Larry Hancock

Thank you Bjorn, you have just saved a bit of my remaining sanity. I will continue to look for the remarks by the other officer but so far no luck. It may be that he was mistaken but this at least confirms the cycles were moved back at a very late date, at the airport.

OK, I'm making a little progress. Pamela, if you have SWHT check pages 316-317 and that will give you a list of issues that occurred during the planning of the motorcade, including the fact that the cars iinitially designated as numbers two and three ended up being positioned as 16 and 18, obviously moving up JFK to the very front of the motorcade. There was also such local media controversy over the absence of the camera truck that the HSCA pursued the issue - however the result was that SS advance man Lawson stated that Puterbaugh was in charge of the protocol of the vehicles including seating and sequence. Puterbaugh himself made no mention of such things in his statements and as far as I can tell was never re-interviewed. I do recall from digging into all the advance meeting reports that many of the folks involved in the planning seemed to have assumed, since Puterbaugh showed up with Lawson, that he was actually with the Secret Service. Now to see if I can find the motorcycle thing for Terry...

Terry, at the time I doubt the motorcycle policeman thought much about it. And no, nobody other than the officer apparently thought much of it either, I gather things were pretty hectic at the airport, for one thing they were not really prepared for JFK and Jackie to go walking into the crowd as they did. I haven't been into this area for ages, and I don't exactly recall what the cycle positions were supposed to be, as I recall some of the cycles had already been pulled back further during the work sessions and an innocent answer to that would be that it was a political event and there was to be maximum crowd visibility for JFK. Given the official story and the angle of the shots, the officer might well have thought it would have made little difference, given the probable frontal shot/s it may not have. Also, given that Johnson's guys were definitely in charge or organizing the motorcade, such a last minute action would hardly be necessary....unless of course the officer had mistaken his assigned position. Now having said that I thought it was really suspicious myself when I first encountered it and that's why its in the book along with a lot of other information relating to Puterbaugh and Carter and the planning. I'm sure someone knows the details better than I, including the officers name which I can't seem to locate at the moment...but unfortunately its a big book ... I probably shouldn't have brought it up without having the facts at hand, I will search further. Probably teaches me I need to stop this sort of thing and stay with my current focus rather than trying to delve back too far...

Tommy, I do cover some of that in SWHT so let me see if I can remember what I wrote...grin. Perhaps the most significant change was the movement of two motorcycles scheduled for the rear of the president's limo to much further back, one of the officers was questioned about that - his name is in the book, I don't recall it - and stated that they were told to move from their slotted position by an individual who had come from the Vice President's car - its likely they assumed he was Secret Service. In addition to that, I think the press were moved further back. Of course the two things that remain most inconsistent is the lack of a photo truck leading the president's car, something common in political motorcades which this was....and the positioning of the president in a lead position rather than somewhere within the sequence of vehicles, after all you usually don't lead with your major figure.

Pamela, as I understand it the actual vehicle order was decided by the local political committee with Jack Puterbaugh, acting advance man, as their main contact...I've also documented that Puterbaugh was in routine communication with Johnson's aide Cliff Carter at that point in time although Carter himself was not in Dallas for the meetings. I should also note that reportedly some of the motorcade positioning numbers were switched at the airport that morning and some vehicles were out of the designated sequence.

Bjorn, I would only add that we have been told by at least one of the very earliest junior interns to arrive in the room, who spoke at a Lancer conference, that the earliest arrivals were quickly displaced by senior staff arriving - the room was relatively quite small. He said that senior staff essentially pushed the earliest responders out of the room and of course conducted the actual treatment. I suspect those folks might not have been considered as being technically part of the treatment. Of course that certainly does not confirm her presence and she might well be elaborating in any event. However I think its worth noting that everything did not always get wrapped up and documented as nicely and neatly as the records might suggest...

