Larry Hancock: Someone Would Have Talked

[Judyth Baker]

For example, Phillips would have been aware that the Oswald impostor would have been captured on film in Mexico City. Therefore, why did they select someone who clearly did not look like Oswald. The setting up of Oswald seems a very amateur operation. Phillips might have been aware of what was going on, but I cannot believe that he played a major role.

Dear John: regarding the above quote that you made...

Phillips was in Washingotn when the surveillance photos were taken and when the tapes were made, etc. It's possible he was unaware of a mislabeling or other problem that came up. It's possible he let others handle this so he would never be blamed, conveniently being elsewhere during the critical days Lee was in Mexico City. Lee was supposed to meet "Mr. B" there, but he failed to show and Lee was told HE WAS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Sounds like the same man to me.

Phillips was also in New Orleans in 1962 working with INCA to get funds raised, and coming up with the idea for TRUTH TAPES. That was Phillips' baby. Furthermore, Phillips was in the training film seen by Tananbaum of the HSCA as well as by myself... though I did not see Phillips in that film, only Lee and some Cubans on their bellies shooting, etc. But Phillips was in town at least once, as "Mr. Benson"or "Mr. Benton."I can't remember which anymore.

Phillips family, BTW, lived in Fort Worth, Texas, only a half hour drive from Dallas. He swore for years he did not bother to drive over from Fort Worth to see JFK come into town, when every CIA bigwig would be there if possible... and all the right connectiuons... Phillips was a rising star who became the head of ALL the operations later.

Even so, mistakes can happen. Phillips allowed Lee to be seen. Lee reported some additional details of this meeting to me.

It was I who apprised people that SHAWN Phillips KNEW about Dave Phillips' deathbed confession to James. I passed the word around and eventually Shawn, in New York, was just about forced to concede this, since I had already obtained these facts from Luis Urrea, Shawn Phillips' friend - a man who now derides me and pretends we were never friends. That is the price you pay for uncovering the truth. You make enemies, and lose friends.

Phillips was smart enough to make himself look conveniently dumb when necessary. No harm was done by sending the 'wrong' photo. It bought them time to destroy the real thing, if it ever existed. However, Lee told me that he did see Duran, and her name is in his address book.

Best,

Judyth Vary Baker

sorry about typos... eye problems.... appreciate your patience... and this is why I am not posting much or reading much....

[John Simkin]

John,

Since some of the suspicion about Phillips depends on the claims of Veciana, the implication of some of the points you make (which are good points) is that Veciana seemed to be out to get Phillips (claiming that he saw Phillips or Bishop and Oswald together). Why would Veciana make up incriminating things about Phillips?

In fact Antonio Veciana denied David Phillips was Bishop. It was Richard Schweiker, a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, who speculated that Bishop was Phillips. Schweiker asked his researcher, Gaeton Fonzi, to investigate this issue. Fonzi arranged for Veciana and Phillips to be introduced at a meeting of the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers in Reston. Phillips denied knowing Veciana. After the meeting Veciana told Schweiker that Phillips was not the man known to him as Bishop. Fonzi was unconvinced by this evidence and in his book The Last Investigation (1993) claimed that Phillips was Bishop.

[Larry Hancock]

John, I certainly do not see Phillips as either the organizer of the Dallas conspiracy nor as the prime mover in building any sort of a frame of Lee Oswald. My current belief is that Phillips was very likely manipulating Lee Oswald in a relatively minor role in a new CIA propaganda project targeting the FPCC outside the United States, specifically in Mexico. As to the mechanics of that and whether it involved Oswald himself, an impersonator or perhaps even both are beyond me.... several different scenario's are possible. I think it's pretty safe to say that whatever the plan was it was built on the "performance" and image that Oswald had built in NO only a short while before and which had been well documented by Phillips covert "media network'. There is also some reason to think that this game involved CI/SIG assets in MC and at HQ which were independent of the other MC office staff. Whatever it was though became hugely dangerous for Phillips and the CIA as a whole after Nov. 22.

At a minimum, Phillips - as others in the CIA and FBI and individuals in New Orleans - knew there was a lot more to Oswald than the official Lone Nut story. It's also pretty clear that Phillips jumped on the "lets tie Oswald to Castro" bandwagon with the whole Alvarado incident (which Phillips undoubtedly knew to be bogus) and had the nerve to cover up his games in MC (his letter to the FBI stating that as of February 64 the CIA had full photo files on every American entering the Cuban embassy in Sept and Oct of 63 is raw hubris, almost daring them to ask for the photos of Oswald going in and out). The fact that such photos were never provided certainly does raise the issue of an imposter or of an Oswald associate/handler.

