WALTER
FREDERICK
CAREY
Walter Frederick Carey was born in Detroit in 1905, the son of a marine engineer who worked Great Lakes freighters. He worked his way through Wayne University, partly by playing the piano in his own dance band, called “Walter Carey's Green and Gold Serenaders”. He used to attend the theater regularly and found inspiration through it. He became a visionary person and welcomed a challenge. He was not the kind of man that was easily discouraged. He seemed to be a natural born leader and also an effective communicator.
Mr. Carey had a home in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham. They later owned an 11 acre estate “Pokey Ridge” just outside of Birmingham in Bloomfield Township. It was here that he designed and built a 64 foot steel hulled seagoing yacht he christened the “Sea Quester”. Mr. Carey's chief hobby was boating. He built at least two boats by himself, one with sleeping quarters for 10 persons. These yachts came with the latest marine electronic equipment and one sported a nice built in piano too. After a brief stint as an accountant in the late 1920s, he moved on and started his trucking businesses. During the Second World War he was a consultant to the U.S. Army Transportation Corps. His major breakthrough toward great wealth came in conjuncture with his barge operation, where he revolutionized the carrying of automobiles on inland waterways. In 1949 from an original investment of $50K, he sold his line for $5 million. In the 1950s He became the president of Automobile Carriers, Dealers Transit, Inc., of Flint, Michigan. He was also president, vice president or director of five others companies mainly related to trucking. It was evident he enjoyed sailing, music, and his especially his work. His business ventures ultimately resulted in a close association with International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) presidents Dave Beck and James R. Hoffa.
In 1953 Walter Carey purchased an Island. He immediately had a vision for this beautiful gem and began construction of a causeway connecting the Island to the mainland of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He then began to refurbish the main lodge and buildings remaining from those having built them in the early 20th Century. As time went on, he had two large piers and a huge boat house added . One of the piers, he constructed over a period of years. The structure was completed it in 1975. It spans 325 feet in length. It was equipped with electric power and plumbing. He also installed a huge pipe organ and pavilion at the out most point of it. Sources reveal one could often hear him playing his music while gazing at the boats moored in the Island’s harbor. Walter also cleared a space for a small air strip to handle single engine private aircraft. Because of his involvement with so many people connected to the auto industry, he regularly entertained friends from those business enterprises. He also hosted celebrities, politicians, famous well known icons like Ralph Nader, and infamous individuals such as already mentioned, Jimmy Hoffa. Later in life he moved North to Petoskey, Michigan near the Straits of Mackinac (pronounced “Mack-i-naw”). From there he could drive 90 minutes to be at his favorite private Island hide out. Over the years he continued to enjoy his time spent on the Island as a place to relax and decompress from the demands of his increasingly challenging life style. Those individuals knowing Walter Carey back then say he was always a great host. He along with his business associates shared a common theme to have acquired real estate in wilderness areas far North of the urban centers of industry within the Mid West. .He would entertain guests from time to time and also retreat to this Island to escape from the world of industry, labor, and political concerns. It became a remote hide out for him to the extent that even when President Lyndon Johnson attempted to locate him, Carey was "up at the lake" and could not be contacted. He later called the U.S. President from Chicago and told his running mate Senator Hubert Humphrey, he was "up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan" and "it was the best medicine he knew of". Findinghoffa.com included that recorded archival White House telephone call in two podcast episodes as an example of Walter Carey's solid connection to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Mr. Carey continued to venture to this remote "Location" with others and sometimes he would be there alone. He enjoyed the quiet solitude almost as much as he did sharing it with those who were close to him. One source used to visit him and engage in long discussions concerning his past adventures. He said Walter Carey was down to earth and usually in great spirits when he would stop by to see him on the Island (circa 1987-1991). These discussions were very revealing and included some hidden details of his extraordinary past associations with people in the trucking industry. Mr. Carey did not think it was necessary to speak of his connections involving five U.S. Presidents. He also steered conversation away from some of the rough and tumble world of tangling with labor unions and the darker side of their sometimes sinister associations. Later on after his wife passed away and he was unable to travel alone. He had to rely on others to provide transportation to take him up there. When he approached 90 years of age he decided to sell the Island to a buyer that would care for the place as he did. This unique property went up for auction. It was coincidentally announced in several news papers on the 20th anniversary of the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance, July 30th, 1995.
Walter Carey’s success remarkably paralleled James R. Hoffa’s rise to power. Yet this relationship to Hoffa was no coincidence. While Hoffa was establishing himself as the voice of the Teamster Labor Union in the Detroit area, Walter Carey organized “Commercial Carriers” in 1934 and fostered its growth into the nation’s largest transporter of new automobiles. As Jimmy Hoffa began to organize the labor union side of the transportation industry in the “central states”, Walter Carey established “Commercial Barge Lines”. This company served to coordinate shipping on the inland waterway system with the onshore shipping of new vehicles by truck. Thus Carey built his company into the world’s leading water carrier of motor vehicles. He had developed more efficient ways to deliver vehicles from auto factories to dealerships across North America. Carey entered the trucking industry in 1927 as a bookkeeper for the Lincoln Trucking Company. In 1930 he joined Motor Car Transport Company, serving as Vice President and General Manager until 1942. While serving as President of the American Trucking Associations, Inc., Carey observed, in the short span of 50 years, the trucking industry having grown until it became America’s second largest employer. Carey himself had contributed greatly to this effort.
Meanwhile Jimmy Hoffa gained national influence during the war years as a powerful IBT union organizer. He had demonstrated the skills he learned from his mentor Farrell Dobbs as he worked in the state of Minnesota at the behest of IBT President Dan Tobin. Hoffa became widely known among truckers and the trucking industry during the war effort and both Carey and Hoffa frequently had contact with each other in the Detroit area as a natural result. During the time and aftermath of WW II, Walter Carey and his partner approached Hoffa for some help from trouble they were having with the UAW and the Reuther brothers. This centered around the UAW refusing to allow them to load their carrier trucks at the sites of the auto manufacturing plants in Detroit Michigan. Jimmy Hoffa “took care of that problem” and his actions smoothed out the rough edges created by the rival UAW labor union policies. This event clearly opened the door for Walter Carey and Jimmy Hoffa to at times work together when it became mutually beneficial for them.
