Larry Hancock

The HSCA investigated that charge in detail and recovered the records from New York, it proved to be a totally unsubstantiated rumor. You should be able to find the HSCA reports on line.

Paul, Hunt preferred to hire former FBI agents out of the Dallas office for his company security activities. Rothermel and John Curington were employed to conduct surveillance and telephone bugging of Hunt employees - not sure but both may have been former FBI. Former FBI agents seem to have been all over the place, the question is always whether they retired or just irritated Hoover....

Robert, very interesting information....not to be a stickler but is their some primary source - courthouse records, plat maps etc - that Walt references, and is it Rothermel or Ragsdale, that would make a serious difference. The body was actually found on the side of the road, not out in a pasture or something like that. I've reviewed the police reports on it. As I recall Hunt (the oil one) sent Rothermel and another security guy who had been working for him to scope out the Garrison investigation. Anyway, a primary source would be really helpful. Larry

I would add that a number of Eisenhower's senior Generals were publicly outspoken against he and his defense politics. They accused him literally of gutting the national defense. Read their articles and it sounds likes the same military diatribes against JFK. Ike was so mad about it hat he actually asked the Justice Department to confirm that he could court marshal them even if they were retired - as many did. Unlike more modern, and acquisition, DOJ opinions, he was told he couldn't do that ...and it really upset him.

Dawn, I'm hesitant to go into too much detail on health in a public forum, Email me at larryjoe@westok.net and I can give you a bit more. In general, Deb has been hampered for several years with severe asthma which comes and goes, she can be fine one day and going to the emergency room the next. That happened at the conference where she had to miss the entire last day. When the bad attacks hit she can end up in the hospital and then ordered to bed rest for weeks. What makes it really bad, when she felt good she would want to start all sorts of things and then bingo, in a day or so she wouldn't even be able to do email for a week. Ultimately that was a big factor since he precluded her getting into new publishing projects and sometimes finishing ones she had started. Same thing with keeping the forum going. Last year I think she had at least two or more emergency room episodes which were quite critical and she had so many battles with the city about the anniversary I think that really wore her down as well. There are some complicating health problems as well, plus she - as a grandmother - is raising two teenage girls, long story there but that demands a great deal of time and effort in itself. So, running JFK Lancer on a day to day basis as she had in the past really is not an option. She has had conversations with a handful of folks who would like to keep it going and perhaps even run some mini conferences but that just had not come together yet. Anyone getting into it faces fronting some money and that is always a nervous thing. The 50th conference was fantastic as I think the attendees will tell you but Deb spent her career in retail marketing and always wants to do everything right for her events - and that can get very expensive. At this point I think its just unclear, JFK Lancer may continue, it may not. Same for a Dallas conference. As time passes the odds get a bit worse I'm afraid. Three or four folks who really wanted to keep it going would be enough, just don't know if that would jell; Deb of course desperately wants it to go on and might be able to help a bit but for the past several years its been all her and that just doesn't work anymore. -- Larry

Ken, the answer as far as Lancer goes is relatively simple. Last year I know of at least two major hacks that were conducted against the Lancer forum and the Lancer website - at least two of them affected file links off my web site as well. Each time Debra managed to bring the forum and its links back up, somebody hacked it again. In defense she left the forum down and reworked the basic web site, we reworked my site as well. At that point Debra, being in ill health, simply let any work on the forum go. Her health continues to be poor and at this point she is working with a handful of folks who may, or may not decide to continue JFK Lancer. If they do it will be their decision to try and revive the forum and to incur the programming expense to do so...and either address better security, move to a new host etc. There was no decision to junk the threads, someone consciously and repeatedly hacked the forum and kept taking it and the links down. Possibly someone will make the decision to try and restore it but that will be up to them, many of the older forums were private efforts and frankly forum operators can just get sick and tired of the flack....or just plain sick. Oh, to be clear, JFK Lancer for the last few years was literally Debra Conway. She did it all, a few of us helped with chores such as Jerry on moderation and Stu and I with the conference but we were simply volunteers. -- Larry

I should have been more clear Tommy, that would have been "according to Martino". I would have to check the documents again to see if he specifically said "shooter". Then again we have to be cautious and remember that Martino's own first hand knowledge was very limited; he had simply served as a courier. That was part of the compartmentalization. Of course that never prevents gossip afterwards and much of the limited detail he described to his friends was probably second hand. At the time I was writing the book I was unaware of the notes on the HSCA interview - that may have made it into the final edition somewhere, possibly as a footnote. SWHT was done in three iterations over about 5 years as I learned more so I can't claim it is nearly as structured as it should be....I tried to do better with NEXUUS. My opinion at the moment is that there was a contact person in the theater, at best he was released with the others and possibly he was seized going out the rear and interrogated. If he was and Fritz learned anything at all it surely would never have made it out during the "shut down", perhaps Hoover had very good reason to worry about how much the DPD officers were talking...

Tommy, we have no hard evidence that a shooter or anyone else was waiting for Oswald. What we do have is two statements from Martino's friends who related that he told him that Oswald was supposed to make a contact in the theater with someone who had been representing themselves as a Castro agent to him. Nothing at all was ever said about the individual being a shooter. In addition to that, we have a document which has been mentioned before which is a HSCA interview with a Dallas police motorcycle officer who was a close friend of Fritz. On that typed interview is a handwritten note, apparently from the HSCA saff member relating additional comments made by the officer directing them to Fritz for details about Martino having served as a courier, bringing money to Dallas for the shooting. We have never been able to track down who did the interview or who might have made the notes. I personally have talked to a couple of DPD officers who told me that the Chief knew far more than he ever said to the public, including the fact that his investigation had been shut down from Washington. That's all I can give you, not a body of evidence I'd take to court but internally consistent on the face of things... which is about all that can be said for it. Larry

I do remember that observation David and its one of the things that makes me think that he didn't personally know the person he was supposed to connect with...I recall that he sat by possibly three or four people or at least moved into the vicinity of different people but I did not recall a pregnant women..... of course by that time he may have been so stressed that he was behaving a bit irrationally.....if he did pull his gun on the police officer it suggests he had hit sort of a panic mode....understandable no doubt....

Tommy, I'll do my best....replies in caps below: I was looking through SWHT again today and noticed a couple of things I'd like to comment on or ask you about. 1) On page 27 you write " Oswald was part of the plan, but not a shooter ('hit man' was Martino's term) and was supposed to meet an exile contact at the Texas Theater (sic). Oswald's understanding was that he was being taken out of the country. The actual plan was to kill him-- apparently outside the country, and very possibly in a location and fashion that would tie him to Cuba and Castro. The killing of Officer Tippit was definitely not part of this plan and indeed aborted the contact. One of the shooters was actually waiting in the Texas Theatre to contact Oswald and was released by the police after Oswald's arrest. [...] " Questions: A) What part of "the plan" did Oswald think he was performing or pretending to be performing? I THINK THAT WHILE IN DALLAS OSWALD WAS CONTINUING A PATTERN THAT HE HAD WORKED INTO IN NEW ORLEANS, THAT OF APPROACHING A VARIETY OF INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS AND LETTING THEM MAKE - OR NOT MAKE - APPROACHES TO HIM, IN OTHER WORDS ACTING AS A CLASSIC DANGLE. SOME OF THAT MAY HAVE BEEN AT HIS OWN INITIATIVE BUT HE MAY ALSO HAVE RECEIVED THAT GENERAL DIRECTION IN HIS CONTACTS WITH THE FBI SUBVERSIVE GROUP AGENT IN NEW ORLEANS. AS FAR AS DALLAS GOES, HE CONTINUED TO BE APPROACHED BY CUBAN EXILES, PERHAPS THE SAME GUYS FROM NEW ORLEANS OR POSSIBLY EVEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND THEY KEPT TALKING TO HIM AS IF THEY WERE CASTRO AGENTS - AS THEY HAD BEFORE. WHAT THEY TOLD HIM ABOUT NOVEMBER 22 IS BEYOND ME OTHER THAN IT SEEMS LIKELY THEY TOLD HIM THAT THEY WERE GOING TO HELP HIM GET TO CUBA AND HE WAS PLANNING ON LEAVING TOWN THAT DAY. IF MARINA HAD AGREED TO MOVE BACK IN WITH HIM HE MIGHT HAVE BLOWN IT OFF BUT SINCE SHE DIDN'T..... I HAVE NO IDEA IF HE THOUGHT HE WOULD GO AND COME BACK SECRETLY, THAT IS VERY POSSIBLE AS HE HAD CONTINUALLY EXPLORED WAYS TO GET IN AND OUT OF CUBA. THE ONE THING I'M SURE OF FROM HIS BEHAVIOR IS THAT HE HAD NO CLUE THE PRESIDENT WOULD ACTUALLY BE SHOT AND SEVERELY INJURED OR KILLED. B ) Do you think Oswald was an actual conspirator, or was he an undercover agent who was "playing along" with and monitoring people whom he had been led to believe were pro-Castro agents intent on killing JFK? FROM THE ABOVE YOU CAN SEE MY PICK WOULD BE "B" C) If Oswald was "part of the plan" but not a shooter, why then did he think he was going to be taken out of the country? HE HAD BEEN RECRUITED AS A CASTRO SUPPORTER, HE MAY HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS TO GET HIM TO CUBA TO DO SOME PROPAGANDA THING OR HE MAY HAVE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO BE PREPARED TO OPERATE UNDERCOVER FOR CASTRO - REMEMBER, WHEN HE WROTE THE CPUSA BEFORE THE WASHINGTON DC PLOT ABORTED, HE HAD ALREADY ASKED IF HE SHOULD GO UNDERGROUND. NONE OF THAT WAS SINCERE BUT HE WAS PLAYING THEIR GAME NOT HIS OWN. D) Do you think it's possible that Oswald didn't shoot at JFK but did kill Tippit because Tippit was going to arrest him and prevent him from making his all-important rendezvous at the Texas Theatre? It doesn't make sense that a conspirator would kill Tippit if he knew that doing so would prevent Oswald from making his all-important contact at the theater to be taken out of the country (and killed). So-- If Oswald didn't kill Tippit, who did and why? I DO THINK ITS POSSIBLE OSWALD KILLED TIPPET OUT OF PURE GUT REACTION WHEN HE SAW HIM PUTTING HIS HAND ON HIS WEAPON OR POSSIBLY PULLING IT. AT THAT POINT OSWALD KNEW HE HAD BEEN SET UP AND HAD NO IDEA WHO HE COULD TRUST. HE RETURNED AND GOT HIS GUN TO DEFEND HIMSELF AND IT MAY HAVE BEEN THAT SIMPLE. E) Did Oswald know that he was supposed to meet an (apparently) unknown-to-him shooter in the Theatre? THE MAN MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN TOTALLY UNKNOWN TO HIM OR FOR THAT MATTER THE GUY HE EXPECTED DIDN'T MAKE IT. HE WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN HE WAS A SHOOTER - IT WAS SIMPLY A PICK UP POINT, OR POSSIBLY A PLACE TO GET FURTHER DIRECTIONS. F) Did the police arrest (or detain, or place in "protective custody") this shooter because someone "fingered" him in the theater, or because he looked like Oswald? Is this the same guy some people saw the police put into a police car in the alley behind the theater? THEY WELL MAY HAVE PICKED HIM UP AND EVEN INTERROGATED HIM. ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I FIND IT VERY SUSPICIOUS THAT THE LIST OF PEOPLE IN THE THEATER THAT DPD MADE THEN DISAPPEARED, VERY SHODDY WORK THAT. IT WOULD ALSO EXPLAIN THE INFORMATION THAT FRITZ APPEARED TO HAVE ABOUT MARTINO CARRYING MONEY TO DALLAS ETC. BUT THAT IS ALL PURELY SPECULATION ON MY PART. STILL, I THINK IF THEY DID NOT PICK HIM UP, POSSIBLY GOING OUT THE BACK DOOR, HE WAS IN THE THEATER. And now for a separate question: What happened to the footnotes to Appendix H -- Odio Revisited? I'M PRESUMING YOU HAVE THE 2010 EDITION....LOOKS LIKE THE FOOTNOTES GOT MELDED BETWEEN APPENDIX G AND H. I CAN CHECK THE PDF I HAVE BUT THE ONLY REAL ANSWER WOULD HAVE TO COME FROM DEBRA WHO PUBLISHED IT, I NO LONGER HAVE A WORKING MASTER, JUST A PDF OF WHAT GOT PRINTED. UNFORTUNATELY AT THIS POINT THERE IS NO WAY I COULD RECREATE IT FROM MEMORY, SORRY

Paul, generally I would but with my normal qualifiers...grin. David Morales trained and prepared many of the individuals that we think of as Op 40, they were a subset of the three "AM" groups that he prepared for the BOP operation, with most of them coming out of the AM/MOTS. The AM/MOTS became the core of the Cuban counter intelligence group operated out of JMWAVE both before and after the BOP disaster and as I present in NEXUS, in the months immediately following the BOP both Angleton and Morales were associated with getting info from them - info that Angleton used in a Cuban CI assessment... Its important to remember that Morales functioned in CI associated role for the Cuba project, only later moving over to operations. What we tend to call OP40 is a very special set of the AM/MOTS who were expected to function as an elimination team after the landing, taking out questionable exile as well as Castro and Communist cadre inside the country. They just never got that opportunity. Later Sforza ran the AM/MOT unit, he was tight with Morales and there is every reason to think that both men also had their own trusted people within and on the periphery of the group who they could use for vest pocket activities. As I go into in Shadow Warfare, years later Sforza wanted to bring down some of those folks to do assassinations in Chile. Individuals from that same network were used across Latin America by both Morales and Phillips. Which is a long winded way of saying I suspect Morales had his own list of Cuban exiles, some he had trained, some that Carl Jenkins had trained and almost all of whom had gone into Cuba before or even after the BOP. In addition, there were a handful of non-Agency Anglos who could were associated with those exiles and who could be trusted for a project like the Dallas attack.

Paul, I'm not sure if you moved on to NEXUS - which is far better at giving the high level view as I've noted several times. People like Angleton and Harvey - and probably Dulles - viewed JFK as a true security risk, their goal was to remove that risk. They incited and manipulated operational guys to carry out the mission. While the field team - or some of it may have been told that Cuba was in play - just like Hunt told the same thing to the Watergate guys - its unlikely any of the top people intended that to happen. They simply wanted JFK gone. Afterwards at least some of the team realized they had been set up and an invasion of Cuba was never in the high level plan. It was and is SOP for CIA people to use their surrogates as necessary for their own agendas - the surrogates may think they are in sycn but in reality they are simply used as tools. That is exactly what happened in Dallas. I go into great length in SWHT about how they tried to recover and point to Cuba through their own efforts afterwards but the folks suppressing the investigation were always a step ahead of them on that too...see chapter 15. Simple motive, simple operation.....wrapped in a very iterative and confusing follow on effort by Johnson and NSC types to suppress any true investigation of conspiratorial based on where it might actually lead..... -- Larry

