Larry Hancock

Richard, the paper I had in mind was: “Conflicts in Official Accounts of Cardboard Carton Prints”, a work I haverecommended. It uses as sources the WC Report (p. 566), Commission Exhibit 3131 pp 17-18 and WC Hearings Vol. XXVI, P. 809 plus testimony of Sebastian F. Latona, FBI Fingerprint section. -- I can't put my hands on a copy right now and don't recall the date, I think this is something you did even before the Wallace print came up and was a study of the obfuscation in the FBI's own work which pretty much covers up the issue that there were unidentified finger and palm prints. I referred to your work in an unpublished paper that I did in regard to a scenario for Wallace and Factor being in the TSBD. As far as the Rambler thing goes....I can tell you it is mentioned and referenced in Someone Would Have Talked but exactly where it is in there escapes me without going back through several chapters. I picked it up out of some readings on the early weapons dealing to Castro when folks like Sturgis and friends were coming into the US and picking up fairly small consignments of weapons to be shipped back to Cuba in small boat runs. -- Larry Thanks, Larry. I don't recall writing a monograph on the Wallace print. I wrote several e-mail replies to Mark Collum and Glen Sample defending Darby's ID against their so-called experts' critiques. Are those what you are referring to? Collum-Sample refused to publish most of them at the time. They were very biased against the print identification. Don't know if they ever posted my replies since changing their minds about the authenticity of the print. Do you have digital copies you could post here? My digital copies are long-gone, I'm afraid. I vaguely recall cc'ing them to you, Jay, and Barr. Nice work on the Rambler comment. Could you quote it here and cite the source? Richard

Richard, I wanted to extend a warm welcome... great to see you here. Also wanted to thank you for the super work on the unidentified TSBD fingerprint monograph you did, it needs to get more visiblity in the research community. 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... -- Larry

Pat, strictly off memory, my recollection was that the confrontation with JFK was supposed to be the evening of the 22nd. That would seem to be impossible since the large Texas political dinner (with its seating issues) was to be that evening with a late arrival at the ranch. Hard to see Pearson sliding in for a private chat in the middle of a Presidential visit to the ranch... I don't recall how long the Kennedy family was to stay at the ranch so perhaps it was really to be sometime later. Bush had been in Texas for a week or more before the Texas trip not really doing anything and making a trip up to Fort Worth to address the Papsi convention. I'm sure the Manchester book would have the details on the planned Kennedy visit at the ranch. Was this meeting supposed to occur on the 22nd? Or was LBJ gonna stay on for a few days? Drew Pearson said that HE was gonna have a meeting with LBJ at the ranch on the 22nd. I suspect they were gonna strategize on how to smear Don Reynolds. I wonder if there was anything in Burris' briefcase on Reynolds... or Baker... or if LBJ just had a full plate... Ooops....sorry, that was "Johnson has been in Texas"...my mind obviously has begun to substitute one for the other.... Was this meeting supposed to occur on the 22nd? Or was LBJ gonna stay on for a few days? Drew Pearson said that HE was gonna have a meeting with LBJ at the ranch on the 22nd. I suspect they were gonna strategize on how to smear Don Reynolds. I wonder if there was anything in Burris' briefcase on Reynolds... or Baker... or if LBJ just had a full plate...

Having spent much time on Col Burris I wish anyone going that direction a lot of luck. However, as they used to say on the Twilight Zone, "consider this": Col Burris flew down to Texas right before the assassination and back to DC immediately following (conflicting stories on exactly how he flew back). His explanation for the trip was that he carried down a briefcase full of briefing documents for LBJ - Johnson planned to have a head to head with JFK over international affairs while he was at the ranch and as his international/military advisor (not military aide) Burris was to prep him. So....show of hands....how many of you see LBJ having a major head to head with JFK over international affairs? And if so....to what purpose? -- Larry

Dawn, I too think the way that the second expert pulled out from under Barr once he found out the implications is very critical. Heaven knows what expert would have the courage to stake a career on this ID. Richard's work on the unidentified prints is excellant and I wish it had wider distribution, I happened to get a copy and do reference it in the material I mentioned. This is one of those "tipping points" that could rewrite history officially, no wonder its so hot. I've been keeping my fingers crossed for a good while on this....Larry

Following Glen's lead I've done a bit of work on Factor. Unfortunately the continuing issues with the print ID have led me keep the work unpublished....it's a continuation of the Estes/Carter study which John has in the seminar area. Anyone interested can email me and I'll send it along...it's pretty speculative, more so than what I would normally put in print. -- Larry

