July 29, 1997

Mr. Ron Carey, General President
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
25 Louisiana Avenue NW.
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Ron:

With great regret, I am resigining from the Teamsters. The turmoil created by the prolonged investigation by the U.S. Attorney in New York, the delay in certification of the union election results and the calculated external distribution of documents held by federal investigators have made it very hard to get any real work done.

I also have concluded - after several encounters with the U.S. Attorney in New York and her retinue - that there is no merit to further cooperation by me with the investigation. Documents voluntarily handed over wind up in the hands of Hoffa operatives who then spin them to the press - while those of us who tried to assist in sorting out the questions raised by the investigation are unable to respond. It is a circus, and I no longer willingly will participate.

I admit to doing everything I could do last year to try to re-elect the President and defeat Newt Gingrich's congressional majority. I also did what I could to help you win re-election and continue to reform this union. In neither effort did I knowingly do anything wrong.

I will work with you and the staff to make my departure undisruptive. We've done some important and good things here during my 2 1/2 years at the Teamsters. Think of the good things we might have done with the money and time we're using to fend off Hoffa and his pals and their effort to win by conspiracy what the members denied them in the union election.

Sincerely,

William W. Hamilton, Jr.
Director of Government Affairs/DRIVE