Playboy Interview: Jimmy Hoffa

The bumper sticker read: Where's Jimmy Hoffa? Call 313-962-7297. It was on an old flatbed truck on the John C. Lodge Freeway in Detroit. Thousands of similar bumper stickers on cars and trucks across the country asked the question: What happened to the "little guy" who wheeled and dealed with money, words and clubs from the streets of Detroit to the huge white monument of a building known as Teamster International Headquarters in Washington?

Hoffa has been missing since July 30, 1975. His family last saw him when he reportedly left his home to attend a meeting with alleged mobster Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, former Teamster vicepresident Anthony "Tony Pro" Proven-zano--a New Jersey man with alleged Mafia ties--and Leonard Schultz, a labor consultant and reputedly a key associate of Giacalone's. Supposedly, the meeting was arranged to mend fences after Hoffa and Tony Pro had a falling out while both were serving time at the Federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

At 2:30 P.M., Jimmy called his wife, Josephine, and asked, "Has Tony Giacalone called?"

At 3:30 P.M., Hoffa called longtime friend Louis Linteau, who runs an airline-limousine service in Pontiac: "Tony Jack didn't show, goddamn it. I'm coming out there."

Two witnesses placed Hoffa in front of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, around the time of the call to Linteau.

Hoffa has not been heard from since.

James Riddle Hoffa devoted his life to the Teamsters Union; and if he is dead, as his family believes, it's likely that his hope to regain its presidency became his death warrant.

Hoffa first learned about power in the streets of Detroit in the Thirties, when being a union organizer often meant getting one's head busted--not once but many times. Hoffa stood 5'5-1/2", had an eighth-grade education and had never read a book from cover to cover. But he understood labor contracts and how to get them.

He got his first contract by waiting for a giant load of fresh strawberries to arrive at a Kroger grocery dock, then calling a strike. Kroger got its strawberries and Hoffa got his contract--in record time.

He took charge of a 400-member union and a $400 pension fund. Within a few years, the membership was 5000 and the fund was $50,000. Today, U. S. Teamsters number 2,200,000 and the fund is in the billions.

Tough and savvy, Hoffa whipsawed trucking companies like poker chips, playing one against another, until, by 1939, he had negotiated area-wide contracts, which were unheard of at the time. The Teamsters territory continued to grow until Hoffa controlled a series of interlocking "conferences" that spanned the country.

Then, in 1957, the Senate launched an investigation of racketeer influence and mismanagement in the Teamsters, and the McClellan Committee came down on the Teamsters with a vengeance. It charged that the Teamsters, allied with organized crime, ran their union with violence, fraud, sweetheart contracts and misuse of pension funds. Dave Beck went to jail and Jimmy Hoffa inherited the presidency of the International.

From the beginning, the confrontation between Hoffa and committee counsel Robert Kennedy was acrimonious. The hatred each man had for the other is supposed to have provoked a "get Hoffa" policy when Kennedy later became Attorney General. The bitterness did not change with time, for even recently, seven years after Kennedy's assassination, Hoffa described him simply as"that creep."

Whether or not there was a get-Hoffa campaign, the Government did get Hoffa--not on the $1,000,000 kickback indictment it returned in 1962 (which resulted in a mistrial) but for jury tampering. He was convicted in 1964 and four months later received additional convictions for mail and wire fraud and misuse of union pension funds.

Hoffa's 13-year sentence was commuted by President Nixon in 1971 after he had spent almost five years in Lewisburg prison. The commutation included a provision banning him from all union activities until 1980--a provision Hoffa claimed he did not know about (and would not have accepted) until after his release.

After getting out of jail, Hoffa was obsessed with a desire to return to union power.His suit before the U. S. District Court in 1974 failed to overturn the no-union provision of his commutation, but an appeal was still pending in the U. S. Court of Appeals. The appeal might well have been upheld by the court, and that probably would have returned Hoffa to power by 1976--unless something un-expected happened.

Before he went to prison, Hoffa named Frank E. Fitzsimmons, a 30-year friend and associate, to serve as acting president of the International. It was understood, Hoffa claimed, that he would be restored the power when he was released from prison, a release Fitzsimmons was pledged to expedite. After his release, Hoffa claimed that Fitzsimmons had double-crossed him, that he had made no effort to get him out of jail and, in fact, had decided that he liked his job as president of the International and intended to keep it.

Jerry Stanecki, an investigative reporter for WXYZ Radio in Detroit, owned by ABC, had had several long conversations with Hoffa by spring of this year. When Playboy asked Stanecki to conduct a full-length interview, Hoffa told the reporter that he didn't want to be in a "magazine with tits on the back of my picture." He finally agreed, however. But because of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this interview, not all of Hoffa's allegations could be verified through normal channels. The last conversations took place in June, a little over a month before the disappearance, and since events intervened, we were unable to send Stanecki back to Hoffa with the customary follow-up questions. Stanecki reports:

"I first met Jimmy about two years ago. His wife and son had been tossed out of their Teamster jobs--Jimmy, Jr., a lawyer, as counsel, Jo as head of the women's political-action group. Newspapers were filled with speculation about a deepening Hoffa-Fitzsimmons rift. Most of the reports suggested that Hoffa himself had planted the speculation in the press. It was only after I called the manager of the condominium Jimmy owns in Florida and asked her to knock on his door with a request that he call me that I learned Hoffa hadn't talked with any reporters. 'I said no such a goddaman thing,' he told me.

"Apparently, he was impressed with the idea that I had gone to the trouble of finding him and getting his side of the story. From then on, Jimmy was available to me. He checked me out to see if I could be trusted, of course. And apparently I could be trusted. Often during the past two years I have gotten calls from Teamster officials, saying, 'Jimmy says you're OK. Here's what's going on.'

"I saw him many times and talked with him on the phone literally hundreds of times. Hoffa, a man who hated the press, seemed to consider me a friend.

"Jimmy lived in a modest lake-front home in Lake Orion, about 40 miles from Detroit. It sits on four acres of land that is neatly trimmed and decorated with statues of deer. He installed a teeter-totter and a merry-go-round for his grandchildren, to whom he was obviously devoted.

"When I arrived at his home to begin the 'Playboy Interview,' Hoffa was dressed in work pants, blue shirt and chukka boots. He was feeling good. It was a warm, sunny May day. We walked first to the lake in front of his house, where he had been raking leaves and sticks from the swimming area. Back at the house, he offered me some coffee and we walked to his new kitchen. There we sat down and began to talk.

