editors:
mary long
jo mnarcotty
barb cornell
Sunday
magcizine
inside:
page four-books
page five-profile
Number 2 Page Three September2
28, 1975
FEATURES
Stakeout at the Hoffa's
Anatomy of a media
vigil
Jimmy Hoffa was missing and scores of reporters swarmed
his family's estate to fend off mosquitos and pounce on any
tidbit of information that could shed light on his disappear-
ance. At first they waited for the big news, but as the days
wore on the leads dried up, and the two week vigil ended
with every question left unanswered.
By SARA RIMER
IN THE BEGTNNING there was
the van.
Shiny white and showy, it stood
guard outside the lakefront estate
for two weeks It was the networks'
$225-per-day baby, and when they
wheeled it up to the gate, a two
week press stakeout began. ABC
told its camera crew: "You're going
to be there until the body's found."
So they got a van to make the
waiting easier. The men filled it
with Miquor and food. At night they
climbed into the van and barricad-
ed themselves against the mosqui-
toe3 and downed gin and tonics
between rounds of poker.
The "body" was and is that of
former Teamster union leader
James R. Hoffa. On July 30, he
went to have lunch with Detroit's
Mafia kingpin Anthony (Tony
Jack) Giacalone. At 2:30 p.m.
Hoffa called his wife Josephine
from the Machus Red Fox restaur-
ant in Bloomfield Hills and snap-
ped,
"Where the hell's Giacalone? I'm
waiting for him."
Ten minutes later he called his
old friend limousine proprietor
Louis Linteau; and sounded even
angrier. "Where the fuck is Gi-
acalone? He stood me up!"
His family and friends say that
was the last time they heard from
the stocky, controversial "little
guy."'
At 9:30 the next morning, Hof-
fa's son James P. cut short his va-
cation and flew to Pontiac from
northern Michigan. At 6 p.m. he
signed a missing person report. His
father never came back.
WROM THE START, Jimmy Hoffa
was assumed kidnapped.
Reporters and camera crews
gathered around Hoffa's Lake Ori-
on estate. At first all the big names
were there: --,Neal from the N.Y.
Daily News, Agis Salnukas from
the New York Times, Robert Dob-
kin and Brooks Jackson from the
Associated press, Ralph Orr from
the Detroit Free Press, and Irving
Levine from NBC.
The Bloomfield Township police
handled the case at first and gave
daily news briefings. When the
FBI took over on Monday and put
the lid on the case.
By then it was clear the Hoffa
house was no place to wait for
leads. The big name reporters went
back to their office telephones to
consult their sources. Covering the
Hoffa family's vigil became a daily
routine for network sound and
camera men and reporters from
the Detroit Free Press, AP, and the
Detroit News.
Whoever engineered Hoffa's ab-
duc."on - the reporters had no
doubt that it was the mob-did it
with expertise and left virtually no
clues. So while a FBI platoon stak-
ed out the house 24 hours a day
and interviewed thousands of per-
sons across the nation in search
of A lead, there was little to report.
The networks wanted pictures;
the newspapers wanted quotes. So
each night, the cameras followed
Hoffa's wife Josephine, 55, as she
walked across the three acre estate
-always accompanied by a family
member. She has a heart condi-
tion and the family doctor said he
prescribed the daily walks to help
strengthen ner frail health. She
never spoke to reporters. They
wondered aloud on that segond
presence. He said they helped to
"keep the pressure on," presum-
ably meaning the pressure to in-
vestigate his father's disappear-
ance.
One night he presented two
giant - size pizzas to the media
members.
On August 15, the second week
of Hoffa's disappearance, Free
Press city editor John Oppedahl
told rewrite man James C. Dewey,
"Send Rimer to the house." Dewey
told me to grab a good novel and
head a company car down Route
I-75 to "mosquito mansion." Dur-
ing the stakeout's first week re-
porters returned from the 6 p.m.
to 11 p.m. shift covered with mos-
quito bites; Dewey's nickname
stuck.
