[...] By 1957 organized labor seemed so rife with corruption that the Senate appointed a special subcommittee to investigate allegations of criminal activities. The committee, headed by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, boasted such lofty membership as John F. Kennedy, then a young senator from Massachusetts, and had as its chief counsel a youthful Robert F. Kennedy. The televised hearings stunned Americans with its revelations of rigged union elections, collusion of union leaders and employers, embezzlement, and theft. One of the chief targets of the Senate investigations was the Teamsters union, and the committee found evidence of corruption at nearly every level, up to the international president, Dave Beck. Beck had been elected president of the Teamsters in 1952 on a promise to clean up the union. But five years later witnesses testified before the McClellan Anti-Racketeering Committee that Beck was diverting large amounts of union funds for his own purposes, misappropriations that included payments to Labor Relations Associates. Largely as a result of the hearings, Beck was convicted of tax evasion and grand larceny; his successor, the notorious Jimmy Hoffa, was convicted and jailed for jury tampering and mail fraud; and the Teamsters union was expelled from the AFL-CIO.