special report: THE HOFFA WARS an investigation of the violence and corruption surrounding the missing teamster leader whose influence extended to nearly every corner of american public life including HOW JIMMY HOFFA BECAME INVOLVED WITH ORGANIZED CRIME HOW MOB MONEY WAS FUNNELED TO RICHARD NIXON HOFFA'S SECRET ROLE AS THE CIA'S LINK TO THE MOB THE HATRED BETWEEN HOFFA AND THE KENNEDY BROTHERS WHY HOFFA WAS KILLED AND WHO DID IT article By DAN E. MOLDEA
At presstime, the U. S. House Assassi- of the Hallo murder. Hoffa's son, attor- the cargo I was hauling exploded and I nations Committee was about to reveal ney James P. Hoffa, Jr., who was the ad- was nearly killed. Eight truckers pulled some surprising details regarding the assas- ministrator of the fund, simply told me over and probably saved my life. "The sination of President John F. Kennedy. to do whatever I had to do, no matter Haifa Wars" is part payment on my debt Many of the same names that were to be how embarrassing to him, his family or to those eight men and to the dissident discussed by the committee are also major his father's memory, in order to help un- rank-and-file Teamsters who kept me characters in my book "The Hoff() Wars." cover the truth about Hoffa's execution. alive during my four-year investigation. In October 1974, as is free-lance writer, Meanwhile, I was hired part time by I began investigating Jimmy Hoffa and The Detroit Free Press. We worked for JIMMY HOFFA'S most valuable contribu- the Teamsters. Ten months later, I was the next eight months on the extortion tion to the American labor movement concentrating exclusively on the union's plots I had uncovered, during which came at the moment he stopped breath- extortion schemes against trucking com- time I severed my financial relationship ing on July 90, 1975. The involuntary panies and terrorist activities against with young Hoffa. Soon after, I began act occurred in the midst of his dramatic internal rank-and-file reform groups. In- receiving a series of grants from the bid to recapture the general presidency I vestigations of the Hoffa–Frank Fitzsim- Fund for Investigative Journalism in of the International Brotherhood of mons power struggle and of Hoffa's Washington, D.C., which continued after Teamsters, which he had lost during five disappearance were of only peripheral my story was published. Simultaneously, years in prison. Still popular among re- concern to me; and I had absolutely no I was doing some work on the same sub- porters with short memories who insisted inclination to investigate the alleged ject for columnist Jack Anderson. With upon portraying him as a working-class assassination plots against either Fidel the help of money and contacts supplied hero, and among rank-and-file admir- Castro or John Kennedy. Ironically, how- by the F.I.J. and Anderson, my investi- ers who had forgiven him for stealing ever, my conclusions on labor terrorism, gations snowballed, forcing me into from them, Hoffa nevertheless had a slim rebel movements and shakedowns led me those areas that I had thought to be chance of a comeback. His release from into these areas, which I had, at one unrelated to my work. prison in latd- 1971 led to a futile four- time, considered distant and unrelated. I was not completely new to the Team- year struggle for power; his execution After a brief stint as a Teamsters sters union and its problems when opened the floodgates for investigations researcher with NBC, 1 continued my started my work on "The Het: Wars": into the Teamsters and the underworld, independent investig«tions. Then, in I had worked on a loading platform and their illicit enterprises, their influence on late 1975 and early 1976, I received had even driven a small truck while in the Nixon White House and their role $2100 from the Hoffa Reward Fand, college. On a hot summer day in 1971, in assassination plots against a foreign which had been established in the wake while I was en route to Columbus, Ohio, leader—as well as a possible involvement 141
