Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay at the Time of the Assassination

 Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay at the Time of the Assassination 

A presentation prepared for JFK Lancer 2021, but was canceled due to technical problems. 

General LeMay and Arthur Collins 

Arthur Collins and Curtis LeMay are two of the most interesting characters in the assassination story, were personal friends and are considered by some to be primary suspects.

When Arthur Collins was a teenager from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he built his own radio receiver in his parent’s garage, the only radio capable of picking up the broadcasts from U.S. Navy Admiral Richard Byrd from his remote artic expeditions. Information he dutifully passed on to the U. S. Navy.

Admiral Byrd’s polar expeditions were financed in part by his cousin, Texas oilman D. H. Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination.

Collins founded his Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids and because of his success with the Navy, was given military contracts that were extended during World War II.

Collins also sold radios to the general public, helping to establish the international network of HAM radio enthusiasts, one of whom was Curtis LeMay.

Curtis LeMay grew up in Ohio, the son of general laborer who moved about frequently , so young Curtis helped put food on the table by hunting and fishing.

Majoring in engineering in college in Columbus, Ohio, LeMay enlisted in the Army ROTC – Reserve Officer Training Corps – so wen he graduated he was a lieutenant in the Army, specializing in the Army Air Corps.

As an 8^th Air Force officer during World War II, LeMay was stationed in England where he developed strategies for the American B-17 precision daylight bombing of targets in Europe, that avoided civilian casualitis, but later advocated complete carpet bombing of entire cities to break the moral of the enemy.

After the surrender of the Nazis in Germany LeMay was transferred to the Pacific Theater where he commanded the new B-29 Superfortress bombing of Japanese cities, including the nuclear bombings. 

When the war was over LeMay was made head of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), whose nuclear jet bombers had the motto “Peace is our Profession.”

Probably because of his personal association with Arthur Collins, LeMay had all of the SAC bombers as well as the Executive Air Fleet – that included Air Force One, equipped with Collins sideband radios.

When it was realized that Soviet nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) had a limited range, and when fired over the north pole could not reach the southern states, the government had the major defense contractors move some of their industrial facilities to Texas – including Bell Helicopter, Collins Radio, General Dynamics, etc.

Just as Bell Aircraft relocated their Bell Helicopter division to Texas, where Michael Paine moved to when his step-father Arthur Young, inventor of the Bell Helicopter, arraned for him to work for them.

While keeping his company headquarters in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Art Collins opened a Collins Radio facility in Richardson, Texas, and maintained a hanger at Redbird Airport, the subject of which is Larry Hancock’s talk.

Collins not only manufactured the radios used by the U.S. Air Force and Executive Fleet, but also maintained and serviced them, using their Cedar Rapids based “Liberty” station to relay messages over long distances. The “Liberty” station can be heard dozens of time on the existing Air Force One radio transmission tapes, but Max Holland doesn’t mention it at all in his book on the subject, “The JFK Assassination Tapes.

In Texas Collins and the other major defense contractors discovered they had a hard time recruiting top notch engineers and scientists, and had to recruit them from out of state, so they banded together and established the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, and Art Collins was named one of the first directors.

When the Dallas university that had invited President Kennedy to give a speech, giving him the excuse to visit Dallas, withdrew their invitation, so a Dallas civic organization that head previously had intended to pay tribute to the Graduate Research Center as part of their annual luncheon at the Trade Mart, decided to invite President Kennedy to address them.

And so, if you read the blood soaked type written undelivered speech JFK kept in his breast pocket, available at the National Archives, you will see that it is addressed to the defense industries and the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest in mentioned in the first paragraph.

Since Arthur Collins was an early director of the Center, he most likely was in the audience at the Trade Mart waiting on the Presient when they got word that he had been shot.

As Edward Lutwack writes in his book – “Coup d'etat – A Practical Handbook,” control of key communications is a key aspect of a coup, and if the assassination or President Kennedy was not just a murder but a coup, then those responsible had to have control of the communications, and Art Collins had that capability.

While Collins as a person does not come across as someone who would support the murder of a President, he did allow his company to be used as a front for CIA cover operations against Cuba, officially leasing the CIA ship the Rex, as the New York Times reported in their November 1, 1963 edition with an article on how the Rex deposited a team of commandos with high powered rifles in Cuba, who were subsequently arrested and paraded before Cuban TV by Fidel Castro.

The New York Times article reported that the Rex was docked in Palm Beach, Florida, not far from the President’s house, was owned by the Somoza Family of Nicaragua, the godfathers of the Bay of Pigs, and was leased to Collins Radio, of Richardson, Texas for electronic research.

There are literally dozens of Collins Radio associations to the asassination that I document in my article The Collins Radio Connections , [  https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-collins-radio-connections-revisited.html  ] that together plant Collins Radio in the heart of the covert intelligence operation that lead to the death of the President at Dealey Plaza.

