Larry Hancock

I first wrote about this back in 2010 in SWHT, we had a version of the document then.  One of the interesting points I noted was that Shackley apparently lied under oath stating WAVE had never done any investigation of the JFK assassination...the issue is that Sforza, a definite person of interest in the Dallas plot and head of the AMOTs, their use in Mexico City, etc, is the one who appears to have ordered the inquiry at WAVE and received the reports.  Which raises the question of whether he did it on his own to determine any exposures and deal with them or whether this came from Shackley or HQ etc.  As far as I know we have no documents containing any actual instruction to do such an investigation, just verification that it occured.

Thanks  Gerry, that is pretty darn interesting....actually it makes a lot of sense.  And it surely would be a reason for the FBI to either cover up having been collecting FPCC correspondence or for not acting on having that information...

Gerry, could you give us a source or link to the Militant acknowledgement that they had received a copy of the backyard photo....that is a new one to me...

Its been bandied about that the FBI had a physical source with access to the FPCC office who made copies of their mailing list and at least some correspondence...I've never seen anything concrete to support that but if all the Oswald correspondence that we often talk about and which is mentioned in FBi post assassination reports (FPCC, CPUSA. SWP) was really collected post-assassination it certainly puts some speculation in a new light.  Relative to that is the fact that post-assassination the FBI appears to have had to confirm that Oswald was actually a subscriber to the Militant and the Worker - suggesting they were not monitoring his domestic mail the way they were his international mail. 

Gerry, I think that is a great question and encourage a search for any 1963 examples of FBI mail intercepts on Oswald...to FPCC, SWP, CPUSA, Russian embassy.  It would be great to see that in one place, don't know if Newman did that in his early book or not?  At the moment I am sorely confused by what the FBi presented as correspondence obtained on Oswald pre vs. post assassination - and who it was distributed to inside the FBI. 

That would help clear up several questions and I don't know that anyone has done that all in one place up to now. A pre-assassination mail intercept chronology would be really helpful.

Gerry, I think the airport mail intercept may only have been for international mail?

The Mary Ferrell Foundation site is up and available as of today/Wednesday....I've not had a problem with it this week but have only been on a few times.

A couple of points for discussion:

This from an rather old overview page on Spartacus:    The FBI also decided to infiltrate the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Its main spy was Victor Thomas Vicente (T-3245-S), who became the head of the Social Committee for the FPCC. In May, 1961, Vicente supplied the FBI with the FPCC mailing list. Released documents suggest that the FBI was concentrating on FPCC operatives in Dallas, Tampa and Miami.

Further references: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32169775.pdf

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/docid-32176310.pdf

and a commentary piece with some information:  http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/2009-July/003080.html

One of the cautions about the use of T designations is that as noted above they did change by office and may have been used for multiple sources over time.  Another is the speculation that certain illegal activities such as burglaries and phone taps may have generated information that was sourced under anonymous T source designations.  Just something to consider.

For what its worth we know the FBI did use the T-1 designation (anonymous) for post office mail intercepts and also for assets inside target groups like FPCC who would copy materials off mailing lists or names from mail.  As I recall the FBI had a T-1 informant whose name is now known but which I don't recall doing  both those things.  The interesting point would be where his reports went at HQ and whether any of his work got copied to the field routinely, or at all.

Bob,  Hoover grudgingly gave up Latin America after the war, and officially with the formation of the CIA - however there is no doubt he competed with them in Mexico.  There was supposed to be a liaison with the CIA where individuals suspected of being foreign agents were handed off by CIA to FBI, the Tumbleweed case is an example of that. And the CIA appears to have been pretty good about handing off Americans in Mexico who appeared to be potential foreign assets or on the road to becoming one.  Heitman wrote a book about his time in Mexico, keeping Americans under surveillance, including American film industry folks who had gotten on Hoover's Red List.  Of course the one thing he does not really talk about in that same book is his time in Dallas.

In line with questions in this thread, this is a pretty interesting read on CIA Domestic operations /I ntelligence - Rockefeller Commission
Report -:

https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0005/1561495.pdf

Ooops....typo or neuron glitch or maybe both.... it was McCone who made the remark to an associate...also in regard to the Moore remark, DeMohrenschieldt did eventually identify Moore by name as the "government man" asking him to check on news on the arrival of the Oswald's back in Forth Worth, which pretty well ties down the contact.  Although I do recall an interview of Moore half halfheartedly admitting to the contact that might be an error and its not in official testimony.  Which is strange because there would be no real reason to conceal such a contact ....on the other hand Moore's documents appear to be incomplete and some are still withheld - I've identified that as a major collections priority should we make any process in encouraging NARA to actually do more collections.

