Larry Hancock

Bill, as I recall Bolden very clearly describes an FBI teletype coming into the office and a variety of SS reports on the incident going back to DC...hand carried by courier. As you say this is quite an old story in one sense and the HSCA was interested, there are some memos about the incident on my book web site. I think I also included some trial documents and of course its very revealing that the Judge who convicted Bolden refused to consider a statement of perjury given by the witness used against him. Certainly a major miscarriage of justice in that. Which of course CNN didn't accurately present. And of course, the whole incident may be related to the Presidential travel records destroyed by the SS for fall 63 travel...documented by Doug Horne of the ARRB. For me that lends a lot of strength to Bolden's report. -- Larry

The statement in the CNN story was that they were Cubans, another example of how media sound bytes are generally quite misleading. However, the core of the story is that the FBI actually informed the SS that dangerous folks were coming to Chicago (a rare example of FBI communication to the SS). As I detail in SWHT this was probably because it was a fairly low level FBI communication based on the fact that the FBI had been monitoring these Cubans in arms and explosives purchases in the midwest and Chicago and tracking the arms down to New Orleans and Miami. We do have the FBI documents on tracking those Cubans and they were most definitely Cuban exiles and not Castro Cubans. And the FBI knew these exiles were pretty unhappy with the administration as they were totally on the outside of any sanctioned operations against Cuba and consequently felt that JFK was doing nothing at all about Castro. We will never know for sure as it appears that all the Chicago threat documents were bundled up and likely destroyed after the assassination but there is a basis for speculation on the group of Cubans involved and even some of the names. -- Larry

David, there's no doubt about that and as you probably know there was a second letter as well. After a time I reached a personal conclusion that both letters may well have actually been written by either Crisman or even by Beckham. There was a clear patter of Crisman trying to create mysteries around himself, anything to give him visibility. He was also a devote of picking up government stationary and writing "official" letters. One of his efforts appears to associate him with a mysterious domestic intelligence network...in which one of his major assignments was inflitrating and influencing a local school board... Actually much of the early research we came across had been done by individuals who were trying to figure out exactly what he was about because he played such strange roles in creating conflicts in local matters like schools and local city goverments. We did find solid evidence that he traveled in the SE in years after the assassination, even doing speech writing for right wing clients. There was just nothing to put him in the area prior to the assassination. He's a fascinating study, no doubt about that. -- Larry

I'll be brief, a friend of mine from the northwest and I spent about three years researching Fred C. I have never published our extensive files including a host of work by researchers who had come before us but several things are quite clear abut Fred. He was a con man, he loved self promotion, he loved making himself look mysterious and , according to his son who was supposedly on the boat the entire UFO thing was a fraud. But more importantly, we interviewed his high school principal who truly disliked Fred and had tried to have him dismissed. Even though he had nothing good to say about him he was quite clear, and still had the attendance sheets to support it, that Fred was at work teaching on November 22, 1963. ...another very mysterious individual who had me firmly convinced he was suspicious ...before we did the grunt work. -- Larry

Katheleen, these pullman cars have nothing at all to do with the freight train which pulled into the yard from downtown Dallas and in which Lee Bowers looked down into a hopper car and saw a single tramp, reporting that to police. As Jack elaborated, these three cars were pullmans and were used to support RR work and field locations with both office and sleeping facilities. I'd also be very cautious about the description of a Black "porter", if you check photos you will find a couple of black individuals in jackets and caps, they have been called parking lot attendants but I'm not sure anyone ever tied down where they did work. I'd also love to see a single police report stating that an officer actually entered any of the parked pullmen cars...but then none of the work in the parking lot was really documented and of course DPD did not considere it a crime scene...only the TSBD counted... -- Larry

Don, I'm afraid that is incorrect. The passenger cars were not a "train". The cars were used by the railroad as mobile officers and when not parked in Dallas they were shuttled out to construction or other work sites were an office was temporarily required. However they were often in Dallas and you can find various numbers of them in different photos daken over a period of months/years. They were also used as extra office space there and a gas line was run out to them for heating. It is unclear that they were occupied on Nov. 22 and there is no record that they were entered or searched although police can be seen outside them and even on top of them. Lots of folks have made an effort to get more detail including contacting former Dallas RR workers but I'm afraid the info above is pretty much what we know about them at this time. -- Larry

Tim I belive I go into that in some rather agonizing detail...grin. Certainly Jack had a role for Nov. 22 and he was expecting some "fireworks" as one informant related. The tactical folks needed some local intel, especially from within DPD and Jack certainly was the man for that. His contacts were so good he even knew when Oswald was supposed to be transferred on Saturday and then later that it was not going to happen. However, as with many other things, lots of folks roles changed when Oswald ended up in custody. -- Larry

Steve, Ruby was worried by the time he briefly hit Parkland....he was certainly not clued into the full detail of what was going to happen and his reaction at the paper when he first heard the news is a fairly good clue there. I suspect he was at about the same degree of loss as Oswald around 12:45....e.g. what the heck did these people do and how deep am I in trouble. Later in the afternoon after he has his phone call and goes to his sisters and everything begins to hit him he literally begins throwing up ... Kantor and Tice simply happened to see him during the transition. Tice was not the only one to get threatening calls of course, the people at the most immediate risk where those folks who had some knowledge of old Jacks connections....I'm pretty sure it got Kothe killed. ....hope that answered your question, Larry When do you think that happened? Steve Thomas

Tim, first the short answer. Ruby was briefly at Parkland trying to find out for himself what really had happened, when he encountered Kantor he had not been given his full future role. Kantor was correct and there are other credible witnesses that support him. Beyond that I have to refer you back to SWHT where I develop an almost minute by minute evolution of Jack's role, his changes in emotional states which are a dead give away, his movements and his telephone calls. Much of that is based in Kantors detailed investigation. The fascinating thing is that reather than belive the work of its own investigators or of Kantor, the WC literally accepted Jack's and Jack's relatives statements about his movements and behavior at face value...then they dismissed their investigators. Sort of like taking statements from known mopsters as confirmation that Jack had no mob connections....which pretty well goes beyond simply being naive. -- Larry

Thank you John. -- Larry

Evan, perhaps the most stimulating example of that is during the testimony of a witness to the shooting...the WC staff have made it clear to him that there were three shots and then they ask him how many shots he heard. His reply says it all: "Well I guess I heard one more than there was." -- Larry

What Dawn said.... Plus, John was clear from the beginning that this forum was to be about education, which implies reasoned give and take and the constant ability to question all data without becoming emotionally involved. Which of course is never easy, especially for all of us who are serious about these cases. But those are John's ground rules and they were clearly and fairly stated. -- Larry

Rats James, I knew that at one time....could be Shackley, Harvey or possibly even Bissell but I tend to think either Harvey or Shackley. I will try and check it out for you.. Larry

ooops, sorry, in my other post I say "David" a couple of times when it should be "Davis". Also, I'm pretty sure the document for this specific interview is referenced in SWHT where I go over the issue of the "various" camps; it may even be on the book WEB site for that chapter, think so, just not totally certain. -- Larry

Steve, that's a fascinating document and I had never seen it before. It does complement other internal CIA memos I have seen which list names that were coming up in the Garrison investigation. One possible reason for Sylvia Odio's name being mentioned is that Howard Davis himself brought it up in an interview in which he was being interviewed by Weisberg. David has helped set up an interview (in Houston I think but maybe Dallas) with Sergio Arcacha Smith. Weisberg was doing an in depth investigation of rumored camps around New Orleans. Anyway, during the interview, which was conducted years after the Odio incident was brought up to the WC, David begins talking about having known Odio as a girl in Cuba, even playing with her as I recall although this is simply from memory. A very wierd thing and seemingly not credible at all. But since most of Garrison's investigation reports including Weisberg's were being stolen and passed on to the CIA, that may be why Sylvia shows up in the middle of a list of others names that were coming up in the Garrison investigation. -- just a thought, Larry

