WAR

“Here, Edward Partin, a jailbird languishing in a Louisiana jail under indictments for such state and federal crimes as embezzlement, kidnapping, and manslaughter (and soon to be charged with perjury and assault), contacted federal authorities and told them he was willing to become, and would be useful as, an informer against Hoffa, who was then about to be tried in the Test Fleet case.

“A motive for his doing this is immediately apparent — namely, his strong desire to work his way out of jail and out of his various legal entanglements with the State and Federal Governments. And it is interesting to note that, if this was his motive, he has been uniquely successful in satisfying it. In the four years since he first volunteered to be an informer against Hoffa he has not been prosecuted on any of the serious federal charges for which he was at that time jailed, and the state charges have apparently vanished into thin air.“

Chief Justice Earl Warren in Hoffa versus The United States, 1966

Most of what I have to say is already available online.

Chief Justice Earl Warren uses my grandfather’s name 148 times in his three-page missive attached to 1966’s Jimmy Hoffa versus The United States. Warren was the only one of nine U.S. justices to vote against using Big Daddy’s testimony to convict Hoffa of jury tampering.

Warren was already a household name by then, most notably for the 1964 Warren Report that mistakenly said Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President Kennedy, and that Jack Ruby acted alone when he shot and killed Oswald when Oswald was handcuffed and in Dallas police custody two days later. He was also famous for landmark supreme court cases, like Roe versus Wade (which was revoked in 2025), Brown versus The Board of Education, and the overturned rape case that led to The Miranda Rights, which include the right to remain silent.

(Wendy once said that not enough people practice their Miranda Rights.)

Many people Bobby Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover influenced the other judges to either accept Big Daddy’s testimony or abstain, which is funny if you consider Hoffa going to prison for jury tampering, Wendy had said. (It’s hard to disagree with her.)

Bobby Kennedy’s biographer, the close friend of Bobby and President Kennedy, Pulitzer prize winner author of President Kennedy’s biography, Author M. Schlesinger, Junior, talked about Big Daddy in “Robert Kennedy and His Times.”

[Ed Partin] reported that Hoffa had once asked him whether he knew anything about plastic bombs.

“I’ve got to do something about that son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy,” Partin recalled Hoffa as saying.

“He’s go to go.” Kennedy had guts, Hoffa continued; he drove around by himself in a convertible, swam alone in his Hirckory Hill pool and had no guards in the house.”

When the 15 year investigation by the U.S. congressional committee on assassinations reversed the Warren Report and said that Kennedy was shot by more than one sniper as he rode through downtown Dallas in his open convertible, and that it probably had been a conspiracy, and that the three main people with the means and motive to orchestrate Kennedy’s assassination was most likely International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello, and Miami mafia boss and Cuban exile Santos Trafficante Junior, the committee also reviewed Big Daddy’s FBI records dating back to before he was arrested for kidnapping and all of J. Edgar Hoover’s lie detector recordings and results, but concluded that the plot between Hoffa and Big Daddy to kill Bobby with a sniper rifle as he rode in his convertible was probably a coincidence; they committee used the word “probably” frequently in the 1979 JFK and Martin Luther King Junior Assassination Report, because many of the conclusions were speculation.

They dismissed the coincidences of Lee Harvey Oswald being from New Orleans and training in the Baton Rouge civil air force near my grandmother’s house, and of Jack Ruby calling Hoffa repeatedly leading up to Kennedy’s death, and of allegations from the New Orleans district attorney, Jim Garrison, that a few months before Kennedy was killed, he had seen a black and white photography of Big Daddy driving Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby around town. (The photo disappeared, and the only two witnesses who came forward vanished before they could testify.)

In Schlesinger’s biography of President Kennedy, he mentions meeting with the president four days before he was shot and killed, immediately after Hoover and Bobby warned him that the threats against Bobby could be meant for him. President Kennedy said there were always threats against him, and decided to go to Dallas instead. At around 1:26 pm on November 22nd, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by at least one 6.5mm round fired from an Italian WWII carbine purchased from a mail-order catalog that sold a lot of them back then; Oswald’s had been fitted with a high-powered scope by a local gunsmith six months prior, just after he moved from New Orleans to Dallas.

After Craig Vincent and I chatted the first time about his role portraying my grandfather in Martin Scorcese’s “The Irishman,” I Googled my name for the first time. It was 2019. I was mostly offline, though I had just created a website using my name after an engineering student in one of my classes at the University of San Diego asked what I thought about resumes, and I spontaneously replied: “Make a website with your name dot com, and be that.” It sounded like a good idea, so I had only recently created JasonPartin.com, but hadn’t searched my name to see if had showed up.

