CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE To William Kristol and David Tell's analysis of the meaning of the recent electoral debacle, let me add a small bit of consolation ("A Teetering...
...Ron Fino, whose testimony before the Crime Subcommittee forms the dramatic center of Methvin's piece, himself rejected any suggestion of an "illicit alliance" to perpetuate mafia influence in LIUNA...
...Reagan honestly thought that he was strengthening the hand of supposed moderates in the Iranian regime...
...Luskin's reports to rank-and-file members through the union magazine have been skimpy, opaque, and uninformative...
...Unlike Methvin, who feels free to rely on his imagination to fill in troublesome gaps in the facts, prosecutors have the obligation to prove our charges with admissible evidence in adversary proceedings comporting with due process...
...Justice Department prosecutors would have used that same "detailed and comprehensive portrait" had they pursued their RICO court action...
...Similarly, the Inspector General's two-year investigation in Chicago produced a vastly more detailed and comprehensive portrait of mob influence over the District Council than was available to Justice Department investigators in 1994 or set out in their draft RICO complaint...
...Every other individual named by the government has left under the threat of charges, agreed in writing to leave the union permanently, or been forcibly removed through the disciplinary process...
...He never said the words quoted in the article or uttered any threats at all...
...Unfortunately, I and other reporters were denied access to Luskin's Buffalo hearings, where we would have learned that Fino had embellished in the account he conveyed to me...
...Luskin is correct about the timing of his complaint against the Buffalo local...
...Subsequently, Luskin has used his transcript to refresh Fino's recollection, and Fino now corrects his account...
...Rather than sell the virtues of a strong defense, which they are presumed to agree with, he extols the utility of public-private partnership...
...The effect of Bill Clinton's misdoings was, in fact, enormous...
...We brought the Complaint for Trusteeship in June 1997 and concluded more than 19 days of hearings, involving 45 witnesses and more than 200 exhibits, in the fall...
...With friends like this, one wonders, who needs enemies...
...And Podhoretz, rather than understand why Reagan might take such a tack, right or wrong, wonders at his performance, characterizing it as "wildly irrelevant" and "baby talk...
...Neither set of critics came near to being correct...
...The opinions of the Appellate Officer are bound, printed, and widely distributed...
...Detailed accounts of every pending charge, complaint for trusteeship, settlement agreement, and all decisions by the Independent Hearing Officer and the Appellate Officer are published in each issue of the Laborer magazine, which is mailed to every union member...
...Fino had left LIUNA five years before Coia became president of the union...
...RICO proceedings would have taken place in open court, where journalists and union members can see and report what's going on in a timely way...
...Ferguson may find this hard to believe, but most of us who made the trip to Washington traveled at our own expense not to hear the latest Lewinsky jokes, but to sincerely demand the resignation, or impeachment, of the man who has disgraced our nation and diminished it as a champion of truth and justice in the world...
...Even so, there is little doubt that Fino would have been killed if Cardinale had found Fino's recorder...
...The timing of the Independent Hearing Officer's decision to impose the trusteeship bore absolutely no relationship to the conclusion of the three-year agreement between LIUNA and the United States...
...He made people feel the noble sweep of our nation's history, and to feel, as he did, the call of destiny...
...Maybe next time the party elders will listen...
...During the summer, she and her husband walk the same trails every morning, alert for varmints and bears...
...The result of the recent voting would then have been a nationwide Democratic sweep of both the Senate and House comparable to FDR's victory in 1934...
...Methvin's inflammatory account of Arthur Coia "settl[ing] into the high life of a Laborers' president . . . [while] Fino continued his undercover work for the FBI" is a preposterous fiction...
...Of course, in the end he condescends to give Reagan the benefit of the doubt...
...The "faith and reason" discourse is guaranteed a long future...
...That's an image to be relished...
...In short, he was a statesman—someone with a sense of the historical moment and his role within it...
...Indeed, Methvin's suggestion that the decision to place the Chicago District Council under trusteeship coincided with "a belated one-year extension" of the agreement is simply baffling...
...It is actually rather painful to read...
