Larry Hancock

Spot on John...and I'm pretty sure we will hear more detail on how they were forced into this position by the additional documents that we are beginning to see. Document disclosure can be such a pain.... -- Larry

Stephen, in response to Tosh's post of Gary Mack's remark... It seems that this is something that would be easy enough to test, any number of JFK researchers have M-C rifles....Ian has one I know, Craig Roberts has one, some of the folks on the Lancer forum have them. Seems like it would be easy enough to handle the weapon or even for those in the US to wipe it down, fire three rounds and then take a look for prints. Very possibly some may even have the connections to get a local PD department to run a print test. For myself I can imagine how a wood stock might not take prints but I've handled a lot of rifles and the concept of one having metal parts that were too rough to take prints sort of escapes me. All the metal parts are machined. And not to forget, Oswald supposedly dissembled the rifle and reassembled it so perhaps that should be part of the test.....its not like he just picked it up by the stock off counter and whipped off three shots. He took it apart, put it together, carried it into the window area, fired three shots, and then carried it quite a ways and hid it....officially that is... And on a side note...let's see, Oswald's hands were supposedly so sweaty he was leaving identifiable prints on cardboard boxes....prints on cardboard boxes but not on the metal trigger guard of the rifle...hmmm.... No reason to speculate though, should be easy enough to test.

James may have additional info on his clearance but it should be pointed out that McDonald did have an ongoing relationship with CIA for some period because they were interested in his patented "Identikit" product. He was a full time law enforcement officer. That relationship fell apart pretty quickly once he started writing books on JFK. As I mentioned, a scan on the NARA site will produce a host of documents on McDonald and much can be learned even from the cover sheets and descriptions.

Alan, McDonald's second book went a great deal further than the first - in it he specifically identified Russia and certain senior Soviets as being behing the plot. He also discussed exactly how and where they recruited VP Johnson as part of the plot. McDonald provided documents to support that as well as cited specific source names. All this detail may not have gotten much public attention but it got an immense amount of attention from the CIA, espcially because of his claims about his services to them and his contacts there. Run a NARA search on he and his books and spend a while browsing what their internal memos reveal about his connections and relationship. It would be a fascinating thing to know exactly who was feeding him his information and with what purpose. It has all the feel of....well a certain senior counter intelligence CIA officer comes to mind. If so it wouldn't have been his first such disinformation exercise... -- Larry

Bill, the article was in one of those issues of the Chronicles which was published online to subscribers but I don't know whether or not its generally accessable online. I'm sure Larry would supply a copy if you contact him. As far as my remark goes, certainly I would qualify that as being Larry's conclusion after extensive reasearch and my personal judgement that he was right. One of the problems I see in ever bringing any of the JFK conspiracy to some sort of conclusion is that at some point one has to start focusing - if every lead remains a mystery then one wonders on forever. Of course in the absense of legal process, the matter becomes subjective and personal. It looks to me like Larry did a good job of resolving the issue - leaving a much bigger issue open, that being the apparent national security cover-up dealing with AF1 and related communications immediately follwoing the assassination. Just my opinion of course, Larry

Robert, Larry went on to conclude his research on this and published a great article in the Lancer Chronicles detailing that work. I heartily recommend Larry's article. Bottom line is its pretty clear that this indeed was a test call from the Silver Dollar Emergency flying command center which was airborne that day. The call has pretty well been cleared up.....on the other hand the reason behind the apparent totaly rewrite of the aircrafts daily log for Nov. 22, especially as it may relate to AF1 communications remains a much larger mystery and might explain a good deal of the national security level communications that we don't seem to see on the day of the President's assassination. -- Larry

Indeed Robert and this particular piece actually represents the work of Anna Marie Kuhns- Walko. Actually we can add a few observations to the incident now... 1) ZR/RIFLE whom everyone took to have ceased in 1962 can now be shown to have been authorized and funded by Helms through 1963. 2) There is good reason to think that not only Roselli but at least one other US crime associated asset was being operated under the project in 1963 - the meeting in Florida included a participant traveling from Chicago. 3) It seems unlikely that so much time (and money) would be spent on the termination of a ZR/RIFLE asset (ostensible reason for the trip) ...and of course as the Church Committee was led to belive no such assets were to be from the US nor were ZR/FIFLE contacts of any sort to be made in the U.S. Just more indications of the degree to which compartimentalized "vest pockets" operations were so much a part of how senior CIA officials operated.

