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Larry Hancock

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  1. The documents appear to be concurrent, they talk about Sforza coming out and they specifically assign Phillips to pick up and transfer the exfilitration information. They appear to be generated beyond Phillips own level and he is being given the assignment. It certainly appears that this is a project generated above both Phillips and even Morales level and they are being assigned duties. I think James may have posted at least one of the relevant documents here before.
  2. CIA documents covered in SWHT, and months back on this forum, relate that he was to make a social visit out of Cuba to Mexico city over the period of November 21-23. That trip was a dummy and was to allow him to bring out information related to a planned exfiltration, an urgent one important to CIA HQ, that was to come through the keys with JMWAVE support. David Phillips was to pick up the info in Mexico City and get it to David Morales who was handling operational elements of the exfiltration. I've speculated that this appears to have to do with getting Castro's sister out...separate documents connect Sforza to that....and that the plan for this date aborted due to the assassination, she actually came out quite a bit later but for some reason it appears urgent that she was initially to come out of Cuba at the end of November. -- Larry I have it on good authority that he was in Mexico City in November, 1963.
  3. I'll just add in that it was not unusual to find the FBI using the term "confidential informant" when they were describing information obtained via illegal wire taps, mail intercepts or black bag jobs. That protected both the Bureau and any other cooperative individual such as a postal worker or telephone company employee as well. -- Larry
  4. Hi John, yes I was aware of that memo...certainly we do know that Davidson had a broad range of contacts for borkering arms, having been approached by Howard Davis as far back as 1959 for arms for activites relating to Cuba. But Davidson was an arms broker and an "arranger/fixer". If he was backing something Gerry was doing in 1967 it was with soembody else's money, not his own. In any event, it didn't suprise me given Davidson's history and connections and 1967 didn't seem to relevant to things JFK per se. I'd be eager to hear anything Gerry has to say about Davidson though. -- Larry Larry, were you aware of this information?
  5. Right on James, those are the FBI documents Debra located....you jogged my memory. The report originates with what Cuesta handed over and if someone can dig that up you will have samples plus the names on the correspondance. My recollection is that it starts with a card, turns into a letter and then ends up as a brochure as it gets passed on. I thought it rather interesting that Cuesta would think enough of it to pass it on to the FBI immediately after the assassination....wonder if there is any hidden meaning there...grin. -- Larry
  6. To follow on Bill's comments.. First, we could have an idea of the real source of the thoughts in the card and pamphlet if the FBI had taken the trouble to actually interview and record some background on the card's writer...who he associated with, what news he had heard, why did he belive what he wrote...as usual, they just documented the card and left it at that. Second, clearly certain CIA officers and assets were spreading rumors about JFK by the summer of 1963, I cover that in some detail in SWHT (and one of the sources is even Escalante...grin). I'm afraid we often underestimate people like Phillips and Morales a great deal. If they wanted to incite an action against JFK you would not find Phillips writing a brochure....these guys were orders of magnitude more sophisticated and astute than most people realise. Which of course why, if you are looking for people who could get away with killing a President, you just might look at career professionals who dealt with eliminating political and military leaders and overthrowing governments. Not that they always succeeded, eg Castro, but sometimes they did (Chile) and perhaps these things are easier when you are playing on your home field. Perhaps we should pay more attention to their familiy members - who we could reasonably expect to have a clear view of their capabilities and nature. It seems that some relatives of both Phillips and Morales are of the opinion that the men were very possibly involved in the conspiracy which assassinated JFK. -- Larry
  7. Actually, a small group of us managed to corroborate this a couple of years ago. Debra Conway took the lead and actually located reports on the investigation of this item. I don't know that I mentioned it in the second edition, probably not, and at the moment I can only report what I recall of it rather than citing documents - I'll ask Deb if she can find the material. Bottom line, a greeting card was sent by a Cuban exile in Dallas to another in Miami, the names are in the documents. This greeting was actually a Christmas card but it contained the verbiage expressed in the flyer. In Miami, someone took it and turned it into a flyer, using the verbiage and adding graphics of the Alamo. It apparently had a limited circulation in Miami but it was investigated, as I recall by the FBI. The incident did occur and the flyer and its precursor definitely did exist. I can't figure out why Manchester didn't cite his source, he was normally very good about that. Whether the flyer really meant more than what it appears to seems doubtful....its pretty consistent with the fact that numerous exiles felt in 1963 that their return to Cuba and the overthrow of Castro depended on someone more hawkish taking control of the country. And Johnson, fully capable of posing as anything to anybody, was projecting a more hawkish attitude...we even have documents of that period where he meets with representatives from the King Ranch and tells them that JFK is way too soft on Cuba (he was playing similar games with backchanneld to Vietnam). The ultimate opportunist. -- I'll come up with more detail as time permits but thought I should at least pass this on. Larry Tim, I remember Larry asking me about this a few years ago, but I no longer have the original. It might be among the JFK boxes I took to DC and gave to John Judge for the COPA archvies a few years ago when I thought I was giving up on JFK The one I had was not made of paper, but hard cardboard and folded like a bouchour, very professionally done. BK
  8. John, I have seen no specific examples of Jews other than the so called Jewish Mafia being interested in the Cubans...the people I do see were associated with the Lansky networks extending from LA, Vegas and even Cleveland. Many of these individuals had been very much into Cuban gun running both before and after the Castro revolution. Sort of a spin off of the heavy Lansky investment in Havana. Other business people who did invest in the Cuban exile cause were very much WASP - mostly united by having been major corporate players in Batista era Cuba. The same people and companies that Castro tried to blackmail to help finance the revolution. One of the reasons that the Echeverria comment seems to relate to the so called "Jewish Mafia" is that it appears that there were multiple offers of funding from those people to the Junta/JCGE and a lot of that money was moving through the Chicago area. That is reflected in the fact that people up there seemed to have ready cash while other groups such as DRE were having real money problems - even if they could locate potential weapon suppliers like Masen in Dallas. DRE was virtually begging CIA for cash to buy weapons and finance naval incursions in the fall of 1963 and they were being turned down because of their history of unsanctioned military operations. - Larry
  9. Bill, to add to your research list: SA Heitman, FBI Division 5 counter intelligence in Dallas. He carried the brief for working the Cubans in Dallas; his paperwork shows up extensively after the assassination but there seems to be a real hole before hand. We suspect that Heitman might have been the key individual (not Hosty) that would have observed Oswald in contact with exiles or other "subversives" before the assassination. His reports on Harlandale would be especially key. -- Larry
  10. James, its a stretch but I seem to recall JMARC showing up on a variety of accounting related documents pertaining to payments to groups, individuals and others who were being funded though the Cuba project....would not be a suprise at all to find Hunt or Barker or some of the other folks associated with affairs prior to the Bay of Pigs. -- Larry
  11. James, the name certainly rings no bells with me but then its not a name I was tracking either so I'm afraid I couldn't be sure....way too many documents over too many years, sorry. -- Larry
  12. Thanks Tom, actually we hope to have a familiarization session on the rifle and perhaps even an opportunity for some folks to handle it on a firing range. One of the Lancer forum members had bee firing his Carcano's a lot recently...I will share this with him and ask him to make sure he\ covers that point. -- Larry
  13. Hi Tim, could you give a reference for the investigative work that Bugliosi did on RFK? I'm familiar with his role as defense counsel in the KCOP case - where Owen suited the station over libel for associating him with an RFK conspiracy, Turner and Christian also supported the station in that case and that's where Turner came to know Bugliosi. In his book Turner mentions that Bugliosi only entered that case at the very last moment though. However I'm not aware of work that Bugliosi did beyond that case so I would be most interested...as far as that case went he relied heavily on investigative work done by Christian and Turner over a number of years. Just don't know how much primary work he did himself? -- thanks, Larry
  14. Very good Myra!, had to look it up myself but its in the second edition crypt list on page 519 As far as I can tell from the documents it refers to the Cuba Project and more specifically to matters involving the Brigade as part of the project. -- Larry
  15. Interesting point Pat...in his Manson book, Bubliosi goes on at some length to describe a situation in which LAPD was really not being very aggressive in their investigation, letting leads lie, not doing comprehensive background checks, etc. He relates calling one of the teams and going though a whole list of things they should have checked...and getting a response that they are only cops and they check what they are told to. His implication is that its the DA / prosecutor who is going to make it happen, in that case he had the kids and wanted Manson so he kept pushing. One has to ask what would have happened if the prosecutor had been satisfied with just the kids....would Manson have gone free....and Bugliosi points out several of the crowd was never charged and even went on to perform other murders, some never seriously investigated. So....if