Larry Hancock

Blanco Fernandez was reportedly military director for the DRE circa 1963 and was heavily involved in their arms buying efforts...both in Chicago and in Dallas. In Chicago, the FBI determined that Blanco was an associate of Homer Echevarria (the fellow who mentioned "taking care of Kennedy" to an informant). Since Blanco was operating out of Miami and later in Dallas that makes him one candidate for passing along gossip about a possible move against the President. Another candidate who was also traveling to Chicago and New Orleans from Miami would be Victor Hernandez. Yet another who was wording with Paulino Sierra out of Chicago would be Carlos Quesada , closely associated with Alpha 66, Veciana and Menoyo. I'd probably put my money on the other two rather than Blanco if I were a betting man... virtually no way to resolve it as far as I can tell. -- Larry

John, I know James has other photos of Wilson available....have you checked his photo gallery? Not sure if he has any real close ups or not though. With his help we've added a page including both Wilson and Seymour to the second edition... -- Larry

James, I don't have any real feeling on that but it seems unlikely that the CIA would be disclosing a real name in this context. I can say however that we have the debriefing document on Che's capture and execution and the name being used for CIA "contract employee" in the field with Che is Benton H. Mizones. Mizones worked along with another Cuban in Bolivia but their CIA case officer was back in DC... Afterwards Mizones and the other employee were flown out of Bolivia by C-130 to Panama and both employees were documented as GS-16's so they could board an over booked military flight back to Charlotte. -- Larry

It would indeed James, Trento devotes a good deal of space to affairs in Chile and discusses Hecksher's attitude toward Schneider - who was of course "mysteriously" killed. Trento mentions a CIA operative named "Felix" working for Hecksher, not that the name relates to Morales but the name "Felix" does show up in some interesting places. Anyway, The Secret History of the CIA by Trento has a fair number of references to Hecksher at various points in his career. -- Larry

Don, she does, he is mentioned on page 206....the text states that he signed the commitment papers which were required for Fruge to drive Rose C. to East La. State hospital. Just for reference on this subject, another person who spent a good deal of time in this area is Jim Olivier ...he has some very interesting remarks about Fruge, Dischler and the Cheramie incident and has spoken at Lancer on this. If you happen to be coming to Dallas this year Jim will be attending, if not I'd still suggest you try to get in touch with him. -- Larry

Don, I'm sure Joan Mellen will be able to answer that....I don't find any interviews of Fruge by her referenced in the book (but I only did a quick one handed search). Joan did interview the lady who worked with Fruge on his Clinton investigations (among other things) in 2001, that would be Anne Dischler. Joan's interviews with Dischler are excellent and Dischler's information is extremely valuable and corrborative of the Clinton incident. -- very good stuff, Larry

Thanks Pat, it seems that Hecksher also was the one to take Dave Phillips in country for a little fact finding for his radio broadcasts. As I recall, in his book, Phillips uses the name "Peter" for Hecksher. It seems very likely that Hecksher was the officer who brought Morales into PBSUCCESS as well, both had been serving in Berlin where Hecksher was Deputy COS at that point. Their careers crossed many times, the last probably being in Chile where Morales may have done some final services for him; especially (according to Reuben) the removal of a key Chilean general. It's pretty clear that Henry was one of the cadre who played for keeps. -- Larry

John, we are currently estimating the second edition to be something like a third longer than the first; it will be published either as a commercial grade book paperback or light hardcover (not sure yet) and as such will have a much broader distribution plus the ability to get into bookstores or libraries. It will not be spiral bound as the first edition. There will be additional photo pages...I'll have to check on the Fred Black photo, don't recall for sure. Nothing on Stockdale I'm afraid, not that I don't think it is important. One area that I am intentionally avoiding is the involvement of RFK and Kennedy family damage control. I'm also avoiding larger scale concepts such as what I personally consider the very probable connection of the JFK murder to Robert Kennedy's murder. I'll leave that to other authors, hard enough for me to stay focused as it is... As a side comment, some of the key new findings to be included in second edition will be included in my Lancer presentation next month. -- Larry