ILLUSTRATION BY KINUKO Y. CRAFT in the assassination of an American well documented by the McClellan com- President, later, he was unwilling and unable to mittee hearings of 1957-1960, its roots Convicted in two separate trials of jury battle the underworld. So, instead, he have been unclear until now. Hoffa, I tampering and of defrauding the union's promptly decentralized found, was introduced to Detroit mob- the union autoc- pension fund, Hoffa had become an out- racy Hoffa had used to build his empire, sters Frank Coppola and Santo Perrone sider to the Teamsters high command hoping to insulate himself from direct in or about 1994 by his lover, Sylvia Pa- when he entered Lewisburg Penitentiary contact with organized crime. Among the gano. He asked for and received Mob in March 1967. His problems began less immediate benefactors of Fitzsimmons' muscle seven years later, when the local than a month later, When he and his policies were local and regional Team- Teamsters in Detroit were being strongly successor, Frank Fitzsimmons. disagreed ster leaders around the country, who ac- challenged by a rival union. After the over a union appointment. The increas- quired a considerable amount of new Teamsters-underworld alliance had driv- ingly bitter war between the two old power in the 2,000,000-member I.B.T. en the opposing labor organization out friends lasted until Hoffa died and was to Instead of clamoring for the attention of the city, Haar reciprocated the Mob's be carried on by Hoffa's supporters even of one man, such as Hoffa, mobsters strong-arm work by giving it access to after he was gone. Many would think merely had to call their area Teamster union funds. With a new facade of le- that this split representatives for favors. Teamster with Fitzsimmons was the gitimacy, the Detroit underworld key factor in his death. But there is evi- became bosses who cooperated became wealthy. the center of the international narcotics dence that could lead to the possible con- Without the daily burden of defending traffic from 1947 to 1952, after Coppola clusion that he was murdered for other his professional relationship with organ- was deported to Italy and became a lieu- reasons: specifically, his alleged role in ized-crime figures to the press and the tenant to Charles Luciano, the New York the plots to murder Fidel Castro—plots rank and file—as Hoffa had spent much mobster who had been released from jail that involve figures linked for the first of his career doing—Fitzsimmons used and deported. Because of his importance time to events surrounding the assassina- his free time to back up his union sub- in that drug connection, Hoffa was intro- tion of President Kennedy. ordinates and to make new friends in duced to other dope peddlers in Chicago, politics and big labor. ROOTS OF POWER Florida, Louisiana and New York. Those associations were a major reason for his THE NIXON CONNECTION In 1967, Fitzsimmons suddenly in- rise from herited the uncontrollable monster Hoffa a union organizer and business Things were going well for the I.B.T. agent to president of the Detroit local in had created over the previous 25 years: an under Fitzsimmons. Its first- and second- 1946 to I.B.T. vice-president in 1952 and alliance between the union and organ- level officials were happy, and so was the to I.B.T. general president in 1957. ized crime. While this alliance has been national crime syndicate. Then, in No- When Fitzsimmons took over ten years vember 1968, Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States. Because A HOFFA the Teamsters had gone with the rest of SCRAPBOOK organized labor and supported Hubert
Jimmy Haifa (left) and Fronk Fitzsimmons (right) rose Attorney General Robert through union ranks together, starling in Detroit in By 1961, the CIA was re- Chicago mobster Sam Kennedy led the Govern- the Thirties. Years later, Fitzsimmons succeeded Hoffa cruiting powerful crime- Gioncana was recruited ment investigation of the as Teamster president. Their power struggle began a syndicate figures to try to to help kill Castro. Before Teamsters. Hoffo hated month after Hoffa went to jail in 1967, when Fitzsim- kill Castro. Hafts may he could talk to the Kennedy and their enmity mons began to undercut Hoffa's authority and support. have been an early Senate in 1975, he was made headlines for years . CIA-mobster go-between. murdered in his home. Corks Marcell° (left), Santos Trafficante (center) and Joseph Bonanno formed a powerful crime alliance in the Southern states. Bonanno underboss Carmine Ga- Hale had supported Richard Nixon in 1960 and ex- lante (right) befriended Hoffa in prison in 1967. Those four became Hoffo's chief pected an early release from jail once Nixon wos in supporters when crime bosses in Northeastern states backed the newly appointed the White House. Attorney General John Mitchell hod Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons' allies used the possibility of that split's erupting into a pledged law and order for the country, but investi- nationwide Mob war to persuade the Nixon Administration to keep Hoffa in jail. gations of Teamster officials and underworld figures were inexplicably dropped while he was in office.
