Veciana and the CIA

[Mark Knight]

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

 

Pawn does not take out King without assistance of Bishop and Knight.

Exactly.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

10 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Mate.  I thought it was "only" 200 K not a a full quarter million (how much in todays money, again?).  But I don't remember the part about Phillips writing him a check.  Something about a bag of cash comes to mind.  I'm probably wrong  again or it's just my imagination runnin' away with me, again.

Pawn does not take out King without assistance of Bishop and Knight.

It was allegedly $253,000 in a suitcase.

[Joe Bauer]

I should have not said it was a check without fact checking Veciana's own words.

But he did claim the pay off and it was this large amount.

I don't think even E. Howard Hunt ever received that large a sum in one chunk.

Was this keep quiet hush money, reward money, go away money?

Did Veciana ever explain why he was handed such a fortune like this?

[Robin Finn]

former CIA officer Glenn Carle:

"During the 1960s, Maurice Bishop was the alias used by an infamous CIA officer in Mexico City, whom conspiracy theorists believe met Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before President John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963. The alleged meeting is cited as clear evidence that CIA officers were somehow involved in Kennedy’s assassination.

I knew Maurice Bishop, whose real name was David Atlee Phillips. A long time ago, he got me into the agency."

http://glenncarle.com/tag/central-intelligence-agency/

[Michael Clark]

7 hours ago, Robin Finn said:

former CIA officer Glenn Carle:

"During the 1960s, Maurice Bishop was the alias used by an infamous CIA officer in Mexico City, whom conspiracy theorists believe met Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before President John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963. The alleged meeting is cited as clear evidence that CIA officers were somehow involved in Kennedy’s assassination.

I knew Maurice Bishop, whose real name was David Atlee Phillips. A long time ago, he got me into the agency."

http://glenncarle.com/tag/central-intelligence-agency/

That's very interesting. CIA officer Carle is confirming that Phillips is Bishop, and, he is describing him as "Infamous". Why would Carle describe him as "Infamous"? What actions or operations of Phillips would Carle describe as "Infamous"? This is the guy that recruited Carle into the CIA? I am going to have to look into more of what Carle has to say.

Thanks Robin!

Edited July 9, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Larry Hancock]

If you look at Phillips career including a Presidential commendation and personal meeting with Eisenhower after his first major assignment you will find out that he was famous for his psych warfare work..which is why he was recruited very early into the Cuba project.  Famous, or infamous is the call, also well known to keep his personal fingerprints off his covert political action and propaganda projects.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

10 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

If you look at Phillips career including a Presidential commendation and personal meeting with Eisenhower after his first major assignment you will find out that he was famous for his psych warfare work..which is why he was recruited very early into the Cuba project.  Famous, or infamous is the call, also well known to keep his personal fingerprints off his covert political action and propaganda projects.

Which is exactly why I believe Veciana's story of Phillips meeting him and LHO together in a public place is nonsense. Phillips would have never exposed himself like that. BTW Larry, you have to be nice to me-I just ordered your book :).

[Michael Clark]

15 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Which is exactly why I believe Veciana's story of Phillips meeting him and LHO together in a public place is nonsense. Phillips would have never exposed himself like that. BTW Larry, you have to be nice to me-I just ordered your book :).

Tracy, That line of reasoning is forever repeated to discount the LHO/AV/DAP meeting in Dallas in September of 1963. It is not sound reasoning. If they met together it was because they had to meet together. Phillips had to assure AV that LHO was real, in place, and ready to do or be whatever it was that AV expected him to do or become, when the time came. Whatever plan they had required AV to be able to recognize LHO or be assured that DAP had fulfilled his part with a man in Dallas. There was no way around it. It's perfectly logical. And, if alternative, solid evidence would ever be necessary, to tie LHO to anti-Castro Cubans, aside from that produced in MC, it was produced at that meeting. Photos of that meeting existed at some point. Perhaps DAP took the pics himself. Having this meeting in the Southland Center gave further confidence that DAP was shooting-straight due to known entities and tenants in that building, like the Mexican Consulate and G. H. W. Bush' Zapata Offshore inc. (and who knows what else). Such associations would have sealed the deal for AV.

