Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

Dan: Jimmy Hoffa was an enemy of orthodox society.

Voiceover: Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa

threatened John Kennedy,

Robert Kennedy, or both.

Scott: Hoffa was actually a full-fledged informant

by the end.

Dan: Hoffa's associationwith organized crime

just quadrupled thethreat to this country.

Dr. Buccellato: That the Teamsters were protecting

these drug traffickers.

Voiceover: We have no information as,

as to the fact that he is alive,

but we don't know that he is dead either.

Voiceover: More than 200 FBI agents

are involved in the search for Hoffa.

Voiceover: It is one of the most famous

and enduring American mysteries.

What happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

Scott: Hoffa is seen getting into this car,

and the car is seen driving away, never to be seen again.

Hoffa vanished,

and with this disappearance really started

the most fascinating mystery

in the criminal annals of America.

(dramatic music)

(slow dramatic music)

Dr. Russell: Jimmy Hoffawas born and raised

in coal mining towns in Southern Indiana

in the 1910s and 1920s,

hardscrabble towns filled with coal miners and bootleggers,

a lot of whites from the South

and emigrated to Southern Indiana.

By the 1920s, it became a hub

of the Ku Klux Klan nationally

and where violence really determined a lot of conflicts.

In the towns he grew up in,

there were more saloons than there were churches.

His mother was a single mother,

who was forced to take in laundry from neighbors

to support the family.

Hoffa lived on the edge

throughout his childhoodand early adulthood,

and I think that also defined his outlook on life

and his career.

(fast beat music)

Al: So Jimmy Hoffa and his family

arrived in Detroit in 1924,

looking for bettereconomic opportunities.

Detroit was one of the fastest growing cities

in the country.

It was also one of the most violent.

Scott: You had the Italians with several groups,

the River Gang, the East Side Gang,

the West Side Gang,

the Jewish Purple Gang.

And then you had other factions,

such as the Lizard Gang,

which is a Polish gang out of Hamtramck.

A gangland economic boomthat was taking place

not just in Detroitbut around the country,

that was the situation that Hoffa was coming up in

as a young man.

(sinister music)

Al: Then the Depression hit,

and it hit Detroit harder than almost anywhere.

Half the city was out of work,

bread lines in the street.

Thousands of people would show up

for a single job opening.

Dr. Russell: Hoffa was lucky to get a job

as a warehouse worker unloading crates

on a dock at Kroger's.

He lived in a world in which

poverty and unemploymentwas the norm

and in which violence often determined

the outcome of class struggle.

Al: In 1932, the very bottom year of the Great Depression,

the year of the national crime wave,

John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde,

Jimmy Hoffa was about 19 years old,

and he did something pretty amazing.

He organized his first strike.

(dramatic music)

Dr. Russell: I think it's important to see Jimmy Hoffa

as always having been an entrepreneur

and looking at the labor movement as an entrepreneur.

He saw the potential for a strike

not as a means to redo the economy

or even redo the management of Kroger's

but as a means simply to make higher wages.

Workers striking, refusing to work was leveraged

for simply economic means.

(sinister music)

Al: Hoffa was seeing the American system

exposed all around him,

Wall Street taking advantage of Main Street,

and the rise of gangsters and bandits.

(camera flash)

Dr. Buccellato: Land speculators, banks gobbling up land

foreclosing on small farmers.

Al: For many people, men like John Dillinger and Al Capone

became the heroes.

Doing whatever it took to get ahead in life,

that was what was important.

Dr. Buccellato: Jimmy Hoffa is growing up in the Midwest

during the Great Depression.

He's aware of the outlaw personality.

He's part of the community

that is marginalized.

These communities are responding

to people like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd.

So by the time that Jimmy Hoffa becomes involved

in labor politics,

this is an important part of his character.

Al: I think the lessonthat Jimmy Hoffa learned

from the Depression wasto fight tooth and nail

for everything you could get

because Big Business and the government

were not the friends of the working man.

Dr. Russell: His careerthrived in large part

in a very unregulated economy and political atmosphere

in Detroit in the 1930s.

He saw, in fact, that workers could succeed

more often than not

in that sort of jungle environment.

George: Rum owners and guys

who were moving liquor into the country,

they needed trucks.

The Teamsters were driving those trucks.

You've got the nexusright there of the Mob,

corruption, and laborers.

And when Prohibition ends,

that connections remain,

and it just grows out of that.

Dr. Russell: Often,owners, business owners

would hire thugs withbaseball bats and clubs

and sometimes pistols

to intimidate or beat union organizers.

And quite often, those union organizers would fight back

with violence as well,

and so many of these battles are fought in the streets.

Dr. Buccellato:Management and ownership

breaking promises and breaking legs,

it is morally acceptableto fight fire with fire.

George: The Mob was muscle,

and the Mob worked forwhoever would hire them.

In terms of the organized labor movement,

there were times when corporate America,

whether it's the garmentindustry or whatever,

would hire Mob muscle tointimidate the unions.

So it wasn't like theMobsters were embracing

organized labor movement in America.

The Mobsters went wherever there was a payday.

(upbeat music)

Dr. Russell: And workers often found

that they could win those conflicts.

In particular, Hoffa found that those conflicts

could be settled throughtheir willingness

to fight industries.

Dr. Buccellato: For union rank and file,

Jimmy Hoffa is a Robin Hood,

and like Robin Hood,

he may have to resort to extralegal acts.

He may have to get his hands dirty.

But in the end, his workers

and these marginalized communities are better off.

Dr. Russell: Hoffa was most likely involved

in car bombings.

You had to keep scabsout of those workplaces.

You had to keepreplacement workers out,

or else you had nopower as a union leader.

Al: The first real documented proof

of Hoffa's connection with the Mob

comes in about 1937.

Hoffa was married by this time,

but he had an ex-girlfriend

who was sort of a gangster moll,

Sylvia Pagano, a.k.a. Sylvia Paris.

Dr. Buccellato: At the time,

Pagano is dating Frankie"Three Fingers" Coppola,

a bootlegger from Los Angeles

who has a criminal record extending back

to his youth in Sicily.

Pagano introduces Coppola to Hoffa,

and they become friends right away. (camera flash)

Al: Frank Coppola associated with Santo Perrone,

a Detroit Sicilian mobster

who was known for providing goons and muscle

to either unions or to businesses,

again, playing both sides of the fence

in various union battles in the 1930s.

Dr. Buccellato: They come up with a plan.

The Mob can provide muscle to back

this union movement that is struggling.

The odds are against them.

The Mob will offer access to muscle

to defend the workers, to counterattack.

Al: The Teamsters, at this time,

were engaged in a brutal strike

with the Kroger's Supermarket chain,

people being shot,

heads being busted,

and supposedly, Hoffa asked his new friend,

Santo Perrone,

to hold his goons back and not help Kroger

while the Teamsters tried to fight this struggle.

Dan: The old adage about Hoffa was that

he wound up going to the Mob

because he was trying to use them

to go after stubborn employers

who refuse to be unionized.

In fact, he used theMob to go after the CIO,

which was raiding the Teamsters' turf in Detroit.

(suspense music)

Al: I think Jimmy Hoffa used the Mafia

and other organized crime

the same way he used everybody else.

He was always the smartest guy in the room,

and I think to say thatthe Mob controlled him

or controlled theTeamsters is misleading.

Dr. Russell: There's no evidence

that he was ever beholden to them.

There's no evidence that they ever dominated his unions.

Dr. Buccellato: I don't think someone like Jimmy Hoffa

makes a decision that,

"Well, I'm going to become a racketeer."

Rather, it's an organic response.

Hoffa has an opportunity here

to secure some type of defense

on behalf of his workers

by forming various partnerships

with members of the underworld.

George: Jimmy Hoffa recognized,"This is the way to go.

"This is the way to rise to the top,

"and you got to get in bed with these guys,

"and they're going to benefit and I'm going to benefit."

Not complicated at all.

Al: One of the most stunning claims

about Hoffa and the Teamsters

is that they were integral to the development

of the global heroin trade.

Teamster trucks and locals may have been used

to help flood the United States with Sicilian heroin

in aftermath of World War II.

And it all centered aroundHoffa's first friend in the Mob,

Frank Coppola.

Dr. Buccellato: A number ofcongressional committee reports

documented the relationship between Coppola and Hoffa

and the Teamsters.