Later on, one of Walter Carey’s companies “Commercial Carriers”, then located North of Detroit in Flint Michigan, endured a costly and very destructive “Wildcat Strike”. Carey along with Partner and Vice President Bert Beveridge contacted Jimmy Hoffa for some assistance with this problem too. This time Hoffa went to Flint and declared the situation an unauthorized strike and called the unionized teamsters back to work. Eventually this situation continued on an historically significant course for Hoffa, Carey, and Beveridge. So, as a favor for Hoffa, Commercial Carrier's President Walter Carey endorsed the establishment of a trucking company called “Test Fleet” to insure there would be labor peace and to give Hoffa something for his previous efforts. According to Bert Beveridge, he and Carey set up businesses after the war together. Vice President Beveridge was the person to be involved with the money transactions of the plan devised by them for Jimmy Hoffa along with his own associate Owen Bert Brennan. This plan was designed to establish a profitable trucking company for them in the maiden names of Hoffa and Brennan’s wives. It also was based in Tennessee instead of Michigan. Carey arranged it so that the new trucking company would be completely run by “Commercial Carriers” attorney’s and accountants. One of Walter Carey's attorneys, Albert Matheson, later sat on the IBT Pension Fund at the time
of the Hoffa disappearance. The plan functioned by providing driver’s and even leased trucks to the Test Fleet Company to produce a decent profit. Test Fleet was charged for the fuel they used by Commercial Carriers. The lucrative hauling contracts of the heaviest and most expensive cars, which included mostly Cadillacs, were awarded to Hoffa's new clandestine company. Commercial Carriers netted 35% of the profits to pay for their involvement while Hoffa and his partner got up to 65%. So it was no mere payoff for labor peace. This was seemly a work of genius by Walter Carey, with the exception of one important detail. It would be considered a violation of a new law. This law was not all that popular with the IBT or the trucking CEOs and industrialists. Eventually, the Commercial Carriers/Test Fleet arrangement was revealed and became a targeted issue of several major congressional investigations.
The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 better known as the Taft-Hartley Act which was vetoed by President Harry S. Truman and overturned by the 80th U S Congress became law on June 23, 1947. This law was to restrict activities between labor unions and business managers abuse of resolving disputes within the work force. It was intended to establish the equalizing of responsibilities of employers as well as unions to maintain a balance of power and fair employment practices. This law and the formation of the Test Fleet (Later renamed “Hobren”) company would be the catalyst to eventually play a key factor to James R. Hoffa’s downfall. Walter Carey and Jimmy Hoffa were now tied to the establishment of the Test Fleet Co. which profited for Hoffa into the late 50s. Carey had sold his interests in Commercial Carriers by the end of the 1940s but not until after he had arranged this favor for Hoffa.
The major players emerging in American industry involved four major groups: First there were those in the political arena dealing with legalities, justice, and economic policy. Next were the wealthy groups of industrialists, CEOs, venture capitalists attached to huge corporations. Thirdly, there was the labor movement coupled with the accelerated growth in labor unions and lobby groups. And, fourth the infiltration of the first three groups by the rising influence of organized crime, especially the LCN “La Cosa Nostra”. Money, power, and resources were fuel for all four groups as the post war industrial revolution catapulted the United States into the future of the latter end of the 20th Century.
By the beginning of the 1950s the labor unions had partially consolidated. The power of the Teamsters Union shifted from Dan Tobin to Dave Beck. Jimmy Hoffa was instrumental in the change of leadership and was himself appointed as IBT Vice President of the Central States as well as maintaining his position as the boss of Detroit Local 299. During this time the U. S. was involved with the end of the Korean War and President Eisenhower was elected along with his running mate Richard Nixon. Walter Carey took advantage of the current events and started his climb to power in the political arena. He began to engage Eisenhower with his social economic ideas as they dealt with the nations need to establish a new infrastructure system built upon transportation, defense, public safety, and modern societies needs in an emerging free market. The U.S. Congress and the news media record how he took on the huge railroads to establish the goals of the trucking industry, as well as, the freight haulers and the shipping industry itself. He aligned himself with the IBT labor union leaders including IBT’s Dave Beck. He worked with them and with a group of powerful business owners to influence government and bring about interstate commerce and a network of interstate highways. This alliance was known as "ACT":
"A trucking Industry committee charged today that members of the railroad industry are “secretly subsidizing’ State and Federal officials to influence. Legislation against other transportation forms. The Independent Trucking Advisory Committee, headed by Dave Beck, president of the AFL Teamsters Union, called on Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., to investigate. Beck told a news conference the trucking industry has “evidence of links between the railroads and elected and appointed officials”. Other directors of the committee include: Walter Carey, chairman of the board of the American Trucking Associations, a federation of State trucking organizations, Bert Seymour, chairman of the board of Associated Transport, and Roy Fruehauf, President of Fruehauf Trailer Co."
While Walter Carey worked on these things, Jimmy Hoffa was busy advancing some of his own causes. He had made alliances with La Cosa Nostra Mafia in the beginning only as a means of providing strike enforcement and union muscle. The LCN "Commission" became interested in the money aspect of the growing IBT insurance and pension funds. Local Unions in Chicago and the East Coast were simultaneously establishing their leaders from the ranks of the LCN. Hoffa used this as a lever to push out the competition and establish himself as the next power of the IBT. Allen Dorfman entered the scene and began the orchestration of the pension fund and insurance benefits for the IBT Central States. The door was opened wide to the mob and it was not unnoticed by the other groups already mentioned.
While Carey was politicking and getting his name in the IBT monthly magazine for things like getting a U. S. Postage stamp to commemorate the trucking industry and Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa was planting the seeds of future aspirations to gain personal power with the goal to eventually take full control of the IBT. Such events are outlined in the Teamsters magazine:
Walter Carey established an ATA office in Washington D.C. and by 1953 he had already established a good relationship with the President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower. Carey showed up at the White House on May 21, 1953 to represent the American Trucking Association’s Driver of the Year award presented by Eisenhower to that year’s recipient.
