by Dave Conifer
“Even so, it could still be a coincidence. Or maybe he thinks you’re hot and wanted to ask you for your phone number.”
“You’re a tiger sometimes,” she said with a coy smile. “But I don’t think so. It happened too many times. I didn’t see him on the flight but he was there again in Atlanta when I had to change planes.”
They walked through a breezeway over a four-lane access road and into a parking garage. “I’m parked one level up,” Jonas said.
“Let’s not talk about the story once we’re in the car.”
“What?” he asked with a quizzical look on his face. “Why?”
“You think somebody got killed because of your phone call. I think somebody followed me through three airports. Maybe this story is a lot more serious than we thought. Maybe they bugged your car. Let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.”
“How is this even possible? It all happened so long ago,” Jonas said. “Everybody who was there is practically dead by now.”
“You know what I’m talking about or you wouldn’t have been so upset about Pomeroy.” They walked past a row of cars underneath an Hertz sign. “If we knew what we were doing we’d rent a car. Then we’d know it wasn’t bugged.”
“I’m not convinced yet,” Jonas said. “It doesn’t happen this way in real life. But I’ll go along with it. We’ll just talk about the weather until we get there. Where are you staying?”
“The Marriott.”
“You should have tried the Midlothian. It has more character than those chain hotels.”
“I don’t like surprises,” she told him.
“Or coincidences,” he said as he unlocked the car door for her. “Especially not tonight.” Neither of them said much on the ride out of the airport. Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the front driveway at the Marriott.
“Do you want to come up and see what I found on ERC?” she asked, forgetting the pledge not to talk business in the car.
“Yeah, why not? And we can work on it tomorrow in the office, too. I’ll introduce you around.”
“Go park. I’ll check in.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you at the counter.” After he parked on the street and fed some coins into the meter he caught himself looking around for the red-haired man with the sideburns.
Reno was waiting near the counter when he went inside. Jonas thought she still looked rattled. That was a side of her that he’d never seen before. Until now she’d been so plucky that he worried she would get them into trouble. Maybe she’s right about what she saw, he speculated. She surprised him by taking his hand as they walked to the elevator in silence. By the time the elevator opened on the eleventh floor she’d let go and was fumbling in her canvas sack for the room key. They wandered through the halls, backtracking a few times until they found the the room.
“I thought Charlotte was smaller,” she said as she looked out the window at the skyline. “It looks like Pittsburgh.”
“Most people are surprised when they see it for the first time.”
“I’m pretty beat,” she said, falling into the stuffed chair by the window. “I changed my mind. Let’s order a few pints of ice cream and get a movie. We can talk shop in the morning.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of late,” he said. “I’ll pass on the ice cream, though. I should get home. The room’s probably bugged anyway, right?” he teased.
“Should I call you at work tomorrow? I’m not getting up any earlier than I have to.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s right around the corner from here. You can walk over. Just give me a call.” He stood up from the edge of the bed and backed his way to the door. “And relax, Abby. You’re safe.”
“I know. See you in the morning.”
-- Chapter 11 --
Reno didn’t call until mid-morning, which was about what Jonas expected. He gave her directions to The Sentinel Building and arranged for a visitor’s pass to be waiting for her at the front desk. When she arrived with the canvas sack slung over her shoulder he thought she looked much better than she had the night before. “Hi,” she said. “I brought some food from the hotel since it’s just about lunchtime,” she explained as he eyed the brown bags in her left hand.
“I thought we could take over my old boss’s room,” he said as they weaved through the newsroom. He cleared Burkhardt’s leftover office detritus from the two chairs while Reno spread lunch out on the small table near the window. “I hope you like lemonade. And deli sandwiches.” Both were fine, he told her. For him lunch that day was something to get over with so he could see what she had found about ERC. Half an hour later, after they cleared the lunch debris from the table, she began emptying the contents of the canvas bag and organizing documents into stacks.
“Sorry about all the paper,” she said. “This was from about ten hours in front of the microfilm readers. I got a little crazy.”
“Doesn’t look too bad,” Jonas said. “We’ll get through it.”
“I’ll try to start at the beginning. But you never know what I might have missed. Don’t take notes, just listen. It’s all in the articles, anyway. You can read through it later. I highlighted the important stuff.”
“Okay,” Jonas said. He dropped his pencil on the table and sat back with his hands behind his head. “Ready.”
“Now, remember, you’re going to hear about Eastern Steel over and over here. That’s ERC. In 1974 they changed their name to Eastern Resources Consortium when they decided to branch out. Up until then they just did steel, so they were just Eastern Steel. Nowadays, they do just about everything.”
“I’ll remember.”
