked in the stomach, and punched repeatedly in the body and face, and that the beating continued even after Stawnychy was put in a sraitjacket and loaded into an ambulance...

...Only five people out of the 150 in the plant at the time it closed have asked for their profit-sharing...

...Implying Baise would have also been indicted if there were state statutes applicable to obstruction of justice, the grand jury report concluded: "It is unclear if this material was brought to the attention of William Ruck-elshaus, but it is clear that Gary Baise kept the materials and did nothing to determine if any laws had been broken or crimes committed...

...Stawnychy's fellow recruits, however, signed a petition charging the Navy with murder, and then began informing the Chicago press of details of the beating which preceded Stawnychy's death...

...Since 1971 was also a mayoral election year, the Look award was fortuitously timed...

...This explanation was offered despite the fact that Stawnychy had to be hospitalized for eight days following the "physical restraint," required a transfusion of two pints of blood, and was so disoriented in the hospital that he had to spend several days in a straitjacket in the psychiatric ward, experienced wild hallucinations, and in general gave every sign of having been beaten senseless...

...Named in the indictment were Chaney...

...telephone taps installed in Hartke's office by three men posing as telephone repairmen...

...Both Huston and Harvey are now in private law practice in Indianapolis...

...Armed with indictments and a few cooperative witnesses, investigators are beginning the process of plea bargaining in an effort to induce cooperation from those facing criminal charges...

...The Textile Workers Union of America charged that Stevens closed the Statesboro plant to "chill unionism" in the rest of the textile giant's chain of mills...

...There he fainted, was revived, and then panicked and tried to escape from his guards...

...They would sign up people when they got hired...

...According to legal officers, it was the first court martial for maltreatment of a prisoner in the history of the Great Lakes Naval Base...

...I can't understand that...

...If upheld, his recommendations finally will put some bite into the Board's findings against Stevens...

...MIMI CONWAY (Mimi Conway, a free-lance writer based in Tennessee, has written for Esquire, The Far East Economic Review, The Village Voice, and other publications...

...He was extremely passive and appeared to be, "in a shell...

...In his personal report to the House Armed Services Committee, Representative McClory suggested that the committee investigate the measures taken at Great Lakes to protect prisoners from physical abuse...

...If Republican politics in Indiana have not been staggered enough in recent months by the corruption allegations, two Indianapolis attorneys also achieved national notoriety during recent Congressional hearings on intelligence activities...

...For the TWUA, Darlington is a nightmare that the union does not want repeated...

...If you don't have a plant, it becomes a Pyrrhic victory...

...There, he lay down, put his head on a rail, and was struck by an oncoming train...

...The litigation] has taken so long that one-third of the Darlington workers have died, most of them are beyond employment age, and many have moved away...

...Yet the fate of Stawnychy in the brig and later, the nature of the Marine investigation into the beating he received, and even the results of the courts martial themselves give rise to doubts about the Navy's commitment to prosecuting those who mistreat prisoners...

...Within seven weeks the plant was closed, and after that Milliken sold the mill piecemeal, even though various members of the Darlington board of directors felt that the mill could still be operated as a profit-making enterprise...

...Before the special county grand jury was impaneled, much of the state media attention had been focused on a Federal grand jury investigation of alleged political influence-peddling in the issuance of lucrative liquor licenses in Indianapolis...

...He had to be hospitalized for eight days...

...Among the misuses of funds reportedly discovered by IRS agents was the floating of funds from the license branches to Campaign Communicators, Inc., a political campaign firm headed by Bulen...

...An IRS agent involved in the investigation confided, "Everybody talks about the cronyism and corruption in the South, about the good old boys who own city hall...

...He made a bed improperly numerous times, and each time a Marine corporal ripped out the blankets and told Stawnychy to make the bed again...

...Even more startling than the first criminal charges emanating from the grand jury was a special report issued in conjunction with the indictment...

...The third defendant, Corporal Nebojsa Popovich, twenty-two, was found innocent of punching Stawnychy while Stawnychy was being transported to the base hospital...

...This is more novel...

...TWUA's southern regional director, Scott Hoy man, said of the workers at the Statesboro plant: "These people really kept themselves organized from 1968 to 1975...