Steve, in the case that you might think I'm trying to cloud the issue, my reasoning is simply that on November 22 you have a memo from the head of the CIA staff in MC to the CIA guy in charge of West Hemisphere. Now if this message went out prior to the assassination I could see the raw coincidence of sending up some special photos of an individual known to both men. That would indeed be a strange coincidence but certainly might have nothing to do with Oswald...or the assassination. If it went out after the assassination I would have to think there would be nothing on anyone's mind except matters relating to the assassination...and we do know of only one set of photos turned over to the FBI that day for transit to back to the U.S. on that date. I noted a few options in my earlier message but unless you can verify that the message was sent pre-assassination I don't see how you could write off the option that it has something to do with Oswald and/or the assassination? -- Larry I think the whole reference to Lee Harvey Oswald is a smoke screen. Nowhere in the body of that memo is there any reference to LHO. The typing that says, "these photos were determined to not be of Lee Harvey Oswald" were added later, and on a different typewriter. Based on what is in the memo, we don't even know if there is a connection to Kennedy's assassination at all, other than Mann was concerned enough about this individual to want to have copies of his picture hand delivered to Dallas. Why Dallas? We don't know. Did the CIA have something special going on in Dallas, TX in late 1963? The memo does not say to whom the Legal Attache was supposed to deliver the photos. I don't think this memo has anything to do with Oswald, and somebody interjected that as a way of clouding the issue. Steve Thomas

Daniel, I think that is a very key question - a decade or so ago, or if we belived statements by people like Phillips we might assume they are just confused because Oswald had never really been "on the radar screen" as Phillips states and in fact the MC CIA folks really were not that interested in him. However, since the releases and work of the 90's we know that is an outright lie. MC was very concerned about him, they were "hot" about him according to Tarasof even before they got the first translations of his telephone calls from the Cuban embassy. And they were ballistic about his contact with Kostikov. Memos went to a host of people about that; and Kostikov himself was the target of ongoing surveillance by MC CIA. So I'm not buying that they didn't know what Oswald looked like nor am I buying they had no surveillance photos of the real Oswald. We now have a memo from Phillips to the FBI saying they also have photos of everyone entering the Cuban embassy during the period in question. What I'm thinking is that the memo in question here refers to photos of Oswald and that both parties are well aware of who he was and strange goings on around him (perhaps only known fully to CI/SIG) and they are dancing around that fact. And at some point the photos became way to embarassing and somebody substituted other ones for some reason...possibly just to support the position that Oswald was not a person of interest to the CIA and FBI immediately prior to the assassination. I can see it now...who us, no we didn't even have photos of the guy - look at our stupid mistake - no need to ask us about him. -- Larry Larry , I agree... Is this guy important to these people for unrelated reasons, or because he has mistakenly been labled as 'Oswald' ? Do Scott and King even know what LHO really looks like at this stage?

Duh, I certainly should have caught that - although for some strange reason I keep mentally switching Mann and Scott...always have. Now the question for me would be, is this communication so early that they think they are going to be able to cover up the fact that Oswald was in MC....which would be pretty silly given all the interagency memos from a month or so earlier. Which brings me back to two options: 1. The photos being sent up are not of Oswald but of somebody else known to both parties....raising the question of what that would be a priority at this point in time and implying two separate sets of photos were going north that evening, Oswald and this guy. 2. He thinks the photos are of Oswald and is going on record that Oswald was well known to both of them...which very well could be true given all the earlier flap about Oswald in MC and his Kositikov contact...and once again showing Phillips was a xxxx about Oswald not even being on their radar screen. ...but then the photos are not of Oswald....or does this mean that real Oswald photos did go up and later the mystery man was substituted for some reason because their was something about the Oswald photos that had to be covered up? Or are there even more options? Larry

