Coal Survivor I 3. Strike with All Thy Will

Summary

Shadow Kingdom – Episode 3: Strike with All Thy Will

Podcast: Shadow Kingdom
Host: Nicola Minoni (Crooked Media & Campside Media)
Date: September 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode chronicles the high-stakes, perilous campaign of Jock Yablonski, a reformer challenging the corrupt leadership of the United Mine Workers of America union in 1969. Through interview clips, narration, and archival audio, it traces Jock’s public and private battles against entrenched power, the threats he and his family faced, and the growing conspiracy to silence him. Woven into the episode is the parallel story of Paul Gilley, an unlikely would-be assassin whose involvement frames the risk and desperation swirling around the movement for union democracy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Launch of Jock Yablonski’s Campaign

[00:02 – 04:30]

• Jock Yablonski announces his candidacy for UMWA president on May 29, 1969, at the Mayflower Hotel:
  • A high-profile event, orchestrated with the help of Ralph Nader, surprises the press.
  • Theme: Reform focused on health, safety, and a return to union democracy.
• Quote [02:16] – Chip Yablonski recalls Jock’s words:
  “Today I am announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United Mineworkers of America. I do so out of a deep awareness of the insufferable gap between the union leadership and the working miners.”
• Jock uses poetry to explain his years of silence and new resolve:
  Quote [03:37] – “When ye be an anvil, lie ye very still. When you be a hammer, strike with all thy will.”
• The shock reverberates—no one has challenged the UMWA presidency in 50 years.

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2. The Fierce Backlash and Obstruction by Tony Boyle

[05:13 – 13:51]

• Tony Boyle’s machine responds:
  • Boyle leverages the union’s communication channels and resources (pensions, billboards, union newsletter) to smear Jock.
  • Changes balloting rules, increasing nomination thresholds to stymie challengers.
• Quote [08:51] (Boyle’s nickname):
  “Holy Joe Yablonski. This puny opportunist crazed by dreams of power.”
• The union newsletter, under Boyle’s control, becomes the “loyal to Boyle Journal.”
• Insight: Jock runs on shoestring personal savings, Boyle has a $300M war chest.
• The struggle is systemic: how entrenched power bends rules and wields patronage.

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3. The Ground Game – Organizing in Coal Country

[13:51 – 16:33]

• Jock’s campaign is a family operation: His son Chip, wife Margaret, and daughter Charlotte coordinate.
• Despite intimidation, local mine chapters slowly start supporting Jock:
  • Black lung reform leaders, miners in Harlan and even hostile unions trickle in nominations.
• Quote [15:48] – Chip Yablonski: “We began to develop a sort of skeleton operation of trusted people in different places.”
• By August 1969, Jock secures required nominations and is officially on the ballot.

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4. Escalating Violence and Attempts at Intimidation

[16:49 – 21:00]

• Threats against Jock and his supporters intensify:
  • Physical assault (karate-chopped and left unconscious at a rally)
  • Break-ins at Jock’s offices and key supporters’ homes
  • Sabotage to transportation (tampering with a plane)
  • Intimidating messages (wife's belongings slashed)
• The government refuses pre-election intervention; Nader’s support evaporates.
• Forced into self-protection, the Yablonskis take up arms and private security.

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5. The Conspiracy Unfolds: The Would-Be Assassin’s Story

[23:15 – 30:22]

• Introduction to Paul Gilley, the man sent to kill Jock:
  • Gilley, a Cleveland housepainter, is pressured relentlessly by his father-in-law Silas, a miner with violent union ties, and by his wife Lucy.
  • Gilley resists but is manipulated and threatened into participating, largely to protect his wife and himself from union retaliation.
• Quote [23:48] – Paul Gilley: “He said, it sure help out if we get rid of him.”
• The plot is farcically amateur: failed assassination attempts, out-of-focus newspaper clippings as identification, bumbling accomplices.
• Payments and promises from Silas and District 19 union figures complicate Paul’s motivations and deepen his fear of being double-crossed.

