Larry Hancock

I would definitely agree with Greg ...its a short list....

In regard to Jon's comment, I'm afraid that "passion" is the last thing we need....patience, perseverance, critical thinking, and even healthy skepticism would really be good at this stage in the research. Passion in terms of understanding the overall conspiracy and its meaning is good, passion at the micro level is a lot like stirring an already boiling pot.

Good stuff David, that certainly supports the idea that Phillips resigned only to take on a mission. I'd give a pretty penny to know how who was playing liaison back at CIA Headquarters. I wonder if some FOIA work on Agency records pertaining to the organization would expose anything? Also, if true this would make a great section in a book about the CIA's domestic media activities.

Roger, as VP Johnson's travel was pretty tightly logged and monitored, we do know where he was each day and each hour and he did spend time in Texas getting the Ranch ready for Jack and Jackie and trying fruitlessly to try and mend some of the political hostility the trip had elicited (although he pretty much gave up on that)...he even went over a couple of days in advance to address the Pepsi convention as I recall. If you have my book SWHT I go into his activities and even phone calls the weeks before the assassination and you might check that out. Honestly though I view a Dulles/Johnson visit as being as unlikely and unreasonable as Nixon at the Murchison party, it there was a real conspiracy in progress the last thing in the world that would happen would be any last minute personal contacts between plotters. That just makes no sense and would be unnecessary in that there would be a host of covert ways to make contacts, pass messages etc. For that matter, both men would keep as much distance from the trip as possible, if Dulles left the country to avoid the Bay of Pigs I'm pretty sure he would not go to Dallas right before the assassination if he were involved. Obviously that's just my view...

David, that should be interesting. I've always been curious if Phillips was encouraged to do that or did it on his own. He did write a couple of other books after Nightwatch and they give some insight into his thoughts of the period, suggesting he actually may have felt that intelligence professionals were being unfairly prosecuted and slandered (yeah, I know nobody wants to hear that). I've become convinced that when Hunt "left" the Agency he was still operational and was actually just assuming a "commercial/professional" cover, planted in a place where he could be useful. There is actually some documentation showing that he was given a level of security clearance which allowed him to fill in for his boss in processing information sought by the Agency through the companie's contacts. As to Phillips, I just don't know....looking forward to your post.

I'd say Ed Wilson and Ted Shackley would be even better examples of actually making money off their social networks...

Brian raises a good point, its often said that no CIA officer really ever leaves the Agency. I think it might be more accurate to say that no officer ever leaves his Agency social network, partly because of curiosity but also because it represents an opportunity to remain influential and/or to use those connections for personal agendas...whether political or financial. Having been CIA gives you a certain amount of clout, name dropping about who was at the house last weekend or who you had dinner with last week gives you a lot more...

This is another perfect example of how the internet allows no false information to ever be left behind . Its been researched and posted on many, many times and was even the subject of a presentation at a Lancer conference. The reality is that there was a Fort Worth newspaper article about visitors to the Johnson ranch, based on JFK's upcoming visit. To illustrate it they pulled a file photo of Dulles at the ranch - taken when he did a general briefing for the candidates before the Presidential election. A casual glance makes it appear that it was a contemporary photo but it wasn't. People ranging from Jack White do David Lifton and myself have researched this....and we had a fellow who owned the photo series from which that image was taken at a Lancer conference. He had numerous other copies including a not very flattering image of Lady Bird and a horse, apparently that one got the photographer kicked off the ranch. So....don't know how this got into A Certain Arrogance but Dulles did not visit the range shortly before the assassination.

Paul, at the risk of sounding less than humble I have to assert that I have offered a unified hypothesis, not sure its up to being a theory but there are certainly a number of testable elements in it. In NEXUS I describe where, when and who promoted the idea that JFK was a growing national security risk, how that concern was passed down the chain to the people with operational contacts who were capable of organizing a attack on JFK. I name names at all levels and give a timeline. I also cite the motives for each level, which were somewhat different the further down the chain you go. In SWHT I describe a detailed scenario for the attack itself including how Oswald was brought into it. I also offer a very specific scenario and timeline as to how a true investigation of conspiracy was aborted and evidence manipulated. Beyond that I offer speculation with some circumstantial evidence as to how their might have been a tenous linkage between the two. I don't see conclusive evidence for that so I offer it as an option to the overall hypothesis. Now I might well be wrong on all those elements but since I did go out on the limb with it in two separate books I think its only fair to acknowledge that. And just to raise a point, yes I do offer names for at least some of the tactical (street) team in Dallas so there is that too...right, wrong or just plain foolish.