Paul you could start with Felipe Vidal Santiago, Roy Hargraves and John Martino. I also speculate that Rip Robertson was there as an adviser. I offer other names including, including Herminio Diaz Garcia, of exiles who could have been involved but who we cannot independently place in Dallas. In regard to other names, they are speculative and the individuals are still living so I will not name publicly them here although I mention their names in the book without direct accusation. I also name at least one individual who traveled from LA to Dallas as a courier to provide money to Ruby for his role. That person was known to be associated with John Roselli. In another location I present the connection from Roselli to the recruitment of Ruby's lawyer after the shooting. As to your focus on the team, as I go to great lengths to develop in NEXUS, it was never - never - never - CIA assassination tradecraft to have officers or known assets directly involved in such actions. Individuals who CIA officers had worked with were "directed", encouraged, equipped etc for such actions but in the interest of deniablity, they were always well insulated from the officers and the agency - and in known operations from the top down no more than a handful of people would have knowledge of the action. I'll leave you with the ground crew but if the assassination was actually initiated by intelligence professionals then you are whiffing in the wind because that's exactly where the organizers would want you to be....forever....

David, it seems to me that a number of people avoid two basic facts. First, the initial CIA project to assassinate Castro with directly controlled CIA assets was initiated by Dulles with the tacit and possibly verbal approval of Eisenhower, in much the same manner as Eisenhower had ordered the elimination of Lamumba. Dulles himself took J.C. Kings proposal to assassinate Castro and simply substituted the word assassinate before sending it to Ike for approval - along with a new CIA project to topple the Castro regime. That's just the way they did it then. Later, circa 1963, as part of the Fitzgerald AM/TRUNK program to generate a coup, the CIA was approaching any number of people inside Cuba to join a coup effort and all of them responded that to do so they would only become involved if Castro could be killed in the early phases of a coup. Hence the dialog with Cubela. The documents make it pretty clear that RFK, who was driving the project, not JFK, would not have been unhappy with Castro's death in the course of events but of course nominally it would all have been a Cuban affair - again, standard practice to help the insurgents we sponsored but they are the ones who actually pull the triggers, plant the bombs...etc.