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6. Jock Outsmarts the Hitmen

[30:10 – 34:08]

• Gilley and his accomplice confront Jock directly in Clarksville, but freeze and fail to act.
• Jock immediately realizes what’s happening and, with his son, follows up by tracking the suspicious car’s license and identifying Paul Gilley.
• Quote [33:39] – Chip Yablonski: “My brother and a friend went into the little town of Clarksville and they found the car that Gilly and [accomplice] were riding around in and took down the license number, Ohio CX457.”
• The episode ends with a cliffhanger: Jock’s team is one phone call away from Paul’s wife, tantalizingly close to turning the tables on their would-be assassin.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jock’s poetry at the campaign launch (03:37):
  “When ye be an anvil, lie ye very still. When you be a hammer, strike with all thy will.”
  Delivered via Chip Yablonski, this line electrifies the press and sets the episode’s tone.

• Tony Boyle’s dog-whistle tactic (09:41):
  “A dog whistle reminder. Jablonski is a foreign name. Polish. But holy Joe, Yablonski didn't back down.”

• Gilley’s reluctant involvement (25:05):
  “Only reason I went into that was to keep her out of it. But she's the type of person you can't keep out of nothing.”
  Paul Gilley on being manipulated by his family into assassination plotting.

• Jock’s reaction to the attempt on his life (32:49):
  “So Paul and Claude, utterly defeated, drove straight to a local bar. From Jock's point of view, though, this was not over. Jock knew what these men were here for. He knew he'd just come face to face with the threat he'd flagged to Ralph Nader in those smoky first meetings when he said, they'll kill me, Ralph.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:02] Mayflower Hotel press conference setup and announcement
• [02:16] Jock’s campaign speech and motivations
• [03:37] The poetic maxim: “When ye be a hammer, strike with all thy will.”
• [08:51] Boyle coins the nickname “Holy Joe Yablonski”
• [10:18 – 12:03] Boyle manipulates pensions and election rules
• [15:48] Grassroots nominations and family campaign effort
• [17:56] Jock’s physical assault at a rally
• [19:08] Surge of intimidation tactics and lack of outside help
• [23:15] The introduction to Paul Gilley and murder plot origins
• [27:53] Gilley and team track Jock at a rally
• [31:28] Face-to-face confrontation between Paul Gilley and Jock at home
• [33:39] Jock’s team investigates and identifies Gilley

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Tone and Style

The episode's storytelling is immersive, tense, and richly atmospheric, mixing first-person interviews and archival news reports. The host, Nicola Minoni, provides brooding narrative bridges, highlighting both the historic stakes and the sense of personal peril facing reformers. The tone juxtaposes the language of labor solidarity with the gritty, often tragic reality of union politics in the 20th century.

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Conclusion

This episode of Shadow Kingdom dramatizes the convergence of personal courage, institutional corruption, and the ever-present shadow of violence in the coal fields. It paints Jock Yablonski as a reluctant hero— a man who moves from the “anvil” to “hammer” under the weight of history, and sets into motion a chain of events that will change the mineworkers’ union forever. Meanwhile, the machinations and desperate actions of his would-be assassins underscore the dangers faced by those who challenge entrenched power, and the lines men will cross when they believe everything is at stake.

Next episode tease: The hunter becomes the hunted, as Jock’s team closes in on Paul Gilley, bringing the conspiracy into the open.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Campsite Media. If you wanted to make an announcement in Washington D.C. in 1969 and you wanted to make it bold, something the press would pay attention to, you did it at the Mayflower Hotel. Stuffy, chic, peppered with chandeliers and floral moldings. Basically, imagine the kind of hotel your grandparents would think is classy. And so Jacques Jablonski sat in the Pan American Room at the Mayflower Hotel on May 29, waiting for the media to arrive. Today, Jock would announce that he was challenging Tony Boyle for the presidency of the United Mine Workers. Ralph Nader, the celebrity consumer advocate, had invited his many press contacts but refused to say what the press conference was about. That seemed to be top secret. Not a single person knew what was about to happen.