1-75 TURNS IN Pontiac onto La-
peer Rd., a commercial route;
then Lapeer turns left onto Clark-
ston - a winding tree-lined, coun-
try road that had a nice view of
Three men pulled up in a car and unloaded a reli-
gious statue onto the front lawn. Josephine Hoffa's
walk took a different turn, and she knelt in front of the
statue instead of continuing across the lawn.
While she prayed, the camera crews filmed and
said, "That's it, she's giving up."
week if she believed her husband
was still alive.
Cameramen focused on the fam-
ily's supper when they dined out-
side on the terrace; once a network
rented a boat and shot the scene
from the lake instead of the pond.
But the biggest news came when
James P., the son, gave an occa-
sional brief press conference out-
side the gate. He blinked under the
bright lights and usually told re-
porters in a weary voice that there
was nothing new. The first week
reporters asked Hoffa daily whe-
ther he believed his father was still
alive. He steadfastly answered yes.
Hut, when AP reporter Dobkin
cornered Hoffa alone in the ga-
rage, his composure shattered and
he cried. Reporters got their day's
lead story.
After that Hoffa effectively con-
trolled the interview cards. The
pack went along with Detroit News
reporter Charlie Cain's idea that
no one should risk asking any
gestion that might send Hoffa
running back to the house.
But Hoffa told reporters at least
once that he was grateful for their
the lake where the trees grew less
thick. About five miles down Clark-
ston I crossed a narrow railroad
track, and then made a sharp right
turn onto ,Hoffa's road - Allen-
dale. The road led a quarter mile
to the crew of journalists camped
outside the family home. There
was barely enough space for even
one car; and reporters traveling
the road had to dodge each oth-
er's cars, the younger Hoffa's Lin-
coln Continental, and FBI cars.
One day reporters pursued Jo-
sephine Hoffa when she unexpect-
edly tore down the drive from the
house, and the narrow road made
the chase especially treacherous.
Journalists and their gear were
a strange sight. There was the van,
of course. About eight cars were
usually parked by the four-foot-
hinh fence that surrounded Hoffa's
lakefront property. In front of
each car a telephone was plugged
into a common outlet on the
fence. Reporters liked to sit atop
their cars with the phones beside
them when they called into their
city Jesks and network offices. Oc-
casionally, when reporters thought
they had exclusive information,
they dragged the cord through an
open window, rolled the windows
up tight with only a crack on one
side for the phone, and then with
an excited covert expression, re-
layed their information to an edi-
tor or rewrite man. Such instances
were rare on the Hoffa stakeout.
And when they did happen, they
were generally false alarms. The
n e t w o r k people delighted in
spreading untrue rumors that set
the city desk rewrite men scramb-
linu
Tbe van had the only bathroom
in 1e vicinity, an extra that gave
the networks a slight edge over the
newsnaner reporters. After all, if
voi wanted to use the facilities,
von; had to be nice to your tele-
viir~ hosts.
Television people supplied the
hard liquor throughout the stake-
out and were rarely seen without
a gOn and tonic or beer in their
hands. They returned each night
to the Michigan Inn for more for-
mal carousing. Occasionally. re-
por..s tossed frisbees, and one
cva' eramar entertained with folk-
sv tines olaved on a recorder.He
also did voice imitations of the
BiSauare Lake seagulls that flew
overhead.
But, usually the crews lounged
aroind, trading theories on Hoffa's
disappearance, making Hoffa jokes
("Did you hear Hoffa's in a Den-
ver hosnital suffering from 'labor
pains?"'), and recounting the dis-
mal statistics of network life (a
75 per cent divorce rate, they
claimed).
They talked about the more ex-
ciring stakeouts they'd seen: the
wounded Knee Indian rebellion,
the Patty Hearst shootout in Cali-
fornia, the Kent State shootings in
Ohio. And while they automatic-
ally turned their cameras on Mrs.
Hoffa's daily walks and awaited
the younger Hoffa's infrequent
press conferences, they rarely
stonped to think about what the
family must have said away from
their cameras To the people inside
the house -- Mrs. Hoffa, Jimmy P.