Paul, David will certainly provide his own answers but to help a bit, let me respond as well: "You and Larry have both focused on calls from LBJ later on 11/22/1963 as important factors in that decision. Please be more specific regarding your sources. Does the Mary Ferrell web site also host those documents? What were the exact hours of the day you had in mind?" ....As far as the calls go there are many sources, Manchester discusses some calls from Johnson, however the most concrete official list is Johnson's own telephone call log which you can get from the LBJ library. When I started all this there were no documents on the internet so I had/have paper copies of these things. Today you can find the call log for the period of the assassination online at the library, or at least it was, I've not checked lately. In addition you can find the transcript for the calls to AF1 on Bill Kelley's web site. Beyond that, I list a good number of the calls in Chapter 15 of SWHT as well as the following two chapters which deal with Johnson, I'm sure some are footnoted to sources but not sure how many.... Of course there are problems with this, ranging from the tape/transcript mystery about the Hoover/Johnson call to the many questions about how comprehensive a record we have of the AF1 tapes. I can tell you that you can trace exactly when and how those on the plane were advised of Oswald's arrest and that matches to the AP1 wire coverage of the arrest and announcement of his name. Yet I still think you must answer the question -- if Hoover ordered the FBI to stop looking beyond Oswald on 11/23/1963, then why did Hoover himself express doubts (as you claim) weeks later? ....personally I think Hoover came to realize the official story was being driven to no conspiracy, regardless of what evidence turned up or the doubts he shared with Johnson. In that sense I believe he was experienced enough to essentially know that a full, open investigation had been closed down and there was more to the story, a lot more. And I think that upset him as a career law enforcement professional - I don't at all like the man but that was what he was and I although he might have played ball and gone along with it, his remarks to the young man at the country club suggest to me that deep inside he knew the consequences of what would happen if the American public became aware that there had been obstruction of justice at the highest level of the government - it would indeed have brought down the Administration and possibly more than that. That is, insofar as Hoover by 11/23/1963 mandated a "Lone Nut" theory of Oswald -- why would he contradict this in writing unless this was a trick on his part to manipulate subordinates? I still think that must be answered cogently. .....My view is that Hoover was following orders from Johnson, he had to do so to preserve his career...however he himself was not satisfied that there had been no conspiracy and he certainly was not happy with the CIA...that dissatisfaction came out on occasion. Nevertheless, I now with to dig more deeply into those specific 11/22/1963 and 11/23/1963 documents. My first question is -- what was the EXACT content of the Bundy phone call to AF-1 -- does anybody know with exactitude? .....you should be able to find what is on the record by reviewing the transcript on Kelley's web site; I think Manchester also interviewed Bundy and relates his description of the conversation.

David, I think it was actually something like "conspiracy to deprive an individual of his legal rights" and Hoover was taking the position that murder would do that... Now the really interesting part of it if I'm remembering the statute correctly (and yes I could look it up in my book but...) Hoover was actually justifying a federal investigation based on a "conspiracy" violation...sort of ironic...

Paul, as you go further through the calls and memos, you actually find that Hoover does come up with a Federal statute giving the FBI the right to pursue the assassination as a Federal crime. I can't give you the statute off the top of my head but you should find it in Chapter 15 of SWHT, I think it is mentioned in a Sunday morning call to one of Johnson's aides ....as I recall, Hoover continues to note even by Sunday morning that the actual evidence against Oswald seems to be weak and of course by that afternoon we have the FBI memo initiating a report which is going to present the case for Oswald as the assassin, a report that is going to be challenging to prepare. As to the further calls, primarily the ones from DC to Texas, ordering no conspiracy charges and a total focus on Oswald, you should also find that in Chapter 15. My perspective is that Hoover is certainly focusing on Oswald as the assassin on Friday afternoon, but based on the work of the DPD not his people. On Saturday morning he talks of an impersonation in Mexico City, suggesting matters are not as simple as it seems but Johnson does not respond and at that point things start go go murky. However, again from a study of Johnson's own calls over the next few days, a spelled out in SWHT, its clear that Johnson is driving matters and only occasionally calling Hoover to either tell him what to do or give him instructions on how things are going to go i.e. the FBI will prepare a report and the Texas panel will rubber stamp it, and later the Texas panel becomes the Warren Commission.