“All right. Now, early in his administration, Kennedy sent a letter to all the American steel companies,” she began. “There were eleven of them, I think. He basically said he thought they were already making plenty of money and he hoped they wouldn’t raise prices. He was worried that if they did, it would cause inflation. For some reason he was sure that the economy would rise or fall based on what happened in certain industries. Steel was one of them. And he promised the steel companies that if they held the line on prices, he’d pressure the steelworkers union not to demand huge pay increases the next time their contracts came up, which was going to be pretty soon. Okay so far? That’s in early September 1961.” She passed a page across the table. “Here’s a copy of the letter to the steel company presidents.”
“I’ll read it later. I get the point. You’re good, Abby.”
“Damn right, I am,” she said. “Now, none of the steel companies liked getting lectured by Kennedy. Kent Castle, the president of Eastern Steel, was the maddest about it. He confronted Kennedy by writing him a public letter. It’s summarized in this article here, from TIME Magazine.” She slid another couple of pages over to Jonas.
“He was all over Kennedy. To be honest, I don’t understand any of it. The important thing is that he challenged Kennedy right out in the open by publishing this letter. They’re going face to face here and Castle didn’t mince words. First he picked Kennedy’s argument apart point by point. You know, where Kennedy says that the economy depends on what the steel industry does. I don’t know who was right. Maybe they were both wrong. The point is that they’re having this nasty fight, and it’s all public. Anyway, back to the letter. Castle starts ripping into Kennedy policies. I marked the top of the second page. See it?”
“Yeah,” Jonas said. He read the passage aloud.
The causes of inflation are clearly associated with the fiscal, monetary, labor and other policies of the government. The president seems to be assuming the role of informal price setter for steel. But if for steel, what then for automobiles, or rubber, or machinery, or a thousand other products?
“So he’s giving it right back to Kennedy? In return for the Economics 101 lecture?”
“That’s how I see it. And after Castle had his say, the presidents of the other steel companies chimed in, backing Castle up.”
“The ERC guy is the ringleader,” Jonas
remarked.
“Exactly. It makes sense. They were the biggest steel producer in the world at the time.”
“And this is 1961? Kennedy’s been in office for just a few months. All of a sudden he gets called on the carpet by this Castle guy.”
“It wasn’t over yet,” Reno said. “The next year it turns out that even though they got in Kennedy’s face about it, the steel companies didn’t raise prices. They went along with Kennedy. So Kennedy goes to the unions just like he said he would. He leaned on them hard to cut back on their demands. By the time the negotiations were done, in the spring of 1962, the unions had gone even further than Kennedy had asked. There was no wage increase at all in the first year of the new contract. That’s unheard of. These contracts are almost always front-loaded with goodies, but not this one.”
Jonas skimmed the article in silence as Reno looked on. “Okay, ready,” he finally said when he looked up.
“Now, keep in mind, Kennedy was an old-style Democrat,” she said. “He probably wouldn’t even have been elected without the support of organized labor. But here he was sticking his neck out asking the unions for sacrifices. He was taking a big risk. Castle and Eastern were the first company to sign the new contract after the union ratified it. But that’s when it all broke down.”
“Don’t tell me,” Jonas said. “They raised prices.”
“Check this out,” she said after digging through the pile of documents. “They did, and it wasn’t even a week after contract negotiations were complete and the new contract was in place.” She tossed him a two-page copy of the front page of The New York Times from April 11, 1962. The headline said it all. Jonas read it out loud in a deep, booming voice that made Reno laugh.
EASTERN STEEL RAISES PRICE $6 A TON;
KENNEDY ANGERED, SEES AFFRONT;
TWO INVESTIGATIONS ARE ORDERED
“That was fast. How long before Kennedy struck back?” Jonas asked. “It almost looks like it was the same day.”
“It may have been the same day the increase was announced,” she answered. “I lost track. But it wasn’t just the price increase that pissed Kennedy off. It was also how Castle did it. No warning at all. He came personally to the White House at the last minute on April 10 to tell Kennedy, but only after it was too late to do anything about it. The price increase was going to happen no matter what was said in the Oval Office that day. It was almost like he wanted to dig the knife in personally and watch Kennedy’s face while he twisted it.”
“How do you know all this? Is this firm?” Jonas asked.
“Check this out,” she said after finding the appropriate pile and removing another document. “Here’s another article from TIME. It tells all about when Castle dropped in to see his White House buddy.”
Jonas took the article and began reading aloud.
In a mid-afternoon call to the White House Kent Castle said ‘I would like to see the President on a very important matter concerning steel. Could an appointment be arranged later in the day?’
He read silently for another minute before looking up. “Kennedy thought Castle was there to thank him for holding down the unions and to tell him there would be no price increase. He must have shit a brick when he heard why he was really there.”
“Yup,” Reno said. “Keep reading.”
After the barest exchange of amenities, Castle handed Kennedy a mimeographed statement. As he read it Kennedy’s disbelief turned to fury. Castle’s statement was an announcement that Eastern Steel was increasing its prices by six dollars a ton. “You double-crossed me!” Kennedy told Castle after reading the statement.