...We know that because the GEB Attorney carefully reviewed and transcribed the tape and used it to help secure Cardinale's permanent expulsion from LIUNA...
...And we were encouraged because he was there to rally us, to resist decline and renew the promise of America...
...Had he been more ideologically truculent, he would have lost his effectiveness, and the gains in economic and geopolitical restructuring that he bequeathed us might not have come about...
...Barone fails to mention either that this decline also correlates with Republican control of the governorship for 24 of the last 32 years, or that in the wake of those governors' fiscal policies and the tax-revenue shortfalls resulting from Proposition 13 (which was enacted in 1978), California now ranks 43rd nationally in education spending, allotting about $30,000 less per classroom a year than the national average...
...About Luskin's two-year Chicago investigation, note the clever conjunction in his claim that he "produced a vastly more detailed and comprehensive portrait of mob influence over the District Council than was available to Justice Department investigators in 1994 or set out in the draft RICO complaint" [emphasis added...
...Looking down on us from whatever higher ground he inhabits, Ferguson certainly has his fun with our event...
...By making SDI the deal-breaker, he increased public support for missile defense and scared the Soviets badly...
...As for funding the contras, no president has accepted limitations on foreign policy of the sort the Boland Amendment attempted, and Reagan felt he had a moral obligation not to abandon the contras while litigating the matter, so he used a slippery expedient to get around it...
...It is a right with which Methvin is personally well acquainted, since he was permitted to review all of these records himself...
...Still, he finds many of Reagan's actions similarly incomprehensible, decides that he is far more of a "conventional politician" than had been assumed, and finds him a somewhat mysterious person...
...While the Inspector General and the GEB Attorney do report regularly and directly to the Justice Department officials responsible for oversight of LIUNA, the elected officials of LIUNA, including President Coia, learn of their actions at the same time as every other union member: when they are publicly announced...
...Methvin equally ill-serves Ron Fino, the central figure of his article...
...Luskin is also correct that Coia could not have been enjoying the perquisites of the union presidency while Fino was undercover...
...In fact, driving within a mile of the REI store on a sale day is life endangering—rude REI acolytes in SUVs literally run less perceptive, tender, and caring people off the road with shouts, gestures, and impatient glances...
...EUGENE METHVIN RESPONDS: A few comments about Mr...
...Ferguson's account of the March for Justice stands as a classic example of inside-the-Beltway cynicism...
...This blind denial of fault on the Republican side is evident in Barone's analysis of the collapse of California's public schools...
...The most serious black mark against Reagan's administration, the Iran-contra affair, was not as bad as has been asserted...
...agreed on the scope and subjects of the inquiry...
...As explained to me by Luskin and other union officials, a member may inspect the records of disciplinary actions, but only by traveling to Washington to union headquarters to visit the office of the Secretary-Treasurer...
...MICHAEL DAVID BLUME ANNAPOLIS, MD CLEANING UP THE LABORERS I have read worse articles than Eugene Methvin's "A Corrupt Union and the Mob" (Aug...
...Barone asserts, "Over the last 25 years, while Democrats allied with teacher unions, the schools of education, and Sacramento bureaucrats have had custody of California public schools, test scores have sent the state plunging from the top 10 in the nation to number 49...
...He knew how to get liberals like Steve Solarz aboard in support of the dubious Afghan insurgents, and how to keep conservative support despite his willingness to negotiate with Gorbachev...
...REI is a major presence here in Anchorage...
...He knew how to set a legislative agenda and get a good portion of it passed...
...In September 1995 I did so, and, as Luskin states, I was allowed to see the records of the few cases completed thus far...
...in oceanography...
...and cooperated wholeheartedly with our efforts...
...As with much of the article, Methvin's claims are a figment of his imagination that equally and unfairly impugn my personal integrity and that of the LIUNA reform process, as well as the professionalism of the career federal prosecutors who oversee the LIUNA-government agreement...
...He did not think of himself as trading arms for hostages, since he did not think of himself as dealing with those responsible for those acts of terrorism...
...That was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union...
