I Heard You Paint Houses Page 24

  About a year after Jimmy went in, Bobby Kennedy announced that he was going to run for president. As far as I could tell that didn’t affect Jimmy at all because Jimmy was already supporting Nixon from jail, getting deliveries of cash down to Mitchell and the Nixon campaign. Jimmy was just glad that Bobby was no longer the attorney general.

  Everybody approved of Lyndon Johnson’s attorney general, Ramsey Clark. He was the opposite of Bobby Kennedy. He didn’t bother anybody. He was the one they used to call Pamsey Clark. He was against wiretaps.

  A couple of months later Bobby Kennedy got it from the terrorist. I know Jimmy lost no sleep over that, but Jimmy hardly mentioned it. I think all of Jimmy’s focus was on getting out. He kept up with events through all the papers that he always read, but he didn’t waste his breath on what was happening on the outside unless it had something to do with getting him out. I do believe Jimmy hated jail way more than he ever hated Bobby.

  After a while of spending every night after lockdown in a small cell with nothing to do but think about it, Jimmy knew in his gut he was getting double-crossed by Fitz. Then Jimmy started hating Fitz. But he couldn’t let on to Fitz, because he still needed his help to get out.

  The biggest problem Jimmy ended up having in jail was with Tony Pro. Pro was in for extortion. I heard it was something about a trucking company owner who was having problems with his men slowing down on the job. The guy paid Pro, and the drivers went back to full speed. That kind of thing was known to happen once in a while. Only something went wrong and Pro went to jail for it.

  Jimmy and Pro were sitting in the dining room one day and Pro wanted some kind of help about his pension from Jimmy, and Jimmy couldn’t give it to him. It had something to do with the different charges they each had. Under the pension law you have some extra problems if you go in for extortion, but not if you go in for the things Jimmy went in for. Pro couldn’t see why Jimmy was going to get his and he couldn’t get his. Pro couldn’t understand why Jimmy couldn’t get that pension thing worked out for him. Somehow one thing led to another and Jimmy supposedly said something about “you people,” like he was better than Pro. Pro said something about ripping Jimmy’s “guts out.” I heard the guards had to break it up. From that day to the day they both died, Jimmy hated Pro and Pro hated Jimmy more.

  I never liked Pro. His brothers Sam and Nunz were good people. Whenever Pro couldn’t hold office on account of some conviction or other, he’d appoint one of his brothers. Still and all, Pro was always a strong and loyal supporter of Jimmy Hoffa. Before Jimmy’s jury tampering trial, Pro helped Jimmy raise a lot of green stamps for expenses. Jimmy had Pro’s vote on the executive board any time he wanted it. Pro always gave speeches praising Jimmy.

  Pro was with the Genovese family, and from time to time Russell was acting boss over that family, and Pro was way down lower than Russell in the thing, not even close in rank. So I guess Jimmy figured that since he had Russell with him and the two of them were so close, he didn’t have to concern himself about Pro. Russell really and truly liked Jimmy a lot. It wasn’t just show. It was sincere. Russell respected a man who was hard but fair, like himself. Both Jimmy and Russell’s bond was their word. Once they told you something, you could count on it. Whether it was good for you or bad for you, there is no doubt you could count on it.

  I wasn’t there for the hollering match with Pro, but I was there when Bill Bufalino walked out on Jimmy. Bill would come regularly from Detroit to Lewisburg just so Jimmy could give him a hard time. They were talking about Partin one day at lunch and Bufalino got fed up with it. I heard him say, “No, I’m not fired. I resign.” He just walked out. He never came back to jail again to see Jimmy as far as I know. Bill was still a lawyer for the union anyway under Fitz, but from now on he wasn’t with Jimmy; he was with Fitz. Bill knew he could do all right without Jimmy. Bill had a jukebox local that he was president of and a lot of other businesses. Bill was very well off. Russell was the godfather to Bill’s daughter.

  After a while it was getting to be like Jimmy was one of those tigers you see at the Philadelphia Zoo that spends his time just pacing in his cage, all day long, back and forth, looking at the people.”

