Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Kennedy: conflict and investigation

¶ … conflict between Jimmy Hoffa and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy seemed to have almost a compulsion about "getting" Teamster Union president Jimmy Hoffa. A staunch advocate against organized crime, Kennedy brought Hoffa to trial twice. Kennedy was determined to wipe out organized crime in the country, and there is still speculation that Robert F. Kennedy's election in 1960 may have been at least partially funded by Mafia funds.

Hoffa became president of the International Teamsters Union in 1957, after its former president, Dave Beck, was convicted of defrauding the Union. The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations of the Teamsters expelled the Union in the same year. Kennedy continued his examination of the Union and brought Hoffa to trial in 1957, charging him with diverting Union funds for his own purposes, extorting funds from employers, and working with the mob. In this first trial, the jury found him not guilty, and he returned to the presidency with some sanctions. Kennedy, however, did not give up, and brought charges against Hoffa again in 1964. This time they stuck, and Hoffa went to prison. In 1971, President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence. (It is interesting to note that the Teamsters had heavily backed Nixon during his 1960 campaign against John F. Kennedy). Hoffa did not return to union work, but it seems he did have ties to the mob. He disappeared in 1975 and his body has never been recovered. Currently, the FBI is searching a farm outside Detroit for his remains.

It is clear RFK had it out for Hoffa. One expert explains why. "It was just a match of two absolutes,' comments historian Ronald Steel. 'Bobby Kennedy saw Hoffa as absolute evil. And so he could elevate this struggle against Hoffa into some kind of titanic moral issue, which is why he became so dedicated to it'" (Editors, 2004). Kennedy seemed to have a deep need to make amends for his father's (Joe Kennedy) activities during prohibition, when Kennedy was a large-scale liquor bootlegger. Perhaps Kennedy wanted to purge that bootlegging reputation from the Kennedy name. For example, while Bobby Kennedy publicly tried known Mafia figures, they still aided the Kennedy presidential campaign. Another Mafia historian notes, "Sam Giancana [a noted mob figure] helped to carry Cook County for the Kennedys in spite of a preelection insult from Bobby Kennedy, who brought Giancana in to face the McClelland Committee and humiliated him publicly with embarrassing questions" (Kelly, 2000, p. 138). Thus, Kennedy seemed driven to drive out organized crime from the country, and another speculation is that he became so worrisome during his presidential campaign that the Mafia was behind his assassination.