ROY FRUEHAUF

ROY

FRUEHAUF

In May 1996 We took note of an article written by Lionel Atwill Entitled “the Sweetwater Sea” for Field and Stream Magazine. In the first paragraph we read the following: 

 

“Jimmy Hoffa once slept with the fishes of Georgian Bay.  As a guest of Trailer Chicago*  magnate Roy Fruehauf, who owned an opulent vacation compound in the roadless town of Kilarney, Ontario at the Northern end of the Bay. Hoffa snoozed in a luxury room 50 feet from the water’s edge.”

 

“That was forty years ago, and time has wrought changes. The tax man brought an end to Fruehauf’s northern retreat, his complex is now a cozy resort.  The provincial government pushed a 40 mile road to Kilarney in 1961and paved an airstrip in 1982, so the little town is now connected to the world by land and air. And, Jimmy sleeps with the fishes someplace else.”  *(edit. Fruehauf was actually from Detroit)

 

Roy August Fruehauf was born October 1, 1908 in Detroit, Michigan USA.   He took the helm as president of his father’s famous enterprise Fruehauf Trailer in 1949. Roy became chairman of the board in 1958 after going through an internal dispute with others in the Fruehauf family and a resulting proxy fight against his elder brother. This dispute eventually led to certain alleged improprieties resulting in Roy’s indictment in 1959 on charges of violating the Taft-Hartley Act. While securing his position in the company in the 50s, he had solicited the help of Dave Beck the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), by loaning him a sum of $ 200,000 dollars. This action was looked upon as a bribe to get IBT favors from Beck. It mirrored the same kind of transactions involved with the “Test Fleet” case between Hoffa and the CEO s of the huge trucking company “Commercial Carriers”.  During the McClellan hearings it was discovered Hoffa had invested $25,000 in stocks of the Fruehauf Trailer Company with the profits made through the lucrative Test Fleet arrangement. Even so, three years later, both Beck and Fruehauf were let off the hook for these similar infractions. But, it was Beck that was convicted of income tax evasion. The defamed Dave Beck went to prison for 2 years. 

 

The trouble surfaced when the members of the McClellan hearings, led by Robert Kennedy, set their sites on the IBT leadership.  Jimmy Hoffa was able to take control of the IBT due to the charges and eventual incarceration of his predecessor Dave Beck.  So, it was results of these events that put Jimmy Hoffa in control of the Teamsters Union.  Some of Hoffa’s supporters among the CEOs and Industrialists were disturbed with him because of the methods he used to orchestrate the shift in power to himself at the expense of both Beck and his longtime ally Roy Fruehauf. Fruehauf's attorney advised him to sell his stock he had invested in Cuban hotels connected with mob owned establishments and casinos. Roy had earlier owned a share of one of the largest hotels in Havana also known to be co-owned by such noted underworld figures as Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, Russell Bufalino, as well as, the Gambinos and Genovese crime families of New York and New Jersey. He dumped his stock before being called up to testify in the McClellan hearings.  He was fortunate to have done so for another reason. It was shortly after this that Castro took control of Cuba and all the above investors lost their lucrative businesses.

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Mr. Fruehauf remained director of the huge family businesses until he retired in 1964. Even though Roy Fruehauf passed away the following year in October of 1965, the “Dave Beck incident” created a lasting effect with some very powerful and influential people. Not only were some of them upset about how Fruehauf was treated by Hoffa, it appears, they were also not pleased about the way Hoffa treated his nemesis Dave Beck either. We needed to look at the history leading up to the disappearance of Hoffa in order to understand the climate within the circle of people he had associated with for decades prior to July of 1975. There is absolutely no question Jimmy Hoffa spent much of his time with the most influential CEOs and Owners in the trucking industry. 

 

We continue to see a common theme surfacing regularly in the Hoffa narrative.  Most of the business people Hoffa associated with owned secluded vacation properties hundreds of miles North of Detroit.  The Fruehaufs were no exception.  Their lodge in Kilarney, Ontario was next to Lake Huron’s Manitoulin Island. Just after Hoffa disappeared, rumors had surfaced Hoffa was taken to that same region and possibly held hostage by Rolland McMaster (a Hoffex Memo suspect).  Author Dan Moldea provides an account of this “Manitoulin” version of events within his published research: “Confessions of a Guerilla Writer”. We also note Moldea was checking into the “JOLL” property in Northern Wisconsin involving the Dorfman’s. He was pursuing these early leads but seemed to have given up on such ideas when he left Michigan for new employment opportunities on the East Coast. But, later on, Moldea briefly took interest in this “theme” again in 2013 when Anthony Zerilli informed the FBI of a plan to bury Hoffa in a previously unreported location.