As Jimmy Hoffa was emerging as the next IBT labor leader and aligned himself with the LCN, transportation industrialist Walter Carey moved in a different direction toward an exclusive group of individuals, Carey chose to establish himself with the political power of the United States Government. The two men began to drift apart due to these personal choices. Yet there was one stubborn issue that did not go away. It persisted in tying them both together for decades. This is the direct reference to the establishment of the clandestine Test Fleet Company. The topic seemed to surface as a result of the Grand Jury investigations and related Congressional Hearings conducted in 1950 through 1951 with Senator Estes Kefauver’s Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. These hearings and investigations laid the ground work that hounded them for years to come. On Tuesday November 24th, 1953, during the House of Representatives Special Subcommittee of Union Welfare Funds and Labor Racketeering with the Committee of Education and Labor in Detroit Michigan, the Test Fleet conspiracy came to light in a such a way that there was no disputing the fact that both Hoffa and Carey were publicly connected. These later hearings were conducted by U.S. Congressman Clare Hoffman of Bloomfield, Michigan. The Kefauver/Hoffman hearings (we call the "Ke-offman Hearings") combined included testimony clearly laying out details of the establishment of this company involving Walter F. Carey and Bertram B. Beveridge of Commercial Carriers with James R. Hoffa and Owen Bert Brennan of the IBT. One of the chief witnesses testified that Carey was in charge of the acquisitions and establishment of related ownership of a number of other trucking businesses. This witness also testified Carey’s Vice President and partner, Bert Beveridge, “carried the ball for Carey” in providing some of the hands on logistics. To this revelation Carey knew he had to respond by using his connections with the political power of the U. S. President.
Just 3 weeks later, December 11th, 1953 Walter Carey had quickly made another political move to further insulate himself with the Eisenhower Administration by making contributions to the President’s Commission on Intergovernmental Relations involving the plans to build an interstate highway system. He was acting in an advisory capacity for the transportation industry, national defense, and emerging global economic strategy, to put the nation in the best possible position to combat the coming aftermath of the Korean War. So, instead of looking like a co-conspirator with Jimmy Hoffa, he had deflected such an image by propelling himself as someone instrumental in planning the future system of national defense. He continued to accomplish this by addressing the threat of the looming conflicts of what became known as the “Cold War”. He also continued to foster his ties with Eisenhower and reached a position of trust that served to insulate him from any further implications from the actions of any future Senate and Congressional Hearings.
Another development that seems to parallel Jimmy Hoffa and Walter Carey was their mutual acquisition of vacation property in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Hoffa had used profits from the Test Fleet Company to purchase tracts of land up to 900 acres for the use of IBT members, and his own family to use and enjoy at a nearby location. He had a log cabin on Tepee Lake which he used as a hunting and fishing lodge and later in life as a family get away place. In fact, he was there just a few weeks before he disappeared in 1975 as is stated in the Hoffex Memo on page nine. It is included in other bio sketches of those associated with him, the common theme they shared with owning this kind of property among them. In 1953 Walter Carey also purchased property in the Upper Peninsula and began to develop it into a place he could quietly retreat from his increasingly complicated life. It is known that during these years Hoffa would visit Walter Carey and some of the other business associates at similar places. They indeed shared this common interest and this theme later came into play. It even became a convenient way in 1975, to send a powerful message to Walter Carey to stand aside from his pattern of interference and retire from his business interests. Walter Carey as well as Hoffa seemed to enjoy their own private “U. P.” Michigan hide outs, much in the same way for many years to come. As for Carey, this property stayed in his ownership until he reached 90 years of age.
It also appeared the LCN had gotten a jump start out of Pennsylvania into the defense contract business. (This later came to light with the connection to mob boss Russell Bufalino, Congressman Dan Flood, and Medico Industries located in that state). Roy Fruehauf also knew of other investments he could make in Cuba with the resort hotel business and this also tied in with the influence of mob owned enterprises there. It appears some changes back and forth caused each one to look at new ground. Carey stayed with the barge and trucking industry and looked at stock in oil. He looked into emerging missile defense systems as well as checking out the structure of the Department of Defense in general. He was never comfortable with any of the LCN folks and steered away from them. But, Fruehauf had minimal associations with some powerful mob leaders tied with one of the largest hotels in Havana until he faced the McClellan Hearings and quickly sold his interests in it. He was targeted with Dave Beck by Robert Kennedy because of a loan to settle a legal battle with other family members over control of the Fruehauf businesses. It appears Hoffa may have leaked some of this information as cannon fodder for the McClellan probe to later use against them, thus clearing the way for him to take the IBT presidency from Dave Beck. It was in the mid 1950s that these events began to shake out and when they did, it set the stage for a steady progression leading to the pinnacle of Jimmy Hoffa’s power and to his eventual demise.
Both Jimmy Hoffa and Walter Carey greatly contributed to their community in the Detroit Area and many viewed them as friends to the success of the economic power in the State of Michigan. Carey had much to do with Wayne State University and the Hoffas eventually began scholarship programs in Michigan. Walter Carey was known to be bipartisan yet conservative, so later in the 60s, he endorsed candidate George Romney, when Romney faced adversarial political pressure, as a valid candidate for Governor. Carey himself had no problem doing this for the Republican candidate even if he himself was working at that time with the Democratic Johnson Administration. Carey always remembered where he came from and used his influence for the good of Michigan. Below are a few examples of how he served the state of Michigan from several News clipping during the 1960s:
Both Hoffa and Carey advanced their careers in their own way. One can notice Hoffa switching back and forth between the major parties to further his own causes. But, by 1957 Robert Kennedy and the McClellan Hearings were bringing attention to the trucking industry and the IBT with their potential link to organized crime. It appeared to Carey that Hoffa had compromised his predecessor Dave Beck and those attached to him in a way that caused a permanent rift between them. Beck stepped down from his position as IBT President as he faced multiple charges eventually sending him to prison in 1962. Roy Fruehauf and Bert Beveridge took some damage from their business associations with Hoffa and Beck. But Walter Carey smoothly slipped by all the fanfare and continued to rise into the ranks of the elite and wealthy industrialists of America. Jimmy Hoffa also rose to greater power and replaced Beck as the new IBT leader. Photos of Walter Carey with Eisenhower or Jimmy Hoffa with Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano clearly demonstrate how each man chose a different path to achieve such power.
