Larry Hancock

Greg, I'll be really interested in seeing your article when its done. All I can say for now is that Matthew Smith has provided more information on Ray in his recently published book including that on the other item he disclosed, the DC3 incident. My own research, including some early Dallas media coverage of Ray's remarks and an investigation of the documents on the DC3 leads me to belive that Ray was not a xxxx and disclosed some very important information. I have mixed feelings on the FBI report, it certainly would not be the first instance of their inserting something to discredit a report that was not going in the right direction....that's more consistent than not. However there is also a possibility that Ray realized his remarks, as reported in the Dallas press, were about to get him a lot of attention he didn't need and might bring some people back to make sure he did not disclose the DC3 information which was far more important. He may have misdated it to the FBI himself to divert attention and protect himself. I do think that unless you have turned up something brand new, that writing off January would be a mistake. ....at least based on what I can see so far. -- Larry

At the risk of being repetitive this looks like it fits in this thread as well: An interesting document which you might order a copy of RIF 104-10072-10289 from NARA. The title is rather uninteresting e.g. "Special Activities Report on a JMWAVE Relationship" however the content has to do with a several year relationship between JMWAVE and various personnel at the Miami Harald. The document describes relationships with AMCARBON-1, AMCARBON-2 ...and apparent multiple identities of individuals (which totally confuses me). Apparently AMCARBON-2 was approched in Sept 1962 at the same time AMCARBON-1 was given identity 4. Apparently AMCARBON-1 had gotten a significant promotion at the paper at that time and increasing confidence by Indentity-3 management. Someone with the crypt Reuteman made the introduction for AMCARBON-2 to JMWAVE, can't tell if he was a Harald employee or not., sounds like it though. This document is probably our best insight to reveal the extent to which JMWAVE had working relationships with several personnel at the Harald and that Hendrix probably fits one of the CARBON crypts. Supposedly AMCARBON-1 originally started to work for Identity 3 (the Harald?) in 1957 on the City Desk, then went on to Florida political stories. You would probably be more interested in the fact that the memo gives a long list of sources for AMCARBON-1 and discusses how JMWAVE used him as a progaganda outlet e.g. "a propaganda outlet through which items of interest to KUBARK could be surfaced in the free world press"....the memo goes on to list specific incidents and their related stories. There is also a variety of interesting dialog about the ground rules for using press assets and media tactics.

Hi Jack, actually I'll just follow Ron on this. There is no doubt it's Hicks in the photo, coming down from the direction of Houston and going down the south side of Elm. In fact we know why he was in Dallas and where his wife was working; it was her having a job and him having lost his that brought him to be in Dallas and left him free to watch the motocade. The problem is that his descriptions of what he saw don't match very well with where he was standing nor of the other photos of the area he describes seeing a man standing in a car trunk who "might have shot the President". His description of the sign he saw with a hole in it being immediately removed that day doesn't match the signs on Elm and beyond that the rest of his so called inside information just is totally out of left field....including meeting the Cubans in a Dallas bar a few weeks later who then decided to share the full details of the plot with him. By the time he was talking to press about going back for the Garrison trial he was claiming to know the names of the people involved in the shooting. It really is a sad story when you piece it all together. -- Larry

Greg, I've posted frequently on this so I'll try to keep it brief. Most everthing you find in print about Hicks is urban legend class stuff....except that he was in DP that day, because his wife was working in Dallas and he was down there with her having lost his job. Hicks was provably a man with a drinking problem and when you dig into his statements - made primarily to newspaper folks and never to law enforcement per se - you find that they are either not credible (his talk of seeing a man in the open trunk of a car off Elm street) or change to just unbelievable e.g. he ran into Cubans in a bar in Dallas and after a few drinks they told him all the details of the assassination. And he was not stashed away in a secret medical facility to prevent his testimony, he was placed in what was primarily a psychiatric hospital (Fort Supply in Oklahoma, not a military installation but literally a hospital on the site of a former calvary post) because of his drinking problem. I know there are still folks who think Hicks is another JFK mystery but after digging into his story the best I can give you is its more of a sad story about a man with a problem. He was not one of the better leads generated by the Garrison investigation and when he went down to testify for the Grand Jury he ended out drinking with a couple of guys who went back to his motel with him, rolled him and beat him up....not good press for Garrison either. Later he would talk to a lot of press folks and seemed to feel that Garrison would call him back as a major witness for the actual trial...which Garrison did not. -- Larry

Tim, a few observations: 1) Sylvia Odio was asked to write fund raising letters for her two visitors; we don't know what they would have asked her to say specifically because she turned them down. However, personal letters of endorsement referencing JURE, signed by Sylvia - who personally associated with Ray - could have been used to contaminate JURE in many ways. Certainly if such letters had been planted on Oswald or associated with him even short of an assassination, given his active pro-Castro stance, it would have been more political ammunition against Ray within the Cuban community. Everything doesn't have to tie to the attack in Dallas; in fact there is good reason to belive the plan as of the Odio visit may not have jelled at all as far as an attack in Dallas. Only a few weeks earlier Oswald had been writting letters about a move to the East Coast. 2) There is no concrete reason to associate Angelo's agenda with Leopoldo's; nor to associate the letter request with the call afterwards - based on the data we have so far. There is no particular reason to think either Angelo or Oswald knew about the follow-up call, indeed there is good reason to think Leopoldo was working his own separate agenda. 3) The visit could have been used to "contaminate" JURE through association with a very pro-Castro, Marxist, Russian defector may be very relevant to Angelo's agenda while Leopoldo's may have been setting up Oswald for something more violent. 4) The autonomous group project which started in 1963 had multiple players, Artime and Williams and Ray. Assuming the plan had worked, Castro had been eliminated and a coup successful, you can bet that the next step would have been a direct conflict between Artime and Ray. And unfortunately the exiles were not ones to set aside such conflicts until after their primary objective was achived. Given all that some sort of political effort against JURE makes a great deal of sense even without the assassination plot coming into play.

John, from Johnson's call log and tapes we have a very good timeline of who he talked to prior to the point of actually working through proposed members....which he did first with Fortas on the phone. Check my Chapter 15 on that. I think you will be hard pressed to find any contact with RFK before the WC list is pretty well set. -- Larry

I'd add the observation that reality is generally more complex and circumstantial than idealogy would suggest. For example during 1963 and 1964 we see the following: 1) The Kennedy's put their leverage behind autonomous exile groups and leaders and everybody involved acknowledges that this means a grave loss of control...but that's OK as long as they do their thing off shore and don't blame the U.S. And in the process they get backed up with plans that anticipate a coup which can only succeed if somebody kills Castro. So that's OK, as long as the somebody isn't the CIA per se. 2) Fitzgerald proceeds to court Cubela and goes along with his request for assassination equipment....although evenutally Cubela will go to Artime for an assassination rifle. Which is of course much better than CIA just giving it to him... 3) The 303 Committee gets word that crime folks have approached exiles with an offer to take out Castro...and is incensed, going to great lengths to try and shut such a thing down (why you ask given items 1 and 2 and the fact that these crime folks aren't even from the U.S.?) And Fitzgerald sits on the Committee while the subject is discussed. .....talk about "conflicted"...with or without the President Larry

I just wanted to express my sadness for John's passing. I was excited that he was going to present at the November Lancer conference and really looking foward to meeting him in person. I followed his posts with great attention, his passing is another example of why its so important to get work like his in print one way or the other, even if it's individual papers and essays. If someone is aware of any published papers or essays from John it seems fitting that they be identified and perhaps linked on this forum in his memory. -- Larry

Hi Dawn, on your questions: Tom Bowden previwed a copy of the Remond video in Dallas a few years ago, William was there as I recall and the video was in English. I don't think it has ever gone on sale in the US though, not sure why? Actually Bowden stated in the video that he had heard one or more of the tapes that Estes describes...on the other hand in his own recent book Estes seems to say that he sold all the tapes long ago...very confusing. The witness is Kyle Brown, he is on the video describing being in the meeting with Carter and Estes and reportedly has heard the tapes as well.....he is named in the Caddy letters to Justice as a witness but now Estes denies that and says he will not name the real witness. As to leaking the letters, I have no definite knowledge but Glen Sample received the letters from two sources who he does not identify either source. I've heard speculation on the sources which includes Caddy (the letters were not given to Sample until his first edition was in print) and also another man in Texas who was a good friend of Madeleine Brown and who was writing an unpublished manuscript on the Texas Mafia at the time of his death. Still, the letters would have had to have come from either Justice (unlikely), from Estes himself or somehow from Caddy's office files in some fashion.

John, I think you asked the key question on why Estes selected Caddy to represent him to Justice. Of course it may be as simple as the fact that Estes would need a lawyer in DC who had experience negotiating with Justice - Caddy fits the bill and surely his Watergate visiblity made him a prominent name in that. Perhaps Caddy might know and say how Estes was referred, that might not be considered part of client priveleged info. On the other hand its pretty clear from the remarks in his own book that Estes was and is less than happy that his Justice communications were leaked to the public and blames Caddy for that. Of course in the same book Estes states that he gave a false name to Justice as a witness for his offer...something that neither Justice or his lawyer would look on with much appreciation. Then again said witness is on video with Remond as confirming exactly what was described by Caddy in the letter...again further cluding the whole affair and making Estes look less than reliable. -- Larry

Pat, it is a most interesting report and Stu and I have been discussing it as well. It gets really hard to separate the Nixon phase from the post-Nixon phase as a lot of the players did change. I'd sure like to have dates on the items you mentioned - especially the "must go" list and the Phillips/Esterline conversations. Unusual to find real name/initials on a must go list if it came from within CIA though. Such a list sure does smack of the PBSUCCESS cadre though. One thing we do know via new CIA documents is that beginning in 1960 it was Morales who was running the counter intelligence effort and making the lists of names of Cuban targets. And he had a group going in before and with the Brigade specifically targeted on those lists. Whether there was a separate PM group with lists remains to be seen but we also have some documents about at least one paramilitary assassination program targeting Castro. And Robertson seems to have made an attempt against Che which he tagged on to another mission....which sounds like standard Rip stuff with or without ourders. Its now very clear that the Roselli/Varona efforts were not the only project in play and that Cuba project people were putting together their own attempts...regardless of Esterline's later testimony (like anybody should belive any CIA testimony from the guy in charge of the project...). -- Larry

Robert, I've had the same discussion with PDS and definitely come down with your direction. I think that is supported by Martino's remark that the plot totally came apart with Tippett was killed and Oswald was taken into custody. That blew the rest of the plan. On the other hand, I retain at least a suspicion that one or more parties involved with inciting the plot may have actually been prepared to double cross the exiles by getting to Johnson and setting the stage to squash a conspiracy response if at all possible. Roselli would be my suspect in that - after all getting JFK and especially RFK out of the picture would be good for buisness, atomic war would be bad. I do know that at least in Martino's case that he came to believe the people who had incited the plot might have had an agenda of their own and that the exiles may have been used. More may emerge on that, hard to say. Question...could you give a reference for that Oswald luggage tag thing...I've heard that come up before but was never sure of the source? -- thanks, Larry <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Robert, that has been done (by Dick Russell among others) and unfortunately everything Shawn knows can be found in the material on his WEB site. When you net it out two things are clear i) David's brother and others in the family had strong suspicions he was involved in the conspiracy in some fashion....enough so to stop speaking with him and ii) even when dying and with the opportunity of one last phone call to reconcile himself with his brother Phillips refused to deny his involvement. At a minimum I would have to judge that Phillips either consciously aided some area of the conspiracy or suspected who had done it and consciously covered it up. Given his remark as reported by Summers about believing that it was a conspiracy involving US intelligence officers (made after denying any such thing for years and legally challenging any implication of same) that confirms to me the Phillips knew there was a conspiracy and who was involved...which of course would make him an accessory to conspiracy for not reporting what he suspected or knew. -- Larry I recently read a post on a JFK forum, it might have even been on the JFK Lancer forum, that Shawn Phillips (who was a fairly famous rock singer in the 1970's) the nephew of David Atlee Phillips said that David told him shortly before his death that "he was in Dallas on November 22, 1963. It would be of interest for someone to interview him to find out what, if more Shawn is willing to reveal about his Uncle. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

