New Book Claims Jimmy Hoffa Lies Under GM Headquarters

Just the Facts:

• A new book claims that Jimmy Hoffa was buried in the concrete foundation under Detroit's Renaissance Center in 1975.
• General Motors began using the "RenCen" as its world headquarters in 1996.
• The time line and Michigan location make the RenCen a more likely resting place for the Teamsters leader than other rumored locations like the Florida Everglades or Giants Stadium in New Jersey's Meadowlands.

New York, New York — A new book claims that the remains of Teamsters Union leader James R. "Jimmy" Hoffa were buried under the foundation of the then under-construction Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan after his disappearance and presumed assassination in 1975. That's right, GM's headquarters may be the tomb of Jimmy Hoffa.

The new book, entitled "The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob" (Wiley; November 2011), is the story of Marvin Elkind who describes himself as a "chauffer and goon for mob bosses" and was written by Elkind and journalist Adrian Humphries. In a Christmas Day interview with The New York Post Elkind claims to have learned the whereabouts of Hoffa's body during a Teamsters conference held in Detroit in 1985 — a decade after the labor leader's notorious disappearance on July 30, 1975 from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township outside of Detroit.

Hoffa was reportedly at the restaurant waiting to meet Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, who had ties to both the Teamsters and organized crime, and mobster Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano.

According to the new book, during the 1985 Teamster's conference Elkind and a group of other Teamsters were with Giacalone crossing a glass-walled walkway connecting the Omni International Hotel to the Renaissance Center when Giacalone nodded toward the complex and invited the group to "Say good morning to Jimmy Hoffa, boys." The Omni International Hotel was later remodeled and reopened as the Courtyard Downtown Detroit.

In the Post's interview, Elkind adds that once Hoffa's body was added to the RenCen's foundation "there was a mad rush to get the concrete poured."

Since Hoffa disappeared in Michigan it makes some murderous logistical sense to kill him and dispose of his body there. At least more sense than transporting Hoffa to New Jersey to bury his body under the west end zone of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands which was also then being built. Before Giants Stadium was demolished in 2010, the television show Mythbusters investigated the Hoffa burial legend there and couldn't find any evidence of such an entombment.

All this adds irony upon irony to the seven-building RenCen. Though it was originally conceived of by Henry Ford II, and originally contained my Ford Motor Company offices when it opened in 1977, it became General Motors' world headquarters after being sold to GM in 1996. And now that GM is largely owned by the United Auto Workers, it turns out the RenCen may be built upon a foundation that includes one of labor's most famous leaders.

Inside Line says: The RenCen has, after all, always been a multi-purpose facility.