Larry Hancock

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

John, you are certainly correct on the source of information on Sforza's death. I have nothing further on it and no separate corroboration. On the other point, I see no particular reason to go to that length to protect him from the HSCA, actually if they could not unearth Morales I doubt very much they could have located Sforza...and clearly the CIA was in no mood to bring forth any of its covert officers for the HSCA. Frankly their real sin in my eyes was holding people like Sforza, Morales and Jenkins back from the Church Committee since all three could have spoken to specifics on Castro assassination attempts. Which brings me to a general conclusion that the Agency was so busy protecting itself against disclosure of its foreign assassination activities and its domestic activities sucha as CHAOS that it's very difficult to say that it was giving a whole lot of thought to a JFK cover-up. Which I'm sure is something that occured to the actual CIA personnel involved in the conspiracy; how better to cover-up a conspiracy than to embed it in within an Agency that cannot under any circumstances allow any of its dirty laundry to be aired...and which has National Security as a final and overriding arguement when its back is against a wall. We have yet to see a Judge override that arguement have we? -- Larry

For those that may not know Bob Dorff, he was the individual who followed on with Fonzi's research and initiated the research that located Morales' friend Reuben....leading to most of the development of information on Morales. It's also important that its a novel and he's writing for dramatic effect. Sort of like Bugliosi....grin. Larry

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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