“I may have faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them”

James R. Hoffa’s declaration, “I may have faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them,” captures the forceful certainty he projected at the 1961 convention. Spoken amid his active control of the proceedings, the line is both a boast and a compact statement of how he presented himself: willing to acknowledge faults, but unwilling to concede error.

The Convention and the Line

Hoffa controlled the convention microphone, switching it off when he disliked what a speaker was saying. He would tell delegates, “You’re out of order, brother, shut up.” Against that display of authority, his claim that being wrong was not one of his faults sounds less like a private reflection than a public assertion of command. The setting gives the line its edge: Hoffa was not only claiming confidence in his judgment but presiding over a gathering where he could silence dissent.

Retrospective Irony

The convention also produced a consequence that complicates the certainty of the remark. After Owen Bert Brennan’s death, Hoffa had to fill a vice-presidential vacancy and chose Fitzsimmons on the flip of a coin. Fitzsimmons was elected at the convention and spoke at length in praise of Hoffa. In retrospect, the account links that chance decision to Fitzsimmons’s later position as Hoffa’s successor when Hoffa went to prison. The line therefore stands beside an unintended outcome: the man who insisted he was not wrong made a consequential choice by coin toss, one whose later significance the convention speech could not resolve.