Terry, I'm not aware of any Hoover tape or remarks on that although I might well be missing it. Perhaps you are thinking of the series of high level CIA memorandum produced during the Garrison investigation that express their concerns about the inquiry including the extent to which Garrison will expose their activities in New Orleans and the number of individuals associated with them and anti-Castro activities. They went to a great deal of trouble to establish legal defenses to undercut Garrison's ability to call witnesses, that's all in the memos. And one memo does express the opinion that Garrison may very well be able to make his case. It would also be relevant to note that one and possibly more documents exist confirming that the CIA was in the process of clearing Bannister's agency as a cover business prior to the Bay of Pigs, under their domestic "Goliath" program.

We certainly have heard from individuals at Parkland that the bullet recovered there was a sharp nosed round, easily recognized by any hunter and not the blunt nosed CE399 entered officially into WC evidence. Mark Oakes has done interviews with Parkland employees you describe that in some detail. And of course it tallies well with all the issues in the chain of possession for CE399.

Ernie, the title of the book is "Understanding the Files of the FBI" and I would have to disagree with you a bit. I've read at least three similar sources and I found it particularly useful in understanding the file retention and disposal guidelines that would have been in play at the time. Of course its not the only source, I think we mentioned three such works in AGOG so I don't want to focus on this alone and certainly your references are most worthwhile. Its been a good three years since I slogged through that sort of material so I certainly could not be specific about what was in which source. My goal was simply to inform thread readers that this is not really an area of mystery, the rules and protocols for recruiting and handling sources and informants were well documented, the construction, distribution, retention and destruction of source and informant files was well documented and at this stage the process is neither shadowy or mysterious. I'll leave it at that.

Ernie, that's what I get for first recommending people actually read a source book and then overgeneralizing. Certainly their were several tiers of relationship and sources were sorted by type of federal crimes as well as by subject - and each would have linked to a related file type. Number 89 related to killing a Federal officer, 134 related to counter intelligence assets, 137 for racial hate groups which also seems to have covered criminal informants. Security informants and double agents were filed under both 134 and 137. Sources on civil unrest went into 157 files. I think it should also be noted that a true informant, rather than a source, would be someone inside an organization, group, business etc who was able to provide inside primary information, not just secondary rumors and gossip. Primary material is much preferred for legal action. The book I refer to contains very specific parameters soliciting and managing sources and informants including when to pay informants, how long to hold their files, how to transition them etc. As you say, not all informants were paid although my reading of the rules gave me the impression that if a criminal case was actually pending and they began taking direction they may have been. Its also true that Hoover passed on supporting a number of civil rights prosecutions so that he would not be forced to expose informants that were felt to have ongoing use. Officially civil rights case informants would be kept secret but in many of the courts and legal systems involved in such cases there was a risk....and to get a prosecution in such courts, putting someone like Delmar Dennis on the record by name was very desirable for the prosecution.

Again, big difference in terminology, there are several levels the FBI used to differentiate sources and several types of sources - the very lowest level is an individual who has expressed a willingness to provide information to the FBI on a given subject. In his first interview by the FBI following his return, Oswald said that he would do that if he were contacted by Russian agents. Later, in New Orleans, he voluntarily contacted the FBI and provided information on his Cuban exile contacts. Now compare that to Gerry Hemming, Hemming and most of the Inerpen guys routinely contacted the FBI and provided information on a host of things. Both Oswald and Hemming would be considered sources and have files. Now if it appeared that either individual belonged to an organization where they could provide inside information, they would be considered a potential informant. Such sources are valuable because you may eventually take them to court if Justice believes a case has developed. So you could consider them potential informants. Now go a step further and say the FBI has a case open that it is pursuing and may want to escalate an informant to "provisional" status ...and you have Jack Ruby. Still not a full informant because guess what, full informants get paid. So Hoover can say, hey, Oswald was not an informant and be technically correct. Does that mean that Oswald was not prospective or provisional, well given that he had offered once and had actually delivered a second time, I'd say it would be reasonable to find a file on him in the New Orleans office but until or unless he is going to be used to build evidence for a case Justice is building he won't be technically made an informant. Beyond that, most office agents were measured on how many informants they could recruit and build up through the levels to being full, legally useful informants, not just sources. I suspect that is what Wade was talking about, was Oswald a source, certainly; did he have a file, most likely in the subversive category since that would be the topic of his information. Was he technically a paid FBI informant, probably not. Of course its also important to know that many FBI persons of interest did contact the Bureau, sometimes routinely. Which makes it very difficult to determine exactly when they change their category - normally that's only possible if you get their actual file and Stu and I have done that for some true informants; doing that with their permission is easy. Doing it without is a bear, we have been working one example of that for three years. But that is the key. -- deniablity comes in a lot of forms, Larry