The next trend noted with Mr. Carey was his interest in ships, boats, and water craft. He began to design and construct his own yachts. This desire coincided with the contacts he was making with the U. S. Government and political connections with people connected to Eisenhower and his former Generals. He had seen the effects of the great influence of WW II and the Korean War had as to the nations economic strength and military might. He saw the advances with technology that came with it. It was a natural result for him to use this knowledge with his own yachts and with his businesses too. He realized the focus on national defense would provide the catalyst for developing infrastructure and protocol for the need to establish a greater network for transportation and communication. (Some of this information he shared at length to one of our sources during the many hours of conversation they had at his Upper Peninsula property). Carey took special note of how the national defense structure operated using contracts with private industry and he shared ideas with some of his associates; namely John Ruan of Ruan Trucking and Roy Fruehauf. The Fruehauf’s family owned trailer company was poised to expand into this arena and found they had plenty of competition. Jimmy Hoffa had taken some of his profits from the Test Fleet Company and invested in Fruehauf. It seemed like a good situation and the defense industry was a promising enterprise for them all. They each pursued these ideas with their own take on how to achieve success. As for Hoffa, he was a Labor Union man and used the knowledge he gained from these CEO industrialists as an eventual lever to gain control of the IBT. It was only with Carey that he was cautious because he had gained a substantial profit from Test Fleet. Carey also knew things about Hoffa’s own arrangements that Hoffa would not wish to be made public. They maintained a mutual respect for many years until Hoffa’s associations with the LCN cost Carey and his friends a great price. Jimmy Hoffa was also appointed to the executive committee of the ACT on July 28th 1954 along with Beck, Fruehauf, and Walter Carey. Section 102 (b.) of the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, Public Law 920 Authorized Hoffa to work with these other men. Chairman Beck assigned Walter Carey and Jimmy Hoffa to travel and work together on mutual ACT projects. These men continued to be connected in other ventures related to ACT. The McClellan Hearings revealed some of these factors. Most of these men are connected together in the congressional records and hearings throughout the early 1960s along with the ensuing Test Fleet/Commercial Carriers trials as a result.
During the McClellan Hearings the Kennedys questioned Hoffa as to who owned the trucking company “Commercial Carriers”. They already knew from the information gathered from the earlier "Ke-offman" hearings in 1951 and 1953, the answer to that question, but wanted to pressure Hoffa to see if his answer would be the same as the earlier witness testimony. Hoffa cleverly answered them by using Carey’s first name “Walter” combined with Hoffa’s lieutenant's last name “Brennan” to create the name of a popular three time academy award winning actor: “Walter Brennan”. This actor was connected to the beginning successes of Marilyn Monroe in the Hollywood film industry. Hoffa would give up Bert Beveridge to the Kennedys but not Walter Carey’s name. He most likely used that substituted name: “Walter Brennan”, associated with Marilyn Monroe, to send a coded message to both of the Kennedys, that he had as much dirt on them as they did on him. This would have been especially so, if it ever came to a personal smear involving each others extramarital escapades. Neither of the Kennedys responded to Hoffa’s answer and the hearings went on. Walter Carey's name did come up once but even then, it was completely ignored by the McClellan Committee. His name surfaced again in the ensuing trials in the 1960s:
Carey was untouchable and it looked like Hoffa was too. Neither man sustained any damage at that time. We know that the Test Fleet issue came back to Hoffa in 1962 in a trial but he won the trial by bribing jurors and was tried again and convicted in 1964. On the other hand, Walter Carey went by it all unscathed and reached the pinnacle of his power at the same time Hoffa was sentenced, up to 13 years, for the bribery charge and the additional Teamsters union pension fund fraud.
It seems history conveniently left Carey out of the Test Fleet scenario primarily due to his close associations with U.S. Presidents and cabinet members. His partner Bert B. Beveridge did not fair so well. It was he that was linked to Test Fleet in the McClellan Hearings because he had handled financial transactions the steps taken to set it up. In fact, during those hearings in 1958, while Robert Kennedy went after Beveridge and Hoffa for their involvement in the Test Fleet arrangement, Walter Carey had enough clout with “Ike” Eisenhower, that he was able to pull of a number of stunts demonstrating their mutual political alliances.
One example of how much influence Walter Carey had with Eisenhower can be seen during the campaign for the mid term elections close to the time the Test Fleet conspiracy was surfacing in the televised McClellan Hearings of 1958. Carey then had personally called the President and asked if Eisenhower could stop by and address a convention of the National Safety Council that Carey was chairman of. Carey’s convention was across town from a late dinner party of the “Fight to Win” Republican Party held in Chicago on October 22nd, 1958. This event was also broadcast via radio and television and was supposed to be the last engagement for that day on the President’s itinerary. Eisenhower returned to the Conrad Hilton Hotel with Senator Everette Dirksen and Illinois Governor Stratton to retire for the evening which was close by where the convention was being held. President Eisenhower happily honored Walter Carey’s request. He was escorted into the convention banquet at 9:40 PM and spoke to the surprised delegates with a reference to Walter F. Carey the Chairman of the board of Directors of the National Safety Council with these words:
“This evening I have been doing a bit of politicking, but your Chairman was kind enough to invite me in for a moment as I went back to my hotel, with the idea that he knew I would want to say to you a word of thanks and appreciation for the work you do in preserving human values and human life in this country.”
After more words of encouragement and recognition of the council’s important contributions to the nation he ended by saying: “So, with this word of thanks for the warmth of your greeting, and for the work you are doing, I shall now say goodnight and be on my way.” Without any doubt Mr. Walter Carey was connected to President Eisenhower enough to be able to call him and ask for a favor and receive the kinds results portrayed above. This was not the only U S President to befriend Walter F. Carey. There is more to come as his personal history continues to be brought to light.