Tracy, I don't recall right now, so I ask.... do you deny that DAP is Bishop? Were you aware of Glen Carle's affirmation of that association between the two names? What do you make of Carle's claim?

 

*** Reegarding Bush and Zapata offices at the Southland Center... the source for that info no longer contains that bit of Info. I definitely read that info back in November.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Michael Clark

[Larry Hancock]

Good news on the book, if you want to chat about it as you read it drop me a note anytime...larryjoe@westok.net

I will add a few things to this as I've been thinking about this thread for some time. First off Phillips trade-craft was reputedly quite good and he had a reputation for distancing himself from all his operations, leaving no "fingerprints".  If you saw him, he probably intended you to see him and he was a master at reverse spin type disinformation. 

But more directly in regard to Veciana, I do have a number of concerns about any direct relationship between he, and for that matter Alpha 66, and the CIA.  I've written about a number of those previously including the fact that the Army did indeed have a relationship with him (Army intel) and was very interested in obtaining info and samples of Russian weapons via Alpha 66.  In the spring of 1963 the Army even proposed a sanctioned relationship with Alpha 66 as part of the transition planning against Cuba following Mongoose and  under the SGA - and the CIA rejected that.

One of the things we know is that at JMWAVE level the CIA was very well aware of the Alpha 66 raids against Russian targets in Cuba as well as other exile missions and did nothing to stop them - in direct opposition to White House policies of the time. I write about one source for such information on DRE but David Morales makes an interesting remark in one document about that type of information being available on Alpha 66, without their suspecting. That is one of the things that suggests to me Phillips may have been running his own agenda at times including with Alpha 66; the TILT mission suggests that approving missions contrary to JFK's policies certainly involved more CIA officers than just Phillips.

Personally I do believe that Veciana was in contact with Phillips but I think the relationship may have been very compartmentalized.  Phillips appears to me to have been involved in activities beyond his formal assignments, some of which appear sanctioned and others may not have been.  I do cover that in SWHT 2010 and I think that much of what Veciana saw as Phillips might well have been not an official CIA relationship but Phillips setting up his own assets, with his own agenda.  That same behavior can be found all the way through his later career in Latin American and even into his West Hemisphere position.

Beyond that, it does appear to me that Veciana has considerably enhanced his story, while I have no means to determine if the enhancements are true or not I remain skeptical as what elements of that might have been pure David Phillips.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Larry Hancock

[W. Tracy Parnell]

12 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Good news on the book, if you want to chat about it as you read it drop me a note anytime...larryjoe@westok.net

OK, thanks Larry. I'll check out the book before I comment further and get up to speed. 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

12 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

Tracy, That line of reasoning is forever repeated to discount the LHO/AV/DAP meeting in Dallas in September of 1963. It is not sound reasoning. If they met together it was because they had to meet together. Phillips had to assure AV that LHO was real, in place, and ready to do or be whatever it was that AV expected him to do or become, when the time came. Whatever plan they had required AV to be able to recognize LHO or be assured that DAP had fulfilled his part with a man in Dallas. There was no way around it. It's perfectly logical. And, if alternative, solid evidence would ever be necessary, to tie LHO to anti-Castro Cubans, aside from that produced in MC, it was produced at that meeting. Photos of that meeting existed at some point. Perhaps DAP took the pics himself. Having this meeting in the Southland Center gave further confidence that DAP was shooting-straight due to known entities and tenants in that building, like the Mexican Consulate and G. H. W. Bush' Zapata Offshore inc. (and who knows what else). Such associations would have sealed the deal for AV.

Tracy, I don't recall right now, so I ask.... do you deny that DAP is Bishop? Were you aware of Glen Carle's affirmation of that association between the two names? What do you make of Carle's claim?