Paul, I don't want to enter into this myself but things would clear up a lot with some real facts about the various classes of FBI assets including informants - I see the term informant being used very loosely here while the FBI had a very structured protocol for these things given that true informants had to be on record and usable in federal criminal prosecutions. I would recommend that everyone discussing it do some homework in a great source book, "Understanding the Files of the FBI" by Gerald Haines and David Langbart. I would also note that a great number of people provided information to the FBI at their own initiative and developed extensive files all without becoming either a potential or true informant. The FBI was very diligent at making files of what people told them. -- Larry

Bill, almost all the communications activity you see during 62 and 63 was the result of McNamara's initiative to dramatically improve national command and control. It had become obvious that almost all portions of the the system which existed in the 50's were exposed to targeting by the upcoming Soviet ICBM's and a emerging understanding of EMP and other effects was raising real questions about command and control. The old school plan of launching everything at everybody with one burst did not meet JFK's objectives for a much more flexible response nor allow any real leverage in the use of nuclear weapons during a crisis. This whole transition is well described in several books, probably the best one of the set I've been reading is Strategic Command and Control by Bruce Blair. It would take several years for the changes to be made, in fact the McNamara era studies of basic command network problems were redone again in the 70's, of course studies are cheaper than actually doing anything..

Got it David, that's great stuff. I recognize most of it; I worked Air Force Communications Service handling AUTOVON voice switching equipment fed off Tropo. so I'm not that familiar with the radio gear. Separate personnel handled the radio and then we had tech controllers in between the radio and land line circuits. We just worried about switching. Anyway, that's exactly what I expected would be the long distance SSB gear. Per discussion with Bill I'm still assuming that AF1 would have had to have at least four SSB sets to hold up four long distance circuits. Also, if all four were at Andrews that would be four units there with a tape recorder on each for that channel. Which really means multiple tapes, one for each voice channel. Let me know if that sounds stupid...grin, Larry

David, sorry to be slow but then the two units are necessary for a full duplex - both ends talking at one time - operation? One unit would require the old "over" protocol with one end only talking then handing it off to the other. Do you recall whether these were UHF or HF....what their range was? -- thanks, Larry

Good stuff Bill, this will be really helpful. It appears to me that Trimble has his HF SSB circuits set up to Andrews which is then Andrews is patching them though to the other destinations and taking incoming requests to clear circuits to AF1. Andrews would be able to patch AF1 to the White House switchboard which would take them to the Situation Room or to anyone else in the building. In fact Andrews could patch them to any landline voice circuit or vice versa. I think the question now is whether or not one of the AF1 transmitters could handle more than one patch or whether Trimble is using multiple transmitters. The same question holds for the Andrews center and raises the question of how many radios are in use there and how many have a tape recorder on them. Since we only have "one" tape, either that means only a single channel was being recorded or somehow someone merged several tapes onto one. What we really need here is somebody who has a ham radio buddy or better yet a radio comm friend out of the Air Force.