142 Humphrey that year, Nixon's election money was half of a $1,000,000 contribu- murder two other New York crime-family was bad news. tion being given to the Nixon campaign. bosses. Because Bonanno's elder son was Nixon had formed a quid pro quo The other half was coming from other implicated in the plot, a majority of the relationship with Hoffa during his Mob sources on the East Coast and in members of the national crime syndicate 1960 Presidential campaign against John Miami. There is no proof that the money ordered Joseph Bonanno to respond to Kennedy, brother of Hoffa's archenemy. ever reached its destination, but on Janu- the charge. When he refused to cooperate Until he resigned to manage his brother's ary 6. 1961, columnist Drew Pearson and began raiding other underworld campaign. Robert Kennedy was the chief wrote that by the end of the previous jurisdictions, Bonanno was expelled from counsel to the Senate Rackets Committee, September, Vice-President Nixon had the ruling council, which quietly began which investigated the Teamsters in gen- successfully intervened with Attorney supporting the rebels in the Bonanno eral and Hoffa in particular. Those wars General William Rogers, convincing him clan. Fearful of Mob reprisals and Gov- between Hoffa and Robert Kennedy not to indict Hoffa for a land-fraud ernment prosecution, Bonanno arranged were headline news for three years. That, scheme in Florida. for his own disappearance, which lasted combined with rumors that Robert Ken- Knowing of that transaction, it was no from 1964 to 1966. nedy would become Attorney General if surprise to Fitzsimmons and the rest of Although it was staged to appear his brother were elected, led Hoffa to put the Teamster leadership that Nixon, as though Bonanno had been kidnaped, his union at Nixon's disposal. upon being elected in 1968, was consider- former New York police detective super- According to new information, just ing an early release for Hoffa. Unlike visor and organized-crime expert Ralph before the first of the Nixon-Kennedy Fitzsimmons, Hoffa had supported Nixon Salerno told me that Bonanno had been debates that began on September 26, in 1968 through his influence with re- spotted after he had vanished and "was 1960, Hoffa quietly made a trip to New maining friends in the union. obviously moving independently. There Orleans to meet with Carlos Marcella, a For Hoffa, however, problems re- didn't appear to be any restriction on his Louisiana Mob figure whom he had met mained, and they would prove to be his movements." While underground, Bo- through Coppola. Hoffa associate Ed- undoing. In Lewisburg, he had made an nanno made a coalition with two other ward Partin, who was present at the alliance with dope trafficker Carmine powerful organized-crime figures, Marcel- meeting (and later provided the Govern- Galante, the underboss of the Joseph lo of Louisiana and Florida's Santos Traf- ment with the damning testimony that Bonanno crime family of New 'York, ficante. Moving his New York operations led to Haifa's jury-tampering conviction), which was in internal conflict over the to Arizona—where he already had con- told me that Marcello passed Hoffa a family's line of succession. Although siderable clout—Bonanno, with his new suitcase stuffed with $500,000 in cash. other Mob families had at first been neu- friends, formed a triumvirate that rivaled (Partin was considered by the Kennedy tral in these "Banana Wars," which lasted the New York underworld forces. Justice Department an impeccable source from 1963 to 1969, their attitude quickly By making his prison pact with of information in this matter.) The changed when they uncovered a plot to Galante, Haifa was also allying himself
John Roselli did tell the President Kennedy's mur- "Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now," Hoffa told a reporter after the Senate about the Castro der sparked conspiracy President was murdered. Jack Ruby (center) had much closer ties to Hoffa asso- plots. Four months later, rumors. Mobsters linked ciates and the underworld than the Warren Commission claimed. David Ferree his body was found in a to the CIA Castro plots (right) worked for New Orleans mobster Carlos Marcella and went to Cuban 55-gallon drum Rooting land to Hoffa) are known Revolutionary Council meetings in the some building where, at that time, in Miami's Biscayne Boy. to have threatened him. Lee Harvey Oswald (left) headed the local Fair Play for Cuba committee.
