INVESTIGATION OF IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR OR MANAGEMENT FIELD THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1958 U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON IMPROPER ACTIVITIES Washington, D.C. The select committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to Senate Resolution 221, agreed to January 29, 1958, in the caucus room, Senate Office Building, Senator John L. McClellan, chairman of the select committee, presiding. Present: Senators John L. McClellan, Democrat, Arkansas, and John F. Kennedy, Democrat, Massachusetts. Also present: Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel; Jerome S. Adlerman, assistant chief counsel; Arthur G. Kaplan, assistant counsel; Ruth Y. Watt, chief clerk. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. (Members of the select committee present at the convening of the session were Senators McClellan and Kennedy.) The CHAIRMAN. Call your first witness. Mr. KENNEDY. Frank Cammarata. The CHAIRMAN. Will you be sworn? You do solemnly swear that the evidence you shall give before this Senate select committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. CAMMARATA. I do. TESTIMONY OF FRANK CAMMARATA The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will make this brief statement. This testimony will be related to a subject matter that will be involved in the next series of committee hearings as now planned. This witness would not be available at a later date, and for that reason we are taking his testimony at this time. Further explanation of it will be made possibly at the conclusion of his testimony. State your name, your place of residence, and your business or occupation, please, sir. Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground The CHAIRMAN. Will you pull the microphone in front of you, please? It is difficult to hear. Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground I might incriminate myself. The CHAIRMAN. What is your name? The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Where do you live? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. The CHAIRMAN. You are ordered and directed to answer the question. Where do you live? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. The CHAIRMAN. Where is it? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. The CHAIRMAN. Do you wish counsel? Do you desire to have an attorney present to represent you when you testify? Will you speak up? Do you? Again I ask you, do you desire counsel to represent you? Mr. CAMMARATA. I have no counsel. The CHAIRMAN. That was not the question. Have you undertaken to arrange for counsel since you were notified or subpenaed to be before the committee? Are you shaking your head, or what are you doing? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer any questions. The CHAIRMAN. The witness refuses to answer the question. Mr. CAMMARATA. On the ground it might incriminate myself. The CHAIRMAN. All right. The question is, did you desire counsel, and your answer to that, as I understand, is you refuse to answer on the ground it might tend to incriminate you; is that correct? Mr. CAMMARATA. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. That is correct, then. All right, the Chair asks you then, have you undertaken to arrange for counsel since you were subpenaed to be before this committee? Mr. CAMMARATA. I cannot afford to have any counsel. The CHAIRMAN. You can't afford to have any counsel ? What is the date of the subpena? Let the subpena served on the witness be placed in the record at this point, with the return thereon. (The subpena referred to follows:) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES TO FRANK CAMMARATA, Detroit, Michigan, Greeting: Pursuant to lawful authority, you are hereby commanded to appear before the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field of the Senate of the United States, on December 1, 1958, at 10 a.m., at their committee room, 101 Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., then and there to testify what you may know relative to the subject matters under consideration by said committee. HEREOF FAIL NOT, as you will answer your default under the pains and penalties in such cases made and provided. To Edward M. Jones, to serve and return. GIVEN under my hand, by order of the committee, this 15th day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight. (Signed) JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. (Service :) NOVEMBER 24, 1958. I made service of the within subpena by personal service the within-named Frank Cammarata, at 3770 East Jefferson, Detroit, Mich. (Office of the District Director Walter A. Sahli) Immigration and Naturalization Service, at 3 p.m., on the 24th day of November 1958. The CHAIRMAN. Why can't you afford to have any counsel? The CHAIRMAN. Let the record so show. Then we will proceed. What is your occupation or business? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. The CHAIRMAN. You are ordered and directed to answer the question. Mr. CAMMARATA. I might incriminate myself. The CHAIRMAN. I didn't understand you. What is your occupation or business? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground that I might incriminate myself. The CHAIRMAN. On the ground you might incriminate yourself! I am trying to be helpful, and I want to get the record clear. Mr. CAMMARATA. I can't think of the English. The CHAIRMAN. That is all right. The Chair is trying to help you make your statement as you want to make it. I am not trying to trip you. I am trying to make the record clear. As I understand you, you refuse to answer the question as to your business or occupation on the ground that it might tend to incriminate you. Mr. CAMMARATA. Under the fifth amendment. The CHAIRMAN. And the fifth amendment? Mr. CAMMARATA. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. All right, we have them both in there now, if there is any difference. Proceed, Mr. Kennedy. Mr. KENNEDY. What has been your source of income, Mr. Cammarata, over the period of the past 4 years? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. Mr. KENNEDY. On what grounds? Mr. CAMMARATA. It might incriminate myself, under the fifth amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Cammarata, you have been in this country at least since 1922, because you were arrested for armed robbery in 1922 in Detroit, Mich. I have had a conversation with you downstairs in which you understood me very well, and your accent was much better. You hardly had any accent at that time. Now, could you tell us why you are not able to understand these questions, and why you have such an accent when you are appearing before this committee? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground of the fifth amendment. Mr. KENNEDY. It is all an act you are putting on, is it not, Mr. Cammarata? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. Mr. KENNEDY. On what ground? Mr. CAMMARATA. On the ground it might incriminate myself under the fifth amendment. Mr. KENNEDY, As far as not being able to afford an attorney, you have plenty of money, do you not, Mr. Cammarata? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer. Mr. KENNEDY. You built a house for yourself out in Ohio in 1954 during the period of time you yourself were in Jackson State Penitentiary in Michigan. Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground it might incriminate myself. Mr. KENNEDY. And then you bought a brandnew 1957 Ford at the end of 1957, while you were in the Jackson State Penitentiary. Where did you get the money for that? Mr. CAMMARATA. I refuse to answer on the ground that it might incriminate myself. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, as you pointed out at the beginning, this witness is being called in connection with the jukebox operation and vending machines, and as he is not giving us too much information, I would like to call a member of the staff to give a little of Mr. Cammarata's background, and his connections with the vending machine operation, and then perhaps we can predicate some questions based on that. The CHAIRMAN. All right, come around. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Kaplan. The CHAIRMAN. You do solemnly swear that the evidence you shall give before this Senate select committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. KAPLAN. I do. TESTIMONY OF ARTHUR G. KAPLAN The CHAIRMAN. State your name, your place of residence, and your present employment. Mr. KAPLAN. My name is Arthur Kaplan. I reside in Portland, Oreg., and I am an assistant counsel to this committee. The CHAIRMAN. Have you made an investigation and participated in an investigation of the jukebox and vending machine industry? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir; I have. The CHAIRMAN. In the course of that investigation, have you contacted this witness, Mr. Cammarata? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir; we have. The CHAIRMAN. Have you made other investigations with respect to his participation in the operation, directly or indirectly, of the industry of jukeboxes and vending machines? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir; we have. The CHAIRMAN. And also with respect to the infiltration of that industry by elements that operated in an improper manner? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. In the course of that investigation, have you also found some elements of labor or labor representatives that have participated in the organization or operation of that industry in certain areas? Mr. KAPLAN. Very clearly, sir, yes. The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Kennedy, proceed. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Kaplan will testify just on Mr. Frank Cammarata. When we later get into this investigation, he will have more detailed information. The CHAIRMAN. The Chair was just laying a background for the interrogation of Mr. Kaplan, and also the witness, Mr. Cammarata. Mr. KENNEDY. We will go into more detail on the operation of the industry. But now, Mr. Kaplan, would you give us the information that you have regarding Mr. Cammarata's association with the coin-operated machines. Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir. If I might just sketch a little of the background-while we were investigating in Detroit, we discovered that there, as in some other places, certain distributors of jukeboxes were having a great deal of trouble in selling their machines. The CHAIRMAN. That is, the manufacturer or the distributor of the boxes was having trouble making sales? Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, sir, the distributor of the box, who had the franchise for the Detroit area. The same distributor also had the franchise for the Ohio area. Mr. KENNEDY. What was the name of this? Mr. KAPLAN. Music Systems, Inc. Mr. KENNEDY. What kind of boxes did they distribute? Mr. KAPLAN. They were distributing the Seeberg phonograph; coin-operated phonograph. This took place at a time when Seeberg recently put out a model that was quite radical in the industry because it had a 100-record machine, which was a substantial departure, and even from the fact this would have been a more attractive model was the fact that the company was just selling nothing above and beyond any normal degree of competition with anybody else. In running this down, we found that this was because one of the competing distributors, a franchise distributor for another brand of jukebox seemed to be favored, and we found that the union in Detroit had told many of the operators who would buy these boxes from the Music Systems distributor, that they should not buy these music boxes. The CHAIRMAN. What union is that? Mr. KAPLAN. That was local 985 of the Teamsters, sir. Mr. KENNEDY. Headed by whom at that time? Mr. KAPLAN. William Bufalino was actually the business manager at the time, and Jimmy James, who was also before the committee, was still the titular president, but had no active direction of it for quite a period of tme. Mr. KENNEDY. What was the name of the company that the Teamsters were favoring? Mr. KAPLAN. They were favoring the Wurlitzer distributor, which at that time was the Angott Distributing Co. Mr. KENNEDY. Where is that? Mr. KAPLAN. In Detroit, Mich. Mr. KENNEDY. All right. Will you continue. Mr. KAPLAN. We found that in an effort to break this blockade of new machines, that the Music Systems, Inc., attempted to subsidize a competing union, so that if they put out their own operation or whip company in order to force customers to buy just because they had then set up their own company that would distribute in competition with the operators who were not buying, at least that would get their machine out on the street. They brought up the next CIO official and had an independent union chartered in the State of Michigan. Mr. KENNEDY. The company itself did? |