Closing In

From two sides, the law closed in last week on Teamster Boss James Riddle Hoffa. Items:

P: Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell made prompt use of the brand-new labor law to invoke the provision barring anyone convicted of a major crime from holding union office for five years after conviction. In a speech to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in San Francisco, Mitchell announced that he had ordered Hoffa to report within ten days on what his convict-studded union is doing to comply with the provision.

P: The Board of Monitors, set up by U.S. District Judge F. Dickinson Letts in early 1958 to keep watch on Hoffa, requested Judge Letts to 1) order Hoffa to explain dubious Teamster bank deposits totaling $675,000, and 2) oust him from the union presidency if the court finds that the bank dealings violated his trust. Biggest of the questionable bank accounts: $500,000, stowed away for several years in Orlando's Florida National Bank, in a dormant account that earned not one cent in interest for the rank-and-file Teamsters to whom the money supposedly belongs. This $500,000 served as collateral for $500,000 in loans to a now-bankrupt Florida real estate venture, Sun Valley, Inc., in which Hoffa held an option to buy a big chunk of stock.

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