Larry Hancock

It appears the FBI agent was not as well read as Lee Oswald...hard to miss the reference to Orwell's Animal Farm..

I agree Ben, I've increasingly come to feel that Oswald was put into a set of boxes...one from the Warren commission, one created as a public image even outside of the details actually in the WC investigation supplements and one by the research community (which I contributed to). I'm working on breaking my view of him out of all three boxes to a view which includes his own views and agendas as drivers in his actions. As you say, not that it exonerates him from anything but it may give a lot more nuanced view to just how vulnerable he was becoming during 1963. And as far as his reading list, it was a lot more sophisticated than many of my contemporaries at his same age back then - certainly comparable to what some of us were reading at college level.

Greg, Oswald had an abiding interest in social political structures and had come to believe that both the Capitalist and Communist systems were "rigged" against the common man and kept individuals essentially abandoned individuals like his mother and himself and depressed economic levels with no way up and no political voice. He had expected better in Russia but found it rigged too - Titovits writes about that. So I suspect he was using the word literally in its classic political sense. "Greek democracy created at Athens was direct, rather than representative: any adult male citizen over the age of 20 could take part, and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition." One of the things we have inherited is a very artificial view of Oswald's intelligence, when he was interested in something he tested quite well...in school, in the Marines (getting a relatively advanced job placement in Marine Air) and even in his job placement tests. In the Marines his officers commented on his advanced level of knowledge of world politics and affairs and several people commented that he knew as much or more than his officers and was a jerk by bringing that up in conversations and making them look bad..intentionally. In at least one instance his job placement counselor commented that he was suited for much better jobs than he was getting but the problem was that he always needed jobs urgently and was out of work and had to take more menial jobs than his tests indicated he might have gotten otherwise. He came across quite well in job interviews but reference were a problem for him given that he cycled though the jobs and most all of them were relatively menial. On your last point, all of his writing suggests violence but it does support political change....and some sort of compromise in government systems, a position between Capitalism and Communism, which is why he leaned towards Socialism (he seems to have equated Marxism with Socialism not Communism).

Ben, I'd encourage you to read samples of Oswald's 1963 writing as a benchmark, compare both the content and vocabulary to a 12 year old. There are several pieces available in Warren Commission materials: The Collective Life of a Russian Worker – WC Exhibit 92, pg 287-336 Vol 16, On Communism and Capitalism – WC Exhibit 25, pg 106-122 Vol 16 The Communist Party of the United States – WC pg 422-430 Vol 16 The Athenian System / Outline and Principles pg 431-434 WC Exhibit 98 Vol 16

Oswald took lots of photos "at work" in the Marines (just not in the radar room), he took lots of photos many places - I have seen one taken with fellow workers at the Minsk plant, its in Groden's book. There is also one photo of a Marine jet flight line. Actually the number of photos taken in Russia, with co workers, with friends, with girl friends, with other guys, doing tourist stuff totally puts lie to his being asocial, much less anti-social.

If you email Gabriella she can probably give you the menu ...grin. I will say that an in person conference for the 60th anniversary is probably going to draw a number and group of attendees you may not see together again.

This year's conference will be both in-person and virtual; details at: https://jfklancerpublications.com/

This year's conference will be both in person and virtual; details here: https://jfklancerpublications.com/

This year the 60th anniversary conference will be both in-person and streaming - initial dates and details at: https://jfklancerpublications.com/

Well I will offer the best insight into that comment in Tipping Point - one likely to be rather contrarian - in my Lancer conference presentation this coming November. At that point, for better or worse, I'll have spent the better part of a year revisiting Lee Oswald from the most objective perspective I can muster.

These connections have been known and discussed for a long time unless I'm missing something here? http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/F Disk/Ferrie David William/Item 85.pdf https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKarcacha.htm Beyond that as far as I can tell far Albert is not related or connected to Rose so that is not part of any revelation - until someone proves in such a connection.

