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was a big liberal. After the strike started he said, “You've got to include Lenox Hill.”

This is the 1960s?

This is 1959. So we included Lenox Hill -- you can't say “No” to Harry Van Arsdale, you know, everything was all tied up with him. So we hastily ran over there and pulled the workers out.

Now Doris was one of the workers. Doris said that she was furious that they didn't strike Lenox Hill. She wanted a strike. We weren't strong enough to strike. It was the weakest section that we had. So Doris emerged as, she was the rank and file person there. There were others too, but she emerged there. After the strike, on her return, the hospital refused to take her back. So we went to the Labor Board on it. Meanwhile Doris was put on staff. Later on we won the case, and Doris got a big lump sum of back pay, but she stayed on the staff. From that time she was one of many people who we began to recruit from the workers to become staff members. She was obviously superior to most of the others. She had one thing that was very important -- she was a black woman. She was aggressive, and she was street smart, and moved up in the ranks to a point that when -- Elliott had her as his assistant in the hospital division director, and when Elliott then left and fully assumed full time in the national union, she replaced him as hospital division director.

Nicholas has a different background. Nicholas was a worker at Mount Sinai Hospital. Nicholas was in the 1959 strike as a striker. I remember him, but I remember a lot of people and I don't remember him in any great other capacity. Nicholas after the strike was involved in the Mount Sinai union campaign. Nicholas was anxious to work full time for the union, and he set that as a goal for himself. He took on all kinds of rank and file organizing assignments.

Why do you think he set that goal?

He wanted to be on the union staff! He wanted to be in the union. I don't think for bad reasons -- he liked the idea while it was going on. He joined the staff pretty much shortly after the strike -- he was one of the organizers. He was very effective in organizing, and talking to workers. I remember that in certain campaigns -- like in the Roosevelt Hospital campaign, where we lost I think three elections before we won. We had one case at Roosevelt where we filed unfair labor charges. They finally were heard, and there was a hearing. The chief witness was Henry Nicholas, who had organized the workers. As a matter of fact, as an organizer Nicholas was very very effective and