Its always good to find somebody listening closely....grin.  I will leave many of the points to others but most are addressed SWHT/2010 including the extended discussion of the storyboards (taken from Doug Horne's original work and a bit of follow up on my own).  The quick answer on that is that the first set of photo boards, along with a shooting scenario, was taken and I suspect used in a presentation to unidentified senior officials.  The only clue we have on when that occurred  is a note about members of the NSC in a closed meeting on Sunday morning on the assassination (we also have an anecdotal remark by McCone a few days later that he had seen something that convinced him there were multiple shooters).  Following that, and covertly (without the knowledge of the NPIC personnel involved with the first set of boards), on Sunday evening a separate set of boards were prepared to support the official lone nut story and those ended up at the national archives.  Apparently the first set were just tucked away at NPIC until they were noticed during the HSCA and rather hurriedly disposed of at that point.

Per Matt, yes certainly and there has never been any question that Nagell was constantly on the road during 1963, in LA (that is just key of his story, with his trailing of suspicious Cubans verified by Vaughn Marlow who I interviewed, following behind Dick).  And no doubt Nagell suffered from PSTD and other stress related to both his injury and his marital problems.  He never really denied that, and it shows in his ongoing visits to VA hospitals as in Florida that summer.

Bottom line, he was in Mexico City, arguably he connected with a CIA officer he knew in Japan who is a perfect fit for Hecksher and we can now put Hecksher in Mexico City on a mysterious mission in the fall of 1962 and into 1963 when he was pulled back to the US, very possibly just leaving Nagell hanging. Nagell's belongings show he had contacts with CIA employees in LA and one fellow at HQ...but he was also very conflicted and on the fence about the moral compass of US intelligence, military or otherwise. They might have only shown more at one point since only about half of what the police collected was ever returned to him or documented.

And Nagell knew and talked about Oswald and something in play for the East Coat in Sept long before we saw Oswald's letters to SWP and CPUSA about a move back to that area and "going underground".

When you parse it all out Nagell talks about seeing Oswald with Q in New Orleans, posing as a Castro supporter and Quiroga was almost certainly (actually admittedly) doing that to test Oswald (Quiroga had been suspected of being an actual Castro agent before the CIA cleared him),  Of course Nagell was only there for a sort time, recognized by Cuban exiles from Florida and fled the scene.  All he really knew is what he told us i.e. Cuban exiles were messing around with Oswald and attempting to manipulate him.  Which of course given the DRE propaganda going on around Oswald is undoubtedly true and probably extends to SAS and WAVE as part of that story.

Nagell is simply one data point.  And he is not the key to the attack in Dallas, only another source suggesting that Oswald was likely acting along with others, wittingly or most unlikely just being strung along..

The rest of what I have to say is in the SWHT, the blog posts and in a number of shows that I've been on that explore all the pros and cons...of which there are both...in regard to his story.  Nagell is not in Tipping point and I also explained why in a blog post.

After writing extensively about what was credible in regard to RCN and his story (including the admitted CIA names in his notebook) in SWHT as well as publishing a situational study of his changing remarks over the years from his time in jail to his death (via CD including documents - which is unfortunately no longer available from Lancer but may soon go up on the Weisberg archives) and carrying that on to blog posts on his documented (and strangely not investigated) effort to defect to an adversary nation in Mexico City as well as the very likely possibility that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher I think I've done as much as I can to paint the full Nagell story as best we can know it at this distance in time.

Given how much time I've spent on it I've no interest in participating in a long winded forum dialog but I would advise there is a great more to Nagell than what is presented to challenge his stability - which certainly is a caution.  The real challenge is to map his claims to what was going on at given points in his life and then make your own estimate of his remarks at any given point in time.

I would also say that when you boil it all down, its unlikely he knew anything about Dallas - what he did know was that anti-Castro Cubans had approached Oswald to begin manipulating him in New Orleans.  Anti-Castro Cubans representing themselves as Cuban agants.  He just could not understand why Oswald would not break off from them - but of course that's another story entirely.  But in the end, his warnings and remarks about Oswald were simply that Oswald was being manipulated by other people and not a lone actor, a story which definitely needed to be suppressed at the time. 

Personally I think Dick captured it all in his conversation with Nagell's lawyer who said he would have made a totally different defense of Nagell if only he could have proved he had been in Mexico City - something we now know without a doubt.

A thanks to Rex Bradford is definitely in order since he has devoted a huge chunk of his personal time almost constantly since the file dump to make the document search tool in place. It involved a major piece of work on his part...

I often picture myself as trying to kick that football...with similar results.   Couldn't agree with you more on the other points!

If its not totally politically biased it might have some opportunities - however it sort of reminds me of what appears to be the first Republican legislative action, which would be restraining the IRS.   I'm rather skeptical that the intent of that is to protect the small taxpayer or to preserve individual liberties....  Hopefully the new oversight committee will be less obviously motivated.

Darn, and here I just told Ben in another thread that I was an optimist...

Ben, I was looking at the whole body of work on the page including the Russia related thread and it strikes me that as a whole it represents a particular world view and agenda which just pulls in bits and pieces in support of that view...sort of like Tucker Carlson's show in that respect.  My comment is simply if  you have an agenda you can always find material to support it, regardless of the original source or nature of the material.