"It was said that Jimmy Hoffa's penetrating stare could make strong men wither, but he could also be a charmer. My wife, Carolyn, met Hoffa only under protest: As we drove onto his property, she said she really didn't feel comfortable and asked that we' just stay ten minutes.' As we walked to the door, I knew what she was thinking: Where are the walls, the bodyguards, the dogs? When we were sitting at a lawn table with Jimmy and Josephine, Carolyn asked him about security. Jimmy laughed. 'I don't have a bodyguard,' he said. 'If there's a problem, I can handle it.'

"Later, as we drove home, Carolyn said, 'Gee, he's a likable man, after all.' He is--or was--indeed. But it wasn't the only quality that took him to the top."

[Q] Playboy: Let's start with your personality. You've been described as a man with a very big ego. Is that accurate?

[A] Hoffa: Certainly, I got an ego! A man don't have an ego, he don't have any money and he don't have any ambition. Mine's big enough to do the job I wanna do. Actually, an ego is just imagination. And if you don't have imagination, you'll be working for somebody for the rest of your life.

[Q] Playboy: You don't like taking orders from anyone, then.

[A] Hoffa: What the hell do you think, somebody's gonna push me? I don't get pushed. If somebody argues with me, I'll take him on; if somebody wants to rassle with me, well, I'll take him on, too.

[Q] Playboy: You're 62 this year. Have you mellowed any?

[A] Hoffa: Oh, I wouldn't say mellowed. I'd just say I got more common sense now than I had before. I used to take anybody on. Now I select who I take on.

[Q] Playboy: How wealthy are you?

[A] Hoffa: I think I'll be able to eat and live comfortable for the rest of my life. But so far as what I have ... let it speak for itself. It's been in the press.

[Q] Playboy: Are you a millionaire?

[A] Hoffa: I would say.

[Q] Playboy: We heard that you and Jimmy, Jr., got into a discussion on money and you commented, "How many men can come up with two million cash immediately?"

[A] Hoffa: I would say, exactly right. I'll put it to you this way: I just read an article the other day where they estimate that there's less than one half of one percent of people who can lay their hands on $50,000 liquid cash overnight.

[Q] Playboy: So you're comfortable. What else are you living for?

[A] Hoffa: For the sake of living. I enjoy every minute of it, good, bad or indifferent. I enjoy life everyday--and I'm looking forward to spending that life as part of the labor movement.

[Q] Playboy: OK, let's get into that. By the terms of your release from prison, you've been banned from participating in the labor movement until 1980, and you're appealing that in the courts. If the courts ruled in your favor and you got your position back as president of the Teamsters, what would be your first priority?

[A] Hoffa: Restructure the union back the way it was when I was there and reinstitute the trade divisions. Likewise, I'd reinstitute some additional organizers for the purpose of having master contracts. There's no other way unions can survive, except with master contracts--whether it's the building trades, retail clerks, meat-cutters or anybody else. We need a common expiration date for the contracts of all unions.

[Q] Playboy: That would virtually give you the power to bring the entire economy to a halt.

[A] Hoffa: Well, corporations have it. The oil cartel, the lumber cartel, the steel cartel--they're all exactly the same.

[Q] Playboy: But they're not united, the way you want the unions to be.

[A] Hoffa: Of course they're united. There isn't a damned thing that happens in one of those industries that doesn't conform to what industry leaders decide together. The only thing they don't discuss collectively--at least openly--is prices. But as far as everything else goes, you'll find they have a master organization, a master contract. Put it to you this way: So far as power is concerned, does anybody believe the premiums of insurance companies are almost all uniform by accident? Is it an accident that if the price of gasoline goes up in one company, all the other prices go up the same rate in a matter of weeks?

[Q] Playboy: Still, giving one man control over union contracts with a common expiration date isn't something the Congress would look upon very favorably.

[A] Hoffa: The Congress of the United States wants to be judge, jury and prosecutor over what's good for the American people. And they think anyone who has a bloc of votes is dangerous. Truth is, everything the Congress has touched has been a failure. Can't show me one progressive thing they've did that didn't turn out a failure.

[Q] Playboy: What you want, however, would make Hoffa king, wouldn't it?

[A] Hoffa: Not true.

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't it allow Hoffa to control the economy, to control politicians?

[A] Hoffa: One of these days it will happen without Hoffa. And it's happening today. With inflation, unemployment, the states and cities going bankrupt, people will accept labor leaders in positions of power in the Government, they'll want a voice in what's good for them. As far as being a king goes, well, I don't know if a king has that power today. There's damned few kings left. And there's gonna be a damned sight less before it's over with. But by birthright, by being an American, you're entitled to have a job. If the democratic system cannot supply you with a job, you have to change the system of government--whether it's Hoffa, politicians or whoever. Call it what you wanna call it.

[Q] Playboy: How would you keep corruption out of government?

[A] Hoffa: Isn't there corruption now? You sat through Watergate, didn't you? You see it going into the CIA, going into the FBI, going into state and city government. What is corruption? Is it corruption that you give a man a year's guarantee that he'll have a roof over his head, something to eat? Is it corruption that government should take over the utilities so people won't be deprived of the necessities of life? Take, for instance, Honduras. The banana people said they'd give over $2,000,000 to the government there--is that corruption or survival? Would bananas go off the shelves of every supermarket in America if they hadn't paid? Of course they would. Now, what are you gonna do about it? What's corruption today is not corruption tomorrow.

[Q] Playboy: Have the Teamsters gone to hell since you were forced out?

[A] Hoffa: Well, they haven't advanced. There are no master contracts, other than the ones I left them. The organizing campaigns and the joint councils of the local unions have deteriorated. And the morale of the local officers, the organizers, is at an all-time low, from what I hear. Even the members feel uncomfortable they don't have someone steerin' the ship. The leaders are too busy on the golf course, flyin' around in seven jet airplanes they own. Why the hell do they own seven? Most corporations don't own that many.

[Q] Playboy: Do you blame the present head of the Teamsters, Frank Fitzsimmons?

[A] Hoffa: Fitzsimmons has failed. He has failed in every promise he made to the union convention. He can't show one single thing that he said he would do that he did. Can't show one thing. Not one.