Hi Francesca, if you search this forum you should find some posts I made on McCombs a good while ago when John was discussing Life magazine. Their is a McCombs archives at a small eastern University (possibly Eastern Tenn) and it contains much of the reserch he performed during the secret Life investigation of conspiracy which occured prior to the Garrison investigation. As it turned out McCombs was a friend of Shaw and apparently provided some of the research to his defense team. Life never completed nor promoted their investigation although elements seem to have gone into one special issue. It's a fascinating story because it appears to have been a deadly serious investigation of conspiracy by a special team set up and run independently. The team even insisted they hire their own admin people and run their own security. The gentleman that located the papers at the University presented at Lancer several years ago but is not currently active in research to my knowledge....he was a first generation researcher. -- Larry

The average person would probably assume that the FBI had cleared up any and all issues about prints at the scene of the crime in their own investigation/report (heck, they took a whole couple of weeks to wrap it up). However if you enjoy this memo just wait until you get to the FBI's replies to the commission... not to mention Day's explanation of why it would be impossible to resolve the prints on the boxes. For yet more entertainment, try to reconcile the WC's description and illustration of how Oswald made the box prints while seated at his cardboard box shooting stand with the description of the shooter in the window offered by their ace witness Howard Brennan... and while you're doing that, see how the WC shooting position works with the descriptions for the rifle being clearly seen sticking far enough outside the window for an observer to talk about it being slowly drawn back in....perhaps someone can make it all fit together? I'd love to see it all illustrated and tied together, something the WC didn't do. ....Larry

Just to help with any confusion over my earlier misposte, the following is from one of any number of sites on WWII aircraft: "By December 1941 when the USA entered the war, 500 DC-3's had been built and a further 369 were on order, the USAAC impressed 10% of operational airline aircraft, and requisitioned new airline aircraft direct from the production line, with those aircraft being designated C48, C49, C50, C52 dependant on the source and engine configuration. The purpose designed military versions were the C53 "Skytrooper" Troop Transport and the C47 "Skytrain" Cargo" The plane in question had originally been configured with seats as a troop transport but the seats had been removed by the time the plane was being sold out of Redbird by January...hence my remark on its possible use as a transport. -- hope that helps, Larry

George, James was correct...to quote myself from the second edition (grin): "The aircraft in question was a C-53 (troop transport version of the DC-3); manufactured in 1944 and eventually sold by the US Liquidator of War Assets to Mid-Continent Airlines in 1949." James and Larry, what was it now a C-53 or a C-54? George

When Matthew first wrote on the subject January asked him not to reveal January as the person with the experience in the plane sale - so Matthew used the Hank Gordon pseudonym. A couple of years ago at Lancer he went through this in his presentation. After his death, January's widow gave permission for the use of the real name in the newer book. As to the aircraft, indeed James is right and the aircraft was a C-54 built at the very end of WWII, I have full paperwork on the plane and all its changes of ownership. The plane title was not yet legally transferred to Houston Air Center as of November 22, that's a long story I get into in the book. And yes, with a bit of luck we are still looking to release the second edition by the end of March, it's going into galley's at this time. P.S. There seems no way at this point to get an exact ID on the Cuban but circumstances suggest the aircraft was destined to be part of the Artime build up outside the U.S. Most probably as a supply plane as all the seating had been stripped out at that time. -- Larry

Hi Francesca, as Ron points out Wayne January was the actual person. With some help we have managed to corroborate a good deal of information about the actual aircraft involved, who bought it and where it eventually went. The details certainly support January's remarks. Certainly I belive that the pre-assassination link from the DC3 Cuban is extremely important. The expanded details on the incident and aircraft information will be in my second edition. There will also be further detail about the small four seater plane that caused the tower operator so much concern on November 22. -- Larry

Tim, I think you need to do a whole lot more research but I'll leave it to others to assist you with that. I will comment on one area which I have explored for my second edition. It is true that there had been an arms purchase, and that the US via Robertson tried to stop it.....first by attacking a ship at sea, then by attacking a train carrying the arms shipment....and failing at both. One might question our right to do that but hey, Dulles was telling the President that the arms were intended to enable an attack on the Panama canal so obviously our interests were at stake. However, when we did get some real intel on the weapons we found out that they were largely junk, surplus from the War which was not matched for combat nor appropriate for use in country. I'm sure you can find the references for all this as I did. Basically the Czechs had taken the opportunity to unload the stuff, no sign of any sophisticated stragegic plan to arm a Communist force. But of course Dulles didn't go back and say CIA had mis-evaluated the evidence and it didn't pose any danger (sound familiar?). Rather he kept using it as one of the reasons for continuing with PBSUCCESS.

