Larry Hancock

Very good Ian, that's it....perhaps anyone who has a copy might take a quick scan and make sure Hill is discussed as I recalled just as another check....

Paul, perhaps I can point you in the right direction and somebody else can give you the actual names. The investigator who went to Dallas with voice stress equipment wrote a book afterwards and spent a great deal of time on Hill because he thought that Hill was offered up to deflect researches and that his voice stress raised some real credibility issues. That book probably as as much insight on Hill as anything I have seen and it might produce some leads...just can't recall the author or title.

Well actually we have some insight into that because of the files that were released to the ARRB by the 112th MIG and the ARRB's really detailed investigation of the 112th and its roles/missions/responsibilities. One of the things that the 112th was cooperating with in regard to DPD was arms thefts and arms sales. That included attempts to buy arms from Fort Hood and also investigation of the Terrell Armory theft. Beyond that those MIG's who had port cities in their area of responsilbity had been ordered to monitor travels to and from Cuba and to monitor the ports for weapons smuggling. That was one reason that in New Orleans, it was a 112th agent who picked up the first leaflet from Oswald - his report triggered the establishment of a MIG file on Oswald. The agent had been down waterside and became aware of Oswald passing out leaflets by Navy ships. Given that the ARRB also interviewed several Dallas members of the 112th, you can also get a good job of what they were personally doing in their day jobs ....those documents should be available on MFF by now but I put a good number of them on my Keys to the Conspiracy CD that Lancer has available....that seems like a very long time ago now. I should point out that there was a considerable difference in the tasking of the active units such as the 112th and the Reserve Units - the Reserve Units intel folks were trained and practiced at performing actual combat intelligence in the event they or their units were called up. You can get a feel for that in doing some searching on Army Reserve intelligence units. The active duty guys were more incident driven but appear to also have spent a good deal of their time doing standard background checks and security investigations....pretty routine stuff.

Paul, actually we know a great deal if detail about the MI, FBI and CIA monitoring anti-war activists. There are a number of good books on it - not to mention a great deal of data available in the Church Committee investigation and report. They also documented a good deal of the actual dirty tricks used against the anti-war folks by the FBI. I've posted some of those references here before...... We also know a lot of detail about what the domestic MI units were doing in CI were doing and their assignments to do preemptive intel collection in preparation of demonstrations and riots on many major cities. All that really ramped up in the mid-60's.,

Paul, it should be noted that Strike Command was a special organization devoted to organizing and overseeing military actions in regions not covered by the other designated unified military commands of the period, however any action against Cuba would have been conducted under the auspices of Commander in Chief Atlantic, not Strike Command. CINC Atlantic had carried the responsibility for supporting the Bay of Pigs, of all the large scale military planning and exercises relating to contingency preparations for an invasion of Cuba that had gone on since 1960 and for the military operation which was assembled in the event an invasion was ordered in the fall of 1962. I have no explanation for why the 112th MIG communicated with Strike Command but we do now know that elements that were on call to the Command included the armored units out of Fort Hood in Texas - as well as other units around the nation. As Bill and I have also discussed, we have anecdotal information that says an armored brigade was boarded onto trains for deployment to Dallas beginning the afternoon of Nov. 22 but that the order for its movement was canceled early that evening with Johnson back in DC. We also know a good deal about the records that the 112th had on Lee Oswald, including the fact that most of them were newspaper articles from New Orleans and copies of FBI reports generated out of the NO field office and copied to the 112th which had the responsibility for Louisiana, Texas and other states.

