Kantor Testifies In Probe of Teamsters
By Frank Swoboda
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 7, 1998
Former U.S. trade representative Mickey Kantor told Congress yesterday that former White House aide Harold M.
Ickes asked him to call a company president facing a lengthy Teamsters strike after the
union began pressuring the Clinton administration to help settle the dispute.
But Kantor, who also later served as commerce secretary, told a
House panel investigating the Teamsters that the administration did not provide any help
for the union in its battle with Diamond Walnut Growers in California. "No one ever
tried to persuade me to do anything negative to Diamond Walnut and we didn't," Kantor
told the hearing.
Following Kantor's testimony, former Diamond
Walnut president William Cuff agreed with much of Kantor's description of
the call. He testified that it was "a very pleasant conversation" and said there
was "absolutely no threat."
The timing and the nature of the call -- and Ickes's involvement
-- is of interest to congressional investigators because Attorney General Janet Reno last
month ordered a preliminary investigation into allegations that Ickes lied to a Senate
committee about political favors he performed to help win the support of
the Teamsters in the 1996 elections. Reno has until the end of November to decide whether
to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Ickes, a former White House deputy chief
of staff who was the chief liaison to the Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee.
Asked during a Sept. 22, 1997, Senate deposition what the
administration did regarding the Diamond Walnut strike, Ickes responded, "Nothing
that I know of."
Amy Sabrin, Ickes's lawyer, said yesterday she
did not want to comment on the hearing. But last month, when the inquiry began, Ickes's
lawyers said that he testified truthfully before Congress.
Congressional Republicans have been trying for more than a year to
prove that the White House set out in early 1995 to court the Teamsters to assure the
union's financial support in the '96 presidential election.
"What we are here to do is determine whether the White House
pressured a company to settle a labor dispute in an attempt to lure the
Teamsters back into the Democratic fold," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.),
chairman of the House education and work force subcommittee. "We're trying to see if
the Teamsters used members' dues money from the union's political action committee to
effectively purchase negotiating power from the White House."
In an effort to build its case against Ickes, the subcommittee
yesterday produced a number of memos to show how Ickes tried to get
Kantor to call Cuff about the possibility of settling a strike by more than 500 cannery
workers that began in 1990 and continues today. The workers, mostly Hispanic women, have been replaced by the company.
In the first memo, written March 6, 1995, Ickes asked to set up an
appointment with Kantor to discuss the Diamond Walnut strike, noting that he had met with
several Teamsters officials about it. A log of Kantor's appointments
shows he scheduled a meeting with Ickes 18 days later.
Kantor told the committee yesterday that in the meeting Ickes
asked him to check on the status of the strike and the prospects for a
settlement. He said he agreed to make the call to Cuff. Kantor added that
campaign contributions were never discussed.
Three days later, on March 27, Ickes sent a follow-up memo to
Kantor thanking him for the meeting and said, "I trust you will follow up."
Kantor telephoned Walnut Growers in early April, a call he
described yesterday as "benign." He said he talked to Cuff for three to five
minutes and that it was his only contact with the company executive until the two met
yesterday at the hearing.
Cuff testified the conversation may have lasted a few minutes
longer than Kantor recalled but he basically agreed with Kantor's description of the
conversation. "He said he was calling relating to the strike," Cuff said,
"and was there anything he could do to help settle it."
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