[Q] Playboy: How did you and Fitzsimmons split?

[A] Hoffa: Well, as far as I'm concerned, when I found out that Fitzsimmons, uh, lied when he said he'd been talking confidentially to John Mitchell about getting me out of prison.

[Q] Playboy: Let's backtrack a bit. At first you thought Fitzsimmons was doing everything the could to get you out of prison?

[A] Hoffa: During the whole time I was in prison, Fitzsimmons kept tellin' everybody--my son, my lawyers, all the union representatives--"Now, don't do anything, you'll rock the boat. I'm taking care of it with Mitchell." Well, when Mitchell later gave his deposition, he said the first time Fitzsimmons ever talked to him about me was in June 1971. I'd been in jail five years. It was when I'd already resigned and given Fitzsimmons the green light to become president. Then I found out that he'd fired Edward Bennett Williams as Teamsters' counsel and replaced him with Charles Colson. And when I found out there was a restriction on my parole until 1980, it didn't take a ton of bricks to fall on me to put two and two together--that he'd been lyin' all along.

[Q] Playboy: You said Fitzsimmons kept saying he was going to work on Mitchell. Meaning what?

[A] Hoffa: He claimed to all and any that he was responsible for getting me a rehearing on my parole and that Mitchell was going to take executive action to get me out of prison. As I said, when Mitchell gave his deposition later on, he said, "I talked to Fitzsimmons about Hoffa, among other things, in June 1971." Well, what a flat lie Fitzsimmons had been tellin' everyone in the union--for a period of almost five years!

[Q] Playboy: How was Fitzsimmons going to persuade Mitchell?

[A] Hoffa: I suppose by using his alleged influence with Nixon and by using his, uh, political arm to support the Republican Party.

[Q] Playboy: With campaign contributions?

[A] Hoffa: I don't know about that. I suppose he said he'd give him $14,000 [a publicly disclosed campaign contribution], which is a lot of nonsense. But the truth of the matter is he never did anything. I also found out from Dean that he didn't even know Fitzsimmons and he was sitting right outside Nixon's door.

[Q] Playboy: John Dean?

[A] Hoffa: Yeah. And it'd be damned funny that anyone could go in and out of the White House without knowing John Dean. In any case, what Colson did was wait until the President was coming in or out of his office, then introduce him: "Mr. President, this is Frank Fitzsimmons." "Hello, how are ya?" Then Colson would take him up to have dinner in the Senate Building.

Well, that's a hell of a big deal. Anybody must be out of their mind if they're head of the Teamsters Union and can be brushed off that way. In any case, John Dean testified that he and Colson had discussed the 1980 restriction and what with Colson already having the offer from the Teamsters to become general counsel, it all adds up to ... it leads me to believe that Fitzsimmons deliberately double-crossed, uh, the membership, the convention, my lawyers and myself. And that's it. So I don't wanna do business with a double-crosser ... or a liar.

[Q] Playboy: If Fitzsimmons, Colson and Dean were working against you, how did you finally get a parole?

[A] Hoffa: It came about because over 1,500,000 signatures were sent to the President of the United States. It came about by hundreds of thousands of letters going to the Attorney General and the President. Since Nixon was facing an election, in my opinion he didn't want to have to face all those people. So he met with Mitchell, according to Mitchell's affidavit, and they discussed the release of one James R. Hoffa. And it was agreed I would be released before Christmas 1971.

Immediately after that, when the recommendation was sent out, Dean intercepted it. Dean testified, or implied, that he and Mitchell talked about inserting the 1980 restriction into the recommendation at that time. Mitchell denies this.

[Q] Playboy: So the original recommendation made by Mitchell and President Nixon did not have the 1980 restriction.

[A] Hoffa: It did not. Furthermore, Dean called in Colson and [Presidential aide] Clark Mollenhoff and they decided on the restriction without talking to the Attorney General or the President and rewrote the recommendation, keeping it confidential even from everyone else at the White House--until 14 minutes after I was out of jail. They were convinced that if I knew the 1980 restriction was there, I wouldn't have accepted.

[Q] Playboy: But the President did sign the order, didn't he?

[A] Hoffa: Aw, sure. Along with 212 other ones. But I'm sure the President didn't think Mitchell had changed what they'd agreed upon. And I'm sure he didn't read through 212 commutations and pardons.

[Q] Playboy: How about you? You read it. didn't you?

[A] Hoffa: I couldn't read it! I wasn't there. Wasn't anything I signed.

[Q] Playboy: And your attorneys?

[A] Hoffa:Nobody knew! Fourteen minutes after I'd gotten out of jail, they announced the restriction to the warden, to my attorneys, to the public. I found out about it hours later on the news. When I went to see the head of the parole board after the holidays, he didn't know about it. Nobody had informed him. He had to call Washington to find out what they were talking about and it wasn't until January 14, 1972, that I received notification of the restriction in the mail. And I refused to sign it.

[Q] Playboy: There was no hint, no suggestion before you left prison?

[A] Hoffa: I had asked the warden specifically, was there any restriction other than the one banning me from union activity until March 1973 [when Hoffa would have been released anyway]? He called Washington and said, "No."

[Q] Playboy: But you signed something to get out of Lewisburg, didn't you?

[A] Hoffa: Commutation. Read every word of it. Being suspicious-minded as I am concerning public people, I asked the warden to call Washington and find out if that's all there was. He came back and said that was all there was to it.

[Q] Playboy: So the letter you got on January 14 was the first you saw of the 1980 restriction?

[A] Hoffa: That's right. And I never signed it to this day.

[Q] Playboy: Your signature doesn't appear on any document that relates to the 1980 restriction?

[A] Hoffa: Never will be on it.

[Q] Playboy: And you blame whom?

[A] Hoffa: In my opinion, Dean, Mollenhoff, Colson and Fitzsimmons.

[Q] Playboy: So there was a conspiracy to keep Hoffa out of the union?

[A] Hoffa: I would say, uh, there certainly was an understanding of, uh, everyone of 'em getting a piece of the pie they wanted. And they used Dean to get the pie.

[Q] Playboy: What would Dean get out of it?

[A] Hoffa: Oh, probably a favor to Colson. I don't know if he got any promises of the hereafter, when he'd be out of government. But it could have been a favor to Colson for whatever dealings they had together. If you read the Watergate deal, they had a lot of dealings together. Scratching each other's back, I suppose.

