do the same amount of damage to the American missile effort as done by labor at Cape Canaveral. McClellan suggested that the comments bordered on subversion and called for more testimony from the unions. The second in 1964, known as the Valachi hearings, investigated the operations of organized crime and featured the testimony of Joseph Valachi, the first American mafia figure to testify about the activities of organized crime. He continued his efforts against organized crime, supplying the political influence for the anti-organized crime law Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) until 1973 when he switched to investigating political subversion. During this period, he hired Robert F. Kennedy as chief counsel and vaulted him into the national spotlight. He investigated numerous cases of government corruption including numerous defense contractors and Texas financier Billie Sol Estes. In 1956, McClellan was one of 82 representatives and 19 senators who signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education and racial integration. One of McClellan's law partners prior to his Senate service, Maud Crawford, went missing in March 1957 in Camden, Arkansas. There had been speculation that she had been kidnapped by the Mafia in an attempt to intimidate McClellan, but no ransom note was ever forthcoming. The disappearance, which remains unsolved, received international attention. However, in 1986 the local paper ran a series of articles suggesting that she was killed as she was obstructing the attempt by another partner in McClellan's law firm to subvert the will of one of her clients. It is unclear whether McClellan would have been aware of this matter although, since it involved matters of legal ethics and a $15m will it is probable that he was at least aware of the dispute. If so he was complicit in hiding this matter until his death. In 1957, McClellan opposed U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to send federal troops to enforce the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock. Prior to the sending of the troops under the command of Major General Edwin A. Walker, McClellan had expressed "regret [regarding] the ... use of force by the federal government to enforce integration. I believe it to be without authority of law. I am very apprehensive that such action may precipitate more trouble than it will prevent." McClellan and fellow Senator Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma were