Larry Hancock

It think it would be reasonable to at least consider a Russian speaker doing international business (he was a consulting petroleum engineer) as a potential "CIA" source (door number 2 in your post), in this case especially one who volunteered to teach Russian classes for a local library (not all that typical in 1963 Fort Worth/Dallas but where Oswald came across him). Frankly I would have expected the FBI to have been more likely to have recruited him as a source given how well networked he appears to have been in the Russian expat community.

First off I think this might be a bit excessive in thinking of getting information from Oswald in terms of a structured "debrief" - or somehow suggesting that the Minsk radio factory had been a specific target of intelligence collection or had some strategic value other than a factory that did do military work in one section (as most all of them did). The factory and actually everything about how Oswald had been handled in the Soviet Union would all have been of interest as part of domestic intelligence collection from a US citizen coming back from overseas. Its long been rumored that someone from the Agency did meet and talk with Oswald in NYC, very probably under a cover - but Oswald did not pass on the notes he had smuggled back then, he took them all to Dallas and compiled notes and experience and diary into a partial manuscript (it might have been much longer if he had not run out of money). Did Gregory encourage him to do that...maybe, could Gregory have suggested that he do that if he was a source for DO but that would have been off on the timing because Oswald contacted the stenographer on June 18 and did not contact Gregory until June 26. If I'm right on those dates then Oswald might have been following up on a conversation in New York and immediately moved to put his material together almost as soon as he got to Fort Worth. Best guess, somebody contacted him under cover in New York and at least relayed some minimal information from him on his time in Russia....Oswald had hoped he would be approached by the press but was not, as far as we know, but he was very willing to talk and had even prepared notes for himself to do that while he was on the ship coming back.

Doesn't look like a newbie post to me Gerry.. Unfortunately I've gotten to the point where unless I can see some documents with routing and sign off information on them I am uncomfortable with reaching conclusions. As I posted above I suspect in 63 Domestic Contacts and not under Barnes but indeed under DDI. Given Barnes problems after the Bay of Pigs its sort of hard to see him remaining under DDP but possible I suppose - certainly if Domestic Ops is the way I envision it then it would be supporting field operations overseas so that would make some sense. In that event moving him inside DDP would not really have been a demotion, just getting him out of the spotlight. In reference to Moore and debriefing Oswald via De Mohrenschildt keep in mind that De Mohrenschildt's first visit to Oswald was some time after his return, Oswald had already made Russian community contacts and been introduced to a number of folks in the Fort Worth community before De Mohrenschildt visited him - and Oswald's manuscript had already typed well before that time.

Bob, the best guess I can make from the 1964 chart is that Barnes would have been moved under DDI....to keep him away from DDP for one thing, I'd love to see the charts that go under Office of Operations and Office of Basic Intelligence.

Gerry, I would need to see a lot more Domestic Contacts / Domestic Operations documents to offer an answer - my impression has been that they were separate groups under the same management at HQ but that is only an impression. I would assume they would be compartmentalized as Domestic Operations would be supporting a lot of highly covert activities - quite different than Domestic Contacts. Email me a few dozen documents on both and I'll call in some help and give a shot at coming up with an answer, sounds like fun...email document links to larryjoe@westok.net

Yes, that is the second Red Bird aircraft story which I posted about in the other thread....as for Oswald and plans to fly out, see the extensive detail in the paper David and I did: http://dealeyplazauk.com/jfk-assassination/red-bird-airfield-leads/

Well being circumspect and all....grin....I also need to point out that there were two aircraft incidents at Red Bird, one involving the transport aircraft and the Cuban pilot and one involving a private plane and the attempt to rent it for along distance flight the week of the assassination, with an individual described as closely resembling Oswald present at the time. The two are quite separate, one with implications for the attack on JFK, the second with implications for framing Oswald. David and I plan to present both stories at the Lancer conference in November and either would lend itself to some long talks in the hallways...or the bar...

It has and I cover that in great detail in my book In Denial....Bissell lied up and down the chain of command and the guys below him confirmed that...

January did not know the pilots name or was it given to him....our research paper in the link above posits who we suspect were the two individuals at Red Bird.

The exchange paraphrased by January was basically that the Cuban exiles wanted revenge against both Kennedy's for what happened at the Bay of Pigs and that while JFK would be killed in Dallas they planned to "get" RFK as well...I don't want to derail this thread but if anyone wants extreme detail on the Red Bird affair: http://dealeyplazauk.com/jfk-assassination/red-bird-airfield-leads/

Sometimes it hard fro me to keep up with Jeff and the lawyers both...grin.

The press conference will not be streamed live online, not sure if it will be captured in some fashion.

Thanks Robert, and Executives from many of the largest companies personally volunteered to help the CIA using company assets in a variety of ways - receiving both commercial intelligence back on occasion and even sometimes briefings on planned operations in advance. It was considered a patriotic duty and I imagine profitable "networking" at the time....not totally unlike what happened on the media side of things as well. Quid pro Quo. We often think of Bissell being involved in such things, or Angleton but I was surprised to the extent that J.C. King, Western Hemisphere chief, was involved in very high level business contacts - but under Dulles it was all just SOP it seems.

My impression would be that it would be setting up companies to handle supply, support, shipping, basically infrastructure activities for deniable operations overseas. The CIA handled that two ways - purchase off shore and ship off shore to foreign operations but in some instances things and people needed commercial or professional covers to work in offshore operations. Barnes had done that sort of thing before, setting up commercial companies doing business say in Africa and using them as covers for shipments of various sorts. So not foreign operatives in the US but covers for US operations overseas ie Domestic Operations. In Shadow warfare I write about Barnes and Bissell being involved in that sort of thing during the fifties.

NSRP's most practical connection to the military was that members in the Guard or Reserve, especially in southern states, managed to steal weapons for their own use - or for the Minuteman - or for Klans they were members of as well.

Paul, of course we can't know if "all" the documents that ever existed have been released but we have had fair sized numbers of documents on several of the folks you mentioned for many years - I had personnel files on Hunt over a decade ago. But no idea what the "universe" of those files was originally. I've listed J Walton Moore as a major item on the MFF legal action as an example of files which we should have - as far as I know none have been released for 1962/63 but its an area I've not specifically visited for quite some time so I might well be behind the curve on that. Frankly any of his day to day working files would tell us a good deal about Domestic Contacts (as was pointed out above, there were two discrete domestic groups but we don't know that some officers in the field did not wear both hats...not uncommon in the FBI or CIA for that matter).

As Pat said, this has been discussed for some time and I think it brings into play the fact that Domestic Operations had a fairly broad remit (legal or not) at the time. Ostensibly it did not "spy" on foreign agents - the CIA was to hand that off to the FBI and we have concrete examples of that, one being "Tumbleweed". Domestic operations did a good deal of work establishing domestic "covers" for foreign operations - which was actually one of Barnes' long time specialties and possibly the reason he was given the assignment. It also identified and maintained contacts with American's with international contacts or those traveling abroad who could be used as sources or assets. Which is why De Morenschildt was cultivated as a source for Domestic Operations. I've always been curious as to what Divisions actually used Clay Shaw. The same would be said for Meheu and his operations against foreign diplomats. That may even be revealed in more current documents; I admit to never going back to take a look at either Shaw or Meheu in that respect. And of course J Walton Moores files remain largely a mystery - they would give us a very interesting insight into Domestic Operations activities.

Gerry, all this is pure speculation other than we know that there was a real threat reported against JFK on the Texas trip - it came from out of Fort Worth and from the NSRP. The FBI certainly did consider the NSRP and the Minutemen as militants, and involving in gathering weapons for attacks US government' the FBI was were actively monitoring them and tracking actual plans from the NSRP which involved training rifle teams and attacking JFK among others.

You both have my vote....

I wish there was Paul, the problem is the book is extremely comprehensive and while it gives a summary of the whole community - which post 9/11 is huge - it explores each group in terms of its org chart, divisions, functions and tasking so its immense. You can't get a full feel for the relative role the CIA plays in the whole apparatus these days without comparing it to the whole apparatus. I did try to capture some of that transition in my book Shadow Warfare, where I show how the to some extent CIA was compartmentalized into JSOC and other military operations in a support role. It still does HUMINT but so do other agencies like NSA, it still does analysis but so do others. You get a bit of a feel for it when you look at the office of Director of National Intelligence and realize that the groups in that office alone sit on top of 18 other agencies: https://www.dni.gov/

Ben, I think I've said this before but in answer to your question it would be best to look at the current position of the CIA in the context of the whole intelligence community and for that I seriously recommend: The US Intelligence Community by Jeffrey Richelson Seventh Edition, 2016. Conversations about the position of the various agencies and their influence really need this sort of concrete reference to be credible. And yes, being really informed is expensive grin. https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Intelligence-Community-Jeffrey-Richelson/dp/0813349184 The U.S. Intelligence Community 7th Edition

Mike, all I can do is to refer you to my book In Denial which presents the Cuba Project under Eisenhower and Cuban operations under JFK in great detail - based on the most recent available documents, I think it fairly supports all the points I made here and I'm always happy to deal with them individually - however its far too much of a complex subject, including the sourcing to deal with here so I will leave the support for the remarks to the book. My reference to "the same thing as in Viet Nam" is his strategy of handing off covert military operations to the military - something that emerged from the debacle at the Bay of Pigs and which is fully documented for both Vietnam and in the directives and tasking for the JCS, related to Cuba. Something fully underway as of the summer of 63. Strangely enough my position on JFK is far from what you would describe as "making him a peacenik", he was possibly the most "balanced" president in the last Century. In fact that is what triggered much of the opposition to him, much of which I recall from hearing it in person.

The planning is that it will be at the Hotel Lorenzo but as the contract has not been signed yet that is not confirmed so its not been formally announced - nor have the special rates been set up for reservations. Just a bit early.... https://lorenzohotel.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpveaiu34_wIVw0h_AB34-wMjEAAYASAAEgIPkfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Nope, pretty sure it was Johnson in regard to the Garrison inquiry but it might have come up in the HSCA as well....that should be in SWHT but I could not tell you where off the top of my head.

JFK and RFK were clearly different people and to a large extent JFK had compartmentalized himself from both RFK and Fitzgerald in regard to Cuban ops in 63 - which is why JFK was still considering approval for certain sabotage operations while Wave, Morales, and Shackley were letting Commando Mambeses go ahead with attacks and sabotage on their own and Fitzgerald was even reporting on it to the Special Group and the interdepartmental oversight team which RFK was involved with - but not to JFK. In contrast, JFK had ordered the Joint Chiefs to begin planning to take over all covert ops against Cuba from the CIA and that was in progress, the same thing he had done in Vietnam. Even while JFK was beginning a negotiations track with Castro he was allowing the covert ops track to proceed - this stuff is not black and white and JFK was a very pragmatic person.