Rolland McMaster is considered a key suspect in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.  He is mentioned being involved in spurious activities, racketeering, and being involved with the forceful organizing tactics of the “IBT” International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the Detroit area as early as the 1940s. “McMaster served as an officer in the Detroit Teamsters Local 299 from 1955 to 1967 and since 1970 (through January 1976) as a General Organizer for the Teamsters in Chicago and Detroit.” (stated on page 46 of the FBI’s Hoffex Memo). In 1966-1967 McMaster went to prison for 18 months having been convicted of 32 counts of blackmail and coercion. He continued serving as an organizer afterward in some capacity. He was very much a James R. Hoffa (JRH) supporter in the 1950s.  McMaster was brought before the McClellan Hearings during the time John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert were focusing on the infiltration of labor unions by organized crime, and specifically, looking into the cooperation organized crime received from Jimmy Hoffa and his predecessor Dave Beck.  

 

When Hoffa was sent to Lewisburg Federal Prison 1967, McMaster had expressed his ambitions to take over the presidency of IBT Local 299 in Detroit.  Hoffa had appointed Frank Fitzsimmons to be acting IBT president and by proxy continued to control the entire Teamsters union until 1971. In other words, Hoffa still called all the shots from his prison cell with the international union as well as who would be running Local 299 in Detroit. When his sentence was commuted by Richard Nixon in 1971, Hoffa had relinquished control of the IBT to Fitzsimmons as a condition outlined in the terms of his release.  Those conditions included Hoffa being required to stay out of union business until March 6th, 1980.  Hoffa would later challenge those conditions and go public with his intentions to run for IBT President in 1976. Frank Fitzsimmons fell in league with Rolland McMaster during this transition of power. 

 

McMaster then began pushing for leadership of the Detroit Local Teamsters.  Jimmy Hoffa was against him and his aspirations of taking control of Teamsters Local 299. It was surmised, Hoffa had lost trust in Rolland McMaster while serving his sentence in federal prison. This was due to suspicions Hoffa had of McMaster having cooperated with the authorities by sharing information damaging to him. So, their long-time alliance disintegrated.  In spite of what he had stated in the few interviews he granted, Rolland McMaster and Jimmy Hoffa became adversaries by 1975.  

 

McMaster was not able to grab the control of Local 299, even with the Fitzsimmons connection he still retained. Jimmy Hoffa had secured enough of a loyal following and possessed the influence to stand in the way of McMaster’s desires to take over leadership in Detroit.  Dan Johnson (the Local 299 president at the time) continued to side with Hoffa. But Rolland McMaster clearly stood with Frank Fitzsimmons from that point onward.  During that time Fitzsimmon’s son Richard was the vice president of 299. The ensuing violence seemingly centered around Richard Fitzsimmons and Dan Johnson.  But as time passed, it quickly escalated toward Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons and their heated rivalry for the presidency of the entire IBT.

 

Rolland McMaster had been noted for years as a union strong man to provide muscle when needed during strikes and disagreements with CEOs and owners of opposing trucking companies.  Many perceived him as Jimmy Hoffa’s bodyguard up to the time they had their parting disagreements. He possessed a reputation for physical violence as well as being someone connected to organized crime. McMaster had a rather imposing physical stature with a personality to match.  His 6’ 5” 250 lb. frame was difficult to ignore while he pursued his ambitions.  McMaster continued to cause havoc by using union racketeering tactics. Also, during this time, he seemed to be looking for sources of income to finance risqué scams involving shady characters out of Chicago that were posing as legitimate entrepreneurs. 

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By 1974 this rivalry was apparent, and Rolland McMaster put together a crew of teamsters to work against the counter influence of Jimmy Hoffa.  This crew was involved with orchestrated shakedowns of independent trucking companies and CEOs as far North as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan under the guise of organizing more local Teamster Union halls throughout the country.  The violence carried across the nation into other states as far as the West coast.  Reports of violent scrimmaging with labor leader Cesear Chavez's United Farm Workers Union were included these events.  (The UFW and IBT were at each other's throats from 1973 until 1977.  The violence ceased when Chavez and Frank Fitzsimmons had reached a functional agreement.)