A few background questions on this occur to me that had not before... "In a letter dated 11/22/63 from Ambassador to Mexico, Winfield Scott to J.C. King, Chief WH Division, Scott writes, "Reference is made to our conversation of 22 November in which I requested permission to give the Legal Attache copies of photographs of a certain person who is known to you." Unless I'm mistaken this implies that the US Ambassador is giving photos to the FBI and informing the CIA in Washington that he is doing so. We have generally taken this to be the surveillance photos that should have been of Oswald. But beyond that Mann seems to imply that he has personal knowledge that King knows the person in question, as does King apparenty. Is that simply because both know the man to be the public suspect in the assassination of JFK. Is this obscure wording to conceal the fact that Oswald has been in MC and if so why, esepcially with so much other message traffic going on about that same thing and none of it being so reserved. Another question is why, on November 22, the US Ambassador be in possession of any photos relating to Lee Oswald or anyone else for that matter? We know that CIA Mexico City claimed not to even have current file photos of Lee Oswald, requesting them later that day and weekend from HQ. We also know that CIA was in full possession of all surveillance photos for the preceeding several months...that is documented in a memo from Phillips to the FBI early in 1964. I find it a little hard to imagine that CIA MC would routinely give copies of surveillance photos to the Ambassador or actually even that the Ambassador was in the loop on routine CIA activties (their is a long history of US Ambassador's being isolated from the CIA, part of the deniability thing as well as turf battles). If this were the CIA station chief it might make some sense but the US Ambassador? It would also be interesting if we knew what time of day this message was sent. Are we thinking the Ambassador stormed into the CIA chain of command and obtained their surveillance photos to send to the FBI to give back to the CIA in D.C. Or did the CIA have no way to get the photos to D.C. other than to request that the Ambassador and FBI be involved (maybe the CIA travel budget was running low and they could not afford air fare?) Then again considering how important this was, why not fly down a US military aircraft and get the photos directly back to DC? Was somebody thinking about covering up the fact that Oswald had been in Mexico? But the simple question is why does the Ambassador have photos at all, well at least ones of interest to King? And why be coy about who they are if they relate to Oswald and its after the assassination and he is just assisting the CIA in getting them back to the U.S.? For that matter, if it is after the assassination why is he not meeting with or at least copying CIA station chief in M.C. if this is about Oswald? When I first read this I jumped to the conclusion that it was all a matter of the Ambassador helping out the CIA by facilitating the transfer of the photos back to the U.S. but that implies that CIA in Mexico City had them in the first place. After thinking about Steve's post, and pondering how obscure Mann is being with his wording, I'm now thinking that it is not nearly that simple. However, simple explanations will be happily accepted... -- Larry

John, my current view is that Hunt did pass on elements of the conspiracy that he had heard via insider gossip; there was clearly plenty of that among the right social networks. I do not belive Meyer was in charge or had the experence and track record to be....my suspicion is that Hunt muddied the water with some name substitutions. On the other hand, his bringing up Morales is pretty interesting, especially since CIA still doesn't seem to want to admit one of their senior officers even worked for the Agency. I also have a hard time seeing Morales having Hunt recruited, Hunt declining and then walking away for several decades and Morales letting it lie....not to mention what Hunt could have contributed to such a conspiracy in the first place. I don't think you turned down Morales and he let you wonder around as a potential liability of that magnigude. I think we are going to hear a lot more at the conference though so I'm keeping an open mind...and I have no doubt that Hunt did hold certain true pieces of information, filtering that out is the challenge, as usual. -- Larry