Now Coppola is a reallyinteresting character.

He's a bootlegger in Los Angeles.

He is a human trafficker in Mexico.

He is a labor racketeer in Detroit.

He's running drugs out of Cuba.

He's all over the place.

The United Statesdeports Coppola in 1948.

Communist Party is popular in Italy.

The labor unions are gaining strength in Italy,

and the U.S. State Department has a very real concern

that Italy will fall into communist hands.

And back in Sicily, he's a political power broker.

He has unique connections to Italian senators.

His brother is a powerfulmember of the clergy in Sicily.

Al: Even before the Nazis surrendered,

the Cold War was begining,

and the U.S. government was making deals with criminals

in former Fascism Europe

to help fight a dirty war against communism.

In Italy, this was knownas Operation Gladio.

Mafia boss of bosses, Lucky Luciano,

was working with the U.S. government,

and so was Jimmy Hoffa's old friend, Frank Coppola.

(sinister music)

Dan: Coppola and Luciano got together

and created a drug network.

From Montreal, there were two routes.

One was straight South into New York,

where it was handled by

a guy from the Bonanno crime family,

a guy named Carmine Galante,

and then across Canada, overthe Detroit River into Detroit.

Dr. Buccellato: Congressional committee reports identified

Priziola and Quasarano as two of the most significant

and important drug traffickers in North America.

Dan: And Jimmy Hoffa, inorder to give these guys

a facade of legitimacy,

he set up a dummy local for them,

Teamsters local forthem to operate out of.

Dr. Buccellato: And the evidence suggests

that for quite some time,

New York Mafiosi were buying their heroin

from the Detroit suppliers.

Did Hoffa know about thenarcotics trafficking?

I can't prove that.

I suspect that someone as smart as Hoffa

would not want to knowabout what was going on,

but I've interviewed retired federal agents from FBN,

and they contend that within their offices,

it was well known that the Teamsters

were protecting these drug traffickers.

(suspense music)

Al: In 1952, Dave Beck became

the new president of the Teamsters,

and Jimmy Hoffa became vice president.

This was the peak moment

for the union movement in the United States,

the most members, the strongest voice,

the most power.

Dr. Russell: And government leaders and business leaders

both wanted to curb that.

They wanted to curb the union movement.

And it's crucial to understand that that period

coincided with the risein labor regulation,

especially from the federal government.

So in the '30s, when Hoffa was coming up,

he was faced with constant competition from other unions,

which forced him to bemilitant and accountable

to his members.

It forced him to be a good union leader.

By the 1950s, it was all but impossible

for unions to compete against one another.

Al: So now with no outside elements left to fight,

Jimmy Hoffa turns his attentions inward.

He goes after his own president, Dave Beck.

And Hoffa makes a deal with some really bad people,

(sinister music)

including a New York racketeer named Johnny Dio.

Dio was infamous.

He had been implicated in an acid attack

on crusading journalist,Victor Riesel,

where acid was thrown in his face

and he was blinded permanently.

George: Did theAmerican labor movement

go off track to a certain degree?

Yeah, for sure, it did.

But did corporate America go off track?

Sure, it did.

It's almost a human condition

when you've got that much power,

that much status, that much wealth.

Al: So meanwhile, Hoffa has an un-yet known nemesis

crisscrossing the country trying to bring him down,

Bobby Kennedy,

who's working for John McClellan,

a senator running a Senate investigation

into labor and union corruption.

Dr. Russell: The McClellan hearings was also a means

through which to attackthe union movement

in terms of public relations,

that the movement was full of goons and criminals,

people like Jimmy Hoffa,

and that's really the purpose it served.

Al: Hoffa knew he was next to be called

in front of the Senate,

but he had a plan.

He tried to plant a spy right inside Bobby Kennedy's office.

Dan: Hoffa, trying to keep tabs

on what the Senate committee was doing,

was introduced to a guynamed John Cye Cheasty.

Cheasty was an honest guy,

and he went to Bobby Kennedy's people,

and he said, "Listen, Jimmy Hoffa has come to me

"and made me this offer."

Al: So Kennedy and Cheasty set Hoffa up.

When he goes to pass themoney off to Cheasty,

the FBI is there to arrest him.

Dan: He gives the documents to Jimmy Hoffa.

Jimmy Hoffa gives him the money.

This is all memorialized on film,

and Hoffa is indicted,charged with extortion.

Keith: He was represented by Edward Bennett Williams,

who was the premiere criminal defense attorney in America.

He, being Williams, arranged to have

Joe Lewis sit in the front row.

And when the juryselection was going on,

he shook hands with Joe Lewis.

It's difficult again today

to go back to realize what a symbol

to the African-Americancommunity Joe Lewis was

in the '50s and the '60s,

and this was a carefullyorchestrated event

to give Jimmy Hoffa some credibility.

Dan: The jury comes out,

and sure enough, Jimmy Hoffa is acquitted.

Al: August of '57, fresh off his victory at trial,

Jimmy Hoffa is finally called

in front of the McClellan Committee on Labor Corruption,

and he and Bobby Kennedy go at it.

Dan: The hatred between Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa

was of mythical proportions.

Dr. Russell: Kennedy really had

a paternalist image of the world.

He was a wealthy boy who was raised

with this idea of noblesse oblige,

the idea that the wealthy

are obligated to help their lessers.

He had to remove the dictators who were oppressing

the people of the Third World.

He had to remove the dictators from within the unions

who were oppressing the working class,

like Jimmy Hoffa.

Al: I think Bobby Kennedy saw all this as a chance

to get himself some national exposure,

probably at his father, Joe Kennedy's suggestion.

By creating a mythology of Hoffa

being so dangerous to America,

a tactic he learned at the feet of Joe McCarthy,

who was actually a family friend of the Kennedys,

he made himself into ahero protecting America

from the bad men like Jimmy Hoffa.

Dan: Bobby Kennedythought that Jimmy Hoffa

was an enemy of orthodox society.

He believed that withHoffa having the ability

to shut down thiscountry with his control

over the trucking union

that he was a national security threat.

(sinister music)

and he believed that Hoffa's association

with organized crime

just quadrupled thethreat to this country.

Consequently, Jimmy Hoffa was a person

who had to be stopped.

Dr. Russell: He was alsoa very Christian man,

with the idea that the holy should save and redeem

and uplift those who have not been saved.

He saw the whole world as a group of people

inferior to himself

who needed to be raised to his level.

(suspense music)

(dramatic music)

Dr. Buccellato: I don't think Hoffa ever viewed himself

as a racketeer.

In fact, to the extent that he acknowledged

his relationships with the underworld,

he was actually unapologetic about it.

Robert Kennedy: Did you say,

"That SOB, I'll break his back?"

Jimmy Hoffa: Who?

Robert Kennedy: You.

Jimmy Hoffa: Say it to who?

Robert Kennedy: To anyone.

Did you make that statement after these people

testified before the committee?

Whose back were you going to break, Mr. Hoffa?

Jimmy Hoffa: Figurative speech.

I don't even know who I was talking about,

and I don't know what you're talking about.

Al: As for Bobby, his father, Joe's money and influence,

were the only reason the Kennedy brothers

were such rising stars on the political scene

at such a young age.

Dr. Russell: The federal government really had no business

in intervening in that.

But Bobby Kennedy saw to it anyway,

and in many ways,

he and the Democratic leadership,

with the CIO leadership,

really put a web of constraints about,

around the labor movement

that destroyed labor activism.

Al: Some of his close associates claimed

he would write a check to the boss and archdiocese,

say, for a million dollars.

The archdiocese would take 900,000 in cash

from the parishioners' contributions

and give it to Kennedy.

Kennedy then could write off his million dollar donation,

and he had 900,000 in cash to pass around

and grease palms

to help his two sons get elected.

(suspense music)

So it must have been a real bitter pill

for Jimmy Hoffa to swallow

to sit in front of that Senate committee

and be browbeaten (sinister music)

by the likes of the son of Joe Kennedy.

The hearings eventually ended,

and Teamster president,Dave Beck, got indicted

and sent to prison,

and Jimmy Hoffa became Teamsters president.

So now, Jimmy Hoffa has the power,

and it's time to pay back

the people who helped him get there,

and one of the ways he could do that

was with the Teamsters pension fund.

Dan: Which was operated by a hastily thrown together

insurance company called Union Casualty,

which was run by a guy named Paul Dorfman

and his son, Allan Dorfman.

