Gerry P. Hemming

[John Simkin]

I keep reading that Hemming was 6'5".

I shook hands with him once in Dealey Plaza. I am 6'2" and weigh 190.

Hemming towered over me by about 6" and must have weighed 300.

He was like a pro football lineman. His hand was much larger than mine

and he had a macho hand grip. I think 6'5" is propaganda.

Jack

That sounds like a "tall story" to me.

[Charles Drago]

Or a subconscious confession by Jack that he looked up to Hemming.

[Jack White]

Or a subconscious confession by Jack that he looked up to Hemming.

My impression was that he could be a mean s.o.b. you would not want to cross.

Jack

[John Simkin]

A detailed article on Gerry Hemming by John Dorschner appeared in today's Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/511/story/407048.html

Gerald Patrick Hemming, who died last week at 70, was one of those wild adventurers that only South Florida seems to produce: a self-styled Miami soldier of fortune who later became a key figure for conspiracy theorists around the world.

A shadowy figure who headed an anti-Castro commando group in the 1960s, Hemming was known in his later years for statements he made to investigative journalists about the Kennedy assassination. A Google search linking Hemming's name with Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald turns up 12,000 hits.

''Gerry was an especially charismatic guy who on first impression came across very well,'' said Robert K. Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, who knew Hemming in the 1960s. "He was looked up to by a lot of Cuban exile groups. He was a big man, spoke fluent Spanish, a very intelligent guy. . . .

''But Gerry tended to get carried away with this conspiracy stuff,'' Brown said, ``and it was hard to tell where the fact ended and the fiction started.''

''He knew so many things,'' said Felipe Hemming, his only son, who works for Miami-Dade fire rescue. "The secrets he took to his grave. . . . He was still researching when he died. . . . My dad was an operator. He wasn't a guy on the side of the road making up stories.''

Others disagree. Don Bohning, who was The Miami Herald's Latin America editor for many years, said, "I never believed a word he had to say.''

Among his other exploits, Hemming was arrested three times, twice for drug smuggling and once for gun running. His only conviction was drug smuggling.

A huge man -- broad-bodied and six-foot-five -- Hemming served in the U.S. Marines from 1954 to 1958. An aviation control tower operator, his last duty station was in barracks at Annapolis. He was a sergeant when he received an honorable discharge. ''He was a very good Marine,'' a Marine spokesman told The Herald in 1976 after examining Hemming's record.

Hemming left the Marines just as Cuba was heating up in a revolution against strongman Fulgencio Batista, who fled the island in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 1959. Fidel Castro marched into Havana a week later.

In 1959, Hemming spent considerable time hanging out in Havana, often in the company of William Morgan, an ex-U.S. paratrooper who had joined with rebels fighting the Batista regime in the Sierra del Escambray.

A confidential U.S. Army report from March 1960 reports that Hemming was ``stationed with Cuban rebel air force in Pinar del Rio. Claims he is a T-33 jet pilot with mission to intercept U.S.-based planes which fly over Cuba bent on destroying cane fields. Was formerly stationed in Isle of Pines.

"Subject wears Army fatigues, is armed with a pistol, and wears a U.S. paratrooper badge. He states he has been in Cuba for two years. He wears no insignia of rank.''

Hemming said repeatedly over the years that he was once part of the Castro military. That claim is disputed by Jay Mallin, a journalist who was in Cuba in the late 1950s and early '60s and later authored the book Covering Castro.

Malin said Hemming's claim is ''total baloney. I was in touch with all these people,'' in Castro's 26th of July Movement.

Whatever he was doing, he was in Havana in 1959 and perhaps part of 1960. Olga Morgan, the widow of William Morgan, recalls Hemming warning her husband to leave Cuba or he would be killed by the Castro regime. 'He said, 'Cuba is no good for you, with the new government. You need to get out. You have a family.' ''

Morgan didn't heed Hemming's advice. He was executed by a Cuban firing squad in March 1961.

By that time, Hemming was in Miami, often hanging out at Nellie's boarding house in Little Havana, a place where many would-be soldiers of fortune stayed, hoping to get in on some anti-Castro action. ''Gerry was always just a lot of talk,'' recalls Marty Casey, one of the Nellie's regulars at the time.

A Miami Herald story, however, noted: "Hemming looked the way a soldier of fortune is supposed to look: six-foot-five, trim build, goatee, with a penchant for wearing an Australian bush hat, fatigue shirt and camouflage pants.''

Hemming told The Herald he frequently stayed at the Congress Inn on LeJeune Road, where various anti-Castro groups made available "free meals, booze and what have you.''

But much of the time, he was at No Name Key, where he organized a commando camp, training young men for attacks on Castro's Cuba. He called his group the International Penetration Force, which he claimed had 30 or 40 paratroopers.