Hi Butch, welcome! A few questions jump to mind: 1) I was wondering if you ever heard Rip call himself or anyone else call him "Carlos", that's the name he used when he got to the Congo and I've always sort of wondered if it was something he used as a nick name? 2) Could you give any further details about the time frame in which you knew Cuesta, was it before the Bay of Pigs, any details of what he was doing or doing with Rip would be very interesting. 3) You used the term "farm", there have been many references to "farms" and I was wondering if you could tie down were this one was and what went on there? Thanks in advance? Larry

Mr. Caddy, in the letters you submitted to Justice it appears that Estes was willing to offer Kyle Brown as a first hand witness to Cliff Carter's remarks about Johnson. William Remond has a video of Brown confirming this. Unfortunately Brown does not seem to be talking to other researchers. In his most recent book Estes goes back on this and says the witness was not Brown but someone he will not name. This seems to seriously hurt his original stand. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that point? -- thank you, Larry

Thank you George, that really clears up things a good deal - most helpful!! In general it seems that the documentary is largely resurfacing information known for quite some time....some of it as questionable as Durans remarks being tortured (which most of us would consider pretty questionable, especially once you read all the CIA memoranda essentially egging on the DFS to do anything necessary to get anything from her they can). Even among all those memoranda there is nothing that I'm awere of that relates her describing Oswald getting paid in the basement? As to the tapes, all old news there. It would be no surprise that the Soviets advised the Cubans about Oswald, Nagell told Dick Russell long ago that they were worried about Oswald being used to create negative propaganda against them. And it would be no shock to turn up some DGI contact with Oswald in MC given that he was very likely being "dangled" to them for just that purpose. However all that is a far cry from the claim or PR impression that he was somehow working as a paid agent for the Cubans in the assassination. If something new does emerge from this it will be interesting but for the moment it appears more like just another "tabloid" media strike which helps to dilute attention to any serious findings which don't go for the big headline. -- Larry

George, it would be really helpful if you could itemize the new sources and information that are given in the documentary. Are there actually new Mexican wire taps or tapes sampled in the documentary? Are there new Mexican intelligence files or only Russian and Cuban? Does the video give any explanation why such files would have been allowed to remain if they implicated Cuba and Fidel? On the individuals, do any of them admit actually meeting with Oswald and what he said or they said specifically.....? Perhaps most importantly where are those sources living now, are they still in Cuba, did they defect to the US, any information like that? Obviously if they just waited to be contacted by a film maker it raises interesting questions. And finally, does the documentary give any detail on how the key witnesses were located and why they decided to talk at this date? Not to mention if the film included any verification of them e.g. that they were really Cuban intelligence officers. ...that's asking a lot but a little more data would really help this dialog.. Is there any sign that the film maker is going to make available any source material such as complete interviews, documents, background on the sources? Neither Russo or Summers seem to have commented on that point.. -- thank you, Larry After watching this documentary I was left with two different feelings. First I asked myself what his (Huismann’s) intension could have been to make this film, did he want to solve the crime or was he merely just adding another piece to the story. Those who always believed that Oswald was the killer will surely point gloatingly to this new documentary as once more a proof for LHO’s guilt. Huismann himself does not make any comment whatsoever he believes and the viewer is left alone to make his own conclusion and therefore he should get some credit. Secondly I recognized that he does not try to fit his story into the main discrepancies most conspiracy theories have in common. Nothing about Lee before going to Russia except some CV details and of course nothing about the actual planning but having studied a couple of high buildings in Dallas. The shooting itself is only covered by showing the Zapruder film right at the beginning. As a conclusion I’d say that Huismann film is trying to explain in depth one of the pieces of the JFK assassination puzzle, Oswald in Mexico. This he does pretty well but at the end you will find yourself left with more questions than answers. George

Robert, you might try contacting NARA staff but for practical purposes they are no longer separating newly released documents but rather filing them back in folders and boxes along with older documents. Which means literally researchers have to go back into old material and parse to look for additions, makes it extremely difficult to locate new stuff. One tactic is to do periodic online NARA searches against your favorite topics and keep count of which and how many are listed....I've watched the releases for Morales, Phillips and other topics like AM/WORLD rise constantly over the last few years. Again, pretty time consuming and certainly behind the curve as the online listings take longer to update.... If you find a short cut let us know, Larry

To follow on James's post....so.... the fellow who Gus says has more connections to more intelligence organizations world wide than anyone else he knows...and who can find guys the Mossad can't is the one that did the "Marita Lorenz" movie? Does that mean he bought the whole Lorenz story.....wonder if he ever talked with Fonzi? And now he's solved the ultimate mystery of Oswald's motivation.... The mind boggles.... Larry

