Bill Simpich's State Secret

[Paul Trejo]

Having worked with Bill while he was doing the ground breaking document research I think the book is a tremendous contribution, not just the aspects of the spy games in Mexico City that were going on before and during Oswald's arrival but in our overall understanding of the highly complex counter intelligence work performed jointly by Mexico City staff and staff out of JM WAVE. Bill ties the two groups together operationally in a way we had never understood previously, even pointing out that JMWAVE had its own operations in Mexico, distinct from the CIA station. He also developed the operational link between the exile counter intelligence group in Miami and its activities in Mexico City.

I don't think Bill would agree that there were not senior CIA officers involved in setting up what PDS and Newman have called a poison pill situation in Mexico City - one that would superficially connect Oswald to the Soviets/Cubans. I do think he believes it was even more complex than that, since under close examination that poison pill reveals knowledge closely held within the Agency itself. I certainly don't think Bill would exclude William Harvey as contributing to that knowledge or that he feels David Morales was not involved - and Morales operated at a far higher level than you often picture him, even attending Special Group meetings in Washington.

My take on State Secret is that Bill has revealed an environment in Mexico City and among CIA CI that is an order of magnitude more complex than we understood previously. Newman is very likely carrying on that work with his new series of books. Both of them are doing work that was only possible after certain crypts and aliases had been cracked and CI assets within the Cuban diplomatic community identified - as well as new CIA assets. To me what is most interesting about Bill's work is that it establishes a context which suggests that within some 72 hours, the CIA high command was able to realize that some of their own people might have been the "others" working around Lee Oswald in the MC impersonation, the mystery people Hoover discussed in the impersonation when talking to Johnson. In short, they would have had good cause to suspect that American intelligence officers had been involved in some fashion, just as David Phillips finally remarked shortly before his death.

Thanks, Larry, for this insight into the paradigm shift found in the work of Bill Simpich.

The distinction between the CIA HQ and JMWAVE in Mexico City is telling. David Morales was involved in JMWAVE, and so he would have had access to Mexico City secrets (like which phones were being tapped at which priority for which reasons) and so this makes his crew a prime suspect for the Oswald Impersonation.

But the CIA high-command did not guess that at the time. Thus the Simpich Mole Hunt.

Bill Simpich's innovation begins with newly-released CIA documents -- but Bill was the first to jump on them, and to figure them out -- and so he merits the kudos that come with being first.

I wish Bill himself would comment directly on my specific claim that a CIA Mole Hunt is basic proof that the CIA high-command -- the level that authorizes Mole Hunts -- had no clue about who Impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City.

To say that there were "no senior CIA officers involved" in the Impersonation is tendecious, since we now must fine-tune what "senior" means. "Senior" evidently isn't high enough to start a Mole Hunt.

It is precisely because the Impersonation of Oswald "reveals knowledge closely held within the Agency itself" that we can say that the Simpich Mole Hunt was justified in the first place.

I don't doubt that David Morales, the CIA's top-level assassin of foreign leaders in Latin America, would be invited to Special Group meetings in Washington DC, yet even THAT is still not high enough to authorize a CIA Mole Hunt.

You say, Larry, that author John Newman is currently building on Bill Simpich's discovery in his new work -- and of course that is exciting. I look forward to reading that.

I agree with you that Bill Simpich "establishes a context which suggests that within some 72 hours, the CIA high command was able to realize that some of their own people might have been the "others" working around Lee Oswald in the MC impersonation."

YET I WANT TO KNOW WHO THOSE "OTHERS" WERE.

Yes -- I do agree that DAP in his bio-fiction, The AMLASH Legacy (1988) alluded -- basically confessed -- that "some" CIA Officers were involved in the JFK murder. Nobody doubts that. Two have confessed since then (Morales and Hunt). Yet the key question is whether the JFK Killers included a "Senior" CIA officer high enough in the CIA hierarchy to start a Mole Hunt.

I say no. The JFK murder was a civilian plot run by Walker-Banister. CIA rogues were involved at a lower level.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited and bumped.

[Thomas Graves]

Having worked with Bill while he was doing the ground breaking document research I think the book is a tremendous contribution, not just the aspects of the spy games in Mexico City that were going on before and during Oswald's arrival but in our overall understanding of the highly complex counter intelligence work performed jointly by Mexico City staff and staff out of JM WAVE. Bill ties the two groups together operationally in a way we had never understood previously, even pointing out that JMWAVE had its own operations in Mexico, distinct from the CIA station. He also developed the operational link between the exile counter intelligence group in Miami and its activities in Mexico City.