the Sirhan prosecutor was satisfied with just Sirhan and the Ray prosecutor with just Ray....who's going to push to develop a conspiracy, given Bugliosi's assessment of the Manson investigation...probably nobody. -- I'm still not convinced our "justice" system can find a conspiracy unless a very unusual DA is at the helm....hmmm....which would suggest Bugliosi should relate to Garrison rather than trash him....yeah, right... -- Larry Well hopefully, I dont wish to spend the rest of my life like a Victorian Lady with a fit of the vapours. This "conspiracy mindset" nonsence is, of course, a useful way to pidgeonhole any serious researchers. By implying that if you believe that JFK and his Brother were assassinated as part of a wider political conspiracy, you must also believe in faked moon landings, missiles hitting the pentagon and all things Illuminatti, we are being branded by association. I do find it interesting that so many who look into the JFK case and decide there was no conspiracy feel the need to look at the MLK case and RFK cases as well, and most always decide there was no conspiracy behind these killings. Conversely, many here would agree that it's possible Sirhan or Ray acted alone, or as part of a small conspiracy. Which begs the question: are we as guilty of being "conspiracy-minded" as they are of being "anti-conspiracy minded?" I suspect their predisposition against conspiracy is stronger than our predisposition towards conspiracy. There are, of course, a few exceptions to the general rule that someone favoring no conspiracy in JFK will see no conspiracy elsewhere.. Back in the 70's Bugliosi received a lot of attention for suspecting that Sirhan didn't act alone. (Has he ever disavowed these suspicions?) Far stranger, Gus Russo, who thinks Oswald killed Kennedy for Castro, and ignores Jack Ruby, proposed that Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was assassinated by the Chicago mob, and that his killer Zangara was a paid hit man only pretending to be a lone nut. Even more bizarre, Russo holds that the orchestrator of this charade was Dave Yaras, Jack Ruby's lifelong friend.
  16. I checked in with Gaeton Fonzi about the possiblity of two Big Indians (El Indio) and Gaeton says that he never ran across any reference or mention that there might be two people with this nickname or being described in this manner...and when he asked Phillips about the reference in his book there was no confusion that it might be multiple people, Phillips didn't try to point him in multiple directions. -- Larry
  17. Folks, I'm going to weigh in with Charles on this one. For reference, I followed behind Bugliosi about a week ago on an LA radio talk show. He had been on a week or so before and although the host thought he was sincere, he didn't buy a word of his final solution. Which helps persuade me that the only folks who are going to be persuaded by Bugliosi are those who already buy into the Oswald did it alone "legend", who are Bubliosi fans (you see a lot of them posting on Amazon) or the establishment media (who only want a sound byte and don't want to deal with this anyway since its sort of embarassing that they missed the real story - would be really embarassing for them to ever have to accept that they failed the nation so badly). We have to accept that Bugliosi's line is comforting to a lot of people, not only the media but those who just don't want to mentally cope with the thought that their could be conspiracies (and people) who could get away with killing a President. At least that is true in the U.S.; it seems much less the case in the rest of the world. I think what would be much more important for our public visibility is the sort of thing David is doing which is taking a historical story to mainstream media. One of the best things to broaden our reach since the JFK movie was the Vanity Fair article by Summers which brought a lot of the newest 90's information into a broad circulation readership....things Bubliosi still does not address (we have to keep harping on the fact that as far as data is concerned he is stuck in 1964 and is simply presenting the prosecution's case for the Warren Commission, not making use of any of new data, new techniques etc - as John Newman once said, you need to keep pointing out that its not really a debate if your opponent is either a) not in possession of all the facts and data or is in denial. So...aside from the quest for a new legal initiative, more than debate, I think what would serve us best is popular articles by David and others - and better yet a couple of new movies or documentaries. And in those Bugliosi deserves mention for a fine job of presenting the WC lone nut case but that's it. It's still not justice if you only hear from the prosection. And Bugliosi's book is not history, its not an investigation; it's the prosecution's case in print...lots of print. Those with any media reach at all should help Talbot, Mark Lane and other known figures to get print time and air time, not to debate t but to present "the rest of the story" (with credit to Paul Harvey for that line). -- Larry
  18. That would indeed be Hecksher....the same fellow began his intelligence career with the Army, then the OSS and went on to help start the CIA's Berlin station. But after PBSUCCESS he went on to ground his career by becoming COS in Laos, working the trans border routes in the golden triangle and from there to COS Japan... -- Larry quote name='Gene Kelly' date='Jul 6 2007, 07:38 PM' post='109117'] Larry: Would that be Hecksher?
