Larry Hancock

Ron, I think the argument - and the mystery - will always be how much of their behavior was intentional versus pure incompetence (magnified by hubris and career chasing by Barnes). Basically Barnes and Bissell had been hugely successful in the Guatemala project, so much so that Dulles gave them their head on Cuba and Barnes proceeded to set up and run the Cuba Project in a totally different manner tan Guatemala or even the earlier failed effort in Indonesia. He totally changed all the operations practices the CIA had used and then when his new structure failed to produced moved from a low profile infiltration project to a D Day, hail Mary, full scale invasion - at the relatively last minute - with no experience and no resources for any such thing inside the CIA. That is why both the CIA IG report and separately the CIA historian effectively laid the blame internally on the Agency and specifically on his methods. I'm really not trying to pitch In Denial but in this instance the matter is so complex that a few sound bytes cannot describe something that happened not over three days on the beaches but an entire year. And of course the other factors that have to get some attention were the "wild cards" that Barnes put into play that totally failed - but which he of course could never talk about - the Castro assassination efforts only being part of that story. None of the wild cards being things that were ever conveyed to or discussed with JFK. What is not in doubt and is in the records is that in the weeks before the landings, the Joint Chiefs pointed out that even successful landings would be unsustainable without a major Cuba uprising occurring at the same time - that was discussed in several of the planning meetings and Barnes and company chose not bring up the point that Castro had crushed the changes of that by rolling up all the opposition groups some two/three months prior to the landings. In fact, nothing about the landings was coordinated or supported by any the counter revolutionary groups the CIA had been trying to support over the preceding year - Barnes chose to keep them out of the equation, supposedly based on security concerns. What is also not in doubt is the Joint Chiefs had pointed out that the landing would be in grave jeopardy if any Cuban military aircraft were operating over the beached - and Barnes was well aware of the fact that the latest estimates the day before the landings were launched showed that the pre-landing air strikes had been far less successful than previously thought - with much of the Cuban Air Force sill very much alive and operational. Yet he and Cabell failed to raise that as a critical issue the night they chose not to argue the issue of more air strikes with JFK - who very likely would have aborted the landings at that point.

Dulles was so disassociated from the entire Cuba project much less the landings its hard to tell what he knew - he had left the whole thing under the direct supervision of Barnes working under WestHem Director J.C. King...whose testimony after the fact showed his almost total lack of any detailed knowledge as well. The IG report states it was virtually unique in CIA history at that point because of its strange organizational structure - which allowed the Air Operations to be run completely independently than the ground operations or the sea operations for that matter. At the Bay of Pigs Air, Ground and Sea ops did not even use the same radio frequencies and their were not forward air controllers on the beach set up to direct Brigade or Navy air strikes in real time. Yes, Barnes and Bissell and King were responsible; I can't really get across in limited forum posts how much so. The IG report captured a good deal of it but even the IG and the CIA historians work doesn't tell the full story because they did now know how consistently Barnes had lied to Hawkins and Esterline. Why can be debated forever but clearly Barnes and had an ego and degree of hubris - and afterwards went into a state of obsessive denial, personally acting to place the blame on JFK.

Ron, In Denial does make it clear that Barnes and Bissell, regardless of motive, lied to both JFK - and to Hawkins and Esterline at the same time. Unfortunately Hawkins and Easterline believed him before hand and afterwards and repeated Barnes' lies to the field officers at JMWAVE...who repeated it to the Cubans. It was only decades later when they were shown actual documents and transcripts that they Hawkins and Easterline realized the truth...way to late at that point. In Denial makes it clear how far JFK actually went to resend certain of his rules during the three days of the on the beach and authorize more American involvement; it also makes clear which of his directives were never complied with at all - including his order that it operation had to happen entirely at night with all ships out in international waters by daybreak and that the Brigade and Navy be fully prepared for an immediate evacuation if the landing was opposed. The story is actually much more tragic when you realize who should actually bear the blame for the disaster.

Tom, what I will say about Marina, as I have about other figures such as Nagell, is that as a source she had to be approached with a situational and chronological study of her remarks - which changed over time, and depending on who was questioning her under what circumstances (and for that mater her own legal exposure, which was quite serious). I will be discussing that in an upcoming book which offers a broad and relatively contrarian view of Oswald, innocent and as a patsy- but also as someone who was a lot more than the cardboard cutout we have often made him . He had his own character, his own agendas and his worldview - we (and I) have written too much about him without fully considering that he was not at all one dimensional. The rest on that, and an exploration of Marina and others as sources, I'll leave to the book.

The Milteer threat was reported to both the FBI...who did investigate the individuals named in the tape recording... and it was reported to the Secret Service. Because Washington DC had been mentioned in the conversation, the Secret Service logged it in their PRS file for Washington. And because of their practices at the time, they reportedly only pulled threats logged for the city/cities visited on a particular trip for special attention - which means it was not pulled at all as a threat related to the Texas trip. And even though they did have a credible threat report related to the same ultra right group (the NSRP/to which the individuals mentioned by Milteer were related) for San Antonio, they responded to that there, but did not specifically translate it to Dallas either. That sounds incredibly incompetent, but it appears that their practices of the time did not consider mobile threats. On the other hand since the related SS travel files for that period appear to have been destroyed, we can't be totally sure of that.