Keith: Huge amounts of the Las Vegas Strip

were financed with loans from the Central State Pension fund

which was under thecontrol of Jimmy Hoffa.

Al: The Tropicana, the Circus Circus,

the Aladdin, Caesars Palace,

the Hacienda, the Stardust, the Fremont,

all of them funded withTeamster pension money

and all of them mobbed up.

(sinister music)

Dr. Russell: So what gets lost in all of this talk

about the Teamster's pensions

and how it went to Las Vegas and other Mafia endeavors,

which is all true,

it is also true their pensions were tremendous.

They were much higher than they would have been

have Hoffa not existed.

Even during his corrupt phase,

they were getting very wealthy pensions.

They were getting wagesthat were far higher

than truck drivers weremaking 20 years earlier.

Jimmy Hoffa: Nobody in this country respects what's weak,

you believe me.

But because we are financially solid,

because we do have an organization

that is equipped to handle any situation

that comes in front of us,

we're successful in getting from the employers

what our members want and need with our strengths.

George: Chicago,Cleveland, Kansas City,

they would rack the money up

depending on which mob families

had a piece of that particular casino.

The number varies from 12 million to 20 million a year,

from six casinos to 10 casinos, however many.

Al: The Jewish Dorfman was a towering figure

in organized crime

and wasn't afraid of violence.

Dan: I got an anonymouscall to meet a source

who's going to give me information about Dorfman.

Broad daylight, public place, I'd even hesitate to go,

and I got jumped there and I got really ...

It was the worstbeating I've ever taken.

George: A lot of them were prosecuted.

A lot of the guys who were involved in this

were indicted and went to jail,

but it was all about cooking the books.

Al: The story of Allan Dorfman in Las Vegas

was dramatized in Martin Scorcese's movie, "Casino,"

and Dorfman himself wasgunned down in Chicago

in the early 1980s.

Newscaster: Here inChicago this afternoon,

Allan Dorfman, a man withreported ties to organized crime

and to the Teamsters union for the past 30 years,

was shot to death in what police are describing

as a gangland-style execution.

Voiceover: Dorfman died here

in a suburban Chicago parking lot

from as many as seven 22-calibergunshot wounds to the head.

Reporter: Dorfman was about to go to prison

for his conviction last month

in the Teamsters briberyconspiracy trial.

(triumphant music)

Voiceover: From his stronghold

in the wild Sierra Maestra mountains,

Cuba's Fidel Castro emerged triumphant

after two years of guerilla warfare

against the Batista regime.

Al: In the late '50s, Jimmy Hoffa got himself mixed up

in the deepest levels of America's secret politics.

When Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba,

Dwight Eisenhower told the CIA to kill him.

But of course, this waseasier said than done

because the hit could never be linked back

to the U.S. government.

So, unbelievably, theCIA contacted the Mafia

to help them kill Fidel Castro.

Mob bosses like Santo Trafficante,

Carlos Marcello,and Meyer Lansky

had lost tens of millions of dollars

when Castro seized power,

and they were the onesthat had the connections

to the Cuban exile community

that could help the CIA get poison in

or get an assassin and take Castro out.

The CIA's first contact with the Mob

may well have been through Jimmy Hoffa.

During this time, Hoffa's right-hand man, Rolland McMaster,

a high-ranking Teamster official,

went down to Florida,

set up a Teamster office in Miami,

which was full of Cuban exiles,

was a hotbed of anti-Castro activity.

And right inside the Teamster office in Miami,

Santo Trafficante,

one of the most powerful mob bosses in the country,

had an office.

Dan: A guy named Bob Mayhew came in,

was brought in to the plots

by the head of Covert Operations

for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Al: Robert Mayhew, incidentally,

was close friends and business partners

with Jimmy Hoffa's old lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams,

and shared office space with him back in Washington D.C.

Dan: I interviewed Mayhew just a few blocks from here

at the Georgetown Inn here in Washington.

He told me that his job was to get to Santo Trafficante,

who had been released from the Cuban prison

after he had been imprisoned by Castro

in April of '59.

But Mayhew didn't know Trafficante.

He knew that it was going to take a boss

to deal with another boss,

but he didn't know a boss.

But he did know a guy named Johnny Roselli,

and so Bob Mayhew workedwith Johnny Roselli,

who brought in ...

Johnny Roselli was a Chicago gangster,

and so he bringsin Sam Giancana,

who, at the time, was the acting boss in Chicago,

and it was Sam Giancana who brings in Santo Trafficante

into what becomes a CIA-Mafia plot to kill Castro.

We have evidence to thefact that Jimmy Hoffa

was the original liaison between the CIA and the Mafia

and the Castro assassination plots

during that period between December 1959

and August of 1960,

when Bob Mayhew becameinvolved in those plots.

Al: While the CIA-mob plots to kill Castro obviously failed,

they did have profound consequences,

(sinister music)which likely culminated

in the murder of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.

The CIA's bungledmaneuvering had created

a dangerous nexus of players,

ranging from Hoffa and the Teamsters

to Cuban dissidents, mob bosses,

(camera click)

and fringe characterslike Lee Harvey Oswald.

Dan: So when Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General,

he had a hit list oforganized crime figures

and their associates whom he had targeted for prosecution,

and number one on that hit list was Jimmy Hoffa.

Al: Dan Moldea wrote the seminal book

on Hoffa and the Teamsters

right in the immediate aftermathof Hoffa's disappearance,

and he is convinced thatNew Orleans mob boss,

Carlos Marcello,

who had his own run-inswith Bobby Kennedy,

conspired with Hoffa and others

to somehow manipulate Lee Harvey Oswald

into killing JFK

and then had Mafia associate Jack Ruby kill Oswald

(gunshot)

before he could spill the story.

Voiceover: He's been shot.

He's been shot.

Lee Oswald has been shot.

Dan: That the murder of John Kennedy is a straight mob hit.

Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante

arranged and executed the murder.

Al: Marcello, Hoffa, and Trafficante

did share the same lawyer,

a guy named Frank Ragano,

who made the claim years later,

when he was trying to sell a book,

(camera flash)that Hoffa had him carry

the contract to kill JFK to Marcello and Trafficante.

Dan: The mob guys were absolutely horrified

as to what was going on,

saying that they were going to have to go back to Europe

just to feed themselves,

that Bobby Kennedy was just destroying their businesses,

that they would die themselves

if they could get rid of Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General.

Al: I think the Kennedys

were definitely playingboth sides of the fence

when it came to organized crime.

(sinister music)

The FBI actually recorded a wiretap

between Chicago mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli

that their donation to JFK's campaign had been accepted

but that Bobby Kennedy wouldn't let up

on them and their friends.

(suspense music)

(dramatic music)

It was his fourth criminal trial in 10 years,

but this time, Bobby Kennedy had a new trick up his sleeve.

He had a mole inside Hoffa's camp

that was feeding him informationas the trial was going on.

Dan: The person who ended up

being the key government witness

against Jimmy Hoffa was a guy named Ed Grady Partin

from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Local Five.

He was a Teamster official.

And Ed Partin had knowledge of the fixing of the jury.

In fact, when he calledthe Justice Department

and spoke with Walter Sheridan,

who was the head of Bobby Kennedy's

"Get Hoffa Squad,"

he said flat out, "Hoffa is fixing to fix the jury."

Al: The problem with all this was Ed Partin himself.

Partin supplied Kennedywith the inside info

to convict Hoffa on jury tampering,

but Partin was a guy who've been arrested for everything,

from manslaughter toembezzling union funds,

and he was actually outon bail for those crimes

when he miraculously saw the light

and decided to help get Hoffa.

Dan: And one of the reasons

why Ed Partin had stepped forward

was because Jimmy Hoffa had told him

that he was planning to kill Bobby Kennedy.

When Walter Sheridanheard this information,

they immediately put him on a polygraph,

not just about thejury tampering business

but about the attempted,

the plot to murder Bobby Kennedy.

Ed Partin passed the polygraph test on everything,

flying colors.

September of 1962, another FBI informant

was talking to a Mafia guy named Carlos Marcello,

who probablycontrolled Jimmy Hoffa.

And Marcello said, "We're not killing Bobby Kennedy

"because everyone would know in two seconds who did it

"if Bobby Kennedy was found dead.