  19. Given the thread title and Cliff's remarks (thanks Cliff, yes I know what you mean, and I think the imge of a snake is a lot better than an elephant for this one) I think its interesting that the Amazon war of reviews is beginning to wash over even to Someone Would Have Talked. The following is an Amazon review from yesterday and may be driven by the fact that Brothers and SWHT show up when you take a look at Reclaiming History. .....Amazon review of SWHT.... "This book is a reasonable contribution to the ongoing and probably never ending debate. I say reasonable in that it is at least well written and organized - unlike so many on the subject. But does it make sense - no, not in a million years. I am therefore at odds with most of the other reviewers here. The degree of knowledge shared within the "JFK assassination community" is extremely high and is evident on Amazon and other web based forums. However it never ceases to amaze me how often books like this receive such good reviews by people who clearly have such a high degree of knowledge on the subject. How on earth can you believe Larry Hancock's conclusions. You cannot. Most of the authors presentation of "what actually happened" is pure conjecture and this book joins that long list of pro conspiracy none sense that I like many others no doubt have hidden away or on shelves - depending perhaps on your view point. Forget the grassy knoll and the man with the seizure and all those other HUGE red herrings. All the shots were fired from above and behind and yet - and yet - this author like so many just ignores the overwhelming evidence against Oswald. Take for example the quantum leap of a theory that the gun barrel that was seen pointing out of the TSBD sixth floor window was merely a device for framing Oswald and that other shooters were positioned around Dealey Plaza. Why oh why would you shoot from the front and have your patsy to the rear. And why did Oswald shoot Tippet if he were not at all involved ? The list of questions goes on and on. The books conclusions are utter non sense and I suspect the author knows it deep down. Vincent Bugliosi has written a far more believable book. By both and make up your own mind." ....and just in case anyone was curious, what I know deep down is that these folks need to 1) Read Gerald McKnights book Breach of Trust first, to fully understand the house of cards that underlies the evidence they cite and which Vince B. uses 2) Get to know Doug Horne and Gaeton Fonzi to evaluate the sort of judgements that Vince B. uses in evaluating serious researchers -- and then take the reviewers advice, read SWHT and Reclaiming History and make an informed judgement on what to belive. -- Larry
  20. Gene, that would be my conclusion as well: "A conclusion drawn from this picture is that the real 'drivers' for the murder were not the hard-line exiles who carried out the plot... they were manipulated in the same fashion that they used LHO. maybe they were surrepticiously eliminated. There was never going to be an invasion... no matter how the plot evolved" The guys pulling the strings really wanted a) JFK dead RFK neutralized on virtually all his tracks at Justice and c) no serious oversight/interference with their covert political/power agendas. There may well have been some active double crossing going on as well. I have reason to think that some of the tactical people including those in peripheral roles such as Martino eventually began to realize that all was not as they had been led to belive. Indeed this may be the reason for some deaths (Roselli comes to mind) and people like Morales more concerned about the people he had worked with than his old enemies (as he remarked to Reuben). If you go into some depth on Johnson's mental condition there is also a great deal of evidence that he suffered from escalating paranoia and may have developed a serious guilt complex. "Could the unofficial CIA players really control them that easily... drugs, money, other fronts? How did Phillips keep them happy and focused... did we continue to preach/promise that Castro would be removed?" Not sure it was that clear cut, the clique driving the project did continue its own anti-Communist war from SE Asia to Latin America. And in may cases they fed the line that they were simply establishing networks capable of supporting a new Cuban initiative. Or that one day a new President would come along who would reinvigorate the Castro battle (Hunt lined up a considerable exile force with that line). And Veciana never really turned on Phillips totally. The clique managed to give a lot of the radical exiles cover for a very long time...one can argue that that cover is still going on today (Posada is an example). ...and nobody is ever going to show us that set of real sekeletons in the closet. Also, there may be a couple of names left off your list....including the eventual COS in Chile...an old time partner with Morales, Phillips and Hunt and significant player in the anti-Allende campaign. -- Larry