There were a lot of Jason Partins ranked higher on the search. One was my cousin in Baton Rouge, whose smiling face looks down from Lamar Adverstising billboards along I-110 between Baton Rouge and Zachary, advertising his physical therapy business. He was Zachary’s football star when I was a kid, and the last time I saw him was at Big Daddy’s 1990 funeral. A few were criminals I had never met, and a few more were also people I had never met, but had Facebook accounts typical of average Americans at the time. One was a mixed martial artists with Youtube videos of him in cage fights; by coincidence, he looked like a younger version of me.

I was the Jason Patin whose smiling face was on the web site of The University of San Diego Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering’s web site, because I led engineering courses and the school’s innovation labortory, called Donald’s Garage and named after Donald Shiley, a hands-on mechanical engineer who co-invented the world’s most well-sold heart valve, and whose wife donated $21 Million to form the lab (an amount that probably only I chucked about because it was coincidentally the same amount Carlos Marcello had owed Jimmy Hoffa). My cousin and I share Big Daddy’s smile, which is more of a facial feature from our high cheek bones than a genuine smile, and we inherited it from his mom, our Grandma Foster. Once you know that, you can look at photos of Big Daddy, Jason, and me and see how we’re related.

I was also listed as an entrepreneurship advisor for the University of California at San Diego’s Basement, a lab with a similar goal as Donald’s Garage, of stimulating innovation with hands-on work. I used that same photo for my Linked account, which I rarely opened. I was notoriously old-school, a guy who wore an old analog watch and rarely spoke about his home life.

I was listed on several U.S. patents as Jason Partin, and a few more as Jason Ian Partin. One other Jason Partin had a patent, but it was for a consumer product; all of mine were for medical devices and implants. I don’t know why the US Patent data base separates Jason Partin from Jason Ian Partin. But, it triggered me to start searching different combinations of my name with different combinations of my family’s names.

When I searched Jason Ian Partin and Wendy Rothdram Partin, court records show that Wendy didn’t drink alcohol. This is what Judge JJ Lottinger had to say about her back then, pulled from the East Baton Rouge Parish 19th Judicial District courthouse and posted on some website that scrubs old records:

This is a suit by Edward Partin, Jr., plaintiff, seeking a divorce from his wife, Wendy Rothdram Partin, defendant, after having lived separate and apart for more than one year following a judgment of separation from bed and board. Plaintiff also seeks custody of the minor child, Jason Ian Partin, and the defendant reconvened asking that she be granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child.

The Trial Court had previously, by ex parte order, awarded the temporary care, custody and control of the minor to Mr. and Mrs. James Ed White. Following trial on the merits, plaintiff was awarded a divorce as well as the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child, with the temporary physical custody of the minor child to remain with Mr. and Mrs. James Ed White. The defendant has appealed this judgment as it regards the custody of the child.

This couple was married when plaintiff was 17 and the defendant was 16 years of age. Nine months following the marriage, they gave birth to young Jason. While we are not concerned with the facts surrounding the separation and divorce, it was apparently one of incompatibility as defendant testified that at the age of 17 she found herself married to a man who did not love her and so she left. Her testimony was as follows:

“As I say I was emotionally upset. I was receiving little support from Edward. I was scared, very confused. I didn’t know exactly which way to turn. I felt I had no one to listen and help with the situation at hand.”

Several weeks later she returned and lived with her husband again. She found that the situation hadn’t changed, and felt she had to get away again. She heard of a man who wanted someone to share expenses on a trip to California, so she quit her job and with her last wages left with him. She testified that she had no sexual relations with this man, and plaintiff does not accuse her of such. Following this trip she returned to Baton Rouge still emotionally upset. Her husband was suing her for separation and told her he was going to take custody of Jason. She went to live with her aunt and uncle, got a full time job with Kelly Girls paying $512.00 per month.

In February, 1975, the defendant’s mother was injured in an accident and she moved in with her to care for her. In September, 1975, following the recuperation of the mother she returned to live with her aunt and uncle.

During these above periods of time, the minor child lived with Mr. and Mrs. White. The Whites came to regard Jason as their own and, although the separation judgment awarded custody to the plaintiff with reasonable visitation privileges to the defendant, the Whites decided the defendant-mother could only see the child two days a month and that she could never keep the child over night. The reason the defendant did not contest custody at the separation trial was because at the time she felt unable emotionally and financially to care for her son.

We note that the petition for separation was grounded on habitual intemperance, as well as abandonment of the husband and the minor child. There are no other grounds listed for the separation nor for custody. The petition for the separation and custody of the minor child was not contested by the defendant, and a default judgment was granted. Defendant testified in the instant proceedings that the reason she did not contest custody in the separation proceeding was that she was not financially or emotionally capable of caring for the minor, and that knowing the Whites were going to be caring for him, she knew he would be in good hands.