At one point, Hemming was arrested by Customs for gun-running, but the charges were dismissed.

Hemming moved the guerrilla training to a site near New Orleans, but in June 1962 The Miami Herald reported that Hemming was ultimately forced to close the camp on the north edge of Lake Pontchartrain at the behest of the Cuban Revolutionary Council's Miami headquarters. The reason: The group fretted it would get into trouble with the U.S. State Department and CIA.

In February 1963, Hemming wrote a long letter to Maj. Gen. C.V. Clifton, military aide to President Kennedy. The document was obtained under a freedom of information request by Bohning during the research for his book The Castro Obsession.

In the letter, Hemming repeated the story about serving in Castro's rebel army, but then changed sides and began working with exile forces.

''Upon arrival in the U.S. I contacted the Central Intelligence Agency and forthwith spent long hours typing reports for their operatives,'' Hemming wrote. "Upon completion, I made myself available for reinfiltration into Cuba. After a period of weeks with no orders from the CIA, I decided to drop my cover and proceed to the Miami area to aid former Cuban associates that needed instructors.''

Hemming wrote that many anti-Castro Cubans were willing to fight but needed support. "We would appreciate it very much if you could find time to pass on some advice and constructive criticism.''

According to another government document, Hemming did meet with Gen. Clifton, Coordinator of Cuban Affairs Sterling Cottrell and Gen. Victor Krulak, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's counterinsurgency specialist.

Clifton asked an assistant, Thomas A. Parrott, to do a report on Hemming. Parrott checked with Orrin Bartlett, the FBI's liaison with the White House. On March 5, 1963, Parrott wrote a memorandum for the record that Bohning obtained:

'According to Bartlett, Hemming is personally `very unacceptable' to Cuban refugees. These people, particularly the serious minded ones, consider him nothing more than a 'thorn in the flesh.' He is viewed as an adventurer and a soldier of fortune. He heads a 'would be anti-communist group.' '' The memo noted that the FBI ``did not trust him.''

Several months after that memo, in June 1963, five members of Hemming's Penetration Force were arrested for having an unregistered submachine gun. Hemming himself was not charged.

After the Kennedy assassination on Nov. 23, 1963, WQAM radio personality Alan Courtney told investigators that a year earlier he had interviewed Hemming and three others on his radio show about their training camp in the Keys, according to an FBI document from the Kennedy assassination files released in 1992.

''At the conclusion of the program, a telephone call was received at the radio station from a young man who said he was from New Orleans, was formerly in the U.S. Marine Corps and wanted to volunteer his services,'' the FBI document stated. "Courtney recalled that this young man gave a name such as Harvey Lee, Oswald Harvey or Oswald Lee.''

After the Kennedy assassination, U.S. authorities clamped down on what was left of the anti-Castro commando activities, but some adventurers, including Hemming, kept hanging around South Florida, hoping for action.

Some of these soldiers of fortune became involved in two highly publicized episodes in the late 1960s. One was the so-called CBS Invasion of Haiti in 1966. Its name came from the network unwittingly financing the aborted effort in return for exclusive coverage. The other was the attempted firebombing of Papa Doc's presidential palace in 1969 (the bombs missed). Casey participated in both efforts. He said Hemming was close to the participants of both episodes, but took part in neither.

By 1976, Hemming had settled into an office in the Jose Marti Building on Southwest Eighth Street. The sign in the lobby directory said merely ''Hemming.'' He arrived for work about 2:30 p.m. He told a Herald reporter then that he was working for a trucking company, but gave the reporter a business card saying he was ''operations director'' of Parabellum Corp., a group started in October 1971 by Cuban adventurer Rolando Masferrer and others for the sale of military armaments to domestic and foreign markets. The corporation had been defunct for three years.

In 1977, Hemming was arrested for conspiring to import marijuana into the United States. He was convicted. The case was overthrown on appeal.

In 1980, Hemming was caught at the Lantana Airport in Palm Beach County with a plane loaded with 723 pounds of marijuana and a cache of Quaaludes. Hemming defended himself, saying he had been working for the U.S. government in an undercover operation. The government put on a witness who said that wasn't true. He was convicted and sentenced to 35 years. State records indicate he served seven.

In his later years, Hemming enjoyed talking to journalists. But he made it hard for them, making the most astonishing revelations ''off-the-record'' and then making them work hard before he allowed snippets to be attached to his name.

He had a virtually encyclopedic recall of data -- knowing, for example, the CIA station chief in Havana in 1960 was Jim Noel -- and he often would drop names without explanation, forcing journalists to do research to connect the dots.

If reporters lacked knowledge -- such as the details behind Lee Harvey Oswald visiting the Cuban consulate in Mexico City in the fall of 1963 -- Hemming would insist they do their homework before they could appreciate his revelations.

Hemming's suspected link to the Kennedy assassination is continuing and often changing. The key links are that Hemming told researchers that he had met Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 and sometimes hinted that Oswald had been connected to American intelligence sources during his service in the U.S. Marines.

Some conspiracy theorists are fascinated that a man who knew Oswald, who became enamoured with communism and went to the Soviet Union to live, also had connections with right-wing Cubans in Miami. In the 1997 book, Bloody Treason, Noel Twyman devoted an entire chapter to Hemming and his suspected links.

Sometime in the 1990s, Hemming moved to Fayetteville, N.C. His son, Felipe, said he was found dead in his apartment on Jan. 29.

Hemming is survived by his wife, Patricia, and six children.

A graveside service was held Monday at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake, N.C. His son, Felipe, said a memorial service may take place later in South Florida.

I thought this was an interesting summary of his career. Most researchers tolerated Gerry's disinformation because they suspected that he really knew who was involved in the JFK assassination. However, there is another possibility. After leaving the Marines in 1958 Gerry was a "gun for hire". If one looks at his role in Cuba, it did not seem to matter too much which side he was on.

Nor did he seem to mind becoming involved in illegal activities. As the Miami Herald points out: "Among his other exploits, Hemming was arrested three times, twice for drug smuggling and once for gun running." It seems that every time he was arrested he made claims that he was working as an undercover agent for the government.

Gerry Hemming was arrested on 23rd August, 1976, for the illegal transfer of a silencer, and drug smuggling. It seems that this was the point that he began talking about his past work with the CIA. He told one reporter: "All of a sudden they're accusing me of conspiracy to import marijuana and cocaine. Hey, what about all the other things I've been into for the last 15 years, lets talk about them. Let's talk about the Martin Luther King thing, let's talk about Don Freed, Le Coubre, n-killers in bed with the Mafia, the Mafia in bed with the FBI, and the goddamn CIA in bed with all of them. Let's talk about all the people I dirtied up for them over the years." Although convicted by a Miami jury of conspiracy to import marijuana he was soon out of prison.

On 14th April, 1980, Gerry Hemming was arrested at the Lantana Airport in Palm Beach County with a plane loaded with 723 pounds of marijuana and a cache of Quaaludes. Hemming claimed he was he was working for the U.S. government in an undercover operation. Hemming told Alan J. Weberman that he was working for Mitchell WerBell and Lucien Conein. Hemming was sentenced to 35 years in prison. State records indicate he served only seven years.

Hemming clearly had been involved in some unpleasant activities on behalf of the CIA. He also used the threat of disclosing details of these operations in order not to serve too much time in prison. However, it is possible, that his claims to know about the JFK assassination, was just a ploy to give the impression that he was a principled operator, rather than a common criminal.

[Harry J.Dean]

A detailed article on Gerry Hemming by John Dorschner appeared in today's Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/511/story/407048.html

Gerald Patrick Hemming, who died last week at 70, was one of those wild adventurers that only South Florida seems to produce: a self-styled Miami soldier of fortune who later became a key figure for conspiracy theorists around the world.

A shadowy figure who headed an anti-Castro commando group in the 1960s, Hemming was known in his later years for statements he made to investigative journalists about the Kennedy assassination. A Google search linking Hemming's name with Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald turns up 12,000 hits.

''Gerry was an especially charismatic guy who on first impression came across very well,'' said Robert K. Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, who knew Hemming in the 1960s. "He was looked up to by a lot of Cuban exile groups. He was a big man, spoke fluent Spanish, a very intelligent guy. . . .

''But Gerry tended to get carried away with this conspiracy stuff,'' Brown said, ``and it was hard to tell where the fact ended and the fiction started.''

''He knew so many things,'' said Felipe Hemming, his only son, who works for Miami-Dade fire rescue. "The secrets he took to his grave. . . . He was still researching when he died. . . . My dad was an operator. He wasn't a guy on the side of the road making up stories.''

Others disagree. Don Bohning, who was The Miami Herald's Latin America editor for many years, said, "I never believed a word he had to say.''

Among his other exploits, Hemming was arrested three times, twice for drug smuggling and once for gun running. His only conviction was drug smuggling.

A huge man -- broad-bodied and six-foot-five -- Hemming served in the U.S. Marines from 1954 to 1958. An aviation control tower operator, his last duty station was in barracks at Annapolis. He was a sergeant when he received an honorable discharge. ''He was a very good Marine,'' a Marine spokesman told The Herald in 1976 after examining Hemming's record.

Hemming left the Marines just as Cuba was heating up in a revolution against strongman Fulgencio Batista, who fled the island in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 1959. Fidel Castro marched into Havana a week later.

In 1959, Hemming spent considerable time hanging out in Havana, often in the company of William Morgan, an ex-U.S. paratrooper who had joined with rebels fighting the Batista regime in the Sierra del Escambray.

A confidential U.S. Army report from March 1960 reports that Hemming was ``stationed with Cuban rebel air force in Pinar del Rio. Claims he is a T-33 jet pilot with mission to intercept U.S.-based planes which fly over Cuba bent on destroying cane fields. Was formerly stationed in Isle of Pines.

"Subject wears Army fatigues, is armed with a pistol, and wears a U.S. paratrooper badge. He states he has been in Cuba for two years. He wears no insignia of rank.''

Hemming said repeatedly over the years that he was once part of the Castro military. That claim is disputed by Jay Mallin, a journalist who was in Cuba in the late 1950s and early '60s and later authored the book Covering Castro.

Malin said Hemming's claim is ''total baloney. I was in touch with all these people,'' in Castro's 26th of July Movement.

Whatever he was doing, he was in Havana in 1959 and perhaps part of 1960. Olga Morgan, the widow of William Morgan, recalls Hemming warning her husband to leave Cuba or he would be killed by the Castro regime. 'He said, 'Cuba is no good for you, with the new government. You need to get out. You have a family.' ''

Morgan didn't heed Hemming's advice. He was executed by a Cuban firing squad in March 1961.

By that time, Hemming was in Miami, often hanging out at Nellie's boarding house in Little Havana, a place where many would-be soldiers of fortune stayed, hoping to get in on some anti-Castro action. ''Gerry was always just a lot of talk,'' recalls Marty Casey, one of the Nellie's regulars at the time.

A Miami Herald story, however, noted: "Hemming looked the way a soldier of fortune is supposed to look: six-foot-five, trim build, goatee, with a penchant for wearing an Australian bush hat, fatigue shirt and camouflage pants.''

Hemming told The Herald he frequently stayed at the Congress Inn on LeJeune Road, where various anti-Castro groups made available "free meals, booze and what have you.''

But much of the time, he was at No Name Key, where he organized a commando camp, training young men for attacks on Castro's Cuba. He called his group the International Penetration Force, which he claimed had 30 or 40 paratroopers.

At one point, Hemming was arrested by Customs for gun-running, but the charges were dismissed.

Hemming moved the guerrilla training to a site near New Orleans, but in June 1962 The Miami Herald reported that Hemming was ultimately forced to close the camp on the north edge of Lake Pontchartrain at the behest of the Cuban Revolutionary Council's Miami headquarters. The reason: The group fretted it would get into trouble with the U.S. State Department and CIA.

In February 1963, Hemming wrote a long letter to Maj. Gen. C.V. Clifton, military aide to President Kennedy. The document was obtained under a freedom of information request by Bohning during the research for his book The Castro Obsession.

In the letter, Hemming repeated the story about serving in Castro's rebel army, but then changed sides and began working with exile forces.

''Upon arrival in the U.S. I contacted the Central Intelligence Agency and forthwith spent long hours typing reports for their operatives,'' Hemming wrote. "Upon completion, I made myself available for reinfiltration into Cuba. After a period of weeks with no orders from the CIA, I decided to drop my cover and proceed to the Miami area to aid former Cuban associates that needed instructors.''

Hemming wrote that many anti-Castro Cubans were willing to fight but needed support. "We would appreciate it very much if you could find time to pass on some advice and constructive criticism.''

According to another government document, Hemming did meet with Gen. Clifton, Coordinator of Cuban Affairs Sterling Cottrell and Gen. Victor Krulak, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's counterinsurgency specialist.

Clifton asked an assistant, Thomas A. Parrott, to do a report on Hemming. Parrott checked with Orrin Bartlett, the FBI's liaison with the White House. On March 5, 1963, Parrott wrote a memorandum for the record that Bohning obtained:

'According to Bartlett, Hemming is personally `very unacceptable' to Cuban refugees. These people, particularly the serious minded ones, consider him nothing more than a 'thorn in the flesh.' He is viewed as an adventurer and a soldier of fortune. He heads a 'would be anti-communist group.' '' The memo noted that the FBI ``did not trust him.''

Several months after that memo, in June 1963, five members of Hemming's Penetration Force were arrested for having an unregistered submachine gun. Hemming himself was not charged.

After the Kennedy assassination on Nov. 23, 1963, WQAM radio personality Alan Courtney told investigators that a year earlier he had interviewed Hemming and three others on his radio show about their training camp in the Keys, according to an FBI document from the Kennedy assassination files released in 1992.

''At the conclusion of the program, a telephone call was received at the radio station from a young man who said he was from New Orleans, was formerly in the U.S. Marine Corps and wanted to volunteer his services,'' the FBI document stated. "Courtney recalled that this young man gave a name such as Harvey Lee, Oswald Harvey or Oswald Lee.''