OK, lets try this again...COMMENTS BELOW IN CAPS Regarding the Dallas ground-crew, you wish to focus on Jack Ruby -- because he is the one member of the ground-crew about whom we can have no doubts whatsoever -- Jack Ruby was involved up to his neck. NO PAUL, I DO NOT FOCUS ON RUBY, I SIMPLY TRY TO CLARIFY HIS INITIALLY LIMITED ROLE VS. WHAT IT EVOLVED TO FOLLOWING OSWALD'S VERY UNPLANNED CAPTURE. INITIALLY RUBY WAS LITTLE MORE THAN A LOW LEVEL LOCAL SOURCE OF INTELLIGENCE AND INTRODUCTIONS. ITS VERY LIKELY HE DID NOT APPRECIATE THE FULL MATTER OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE INVITED A FRIEND DOWN TO WATCH THE MOTORCADE AND SEE THE "FIREWORKS". IN SWHT I SPECULATE THAT HE WAS ACTUALLY RECRUITED VIA ROSELLI - NOT THE MAFIA - VERY POSSIBLY BASED ON HIS EARLIER CUBAN ACTIVITIES AND RECRUITED AS PART OF SOME SECRET CIA THING AGAINST CUBA. EXACTLY THE SORT OF STORY THAT WOULD HAVE HOOKED RUBY WITH NO PROBLEM. AS YOU SEE FROM BY MICROTIMELINE IN SWHT THAT ALL CHANGED IN THE HOURS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING OSWALD'S CAPTURE WHEN HE WAS GIVEN A VERY DIFFERENT ROLE, LIKE IT OR NOT. Regarding the Dallas ground-crew you'd cite assassination plots that were similar to the Dallas plot -- specifically Veciana's Alpha 66 plot against Fidel Castro; which was nearly identical to the Dallas plot that murdered JFK. (That plot included Cuban Exiles working with local Private Detective Agency firms; like the one run by Guy Banister in New Orleans -- but in Havana. Private Detectives have contacts with the local police and could get data about locations where Castro would be and his security there.) ACTUALLY THE VIECIANA PLOT I WAS REFERRING TO WAS THE ONE LATER IN LATIN AMERICA, THE DETECTIVE AGENCY AIDING AND ABETTING THAT WAS RUN BY A CUBAN EXILE WHO WAS USED BY DAVID PHILLIPS...WHO WAS USING VECIANA AT THE SAME TIME. THAT'S ALL IN SHADOW WARFARE BUT I'M PRETTY SURE I MENTION IT TO SOME EXTENT IN SWHT. However, for Dallas, instead of a Private Detective Agency, you substitute Jack Ruby. His Mafia ties, and his ability to blackmail DPD officers with his vice operations at the Carousel Club made him useful. Hearing gripes by simple proximity, talking to Newsmen (the way Ruby did) would be sufficient to get the Plotters the data they needed -- according to this theory. THAT'S PRETTY ACCURATE, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MADE DALLAS VERY DIFFERENT WAS THAT IT WAS A RUSH JOB, PLANNING PROBABLY BEGAN NO EARLIER THAN OSWALD'S RETURN FROM MEXICO CITY. THOSE TIMELINES ARE IN SWHT. I do agree with you that Ruby was able to get good information about the DPD moving Oswald -- so that he could kill Oswald. That cannot be denied. Whether that same source was enough to get high-level information about the Mayor moving JFK -- I have strong doubts. Besides all that, Larry, you claim that "Ruby could provide more," e.g. where to buy weapons underground (as if they would come to Dallas without enough weapons), or which cops were dirty enough to help when off duty (presumably, e.g. Roscoe White). RUBY'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE PLANNED MOVE IN WELL DOCUMENTED, HIS REMARKS ON IT WERE HEARD AND MENTIONED BY A NEWS CREW ON THE SCENE...THAT'S IN SWHT. AS TO HIS ABILITY TO MAKE ARMS PURCHASES YOU HAVE THE CHAPTER WHICH MAKES A GOOD CASE FOR HIS ACTING AS AN ACCESSORY IN THE TERRELL ARMORY THEFT, AMONG OTHER WEAPONS DEALING. Ruby was supposed to know plenty about Dallas buildings, their employees, their work hours and their parking habits -- and what he didn't know he could find out -- according to this theory. YEP A key support for your elevation of Jack Ruby to this source of ground-crew information is the fact that he had a "very low profile." Also, Jack Ruby would also supply information to the DPD and perhaps other officials -- so this might also make him a candidate. I WOULD NOT CALL IT A LOW PROFILE, IT WAS ACTUALLY A HIGH PROFILE, HE WAS WELL KNOWN BUT KNOWN AS SOMETHING AS A CHARACTER. THEREFORE SEEING HIM INSERT HIMSELF ALL OVER THE PLACE - INCLUDING TRYING TO GET INTO THE ROOM AT POLICE HQ WHERE OSWALD WAS BEING INTERVIEWED - WAS PERCEIVED AS JUST STANDARD BEHAVIOR BY JACK...LOTS OF ADVANTAGES TO BEING BOTH FAMILIAR AND A BIT GOOFY. Yet I can't help thinking, Larry, that this gives Jack Ruby a lot of responsibility. We've all read his testimony before Earl Warren -- and his sentence structure fails, IMHO, to reflect a particularly responsible person. ACTUALLY NOT MUCH AT ALL BEFORE ABOUT 2PM ON THE AFTERNOON OF NOV 22....AFTERWARDS A WHOLE BUNCH WHICH IS WHY HE WENT TO HIS SISTERS, GOT VIOLENTLY ILL, THREW UP AND WAS PRETTY MUCH OUT OF CONTROL FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS. I think that Jack Ruby could be relied upon, for example, to perform a Mafia hit on somebody -- like Lee Harvey Oswald. I also think that Jack Ruby could be relied upon to transport bags and people from place to place. I don't get the idea that he could be trusted too far beyond that. RUBY WAS NOT A MAFIA HIT MAN, HE WAS A BOUNCER AND A BULLY AS REQUIRED. NOBODY WOULD HAVE RELIED ON HIM AS A HIT MAN UNLESS THEY HAD NO ALTERNATIVES - AND THEY SIMPLY DID NOT AFTER OSWALD'S CAPTURE. INVOLVING RUBY AS A KILLER WAS A MAJOR RISK, NOBODY WOULD EVER HAVE PLANNED IT THAT WAY. ITS JUST THEY WAY IT CAME DOWN. I'd like to raise one more issue with regard to the Dallas ground-crew and Jack Ruby, namely, Jack Ruby's direct testimony to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren on 7 June 1964, when he said the following: I DIDN'T PUT IN THE QUOTE BUT I WILL POINT OUT THAT HIS STATEMENT WAS MADE FOLLOWING CERTAIN VISITS BY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS VERY MUCH ASSOCIATED WITH LSD WORK FOR THE CIA - AS AN ALTERNATIVE IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE THAT HE ASSUMED THAT JOHNSON WAS INVOLVED BECAUSE THE WHOLE CONSPIRACY WAS BEING COVERED UP. ASSUMING JOHNSON WAS SOMEHOW GUILTY WOULD HAVE PUT HIM IN THE SAME CAMP AS A GREAT NUMBER OF TEXANS. ON THE OTHER HAND WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS TOLD WHEN HE WAS RECRUITED INTO HIS INITIAL ROLE. ALL PURE SPECULATION ON MY PART, I DON'T SEE HOW WE COULD EVER KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WAS ON HIS MIND - ALTHOUGH HE WAS CERTAINLY BECOMING MORE PARANOID ABOUT THAT TIME - I'M TOLD A BAD "TRIP" CAN DO THAT TO YOU THOUGH...