...Conservative critics, however, thought that he was going soft on the Soviets, thus strengthening the hand of the Communists and once again emboldening them to attempt foreign adventures and to try to corrupt NATO...
...Although Methvin contends that we have "dragged [our] feet," perhaps the best benchmark for how well and how quickly we moved is that in the preceding 15 years, the best and most persistent efforts of federal prosecutors in Buffalo and Chicago had produced a total of one successful misdemeanor conviction and one guilty plea of two union shop stewards in Buffalo...
...JIM BABB ANCHORAGE, AK TRUTH, LANGUAGE, FAITH Richard John Neuhaus is correct that in his new encyclical, Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II aspires to revitalize the philosophical discourse encompassing faith and reason in search of the "final and only truth" ("Faith Defends Reason," Oct...
...Methvin's accusation that "from the start" I have "seemed to drag [my] feet" as General Executive Board (GEB) attorney, responsible for prosecuting organized crime corruption uncovered by the Inspector General of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) is repugnant to me...
...What did he care how far some people had traveled or how they had scraped together the money to pay for the opportunity to vent outrage at Bill Clinton's immoral, and probably criminal, behavior...
...Displaying considerably better judgment than Methvin, Fino was well aware that threatening to break someone's "f— hands" on a tape recording that might be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution would needlessly undermine his own credibility...
...The editors introduced the error, and I regret that I did not catch and correct it in the page proof...
...Luskin knows most of the expert witnesses he used in Chicago were former FBI agents employed by the union's inspector general, and most of their testimony dealt with information they obtained from underworld informants while they were working for the FBI...
...Liberals predicted that Reagan would exacerbate tensions with the Soviet Union, provoke them into more aggressive behavior...
...Contrary to Methvin's assertion, the GEB Attorney does not report to Coia or to any other individual within the union...
...He energized them to step forward once again, confident that America could renew itself and meet the challenges of the times...
...Since that time the LIUNA public-relations shop has been unhelpful, even refusing to provide me with a copy of the Independent Hearing Officer's decision in the Chicago District Council case...
...Nothing could be further from the truth...
...Reagan's supposed fecklessness in Reykjavik—he was criticized by liberals for blowing a deal on nuclear disarmament, and by conservatives for allowing the issue of disarmament to be placed on the table—was a particularly masterful stroke...
...It takes only a few examples to give the full flavor of Methvin's deeply flawed article...
...Through the reform process, and with constant scrutiny by the Justice Department, the union has made extraordinary strides to rid itself of organized crime corruption...
...More than two dozen LIUNA affiliates, representing more than 68,000 members—including mob-dominated locals and district councils in New York City, Buffalo, and Chicago—were placed under supervision or trusteeship, their affairs conducted by officials selected with the approval of the Department of Justice...
...No one from the Justice Department ever threatened "to take over the union" or to take any other action on account of the timing or outcome of the Coia investigation...
...Reagan understood that, at the end of the day, he was being paid for his judgment and his ability to lead...
...DENNIS CAMPBELL RESTON, VA UN-CYNICAL PATRIOTISM While Andrew Ferguson was squinting to find the most colorful figures at the Free Republic March for Justice on Halloween, he overlooked the vast majority of us who did not use the occasion to dress up as Cigar Man or Chicken Bill ("The Armies of the Right," Nov...
...Fino was indeed confronted by Sam Cardinale, who asked to frisk him...
...More important, if the Justice Department had not ceded to the union, a RICO suit would have launched a powerful court-monitored discovery process open to public scrutiny...
...Even union members are denied admission to these trials of their own elected officials...
...an America constantly struggling to live up to its ideals, but also one that has ideals of political freedom and human dignity to live up to...
...MICHAEL P. DOYLE LANSING, MI THE GOP'S OWN FAULT Michael Barone sadly reflects the intransigent state of denial that has cost the Republicans dearly in the recent past ("A Party of Governors," Nov...
...The unfortunate fact is that fictitious accounts like this of Ron Fino's activity only provide ammunition for diligent defense attorneys who have unsuccessfully sought for years to undermine his credibility by accusing him of furnishing inconsistent accounts of his actions...
