Free Republic

    John Bowers, the aging president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, had gone to meet a local union official at the Smith & Wollensky in Miami Beach. Inside, he was surprised to discover George Barone seated amid the polished brass and dark wood decor of the pricey waterfront steakhouse.     Barone was no stranger. A Genovese family member, he once controlled ILA locals in New Jersey and Miami. He also had coldly killed at least 10 people, by his own count, as a mob enforcer.     In a sworn deposition, Bowers recounted the conversation:     ‘‘You’re doing a wonderful job,’’ Barone told him. ‘‘We...

Union Official Charged in New York Waterfront Mob Extortion Case By Michael Weissenstein/Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - A reputed mob associate was charged Tuesday with conspiring to extort money and power from waterfront businesses and officials of the International Longshoreman's Association. Law enforcement authorities described the arrest of union official and alleged Genovese crime family associate Harold Daggett as part of a broader effort against a union deeply under the sway of organized crime. Daggett is the third ILA official to face federal criminal charges in recent months. He was arraigned on a federal extortion conspiracy charge and released...

The faculty at Bard College, a liberal arts school at Annandale, NY, includes a scholar who glories in the title Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies. Anyone aware that Hiss was a Washington bureaucrat who spied for the Soviet Union will consider this as sensible as a John Dillinger Chair in Business Ethics or a Jack the Ripper Chair in Criminology. But at Bard College no one is laughing, least of all the occupant of the chair, Joel Kovel, who believes the Soviets were never a threat to the Americans and that U.S. criticism of communism was the product of...

Decades After Brando, Waterfront Still Mobbed Up   BAYONNE, N.J.  — At the headquarters of New Jersey's most notorious union, the ornate front windows are etched with an anchor-and-rope motif. They're opaque, making it impossible to peer inside International Longshoremen's Association (search) Local 1588.That hasn't stopped law enforcement. Local 1588 was historically so corrupt that mob enforcers were unnecessary, according to one veteran investigator. Kickbacks, extortion and fraud became as routine as a Labor Day picnic at the local, long a lucrative outpost for the Genovese (search) crime family. In 1954, when Marlon Brando (search) starred in the Oscar-winning "On The Waterfront," one of 1588's delegates was...

<p>The president of the labor union that is paying for Gov. James E. McGreevey's trip to Puerto Rico this week said yesterday he expects his organization may soon be named in a federal racketeering suit.</p> <p>John Bowers, president of the International Longshoremen's Association, made the surprising comment in his opening remarks to union delegates at the convention in San Juan. McGreevey will address the convention today.</p>