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Frank Fitzsimmons and McMaster focused on the mission to provide a climate that demonstrated a need for new leadership in Detroit as well as for other Teamster Union locals throughout the state of Michigan. Among the Fitzsimmons followers, McMaster's handpicked crew brought chaos to the old Hoffa regime. This squad of individuals became suspects connected to the violent acts leading up to the disappearance of Hoffa himself. In and around the Detroit area there were car bombings, gun fire, explosions, arson, and assaults linked to the existing IBT factions in 1975. Much of this captured the attention of the Michigan Newspapers including articles by Dan E Moldea as a freelance reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

 

For a detailed account of Mcmaster's crew and their actions we suggest reading " The Hoffa Wars" published in 1978 by Author Dan E. Moldea.  It was Moldea who spent years collecting information about these men. He often refers to them as the "McMaster task force".  He personally chased down the leads connected to the warring factions of the Detroit area Teamsters. While he had been working in the Detroit area as a reporter, he became aware of McMaster and his connections to Hoffa. This led him to discovering his involvement as a possible suspect directly connected to the disappearance of James R. Hoffa. Shortly afterwards Moldea was looking into the case at the behest of James P. Hoffa Jr. (This was covered in the 1997 press release of the "Hoffa Files" in the Detroit Sunday Journal.) He later saw McMaster responding to a summons generated by the Federal Grand Jury inquest held in late 1975. He had earlier interviewed Rolland McMaster by phone more than once.  Later on, he did so in person at McMaster's home.  Moldea shared with us that he returned a number of times with more questions.  As a result, his efforts revealed many associations between McMaster and his crew. Much of this has been chronicled in his published research. Those known to be involved with McMaster's task force crew were identified and interviewed.  Moldea mentions Jim Shaw, Larry McHenry, Dick Dininger, Mike Boano, Jack Robison, and Donovan Wells being interviewed.  Also mentioned is Stanton Barr who was McMaster's brother-in-law.  Barr became another person of interest with McMaster as the co-owner of the Hidden Dreams Horse Farm.

 

We point out that Wells, Barr, Shaw and McHenry were also tied to several trucking companies.  We are focused on two of them, TIME DC and Gateway Transportation, which are connected to the Hoffa narrative.  Some of these men were viewed as suspects involved with the car bombings and other violence preceding July 30th, 1975.  They also may have been involved as drivers or having supplied the means to transport JRH's body to a secret burial site to be used to control and extort other victims.

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Rolland McMaster’s activities, at the time of the Hoffa disappearance, link him to that event in many different ways. For example, previously mentioned, Stanton Barr, (General manager and CEO of Gateway Transportation Company’s Steel Division terminal in Detroit), was McMaster’s brother-in-law and linked to what is referenced in the Hoffex Memo as the trucking company involved in transporting Hoffa’s body to an unknown place of burial.  It was already mentioned in our other reports that the CEO of the huge interstate parent Gateway Transportation Company was John Murphy during these events.  Murphy was a trustee among the trucking industrialists of the Central States IBT Union Pension Fund.  He was the treasurer of the American Trucking Associations (ATA).  Findinghoffa.com surmises that Murphy, Barr, and McMaster were all attending the same meeting held in Gary, Indiana on the day Hoffa vanished from sight. It was no accident that the singular identification of this one specific trucking company, "Gateway Transportation" surfaced in the Hoffex investigation.  

 

It was because of Rolland McMaster’s actions and the ensuing violence in Detroit, that local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies began to organize surveillance teams. These teams began to follow those involved with potential criminal acts and known power struggles between LCN, IBT, and rival CEO Trucking Industrialists. By that time, law enforcement agencies (especially the FBI) were aware of the motive for some of these groups to establish control of money from the Central States Teamsters Union Pension Fund. They were expecting retaliatory action from among these factions, and they were preparing for the likelihood of further violence. Then suddenly Jimmy Hoffa disappeared along with most of the violence that had led up to this historic event.

 

It is further known McMaster was involved with others under suspicion. It came to light that LCN’s Salvatore Briguglio, a member of the Provenzano crew and a prime suspect listed in the Hoffex Memo, had for a time, been acting as McMaster’s bodyguard, this information was revealed to Dan E Moldea from a source tied to Teamsters United Rank and File known as T.U.R.F...  (contained in Moldea's "Confessions of a Guerrilla Writer: Adventures in the Jungles of Crime, Politics, and Journalism" 3rd Edition page 75). This and other groups like it focused on many views and goals defining the main priorities of union membership. We discovered that such groups were monitored by government and big business through an FBI agent who later became the head of the Interstate Commerce Commission (see Dale Hardin under "Press" on this website).  Further yet, McMaster used his connection to Gateway Transportation to establish an alibi by supplying details of his attending the previously mentioned meeting of trucking CEOs near Chicago in Gary, IN on the day of the disappearance. He was covering his bases from as many directions as he could. Along with his alibi there was testimony indicating he could have been back at his horse farm in Michigan by the evening of July 30th, 1975.