[Chip Yablonski]

We weren't certain whether or not the word would leak out and that there might be an effort on the part of the mine workers to try to crash it.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Chip Yablonski, joc's son, a high school football player turned lawyer, was there that day.

[Chip Yablonski]

My cousin Stephen and I were dressed in suits at the door, looking for press credentials to admit people.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

As 11am Neared, a parade of journalists made their way in. NBC, ABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, all the big outlets, all curious as hell as they walked in. Each reporter was stopped at the door by one of the two Yablonsky boys pretending to be bouncers. Ralph Nader stood quietly in the back. He was just there to show that Jock had his all powerful seal of approval. The room neared capacity. There was a palpable buzz in the crowd as Jock walked in and sat in front of a U shaped table. Microphones from every broadcaster before him, no sign of nerves. Jock began to speak. Chip recited Jock's speech for me.

[Chip Yablonski]

Today I am announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United Mineworkers of America. I do so out of a deep awareness of the insufferable gap between the union leadership and the working miners.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Jock outlined his platform. It was all about health and safety, financial reform. And finally, he vowed to return democracy to the union, to turn over the power to the rank and file. Jock finished the announcement, put his paper down and looked up. Reporters stared back, shocked. No one had contested the mine workers presidency in almost half a century. If Jock had been feuding with Tony Boyle, and that feud was private and reporters were also skeptical. For three decades, Jock had stood by Tony and his predecessor. So perhaps the question was inevitable. Hands shot up and a reporter from the Washington Post asked, why have you.

[Chip Yablonski]

Been silent for so long?

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The room got still reporters studying this rugged miner's face. And out of Jock's mouth came poetry, literal poetry.

[Chip Yablonski]

He quoted some Scot poet. When ye be an anvil, lie ye very still. When you be a hammer, strike with all thy will.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

An anvil is what a blacksmith lays a piece of steel on to be able to pound it into shape. But now, no longer able to tolerate the decline of this union, Jock would become a hammer shaping a union future without corruption.

[Chip Yablonski]

That was sort of erudite and sophisticated and gave him a level of respect from the press in attendance that like, well, this guy's not exactly a country bumpkin.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

However, he got the line, it did the trick. The reporter streamed out of the Mayflower and the headlines started to appear and.

[Reporter/News Clips]

There has been a revolt within the miners union. The leader of the revolt, Joseph Jablonski, is challenging union president Tony Boyle in a coming election.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The revolution had begun. And in true 60s fashion, it had begun on television for everyone to see. But the United Mineworkers leadership, who Jocket just put on notice preferred to answer its most serious challenges in the shadows. Something everyone involved in this drama would soon find out from crooked media and Campside media. This is Shadow Coal Survivor episode three, Strike with All Thy Will. I'm your host, Nicola Minoni.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Royal is buying television time, billboards and enjoys the powerful machinery of the union. Holy Joe Yablonski. This puny opportunist, crazed by dreams of.

[Chip Yablonski]

When he got karate chopped in a meeting. That was a setup. It was like, oh, this is really pretty bad.

[Reporter/News Clips]

I will not stand still to see him besmirched by the likes of a young Bron. I will answer these ugly charges. The membership of our union want this organization to lift up its membership ahead of everything else. To hell with the officers.

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[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Jock's insurgent campaign hit like a shockwave across the country.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Jacques Jablonsky is the former president.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The events of the previous year, the Farmington explosion and Ralph Nader's crusade against the union leadership, these things had made America sympathetic to coal miners. So now Jock's face was splashed across newspapers and into millions of TV screens on the evening news. A few days after announcing his candidacy, he appeared on Pittsburgh radio. Katie Ka during the 6 to 8 evening drive. Primetime. Do you know what Tony Boyle thinks.

[Reporter/News Clips]

About the fact that you are running on this safety and health campaign? He has not yet made a public statement, so I have no way of knowing what he thinks.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The first reporter to reach Tony Boyle's team was from Newsweek. The reporter was told no comment. But that was the no comment before the storm. That was before Jock started making pointed, public, specific accusations. Saying out loud the things the unit had only ever discussed. Behind closed doors and knowing handshakes, Jock did not mince words. Here he is speaking to a reporter about Tony's lax mine safety record.

