Question: Hoffa (the film) and RFK

[pokerfan]

The actual events in this film are a bit before my time. Before my birth actually.

Was RFK anti-union or simply trying to rein in corruption?

According to Wikipedia:
Kennedy soon made a name for himself as the chief counsel of the 1957–59 Senate Labor Rackets Committee under chairman John L. McClellan. In a dramatic scene, Kennedy squared off with Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa during the antagonistic argument that marked Hoffa's testimony.<8> Kennedy left the Rackets Committee in late 1959 in order to run his brother John's successful presidential campaign.

[fishwax]

1. are you watching on FCM, perchance?

I'm interested in hearing other people respond to your question (before my time too), but I just saw the RFK scene as well :)

[pokerfan]

3. Yeah

:toast:

I've watched it before and really love the film but man-oh-man, they made Bobby look like a grandstanding sniveling little twit, a characterization I don't agree with from my reading of history. (I was all of six years old when he was assassinated.)

[villager]

2. he was very pro-union by the time he ran for President

a UAW leader was wounded in the Ambassador hotel with him, and during his California campaign, he'd made a deliberate connection with the United Farm Workers...

There's some speculation that his anti-Mafia jag may have set the groundwork for the anti-Mafia policies of his brother's administration -- racketeering investigations, and of course, deciding enough was enough on Cuba.

The actual Mafia (with its tentacles in the CIA) felt betrayed that Joe Kennedy's own boys would treat 'em that way. So -- the theory goes -- plans were made...

[pokerfan]

5. Thanks

That helps.

[villager]

8. No problem. The UAW leader -- Paul Schrade -- has finally begun to talk about events of that night:

<snip>

Schrade, then western regional director of the United Auto Workers Union, had been the labor chair of Kennedy's campaign and was at his side at many events including a meeting with farmworker leader Cesar Chavez in rural Delano. On the fateful night, he was waiting with Kennedy to see if he would win the pivotal primary.

"`He knew it was life or death politically that night," says Schrade. "And it became a death."

But first, he said, there was joy as the tide of votes turned and Kennedy's victory seemed assured.

"There was a wonderful spirit upstairs on the fifth floor of the Ambassador Hotel," he said. "I sat with Bob and Ethel. There came a point when the decision was made to go downstairs a little after midnight."

After thanking supporters, Kennedy was diverted from his planned exit to move through the hotel pantry. Schrade remembers him shaking hands with two Hispanic employees of the hotel.

"He turned and then I got hit. I got the first shot," Schrade recalled. "I thought I was being electrocuted. I fell right behind Bob. ... I was in and out of consciousness and when I came to and the doctor arrived, I said, `Take care of the senator.'"

He learned later that the mortally wounded Kennedy asked: "Is everyone all right? Is Paul all right?"

He did not know that Kennedy had been killed until the next day when UAW President Walter Reuther came to his bedside and told him.

"I just turned away," he said. "I was so angry. We should have realized it was going to happen again." In light of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy five years earlier, he thought there should have been more security.

Schrade underwent surgery and some fragments of the bullet remain in his skull.

"It took a long time for me to recover from this," he said. "People told me, `You were so angry, so depressed you weren't on the job."

In fact, he lost his job, suffering defeat for re-election to his UAW post.

In 1971 he met and married political attorney Monica Weil, and the Yale educated Schrade, a native of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., turned in another direction. He joined the board of American Civil Liberties Union and began working with his wife to investigate the RFK assassination and convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. He would become convinced there was a conspiracy.

"I know there was a second gunman based on the evidence," he said. "Sirhan couldn't have done it and didn't do it alone." He came to believe in a larger plot encompassing the assassination of President Kennedy. But he is not ready to discuss the details until his research is complete.

Meanwhile, he has moved on in his mission to carry on Kennedy's work.

<snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/04/robert-f-kennedys-assassination-anniversary_n_871407.html

[pokerfan]

10. Thanks for that

He learned later that the mortally wounded Kennedy asked: "Is everyone all right? Is Paul all right?"