  21. Thanks Gene, I certainly appreciate the kind words on Someone Would Have Talked. A couple of more observations on your points: "But what's missing for me is how the virulent anti-C exiles passions became dissipated...and why they didn't go after LBJ for similar reasons. Puzzling. That's where I think the larger conspirators and participants come into play/focus... somebody got what they wanted, and everyone apparently then backed off. Now the exiles fade out of the picture, the kill Castro plots fizzle - as the poet says, not with a bang but a wimper." ..... Larry... I think there were a number of things at work here. First off, Johnson did personally intervene and shut off certain exile officers who had been expecting to deploy shortly to Cuba, that is a matter of record. He forced RFK to call some things off and that is on record too. However, beyond those personal contacts the folks who had been working with Artime and even the AMWORLD project were allowed to go their own way for a couple of years...much of the action was transferred to Spain (where Hunt transferred for a time). Reading the Miami papers you might have gotten the impression there was still a lot of active anti-Castro action. But in a couple of years, after the Gulf of Tonkin nonsense, we had gotten ourselves so stuck in SE Asia that it appeared that was the front line against more countries falling and a lot of the exiles went along with the JMWAVE folks that transferred over there. Johnson might have backed off Cuba but he still looked like a first class anti-Communist hawk - he didn't even suggest compromise or rationality as JFK had so his credentials stayed good....no backing down to the Commies for him. Look out the US military engagement in the DR. But....by the late 60's and 70's the hard core exiles really had not faded out of the picture, they were simply operating off shore...in Latin America with cover by people like Phillips....that's where you find Veciana....and of course Hecksher and eventually Morales etc. And you have a whole second generation set of bombings, assassination attempts on Castro and the creation of Condor and the death squads. It's not that the hard core gave up at all, they just moved, used their old CIA covers and networks and began financing operations through selling their military skills and supporting the guys who took over the new and exploding drug trade moving though the south. Guess who took over the drug trade through Mexico after Corsicans got busted up - the lead guy was an exile who had trained at Fort Jackson. So...don't think they gave up....they had a lot more initiative than that. They just got smarter and saw the flaw in trying to work directly with the official side of the agency....although they kept networked to the few folks they did trust...like Morales. -- Larry
  22. I'm certainly not going to argue that the "instigators/plotters" had their own motives and agenda - since I think they did. But just in terms of the comparison between JFK and LBJ in regard to Cuba, the big difference for the exiles who were being manipulated by the plotters was that they were told (and we know it to be true) that JFK was conducting back channel negotiations with Castro and they an accomodation was going to happen which would lead to the Russians being booted out and some sort of long term recognition of Fidel's position. We know talks were beginning and it was probably easy to sell that story to people who already felt JFK had betrayed them twice already. If nothing else Johnson was not about to immediately sell them out. And actually we know now that he did indeed totally rebuff Castro even to the extent of ignoring an offer from Fidel that Castro would tolerate some sort of action against Cuba which would have ensured Johnson's election. Johnson didn't even reply. Of course he did not support the RFK initiatives againt Fidel either but then again Johnson would not touch anything RFK ever was associated with - no big surprise there. In any event, certainly there was a major difference between the two in the fall of 63; JFK could be presented as an imminent threat to certain exiles not involved in RFK's projects while Johnson was seen as no threat and possibly a supporter...after all he was a Texan and the exiles had a lot of Texas support. -- Larry
  23. Bill, as far as I can tell they are simply releasing documents on the old stuff that was surfaced long ago. In my second edition I identify at least three different assassination plans that were operational to some extent, one even went as far as photo recon and photo analysis of the target site. This was revealed due to internal CIA queries during the Church committee hearings but apparently no info was forwarded to the committee nor were the documents part of this release... they are cited in the book and I think samples are on my web site. Bottom line is that there were operational plans being prepared at tactical levels that HQ (and certainly RFK) apparently new nothing about...these and the people involved would be the real significant ones for us I think ...but then its much cleaner to shove everything off on to Roselli and Harvey....keeps a lot of other people out of the picture...the people who actually were running the ops... -- Larry
  24. Myra, my answer is a bit less global in scope than the others but it would also be yes. However it would be very specific and involves the names in the chapter of my last appendix on a small clique in the CIA. I'm virtually certain that it was the broader drug/arms "network" which served as the incubator and shield for the people who murdered JFK; without its power they might not have had the means, even if they had the will. Don't think just drugs though, think drugs and arms...the two go hand in hand with these folks. The weapons buy the political influence the want and the drugs fund the power game. -- Larry
  25. Just curious, are there no legal implications at all for the individuals or agency in regard to witholding this information from Congress and various Congressional inquiries. Can they deny they have it, say so under oath and then a few years later say...oh yeah, we just didn't happen to mention these documents when you asked for them....
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