Walter Sheridan

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Walter James Sheridan (20 November 1925 [1] - 13 January 1995) [2] [3] was an investigator for various agencies of the US government. He is best known for his role in the prosecution of Jimmy Hoffa, on which subject he published a book in 1972.

Contents

Background

Sheridan was born in 1925 in Utica, New York. [3] [4] During World War II, he served in the US Navy's Submarine Service, [3] and according to some sources worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence. [5] After the war he benefited from the G.I. Bill, graduating from Fordham University in 1950. [1]

Career

Sheridan joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation, resigning after four years over J. Edgar Hoover's focus on anti-Communism. [4] As Sheridan later put it, "Hoover was more interested in guys who were Communists for 15 minutes in 1931 than he was in guys who were stealing New Jersey." [1] He was then a National Security Agency investigator for three years. [1] [4]

Sheridan was an investigator for the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, recruited to its staff by Robert F. Kennedy in 1957. [1] [2] He was a regional coordinator for John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, and a coordinator for the Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign, 1968. [4] After Robert Kennedy was appointed Attorney General in 1961, Sheridan became a special assistant to Kennedy working as the effective chief of a team investigating Hoffa and the Teamsters. [3] From 1965 to 1970, he was a NBC News special correspondent, producing documentaries on crime and gun control among other issues; [4] his unit received a Peabody Award for work on the 1967 Detroit riot. [3] Sheridan also covered the 1967 prosecution of Clay Shaw by Jim Garrison, and in 1967 produced an hour-long special for NBC on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. [6]

In the 1970s and 80s, he was a principal aide to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. [4]

In fiction

Sheridan is among those portrayed in the film Thirteen Days , which is about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

In Movies

Sheridan is mentioned in the documentary The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) pertaining to his work on the 1967 NBC hour-long special about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. [7]

Books

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