JFK and Big "Steal"

Yesterday, having a disappointed feeling of being outnumbered, unrepresented, and playing against a stacked deck, thought of Pres. Kennedy and this selection from Leaming book:
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They were still on the South Lawn when Jack, having finished his discussion with Cardona, went to the Oval Office to see Roger Blough, chairman of the U.S. Steel Corporation, who had requested an urgent appointment. The President, concerned that a rise in steel prices would trigger inflation, had been working with industry leaders to make sure that did not happen. He had put his prestige on the line and persuaded the unions to limit their wage demands in order to permit management to hold down prices.

On April 6 and 7, the last of those contracts had been signed, and Kennedy had thought that his dealings with Big Steel, as the industry giants were known, were at an end. Why did Blough want to see him today, when a deal had already been struck?

When Blough announced that U.S. Steel had raised its price by six dollars per ton, or 3.5 percent, Kennedy was furious, convinced that U.S. Steel had used him to persuade the workers to cut back their demands, then played him for a patsy. "He fucked me," the President said afterward...."They've fucked us and we've got to try to fuck them."

[from Mrs. Kennedy: The Missing

History of the Kennedy Years,

by Barbara Leaming. Copyright

2001. The Free Press, a

Division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

New York, NY]

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I am not like that; I wish I could be more like that -- handle things.

(I don't have Bobby Kennedy to help me plan.) --

they planned a strategy which was basically three things:

Pres. went on TV to criticize the price hikes;

there was a possibility (threat) of antitrust proceedings and an investigation of market practices;

and

last but not least

the threat to expose embarrassing aspects of certain steel executives' private lives.

i.e.: "Do you want the government to go back to hotel bills that time you were in Schenectady to find who was with you? Too many hotel bills and night club expenses would be hard to get by the weekly wives' bridge group out at the Country Club."

Kennedy learned it from -- guess who? -- J. Edgar Hoover who -- had done it to him - (!!) three weeks earlier.

I'm just not like that. Maybe that's OK; most of us do not have to be president.

We only want to win in small claims court.

And not be ripped off.

And feel that our story was truly considered.

And that is apparently -- sometimes -- Too Much To Ask.

It bothered me to think / realize that a lot of other people probably have this done to them, and they are perhaps less inclined or equipped to stand up for themselves -- to go in and at least Go The Distance, like Rocky.

(I couldn't WIN, like President Kennedy, but

I could Go The Distance, like Rocky.)

But think of the people for whom English is not their first language -- they're probably getting ripped off left and right; it's not good, I don't like it.

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