 

After the Hoffex Memo was written in January of 1976, the FBI continued to monitor the actions and whereabouts of Rolland McMaster.  Journalists also pursued information on the case.  Both McMaster and Fitzsimmons began to dodge the press especially when a reporter had very early after Hoffa went missing caught up with Frank Fitzsimmons on a golf course. While Fitzsimmons sat in a golf cart, the news correspondent began to question him about his recently publicized conflicts with Hoffa.  Fitzsimmons denied he had any noteworthy disputes with JRH but made a slip by saying that Jimmy Hoffa: “was” my friend. He stared at the reporter and then corrected himself by saying “he still is” before taking off quickly on his golf cart. At that time no one knew if Hoffa was alive and in hiding or if he was a victim of foul play. When FBI agents interviewed Rolland McMaster, he told them if they wanted to find out what happened to Jimmy Hoffa then they should look at Chuckie O'Brien.  The published "Hoffa Files" in 1997 revealed that later in the interview with McMaster, he said: FBI agents should " scrutinize" "people who have had recent business dealings with Hoffa". Findinghoffa.com takes note that suspect Rolland McMaster was suggesting that certain businessmen and perhaps O'Brien were involved with the Hoffa disappearance.  We find that very early in the game we have a Hoffex Memo suspect attempting to redirect the investigators to look at another Hoffa suspect along with a specific group of businessmen instead of himself and his own associates.  The investigators were following up on O'Brien at the time, but it does not look like they made much of an effort to check into his associations with the people he had "business" dealings with.  Shortly after that incident, both Fitzsimmons and McMaster avoided talking to news media concerning Hoffa.

 

Just days after Jimmy Hoffa went missing, a small group of investigative reporters became suspicious of a rumor concerning Rolland McMaster and his taking Hoffa to a Northern hide out on an Island in Lake Huron (to either hold him hostage or dispose of him.  An attempt was made by this group of journalists, including previously mentioned journalist Dan E. Moldea, to verify that story to no avail. (Moldea references details of this event in a book published September 5, 2013 "Confessions of a Guerrilla Writer: Adventures in the Jungles of Crime, Politics, and Journalism" 2nd Edition). But very quickly ideas like checking into possible Northern hiding places were abandoned. The focus turned toward activities by media on the East Coast in New Jersey where a plethora of reports surfaced in late 1975 involving a trucking company and a 55 gal drum scenario. Yet, Findinghoffa.com uncovered a similar report in the U.P. of Michigan with some of the same elements in 1987. This report was actually backed up with witnesses, locations and ties with McMaster and others connected to him from his activities in the mid 70s. As the reports were researched, the results began to flesh out into a plausible piece of the mysterious Jimmy Hoffa puzzle.  As time has passed, the pendulum began to swing more and more back to Michigan and the authorities returned to McMaster's properties in 2006. It became apparent to Findnghoffa.com that an ongoing well devised ruse orchestrated by suspects directly associated with the Hoffa disappearance was at play.

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The FBI had visited McMaster’s Hidden Dreams Horse Farm in Wixom early on in the investigation, as reported in the published Hoffa files and in "FOIA" FBI documents. This property was also North of Detroit, and investigators continued to suspect Hoffa’s body was buried either there or somewhere else in Michigan.  In 2006, after receiving information from a Federal Informant who had passed a polygraph, the FBI made a second, more extensive search on the same property. The informant was the previously identified McMaster associate Donovan Wells.  An article in the New York Times on May 31, 2006, covers the event as well as numerous press and television news media from Michigan and elsewhere.  The FBI leadership had confidence Hoffa's body was taken to this location on the day he vanished, and our research does indicate it is probable it happened as agents involved in the search had stated. But more than a decade before this we had obtained contrary information from several reliable sources that this was only a rendezvous site to conveniently and under good cover, load Hoffa's body on a truck and ship it North. Notably, there were reports of Hoffa's body being buried on McMaster's property but not where the search was conducted. In other words, they thought the FBI dug in the wrong place. We are confident that was not the case. Also, the search of the horse farm drew some public criticism as to the cost and expense incurred in the process.  However, the expense was a fraction of what many high-profile investigations and court cases often incur. Yet, the idea of even looking for Jimmy Hoffa does not settle well with a certain segment of people. But to us the costs to follow up on such reports are minuscule compared to the profits made by those exploiting the Hoffa disappearance and its connection to possible untold amounts of capital siphoned from legitimate and illegitimate sources of money.   It is our goal to see that justice is served through legitimate means. Findinghoffa.com is committed to work with anyone who may have knowledge concerning this case. We would like to bring some closure to the surviving Hoffa family as well. Hopefully progress can be made without spending a great deal of tax dollars to collectively accomplish this.  

