Larry Hancock

I talked with Jones on numerous occasions about various Japanese he was suspicious of, in contact with Oswald, in New Orleans but it was never connected in any fashion. Basically just suspicions. What he was most specific about in our conversations was his belief that Roscoe White had killed the president, shooting from a position which I took to be on the Elm street extension. He apparently had a photo that he felt proved that. He also thought that that Zapruder was involved, that there was a DalTex connection. There were also connections to Honest Joes pawn job and his vehicle parked in the vicinity of the TSBD and to Dallas Jewish crime figures. We had dozens of calls with his discussing all those things but I never got a picture of how he felt that everything connected in a particular scenario - just that all those elements were suspicous.

We have some pretty solid descriptions of how the recorders were attached to the phone lines, these were electrical taps on actual phone lines, not wireless bugs. Which means that either the listening station sites which were locally tapped on the phones or the central switching site taps should have a very solid connection to the line which means they are going to pick up anything coming onto the telephone handset from either the transmitter or receiver. In those days telephone sets had reasonably sensitive voice pick ups but were obviously designed to pick up the person talking - if they held the receiver as they were supposed to of course. So bottom line, we could certainly be hearing surrounding background noise from either end, all it has to do is get into the handset transmitter. Which unfortunately tells us little about where the line itself was being tapped or for that matter which line...in the case of the Russian embassy we have some solid CIA records that tell us how it was tapped...via the central site...and in a fashion to pick up outgoing dialed digits. I did hear some dialed digits on a couple of tapes and that would differentiate outbound from inbound calls. Supposedly the Cuban embassy was tapped the same way at the central site. Its unclear whether the Cuban consulate was tapped either directly or from the local monitoring house in 1963. We also know that lots of places including private homes of select individuals were also tapped at the central site. So all in all it seems like it would take a lot of time and effort to parse out what locations are on these tapes - and if they are all from Nov 22....

Well at least the dates probably explain why they were actually saved and entered into the collection of materials related to the assassination. Sounds like these are all from the Cuban facilities - three observations that might be relevant. First, I heard dialed digits in a few of the calls and those were collected by the central switch facility which had the ability to collect outbound dialed digits. The taps and the local safe houses did not. Second, I wonder if the CIA even went so far as to use audio bugs on pay telephones near the embassies, if so that might explain the background noise - and they might have pulled out all the stops after the assassination, expecting the Cubans and Russians both to be suspicious of using business lines. In addition, as Bill Simpich has pointed out, central site taps were even placed on some private residences, that might also explain some of the background conversations and music. If anything following the assassination it might have been decided to tap a host of personal lines of diplomatic personnel.

Have you found anything which suggests the actual location of the point where the recordings were made - individual taps on building phone lines, the central switch tap facility or even wireless bugs in the area of the phones. At this point I'm quite puzzled by the degree of background conversation and even music on what were supposedly direct wire to recorder taps of phone lines locally or at the switching center?

I can say that the personal version I heard from David....no request for confidence.....was that there was a special room prepared within the hospital and a set of Doctors who were in place to somehow murder JFK at Parkland if he was not DOA. He did not specify what Doctors but mentioned several. I had the impression that he felt they were also going to alter whatever wounds there were to support a lone shooter - but while he talked of altering them at Parkland he was not explicit on any specifics. He also stated that Oswald was supposed to be shot dead inside the TSBD by Baker, he had interviewed Baker who denied it - but David felt sure he could judge that he had Baker lied. I don't recall further details as he offered no evidence and it just didn't stick with me, but at that point he was adamant that people at Parkland were committed to killing JFK whatever state he was in after being attacked.

Tom, the narrative is that the film showed up, specific frames were selected for briefing boards, the boards were created and taken away. Brugiani was there for that and made his own personal observations, no formal analysis was done and no comments were solicited. The following evening the film was returned, he was not told or invited to the selection of a second set of frames and a second set of boards were taken away - those ended up at NARA ultimately. The first set got stashed away and when somebody asked it they should be turned in to the HSCA the order was given to destroy them....apparently that had been ordered in the first place. Its not necessarily that the film changed but rather the selection of frames for the story boards was changed to support a particular scenario. And that was done in a very low profile manner. If you have SWHT 2012 its all there, most of it from Doug's work but a few more tidbits from some of my own research. While this does not seem to be an argument for a major alteration, it certainly does seem to argue that a new shooting scenario was being pitched and needed to be officially supported. NARA's official examination of the film occurred much later is not well documented and was not a major part of the WC narrative as far as I recall.

Robert is right, this photo will never go away though....in reality its Sturgis not Plumlee and as for Op 40, we have the history of that and its not Op 40 either....the Op 40 personnel are or were at one time listed on the Brigade web site, trained by Davit Morales as AMMOTS and later many became part of the Cuban Intelligence Service at JMWAVE, others went rogue on their own and some later became involved in drug smuggling. Anybody that has SMWHT will find this all in a bit more details there as far as OP40 goes.

