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I have no idea. My original thought was that it was an attempt by, that it was related to the merger. More and more I see no relation to it, but I thought, and I've heard things on this. See, Heaps has ties with all kinds of racket outfits, and that it may be related to something completely and totally aside from the merger. But he used that.

I remember the timing quite clearly, and it certainly seemed that it was an effort by somebody to scare him away from the merger.

Yes, because at that time we thought he was for the merger. It turns out that he wasn't for the merger! Jesse and I visited him in the hospital. I remember we were there and Lenore Miller was there, we were asking how he was doing and it was very very warm, and saying we wanted him to know how concerned we were, etcetera, and then we got around to the merger. We got around to a discussion of the merger and he said, “Look, the problem you have is that you're not united. My main aim, as soon as I get out of the hospital, is to bring the two sides together and work it out, so that you'll be united so that we can go ahead with the merger. Can't go ahead with the merger unless you're united.” All the time he's playing to disunite us and continues to do that! He's saying, “You can't have a merger unless you're united” and he is working with that. So, Heaps is a rather interesting person.

Can you say a few words about Heaps' character as a labor leader?

Well, Heaps came out of the CIO, came out of the RW in retail/wholesale in Chicago. Chicago local organized Campbell soups -- I think it was a product out of the packing house operation, so they had ties with everybody. Heaps was fundamentally a traditional trade unionist. I don't think that he has in the last twenty-five years done any real work. For his international is an international in name only, whose activities relate almost entirely to the question of pensions for the staff, the pension plan. At their board meetings of the international union that is always the issue that occupies most of the time. That was a major concern. So therefore, before him Max Greenberg ran the union. Max Greenberg also came from a small local in New Jersey -- very very small local. Max ran that union like a business, too! His brother became an international rep, his son became the lawyer, his secretary is now the secretary-treasurer of the international union -- Lenore Miller, who was never in a union in her life.

He ran the union -- it's a continuation from the [Sam] Wolchok period. The president is not a strong, powerful person. The locals are permitted to go their own way and not be interfered with by the international. That's the deal. You have in the international all kinds of