Monday, April 13, 2009
By the Way / Hannan / Law and Order
Professor Wants Jimmy Hoffa's Body Grand Jury Records Exhumed
Posted by Caleb Hannan on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Retired law professor William Tabac has a theory. He believes that Robert Kennedy's Justice Department used illegal wire-taps to convict Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa of jury tampering in the famed 1964 Test Fleet case.
In 2002, Scene Managing Editor Jim Ridley wrote "The People vs. Jimmy Hoffa," the definitive article on Test Fleet. Featuring an assassination attempt in open court, bold names like Hoffa and Watergate prosecutor Jim Neal and the tragic unraveling of a promising defense attorney, Ridley had plenty of ammo to work with. But he also brought heat with smaller, telling anecdotes, like the following story of how then Tennessean-reporter Nellie Kenyon, a 5-foot "warhorse" who'd been on the courthouse beat since the Scopes trial, scooped everyone.
Kenyon wrote that Hoffa was being investigated in Nashville. Later Neal would ask how she found out. She told him she stood in the cloakroom of the grand jury, and she just played a hunch when she saw the coats all had Detroit labels.Today Nashville Federal Judge Todd Campbell will hear Tabac's petition to unseal secret grand jury records. No matter his judgment, it will be another chapter in the 45-year-old case. One that makes Ridley's final graf that much more prescient:
Grilled about Hoffa's oft-discussed whereabouts, a hit man-turned-informant once alleged the labor leader's body had been disposed in some kind of compactor. "Hoffa," the hit man said, "is now a goddamn hubcap." If that is true, somewhere the strange, sad saga that was the Test Fleet case keeps on rolling, close to the ground but never completely out of sight, indefinitely.To read Parts 1 & 2 of "The People vs. Jimmy Hoffa" go here and here.
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Any speculation about whether or not illegal wiretaps were used by the Kennedys to lock Jimmy Hoffa up could be substantiated immediately and succinctly by John Siegenthaler. Not very damn likely he would cooperate though. Our great American ruling class looks after it own, now doesn't it? But Siegenthaler knows and don't think he doesn't, having been Bobby's lieutenant during that era. And politics and human nature being what they are there is absolutely no reason to expect illegal activities to have been beyond what the Kennedys would do.
Then the whole disgusting project came to its sordid conclusion when Nixon traded campaign money from the Teamsters Central States Fund for a pardon for Jimmy.
The saddest part of all of it is that given the weaknesses of the human condition absolutely no one can be trusted. How can anyone continue youthful faith in the fairy tale of truth, fidelity and the American way in the face of continuing deceit, fraud and incompetence on the part of our rulers. Our only consolation is that Hannan, Ridley, et al are watching, notepad in hand, ready to blow the whistle. (And best we'd be watching them too. 'Cause their human frailties are just like everyone elses.)
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The transcript is now out:
http://politics.nashvillepost.com/2009/07/12/unearthing-hoffa-evidence/
-Tom