[Reporter/News Clips]

It's ridiculous with all of the technical knowledge that exists that we should still be killing so many of our good men.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

He was questioning the whole Tony Boyle apparatus and you just didn't question Tony. Remember what had happened to the people at the convention who asked questions? Tony got his cronies in, loyal to Boyle, hard hats to savagely beat people up. Tony was temperamentally unprepared for a public rebellion. So shortly after Jock's press conference, Tony came out swinging. He gave Jock a pithy new nickname.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Holy Joe Yablonsky. This puny opportunist praised my dreams of power.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Holy Joe Yablonski. While Jock sketched a vision for the future, Tony admonished miners saying that they ought to cling to their glorious past, that any attack on the union was an attack on their beloved former president, Jock and Tony's old boss, John L. Lewis.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Every time Jabronski smears the retirement run, he smears John L. Lewis not. And because I will not stand still to see him besmirched by the likes of a Yablonsky, I will answer these ugly charges.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Notice him leaning on Jock's last name.

[Reporter/News Clips]

There by the likes of a Jablonsky.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

A dog whistle reminder. Jablonski is a foreign name. Polish. But holy Joe, Yablonski didn't back down. He pointed out publicly that Tony had earmarked himself a secret pension that would pay him 20 times what the miners would receive. Not a good look, and Tony seemed to know it. So shortly after that, less than a month into the campaign, Tony manipulated a board of trustees vote, a move that allowed him to effectively take full control of the union's massive pension fund.

[Reporter/News Clips]

And in less than 24 hours, I had representatives of the fund in my office. And that's when pensions were increased from $115 to $150.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

He raised pensions by 30% instantly, which the union definitely could not afford. But that was a problem for later. In that moment, Tony knew the pensioners were a huge voting bloc. And now he had them eating out of his hand. And that's the thing about the fight between Jock and Tony. Tony owns the playing field of this election. And he was happy to tip it in his favor. Sure, Jock was getting the headlines in the New York Times, but that's not what miners read. A lot of them only read the United Mineworkers Journal, the union paper delivered to every hollow in Appalachia. That journal that Ralph Nader read at the D.C. press Club. And who controlled the miners Journal in its entirety? Tony Boyle. The UMW Journal became a loyal to Boyle Journal now filled with articles about Tony's great leadership and smearing the campaign of that Polish hypocrite Jock Yablonsky. And keep in mind, while Jock had to finance his insurgency with his personal life savings, Tony, he could draw from the union's $300 million bank account for his campaign.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Boyle is buying television time, billboards, and enjoys the powerful machinery of the union. In this campaign, he also has 80,000 voting pensioners who probably see Boyle as the man who signs their pension checks. Jablonski can only hope the sentiment for reform will outweigh all this.

[Chip Yablonski]

We knew that there was gonna be one hellacious fight, and not just a.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Fight to win this thing. First they had to fight just to get on the ballot at all. Tony had changed the election rules. They used to require just five nominations to get on the ballot. He changed that to 50. To get to 50, he'd have to fight creatively. And the thing is, this fight was happening at a specific point in time. 1969, the end of a decade filled with protest marches, sit ins, information warfare, anything Goes guerrilla tactics. Tony, he didn't grasp any of that. He fought like autocracies were still invincible, like the British Empire and its soldiers lined up in their neat little rows with the rules of war, unprepared for the American rebels that were coming at them from the trees. Tony was unprepared for an actual election. He'd never run in one before he was appointed by fiat. So he probably thought he could just change the nomination rules and that would kill Jock's chances. But Jock gassed up his old Ford and set out on the campaign trail with his ragtag campaign team. His son Chip at headquarters. Margaret, his wife who wrote the campaign literature. Daughter Charlotte, liaising with miners on the ground. It was a family campaign and so Jock began traveling across the coal fields making his case. He waded into bathhouses, which is where the miners clean up after shifts. He met with miners in their homes, in coffee shops, in local high schools, flexing his primary advantage. He liked people. He was good with them. Tony not so much.