James, I'm not sure I can leap all that way with you but I do know the following: 1) Many of the companies operating in Cuba, Freeport and King Ranch among them, were coerced by Castro for donations - it went as far as kidnapping personnel and holding hostages. The point man for the collection efforts worked thorugh New York and eventually defected via New York and became a very active anti-Castro leader....eventually commanding the Tejuna III which was obtained in New Orleans, funded out of Texas and coordinated by CIA. Introductions were made via the Lobo network out of NYC which I referenced earlier. Gets complex but I try to deal with it in a couple of appendices which will be in my second edition. 2) Bishop (Phillips) always used the cover of representing a group of businessmen whose interests were either threatened or taken over by Castro, I think that was a pretty simple and standard ploy and there was plenty of press around over the expropriation of American business to make it stick and to lend some names which could be implied. Seeing Roselli use the same line would be no great surprise, its either that or say that he is representing the syndicate (poor taste and maybe dangerous since its clear that he and Giancana were not acting with syndicae approval) or the CIA (even poorer taste and frowned on by his real employers). There is absolutely no doubt from the paper trail that there was an axis of American companies serving as a peripheral (one step removed) network which aided and in many cases funded moves against Castro which could be deniable by the CIA. Fellow travelers is one way to think of it but these guys had clout and no problems about using people....its clear that some folks who thought they were working for the US government or CIA were recruited and paid by this network. It takes the concept of fronts and covers way beyond what my simple mind can handle... -- Larry

James, I've never seen anything to indicate that Roselli was connected to Freeport, much less taking money from them. His money was virtually all from deal making within the LA and Vegas venues. Not that he didn't have connections in New Orleans but if Freeport was one of them it would be news... -- Larry

Dave, Trull was indeed a friend of the King ranch folks and we now know that it was they who introduced him to Sierra after a meeting with him. Apparently it was felt that Sierra needed an American who was a good talker to assist and they thought Trull would serve that role. Given this thread it is also worth noting that we now have documents that show that Phillips was very well entrenched with a lot of the old school Cuban and American businessmen who very much wanted access to Cuba again. This involved not only the King Ranch folks but the Freeport Sulpher people (Phillips was introduced to them and apparently traveled to New Oreleans for meetings) as well as the whole Lobo sugar axis of companies in New York. The range of Phillips connections is extremely impressive. I think it is probably worth pointing out though that he does not have seemed to be spending all that much time in Florida in 1963 and that others had much more direct contact with Cuban exiles, both pro and anti-Kennedy during 1963. Much more on that will come out in print this fall it appears. I'm certainly not writing Phillips out of the whole equation but I've also come to feel that it would indeed not be as simple a matter as he, by himself, inciting a plot to kill the President. Larry, If memory serves me, wasn't William Trull associated with the King Ranch? Trull was reportedly Paulino Sierra's entree into certain circles when Sierra first started his new anti-Castro organization (JGCE). Dave <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Shanet, Steve pointed you to my comments in the Lancer thread so you've got that - but to throw in a couple more observations: 1. Puterbaugh was introduced in various ways at various times by people who really didn't know him....he was an Ag Dept employee who was officially borrowed by the DNC and represented the DNC and by generalization the administration e.g. the White House staff although he was in no way attached to it. Whether all that is suspect is a completely different story and I happen to think it may have been even without Puterbaugh's knowledge...that takes you back to Cliff Carter who was standing behind the scenes coaching him (logically Carter himself would have been the logical political advance man and performed that function for Johnson both before and after the Texas trip....very experienced in that). However it does make sense that people introduced Puterbaugh in different ways - given that he traveled with Lawson and attended all the advance planning meetings, I expect many people assumed he was actually Secret Service. 2. No matter what we would all have wished, the DPD did not regard the motorcade as a security matter, they regarded it as a parade and as a traffic control challenge. You can see that in the morning instructions to the force, you can see it in many of Sneed's interviews with officers long after the fact. Its clear that security worries were about crowds and demonstrations at the Trade Mart - the DPD security chief was at the Trade Mart not with the motorcade and arrests had already been made there before the assassination. Previous violence in Dallas had all been when political targets were "on the street" in front of crowds - and there were special security precautions for that, we know that DPD built photo files of protestors and did special briefs for the door guards at the Trade Center. Based on history that made sense, as I have said repetitively (sorry) neither the Secret Service or DPD or likely any other law enforcement group had any history or experience with covert operations against public figures. You can see that in the primitive and pitiful way the SS handled threat intelligence - if somebody made a public threat against the President it got investigated, but only for that city, apparently the thought of even a lone nut "stalking" a President from place to place did not occur to them prior to Dallas. 3. Having mentioned my study of the 112th / MI which is available on CD I won't bore anybody but I think if you want to pursue that track you really ought to either check it out or get copies of the extensive investigation of the 112th conduced by the ARRB for yourself. -- Larry