That's true Jamey, rather than the HSCA, when Stu and I started our years of work on the MLK case we began with the FBI files, which are extensive and which gave us a very positive roadmap of where to look for the real conspiracy in King's murder - in several instances the Bureau had started off on strong leads and even begun to pursue them. Unfortunately Hoover's directive to focus strictly on Ray, the Memphis DA's decision to use evidence in hand simply to go after Ray (not unlike in the Sirhan case - DA's love having simple cases) meant that the Bureau's work did not go where it might, could have - but it rather than any HSCA material was our starting point.

Jamey, as I understand it the limited number of HSCA records relating to their limited MLK work are still sequestered by Congress itself, basically Congress (and I think a single Congress person) has to formally request the Clerk of the House to release them in some format and that was never done. Stu Wexler has taken the lead in an effort to not only get them released but to work with Congress and he and his high school class actually got a cold case act through Congress to set up a Committee to release related files to a whole series of civil rights era murders from that period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cold_Case_Records_Review_Board Stu would be the person to contact about the MLK files....he does post here occasionally and you could also message him.

Greg, that would have been early days when the MFF initially established and was operating under Ollie Curme; he would be the person to contact about the history of any such financial arrangements. I think he posts here on occasion or you might attempt to message him with your question.

Gayle Nix Jackson's book has a lot of detail on the FBI investigation including all the photos including the railroad and path area as well as diagrams and sketches of the route. Its an excellent resource on the Walker shooting.

Gerry, Walker was avowedly and aggressively anti-Communist and anti-Castro, he was frequently quoted in speeches and media on those positions and he had even gone to Miami very openly in the summer of 1963, and spoken in support of the exiles and against the Kennedy Administration on that topic. In response several exile activists as well as a number of their private supporters - Hemming, Sturgis, Hall, Vidal etc had begun to solicit him for money. Hemming would routinely complain about people going to Dallas and trying to cut in on Walker as a funding source - problem is Walker had no real money and was never known to have given anything to their cause. What little he had was going into his own political campaign. In regard to the "training camps" near New Orleans, there is extensive information available on both the MDC camp and the Mclaney dynamite stash and Walker has nothing to do with either. David and I have written about both those in a number of places so I'll leave the details to that.

Excellent point Gerry - I said kicking myself - why the heck have none of us thought of that before. Bolt action rifle, fire and "bolt" especially if somebody is heard running in your direction but safest thing to do anyway. So no shell hull to be recovered... -- Well done...

Well the answer should be in the camera footage of Fritz holding the shells in his hand - which Alyea was positive about filming. Its either one or three so that footage should be the tie breaker and at least answer one question. I did think it a bit strange that Fritz was able to get behind the boxes and pick out either one or three and Alyea could not get at least one from that angle...on the other hand he may only have been wanting a close up of the shell so that might explain Alyea just getting one for him to film - although Alyea certainly didn't put it in those words. -- and I didn't think to ask at him either....too bad we didn't have all the right questions back then...

Pat, the story Alyea told me was that he was in the area of the boxes and Fritz told him the cartridges were there on the floor by the window but the stacking of the boxes prevented Alyea from taking footage.....he complained and said that Fritz picked up all the cartridges, held them so that he could film them and then tossed them back down. He may have changed those remarks at times but I'm pretty sure that is also what he had in his three newsletters...which he happily sold me copies of when we talked.

Some real chronology problems here, is it possible the crime scene photos had been taken and the shells given to Fritz for him to throw down later for Alyea and Alyea didn't really see them in place himself before Fritz then threw them down for him to video? Did that just confuse Alyea? Certainly bad practice on Fritz either way. But of course then Fritz could not have picked them up as Alyea related....of course if Fritz could get to them to pick them up then why didn't Alyea just shoot that angle? Or is it as simple that Alyea is right about everything and the Deputy related picking them up and giving them to Fritz after Alyea had taken the video?

As Pat said, Alyea said some remarkable things - I interviewed him in person at length and corresponded with him over some years. He put a lot of material into three newsletters he did, accusing conspiracy types of lies and misrepresentation while repeatedly talking about how the DPD had itself lied in testimony as related to evidence handling, especially in regard to the crime scene photos of the window area and boxes which he said were all faked on Saturday (and lied about in reports and under oath) because the ones done on Friday had been done so poorly. As Pat says, it was a remarkable, bipolar position, with has him gutting the DPD on all its crime scene work but then defending it to the death on all its conclusions. My impression was that he might have combined some of the things he saw on the fifth and sixth floor in his memories, unintentionally - but he was adamant about the hulls being picked up and then thrown down for him to film...raising the question of whether the official photos of them had been done before or after that happened but certainly raising even more questions about crime scene practices.