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I'm thinking this, what do you think?” So I had to have somebody that I felt comfortable with that I had great respect for.
So the Scotto thing comes up, and everybody -- Governor Carey is testifying, he's pulling all his credit cards, and he's asking people. I get a call from Mrs. King on Scotto. Cleve Robinson is asking me. See, 65 has ties with everybody as part of their organization. So I say, “Gee, I think it's wrong. Do you know him?”
She says, “No, I don't really know him.”
“You'll give a statement and you ou don't even really know him.” I said, “Let me call you back.” What do I do? I call Jack Newfield. I say, “Jack, what's the story on thi sScotto?”
He said, “Everything they've said is true. They've got him down on everything. Why are you asking me?”
“Just between us, Mrs. King.”
“Don't involve her in this thing. It'd be wrong.”
So I call her and I say, “Coretta, I think you ought not to. I've checked it out with people who are familiar with the situation and they say that it's inadvisable.”
She said, “I've been getting calls from Cleve regularly. I'm getting calls from Scotto regularly. It's difficult for me to do.”
I said, “Look, if you want to, put the blame on me. I don't care.” I began to get calls from Scotto. I must have gotten at least a dozen phone calls from Scotto. I did not answer them. I knew why he was calling me.
Later on -- and maybe we'll end on this -- the convention of the National Hospital Union three years ago, the fight was already on between Doris and--
The one in Philadelphia?
There were two in Philadelphia. The first one in Philadelphia, the fight was already on over the merger. Mrs. King had agree to come to speak. Her speech to the convention was carefully drafted so that we didn't think it was advisable for her to be all out in the dispute, but to make it clear that the question of merger was a very important issue, something that was a valuable and a forward movement that would be the kind of thing that when she originally asked us to organize hospital workers nationally in '68, that this is a continuation
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