It was a condition of his commutation that he could not try to recover the presidency of the Teamsters. He expected Nixon to cancel the ban in time. Even after Nixon resigned, Jimmy confidently expected President Ford would remove the condition. In the meantime, he drew a pension from the union of one and a half million dollars a year. The money was burning holes in his pockets, and he set out to look for investments. Coal mining was one of his ideas, and he did ultimately manage to buy into a mining operation. But he was looking around, looking for something to raid, and to our bad fortune his cold, snakelike eyes fell on Cheeks. I don’t know if it was because he remembered and resented what Buddy had done to defend me—which, incidentally, Buddy remembered very well—or if someone had pointed us out to him as a growing company that could be raided without an immense amount of capital. All I know is that Jimmy Hoffa began looking for ways to acquire my company. He couldn’t buy stock.