Though the petition for separation had as one of its allegations “habitual intemperance”, the plaintiff in the instant proceeding testified that he had never accused his wife of drinking, nor had he ever seen her drink.

The welfare of the child is the main issue that the Court is concerned with. This issue is more important than any wishes or wants the parents may have. Fulco v. Fulco, 259 La. 1122, 254 So.2d 603 (1971), rehearing denied (1971). As a general rule, and in particular where children of young age are involved, preference is given to the mother in custody cases. This preference is very simply explained, the mother is normally better able to care for the child and look after the education, rearing, and training necessary. Estes v. Estes, 261 La. 20, 258 So.2d 857 (1972), rehearing denied (1972).

No argument is made that the mother is not now morally or emotionally fit to care for the child, or that the house in which she lives is not a proper place to rear a child. In fact, the Trial Judge admitted that it was a fine home.

The Trial Judge has not favored us with written reasons for judgment, however, we must conclude from various statements by the Trial Judge that appear in the record that he could find no fault with the defendant, nor was there anything wrong with the house in which she lived. It thus becomes apparent to this Court that the Trial Judge applied the “double burden” rule to the defendant. We have already ruled that the “double burden” rule does not apply in this situation, and thus, under the established jurisprudential rules, we can see no reason why the defendant-mother should not be granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child with reasonable visitation privileges granted to the father.

In consideration of our above opinion, there is no need to discuss the specification of error as to the ex parte granting of custody to the Whites.

Therefore, for the above and foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Trial Court is reversed, and IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the defendant-appellant, Wendy Rothdram Partin, be and she is hereby granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor, Jason Ian Partin, and IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that this matter be and it is hereby remanded to the Trial Court for the purpose of fixing specific visitation privileges on behalf of plaintiff-appellee Edward Partin, Jr. All costs of the appeal are to be paid by plaintiff-appellee.

Now that you know Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello, and perhaps all of the American mafia were accosting my 16 year old mother and me in an effort to get Edward Partin to change his testimony and free Hoffa from prison, her court statement tells another story.

“As I say I was emotionally upset. I was receiving little support from Edward. I was scared, very confused. I didn’t know exactly which way to turn. I felt I had no one to listen and help with the situation at hand.”

That’s an understatement, especially if you know the type of people who worked with Hoffa and the mafia.

To help that, here’s my summary of what’s already available, distilled down to lead up to what I have to say, and with my biases, and with references cited later to save time and space.

Jimmy Hoffa dropped out of high school and worked hard during the Great Depression for practically no money. At 19 years old, he and a group of guys were sitting on a grocery store dock without pay, waiting for a delivery truck to deliver refrigerated strawberries, and only then would they fight over who was paid 37 cents an hour to unload the strawberries. When the truck arrived, Hoffa led the guys into something akin to a union strike, and they sat by while the strawberries wilted, requesting at least four hours of pay guaranteed for every day they showed up to work. Fights ensued, and Hoffa, though only 5’6″, was a street brawler and defiant of authority, and over the next few years he clawed his way to leading the world’s largest union, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, truckers that shipped everything America saw on store shelves, every automotive part, every movie set, and practically everything manufactured in America that was then transported to train yards, airports, and shipping ports.

To help defend his territories, he recruited the biggest, roughest men he could, men like my grandfather and Frank The Irishman Sheeran, who was a 6’4″ WWII infantry combat veteran with 411 days of active combat during two years of being stationed in Europe. Like the mafia, Hoffa’s muscle came from the waves of unemployed combat veterans who had been trained by the U.S. government; in a way, Hoffa was just like the mafia, but already on a national scale, respected by the regional families who often controlled the ports and local businesses that needed trucks to ship and receive goods, guns, money, and practically everything else. But, Hoffa was still a 19 year old kid on a loading dock wanting justice: fair wages for fair work, a safety net for lean times and in case of accidents or emergencies, and a better life for the working class, something many people hoped the government would do for people.

In 1955, Hoffa began the Teamster pension fund to provide that safety net for what would grow to 2.7 million Teamsters under his rule. They paid cash dues of only a few dollars a month in exchange for Hoffa’s protection and support, but 2 million Teamsters times $1 a month would still be $2 Million dollars a month. Soon Hoffa oversaw $1.1 Billion, an unfathomable amount of money back then, more than the gross domestic product of small countries. He invested it by lending to mafia families, who used the cash to build hotels, casinos, and other ventures. Las Vegas was booming, and much of it’s history can be traced to Hoffa. Films, too, especially because Hoffa’s Teamsters trucked all materials to the desert, and the overlap of Teamster and mafia muscle was a synergistic fit. Most people who knew Hoffa said he was more interested in power than money.

