Transcript

6.26.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is radioi's History show, and I'm
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your reader and host for today, Joseph Bolt, so happy
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to be with you for this time. And before we
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begin today's program, we need to remind you that Radio
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I is listener driven, so of course that means you,
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and so if you have any suggestions, here's the number
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to call eight five nine four two two six three
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nine zero. Let us know what you think, especially if
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you have any suggestions about any history topics that you
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would like to have covered, I'll be glad to research
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them and do a program on it. So as you know,
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Radio I is a reading service intended for people who
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are blind or have other disabilities to make it difficult
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to read printed material. So I'll cite the sources as
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we go along today. Actually today there's only just one
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source and hits about a fellow that we all were somewhat,
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if not well, familiar with, and that's a fellow by
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the name of Jimmy Hoffa. And the story that I'm
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going to read is from all That's Interesting dot com
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and the title of it is called who Killed Jimmy Hoffa?
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Inside has Still Unsolved Disappearance? And that story was written
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by Kellen Perry, edited by Jacqueline Angus Angelus Rather in
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July of twenty twenty five, So let's get the reading.
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Ever since Jimmy Hoffer's disappearance on July thirty, nineteen seven five,
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the mystery surrounding what happened that day has taken on
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an almost mythic quality, so much so that it eclipses
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nearly everything else about him, which was no easy feat.
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To this day, Jimmy Hoffer's death overshadows almost the entirety
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of his historic life. Once the head of the powerful
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and corrupt Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffer was a household name
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long before he vanished, and the apparent ease with which
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he was simply erased was impossible to believe, not about
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to be second to anyone in stature. Even in his disappearance,
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it seems appropriate that Huffa would live on as one
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of America's most famous missing persons. He became the cultural
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embodiment of what happened to those who ran a foul
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of the mob in the nineteen seventies, at least in
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the public imagination, and decades later, we still can't seem
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to help ourselves from speculating about Jimmy Hoffer's death and
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what truly happened to him all those years ago. Born
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James Riddle Hauffa on February fourteenth, nineteen thirteen, his family
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moved to Detroit when he was young, and he would
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call the area home for the rest of his life.
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Offa's union organizing began when he was a teenager working
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at a Kroger's grocery store warehouse, where the substandard wages,
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abusive supervisors, and lack of job security inspired animosity from
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the employees. Approachable and courteous, Haffa showed early leadership potential
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during a wildcat strike of the warehouse workers that led
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to better pay and conditions, so when he quit in
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nineteen thirty two, he was quickly hired by the Teamsters
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Local two ninety nine as an organizer. It was the
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beginning of an association with the Teamsters that would come
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to define Haffa's life for more than fifty years. Over
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the course of his career in the Teamsters, Hoffa became
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its most recognizable public faith and a fiery, aggressive advocate
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for trade unionism in America. He televised confrontations with Senator
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Robert Kennedy during a Senate committee hearing on corruption in
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America's labor unions, which made half a household name and
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endeared him to millions of working Americans who saw him
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as champion their cause. Jimmy Hoffer's ties with organized crime
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figures were well documented and publicized, and for most of
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his life he was able to leverage these associations to
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strengthen the Teamsters Union, growing into one of the most
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powerful unions, if not the most powerful, in the country.
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The devil's bargain at half a cut with the mob
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caught up with him in the end. However, when the
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interests of the Teamsters membership and those of the mafia
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began to diverge in the seventies, Haffa and the Mob
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found themselves at cross purposes to one another, with neither
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side willing to back down. The potential for an outbreak
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of nationwide violence between mob factions caught up in the
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fight was a very real possibility. It never came to that, though,
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because Jimmy Hoffa simply disappeared on July thirty, nineteen seventy five,
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and was never seen or heard from again. The investigation
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captivated America and the intersection of so many cultural threads
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in one case meant that Jimmy Hoffa's death was destined
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to evolve over the next couple of decades into one
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of America's most enduring cultural memes. So what happened to
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Jimmy Hoffe? What we know is that Jimmy Hoffer was
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last seen in the parking lot of the Matchus Red
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Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, on July thirty, nineteen
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seventy five. Offa had agreed to meet with a few
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of the key mobsters at the heart of the dispute
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between himself and the mafia families that had slowly been
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taking over many of the Teamsters locals around the country,
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ostensibly meaning to settle their dispute over leadership and control
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of the Teamsters. The meeting was clearly a set up
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for the murder of the powerful labor leader. Even though
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the presumption is that Haffa was killed by a mob hitman,
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his body has never been found. Additionally, investigators could not
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build a strong case to charge any of the mob
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connected figures who were most likely involved in the murder.
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The case remains an open investigation to this very day.