...For the first time, they took seriously the possibility that we would outspend them on missile defense and permanently alter the balance of power...
...The evidence we developed over those 10 months, while simultaneously defeating well-financed court challenges to the reform process brought by Local 210 and other targets of the cleanup, produced a quick capitulation by the leadership of Local 210 and laid the groundwork for the permanent expulsion of more than 20 former local union leaders...
...Podhoretz relates an anecdote about a meeting in 1980 between the candidate and a gaggle of intellectuals, disaffected anti-Communist Democrats, most still regarding themselves as social democrats...
...he finds a way to ridicule our patriotism from every possible angle...
...Would I believe Ron Fino under oath...
...There is no great mystery here, only a great man...
...Indeed, some conservatives are as adamant as any liberal that Reagan was merely lucky to come up against Gorbachev...
...He has told me that story more than once over 10 years, and he told it consistently as I reported it...
...Yes, he is a conscientious witness, and when he testifies Justice Department prosecutors refresh his memory with transcripts of his tape recordings, just as Luskin did...
...He recalled to Americans, after the turmoil of the '60s and the cynicism of the '70s, after Watergate, the hostage crisis, and the selling of declinism, their best ideals and aspirations...
...For union democracy to come to LIUNA, its members must have access to timely independent reporting of the cleanup process...
...In fact, the Inspector General and the GEB Attorney have full power to subpoena any member or employee of any LIUNA affiliate and any union service provider...
...He even specified that "it's on the tape, crystal clear...
...They were right...
...During that period and from a standing start— the Inspector General developed proof of mob control, financial malpractice, and abuse of the democratic process over a 25-year period, and he corroborated many of the allegations by Ron Fino on which Methvin relies...
...When it becomes known, though it solves the human problem, it is seen to be ineffable...
...All of which shows why the Justice Department made a bad bargain...
...Methvin's account of Fino's unmasking as a government witness is likewise fanciful...
...At the start of the Lewinsky scandal, they each cautioned against the congressional Republican split-the-differ-ence, run-out-the-clock strategy...
...She has raised three children, bakes cookies, plays the violin, and holds a Ph.D...
...In less than three years, the LIUNA reform effort has defeated the mafia in Buffalo and Chicago (as well as in New York City and elsewhere...
...Union members have been fully and painstakingly informed about the progress of reform...
...Luskin's points and some corrections are in order: Luskin asserts that "union members have been fully and painstakingly informed about the progress of reform...
...It is difficult to establish clear lines of causality...
...It has been said that character is destiny...
...But I did not imagine it...
...we have used that authority aggressively to uncover wrongdoing, and the Independent Hearing Officer has expelled numerous union members for failing to honor subpoenas...
...He knew how to get our NATO allies to allow the placement of intermediate-range missiles, despite a massive European antinuclear movement...
...22, 1998, three weeks before the agreement was set to expire...
...This is a crass deceit...
...Methvin has long portrayed himself as a staunch supporter of the fight against organized crime...
...For reasons fully supported by the results that we have secured, Fino declared himself a supporter of the reform process and made clear that he had personally cooperated with our efforts...
...In fact, the Complaint for Trusteeship was filed 10 months after my appointment as GEB Attorney...
...Of the scores of individuals identified by the government in its 1994 draft RICO complaint as members or associates of organized crime, only Arthur Coia, who is currently facing charges before the LIUNA Independent Hearing Officer, holds a position of responsibility or trust at any level of the union or any fund affiliated with LIUNA...
...A friend of mine who is 61 has lived in Fairbanks for 32 years...
...It is not true that "[m]ore than a year elapsed before [Luskin] prosecuted Fino's Local 210 in Buffalo...
...Suppose the president, after his party's disaster in 1994, had shrewdly forced himself to become a model executive in both his public and private life...
...Finally, Methvin asserts falsely that I delayed bringing charges against General President Coia until "the Justice Department threatened to take over the union...
...First, he complains that the reform process is inherently flawed because, as GEB Attorney, I lack "power to subpoena witnesses," "report to Coia instead of to a federal judge," and have "kept rank-and-file Laborers largely in the dark...
