The day Jimmy Hoffa didn't come home
By Pat Zacharias / The Detroit News
On July 30, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa left his Lake Orion home for a meeting. Paroled from federal prison three years earlier, the former Teamster president had recently announced plans to try to wrestle back control of the union he had built with his bare knuckles from his protege -- now adversary -- Frank Fitzsimmons.
Anthony Giacalone, a reputed captain of organized crime in Detroit, was supposed to meet Hoffa that day.
James R. Hoffa as a Teamsters organizer in 1939.
Jimmy told his wife Josephine he would be home around 4 p.m. to grill streaks for dinner. After 39 years of marriage, she knew Jimmy would not be late.
Witnesses saw him waiting in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in upscale Bloomfield Township. He never made it home.
Hoffa. The name alone stirs strong emotions and opinions. Was he a visionary union hero or brutal despot? Was he a labor crusader or a criminal?......
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