"We're going to kill the president,

"the guy who controls Bobby Kennedy.

"If you get rid of the president,

"you get rid of Bobby Kennedy,

"and we've got a guy to do the job."

Marcello's partner, alter ego, Santo Trafficante,

the Mafia boss of Tampa, Florida,

was talking to another FBI informant

named Jose Aleman,

and he made it clearthat it was Jimmy Hoffa

who was making the arrangementsfor the president's murder.

Al: In the weeks leading up to Kennedy and Oswald's murders,

Jack Ruby had numerous phone calls

with people like Teamster enforcer Barney Baker,

who was suspected in many murders

and had worked personally for Hoffa and Myer Lansky.

(suspense music)

So, was Jimmy Hoffa involved in a plot to kill JFK?

The Church Committee, which was a Senate investigation

looking into U.S.intelligence operations,

determined that Hoffa had the means, motive,

and opportunity to helpkill John F. Kennedy.

But that doesn't mean he did.

(suspense music)

Dan: It was determinedthat Hoffa had tampered

with a member of the jury,

and so he was re-indicted on charges of jury tampering,

for which he receivedan eight-year sentence.

He was convicted on a second case in Chicago

involving pension fraud,

where he received another five years.

So he was given a13-year prison sentence.

(victorious music)

Voiceover: With his raincoat covering handcuffs,

Hoffa arrives at federal prisonin Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

He said his attorneyswould continue his fight

while he's in jail.

Parole is possible in 32 months.

At $100,000 annually,

he is the nation's highest paid prisoner.

Al: So Jimmy Hoffa gets sent to Lewisburg Federal Prison.

Things get even more complicated for Hoffa there

because he's housed withGenovese mob captain,

Tony Provenzano,

who was also the president of a huge Teamster local

in New Jersey at the time,

and the two of them actually got into a fistfight,

with Hoffa yelling, "It's guys like you

"that got me in here in the first place."

At the time all this is going on in prison,

a national mob war is brewing out in the real world.

Dan: 1964, '65, '66 was the Bonanno wars,

Joe Bonanno's son, Bill Bonanno,

deciding to whack three of the heads of the five families.

(gunshots)

Joe Bonanno wound up in Tucson, Arizona.

And in Tucson, Arizona,

he made a pact with two Southernorganized crime figures.

One was Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss of New Orleans,

and the other was SantoTrafficante of Tampa.

Al: If the Bonanno-Marcello-Trafficante Southern powers

could control Hoffa,

they probably could control

the single biggest prize in the country,

the Teamster pension fund,

which was really the goose that was laying

golden egg after golden egg.

Ultimately, the Mafia commission patched up

the rift between the Mafia families,

and Jimmy Hoffa was left on the outside looking in

but now with a newdeadly enemy in the form

of Anthony "TonyPro" Provenzano.

(suspense music)

Jimmy Hoffa: A murderer upstairs

or a man with 50 years alongside of you.

And when you're trying to sleep under those conditions,

unless you have a tremendous willpower,

you're constantly one eye open,

looking to see whether or not you'll survive the night

for the next day.

(clapping) (jolly music)

Dr. Russell: From the1930s through the 1970s,

most unions were giving their money,

their campaign money to Democrats.

Hoffa gave his money to whomever would help

the Teamsters and himself,

and so sometimes he gavehis money to Democrats,

sometimes to Republicans.

By the early 1970s, when he was in prison,

Richard Nixon was president,

and it became quite convenient

for the Teamster to give money to Nixon and the Republicans,

and in exchange, he received a pardon.

Jimmy Hoffa: I appreciate the fact

that he signed the commutation papers.

Whatever effect it will have on the members, I can't say.

I haven't talked to any members.

Reporter: Do you regard this as a strictly political move?

Jimmy Hoffa: No, I do not.

I think it was a regularroutine commutation

based upon my time served,

based upon my sentence and the background of the sentence.

Reporter: Do you plan on supporting him soon

because he [unintelligible] or what?

Jimmy Hoffa: It's too far away to make any prediction

of what I will do politically.

George: Now why would Nixon do that

and if Hoffa was this terrible

organized labor figure/gangster,

why is he entitled to a pardon?

Those kind of things were all questions back then.

It certainly underminedNixon to a great degree.

I mean that was one of the many things

that when people startedto talk about Nixon

as a president who didn't play by the rules,

Nixon as a president who ultimately became

the paranoid president,

this was an example of that.

This was Nixon, the deal-maker.

Al: While Jimmy Hoffa was in prison from '67 to '71,

America changed a lot.

And when he got out,

Hoffa's time had reallypassed in a lot of ways.

George: Hoffa, for one segment of the American population,

epitomized organized labor working for the blue collar,

the common man,

giving him his rights,

giving him decent wagesand working conditions.

But for the people that were involved

in the protests of the 1960s that wanted change,

that were progressive,

that were liberal,

organized labor had become, in a lot of ways,

part of the problem.

The sons and daughters of blue-collar workers

wh had gone on to get an education

kind of looked askance at all of that.

They didn't appreciate what unions really were about.

What they saw were unions corrupting the system.

And I think Hoffa epitomized that for them.

On the other hand, he epitomized

the champion for the common man

for the earlier generation of workers.

Al: Teamster Vice President Frank Fitzsimmons

was running the Teamsters show,with Hoffa away in prison,

and he was even more accommodating

than Hoffa had been to organized crime.

Dan: But Fitzsimmons just let everyone to do their thing.

That's the way he liked it,

and that's the way the vice presidents liked it,

and that's the way the mob liked it.

Frank: For this union nor I

am in the hands of organized crime.

This union has nothing to hide

under general presidencyof Frank Fitzsimmons.

Keith: Many of these guys

had feathered their own personal nests pretty well

during the Fitzsimmons tenure.

Richard: And the only thing

that he was looking at at that point

was trying to get back into

the leadership positionwith the union,

who didn't seem to wanthim around anymore.

Scott: He really only had one thing on his mind,

which was claiming back the Teamsters presidency.

This was his baby,really his joy in life,

was being the presidentof the Teamsters.

Keith: Even though he had been involved

with organized crime,

he always figured itwas a 50-50 relationship

where he was getting things from them

in return for giving things to them

not only personally butfor the labor movement.

He thought that Frank Fitzsimmons

had become a lackey for the members of organized crime,

and he was very interested in getting back in

to the Teamsters union.

He was going to do whatever he could

to get his power back,

and if that involved agreeing to

or deciding to take someof the mob influence

out of the union,

Hoffa was willing to do that to get the power back.

Scott: Hoffa's desperation reached a point

where my sources in the federal government tell me

that he actually becamean FBI informant.

This is a well-kept secret in the fact

that it really hasn't been public record

but that Hoffa was actually

a full-fledged informant by the end.

There was an actual quid pro quo

between Hoffa and his handlers in the federal government,

in the FBI,

that in exchange for Hoffa feeding them information

about what he knew,

the FBI, the federal government

was going to help lift the restriction

on Hoffa's ability to run

for the presidency of the Teamsters

and that he would beallowed to run in 1976.

The word on the street was that Hoffa's restriction

was most likely to be lifted

was really a problem for the mob

in the sense that they realized

that Hoffa had enough support

and enough momentum behind him

that he could easilywin that 1976 election.

George: For Machiavelli,fortune favors the bold.

He was going to make a bold move to try to come back.

But I think there were just too many players involved,

too many people who didn't want him to come back,

and he couldn't control allthe events and all the players,

as he could have maybe 20 years earlier,

when he was at the peak of his power in the Teamsters union.

Scott: So Hoffa's relationship

with the Mafia is quickly deteriorating.

His really only life raft at this point

are the Giacalone brothers,

Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone

and Vito "Billy Jack" Giacalone,

the street bosses of the Detroit Mafia,

the men that arereally the faces

of organized crime in Detroit.

They do all the dirty work.

They're the junkyard dogs,

and they have long been Hoffa's contacts.

Greg: The Detroit family goes way back.

I mean it's one of the original families.

It's part of the Commission,

part of the National Comission.

Bill: Through my years of undercover work,

I don't believe that I was ever able to really penetrate

the mob, the Detroit Mafia, if you will.

These people had charisma.

Some of them were very likable people.

I think they were friendly, but from a distance,

from afar, they were not the kind of people

that would take a shining to strangers.

As part of their culture, their makeup,

they don't deal with strangers.