I just read Dicks remarks on his book thread and saw that he has mentioned the following: "I believe the most important aspect that remains to be delved into, regarding the assassination, focuses on the CIA and relationships between certain of its employees with the Cuban exile community. Besides the well-known David Phillips, I'd look into a fellow named Henry Heckscher." It just so happens that Hecksher is a major part of the appenndix I've done on CIA personnel and I think it will definitely corroborate Dick's remark. Just as a clue, Heckscher was operating out of both Miami and Mexico City in the fall of 1963 and even had a couple of discussions with our friend Mr. Phillips. Which fortunately is even recorded in the new documents. Oh, and he was also in Japan in the late 50's....but that's enough clues for now... grin. -- Larry

John, all the first edition chapters have been edited and updated with new information and research obtained over the past two years. Fortunately a number of people in the research community have jumped in to pursue some of the leads listed out in the first edition and have developed significant information on several of them. An example would be research on the DC-3 incindent out of Redbird airport, where we did manage to obtain the full FAA records on the plane and document virtually all the core elements of the January story. Extensive new information has become available on David Morales and other individuals including specific details on their activities before and after the Bay of Pigs; this includes details on a number of paramilitary operations which were unknown up to now including some Castro assassination projects. It's becoming clear that the CIA was indeed expecting other things to happen which would make the Brigade invasion successful, it really was not supposed to work by itself. All of this becomes important in regard to the assassination given some new source material I'll be talking about in Dallas. We also know a great deal more about the autonomous group projects of 1963 and their related personnel and crypts. This becomes very important in following what was going on in the last half of 1963 in regard to several of pur "persons of interest". In addition we will be adding several new appendices which will present new information and these will be supporting those with several hundred pages of new documents. Sample appendice topics include: Crossing Paths in The CIA (greatly expanded) The Way of JM/WAVE (JMWAVE operations 1961-1964) Barnes and company The Kirknewton Incident The HSCA and Victor Hernandez Rose Cheramie revisited Sylvia Odio revisited Echos from Dallas/ARRB leads pursued We will be adding an index and a variety of new social diagrams/charts and an index - both of which will make coping with the content a good deal easier. -- Larry

OK, this time maybe I'll get my reply in the correct place when I post the message. Dawn, Joan Mellen covers this subject in some good detail in her book, she describes Garrison's denial, Roselli's denial and some of the CIA internal memoranda on the subject. It's one of those places where I'd like to have the actual CIA documents in my hands though because it does appear to be an internal CIA communication - raising the question of why would the CIA lie to itself (or create internal disinformation?). Now if it were CI lieing to Plans I suppose that would not be unusual...grin. Or if it were CIA pitching ot to their media outlets. But at that point in time of course the last thing the CIA would seem to want to do is to get anybody to take a close look at Roselli and possibly stumble up against the Castro assassination projects. There also seems to be a little confusion in the whole thing in that at first the story was that Garrison had met with Meheu. Of course the background for all this is that this is the same period in which Roselli took his little "team turned by Castro onto JFK" story to Warren, and Warren took it to SS and FBI and they all ignored it. Roselli had to shop the story through Davidson to his office mate Jack Anderson and Anderson then wrote his little bombshell which put Johnson in motion. That certainly was not a happy thing for the CIA and led eventually to the Church committee, a very unhappy outcome for them. As usual nothing is simple... Larry Tim: Jim Garrison absolutely denies this meeting in a personal letter to me in 1986. The letter is actually posted at Wim's site, just click on "Jim Garrison" (-on the left panel) and read his actual words. If you still presist in this, then you'll be calling the DA himself a xxxx. Your pro- CIA bias is so annoying. Otherwise, I love this forum. Am too busy with work of late to keep up the way I'd like... great posts folks. Lots of good work being done here!! John this group may just solve this damn case. Now we've gotta get the media to get on board. Tim what happened to your Discovery Channel idea? It seems you have lots of time to post here with your anti Garrison, the KGB/Castro- did- it nonsense, but do you ever do anything to advance the solving of this case? You had a gret idea there, it would be terrific to see you put your words into action. (Also glad you weathered the storm). ON a different note 2,000 dead Americans over the lies of this most corrupt administration. Will there be indictments? Is Fitzgerald made of the courage that was the late great Jim Garrison??? Dawn