[Q] Playboy: And Colson?

[A] Hoffa: Colson would receive, first of all. the job of general counsel to the Teamsters.

[Q] Playboy: How about Mollenhoff?

[A] Hoffa: He'd have satisfied his own, uh, dislike for myself, to keep me out of the union.

[Q] Playboy: Couldn't Fitzsimmons have gotten to Nixon directly through Colson?

[A] Hoffa: Reading the White House transcripts, I don't think Colson was in much of a position to influence Nixon. I think he used Dean rather than the President to accomplish what he wanted.

[Q] Playboy: Straight question: Was there any financial deal made with Nixon to get you out of prison?

[A] Hoffa: Fitzsimmons says no. He says he only gave him $14,000.

[Q] Playboy: So there was no offer of what might be called a bribe?

[A] Hoffa: Absolutely not. Positively not. I did not.

[At this point, there was an interruption and Hoffa walked over to the window of his kitchen. The tape recorder was turned off. but, by mutual agreement, the conversation remained on the record. The interviewer asked: "Come on, Jimmy, was any money paid to Richard Nixon to get you out of prison?"

Hoffa turned from the window and said, "Yaaaaa."

The interviewer asked, "How much?"

The reply, deadly serious, came after a long pause: "You don't wanna know."

A week later, with the tape recorder turned on, the interviewer reminded Hoffa of this exchange. Hoffa denied saying "any such goddamned thing."]

[Q] Playboy: But you had no one approach Nixon and say, "Look, $100,000 goes into your campaign..."?

[A] Hoffa: I had nobody go there. If anybody went there, it was without my knowledge--even though there is a statement floating around that Allen Dorfman [a special consultant to the Teamsters' largest health-and-welfare fund] said at his trial in New York that he had a receipt signed by Mitchell for a large sum of money--as a contribution.

[Q] Playboy: How large was the sum supposed to be?

[A] Hoffa: Now, that's never been proven. Mitchell denied it under oath. What the hell's the name of the other guy--Stans? Yeah, Stans, He denied it, too.

[Q] Playboy: Is this Dorfman a friend of yours?

[A] Hoffa: A hundred percent.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't he the man you set up in business through your Chicago contacts back in the Fifties?

[A] Hoffa: No. Nobody set him up in business at all. Allen Dorfman submitted a sealed bid for the insurance. And by unanimous vote of the trustees, he became the agent for the insurance company.

[Q] Playboy: But didn't you control the trustees at the time?

[A] Hoffa: I spoke my piece in favor of Dorfman. Of course I did.

[Q] Playboy: All right. Besides Fitzsimmons. it seems as if Colson were the one person who stood to gain most by the 1980 restriction. When did he go on the Teamsters' payroll?

[A] Hoffa: Within months of the time I got out of prison. He certainly didn't command, by reputation, the retainer he got. Certainly didn't do that.

[Q] Playboy: How much did he get from the Teamsters?

[A] Hoffa: All told, probably in the neigh borhood of $300,000 a year.

[Q] Playboy: What qualifications did Colson have to be a Teamsters lawyer?

[A] Hoffa: Well, he had a shingle.

[Q] Playboy: So it was a deal?

[A] Hoffa:In my opinion.

[Q] Playboy: Jimmy, what about Frank Fitzsimmons?

[A] Hoffa:Well, what the hell about him? I already said he's a double-crosser. And that's all there is to it.

[Q] Playboy: You said----

[A] Hoffa:A man I took off the truck! Made him an officer in the union, saw that he had more than one suit for the first time in his life, that he lived in a decent home, had an expense account! Kept raising him through the ranks of labor! And when I went to jail. he took over the presidency and then he became power hungry. He accepted the belief that he was a great labor leader and came about doing what he did in the 1980 restriction. In my opinion.

[Q] Playboy:Why did he come to believe he was a great labor leader?

[A] Hoffa: How the hell do I know? Look at some of the Congressmen and Senators we got. They couldn't spell rat backward, they couldn't make a living! They get elected and, for Chrissakes, they're on TV, yakking around, telling you how to run the world, and they can't even run their own life! Same thing with him. People look in the mirror too often. They grow by inches--sideways and down--but they don't grow. Their heads get fatter, but they don't get any more sense than they had before. I just think Fitzsimmons has gone completely power nuts, that's all. Someone took him up to the top of the mountain. Showed him the valley, and he bought the valley. But he forgot the membership and he forgot the officers and forgot his responsibility to the oath he took for office.

[Q] Playboy:Will Fitzsimmons be in office through 1980?

[A] Hoffa:I don't think Fitzsimmons will run in 1976.

[Q] Playboy:Why?

[A] Hoffa:Well, the best evidence is he's building a home at La Costa. With his golfing and parading around all over the country in his jet, I don't think he'll be a candidate.

[Q] Playboy: You were the one who extended the first loan to develop La Costa, somewhere around $10,000,000, isn't that right?

[A] Hoffa: Somewhere around there, yeah. Been a long time ago.

[Q] Playboy:How did it start?

[A] Hoffa: Well, Moe Dalitz was the major owner of the Desert Inn. We loaned him money, he paid it back. When he wanted to go into the La Costa enterprise, real estate was booming at the time. And it couldn't go wrong. That real estate's a good buy today!

[Q] Playboy: Was Meyer Lansky part of that?

[A] Hoffa: Meyer Lansky had no more to do with Moe Dalitz than you had, in my opinion.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you and Lansky good friends?

[A] Hoffa: I know him.

[Q] Playboy: Ever do business with him?

[A] Hoffa: Nope. Never asked me to. My opinion, he's another victim of harassment!

[Q] Playboy: Then you don't think he's a member of organized crime?

[A] Hoffa: I don't believe there is any organized crime, period. Don't believe it. Never believed it. I've said it! for the last 40 years.Hoover said it! Supposed to be the greatest law-enforcement man in America, with the means to find out. He said there was no Mafia, no so-called organized crime.

[Q] Playboy: No Mafia?

[A] Hoffa: That's what he said. That's what Hoover said.

[Q] Playboy: But in 1958, during the McClellan hearings, it was said that you knew more dangerous criminals than Dave Beck.

