A dense curtain of fog gripped the Long Island coastline in the early hours of June 13, 1942, parted here and there only by misty beams of moonlight. Amagansett Beach, a sheltered stretch of rolling dunes and tall grasses, was deserted, serene.
At 45 minutes past midnight on July 1, 1955, a haggard Walter J. Bierwagen, president of the D.C. Transit Workers Union, left the negotiation room that recently had become his home away from home. For months, the 2,400 or so members of his union had been seeking a quarter-an-hour raise and a few other contract sweeteners from the Capital Transit Company, which operated most of the buses and all of the streetcars within the metropolitan Washington area.