Victor Riesel is attacked with acid

The acid attack on investigative reporter Victor Riesel in May 1956 turned a violent attempt to silence labor reform advocacy into a nationally visible political crisis. Blinded after an assailant threw acid in his face, Riesel continued speaking publicly against corruption; the image of him wearing dark glasses on television helped bring the influence of racketeers in the labor movement before the Senate.

Background and Attack

Riesel was a reporter for the New York Journal American and used his daily radio show to feature Teamsters opposed to Jimmy Hoffa. He had been campaigning against criminal influence in labor unions. On the night of a broadcast, he left Lindy’s restaurant on Broadway, near Times Square, and was approached on the sidewalk by an assailant described in the account as a goon, who threw a cup of acid into his face.

The attack devastated Riesel’s eyesight. Its timing and target connected the assault to the struggle over reform within the unions: the broadcast had given a public platform to anti-Hoffa Teamsters, while Riesel’s reporting challenged the criminal element he believed had taken hold in organized labor.

The Alleged Order and the Collapse of the Case

The book identifies John Dioguardi, also known as Johnny Dio, as a Hoffa ally and labor racketeer, and says it soon became apparent that he had ordered the attack. Dio was charged with ordering the crime. But the prosecution’s prospects collapsed after the acid thrower was found dead and other witnesses, having received the message, refused to cooperate. The charges were dropped.

That outcome left a sharp contrast between the apparent reach of the attack and the limits of the case against its alleged organizer. The assault left Riesel blind, but the account does not describe a conviction for ordering it; instead, the death of the assailant and the witnesses’ silence ended the charges against Dio.

Public Response and Senate Hearings

Riesel’s blindness did not end his public advocacy. Appearing on television in dark glasses, he continued urging labor reform. The sight of an injured reporter persisting in that campaign outraged the nation, and the Senate responded with live televised hearings into racketeering’s influence on the labor movement. They became known as the McClellan Committee hearings, after the Arkansas senator John L. McClellan, who presided.

The committee included future presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and John F. Kennedy. Its chief counsel and principal interrogator was Bobby Kennedy, whose aggressive work there would make him Jimmy Hoffa’s mortal enemy. The attack thus had consequences beyond Riesel’s injury: it helped focus public attention on organized influence within unions and formed part of the political setting for the Kennedy–Hoffa conflict that followed.