[Reporter/News Clips]

For years, Boyle has never been any closer to miners than a stage at union rallies. Jablonski's challenge has forced Boyle to do some personal politicians. It has not been easy for him. Sometimes he's been heckled, other times ignored.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

When they first started out, chip was like 50 nominations? That doesn't seem all that high.

[Chip Yablonski]

I thought, oh well, we can get 50 easily. I mean, hell, there are more than 50 locals in District 5 where Jock is very well known. But my dad kept saying, you don't understand. These local union people are frightened of the district. They'll try every trick.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Jock reminded Chip that Tony Boyle had taken over the majority of the union districts, handpicking their leaders, controlling all of their money. So if a local went for Jock, those guys, they stood to lose everything. So Jock, having really nothing to lose at this point, did what union leaders had never really done before. He was direct with the miners.

[Chip Yablonski]

Now I can understand a lot of.

[Reporter/News Clips]

These fellows not being for me. Well, they're being told that they're going to get fired and you know their jobs are at stake. This is what they're being told.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

He said, remember the fight for black lung laws? Remember how when tens of thousands of you went on strike in defiance of Tony? We won. We got life saving black lung laws. Remember how I stood with you in that fight? And remember how Tony opposed you? If we stand together, we can beat Tony. Slowly, signs of support started popping up. Letters showed up at Jock's house. With $1 $10, some miners started self organizing on his behalf, a group of them in West Virginia started an informal campaign outpost at a coffee shop near their mine. Chip remembers this.

[Chip Yablonski]

We began to develop a sort of skeleton operation of trusted people in different places.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The leader of the black lung reform movement in West Virginia gathered local unions from his state.

[Paul Gilley]

We talked to Jablonski for two hours, and of the nine locals represented there, he got nine local nominations.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Nine nominations down, 41 to go. Jock met with men of District 29.

[Reporter/News Clips]

And he said that he had decided.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

To run and would we back him. And we told him he definitely would. Support even trickled in from what they thought were Tony Boyle strongholds, like Kentucky, home of the infamous Harlan County.

[Chip Yablonski]

We got maybe six or eight nominations out of western Kentucky that we never dreamed of.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

It was happening. More nominations were pouring in in defiance of Tony until word reached the insurgent candidate.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Jablonski apparently has enough support to force the union hierarchy to certify him as a candidate.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

It was official. In the brutal August heat, four days before the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, Jock had captured the right to challenge Tony. The election was just four months away in December, the last month of the 1960s. Tony was getting nervous. He stripped Jock of his remaining union positions at a board meeting where his cronies threatened to fight Jock like they did down in Harlan County. He made hundreds of vinyl records of speeches where Jock had praised Tony in the past and mailed them to the miners. Jock could feel the threat. He understood that Tony, always paranoid, was increasingly unhinged. But he kept making his way out to the miners. Sometime that summer, he landed in Illinois. He'd been promised a big crowd, but weirdly, only 15 people showed up. The vibe in the room felt hard to pin it down, but just off. But he delivered his usual speech anyway.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Now you know and I know too many guys given lousy jobs, stuck in.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Dog holes, pushed around by management. As the meeting broke up, Jock walked over to a minor to chat. He was talking and leaning against a table when someone tugged at his sleeve. Jock turned around, felt a powerful blow to the back of the head. And then everything went dark. Jock fell to the ground, unconscious. He'd lie on the ground for 30 minutes, completely out. Doctors would later assess that Jock would have been paralyzed if he'd been hit just a few inches. Either way, when Joc came to, he staggered to a chair. The remaining miners claimed they just didn't recognize the assailant. They encouraged him to leave town quickly and said reporting this to the police might not be a good Idea. In many ways, Jock had been expecting something like this. He'd been trying to tell people, but they dismissed his fears. Even for his son Chip, who knew how dirty the other side was fighting. This was a wake up call.

