Collins left NASA in 1970. He took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs during the Richard Nixon presidency. A year later he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum. He did this job until 1978. He then became the undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He left in 1985 to start his own business.