Jimmy Hoffa's Disappearance

He had always been a good family man--even his most unrelenting enemies would admit that--and so his wife Josephine began to fret when he did not return home as planned last Wednesday after lunch. At 10 p.m., when he still had not shown up, she nervously called in some friends to keep her company. At 8 a.m. on Thursday, the family asked the police to look for him. They found his car, a dark green 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville hardtop, in the parking lot outside the fashionable Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, 15 miles northwest of Detroit. But there was no sign of Jimmy Hoffa, 62, the stubby, cocky, belligerent figure who was as tough as any truck driver on the road and who loved to wield the power of the Teamsters, the strongest and most feared labor union in the U.S.

As they started to hunt for Hoffa, the police made the traditional observation that they suspected "foul play." They had every reason to do so, considering Hoffa's criminal record, which he once boasted was "as long as your arm," and his activities in recent months. As usual, Hoffa was again in the middle of a Teamster battle, only this time he was starting as the underdog. His eventual goal was to regain the presidency of the Teamsters union, which he had first won in 1957. Jailed in 1967 on a 13-year sentence for jury tampering, fraud and conspiracy, he clung to his title until June 1971. Six months later, President Richard Nixon --whom Hoffa had supported in the past --commuted his sentence on the condition that he take no part in Teamster activities until 1980.

Scratch and Bite. Confident that the courts would eventually grant his suit to end that ban, Hoffa was trying to lay the groundwork for his return to power by becoming the dominant (but unofficial) force in his old Local 299 in Detroit. Opposing Hoffa's campaign was none other than Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons, who had once been his loyal underling and the man he picked to keep his chair warm while he was away in prison. But once installed as the head of the Teamsters, Fitzsimmons had grown to like the heady feeling of power. "No one has ever been disloyal like this rat Fitz," Hoffa once said, adding that rats "scratch and bite you."

As the battle lines began forming at Local 299, old friends of both Hoffa and Fitzsimmons tried to smooth things over last year by putting together a coalition. David Johnson, a longtime Hoffa ally, was allowed to continue as president of the 17,500-member local, and the vice presidency went to Richard Fitzsimmons, 45, the Teamster president's own son.

Then the violence started against Hoffa's men. In August 1974 an explosion wrecked Johnson's 45-ft. cabin cruiser, on which he and Hoffa had spent many pleasant hours fishing and talking union politics. George Roxburghy, a trustee of the local, was blinded in one eye by a shotgun blast. Otto Wendel, the local's secretary-treasurer, had his barn burned to the ground. A bomb exploded outside the house of an organizer for the local.

In late June, the feuding became more vicious still. Another organizer who also favored Hoffa was beaten unmercifully in the parking lot of a suburban restaurant. President Johnson ruled that union officials should not go out alone. Then, on July 10, Dick Fitzsimmons was having a drink with friends at Nemo's Bar on Michigan Avenue, not far from the local's headquarters, when his Lincoln Continental was blown to smithereens outside in the street.

The next incident was the disappearance of Hoffa himself. Police prepared to question one of his old friends, Anthony ("Tony Jack") Giacalone, 56, who has been identified as a top henchman of Joseph Zerilli, the godfather of the Detroit Mafia. Hoffa had reportedly gone to Machus Red Fox Restaurant last Wednesday to have lunch with Giacalone, although Giacalone denied any such plan. In Hoffa's heyday, the Teamsters were so often linked to the Mob that a Senate committee once concluded that a criminal record was a "prerequisite" for "advancement in the Teamsters firmament." Police were also interested in Giacalone because he was close not only to Hoffa but to Frank Fitzsimmons.

While the police hunted for clues, Hoffa's family said they felt he had been kidnaped, but federal investigators feared that he might have been killed. Officials were proceeding on the assumption that Hoffa had gone off with someone he considered to be a friend. There were no signs of any struggle in the car or in the parking lot, and Hoffa was no man to give in to anyone without a fight. Even at 62, he worked out with heavy weights and did 75 pushups a day.

Gain Revenge. Indeed, until his sudden disappearance last week, Hoffa had seemed indestructible--the same man of incredibly concentrated will power and vitality who had expanded the union during his presidency from 1.4 million to 2.2 million members and in 1964 won the first nationwide trucking contract, which covered 400,000 Teamsters and 16,000 companies.

In a series of memorable court actions, Hoffa fought duels with the forces of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, whose will matched his own and who finally succeeded in jailing him. "A ruthless little monster," Hoffa called his pursuer, while Kennedy denounced the Teamsters as "hoodlum-controlled."

When Hoffa emerged from jail in 1971, his eyes were as fiercely intent as ever and his voice still had its cold, flat, intimidating rasp. He got a $1.7 million pension settlement from the generous Teamsters, but he wanted much more than that. Everyone who knew Jimmy Hoffa well felt that he was bitterly determined to gain his revenge on Frank Fitzsimmons.

After Richard Fitzsimmons' car was blown up, Hoffa told WWJ-TV in Detroit that no one in the local had had anything to do with the incident. "I'll bet my life on it," he declared. It was a chilling remark. Last week, while Local 299 posted a $25,000 reward for information leading to his return, the family of Jimmy Hoffa waited to see if he had lost his bet.

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