During Nixon's final William Bufalino (below left) was Hoffa's attorney. Government investigators believe that Russell Bufa- days, General Alexander He shared on office with Chuck O'Brien (below right), lino (left) and Anthony Provenzano (right) are key Haig, White House Chief Haffa's "faster son," who was questioned about the figures in the Hoffa disappearance. Bufalino, who is of Staff, conducted a murder. David Johnson (bottom, far left) and Rolland William Bufalino's cousin, has also been linked to the secret investigation into McMaster (bottom, far right), old friends, became key Castro plots. Provenzano is serving a life sentence Nixon's ties with the Mob. figures in Haffa's war to regain Teamster leadership. for killing a rival New Jersey Teamster leader. 41.—•-• L • lir
143
• with Bonanno. It can be surmised that during the planning of the Cuban inva- The key man in helping McMaster Hoffa became a key figure in this brewing O sion, the mobsters were approached by a start Local 320 was an assassin for Gian- North-South Mob power struggle. As m middleman—his identity is still uncon- cana named David Yaras, once a pinball/ president of the Teamsters, Hoffa con- firmed—who suggested that in return for slot-machine concessionaire under Al trolled the multimillion-dollar Teamster their cooperation, the CIA might be able Capone. Yaras was among the first mem- 4 pension funds and the loans that were to help recover their money. bers of the Chicago underworld to "dis- 1.1 coming out of them. The Mob, there- Although Maheu freely admitted to me cover" Florida after Capone went to jail fore, relied on him to help finance their that he was responsible for bringing Ro- a. in 1931. He was second only to Traffi- illicit activities. Before going to prison, selli, Giancana and Trafficante into the cante with his number of Cuban contacts he had had a close working relationship intelligence agency's strategy to over- and was heavily involved in the gambling with the New York crime families, as well throw the Cuban government, he denies operations of the island before the fall as with Marcello and Trafficante, but his having had any role in or any knowledge of Batista. ties to the latter two mobsters were ex- of the covert activities of Bufalino, A year after McMaster and Yaras set ceptionally dose and personal, Granello and Plumeri. up Miami Local 320, McMaster, with "Things were happening before I be- THE CIA-MOBSTER LINK Hoffa's approval, named a convicted came involved," Maheu says. "Therefore, New York extortionist, Harold Gross. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, 1 might not know about them." to head it. Gross was a close friend of Fidel Castro began throwing the Amer- If Maheu did not contact Bufalino and McMaster's and, according to the Mc- ican Mob off the island. Marcello and his associates, who did? Charles Csimaldi, Clellan committee, a former associate of Trafficante were among the big losers a Chicago underworld hit man and the Syndicate hit team Murder, Inc. His who were exiled by the new government. Giancana associate turned Government duties included passing out sweetheart Both had lost their best gambling and informant, says the "original liaison" be- contracts and shaking down taxicab narcotics connections and were interest- tween the CIA and the Mob was Jimmy companies, service stations and parking- ed in ways to recoup their losses. At the Hoffa. (Grimaldi, who is considered "ab- lot attendants. McMaster also set up sev- same time that they were trying to recap- solutely reliable" by several officials of eral other locals in the Miami area and ture their lost territory, the CIA, which the Bureau of Narcotics, was the subject packed each one with talent almost equal was in the process of planning the Bay of a biography titled Contract Killer.) to that of Local 320. Eventually, many of of Pigs invasion, got wind of the losses Given knowledge of how the CIA oper- the gangsters helping out with organizing suffered by Marcello and Trafficante and ated at the time and of how deeply Hoffa activities in Miami would become in- other underworld figures and tried to was connected to the men the CIA was volved with Russell Bufalino in the CIA capitalize on them. Trafficante was soliciting for its activities