DETROIT – Jimmy Hoffa had a bitter relationship with former president John F. Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, who made it a mission to put Hoffa in prison.
Hoffa first feuded with the Kennedy family during the McClellan Senate hearings in 1957 when Bobby Kennedy was going after corruption in labor unions. Hoffa’s relationship with the Kennedy brothers has been described as a blood feud.
Hoffa walked away from the hearings, which lasted 270 days, a free man.
When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, he named Bobby Kennedy as the attorney general, and they vowed to continue pursuing Hoffa.
After the president’s assassination in 1963, evidence would surface over the next decade suggesting a conspiracy. That conspiracy came from the Mafia, and Hoffa was at the center of it.
“I believe Hoffa put a contract out on John Kennedy to stop his brother,” said Dan Moldea, author of The Hoffa Wars. “I think the contract was picked up by Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss in New Orleans, and Santo Trafficante, the Mafia boss in Tampa, Florida, who then arranged and executed the murder.”
Despite the conspiracies connecting Hoffa to JFK’s death, no charges have ever been brought against anyone.
If you’re a fan of podcasts and the Hoffa story, click here to listen to Episode 1 of Local 4′s series “Shattered: Hoffa.”
At 10 p.m. Wednesday, Local 4 will air a documentary special on Hoffa, an investigation that took us places we never expected -- from the casinos of Las Vegas to the mob families of New York to the Kennedy assassination.