Foreword<br >The idea of writing about Harry Bridges first occurred to me in the<br >mid-fifties. I was finishing a book about longshoring， and one day<br >I said excitedly to my wife， "You know， as soon as I get this done，<br >I m going to start in on one about Bridges." Happily， she knew me<br >better than I knew myself. "Wait at least five years，" she cautioned.<br >"You re so impressed with the guy right now you couldn t do an<br >honest book about him."<br > For once， I took her advice. In fact， I did even better. I waited<br >six years， so it was 1961 when I wrote Bridges to tell him of my<br >intention and to ask if he would cooperate. He didn t answer， nor<br >did he answer a follow-up letter I sent him a few weeks later.<br > His staff at union headquarters (the union is the West Coast In-<br >ternational Longshoremen s and Warehousemen s Union)， by con-<br >trast， could scarcely have been more encouraging. "Come on out，"<br >they urged me. (I was living in Michigan.) "You ll have access to<br >all the stuff in the records except Harry s personal files. And don t<br >be put off by his negative attitude. He won t interfere with what<br >you re doing and， anyway， he ll come around in time."<br > They were wrong. He didn t interfere， but he never came around.<br >In 1962， the staff let me use an empty office just off the rooms<br >where the records are kept， and I worked there for a year. Union<br >headquarters is in a small building， and I saw a fair amount of<br >~id-Huds.on<br >Libraries<br ><br >