  Jimmy Hoffa’s first application for parole was turned down in November 1969. Having defeated Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was at that time completing his first year as president and John Mitchell was completing his first year as attorney general. At the time of his 1969 parole application, Hoffa’s appeal of his Chicago conviction was still pending. As a result of the five-year Chicago sentence still hanging over Hoffa’s head, the parole board denied Hoffa’s application. It is unlikely that Hoffa expected to make parole the first time he applied, anyway, no matter how much influence he thought he had with the new administration.

  Hoffa’s next parole eligibility date was March 1971. If Hoffa were to make parole at that 1971 hearing he would be out from behind bars in time for the July 1971 Teamsters Convention in Miami Beach, where he would be a shoo-in to be reelected International president. He would no longer need to pull strings from a long distance away. Moreover, he would be in power under favorable circumstances, the likes of which he had never before had. Hoffa easily would win a five-year term in 1971, and Nixon easily would be reelected to a four-year term in 1972. Jimmy Hoffa would control the most powerful labor union in the nation while having an ally in the White House, an ally whose attorney general, instead of hounding him, accepted his cash. An ally with whom he could do business and get a lot accomplished for his union and his comrades.

  Very early in 1971 Frank Fitzsimmons said that he would run for president if Jimmy Hoffa did not make parole in March. This was a direct challenge to Jimmy Hoffa, because Hoffa had every right to run for president from the jailhouse. The crimes for which he had been convicted did not fit the list of the Landrum-Griffith Act of offenses that disqualified a convict from holding office for five years. As long as Hoffa held a union office of some kind at the time of the election he could run for president. While in jail Hoffa still held several union offices, including president of the International itself. After his announcement Fitzsimmons sought a conditional endorsement from the executive board at its January 1971 meeting in Palm Springs, California. Fitzsimmons wanted a vote of approval for his candidacy for president if Hoffa did not get his parole. The executive board refused to endorse Fitzsimmons even conditionally.

  At Hoffa’s March 1971 parole board hearing he was represented by his lawyer-son James P. Hoffa and by attorney Morris Shenker. Hoffa had a deposition from Partin delivered to his attorneys. It was hot off the press, as Partin had just given it. This is the “twenty-nine-page confession” Hoffa spoke about in his autobiography. Hoffa’s legal team, however, overruled Hoffa and decided not to use it. One can only assume that his lawyers understood that all parole boards everywhere look with disfavor on any inmate who protests his innocence. As far as a parole board is concerned, the matter of guilt has already been established by a jury, and an inmate who continues to protest his innocence is one who has not been rehabilitated by his prison experience and who is not exhibiting remorse for his misdeeds. Such a parole applicant is viewed as incorrigible. Perhaps Hoffa’s own son had a better chance of making Hoffa accept sound legal advice than other lawyers had been able to.

  In any event, Hoffa lost before the parole board and was told he could not reapply until June 1972. Hoffa would miss the July 1971 Teamsters Convention. If he ran, he would have to run from prison.

  During the hearing the parole board appeared to focus negatively on the fact that Hoffa was still president of the Teamsters. Under their rules, a request for a rehearing based on new evidence could be made within ninety days. That left Hoffa with a very slight glimmer of hope that he might still have sufficient time to get paroled before the July convention. But how would Hoffa come up with new evidence? In the end would he have to run from jail? Or would he have to settle for the 1976 International Convention?

  On Apri
l 7 Hoffa went on an unescorted four-day furlough to spend Easter with his wife, Jo, who was recovering at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco from a sudden heart attack. Hoffa stayed at the San Francisco Hilton, and in defiance of the rules of his four-day furlough held important meetings with Frank Fitzsimmons and other Teamsters officials and advisers, including his Local 299 stalwart and Strawberry Boy pal, Bobby Holmes. All that Hoffa did in the months that followed these San Francisco meetings had to have reflected what went on there.

  chapter twenty-three

  Nothing Comes Cheap

  “In May I got a call from John Francis that he had a present all wrapped up to bring to the party. John had become Russell’s driver. He was very good people. John and I became very close. John was my driver on a number of matters I took care of for Russell. John was very reliable. He had good timing. On certain matters you might get dropped off on a corner and go into a bar, and John would drive once around the block. You’d go to the bathroom and on the way out you’d kiss a certain party in the bar, and you’d come back out and there would be John.

