Carmine Savastano on Mike Swanson's show: Richard Case Nagell can be easily disproven.

[Larry Hancock]

Nagell was interviewed by Garrison in person in 1968.

However Nagell was in prison and the ongoing contacts were supposed to be with Garrison's volunteer - until Nagell began to mistrust him and broke it off.   That's why he did not become an actual figure in Garrison's grand jury or trial work.

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

Might Jim Di address this next month in his presentation on Garrison at CAPA next month?

[John Butler]

I'm working on a timeline of the Oswalds military service.  And, I recently bought Dick Russell's The Man Who Knew To Much, just to see what he said about Nagel and Oswald at Atsugi, Japan.

Just skimming through the rest of the book it looked like Russell had his hands full dealing the lying personality that fits working for the CIA.  Nagel was always holding something back or hinting he knew more.  Maybe, he was stringing Russell along.  But, Dick Russell makes a creditable case anyway.

[Larry Hancock]

Its important to realize that Nagell's story is very "situational",  while he did not change the most fundamental parts he did adjust his dialog at times when he was reaching out to Congressmen while in prison, seeking a settlement over his disability and especially when he was bargaining with the CIA for help in getting custody over his children (he did that deal, went to Europe and got the kids back).  I spent a huge amount of time putting his remarks/documents in chronological order and analyzing all that in a CD that is available from JFK Lancer.  If you want the full story its there.  I've worked with Dick on Nagell and touched based with some of the same corroborative sources and its certainly necessary to be cautious.  I also worked with an Air Force security officer who was stationed at Atsugi right after Oswald left and he added some very useful context - one of the real mysteries of that though is that there is a photo on Oswald's camera film that shows a jets on a flight line...to get close enough to take that photo somebody had to have access security and the really strange thing is that a check on the aircraft's tail number reveals the location is at a base in Washington State, someplace Oswald was never known to have been...

[David Andrews]

On 2/2/2019 at 12:21 AM, David Andrews said:

Nagell had to dodge and weave, and it was in his character to buck as well.  He was a sardonic jokester, the refuge of the disillusioned and used.  The facts of his predictions remain.  He was one species of the quintessential modern man confronted with the absurdity of spy games beyond his powers of reason.

From my post at the beginning.  The thing to remember about Nagell is that he'd been burnt many times. that he felt used and undercompensated by the government even before the JFKA, and that he responded to absurd, murderous situations with a trickster's absurdist humor.  He was like a character out of Catch-22 come to life.  (You can see all these aspects of Nagell, plus his intolerance for corruption, in the several document batches Malcolm and Bart have put up.) 

To Nagell, a journalist like Dick Russell, who was in those years just developing a political stance against conspiracy, may have seemed to be either one more con-job put upon him, or one more dead-end outlet for his experiences.  Nagell had been through Garrison and Richard Popkin with little profit to him.  I don't fault him for wanting to profit: he played  a game of Chicken with the government and the intelligence services to gain minimal financial support, and have access to his kids again.  He was nearly killed more than once for this. 

The real test for Nagell would have been an appearance before the ARRB, which Dick Russell helped to arrange.  Had he appeared, we would have more knowledge of the JFKA, and a better sense of closure on Nagell's character.  With all the problems negotiating Nagell's obscurities, I still give Nagell's revelations the great benefit of the doubt.

Edited October 10, 2019 by David Andrews