Whether or not Phillips had shared information on Oswald in advance with Morales, whether or not he had signed up for some propoganda/media role in promoting Castro as a conspiracy sponsor is an open question. Remember, his speciality was propaganda/media control/counter intel not black ops or tactical matters, he had no military experience at all. I think it's safe to say that Phillips knew all along that the WC story was bogus, at a minimum he knew there had been a conspiracy and that his final words point in the right direction.

Beyond that it's also important to remember that much of his work - such as with Veciana - was on his own initiative. He was not Veciana's CIA case officer, his manipulation of Veciana and Alpha 66 and other groups he was in contact with was at on his own agenda and generally directily opposed to that of Headquarters and certainly the Administration.

Sorry for the rambling, it's a big subject and certainly not one I have any final word on beyond what I've sketched out above.

-- Larry

[John Simkin]

Could I ask you a couple of questions about carrying out research into the JFK assassination.

(1) How do you check if a CIA/FBI document is genuine? Will the CIA/FBI help you with this?

(2) Do you work with the Assassination Records Review Board? How does it work? Has it been a success?

(3) Is it true that certain documents are being withheld? For example, is it true that the FBI and CIA have refused to publish Oswald’s files?

[Wim Dankbaar]

Larry,

If you say that Phillips was NOT Veciana's CIA case officer, does that mean you believe Veciana was lying when he said he knew his CIA contact as "Maurice Bishop" ? Or do you simply believe that Maurice Bishop was not David Atlee Philips?

Wim

[Judyth Baker]

Dear John--

when ____ ________ was still alive, and I think sorry she could not do more, she gave me two files that were originals. She had copied them at the National Archives and subsituted the copies for the opriginals that she took. Before they got better surveillance at the archives, she told me a number of documents were simply stolen.

She had a friend who told her that eight secretaries were re-writing documents after November 22nd, and that many of the documents that are slated for release two decades from now or so will be fakes. However, she also said that since new evidence has leaked out anyway, the fakery of these documents will obvious. Fior this reason, a lot of them will simply be destroyed.

So few of us will be around that I doubt there will be power to protest. By then, JFK's memory will be so totally trashed that people will think he had it coming to him, making the sacrifices and efforts of literally thousands of those who care of little worth, except that it was the right thing to do, and a mark of their integrity.

I learned from the Mormon Documents scandal that sophisticated methods now exist to create 'old''original'documents. This fake document creator sold outrageous stuff to the Mormon Church that was purchased in order not to embarrass the church.

These documents included The White Salamander Letter thyat certainly fooled me. In that letter, Martin Harris, one of the original three leaders of Mormonism along with Oliver Cowdery and Josephy Smith, declared he saw an angel connected with the golden plates of the Book of Mormon turn into a white salamander before his eyes. Reptiles and amphibians at that time were supposed to represent satanic elements, and the Mormon Presidency purchased the White Salamander Letter for an undiclosed amount, but rumor weas it was at the six figure level.

Sime time after that, there was an explosion, a car bombing, and eventually the hoaxster, who was slightly injured when this bomb went off, conmfessed that the White Salamander Letter and several mothers the church out of fear and concern purchased from him were fakes.

He had obtained paper from old books of the time period, rejuvenated ink from old bottles from the same time period, and used a vaccuum frame to make the ink sink down into the old paper just as it woulkd have done with the effect ofbgravity after so many years. What got him caught was that the spackle pattern of the inks was the same on several documents, and so the ink recipe was excatly the same--an impossibility in real life. If he had varied his inks, the man would never have been caught, because the writing, etc. was authentic looking to the tune of six figures.

Move forward two decades to highly sophisticated computers, old paper and old ink, and I'm afraid in another few years it will be impossible to discern a fake from real if the hoaxster is working for the government. We are at the brink of the Memory Hole, where yesterday can be rewritten and the 'documents'will be there to prove it.

Because witnesses are dying and taking their secrets to the grave, I am concerned that history will soon be rewritable, and we will not have the resources to uncover the truth in the general public.

One reason I decided to speak out was in fact because so many were refusing to do so. You have no idea how many witnesses knew about Lee and me and have refused to be photographed, taped or filmed. One was from the Department of Defense, and he just didn't have the guts to go on the record, though he told me plenty.

I would say that there should be a cut-off after which time extraordinary measures will have to be taken to prove that a document is genuine, because of the technology involved. I have seen with my own eyes stolen documents that were replaced with copies. Nobody knows how many documents got sanitized. We already know how many are blacked out and remain blacked out forty years later, a scandalous situation.