against Castro plots against Castro that began with the among those mobsters solicited for the and the Cuban government, Crimakli's planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion. now-famous CIA plots to assassinate information strongly implies that it was Castro. The offer came to him via a series Hoffa who pursuaded Bufalino, Granello PLOTS AND THREATS of contacts that included Robert Maheu and Plumeri to cooperate with the agen- The fact of America's most secret Gov- (an advisor to Howard Hughes with a cy. During my investigation, I learned ernment agency teaming up with its most complex background in the intelligence that Hoffa not only had been a direct powerful criminals is sinister enough. community), gangster John Roselli and participant in the gunrunning traffic to Even more troubling, however, was my Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana. Batista before the revolution but also had realization that ties between the plots to But before those connections were tried to obtain loans from the Central kill Castro and the murder of President established by the CIA, others were so- States Pension Fund, prior to the Mob's Kennedy keep showing up once certain licited to help subvert the Cuban gov- expulsion from the island, for a fleet of other relationships arc fitted into the ernment who had been approached airplanes to be delivered to the new Cas- puzzle. before Maheu, Roselli and Giancana be- tro government. In February 1961, the CIA passed a set came active participants in the plots. When the murder of Castro became the of poison pills, earmarked for Castro, to Hoffa's attorney, William Bufalino, secret trump card that would precede the Malteu's liaison with Trafficante, John a Detroit Teamster official, had a cousin, invasion, the CIA would have decided to ti Roselli. The pills were then passed to a Russell Bufalino, who had Itad an inter- replace Hoffa with Maheu because of the mystery man who until now was known est in a large gambling casino and a race mounting legal pressure being placed only as a leader of Cuban exiles. track near Havana during the Batista upon the Teamster leader by the Ken- That man, whose identity was con- regime. Russell, a powerful Mob figure in nedy brothers, who were unaware of the firmed to me by three sources, was the Northeast U. S., had been the cohost Castro murder plots and of the fact that Antonio de Varona, the former president of the famous 1957 Apalachin mobster the CIA was cooperating with the Mob of the Cuban senate, who had been train- conference. Among his partners in New at the time. ing the invasion forces in Guatemala. York were underworld figures Salvatore • However, like the invasion, De Varona's Granello and James Plumeri, two cap- Hoffa's relationship with those dose attempts to murder Castro failed. tains of the Thomas Lucchese crime fam- to the American-Cuban crime community De Varona was a cofounder of the ily. Granello and Plumeri were also in can be documented back to 1957. Hoffa Cuban Revolutionary Council, the gov- business with Hoffa at the time, splitting had sent his number-one organizer, Rol- ernment in exile that had hoped to re- kickbacks on loans from the Teamsters' land McMaster of Detroit, to Miami to turn to power had the assassination of Central States Pension Fund to enter- establish Local 320, which, according to Castro and the invasion succeeded. One prises in Florida, New Jersey and New the McClellan committee, ultimately member of the C.R.C. in New Orleans York. According to Senate investigators, served as a front for many of the Mob's was anti-Castro activist David Ferric, who when Castro purged Batista and closed gambling and narcotics activities. Traf- was employed as an investigator-pilot for down the business interests of Bufalino ficante—who. according to union officials. Carlos Marcello. Four days after the Ken- and his associates, these organized-crime was also instrumental in setting up the nedy assassination, Ferrie bad been ques- leaders left $750,000 in cash behind in local—occupied a small office in the tioned by the FBI about his alleged 144 Cuba. When the CIA learned of that union hall. (continued on page 256) in this:TO-01a•Mode 0 Super Grand Prize in Playboy (continued from page PH) November, E1 comb and Ja association with the President's assassin. Ad Gam Located in New Orleans in the same building as the C.R.C. was the Fair Play for Cuba committee, which was headed a locally by Lee Harvey Oswald. 