Scott: The mob knew the only way

to get Hoffa out in the open

was to lure him,

and that lure was Tony Pro Provenzano.

Hoffa understood the only way

that he was going to get the requisite number of delegates

to take back the Teamsters union in the '76 election

was to make peace with Tony Provenzano,

a man that he had actually put into power in the union,

was very good friends with until they had

a rather bitter falling out in prison.

Hoffa knew he had to squash the beef.

The Giacalones knew that bringing

Tony Provenzano to Detroit as a lure

would be the way to getHoffa out in the open

because Hoffa needed that support.

Richard: I mean there was a saying in Detroit that

if you didn't know that person

when he was sucking his Mama's breast,

stay away from him.

Don't trust him.

And that's the way they acted.

They grew up together.

They socialized together.

They married one another.

And they died together.

Insulated protected group by themselves.

Scott: It was appropriate, in Hoffa's mind,

that Giacalone would be acting as the go-between.

Tony Provenzano's first cousin was Tony Giacalone's wife.

The Giacalone brothers were actually going to his house,

I believe, on July 26th and July 27th,

trying to A) get Hoffa to come out of hiding, if you will.

He was very cautious about who he was dealing with

out in the public.

And they also wanted to ease his worries

that he was in danger.

Well, in fact, he was in danger,

but the Giacalones wereplaying both sides of the fence

at this point.

They arranged a meetingat the Machus Red Fox

for 2:00 on July 30th, 1975.

Hoffa felt comfortable going to that meeting

because he was toldthat both Tony Giacalone

and Lenny Schultz wouldbe at that meeting

brokering the deal.

Hoffa was willing then to bury the hatchet with Provenzano

if Provenzano came to Detroit.

The Giacalones convinced Hoffa

that Provenzano was coming to Detroit,

so they set that meetingfor that afternoon.

Hoffa lounged around the house for most of that morning.

He left around 12:30,

stopped in Pontiac, a limo service that was run

by a friend of his by the name of Louie Linteau.

People called him "The Pope."

He showed up there.

Linteau was not there, so Hoffa left him a message

and took off to the meeting himself

and arrived at the Machus Red Fox 1:45, 2:00.

He waited in the restaurant for around a half hour

and realized that he had been stood up.

Hoffa was frazzled by this.

He was upset.

He went across the parking lot to a hardware store

and made two phone calls.

The first was to Louie Linteau at that limousine service

to tell him that he had been stood up

and that he was leaving,

that he was upset about it,

and then the second was to his wife.

At this point, Hoffa is seen

walking to his car in the parking lot.

It's around 2:45,

and he is met by a Mercury Marquis,

according to witnesses,

was occupied by three men,

two men in the front seat and one in the back.

Hoffa is seen getting into this car,

and the car is seen driving away onto Telegraph Road,

never to be seen again.

And with this disappearance really started

arguably the most fascinating mystery

in the criminal annals of America.

Keith: The most prominent labor leader in America

just disappears,

and nobody saw anything.

Even though his wife was concerned and was calling people,

nobody was overly concerned about an adult male

not coming home at 5, 6, 7, 8:00 at night.

I mean that's been known to happen.

Voiceover: The Hoffas are reportedly under heavy guard here.

But late this afternoon, the family broke its silence

and asked for public assistance

in the search for Jimmy Hoffa.

James: I have asked anybody who might have information

concerning my father's whereabouts

to please come forward.

Keith: Agents in the organized crime units

in every major city

but particularly New York, New Jersey,

Detroit, Chicago, Boston

were all taking every effort they could

to establish any connection or any interaction

between the cities.

These were almost all face-to-face meetings

in private settings.

David: I remember the time period.

People were running around with shovels

digging holes in fields all around Metro Detroit.

Greg: The whole experience

when I first got to Detroit is

this is just like the movies.

I had always wanted to be an FBI agent,

and now it would seem like

you were going from onemajor case to another.

(ambient traffic noise)

David: All of these whack job nutty people would call me.

I finally got to the pointwith people when they called me

who told me where he was.

I just said, "Go get a shovel.

"Go dig a hole.

"If you find anything, call me before you call the FBI."

Greg: I think the feeling was

that we're going to throw all our resources at this,

and our history is suchthat generally speaking,

we get to the bottom of it.

Reporter: According to a spokesman

for the Organized Crime Strike Force,

there will be a major announcement

concerning the Hoffa case by the end of this week.

(helicopter sounds overhead)

Keith: I mean I believe these guys

were smarter than we sometimes give them credit for,

and I think that when they picked the people

that were going to get rid of Jimmy Hoffa,

they picked people who they were 100 percent sure

would never reveal what they had done.

They knew how they were going to get rid of the body

before they whacked him.

I mean there is no doubtin my mind about that.

So they weren't driving around looking for a place to go.

They weren't going to say,

"Let's put him in this temporary space

"and then we're going to move him."

They clearly had plenty oftime to do anything they wanted

with the remains of Jimmy Hoffa

between the time theyleft the Machus Red Fox

and the time anybody fully started looking,

which was 10, 11, 12:00the following day.

I believe this thing was planned out with precision.

They knew who was going to do it.

They knew how theywere going to kill him,

and they knew where they were going to dispose of the body.

(camera flash)

Richard: The reputationof Anthony Giacalone

was that he was a brilliant man

who could have run one of the Big Three,

that he was that smart.

Keith: Feared by the average person

and well known to the media,

he had a very imposing personal presence.

That point, he was notorious for dressing

in a very flashy style.

Scott: He was a man of very few words

but was someone, withjust a nod of his head,

could make things happen,

such as people disappearing.

Voiceover: The Giacalones,

Joseph Giacalone and Vito Giacalone were in yesterday,

but speculation as to when you might be calling

Anthony Giacalone.

Investigator: You're going to have to continue to speculate.

I wish I could help you, but you know that I can't.

Reporter: Did your client [pled]the Fifth or not, Mr. Early?

Atty. Early: I can only assume he did.

I advised him to do that.

He was only in there a short minute or two,

and he came out.

I didn't ask him the question.

I assumed he did.

Reporter: You have no idea what kind of questions

[unintelligible] in there?

Atty. Early: I doubt if it got past his name and address.

Keith: Tony Giacalone that day shows up

at the Southfield Athletic Club,(camera flash)

spends the entire day at the Southfield Athletic Club.

He was known by many people to be a very sort of

surly taciturn kind of guy,

but he must have asked 50 people

at the Southfield Athletic Club,

"What time is it now?

"You got the time?

"You got the time?"

Scott: Never talked to anybody.

They didn't need to talk,

especially didn't talk to regular civilians

on a regular basis.

He was going aroundshaking everyone's hand,

asking people what time it was,

how their day was going

to establish an alibi for himself.

According to FBI surveillance records,

Jack Tocco, the acting boss

of the Detroit family at that time,

came from Macomb Countyto Oakland County

to meet with Giacalone.

Giacalone and Tocco were not very close.

They did not meet face to face very often.

The fact that Tocco was coming to Oakland County,

coming to South AthleticClub that afternoon

really told the FBI and investigators

that something very important had just happened.

(sinister music)

Chuckie O'Brien was a surrogate son, if you will,

to Jimmy Hoffa.

He was also very close to Tony Giacalone.

His mother, Sylvia Pagano, was a bit of a gun moll,

one of those women that got passed around the mob.

She had affairs with several members

of organized crime in Detroit,

two of them being Jimmy Hoffa and Tony Giacalone.

He'd had a falling out with Jimmy Hoffa

and had really aligned with Tony Giacalone.

Attorney: After my client's full cooperation

with the Federal Bureauof Investigation,

the Michigan State Police,

and the Bloomfield Township Police

for a total of nearly eighthours of intensive interviewing

on an entirely voluntary basis,

I am surprised and somewhatchagrined, as a matter of fact,

that the government now feels compelled

to make furtherinquiry of Mr. O'Brien.

Reporter: Do you expect to see your father again?

Chuckie: I'm praying.

Scott: O'Brien was said to have been in possession

of Giacalone's son, Joey's car that afternoon,

the car that the FBI andinvestigators believe

Hoffa was kidnapped in.

Keith: Why was he usinga Giacalone kid's car

on that particular day?

That's always been an issue that fascinated the Bureau

and caused them to lookinto Chuckie O'Brien.