Tim: Jim Garrison absolutely denies this meeting in a personal letter to me in 1986. The letter is actually posted at Wim's site, just click on "Jim Garrison" (-on the left panel) and read his actual words. If you still presist in this, then you'll be calling the DA himself a xxxx. Your pro- CIA bias is so annoying. Otherwise, I love this forum. Am too busy with work of late to keep up the way I'd like... great posts folks. Lots of good work being done here!! John this group may just solve this damn case. Now we've gotta get the media to get on board. Tim what happened to your Discovery Channel idea? It seems you have lots of time to post here with your anti Garrison, the KGB/Castro- did- it nonsense, but do you ever do anything to advance the solving of this case? You had a gret idea there, it would be terrific to see you put your words into action. (Also glad you weathered the storm). ON a different note 2,000 dead Americans over the lies of this most corrupt administration. Will there be indictments? Is Fitzgerald made of the courage that was the late great Jim Garrison??? Dawn

I'm going to jump in with Jack on this one. There has even been a fair amount of local research done on the subject in Dallas (although I have to admit that when I first got into this stuff I thought virtually everything was supicious too). I'd advise anyone just getting started to get as many copies of the third and fourth Decade journals, Penn Jones books and Penn's newsletter collection and do some reading. Anyway, you have to remember that there were several stops in Texas and lots of banquets. Yellow roses were preferred because they do relate to the song and Texas as Jack described. By the time the folks in Dallas got to trying to buy enough yellow roses for the luncheon they started running into a real supply problem even there. I have no idea of Mrs. Cabell ran into the same problem but there was also the issue of what the First Lady was wearing that day and red roses are a better fit for a pink suit. Maybe Mrs. Cabell took that into consideration. We really need to get together on the fact that all indications are that the shooting was done by a well trained, coordinated team. It wasn't a pick of game or a local Bircher with a 30-06. And the roses had nothing to do with it. - IMHO, Larry

And I've got to watch my typing and spelling much more closely...!! But as you say Tim, it is very significant and I think clearly demonstrates that Ferrie had a relationship with Cuban activities before the BOP, with people from Miami after the BOP and that he may very well have heard some significant gossip about the conspiracy if nothing else. We can all imagine Garrison's level of interest if he had been able to directly tie Ferrie to anti-Castro activists in Miami. One also has to wonder what Garrison might have made out of the Gill Wray phone records which seem to suggest a lenghty number of calls by Ferrie from Texas to NO in 1963. I recall hearing news stories about the Garrison investigation at the time and being totally at sea about what in the world New Orleans could have to do with an assassination in Dallas. Given what has emerged it seems to me that the the real connection that gave birth to the attack in Dallas may well have been the ongoing one that existed for about three years between individuals/associations in Miami and New Orleans. -- Larry I apologize for being too anal about nailing this detail down; it's just that I was struck by the mention of photos showing Ferrie and Sturgis together. That would be very significant. As it is, a photo of Ferrie with DeJoseph still demonstrates an important connection. Tim

Tim, any remark I may have made about photos of Ferrie and Sturgis would have been incorrect and a result of posting too late in the day. My statement about having seen photos of Ferrie and De Joeseph stands. Hopefully this will clarifiy my posts and that's about all I can say to the subject. Anyone can may further mystery out of it if they wish. -- Larry

Tim, you won't see them on the forum unless someone has copies of what I've seen. I probably should not have mentioned them in the first place as I do not possess the photos nor would I have permission to post, distribute nor use them. I can tell you I've viewed them and that they show Ferrie in the company of DeJoseph, not Sturgis. Of course it is well known that DeJoseph was an associate of Sturgis. The photos were made during a series of trips to New Orleans in the summer of 1962 in which discussions were underway about a training camp for the CRC in the New Orleans area....which never jelled by the way. Perhaps someone else has access to the photos, I know a limited number of people have seen them. However in this case I'm afraid you would have to take my word that they exist. Which puts me right there along with Tanenbaum I suppose....guess I'll go write an internal memo on them. -- Larry I've somehow missed seeing "photos which show Ferrie with Sturgis...." Can anyone please tell me if they're posted on this forum and if so, where? Tim