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Though Jimmy Hoffer was officially declared dead in nineteen eighty two,
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the reality is that nobody knows for sure what happened
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to the infamous union leader. In no forensic investigation to
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date is ever mounted amounted rather to anything approaching a
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clear picture of what happened to him. Still, theories about
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Jimmy Hoffer's death abound. Many of them are well known
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and adequately gruesome to garner continued public fascination. In fact,
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Jimmy Hoffer's body has suffered so much hypothetical abuse at
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the hands of the mob that it has transformed into
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a cultural mim that it is today. Arguably the most
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well known theory of Jimmy Hoffin's disappearance is that he
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was shot, dismembered, frozen, and then buried in the Semen
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foundation of the Giants Stadium, then located in East Rutherford,
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New Jersey. The story of Jimmy Hoffer's death first entered
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the public consciousness in nineteen eighty nine when Donald Francos
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gave an interview to Playboy magazine where he claimed that
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Hoffa was killed by a New York Irish mafia boss
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by the name of Jimmy Coonan and buried at the
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home field of the New York Giants and New York
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Jets football teams. According to Francos, after Coonan shot Haffa
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with a silenced twenty two caliber pistol in a house
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at Mount Clemens, Michigan, he and New York mafia hitman
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John Sullivan cut up Haffa's body with a power saw
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a meat cleaver, bagged up the body parts and stored
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them in a freezer for months. Later, the bags were
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driven to the open construction site of Giants Stadium, which
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opened the following year, and the bags were mixed into
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the concrete foundation under what became section one oh seven.
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This section was located near the end zone of the
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stadium's football team, or rather football field. A stadium map
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marking the spot Hoffa was buried was printed along with
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the story under the headline quote Haffa goes deep end quote.
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According to Francos, Coonan and an accomplice told him how
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the murder went down after the fact, and Francos claimed
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that he told the FBI about it in nineteen eighty six,
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though the FBI took the allegations seriously in nineteen eighty nine, Francos,
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who was a federal in rather federal witness protection ahead
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of his testimony against the New York crime boss John Gottie,
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didn't have much to back up the claim. Investigators connected
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to the Haffa case also disputed that Francos told any
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of this to the FBI in nineteen eighty six. Without
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physical evidence who support this theory regarding Jimmy Hoffer's death,
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It was eventually written off as just the latest Haffa
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story in a long line of similar accounts. When Giants
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Stadium was demolished in twenty ten, the FBI didn't even
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bother to show up and search the site. Before Jimmy
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Hoffer's death, a mobster and former friend of his name,
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Frank the Irishman she Ran, claimed that he carried out
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the hit on Haffa on orders from the boss of
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the Philadelphia mob, Russell Buffalino. She Ran said that he
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betrayed his friend and personally pulled the trigger because the
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hit on Jimmy Hoffa was a foregone conclusion by that point.
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If someone was going to do it, she Ran felt
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it should be him. According to Sheran's two thousand and
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four biography, I heard you paint houses, written by former
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prosecutor Charles Brandt. Hoffa never saw it coming. My friend
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didn't suffer, she Ran said, claiming that after he brought
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Haffa to a house in northwestern Detroit, he stood behind
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Haffa while he was distracted and shot him twice in
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the back of the head. Jimmy Hoffa's dead body was
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then cremated in a trash incinerator in the Detroit suburbs.
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She Ran gave the address of the house where the
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murder supposedly took place, and investigator searched the site for
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evidence of the killing. Well. They found traces of blood
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in the house, but later testing revealed that it did
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not belong to Haffa. No other evidence was found that
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gave any support to she RAN's claim, leading both law
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enforcement officials and journalists who cover Haffa's disappearance to disregard
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she RAN's quote confession as most entirely fabricated. Well, don't
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expect this theory about Jimmy Hoffa's death to fade out
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with time. However's book is the source material for the
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twenty nineteen Martin Scorsoni film The Irishman. So Many of
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she RAN's claims are likely to get a lot of
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new life and will probably become more entrenched in the
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culture as a result. There are a dozen variants of
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the same basic formula about Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance with the
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gist of the tale being a quick mob execution followed
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by some industrial process that destroys Hoffa's body in an
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appalling way. The remains are then dumped somewhere that is
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impossible to search or Hopfae corpse was so thoroughly annihilated
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that dumping was not necessary. The story formula was introduced
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Uist only a few months after Hoffa disappeared, when police
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received a tip pointing them to the Raleigh House restaurant
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in Detroit. Like many restaurants, the Raleigh House used an
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industrial trash compactor for the waste, which was regularly emptied
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by a waste management company with ties to organize crime.
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Tips to investigators indicated that after Hoffa was killed, his
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body was thrown into the trash compactor at Raleigh House,
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eventually ending up in a garbage dump. Following up on
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those tips in September and October of nineteen seventy five,
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investigators interviewed employees and searched the grounds and the compactor
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for evidence. Nothing was found, but by then reports had
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made it into the collective consciousness of the country and
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the core fixtures of a good Jimmy Hoffa disappearance story
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took root. As the various theories about Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance
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took on lives of their own, the other major element
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of the cultural men around the case began to emerge.
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Mobsters on the lower rungs of the mafia hierarchy tried
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to up their profiles through the press by claiming that
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they knew the truth about the case, but for some
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arbitrary reason, they kept it to themselves until now. One
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such account of Jimmy Hoffa's death is from Joseph Franco,
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a former associate of Haffa's and a self proclaimed quote thief, extortionist,
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leg breaker, and hired killer. According to Franco, a pair
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of federal agents abducted Haffa, took him up on an airplane,
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and threw him out somewhere over one of the Great Lakes.