 

Zerilli was the “under boss” of the Detroit LCN in 1975.  The location, he said, was “part of a master plan”. It was supposed to be a hunting lodge near Rogers City, Michigan hundreds of miles North near the Straits of Mackinac on the shores of Northern Lake Huron. From what he could remember, that feature of the plan fell through. So, they had to change the burial site back to a place in Oakland County off of Buell Road. This was where originally the body was to be taken as a temporary grave. The Oakland County site happened to be property owned by Zerilli’s rival successor and cousin Jack Tocco.  The Buell Road property was just North of Detroit, not far from Rolland McMaster’s horse farm and also Jimmy Hoffa’s summer home in Lake Orion on Square Lake. When Zerilli came forward with this information, he was 85 years old and had plans to release a book on March 1, 2013. There were those criticizing Zerilli’s actions concerning his aspirations to make a profit by publishing a book about it. Zerilli was that sure of the information he remembered concerning the disposing of Hoffa’s remains. And, his ideas to write a book on it are not much different than those of Frank Sheeran’s earlier ambitions. But, to this criticism, it was reported, that Moldea said the following: “Zerilli should still be taken seriously”. Even though Hoffa’s body was not found in Oakland County, findinghoffa.com agrees with what Tony Zerilli said about a “master plan” involving a “hunting lodge” hundreds of miles North along the shores of Lake Huron. This information fits with a persisting common theme we have seen before. 

 

Even during a podcast in July of 2019, we noticed Keith Corbett (former Chief of the Detroit U.S. Attorney’s office and top federal strike force prosecutor, later in charge of the Hoffa case in the 90s), commenting on his favored opinion of Hoffa’s body being incinerated, but when asked, he indicated he could see it was plausible that a big rig truck from a recognized trucking company, (like Gateway Transportation), could easily have taken the body North to the huge state forests of Northern Michigan as a place for disposing Hoffa’s body.  He indicated such a place would not likely be discovered. This maneuver and method of disposal is also is a recurring theme with the Hoffa mystery.

 

The idea of vacation or hunting property in conjuncture with a possible disposal/burial site for Jimmy Hoffa continues to permeate the narrative from as early as 1975. It is something to consider. We believe this repeated theme could possibly help us in the search for Hoffa’s body. So, findinghoffa.com is taking a closer look at a possible scenario matching a number of common themes provided by facts and reports from viable sources. 

 

Hoffa owned such a place for himself and his family on a large parcel of forested hunting property.  This was separate from the already mentioned “Lake 13 Hunt and Fish Club” built for the IBT as a retreat center in the 1950s. Both of these properties in the Upper Peninsula were purchased with profits coming from the Test Fleet/Hobren company set up for Hoffa and his partner by the CEOs of Commercial Carriers Company Walter F. Carey and Bertram B. Beveridge in exchange for labor peace and mutual financial gain. After acquiring the hunting lodge and property on Tepee Lake, we understand that Jimmy Hoffa would often bring his family to this place for privacy and outdoor recreation.  A few residents of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were aware of it’s existence, but it was largely ignored elsewhere in the state’s more populated regions to the South. We also discovered Roy Fruehauf was not the only associate of Hoffa having hosted him as a guest at his own nearby private vacation hide out. Others had hosted Hoffa from time to time during the years before the McClellan Hearings heated things up. Certainly, the common themes include the idea Michigan’s Northern forests could still be hiding many secrets.

 

Historically, criminals would “hide out” or get rid of evidence by means of traveling North of the Straits of Mackinac. Capone, Dillinger, and others did so in the early days of American organized crime. During the 1980s, after finding two hand guns washing up on a Northern Lake Huron beach, a well known law man told us: “the underworld may still be hiding bodies up here”.  Immediately after Hoffa vanished, his own “get away” on Tepee Lake was superficially searched in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Hoffa’s property in the Upper Peninsula is referred to on page nine of the Hoffex Memo. That search was mostly ignored as a valid incident worthy of investigation. It was not reported in any detail by media in Detroit. We hope to share more about this common theme in later podcasts.

 

To get a handle on how much influence men like Roy Fruehauf had on the advancement of American power throughout the world during the 20th Century, we looked at his accomplishments with the key industries emerging in the 60s and continuing through 70s. When Fruehauf took control of his father’s tractor trailer business, he used his experience and education to establish related manufacturing enterprises.  Fruehauf became a worldwide corporation expanding through out North America and South America, and later into Europe, and Asia. He became an iconic economic globalist.