Robert, their are a host of things in the statement about the film that make either little or no sense for something that was supposed to have happened in the summer of 1963. Perhaps more to the point, can you imagine being an HSCA investigator in 1976/77 and having a film showing someone identical or closely resembling Lee Oswald with all of the well known names from the Garrison investigation. Would you drop Garrison a note about it? There was a good deal of communication between staff and Garrison, on fairly trivial things...where is the letter about this explosive item? Plus where are all the internal HSCA memoranda about so dramatic a find? And you have this film and decide not to blow up any frames and file them away or share them.....and there is no gossip among the HSCA staff about this find? Then you go on and find document showing Oswald to be an employee or maybe just an informant. But again, no internal memos, no gossip, nothing in the published HSCA report about either item? Perhaps this makes sense to somebody but it doesn't to me; I can't figure out what Tannenbaum is doing with such statements but it seems to me that he needs to answer some questions about why he apparently kept them to himself? -- Larry

John, one of Fonzi's exile informants came up with the DP photo comment. He's the one that Fonzi was actually going to use to "sting" De Torres until he got a frantic call telling him the HSCA didn't do things like that....you know, real criminal investigation "stuff". Sorry the name escapes me at the moment. However you will find the whole story in Gaeton's book when he's writing about "Carlos".

Yes Robert, it would be Emilio Santana. Fortunately for the CIA and unfortunately for Garrison, they found that Santana had actually purchased a car and used the CIA as an employment reference on the paperwork. You can imagine how much Jim would have enjoyed having that in hand. He would also have enjoyed having the photos which show Ferrie with Stugis and one of Sturgis associates taken in the summer of 1962....clearly Ferrie had some prior association with folks out of Miami pre-BOP. And that would have been one more real and very significant actual CIA asset....so significant that Helms had to obfuscate if not actually commit perjury covering up the CIA's use of Sturgis as an informant. Not just an informant but someone they initially came across because of his offer to help them asssassinate Castro. And of course when Garrison was using De Torres as an investigator he really had no idea whe he might be connected to. I'm sure that Joan will go into far more of this than I'm even aware of but Garrison and New Oreleans were in the midst of a host of Cuban secret war activities from both before and after the BOP - which meant that there were a host of things that the Agency, the Bureau and a variety of individuals were driven to hide. It's only been in the last few years that most of the hidden NO activity has emerged. - Larry

Robert, based on the Garrison era documents I've seen so far, it appears that it was the FBI and the Justice Department which covertly (and illegally) came to Shaw's defense. Lisa Pease and Jim D. have written on this at some length in their Probe articles and its clear that the FBI put its on network of former FBI agents to work supporting Shaw (the FBI's use of former agents running Detective and Security agencies has been far underestimated and my well have been superior to the CIA's front company tactic, at least for domestic activities) and Justice Department lawyers were in direct communications with Shaw's defense team, who had indeed appealed to Justice themselves. While the FBI was aggressivelly trying to help Shaw's defense, the CIA moved into a defense mode, first trying to come up with tactics in Virginia to ensure they could not be served with papers and then trying to determine the exposure of their employees and contacts in New Orleans should Garrison get to them there. The scope of the FBI and Justice reaction may indicate several things....but at the core it was probably driven by a need to cover up the FBI's use of Oswald and protect DuBurys (sp). The FBI was set up be a real loser if Garrison had proven in Oswald's association with Bannister, his function as an intelligence dangele and the use of the FBI former agent network to support CI activities. Eventually we learned all about that but it would have been critical news in 67 with the FBI and CIA turning on their full fledged internal subversive efforts against the War protesters and Black activists. The CIA internal memos show that two names really concened them, one was Santana who was an operational boat guide on Cuban infiltration missions in 62 and 63 and the other was LaBorde, who had worked on one of the most famous vessels, the Tejuana, prior to the BOP. Anyone digging out the details of the Tejuna and who bought it and crewed it would have found out a good deal of how the CIA used their business networks in the U.S., including private contributions for deniable actions....something that would have reached from the King Ranch to New York City through New Orleans. Not to mention what an investigation of the CIA's pre-BOP operations in the New Orleans area might have turned up.....especially any real investigation of the CLIP project. I guess my point in all that rambling was to suggest that you examine not just the CIA's issues with Garrison but that you give attention to what the FBI and Justice were doing in their direct intervention with Shaw's defense team. -- Larry