Walter Carey quickly advanced his political power and his business profits to the extent he was advising President Kennedy on his strategy in July and August 1962 for the U S economic policy toward the “European Common Market during the Cold War. He became involved in the aerospace industry and brought some of it back to Michigan while he continued to advise the Joint Chiefs and President concerning any national emergency the nation could face effecting our transportation networks as he presided over the National Defense Transportation Association or NDTA.
President John F. Kennedy wrote in a letter to Walter F. Carey in July of 1963 saying the following words:
“The NDTA offers the transportation industry and the Government the privilege of joining together - free of self interest – for greater transportation progress. All are acutely aware of the role of the NDTA in ensuring the nation’s transportation system would be able to meet the transportation challenges of any national emergency."
JFK also echoed these words a year earlier in 1962 at a “White House meeting while the nation’s highest military leaders praised the efforts” of Walter Carey and the NDTA “as the glue that holds the three way military, government, and commercial partnership together”. All this and more from “the Secretary of Defense, Service Secretaries, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Walter Carey was Chairman of the NDTA in 1959-1961 and President of the NDTA in 1961-1963.
President Johnson had him appear in media events and televised programs such as ABCs “Issues and Answers”. All during this era in the 1960s, Walter Carey was in control of huge amounts of capital as is recorded in this national business publication of 1964:
“Walter F. Carey, National Chamber President directs a $20 million a year trucking complex from his office in his Birmingham, Michigan Home.” (Nation’s Business, May 1964)
Not only was Carey included with the nation’s elite advisers to the White House as one can see in this list, He was invited to speak at colleges and universities- Impact 1965:
Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters Magazine featured Walter Carey in a 1964 addition. The IBT hailed President Johnson for replacing the old U. S. Chamber of Commerce President with Carey. LBJ was very happy with his new selection and it was during his administration that Walter Carey was at his peak of influence with political policies, economics, transportation, and the defense of the nation.
While Walter Carey was spending time with the powerful leaders of the U. S. Government, Jimmy Hoffa struggled to stay out of prison and finally exhausted his appeals in 1967. But, several things emerged during these years that demonstrated a tug of war between the interest of organized crime and their continued infiltration into government and their ability to acquire lucrative defense contracts. Walter Carey was aware of the tactics of the LCN because of his many years of close contact with Jimmy Hoffa in the 1940s and 1950s. Before Roy Fruehauf died in 1965 many of the defense contracts were channeled to his companies and away from the previously mentioned Medico Industries of Pennsylvania. In the Korean War and in the early years of Viet-Nam, the Medico family was awarded huge contracts supplying ammunition and standard ordnance warheads to all the branches of the U.S. Military. When the American push for both the space race and ballistic missiles began to require the aid of private industry to build such things, Walter Carey was in a position to steer them to companies like Fruehauf and away from companies with LCN private partnerships (as with Medico industries and mob boss Russell Bufalino). Fruehauf got contracts with most all of the missile programs from the Titan missiles up to the Atlas program. The LCN was basically being cut off from that source of revenue. This fact was never forgotten by those losing millions of dollars of capital to people like Walter Carey and his very wealthy and successful friends. The Labor movement and IBT were still ran by Hoffa and his proxy Frank Fitzsimmons even while he was in Lewisburg Federal Prison. Yet, even a greater focus was on the eventual control of the giant Central States Pension Fund. Carey was acutely aware his fellow trucking executives sitting as trustees over that fund were in trouble. The power of mobbed up IBT people like Allen Dorfman and the huge Jersey Local 560 ran by Genovese crime family “capos” like Anthony Provenzano flexed their muscle to take control of the entire Teamster’s Union on the East Coast. At this time there was a couple of incidents involving air craft Fruehauf and Carey owned that resulted in fatal crashes. Some were under suspicious circumstances. Were these events a coincidence? This article reveals some of these details from March 6, 1965:
Labor boss Walter Reuther along with family members and staff who were leaders of the United Auto Workers Union died in a mysterious plane crash near Pellston Michigan in 1970 near their Northern Michigan vacation property after surviving an earlier plane crash and a couple of shootings with ties to the LCN. There were independent investigations along with official ones which demonstrated the possibility of sabotage. One could only imagine what kinds of things Carey was thinking about when he knew what kind of people were becoming his enemies. He was familiar with the alliances Hoffa had made and he knew some of them were behind some of the pension fraud, extortion tactics, business shakedowns, and violence. Carey managed to avoid most of it. Hoffa went to prison in 1967 and the trucking executives as trustees on the Central States Pension Fund were being pushed around by Dorfman and his mob backed IBT trustees. Carey was uneasy about the situation, but after some mysterious fires possibly by arson, at some related businesses, he did not see any suspicious behavior directed at squarely at him until several years later.
When Nixon entered the White House, Carey gave him a wide birth and the historical record shows he focused on working with the Senate and House of Representatives with the specific of issues like trucking deregulation and basic transportation projects through out the nation. Carey would not be able to avoid the tug of war for power between big business, organized labor and political policies being established in the early to mid 1970s. His longtime business associate, John Murphy of the Murphy brother’s huge interstate trucking company, “Gateway Transportation”, tried to remain friendly with Frank Fitzsimmons and Allen Dorfman as a trustee of the union pension fund, but was less and less able to represent the concerns of the trucking industry with Hoffa sitting in Lewisburg. Murphy was closely tied to Carey through the American Trucking Association. He was the Secretary Treasurer since the ATA's inception and the involved with Hoffa in the operation of the Master Freight Agreement. Congressman Dan Flood was still in the picture. He remained on the House Appropriations Committee as a conduit of funds to deliver the goods to his partners the Medico brothers, and his silent partner, Russell Bufalino. Flood scaled down as he was backed into a corner with no more possible help from them. Congressman Dan Flood had up to 175 possible cases against him, but remained in power on the House Appropriations Committee until 1979. With Flood’s help Medico Industries received, in just one of several defense contracts, almost $4 million dollars. He changed the approved routes for the Interstate Highway system to grease the palms of his business associates and provide untold amounts of cash for mob owned businesses. The FBI was unable to shut him down completely until Bufalino was imprisoned and the Medico Brothers lost their law suit against Time Magazine for revealing the FBIs facts linking Dan Flood and the Medicos to the Bufalino crime family also in 1979.
