Larry Hancock

Best wishes on the tour David, hope you get a little rest in between stops! I just wanted to exapnd a bit on your point about the assassination efforts against Castro. It's now clear that that there was a long term effort to assassinate Castro...starting in 1959 in an offer from Sturgis to CIA personnel in Havana (including Morales of course) to set up a an assassination inside Cuba while Castro was traveling to military posts. In the same period of time, crime assets in the U.S. planned to kill him when he traveled to New York to the U.N. In the late 1960-61 time frame, in addition to the Roselli plots, there were multiple CIA paramilitary operations being organized to attack and kill Castro inside Cuba. In SWHT I describe one which was orchestrated by Carl Jenkins and utilized, among others, Felix Rodriquez in a planned sniper attack....another was conducted during a naval mission by Rip Robertson. None of these would have been known to RFK. Bottom line is that all of talk about the Kennedy's plans to kill Castro pales beside these actual documented actions by crime and CIA personnel. Later Johnson tried to blame all the murder plots on JFK and RFK ("murder inc.) but it just doesn't wash... As your book points out, RFK was right on the money almost immediately: "Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters, and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime change in Cuba." -- go get 'em, Larry

Not that it doesn't fit Ron - but again in my opinon the things that really fit and class as major diversions are: 1. The stalled pick up under the overpass which distracted officers for a good hour before the motorcade. 2. The ambulance call to Elm and Houston which distracted everyone in the area for about 15 min right up to the arrival of the motorcade. 3. A first shot that made the SS detail look back over their shoulders just as they entered the kill zone. 4. The "beret" man waving on the sidewalk which clearly drew Greers eyes immediately afterwards 5. The smoke and noise from the grassy knoll that drew everyone there after the shooting. Those are my picks for major diversions; I'm guessing the shooter on the south knoll was not just inserted there at the last minute nor the last hour. -- Larry

Yes Ron, in Ed's "Eyewitness" booklet he mentions a train passing something like two to three minutes after the President's car passed by - which does clearly raise some issues about the officer's remark who said the train blocked his view at the time of the shooting. I'm with you now - certainly I would not be beyond thinking that there might have been some hanky panky up there - but if so I would align it with subverting the DPD and not Secret Service conspiracy. There is also reason to belive that at least one active duty DPD officer was playing a role behind the north knoll fence - personally I think Ruby may have been used to recruit DPD officers for what they thought were very minor matters that day but were in reality support roles. -- Larry I don't disbelieve Holland either. What I'm suggesting is that someone in DPD may have had a reason to allow railroad workers onto the overpass, letting Holland screen them. Both officers on the overpass testified about the train. Did Hoffman say a train was passing at the time of the shooting? It would be DPD participation. Off topic perhaps, but I was responding to the issue of people being allowed on the overpass. Greer testified that he saw noticed nothing, whether people or other objects, on the overpass.

Ron, as with most things in the Plaza (and elsewhere) its easy enough to read conspiracy into virtually anything - and I surely have no way of knowing there was none in operation on the overpass. However, Sam Holland very clearly described coming up to the overpass with other railroad folks, being asked by the officers to review and screen people and help them make sure that regular "civilians" were not coming up there. After the fact that looks incredibly stupid...but I have no reason to disbelive Holland. As to the mystery train passing right after the lead cars went by, only one officer mentioned that (and Ed Hoffman as well) and certainly I think there is something strange with that. I hold it as an open question. And it was that officer that came down and into the grass south of Elm and investigated the supposed bullet in the grass there - calling for the CSI folks to check it out (which they did and either did not report on it or the reports missing). However, I see nothing going on with all this that directly supports some major Secret Service participation in the conspiracy. Beyond that, I would encourage everyone to really read all the details of the SS and DPD preparations as background.....it can clear up a lot of loose ends. Personally, I think anyone looking for a diversion will find it in the smoke/noise over on the knoll....which brought everybody to focus on that area over anything else. Greer may well have been slowed down by seeing folks on the bridge but surely multiple gunshots in the car and yelling from right behind him would have done that in any event. -- Larry Larry, Two things point toward conspiratorial presence of people on the overpass. One, people standing over Elm at the north end would divert attention from anyone who might be on the south end, probably behind the slanting wall. So those railroad workers were handy as a means to divert attention. And two, there was a mystery train crossing on the overpass at the time of the shooting, a train that no one in the area saw or heard except the two police officers stationed on the overpass. The effect of this imaginary train was to prevent the officer on the west side from seeing anything that he did not want to see to the south at the time of the shooting. Ron