Since this thread has floated up on the first page again I thought I should mention the following - which I should have pointed out earlier. William Law will be presenting a series of video interviews on Sunday as part of the RFK session. Those of you familiar with William's work on the autopsy witnesses and his book on that subject are well aware that William does ground breaking work. These interviews will be in the same vein and in terms of the RFK assassination and investigation they are an absolute must. William's work combined with other preperations that are underway are going to spawn a whole new level of interest and investigation in this are...IMHO. It's a bit early for me to be more specific than that but by the end of November I hope there is going to be a serious revival of RFK study. -- Larry

Of course I second everything Rex said in his post and I'd just like to add a few items for thought on how ironic (or implausable) things were in the 24 hours after Oswald was taken into custody. 1. Hover knew that Oswald had apparently met with and possibly had multiple contacts with Kostikov, thought to be a senior KGB officer in charge of covert actions. Kostikov was taken seriously enough to be under constant daily surveillance in Mexico. The information about Kostikov and Oswald had been shared with a number of other security agencies including CIA. But ostensibly not with Oswald's assigned office of responsiblity (Dallas) or Agent of responsiblity (Hosty). In fact Hoover had a query memo from his HQ chief of security bringing up concerns on this subject. 2. Hoover had files or information which led him to belive Oswald had been in Cuba on multiple trips. Others may have had similar reports. 3. The CIA had files on telephone intercepts suggesting some special relationship between the Cuban embassy and Oswald including the datum that the Cuban embassy knew where to contact Oswald in MC. ........and yet we see no sign that the FBI, CIA or any other security agency reacted to conduct a focused interview with Oswald on Mexico City, Kostikov, the Cubans etc while Oswald was alive and in custody. Given the potential seriousness of the situation at the height of the cold war why wasn't Oswald given the same treatment Duran was or at least given a dose of babblejuice. 4. We now know the Soviets were worried about being blamed and that personnel were sent out from their embassies to reassure people. Think about this for a moment, if you are Soviet, know Kostikov and his business, know Oswald was in contact with him......and worry that Oswald may say anything to save his rear. At what point to you panic and decide you had better launch before the Americans do? Or at least get on the Red phone and offer to turn over tapes of your own of his visit to the embassy to clear yourself. Speculative, certainly. Impossible...think about it.

I just wanted to let everyone know that the schedule and speaker list has recently been updated. You will find the updated schedule at: http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas06/schedule.html This year we will be offering a full day of presentations on the RFK assassination, the first time we have had an extended program on RFK. I'd encourage anyone interested in that subject to attend; it will be an in depth treatment and if you haven't really studied the case it will be a quick way to get up to speed. I'm hoping it will spur more researcher interest in a case that still has a number of open leads and areas of inquiry. -- Larry

Bill, all the documents are still un-released. All we can see comes from cover sheets that allow us to track the action that the HSCA took to investigate it. The HSCA's own internal memoranda as well as the USAF investigation documents are still classified and unreleased - as are almost all other NSA related JFK documents. Do you have a solid source for that info on Jenkins, I've come across it in books before but never with an actual source that proved he was working in a job where he would have been doing intercepts or handling similar traffic? -- Larry Hi Larry, I just reviewed the Kirknewton docs that Wim provided and your analysis and agree that the radio intercept base at Kirknewton, Scotland would jive with what Dinkin was doing. Dinkin was Army Security Agency and Kirknewton vets are Air Force, I believe. Were any Kirknewton docs released by the Air Force Inteligence Agency under ARRB? Will add Elizeabeth Cole and Kirknewton to the list. BK

Hi Bill, as you know these pre-assassination leaks are a significant part of my work and I will be going into more detail on some of them plus adding a couple in the second edition. On Dinkin, I'm pretty sure that newspaper thing is a story line that he was forced into after his hospitalization and "recoverery".....another one of those instances of just agreeing to something that sounds nuts to be let back on the street. The hard part about Dinkin is that many folks have written about him but without providing hard core documentation on his military service. If we had some solid source on exactly where he was stationed, what unit and what his job description was we might be able to get somewhere.... My wild guess is that Dinkin may have picked up the same intercept that we are tracking in the Kirknewton situation....but that's pure speculation until we know for sure what his day job was in the fall of 1963. -- Larry

I hate to keep doing this to you Francesca but you are going to find a good deal about the Belle Chase camp in the second edition. It was officially part of the BOP prep and even shows up on the organization charts for that effort. There seems to have been considerable effort to prevent local law enforcement and media from investigating what might have been going on there (including demolitions training). Good reason to suspect that Phillips was aware of it and indeed he wrote a wrap up memo on it in response to an HSCA inquiry. Probably the most suspicious part of it may be the part it played in preparing Nino Diaz mission folks and the fact that it appears to have been a partial cover for at least some of the folks who were added to the OP40 roster shortly before the BOP landings. The good news is that it is relatively well documented - it was even picked up as a training camp by the Miami papers prior to the invastion. -- Larry

