Teamster Talk

Should the boss be prosecuted?

Man bites dog. Soviets say yes. Teamsters Union president escapes indictment because he is an FBI informer. The third of these imaginary news flashes might seem the most farfetched, yet it is the one that could come true.

Five men have headed the nation's largest union (current membership: 1.8 million) during the past quarter-century. Three-- Dave Beck, Jimmy Hoffa and Roy Williams -- were convicted of federal crimes. Now there is an argument within the Justice Department about whether prosecutors should continue to urge a fed eral grand jury in Cleveland to indict Jackie Presser, who succeeded Williams as president in 1983. The charge would be that as secretary-treasurer of Cleveland's Local 507, a post he still holds, Presser signed checks making large payments of union funds to "ghost employees" who did no work. Presser's uncle, Allen Friedman, already has been convicted of receiving $165,000 in such payments. Another man, John Nardi Jr., has pleaded guilty to taking $109,000 in the same scheme.

Last week, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that since the 1970s, Presser has been passing information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Teamsters-related matters. TIME has learned independently that he has provided tips about other officials in his union to the FBI at secret meetings in Washington, Cleveland and San Francisco. Presser has previously been cited as a Government informer, notably in reports by two Internal Revenue Service agents.

Reluctant to lose a valued informant, or to have their relationship documented at a trial, many FBI men would like to see the case quietly dropped. Officials of the Justice Department's organized crime strike force, which is already presenting to the grand jury information turned up by the Labor Department, argue that Presser turned informer precisely to divert possible prosecution.

The Teamsters president is one of Ronald Reagan's few supporters among labor leaders; he was instrumental in winning the union's endorsement for Reagan in 1980 and served as an adviser on one of Reagan's transition teams. A decision on whether to seek indictment would have to be made at the top of the Justice Department. If that decision is delayed, there is some question as to who would make it. William French Smith is staying on as Attorney General on a caretaker basis; confirmation of his successor-designate, Edwin Meese, has been held up while an independent counsel looks into Meese's financial affairs. qed