Scott: Now, the issue that I have

with that specific allegation

is the fact that Hoffaand O'Brien at that time

had really, really beenon very, very bad terms

and that Jimmy Hoffa would not feel comfortable

getting in a car with Chuckie O'Brien.

Despite that, there are a lot of people that believe

O'Brien was the one that took Hoffa

from the Red Fox to the place that he was murdered.

Keith: I don't think they would have felt comfortable

with Chuckie O'Brien out there as a guy

who could point a finger at them.

Richard: What worse person could you put in charge

of your life and with getting critical information

than Chuckie O'Brien?

Keith: Why do they haveto borrow anybody's car?

Have some guy steal acar and give it to you,

two, three layers of removal,

and then you pick it up.

These guys wouldn't havetrouble getting a car.

David: The Hoffa [unintelligible] says

that he was basicallyincompetent and a liar.

Why didn't they kill O'Brien afterward?

Why would they leave him alive?

Why would they leaveany of these guys alive?

Scott: I don't believe that the organized crime members

that set this hit up would use Chuckie O'Brien

in any way, shape, or form

other than very, very menial tasks.

And frankly, being the one to drive Hoffa

to his murder destination is not a menial task.

(suspense music)

George: Tony Pro was a capital in the Genovese crime family,

and the Genovese crime family, in my estimation,

was the most powerful,

the most well-run, and the most organized

of the five New York families,

Tony Pro controlled Teamsters Local 560 out of North Jersey.

Voiceover: Today,Provenzano acknowledged

Hoffa was an old friend,

but he said he hadn't seen him in years

and could shed no light on Hoffa's disappearance.

Reporter: Were you supposed to meet with Hoffa today -

Tony: No, no.

I know nothing.

None whatsoever, no.

Woody: Did you manage tofinish testimony before-

Bill: Yes, we did.

Yes, we did, Woody.

Woody: Why so brief, sir?

Bill: It wasn't that brief.

Woody: No?

Bill: They asked questions and we gave answers.

Reporter: [unintelligible]

Bill: I don't believe that we would serve

any worthy purpose to discuss out here on the street

what transpired in the grand jury room.

They have a job to do, andthey are doing their very best,

and we wish them luck.

Dan: We knew there was an eye witness

who had kind of, but not quite,

identified Sal Briguglio.

David: His problem was that he had read newspaper accounts,

and I think he was trying to sort of help the FBI along

rather than simply beingan untainted witness.

But the problem was they didn't know

if his information wascoming from news reports

or whether it was untainted information he had witnessed.

Scott: Briguglio was a old-school grizzle gangster

that really looked the part

and someone that really didn't flash a smile that much.

It's a wide belief thatBriguglio and Andretta

were sent by Provenzano to Detroit

to be his representatives on the Hoffa hit.

(suspense music)

Dan: We knew that aguy named Ralph Picardo

was telling the FBI

what they knew about Jimmy Hoffa's murder.

According to Ralph Picardo,

Hoffa is stuffed into a 55-gallon drum

and shipped via GatewayTransportation truck

to an unknown destination.

Al: And this is what the FBI's initial understanding

of the case was.

Dan: So you have Russell Bufalino,

who is the acting head of the Genovese crime family.

You have Tony Provenzano, who is a capo

in the Genovese crime family.

Then you have his guys, Sal Briguglio, Gabe Briguglio,

Tommy Andretta, Stevie Andretta

being the guys who wereactually the mechanics

in this operation.

Richard: Two people can keep a secret if one is dead.

There isn't a want or a need for information

and they don't know about it or want to know about it

for that very purpose.

David: Does it make any sense that you would carry

Jimmy Hoffa around in a 55-gallon barrel

when you could just simply take him to Central Sanitation

and dispose of the body?

I think that that's where the feds

eventually landed on that.

George: It just bottom line makes no sense at all.

You don't kill somebody

and then cart their body across country.

Nobody in the underworld isgoing to do that kind of stuff.

(slow beat music) (sinister music)

Dan: The next day, I pick up the phone.

I call Sal Briguglio up

and asked for him at Local 560.

He gets on the phone and he says,

"Yeah, who's this?"

and I said, "My name is Dan Moldea,"

and he says, "What do you need?"

and I said, "I'm a journalist

"and I'd like to come and talk to you."

He says, "What do you want to talk about?"

I said, "The Hoffa disappearance."

He goes, "What makes you think

"I have anything to say about that?"

I said, "Because, Mr. Briguglio,

"you've neither been indicted nor arrested,

"and the entire world is saying

"that you killed Jimmy Hoffa,

"and the government is putting this information out,

"and I think the government might be violating

"your civil rights."

Bill: We are innocent.

We're presumed to be innocent.

We remain-

Dan: But you must theorize on why the government

is doing this to you,

and this goes back to how-

Bill: No, you know they're a bunch of motherfuckers.

Dan: The possibility of Hoffa's body

being stuffed in a55-gallon drum pickled,

maybe put in a liquid preservative.

Bill: Well, man, what the hell?

Would you ever pickle anybody and keep preserving?

I'd like to put yourself in the position of the bad guy.

Would you try to perserve him?

Two [powers] out of Chicago

met their Maker at the expense

or at the hands of the CIA

because -

Dan: Roselli and Giancana?

Bill: Yeah, Roselli and Giancana.

Now, you'd be better off asking the CIA

to investigate the FBI

and the FBI to investigate with CIA,

and then there you'd have the answer.

(suspense music)

Dan: This guy was a giant.

He was a big guy,

had a glass eye too.

One eye would be following you wherever you went,

and the other eye wasjust staring straight at

and into the distance.

He was a scary guy.

Keith: McMaster was a larger than life character

both physically and story-wise.

He was a business agentfor the Teamsters.

He was involved in union activities,

organizing, getting union votes.

He probably weighed 300 pounds and was 6'6 or 6'7,

huge hands,

personally an intimidating guy,

and I think if you wanted to send the message

to people to physicallyintimidate them,

Rolland McMasterwas the guy who,

if he showed up at your door,

probably generated that kind of reaction.

Dan: I mean McMaster was working

with Santo Trafficantedown in Miami for sure.

McMaster was part of the Cuban process.

McMaster knew a lot of stuff.

A lot of people viewed McMaster as a knuckle dragger.

This guy was a sharp guy.

Scott: I tend to agree with him that Rolland McMaster

could have played a rolein the assassination.

He was one of the most trusted non-Italian,

non-mob union members

and someone that had a lot of knowledge

of past union mob relationship,

union mob wrongdoing.

Dan: Because I was convinced that Rolland McMaster

and his zombie stooges who worked for him

were somehow involvedin Jimmy Hoffa's murder

and probably responsiblefor the disposal

of Jimmy Hoffa's body.

I believe that.

I got a call on that on August 4th, 1975.

That's five days after Jimmy Hoffa's,

and I have not moved from that position since then.

Everything I have seen and heard

reinforces everything I believe.

David: There was a lot of violence going on in the Teamsters

in the months leading up to Hoffa's disappearance.

Dan Moldea believes thatRolland was involved,

deeply involved and probably knew what happened to Hoffa.

Dan: Hoffa people being under siege,

where their houses were being bombed,

their boats were being bombed.

You had people being shot.

Keith: People today don't realize

bombings of businesses and union officials' cars

and these kinds of things

were much more common occurrence.

Dan: The real action is right in Detroit.

This is where it's all happening.

This Local 299 violenceis a big story,

and everybody is ignoring it.

David: He was going after this story full board.

He was willing to put himself in harm's way to get the book.

Dan: There was one guy who was so upset about McMaster,

that I was asking questions about Mc ...

and this is a Hoffa guy.

This is a guy I felt comfortable with.

The guy pulls a gun out and sticks it in my mouth.

Yeah, sticks thefucking gun in my mouth.

Scott: Less than two months before Hoffa disappeared,

Little Fitz, Richard Fitzsimmons,

the son of Frank Fitzsimmons,

the current Teamsters president,

had his car blown out in the parking lot of Nemo's,

a popular tavern right by the 250 Local.

There was a lot of people that believed

that Hoffa set that bomb

and tried to kill Fitz and Little Fitz.

There are other people that believe

that there were actual Teamster goons

that set that bomb and that car

to make it look likeHoffa was trying to kill

the Fitzsimmons and in return would get Hoffa killed.

Voiceover: Teamster president Frank Fitzsimmons

is now a principal figure in the investigation

of the disappearance of James Hoffa.

