Jimmy's 3rd Mistake

By Brian Flanigan

The fact that he "mysteriously" disappeared two months ago from a Bloomfield Township restaurant parking lot almost guarantees that Jimmy Hoffa's just-released autobiography, Hoffa: The Real Story, will be read from Hoboken to Hollywood.

Unfortunately, it's probably not worth it.

For $8.95, publishers Stein and Day try and hand us a short (175 pages) manuscript peppered with two dozen photos that look like they came right out of the former Teamsters president's scrapbook.

Basically self-serving, Hoffa's story "as told to" veteran sports writer Oscar Fraley, does contain a few interesting historical tidbits about the stocky, slick-haired former dockworker.

And we do get at least two earfuls about his self-confessed "two disastrous mistakes"—pumpkin-faced Frank Fitzsimmons, hand-picked by Jimmy to sit on the Teamsters throne until Hoffa got out of prison, and East Coast touch football star Bobby Kennedy.

Using a style that desperately tries to be as hard-hitting as Hoffa always claimed he was, we're introduced to a young Jimmy living in the soup-line world of the 1930's, where a slab of bread "buttered" with lard was a dining luxury. In what would undoubtedly make a great plot for a Kirk Douglas flick, we get Hoffa's version of the fabled two-fisted approach he employed on his way to the driver's seat of the nation's truckers.

"[Robert Kennedy] was a parasite who had to work for the government because he wouldn't have known how to make an honest living. He used a knife for a crutch and if it hadn't been for his family he would have made somebody a good law clerk."

Why did Kennedy hate Hoffa?

Well, if you believe Jimmy, part of the reason

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was because one night in Chevy Chase, Md., the trucking king beat the walking toothpaste commercial from Massachusetts in an arm wrestling contest.

Listing a set of "charges" that are rapidly being publicized nationally, Hoffa accuses hand-picked successor Frank Fitzsimmons with almost everything from rubbing bellies with mobsters to clogging the kitchen sink. Even though all of Hoffa's allegations are exactly the same things he was accused of fifteen years ago, it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that the former labor leader was serving notice that he would use whatever means necessary to sit back down on the trucking throne.

Although the "autobiography" could probably also be titled The Last Will and Testament of James Riddle Hoffa, it isn't worth the price. Besides being inconsistent at best, Jimmy didn't tell us the truth. Even though he was obviously aware of it, he never mentioned anything about his third "disastrous mistake."

He trusted fat Frank. He battled with Bobby Kennedy.

And he tried to make a comeback.

Brian Flanigan is a free-lance writer who lives in Detroit. His work appears regularly in the Michigan Chronicle.