I could not agree more Ernie, I think the Kennedy assassination had been made far more complex than it was in reality, which is why I'm generally not the favorite author among folks believing in what I term "grand" conspiracies. On the other hand, I think it would be naive to think that "conspiracies" do not exist in history, although in the broader scheme of thingsits hard to differentiate many commercial, financial and political activities from what Peter Dale Scott terns "Deep Politics". As a side note I should mention that I spent the better part of a decade examine the majority of names on your list - not all - as well as a few others. If you don't find them in the book or find them not associated with Dallas that is because the criteria I enumerate at the beginning of SWHT led me to leave them out....my choice, part objective and part subjective. If you would like to throw questions to me as you read I generally respond more quickly to email. larryjoe@westok.net Larry

Ernie, not to be ill mannered but the answers to your questions are in my books, in particular Someone Would Have Talked addresses your most basic question. 1. Do you think the inner circle folks ever discussed or mentioned their plot (before or after the fact) with ANY of their relatives (such as wife, husband, brother, sister, father, mother, children, uncle, cousin?) .... I view the conspiracy in a much more complex, than inner circle/outer circle, evolving in an iterative fashion with instigators and operators, compartmentalized and organized in subsets for specific tasks. Nothing as simple as an inner an outer circle. Between SWHT and NEXUS I offer my analysis of who talked to whom, before and after. 2. Do you think the inner circle folks ever discussed or mentioned their plot (before or after the fact) with anybody NOT involved in the plot (such as trusted friends, neighbors, co-workers?) .....the answer, although not in the "inner circle" paradigm is yes, which is the reason for the title of Someone Would Have Talked. I can only offer the books to you in full answer to your question, if you wish to read them and continue the dialog I will be happy to do that as I have time. I've moved on to other research projects and am in the midst of my fifth book on Cold War history, I'm afraid I just don't have the time or inclination for philosophical questions I've already tried to tackle in my JFK books....and by the way, the introduction to SWHT actually discusses the points you raise here since they were some of the first issues that occurred to me as well. Larry

Since I devote the better part of two chapters involving a lot of pages to this I'll do my best here but it will be abbreviated. The short answer is that the attack in Dallas had a secondary element that would have tied Oswald either directly acting for Castro's agents or at a minimum known to and incited by those agents. That was supposed to raise public outrage to the point of demanding military action against Cuba. Whether or not that was truly a goal of the high level figures who stimulated the attack or just a sop to the Cuban exiles involved is uncertain. I'm told that Martino and possibly others eventually began to think that perhaps that they had simply been manipulated and that was never a primary goal at all - it was just about eliminating JFK. In their original view the frame was supposed to be sold enough that it would stimulate a spasm type response without too much thinking or consideration - and I can show you at least one major Texas newspaper whose headline was (paraphrase from memory - Castro Supporter Kills President). Given the general feeling of the nation only a year after the Cuban missile crisis, its possible that it might not have been that hard a sell. Indeed the suppression of a true conspiracy investigation, directed by Johnson himself, was based in the fact that such an investigation might indeed fan calls for action against a communist conspiracy....by the Cubans, by the Russians, but either way it could lead to war. One of the problems is that we don't know all the details of the plan to fully frame Oswald immediately following the attack, Martino relates that his capture aborted that plan...he probably did not know the details himself. In SWHT I speculate on certain elements that might have been used in the frame but it is truly just speculation. As to adverse consequences, what could they be? About the only thing I can think of is that it would damage their reputation as FBI informants in the future, hardly a real concern for those involved - some of whom were driven very much by emotion, not by consideration of long term consequences.

Ernie, I'm thinking you have not read SWHT but just in case...the answer to number 1 is quite easy. Martino's early statements were made specifically to tie Fidel Castro to Lee Oswald and for that matter to Jack Ruby. He wanted to point the thread of conspiracy to Castro and initially the FBI and Director Hoover were very interested in that connection. The problem was that Martino was working after the fact, the plan to tie Oswald to Castro more tightly had aborted in Dallas with Oswald's capture. So Martino and others were doing their best to make up for that, it was a pick up effort lacking any hard data and when Martino could not provide that, the FBI lost interest. From that point on Martino just shut up about the whole thing, only revealing a small part of his involvement to family members early on. He provided further detail - still quite limited - to two long time friends not long before his death. Clearly he never intended it to go further, they both described his remarks more in the nature of a reminiscence. If the HSCA had not come along and one of them determine to share the information anonymously, nothing more would ever have been heard of his remarks. As to number two, for me the best explanation for me is being able to determine the context of the difference between the two statements, the situational effect. If I can clearly define two separate sets of motives for the statements, each related strictly to the timing and context of the statement, then I can reach a subjective conclusion. I would also caution that Martino himself was an eyewitness to only his activities, self admittedly had only a very limited view of the conspiracy plus a bit of gossip he no doubt heard - he was in no way a major figure in the conspiracy or the actual attack. Note, I qualify the my both my criteria and intepretation as subjective. My view of what is accurate and truthful is specifically my own, I share it but have no interest in evangelizing it nor spending too much time arguing the logic or my interpretations....the qualification is not to appear to be difficult, but merely to be forthright, Larry