Wow,” Jonas said, shaking his head and grinning. “He must have been pissed. This is all starting to seem so real. Pomeroy getting picked up by ERC isn’t looking like some random chance thing anymore. Not that I can make any sense of it.”
“It was Eastern Steel at the time, of course. It is scary. You can’t make stuff like this up. Nobody would believe it. Keep reading. He was mad. It talks about what happened after Castle left.”
Kennedy stomped around the office yelling about what had just happened. Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, who was at the meeting, said he’d never seen him so angry. “They fucked me! They fucked us and we’ve got to fuck them back!” Kennedy reportedly railed. To Kennedy, the price-hike was a personal affront.
He looked up. “What does all this mean?”
“I don’t know yet. Read the next paragraph,” Reno told him. “The part about what the unnamed White House aide said.”
‘Eastern Steel picked the wrong President to double-cross,’ an aide said. ‘Kennedy can be a hater, and right now I don’t think there’s any doubt that he hates Kent Castle and Eastern Steel.’
“It’s pretty incredible, huh?” Reno asked with a half-smile. “I’m surprised nobody ever noticed this before. Of course, nobody seemed to know about guys like Pomeroy. That’s why we understand more than anybody else why this is important.”
“You did good,” Jonas said. “Kennedy had no choice. He couldn’t just go along with it. Otherwise the steelworkers would have eaten him alive. All the unions would have. Who could blame them? They agree to take a hit on their contract and then Castle raises prices anyway. Kennedy had to fight.”
“He fought, all right,” Reno said. “Here’s the New York Times headline from the next day, April 12,” she said, handing him a single sheet.
PRESIDENT ASSAILS STEEL
FOR ‘IRRESPONSIBLE’ RISE
AND ‘CONTEMPT’ OF NATION
“The letters on that headline are as big as when World War II ended,” Jonas said.
“And read this transcript of his press conference that day,” Reno continued. “The reporters said he looked like he was ready to punch somebody out when he walked in. It said his fists were clenched and his voice was hard. He was waving his arms and jabbing his finger in the air. And that was just for the opening statement.”
“Kind of like what you’re doing right now.” He continued reading aloud, fascinated with every word.
“In this serious hour in our nation’s history,” said Kennedy, “When we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives – and four were killed in the last two days in Vietnam – and asking union members to hold down their wage increases, at a time when restraint and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interest of 185 million Americans.”
“These weren’t just words,” Reno said. “He used everything he had to force them to back down.” She pulled out a handwritten list. “The FBI raided Eastern Steel offices in Pittsburgh and took away documents. The Justice Department announced it would investigate price fixing since nearly all the steel companies enacted price hikes at the same time. Advisors wrote papers and did interviews where they countered the steel industry’s arguments. And a bunch of committees in Congress announced all kinds of investigations they were going to start.”
“It says here that the Defense Department took away a contract from Eastern and gave it to another company that didn’t raise prices,” Jonas noted.
“Kennedy was doing everything he could think of. Now we’re up to day three. Kennedy’s winning now. Here’s the headline from Friday the 13th.” Jonas assumed the deep voice again and read aloud.
STEEL RISE INVESTIGATION
BY GRAND JURY ORDERED;
CASTLE DEFENDS PRICING
“It was all over by the end of that day,” Reno said. “The head of Rankin Steel over in Ohio was a friend of the administration. Kennedy talked him into being the first steel company to announce that they wouldn’t enact a price increase. That was it. O
nce one held out, the others all canceled the price increases, one by one. The last to roll it back was Eastern.”
“What do you think?” Reno asked.
“Pretty compelling. Nice job. Damn good job.”
“Thanks. And don’t forget about the oil guys we already learned about. They were pretty worried about what Kennedy had planned for them, remember? I thought I’d take a look at them next.”
“I think we can already make a case that ERC had a motive,” Jonas said. “One thing bothers me though. If they killed the president, they got away with it. It’s over and done with. Are there really people out there twenty years later trying to stop us from figuring it all out? Who would send a tall red-haired guy with sideburns to follow you around? Are any of these people even still alive? Who would do this?”
“You’re right,” she said. “There are a lot of questions. But I’m sure there are plenty that were young enough that they’re still alive. It’s only been twenty years. And I know what I saw. Why else would somebody follow me? And I wonder if they’re the ones who stole my computer?”
“Or sent me Pomeroy’s obituary,” Jonas added. “And I think somebody’s been snooping around my desk.”
“Are you still onboard with this?” Reno asked. “Because I’m not quitting. I think this is real.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why we should quit. But count me in. For now, at least.”
“So what’s next?” she asked.
He looked at his watch. “It’s later than I thought,” Jonas said. “I think dinner is next. What do you say?”
“Okay,” she agreed. “But then we need to study up some on Kent Castle. I’ve got a few more piles of paper I haven’t shown you yet.”
