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position. If the AFL-CIO had become involved during that period of investigation of the election, the election challenge, we would have been in very serious trouble. But it became as much a problem for them as it was for us [laughs] for them to get involved in it.

Do you want to explain that a little further?

Well, if they were to become involved in terms of trying to influence the DOL on the investigation of the challenge, to uphold Turner's challenge, on the basis of the considerable amount of press coverage, editorial coverage, of the campaign and of the election, and if the Department of Labor had then thrown out the election, there probably would have been a very, very big uproar in the media, as well as among the members -- but largely in the media. This would not have meant well for the AFL-CIO.

What about the reverse? You were saying it would have been a lot of trouble for you.

Because the AFL-CIO has considerable impact on the Department of Labor. I know that for a fact, and I know that at various stages people were asking us, “Where does the AFL-CIO sit on this?” When we could say that they are neutral they would check it out, but that changed the picture. Changed it from many, many points of view.

Before you go any further, could you describe the structure of the campaign at this point? For instance, who developed the ideas about polling?

Well, there were different committees involved. The idea on polling was Bob's, because he was merely carrying through a relationship that we had developed with an organization that did polling in organizing campaigns -- we had a relationship with them. That organization volunteered to do that and other things gratis, and that was heavy work. Not only that, we could change polls at different times, to change how things were playing.

There was a “convention,” in quotes -- convention in the sense that, I say in quotes because people weren't elected to attend it. Rank and file members attended a convention -- it was an all day conference, really -- where the conference nominated candidates for office. That conference had to take into consideration all kinds of pressures and problems and relationships, as well as the whole question of composition. It couldn't look like everybody who was running for office was a former officer who had been canned by Turner, so that only three of the people on the slate were people who had held office --