[Chip Yablonski]

And if I thought he was being melodramatic when he got karate chopped in a meeting, that was a setup. At that point in time, it was like, oh, this is really pretty bad.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

And it kept getting worse. A couple of men broke into his campaign office late at night, throwing open doors and searching for Jock. Fortunately, he wasn't there. At one campaign stop, Jock's staff found dead leaves stuffed into the gas tank of the propeller plane Jock had been using. A week after that, someone broke into a key supporter's house. They rifled through his bedroom and slashed his wife's clothing with a spear. Jock's wife Margaret, suspected they'd had break ins, too. She could swear food had been moved in her pantry. Jock asked the Department of Labor for protection. An investigation. They were the ones in charge of union elections. They said, we only investigate after the election. Call us when it's over. Then Ralph Nader seemed to all but disappear. Shortly after the announcement, they'd call the Nader people. And the response time got slower and slower till nothing. Ralph Nader said, well, that's how he works. We just launch.

[Paul Gilley]

We can't stay with these people, otherwise we would reduce the number of issues that we'd be advancing. I was absorbed in all kinds of other things.

[Chip Yablonski]

Things.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

So Jock's celebrity backer was gone, along with the protective spotlight he brought. The federal government was gone. Jock was on his own. Jock bought himself a gun. Several guns, even though he hated guns ever since childhood. When a friend of his was shot, he asked his nephew, a former Marine, to be his bodyguard. This nephew started coming with him everywhere. They had people on the ground to meet and escort them wherever they went. Jock didn't want to be paranoid, but he felt like he had eyes on him everywhere. At home, at his campaign office, at his rallies. And he wasn't wrong. Because standing in those crowds among his supporters was a killer. The man from Episode one who'd been sent to murder Jock Yablonsky. Paul Gilley. He'd been stalking Jock for months. All over the campaign trail, even at home. Remember, Paul showed up at Jock's house. Jock was nearly shot through his living room window. But the hitman left when he heard Jock's wife. While Jock had been building his campaign, Paul Gilly was building his own. It was a campaign to stop Jock's Revolution to stop Jock Yablonsky.

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[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

If you needed an assassin and you had any other option, you probably wouldn't choose Paul Gilly. And Paul Gilley would agree with you.

[Paul Gilley]

Because I've never dealt in any criminal activity in my life. Now you can believe that or not, but that's where it stands. I have no records, never been accused of nothing like that.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

But Paul Gilley's father in law would not leave him alone. He pestered Paul, he begged. At one point he even asked politely.

[Paul Gilley]

He said, it sure help out if we get rid of him.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Him? Jock Jablonski, a man Paul had never heard of before this. And Paul, he was just a house painter, a restaurant owner in Cleveland. But the thing is that Paul's father and his father in law, they were old miners, old union men. And his father in law, Silas, kept saying that Jock was trying to ruin the umw. That was blasphemy in coal country. Silas couldn't say exactly where this order came from, but he kept pestering Paul.

[Paul Gilley]

And he keep asking me what didn't I do? At that. I said, no, I've not killed nobody.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Paul said, why don't you ask your own sons? I don't trust them, replied his father in law. It went on like this for a while. Even Paul's wife Lucy chimed in. Her dad had been diagnosed with black lung. She pleaded, do it for my sick old dad. She threatened that if Paul didn't do it, she would.

[Paul Gilley]

Only reason I went into that was to keep her out of it. But she's the type of person you can't keep out of nothing.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

He told his wife just as he told his father in law, no way. So she said, fine, I'll find someone else to do it.

[Paul Gilley]

So she started talking to these other.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Guys, guys who said yes, A couple of guys who were willing, who had guns, guys who had everything but a car. This didn't bother Paul's wife and she.

[Paul Gilley]

Said, well, if you won't take them, I'll take them.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

She told Paul she'll drive them herself. But Paul wasn't going to let his wife drive a couple of crazed killers with guns. So he conceded. Paul told her, no, he'll drive the guys himself. It was supposed to be just one trip and Paul was just supposed to be the wheels of this. It was a flimsy operation from the start. The men his wife had recruited were drunks and outlaws. The only photo they had of Jock was a grainy image on newsprint.