After the Kennedy assassination, U.S. authorities clamped down on what was left of the anti-Castro commando activities, but some adventurers, including Hemming, kept hanging around South Florida, hoping for action.

Some of these soldiers of fortune became involved in two highly publicized episodes in the late 1960s. One was the so-called CBS Invasion of Haiti in 1966. Its name came from the network unwittingly financing the aborted effort in return for exclusive coverage. The other was the attempted firebombing of Papa Doc's presidential palace in 1969 (the bombs missed). Casey participated in both efforts. He said Hemming was close to the participants of both episodes, but took part in neither.

By 1976, Hemming had settled into an office in the Jose Marti Building on Southwest Eighth Street. The sign in the lobby directory said merely ''Hemming.'' He arrived for work about 2:30 p.m. He told a Herald reporter then that he was working for a trucking company, but gave the reporter a business card saying he was ''operations director'' of Parabellum Corp., a group started in October 1971 by Cuban adventurer Rolando Masferrer and others for the sale of military armaments to domestic and foreign markets. The corporation had been defunct for three years.

In 1977, Hemming was arrested for conspiring to import marijuana into the United States. He was convicted. The case was overthrown on appeal.

In 1980, Hemming was caught at the Lantana Airport in Palm Beach County with a plane loaded with 723 pounds of marijuana and a cache of Quaaludes. Hemming defended himself, saying he had been working for the U.S. government in an undercover operation. The government put on a witness who said that wasn't true. He was convicted and sentenced to 35 years. State records indicate he served seven.

In his later years, Hemming enjoyed talking to journalists. But he made it hard for them, making the most astonishing revelations ''off-the-record'' and then making them work hard before he allowed snippets to be attached to his name.

He had a virtually encyclopedic recall of data -- knowing, for example, the CIA station chief in Havana in 1960 was Jim Noel -- and he often would drop names without explanation, forcing journalists to do research to connect the dots.

If reporters lacked knowledge -- such as the details behind Lee Harvey Oswald visiting the Cuban consulate in Mexico City in the fall of 1963 -- Hemming would insist they do their homework before they could appreciate his revelations.

Hemming's suspected link to the Kennedy assassination is continuing and often changing. The key links are that Hemming told researchers that he had met Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 and sometimes hinted that Oswald had been connected to American intelligence sources during his service in the U.S. Marines.

Some conspiracy theorists are fascinated that a man who knew Oswald, who became enamoured with communism and went to the Soviet Union to live, also had connections with right-wing Cubans in Miami. In the 1997 book, Bloody Treason, Noel Twyman devoted an entire chapter to Hemming and his suspected links.

Sometime in the 1990s, Hemming moved to Fayetteville, N.C. His son, Felipe, said he was found dead in his apartment on Jan. 29.

Hemming is survived by his wife, Patricia, and six children.

A graveside service was held Monday at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake, N.C. His son, Felipe, said a memorial service may take place later in South Florida.

I thought this was an interesting summary of his career. Most researchers tolerated Gerry's disinformation because they suspected that he really knew who was involved in the JFK assassination. However, there is another possibility. After leaving the Marines in 1958 Gerry was a "gun for hire". If one looks at his role in Cuba, it did not seem to matter too much which side he was on.

Nor did he seem to mind becoming involved in illegal activities. As the Miami Herald points out: "Among his other exploits, Hemming was arrested three times, twice for drug smuggling and once for gun running." It seems that every time he was arrested he made claims that he was working as an undercover agent for the government.

Gerry Hemming was arrested on 23rd August, 1976, for the illegal transfer of a silencer, and drug smuggling. It seems that this was the point that he began talking about his past work with the CIA. He told one reporter: "All of a sudden they're accusing me of conspiracy to import marijuana and cocaine. Hey, what about all the other things I've been into for the last 15 years, lets talk about them. Let's talk about the Martin Luther King thing, let's talk about Don Freed, Le Coubre, n-killers in bed with the Mafia, the Mafia in bed with the FBI, and the goddamn CIA in bed with all of them. Let's talk about all the people I dirtied up for them over the years." Although convicted by a Miami jury of conspiracy to import marijuana he was soon out of prison.

On 14th April, 1980, Gerry Hemming was arrested at the Lantana Airport in Palm Beach County with a plane loaded with 723 pounds of marijuana and a cache of Quaaludes. Hemming claimed he was he was working for the U.S. government in an undercover operation. Hemming told Alan J. Weberman that he was working for Mitchell WerBell and Lucien Conein. Hemming was sentenced to 35 years in prison. State records indicate he served only seven years.

Hemming clearly had been involved in some unpleasant activities on behalf of the CIA. He also used the threat of disclosing details of these operations in order not to serve too much time in prison. However, it is possible, that his claims to know about the JFK assassination, was just a ploy to give the impression that he was a principled operator, rather than a common criminal.