...A ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court on Special Master Fauvre's recommendation could come within the next few months...

...Others said Stawnychy was able to flail wildly with his arms in the ambulance because the straitjacket was insecurely fastened...

...But last June, Special Master William Fauver submitted recommendations to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding Stevens in contempt of a previous Labor Board order...

...The 1970 burglary and bugging case was rushed before the special grand jury because of the impending expiration of the statute of limitations on that crime, but the six jurors are expected to remain in session for several more months to hear evidence concerning a variety of activities...

...There are indications that the physical abuse of brig inmates, long practiced in the Navy, has not been sufficiently discouraged, at least at Great Lakes...

...Attorney General Gary H. Baise, and the report stated the grand jury was convinced Baise knew the material had been obtained illegally...

...On June 20, three Marine brig guards were charged with maltreatment and ordered court martialed...

...The 1970 census had indicated Indianapolis had jumped in population rankings to eleventh among U.S...

...They testified that they never saw Williams strike Stawnychy, although none would swear that it had not happened...

...Brutality in the Brig Waukegan, Illinois Navy recruit Steven Stawnychy, eighteen, a devout Catholic from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, entered the brig at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center shortly before midnight on May 12, 1975, having been absent without leave from the base for less than fifteen minutes...

...infiltration and electronic monitoring of the 1972 gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Matthew E.Welsh...

...The $5,000 and $10,000 fines—now that's beginning to have some weight...

...Gerald R. Redding, senior partner of a prominent Indianapolis law firm, and Eston L. Perry, a former aide to Chaney...

...It was only after he heard from witnesses who had never been interviewed by Kelly, and after an eyewitness account of the beating appeared on the front page of the Tribune June 19, that McClory reversed his position and bitterly accused military authorities of deliberately misleading him...

...The indictment against the five relates to the burglary of the office of an Indianapolis attorney and confidant of Democratic Senator Vance Hartke...

...Although the Supreme Court sustained the ruling that Deering-Milliken had acted illegally in closing the Darlington plant to "chill unionism" in other mills in the Deering-Milliken chain, and the Court determined that the dismissed workers were entitled to back pay for the work they lost, not one cent of back pay has been paid so far, and several more years may pass before any payments are made...

...The second defendant, Sergeant Michael A. Williams, twenty-three, was found innocent of punching Stawnychy...

...The ultimate results of the various investigations will not be known for months, but it is already certain that the former kingmakers of Indiana Republican politics will make kings no more...

...Department of Justice make a complete and thorough investigation for any possible crimes, including, but not limited to, obstruction of justice and receiving stolen goods...

...Roosevelt Love still has confidence in the Federal courts...

...Also, the company has to pay for the union cost...

...According to the witnesses, Stawnychy was punched in the face seven or eight times as he rode in an ambulance to the base hospital...

...He also has faith in the staying power of the workers in the Statesboro endurance test: "It was an experience about me being a union man...

...Colonel Charles W. Knapp, commanding officer of the Marine barracks at Great Lakes...

...The union is determined that Statesboro will not become a Darlington...

...These questions are now being investigated by the House Armed Services Committee and may be the subject of full-scale committee hearings...

...Since the goal of these two anti-labor textile giants is keeping out unionism, Darlington may be a mill-owners' victory of sorts...

...Some of the supervisors had been giving me a hard time about that, saying, 'You're gonna be outta here because of that.' And I got a chance to see some of them out before I was...

...More than 90 per cent of the inmates of Navy brigs are incarcerated for such offenses as absence without leave, which have no civilian equivalent...

...It is alleged that files were stolen from the office and an eavesdropping device affixed to the bottom of an office chair in an attempt to gather incriminating evidence against Hartke...

...On the morning of May 13, witnesses said, Stawnychy was taken to the brig's confinement-and-release building, where he was ordered to make a bed...

...If protection of brig inmates at Great Lakes, and the protection of the inmates of military prisons in general, is to be a concern of the military, then full House Armed Service Committee hearings on all aspects of the Stawnychy case could be an important first step...

...Roosevelt Love says union support is even broader, but "Stevens has put fear in them...

...Some witnesses said Popovich struck Stawnychy while Stawnychy was in a straitjacket and unable to move...