These facts tie in with other events involving Walter F, Carey and his influence with especially the Defense Department and his own links with legitimate fellow business associates receiving contracts instead of Flood’s people during the same time frame. This fact as well as others were well in play by the time Hoffa was released by Nixon in 1971 with his commuted sentence attached to the stipulation that Jimmy Hoffa could not be involved with “direct or indirect management of any labor organization” (including local union and IBT leadership) “prior to March 6, 1980”. This stipulation coincided with his original thirteen year sentence beginning in 1967. Jimmy Hoffa made it no secret he was intending to regain his position as the Teamsters leader by 1976 and he began to establish new footing by stating his desire to run Frank Fitzsimmons and his LCN friends out of the that labor union. For once, it appeared Jimmy Hoffa and Walter Carey were on the same side when it came to taking control and money away from the mob. Even though the two men were no longer the close associates they were in the earlier decades before this, they both had a common enemy with the anti Hoffa movement in the IBT and the organized crime element seizing control of pension funds and government contracts.
From this, it is not hard to see motive to silence either one of the two men and anyone else associated with them in order to continue the practice of securing huge amounts of money to finance the LCN’s future aspirations. The kind of insulation Walter Carey enjoyed from Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson was not there for him from Nixon. It makes complete sense that this was due to the kinds of associations and tactics the Nixon Administration became famous for just prior to the disappearance of James R. Hoffa. The Watergate Scandal revealed many details of the kinds of shady and clandestine activities to the inquisitive American public during the Nixon years and the years to follow.
Walter Carey and Bert Beveridge sold the other trucking companies not directly associated with the earlier days of the Test Fleet scandal from the late 40s. They owned, sold or operated other companies as reported in a Detroit Free Press article (February 6, 1963 page 18). Many of Carey’s trucking companies were well known among teamsters across the U.S. and Canada. Automobile Carriers, INC of Flint, Jonesville Auto Transport, Dealers Transit of Chicago, J Commercial Driveaway of Lansing, National City Lines of Iowa and the West Coast and some others had employed truck drivers literally from coast to coast. A most notable trucking company "TIME DC INC." had Carey as it's Chairman of the board of Directors. It was an admired interstate company and one of the last he controlled. He retired from the industry in the early 80s.
Walter Carey befriended President Lyndon B. Johnson after the JFK assassination and was appointed by him as the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In several articles Carey is featured as one of LBJ’s supporters on subjects ranging from the “War on Poverty” to our National Defense during the “Cold War”. Bert Beveridge reports Carey would often visit LBJ in the White House basement to discuss economic and political strategy.
Carey continued to be an advocate for the trucking industry through the 1970s but it was apparent things changed for him almost immediately after Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on July 30, 1975 from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant North of Detroit. In fact, the Red Fox was only several miles from Walter F. Carey’s home located on 161 Lone Pine Road, Bloomfield, Michigan. The owner of that restaurant, Harris O Machus, was originally from Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the same county Carey had his Island vacation property. Many of the successful business owners that acquired their wealth from the automobile industry in Detroit lived in upscale homes in the Bloomfield area. Jimmy Hoffa was living, at that time period, in a township close by in Lake Orion on Square Lake. The well known restaurant was a convenient location for folks to easily stop in while traveling to and from their homes to their offices in Detroit. There were some nice golf courses in the vicinity and back then even some good shopping. From what was gathered from research, it appears Walter Carey was involved in business operations that day and may have been at his office or a meeting in or near Chicago. On August 8, 1975 the United States Court of Appeals of the 5th Circuit delivered a ruling against TIME DC combined with the IBT concerning the U. S. Government’s charging the huge company of discriminatory hiring practices going back to the 1950s. Walter Carey would have been concerned with that issue as well as the disappearance of Hoffa the week before this ruling. It was the first time he was in the sights of the Government by his business associations since the Test Fleet scandal and it came in conjuncture with the hiring practices linked to the IBT’s own history. He obviously had no way to easily get by such an obstacle as being that companies chairman. Shortly afterward it was discovered through the Department of Justice, that his company TIME DC was targeted by the LCN and specifically from the “Provenzano Group” of individuals connected with New Jersey who were also listed as suspects in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa!
Ralph Picardo once belonging to the “Provenzano Group” led by Hoffa suspect Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, began to talk to the FBI the first week of November 1975. He was imprisoned in New Jersey for a murder conviction and used the Hoffa disappearance as a means to get his sentence lifted. He supplied them with information mentioning a specific trucking company identified as “Gateway Transportation” as the means used to transport Jimmy Hoffa’s body to an “unknown” destination. He received his information from Stephen Andretta in September 1975. Andretta and his brother Thomas were also part of the “Provenzano Group”. Gateway Transportation was owned by the Murphy brothers of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. John Murphy was the CEO of this huge nationwide company and they had a steel division located in Detroit ran by Stanton Barr. The connections were made then to Rolland McMaster the leader of the anti Hoffa forces tied to numerous acts of violence. Barr and McMaster were brother in laws and they owned a horse farm together North of Detroit. McMaster was also connected to others in the “Provenzano Group”. Stanton Barr owned island property in the same county of the Upper Peninsula as Walter F. Carey. McMaster and Barr were married to a pair of sisters from Sault (“Soo”) Sainte. Marie also in the Upper Peninsula. The FBI made some of these connections but not all of them. Prior to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. McMaster had been sending some of his own “goon squad” up to same area in the Upper Peninsula to shake down some trucking companies to force them to give in to pressure for their driver’s to organize with the IBT. All of this was covered in the news media through out 1974 and all the way to the time Hoffa had vanished. Walter F. Carey was well acquainted with Gateway Transportation and John Murphy. He also knew who Stanton Barr was. He knew of the people associated with the LCN and IBT that led the anti Hoffa campaign, and he knew of all the orchestrated violence the IBT “McMaster Force” and the LCN/IBT “Provenzano Group” had been suspected of at that time. Gateway Transportation and TIME DC were connected to CEOs John Murphy and Walter F. Carey as well as to a whole list of anti Hoffa suspects and individuals associated with Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance. In addition he knew his influence had been used to thwart some of the other LCN connections to acquire Department of Defense contracts. Carey’s influence and insulation with Presidents, Senators, Congress, and the trucking industry was not the same during the Nixon Administration. It made him vulnerable. Gateways CEO John Murphy sat as a trustee on the Central States Pension Fund and was a source of information to Walter Carey as to what was being done through all the above groups and people competing for control of the funds vast amount of money. The bottom line, is the Hoffa disappearance quickly lead to a sequence of events that resulted in both Walter Carey and John Murphy in a rough spot. Not only was Murphy’s Gateway company under suspect, it also included Walter Carey and TIME DC. Carey not only was dealing with a U.S. Government litigation on TIME DC but as of November 1975 his company was being shook down by the “Provenzano Group”. Tony Pro’s brother Nunzio had taken the reigns of Local 560 also in November 1975. He and his associates in the “Provenzano Group went after TIME DC extorting that company from November 1975 to 1979. This was not something Carey was ever subject to, due to his many former connections. Suddenly at the same time the FBI was trying to locate Jimmy Hoffa and what had happened to him, the Provenzano’s felt they had enough juice to shake down TIME DC. In fact they were also extorting 3 other large trucking companies and the whole scenario became known as the “City Man Labor Peace Payoff” by the Department of Justice. These events all corespond to what is summerized by information contained in the Hoffex Memo and Detroit FGJ of 1975.