It is likely the only thing I agree on with Hemming {only one of the larger anti-Castro group that originated from here in Southern California} that I never met, is; our mutual dissapointment that 'Castro betrayed the stated goals of his Revolution".

Hemming's statements re;weapons silencers sales, were connected to Ergiaga Arms Company of El Monte, California, who were legally licenced by the US. Gov. to operate to produce silencers and etc.

While a member of Minutemen, we were instructed to have semi-auto weapons converted by Ergiaga to full auto weapons. It was while a Minuteman member I advised the Bureau that brought about the raid on Ergiaga and close it's operation as was my duty.

H. Dean

[William Kelly]

A detailed article on Gerry Hemming by John Dorschner appeared in today's Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/511/story/407048.html

Gerald Patrick Hemming, who died last week at 70, was one of those wild adventurers that only South Florida seems to produce: a self-styled Miami soldier of fortune who later became a key figure for conspiracy theorists around the world.......

......Others disagree. Don Bohning, who was The Miami Herald's Latin America editor for many years, said, "I never believed a word he had to say.''...

....Hemming said repeatedly over the years that he was once part of the Castro military. That claim is disputed by Jay Mallin, a journalist who was in Cuba in the late 1950s and early '60s and later authored the book Covering Castro.

Malin said Hemming's claim is ''total baloney. I was in touch with all these people,'' in Castro's 26th of July Movement.......

......According to another government document, Hemming did meet with Gen. Clifton, Coordinator of Cuban Affairs Sterling Cottrell and Gen. Victor Krulak, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's counterinsurgency specialist.

Clifton asked an assistant, Thomas A. Parrott, to do a report on Hemming. Parrott checked with Orrin Bartlett, the FBI's liaison with the White House. On March 5, 1963, Parrott wrote a memorandum for the record that Bohning obtained:

'According to Bartlett, Hemming is personally `very unacceptable' to Cuban refugees. These people, particularly the serious minded ones, consider him nothing more than a 'thorn in the flesh.' He is viewed as an adventurer and a soldier of fortune. He heads a 'would be anti-communist group.' '' The memo noted that the FBI ``did not trust him.''

Okay, now that GPH is dead, we have so-called "journalists" like Jay Millin and Don Blowfish saying he is "balloney" and wouldn't believe a word he said, and yet, according to a document Don Blowfish himself obtained, GPH was the subject of a report by TAParrott and Clifton, two of those who were on the Cottrell Cuban Ops Committee that approved or disapproved the Cuban maritime raiders that we have connected to the Dealey Plaza Op.

Among those mentioned in the report is FBI Agent Orrin Bartlett, who says that the Cubans find Hemming "very unacceptable," but doesn't quote any Cubans.

Now this is the same Orrin Bartlett, who is identified by the Warren Commission as the FBI liason to the Secret Service, and is the same Orrin Bartlett who was in New Orleans with SS SAIC NO John Rice intreviewing Adele Edisen when word came of Oswald's murder while in DPD custody. The same Orrin Bartlett who went to DC and discovered bullet fragments in the back seat of the limo, fragments that contained DNA evidence?

The same John Rice and Orrin Bartlett who were never furninshed reports on these incidents and were never interviewed by the WC?

Now if I'm still alive when Bob Bohning dies, I'm going to write my own obituary of him and be sure to mention that he was CIA asset, and probably considered himself a patriot for posing as a journalist.

And if you put Parrott, Clifton, Millin, Rice and Bohning on one side and Gerry Patrick Hemming on the other, and draw a line in the sand between them, I know who I'm standing with.

While I thought he was a pompus bser when alive, I now have unwaveriong respect,

God Bless JPH

BK

[Bernice Moore]

Peter:

B......

[Thomas Graves]

Peter:

B......

Thanks Bernice!....I've always thought that that GPH look-alike in DP was either GPH himself or a doppleganger sent to implicate him. It was not a 'chance' look-alike, i.e. NOT a coincidence.

_________________________________

Note the low, loose-fitting shirt collar being worn in both photos. This detail, in addition to the height factor and the strong facial resemblances, leads me to the conclusion that the guy "captured" on film in DP most likely was GPH.

--Thomas

_________________________________

Edited February 14, 2008 by Thomas Graves

[Frank Caramelli]

Peter:

B......

Thanks Bernice!....I've always thought that that GPH look-alike in DP was either GPH himself or a doppleganger sent to implicate him. It was not a 'chance' look-alike, i.e. NOT a coincidence.

_________________________________

Note the low, loose-fitting shirt collar being worn in both photos. This detail, in addition to the height factor and the strong facial resemblances, leads me to the conclusion that the guy "captured" on film in DP most likely was GPH.

--Thomas

_________________________________

I just spent some time comparing the two...I'd say the long earlobes 'have it'.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury?....