Of the many strange things about the TILT project, one of the strangest is the massive violation of CIA security procedures. The idea of sending operational personnel on a mission with unvetted participants and then consciously allowing photography for a major media outlet like LIFE should have sent security personnel into fits...even more so with no firm control over the photos or their use(just a gentleman's agreement). However we now have documents that show this action was approved in personal correspondance between Pawley and Marshall Carter, CIA Deputy Director....soon to become head of the NSA. Carter told Pawley "his people" in D.C. and Miami had decided to go along with the idea of a LIFE photographer on the mission. And the photos that were released do show at least one opertional CIA employees as well as a nice set of deniable weapons....gee, guess you didn't have to have American weapons to be on an American mission, how about that. Details and RIF references upcoming in the second edition of SWHT. Larry

In addition to the speakers (this is only a partial list) I should note that on Saturday of the conference we will hold a memorial ceremony in the Plaza and following that will conduct extended tours in the Plaza area addressing issues that frequently come up in regard to witness locations, trajectories, who could see what from where etc. Jim Teague and Beverly Oliver are both expected to be available for questions while we are in the Plaza. And hopefully Bill Miller will be joining us for an on scene location of some of his photo analysis work - and that's certainly the right place to discuss it. We also have arrangements with a very experienced local Dallas tour guide to do area tours during and after the conference for those that wish to visit all the relevant JFK sites in the area beyond the Plaza. -- Larry

A little qualification on this, first Shawn Phillips statement - which was brought to all our attention by Gary Buell - does include a quote from Dave Phillips admitting to his brother that he was in Dallas. "Where you in Dallas on that day"? David said , "Yes" and Jim hung up the phone....David was on his death bed and Jim felt seriously enough about it that he never talked with him again before he died. However another part of Jim's story is neglected and that is the fact that David apparently used the private alies of "Raul Salcedo", lots of room for research on that one. I do also need to note that we have obtained a CIA document recording that Phillips was expected to pick up documentation in Mexico City coming in from a person coming out of Cuba. Not that Phillips could not have arranged pick up and forwarding but as far as CIA documents go he definitely was supposed to be in MC that weekend. -- Larry

Hi Peter, that's great! The conference hotel is the Crowne Plaza Hotel Dallas Market Center and I'm advised they still have rooms available in our block as long as you mention the JFK Lancer Conference. The room rate is really good this year and I don't think you could do better although there are other hotels in the general area. You can find details on the hotel and conference at: http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas05/hotel.html If you have any problems or further questions feel free to email me directly at larryjoe@westok.net We are pleased that we are going to have several conference attendees and a presenter from the UK this year as well as attendees and a presenter from Australia. -- Larry

Hi folks, I thought I would provide a brief update by posting a sampling of speaker's presentations. This is only partial of course and does not include several of our speakers; I thought it would give some flavor to the scope and nature of topics being addressed. In addition I'm happy to announce that Jim Teague, Aubrey Rike and Beverly Oliver Massagee will be joining us for the conference and it still looks like Billy Sol Estes will be there as well. Sampling of speakers and topics JFK Lancer November in Dallas 2005 : Jim Marrs, “Means, Motives and Opportunities”? Joan Mellen, "A Farewell To Justice: Demythologizing Jim Garrison"? Larry Hancock, “Covert Operations – from Cuba to Dallas?” Jim Olivier and Stuart Wesler, “News on Oswald in New Orleans” David Kaiser, "Making Everyone Unhappy: The Kennedy Administration, Castro, and Cuban Exiles, 1963" John Williams, "A Conspicuously Disowned Presence: General Curtis E. LeMay at The Bethesda Autopsy of Friday, November 22" Ian Griggs, “Search For A Stripper” - deals with the life and times of the Carousel Club dancer Kathy Kay Stuart Wexler and Tom Pinkston , “Bullet Fragment Fallacies” Phil Hopley “Deep History of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee” John Simkin, “Grant Stockdale, Mary Pinchot Meyer and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy” Ben Rogers, "Research in the Papers of Penn Jones, Jr" Pat Speer, “Lawyers, Doctors, and Head Shrinkers: Lies and Deceptions in the JFK Medical Evidence”