[A] Hoffa: Ah-ha! That's a different question! I don't deny the fact that I know, I think, what's going on in most of the big cities of the United States. And that means knowing the people, uh, who are in the big cities. I'm no different than the banks, no different than insurance companies, no different than the politicians. You're a damned fool not to be informed what makes a city run when you're tryin' to do business in the city.

[Q] Playboy: What about people like Lansky and Frank Costello?

[A] Hoffa: What about 'em?

[Q] Playboy: The McClellan Committee said that they were organized-crime members, members of the Mafia.

[A] Hoffa: Yeah, yeah, sure. They said I was associated with the Mafia. They said Dorfman was part of the Mafia. And it's a complete, 100 percent lie. They know it. Everybody else knows it. So it's easy to say, "Well, he's a Mafia member, 'cause he got an Italian name." Once in a while they say, for a man like Lansky, who's a Jew, "Oh, well, he was accepted."

[Q] Playboy: How about Paul "The Waiter" Ricca?

[A] Hoffa: What about him? Jesus Christ Almighty! He was in Chicago for 99 years and a day and if they thought he was so much involved in organized crime, why the hell didn't they arrest him? Hell of a note that the FBI, and the Congress, and the newspapers and everybody else says So-and-So's part of the Mafia; So-and-So's doing this.... Why don't they arrest him? Why the hell don't they put him on trial? What the hell they doing? Keeping him alive, like a mummy, so they can keep writing about him?

[Q] Playboy: So where is Ricca now?

[A] Hoffa: Dead! [Pause] Dead! Why the hell----What are you talking about all these people?

[Q] Playboy: What about Johnny Dio?

[A] Hoffa: Friend of mine. No question about that.

[Q] Playboy: Member of organized crime?

[A] Hoffa: Like you are.

[Q] Playboy: Member of the Mafia?

[A] Hoffa: Like you are.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't he convicted of extortion?

[A] Hoffa: Ah-ha! That's a different question. I know Johnny's case. I know what Johnny's in jail for. Don't agree with it. Trying to help him get out. Should be out. Our association's Trying to help him get out. And he's a victim of newspaper publicity, just like I was. [Pause] Damned funny, though! All these people are supposed to have millions and millions of dollars. Can't afford to hire lawyers. [Pause] Damned funny. I saw some of the biggest ones that there was supposed to be, in prison. And their wives were on welfare and they didn't have enough money to come down and visit 'em. And yet they keep talking about the millions they got.

[Q] Playboy: Like who?

[A] Hoffa:Well, I don't care to mention their names and embarrass them. But I seen 'em. They're there. [Pause] Damned funny. I know people in town here, right in Detroit, say they're part of the Mafia! Well, Christ! They ain't making a living! How come, if they're part of the Mafia, they're not making a living?

[Q] Playboy: Care to be specific?

[A] Hoffa: No, I don't want to ... everybody knows who they are . . . the police department knows, the prosecutor's office knows, the media knows....

[Q] Playboy:What about Tony Giacalone?

[A] Hoffa: Giacalone! Giacalone! Giacalone's a businessman!

[Q] Playboy: Didn't he have dealings with La Costa?

[A] Hoffa: La Costa! What the hell's he got to do with La Costa?

[Q] Playboy:You mean he had no involvement at all?

[A] Hoffa: Record speaks for itself. Got nothin' more to do with La Costa than you have. May have visited it--went to the spa or to one of the golf tournaments down there, 'cause he's a golfer. Why, he's got as much to do with La Costa as you have!

[Q] Playboy: But Giacalone was named as a member of organized crime by a Senate committee back in----

[A] Hoffa: What the hell has that got to do with it? I appeared in front of the same committee and they lied about me! They lied about Giacalone! They never proved it! And if they had such a charge, why in the hell didn't they charge everybody with conspiracy and go to court?

[Q] Playboy: Conspiracy's hard to prove; it's almost impossible to prove.

[A] Hoffa: Like hell! The easiest crime in the world to prove. Anybody indicted for a conspiracy, a lawyer will tell you it's the easiest crime the Government can prove. And that's why they put it on the books as conspiracy. The mere fact that you meet with somebody, or the fact that circumstantial evidence is involved.... What the hell're you talking about? It's the easiest crime in the book to prove. That's why they use conspiracy.

[Q] Playboy: As far as conspiracies go, you've always believed that the Government was out to "get Hoffa," haven't you?

[A] Hoffa:Of course. First, Bobby Kennedy wanted to use the Teamsters as a vehicle to get the Kennedy name out front with something that was probably the greatest thriller that ever appeared on TV [the televised McClellan hearings]. And when he couldn't bull me, when he couldn't take over the Teamsters, why, it became a vendetta between he and I. And he used $12,000,000 in Government money to convict me. Who the hell ever heard of the Kennedys before the McClellan Committee? They were nobody. A bootlegger, the old man. Common, ordinary bootlegger.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever wire-tapped anybody?

[A] Hoffa: I've hired people to secure information for me where they could possibly secure it.

[Q] Playboy: Did they secure it by wire tapping?

[A] Hoffa: I didn't ask them. Not interested.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever tap Bobby Kennedy?

[A] Hoffa: If they did, I don't know. But I received information on Kennedy. How they got it, none of my business. Wouldn't wanna know it.

[Q] Playboy: Did you tap any FBI agents?

[A] Hoffa: No. I didn't tap 'em. Somebody else ... uh, Bernie Spindel [a free-lance electronics expert] set up a monitoring system in Chattanooga and took information outta the air from three of the FBI radio channels. We found out the FBI was violating the law; they were sur-veilling my lawyers and my witnesses. We also proved they were attempting to get information which was tantamount to interfering with justice. And then we submitted the transcripts to the judge, Frank Wilson. He opened the envelope, then charged we had tricked him and he had a fit. The next batch we handed him, Wilson wouldn't open; I think it's because among the transcripts was one of him making a telephone communication to Bobby Kennedy--and that was in the middle of the trial.

[Q] Playboy: So then you had issued orders to tap Wilson's phone?

[A] Hoffa: No. It's not a question of tapping Wilson's phone.

[Q] Playboy: Kennedy's phone, then?

[A] Hoffa: No. Taken out of the air.

[Q] Playboy: Bullshit! You can't just take phone conversations "out of the air."