Hoffa invested in Hollywood films, too, and his Teamsters hauled the filming equipment in Teamster trucks and housed actors in Teamster trailers. If you watch film credits from the 1950’s and 1960’s all the way to the end, the final screen is completely filled by the Teamster’s logo, two horse heads on either side of a ship’s steering wheel; the horses were nicknamed Thunder and Lightning, and date back to before automobiles, when Teamsters drove horse teams to deliver products, and added to Hoffa’s statement that everything on every shelf in America was delivered by, and often manufactured because of, Teamsters.

After his Vietnam conflict service, John F. Kennedy was elected senator of Massachusetts and served on the U.S. labor commission. He targeted Hoffa, but Hoffa dismissed him and the dozens of other people in government, who, he felt, were privileged people who weren’t doing their job of protecting Americans or serving veterans when they returned home. Hoffa expressed extra disdain at Kennedy, who came from a long line of wealthy and influential businessmen and senators, an Irish family in Boston that was trying to get their three sons, John (“Johnny” and sometimes “Jack”) Fitzgerald Kennedy, Robert “Bobby” Kenendy, and Edward “Ted” Kennedy, into politics, with a focused target of the presidency. All were Harvard alumni, and coached by the best leaders money could buy.

The Irish mafia funded and influenced voters to help John F. Kennedy become the 35th president of the United States. He was elected in November of 1960 and began office in January of 1961. His first orders included appointing his little brother, Bobby, who was fresh out of Harvard law school, as The Attorney General of the United States, the most senior role of law enforcement and presumed justice in America after the president. He tasked Bobby with two goals: remove Hoffa from power, and, ironically, stop the mafia’s influence on America.

Bobby was known as an arrogant, tough-headed, almost authoritative young man. His direct report was J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary founder and leader of the Federal Bureau of Investigations under what would become a 45 year stent under eight presidents. He was known for advancing technology and wiretapping, and being staunchly anti-communist; he led McCarthyism, which spied on citizens and government officials and blackmailed them about their private lives. (Ironically, Hoover was a closet homosexual who kept stacks of shirtless photos of his college fraternity brothers who also became federal agents, went on long retreats with those agents, and professed his admiration in a lifelong series of letters that became public after his death in 1972; also ironically, he knew that both President Kennedy and Bobby were having extramarital affairs, most notably with American icon Marilyn Monroe.) Bobby put a call-button in Hoover’s office, and began buzzing him with ideas almost as soon as he took office.

Until 1957, the mafia was mistakenly assumed to be local thugs, but a famous 1957 meeting of national families in Syracuse had let the government know just how organized the mafia was, especially the Italian and Irish families, and how connected they were to Hoffa’s Teamsters and other labor unions. Bobby’s first actions in office united FBI’s records with records from the Internal Revenue Service, immigration, and other federal agencies in an effort to track national crime.

That was the beginning of the mafia feeling slighted, and a quiet war began.

Bobby then tasked Hoover with using all of the federal government’s resources to get Hoffa, no matter which laws they needed to violate to do it. Hoover tapped FBI agent and former campaigner for John F. Kennedy, Walter Sheridan, to head what would grow to be a 500 federal agent “Get Hoffa” task force, and Bobby took to the media and assaulted and taunted Hoffa, who replied in turn, but with street words and actions and more than a few curse words. By default, Hoffa taunted Walter Sheridan, too, though Walter discretely remained in the sidelines.

Hoffa was already the most famous and powerful man in America not a Kennedy, and in front of press conferences he consistently referred to Bobby as “Booby,” a “snot nosed, spoiled brat,” who only got his role because of nepotism. The two men spared daily, not just verbally but with shoving matches in crowded rooms. Their intensity was so fierce that media dubbed their spectacle “The Blood Feud.”

Notable journalist pointed out that the Get Hoffa task force was the most expensive, fruitless pursuit of one man by any government in history; that may have remained true until Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, though regardless of exact dollars it’s not an exaggeration to say that the full might of the United States was behind Bobby’s threats and Hoover’s post-WWII surveillance technology, and that Hoffa responded by becoming hyper-diligent about what he said and how he said it.

Though he never graduated high school or attended college, Hoffa was, by all accounts an intelligent and calculating person who operated an international organization that was fiercely loyal to him, and collaborated with other international organizations like the mafia with more efficiency than any government agency ever had and probably ever will.

Hoffa had known Big Daddy since the mid 1950’s. Big Daddy was born Edward Grady Partin, son of Grady Partin, in 1931. Grandpa Grady was a sawmill worker in Woodville, Mississippi who ran out on his wife, my Grandma Foster (who would later marry a man named Foster and drop her maiden name), and their three young sons, Big Daddy and my two great-uncles, Douglas Wesley Partin and Pretense “Joe” Partin.

