{"id":37524,"date":"2019-02-19T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=37524"},"modified":"2019-02-19T09:56:05","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T13:56:05","slug":"the-kennedy-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2019\/02\/the-kennedy-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kennedy Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Alex Temple, Gettler Project Archivist<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been lost in the archives, and finally found my way out!\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually been taking some time to look at the collection as a whole, and have been eager to get back into looking at some of the contents at a closer level.\u00a0 One piece which caught my attention early on was a letter from none other than Robert F. Kennedy, from 1957.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been excited to dig into this and learn more about the people in the letter and circumstances surrounding it.<\/p>\n

\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert F. Kennedy, before his career in the senate began in 1961, was a lawyer and served on the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Improper Activities in Labor and Management, also known as the Senate Labor Rackets Committee.\u00a0 Bobby Kennedy, contrary to how he seems to be popularly remembered, was remembered by Gettler to have \u201cspent no time on any niceties and was cold as ice.\u201d\u00a0 (p. 108) Perhaps Kennedy\u2019s demeanor had more to do with his pronounced hatred of Jimmy Hoffa and determination to take him down.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Kennedy\u2019s status as a member of America\u2019s \u201cRoyal Family,\u201d Jimmy Hoffa worked his way up from poverty as the son of a coal miner.\u00a0 He grew up poor in Detroit where toughness was a survival skill, and began his involvement in labor unions in the 1930s.\u00a0 While Gettler, along with much (if not most) of America, and even Kennedy, supported labor unions, Hoffa\u2019s tough guy approach was problematic.\u00a0 People were murdered, including a supposed attempt at Gettler himself, as a gunshot through Gettler\u2019s office window, barely missing his head.<\/p>\n

It was known incidents like this that made the testimony of James Luken, then head of the Milk Driver\u2019s Union, which was part of the Teamsters, notably brave.\u00a0 Threats and violence were meant to deter people from working against Hoffa, and James Luken decided to boldly testify against Hoffa, with Gettler as his attorney.\u00a0 Together, they met with Kennedy and his team at the Brown and Gettler office in Cincinnati, and testified before the Senate Committee in Washington D.C.\u00a0 If Luken\u2019s name sounds familiar, it may be because like his brother Tom and Nephew Charlie, James served as mayor of Cincinnati.\u00a0 Coincidentally, there is also a significant amount of correspondence and other content within the Gettler Papers regarding Tom and Charlie Luken.<\/p>\n

The Mr. Sheridan mentioned in the letter was Walter Sheridan, who served as the investigative chief of Robert Kennedy\u2019s investigative team, known as the \u201cGet Hoffa Squad.\u201d\u00a0 Gettler, who represented labor unions as a lawyer, forwarded articles concerning a labor strike in Cincinnati.\u00a0 As evidenced by the large collection of correspondence to politicians in D.C., this was a favorite method of Gettler to not only keep in touch, but also to inform people in office of what was happening and being discussed locally.<\/p>\n

I found it quite fascinating that Cincinnati had such a contribution to the Hoffa investigation, more so that it involved a future Cincinnati mayor, who was represented by our very own Benjamin Gettler.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Gettler, B. (2012). Visible Footprints: The Life of Benjamin Gettler.<\/em> Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Book Publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Alex Temple, Gettler Project Archivist I\u2019ve been lost in the archives, and finally found my way out!\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually been taking some time to look at the collection as a whole, and have been eager to get back into … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,83,31,13],"tags":[1482,53,52,66],"class_list":["post-37524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-langsam-library","category-uc","category-uclibraries","tag-benjamin-gettler-papers-project","tag-cincinnati-history","tag-uc-history","tag-university-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}