02 March 2019
“These [Baton Rouge Teamster] hoodlums make Marcello and the Mafia look pretty good.”
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“I won’t let Edward Partin and his gangster Teamsters run this state!”
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“[We’re going to arrest Partin] as soon as we get the evidence against him.”
Louisiana governor John J. McKeithen in a series of statements to the New Orleans State Times, circa late 1960’s
Partin Reign May be Short-Lived
“Edward G. Partin, start witness in the trial of Jimmy Hoffa, is now reigning supreme over the Teamsters in central Louisiana.
‘I’m not going to have Partin and a bunch of hoodlums running this state,’ Gov. McKeithen told us. ‘We have no problems with law-abiding labor. But when gangsters raid a construction project and shoot men up at work I’m going to do something about it.
‘Partin has two Justice Department guards with him for fear Hoffa will retaliate against him,’ Gov. McKeithen said, ‘This gives him immunity.’
The governor referred to an incident in Plaquemine when 45 to 50 men shot up 30 workers of the W.O. Bergeron Construction Co.”
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“Baton Rouge has never has such a siege of labor violence as it’s seen since Partin came back from the Chattanooga trial with two Justice Department guards to protect him.”1
New Orleans State Times, 27 January 1968
McKeithen is Warned to ‘Lay Off’ Partin
“Gov. John J. McKeithen reportedly received suggestions last month during a trip to Washington not to press the state Labor-Management Commission’s investigation of Baton Rouge Teamster Boss Edward G. Partin.”
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“McKeithen said he met with [Walter] Sheridan, who is now an investigator for the National Broadcasting Company, to allay any suspicion that his motives in pressing the Baton Rouge labor investigation were to get Hoffa Free.
The governor said that the meeting was pre-arranged on a mutual basis, with each desiring to talk with the other. He said that Sheridan was a focal point of persons in the Justice Department and “national magazines” interested in seeing that Hoffa is not released.”
“The governor said he felt the recent series of Life Magazine articles on organized crime in Louisianan and the alleged bribe offers to free Hoffa were promoted by Partin. Since then, he said, Life Magazine has placed full confidence in him.”
New Orleans State Times, 08 March 1968
“Walter, get him out of my state. Now listen to what I am saying to you. Just get him out of my state. I’ll help you do it and I’ll give him immunity. You write it up and I’ll sign it. Just please get him across that state line.”
Governor McKeithen to Walter Sheridan, documented in Walter’s 1972 “The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa.”2
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Footnotes:
- Governor McKeithen spent a decade trying to rid Louisiana of influence from Big Daddy and the Louisiana Teamsters, similar to how President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Attroney General Bobby Kennedy spent a decade trying to get Hoffa and weaken the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Unlike the Kennedy’s, McKeithen failed. He was aided by legislative judge J.J. McKeithen, who, in 1975, would leave legislation, become the only family court judge in East Baton Rouge Parish, and preside over my custody case against Edward Grady Partin Junior. ↩︎
- My grandfather and family were given many homes and cabins across America to “get him out of the state,” a confidential compromise offered by the justice department, though I have not found documentation of the homes and cabins. ↩︎