All I can do is urge everyone to remember that the government at this point is not asked to provide a record of provenance. They can say such and such was found in a box numbered such and such. Because only a general description existed of the document, anything can be substituted. the deluge of released documents after the film JFK came out gave us a valuable windfall. Look at the George Joannides stuff. Wow.

The scorn and contempt with which I have been treated by John McAdams and his friends at his website recently has included being called a lying psycopath a few times. Name calling is going on because they can't attack the evidence. They try to claim I don't have evidence, but many have seen it, and for a lonmg time, they could have received copies of it, too. Right before my eyes I have seen my own statements twisted beyond recognition and then repeated over and over as the 'true' account. My attempts to correct their misstatements are called changing my story! This is happening to me in real time. and despite my protests and the protests of others. 16,000 posts have been generated attacking my story over a period of four years, with the same objections repeated over and over, the answers ignored, and name calling continuing. While some people write and curse me because of what they have read on that site, more thoughtful people recognize a full-blown vendetta.

As soon as I have finished my book --I'm working on end-notes now-- I hoppe to be able to provide updated information to this forum, where I have been treated decently.

I thank all of you who care about the truth. Kennedy's assassination -- and by whom-- is important today because the foundation at that time was laid for the power structure we have today running the government.

please forgive typos, I write looking at the keyboard due to vision problems.

I do hope I've expressed some concerns and ideas concerning documents. Provenance must be known. For so much material that can be presented, that seems hardly likely. We are on the brink of being unable to discern a fake from the real thing in the matter of documents, technologically speaking. Therefore, the extant documents are the most important ones, and in another decade, I would hesitate to accept any earth-shaking revelation based on documents 'discovered' at that time.

Sincerely,

Judyth Vary Baker

[Larry Hancock]

William, I've seen nothing in the documents that reflects that Phillips was officially a case officer for Viciana; in fact Veciana was very much at odds with the CIA and makes it clear that he wanted no on ongoing relationship with CIA. On the other hand Veciana was much more positive about Army intelligence and indeed did have an informant number and an assigned army contact officer inside Military Intelligence. Veciana is on record in his conversations with Army Intel that he and Alpha 66 want no more to do with CIA than they have to in order to get some minimal support - and then they steal what they really need. And it is possible to determine who official case officers were in most cases as that is in the CIA records, for example Barker was case officer for Sturgis. In most cases there are good records of CIA exile contacts including recruiting files and polygraph testing for secuirty (crypt for that is "flitter"). More of these type

records are becoming available daily in new CIA file releases following the ARRB work. I'm working on requests for some today as a matter of fact.

Anyway, Veciana's attitude toward CIA is consistent with his stating that Bishop never represented himself as CIA and as a matter of fact distanced himself completely from CIA and claimed only to represented 'businessmen" interested in Cuba - very similar to the approach to Sierra by the businessmen from Las Vegas.

My contention is that understanding people like Phillips and Morales means understanding that they had their own private agenda's, their own private networks and contacts and in fact their own private war which was often at odds with the Kennedy administration and sometimes with CIA HQ as well. There is also some good indication that people like Phillips and Morales may have intentionally picked up on exile assets that either told the CIA to kiss off or that CIA dropped because they did not like some of their associates - in several cases those associates were linked to gambling interests and the old Hanvana casino connections.

Phillip's "Bishop" persona is an example of that as far as I can tell. In many cases this also complicates the situation a great deal as some operations - say the Alpha 66 raids against Russian targets - were totally at odds with authorized projects while in other cases I think that individuals may have assumed they were taking sanctioned orders from the CIA or US government when in fact they were taking orders based on the private anti-Communist wars Morales and Phillips were conducting. I try to give as many examples of that as I can in the book - one example is that Phillips himself was cited by the Church committee for his lack of authorization related to an assassinations project in Chile.

So, in my view Veciana was definitely working with and for Bishop but that was something not handeld under any official case officer relationship between Phillips as a CIA office and Veciana.

-- Larry

[Wim Dankbaar]

Larry, Thanks for the extensive reply. However, I still don't know whether it is your belief that Bishop was Phillips?

Wim

[Larry Hancock]

William, Phillips was most definitely Bishop. I devote a chapter to offering proofs for that in the book.

However, a good number of the actions taken by Phillips as Bishop and the activities engaged in under the Bishop alias had to do with Phillips own private agenda and not his postion, role, or internal job/reporting within the CIA. The same can be said for David Morales.

Which is why I belive making a statement that "Bishop" was Veciana's CIA case officer is not accurate as far as the agency and Phillips official duties is concerned. And just as misleading as thinking it would have been official US policy and a CIA task to incite Alpha 66 raids against Russian ships and personnel in Cuba at the time Bishop was pushing Veciana and Alpha 66 into those activities.