Bill, do you know where the Specialist First Class who was attempting to work the circuit was located - it sounds like he was not on AF1 but was trying to set up secure comm but the AF1 techs were too busy with voice circuits to attend to the teletype - which is pretty interesting since apparently the teletype was on the only secure circuit - which would be the military command and control circuit. It will also help us understand if the secure equipment was on a relatively short range UHF circuit or a much longer range SSB circuit. -- Larry

Zach, James, and all. Perhaps one way to get a hold on this is to turn it around. My thought would be to list each item of information in the note and then brainstorm who would have known that, or at least thought that, in order to give it to the DPD in some fashion. Given that Martino stated he was a courier, and I presume that meant carrying money as well as information, certainly whoever received the money or saw it being passed in Dallas would think of him as the person "hiring" a shooter. Pondering that, why not pay the shooter somewhere else rather than Dallas, like Miami. One reason would be quite simple, you want your guys on the ground in Dallas, probably under observation from other members of the team - before you start passing out cash. Anyway, I think it would be an interesting exercise to reverse it in this fashion. Equally interesting is to speculate on exactly who DPD interviewed who would have provided this limited information under interrogation. And to me it makes it more credible that the information was obviously limited, suggesting it was from someone on the tactical side and verifying that this was an extremely compartmentalized operation, the sort that would be run by a professional paramilitary case officer...

Zach, I wish I could offer something substantive on the note you mentioned, just thinking about it gives me a headache. I hope you have some luck tracking down the interview, its a really serious loose end. I'm afraid at present the note leads off into a very shadowy world of rumors and gossip. Anyone who is been in this long enough will have picked up on a variety of rumors out of Dallas including the fact that Fritz and and a couple of senior DPD people know a good deal more about a conspiracy than they would ever publicly admit, one reason being how dramatically they had been shut down by and then bad mouthed by Hoover. This particular remark reminds me of the witness report of the individual taken into a police car at the rear of the Texas Theatre and driven away for questioning - and the Cuban supposedly waiting in the Texas Theatre - and the fact that DPD took a full list of names for everyone in the Texas Theatre which never showed up in the official record. Sort of like the missing report of men seen with a rifle a few days before the assassination behind the fence in the parking lot - which was in a 112th mil intel file but no original DPD file copy ever showed up, much like the Frazier polygraph we only know about from the FBI. One might be led to believe there really is important information missing from the DPD files. When I think of Sean's current research I'm reminded of a couple of early researchers who sort of came and went but who wrote about Truly becoming highly stressed and paranoid in the years following the shooting, about him being intimidated by surveillance on him and a set of things regarding to the TSBD after the assassination that don't get discussed any more. The same sort of stress apparently suffered by Danny Arce, Its all mysterious, speculative and annoyingly persistent. So, I really can't help in any real way on the note but in regard to another comment above, I will be dealing a good deal with David Morales in the forthcoming Shadow Warfare book, including his activities in the Southern Cone and his influence on the emergence of the Condor project which resulted not only in the bombing you mentioned but in a series of other plans to attack American citizens - its a far nastier story than generally realized. -- Larry

Robert, I do go into that story in detail in SWHT including remarks by all the officers involved. As we might expect, the story begins to diverge mightily once the FBI began to investigate it and since they were the only ones to follow up and their remarks are very much different from the officers who themselves saw the materials - we are left with nothing very satisfactory. I'd just like to offer my last thoughts on the letter, Stephen has certainly made me think about it in a broad context and my final thought is that I can well I can well imagine that Oswald's generally populist, socialist, liberal world view did stay constant. That is very much in like with DiMohrenschieldt's characterization of him. However given that and given Oswald's very specific remarks about the CPUSA and its use a political tool, I just can't accept his going on following that for months trying to insert himself into it and promoting Gus Hall without something deeper going on. Turning to the FPCC would make sense given his history, writing CPUSA and asking if he should go underground would not. So that's where I have to leave it for myself, but of course its just an opinion. Stephen, I would very much like to see your elaborate on your thoughts of Oswald's associates in NO and their perhaps being mis-characterized. I can see that a bit in Ferrie but I'd love to know more about your thoughts on the subject.