...DAVID SATTER (David Satter is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune...

...Three weeks after the incident in the brig, Stawnychy, who told friends he felt depressed and humiliated about the beating, left the transit personnel unit at the base, climbed a fence, and walked to the nearby Chicago and Northwestern Railroad tracks...

...Justice Department Strike Force attorneys based at Chicago—have been investigating allegations of political corruption for more than a year, the first indictment of political figures was returned not by a Federal grand jury, but instead by a special Marion County (Indianapolis) grand jury impaneled to investigate charges of pre-Watergate "dirty tricks" in Indiana...

...Subsequently, when 83 per cent of the 550 workers at the plant signed a petition to go back to work—essentially turning their backs on the newly won union—Milliken turned them down cold...

...After the first accounts of the beating appeared in the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, along with the accusation by Stawnychy's parents that the beating prompted their son's suicide, Representative Robert McClory, whose district includes the Great Lakes Naval Base, expressed an interest in the case...

...I have the hope that the plant will be reopened because I have the feeling they closed because of the union and the courts will see that...

...he was convicted of "shoving" the recruit, fined $100, and reduced in rank from corporal to lance corporal...

...Defense witnesses did not refute this testimony, but only said they saw no marks on Stawnychy's face after the alleged kneeing...

...They deserve at least the most stringent institutional protections against physical abuse, if they are to be incarcerated under those circumstances...

...This testimony was never refuted by the defense, which instead called as witnesses persons who took part in beating Stawnychy...

...In a related Federal investigation, IRS agents have audited Indianapolis auto license branches, which are operated by patronage employes of the party in control of state government...

...The authorities at the base devoted more attention to the presentation of their report to McClory than to the investigation itself...

...The "investigation" apparently consisted of questioning the brig guards involved in the beating and accepting their word, without seriously seeking out disinterested witnesses...

...As long as there are 17 per cent of these hard-core labor people here," Milliken said at the time, "I refuse to operate the mill...

...it gave Richard Nixon his largest pluralities in 1968 and 1972...

...The next morning, Stawnychy was being rushed by ambulance from the brig to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital after suffering a beating so brutal it left him completely incoherent and suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations...

...Some of them feel like they're going to be fired...

...A prominent witness during hearings on the Nixon years was Thomas Charles Huston, author of the so-called Huston Plan, a proposed scenario for disrupting domestic opposition to the Vietnam war which included increased electronic surveillance and "surreptitious entries...

...Finally, the corporal grew irritated with Stawnychy's lack of comprehension, seized him by the back of the neck and kneed him in the face...

...Edgar L. Long-worth, a former aide to Bulen and now an assistant to Richard Roudebush, national director of the Veterans Administration...

...Richard G. Lugar, Mayor...

...Unmistakably Midwestern in both politics and geography, Indiana is traditionally a Republican state...

...it's wired right down the line...

...bugging' with sophisticated tiny transmitters, hidden monitors, and telephone taps...

...Some of them have up to $1,000 coming...

...Navy Commander William Ryan, executive officer of the Great Lakes Recruit Training Command, and two Navy public affairs officers...

...Richard Rossom, eighteen, who was struck by a train on July 31, 1968, three days after being released from the Great Lakes brig, and Mark 0. Stephens, nineteen, who hanged himself from a tree last February outside the Great Lakes base...

...Indictments are expected in both Federal investigations...

...To paraphrase the old saying, at Statesboro the danger is that the workers may have won the union but lost the plant...

...A third witness said he saw Mason raise his knee but did not see actual contact because his view was obscured by a file cabinet...

...Ruckelshaus received national recognition in 1973 when, as number-two man at the Justice Department, he was axed during Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre...

...Materials allegedly stolen in the burglary, including office memoranda and check books, were turned over in 1970 by unnamed persons to then-Deputy U.S...

...The All-American City appellation dates from 1971, when the Indiana capital was named by Look magazine in its annual selection of All-American cities...

...Baise was at that time a special assistant to William D. Ruckelshaus, a 1968 Republican Senatorial nominee from Indiana...

...Although, by that time, workers at the Stevens plant were drawing unemployment compensation or had obtained other jobs, fifty-five of the 150 workers left in the plant at the time of its closing showed up for the meeting...