Abstract

Beat the Devil

In August 1997, Americans' blood was pulsing at the great Teamsters victory over the United Parcel Service Inc., and now in mid-October Americans turn on their television sets and see Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee presiding over a probe into Teamsters president Ron Carey's defeat of candidate James Hoffa Jr. at the end of last year. And at the back of the hearing room Americans could see Richard Leebove, flack for the Michigan Conference of Teamsters and spokesman for the Hoffa campaign. Since Leebove has been a longtime follower of activist Lyndon LaRouche, Americans have the ironic spectacle of Hoffa's man co-writing a script on "labor thuggery" with a bunch of Republican union-haters.