Vanderbilt Television News Archive

(Studio) Former Teamster president James Hoffa disappeared from suburban Detroit, Michigan, restaurant a year ago.
REPORTER: Harry Reasoner

(Detroit, Michigan) ABC News learns Hoffa abducted from restaurant and killed because of fear he would regain control of Teamsters Union and interfere with skimming of $ millions from union's pension fund. [Unidentified government INVESTIGATOR - says if Hoffa had returned to scene union corruption would have been eliminated.] Since 1971, Hoffa fought parole restrictions preventing him from holding union office until 1980. Hoffa believed he would get power away from Teamsters president Frank Fitzsimmons at 1976 Teamsters National Convention Reporter notes federal agencies' recent investigations of use of Teamsters pension money. Cites focal point of investigation as Union City, New Jersey, local union, whose secretary-treas. is Anthony Provenzano. Provenzano denies he was to meet Hoffa on day of Hoffa disappearance. Reporter notes Provenzano and others who were indicted during past year for conspiring to kidnap and murder New Jersey Teamster who was killed 15 years ago. Also indicted: Salvatore Briguglio, his brother, Gabriel, and Thomas Andretta. Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien, Hoffa family friend, also being investigated. [2nd unidentified INVESTIGATOR - says object is to find and develop evidence against all involved; might go beyond immediate disappearance.] Federal investigators certain indictments to be issued but apparently not until can be proven how high anti-Hoffa plot went in Teamsters Union and possibly in organized crime.
REPORTER: Ron Miller