Interesting what they may have thought, for all we know they might have believed he was being harassed b y the FBI...that would be in the spirit of the times and what they would be doing in a similar situation. If nothing else though I suspect that they looked at each other and said they were happy it would be New York who had to deal with he and his wife....especially since they knew that Marina's formal request to return to Russia was already in file and in review in Moscow.

There are actually a number of such incidents on record, for both US and American defectors going both ways....its was most used when the individual felt they were under suspicion at work and needed to do it as a surprise action. In that case they tended to declare themselves and stay under embassy protection. In other instances they picked weekends, did make brief calls and arranged for meetings elsewhere later. One of the best sources the US had in Russia came in as a walk in that way.... In any event, an American showing up unannounced on a Saturday asking for an urgent meeting, possibly protection and expressing fears of the FBI certainly would have gotten the attention of any of the KGB officers around at that time. Part curiosity and part day job responsibility.

Ben, an American showing up at an Embassy, claiming to need to urgently meet with diplomatic staff in Mexico City would be treated much the same as a Russian showing up in Berlin on a weekend needing to urgently meet with American diplomatic staff. Its the height of the cold war and the most desirable thing that can happen at an embassy is called a "walk in"....somebody from the other side, potentially a real voluntary defector of some sort....some of the most valuable intelligence came in just that way from walk ins who had been pushed over the edge for some reason. Saturday is another clue, the individual is not constrained by their day job and less likely to be seen defecting. You can bet all the staff, especially the KGB (or CIA) types in the building are going to want to talk to the person. Lots of Cold War spy novels started that way because it was very real, and dramatic. In this instance "its just Oswald" but at first the KGB guys would not have known that, could have been a very important American who was fed up and wanted to "come over".

Yes, given the size of the work and the limited potential audience I'm told the cost/price of a print version was considered prohibitive. We are fortunate to have it at all given his sudden death and the fact that Stu Wexler had to work with John's sister to reclaim his files, I had to work reordering them since he had anticipated doing more work with the book and Gary Murr played a major role in editing the whole thing. Unfortunately the huge collection of photos and illustrations he had obtained in his research to support it is not available due to limitations on Lacer's resources associated with Debra's health condition. https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Plain-Site-Search-Murder-ebook/dp/B0BR5WWY3Y

I honestly think it would be wrong of me to try and overview given the detail work John did - and the devil is in the details. Gary Murr might jump in and give it a shot as he is more recently familiar with it). Major takeaways - both the forensics consultant and the coroner were aware that the crime scene was been managed in a way to locate people and locations to support a Sirhan shooting scenario with fewer shots than there really were. Evidence of holes in the ceiling and pantry doors was first ignored, then some positions were changed and then the materials themselves were destroyed. So, way to many shots for just Sirhan. Everybody talks about that, John demonstrates it from the crime scene itself. Then John went into great detail on the autopsy and found paths what were not in the official report as well as strong reason to challenge the caliber of the gun used for the close range shot. He also had first hand access to ballistics materials and worked with Sirhan's attorneys aide Rose Lynn Magnan on it to show how the evidence was illegally handled and archived...he details that at length. But the real point is that he totally reconstructed (as a professional model maker) the crime scene, redid all the measurements and positioning related to the photos...and supported his findings with that level of detail. He did not go into conspiracy, what he did was go into the police investigation and the evidence presented in the trial - and how it was presented. You need that for context. Also, if you assess that Sirhan was totally unaware of what was happening in the pantry that evening, you really need to read the police transcript of his interviews and see how sharp he was at that point in time and how he was trying to play the officers. I summarize some of that in one of the early chapters in my RFK study at: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Incomplete_Justice_-_At_the_Ambassador_Hotel.html I offer all this is the spirit of providing information, not lobbying for it at all.

And for those who want to explore the subject with a comprehensive knowledge of both the crime scene and the related forensics, ballistics and autopsy work I suggest John Hunt's clinical study of the actual evidence: https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Plain-Site-Search-Murder-ebook/dp/B0BR5WWY3Y If you have not read it then you simply don't have all the facts...or at least I don't see how that would be possible and I've studied the LAPD materials extensively myself.....but that was nothing in comparison to what John did.

Martin Nee said it quite well, to my recollection as a long time member the forum is supposed to be about exploration and education - not advocacy and not evangelism. I sincerely hope to see it return to that mode of operation and moderation.

You have a very good point Allen and I've personally not done any work that at all going past his involvement with the restructuring of Domestic Ops beginning in 63 which David Boylan has written about. Given his egregious failures he mush have had one or more senior level champions at CIA and I would not be surprised to find it linked to Angleton and MH/CHAOS. Who was he doing liaison for in terms of the Black Panthers - given his disasterous liaison work on the Cuba Project I would not have expected that to work out well - which clearly it did not. If somebody carries that on one of the most important questions would be who remained his champion inside the CIA for the rest of his career and who were his 'angels' in public circles?