But federal agents on the Hoffa case

are now taking a very closelook at Fitzsimmon's activities

just before and justafter Hoffa disappeared.

(suspense music)

Dan: It's impossible to believe

that the guys who were behind all of this Local 299 violence

which goes right up until 20 days before Hoffa disappears

with the bombing of Fitz and his car

and that these guys aren't involved in the [denouement]

when Jimmy Hoffadisappears on July 30th?

Please.

Scott: On the other hand,

you look at it and you say to yourself,

well, the Mafia familiesin New York, in Detroit,

they had a long list ofvery, very established

and well-honed executioners,

hitmen, if you will,

and it makes you think

why would they bring in a guy like McMaster

when they have so manyguys that can do the job

in their own backyard?

Keith: They wouldn't have trouble finding a house

or a location to do whatever they wanted to do.

And I don't think they would leave it

on a piece of property they own

or in a barn on RollandMcMaster's property,

unless they're trying toframe Rolland McMaster.

(suspense music)

Voiceover: We broke the story yesterday

how Frank Sheeran claims he shot Hoffa

two times in the back ofthe head in his house.

Sheeran was a Delaware Teamsters union president,

a self-confessed mob hitman,

a close friend of Jimmy Hoffa,

and the subject of a new book.

He says the mob ordered Hoffa's death

to prevent him from running

for the Teamsters' presidency.

Scott: Frank Sheeran was a high-ranking union official

out of Pennsylvania and Delaware,

as well as a high-ranking mob associate

that was very close to Russell Bufalino.

He was Bufalino's bodyguard and driver.

He was another man that would often act

as a go-between or a liaison

between the mob and Hoffa.

(sinister music)

David: They stopped at Port Clinton in Ohio, near Toledo.

Sheeran gets out, climbs on a small private plane,

and they fly to Detroit

and they land at the Pontiac Airport.

Sheeran gets on a carthat's waiting for him,

drives to this location,

picks up a couple of guys,

goes up to the Machus Red Fox to get Jimmy,

bring him back, and Sheeran kills him.

But I had a pilot tell me you can't just fly a private plane

to Pontiac Airport Metro Airport.

You got to get around the air traffic area.

And he found his story to be a little improbable.

George: You're going to get somebody like Frank Sheeran

who also claims to have been involved

in the murder of Joey Gallo

and also claims to have provided the guns

that were used in the Kennedy assassination.

Well, if those things are true,

this guy sitting under theradar for a very, very long time

and it's kind ofhard to believe.

Dan: They heard that Sheeran was writing a book,

and they wanted to bringme on as a consultant

about Sheeran.

But then that one fell apart

because they just caughthim in so many lies

and that apparently, MariaShriver had done the interview.

Once again, they're going to bring me on as a consultant,

and once again, Sheeran's lies just cause

the whole thing to fall apart.

In 2001, he says Sal Briguglio was the killer.

Then 2003, when Dateline NBC calls me,

there was one different thing.

I said, "What's that?"

He says, "Sheeran's nowclaiming that he is the killer."

And I go, like, "He is saying himself

"that he did the job?"

And he said, "Yeah."

He says, "What's more valuable,

"a book by a guy who was there

"or a book by a guy who actually pulled the trigger?"

David: I don't know what motivates a guy

to make up the story that says he killed Hoffa

before he died.

Well, these guys don't think the way the rest of us do.

I mean Sheeran was mostly concerned about the money

because he was going todie and he was broke,

and he needed to leave some money to his family.

Keith: I never boughtthe Frank Sheeran story.

I mean if you're the Mafia, all right?

If you're organized crime

and you're going to kill a person like Jimmy Hoffa,

kidnap and kill him,

why would you bring a guy

who's not part of your organization,

who's not subject to therules and discipline,

who hasn't agreed to what you believe in?

Why would you bring in somebody from the outside?

They certainly had more than enough people capable

and, in the government's opinion,

more than enough people who murdered people in the past?

There is no need to go outside and find anybody else.

Scott: I have a hardtime believing his story

strictly based on the fact

where he claims the murder took place.

He claims it took placeoff 7 Mile in Detroit

on a street named Beaverland,

which would be a good 20, 25-minute drive

from the Machus Red Fox.

And it's a house that hecan't source to anybody,

he can't claim whose house it was

or why they took him there.

Dan: There was a DNA analysis done

on the blood stains found in the entrance to the house.

They proved not to be Hoffa,

which was really disappointing to a lot of us

because we really wantedto see this thing done

once and for all.

Scott: I personally have a difficult time believing

that the Mafia would set up the Hoffa hit

in any place thatwasn't 100% controlled.

(sinister music)

Richard: He thought hewas speaking to somebody

who was a large-scale Italian drug importer from Europe

who came through Canada.

And Tony Palazzolobrought the RCMP officer

to this sausage factory.

And as the RCMP officer described it,

it was like a

organized crime hall of fame.

When he walked in, hesaw pictures on the wall

of Lucky Luciano, Al Capone.

There were crossed shotguns,

as if they were crossed sabers.

During the course of that conversation,

which was used at the trial,

Tony Palazzolo pointed to the Auger, which was enormous,

and he said, "That's where Jimmy Hoffa is,"

or was.

"That's where we put him."

And that is where I believe Jimmy Hoffa went.

I think he was ground up, churned up,

and put in sausage or otherwise.

Scott: Tony Palazzolo is definitely known

as someone that was looked at

as a possible participant in the Hoffa hit.

He is someone that is currently in the 2000s

a Detroit mob captain

but at the time of the disappearance

was a up-and-coming young buck in the mob

that had made his name as a bodyguard and driver

for Peter "Bozzi" Vitale.

The Vitales are anothergroup of mobsters

that had a lot of closeties with Jimmy Hoffa

and the Teamsters.

The fact that Tony Palazzolo

might have been involved in this

is frankly very easy to believe.

Keith: How did they get Jimmy into a car

when he was at the Red Fox

supposedly meeting Tony Giacalone?

If he goes, they seize him.

Who went to meet him?

Who was there to pick him up?

And who was there to explain

why he couldn't go with Tony Giacalone?

Billy Giacalone, hiswhereabouts on that day

are certainly not nearly as well known as his brother's.

If Billy had said, "Hey, look, Jimmy,

"Tony can't make it.

"He is here or there.

"Let's get in the car."

Dan: I know Vito Giacalone is in this thing.

Vito Giacalone is right in the middle of this whole thing.

I just can't figure outexactly where he is.

Mike: The State Police have been following

Billy Giacalone around that week that Hoffa disappeared.

They went out that morning that Hoffa disappeared

looking for him, andthey couldn't find him,

and nobody saw him all day,

so that tells me that he was probably there

as the Detroit representative.

Scott: I believe, after talking to numerous sources,

both in the FBI and on the street itself,

guys that are actually in the mob,

I believe that Hoffa was taken less than two miles away

to the house of Carlo Licata.

Licata was a Detroit mobmember, a mob soldier,

who was the brother-in-law of Jack and Tony Tocco.

Licata's house was lessthan a five-minute drive

from the Machus Red Fox.

Licata's house was also a place that Hoffa had been

to meet the Giacalones on several occasions before.

It was a house that wasused as a meeting point.

Licata himself was a trusted member of the family,

related to the administration,

as well as the house was almost a perfect location

in the sense that it was back on a hill,

removed from the road.

Greg: We think that he probably went to

Licata's house that wasn't too far.

Mike: I think they got him in a house,

and I think Billy Giacalone was probably there.

I think somebody like Andrettas, Briguglio,

somebody like that was there,

and he was killed,

and then he was taken and disposed of pretty quickly.

Greg: We think that theydisposed of the body

by taking it to the sanitation place

where they had contacts.

Scott: I'm convinced that within a half hour to a hour

of Hoffa breathing his last breath

that he was incinerated,

that the body ceases to exist,

and the ability to get rid of the body

was incredible with the Detroit mob

in the sense that they had three separate

sanitation companies allowned by mob members,

and the one that everyone looks at primarily,

Central Sanitation,

was owned by Jimmy Quasarano,

(camera flash)

Paul and Peter Vitale,

and Carlo Licata.

Keith: There are a number of people that think

Central Sanitation, the facility,

played a role in the disappearance of the body

of James Hoffa,

and clearly, Quasarano and Vitale

would have been people,

because of their equity interest in that company,

who would have,

had to be involved in the decision.

