Hale Boggs: The Man Who Disappeared and Left a Dynasty

The Man Who Disappeared and Left a Dynasty

Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. was born in 1914 in Long Beach, Mississippi, but New Orleans made him. He earned his degrees at Tulane, practiced law in the city, and in 1940, at the age of twenty-seven, won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives — making him the youngest member of Congress at the time. He represented New Orleans' 2nd Congressional District for the better part of three decades, rising from backbencher to House Majority Leader.

Boggs was a creature of the New Deal era who believed that government could actually do things. He was instrumental in passing Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation — Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. He served as House Majority Whip from 1962 to 1971 and then Majority Leader from 1971 until his disappearance. At his peak, he was one of the three or four most powerful people in Washington.

The Warren Commission and J. Edgar Hoover

Boggs served on the Warren Commission investigating President Kennedy's assassination. He was its youngest member, and privately, he had doubts. He later expressed strong reservations about the single-bullet theory, though he publicly defended the Commission's conclusions. In 1971, he did something far more dangerous than questioning the Warren Report — he went after J. Edgar Hoover on the House floor, accusing the FBI of wiretapping members of Congress and comparing the bureau's tactics to the Soviet Union and the Gestapo. That took guts that most politicians couldn't find with a map.

Alaska, October 1972

On October 16, 1972, Hale Boggs boarded a small Cessna 310 in Anchorage, Alaska, headed for Juneau to campaign for a fellow congressman. The plane disappeared. Despite one of the largest search operations in American history at the time, neither the aircraft nor any remains were ever found. He was declared dead on December 29, 1972.

His widow Lindy won his seat and served eighteen years. His daughter Cokie Roberts became a legendary journalist. His son Tommy became one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists. Hale Boggs vanished over Alaska, but the family he built kept reshaping American politics for half a century after he was gone.