Walter Carey for once seemed to be powerless to do anything about it for almost four years after Jimmy Hoffa went missing. One may ask: "What happened to make Carey suddenly vulnerable along with his company, TIME DC, becoming a target by the mob?". Why did all this come together immediately following the Hoffa disappearance? Jimmy Hoffa was taken out of the picture followed by the compromised CEO of Gateway Transportation and his influence on the pension fund. Walter Carey who had influenced many defense contracts toward legitimate businesses and away from LCN enterprises also found himself in the crosshairs of organized crime. The common enemy involves the New Jersey LCN/IBT Provenzanos and the Bufalino crime family. They were in the position for the next four years to insure access to both sources of money by pushing John Murphy off of the IBT pension fund shutting down Walter Carey's influence with DOD contracts.
It's no coincidence shortly after Hoffa vanished the Gerald Ford Administration added Walter F. Carey of TIME DC and John Murphy of Gateway Transportation to a list of trucking executives to act as advisers to the White House, supposedly for up coming intentions to deregulate the trucking industry. Within this “add on” list, Carey’s address is listed improperly having him in Missouri and not Michigan but the zip code and physical address is correct:
President Gerald Ford, from Michigan, had succeeded Nixon after the Watergate scandal. He knew Walter Carey and also knew Jimmy Hoffa. Ford was acutely aware of the theories coming forth with the FBI investigation and the Hoffex Memo early in 1976. It is not known at this time if he knew of the intimate details regarding Carey’s TIME DC and Murphy’s Gateway Transportation. There certainly was a connection and it can be seen even with the members identified and associated with Rolland McMaster and Stanton Barr.
By this time many things had rapidly changed for Carey. Until the present time, no one has linked all of this with the Hoffa disappearance or have breathed a word about Walter Carey or his company being extorted by the “Tony Pro”, Flood, Medico, Bufalino alliance connection to him. What next changed things was, the conviction and incarceration of Tony Provenzano in 1978, along with the conviction and imprisonment of Russell Bufalino also in 1978. It can be noted that suspect Salvatore Briguglio of the “Provenzano Group” was murdered and the Justice Department indicted the rest of the group over numerous other improprieties beginning in 1978. This was followed by the eventual forcing of Dan Flood’s resignation from Congress in 1980. That four year period shows that Carey had submitted recommendations to the U. S. Congress with the new Bankruptcy Reform Act for improvements in Judicial Machinery in 1975. It is of note that just after the disappearance of Hoffa, he made no more efforts or engagements with Congress until 1978 when Bufalino and Tony Pro had been imprisoned and Nunzio Provenzano, and the Andretta brothers were investigated by the DOJ for a long list of RICO charges, some of which involved Carey’s trucking company TIME DC. This fits with what would be expected to happen if somehow Walter Carey was a target by the LCN. It is a fact at that same time period, the LCN pressure ceased when they were put out of business by the DOJ. Salvatore Briguglio who was actually gunned down in New York also in 1978 was also a member of the Provenzano group and would no longer be a threat to anyone including Carey.
What would be expected, actually took place as predicted . Records and documents should show that Walter Carey was able to emerge from the disgrace, land on his feet, and finish up his career with no one suspecting a thing, This is exactly what happened. Between 1978 and 1981 he was inducted into the “Automotive Hall of Fame” with another mention of a "Truckers Hall of Fame". He returned to Washington DC and finished his work on the Senate and House of Representatives for the transportation industry with the oversight for Freight Competition and the Mandatory Energy Conservation of Gasoline and Diesel Fuel along with the Transportation Board of Directors U. S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, as well as, the Subcommittee on Energy Regulation.
After1980 Walter F Carey had retired from public life and became like a recluse when compared to five decades of influence he exercised on the United States industrial history. He began to spend more time on his property in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. His old partner Bert Beveridge wrote on page 101 of his book ("A Little Bit of Remembering" 1980) of their sons becoming business successors in the trucking industry. He states that Carey’s son named “North” along with his own son did not wish to do so. Neither one wanted to have anything to do with “Jimmy Hoffa people”. When North Carey passed away there is no mention of his parents or siblings in a published obituary. As was mentioned in other documents, Walter Carey made quiet contributions to charitable organizations and participated in many diverse philanthropic causes. He is last noted being involved with U. S. Presidents as an adviser for the Layman’s Bible Society that included both President Carter and Ronald Reagan. Declassified CIA documents from as early as 1965 point out this connection and not much else has been uncovered about the details of his public life. Privately he continued to financially support many educational and civic organizations. History seems to had all but forgotten him until our efforts to research his connections to Jimmy Hoffa.