Hi Mike, well you have probably seen Sherry's post on the book by now so you know we are close....not exactly on schedule since we would have liked to have had it out six months ago. However going to commercial, hard cover class plus growing the book significantly has proven to be quite a bit of work. We have taken extreme pains with proofing and fact checking (not that it will be perfect of course), with indexing and with an expansion of the name checking plus ten appendices. However an equal amount of work is going to have to go into the new WEB site as well. It will contain all the earlier exhibits plus a good number of new documents which support the appendices....some of them are going to be very new to most researchers. Their will be an extensive photo gallery on the WEB site that is in addition to the photos in the book and we will also have a set of social diagrams and charts.....photos and charts courtesy of some fine work from Australian researchers who will receive my thanks in the book. So....I think that it will have been worth the wait, hopefully you all will as well. And I will definitely be around for a questions and dialog once it gets into circulation. -- Larry

John, I'm not sure whether I faced it or intentionally avoided it. One of my starting assumptions was that anyone who willingly volunteered (at this late date) to come forward and disclose "new" information about the JFK assassination had to be met with some skepticism. One exception to that in which my first edition was to use Noel Twyman's interview with Roy Hargraves. That was a mixed bag of course as Hargraves had been identified as a possible suspect to the FBI immediately following the assassination. I feel more comfortable with individuals who either never intended their information to be disclosed or with those who initially offered it to legal or government representatives under strict understanding of confidentiality. Of course some of those folks did later become visible under various record disclosure acts but that was not voluntary on their part. I also tend to be more interested in individuals who told one story for a long period of time and then privately took another stance shortly before their deaths, that seems a little more "real" to me. One exception occurs to me, I think a number of folks could still come forward with knowledge of Lee Oswald that contradicts the official story of his activities and contacts. These would be people who were directly at risk if they had volunteered such information in 1963/1964. This includes FBI, CIA and Navy/Marine personnel. The same thing could apply to those involved in the legally ordered cover-up, but not the conspiracy itself. -- Larry This has happened to several people writing books about JFK. For example, would we see the Joan Mellen book differently if Gerry Hemming had not introduced her to Angelo Murgado? I wonder if Larry Hancock has had to face this problem?

Now James, let's not think of it as "underhanded", let's think of it as "plausably deniable". And anyway, its just a matter of getting a jump on the bad guys....its not like they would not do it eventually, its just "forward leaning" to do it first and then blame them in advance. Much more efficient, saves everyone time. -- Larry

James, I'm pretty sure the context of the remark is Watergate. As a former supervisor for Barker, Morales was asks his thoughts on him and the risk of his opening up. I think I have a memo on this quoting Morales as saying Barker could never keep his mouth shut on anything and could not be expected not to expose anything he knew. -- Larry

James, they certainly never came up with a Bernardo Morales who was known to the folks at the radio station, either their office in Miami or the actual off shore station. You will find some documents on this in the exhibits for Chapter 7 - an HSCA memo and a Secret Service memo. They did eventually develop some names for investigation but none of them went anywhere at all....but it was taken very seriously and the Secret Service spent seven or eight months on it. However, this was not the only element of the threat - an informant in (amazingly) Guatemala first surfaced a rumor that Castro was sponsoring an effort to kill JFK - the informant reported a detailed dialog between Castro agents. Of course this one went nowhere to. But when you combine Guatemala with radio stations somehow the name David Phillips does come to mine....especially when you add in anti-Castro propaganda. But would old David go so far as to hoax American agencies? -- tongue forcefully in cheek... Larry

Yep, I cover that one at some great length in my book...the FBI actually spent an immense amount of time investigating the letter and purported plot, including the names that turned up in the thing. Lots and lots of reports on this. It turned out to be totally nebulous and its interesting to speculate who might have had the appropriate addresses and names for free Cuba radio staions (one name leaps to mind) and who may have been involved in ongoing anti-Cuba/Castro propaganda efforts. -- Larry

It is a valid name and it is also valid in terms of "Mexicano". Having said that, it doesn't seem to lead anywhere I can follow but James may have more on it than I could develop. The story of how Garrison got involved with de Torres in the first place seems to be pretty complex but aside from leading him in circles de Torres remarks to the media seem to be part of what led Garrison into going to the press well before he was prepared. And of course once Garrison was known to be investigating Cuban exiles in Miami as well as New Orleans.....wasn't likely he was going to get much except possibly anonymous leads from that point on. Thanks for the warning Larry, good point. Yes I remeber DeTorres leading Garrison in circles. I still find it hard to believe sometimes that he actually took him on as an investigator at one point. Then again I think Garrison was too trusting at times and so trusted the wrong people. Does your research lead you to think that Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo (why is it cubans always have three names?!) is a valid name as regards connections to the assassination?