Stephen, first off I think you make a very important point about "audiences". The manuscript could have been written with a completely different audience and with a different goal in mind. In one fashion it would have make a very good propaganda piece and have received a wonderful media reception - impressionable young marine goes to Soviet Union and see evils of Soviet system for himself, warns of the dangers of its devious, foul surrogates. He could have probably gotten Hoover to write an endorsement for the book that followed. I have nothing compelling to say that was his intent, its only an observation. Yet that manuscript and that worldview "aborts", and suddenly he is addressing a totally different audience with a totally different story line. And not just one audience but a series of audiences which really were not happy with each other, the last thing FPCC needed were CPUSA members and champions. Now Oswald may have been enthusiastic enough to keep contacting all the organizations over and over again even when they never responded to him or responded with great caution. My point would be that knowingly or unknowingly he was creating a wonderful "image" that could be seized to turn him into a patsy - and the people that did that were concerned about his public image - and they are the ones I'm interested in, whether that image was his true inner belief or created under some other scenario. From that perspective it really does not matter, even Oswald's own version following the assassination - essentially that he was being made a patsy because he's been to Russia - will do. Especially if his rifle is upstairs in the building. Its also extremely interesting that the WC never established a motive and that essentially the entire "system" chose not to present the heavy storyline that he was a communist inspired assassin. Surely they would have had plenty of material to make that stick - just imagine the letter about "going underground" hitting the following edition of LIFE's cover after the one with the rifle. Somebody surely decided not to play that card....which would have seemed one that Hoover would have particularly loved. I guess at the end my point would be, whatever the motive, Oswald had created a very in depth image for himself that would have been quite attractive to his being used as a patsy and that image was eventually minimized when he was presented as a lone nut.

Stephen, certainly both should be considered - but to do so you have to factor in a good number of disconnects between Oswald's early interests, his letter writing and other things he was doing. But as part of establishing a benchmark, what is your impression of his draft manuscript, written early after his return from Russia and containing extremely negative remarks about both Soviet Communism and even more so about the CPUSA......including his remarks about having learned the truth about both through his personal experience - as compared to what he felt or thought of them before his time in the Soviet Union? Either the manuscript views are bogus are the letter writing campaign is....at least that's the way it seems to me.

Heck, I'd offer him a slot if he'd even agree to read NEXUS, its a lot shorter...grin. I would probably feel a lot better about Bob and some of the other figures who are currently making statements about being open minded if I knew they had at least taken the time to study the more recent research. Being open minded by itself is relatively meaningless if you are still working off only the official data set presented in 1964.

Schieffer has an article in this months ARRP magazine and really does leverage his being in Dallas, establishing a position that he was there and and something of an insider and would have know if something was fishy. He may not intend that but it certainly has that feel. He also notes that he remains open minded but has never seen a single thing that would tend to change his view of the official story and the WCR. Which of course is fine if he has done any reading or investigation on his own - if he is saying that without having made any inquires over say the last 20 years or read any books such as McKnights, Law's, Feister's etc then I would find it a bit annoying.

My take is similar to Pats and its necessary to remember that this letter is only one, although possibly the first, of a string of letters which started in the period in which he had aborted his manuscript effort. I'm tracing that series of events in my blog posts and the letters involve not only CPUSA but SWP, and FPCC. Most also occur after his initial FBI interviews in Dallas in which he is relatively cooperative. And they continue through the series of Washington move letters at the end of summer....following his self initiated contact with the FBI in New Orleans and shortly before his remark about finding his pot of gold. I don't think it was sincere at all, and Oswald had never shown any true interest in networking via letter or socially with other "revolutionaries" on a personal basis and even inside Russia never joined even any of the lower level political groups. It appears much more to me that Oswald was "shopping" himself per I Led Three Lives, and at the end of August in New Orleans, he got a bite...