Findinghoffa.com has looked especially at Walter F Carey because he is so intertwined with almost every aspect of the common themes related to Industrialist CEOs, IBT, LCN, and the power structure of the political leaders during Hoffa’s rise to power and through to his mysterious disappearance. Walter Carey’ career and his activities match with a list of discoveries in the many of the investigations looking into solving the Hoffa mystery. We tie him with others closely associated to established facts surrounding many related details. Of the CEOs and Industrialists, Carey was long connected to James R. Hoffa as a potential power broker.
Carey is connected to John Murphy and Gateway Transportation (This company had a certain division that received a loan of $800 K from the IBT Pension Fund in 1976 and later sold to the Maislin brothers of Canada in the early 80s after declaring bankruptcy in 1979). Walter Carey and his companies were tied to James R. Hoffa beginning in the 1940s and the Test Fleet company is an indisputable example of the many dealings the two men shared. The record demonstrates the last involvement Carey had with TIME DC also corresponds with some of the men suspiciously involved with Hoffa’s disappearance.
As was previously stated, Walter Carey's TIME DC interstate trucking company and his fellow associate John Murphy's huge Gateway Transprotation Company were directley tied to the identified players associated with the Hoffa disappearance. The following information outlines these details:
Donovan Wells (deceased 2019) owned a "TIME DC" trucking terminal in Detroit. He lived on IBT officer Rolland McMaster's Hidden Dreams Farm in 1975. Wells was partners with McMaster's Brother in Law: Stanton Barr in a Detroit trucking company called Spot Leasing. A driver named Jim Shaw worked for Don Wells in April 1975 at TIME DC and his truck was apparently sabotaged and burned. (unsolved crime). But, it just so happened, that Stanton Barr ran a Gateway Transportation Steel Division of Detroit. (This is the company suspected with Hoffa's disappearance.) And, as luck would have it, Jim Shaw got his next job arranged with Gateway by Rolland McMaster through Stanton Barr (Both men connected to property in the same county as Walter Carey’s property in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula). All this coincided before and during the time of the search for Hoffa.
Larry McHenry, is looked upon as the one orchestrating IBT threats and extortion tactics in the Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1974 and 1975. (see Graham Trucking). He was part of the pro Fitzsimmons anti Hoffa Goon squad set up by Rolland McMaster. These events are tied to Frank Fitzsimmons and Jimmy Hoffa's feud and upcoming bid for control of the IBT. Both men were posturing themselves with former allies. It appears that John Murphy (President of Gateway Transportation and trustee of the Central States Pension Fund) and Walter F. Carey (Former owner of Commercial Carriers and connected to Hoffa's Test Fleet Company, TIME DC Trucking, and several U.S. Presidents) would be two such potential allies.
In addition, Jim Shaw along with Larry McHenry were FBI prime suspects in the Richard Fitzsimmons car bombing weeks before Hoffa disappeared.(This bombing was thought to be a red herring diversion to make it look like Hoffa loyalists were retaliating against Fitzsimmons for the violence inflicted on Dave Johnson of Loc. 299. Dave Johnson was a Hoffa loyalist running against Richard Fitzsimmons (who also happened to be "Big Fitz" Frank Fitzsimmons son). Johnson's office building at Loc. 299 had recently been fired on by a drive by shot gunning. Next, Hoffa former IBT friend Ralph Proctor was beaten. To top it all off, Johnson's private yacht had been destroyed by a mysterious explosion on the Detroit River. Federal Agents, Michigan State Police, Wayne County Sheriff Dept., and Detroit Metro Police were on high alert at this time. All known LCN mobsters that had ties with both Hoffa and Fitzsimmons were soon under surveillance in one fashion or another. The tension in Detroit during July of 1975 was about to snap. Before this time, Walter Carey moved from Birmingham to Bloomfield and lived in close proximity to other people closely connected to Hoffa. In 1975 he was living close by the Red Fox restaurant, the suspected murder house owned by Carlo Licata, and the Marvin Adell home. His activities would not have been all that difficult to discern by anyone connected to the Hoffa mystery.
On July 30, 1975 James R. "Jimmy" Hoffa vanished. We notice that Stanton Barr (Deceased November 13th, 2019), Rolland McMaster, and Donald Sawochka (an official of IBT local 142) all attended a meeting in Gary, Indiana on that day to provide an alibi. This meeting was for the Gateway Transportation Company Executives. John A. Murphy was the President of this company and a personal associate of Walter F. Carey. He was also golfing buddy of IBT President Frank Fitzsimmons. When the Grand Jury called in 6 employees of Gateway Transportation in an official inquiry in late 1975 they asked about shipping 55 gallon drums out of Detroit. The FBI later listed McMaster as a suspect in the Hoffex Memo. All of this ties in with something strange having been witnessed in the Upper Peninsula on the date of Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance. This event, reported by several independent sources. took place on property owned by Walter F. Carey at a construction site!!! Everything but the last item has been known publicly until we (Findinghoffa.com) revealed it on February 4th, 2020.
Shortly after Hoffa went missing, John Murphy, Frank Fitzsimmons, former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and two others (identified by law enforcement as known to be connected with IBT and La Cosa Nostra) were in a "five some" group of golfers in California. This was President Nixon's first public appearance since his resignation and indictment in the Watergate Conspiracy. It was about two months since Hoffa had vanished. When the Hoffa Grand Jury met in Detroit in late 1975, they were unable to locate and notify John Murphy to be questioned with the six other Gateway Transportation officials. Fitzsimmons and the others listed in the Hoffex Memo all stood before official inquiries. But, no records included either John Murphy or Walter F. Carey associated with Hoffa's demise. We have to ask why they were left out of the narrative? Now we finally have something relevant to our goal of finding what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
It appears the reason why the LCN and IBT participants were involved with a plan to erase Jimmy Hoffa from the earth included a couple of other targets too. They had motives. John Murphy was never going to go against LCN and IBT mobsters again with the pension fund and Walter Carey was not going to stand in the way of crooked mob owned businesses competing for lucrative government contracts. Murphy and Carey received an offer they could not refuse. Readers are advised to listen to the final two Finding Hoffa podcasts and for further information provided on this website.
Walter Frederick Carey passed away November 13th, 1997 in Petoskey, MI at 92 years old.