That's a tough one. What pic of DP are you using? Is that Houston St. crowd from Zapruder?

[Karl Kinaski]

As I understand Marita Lorenz claims, it was Hemming who took her back from Dallas to Miami by plane in the late evening of

21.11.1963. Thus Hemming was hardley at DP noon the next day.

[William Plumlee]

As I understand Marita Lorenz claims, it was Hemming who took her back from Dallas to Miami by plane in the late evening of

21.11.1963. Thus Hemming was hardley at DP noon the next day.

Marita is a most unreliable source, IMO. Of late she has been kept close to those who would paint false portraits of events, as well. So many of these 'stories' by one operative are to cover-up the reality for another. More smoke and mirrors, I fear. I met with Marita a few years ago and was not impressed with her veracity. She is an interesting figure and person who was at least peripheral to some important events and persons - but that doesn't qualify her for a reliable source.

Peter. GPH was NOT in Dallas that day. I know we have been over this before. GPH was a convicted felon and did not have any or had any United States Government security clearances even before or after the event. He was never officially or otherwise associated with any CIA or governmernt sanctioned operations of the time or after. I pass no judgements on deadmen. I do honor the man for his early service to SOME of the Cubans and their cause. He fought honorable to some degree, for their democratic cause as a SOF. As I have said many times I do respect that.... But not much after that. I will let him rest in peace... He did earn that.

[David Boylan]

Going through some old email and thought this might be of interest. This was from GPH.

Greetings:

The entire FARC [Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionario de Cuba / Cuban Armed Forces] had been on

highest alert (the equivalent of our "DEFCON-1") since before the Bill Pawley/Eddy "Bayo" Perez Op

during June 1963. The recently released BA 2506 (Bay of Pigs) veterans were in hot negotiations with both Somoza [Nicaragua] & "Pepe" Figueres [Costa Rica] since the April "Orange Bowl" JFK speech.

Raul Castro had contacted Mikoyan & Krushchev repeatedly, demanding more SAMs (2 & 3); more P-4 & P-6 ("Komar MTB" w/ "Styx" 65 km range surf-to-surf & anti-shipping missiles); 2 replacement missile

Frigates; 2 "Yankee" class submarines, an additional squadron of MiG-21s & 4 MiG-23 or Sukhois; etc. !!

Their air-defense search (ASR) radar wasn't worth a xxxx because it wasn't "tropicalized". Problems with

their "J-3" (jet fuel) contamination had forced the F.A.R. to use AvGas (110-115 octane) and thereafter those jet engines had to stay on AvGas and could never again use jet fuel. [and engines hours were reduced to a Max of 500 hours]

"2nd Naval Guerrilla" ["Manolo Artime's group] had already set up shop at Monkey Point, Nicaragua and

Tortuguero, Costa Rica [now a national park]. CIA had told Rueven Frank (Prez NBC News) to clear with me in order to have their UK based photog Jack Nickless vetted for embedding with Artime. Havana

complained during August '63 that a "Jet Fighter" had been used in an attack against the refinery at

Santa Cruz del Sur. (This had been a "one-time-borrow" from the then Confederate Air Force fleet at

Harlingen, TX !! [since renamed "The Commemorative Air Force"]

KGB/GRU attaches had confirmed the ChiCom Intel that a full-scale U.S./OAS series of "Prep-strikes" were planned by the Pentagon just before Christmas '63. The 5 kiloton Nuke "Golem" (Scud) anti-ship-

ping missiles still remained in place at the Soviet Naval Base, Banes, Oriente, Cuba !!

Thanks to the Hal Hendrix, Mary Louise Wilkerson, et al. blasting out blame for JFK's death on Fidel,

the F.A.R. was flying CAPs [Combat Air Patrols] beyond "24 North Lat." (inside the USAF "Ruby West/East" gunnery warning zone in the Fla. Straits; and well outside the "12 mile limit" along Cuba's south coast.

While Cmdte. Rene Vallejo was oftentimes acting as traveling medic with Fidel, more often he preferr-ed to have Cmdte. Del Valle, MD. [Del Valle was my boss in the Rebel Air Force after he replaced then Cmdte. Juan Almeida during 1960].

Escalante has continued with what had appeared in "ZR/RIFLE", i.e., Tony Cuesta having fingered Herminio Diaz [killed at the time of Tony's being blinded and captured]; and mumbled other hints

about Eladio "Gito" DelValle as a perp. ["Gito" was murdered the same day as Dave Ferrie, and I did the ID of Gito at the MIA Morgue for Sgt. Tony Fontana, Miami P.D.]

