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Show Kennedy Urges National Crime Bureau to Fight Hoodlum Empire A National Crime Commission pooling and relaying information between federal and local law i enforcement agencies is "per-' "per-' v naPs our most urgent need" to "ft? fight' gangster control of unions , and business, according to Rob- ert F. Kennedy, former chief counsel for the McClellan committee. com-mittee. "We are still trying to fight the modern Al Capone with the weapons we used 25 years ago, and they simply are not effective," effec-tive," he writes in the March Readers Digest. "We need a clearinghouse to which each of the 70 odd federal agencies and the more than 10,-000 10,-000 local law enforcement agencies agen-cies in the country would constantly con-stantly feed information on the leading gangsters. It would be a nationwide information service for local police. With such an organization or-ganization a one telephone sheriff sher-iff could stop a hoodlum, well known in New York or Los Angeles, from coming into his community and taking over a local union or business. "Furthermore, where it might be helpful, the commission could hold hearings to expose criminal activity, so that other federal agencies could take action, or Congress could pass appropriate Kennedy reports in detail on the informaitoin gathered by the McClellan Committee the Senate Sen-ate Select Committee on Improper Im-proper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, headed by Sen. John L. McClellan of Arkansas, Ar-kansas, of which he was chief counsel. The book will appear soon, the day after a federal court hearing is scheduled to start in Washington on removal of James R. Hoffa as president of the Teamsters Union. Many of the charges against Hoffa, covering alleged misue of funds in Detroit, Florida, New York and Cincinnati, stem from information first brought out in the Committee hearings. The principal charge is that he misused mis-used money from his own home local in Detroit to promote and finance a land selling scheme in Sun Valley, Fla. Kennedy comments "Hoffa induced in-duced Teamsters members to invest in-vest thousands of dollars in the Florida deal before it went bankrupt. bank-rupt. Had it succeeded, Hoffa would have cleaned up. As it was he lost nothing; he had risked only union members' funds." |