To add to that David, we have William Law's great work with the FBI agents at Bethesda, their own very early report after midnight and their later comments....all suggesting that individual agents and the FBI generally was pretty accurately reporting things as well as their own observations until Saturday morning. Then things begin to change, just as they do with the MC tapes and photos over the weekend. On the other hand, the Secret Service handling of evidence gets to be pretty questionable early on, a mix of questionable criminal investigation procedures - which might be a training thing - but with something potentially more dubious going on higher up.

That's very interesting Pamela and I'm afraid that it matches what I have seen in more high profile crimes. Of course certainly there is immense public pressure for quick solutions on those, the FBI traditionally had a bad rep with local law enforcement for pushing to quick and rather obvious solutions...Hoover started the practice of promoting the Bureau with quick action and arrests and I'm afraid the crime labs people were often pressured to support those. Last week there was another news story of wide spread evidence issues with the Bureau, this time being investigated by Congress. Again, no knock on either local or state law enforcement but they do exist within a public relations and political context just as everything else does and generally they have far less time and resources then they would like. . I've previously proposed that it would be very useful to contact academics who study criminology and ask if there have ever been any studies of how many murder conspiracies, especially those involving frames, have actually been solved by standard police investigations without some sort of third party intervention. I doubt there are that many. But all this is important in studying the JFK assassination since it seems to me that we often treat the investigation as totally unique while I'm afraid it was not. I find it fascinating that a famous LA prosecutor who investigated the Manson murders was so adamant in his book on that case that the case was only solved because someone decided to pay attention to a couple of the local folks who had a source everyone was ignoring or simply rejecting. He also went on to write that he believed there was a much broader conspiracy with more people and more murders than were ever acknowledged....yet he seemed to drop that sort of skepticism when turning to write on the the Kennedy assassination.

Paul, just a bit more friendly advice. With all due respect to law enforcement its my experience in looking a many high profile murders that as soon as they have a basic set of evidence pointing to a name, that individual becomes a prime suspect and that is where they focus their attention. Once they have the person in custody its all about them because they move to an evidence collection mode to support prosecution. After all at that point its either the local police working for a DA or the Bureau working for a Justice Dept prosecutor. You can see an almost instant turn around once they get the first hard evidence, especially if its linking what appears to be a murder weapon to their suspect. Like it or not at that point open ended investigations start to fade away.... Based on that its no real surprise that once DPD had a suspect in custody and some evidence, Hoover would start talking about Oswald as the shooter - it reassures people, it makes those involved feel vindicated in at least catching the murderer and its good for closure. The real point of interest is when Hoover closed down the FBI investigation and focused it on Oswald alone....that was not Friday afternoon or night. In fact he didn't totally focus it on Oswald until after his conversation with Johnson on Saturday morning - and he was still offering his opinion that the case against Oswald was weak as of Sunday morning.