As to Biden and his responsibility, certainly that is true but I've found all virtually all presidents regardless of party very loath to appear weak in regard to security issues or in the protection of the power of the office itself.  Which of course is why we need a truly balanced system to cope with that sort of thing....and a politically unconstrained Justice Department and Court system.

Then again I've always been an optimist and a bit naive I suspect...

Slightly off topic but apparently one of the other activities of these domestic Office of Security field offices was apparently keeping track of criminal assets used by the CIA for various work done by Staff D.  They had to coordinate their use of those assets - including burglars, safe crackers, electronics specialists - with the FBI so that the Bureau didn't bust guys working on sanctioned domestic projects.

Where Meheu fell off the rails with the Vegas tap was because the Castro assassination effort was being so compartmentalized that it brought the FBI actively into the crime and there was no CIA override in place to explain or sanction it.

Such activities clearly must have been a real area of tension between Hoover and the CIA, of course the CIA wanted to do everything itself but I suspect recruiting former FBI agents or using detective firms as covers must have driven Hoover nuts.

An example of how any good work can be weaponized politically...sigh.  Just my opinion of course.

Ben, the threats in Miami involved possible demonstrations or worse from the anti-Castro community so no there was no outreach from the SS, instead they contacted CIA and asked for their help in identifying possible bad actors based on their sources within the Cuban community .  There were no similar threats in Dallas other than from various ultra right actors and special measures were taken to identify them and prepare for demonstrations and violence, especially at the Trade Center luncheon.

I know of threats in Miami coming out of the anti-Castro Cuban exile community and a major effort by the SS to preempt them....targeting the Cuban exile community where the threats originated and using assets out of the JMWAVE station as part of that effort.  

There seems to be no direct connection between those threats and what Milteer referred to nor the names he mentioned as being potentially tied to an an attack on JFK, all of whom were radical racists. As far as Oswald being patsied in Miami, as far as I know that all came out of the Sturgis/Buchanan camp after the assassination with stories he had been in Miami at times but nothing to do with the fall trip specifically. 

As far as other potential patsies in Miami, I'm aware of that discussion but as far as I can see its interesting but largely speculation as connected to any actual threat to or attack on JFK.  The problem is this subject is so broad you can find at least a few pieces of information to support almost any conspiracy scenario and I've gone down way too many of those roads myself. 

As far as Milteer in Dallas,  that was tackled and disproved by the HSCA and there is also a motel receipt Lamar Waldron found placing him in the Carolinas at the time.. ....at this point I've seen a "look alike" for virtually any person of interest in this showing up in DP so unless I have separate corroboration that they were there (as say with Felipe Vidal) then I have to remain skeptical. 

What I offer in these comments is simply my personal research so I'll leave it at that.

Denny,  by not that specific I meant specific in regard to Dallas or even Texas.  If  you dig into the full background of Milteer and his associates you see that his remarks are consistent with the general practices that the NSRP and its fellow travelers were using in all their plans for rifle attacks....as an example shooting from an adjacent building and the use of a patsy for quick pick up by the police is found in the MLK shooting with James Earl Ray as the patsy.  In that attack they even set up a secondary patsy in that case just in case Ray was captured, talked and implicated his sponsors. 

As to what Somersett said afterwards, that's a long story and requires more context on Sommersett than I can give here.

As Lance said, we certainly do know there were a variety of threats - and active talk against JFK - from several groups by 1963 and even from different sets of people within those groups, its really easy to get lost in the weeds as he says if  you attempt to overlay all of it on the attack in Dallas.  

Actually its not quite that specific,  Milteer was being recorded as part of a sting operation related to radical racists - the sting was in anticipation of acquiring a gun they planned to use to kill MLK.   As part of the conversation Milteer described how easily JFK could be shot as well, by a shooter in a tall building etc.   Given that Milteer also referred to Washington DC,  this conversation and the remark about JFK was referred to the FBI who did interview some of the individuals Milteer mentioned and it was also referred to the Secret Service - however since it referred to Washington D.C. the Secret Service filed it in the Protective Services File for that location - and unfortunately as we now know they had no real concept that a threat in one location might mean a threat somewhere else so that meant only a file pull for DC would have retrieved it.

Stu Wexler and I cover Milteer and this incident at great length in our book on the King assassination, The Awful Grace of God.  On a side note, we also cover the fact that the National States Rights Party..to which Milteer belonged and which he promoted...was actively recruiting and training rifle teams to attack JFK as well as leading public figures and Jewish financial figures as well.  On the Texas trip the Secret Service actually picked up a threat report in San Antonio related to the NSRP.

Debra hopes to put all of John's RFK photo / image collection on line but its immense and a new web site will need to be set up to do that so it will take some time.

As to the JFK material, I will check with Stu Wexler on that as he is the most likely to know - he recovered the RFK manuscript and images from John's laptop but I don't know if there was JFK material there as well.