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Besides being almost comically preposterous, Franco claims there was a
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legitimate reason why he'd kept the story to himself. He
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was trying to use this knowledge as leverage in negotiating
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an immunity deal from federal prosecutors. Shockingly, they did leave
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Franco's story. By nineteen eighty five, an industry was starting
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to build up to keep fresh stories and theories about
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Jimmy Hoffer's disappearance in the popular imagination. Even people who
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were supposed to keep their heads down and shut up
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for their own safety couldn't help but get in on
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the act. Charlie Allen, a former mob hitman and a
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one time bodyguard for Haffa who had been in witness
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protection for nearly a decade, gave an interview to the
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Richmond Times Dispatch claiming that Haffa was abducted, shot with
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a stun gun, and then murdered on orders from an
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unnamed crime boss whom Haffa had allegedly tried to have killed.
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Things got messed up and he got to Jimmy first,
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Alan told the reporter. In keeping with the now familiar formula,
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Haffa's body was ground up at an ironworks, placed into
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a steel drum, and shipped to the alligator infested waters
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of the Florida Everglades, where his remains were subsequently dumped
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and presumably eaten by the local fauna. As the mystery
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around Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance bragged on for years, Detroit, Michigan,
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was particularly engaged in the fate of one of its
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most famous residents. Bridges, overpasses, just about anywhere a structure
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went up after nineteen seventy five, you could probably find
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someone who'd say that it was built over the bones
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of Jimmy Hoffa. The most famous of these is the
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Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. According to mafia chauffeur turned
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informer Marvin Elkind, Jimmy Hoffa was kidnapped, killed, etc. And
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then buried in the wet concrete foundation of that building,
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the Renaissance Center. Elkhan's telling of this story has the
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kind of hyperbolic flourish that has become a characteristic of
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a good Jimmy hoff of theory. As quoted in The
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New York Post in twenty eleven, they said, practically every
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union carpenter in and around the city was called in
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to rush the construction of wooden forms needed for pouring
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concrete at the Renaissance project in quote. The theory that
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Jimmy Hoffe might have hated the most were he to
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be alive right now is the one told by mob
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hitman Richard Kuklinsky just before he died back in the
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mid two thousands. According to Kuklinsky, Jimmy Hoffa was stabbed
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in the head and killed with a hunting knife. Then
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his body was placed in the boot of Kuklinsky's car.
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Kuklinsky then drove the car to New Jersey and had
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it crushed in a scrap metal press in a junkyard
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with Hoffa's body in it. Kuklinsky suggests the compacted metal
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was then shipped overseas to Japanese automaker's a scrap metal
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He's part of a car somewhere in Japan right now,
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Kuklinsky said. An investigative reporter, Jerry Steneki wrote in The
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New York Times it was quote the ultimate insult a
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non union market end quote. The official FBI report on
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the Jimmy Hoffa case, the so called Hofex Memo, suggests
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a motive but not a method. According to the Chicago Tribune,
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who quote says the memo states, or rather says, a
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plan was conceived in New Jersey by teamsters with ties
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to the mafia at to stage a hit on Haffa
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in Detroit. According to the federal authorities, the hit was
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set up out of fear of Haffa's possible return to
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power in the teamsters end quote. Specifically, the memo suggests
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that Haffo was killed so that he wouldn't once again
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gain control of the shady Teamsters Central States pension Fund,
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which was worth a round a billion dollars unadjusted for inflation.
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But even if most people agree that the mob was
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responsible for Jimmy Hoffer's death, there remains the continued fascination
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with the whereabouts of Hoffa's body. As NPR's Alan Greenblatt
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suggested in twenty thirteen, that fascination is instinctual. Quote everyone
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knows we all must die, but people who go missing
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entirely tap into primal fears end quote. Paradoxically, as Bob Thompson,
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a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, told Greenblatt,
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the public at large might not actually want this case demystified,
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noting quote, closure is the death knell to these kinds
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of things. End quote. The lord almost entirely imaginary. Details
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of the case are enchanting, precisely because the seems at
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this stage forever unknowable. Like Amelia Earhart, perhaps the most
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famous missing person in history, Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance has become legendary.
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The truth, if it's even obtainable, would be a loss
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of a different kind. As historian Katrina Gulliver notes when
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she says, quote, a lingering absence begets its own mythology,
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the claimed sightings, the clues, the purported explanations end quote
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she wrote on the seventy fifth anniversary of Erhart's disappearance,
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and she goes on to say, by disappearing, these people,
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in a sense, never die. They remain frozen in time.
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Even as the world changes. In our collective imagination, they
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are still out there. Well that's it for today Radio
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Eye History. I'm sure hope that you enjoyed today's reading
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as much as I did researching it for you and
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reading it to you. I'm your host, Joseph Bolt, and
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I'll be back next time with another chapter of Radio
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Eye History. Until then, happy trails to you.