Jimmy Hoffa - An Enigma

Synchronicity of a sort is following me around. After researching and drafting yesterday's post on Mother Jones what should appear on the HBO schedule for that evening but the 1992 movie Hoffa starring Jack Nicholson as Teamsters' Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, center of a long-running mystery. Hoffa was, allegedly, murdered by the mafia in 1975. His remains have never been found.

Hoffa was a far cry from Mother Jones though. Times had changed.

I knew hardly anything about Jimmy Hoffa, but in spite of my husband's assurances that he was "a criminal" I secretly suspected that any man who organised on behalf of his fellow-workers to oppose unjust employers, of whom there have always been a plentiful supply, couldn't be all bad. Conditions under which truck drivers worked in Hoffa's early days were unfair and unjust, forced to drive for long hours without breaks. They needed a strong voice to represent their complaints and a strong character to force improvements. They found both in Jimmy Hoffa.

Having now read many pages of information on line I'm still unsure what to make of Mr. Hoffa. One source has him as a Republican supporter - strange! But that could have been assumption following his run-ins with Robert Kennedy and the Kennedy family, also the fact that Richard Nixon granted him a pardon and release from a long prison sentence (Nixon probably having been promised $$$$$$$).

Will Hoffa's natal chart provide an answer to what drove him ? He's said by all sources to have been a good family man, traditional-style, but belligerent, power seeking and hard-headed in his professional role. His proven connection to "the mob" was likely the only route available to achieve his aim of organising a union powerful enough dictate terms. In those days, in that part of the USA (around Detroit, Michigan) it appears that "the mob" was in charge. Hoffa, probably willingly, was sucked into that murderous, corrupt scenario and became a part of it. I doubt that this was ever a part of his original vision, however.

Jimmy Hoffa was born on 14 February 1913 in Brazil, Indiana, at 6:52 AM (Astrodatabank).




Oh yes! Here we go.....Sun, Mercury and rebel planet Uranus strong and undiluted in its own modern rulership: Aquarius. Aquarius connects with aims for social reform, Uranus the revolutionary always in conflict with the status quo. This is classic, especially so if time of birth stated at Astrodatabank is correct (it has a reliable AA rating). Aquarius was rising, with Sun/Mercury on the ascendant angle, most potent point in the chart. Pluto, the planet commonly connected with all kinds of power was at 28 Gemini when Hoffa was born, and in harmonious trine to his Sun/Mercury (self and mode of communication).

I really don't need to go much further - other than noting that his natal Moon (representing inner self) was in stubborn Taurus, the sign representing material possessions and, often, conservatism. In Hoffa's case Moon is exactly conjunct Saturn, traditionally thought of as planet of conservatism, stucture and rigidity. Here may be a link to possible Republican leanings, which I find rather odd for a union organiser.

With Sun, Moon and ascendant in Fixed signs (Aquarius and Taurus) this man was just about as inflexible as they come!

Jimmy Hoffa, for me, remains an enigma, an interesting character about whose true feelings and motivations we know very little.