Hoffa
William Heath
Hoffa!—a name like a shout. A working stiff, he’d rather settle matters with his fists. “Do unto others— first” was his motto. He had a surly, truculent grandeur—shoving a grapefruit into a dame’s face ala James Cagney his opening gambit. A tough guy straight off the loading docks, he took on the Kennedys like John Henry vs. the steam hammer. Before his birth an Indiana doctor thought his mother had a tumor, hence his ugly nickname as a kid. When the family moved to Detroit, at Fisher Body he polished radiator caps. For his first strike as a Teamster the men refused to load strawberries: negotiate, they said, or watch them rot. Back in those days 31