Big Daddy served in jail for crimes ranging from rape to extortion to simply beating people to a bloody pulp. He escaped jail in Washington, and some time during WWII he was arrested again in Woodville and given a choice of going to jail or joining the marines. He agreed to serve, and within his second week he punched the commanding officer in the face, removed the watch off the unconscious captain’s wrist, and was dishonorably discharged after having successfully fulfilled his contract with the judge of joining the marines.

With all of the men his age gone and in the war, he forcibly – but easily for him – took over the Woodville sawmill and created a union. He then took over the truckers hauling timber in and lumber away, running both unions and being paid by both.

Hoffa respected how Big Daddy handled things, and Big Daddy was given Hoffa’s prize, his own Teamsters local union. It was something so coveted that people like The Irishman would spend years doing dirty work for Hoffa before getting a hint of that opportunity. Big Daddy assumed leadership of Baton Rouge Local #5, and immediately and forcibly installed Hoffa’s man into the New Orleans Teamsters, working alongside mafia boss Carlos Marcello and with access to America’s second largest port, which dominated all shipping to and from Latin America, including Fidel Castro’s burgeoning communist regime, which was aided by the Soviet Union.

Castro tossed out the mafia and took their casinos and hotels in 1959. Those who remained were jailed, including Miami mafia boss and Cuban exile Todos Trafficante Junior. The mafia turned to newly elected President Kennedy for a return on the favor of putting him in office, and Kennedy began the Cuban embargo (after securing a case of Cuban cigars) and in April of 1961 launched what would become the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, which is known as the Gehron Bay in Cuba, a poor choice due to either a mistake in U.S. intelligence or intentional manupulation by Castro, because the land was blocked by marshes that would make any beach assault unwise.

However Gehron Bay was chosen, America, under Kennedy, sent Cuban rebels into battle with promises of American air and navy support, which never happened and led to the death or capture of all rebels. Castro, who immediately showed up in a soviet tank and with a huge cigar in his mouth. He was followed by a small army of photographers, and reports all over the world quoted him as saying he won a victory over American colonization and capitalism. The Soviet Union agreed, and the cold war escalated.

In the summer of 1961, Big Daddy drove a car off a bridge in Mississippi, killing everyone inside, and then helped a 22 year old Local #5 Teamster named Sydney Simpson kidnap his two and six year old children after Simpson lost them in a custody case. They were arrested and thrown in a Baton Rouge jail with an indisputable charge of kidnapping, and, probably because of new cross-state communications pushed by Bobby as Attorney General, manslaugher charges from Mississippi followed immediately.

Big Daddy was facing life in prison. He was allowed a phone call, and he called the New Orleans FBI director, who called Hoover, who called Bobby; and forty eight hours after being arrested he was a free man in exchange for finding “something” or “anything” against Hoffa. It turns out that Big Daddy had already been followed by the FBI, partially because of his ties to Hoffa but also because of his meetings with Castro; but, what he told them was that Hoffa was plotting to kill Bobby Kennedy. Hoover ensured Big Daddy’s recent crimes vanished, and began whitewashing his background for when they’d need him to testify against Hoffa; they were setting Big Daddy up to be an all-American hero who risked his life to save Bobby Kennedy.

In October of 1962, The Cold War escalated when the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba that were capable of launching into Miami and destroying most of Florida. Kennedy responded with a fleet of warships and an alert heard all around the world. Every senator, congressman, and military leader was brought in for 24 hour a day diligence in what most of the world believed was the brink of WWIII, a nuclear war that was fresh on everyone’s mind because it was only 17 years after America had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killing hundreds of millions of unarmed civilians in a matter of seconds.

Two days into the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Kennedy was multi-tasking between his role by his brother’s side and his task of getting Hoffa. At the time, Hoffa was up for a minor state-level trial, and both prosecutors and Hoffa’s army of defense attornies were reviewing possible witnesses. Big Daddy asked to show up, and was tasked with being the “sergeant at arms,” a term Hoffa used for anyone who acted as a bodyguard. Big Daddy was in Hoffa’s hotel room as he conducted business and discussed strategy with his attorneys, and was reporting to Walter Sheridan every day, who was reporting directly to Bobby while the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Hoffa’s men intimidated or influenced jurors, and Hoffa alluded to big Daddy that he could use some help; he patted his back pocket, that had $20,000 in cash, and gave Big Daddy $20,000 from the petty cash safe in his hotel room to help Big Daddy with his legal problems in Baton Rouge.

The world didn’t end. Russia withdrew its nuclear missiles, and in exchange America withdrew or moved some European missiles within range of The Soviet Union, and stopped invading Cuba.

Two years later, Hoffa was on trial for jury-tampering at the 1962 trial. When Big Daddy stood up, Hoffa’s otherwise intense face paled and softened, and he said, “My God, it’s Partin…” in front of the jury. During the court break, he thew chairs and shouted and told everyone to get busy busting Partin.