And we can surmise that Arthur Collins himself was at the Trade Mart waiting for the President to arrive when news of the assassination effectively ended the luncheon.

As for Curtis LeMay, we have a fairly good idea of where he was at the time of the assassination as well – hunting and fishing in Northern Michigan and Canada.

Thanks to Larry Haapanen for providing the newspaper clippings that document the key facts – on the Friday and Saturday before the assassination General LeMay hosted a conference of Air Force Generals at an AFB in Alabama.

From there we know that LeMay hooked up with television entertainer Arthur Godfrey, a pilot and Air Force Reserve officer whose private plane was a gift from Eastern Airline President Eddie Rickenbacker.

According to a Detroit newspaper article, Godfrey and LeMay refueled in Detroit, where Godfrey talked to the reporter, saying that they were on their way to a Michigan hunting and fishing resort famous for hosting celebrities, naming streets after them.

From there the story gets a bit muddled, as Godfrey flew back to New York to do his show, while LeMay went on to northern Michigan, where his wife’s family owned a lake cabin that he often used.

Others however, have suggested LeMay visited other resorts, one where Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa owned a cabin that LeMay was known to have visited. And LeMay is listed among those guests who received Christmas cards from the resort proprietors.

Tom Lipscomb however, has located yet another possible location LeMay have been at the time of the assassination. Tom is a former mainstream book publisher who had a number of important titles under his belt, including Che’s Diaries, and he is writing a book about the assassination that includes a chapter on Generals LeMay and Lansdale.

Since we know for a fact that LeMay flew out of Wiarton, Canada on an Air Force jet he had summoned, Tom has identified a hunting and fishing resort in an island not far from Wiarton, one owned by Detroit automobile manufacturers.

Although this resort did not have telephone service in 1963, it did have radios including a short wave HAM radio that LeMay could have used to communicate with Art Collins and Andrews AFB. At first LeMay requested that he be picked up in Toronto, but after the small, twin engine AF Executive plane was enroute he redirected it to Wiarton, a former Canadian Air Force base that had a runway capable of handling the small jet.

LeMay was so impressed with the small, efficient Executive jet when he retired he formed a company that leased such Executive jets to CEOs of major companies.

The Wiarton base LeMay left from was less than an hour boat or small plane ride from the island resort Tom has identified. 

From General Clifton’s version of the Air Force One tapes we learn that General LeMay’s aide, Colonel Dorman, was trying to get an urgent message to LeMay, but was having trouble getting it through since all the radios were busy and Air Force One radio traffic took priority. Either the message was edited out from the highly edited Air Force One tapes in existence, or it never got through.

When I first heard Colonel Dorman on the Clifton tapes I looked him up and found he had been killed in action as a fighter pilot, shot down in Vietnam, but his widow lived in Trenton, New Jersey, not far from where I lived. I found her phone number in the public directory and called her, and she confirmed that her husband was Colonel Dorman, LeMay’s aide, and said that she was working at the White House on the day of the assassination. She was working on the historic renovations of the building as directed by the First Lady, and received a phone call from her husband who instructed her to leave immediately and go home, as the President had been shot.

She didn’t go directly home however, but stopped at a churchl to pray. She also introduced me to her son, who did not know what the urgent message was because his father didn’t talk about his work at home. As they lived on General’s Row, Arlington Cemetery was their backyard, and the son said he watched the funeral procession and burial from a unique vantage point – in a tree.

While we still don’t know what the urgent message Dorman tried to convey to LeMay, we do know that LeMay was ordered by Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert to land at Andrews AFB, but LeMay disobeyed that order and landed at the National Airport, which placed him in a position to attend the President’s autopsy in Bethesda.

On a final note, possibly of importance, I think that General LeMay’s association with Chicago mobster and Havana and Las Vegas casino boss Charles “Babe” Barron comes into play in regards to the assassination, as Barron was also a General in the U.S. Army Reserves. LeMay’s daughter, in an oral history, noted that Barron was the godfather of her son, and General LeMay always personally picked up Barron at the airport when he visited them, carrying his luggage.

When Jack Ruby’s pal, entertainment reporter Tony Zoppi told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Barron was a close, personal friend of LeMay, they went looking for Barron and found him visiting LeMay in California.

The close association between Arthur Collins and LeMay is significant in regards to the radio communications, while LeMay’s friendship with Barron may be important as the US Army Reserves were the “boots on the ground” in Dallas, much like the Valkyrie plan to kill Hitler had the Home Army mobilized to do the dirty work.

In closing, I just want to say that I believe that it will not be a mystery forever, but we will eventually learn the details of exactly how President Kennedy was killed, who was responsible and why it happened, as we are very close to the total truth.

Bill Kelly  - billkelly3@gmail.com