-- Larry

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

This is my first post here after reading most of the excellent information at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.

I just had some thoughts about Johnny Roselli that I thought I'd pass on. I know he has been at the center of many theories. One of my favorite books on the mob is Ovid Demaris's The Last Mafioso about Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno, who was a good friend of Roselli's and describes him vividly. When Fratianno asked Roselli about the Kennedy assassination, Roselli denied being involved and even said the Mafia would never hire an unreliable thug like Jack Ruby to do something as precise as political assassination. Roselli did, however, admit to being part of Operation Mongoose, that is, he was approached by the C.I.A. to help kill Castro. He gave Fratianno the impression that as far as business went, he was getting richer by simply taking the C.I.A.'s money and dragging his feet than he would if he actually ever "hit" Castro. I've always wondered why, with a budget of $13 million and over 400 C.I.A. agents employed to it, Operation Mongoose was a failure. All those agents plus the Mafia couldn't kill one lousy vain dictator who even today still gives four-hour outdoor speeches.

Besides all this, there is the question of style. I remember some early theories actually having Roselli firing at Kennedy with a pistol. The Mafia didn't normally kill people with snipers and rifles. As for the death of Roselli himself, it was gruesome enough to expect that someone in organized crime must have done it. That was one figure in the list of possible Kennedy assassination witnesses and conspirators who was murdered without the possibility of deeming it a suicide or natural causes. More importantly, he died in what at least appeared to be a wave of mob violence (July/August 1976) that included the murder of Sam Giancana (19 June 1975) in Illinois. Roselli and Fratianno both were very shaken up about "Moony's" death and considered it the end of an era.

[Larry Hancock]

Hello Dr. Wagner, if you get a chance you might want to read some of the Church Committee or State Department reports on how Roselli was recruited (he made it clear at the very beginning he would take no payment) and how the various attemps he was involved in proceeded - the CIA wanted him to use shooters and he convinced them poison would be better, which was probably one of the biggest downfalls of his efforts. The first attempts went on very much independently from Mongoose but later if Hunt had not locked up Verona before the BOP one might have succeeded - indeed the BOP might have also but nobody had told Howard anthing about Verona's involvement. However there is some question of whether or not Roselli's continuing recourse to Verona and elements of Trafficante's old network may have not been the basic problem - plenty of reason to think that Trafficante had cut a deal with Castro way back when he was in prison and may have been slipping him warnings throughout. Which is one reason Harvey kicked Giancana and Trafficante out of the picture - but then Roselli still went back to Verona once again.

Of course Mongoose itself was far bigger and broader than the relatively small assassination efforts - and didn't even include the ones some of the Cuban freedom fighers were running on their own like the Veciana associated bazooka attack that came literally within minutes of taking Castro out. Or the one apparently run by Diaz Garcia in the fall of 63 which reportedly killed someone sitting next to Castro according to CIA documents.

I'll leave any discussion of Roselli with a rifle in DP to others, that's not my personal view of his role in the Kennedy assassination.

On the other hand I think the remark by Roselli that he and Sam got involved with the CIA on their own, looking for some leverage, is probably correct. Certainly Sam got no slack though and if Roselli got any it sure didn't last. As for who took him out in the end, no conclusions on my part but three things stand out. First, the word got out that in his last hearing appearance he had actually given the names of a couple of the Trafficante network guys who were used in the Castro plots and that sort of thing might have started some people wondering if he was getting too talkative in his old age. Second, the new "bosses" couldn't have been all that happy continuing to read about the Mafia and the CIA in Jack Anderson's national columns courtesy of Johnny - they are not people who like publicity and third, Roselli had very recently been back in LA talking to some of his old connections and the FBI guys investigating his death at least pondered whether or not someone might have been unhappy to see him giving the appearance of not having fully retired.

-- Larry

[John Simkin]

Larry, did John Martino give any names in his confession?

[Larry Hancock]

John, Martino did not give any specific names - at least ones that have been shared by either Claasen or Cummings. One reason for that is probably that his remarks on the assassination were really not in the way of a confession, they were more like revisiting the old times in Miami with his two friends a few months before his death. Just getting a little bit of it off his chest perhaps - I have no doubt he never had the slightest thought it might become public, at that time the subject looked to be dead and buried. If the HSCA had not come along - and even then Claasen contacted them anonymously and was very nervous about what he did tell them.