Paul, in your quest for names I would refer you to NEXUS, Its last few chapters and the epilogue get relatively specific, it consolidates much of what is spread throughout SWHT. I would also refer you to the documents and photos available at www.larry-hancock.com If they are still there and somebody hasn't hacked the site again this week, honestly I don't check it that often. I also need to correct you in regard to John Martino, who was never connected to the CIA in any fashion. He was tightly connected to a number of activist Cuban exiles, particularly to those in Alpha 66. He helped bring their personnel on to the TILT mission...which was supported by JMWAVE but only at the behest and pressure of William Pawley. Martino had a limited knowledge of the conspiracy, which he himself made stressed, however he was exactly the type of compartmentalized field team person - acting as a courier to Dallas - that represents the "street" level in the Dallas attack. As to Nagell, his story is truly complex but again I have to make the point very clear. He knew about Cuban exiles representing themselves as Castro agents contacting Oswald in New Orleans and recruiting him for some action in September in the Washington area. That is all he knew and I make no use of him as a source on the attack in Dallas, only on the initial identification of Oswald as a potential patsy by Cuban exiles. Those individuals and that action may not have translated to the Dallas attack at all, but it does indicate that Oswald was a known factor to Cuban exiles in Miami, as does the Parrot Jungle incident. -- Larry

This does seem like it could go on forever Paul so let me try and be succinct. You keep referring to my hypothetical Dallas team as abstract, since you have read SWHT you know that I actually name at least three people who I present as having gone to Dallas for the attack, with proof they were in Dallas. In SWHT and NEXUS I laid out the entire generation of the plot from its instigation by Angleton, passed through Harvey to Morales and Robertson. In addition to that on my web site and in SWHT I've identified two likely candidates to have impersonated Oswald in various places - although that would have been held compartmentalized from the tactical team doing the shooting. In SWHT I also identity at least two possible suspects that Ruby might have connected the team with for peripheral tasks, both were in the DPD. I also name perhaps half a dozen Cuban exiles associated with JMWAVE operations who could have been recruited, but what I have no way of knowing is exactly who was on the sniper team organized to attack Castro in 1963. Therefore there is no way for me to boil this down to a set of exact names - and frankly that's not really critical to understanding the conspiracy. I also spell out the names of at least three individuals who very likely do/did know the names of at least some of them and I presented the premise that de Torres acted as a trip wire and cover in Florida, certainly he knew some details. As to New Orleans, again in SWHT I lay out the scenario of how Oswald was used in an anti-FPCC counter intel and propaganda effort, jointly by the FBI and CIA and then by Phillips alone. What happened in NO was classic stuff that had been used in other ops against the FPCC, that's in SWHT as well. What was particularly dangerous in the Garrison investigation - as seen in internal CIA memos - was the number of folks who in NO who had connections to prior, BOP and later CIA ops against Cuba. The Agency was very worried about details of covert ops those guys might spill - not talking about Ferrie here, talking about at least one guy Garrison identified who was a real CIA boat guide for infiltration missions. The FBI was equally worried about exposure to their contacts with Oswald. So both groups torpedoed Garrison. But outside that, having nothing to do with either, Mr. de Torres intercepted Garrisons people in Miami early on when Garrison was looking for Oswald/Cuban exile connections and totally interdicted that investigation as well as exposing the whole thing to the press....all that is in SWHT as well. The only real plot we know about in NO is the plot that the exiles pretending to be Cuban agents put together using Oswald and that was targeted for the DC area in September. It aborted primarily because Nagell showed up, tried to push his way in to collect information, was way to obvious...we know from Nagell that he tried to warn of that plot but we have no confirmation of where the warning reached - what we do know is the FBI was obviously watching some exiles who they felt dangerous to JFK and when those guys went to Chicago before his visit there they even warned the Secret Service...perhaps Nagell's warning had actually made it to somebody. . -- which is about all I have to say, the rest of the detail is in the books... Larry

Paul, I think I must have missed this along the way. Could you run past me the information from Walkers files circa April 63 of his interest in Lee Harvey Oswald...that would be appreciated. Also for yet more clarification: "As for your works on Walker, Larry, I do appreciate them -- very much. I'm surprised that you consider him to be virtually untouchable by a JFK murder team -- because of his homosexuality -- when actually this did not prevent that same murder team from using such assets as Clay Shaw or David Ferrie (among others) in New Orleans." ....my remark had nothing to do with Walkers homosexuality per se but everything to do with the fact that it was reportedly well known among elements of the DPD including its subversives unit - where my source served - that was because at the time they considered it a potential exposure to blackmail so they monitored those who circulated in those circles as general surveillance. My point is simply that sort of known visibility/surveillance would discourage anyone from tactical connection to Walker. In that same vein, I personally do not feel that the tactical team who carried out the attack in Dallas had any contact with either Shaw or Ferrie. What gossip either man may have heard about plans to attack Kennedy - there that gossip was widespread in many circles - either before or after is another story entirely. Gerry Hemming made an interesting comment to that effect (paraphrased) when he said that afterwards many people began to wonder if they had some connection to the attack because of remarks they had heard prior to it. Some apparently even tried to collect money from ultra right figures like Hunt whose sons had been talking about bounties on JFK, taking credit after the fact.

