Outstanding Lines of Inquiry

Outstanding - LINES OF INQUIRY still Outstanding. Want to pitch in and find out?

1) Collins Hanger, Redbird Airport 1951 – 1963 “With increasing military orders Collins was urged by the Defense Department to consider further decentralization of its facilities for security reasons. Management began studies of a number of communities,…and announced in May, 1951 an expansion program to build a $1 million plant near Dallas, Texas suburb of Richardson….Collins also announced plans to lease a hanger at nearby Redbird Airport to install and repair airborne equipment. James Flynn, Jr. from American Airlines, was named general manager, W. G. Pappenfus director of manufacturing, Harold Moss manger of test and inspection and Arthur Luebs was named senior buyer for the Texas division. “Our decision to locate in Texas is in line with the current practice of separating production plants geographically for security reasons,” Arthur Collins explained. “So long as we are locating another plant away from our main operation, we picked a place close to the heart of the aviation industry and where the weather would give us more uniform test flight conditions. We found exactly the conditions we were looking for in Texas.”

In 1952 Collins installed an experimental communications link between its Cedar Rapids Airport laboratory and its new Dallas laboratory …
[BK: Did this link still exist in 1963?)

2) Feather Ridge Studies by Dr. Dale McCoy and C. M. Hepperle Led to construction by Collins of a giant aluminum dish antenna for the Naval Laboratory at Anacostia, DC in 1950.
[What were the Feather Rdige Studies and can we get a copies of their reports?]

3) Operation Vagabond – “was a facet of the ‘ring plan’ designed to ring all of the world’s critical areas with extremely high-powered communications facilities,…” Collins Radio –
[Are the documents on Vagabond unclassified? This would include Vietnam and Caribbean]

4) Radio Ship “Courier” - Voice of America? Collins Radio.
[I’ve heard of a lot of communications ships – Pueblo, Rex, Rev. Carl McIntyre had one, but the “Courier” is new to me.]

5) “Speckled Trout” – Communications and Command Plane LeMay frequently used, but not on 11/22/63. C-135 aircraft transport senior military leaders such as the Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Command; Commander, Pacific Air Forces; and other high-ranking dignitaries. The C-135C Speckled Trout communications aircraft, operated by the Edwards-based 412th Flight Test Squadron, is a modified C-135 that serves as a test bed for emerging technologies…..
[Is the C-135 a military modified 707/?]

6) Cedar Rapids, Iowa Mayor Robert M.L. Johnson January 4, 1965 wrote LBJ a letter: “As one who read and believed the Warren Report on the assassination of President Kennedy, I am disturbed and chagrined that…you would permit a 750year cloak of sececy to fall over the facts May I suggest that if there is true justification for withholding from the public the facts of one of the most tragic events of our time, it is also incumbent upon our national leadership to make it clear why…”
[Can we get a full copy of this letter?] Got It. Thanks Rx

7) Igor “the Turk” Vaganov. Few individuals stand out as suspects and have such an intriguing background as Igor Vaganov. John Berendt wrote about him in the August 1967 issue of Esquire. I was always intrigued by the Philadelphia connection.
[Is Vaganov still alive? Does anybody have a copy of the Esquire magazine about him? It is very long and detailed, and can his story be summarized in one or two paragraphs?]

8) Brandywine. Carl Mather said he worked on AF2 at Andrews for Collins and was quartered at “Brandywine,” and Brandywine is also the location of one of the Mystic Star – Presidential Communications stations, support stations. (See: Carl Mather, Brandywine & Mystic Star) [I think the Mystic Star Presidential Communications System links not only to AF1 and Special Air Missions (SAM) but to Speckled Trout and Looking Glass as well as remote control and command facilities that can survived nuclear attacks – there were at least six of them and I think Brandywine is near Camp David, one of them.]

9) BIRDCALL In 1954 LeMay invited Arthur Collins to attend a meeting of business executives at Offut, AFB in Nebraska. While there Collins met officials of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Collins also informed LeMay of advances in single-sideband radio, an area that the Air Force was looking to develop and improve on. LeMay's collaboration with Arthur Collins eventually led to something called BIRDCALL, an "air-to-ground and point-to-point SSB communication system." Further testing on this communications system continued throughout 1956.
[There must be more on Birdcall. The Collins Radio company files are in a special Collins collection at the Iowa State U. They are probably a treasure trove of information about the Collins/USAF connections]

10) FOUR LEAVES – Executive Order signed by JFK on Sept. 23/4 1963 regarding special project FOUR LEAVES. What the hells is it?
[ I wonder if these Collins links have anything to do with Project FOUR LEAVES – the title of the project JFK approved by executive order – This is also the day (or within a day) of the signing of the limited nuke test ban treaty, and the day Oz leaves the Big Easy for Mexico and the JCS meet the same day. See: JCS MEMO – the Read Only message – what was it? And is there any way of learning?]