Arthur L. Boyd

About the Author

In August 1951, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur L. Boyd, U.S. Army (Ret), was a twenty-three-year old first lieutenant serving in Germany when he applied for a Top Secret “black intelligence” mission during the Korean War.

The mission director, operating out of the Pentagon and answering directly to President Harry S. Truman, picked Boyd to serve on a ten-man military intelligence team. Lieutenant Boyd was responsible for encryption and transmission of twenty intelligence reports collected from operatives within North Korea. Reports were relayed to Truman under an “Only-for-the-President’s-Eyes” order.

Following Operation Broken Reed, a successful operation that claimed the lives of seventy-five brave patriots, Boyd returned to Germany and was promoted to captain. As a captain, Boyd commanded units at Fort Bliss, Texas; within the 7th Infantry Division in Korea; at Fort Benning, Georgia; and at Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Promoted to major, Boyd served as Chief of Communication Division for Fort Richardson. After his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, Boyd served as Chief, Communication Service at Fort Knox, Kentucky, until his retirement in 1967.

Colonel Boyd moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he graduated from Bethel Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree. After graduation, he served as a chaplain at the Metropolitan and North Memorial Hospitals in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After completing his tenure as a chaplain, he served as a financial consultant with a Saint Paul firm. Colonel Boyd now lives with his wife of sixty-one years in Tennessee.