Christopher, its my understanding that Hunt began his "confession" privately years before St John's recent media appearances. Our Hunt panel leader was involved in those early exchanges and should be able to bring a number things into better perspective than what we have seen so far. Certainly Hunt didn't offer anything shockingly new in his confession and some elements are pretty questionable...as I will be discussing in my section of the panel. On the other hand, his story has made me revisit a couple of areas that I had discarded - which have produced some revelations, for me at least. It's important to keep in mind that while Hunt is often pictured as a pure Agency man, it seems more than he was very loyal to a select group of individuals within the Agency and had considerable distain for some decisions and some Agency actions. In any event, I think this is going to be an extremely interesting part of the conference and I'm certainly looking forward to getting the full story of his longer term effort to make some sort of statement for the record. -- Larry

Hi Mike, no I have not really communicated with David on RFK, I've been working directly from the LAPD and FBI files - and being frustrated by the absolutely terrible background work done by SUS, not to mention how gentle they were with certain suspects - the only thing is that their work with witnesses was even worse. However, I've actually spent far more time on the MLK case and hope that by the time of the conference I will be able to announce a book on that which would be out next spring, prior to the 40th anniversary of his murder. -- Larry

The 2007 JFK Lancer November in Dallas Research Conference has been scheduled for November 16-18. This year the November in Dallas Conference will address three 2007 national news stories that focused on JFK and RFK. First, there was the news that E. Howard Hunt, prior to his own death, had shared details on his personal knowledge of the conspiracy which resulted in JFK's death. That information included specific names of CIA officers who were involved in planning and organizing the attack. Davod Giammarco had been personally working with E. Howard Hunt for several years prior to the announcement of Hunt's confession and he will offer an in depth history of Hunt's revelations as well as an assessment of their reliability. Giammarco will also lead a panel including Larry Hancock, Lamar Waldron and Debra Conway who will evaluate David Morales, Frank Sturgis, William Harvey and Hunt himself in respect to Hunt’s confession. With the publication of David Talbot's book on Robert Kennedy, the public was provided with considerable evidence that Robert Kennedy himself had been convinced that his brother was murdered as the result of a conspiracy; and that RFK covertly investigated the conspiracy and had focused on a specific group of suspects, including individuals named in the Hunt confession. David Talbot will address the conference in regard to RFK conspiracy beliefs and actions. Not long after the Hunt and RFK revelations made news, national media carried a number of stories about a scientific team which had published studies showing that a key technical test used by the Warren Commission to confirm Lee Oswald as the sole shooter was Invalid. Cliff Spiegelman, a member of the Texas A&M University team Conducting the new NAAA research will present on the tests And their findings that the bullet fragments could have come from three or more separate bullets and, therefore, more than one shooter. Spiegelmen will also relate how the work was stimulated by a call from JFK researcher Stuart Wexler. In addition, the conference is pleased to present journalist and historian Burton Hirsh, who will discuss information from his most recent book entitled The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hooverthat Transformed America. Other speakers and their topics, include new research on subjects ranging from an update on the Wallace prints to new studies of the Ambassador Hotel attack on Robert Kennedy. A list of speakers and other conference details is available at: http://jfklancer.com/dallas07/index.html ...we are obviously trying to cover lots of bases! Larry

Folks, I think you missed the clue in the letter... Who were the last pair of researchers to gain Marinia's trust? Who wote a book featuring Elrod. I think you will find the folks assisting with the letter were the authors of "Oswald Talked" -- Larry

John, a very high level question that's virtually impossible to answer. Certainly there is no evidence of Dulles being personally close to most of my tactical suspects, he was not of the same social strata/class as a Morales for example and its difficult to see the two men ever "connecting". Certainly the "old boys" of the Agency were of a different circle than people such as Morales, Phillips or Roselli. I would be much more likely to think that Shackley would have suspected CIA personnel complicity than Dulles. On the other hand I firmly suspect that if he had known he would have done whatever it took to protect the agency including totally covering it up. There is little doubt in my mind that senior and career officers felt that the Agency and its war against Communism and the KGB was far more important than any single life, including that of a President. Helms lied under oath, Dulles would have done the same. But given Dulles sophistication, he would be far more likely to use simple misdirection and disinformation. Then again, there is that Dulles book project with E. Howard Hunt... Larry