0. TOYOTA In September 1962, Marcella met with Iris top aides in a cottage near New S'.:. ). i Gr.-171d PI iz!...,! ,:., ;,•-•-,-.7, /- - - — — 0 Orleans. During the meeting, according ,R miti, e, . ----.,/," - 'r The Grim Reapers, ack - tne s pony, ' .--.ii f ey to author Ed Reid in hritiv, -: -• – -----;> ______,,, _ Marcella was in a frenzy about Robert ersatile E- '-- Kennedy, and especially about Marcello's own "kidnaping," which had been en- -'7".•••••• • V - - he Corolla III V . gineered by the Attorney General near hOSR•5 the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion. TibackS a Both Marcello and Russell Bufalino Inner7So., , had received deportation orders and 4 Ir • r .T.z1 • . both were battling the Government. Federal agents sent by the Attorney General arrested and handcuffed Marcel- lo as he walked down a New Orleans street. They drove him to a nearby airport, loaded him onto a private plane and flew him out of the country. Since he carried a Guatemalan birth certificate, it was assumed that he was a native. After two months in Latin America, Marcella illegally flew back into the United States aboard a private plane, piloted by Ferrie. Back in America, Mar- cello began his successful appeal to fight deportation, claiming that he had been • sent away with no opportunity to call ow to :ire /4 sir.igan.5 I ['ken fmrti either his family or his lawyer. yr, 10,1hg„...-..;td:., Novidt?!..1, 01e;sse write ill the produt Marcella reportedly worked himself up vertIs.e7ce ,.,prth4. ill IF'S draen II COTTFTC.1 grftriu over the incident and finally shouted an Find These Write In . ancient Sicilian death threat against the .Advertising Slogans Name of Procluc Kennedy brothers, "Livarsi 71C1 petra di or Headlines, Advertiser Comp la Jearpa!" ("Take the stone out of my es shoel"). He then announced that John • Kennedy was going to be assassinated r?: and that a "nut" was going to be hired 'ea fry,' Mr.,;•,• ‘T,.•1 .Gr): to handle the job. That same month, Marcello's friend Trafficante, still involved with the CIA 4 LP: ,11 i?"71 murder plots, was talking with Jose Aleman, a Cuban-exile financier, who was a respected FM informant, about his hatred of the President. Aleman told George Crile III, who was writing for The Washington Post, that Trafficante said, "Have you seen how his [the President's] brother is hit- ting Hoffa, a man who is a worker, who is not a millionaire, a friend of the blue collars? He doesn't know that this kind of encounter is very delicate. Mark my .Onery he .bat .. Yell MITZiF bee suiellenu NOXIBER•ISSLIE SWEEPSTAKES. PO. Box 1911. stakes end monthly prizes awarded lor • words, this man Kennedy is in trouble, Harrison, fl, J. T7103, or /or 4 free entry biank and correct leanly tweepaleket Only one'antly raise! and he will get what is coming to him." istrowera, Send a sea-eddressed, stamped envelope in tergibiley Tor Super Orem" Price • • 1 NOVEATEIER•ISSUE SWEEPSTAKES, 101 Perk Avenue 3 This direr. NA Open to employees ol Playboy Enter.`., New VoNt,'N.Y 100TE Oo not sand enleca To this address . pr•ses. Inc.. VENTURA ASSOCIATES. INC. or Us Aleccran,, who was talking with the Entries mull Oa postmaried by December 5, 10711, inn andieles br al perecipaling adverlisars end Weir lereilet. underworld leader about a $1,600,000 received by DeCembor 15,1978. Oiler lord in Islaseurl end wherever pronAbled or ,twisVt\eab:';, 2. Winner's will be selacied in random drawing from rewricted by tort As Federal, were and local regoleriens Central States Pension Fund loan that correal entries received. under ere supervision at • apoly, VENTURA ASSOCIATES. INC . en Independent ludTen 4. All prizes ern no mweided Prizes are nontransferable Hoffa had personally cleared for Traffi- apenry whose deciaions are linel There ra ant Super 1300 nomederamnble Ice rash or miler Sunslilule. cante, responded that President Kennedy Name would probably be re-elected. (Please print} "No, Jose," Trafficante said firmly. I Address "He is going to be hit." .City State ZIP When asked during the research for,, 256 .1