  John’s nickname was The Redhead. He was from Ireland. He had done hits over there with the IRA. John lived in a suburb of New York. The Redhead knew a lot of the Westies. They were a gang of Irish cowboys from the Hell’s Kitchen section on the west side of New York. Drugs got that outfit. And unnecessary violence. Those two go hand in hand. John had something to do with drugs once in a while just to pick up some money, but he kept it from Russell or he never would have been Russell’s driver.

  I don’t know who recommended John to Russell in the first place. It had to be somebody out of New York. Russell had a lot of business in New York. For twenty-five years Russell kept a three-bedroom suite at the Consulate Hotel, and I would say he went to New York three times a week. He’d cook for us in his suite. I can hear him giving it to me now: “You shanty, Irishman, what do you know about cooking?” A lot of times he went to New York on jewelry business with the cat burglars. Russell used to carry around one of those jeweler’s lenses that he would use on his good eye. But Russell had all kinds of other businesses going on in New York. He had garment businesses like making parts for dresses and dresses themselves, trucking business, union deals, restaurants, you name it. His main hangout was the Vesuvio Restaurant on Forty-fifth Street in the theater district. Russ owned a silent piece of that and a piece of Johnny’s Restaurant across the street.

  When I got the call from John Francis in May that he had a present for the party, I drove up to the Branding Iron Restaurant at 7600 Roosevelt Boulevard. John handed me a black suitcase. It must have weighed a hundred pounds. I’m not sure if this half-million I was taking down was Jimmy’s money he got from Allen Dorfman on the pension fund. It could have been points Dorfman was collecting for Jimmy while Jimmy was in school and putting aside for him on pension fund loans. Maybe the money came from Russ and Carlos and them out of the Vegas skim. That was not my business.

  I put the bag in the backseat of my big Lincoln. I already had put the seventy-five-gallon gas tank in the trunk, so that if the Feds followed me they’d have to stop for gas and I could just hit a switch and go to the extra tank and keep on cruising.

  I cruised on down to the Washington Hilton. It’s about 150 miles to Washington from Philly, a straight shot through Delaware and Maryland on I-95. I always had a CB radio going to warn me about Smokies that had radar set up. But with a package this size I didn’t bother with the speeding.

  I got down there and parked and carried my own bag into the lobby. I didn’t need a bellhop for this. I sat in an easy chair they had in the lobby. After a little while John Mitchell walked in through the front door. He looked around and saw me sitting and sat down in the next chair over. He talked about the weather and asked me how the drive was. It was all chitchat so the thing wouldn’t look so obvious. He asked me if I was in the union and I told him I was president of Local 326 in Wilmington. (See, by that time I had won the 1970 election and got my local back. Having time to campaign and not being in jail I won by a three-to-one margin.) He asked me where in Wilmington and I told him our office was down by the train station. He wished me a safe drive back to the union hall. Then he said, “Nothing comes cheap.”

  He stood up holding the suitcase. I said to him, “Don’t you want to go somewhere and count it?” He said, “If I had to count it, they wouldn’t have sent you.” He knew his business, that man.

  I heard Mitchell was putting pressure on Partin, too. The Department of Justice was jamming Partin up on stuff. But I think this money was for the parole or the pardon, not Partin. Technically, the half a big one was for Nixon’s reelection.

  What Jimmy didn’t know at that time, and what came out later, was that Sally Bugs brought a half a big one down from Tony Pro on behalf of Fitz. Russ didn’t even know about that. It was to get Jimmy out, too, only on a parole that had a restriction on it that would keep Jimmy from running for union office until his entire prison sentence expired in March 1980.