 

In the early 50s, Roy had been a resource person for both Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa.  He along with a Walter F. Carey , Beck and Jimmy Hoffa served on committees to establish the present infrastructure of the American transportation systems and interstate highways. Fruehauf and Carey also participated in the development of domestic military defense protocol as a response to possible enemy attacks from foreign powers during the “Cold War”.  Fruehauf and his colleagues were advisers to several U.S. Presidents.  The Fruehauf Trailer company morphed into the manufacturing of military weapons through government contracts.  You can bet there were others associated with Jimmy Hoffa that wanted to get in on lucrative deals with the U.S. government as a means of attaining power and accumulating greater wealth. We discovered the LCN made such attempts in Pennsylvania through political means.  Somehow, their efforts were thwarted and those participating were eventually removed from political positions of influence. Fruehauf and his group of loyal CEOs were aware of the ambitions of organized crime to break into the arena of lucrative government contracts. These men were familiar with the existence of groups like the LCN and the idea of allies the mob had helped elect to be placed in political positions of power. There are examples of certain CEOs including Fruehauf who seemed to be targeted by unknown and unidentified individuals. He was not the only CEO that faced suspicious plane crashes and suspected arson of his businesses.  We note that his other close associates experienced similar problems. Fruehauf had 16 plants and 48 distributorships across America alone. Many citizens of that era made a decent living due to his management and expansion of the family businesses. He developed a keen interest in aircraft and used them as a method of transportation.  It seems there were those who had taken notice of this. We found examples of mysterious plane crashes involving some of his executives along with some of the other industrialists including associate Walter F. Carey. 

 

The LCN was also suspected by members of the Reuther Family for being responsible for the death of UAW labor boss Walter Reuther and his wife in 1970. They were killed in a plane crash near Pellston, Michigan and the ensuing investigation revealed the altimeter as well as other key instruments were “altered” to give false readings to the pilots of that aircraft.  There is absolutely no doubt with the Reuther’s case that the LCN had made numerous attempts to murder them prior to the fatal crash. Walter Reuther was shot and wounded along with his brother Victor many years earlier.  They had also previously survived another plane crash not long before being wiped out in that fatal crash in Northern Michigan. We are unable to establish a definitive connection to the activity of the LCN with every case we looked at, but the pattern of fatal events and attacks on the leaders of labor and industry is not hard to surmise, because it continued to occur up to the time Hoffa himself disappeared. 

 

The unrest within the American labor movement historically involved acts of violence on the picket lines and during the development of the power of the IBT. The Fruehaufs were known to have hired the Pinkertons to counter such violence from any of the labor unions that utilized organized crime muscle as a means of enforcement. It was not above some of the other CEOs to also use spurious means including the help of mobster muscle for hire to assist them to work against union backed strikes.  It appears, for a time, the mob could be employed by the highest bidder to act as enforcers for either side of the table during the early days of the American industrial revolution. But, there was a period in the late 40s and early 50s, the labor union leaders and industrialists turned to a more peaceful means to resolve disputes. We note in some early 1950s issues of the “Teamsters Magazine” during that era, there had been an effort to portray a temporary spirit of cooperation. Unfortunately the peace did not last very long. One of the reasons it did not last had to do with the fact these seemingly peaceful alliances became highly scrutinized by the U.S. Government. So, men like Roy Fruehauf and IBT president Dave Beck were targeted by investigators and committees looking into possible “sweet heart” deals made in violation of the Taft-Hartley Act.  The disarray left room for elements of organized crime to infiltrate and control various enterprises and the next thing seen as a result, was the formation of the McClellan Committee. It was during these events, Jimmy Hoffa learned to utilize all of the resulting actions of the government probes as a means to insure his own place as the new leader of the IBT. He probably never realized the stage was being set for his own demise years later. Looking into this history helps us understand what would create some of the possible motives to shut Hoffa down permanently in 1975. He made enemies of those he had once trusted. Even though Hoffa gained power, he had systematically alienated himself from many people involved in his earlier successes. Roy Fruehauf seems to be one such example. They were on friendly terms until Hoffa made his move to control the IBT after Dave Beck was indicted.  Men like Fruehauf were considered collateral damage. We surmise Hoffa’s methods were not seen by certain industry leaders as a friendly way to achieve cooperation. The potential damage to Roy Fruehauf’s reputation and his enterprises were most likely the catalyst for some of the other industrialists to abandon any further attempts to reconcile with Jimmy Hoffa.     

 

Even so, branches of Fruehauf’s businesses (especially in Detroit, Michigan and Fullerton, Ohio) manufactured the production of the main components of the Gemini practice recovery space craft.  Fruehauf developed and manufactured ground based missile launchers, as well as submarine based launch systems. His companies made equipment for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. This included 16 different types of missile defense systems, encompassing the “Atlas” project through to the “Titan” missile program. Fruehauf’s leadership contributed in the advancement of complex ballistic components used by NORAD. Even Fruehauf’s original trailer company provided the Army with 5,000 fuel tank semi-trailers. A number of them were manufactured up to the 12 ton variety. 

 

Roy Fruehauf was someone Jimmy Hoffa once associated with on very friendly terms. Those terms changed greatly in the early 60s. Roy Fruehauf died on October 30, 1965 at the age of 57 in Oakland County Michigan. Hoffa’s destiny was then propelled in a direction eventually ending for him just a decade later on July 30, 1975. And now, after all the passing of time, “Jimmy sleeps with the fishes someplace else”.

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Produced by Steve Drummond 2019

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