Posted by Geov Parrish, This Day in Radical History:

April 5 1956:

Columnist Victor Riesel, a crusader against labor racketeers, blinded in New York City when a hired assailant threw sulfuric acid in his face.

According to Gangland News:

Victor Riesel was a well respected syndicated columnist specializing in labor matters. During a late night radio program on April 5, 1956, he attacked the leadership of Local 138 of the Operating Engineers of Long Island. He had previously criticized Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, among others. After the broadcast, Riesel went out to eat. When he left the restaurant at 3 a.m., he was attacked. A man threw acid into his face, permanently blinding him.

The feds investigated and arrested Abraham Telvi and two other minor criminals. They also grabbed infamous Lucchese gangster, John (Johnny Dio) DioGuardi, a long time labor racketeer. Some reports have DioGuardi — whom legendary prosecutor Thomas Dewey called “a young gorilla who began his career at the age of 15″ — hurling the acid himself. DioGuardi beat the rap when a number of witnesses changed their minds about testifying. Not long afterwards, Telvi was gunned down, probably because he was threatening to spill the beans if he didn’t get more money, or simply to ensure he never would talk.

DioGuardi was convicted of stock fraud and sentenced to 15 years in 1973. He died in 1979. Riesel died in 1995, at age 81.

Posted at The Smith Center: “PACs & The Forced-dues Base of Big Labor’s Political Machine”:

Until his retirement in 1990, Victor Riesel was probably the nation’s best-known labor columnist. According to his obituary in the January 5, 1995, New York Times, Riesel, raised in a union household, “never stopped inveighing against gangster infiltration and other corruption in labor unions that had stirred his emotions since his youth.” Indeed, for exposing corruption in a Long Island local of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Riesel was blinded by an acid attack in 1956.

Based on his in-depth knowledge of union finances, Riesel estimated that in addition to Organized Labor’s direct contributions of around $1 million to federal candidates in 1968 and 1972, union officials actually spent $60 million in ‘68 and $50 million in ‘72.

When Alexander Barkan, director of the AFL-CIO COPE, complained that these were gross overestimates, Riesel replied in the Orlando Sentinel-Star on November 3, 1973:

If you apply cost accounting to what the unions do in a political way . . . you will find that the noncash contributions consist of staff time - meaning union officials who are assigned to campaigns for months on end - printing costs, postage, telephone and various other support services financed entirely with compulsory union dues and fees.