Francesca, I don't know of any way of knowing when they may be reviewed again....perhaps more importantly, we are now finding new versions of the same document but from other sources (say an FBI copy of a CIA document) showing up with no redactions when the other version is highly redacted. Stu Wexler just finished obtaining some Martino related documents from us and we had to get three or four different versions of each just on the off chance some would be less redacted...which some were. But it gets pretty expensive covering all the bases. -- Larry obviously I meant 1998! Although we will probably still be waiting for records to be released come 2998 if the CIA et al have their way.....

Peter, a lot of folks have devoted time to studying why there were people on the overpass - certainly it was a security problem and should not have happened. But if you really dig into the details you find that DPD had virtually no concept of security for the motorcade. The officers in question were told to station themselves at the east and west sides of the overpass...which put them over the street, not at the ends of the bridge. Stupid yes... Beyond that, the people standing on the bridge are railroad employees from the yards and Dallas office down the street. It was a railroad bridge so apparently the officers had the idea that railroad people could come on it...one of the railroad company managers actually screened the people at the officers requests - Sam Holland. If you have a chance, get the DPD and Secret Service reports on the motorcade preparations, very useful as a sanity check. As an illustration, the morning roll call briefing for the officers talks at length about traffic control....little or no mention is made of security beyond controlling crowds in the streets. The officers were not even warned that they should be facing the crowds, not looking at the motocade themselves...which most of them ended up doing. Dallas was very sensitive to demonstrotions and protests and had all types of security in place at the Trade Mart where they really expected that sort of trouble - they had no concept of a sniper attack and apparently from the SS lead man's notes of the prep meetings, neither did he. It was his first trip advance assignment. It all looks potentially conspiratorial after the fact but if nothing had happened nothing would have raised an eyebrow, not even the SS drinking the evening before - which appears to have been fairly routine for the White House Detail of the time. -- Larry

Francesca, yes you are correct...Phillips is forwarding a list of personnel recommendation for commendation in regard to the BOP project and Jenkins is on the list (note, either Morales is not or his name is redacted, would ge interesting to know the reason for either). This again is independent confirmation for Wheaton's background information provided to the ARRB which described Jenkins role as part of the BOP project. I do have a copy of this from Phillips file but as the other document Pat located, the name meant nothing to me when I first read it years ago. -- Larry I'd love to be able to help you there but even a free copy wouldn't persuade me to to waste my time Re: Jenkins, I came across this memo mentioning him in relation to 'Project JMATE'. Was this something to do with the Bay of Pigs? http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=1 (Jenkins is mentioned on page 3)

Thank you Pat...I'll try to work that word into the day's conversation in order to claim it...grin. I'll have to admit it does "bug" me a bit that Mr. Bubliosi doesn't seem to be familiar with some of the credible people whose remarks have surfaced only in the last decade. Then again I'm not reading his book at present so perhaps those who are will tell us differently as the progress through his 1,900 pages.... -- Larry Wait.. it sounds like you're saying SOMEONE TALKED... LOL. That "someone would have talked" argument has always annoyed the heck out of me...it's so willfully ignorant. Even worse, however, is the Hoover/Warren/Posner/Jennings/Myers/Bugliosi "not one scintilla" argument. What a load! As an homage to your book I think I'll rename my webpage "Scintilla."