[Paul Gilley]

The picture I had was kind of fuzzy, like it wasn't a real clear picture. It was in the newspaper, you know, little cheap paper.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The first time they tried to kill Jock, they drove to D.C. to a restaurant where Jock often ate. But Jock wasn't there. And he wasn't in the campaign offices the night they barged in looking for him. He wasn't home the day they drove to Clarksville, Pennsylvania, to Jock's home and broke in.

[Paul Gilley]

We'd been in the house once before looking for the SG Blotchkin and tried to catch him by himself.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

It wasn't until November that Paul and his cohorts first laid eyes on Jock at a campaign rally. Jock was crisscrossing Appalachia and the hitmen had finally tracked him down to Pineville, a town nestled in the southern mountains of West Virginia.

[Reporter/News Clips]

To say that I feel right at home here at this time would be the understatement of the year.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Paul stood at the back of the rally listening to Jock standing on this platform, who was flanked on stage by a congressman and black lung activists. It was a sunny but chilly November day. People in the crowd sprawled on the grass, sipping whiskey as they listened.

[Reporter/News Clips]

The membership of our union want this organization to lift up its membership ahead of everything else. The hell with the officers.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

And when Jock finished his speech and got in a car surrounded by his bodyguards and a state senator, Paul and his men followed close behind, guns at the ready, looking for a good shot.

[Paul Gilley]

But they had just too much traffic at the time when he drive by. And besides, he had all them People in there with him.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Another useless trip. Except for one thing.

[Paul Gilley]

But at least I got to see him. And the guys with me got to see him. Know who he is and what he looked like.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

They were ready now. They knew what he looked like. They'd studied his patterns. They knew how he usually drove in and out of the small town of Clarksville. They'd been in the house. But then shortly after the rally, Paul Gilley got a phone call. His father in law said the murder was off. Too risky. The campaign was too widely publicized. If one of the candidates was found murdered, that would be too suspicious. Suspicious? Stand down, Paul was told. And a few months earlier, Paul would have felt nothing but relief at this order. In fact, he would have given anything for a way out. But not now. Because as he'd been hunting Jock, people had promised Paul a lot of things. So much so that the rational part of his brain seemed to turn off. His father in law promised to get Paul's real dad a big union pension. His wife promised to pay more attention to him. Their marriage had been on the rocks and he was promised money. A lot of money. He'd even been given an advance from Silas local union district.

[Paul Gilley]

My father in law was our president of District 19 there in Kentucky. And the money was collected through District 19.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

District 19 nestled there in Harlan County. Remember that? The rough corner of the union.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Well, I got a request here from your president. He asked me for a song called Harlan County Boys, but I sing.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Silas lived there.

[Reporter/News Clips]

Any Harlan county fellow there.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

And remember Tony's convention where the men in the white hats beat people up?

[Paul Gilley]

Which Silas?

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Silas was one of those men throwing the punches. Silas wasn't quite the president of Harlan, but he was a go to enforcer in one of the most violent corners of the union.

[Paul Gilley]

Her dad was mixed up into a lot of stuff over the years. Illegal stuff, you know, like blowing up my machinery, stuff like that.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

So when Paul Gilly got word that the murder was off, that he should stand down, his reluctance had disappeared. Replaced now by desperation to please his wife and replaced by terror. Because he'd already spent their money and he knew their secrets. Right now Paul's thinking, are they coming for me next? So Paul Gilly did not stand down. Paul Gilley went rogue. It was Now Thanksgiving of 1969. The election was just two weeks away. Paul jumped in his car with his accomplice, a man named Claude Veele, and sped from Cleveland to Clarksville. When they arrived, Jock was the only car in the driveway. At last they'd found him alone. Paul walked to the door and knocked. Jock answered. Paul looked at Jock. His linebacker's neck, his bushy eyebrows, his imposing presence. Paul was nervous, stuttering as he recited his lines.

