November 22, 1963

November 22, 1963, enters the book as a day of national shock refracted through a narrower world of union politics, criminal suspicion, and personal rivalry. The assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas prompted Bobby Kennedy to ask Walter Sheridan to investigate possible involvement by Jimmy Hoffa; it also reached Frank Sheeran over a radio in a Wilmington union hall and provoked Hoffa’s fury when the Teamsters headquarters lowered its flag. The date’s significance lies not in any established explanation of the assassination, but in the way its immediate aftermath exposed the suspicions and resentments already surrounding Hoffa.

The news reaches Wilmington

Two days before the assassination, Judge Miller had disbarred Tommy Osborn in Nashville. On November 22, Sheeran was in Wilmington, Delaware, on union business. The union hall near the train station still belonged to Local 107 in Philadelphia, and Sheeran had stopped there after visiting trucking terminals. When he walked inside, the radio was announcing that Kennedy had been shot.

Sheeran later recalled that the news disturbed him as it did everyone else. He did not consider Kennedy a favorite, but said he had nothing personal against him and acknowledged that Kennedy had a nice family. That recollection sets the public shock alongside Sheeran’s guarded, personal measure of the president: neither allegiance nor hostility, but a recognition of a family caught in a national calamity.

Before Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, Sheeran says, a question had already occurred to him: whether Kennedy’s assassination had anything to do with “that matter at Monte’s.” The book does not resolve what connection Sheeran suspected or establish that such a connection existed. His recollection instead marks the reach of the earlier incident in his mind: the assassination made him think of it, but he believed there was no one he could safely ask. The moment is presented as a private suspicion formed amid public confusion, not as proof of a conspiracy.

Official suspicion and Hoffa

The assassination also redirected the attention of Bobby Kennedy, who was grieving his brother and making calls about people he suspected might be involved. One of those calls went to Walter Sheridan, whom Kennedy asked to check possible involvement by Hoffa. The episode places the question within the immediate aftermath of the killing: Kennedy’s suspicion is reported as an investigative request, not as a finding that Hoffa had participated.

That distinction matters because the book’s surrounding history had already made the relationship between the two men intensely adversarial. Bobby Kennedy had been a visible force behind Tony Provenzano’s labor-racketeering conviction; Provenzano had denounced Kennedy’s investigative tactics, including questioning people close to him. Against that backdrop, Kennedy’s request concerning Hoffa gave the assassination a direct bearing on the book’s union and criminal investigations, while leaving the underlying suspicion unresolved.

Sheeran’s recollection supplies no answer to the question he says crossed his mind at the union hall, and the account of Sheridan’s assignment supplies no confirmation of Hoffa’s involvement. The date therefore operates as a point where separate uncertainties touch: Sheeran’s thought of Monte’s, and Kennedy’s request that Sheridan examine Hoffa. Their proximity in the narrative creates tension, but the evidence presented does not turn proximity into causation.

Hoffa’s anger and the funeral broadcast

As news of the assassination spread, flags in Washington were lowered to half-staff and government workers were sent home. Harold Gibbons, an International Vice President based in St. Louis, lowered the Teamsters headquarters flag and closed the building. Hoffa erupted in anger over Gibbons’s decision. Sheeran told him that buildings everywhere were lowering their flags, but Hoffa would not listen and, according to Sheeran, never forgave Gibbons.

The disagreement reveals more than a clash over a gesture of mourning. Sheeran regarded Gibbons as a dedicated union man and later urged Hoffa, as Hoffa was “going off to school,” to put Gibbons in charge of day-to-day operations instead of Fitz. Hoffa’s response was dismissive. The episode contrasts Sheeran’s defense of Gibbons with Hoffa’s refusal to accept the explanation, and it records how even a widely shared public observance became entangled in the union leader’s personal grievances.

On the day of Kennedy’s funeral procession, Hoffa appeared on television in Nashville to protest the government’s treatment of Tommy Osborn. He called Osborn’s disbarment and the government’s role in his case a travesty of justice, arguing that the action deprived him of a competent lawyer. The timing set Hoffa’s complaint against a day of national mourning. He then declared that “Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now.” The line, delivered as the country mourned the president, turned a legal and political feud into a public insult aimed at the bereaved attorney general.

A remembered day within a later confession

The book’s account of November 22 is mediated through Sheeran’s later recollection and through the author’s long interview process, rather than presented as an independent investigation of the assassination. Charles Brandt first interviewed Sheeran in 1991, but Sheeran ended that session after admitting more than he wished to. After receiving absolution from a Philadelphia monsignor in 1999, Sheeran agreed to be questioned again; the interviews continued for four years. Brandt describes bringing experience as a former homicide and death-penalty prosecutor to those sessions, while Sheeran once told him that he was worse than any police officer he had dealt with.

This framing helps define what the date can and cannot establish. Sheeran’s account of hearing the news and thinking of Monte’s is testimony about what he remembered thinking; it does not independently verify the suspicion. The distinction remains important even as the book connects his later claims to an extended record of questioning. Sheeran read and approved each chapter and then the complete manuscript. During his final illness, after speaking with Emmett Fitzpatrick, he agreed to appear on video and stand behind the book’s account, including its claims about what happened to Hoffa on July 30, 1975.

In that final recorded exchange, Sheeran affirmed that the material about Hoffa came from what he had told Brandt and said that he stood behind what was written. The confirmation concerned the book’s claims about Hoffa, not an explanation of Kennedy’s assassination. November 22 thus remains a charged junction rather than a solved mystery: a radio announcement in Wilmington, a suspicion Sheeran could not safely pursue, an investigative request from Bobby Kennedy, and Hoffa’s refusal to set aside his grievance even during the nation’s mourning.