  If he had to wait to run until 1980 Jimmy would have been away from running the union for thirteen years. In thirteen years Jimmy’s old supporters would have been replaced and by then he’d be sixty-seven anyway. Back then, the rank and file didn’t vote for International president or any of the other officers. The voting was done by the delegates to the convention in an open ballot. The delegates listened to their rank and file back home in their locals, but they listened mostly to Jimmy or whoever had put them in their positions. By 1980 Fitz could have eliminated a lot of Jimmy’s delegates and a lot of them would have retired anyway and Fitz would have put his own supporters in, like his son Richard Fitzsimmons, who was still with 299 in Detroit. Today the rank and file votes the officers in directly by secret ballot.

  So Mitchell and Nixon were getting both ends on the thing.”

  On May 28, 1971, Audie Murphy was killed in a small plane crash while viewing the location of a business deal he was involved in with the Hoffa forces. Whatever help Jimmy Hoffa expected from Audie Murphy in dealing with Ed Partin went down with Murphy’s plane.

  Six days after Murphy’s crash and a couple of weeks after Mitchell told Frank Sheeran that “nothing comes cheap,” Frank Fitzsimmons, accompanied by young James P. Hoffa, held a press conference at the Playboy Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach. Fitzsimmons announced that he had received a letter from Jimmy Hoffa stating that Jimmy was not a candidate for reelection and that Jimmy was endorsing his old friend from Local 299 in Detroit, the general vice president, Frank Fitzsimmons, for the office of president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

  Two weeks later on June 21, 1971, Fitzsimmons addressed the quarterly meeting of the executive board in Miami. Reporters were not permitted in the room, but strangely, Fitzsimmons had allowed newspaper photographers in. Fitzsimmons announced to the board that Jimmy Hoffa had resigned as president and had appointed him acting president until the upcoming convention. At that moment President Richard M. Nixon walked into the room and sat in a seat next to Fitzsimmons. The photographers snapped away.

  Two days later, following the new game plan for dealing with the parole board, James P. Hoffa wrote the executive board a letter on June 23, 1971, telling the board that his client had resigned as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, president of Local 299 in Detroit, president of Joint Council 43, president of the Michigan Conference of Teamsters, and chairman of the Central States Conference of Teamsters. Based on this new evidence, James P. Hoffa requested a rehearing before the parole board. In his letter, James P. Hoffa pointed out that his father planned to spend his retirement living on his pension and doing some lecturing and teaching.

  A preliminary hearing was held before the parole board on July 7, 1971. Based on the “new evidence” contained in the letter and presented at the preliminary hearing, the parole board granted a full rehearing to be held on August 20, 1971.

  “When I got to the July 1971 convention in Miami
Beach I saw a nice big picture of Jimmy on the wall outside the convention center. I went inside and there was not a single picture of Jimmy anywhere to be found. It was like they do it in Russia. They take a guy and erase him. I grabbed a couple of guys and went back outside and took Jimmy’s picture down and brought it in and hung it inside. I hung it in as prominent a place as the picture of Fitz. What I wanted to do was to take Fitz’s picture down and put it outside and put Jimmy’s picture in the spot where Fitz had put his own picture, but you couldn’t do that. The hostilities were in the undercurrent stage. They hadn’t broken out in public yet and I wouldn’t do anything like that without Jimmy’s say-so.

  Jimmy’s wife, Jo, spoke at that convention in July 1971. She gave everybody Jimmy’s best wishes and the place went wild. She got a standing ovation. That was a huge Hoffa crowd. Fitz was lucky he didn’t get booed.

  The FBI tried to get into that convention as maintenance men, but I spotted them and turned them away. You knew you were right when they never returned with their boss to prove they were really maintenance.

  I don’t know what I was thinking back then, but I didn’t know until now that Jimmy was still president when he went in back in 1967. I must have misunderstood what was going on. I thought Jimmy gave up the job and put Fitz in the job as acting president until he got out. I thought Fitz had both jobs—the vice president and the president. Fitz certainly acted like he was the president all that time whenever I had any dealings with the man. I thought he was the president when he sent me to Spring Garden Street on that shootout. Isn’t that something, the things you miss when you have a lot of maneuvering going on.”