I don't think Bill would agree that there were not senior CIA officers involved in setting up what PDS and Newman have called a poison pill situation in Mexico City - one that would superficially connect Oswald to the Soviets/Cubans. I do think he believes it was even more complex than that, since under close examination that poison pill reveals knowledge closely held within the Agency itself. I certainly don't think Bill would exclude William Harvey as contributing to that knowledge or that he feels David Morales was not involved - and Morales operated at a far higher level than you often picture him, even attending Special Group meetings in Washington.

My take on State Secret is that Bill has revealed an environment in Mexico City and among CIA CI that is an order of magnitude more complex than we understood previously. Newman is very likely carrying on that work with his new series of books. Both of them are doing work that was only possible after certain crypts and aliases had been cracked and CI assets within the Cuban diplomatic community identified - as well as new CIA assets. To me what is most interesting about Bill's work is that it establishes a context which suggests that within some 72 hours, the CIA high command was able to realize that some of their own people might have been the "others" working around Lee Oswald in the MC impersonation, the mystery people Hoover discussed in the impersonation when talking to Johnson. In short, they would have had good cause to suspect that American intelligence officers had been involved in some fashion, just as David Phillips finally remarked shortly before his death.

Thanks, Larry, for this insight into the paradigm shift found in the work of Bill Simpich.

The distinction between the CIA HQ and JMWAVE in Mexico City is telling. David Morales was involved in JMWAVE, and so he would have had access to Mexico City secrets (like which phones were being tapped at which priority for which reasons) and so this makes his crew a prime suspect for the Oswald Impersonation.

But the CIA high-command did not guess that at the time. Thus the Simpich Mole Hunt.

Bill Simpich's innovation begins with newly-released CIA documents -- but Bill was the first to jump on them, and to figure them out -- and so he merits the kudos that come with being first.

I wish Bill himself would comment directly on my specific claim that a CIA Mole Hunt is basic proof that the CIA high-command -- the level that authorizes Mole Hunts -- had no clue about who Impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City.

To say that there were "no senior CIA officers involved" in the Impersonation is tendecious, since we now must fine-tune what "senior" means. "Senior" evidently isn't high enough to start a Mole Hunt.

It is precisely because the Impersonation of Oswald "reveals knowledge closely held within the Agency itself" that we can say that the Simpich Mole Hunt was justified in the first place.

I don't doubt that David Morales, the CIA's top-level assassin of foreign leaders in Latin America, would be invited to Special Group meetings in Washington DC, yet even THAT is still not high enough to authorize a CIA Mole Hunt.

You say, Larry, that author John Newman is currently building on Bill Simpich's discovery in his new work -- and of course that is exciting. I look forward to reading that.

I agree with you that Bill Simpich "establishes a context which suggests that within some 72 hours, the CIA high command was able to realize that some of their own people might have been the "others" working around Lee Oswald in the MC impersonation."

YET I WANT TO KNOW WHO THOSE "OTHERS" WERE.

Yes -- I do agree that DAP in his bio-fiction, The AMLASH Legacy (1988) alluded -- basically confessed -- that "some" CIA Officers were involved in the JFK murder. Nobody doubts that. Two have confessed since then (Morales and Hunt). Yet the key question is whether the JFK Killers included a "Senior" CIA officer high enough in the CIA hierarchy to start a Mole Hunt.

I say no. The JFK murder was a civilian plot run by Walker-Banister. CIA rogues were involved at a lower level.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited and bumped.

That's interesting, Larry

Thanks for that information.

--Tommy the droll

Edited December 24, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Morales was quite intelligent, organized and a very structured manager....you can see that in reading some of his correspondence. Given that he ran the operations at JM/WAVE

he was probably running the largest covert operations effort going on at the time and from there he went on to run the what was probably the largest CIA operations base in

Laos, at Pakse. I think he is often underestimated because he was very intimidating, physically and otherwise but it would not do to underestimate his intelligence and organizational

skills.

[Thomas Graves]

Morales was quite intelligent, organized and a very structured manager....you can see that in reading some of his correspondence. Given that he ran the operations at JM/WAVE

he was probably running the largest covert operations effort going on at the time and from there he went on to run the what was probably the largest CIA operations base in

Laos, at Pakse. I think he is often underestimated because he was very intimidating, physically and otherwise but it would not do to underestimate his intelligence and organizational

skills.

Larry.

Fine. But could he drive a Rambler station wagon?

--Tommy

[Paul Brancato]

Larry - which do you think is more likely - that Morales was working with Banister, or with other CIA such as Harvey?

[Larry Hancock]

We absolutely know that in his position at JM/WAVE, Morales was supporting Mongoose and Harvey's project during 62. He was also supporting the 1963 initiatives including the Artime

project / AM/WORLD. His connections to Harvey are clear. I'm still waiting to see any verifiable sign of a connection to Bannister. Its true that both were staunchly anti-Communist

and also heavy drinkers but aside from having that in common I see nothing that would bring them together and certainly Morales would never trust becoming operationally

involved with somebody with no covert or military ops background, like Bannister. Marales was exceedingly strong willed and you would have to have some serious credentials

to impress him....I can see Harvey doing that but Bannister was not playing in the same league.

