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Released from prison in 1970, Provenzano became a firm ally of Frank Fitzsimmons in his plan to keep the union presidency. Fitzsimmons was reportedly planning to set up Tony Pro as the boss of the Teamsters Joint Council in New York, a job that would make the two Provenzano brothers the czars of all the Teamsters in the East. Daniel Sullivan, a former Teamster official and reformer, remembers ominously that on May 5, 1974, Hoffa told him: "Tony Pro threatened to pull my guts out or kidnap my grandchildren if I continued to attempt to return to the presidency of the Teamsters."
When Hoffa's sentence was commuted in 1971 by President Richard Nixon, the terms of his release from prison prohibited him from taking part in Teamster affairs until 1980. But Hoffa was fighting that ban in court, while month by month he was gaining more influence in the union. Earlier this summer, Provenzano and Giacalone tried to lure him to "sitdowns" to discuss an armistice in his war against Fitzsimmons. Although Hoffa rejected the initial feelers from Giacalone, he agreed early in July to consider getting together with Provenzano.
Hoffa's office records, surrendered to the FBI by his family, show that he accepted a specific Giacalone-Provenzano proposition in late July. On July 30, the day he vanished, his office calendar bears the notation "TG—2 p.m.—Red Fox." Apparently expecting to meet Tony Giacalone, Hoffa went to the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township outside Detroit—and then disappeared. The last word from him was a phone call to his wife Josephine at 2:30. "I wonder where the hell Tony is," Hoffa said. "I'm waiting for him."
There is an additional curious piece of evidence that indicates Hoffa thought he was going to meet Giacalone and Provenzano. Late that morning, Hoffa stopped off at an airport bus company owned by a friend and chatted with four of the employees. Afterward, the four were unable to recall whom Hoffa had said he was going to meet. But when the Hoffa family arranged for a psychiatrist to put them under hypnosis, they remembered the names of Giacalone and Provenzano.
On the afternoon that Hoffa vanished, both Giacalone and Provenzano were on prominent display elsewhere. Tony Jack made an appearance in the steam rooms of the Southfield Athletic Club near Detroit, and Tony Pro hobnobbed with Teamsters at union locals in Hoboken.
Giacalone promptly denied any plans to meet with Hoffa, and Provenzano put on an extraordinary performance to proclaim his innocence. A few days later, clad in white bathing trunks, he smilingly welcomed reporters and television cameramen to his expensive home just north of Miami. "I don't know where Jimmy went," he insisted. "I'm as shocked as anyone by his disappearance, and if I can do anything to help find Jimmy, I will."