Tim, your best source for this is Surviviors Guilt by Vince Palamara. The matter gets confusing because many of the more suspicious orders have to do with the motorcade and are difficult to identify as to specific source, esepcially as Jack Peuterbough was inroduced and apparently viewed on some occasions as part of the Secret Service party and Lawson and he are at odds on how certain things (like vehicle sequence changes) happened. In other occasions the source is vague like "someone from the Vice President's car". Vince certainly has the best research and detailing of all the elements though. -- Larry

Bill, it gets a lot better than that. Professor Wrone reviewed documents in Weisberg's files (and cites them in his book) which show that the test firings of Oswald's rifle literally left the shooters complaining about the amount of powder/nitrate blowback. Wrone describes this and FBI memoranda which clearly kept this information from being presented to the WC.

Its good to see PDS here! I would add that I've been examing the timing of when and where certain Contra information was provided. While Wheaton's information on Jenkins and Quintaro themselves can be shown to be accurate and while the names that were given in reference to Contra activities were on the money, I've begun to have the notion that during 1986 Jenkins may well have started to plant bogus information, especially in regard to Shackley and a secret/rogue assassination team/network. Such information would clear him from becoming a whistle blower, would help sabotage Sheehan's related pure North illegal arms deals case and would also help contaminate anthing else that Wheaton might want to share. It always seems to be a handy thing to divert someone from a small conspiracy by offering them a much bigger, sexier one. Something tells me that Jenkins may have become bait for Sheehan... then he could casually tell everyone that Sheehan had just misunderstood everthing he had to say.

Ron, if you ever get a chance to study the AMWORLD documents you will find the ultimate guideline for the autonomous groups was to totally divorce themselves from both the CIA and the U.S. There were all sorts of discussions on story lines for where they were getting their support and supplies...including one that discusses a cover of Mafia support. Artime's instructions were to position himself as totally divorced from the US government. That was one reason that even CIA staff (which very limited exceptions) in countries throughout Latin America were not to know about the project and why it was even compartimentalized with a separate staff in Miami. There are even memos talking about how trickly that is all going to be with the CIA in particular lamenting the sacrifice in span of control. -- Larry

Tim, to my recollection Wheaton stated that Jenkins had trained the individuals that were involved in the shooting. However it was and is unclear to me whether that could simply mean he trained them for an attack on Castro. And that could have been in 1961 or in 1963. Wheaton may have said something more suggestive about their direct involvement, at this point I simply do not recall. Certainly he implies in his approach to the ARRB that they would be guilty of some level of conspiracy since he mentions immunity... however that could mean a number of different things. It took me six years to research and think that I understood Nagell, who definitely said different things at different times for situational reasons. It took me about four years to think I understood Martino. It's way too early for me to imply that I understand Wheaton or his information. He's "real", no doubt about that and so are Jenkins and Quintero. And there are ways of corroborating some of this that go way beyond just the three men. Beyond that I'm not prepared to say....but we will present as much detail in the second edition as we can develop and offer it to everyone to reach their own conclusion. ....Larry

Thanks Mark, that gives me a good introduction to illustrate why this sort of thing can be convoluted and productive at the same time. For example, irrespective of any other possible results, Wheaton's ARRB informtion has already given us: 1. A lead to Carl Jenkins who without doubt played a significant and previously undocumented paramilitary role prior to the BOP. Including organizing a Castro assassination attempt previously unknown. 2. Jenkins documents gave us some new insights into AM/WORLD. 3. Jenkins AMWORLD documents led us to a mysterious set of CC initials which in turn led us to Henry Hecksher. 4. Exploring the career of Hecksher may well have solved the mystery of Richard Case Nagell's "BOB" - if that is true it adds a significant amount of credibilty to portions of Nagell's story.... and explains exactly why and when Nagell was targeted on certain exiles. ..........and the list goes on.... Not to mention that Wheaton's direction has caused us to take another serious look at Irving Davidson's different associations....you've gotta love someone who lived in the same block or so as Fred Black, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Baker. And who talks about dropping over to watch football with Hoover and Tolsen...and is the same guy that was representing Marcello in DC. And as Pat Speer has pointed out, probably represents Johnson in the Dominican...at the same time to of the key men on the ground there are none other than David Phillips and Carl Jenkins. Bottom line, there is no doubt Wheaton knew some very interesting people... irrespective of what he may or may not have gotten right about the gossip he heard. -- Larry