Pat, it's the sort of totally independent corroboration that is key. Gaeton Fonzi was unable to find out anything about "the big indian", the CIA totally stonewalled him and the HSCA as it had Garrison. Now we know the facts about Morales. But then even a senior officer in a key position (Jenkins) was totally unknown to us. Then what happens, within the last couple of years it turns out that Carl Jenkins was also a key officer and now we have documents it was his operation that actually developed and launched very real Castro assassination projected before the BOP...independently of the Roselli efforts. But nobody had any idea of Jenkin's importance. Some very important history is turning up in these documents and its real history. These people were there, they were very important and they ran very real black operations. Combine Morales remarks about JFK with Wheaton's information from Jenkins talking about the CIA officer/exile involvement in eliminating JFK - and I have to have to ask why we should just not belive what these people were saying? -- Larry You're correct as usual. James. Hernandez said it was off the coast of New Orleans, but then said "I don't know where it was." I googled it and the source of his confusion became clear. While off the coast of Florida, Useppa is not in the keys. It is far up the western coast of Florida in the gulf, near Tampa Bay. It is almost equidistant between Miami and New Orleans. This puts it in Trafficante country, not Marcello country. From wiki: "When tarpon fishing became popular in the 1880s, Chicago businessman John Roach established a resort on Useppa. Barron Collier bought the island in 1911, but the hotel was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, and was torn down after World War II. William Snow bought the island in 1962 and refurbished its decaying buildings, initiating a recovery in Useppa's tourism industry." Does anyone know much about Baron Collier or his family?. Apparently they owned the island in 61. What about William Snow? Was he a legit businessman? Or was he a front for someone else? Larry, does connecting Hernandez to Jenkins help clarify a possible conspiracy? Does it bring any of your strongest suspects into contact with Jenkins, and complement Wheaton's statements?

I think Pat's find is very significant for a variety of reasons. First, we leaned from both Carlos and Victor Hernandez that certain individuals were taken out of the regular Brigade training that was going on outside New Orleans...and although the CIA tried to run a cover that they were utinmanageable personnel, Victor Hernandez blew that with his statements that they were taken to a safe house, then given special training and then sent into Cuba on a mission peripheral to the Bay of Pigs invasion force. Second, we know from Jenkins records and other sources that the did covert, infiltration training and among other things actually ran Castro assassination missions in an attempt to take out Fidel prior to the BOP. Thrid, all of this ties exactly to Op 40 and Morales AM/MOT intelligence and political team that was sent into the BOP on a peripheral mission and most of whom did not land. I'm forced to the conclusion that Jenkins was actually running operations in with Morales trainees and the two must have known each other well. So far everything Wheaton surfaced to the ARRB about comments he heard from Jenkins and his special exile associates has checked out...now including his reference to Jenkins having connections to operations outside New Orleans. It seems to me we should take their reported comments about the JFK conspiracy and the people who were sent to Dallas very seriously. Thanks much Pat, great work! -- Larry

James, I think we can confirm a few points in that: Ohare did secure a good bit of land in Florida.....the date was in the late 60's as I recall, but much of the funding was private and later resulted in a legal mess. A facility, mainly an airfield was built there, and some flights did start going in and out of the place, apparently to Latin America. There was also some contention drugs were coming back. And people involved in it did say he had pull with the Fla. Air National Guard. Afterwards there was a belief he had scammed folks into thinking it was an Agency operation when it was not. As to dispersing money to Cuesta....well we know Cuesta and Alpha 66 were not excited about taking Agency money and wanted little to do with Alpha. If Phillips/Bhishop was being used as a cut out to deceive them perhaps Ohare/Bishop was too....and he may have been even more disassociated from the Agency than Sturgis? Would be interesting to know where the money came from... -- Larry

Charles, I'm not sure of the actual availability of Bugliosi but I think that Amazon does take "preorders" and counts those in purchase / positioning numbers you are seeing....I've been seeing purchase numbers for Bugliosi for at least a week. -- Larry

I'll chime in with a few of points for anyone who tends to dismiss Garriosn: 1. He undoubtedly demonstrated that the Lee Oswald was not the disconnected, lone nut that he was prestented to be by the WC.... Garrison surfaced a variety of leads showing that Oswald was immeshed in a variety of "games" with both the right and the left. That this scared both the FBI and CIA significantly can be seen in the Justice Departments illegal, covert contact and support of Shaw's defense team and the CIA's Garrison team, set up strictly to block Garrison form access to information about Agency contacts and assets. 2. We can only speculate why at the first CIA Garrison Group team meeting, Angleton's representative opened the meeting by telling the group that Garrison would successfully demonstrate Shaw was involved in conspiracy (not the murder of the President necessarily but some sort of conspiracy). 3. Garrison was successfully diverted and his exile investigations were undermined by the actions of Bernardo de Torres....who effectively sabotaged Garrisons first press meeting (among other things) by going to the press independently and focusing media attention on a photo misdirection relating to the leafleting incident . 4. Garrison was aslo diverted onto some very real plans by ultra right radicals who were definitely discussing the assassination of JFK other major figures. This diversion cost him a large portion of his available time and resources. All in all, given Garrison's minimal resources, its amazing he managed to pull together as much as he did...especially being stonewalled and undermined by numerous parties with their own agendas....including two goverment agencies (Justice and CIA) with far more resources than a poor DA could muster. -- Larry