The jury deliberated only four hours, and found Hoffa guilty of jury tampering, a federal offense; after two years of appeals, Hoffa was sentenced to eight years in federal prison based, as Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “solely on Ed Partin’s testimony.” Another charge was added, similar to how Big Daddy had manslaughter added to his kidnapping charges, and Hoffa was sentenced to a total of eleven years.

On November 22nd, 1963, at approximately 1:26pm, at least one sniper with rifle and scope shot and killed President Kennedy as he rode through downtown Dallas in his convertible. The main suspect, New Orleans native Lee Harvey Oslwad, was leaving a downtown Dallas a movie theater two hours later, and shot and killed a Dallas police officer. Oswald was arrested and charged with murdering both the police officer and President Kenendy.

Jimmy Hoffa told reporters, “Bobby Kennedy’s just another lawyer now,” and ordered all Teamsters offices to fly their flags at full mast.

Forty eight hours after Oswald was arrested, he was shot and killed on international live television as he was led from the Dallas police station by Jack Ruby, an associate of Jimmy Hoffa and my grandfather who had, out of character for both men, called and spoken with Jimmy Hoffa dozens times in the weeks leading up to Kennedy’s assassination. Newly appointed President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Chief Justice Earl Warren to lead the investigation into what had happened. The Warren Report was hastily assembled, and ten months later it mistakenly said that Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed Kennedy, and Ruby acted alone when he shot and killed Oswald. Oswald was a US marine veteran with abysmal marksmanship records, which led many to doubt he could have made the shot that killed Kennedy, and Ruby was an air force veteran without shot records available, but it would be hard to miss Oswald, who was handcuffed and held by police and only two feet away; the world saw that happen on live television, leading practically everyone on Earth to assume Kennedy’s death was part of a larger collaborated conspiracy.

Immediately after Hoffa’s 1962 trial and the Warren Report, Big Daddy returned to running the Baton Rouge Teamsters and was a national celebrity. Hoover himself oversaw Life magazine feature articles that showcased Big Daddy on newfangled lie-detector machines that Hoover was pushing to be allowed as evidence in court, and for reasons probably related to his personal preferences, Hoover selected a shirtless photo of Big Daddy wearing nothing but short shorts and his boxing gloves when he was twenty years younger, helping seal big Daddy in America’s mind as a big, handsome, brutal man willing to stand up against corrupt unions and the mafia. Hoover assigned federal agents to follow Big Daddy around as protection, and others to protect my grandmother, Mamma Jean, who had fled Big Daddy with their children in 1962 but was still named Norma Jean Partin therefore traceable by anyone seeking retaliation against Big Daddy.

Hoffa told the American mafia he’d forgive all their debt if “anyone” could do “anything” to get my grandfather to change his testimony.

Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated in 1968. Bobby Kennedy ran for president that year and, for the first time, spoke of his brother’s 1963 assassination and called for racial peace. Walter Sheridan quit the FBI and ran his campaign. Bobby won several states’s primaries, and was predicted to win the presidency. Bobby was shot and killed by the redundantly named Sirhan Sirhan in 1968. Richard Nixon won the presidency.

From behind prison bars and celebrating Bobby’s murder, Hoffa had told Richard Nixon he’d endorse him and give him a few million dollars if he could get Big Daddy to recant his testimony. Hoffa enticed Audie Murphy, America’s most decorated war hero from WWII and a star of around 40 Hollywood action films, probably the most trusted face in America back then, to negotiate the deal. Murphy needed money. He had recently filed bankruptcy after failed business ventures and an expensive horse-racing hobby at San Diego’s Del Mar racetracks and was indicted for assault and battery; he had locked himself in a hotel room to fight off his addiction to amphetamines and alcohol, in part to present a better public image; before then, he had turned down offers for lucrative endorsements of cigarette and alcohol brands, but said he respected his mother too much to use his fame in a way that would influence kids unwholesomely. Recovered, and still connected to politicians and newscasters who grew up admiring him, Audie Murphy accepted Hoffa’s offer to fund another Hollywood film starting Audie in exchange for him negotiating a deal between Nixon and Big Daddy.

Audie Murphy flew to and from Baton Rouge in a small aging private plane owned by Carlos Marcello and flown by a guy named Ferrie, Marcello’s private pilot who had also flow Frank Sheeran around. Audie and Ferrie took Big Daddy to San Deigo to meet Nixon in his San Clemente home, and Nixon penned a provisional pardon that would prevent Big Daddy from facing perjury charges if he said he lied in court against Hoffa. Big Daddy agreed, and told reporters that. Immediately after, Murphy and all four passengers of Marcello’s plane went down in Virginia, killing everyone on board, including Ferrie. Big Daddy was the main suspect in orchestrating their deaths, and in his next statement to a reporter he reverted back to his original testimony about Hoffa. Big Daddy returned to his work in Louisiana, and Time continued to showcase him as tough leader willing to stand up against the mafia; some spun his refusing Marcello’s bribe as integrity.

Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran talked a lot about Big Daddy and Audie Murphy. Big Daddy was a dishonorably discharged marine with only two weeks of service (he had punched out the commanding officer when he was a 17 year old recruit, and was dishonorably discharged), but Frank and Audie had fought in the same campaigns near each other. They had never met, and they were foot soldiers who had tried out for, but did not make, the newly formed 82nd Airborne, a fact I couldn’t help smile about when I had blood wings pinned to my chest after graduating Airborne school and was on my way to the 82nd in 1990, just before the first Gulf war.

Frank would serve two years and a uncanny number of days in actual combat, 411 according to his biography. Frank never discussed his combat experience and avoided all journalist and interrogator probes about those days; to put those Miranda Rights into perspective, the mafia hitman who admitted to killing dozens of men including his friend, Jimmy Hoffa, would not talk about his combat days. Neither will I, other than to say that I miss many friends from my years in service, and to point out how much I revered Audie Murphy when I was told Big Daddy had, in fact, had Audie Murphy and all four people on board killed, a story written down in Uncle Doug’s self-published autobiography, “From my Brother’s Shadow: Douglas Westley Partin Finally Tells His Side of The Story,” published three years before his death in a Mississippi veterans convalescent home during Covid-19, and still available on Amazon.com under its publisher, Oak Tree Publishing, Biloxi, Mississippi.

Audie had around 278 confirmed kills, and was known for standing atop a tank and fending off an entire company of Germans. His men adored him because he was brave and honest and, though only 5’5″, a fierce fighter. He was awarded every medal America could give, and photos showed every president who met him shaking his hand and looking up to him. His handsome boyish face became the symbol of an all-American hero, something Hoffa knew about when he scoffed at Big Daddy being dubbed Bobby’s all-American boy. After his first film, To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy starred in around 40 films. He refused lucrative advertising offers from cigarette and liquor companies, but he always refused, telling reporters he wanted to honor his mother, a single woman who had raised him in rural Texas, by not using his fame to influence young Americans.

The mafia loved Audie Murphy; no one liked the Nazis, especially the exiled Italians, and all of the WWII, Korean, and Vietnam war veterans who took work with the Teamsters and mafia continued to speak of Audie Murphy’s valor; he was one of the first heroes to openly discuss PTSD.

America loved Audie Murphy. His death was national news for weeks, and The United States named a military training and Veterans Administration Hospital in Texas The Audie Murphy Memorial Hospital. When I last visited, his grave in America’s National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia was the second most visited, missing President John F. Kennedy’s by only a handful. When he realized he was an alcoholic and amphetamine addict, he thought of his mother and how that would not honor her and he locked himself in a hotel room for a week and fought it out and won.

When Audie met Big Daddy, he had declared bankruptcy in 1968, and had been arrested for assault with intent to murder. (He had attacked his wife’s dog trainer after he felt the trainer had abused his dog, something Wendy said probably served that guy right.) He was an aging Hollywood actor and Del Mar racehorse owner who and needed money. He flew Big Daddy back and forth between Baton Rouge and Del Mar to meet with Nixon in Nixon’s San Clemente mansion.

“Hoffa brazenly wrote that for the deal to turn out profitable for Audie Murphy and Partin, an unspecified favor was needed from Jimmy Hoffa.” (I assume that was either a typo that slipped by the editorial, or was an unedited quote from Frank, who was in his early 80’s when dictating to the attorney and author, Charles Brandt, who had spent around ten years interviewing Frank.

“In school Jimmy talked a lot about Partin,” Frank said about visiting Hoffa in his Pennsylvania federal penitentiary. Hoffa was only allowed personal visits once every few months, and spent his days on a work detail pounding mattresses manufactured in the joint and shipped out on Teamster trucks. Horns would honk, and half of America had “Free Hoffa” bumper stickers on their 18 wheelers. The Teamsters had voted to keep Hoffa as president, and to keep paying his salary. He conducted business through his attorneys, who could visit more frequently, including guys like Frank Ragano, whose only two other clients were Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante Junior. Visiting records and FBI surveillance confirm Franks visits to Hoffa in prison around the time of my conception.

(If Wendy were still alive, I’d probably joke that at least I know Frank Sheeran wasn’t my father, and I’d ask if those were conjecal visits and she’d probably snort from laughing so hard.)

“I think the money this money was for the parole or the pardon, not Partin,” Frank said.

“Technically,” Frank said, “the half a big one was for Nixon’s reelection.”