Several of these stories and leads are indeed very old and had been discussed for years when I entered this case in the nineties. I immediately ran across them in the Third and Fourth decade journals in a literature search ....early researchers had looked into some the best they could and written articles for Jerry Rose. I would recommend reading the Third and Fourth Decade Journals...all of them...which are archived on the Mary Ferrell Foundation web site. You will come across several of the ones you listed as well as others and its good context. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Featured_The_Third_Decade_Journal.html https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1115

The big question indeed is how the "diplomat" communicated with the CIA, for instance was it though the Mexico City station? Its easy enough to imagine the station might have been active at cultivating sources inside Cuba and of course diplomats from friendly nations are always good targets in that respect. Of course WAVE had always been on the look out for internal sources in Cuba as well. If you want to get really wild its interesting to recall that Angleton had his own diplomatic contacts and sources in Havana, with enough reach to offer them to Harvey as back up in his Castro assassination efforts. Many folks are not familiar with Angleton's being assigned to reorganize CIA counter intelligence against Cuba following the BOP disaster, a project which he appears to have worked on with Morales and the Morales trained AMOTs who went on to become the Cuban Intelligence Service, reporting to Sforza by 1963. If we could tie down where the report was submitted to the CIA it would really be helpful, in that regard my leading suspect is still Mexico City station - if true it could well be a matter of CIA officers there taking advantage of a sensational story to further prime the pump for a Castro conspiracy, as they had with Lopez. What we need are the initial CIA intake documents which would tell us where the story came into the system...

Not sure what we could totally write off, the private flights were reported either after the fact or from "unreliable" (but unidentified) sources. Based on the wording in one document the passenger reporting the Cubana flight hold actually might have been Italian (not the mystery passenger that did not show up but the source that reported the suspicious ground hold) - not really out of the question given that even diplomatic personnel from foreign nations traveled though MC to Cuba. And apparently the idea that the Cubana aircraft was held for a mysterious passenger may be pure speculation since the aircraft was on the ground for the routine service/hold time and the document even states that the "sources" information on the time of the hold was not reliable. Its just another set of leads that lets us pretty much read whatever we want to into it I'm afraid.

I would say not the "CIA" but definitely certain CIA officers were - for example Phillips was writing in his book Nightwatch years later that there had been a Castro conspiracy and that Oswald was indeed paid to shoot JFK....just as he orchestrated in the Lopez story. Actually Phillips wrote three books - nobody reads the others it seems - and put that into all of them. There is no doubt he was pushing a Castro conspiracy just as DRE and others were. For that matter Mexico City station as a whole was pushing the Castro conspiracy angle for days if not longer - until HQ moved to shut them down and the FBI destroyed the Lopez story. The FBI even destroyed Martino's story about a Castro plot even thought Hoover had been eager to support it at first. So yes, I definitely believe individual CIA officers were - we now have the documents showing WAVE set off investigating Cuban involvement. I have to wonder if we never saw the report from that because Sforza managed to come up with something that also implicated Castro.

That brings up an interesting question Matt, because if it were to be Oswald he would have been required to show passport and visa for boarding the aircraft (assuming it was not a Cuban conspiracy with him acting for Cuba and if so its hard to see them using one of their commercial airliners). Of course if it were full bore CIA that could have been faked with quality documents but still where does he go when he lands? Seems to me that it works better if it just appears the Cubans had a plane waiting for him...but even then why a commercial aircraft. Of course if it had somehow been effectively tied to the Lopez lead it could have reinforced it and perhaps stampeded people in DC in the first 24-48 hours - but neither this or Lopez came forward that early as I recall. I still get the sense that its more like throwing stuff against the wall to implicate Castro and take advantage of events rather than part of a well thought out advance plan.

