CRIME: The Paths That Crossed

Slowly over the years, hard-working Malcolm White had lifted himself up from edge-of-hunger poverty to affluence. A longtime salesman, he started a small electric-wire factory in an abandoned schoolhouse 15 years ago, built it up into a prosperous firm, Chester Cable Corp., making wires, plastic cable sheathing, and lately, hula hoops. With 140 workers, Chester Cable was the biggest employer in Chester. N.Y. (pop. 1,200). 62 miles north of New York City. Grey and frail-looking, White. 48, lived with his wife and 16-month-old son in a handsome house with a fine view of rich, rolling countryside. Austere and outwardly meek, he buried himself in the task of running the company he had created, but he found time to serve as a Cub scoutmaster, president of the chamber of commerce, a pillar of a neighboring town’s Jewish temple.

Three-Time Loser. Beefy Alfred Dugan was a thug, and he had a long and varied police record. In 1941, already a veteran of two prison terms for narcotics-dealing and armed robbery, he drew a 12-to-15 year sentence for robbing a bank messenger of $108,000 in Asbury Park, N.J. Paroled after five years, a three-time loser, he joined the drift of strong-armed ex-cons into labor racketeering, made enough money to buy a $40,000 house in Mountainside, N.J. for his wife and two small daughters. A month ago Tough Guy Dugan, 52, turned up in Chester. His mission: switching White’s workers from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to a shadowy, thug-ridden outfit called the Interstate Industrial Union. Last week, after White fired a few employees who were collaborating with Dugan. Intruder Dugan set up a picket line outside the plant.

Four days after the picketing started.

White and Dugan exchanged bitter words near the company gate. Then White rode off in his 1958 Thunderbird, and Dugan took off after him in his 1956 Ford station wagon. Two sheriff’s deputies, on duty at the plant, spotted the two cars pulling away, decided to go after them. Half a mile away, the deputies came across Dugan’s parked car. Nearby, they found Dugan’s body, sprawled face downward beside a brook. He had been shot in the back. As police reconstructed the shooting, Dugan, unarmed this time, ran away when White drew his pistol, and White pursued him, firing his seven-shot .32 automatic until it was empty.

One-Time Threat. Arrested in his factory office, White unhesitatingly admitted that he had killed Dugan. Dazed from strain and sleeplessness, White told an incoherent story. When he noticed that Dugan was following him, he said, he stopped his car and got out. Dugan parked, came toward him with his hand in his trench-coat pocket. Thinking that Dugan had a pistol, Malcolm White went “berserk,” ag he told it, drew the pistol for which he had got a permit a month before, and started shooting.

The townspeople of Chester were stunned by the news. “Mr. White,” said a filling-station operator, “was the nicest man who ever moved here. But they do say you shouldn’t take a life.” It was hard to decide who was the real victim —Dugan or White.