Any number amongst a dozen Cuban VIPs [Ramiro Valdez, DGI; Manuel "Barba Roja" Piniero, Chief/CI-

"Americas Directorate" (MinInt-DSE/DGI); Raul Castro Ruz, C/FARC; Pedro Miret (INRA); et al. all controlled multi-million$ necessary to "false-flag" any Op. - - with or without Fidel's OK/knowledge !!

When "Che" was caught doing same as Prez of the Central Bank, Fidel got pissed and he left for Algeria shortly thereafter.

Trafficante (who lived at John Martino's house on Alton Road, Miami Beach off & on) was a constant snitch for Fidel since his release from the Triscornia "nut-house" along with Loran E. "Skip" Hall. The

quid pro quo was that Fidel would continue facilitating the Heroin shipments via diplomatic pouch from Argentina via Havana - Nassau - NYC. That is until the "Frog" Aug was snatched in Paraguay and flown

to NYC, convicted and given Life. (the US Sup/Court ruled in a landmark case that: despite the fact that the defendant having never even visited the US, how he arrived on the courthouse steps was immater-ial. This holding was amended to exclude accused who had been tortured or kidnapped with physical injuries !!) Shortly thereafter, Trafficante closed the franchise deal for "Double UO Globe" scag in both Saigon and Phnom Penh, and the Corsicans were forced out of the "Golden Triangle' in Burma/Laos/ Thailand.

Felipe Vidal Santiago got a death sentence, rather than 30 years (the usual) because Trafficante was

in Martino's house when the second $15,000 was delivered, because the then present spaghetti suckers were told by Martino that the Buck$ were for a hit on Fidel, when in fact the Op was that of an agent insertion.

[Tim Gratz]

Responding to Mr. Plumlee's post, Gerry Hemming was NOT a convicted felon in 1963. If I recall, his conviction was in the late seventies or early eighties.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

[

While I thought he was a pompus bser when alive, I now have unwaveriong respect,

God Bless JPH

From my limited dealings, JPH/GPH frequently mixed the BS with the RS (Real S**T), as he was fully aware that only another BSer with backgrounds such as his, could recognize the difference and sort through the pile.

There can be little doubt that GPH carried with him to the grave, information relative to the interconnecting ties of exactly who it was that started the ball rolling, which ultimately culminated in the events in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63.

Personallly, I urged GPH to get it all down and "in the record" of every event that he could personally recall as one never knows exactly which of these recollections/memories of events may hold an important key for those who in the future continue to sort through this mess.

GPH was being "manipulated", and in his later years he most certainly came to recognize this.

That these manipulations correlated with LHO and his actions is more than sufficient cause to consider the highly probable liklihood that whoever was ultimately behind GHP's manipulations, was also directly connected to those of LHO during his "flip/flop" anti/pro-Castro charades.

So, were I a bloodhound who was attempting the follow the trail, then the beginning point would be GPH.

As I do not condone the drug related activities, unless asked otherwise to comment on this, i will keep those thoughts and considerations to myslef.

However, one must always remember the logo of the Son Tay Raiders.

KIDFOHS----------------"Kept in Dark, Fed Only Horse Sh*t"

Which is not entirely correct as it was relatively well known that there were no remaining POW's in the camp prior committing to and risking the lives of these honorable men of our most elite armed forces.

P.S. "MineSport" has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, just as neither does "football".

[Jim Root]

GPH RIP

Thomas

Several years ago GPH contacted me after I had written a post that I felt was important. He provided me with a piece of information that I had uncovered myself from government records but had never shared with anyone (information that had prompted me to write the post). His confirmation of that material, without knowing that he was confiming it, led me to believe that GPH was aware of more detail about obsure information than he is usually given credit for. Our communication continued for a period of time, sporatically, ususally initiated by GPH based upon some post that I made.

I know that John Newman (Oswald and the CIA) confirms a great deal of CIA activity and interest in GPH beginning at an early stage and makes reference to two identification numbers, one for Hemming and one for Oswald, that are so close in numerical order that it suggests a relationship to how these two very different people were being handled. Newman goes on to point out that if the numerical relationship could be proven to relate to dates of CIA interest it would move Oswald's original CIA file up to a date that would have began long before his "defection" to the Soviet Union. If true this would also seem to confirm, at least the possibility that Hemming did meet Oswald while he was in California circa September 1959. It should be pointed out that in Newman's book, Newman only speculates on this because he cannot assign a date to the Oswald number while Hemmings file was opened at a much earlier date than Oswald's official 201 file.

It would be interesting to try to organize all the information that GPH "distributed" to various people. Having become the recipient of some interesting "mail" from Hemming I can only believe that others received the same curtesy. Most of that received by me was rather point specific. Some has led to further investigation and confirmation. Other bits and pieces remain somewhat elusive to my simple mind and without being able to confirm them it remains in my speculation pile.

One of those pieces I find profound (if true)!

And we continue to search and dig,

Jim Root