One caution Francesca, and I suspect James will agree... Following names and leads introduced by de Torres will take you in lots of circles. You will find some real names for sure but the probablity is good that many of them are diversions and time wasters. Something that Garrison learned way to late. As a matter of fact Garrison clearly came to regret having so much of his Cuban investigations neutralized in that fashion. -- Larry

And as usual it would be bad to bet against James... I can verify from a number of sources that it's Barker. Also, I will be including as many crypts as possible in the index of the second edition of my book and can hopefully make reading CIA documents of the period a lot less painful.

Hi John, thanks for asking about the book. It is indeed very close now, close enough so that my work is finished and even the master name list for the index has been turned over to JFK Lancer. It should be in the first galley stage in July and depending on how many printing changes are required from that we will either have it available by the end of July or in August. A second spin at the printers in July would simply add two more weeks. That's good news and has freed me up to work on the November conference - and to do some RFK work that I had wanted to do for some time. We will be offering a full day of presentations on the RFK assassination during the conference this year. I think I've mentioned before that the second edition will be hardcover and it will be supported by a web site which will contain the exhibit documents and an expanded photograph section. ....so, its very close now and hopefully readers and researchers will find it worth the wait.

Robert, yes the copy about the little station wagons was from me. In answer to your question, I do recall the Bowen article (simply because not long after I started in this I bought back issues of most of the publications and then subscribed to what was still being published). The problem with that is that there were so many articles written based on partial information that it can lead you in circles forever, much of what was mysterious at the time isn't now and many leads that were fascinating then are less so now. An example is: "The third such person was Fred Lee Crisman, Jr. In 1969, New Orleans Attorney General Jim Garrison received a couple of anonymous letters implicating Crisman in the Kennedy assassination. One of the letters said that one of Crisman's co-conspirators in stealing money from the CIA was a person named Martin Grassi." ....having spent a couple of years in company with Glen Cresey investigating Crisman I can give you a pretty good opinion that he was such a "mis" lead (including an interview with his school principal who placed him in class on Nov. 22 and had the records to prove it...a man who really didn't like Crisman at all and would have been happy to dump on him). "Subsequently, a Southwest Texas lawyer using the pseudonym William Torbitt released a manuscript called Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal, which provides further information about Crisman and Osborne/Bowen. According to Torbitt, local US customs officials he knew had discovered from their own sources in the early 1950s that Bowen's Mexican orphanage was really a training school for contract killers, who were occasionally employed by FBI Chief, J. Edgar Hoover. Torbitt also discovered that Crisman worked with Osborne/Bowen and sometimes even used the alias John Bowen. (unpublished, undated manuscript, available at the Assassinations Archive in Washington DC, ch 6)" ...the same goes with using the Torbett document as an authoritative source, its such a wonderful mis of mis and disinformation, extremely well done by whever was feeding the info. If we really understood that it would teach us a great more about the nature the cover-up than what is in the document itself. But I still have the notebooks with all the notes, diagrams and things to do I made when wading through it....some things just stay with us forever. .....at least those are my thoughts... Larry To Antti, Greg and Mark: My purpose in posting this article was primarily in feeling out the story, as it is new to me (sadly, whether credible or not) and I was only aware of it due to the fact that it was only recently that maryferrel.org added the Dealey Plaza Echo, to it's website. Mark, I posted this article link without a great deal of time at my disposal, and erred in using 'Nash and Rambler' in the same sentence. The reference was to the following: "...as a side note on Ramblers, in some of my work on Cuban gun running both to Castro and post-revolution I turned up an interesting comment that little Ramber station wagons were a vehicle of choice in carting moderate loads of weapons from sources in the U.S. to points where they could be taken by small boats into Cuba. Safer than putting them all in one big shipment. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to see several in the DP area." I believe the above was posted by Larry Hancock, on a recent thread, and I apologize for not being certain. Greg, as for your insight's, I heartily agree to why you have reservations about the story, it is one of the pitfalls of individuals coming forward after a delay. For what it's worth, I believe the contributions on the Forum from the land 'down under' are truly laudatory. I have an immense amount of respect for the Australian JFK researchers. To get back to the thread, I have similar feelings about the story that Greg, does. While Antti brings up a good point in desiring the author to contact the Paines, I will have to keep digging, but I do intend to resolve whether this story is valid or some type of disinformation. Is anyone familiar with Mike Sylvester's article 'The Name John Bowen in the Kennedy Assassination? Here is a Link to the story. http://www.bvalphaserver.com/convert.php?f...rren/bowen.html