On July 31, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, one of the most influential American labor leaders of the 20th century, disappears in Detroit, Michigan, never to be heard from again. Though he is popularly believed to have been the victim of a Mafia hit, conclusive evidence was never found, and Hoffa’s death remains shrouded in mystery to this day.
Born in 1913 to a poor coal miner in Brazil, Indiana, Jimmy Hoffa proved a natural leader in his youth. At the age of 20, he helped organize a labor strike in Detroit, and remained an advocate for downtrodden workers for the rest of his life. Hoffa’s charisma and talents as a local organizer quickly got him noticed by the Teamsters and carried him upward through its ranks. Then a small but rapidly growing union, the Teamsters organized truckers across the country, and through the use of strikes, boycotts and some more powerful though less legal methods of protest, won contract demands on behalf of workers.
Hoffa became president of the Teamsters in 1957, when its former leader was imprisoned for bribery. As chief, Hoffa was lauded for his tireless work to expand the union, and for his unflagging devotion to even the organization’s least powerful members. His caring and approachability were captured in one of the more well-known quotes attributed to him: “You got a problem? Call me. Just pick up the phone.”
Hoffa’s dedication to the worker and his electrifying public speeches made him wildly popular, both among his fellow workers and the politicians and businessmen with whom he negotiated. Yet, for all the battles he fought and won on behalf of American drivers, he also had a dark side. In Hoffa’s time, many Teamster leaders partnered with the Mafia in racketeering, extortion and embezzlement. Hoffa himself had relationships with high-ranking mobsters, and was the target of several government investigations throughout the 1960s. In 1967, he was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
While in jail, Hoffa never ceded his office, and when Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in 1971, he was poised to make a comeback. Released on condition of not participating in union activities for 10 years, Hoffa was planning to fight the restriction in court when he disappeared on July 31, 1975, from the parking lot of a restaurant in Detroit, not far from where he got his start as a labor organizer. Several conspiracy theories have been floated about Hoffa’s disappearance and the location of his remains, but the truth remains unknown.
I lived near the restaurant, Fox and Hounds, where he disappeared from. Most think it was the mafia but another not mentioned “theory” is that it was the CIA. Anyway, good riddance to a bad guy. Evil eat their own.
“Bad Guy”? No man before or since did more for the truck drivers. Union safety rules were in effect for the union companies long before the feds mandated them. Benefit packages were second to none. I drove union trucks for 35+ years. Never understood how I could compare checks with a nonunion driver & hear them say “I”ll never pay union dues”. When my check was twice what their check was. The feds & Goldmansux have decimated the pension fund. Even the Mafia didn’t steal that much.
Unions are a racket.
FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE – It all started, and ended, on this day 43 years ago.
It was a hot July afternoon, nearly 92 degrees, when Teamsters president and labor icon Jimmy Hoffa is said to have opened the rear door of a 1975 maroon Mercury in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and climbed in.
He was never seen again.
The FBI has expended countless resources in the ensuing decades in the hopes of finally solving this enduring American mystery with no success.
But I believe, based on my 2004 investigation, that Frank Sheeran did it.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/30/jimmy-hoffa-investigation-frank-sheeran-and-blood-evidence-found-in-case.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29
This article is so clean, you could eat off of it. No mention of steamrollers or the Geraldo Rivera-worthy grave dig. That was a news stunt the likes of which has not even been approached by celebrity stuntmen other than Eval Knievel.
My FIL was a Teamster, he loved to talk about Hoffa. It was his opinion that the Kennedys had him whacked for the JFK hit. Yes, sir, Hoffa was the man.
Labor leaders were the celebrities of that time. My business teacher, Mrs. Pangloss was outraged that Yablonski was murdered. Today we have Kanye and Trayvon. Whiff!
EC
Not true. I saw Hoffa and Elvis at Denny’s yesterday.
Sorta like ‘where’s Waldo’…. Pick one – Jimmy is:
Buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium
Under a strip of highway asphalt
Made into hotdogs
Buried in a concrete bridge
In a barrel
Buried in a farm
Buried under a porch
Industrial garbage disposal and fed to the fish. Cleanest way to get rid of the evidence.