Larry Hancock

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

Yes Tim, we have.... as used in Lamar's documents it refers to the head of the US government, the decision makers, Wash DC i.e. the Kennedy administration. It may also have been used at other times to refer to other administrations... but it clearly relates to the President and his administration. Its a lot more accurate than Hoovers SOG... -- Larry

Tim, there is no disclosure of active CIA agents and no disclosure of CIA agent names which are not eaisly searchable on NARA...which I keep highly recommending. The first test at vetting Wheaton was simply to search released documents for names of the CIA officer and contract employees he identified circa 1963. The full names were quickly found in a simple search, as well as details of their activities with the CIA in 1963/64. -- Larry

John, I have no proof it was the same Howard Davis but it seems pretty likely.. As to Anne, we have failed to locate her up to this point; we were told she left the ARRB to take a particular job opening - public defender I think. Nothing mysterious about her departure as far as we can determine. If anyone can locate her I'd like to hear from them by email. Wheaton very much wanted to talk to her further and had written the ARRB about her follow-up. He received nothing other than a form letter type reply thanking him for his interest. -- Larry Has anyone tried to speak to Anne Buttimer? As Chief Investigator of the ARRB she was in a position to obtain important information. I wonder if the CIA got her moved. Is this Gerry Hemming's mate, Howard K. Davis? http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdavisH.htm

An observation and then further information about Davidson. The observation is that its often actually misleading to speculate without appropriate data. In regard to the ARRB, if you really want to find out how they handled Wheaton's informartion you can go to NARA, go through the files and talk to those involved when you can find them. We have already done that to some extent and I can assure Tim that one obvious reaon that the ARRB never went further with this is that Buttermer never wrote a final report on the subject, she was in the midst of this and other work and left the ARRB before any of it was concluded. In fact I have a rather frustrated memo from her listing many subjects she was investigating (most in New Orleans) where she was getting stonewalled and receiving insufficient help to bring anything to closure. Its a fascinating list and one of the presentations at the Lancer conference was based on only two of the many leads on that list....New Orleans leads. Not long after that memo Buttermer literally left the ARRB and there is no sign that anyone else was ever assigned her projects, all of them seem to simply stop. Although that's hard to tell based on how the files were collected and organized. Now on Davidson, as background, I have an FBI and a CIA file, both from 1959. As with many people, Davidson seems to have served as an informant to the FBI and CIA...perhaps to buy good will....but more clearly to preserve some distance where he might be protected as an informant. The FBI memo in question even has a footnote that suggests this worked..."Upon receipt of data... we told Miami not to have informant become involved because of his possible arrest by Customs." This incident involved a request from Howard Davis to purchase 24 .50 cal machine guns for use by a Cuban exile revolutionary group. Davidson offered to act as a go between in obtaining the arms and go to Munitions Control if Davis would write a letter on the subject... Davis would not. However this incident seems to verify that Davidson was known and active in arms sales. The separate CIA memo notes that Davidson was a registered agent of Nicaragua and was working with Cuban counterrevolutionary leaders in Miami. Davidson was assisting these leaders and was making arrangements for them in Washington. The leaders included Jose Fujol and Francisco Comceiro. The two had helped Diaz Lanz defect. ...based on these its pretty clear that Davidson was engaged in his craft early on with the exile revolutionaries. -- Larry

John, I have a couple of documents that show from time to time Davidson did provide information to the FBI and CIA. In 1959 he reported that Howard Davis had contacted him about needing 24 50 cal machine guns. Davidson offered to get Munitions Control authority for the guns if Davis would give him a letter....apparently it was not unusual for Davidson to help people obtain weapons. A CIA report describes Davidson as a registered agent of Nicaragua and describes Davidson as being in contact with Cuban exile leaders in 1959 ....relating to arms purchases. Names mentioned included Francisco Rodrguez, Diaz Lanz and Jose Fujol. Davidson was reporting these contacts to CIA. This report also contained remarks about a Government in Exile. Seems like Davidson had been involved in these sorts of affairs for some time. -- Larry I thought this passage from Anne Buttimer's report on her meeting with Gene Wheaton on 11th July, 1995 (dated 12th July, 1995) could be relevant to your point about Marcello. Over the course of a year or a year and one-half his friend told him about his activities with training Cuban insurgency groups. Wheaton said he also got to know many of the Cubans who had been his friend's soldiers/operatives when the Cubans visited in Virginia from their homes in Miami. His friend and the Cubans confirmed to Wheaton they assassinated JFK. Wheaton's friend said he trained the Cubans who pulled the triggers. Wheaton said the street level Cubans felt JFK was a traitor after the Bay of Pigs and wanted to kill him. People "above the Cubans" wanted JFK killed for other reasons. Wheaton said we must look at his friend and his associates in order to know what really happened to JFK. One of those associates was I. Irving Davidson who was/is "the bag man for the intelligence community." Davidson runs a group called the Timber Center which handles payoffs and payments for the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon. He is a friend of Jack Anderson's and was indicted with Carlos Marcello in the 1980's on a Teamster's kick-back charge. Davidson is a non-practicing attorney in Washington D.C. He is now about 70 years old. Have you come across the name Irving Davidson in your research?

Just going to jump in here with a couple of thoughts in regards to David's revue, specifically as they relate to his assessment of Lamar's description of a coup project. 1) We know that JFK was willing to take an extreme political risk in his exploratory contacts with Castro. In fact RFK was concerned enough about it to comment that if Congress knew about it there could be extremely serious consequences. And we know that this approach was not done through standard channels i.e. State. In fact the further the contacts went the more personal they got, involving individuals trusted by JFK but with no government affiliation and in one case a foreign national. Definitely an end run around "channels". If JFK was willing to engage in that sort of activity in pursuit of some type of settlement which would at best move Castro into a neutral position, why is it impossible to presume that he would have taken a high risk, ultra covert gamble on encouraging a coup which would have eliminated Castro? The coup plan Lamar describes involved only a very few personal contacts...all covert... with a senior Cuban leader. And none involving State nor Defense. Is that so very different? And if Congress found out they would have voted JFK a medal. However, as I read Lamar there would have been no US involvement at all until at some point where the coup leader sadly announced the death of both Fidel and Raoul and the formation of a new government. In a way it seems a lot lower risk scenario than the peace gambit. 2) If there was really nothing to the coup plan, other than Harry William's imagination, why among all the people in the world, would RFK contact him the afternoon following JFK's murder. What in the world would even bring Harry William's to RFK's mind at that time if there was not something serious between the Kennedy's and Harry? Doesn't that telephone call from RFK to Harry serve to confirm Harry as a serious source? Another thing that seems to me important to explain if there was not any serious planning going on for support of a coup is the Presidential trip to Tampa and the President's STRIKE command meeting there. That seems rather unique, especially given what we know now about the concerns about threats in both Miami and Tampa. Chicago was cancelled - but not Tampa? It may be even more interesting considering the message out of Texas from some military intelligence organization to STRIKE command on November 22. -- Larry

Tim, let me try this again. Gilberto Lopez was supposed to look suspicious, he was supposed to point toward Castro. He may well have been intended to be a diversion by any security personnel looking for Cuban agents doing surveillance or preparing for an attack on JFK. To get beyond that, I'd love to see you do some real research on him. Do a monograph giving us his family background, his education and training, the history and sequence of his moves. What his wife said about him; what he said about going to visit his mother in Cuba. His efforts to obtain an entry visa; how long that took and when he actually got it. You would find all that in Ultimage Sacrifice plus the documents it cites. Also consider his possible value to US intelligence because of his brother...and factor in the intel memos on him that Lamar cites. Then chart out the informant reports and investigations....who said he was where, who said he was suspicious for what reason. And show us who those informants connect to....Trafficante perhaps?.....Morales perhaps?......CIA domestic ops? Then perhaps we can really discuss who if anyone was pulling his strings. And judge if first paragraph is correct. Or if you still consider him a viable Castro agent and possible assassination participant (and in what role...certainly as a courier he would have been about as covert as Oswald).....so far the record shows that FPCC members were being used by US intel not Cuban (reference AM/SANTA joint FBI-CIA project). -- by the way, Happy Holidays.

Tim, Lamar covers that point in extensive detail in the book so I gather you haven't read it yet? Start with the fact that Lopez was in the US and had been trying for over a year to get into Cuba to visit his ailing mother - and shows absolutely no signes of having any training or experience in covert operations much less as an actual shooter or participant. Go on with his having made him so visible by his efforts to get to Cuba that there document references suggesting he may even have been a recruitment target for US intel. Then go to the fact that virtually all the reports on him are second or third hand...but starting with reports from Morales AMOT's. Add in the fact that although he was reported in Chicago, Tampa and Dallas but that there were no actual sightings in any of the cities about all you are left with is that he a) got the paperwork he needed to transit to Cuba after a year or more of trying and did go to Cuba as soon as he received it. I think that I suggested ages ago that if you want to use him as a possible Castro agent you need to get the actual documents and evaluate them yourself....as Lamar has done to reach his conclusions. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that Morales and company would have been in an ideal position to know about Lopez and generate the reports that would make him look suspicious. ......that's a very abbrieviated synopsis of Lamar's coverage...although as I read it he is more inclined to see Lopez as being set up by Trafficante. Personally that's one of the areas where I think forcing everything to a Mafia theme makes less sense than a conspiracy involving Roselli and Morales as principals. Call that you will...maybe "MAFCIA"...grin. -- Larry