[Paul Gilley]

We're from Tennessee and we was told that you knew a lot of mine operators and might be an old man. We're getting a decent job in the mines.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Paul tried not to glance down the porch at Claude Vili, as he silently hoped Claude would act. The agreement was always, Claude, Villi does the dirty work. Paul would just drive and I thought.

[Paul Gilley]

Villi would go ahead and rush in the door or something because there's nobody there but him and Viley didn't do a damn thing.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Jock stared at Paul and kept glancing at his hands. Paul mumbled something, stalling for time. He didn't like how Jock was staring. His mouth was dry, his knees began to shake. He kept glancing at Claude, vely thinking, why doesn't he shoot the gun? Paul had a gun in his pocket, too, but there, looking into the eyes of the man who'd just been a face circled in a newspaper until now. Paul froze. He left the gun in his pocket. The conversation fizzled.

[Paul Gilley]

So ran out of something to talk about. And it looked suspicious, to tell you the truth about it, because it was that awkward. But I guess Yovonsky didn't pay that much mind to it. I don't know.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

So Paul and Claude, utterly defeated, drove straight to a local bar. From Jock's point of view, though, this was not over. Jock knew what these men were here for. He knew he'd just come face to face with the threat he'd flagged to Ralph Nader in those smoky first meetings when he said, they'll kill me, Ralph. For coal miners, these two sure had some awfully clean hands. And these men claimed to be from West Virginia, but had Ohio license plates. When the family returned home, Jock told them two men were just here to kill me. By now they knew to take him seriously, that they were on their own and that they had to take matters into their own hands. So Jock and his other son, Ken, hopped in their car.

[Chip Yablonski]

My brother and a friend went into the little town of Clarksville and they found the car that Gilly and were riding around in and took down the.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

License number, Ohio CX457. They phoned a police friend who lived near Cleveland. He did some digging and came back to them with a name.

[Chip Yablonski]

It was a car owned by Paul Gilley, Painter, Cleveland.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

The officer gave him Paul's address. And so imagine Jock and a friend going into his little study just off the kitchen, a room filled with campaign pamphlets and papers from 30 years in the union. They picked up the phone and they dialed the number for 1846 Penrose Street, East Cleveland. All this time, Paul Gilley had been stalking Jock. Now Jock was on his trail. Someone on the other end of the line picked up. Hello? This is Lucy Gilley. That's Paul's wife. Jock's crew was one person away from proof, one phone call away from getting to Paul Gilley before Paul Gilley gets to him. Jock's friend clears his throat. Hello? Mrs. Gilly, we need to talk. That's next time on Shadow Kingdom. Shadow Kingdom is a production of Crooked Media and Campside Media. It's hosted and reported by ME Nicolomini. The show is written by Joe Hawthorne, Karen Duffin and me. Jo Hawthorne is our managing producer. Karen Duffin is our story editor. The associate producers are Rachel Yang and Julie Denishe. Sound design, mix and mastering by Erica Huang. Our theme song and original score are composed by me and Mark McAdam. Cello performed by Linnea Weiss with additional sound design Support from Mark McAdam. Studio Engineering by Rachel Yang and Ewan Lai Tramuin. Fact checking by Amanda Feynman. Our executive producers are me, Nicolo Magnoni along with Sarah Geismer, Katie Long, Mary Knopf and Allison Falsetta from Crooked Media. Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt Sher and Vanessa Gregoriadis are the executive producers of K campsite Media. New season, new chaos in college football. Big stage, big opportunity. This Labor Day weekend, wildness lives on ABC, ESPN and the all new ESPN app. What a way to start. Featuring top 10 teams like Clemson, Notre Dame, Alabama and LSU. And Bill Bill Belichick's debut at North Carolina.

[Chip Yablonski]

It's so special. These teams collide.

[Narrator/Host (Nicola Minoni)]

Don't miss a lineup filled with electric matchups. Welcome back to Collins Football Kickoff week presented by Modelo Labor Day weekend on ESPN and abc. Also available to stream on the all new ESPN Apple.