Brad, I would certainly agree the names are obvious, that was one of the problems Giamarco had...they could not get Hunt to tell them a single thing that would have been unique, something not generally well known or discussed fairly widely. In regard to the Morales reference, he was asked if it was likely that Hunt and Barker would talk and his remark was something on the order that he certainly expected they would since they had both been known for their lack of security practices and tendency to talk about things they should not. Morales tended to trust people in the paramilitary side of the PP staff, not the psych warfare types like Phillips or the political action types like Hunt. My view of Hunt was that he was old school, one of the "cadre" and as so held in special regard by individuals in the upper echelon...because of his early service and for that matter his spy novels which people like Helms thought did a service for the agency. He had screwed up on a number of occasions, from his early assignment in Mexico City to his little motel room foul up in Miami but tradecraft was not the strong suit for the political action guys - they focused on "bonding" and putting money in the right places. And Hunt certainly could do that with the assets whose political views were in synch with his...his relationship with Artime was exceptionally strong. And I definitely think Hunt had insider info on the conspiracy, probably more from the Artime and exile connections than anywhere else. Given the Wheaton/Jeankins/Quintero story we have good reason to believe that some of Artime's people did know the inside gossip about Dallas. As to Hunt's motive, all I can say is that as I remember it, Giamarco said Hunt was all about money and in conversations with he and his wife of the time she was rather shocked at what he was doing but Hunt told them that he really was financially pressed. They seemed to think that was what was overcoming his pride; however he kept setting conditions on them and in the end they concluded he was really playing them to gain support for a book or movie rather than truly revealing something based on a fit of conscious or anything on that order. I guess my take is that we simply don't need his names, we have them from other sources and he did not add anything of value. We can find that same gossip in a number of other places. He just doesn't take us any place we haven't already been....

Paul, generally speaking those documents have been viewed/written about as a group from two perspectives (that's off the top of my head of course). The first has to do with information flow and what Hoover was reporting, focusing on the fact that he was passing on a lot of bad information, initially what he was getting was not from investigators but essentially media information like everyone else. Even his own field office was passing that to him at first since it had not direct info, then they began to pass on DPD info. Where that begins to change is when they begin to get information from their own files on Oswald, from Mexico City and from their investigations and leads coming into them. One of the outstanding questions from relatively early on has to do with what FBI files Hoover was looking at on Oswald and in particular what produced the remark about three trips to Cuba. The second has been more in the nature of a chronological study, who he was talking to when, and what that implied about when information began to be suppressed during the first 48 hours. As you know, I do a lot of that in SWHT. One of the big mysteries there is what contact Johnson and Hoover may have had after Johnson was back in DC including the vanishing Johnson call to Hoover that evening and the tape/transcript manipulation of the record of their conversation on Saturday morning. Along with that there is a major hole in what Hoover actually did at close of business on Nov. 22; as far as the existing record goes he apparently just went home, had dinner and listened to the TV for news on the assassination. I would suggest that in concert with your study of the documents, you take a good reread of Manchester and see what he says about Hoover and his agents for that day. Lots of time and brain sweat has been spent on all the memos of that period of time, Hoover's as well as those of the Dallas field officers and his senior officers in DC. I'm not sure anyone has used them to try and recreate Hoover's actual thinking - other than to comment he was pretty cold in his contacts with RFK. Perhaps someone else can comment on that.

Brian, I did locate the speaker I was discussing. It was David Giamarco. You can find an intro to his presentation on the conference page at: jfklancer.com/dallas07/speakers.html If that link doesn't work, just go to the conferences area of the site, pick 2007 and then speakers..

Thanks Brian, its an interesting read and I would not argue that some of the figures that Hunt named are credible - it would be silly for me to do that since I trace out a scenario involving several of the same people in NEXUS. The thing is that Hunt could have come up with the same names based on his experience and likely some rumors and gossip he heard from his exile friends, in particular Artime. If you recall, RFK's first thought, reflected in his telephone call the afternoon of the assassination was that exiles associated or at least known to those in the Artime project had been involved - and there is some solid data to substantiate that. I discuss my views of Hunt and his confession at some length in the 2010 edition of SWHT so I won't belabor it here....but nobody is going to convince me that Morales (who provably didn't trust Hunt for a moment and is in print saying he was a security risk because he could never keep his mouth shut) would have tried to recruit Hunt or if Hunt turned his back on it just let him walk away. That's just not Morales. Hunt had been floating that million dollar plus claim for some time, he mentioned it to reporters and its classic Hunt. I suspect that when he was actually seriously approached he tried to play the guys along, for a book, for a movie. But what they wanted was something substantive, something that would prove Hunt was inside the plot, something tactical or at least something they could check. Where was the meeting in Miami, how did Morales contact him, why would Morales give him the entire chain of command and how did he do so, what specifically did they want Hunt to do. Apparently Hunt could never come up with anything like that and it was only relatively late in the contact that he even sketched out that simple chart. They declined to pay for that alone and apparently St John had come back into his life at that point, in a weakened moment Hunt gave him the story in hopes he could make something off of it since he had nothing else to give him and that was it. I don't doubt St. John is sincere, I seriously doubt his father's story.