Does anyone else think its just a little strange that Hunt would be invited to join a conspiract to kill the President, be told who was behind it and the names of several key people organizing it - then back out and tell the guys no thanks....and not only not meet with an accident ...but rather also be told the name of the shooter and where the shooter was going to be recruited? Don't we usually talk about all this being compartmentalized...not to mention mystery deaths for people that would only have known a tiny part of what Howard claims to have known and just walked away ....being trusted to keep it to himself, not leverage it or to spill the beans when he was out drinking or something (not unknown for Hunt). -- Larry

Francesca, looks to me that Morgan would have been gone from Japan before Nagell showed up... Certainly Morgan was a highly visible name in the press given his fighting with Castro and then his arrest and execution; sort of hard for me to see how Bishop would have met him in person or gotten a referral and telephone number circa 1961. -- Larry

And taking Francesca's post as an example, the following off a quick NARA search would also seem to raise some doubts about Bishop as a deep, covert CIA employee circa 1961: AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY : CIA RECORD NUMBER : 104-10071-10342 RECORDS SERIES : JFK AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 80T01357A DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR : CIA FROM : CHIEF, MIAMI FIELD OFFICE TO : CHIEF, CONTACT DIVISION/SUPPORT BR. TITLE : C.W.BISHOP (AKA WILLIAM BISHOP) /POSSIBLE COMPLAINTS AGAINST CIA DATE : 05/09/1961 PAGES : 3 DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT SUBJECTS : BISHOP, C. W. CLASSIFICATION : CONFIDENTIAL RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL CURRENT STATUS : OPEN DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 07/31/1993 COMMENTS : JFK15 : F12 : 1993.07.31.10:49:49:500032 :

Great work Francesca, a very important post. Someone may have posted that before but I didn't pay nearly enough attention. So it seems that in January, 1961, shortly before the BOP, Bishiop is an outsider, attempting to contact a number of parties including the CIA in getting some support for one of the exile groups that is not playing in the preparations for the invasion and which has been rejected by Varona. He goes to a CIA contact employee who doesn't think he has anything of value and is poorly informed - and who apparently finds that he has a prior history of trying to contact the FBI with a variety of information. Certainly makes him sound like an "opportunist" with no super deep agency or MI contacts - and nobody to give him a solid introduction to the right people. It's this sort of thing that worries me about all those "facts" in the namebase entry John posted... -- thanks, Larry

It's my understanding that Gary had his files up for sale, at least at one time. He is still living in Texas so anyone with serious interest might be able to reach him. He did supply a variety of materal to Noel and to Dick and Dick in turn was kind enough to copy his for me. The problem is that much, if not most of it, has only one source e.g. Bishop himself. That is true for his file address cards and a great deal of interviews that he did. The only thing I recall that is not directly from Bishop is a series of newspaper and magazine articles from another source which relate to an apparent smuggling scam he was involved in years after the BOP in Florida. The challenge is not determining what Bishop says about himself - which seems to be mainly what John posted from namebase - its determining what of it is true. There are far more actual documents about Tosh, again the problem is that most of them reflect his approaches to and follow up reports by the FBI and are not independently verified. I have no doubt both were involved in interesting things, how they relate to Dallas remains unclear to me. Being the conservative type I am, its all very interesting but I haven't seen any sign that anyone has been able to do much more with Bishop beyond the material that Gary collected and the address checking from his note cards that Noel did and that I did independently which at least shows he was associated with Hargraves circa 1963. If anyone has more I'd love to see it.. Larry