[Paul Trejo]

We absolutely know that in his position at JM/WAVE, Morales was supporting Mongoose and Harvey's project during 62. He was also supporting the 1963 initiatives including the Artime project / AM/WORLD. His connections to Harvey are clear. I'm still waiting to see any verifiable sign of a connection to Bannister. Its true that both were staunchly anti-Communist and also heavy drinkers but aside from having that in common I see nothing that would bring them together and certainly Morales would never trust becoming operationally involved with somebody with no covert or military ops background, like Bannister. Marales was exceedingly strong willed and you would have to have some serious credentials to impress him....I can see Harvey doing that but Bannister was not playing in the same league.

It's interesting, Larry, that you positively link David Morales with Operation Mongoose.

According to Jim Garrison, "Operation Mongoose" was a key part of the operations in New Orleans, there at 531 Lafayette Street, in the offices of Guy Banister.

Jim Garrison said his eye-witness source of information was Jack S. Martin, who worked at 531 Lafayette Street along with Guy Banister and Clay Shaw. Martin also claimed to see Lee Harvey Oswald there at that same address during the summer of 1963.

By linking David Morales with "Operation Mongoose," one obtains a DIRECT linkage to Guy Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald in NOLA.

That is very significant, IMHO.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Well welcome back Paul, but in this instance I think a bit of context would help you and it might have helped Garrison as well. In Shadow Warfare I try to break down the four phases of anti-Castro operations because they are really rather confusing (they certainly were for me) and timeline as well as associate figures involved in each. As far as New Orleans goes we have a great deal of detail on the CIA training camp there that was related to the Bay of Pigs effort in 61 and we know about the boat mission that originated out of La. under San Jenis....related to the very earliest incarnation of OP40. Of course none of that had to do with Mongoose and we know what Morales was doing at the time and it was a training mission at JMWAVE. After the BOP there was an open period of several months were it was all about regrouping and before Mongoose started and Harvey was assigned to it. To keep Mongoose in perspective it was limited to the CIA portion of the support effort under Lansdale which involved multiple agencies and the military. During Mongoose Morales was focused primarily on running boat missions into Cuba, doing infiltration and ex-filtration. Given that those boat missions also supported Phase 2 of the Roselli/Harvey Castro assassination plot, Morales would have been running highly compartmentalized missions in support of that as well as regular CIA missions. As far as we know that all ran out of Florida, out of the Keys and had nothing to do with New Orleans. Post Mongoose, following the missile crisis, and while the Special Group was trying to come up with some new strategy - before RFK began the Artime/AmWORLD initiative, Morales continued to managed support for missions in and out of Cuba as well as a variety of related activities like the TILT mission, and support for counter intelligence activities of Sforza's group in both Miami and Mexico City. During that period Morales himself spend time both in DC and traveling to and from MC. Of course there were exile activities going in in New Orleans during all of this but they primarily had to do with various exile camps and independent activities....which the FBI was actually trying to suppress starting in early 63. The thing is, we are able to detail this only after decades of work and with the document releases of the 90's and later. Seeing it with what Garrison had would have been almost impossible....so CIA just looks like CIA and as we know, lots of folks claimed to be working with the CIA who really were not or who were only having verbal contact with them for various reasons.

So....no I don't see any reason for relating Mongoose to New Orleans in 63, it was over and done with late in 62 and with the detail we have on what Morales was doing I see nothing to connect him operationally to New Orleans in 63....at least based on what we actually know. Good to have you back but once again, making huge sweeping generalizations about CIA projects and activities might have cut it a few decades ago but should be avoided now. Not to mention that I'm still waiting for a citation from Joan Mellon that concretely ties Morales to New Orleans in any fashion, either to Bannister or Marcello....we've gone there before but just citing her as an author is also not enough these days, we need credible primary sources for statements like that.

[Paul Brancato]

Larry - reading into your post a bit I gather that Morales was linked to Pawley?

[Larry Hancock]

In a way Paul, Morales and Robertson were the key CIA officers involved in supporting the TILT mission after it had been approved by King and Shackley. Robertson went on the mission with Martino, he had debriefed him earlier and apparently become personally close to him, visiting Martino at home on numerous occasions. Certainly its unclear from both Morales and Robertson's reports that they were all that impressed with the mission itself or with Pawley per se. Morales was linked to Pawley via the mission itself but beyond it there is no particular sign the two worked together, were socially linked or friends of any sort. Probably the more interesting operational linkages and introductions resulting from the mission would be Robertson/Martino/Bayo/Alpha 66.