 

We are in agreement with the FBI agents conducting that search. These agents made statements to the press, that the body was there at McMaster's horse farm on July 30th, 1975.  But we suspect, the McMaster property was used only as a quick rendezvous site to load Hoffa’s remains on a Gateway Transportation Truck or a similar semi tractor/trailer rig with common shipping destinations. Part of this idea is in the Hoffex Memo.

 

The McMaster/Barr Hidden Dreams Horse Farm was secluded and in close proximity to the highways heading North toward the regular shipping routes that such trucks often traveled. We visited this location and videotaped the area. Findinghoffa.com combed through the property records and located additional information and surmise, his body was then shipped from the Hidden Dreams Horse Farm to another location matching the persistent common themes having been outlined in some of our earlier research reports.  These themes match with the facts surrounding Rolland McMaster and his crew and who they were tied to at the time:

1. McMaster and his brother-in-law Stanton Barr married sisters of a family from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the Northern U.S. border with Canada. They were connected to local property in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Barr actually owned a home there. McMaster was intricately involved in a case including others related to this same family. The case involved charges brought against them concerning another trucking company.  It went to the appeals court: 343 F.2d 176, UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee V Rolland B. McMaster, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee V William F. Wolfe Sr., Defendant-Appellant. No. 15828. No. 15829. United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit. March 25, 1965. [These court documents demonstrate a pattern similar to the New Jersey Provenzano crew members using the same kind of shakedown and extortion measures on rival trucking companies and their CEOs]

2. McMaster's crew drivers were regularly visiting the same area in the Upper Peninsula prior to when Hoffa went missing in 1975. 

3. The same men were shaking down the local trucking companies in that area in 1974.  (The writer of this bio sketch document was an eyewitness at one of these events.)

4. They had been driving trucks for Barr's Gateway Transportation Detroit Division or Well's TIME DC terminal in 1974 and 1975 through the Upper Peninsula. (This writer witnessed these things himself in 1974 and 1975 overlapping further information reported by local businesses and local media).

5. Gateway Transportation trucks regularly traveled that route North.

6.  Most of them were familiar with the area. Their destination in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan would be like many other previous trips they had made. It was familiar, low risk and they knew what to expect. 

7.There was a pre-planned exchange site for them to unload the body before they delivered the rest of their cargo. The site was owned by people having ties with both the LCN and the IBT.  It could be easily accessed without deviating from the assigned shipping route. It was minutes away from the targeted burial location. 

 

Findinghoffa.com believes McMaster was intricately involved in some of the final steps of the “master plan” to make Jimmy Hoffa vanish from sight. Our research suggests that Hoffa’s body was never buried at McMaster’s horse farm. It's not likely he would give his consent to have the body hidden on any property connected to his ownership. The quicker the process of shipping Hoffa's body North, the less risk he would have to take.  It certainly appears he, with some help with his brother in law's connection to the Gateway Transportation Company, orchestrated the transfer of the body.  The final destination would not implicate any of the participants of this plan.  It would go to a place that would serve another profitable purpose. The plan was devised to promise all the participants some insulation from future criminal prosecution related to the Hoffa's disappearance.

 

We reported Rolland McMaster's brother-in-law, Stanton Barr death November 13, 2019.   McMaster has been portrayed as being heavily involved to dispose of the body in a number of scenarios.  His history with the IBT/LCN and violent anti Hoffa tactics also involve trucking companies in the Upper Peninsula.

Rolland McMaster died on October 25, 2007.

                                                                                                                    Steve Drummond 2020 revised 2023

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