On this day in 1913, labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was born in the Hoosier State.

In 1959 John Bartlow Martin wrote a multi-part series for the "Saturday Evening Post" on the Senate Rackets Committee investigation of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters Union.

Martin spent a lot of his time with Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel for the committee, but did manage to interview and travel with Hoffa.

From his time with the union official and RFK, Martin was struck by certain similarities between the two men: "Both were aggressive, competitive, hard driving, somewhat authoritarian, suspicious, temperate, at times congenial and at other times curt.”

Both were physical men who wanted to keep their bodies in shape--both did push-ups. Both spent their leisure time with their business associates; despite their wealth and power, both eschewed frivolity or indulgence and both seemed oblivious of their surroundings.”

“Both were serious men and, in their own ways, dedicated."

When he had finished his story, Martin offered to show his manuscript to both Hoffa and Kennedy so they could correct any factual errors, but not his interpretations of events.

Although Hoffa turned down Martin’s offer, Kennedy spent the better part of a day and well into the night going over the manuscript point by point with Martin at the writer’s hotel room in New York.

It proved to be “not an easy negotiation,” said Martin, as Kennedy was as tenacious with the reporter as he had been with reluctant witnesses appearing before the Rackets Committee.

"What bothered him the most about the MS [manuscript], I think, were the similarities I noted in the piece between him and Hoffa,” said Martin.

“He was amazed and simply could not understand; it had never occurred to him; he had thought of himself as good and Hoffa as evil; I was looking at them from a different angle."