...Second, the suggestion that I deliberately delayed actions against mob-dominated affiliates in Buffalo and Chicago is disgraceful...
...Only Monica and the other "-gates" prevented this catastrophe from happening...
...ROBERT D. LUSKIN WASHINGTON, D.C...
...In fact, the Justice Department was fully apprised of the investigation of President Coia from its inception...
...it came straight from Fino himself in a 1995 interview that I recorded...
...Finally, the account of Fino's confrontation with Cardinale was in error...
...The LIUNA Constitution was amended in January 1995 to delegate complete authority and full autonomy to the GEB Attorney and the Inspector General...
...Reagan was intelligent enough, but more important, he had the instincts and experience that develop political talent...
...Every morning during the winter, she and her husband cross-country ski—in the 20- to 50-degree-below-zero weather—for four or five miles...
...Still, reporters have been denied admission to Luskin's proceedings before the Independent Hearing Officer in Buffalo, Chicago, California, and elsewhere...
...The recent elections confirmed that the majority of Americans, along with responsible intellectuals on both the left and right, are fed up with this kind of partisan tendentiousness and reduc-tionism that refuses to admit any degree of fault on one's own side or any rectitude on the other...
...The record of every completed disciplinary and trusteeship action—including all evidence and transcripts—is available for review by every union member...
...He told us of an America that had fought at Normandy and rebuilt Europe and kept the tyranny of communism at bay...
...Correspondence IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE To William Kristol and David Tell's analysis of the meaning of the recent electoral debacle, let me add a small bit of consolation ("A Teetering Republican Majority," Nov...
...In fact, LIUNA and the Justice Department publicly announced the extension on Jan...
...The fact that virtually no one except Reagan anticipated the fall of the Soviet Union within our lifetime has made little impression on them...
...Rather than try to convince them that he is strong enough on communism, when most intellectuals regard him as a warmonger, he tries to impress them with his geniality and grasp of domestic policy...
...And she doesn't even smoke...
...THOMPSON TLTUSVILLE, FL READING REAGAN RIGHT Reading Norman Podhoretz on Ronald Reagan, one is impressed with the lack of fundamental sympathy for the position of the man ("The Riddle of Ronald Reagan," Nov...
...She owns nothing from REI...
...31, 1998) and more unfair ones, but not many, and not much worse...
...Reagan expressed the American character, which had led us to victory in the Second World War and to the noblest peace mankind had ever seen...
...To Luskin's credit, when I appealed to him he provided a copy...
...DONALD LAZERE OAKLAND, CA REI AND THE GREAT NORTH I very much enjoyed David Brooks's story on REI ("Cell Phone Naturalists," Oct...
...P.M...
...Without such access, reporters must rely upon what witnesses or participants tell us...
...Had he been less driven by the twin goals of reducing the burden of government and rolling back the Soviet advance, he would have accomplished little except his own self-aggrandizement—much like what Bill Clinton has become...
...History is messy and not subject to laboratory conditions...
...Final truth lies beyond ideas about truth, that is, beyond language...
...More broadly, Reagan was also a great force in American culture...
...Reagan had been given the task of winning them over...
...Dozens of other individuals were removed from office, expelled from the union, or forced to resign under pressure...
...He is so eager to seize on the radical and comical elements of our protest, he missed the big picture: Here were thousands of Americans who still give a damn about what kind of person their president is...
...The two-month error is insubstantial, but I regret it...
...She once told me, "Every time I go by REI, I feel like walking right to the middle of the store and lighting up a cigarette...
...PARK CHAMBERLAIN WOODSIDE, CA I always enjoy reading the views of William Kristol and David Tell, but, rather than being humble about mis-forecasting the recent elections, they should feel vindicated...
...Far from supporting such a preposterous allegation, as Methvin falsely states, Fino testified before the Crime Subcommittee that the Inspector General and I were persons of "integrity" and "ability" who could be trusted to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing and to remove any official guilty of criminal activity...
...But the supposed dialogue that follows in the article is straight out of Methvin's B-movie imagination...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 12
