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Family Weakly May 5,1963
,lolcJ " vKitJiun reporters analysis oj the two
I 11 -
The Battle of the Century:
iuugu men engagea in a KnocK-aown, drag-out fight '
in which one of them is bound tn oet hurt Rv niTEWTiw DfVKimnc
IN 1923 promoter Tex Rickard im
ported a huge, shaggy-haired Argen
tine named Luis Firpo to battle Jack
Dempsey for the heavyweight title.
Canny Rickard billed the imbroglio, "The
Battle of the Century," and the Polo Grounds
in New York was jammed with the credulous
who thought that the crude South American had
a chance against the champion. The Battle of the
Century was vicious enough, but it took only two
rounds for Dempsey to render Firpo very uncon
scious indeed.
Ever since 1957, however, a fight has been go
ing on between Robert F. Kennedy and James R.
Hoffa which has a much better right to be called
the Battle of the Century than the two-round af
f. ',r promoted by Rickard.
It began when Bobby Kennedy, as chief counsel
for the awkwardly named Senate Select Commit
tee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Man
agement Field, headed by Sen. John McClellan,
submitted Hoffa to several grueling sessions be
fore a tv audience estimated at 25 million people.
(Only 82,000 saw the Dempsey-Firpo fight)
Previously the Committee had gotten rid of
Dave Beck as president of the Teamsters Union,
and this, ironically enough, brought Hoffa to the
presidency. To stretch a point, it might be said
that indirectly the Committee placed Hoffa in the
driver's seat Then the Committee set out to get
the aggressive head of 1,900,000 teamsters.
Hoffa spent 18 tough sessions before the Com
mittee with counsel Kennedy doing most of the
questioning. Unlike many of his associates, Hoffa
did not. seek sanctuary in the Fifth Amendment.
He was questioned about some of his unsavory
aids, about an alleged attempt to bribe a Com
mittee investigator, about the allegation that he
had tapped telephones of his subordinates.
On' the stand Hoffa was unco-operative and
slippery; time after time he resorted to the "I
don't remember" technique. Kennedy kept after
him relentlessly, but Hoffa, like a good boxer,
deflected the verbal blows with evasive tactics. He
was patronizing toward Kennedy. At one point
he said, "But look, Bobby boy, you just don't
understand these things." Kennedy went white
with anger. There are those who say that it was
that gibe which made Kennedy resolve to get
Hoffa at all costs.
Hoffa emerged from the hearings battered and
bruised but reasonably intact. Kennedy had
proved beyond doubt that many of Hoffa's aids
were gangsters, but there was no evidence that
Hoffa himself had ever been a strong-arm man
or that he had been derelict in dealing with the
huge union funds virtually at his disposal.
THE BOBBY
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KENNEDY
And so the Senate Rackets Committee (as it
generally was known), finished its hearings with
20,000 pages of written testimony, with the ap
proval of the television public, and with an im
petus that projected tenacious, -tough-minded
Bobby Kennedy into the office of Attorney Gen
eral of the United States. The Washington cor
respondents who once called him Bob or Bobby
now call him General, the traditional title ac
corded the head of the Department of Justice.
On him the title looks good; his maturity is at
tested to by every Department of Justice lawyer
I know (including a former member of the staff
whom I once called "Whizzer" but who is now
Mr. Justice Byron White of the Supreme Court).
Hoffa, too, has gained in experience and ma
turity. His grip on the enormous Teamsters
Union seems stronger than ever, and a dozen
times he has publicly defied the Attorney General
and labeled his efforts as nothing but a "personal
vendetta against Hoffa and. his union." (Hoffa
likes to refer to himself in the third person.)
Hoffa sincerely believes that the Attorney Gen
eral and his 1,700 lawyers will not be happy until
he is not only removed from office but also help
ing to sew mailbags behind the unresponsive bars
of a Federal penitentiary.
The Stakes Are High for Both
Washington, D.C., is a city which has no indus
try ; it doesn't produce food or first-division base
ball teams its only product is gossip. Drop into
the sophisticated Jockey Club or visit the Na
tional Press Club or (if you're silly enough) at
tend the daily round of diplomatic, press, politi
cal, or social cocktail parties, and you'll hear a
lot of gossip a great deal of it concerning the
feud between Kennedy and Hoffa.
It is generally agreed that this is a fight to
the death. The stakes are high. If Hoffa loses,
he will no longer be thfi most important union
official in the country. If Kennedy loses, it could
cost him the Presidency in 1968 (according to the
betting in Washington, he is at present a shoo-in
for the nomination).
The Attorney General has denied that this is a
personal feud. He has not commented publicly on
the Hoffa affair since he took office nor would
he discuss his feelings toward Hoffa when I
talked to him recently. Not even off the record.
I saw Hoffa the same day in the imposing
Teamsters Union building at 25 Louisiana Ave.,
just 1,900 feet from the Department of Justice
building, and for once Hoffa had no arrows to
shoot at Kennedy. In the past he has been quite
free in attacking him, but during my visit he
smilingly refrained from discussing personalities.