Brian, the offer is right but the individual presenting was Costner's partner and I don't think that's him...he would show up on the speaker list. I'll have to confirm the name for you ...I can't claim that level of memory with certainty, not something I think about that often. Is Hamburg's essay online where I can read it, I'd like to if it is. Hopefully it generally gibes with what I posted.

Actually it would make a lot more sense if you had been at the Lancer conference where we heard a two hour presentation from one of the two film people who had been working to get Hunt's story...taking him up on his million dollar offer expressed years earlier...well before his son became involved with any story or with him again for that matter. Unfortunately due to legal concerns following his sons intent to produce a book taping was not allowed. The bottom line is that Hunt was pushed to give something solid for the better part of two years, finally came up with the sketch or org chart of those involved, later shared that with his son while ill and apparently in some remorse and the whole thing ended up in his son's book. If anyone wants to discuss it in more detail I'm happy to do so personally and privately but I can tell you that the conclusion of the folks offering the money...which Hunt could not claim as he offered nothing that could be substantiated....stated that they ultimately concluded what he really wanted was their help in funding and promoting a book so he could make some money given that his financial situation was strained. The above is strictly taken from my subjective impression of the conference presentation so that's all I have to share....

Paul, I'm sure your commentary will be interesting but I'm assuming you know these documents have been available to, studied by and referenced by numerous researchers for several decades now. Not to take anything away from Professor Wrone but I'm relatively certain they are online at Hood college as part of the Weisberg collection. I recall numerous articles concerning them over the years. I'm also a bit concerned about oversimplifying them too much since there is a good deal of associated information in the documents themselves including routing, distribution, the fashion in which information is consolidated in various summary memos; I really think those interested should be looking directly at the documents themselves via the links available.

Paul, Scott provided you with an early answer in post #137. The document you reference from Professor Wrone as the 1:43 memo - document 62-109060-55 - is from 11:33 am that morning and has nothing to do with the assassination http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI%20Records%20Files/62-109060/62-109060%20Section%2001/62-109060-55.pdf Actually you can do your own research on Hoover’s memos of the afternoon at the following link which compiles them; they are largely in time sequence so its possible to follow them pretty easily. You can check each of the documents Wrone mentioned. http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI%20Records%20Files/62-109060/62-109060%20Section%2001/

David, the AF1 transcripts show no signs of a call from Johnson to Hoover. The first indication of a call between the two is from Johnson to Hoover after Johnson is back in DC. That one is particularly interesting as Manchester speaks of it in conjunction of a whole series of other calls and gives specific times, suggesting he took it from Johnson's call log. However when I investigated the call log, there is no sign of it, suggesting an altered log. That would be very consistent with the wiping of the Saturday morning Hoover to Johnson call on the tape and the apparent deletion of a good portion of the transcript of that call. To provide more context, in what we do have of that call Hoover is telling Johnson of the impersonation of Oswald in MC, implying that there were other individuals in and around Oswald in some fashion. However in the transcript, Johnson - who had called Hoover in the first place to ask about Mexico City, makes absolutely no response to that and that's pretty much were things go dark. To my mind there is every impression of Johnson beginning to shut down Hoover just as the calls from Johnson's staff shut down Texas law enforcement the previous evening.

Just for context, the FBI HQ directive of Friday afternoon was for an open ended investigation for field offices to look at all leads, contact all sources and informants - from across the subversive spectrum. It is not until Saturday morning that a follow on directive from Hoover (after the Johnson call including several minutes of dialog which have been confirmed to have been erased from the tape of the conversation) closes down that open ended inquiry and focuses the Bureau strictly on leads having to do with Oswald. In addition, the telephone calls coming from DC to various law enforcement officers in Texas on Friday evening, ordering them not to file charges of conspiracy or to discuss a possible conspiracy came from Johnson's staff...not from the Bureau. That is according to remarks from the people who actually received the calls.