Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was reported missing on this day in 1975. Head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hoffa had been involved with the union since 1933 when he was just 20 years old and became president in 1957. His involvement with the Chicago mafia was no secret, nor was it unusual for labor leaders of the era. The same year, his open corruption got the Teamsters kicked out of the AFL-CIO, a larger umbrella organization, and brought the union under congressional investigation. To dodge scrutiny, he tried to bribe an aide and got himself arrested.
Investigations and court cases mounted. Hoffa was convicted twice in 1964, first for jury tampering and then for conspiracy, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He entered prison in 1967 on a 13-year sentence. Somehow, he remained president of the union until his resignation in 1971. He was released after President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence; by coincidence, the Teamsters backed Nixon in the next election.
Hoffa tried to retake the union presidency but faced resistance from Mafia members who ran much of the organization, in part because he had feuded with a mob capo while in prison. A group of mobsters offered to mediate between the two, and they all met on July 30. Hoffa called his wife from near the meeting spot in the early afternoon, complaining that the capo had not shown up. Not long after, he disappeared.
So what happened to Hoffa? No one knows, but it was almost certainly a mob hit. It did not happen in the parking lot where he was waiting because there was no sign of a struggle. The prevailing theory is that he was lured away, but to where remains unknown. It is also unclear where his body ended up; theories range from a nearby landfill to a crematorium to beneath Giants Stadium.