[A] Hoffa: Don't tell me it's bullshit! Don't tell me what they can do. I have the proof! Frank Wilson finally admitted he did talk to Bobby Kennedy during the trial, although he said he was talking about hiring clerks for overtime typing. But it took 45 minutes to do it! [Judge Wilson says that at no time did he communicate with Kennedy.]

As to taking out of the air, Bernie did it with about a ton of equipment he brought down with him. We gave him a suite and set it all up and, being the best expert in the United States, he just reached out with his communication system and took it out of the air. Right outta of the air, everything that was going on. They knew it could be done. They do it every day in the week.

[Q] Playboy: There's a story that you ordered, Marilyn Monroe's phone tapped----

[A] Hoffa: That's the silliest thing I ever read in my life.

[Q] Playboy: And that the tapes are still supposed to be in existence.

[A] Hoffa: Aw, that's a lotta crap! I never said no such thing. I read that stupid statement in that stupid book. And, uh, the "Mailer" who wrote that book, I think his name was----

[Q] Playboy: Norman Mailer.

[A] Hoffa: The stupidest thing I ever read in my life. He admitted he hardly interviewed anybody, that all he did was gather information other people had wrote and did a book on it. [It was not Mailer's Marilyn that contained the allegation Hoffa referred to, but The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe, by Robert F. Slatzer.] And I understand right now he's in the process of writing a book on me. When he does, I'm gonna sue him. Very simple.

[Q] Playboy: What if Mailer called and asked to interview you?

[A] Hoffa: Wouldn't talk to him, under no circumstances. I think he must be some kind of nut.

[Q] Playboy: All right, what about the allegations about the Marilyn Monroe tapes?

[A] Hoffa: Marilyn Monroe? I never knew she existed with Bobby Kennedy. If I did, I would've told him about it in open hearing. I already had a tape on Bobby Kennedy and Jack Kennedy, which was so filthy and so nasty--given to me by a girl--that even though my people encouraged me to do it, I wouldn't do it. I put it away and said the hell with it. Forget about it.

[Q] Playboy: What was on the tape?

[A] Hoffa: Oh, their association with this young lady and what they had did, and so forth. I got rid of the tape. I wouldn't put up with it. [Pause] Pure nonsense.

[Q] Playboy: You didn't feel you had a way to get back at Bobby?

[A] Hoffa: I would not embarrass his wife and family.

[Q] Playboy: Well, you've mentioned it now.

[A] Hoffa: Let it be at that. Let it stay that way. I'm not talkin' about what's dirty and nasty. Maybe some people wouldn't think it. I did.

[Q] Playboy: Who was the girl?

[A] Hoffa: I'm not sayin' that. [Pause] I know.

[Q] Playboy: All right. Did you ever threaten to kill Bobby Kennedy?

[A] Hoffa: Nope. Another lie.

[Q] Playboy: What about killing people?

[A] Hoffa: Self-preservation's a big word.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever exercised your need for self-preservation?

[A] Hoffa: Never had to.

[Q] Playboy: You've never killed anybody?

[A] Hoffa: Never had to exercise the selfpreservation. But I'm certainly not going to let someone kill me.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever ordered anybody to be killed?

[A] Hoffa: [Pause] Mmm, nope.

[Q] Playboy: Killing isn't the way to solve a problem?

[A] Hoffa: No, I don't think it solves anything. It just creates a few more problems--the FBI, the local police, newspapers. [Pause] Kill'em by propaganda. Kill 'em by votes. But not physically kill 'em.

[Q] Playboy: How about busting heads?

[A] Hoffa: Nothin' wrong with that, if they're in your way, uh, tryin' to break a strike or tryin' to destroy the union. Nothin' wrong with that, in my opinion.

[Q] Playboy: You do have a reputation for busting heads that goes way back.

[A] Hoffa: Survival of the fittest, my friend. What do you think industry does? What do you think the police do? Police broke our heads every day of the week in 1932. Ford Motors? They cracked heads all over the lot. Unless you were able to take care of yourself, they'd crack your head where it'd kill you. I survived.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever hired any bodyguards?

[A] Hoffa: Never. Don't need 'em. Don't need 'em. They're in your way.

[Q] Playboy: But not everybody loves Jimmy Hoffa.

[A] Hoffa: I'm not interested in what everybody does. You got a bodyguard, you become careless, and if you look at all the gangsters that were killed with bodyguards, you'll know they went to sleep. I don't care to go to sleep.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean, gangsters?

[A] Hoffa: People who allegedly were, uh, involved in bank robberies and other kind of illegal enterprises individually. They had bodyguards. How about the question of Roosevelt? He had all kind of bodyguards down in Florida, didn't he? Little guy pops up nobody ever heard of. He starts shooting. He killed the mayor [Anton Cermak of Chicago], didn't he? Well, what do you want? What do you want? Bodyguards make you go to sleep and I don't care to go to sleep. The only guy who needs a bodyguard is a liar, a cheat, a guy who betrays friendship. I don't do any of them. What the hell do you need a bodyguard for?

[Q] Playboy: So you're not afraid of anything?

[A] Hoffa: What the hell am I gonna be afraid of? I'm 62 years old. I should've been dead maybe 25 years ago. Lived three lives. Well, what am I gonna be afraid of? Never was afraid in my life and don't intend to start tomorrow. Who's gonna bother me? They do? Well, then I'll do somethin' about that.

[Q] Playboy: You'll do what, exactly?

[A] Hoffa: Whatever I have to do.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean?

[A] Hoffa: Just whatever I have to do to eliminate somebody bothers me.... I'll do whatever I have to do.

[Q] Playboy: Such as killing them?

[A] Hoffa: Well, if they try to kill me and I'm in the position to take away their gun, or whatever the hell they're using against me. If they get shot, that's their trouble. It ain't mine. Hell, if I had people try to kill me, I survived it. Didn't have no bodyguard, but I survived the... the threat of being killed, the attempt to be killed. I'm still here. 'Cause I keep my eyes open--drive my own car, go where I wanna go, never need no bodyguard. I don't cheat nobody. I don't lie about nobody. I don't frame nobody. I don't talk bad about people. If I do, I tell 'em. So what the hell's people gonna try to kill me for?

[Q] Playboy: To get you out of the way. If you win in your fight against the 1980 restriction, don't you think somebody will try to have you killed?