Hoffa, and Hoffa's daughter, Mrs.
Barbara Crancer of St. Louis, the
waiting must have been agony. To
the camera crews it was dull, but
thanks to overtime pay, it was also
lucrative.
N MONDAY, THE first night I
was there, the younger Hoffa
gave a brief press conference at
about 8:30 at the gate.
'Gentlemen," he began, "We
have one lead."
Reporters wrote rapidly as Hoffa
told them he'd spoken to a man
who claimed to be an eyewitness to
the abduction at the Machus Red
Fox restaurant. No one asked a
s inle cuestion - by pre-arranged
agreement. However, the witness
later failed two FBI-administered
polygraph tests, and the informa-
tion that topped page one on Tues-
day morning was soon forgotten.
On Tuesday nothing newsworthy
hapnened. Hoffa did not speak to
reporters. Network people began to
complain about the assignment's
drudgery. So when Josephine Hof-
fa suddenly jumped into her car
around noon and drove away, re-
por -ers were primed for a chase.
Free Press reporters Jane Briggs
and News reporter Charlie Cain
doubled up in Briggs' car and tore
off. CBS producer Rick Kaplan
and Channel 7 reporter Vince
Wade pursued in separate cars.
Cain and Briggs came back about
20 minutes later with lunch from
the Hardee's on Lapeer Rd. They
had not seen Mrs. Hoffa. I
Kaplan returned shortly after-
ward, also with lunch from Har-
dee's and no sign of Mrs. Hoffa.
They all worried that Wade had
found their common prey.
When Josephine returned and
walked up to the house with what
looked like a pizza in a large card-
board box, they were convinced
that Wade had followed her to
some pizza joint and was now in-
terviewing everyone in the place.
They decided that when Wade
returned they would tell him that
Josephine had spoken to reporters.
Wade came back an hour later,
and they fed him the rehearsed
line. He didn't bite.
AT ABOUT 11 p.m. that night I
was sitting in the Free Press
car, listening to CKLW and fend-
ing off mosquitoes, when a man
with a shaven head appeared
at the window.''Hey, are you a re-
porter?" he asked in a low voice.
When I nodded, he went on, "Lis-
ten, You gotta get me in Hoffa's
house. I'm a private investigator;
I know where the man is; I've got
to talk to his son."
I was desperate for something to
make the night desk take notice,
and so I wanted to believe the
man.
"If you know where Hoffa is," I
urged, "Why don't you tell me
first?" Then it was soon apparent
from his disjointed talk that the
guy was nuts - another of the
weirdoes who were sure they had
the case cracked. A couple other
reporters wandered over to tell the
guy to get lost fast.
After that I locked my car late
at night. There were hundreds of
people who called the newspaper
daily and claimed they knew
where Hoffa was buried - under
the Lodge Freeway construction, at
executive editor Kurt Luedtke's
house, and at the bottom of the
Detroit River.
Back in the office, the Free
Press Hoffa team - Jo Thomas,
Ralph Orr, and Fred Girard -
followed legitimate - sounding tips
and cranked out a story almost
daily. Some of the other reporters
felt left out and more than a lit-
tle jealous. They joked about go-
ing off to find Hoffa's body and
then dumping it on the city desk.
ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Jane Briggs angered the net-
work people on the stakeout, and
relations between our paper and
them became hopelessly strained.
After the incident we went down
the road to Hardees to use the
bathroom.
Briggs was probably the best re-
porter on the second week of the
stakeout. She didn't drink, and
read about three books during the
ordeal. But when Hoffa or any
other family member pulled up,
she always hurried over to ask
questions.
Briggs detested the stakeout's
pack journalism and since she re-
fused the networks' beer she felt
no obligation to share her informa-
tion with them. They felt differ-
entlv. When Jimmy P. pulled up to
the house that afternoon, she cor-
nered him for several minutes of
nrivate conversation. The network
nPeonle were furious that "the
blonde girl from the Free Press
il% m m