For weeks, top Teamsters had been nervously waiting. Would their tough little boss Jimmy Hoffa run for the presidency of the union again, even though he is still serving a 13-year sentence for jury tampering and pension-fund fraud in Lewisburg (Pa.) Penitentiary? Last week the word finally came down: he would not. Making the announcement in the Teamsters' ornate Washington headquarters, Hoffa's son James, a Teamster lawyer, said that his father was bowing out in favor of the union's acting president, Frank Fitzsimmons.
Plainly relieved, the Teamster executive board voted unanimously to...