[A] Hoffa: Hell, no. Hell, no. Go out and ask any ten people you want--not union members--any ten people in the United States, ask 'em whether or not I should have the right to get back in the union, and whether or not Fitzsimmons doublecrossed me. You'll get your answer.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think Fitzsimmons might go as far as trying to eliminate you?

[A] Hoffa: Hasn't got the guts.

[Q] Playboy: If he's gutless, then why did you bring him up through the ranks and give him the power he now has?

[A] Hoffa: Very simple. We never asked Fitzsimmons to go on a picket line or get involved in violence. We never asked Fitzsimmons to go out and do anything that could get him bad publicity, because in every union you have to have somebody who the newspapers can't rap.

[Q] Playboy: Let's return to the subject of organized crime.

[A] Hoffa: Look, I never seen a single person, in the whole United States, even in front of the Senate committees, that under oath would say, "Jimmy Hoffa, Joe Doakes or Pete Wilkes is part of organized crime!"

[Q] Playboy: Oh, come on. What about Frank Costello?

[A] Hoffa:They never said it! They said that Frank Costello was a gambler, that he was an associate of organi----Of, uh, of hoodlums. Never once did they say, "He is a member of."

[Q] Playboy: Who's the guy who got shot in New York at Columbus Circle? Gambino?

[A] Hoffa: No. Not Carlo. It was--well, I can't think of it offhand. [It was Joe Colombo.] But they never said Costello was part of organized crime, just that he was part of a family associated with organized crime.

[Q] Playboy: OK. The Mob, the family, the Mafia.

[A] Hoffa: Well? Well? Well?

[Q] Playboy: Well, doesn't it amount to the same thing?

[A] Hoffa: Bullshit! Take me. I pick up the phone and call anywhere in the United States, I don't give a fuck what union it is, and I say, "Listen, this is Jimmy Hoffa." He says, "Hey, yeah, Jim! How are ya?" I say, "Listen, I want a favor." No questions asked. I tell him what I want. He says. "If I can do it, I'll call ya back." He gets busy, maybe calls six other guys. Now, is that an organized crime? Is that an organized Mafia or some fuckin' thing?

Guy in New York. Costello. Wants to call Joe Bommarito. He calls up, they go into dago. "Hey, whatcha do?" "What's goin' on?" "Hey, ya know So-and-So?" "Nah, I don't-a know him." "Well, find-a out who he is, then call me back." Blah-blah-blah-blah. Now, what is that? Organized crime? Or is that just like me calling you or you calling him, or what the hell is it? We know each other. We're maybe interrelated or some kind of a relative or some goddamn thing. What kind of bullshit's that? Take the guy who's supposed to be in charge of the Mafia--or whatever you wanna call it--in Chicago. Has anyone ever proved he was the head of it? He's said to 'em 49 times, "What the hell do you want from me? I'm in the meat business!" They never proved it, never indicted him. But they keep writin' that he's head of the Mafia.

Some magazine said I control the Mafia. Now, I never heard a more goddamned ridiculous statement in the whole world than that goddamned magazine! They said my good friend Carlos Marcello called the Mob together and put up $1,000,000 to get Hoffa outta jail. What kind of bullshit is this? Where'd they get those figures from?... So when I got out, Carlos called me and said, "Hey, you got that million?" He laughed! Yet the newspapers print it, the goddamned books write it. And it's a joke! Mad magazine, that cocksucker! They came out with a thing in there about Hoffa. Bullshit! Esquire magazine comes out with an article that says that Hoffa psyched out Sirhan Sirhan to kill, uh kill, uh----

[Q] Playboy: Bobby Kennedy.

[A] Hoffa:I psyched him out? Them cock-suckers! Like that roto system. I suppose. Shit.

[Q] Playboy: What's the roto system?

[A] Hoffa: Like movie actors have when they learn their lines. They put this recording on you; when you go to sleep, it's under your pillow. It's like hypnosis, they keep repeating certain things--boom, boom, boom--to instill in your mind what isn't the truth but what will be the truth when you repeat it. Like the Japanese did to our people during the war.

[Q] Playboy: And you're supposed to have brainwashed Sirhan that way?

[A] Hoffa: That's what they said in the fuckin' magazine! Why, I didn't even know the guy! The whole thing's so ridiculous, but my lawyer tells me you can't do nothing.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Hoffa: He says you gotta prove malice. Take Giacalone. This bullshit indictment he's got now. What is it? Five times now. Five times to bat, hopin' to break him--financially, physically, morally. And now when they can't do it, they come up with the "net worth" thing.

[Q] Playboy: That's where they ask you to show how you can live so well on the income you file on your tax returns.

[A] Hoffa: Right, it's the only thing in this country where you're guilty until proven innocent. They take you from the time you got outta school until now, ask people how much you've spent, add up your salary--and they just put it on you and the law says you have to disprove it. That's what Giacalone's gotta prove now. They put a net worth on him and now Giacalone's gotta restructure his whole life from the time he was born to show where he got his money. It's gonna be a hell of a thing to do.

[Q] Playboy: Back in 1957, during the Mc-Clellan investigation, one of your safe-deposit boxes at your bank was opened.

[A] Hoffa: Yeah, I laughed at the cock-suckers! The deed to my house is all they got.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about your finances. How are you making money these days?

[A] Hoffa: Real estate. Business.... Helping arrange business deals.

[Q] Playboy: Do you want to talk specifically about any of the deals?

[A] Hoffa: Nope. The very minute I would be connected publicly with any kind of enterprise, it would immediately frighten everybody concerned with the deal.

[Q] Playboy: OK. How's your private life? Do you get out much, to restaurants, that sort of thing?

[A] Hoffa: Eh. Once in a while. Very seldom. Now, when we go out, arm and a leg. What the hell're you gonna do? Number one, I don't like the crowds. Number two, I don't like the prices. Number three, I don't like the service. So what the hell am I gonna go out for? Why should Josephine get dressed up for two hours? The hell with it. It's getting to the point where a guy with four kids, his old lady and himself has got to spend $70 a week for groceries.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most important thing in your life right now?

[A] Hoffa: Oh, my family. No question about that.

[Q] Playboy: And what's more important to you, money or power?

[A] Hoffa: Power. Power gives money. You got both if you got power. But you can have money without power.

[Q] Playboy: For years you feuded with the Kennedys, one of the most powerful families in the country. What did you think, personally, of Bobby Kennedy?