I'm faimiliar with the namebase info that John posted by my impression was that virtually all of itwas sourced from Bishop himself? It would be really helpful if you three or anyone else could bullet out the points in it which have been independently corroborated or verified. About the only thing I'm sure about from third party data is that he clearly did know some of the folks involved in the initial BOP project and had gotten some introductions from JMWAVE staff to Guard or Reserve contacts in Florida - mostly because in later years he seems to have used these contacts in some smuggling scams. I can also verify from checking out address entries in his notebooks that he did indeed know some of the Interpen folks. I'd just like to know what else about what is in namebase is actually true vs. just being picked up from book entries. -- Larry

Sorry Steve, nothing from me on Frank.....for me though Ruby's 1963 contacts with McWillie, his October call to Matthews wife, his reported low profile trip to Vegas circa Nov 18 and the November visit from Gruber (LA) and November 22 call to Gruber seem to be key elements of Ruby's involvement. If anyone wants to do some solid background work, digging up more info on Gruber's history and associates in L.A. would be extremely valuable. -- Larry

To complement Jame's post, Weiner was a silent minor investor in the Deauville Hotel and Casino in Havana (it was that investment that he tried to conceal from the HSCA). And of course there are a number of intersting names also associated with the Deauville...John Martino worked there for the Roths who opened the establishment - prior to his being imprisoned in Cuba. Martino's co-workers included Louis McWillie and R. D. Matthews and of course Ruby made a rather mysterious visit to McWillie there - which may have involved courier duties in an attempt to broker Trafficante out of prison...a long story that. It was rumored that Weiner investment came from his being a friend of Trafficante, a major investor in the Deauville. -- Larry

Just a bit of elaboration on Ron's reply - I cover Weiner in some detail in the first chapter of SWHT and its interesting to note that the FBI contacted him shortly after the assassination about his Ruby contact. He told them to shove off, he didn't want to talk to them...and they apparently left it at that. More importantly, HSCA internal notes and research done in conjunction with his testimony indicate that they caught him lieing on several points and actually challenged him on some, forcing him in some cases to admit things...like his business interest in Cuba which he initially denied. Having said that though, I'd say Ruby's LA contacts including his visitor and his call there on November 22 are probably closer to his actual "control" than the calls Weiner. I suspect that is where Ruby's payoff originated. -- Larry

James, my best guess based on that document and a couple of related ones that I have is that Sforza was coming out ostensibly to visit his wife but actually to drop off materials on an exfilitration project that Morales was working. The info was supposed to be dropped through Phillips in MC that weekend and forwarded ASAP to Morales. It was definitely a hot project and my best guess at this point is that it pertained to a planned attempt to get Castro's sister out of Cuba...because of events that was aborted until some time later. -- Larry

For anyone who has a copy of Someone Would Have Talked, check the very last appendix - A Small Clique in the CIA. You will find a great deal of information on what Werbell was doing in the early 60's including his first approach to the Agency, its temporary use of him and his initial dumping...plus what he was actually doing to cause them grief in 63. This is based on a number of documents which I found to be very informative and also very different than some common concepts of what he was doing when. He definitely has connections to the "far east OSS network" and he parlayed that for his first CIA introduction.... You might also check the appendix documents on the WEB site; I forget exactly what's up there now but I do reference a number of Werbell CIA documents in the book. -- Larry

Charles, I'm not trying to "sell" it to you, in fact its not even a scenario I discussed in my book...as I pointed out in the message. However, I don't work off "concepts" of the way things would have made most sense, I work off data that is a lot more messy than concept. If that truly is Wallace's fingerprint then it has to be addressed at some point. In any case, I must have been unclear, in no sense was I suggesting it was intimidation of Johnson. If Wallace was there he was ordered there by Cliff Carter, just as Carter himself supposedly described and was taped doing so (taped in the presence of one live witness who verified his remarks). If Wallace was there then he had to be doing something so incredibly stupid Johnson would never have had let it happen unless he was forced to cooperate....and in no way does Wallace's MO suggest Johnson or anyone else would have picked him for a rifle attack on JFK....Wallace was a killer alright but at close range, brute force and extremely sloppy as well. If you are not familiar with Glen Samples work I would definitely suggest you at least read his book and my postings on Etes, Wallace and Carter as background - but only if you are somewhat persuaded by Darby's print ID...if not the whole subject is meaningless. It all comes back to the print(s); if its not Wallace this is all moot. If it is, then it important no matter how stupid it looks on the surface. -- Larry