David, as to Vallee, I'm doing this from memory and one of these days when it gets warm enough I'm going to box up all my files on folks like Vallee, Beckham, Crisman etc and send them down to Ben for archiving at Baylor so others can dig into them. But until then as I recall, the Secret Service did dig into Vallee in some detail and there was a good deal of information on his Marine Corps service including a lot on his medical/psych problems. Based on that and what I know of the people the CIA did bring on board as paramilitary trainers there is no way Vallee would have passed security screening. The CIA did things on a serious basis and it had ample access to truly experienced military volunteers for assignments. Obviously I can't prove a negative but from what I saw if Vallee had done any training of exiles it would have been on a personal basis, to pursue his own political beliefs not an Agency program. There were some exiles that came down from New York, generally associated with Masferrer, but the records show they were trained by volunteers in Miami, some of them by folks associated with Hemming and his crowd. And none of that really came to anything operationally, I think you would find some material on that in Turner's book and that it was related to the Hati invasion fiasco.... In any event, my personal opinion is that there is a story in Chicago but it involved exiles the FBI was tracking and alerted the Secret Service about....and that is the original Bolden story, not the expanded Vallee story that generally gets interconnected these days. I'm not sure that one even involved a patsy, it may well just have involved killing JFK, there is no doubt at all that one or more exile cliques had that in mind and its very possible that there were multiple threats in play that fall. -- just my opinion, Larry

David, years ago I obtained all the Chicago police, Secret Service and related files on Vallee that I could...including hundreds of pages of ongoing annual inquires the SS made on him simply because he had been a person of interest in 63. Beyond that I looked into the HSCA review of various claims about Vallee/Oswald and found they had chased after claims that did not prove out. Beyond that I made contact with Vallee's relatives who had remained interested in the stories about him and got a lot more details about his activities after his military separation, his move on from Chicago to visit his father in LA, etc. In doing all that I found a lot about how he came to the attention of the Secret Service, how he was investigated and the process by which he was picked up...however I was unable to find anything that corroborated a number of the more sensational elements of what had been written and totally unable to find any of the training activities or even contacts with exiles. He was certainly ultra right and opposed to anything Communist and outspoken about Castro, Cuba, JFK etc but in terms of doing much more than just talking - I couldn't find it. He was a major subject of November Patriots and I've been interested in him for a long time so anything new or corroborative would be appreciated.. Larry

David, could you share any material you have seen that corroborates the recruitment of Vallee by the CIA and his involvement in training Cuban exiles in New York....any time frames for either would also be helpful... -- Larry

Yep, and that's probably a bit of an understatement....

Well Jon I think with a little Google searching you could probably answer that question but you might want to start here: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/06/the-tragedy-of-king-lear-john-lear-and-the-controversy-of-conspiracy/

Jon, just one scenario for your consideration. Let's say the conspirators wanted to ensure that the attack was seen as a conspiracy with political connections. But it is either necessary or at least not an issue that multiple shooters are involved and indeed that the evidence including physical evidence and witness statements reflect multiple shooters. In that scenario physical evidence such as a shot though the windshield - from the front - a shot into the seats of the limo, any sort of shot clearly coming from the front is either a positive thing or no problem. It is only under a lone nut scenario that there would be any concern about either evidence of frontal shots or a firing pattern too rapid for a single shooter.

I sort of thought so Ron, but its really a good one...it should be in the Onion! Well done, I will repeat it as often as possible....

No, I don't think that it was nor that its members considered themselves to be......nor was Oswald generally....other than the manner in which in presented himself in to CPUSA.....which were of course in direct conflict with what he had written in his "manuscript" after his return from Russia.

The historians who have reviewed his books have generally panned them as history....I've studiously avoided coming near them myself. But if that claim about his grandfather is in there then its a lot worse than I thought... Sounds like it would be a great joke or something on the Onion...tell us its a joke Ron; if so its one I want to start telling it....with him I just can't be sure though...

Jon, for practical purposes it was classified as a subversive organization by the FBI and its known officers were supposed to go on the security index. Certainly Oswald's correspondence and claim to head a chapter was known to the Bureau based on their inside informant who was opening mail and providing copies of their communications and mailing list. The FPCC was also on a watch list for military intelligence and the several of the regional MIG's were active in monitoring travel in and out of the country by known members of the FPCC.

