Jimmy Hoffa: The Rise, Power, and Vanishing of a Union Boss

On July 30, 1975, the most powerful and feared labor leader in American history stepped into a maroon Mercury in a Detroit parking lot and was never seen again. Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance remains unsolved a half century later.This episode goes beyond the mystery to examine how Hoffa built a national Teamsters empire through brutal tactics, mob alliances, and strategic genius, then lost control of it through hubris. It traces his journey from Depression-era streets to the pinnacle of power, his federal convictions, and the fatal comeback bid that put him on a collision course with his former underworld partners.How the secondary boycott weaponized the supply chain to grow the Teamsters from 75,000 to over a million membersThe 1964 National Master Freight Agreement that pulled hundreds of thousands of drivers into the middle classHis pension fund loans financing Las Vegas casinos in exchange for kickbacksThe John Dean clause barring him from union management until 1980, a backroom favor to Nixon, Fitzsimmons, and the mobWhy foster son Chuckie O'Brien behind the wheel likely lured the paranoid Hoffa into the car, and the debunking of Giants Stadium and Irishman myths