Currington may know more than he has told so far though, the La Fontaines are the only other folks after Tony Summers to track him down and talk with him and he implied to them that Martino had perhaps mentioned some names that Cummings would not share.....there is an indication that Martino was very nervous about Watergate, however my own research suggests that was primarily over the fact that if anyone had really investigated the Cubans at Watergate they would have ended up back in Miami, and back at the Bayo mission - perhaps finding the photo of Martino, Martinez and Gonzalez and deciding to pay John a call. Of course Helms lied through his teeth about Martinez and nobody really investigated Gonzalez at all so the whole thing passed on by.

The only name mentioned by Cummings was not actually a name but rather a remark by Martino that there was a Cuban girl down in Dallas that could have been a very important witness - I suspect that would have been the Odio's, certainly we know they were knon to Martino in advance of the assassination.

If somebody could track down Curington it would certainly be worth the effort to see if he might have anything more to offer, that's something I certainly haven't done.

-- Larry

[John Simkin]

Someone told me that not all the testimonies of all the witnesses that appeared before the House Select Committee on Assassinations have been published. Is that true? If so, which ones have been held back?

[Tony Frank]

I can say a few things about the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Congressman Henry Gonzalez, a Representative from Texas since 1961, was the original Chairman of the House Assassinations Committee after it was formed in the latter part of 1976, and he was determined to get to the bottom of President Kennedy’s assassination, but as such, threatened the CIA’s security. CIA machinations resulted in Congressman Gonzalez resigning from the Committee in March 1977.

The HSCA fell for the same disinformation that was manufactured to cover up the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

In 1984, Congressman Louis Stokes, who had become the HSCA Chairman after Congressman Gonzalez resigned, asked me about the map tracing the path of the bullets from the Texas School Book Depository to the spot where Kennedy was killed, a map which was alegedly found in Oswald's room. The Committee had looked high and low for it and coudn't find it. I told him it didn't exist and that the copyrighted story about the map that appeared on page 1 of the Dallas Morning News on November 26, 1963, was a story planted by the CIA.

On November 26, 1963, “District Attorney Henry Wade said he understood that the police had the map, but he had not seen it. Lieutenant Wells of the Police Department said the map was in Wade’s possession. Wade denied it . . . Chief Jesse Curry said that he knows nothing of the map and that all evidence had been turned over to Wade.”

Captain Glen King said, “I have heard there was a map, but I have not seen it. I heard there was one, but it was not from an authoritative source. But I am not saying there isn’t one. If there is a map, it is evidence. And I think Chief Curry has been very clear about evidence.”

On November 27, a Washington Post reporter wrote: “Dallas officials reported late yesterday that all evidence in their possession has been turned over to the FBI.”

And let's not forget about the autopsy pictures that were switched when Regis Blahut, a CIA officer who had been detailed to “assist” the committee, broke into a combination safe at the committee’s offices. (Washington Post, 6/18/79)

“The safe was reserved for physical evidence of President Kennedy’s assassination, including the autopsy photos, X-rays, and other articles, such as the so-called ‘magic bullet’ that wounded both Kennedy and Texas Governor John B. Connally.”

“Autopsy photos of the head shot that killed Kennedy had been taken out of their cases and were left in disarray inside the three drawer safe . . . There was no doubt that the files in the safe had been tampered with . . . ‘It looked as though someone had just run out.’”

Blahut’s fingerprints “were all over the place, on the photos, inside the safe, and on all sorts of different packages.”

“The CIA acknowledged that it has dismissed the individual in question. ‘We’re satisfied it was just a matter of curiosity,’ said CIA spokesman Herbert Hetu.” (Blahut obviously made sure that the break-in would be noticed and that the autopsy photos were in disarray. That’s because the CIA does things for a reason, and if the CIA spokesman were to be believed, what he was really saying was, “Yes, the agent we assigned to assist the House Assassinations Committee broke into their safe, but that’s only because he was curious. In fact, we fired him. We’re satisfied.”)

“In a telephone interview with the Washington Post, Blahut denied any wrongdoing. He insisted that there was an innocent explanation. He refused, however, to say what that was.” (The Post got its responses from the CIA and Blahut when they publicized the break-in.)

Blahut said he worked for the CIA’s Office of Security and he stated, “There’s other things that are involved that are detrimental to other things,” and he refused to elaborate when asked what he meant by that.

Blahut went on to say, “I signed an oath of secrecy. I cannot discuss it any further . . . I’ve already defended myself to my employers. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all cleared up.” He also claimed to have passed CIA lie detector tests over the matter. (It doesn’t sound like he’d been fired. And why did the CIA have an agent with their Office of Security assigned to “assist” the House Assassinations Committee?)

The House Select Committee on Assassinations was simply another part of the cover up and they accepted the disinformation and the fabricated evidence just like the Warren Commission did.

Edited June 29, 2004 by Tony Frank