My first question would be when he made the claim. If it was recently, which I assume it was, I would say it doesn't hold much weight. As far as unsound reasoning, you better tell that to Harold Weisberg who was a former OSS man. He said Phillips would never have met with 2 assets in public. Do I deny Phillips was Bishop? My take is this-we have heard the "evidence" for Phillips as Bishop. Let's look at the other side of things. And if you check out my website, I have 10 articles showing the problems with Veciana's story. The bottom line is this-short of a "smoking gun" in the 2017 documents that ties Phillips to Oswald, the Veciana allegations go nowhere. After all, we know both men wanted to get rid of Castro so if they were working together it wouldn't be shocking. But Oswald is what makes the story irresistible to many and maybe Veciana realized that would be the case.

[Michael Clark]

8 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

My first question would be when he made the claim. If it was recently, which I assume it was, I would say it doesn't hold much weight. As far as unsound reasoning, you better tell that to Harold Weisberg who was a former OSS man. He said Phillips would never have met with 2 assets in public. Do I deny Phillips was Bishop? My take is this-we have heard the "evidence" for Phillips as Bishop. Let's look at the other side of things. And if you check out my website, I have 10 articles showing the problems with Veciana's story. The bottom line is this-short of a "smoking gun" in the 2017 documents that ties Phillips to Oswald, the Veciana allegations go nowhere. After all, we know both men wanted to get rid of Castro so if they were working together it wouldn't be shocking. But Oswald is what makes the story irresistible to many and maybe Veciana realized that would be the case.

Thanks Tracy, The Glenn Carle blog entry is dated to 2012. 

[David Andrews]

But Phillips knew Veciana, and seemed to have some guilty knowledge when he was confronted with Veciana.  In The Last Investigation, Gaeton Fonzi published his eyewitness account of bringing Veciana to Phillips' testimony session before HSCA.  Phillips reacted as if he'd seen a ghost, and refused to talk to Veciana.  I believe Phillips fled the room.  See Fonzi's book for the entire action.

As Phillips was testifying before a commission specially investigating assassinations, gee - why was he spooked when Veciana appeared?

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

But Phillips knew Veciana, and seemed to have some guilty knowledge when he was confronted with Veciana.  In The Last Investigation, Gaeton Fonzi published his eyewitness account of bringing Veciana to Phillips' testimony session before HSCA.  Phillips reacted as if he'd seen a ghost, and refused to talk to Veciana.  I believe Phillips fled the room.  See Fonzi's book for the entire action.

As Phillips was testifying before a commission specially investigating assassinations, gee - why was he spooked when Veciana appeared?

This is an important point, IMO. If Veciana had merely been one of Phillips' assets, who turned on him either deliberately (for revenge after being dropped) or accidentally (in that he honestly believed the man he saw with Phillips was Oswald, when it was actually someone else), then why didn't Phillips admit this to the HSCA's investigators? It is this unnecessary lie (pretending like he'd never heard of Veciana) that is the real problem with the story, not that someone as clever as Phillips would never let one asset see him talking to another nonsense. The CIA, then as now, is made up of people--people who can be arrogant, reckless, etc.  Just like everybody else... And besides...there could be some hidden reason why Veciana ended up seeing Oswald--maybe Oswald arrived late...maybe Phillips was fighting diarrhea...we just don't know. But mistakes are made...all the time (such as Hunt leaving documents behind in his room in Guatemala, or McCord putting tape on the door at the Watergate...twice). Spies are not supermen.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Pat Speer

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

But Phillips knew Veciana, and seemed to have some guilty knowledge when he was confronted with Veciana.  In The Last Investigation, Gaeton Fonzi published his eyewitness account of bringing Veciana to Phillips' testimony session before HSCA.  Phillips reacted as if he'd seen a ghost, and refused to talk to Veciana.  I believe Phillips fled the room.  See Fonzi's book for the entire action.

As Phillips was testifying before a commission specially investigating assassinations, gee - why was he spooked when Veciana appeared?

Your reading of the book is different than mine. Fonzi said:

I had thought I would be able to tell, keen observer that I deemed myself, if Phillips had exhibited even the slightest hint of having recognized Veciana. Not only did Phillips not display that hint, but his eyes had moved on and off of Veciana so quickly-in the flash of a brief handshake-that it was almost as if Veciana was a nonentity.

All parties involved say that Phillips and Veciana talked. For a full report on the Reston incident see:

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/07/veciana-and-cia.html