11. Death Threat
Copyright © 2000 by Dan E. Moldea
After returning home to Ohio on November 2--Election Day 1976--my father called and asked me to have lunch with him. Dad sounded a little shaky. In all the years since I had left home, he never called to ask me to lunch. Because he was in the midst of a bout with throat cancer, diagnosed the previous January, I came to the restaurant extremely concerned.
I had known a lot of tough guys in my life, but I had never met anyone as tough as my dad, whose portrait as the Army-Air Force's "Typical Officer Candidate" during World War II, painted by the legendary Charles Baskerville, still hung in the E-Ring of the Pentagon. A captain, although not a pilot, he had served in the 445th fighter squadron in England with famed fighter pilots Chuck Yeager and Lloyd Thomas.
Dad had played football for Paul Brown and Wes Fesler at Ohio State, rooming at the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house with future Pro Football Hall of Famer Dante Lavelli of the Cleveland Browns. Dad would always be remembered for his last-second heroics in a game against Northwestern on November 8, 1947, described by the local media as "the wildest finish Ohio Stadium ever witnessed."
With Ohio State tying the score at 6-6 on the final play of the game, my dad had lined up to kick the extra point for the win. However, Dad's kick was blocked, because Northwestern had jumped offside to get to the ball.
Given a rare second chance to be a hero, Dad put the ball through the uprights, giving Ohio State a 7-6 victory. All of OSU's points, with the help of three Northwestern penalties, came during four plays after time had expired.
The following month, Los Angeles Rams' owner Dan Reeves invited Dad to try out for his professional football team. But now a twenty-nine-year-old senior after five years in the military and married, Dad passed on the offer. However, the following spring, he went on to star on the Buckeyes' track and field team, setting the OSU record for the shot put.
A real football lover, Dad had always wanted to coach and, after graduation, had been offered several low-paying jobs at small colleges, which could have led to bigger assignments. In fact, one of Dad's best friends, Don McCafferty, went that route and eventually became head coach of the Detroit Lions of the NFL.
But I came along in 1950 as did my sister, Marsha, two years later, causing him to scuttle his plans. He had to raise a family and never really had the chance to go for his dream. Nevertheless, he was a hard act to follow, and I always looked up to him, especially because of his toughness.
Once, during a visit to my uncle's farm when I was just ten years old, my dad had picked up an old German rifle with a tight spring-action bolt. I was standing right next to him. Holding back the bolt with his left hand, he tried to clean the chamber with his right-index finger. Suddenly, the bolt slipped and slammed shut.
Splashed with some of his blood, I was looking at Dad's face when the accident occurred. I don't remember him flinching, even though the top part of his finger had been ripped from his hand. The rest of us in the family had to coax him to go to the hospital to get stitched up.
This was one very tough man.
At our lunch on Election Day, Dad apologized for the drama, saying he wanted to tell me something--but not in front of my mom. Saying nothing, I waited to hear the bad news about the cancer.
Instead, Dad told me that while I had been in New Jersey the previous week he had been threatened at work. For years, he had worked as a salesman at Consolidated Freightways, which was one of the largest trucking companies in the United States.
When I asked him to describe the threat, he said that he had received a call while in his office, and that the caller, very coolly, had told him that he was going to be killed and stuffed in the trunk of his car if he didn't get me under control.
When I heard that, I shouted out, "God damn these guys!"
Dad told me that he didn't really feel in danger, but that he thought I should know what had happened. He encouraged me to keep exposing corruption in the trucking industry and working with the rank-and-file reformers.
Immediately after I left my dad, I went back to my apartment and called the FBI to report the threat.
And then, without any hesitation, I picked up the telephone and called a friend of mine in the U. S. attorney's office in Pittsburgh. After months of balking--because I was a reporter--I agreed to cooperate openly with the federal grand jury investigation of McMaster's goon squad, which was the target of the probe.
This was no longer just business; this was personal. And I was no longer just a journalist, I was an advocacy journalist.
Within twenty-four hours, I had provided prosecutors with my evidence of wrongdoing by the unit, and I had convinced several of my own confidential sources to cooperate with the government, as well. However, I continued to keep confidential the names of those sources who, for reasons of their own, had refused to work with the prosecution, especially my original task-force source.