Matt, over the years their has been some follow up on this, I seem to recall a fairly lengthy article in either the Third or Fourth Decade journal - wish I could rake up more from memory but apparently the story was that the plane was even held up in departure waiting for a last minute passenger - unidentified of course. But there was more detail if you can locate it and all the journals are achieved on MFF. I did manage to locate the following detail in a quick online search: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10103-10062.pdf I always had the sense that the story, essentially gossip from a questionable source, might have been one of the bits and pieces introduced, possibly by Phillips, post assassination to point towards Cuban involvement. The fact that it was not investigated more diligently at the time certainly suggests to me that it was about the same quality as the poorly done Gilberto Lopez construct. Phillips and his ilk were certainly much better at putting together much better quality disinformation .

I absolutely plan on viewing the movie and will comment on it - for science fiction fans I would certainly recommend reading The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert Sawyer, its a great alternative history treatment but also has some very solid stuff on Oppenheimer, Groves and Los Alamos.

Its could be a Festo Air Ray. The overall video may be real or not. Otherwise the UAPs have decided they like the Festo look... https://www.festo.com/us/en/e/about-festo/research-and-development/bionic-learning-network/highlights-from-2006-to-2009/air-ray-id_33851/

David, the JFK Lancer site has been down for well over a year now due to issues with hosting and maintenance. I think they hope to bring it back live this summer, possibly as early as June, but no specifics on that.

David, I can't give you a specific source from memory but my recollection is that Phillips went to Mexico City in late 61 as the whole Cuba Project went into something of a limbo in the months following the Bay of Pigs. Certainly he was there in 62 and officially in 63 he began wearing two hats by late summer, being selected by Fitzgerald for SAS and assigned duties in MC for the new AMWORLD project that began to jell during the fall. However his performance review for 63 still came out of MC Station, my files on Phillips are in deep storage but as I recall he did receive two disciplinary citations in 62, one a minor security violation and another one related to some strange effort against the Russian embassy involving radioactive materials - no details on that.

Jim, its on page 9, line 15-20 of the interview transcript: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1445#relPageId=9&search=Rosselli_testimony He talks about Johnny Tapps from Columbia Studios who called him in Vegas and told him about the assassination.

Pat, as far as I know the last testimony Roselli gave was in the link Joe posted above: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1445#relPageId=10&search=Rosselli_testimony He does mention his contacts with Cubans in 62/63 but gives no real details - although it was suggested he did say a bit more and mention a couple of names in private conversation with staff lawyers not on the record and that was what he was being called back to elaborate on. As you see in the testimony they had really let him dance away from details of the 62 activities in particular. In this testimony he also described being in Vegas on November 22.

I can't give the source from memory, its one of the biographies, but the author apparently tracked down a story that in his last testimony Roselli had mentioned true names for some of the Cubans who had been involved in the early poison plots....although it was in closed session, staff members talked about that and work got back to Miami that Johnny was slipping with age and might say something even more dangerous during his next round of interviews....which led to his being killed by some of the individuals he had worked with directly in the earlier days, people he thought had secrets to protect but without knowing they had come suspect he might make get carried away with his story telling next time around when he was going to get asked about the Harvey period of time in 62/62 rather than the earliest days of the poison plots during the initial Cuba project period back in 60/61..

Thanks Ron, you beat me to it on the sources. It should be noted that the FBI surveillance on Roselli was so tight that they monitored his personal car in LA daily and also had a watch on him (among others) at arrivals and departures at the Vegas airport. Roselli was aware of all this which is why he even fed a bogus line to one of his girlfriends who was an FBI source in conjunction with that trip by he and his buddy to Arizona. Beyond all that we also have an anecdotal report from a lawyer whose partner told him that on Sunday he received a call from Vegas by someone whose voice he recognized because they had met before and that the call had to do with obtaining a lawyer for Ruby - he identified the caller as Roselli and it was made clear to him that the payments would need to be fed though Ruby's brother so that nobody would find out who was paying for Ruby's defense. All third party of course - this is in SWHT - and I did get some confirmation from the law partner. No way to firm it up but it was more indication that Ruby's act against Oswald was unplanned and as with many other aspects whatever the plan had been it had unraveled the afternoon of November 22 and Ruby had been called in as a last ditch effort to make sure Oswald was not going to be talking - or go to trial.