There us no evidence at all that Phillips was handling or had ever handled Veciana in a standard case officer role. He had met Veciana in Cuba and worked with his group under a commercial cover until exposed by Cuban intelligence. Later, when Veciana arrived in the US, Phillips reconnected with him and established what may have been a very personal relationship. His work with Veciana and Alpha 66 would have been on direct conflict with Special Group and CIA policy of the period in that Phillips was pushing for Alpha 66 military confrontations with the Russians in Cuba. How he may have continued the relationship is purely speculative at this point. In early 1963 when there was some thought towards the CIA working with Alpha 66, the documents show no sign of any prior contact with the group by Phillips or the CIA rather it had been Army Intelligence who had contacts with Veciana and the group. The question is really whether Phillip's relationship with Viciana was an Agency one at all, and if it was, whether it was reported above Phillips own level. A Phillips meeting with Veciana in Dallas would have been completely outside the operations you listed Paul as that was not at all Phillip's assignment....the closest you might get is a meeting based on Phillips documented interest in recruiting Veciana's cousin who worked in the Cuban diplomatic missions in Mexico City. But it is very important to keep in mind that Phillips entire post Cuba connection to Veciana appears to have been off the books and may well have reflected Phillips own personal anti-Castro agenda.

Dan, this certainly goes into some heavy philosophical areas.....its the sort of thing that I recall chewing up lots of hours in talk sessions at the College student union, only to be resolved later at a local student pub...grin. Would be fun to do that sort of thing again. More seriously though, I think he does have a point and that there is a real issue when he writes about the the felling of persecution being central, systematized to grandiose theories of conspiracy. He may have left out a step though, I think the real risk is going from feelings of helplessness in the face of the larger system (my generation called it the "establishment") to feelings of persecution....then to grand conspiracy. The problem is when you get in that final state, you begin filtering everything against your new world view. Fortunately I had a chance to meet some of the first generation JFK researchers who I think had a healthier answer. The best of them simply called themselves "skeptics", not believers in conspiracy, with the view that you challenge everything equally....what you want to believe, what you don't want to believe and what you don't believe. I think that sort of skepticism can be healthy, not so much on paranoia. Its not as much fun as being young and naive, but that's the breaks. There is a simple acid test for healthy skepticism. If you get three emails, one you intuitively believe, one that agrees with your politics or world view but might be a bit extreme, and one that you find totally implausible - and you fact check all three emails before you forward them - then you are in skeptic space. If not, to quote an old phrase, you are becoming part of the problem rather than the solution. -- and that was way too deep, need to lie down for a bit now..

Ah, and oldie but goodie....I remember all the exchanges with Matthew, finally tracing the plane tail number with the help of a volunteer who worked for the FAA and finally the outreach to the Houston Air Center. Also all the work a few of us did to identity that Cuban exile pilot and deduce who might have been acquiring those type planes at the time. I'll look forward to reading more from Linda.....its a fascinating lead.

Dan, actually I can see some validity in the essay, at least the paragraphs you cited. Having been a teenager in 1963 and an avid Goldwater supporter I can assure you popular political paranoia was alive and well - and certainly as angry as the article described. I particularly like the following though: "It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phe­nomenon significant." It seems an eerily accurate insight into what would happen to American news/talk radio in the 21st Century

Paul, I'm not looking for any particular credit and as I mentioned earlier, the thought of a "disconnected" two phase scenario is certainly not original to me. Many people have discussed the concept that the cover up was a national security exercise, intended to ensure that there was no military response against either the Cubans or Soviets....especially when you had headlines showing up in newspapers on Saturday morning such as that in San Antonio - where the paper bannered the headline "Castro Supporter Shoots President"...that's a paraphrase, I have the paper. Historically the idea is not at all new, the first response out of the power centers in DC (or anywhere else) is always to maintain control, and to minimize public and political pressure to rush off into immediate action of some sort. There exceptions of course, when the emergency fits an existing political agenda like the Gulf of Tonkin incidents fit Johnson's. Control is all important, avoiding knee jerk reaction is all important. In Chapter 15 of SWHT write first of the conspiracy failure in Dallas, the failure to fully patsy Oswald so that there could be no doubt of his motive and connections. Then I write about the elements who rushed to push a Castro conspiracy, and sway public opinion even post-assassination. The next segment is a discussion of the Danger to the Country and the immediate and ongoing high level push back to forestall charges of conspiracy, investigation of conspiracy and to establish the lone nut scenario. I continue that by discussing the pressures from Washington, the almost immediate order to produce an FBI report on Oswald as a lone nut, etc. That occurred at a time when a variety of people ranging from Hoover to the folks in MC were still raising issues of conspiracy and pointing fingers at Cuba. Hoover himself wanted to leave the FBI report open to Cuban connections. Again, I'm not the first person to discuss or propose any of this...its been circulating for years. I simply tried to get it all down in a structured fashion. Readers of this forum over the years know that we have often discussed - and debated - whether on not the coverup (I prefer damage control since damage control can imply that there is no priority on investigating or finding the actual truth, even in secret) was linked or not linked to the conspiracy. Most who believe in a grand conspiracy generally see them as linked; I don't. Part of the reason I don't is the utter ineptness of phase 2 and the horrendous number of loose ends left behind during the medical work, the evidence collection and the "official" reports. The other part is that I've spent a lot of time studying the reaction of the government and the national command authority to crises and damage control/minimization is almost always the order of the day.....nobody in DC really wanted to deal with a possible commie plot or worse yet, a domestic one involving its own CIA officers. Following 9/11 nobody definitely wanted to see any Saudi connections or trace the money that went to the attackers....CYA always rules.

Paul, I'm not sure how you differentiate the following: "However, on 11/22/1963, the JFK Cover-up Team saw right through their Big Lie, and quickly opposed them, on grounds of National Security, by using another Big Lie -- the "Lone Nut" theory." That's exactly what I wrote i.e. that suppression of conspiracy began immediately, from the very top with Johnson and his aides and proceeded through the evening and weekend. I describe it as being iterative and sloppy since nobody was sitting there at 12:30 Dallas with a concrete and well organized suppression plan in place...that indeed would mean the assassination and cover up were tied together. I wouldn't call the cover up team the good guys although as I stated, they were ostensibly acting in the interest of national security. Of course often times that simply means preserving the status quo, keeping the public from panic and maintaining at least an image of control over a crisis. Of course the lies of a Castro plot and a Lone Nut shooter would be mutually exclusive. So how is your scenario different again...the only difference I see is your "keystone cops" remark related to my description of the cover up as an ongoing, damage control process. However if it were otherwise, that would imply it was structured, prepared in advance and well executed - which it certainly was not given how many loopholes we all discuss over and over.

Paul, all I can say is that either I was terribly unclear or Chapter 15 in SWHT did not get across the message that was intended. To clarify, in that chapter I present my view of an iterative cover up, not pre- planned but moving very quickly and ungracefully (and leaving all sorts of loose ends) while suppressing any real investigation based on the idea that those who were doing so most definitely wanted to ensure that real signs of conspiracy were not pursued. I do allow for the possibility that LBJ might have had some particular interest in suppression due to limited pre-knowledge of something being planned against JFK - but in no sense being personally involved in organizing the actual conspiracy itself or the attack in Dallas. I specifically call out instances in which evidence of conspiracy, pointing towards the involvement of CIA officers, served to make senior individuals (and offices at JMWAVE) hold back off from digging into or exposing something they were afraid existed....a conspiracy involving a personnel within a security agency....the same view that David Phillips ultimately expressed. As part of chapter 15, I also detail a series of attempts from those promoting the Castro conspiracy to bring forth more more evidence pointing the finger at Castro and Cuban sponsorship, and how those in DC just kept knocking that down or ensuring it went nowhere. The whole intent was to portray two distinct conspiracies, with different individuals, fighting against each other post-assassination, with the folks in DC winning based on their power base and media control. If I didn't effectively get that across in the book I repeat it here, of course the reasons and evidence for that view are detailed in the book itself.

Tommy, I actually don't read all of Paul's posts routinely any longer myself. I will respond to questions from others but I have no intention of getting drawn into dialogs on the Walker scenario because Paul can continue those endlessly....in a very civil fashion I should add. It just doesn't go anywhere with me because Paul accepts a variety of individuals and sources I don't find credible or reliable and we have been over all that before. On the particular points you mentioned: "2.0) If Oswald was in contact with Anti-Castro Cuban Exiles in Dallas, Texas as well, then what can we infer from this? Larry, you wonder if Oswald was a dangle to Anti-Castro Gun Runners, but without any guess about the precise scenario. Martino thought Oswald was still in touch with those two guys from NOLA, but also perhaps others more normal in Dallas. So you wonder, Larry, whether Oswald was planning on meeting someone the Texas Theater -- possibly a Cuban Exile -- but without any guess about the precise scenario." Anyone who has read SWHT knows that whenever possible I prefer to just present data from sources I have personally vetted to my satisfaction. In that regard as early as the first chapter I present Martino's remarks about Oswald being told to meet someone at the theatre in the context of the faux Castro agents he had contacted in New Orleans and followed in the initial stages of setting up action in the Washington area in Sept. That is not a guess about a scenario, it is information from Martino. Martino did not know many details about the actual operation in Dallas and that is where he left it. Later in the book I "speculate" multiple times that the plan was to move Oswald out of Dallas, on towards Cuba and to kill him en route with additional evidence pointing towards Cuban influence. Actually in Chapter 15 I go out on the limb and give some detailed "speculation/scenarios" on the whole operation, including what I see as the details of the actual attack - and where the plan fell apart. But those are simply scenarios, largely based off Martino's basic information and expanded by additional details. As to Paul's second point, actually in the book I do lay out a scenario in which Oswald continued as a dangle in Dallas, trying to involve himself with exiles engaged in gun purchases and I explore that - as well as the House on Harlandale, Masen and Ruby's links to gun deals - in considerable detail. I've even speculated separately on how that could have put Oswald in touch with Odio separately as she was also exploring gun and weapons purchases. But of course all that is speculation. I have to admit I have been frustrated recently to see Paul post about his essentially being the first to come up with a scenario in which the cover up was disconnected from the attack. That idea has been around for a long time and I explore it in great detail in SWHT, including virtually a day by day detailing of how the conspirators tried to make their story stick while those in power won out with a cover up, submerging any talk of conspiracy and Cuba and essentially blocking any real investigation at all, much less one leading to conspiracy. Of course that's just my view of things but certainly it deserves to be recognized as both a scenario and speculation. I'm sure Paul will respond but I will leave him to it, what I have is in SWHT and NEXUS and Paul says he has read both in detail so he had my best thoughts on the subject already.

Tommy, would have to look into Bill Bright but I spent a lot of time on Cain and much of what you read about him in MC is urban legend class stuff. He did some limited training in how to place bugs for the Mexican police but then approached the Agency there offering his services and they took a pass because of background check issues. They shared that with the MC police and as far as I could tell Cain's actual activities in MC were limited and pretty low level. Simpich has all the documents on how the taps and the tel switch systems were set up and none of that involved Cain. I think you would definitely be talking about someone within the CIA staff in MC or the trainers from JMWAVE who would have the details on the taps - its something Phillips should certainly have been aware of ...the other part of the equation is having the background info on Oswald and Duran. I'll leave it to Bill S. to offer a better opinion than I, he's far more up on the CI games being played in MC at that point in time than I am.

Tommy, the call could have been made from someplace else. If the tape was made off the Soviet line at their embassy, you just pick up the incoming call which could come from anywhere. With the equipment in use then its very doubtful the calling number would be captured so you just know is somebody called....don't know from where. On the other hand, if the taps on the Cuban building worked the way we think they did, somebody at one of the safe houses could have used their phone to dial out using the Cuban's number - since the tap was off the Cuban telephone lines it would just look like an outgoing call. Actually if you get just a bit more technical, somebody who knew all the ins and outs of the tap could intercept the tap itself somewhere in between and do the same thing, again appearing to be the Cuban tel. number. Unfortunately it means that both Duran and Oswald could have been impersonated - but only by somebody really inside the CIA tap operation who knew all the ins and outs. What makes that interesting is at the time, with some real quick inquiry on the tapes and calls, the CIA could have figured out how it went down while we cannot at this distance. You can see if they determined that say both Duran and Oswald were impersonated by somebody, it would literally have thrown them into a panic since it would have meant a massive compromise at several levels. As to the languages, I find it puzzling as well, no really good ideas on that I'm afraid.