Few people in Washington seem to be neutral
AJ.TJL1YXA liurm rii i u
iu this real Battle of the Century. When I was
a sports writer 100 years or so ago, I was taught
that the only way to judge the merits of two
heavyweights was to maintain a high degrca of
objectivity. Suppose we use the same yardstick
in trying to evaluate these two fighters battling
in the judicial ring.
Physically and mentally they are well matched.
"v great staying power. Jimmy Hoffa
weighs just under 180 pounds and stands five feet,
five-and-a-half inches. He is barrel-chested and
has strong hands heritages of his early years
of unloading heavy boxes from freight cars.
Physical fitness is a fetish with-hira ; he spends
half an hour each morning doing push-ups, and
he neither smokes nor drinks. When he laughs,
which is often.
, unu alio ttiiilq LtrCllI
gleam, and his hazel eyes laugh, too. His hair is
coal black, and it is hard to believe that he is 50.
When you hear him make public speeches to
his "boys" at a Teamsters' convention, he gives
the impression of being an angry man, a self
appointed prophet, and a rabble rouser. But have
lunch with him in the magnificent fourth-floor
cafeteria in the Teamsters building (workers in s
the building call it, with considerable validity,
the best restaurant in Washington), and you'll
find Jimmy Hoffa a relaxed man of considerable
charm, warmth, and humor.
His conversation is not limited to union mat
ters. He reads all kinds of books; and when he
discusses some recent serious novel articulately
and intelligently, it is difficult to accept the fact
Unt U: 1 1 i! , . . -
uioi ma loimai education enaea in tne seventh
grade. Immaculately and quieUy dressed, impec
cably barbered, he doesn't seem to have a trace
left of the tough, snarling youngster who de
clared war on employers after his father coughed
himself into an early grave, his lungs coated with
coal dust
The Family Men
Hoffa's home life is not unlike that of his op
ponent He was married in 1936 to Josephine
Poszywak, and they have two children, Barbara
Ann, 24, now married, and Jimmy, Jr., 20. In
1939 Hoffa built a $6,800 brick residence in De
troit. Today, although his salary is $50,000 a year
(plus the kind of expense account any important
business executive is given), he still lives in that
modest house. He travels a great deal, but when
ever he can get away from Teamster affairs, he -hurries
home to his family. Like Bobby Kennedy,
he is devoted to them and, like Kennedy, no
breath of scandal has ever clouded his family re
lationship. Hoffa is known as a one-girl man, and
"Jo" is his girl. She often accompanies him to
conventions, not because she is interested in
1 Author of
',ow"
if
"london Diary," "Drwi IMworiol," "Courtroom,"
and If forthcoming autobioarapfiy, "By Quontlq RoynoMi"
union affairs, but because she likes to be with
her husband.
If this picture of Hoffa seems too flattering,
let me emphasize that it is the picture most of
his close associates have of him; it is also the
impression any reasonably objective observer
gets. I am not trying to fit a halo on Hoffa's head
the thing wouldn't fit. I have no idea what goes
on behind the bright, charming facade which he
shows the world. Neither the Senate Rackets
Committee nor the judicial charges leveled
against him the past two years have been able to
shatter his confidence or his apparent contempt
for the Attorney General.
Hoffa's confidence is bolstered by the fact that
Kennedy has hauled him into court three times,
and each time he has walked out a free man. He
had a close call in a Nashville, Tenn., Federal
Court, where he was accused of taking a round
about payoff from a trucking firm. The case
ended in a "hung" jury, which was castigated by
the presiding justice.
If at First You Don't Succeed . . .
Another test is imminent in the so-called Sun
Valley case. Hoffa was indicted by a Florida
grand jury for allegedly misusing a half-million
dollars in Teamster money to develop a model
city for retired persons in Sun Valley, Fla. The
indictment was thrown out on the technicality
that Negroes had been excluded from the grand
jury. Kennedy has reinstated the indictment, this
time ?riully avoiding legal pitfalls. This trial
will have far-reaching significance for both men.
Despite his pleasant private image, there is
no doubt that Hoffa is the toughest, most ruthless
labor leader of his time. He lacks the broader
social vision which characterizes a man like Wal
ter Reuther, head of the United Automobile
Workers. Some of Hoffa's officers and many others
with whom he does business would be more at
home on "The Untouchables" television show than
in any legitimate business. But the rank and file
of the Teamsters' membership seem to have the
happy faculty of ignoring the company Hoffa
keeps; after all, they say, he negotiates better
contracts for them than any of his counterparts
in the union movement.
Hoffa is bitter toward Kennedy and his lawyers
because he feels that, although unable to convict
him in a court of law, they have convicted him in
the public mind through legislative investigation.
Union lawyers charge that the Senate Committee
did in effect damn scores of men, including Hoffa,
without giving them an opportunity to present
their case. Edward Bennett Williams, Hoffa's
brilliant attorney, has insisted that Hoffa and
other officials of the Teamsters Union were ac
( Continued on page 6)
Family WMklu, May J, 1M1
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