[A] Hoffa: He was a creep!

[Q] Playboy: And John Kennedy?

[A] Hoffa: Creep!

[Q] Playboy: How about Teddy?

[A] Hoffa: Well, I've known a hell of a lot of brothers in my life. Two, three, four to a family, the majority of 'em no good. And maybe one of 'em outta the lot, you couldn't find a better guy. Who the hell knows? Just because you're brothers, it doesn't mean you're the same type. Don't mean that. Don't mean that at all.

Ted Kennedy I hardly know. But I know people who've known him since the day he was born. Our people in Boston've known him. And they say he's different from all two of the others. They say he likes a good time and that he would be the kind of guy who would gather around him a lot of people who wouldn't go to work for any other Administration. I suppose they mean professors and what have you--I have no faith in 'em. So that's all I know about the guy. He never made any statement concerning me that I know of--even when it was fashionable. So I don't know a hell of a lot about him. Matter of fact, if you talk to the guys in Washington, goddamned few of 'em will say anything about Ted Kennedy. He apparently don't associate with other Congressmen and Senators. Of course, he can get in ... any time he wants it, he's got it.

[Q] Playboy: You mean the Presidency? You think he's going to run?

[A] Hoffa: Oh, just as sure as you and I are here. Just as sure as you and I are here. It'll be a draft at the convention.

[Q] Playboy: How much do you think Chap-paquiddick will hurt him?

[A] Hoffa: Aw, Christ! Fifty percent of the marriages are in divorces. And when you talk about morality, it went out the window. How the hell's that gonna hurt him? He's sure as hell gonna get the old people, the welfare people, the Puerto Ricans, blacks, Mexicans. He'll get the majority of those. No question of that in my mind. How the hell could he lose?

Unless--there's only one thing that could kill him and very well kill all Democrats. They got the House and the Senate now. If they keep fiddlin' around and not doing anything except quarreling with each other, very well, the American people could say, "Now, the hell with ya," and vote Republican. That's the way I see it. I don't see it no other way.

[Q] Playboy: Why did Kennedy say he wouldn't run?

[A] Hoffa: Get the heat off Chappaquiddick for 18 months. What the hell, they were banging him on the head with every kind of article, TV report, what have you. But you notice the very minute he said, "I'm not gonna run," it stopped. So he was smart.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think Chappaquiddick will have to be resolved at some point?

[A] Hoffa: Phhht! He wasn't found guilty of no crime. What's he supposed to do? They didn't find him guilty!

[Q] Playboy: If Teddy runs and gets elected, do you think he'll be killed?

[A] Hoffa: Naw. I don't think----You just don't kill----What the hell! I don't think anybody's so cold blooded that he'd shoot a guy because he's a Kennedy.

[Q] Playboy: There was at least one publicized attempt on your life, wasn't there? In 1962, during your trial on charges of illegal kickbacks, a man walked into the courtroom and shot you from behind.

[A] Hoffa: Yeah, don't know his goddamned name. I forgot it now. It's a matter of record. [It was Warren Swanson, a deranged drifter.] But everyone was searched that went in and out of the courtroom. How the hell did he get in with a gun?...I'm sure the marshal didn't overlook him. And he walked in with a gun, after everybody'd been searched! Like Martin Luther King. You're suspicious but you can't prove it.

[Q] Playboy: The man had a pellet gun, right?

[A] Hoffa: Which would go through a two-by-four. Kill you just as sure as a .22.

[Q] Playboy: What's your version of what happened?

[A] Hoffa: Well, I looked and I seen him. I ducked down, come up, broke his jaw, took his gun away from him. The marshals were behind the file cabinets, same as the Government lawyers, my lawyers, same as the judge. They all came pouncing out after it was all over. I got the guy knocked out and this marshal comes out with a blackjack and hits the poor bastard! I said, "Ya dumb bastard! Get outta here! The guy's knocked out already!"

[Q] Playboy: How about the attempt on George Wallace?

[A] Hoffa: Who the hell Knows? They got a file on every kook there is.

[Q] Playboy: And John Kennedy? Why do you think he was killed?

[A] Hoffa: Who the hell knows what deals he had? That he didn't keep? Who knows?

[Q] Playboy: Do you think Oswald did it?

[A] Hoffa: Aw, who the hell knows? I saw that simulation of the assassination on TV, which made more sense to me than the Warren Report did. I'll be goddamned. You tell me a guy can figure out how to be there at the right moment, the right time, with a rifle--and hit a guy, you're a good man. I don't see how you do it. I see guys shooting at deer and I see Crack shots shooting the deer. By God, they miss 'em. And a deer's about like a moving car. Ain't much difference.

[Q] Playboy: Why did Jack Ruby kill Oswald, in your opinion?

[A] Hoffa: That's the $64 question. Nobody'll ever figure that out. A fanatic, maybe. Who the hell knows?

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of the conspiracy theories of that former district attorney in New Orleans, Jim Garrison? Is he just a kook?

[A] Hoffa: No, sirree! Jim Garrison's a smart man.... Goddamned smart attorney.... Anybody thinks he's a kook is a kook themselves.

[Q] Playboy: All right, back to the Bobby Kennedy assassination. You don't think Nixon had anything to do with it, do you?

[A] Hoffa: Hell, no. Hell, no. He ain't that kind of guy.

[Q] Playboy: So it was Sirhan acting alone?

[A] Hoffa: Well, I handle guns all my life. Here's a kid that went out and got a gun. Not much practice with the damned gun. And I would question whether he was cold-blooded enough to be able to pop up and shoot the guy without someone ... helping him. I just read about another guy, a ballistics guy, who said there was another type of bullet. Who the hell knows? Who the hell knows?

[Q] Playboy: Do you think we'll ever know about all these killings?

[A] Hoffa: Well, I watched the damned TV the other night, that Police Story and S.W.A.T. They killed more goddamned people than you got hair on your head! [Pause] Goddamned movies, TV! Kills 49 guys a night, for Chrissake--on Monday and Tuesday night! Forty-nine guys they kill! So who the hell knows what you can do? There was a nut on TV last night, just started killing people. No body knew why the goddamned fool killed people. Then they finally catch him ... kill him. So he's dead. He can't tell why he killed 'em. People go off their rocker. Who can tell?