“Jimmy told me point-blank to tell our friends back East that nothing should happen to Partin. Jimmy told me he had a good defense for the Chicago thing, and they were still working on Partin for an affidavit on the Chattanooga thing.”

“Jimmy claimed he had tapes of Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe having sex. Johnny Roselli and Giancana had Marilyn Monroe’s house bugged,” he said.

Frank finished by summarizing what he took home from that meeting: “I left Chicago and passed the word among our friends about Partin.”

That’s why Carlos Marcello offered to bribe Big Daddy: if he had accepted, it would have been a cheap way to not owe Jimmy Hoffa $21 Million, and probably easier than dealing with all of his men who were hurt in Baton Rouge and limped back downriver to New Orleans, home of Carlos Marcello.

Hoffa gave Nixon the money and endorsed him without Big Daddy’s recant, the first and only time a major union endorsed a republican president. I don’t know how many of the 2.7 million teamsters voted for Nixon, who had lost the 1960 presidency to Kennedy, but Richard Nixon won the election in 1971. He immediately pardoned Hoffa, but, Tricky Dick, as he became known after the Watergate scandal that cost him his presidency, stipulated that Hoffa abstain from union activity for eight years.

Hoffa maintained his pressure for “anyone” to do “anything” to get Big Daddy to either change his testimony or swear in court that Bobby and Hoover had used illegal surveillance in their case against Hoffa, which would free him from the original charges and allow him to return to leading the Teamsters despite Nixon’s eight-year ban. Hoffa was a free man, and he was speaking publicly and blatantly about returning to lead the Teamsters.

My mother lost her virginity to Edward Grady Partin Junior, and that’s where I entered the story.

In 1972, when Hoffa was still alive but free from jail and talking to anyone who would listen, Francis Ford Copula produced one of America’s most heralded films, The Godfather. Several mafia families advised the producers during filming, and in one scene a Hollywood producer wakes up to find the head of his prized race horse severed, and the bloody head placed in bed beside him. Though I’ve never found evidence, I’ve always suspected that the mafia sent Hoffa a warning that Hoffa that Thunder and Lightning were no longer necessary for their business. But most people I’ve spoken with believe that was the case.

Soon The Godfather was released, Wendy had her second of two documented nervous breakdowns. The second time, she left me at a daycare center two miles down Hooper Road from Glen Oaks High School, which was about four miles from the Baton Rouge airport where Lee Harvey Oswald had trained.

Judge Pughe of the East Baton Rouge Parish 9th Judicial District removed me from Partin custody. Pughe, pronounced in the southern Louisiana accent as Pee-yew, like a bad smell, died by alleged suicide soon after and Big Daddy was suspected of orchestrating that, though no trial was ever held.

Hoffa vanished from a Detroit parking lot at around 2:30 pm, July 30th, 1975.

The FBI case on his disappearance and presumed death remains open, and is considered one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries, with thousands of books, television specials, movies, and web sites dedicated to speculation. In The Irishman, Frank Sheeran’s co-author says that he spoke with many aging FBI agents who said they nailed whom they suspected, and reminded him that Al Capone didn’t go to jail for being a murderous mobster, the FBI had him sent to prison for tax evasion.

In 1975, just after Hoffa vanished, Judge JJ Lottinger assumed Judge Pugh’s role as the only family court judge in East Baton Rouge parish. Lottinger transferred to family court after thirty years in legislative law; in that time, he helped three Louisiana governors try to rid the state of Big Daddy and his Teamster influence, the same way Bobby Kennedy was trying to help President Kennedy rid America of Jimmy Hoffa and the mafia. I don’t know why Lottinger assumed that role, but Wendy liked him and trusted him, and he treated her kindly and helped her regain custody of me, and his written records of my custody case speak of a kind and well-informed judge who was finally free from Partin influence, just as Uncle Doug concluded his 2017 memoir that he was, finally, free from his brother’s shadow.

Judge JJ removed me from any Partin custody other than Wendy’s in September of 1976, but both my dad and my foster parents contested. I spent another three years languishing in the Louisiana foster system, bouncing between my MawMaw and PawPaw, my dad, Wendy, Auntie Lo and Uncle Bob, and Granny. My memory around that time is muddled. It wasn’t until some time between 1976 and 1977 that my language developed, and I can link my memories with words.

That’s where my part in this story begins. It will end with Wendy’s funeral in 2019, a bookend on a life she summarized and understated in and is, for reasons I still don’t understand, publicly available in 1976’s Partin versus Partin:

“As I say I was emotionally upset. I was receiving little support from Edward. I was scared, very confused. I didn’t know exactly which way to turn. I felt I had no one to listen and help with the situation at hand.”

Wendy was 16 years old when she had me, and was still a kid in 1976; she was intemperate as long as I knew her.

Whenever someone asks me about my family, I say: “It’s a long story.”

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