And remember, shortly after the events took place,

Central Sanitation burned to the ground.

Scott: And what I believe

really puts the theory over the edge

is that on the sixth-year anniversary

of Hoffa's disappearance,

on July 30th, 1981,

Carlo Licata himself ended up dead at that house

of two gunshot wounds to the chest.

(gunshot)

It was ruled a suicide,

but there are a lot of people,

both on the street and in law enforcement,

that believe this wasanything but a suicide,

that this was a message.

Keith: And obviously, Mr. Licata met his demise in that

whether it's generally considered to be a pedestrian manner.

Scott: Anyone that would even consider giving information

about the Hoffa hit, no matter how close they are

to the leaders of the mob,

they will be sacrificed.

(sinister music)

Voiceover: The report names Carlos Marcello

and Santo Trafficante

as the most likely organized crime bosses

to have been involved.

It provides evidence,some of it inconclusive,

that they and Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa

threatened John Kennedy,Robert Kennedy, or both.

Further, it suggests associations through which

they could have influenced accused assassin,

Lee Harvey Oswald,

or Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby.

Teamster boss Hoffathreatened John Kennedy,

Robert Kennedy, or both.

The committee documents still unexplained phone contacts

between Hoffa aides and Ruby

within a month of the assassination

and says Hoffa had the motive, opportunity, and means

to plan the murder.

Richard: Now prior to that,

there were two witnesses who were also subpoenaed to appear

before the Church Committee,

Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana,

and both of whom were executed

prior to their testimony.

So there is speculation that Jimmy Hoffa would have gone

to that committee and would have testified,

at least in part truthfully.

It's certainly clear

that those threemurders were connected.

Dan: The CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro

really weren't knownuntil many years later,

when Johny Roselli started talking,

and then the Church Committee had their hearings,

and it was understood that Jimmy Hoffa was cooperating

with the Church Committee.

Richard: I think thatthat was the culmination

and the concern of the people or person

who ended Jimmy Hoffa's life,

that before that committee,

Jimmy Hoffa was going to say something

that nobody wanted him to say.

(sinister music)

Keith: By 1990, I became the chief

of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section,

and it was my unit that was charged

with investigating the Hoffa disappearance.

You would hear stories of guys who claim they were

asked to dispose of a car or bring a package here

or bring a box here,

and the Bureau correctly assiduously pursued all of those,

but I never believed that.

I think that these guys knew

that they had to keep this operation

to members of their own organization,

keep the number of people involved

in any substantive way as small as possible.

Richard: Every time a wise guy was picked up

or every time a case was indicted,

if it was traditional La Cosa Nostra,

people would be asked about it,

then they would inherently give the same answer,

which was nothing.

Keith: I would say the one that we became

most excited about and ultimately turned out

not particularly beneficial

was the DNA evidenceon the hair sample and-

Greg: Analysis was done,

hair or more than one hair was found in the car

in the passenger compartment of the car

that indicated that Hoffa had been in that car.

We had hair fromhis hairbrushes,

and he said categorically unequivocally

that that dog had put Hoffa,

Hoffa's scent in the trunk of that,

of Joey Giacalone's Mercury.

That gives you the ideathat he was transported

wherever he was killed in the passenger compartment,

and for whatever reason,

when he was transportedsomewhere else,

he was in the trunk.

David: Hoffa had been in that car.

But the question is was he in the car the day that he died

or the day that he disappeared?

Who knows?

Voiceover: In 2003, investigators dug under a swimming pool

in Northern Michigan.

In 2004, they ripped up thefloorboards of a Detroit house.

Carol: Just where is Jimmy Hoffa?

And that question hasn't been answered

since the Teamsters boss disappeared three decades ago.

But this week, the FBI showed up at a Michigan horse farm

and started digging.

Dan: And I jumped out of my seat

and I did a quadruple fist pump,

hoping that it was thefarm I wanted it to be.

And slowly but surely,

the information came out,

and it was Rolland McMaster's farm.

They tore down the barn.

They had to rebuildthe barn, public money,

controversy.

The congressman out there raised hell,

and the dig stopped.

But the FBI said,

their last statement tothe New York Times was,

"We believe that Hoffa'sbody is buried here

"and that it has not been moved,

"and we may return to this place."

Mike: You're always going to have some boss somewhere

that wants to make his or her career

on the fact that they were the one who was in charge

when they found Jimmy Hoffa.

Bob: My name is Bob Foley.

I'm with the FBI's Detroit Division.

With me here, I've got Mike Bouchard,

Oakland County Sheriff,

and Geof Gaudard

with the Bloomfield Township Police Department.

The FBI and our partnersare here this morning

to execute a search warrant

based on information that we have

involving the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

Keith: There's really stories that

he heard this story from Tony Giacalone.

Tony: Mr. Hoffa was picked up

and taken and buried alive.

[crosstalk]

Voiceover: Anthony Zerilli gave the information

claiming that the property that Hoffa was put on

at the time was owned by Jack Tocco,

his cousin and the convicted mob godfather of Detroit.

Keith: Looking for money,

he's had some financial reversals.

He's looking for money,trying to write a book,

trying to get somebody to pay him some money.

Richard: Who has a Twitter account,

who has a website and Facebook,

and a website that says HoffaFound.com,

writing a book,

who's supposedly going to disclose

where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.

It's a kind of behaviorthat would make

Lucky Luciano spin in his grave.

And that's what traditional organized crime

has come to here, at least here in Detroit.

Scott: To me, it is agiant wild goose chase.

The fact that there arepeople running around

trying to find a body is ludicrous.

Richard: Solving that crime, very improbable at best.

Mike: I think it would be nice, but it's not essential.

I think there's other more important things

the Bureau is involved in nowadays

than solving Jimmy Hoffa's murder

Dan: This does not happen in America.

This murder must be solved.

Keith: I don't know any case

in the history of the federal government

criminal investigation

that has been looked at

as many different ways and as many different times.

George: There's no easyanswer to any of this,

and I don't think we'reever going to know.

(sinister music)

(rewinding tape)

(gunshot)

(light music)

Dr. Russell: Yeah, I think both the champions of Hoffa

and his detractors are wrong.

His champions think

that he was this great, wonderful, crusading union leader

who cared about the working class and his rank and file.

I don't see any evidence for that.

His detractors see him as this immoral satanic figure

who was willing to sell out his members for anything.

Hoffa was simply a product of his times.

Hoffa was militant because he had to be.

Hoffa was able to be militant because he could be.

Hoffa was simply interested

in advancing himself and his career

and enlarging his power within the union

and the labor movement.

He had no other motives.

He was a product of his times,

and that explains why he was who he was.

Al: Jimmy Hoffa hadoutlived his usefulness,

and he knew too much,

so it was just easier to kill him.

He had played a very complex game

for a long time,

and eventually, he overplayed his hand,

and that was it.

Dr. Buccellato: Was he a true believer?

Because I think early on,

he was a true believer in terms of

workers' rights.

It becomes difficult for him to detach

(slow piano music)

from these partnerships that he formed with the underworld.

People are coming after him

within his own labor movement.

The feds are coming after him.

I think that's a nice way of thinking about it,

is Shakespearean tragedy.

How do you navigate through these complicated

moral questions?

Al: If it wasn't for Jimmy Hoffa and others like him

to fight on behalf of workers,

there wouldn't have beenthat huge middle class

that girded the countryduring the so-called

golden age of the '50s and '60s.

He had to get his hands dirty to do it,

and he loved the power and the perks that came with it,

but so do politicians like the Kennedys,

and so do the so-called captainsof industry who he battled.

He didn't go to an Ivy League college,

he wasn't born with connections,

but he became one of the most powerful men in the country,

one of the most loved men

and one of the most hated.

(dramatic music)

They don't make men likeJimmy Hoffa anymore,

at least not in America.

(sinister music)

(soft music)

Man in glasses: I believe the Teamsters

are never going to take anything away

from their dedication to Mr. Hoffa

because he happens to be the person

that they knew and respected

for a great number of years.

I think they're all going to be delighted

over the fact that he's home.

I've had the associationof knowing Mr. Hoffa

since he was a young man of 17

and I was a youth of 18,

and I hope that thefact that I'm a Teamster

is not going to deny me the right

to be able to say hello to him.

(soft music)