:cry:

[pnorman]

13. Thanks from me too!

My own 'take' is that RFK (consistent wih his class upbringing) WAS anti-union at that time, as well as being offensively priggish and snooty. But digging through Hoffa's Teamsteers affairs as he had been doing, there was MUCH to be outraged about. But he gradually evolved into how he's generally percieved here on DU.

"Unionism is the only effective means of curbing arbitrary employers and Union Democracy is the only effective means of controlling arbitrary union officials."
Herman Benson

[Mimosa]

4. It's complicated. But you are asking the right questions.

Pokerfan, the topic is so complex. The first book you should read to answer a couple of your questions is "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he Died and Why It Matters" by James Douglass:

http://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312004891&sr=1-1

James Douglass' book builds on all previous research and facts. It links interests and motives.

Another book which delved deeper into RFK's assassination was written By John Q Davis, a cousin of Jacquelyn Bouvier Kennedy. The title is "Mafia Kingfish". It can be hard to find. But it is worth seeking.

http://www.amazon.com/Mafia-Kingfish-Marcello-Assassination-Kennedy/dp/0451164180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312005456&sr=1-1


Also look up Jim Marrs "Crossfire".

http://www.amazon.com/Crossfire-Plot-That-Killed-Kennedy/dp/0881846481/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312005370&sr=1-1

I'm not a conspiracy nut. However, the Kennedy 'curse' isn't supernatural. The bad things which have happened to men in that bloodline might have occurred to warn anybody in the upper class to not betray the system ???

[pokerfan]

7. It's like the old saying

Friends may come and go anbut enemies accumulate.

I'm not a conspiracy nut either but I can't accept the lone nut-job explanation either. Powerful people/families attract enemies. And I have to confess that what studying I have done has been more regarding JFK than RFK.

Sometimes I'm glad that I was so young back then, not fully comprehending what I was seeing because had I been say, ten years older, I don't think I could have taken it.

[AntiFascist]

12. Bobby Kennedy may not have believed the lone gunman theory either...

he may have even worked with French Intelligence to investigate right-wing elements within his own government, according to this:

http://www.jfk-online.com/farewellrusso.html

Later he made comments that the only way to conduct a proper investigation was if he were to become president himself. The concept for the book referenced above was originally to aid his run for president.

[postulater]

6. Didn't see the movie but I just pulled down my autographed copy of

"The Enemy Within".

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read the book, but on page 318 he says

"The only group that has tried to maintain standards and clean out their corrupt and dishonest elements has been the AFL-CIO. Their efforts should be kept in mind by those who seek to use our investigation to blacken all labor."

Given his other work I would say he wanted to make sure workers were not being exploited by corrupt leaders whether union or management or government.

We need more Kennedys.

[pokerfan]

9. I will check out that book

Meanwhile according to wiki:

On June 16, 2006, the Detroit Free Press published in its entirety the so-called "Hoffex Memo", a 56-page report the FBI prepared for a January 1976 briefing on the case at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Although not claiming to conclusively establish the specifics of his disappearance, the memo indicates that law enforcement's belief is that Hoffa was murdered at the behest of organized crime figures who deemed his efforts to regain power within the Teamsters to be a threat to their control of the union's pension fund.<23> The FBI has called the report the definitive account of what agents believe happened to Hoffa.

Is this the general consensus?

[AntiFascist]

14. According to wiki....

Mobsters Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti and Santo Trafficante Jr. all say Hoffa worked with the CIA on the Castro assassination plots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_assassination_theories#Organized_crime_conspiracy

Several key witnesses died or disappeared around the time when the House Select Committee on Assassinations was calling potential witnesses:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeaths.htm

"When the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and Select Committee on Assassinations began investigating Kennedy's death in the 1970s the deaths of potential witnesses increased dramatically. This included several criminals with possible links to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Those who were killed or who died in suspicious circumstances during this period included Malcolm Wallace (1971), Lucien Sarti (1972), Charles Willoughby (1972), Thomas Davis (1973), Richard Cain (1973), Dave Yarras (1974), Sam Giancana (1975), Jimmy Hoffa (1975), Roland Masferrer (1975), Johnny Roselli (1976), George De Mohrenschildt (1977), Charlie Nicoletti (1977) and Carlos Prio (1977)."

[jwirr]

11. Rein in corruption.