Paul, I have to qualify a bit more just to be clear. Actually I've followed Harry's remarks and postings from his very earliest days. I bought the first material in print about his experiences and observed some of his very first online posts about both Canadians and the LDS; I did find those remarks inscrutable and still do. Still, I've followed his remarks since that time as well as the actual FBI documents which Ernie has made available and analyzed. I also investigated Walker and his right wing associates to the extent of the material then available, as you recall I brought certain things about Walker and his involvement with Cuban exiles in Florida in the summer of 1963 to your attention. As far as not considering him competent in 1963, I'm not sure exactly how to define that, perhaps the word I would use would be effectual. I can tell you that I talked at length with one Dallas police reserve officer who gave me a tour of the places in which DPD used to observe Walker circa 1963 including a gay bar on the East side and a set of fairly secluded public restrooms. I had not really wanted to bring that up and of course its strictly anecdotal but if true I can tell you that sort of visibility/image would make him anathema to any serious tactical team going to Dallas. I continue to monitor your posts about Harry and Walker, new information is always educational. I simply haven't found any of it to actually modify own view of how the Dallas assassination came about or what went down on the ground in Dallas. However, as you say, my analyses are my own and I'm happy to leave everyone else with their own. Beyond that, in regard to the study of the ultra-right in the 1960's, I think my and Stu's work presented in The Awful Grace of God illustrates a reasonably deep study of the groups and individuals who were truly dangerous in terms of actual attacks and assassination attempts - in contrast to those who just kept talking about such things. If you want to find a real rifle team trained and willing to go after JFK we identify them in that book. That of course is another story entirely but I thought I should at least mention that its not that I have ignored the ultra-right in my research. -- Larry.

I think this remains an open question -- what exactly was the Dallas contact tasked to do -- in as much detail as possible? ................................... Paul, the best I can do with that sort of question is to reference it against similar operations and against some of what we do know about Jack Ruby. As I've mentioned before, Veciana tells us that the attack in Dallas was very similar to an abortive attack against Castro in Latin America. The people they used as contacts there were Cuban exiles working with a local detective agency/security firm. The had contacts with the local police and obtained information on the locations where Castro would be and to some extent what sort of security he would have at each location and as he traveled. In the case of Dallas, the primary task would be much the same, getting details on the locations to be visited, what security has been like in the past for political events, what routes have been used. That was easy enough in Dallas and could have been done in the last days from reports in the paper but the key would be someone who could circulate well within all areas of DPD and just gossip about who was working what detail for the trip, where the press were going to be....just listening to the locals complain about security and the extra work would give you most of what you needed. Then talking to some of the local news folks about what they had heard about plans to cover the visit. Ruby knew lots of cops and lots of press folks, he was a character, always chatting folks up, selling his gimmicks etc, his asking questions would ring no bells with anyone. To verify that we know he did have good contacts inside DPD, he even knew Oswald was originally supposed to be moved on Sat afternoon but that got cancelled. And we know it because he was gossiping with local press folks. That's probably a minimum and may be all they needed but Ruby could provide more, if they decided not to transport their weapons he could tell them where to buy weapons with no questions asked, he could tell them what cops were available for minor tasks - off duty of course. If they were interested in a particular building or location he could find out all about who worked there or who parked where or who was normally at what job during the day....were their people normally in the parking lots...he could find that out. If they needed access to a building he might know who to contact.....for that matter we have no idea which TSBD employees might have been visitors to Ruby's club or which of them might have been doing drugs or something else that would make them open to a little favor like getting someone upstairs, etc. That's on the outside and if he did those thing it would probably have been totally compartmentalized from the actual tactical team. The point I'm trying to make is a local contact is a guy who knows the ground, who knows people, who can ask questions without raising any flags at all because he does that all the time and who is most definitely somebody who has a very low profile. For that matter a good local contact might well be the same sort of guy who provides info to the police on the side, a low level informant...which of course Ruby was. -- Larry

Paul, I certainly don't claim to be an expert on para-military operations, I'm an Air Force vet with a career field specialization in communications technology. On the other hand I've spent a fair amount of time study how the paramilitary professionals work....people you read about working with the most hand picked and effective Cuban exiles in the early 1960's. The military missions they ran into Cuba did not require point men on the ground, that's the sort of thing that gets people compromised - and was the major problem with infiltrations before the Bay of Pigs. An para-military assassination team going to Dallas would desire some local intelligence, but as far as the attack itself, that is their skill and their business. They would not want a local "point man", and would do everything in the world not to meet or associate with any individual suspected of being under any form of FBI, DPD, ATF or other type of agency or law enforcement observation. Their job is focused, find ambush sites, prepare the attack, arrange for diversions as needed and carry out the attack. Now, there may have been others traveling to Dallas for separate agenda's relating to framing Lee Oswald, that would be compartmentalized, might well require some money and a courier - as Martino described himself. But again, they want to limit their local contacts - and exposure - as much as possible, working though cut outs and people who would appear to be doing business as usual....given Jack Ruby's varied activities he would have made a fine conduit, spread a little money, arrange a few innocuous activities that nobody would understand - until after the assassination. But that would be as isolated from the attack team as possible. And to answer your question, no, political connections inside DPD are the last thing you want since they show up in investigations. What you want is very simple, to access one or more officers or even detectives known to do a few marginally legal activities on the side...for money. If they have done a couple of things that would make them subject to blackmail, even better. -- Larry