[Gene Kelly]

Larry:

I am always struck by how Morales was cautious at the end of his career. As cited in Fonzi's work (albeit second-hand), we have him talking about security at his home in Arizona near the Mexican border, and being more concerned about "his own people" than external threats. Do you have a sense of what that statement meant? Morales was far from simply a ground-level player, as he rose to a Deputy Director position. He ran the South American operations (Condor) in the mid-70's. after his Vietnam tour (1967-72).

It also seems odd and abrupt that he died around the time of the HSCA investigation (in May 1978) at the young age of 57 years, as did Harvey (June 1976). Both were alleged to have drank themselves to death. Rosselli went missing in 1976. Pawley committed suicide in 1977. Angleton lasted another ten years, and had regrets about serving those who seemingly abandoned them.

Gene

[Larry Hancock]

My impression is that Morales's remarks about his "own" people could either mean the CIA as an Agency or about a very select group of people that he knew first at JMWAVE and then later in Latin America. Those people

were not necessarily CIA employees and were primarily Cubans or Cuban exiles. What they did for and with him was not necessarily officially sanctioned by the CIA. Which sort of leaves two options, Morales being concerned that certain of his sins while at the Agency would catch up with him and that he would need to be eliminated to prevent any serious investigation from discovering what the very top level people didn't dare explore in 1964 - or that certain of his former associates in late 1963 might have come to suspect that he had not been totally honest in what he was promising them in regard to what was supposed to happen as part of the attack in Dallas.

The thing is that his retreat in Arizona was probably directed towards protection from the second group and his death may well have come from the first....certainly his friend Ruben thought he had been poisoned during a trip back to DC.

[Paul Trejo]

Well welcome back Paul, but in this instance I think a bit of context would help you and it might have helped Garrison as well...

...No I don't see any reason for relating Mongoose to New Orleans in 63, it was over and done with late in 62 and with the detail we have on what Morales was doing I see nothing to connect him operationally to New Orleans in 63....at least based on what we actually know. Good to have you back but once again, making huge sweeping generalizations about CIA projects and activities might have cut it a few decades ago but should be avoided now. Not to mention that I'm still waiting for a citation from Joan Mellon that concretely ties Morales to New Orleans in any fashion, either to Bannister or Marcello....we've gone there before but just citing her as an author is also not enough these days, we need credible primary sources for statements like that.

Well, Larry, although I agree with your view of the HISTORY of Operation Mongoose -- that really doesn't address the context in which an alcoholic mercenary who was close to Guy Banister in NOLA told Jim Garrison that Guy Banister was still working on Operation Mongoose in the summer of 1963.

Although Jack S. Martin was an alcoholic who could hardly be expected to have inside intelligence -- nevertheless, he was close to the personnel of the events, and furthermore, the fact that he even heard about Operation Mongoose in the context of Guy Banister's NOLA activities is significant.

We don't know if Guy Banister was lying to Jack Martin, telling him that Operation Mongoose was still in operation -- or if Jack Martin merely imagined that Operation Mongoose was still in operation -- or whether Jack Martin was using this moniker as a metaphor.

All we know from Jim Garrison is that Jack Martin told him that Lee Harvey Oswald was working with Guy Banister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw in the summer of 1963 in NOLA on "Operation Mongoose," which was a 1962 operation to assassinate Fidel Castro.

That is -- even though Operation Mongoose was officially abandoned in 1962, there is no reason to doubt that people would still boast about it in 1963, or use it as a code word to define their actual goals, i.e. to assassinate Fidel Castro.

This also corresponds to David Atlee Phillips story in his bio-fiction, THE AMLASH LEGACY (1988) in which he claims that he was grooming Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1963 -- until Oswald was 'hijacked' by some other group.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Well I can follow the point that Bannister might have still considered himself to be working on anti-Castro activities and describing Oswald as doing the same...which I'm pretty sure Oswald was....and

Bannister might have used a code name (although Mongoose never really involved New Orleans). I just don't see any sign of anything involving Morales with New Orleans or Bannister in 63.

[Paul Trejo]

Well I can follow the point that Bannister might have still considered himself to be working on anti-Castro activities and describing Oswald as doing the same...which I'm pretty sure Oswald was....and Bannister might have used a code name (although Mongoose never really involved New Orleans). I just don't see any sign of anything involving Morales with New Orleans or Bannister in 63.

OK, Larry, fair enough. Yet how did Guy Banister and his folks learn about JFK's secret Fidel Castro "rapprochement" plans, which were known only to the Cuba Desk of the CIA?

Clearly David Morales would have known about it, since he was so active in Cuban affairs during 1963. Is it really such a long shot to suspect that Guy Banister got his data from David Morales -- since they were both so keen to see JFK dead?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo