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. 

Well we know the FBI destroyed one Oswald item in Dallas and actually rewrote and altered a page in his notebook to conceal an contact with him by the FBI; I seen no reason they would not have destroyed any files beyond the minimum required to document his one contact while in jail (and I'm not sure I trust the report on that interview either).

Equally importantly, DeBrueys was given an exemption on his testimony (Presidential as I recall) which meant that he could only be asked a couple of very innocuous questions.  My guess is that Oswald may actually have at least wanted to provide further information on his a variety of folks supporting the anti-Castro Cubans...which leads to the real question of why he was still apparently associating with some of those peripheral figures as late as the Clinton incident - well after his exposure?   Anyone got a good answer for that?

At a minimum Oswald should have been the files as a subversive/CI "source" given that he had directly contacted and had been interviewed by the FBI on at least one and possibly  more occasions.   Of course if he managed to actually stay  inside a targeted group he might have become eligible to become a PCI but he would have to be inside enough to see illegal activities and serve as a potential witness to them.  Its pretty clear Oswald initially set himself up to inform on the anti-Castro Cubans but after the leafleting its unclear how much more he would have been able to offer....which leaves the Clinton incident a total mystery to me at least given that he had been totally "exposed" by that time?
 

I have no operational background in telex (telephone and data yes, but not specifically telex) but I doubt that the FBI would not have run a dedicated telex network using leased lines and with machines that were set to recognize the real sender from its network address.  If was not uncommon for federal agencies to use their own leased lines for communications, taking themselves outside the general dial up, public network for even telephone calls so I would expect the same for telex. The idea that any public network telex machine could have accessed FBI machines would seem very strange to me.  In reading the following description keep in mind that there were three types of "networks" operating over the Bell system lines - public dial up access, commercial leased lines with dedicated access number set at the telephone switches which could be accessed though an operator or specific dial code and dedicated lines straight to a local telephone exchange or even a private exchange inside a building/facility.

"The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages.^[

I'd suggest looking into Telex communications in detail Gerry:

A major advantage of telex is that the receipt of the message by the recipient could be confirmed with a high degree of certainty by the "answerback", which is a retransmission-control enquiry character. At the beginning of the message, the sender would transmit a WRU (Who aRe yoU) code, and the recipient machine would automatically initiate a response which was usually encoded in a rotating drum with pegs, much like a music box. The position of the pegs sent an unambiguous identifying code to the sender, so the sender could verify connection to the correct recipient. The WRU code would also be sent at the end of the message, so a correct response would confirm that the connection had remained unbroken during the message transmission. This gave telex a major advantage over group 2 fax, which had no inherent error-checking capability.

The usual method of operation was that the message would be prepared off-line, using paper tape. All common telex machines incorporated a five-hole paper-tape punch and reader. Once the paper tape had been prepared, the message could be transmitted in minimum time. Telex billing was always by connected duration, so minimizing the connected time saved money. However, it was also possible to connect in "real-time", where the sender and the recipient could both type on the keyboard and these characters would be immediately printed on the distant machine.

Given that a special machine would be required, with its own identification, connected by subscription to a special network it would not be something I would describe as a "hoax" if it had been done, certainly it would be a federal crime.

The book goes into detail on the exchange of several letters between the two, giving the text of some of them....which pretty clearly refer to one or more things they had been involved with but were not going to talk about openly even in letters.  Angleton seemed to have been more circumspect and as I recall he made the outreach - which is interesting giving earlier books on the CIA that tried to portray the two men as enemies or competitors.

We do know that Angleton assisted Harvey with the executive action program, at Harvey's request, and even provided some support for Harvey though his own contacts in Cuba, possibly diplomatic personnel in Havana - but we have no details. 

In Tipping Point I detail the reasons why I think it was Angleton's conversations with Harvey that helped stimulate plotting against JFK by WAVE and anti-Castro Cubans. That certainly would be something that they would not want to openly discuss, even if neither had been directly involved in the actual Dallas plot.

Certainly none of that is a substitute for actually getting and studying the book itself, which I highly recommend.

Gerry, as I recall this was a reconstruction from memory of the telex by Walter, not the original itself.  I go into a number of reasons why he is credible and the telex was likely very real in SWHT...  

Of course destruction of such a document after the assassination would be very consistent with destruction of the Secret Service JFK fall trip records during the period of the ARRB...even though it i is now asserted that some of  those may have survived after all - I remain confused on that question myself.

The FBI was monitoring several groups that would fit that description, starting with the Minutemen and the NSRP and extending on to the anti-Castro Cubans they were continually trying to shut down on weapons buys and raids.

However the most obvious link here would be a report to the Secret Service at approximately that same date which came from Fort Worth, and was based in remarks from an active NSRP member that they were going to kill JFK soon, implying on his Texas trip.

No problem with more detail on Harvey at Berlin Operation Base Paul, I have a good bit about that in SWHT 2010 including the appendix on Crossing Paths in the CIA - but beyond that I would recommend an excellent bio that anyone should read on Harvey - one which brings out his extended relationship to Angleton including letters shared shortly before Harvey's death that refer to the special secret the two men shared:  https://www.amazon.com/Flawed-Patriot-Rise-Legend-Harvey/dp/1574889915/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZU5ODARMT7YC&keywords=william+harvey+cia&qid=1688350087&s=books&sprefix=william+harvey+cia%2Cstripbooks%2C272&sr=1-1

Joe, I will answer the Hunt question and do so to some extent already did in my second edition of SWHT.   Hunt's story is bogus and the genesis of its content - which was nothing more than a sketchy org chart with a handful of names - was in a response to a genuine offer to pay him the million dollars he had teased the press about over the  years, claiming he knew about the assassination.   The offer came from an entertainment figure who had the money and it was genuine.  After some two years with Hunt dancing around and providing no details he finally made out the little chart with names, giving nothing to back it up or to substantiate his recruitment by Morales. At that point the entertainment figure bailed and Hunt eventually gave the names to his son. 

We had a lengthy presentation on the details of all that at a Lancer conference years ago - from one of the folks directly involved with Hunt and the entertainer.  I've gone though this several times in various places but nobody wants to hear that it was just one more case of Hunt being a talker and an adventure writer - as it turned out what he really wanted was to get the entertainer to put together a book deal for him because Hunt was pretty well broke at the time.

Now having said that I would not at all doubt that Hunt heard some gossip about the conspiracy and CIA officer involvement, even to the point of some of the names, like Morales.  But Hunt was generally considered a blabber mouth by the field guys in Miami (where he had already been involved in more than one security issue),  in one document Morales even comments that Hunt would spill his guts over Watergate because nobody could trust Hunt or his poor trade-craft.  With that endorsement its especially hard to think Hunt's story of Morales recruiting him seriously...

  - that's all I have to say here - but you do have an answer from me at least...

On your question Paul, yes Morales was recruited from the Army into the CIA and that shows up in his file.  However in addition to that he had separate covers with the Army and of course after retirement actually went to work as a consultant to the Joint Chiefs, attached to SACSA staff.  As far as withholding the Hunt file, one thing I can say is that particular operational document would likely have been separated from his regular personnel file, parts of which we got long ago and I can say that bits  and pieces of officer files were released over time with basic personnel files coming first and then documents related to operations, covers, crypts etc.

I would very much doubt that CIA operations files were hidden within the Army somewhere, historically all the services acted in competition with each other, especially in the area of intelligence.  The even treated sources independently so someone would be a separate source for military intelligence (even different commands) and then again a source for CIA, FBI etc.  I even came across an FBI file which referred to Angleton as a source, giving him an FBI source designation.

You might find CIA operations in Army files to the extent that it was a joint operation or that one of the services was supporting a CIA covert op - there was a some of that, mostly with the Air Force in the fifties but relatively little with the Army, one of the exceptions being the original Cuba project where the Army did some training, as did the Navy, for the project.

I can see where Harvey or Shackley might have  crossed paths with Gahlen at Berlin Operations Base but I have no idea how or where they might have been associated after Germany and have seen nothing that would give a clue on that...

Just for reference and to provide context, its necessary to note that CIA operations staff officers assigned to field activities were often given employment covers extending to false residence addresses and mail "backstops".  That cover would include related paper materials such as drivers licenses and other ID including employment ID related to the cover - Hunt himself referred to the more personal material that would be carried as "pocket litter".  Such covers could be minimal if the mission were short term but much more extensive if it was to be an actual field assignment of months or years.  Some covers had to be arranged with the agency or company being used as the cover - with the Army, USAID, State Department etc.  Cover ID could be done entirely by the CIA itself or through an  agreement with the cover company/agency.  As an example Morales had covers assigned with the Army, the State Department, USAID etc. over time.

Of course things were even easier if the cover was with a CIA proprietary company or even a cooperative commercial firm not actually operated by the Agency.

The practice could also be used in pieces by the services or other agencies - for example early military personnel sent to SE Asia were given mail backstops in the Philippines to receive letters from the US so as to conceal their actual assignment to Vietnam. 

But in reference to documentation on CIA officer missions and activities, that would remain with the CIA, anything in the cover agency or company files would be related to the cover identify.  And you would expect to find material on the covers and back stops in the CIA files on the individual - which we do, its where I found all the information I mentioned above on Morales. The CIA worked at fooling others but internally it had to keep true if confidential information so as not to fool itself and to make sure it could operate like effectively and keep track of things like travel and expense, time of service, retirement etc.

Gerry,  the CIA was actually pretty bureaucratic and actually controlled its funds pretty tightly - you can even find the expense reports for ZRIFLE including travel and wages.  As an example, even the first Castro assassination project with Roselli had to be funded and that required telling at least three officers so they would approve the funds out of their budgets.  I spent a lot of time on Shadow Warfare trying to provide and in depth overview of real life CIA covert covers and dirty practices (including political assassinations and murders at all levels) that have actually been investigated and documented. 

Its really good to have a solid grasp of what laws govern CIA operations as compared to military operations;  the CIA actually had to reach an understanding with DOJ that officers involved in murder would not be prosecuted if it were associated with a sanctioned mission - otherwise they certainly could be charged and prosecuted, even if it involved the murder of a CIA employee or asset.

Now of course insiders who got involved with illegal dealings - including CIA guys, or DEA guys or ATF guys - who got personally dirty and had their own external sources of cash no doubt could afford murders or bribes or whatever related to their side business...so could CIA surrogates who did the same once they had gotten dirty as well.

We  know that several of the CIA Cubans circa 62 onward through Iran Contra got involved in drugs, weapons and other dirty business and took out competitors with bombings and murders....Miami was famous for that for awhile.  But that is a different story entirely.

All I can tell you is based on the actual assassinations - and murders - that we know about, the ones involving CIA officers most often had those officers working with people who they trusted and who were also deniable i.e. their surrogates, not paid hit men who would have posed a variety of risks and who would have been more difficult to control after the fact.

While we can document cases of elimination attempts, several of which failed, they involved third parties and poison, with the criminal asset delivering the poison but not necessarily actually dosing the target - that was left to local surrogates.  We see that in Iran, in Cuba and actually those instances were "signed off" at very high levels inside the CIA (not at Director level but usually one step lower at Hemisphere level) but never authorized above the CIA - I cover examples of this in my book Shadow Warfare. 

As to actual assassinations with weapons, that was almost always done through CIA surrogates with rebel or revolutionary groups the CIA was supporting - that provided for deniability, worked in some cases and failed in others.  The Executive Action program we talk so much about with Harvey was actually a  new concept which is why we have his notes on how such a thing might even be put together - again I cover that in the book, it reflects the problem of acquiring assets and is why Harvey turned to Angleton for advice, with their first thought to go to an allied intelligence group as a way to ensure deniability - the British turned them down flat.

While using criminals for everything from burglary to wire taps to strong arm acts and break ins was done both domestically and internationally by Staff D (and sometimes personally by Angleton it appears) "hired guns", as so common in the movies, was not at all standard practice in CIA field operations given that they almost always were working with surrogates they could encourage or manipulate into assassinations - and actually the surrogates were often the ones to take the idea to their case officers rather than the other way around.

There are some good history resources on SOG - I would recommend Black Ops Vietnam; The Operational History of MACVSOG.

 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Ops-Vietnam-Operational-History/dp/1591143217