May 9, 1970: The Death of Walter Reuther

May 9, 1970: Walter Reuther, America's greatest leader of labor unions, is killed in a plane crash. He was 62 years old.

Walter Philip Reuther was born on September 1, 1907 in Wheeling, West Virginia. His father Valentine was a horse-drawn beer wagon driver and a Socialist union organizer who had emigrated from Germany at age 11. Reuther later recalled, "At my father's knee ,we learned the philosophy of trade unionism. We got the struggles, the hopes and the aspirations of working people every day." As a child, he and his brother Victor accompanied their father on a visit to a jail to meet the top American labor leader of the era, Eugene V. Debs, who was being incarcerated for his pacifism during World War I.

One day, the Reuther brothers saw local boys throwing rocks at black people being transported north through their hometown in open railways cars. Their father gave them a stern warning to never treat another human being like that. The Reuther boys never forgot that lesson, spending the rest of their lives fighting for racial and economic equality for all people.

In 1927, at the age of 19, Reuther left Wheeling for Detroit, and argued himself into an expert tool and die maker job at Ford Motor Company, a job that required 25 years experience. The foreman was baffled that at his young age he could read blueprints and dies, becoming one of the highest paid mechanics in the factory. In 1932, he was fired for organizing a rally for Norman Thomas, who was running for President of the United States as the nominee for the Socialist Party of America. His official Ford employment record states that he quit voluntarily, but Reuther himself maintained that he was fired for his increasingly visible socialist activities.

In 1934, he joined the United Auto Workers. By 1937, he had gotten General Motors and Chrysler to recognize the union. Ford, the other member of the "Big Three," refused, so he organized a strike. He and others were beaten by a private army hired by Henry Ford. It became known as the Battle of the Overpass, and led to the American public beginning to side with unions. Ford recognized the UAW in 1940.

That same year, Reuther organized a deal between the UAW, Ford and the federal government to produce 500 planes a day for the Department of War, in preparation for America's inevitable entry into World War II. Reuther was of German descent, but he knew that Nazi Germany was not only bloodthirsty and racist, but anti-union, and he wanted them defeated as much as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did. (Henry Ford did not: He admired Adolf Hitler, who had mentioned him in Mein Kampf as someone he thought held the same ideals. Henry never contradicted that.)

Walter and May Reuther were married on March 13, 1936, after meeting on a streetcar in Detroit only six weeks earlier. She was a teacher, and had organized a teachers' union. They had 2 daughters: Linda, born in 1942; and Elisabeth, in 1947. Reuther led a simple, austere lifestyle. He neither smoked nor drank alcohol, because he felt it sapped a person's vitality. For his daily lunch in his office, he had the same menu: A sandwich and a cup of tea.

In April 1938, 2 masked gunmen attempted to abduct Reuther at a party he was hosting. However, one guest managed to flee and alert the authorities, leading to their arrest. At the trial, the defense argued that the Reuther staged the entire event as a publicity stunt. Links between the gunmen and Harry Bennett, a union-busting enemy of the UAW, were not disclosed to the jury.

Reuther was elected President of the UAW in 1946, and was continually re-elected for the rest of his life. He won praise from liberals for standing up for good jobs at good wages, and for civil rights, demanding equal pay for black workers. He won praise from conservatives for purging Communists from the UAW's ranks.

In 1947, he was among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action, the leading liberal lobbying group of the post-World War II era. He was elected President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1952, and held the post until it was reconsolidated with the American Federal of Labor, as the AFL-CIO, in 1955, negotiating it with AFL leader George Meany.

On April 20, 1948, Reuther barely survived a double-barrel shotgun blast that ripped through his kitchen window as he was preparing a late evening snack. As the gunshot went off at 9:48 PM, he turned toward his wife, and was hit in his right arm instead of the chest and heart. Four slugs shattered his right arm into 150 pieces of bone. Another slug pierced his back, and exited out his stomach. The assailant “fled in a bright red four-door Ford sedan," police said.

Reuther did not lose consciousness, and cursed his attacker as he was initially being treated by his next-door-neighbor, a doctor, as he lay on the kitchen floor. The doctor reported Reuther as saying, "Those dirty sons of bitches! They have to shoot a man in the back. They won't come out in the open and fight."

As doctors fought to save his life, he became infected with malaria and hepatitis from blood transfusions. Through months of therapy, he regained partial use of his right arm, but for the rest of his life had to train himself to write and shake with his left hand.

Attorney General Tom Clark requested J. Edgar Hoover to get the FBI to investigate the shooting. Hoover refused. I won't post what he said. It was that vile. The shooting was never solved.

Following the Bay of Pigs incident in 1961, President John F. Kennedy sent Reuther to Cuba to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Fidel Castro. He was instrumental in spearheading the creation of the Peace Corps. When Lyndon Johnson became President, he met with Reuther regularly, and Reuther got the UAW to support the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, Medicare and Medicaid.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and some of his supporters were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 -- leading to King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" -- Reuther raised $160,000 for their release. What became known as simply "The March On Washington" was, in full, The March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and Reuther not only helped organize it, but spoke at it, shortly before King's "I Have a Dream" speech. He served on the board of the NAACP, and was responsible for bringing the struggle of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to the attention of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

The Republicans hated him as much as the Democrats liked him. During the 1960 election, then-Vice President Richard Nixon said about JFK, "I can think of nothing so detrimental to this nation than for any President to owe his election to, and therefore be a captive of, a political boss like Walter Reuther." The next Republican nominee for President, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, said Reuther "was more dangerous to our country than Sputnik or anything Soviet Russia might do."

A lifetime environmentalist, Reuther played a critical role in funding and organizing the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Denis Hayes, the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day, said, "Without the UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!" So Reuther was important in many liberal causes.

But the struggles for women's and gay rights, and reproductive freedom, would not gain momentum in his lifetime. On May 9, 1970, 17 days after that 1st Earth Day, Walter and May Reuther, their bodyguard William Wolfman, architect Oscar Stonorov, pilot George O. Evans and co-pilot Joseph U. Karaffa boarded a chartered Learjet 23 in Detroit. In rain and fog, they were approaching Pellston Regional Airport in Pellston, Michigan, near the UAW's recreational and educational facility at Black Lake, Michigan. The plane crashed at 9:33 PM, and everyone on board was killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board discovered that the plane's altimeter was missing parts, some incorrect parts were installed, and one of its parts had been installed upside down. This has led to speculation of sabotage, that Reuther may have been murdered -- assassinated. Given the previous attempts on his life, it's not far-fetched. But the weather was almost certainly to blame.

The Spring of 1970 was the Winter of Discontent for "Sixties People." The dream seemed to be over: Nixon had been elected President, the Smothers Brothers had been canceled, there had been murder at Altamont, The Beatles had broken up, the Kent State Massacre and the Hard Hat Demonstration had just happened, and now, Walter Reuther had passed into legend along with the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King. And the Vietnam War, which Reuther had also opposed, was still going, with no end in sight.

However, shortly after his death, the State of Michigan named Interstate 696, a 28-mile highway in the northern suburbs of Detroit, the Walter P. Reuther Freeway. In 1999, Time magazine named him the most important labor union leader of the 20th Century.

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May 9, 1970 was a Saturday. Dennis Coles, the Wu-Tang Clan member known as Ghostface Killah, was born on this day.

Football was out of season. The NBA season ended the night before, when the New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 7 of the Finals. The American Basketball Association, however, had far from decided its title. The Los Angeles Stars beat the Denver Rockets, 109-107 at the Denver Auditorium Arena, to win the Western Division Finals, 4 games to 1. Spencer Haywood scored 37 points in defeat for the Rockets, who became the Denver Nuggets in 1974. The Stars would lose the Finals to the Indiana Pacers.

The NHL season would end the next day, when Bobby Orr scored in overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 4-3 win over the St. Louis Blues, and a sweep of the Stanley Cup Finals, ending a 29-year Cup drought for the Bruins.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the California Angels, 11-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Andy Messersmith went the distance for the win, and hit a home run.

* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 14-5 at Shea Stadium. Jerry Koosman was the winning pitcher. Art Shamsky hit a home run. Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos, 6-0 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Danny Coombs pitched a 2-hit shutout, allowing only singles by Don Hahn and Bob Bailey. This game was between the 2 National League expansion teams of 1969, and it was probably the best-pitched game in Padres history to that point, and possibly for many years to come.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The Phils scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th, including a home run Byron Browne, to send the game to extra innings. But first Dick Selma, and then Joe Hoerner, melted down in the top of the 14th, allowing 5 runs. Manny Mota went 4-for-7 with 2 RBIs.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson hit a home run. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron hit his 567th career home run, and Orlando Cepeda hit his 323rd. Lou Brock went 2-for-4.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, and Rod Carew went 0-for-5, but Tony Oliva and Paul Ratliff hit home runs for the Twins.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-4, Willie Horton hit 2 home runs, and Bill Freehan hit 1.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks hit his 499th home run. Three days later, he hit his 500th. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a walk. Johnny Bench went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Washington Senators, 3-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Ted Kubiak singled Mike Hegan home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Astros, 6-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Roberto Clemente went 4-for-5 with an RBI. Willie Stargell went 2-for-5 with a walk.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Carl Yastrzemski hit 2 home runs, and Tony Conigliaro won it with a home run in the 9th inning. Reggie Jackson only appeared as a pinch-runner.