Hi Robert, I tend to agree although I still rubs me the wrong way. For example Manchester gave a very specific time and description of the Hoover call...along with calls before and after it. I don't know how he would have come up with such a thing out of clear air - but now the call log shows the call he listed before and the one after with the time differences adjusted to eliminate the time for the Hoover call. A Hoover call makes so much sense its hard to imagine it not happening....and there is no other record of anyone seeing Hoover anywhere in DC that evening where he could have met personally with Johnson, Hoover definitely stand out by his apparent absense. I tend to wonder if DeLoach simple heard Hoover mention having talked to the new President and assumed it was in person. Beyond that, and my distaste for loose ends, we have another source who in his biography describes being with McCone for that purported security brief first thing in the morning; he states they met Johnson in the hallway and Johnson had no interest in a brief and after a short exchange he left with no dialog. Now if this is true it seems very significant and if not somebody is working very hard at covering up matters of importance like MC that were dicussed. Not sure that we will ever claify it but for the moment the apparent absence of Hoover in D.C. that evening, the disappearing phone call and Johnson's lack of interest in any national security brief the morning after the assassination sound pretty silly given what one would have thought would be the interests of all the parties involved (Hoover not ususally being bashful about thrusting the Bureau to the fore as one example). -- Larry <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Robert, sorry if I was unclear, I'm familiar with the 10:01 AM call on Saturday morning....and I think Newman has gone a good way with this story beyond what even PDS did with Deep Politics III. My issue is that Saturday morning Johnson's first query is about Mexico City; the question then is had Hoover and Johnson discussed Mexico City before? If not who did brief Johnson and when? Plus did Johnson speak with Hoover on November 22......Manchester says he called him at home, DeLoach seems to indicate they spoke in person and Johnsons phone log does not support the call Manchester describes (at least now). If the two did not talk how did Hoover get the order to take over the investigation and evidence from DPD Friday night? And are we really expected to think the Hoover just went home from work that night like any normal day? Or that Johnson called everybody in DC except Hoover? I wasn't really referring to the Phase 1 and 2 concepts nor even to CIA/Mexico City pushing the Commie plot...which gets agonizingly stupid once you get to the Alvarado story. I'm stuck down in the details of the individuals personal activities during the first twelve hours or so when there appear to be loose ends and abnormal behavior all over the place. -- Larry

Pat, I would sure like to seem some detail or corroboration for DeLoach's remark. As you know I've studied Johnson's movements on his return almost minute by minute.... largely based in Manchester's work. I can find no indication that Hoover met Johnson in person and although Manchester does record one call from Johnson to Hoover at his home that call has gone missing from the Johnson phone log. If the two men did meet then something serious has been erased from the record, and DeLoach didn't know not to mention it. Could you give any further details or corroboration?

And if memory serves, its an interesting experiment to time how long the published transcript of the "lost" recording takes to read and compare that to the purported time of the conversation. Its probably no fluke that we don't have the actual recording itself anymore... Also interesting to ponder that Johnson knows about Mexico City and the Kostikov thing when he calls Hoover. Question is, when and how did he learn that? -- Larry

Steve, you can find out the details on this from the Newman pressentation that Joe B. was good enough to archive in the Lancer site. Newman speaks to Tumbleweed in that. Basically Tumbleweed refers to the FBI identification of a foreign national in NYC who had a range of contacts in the U.S. and in Mexico City with persons of interest including Soviet intel. staff. This was part of the identification of Kostikov as attached to Soviet espionage and sabotage. Tumbleweed and Loredo are both names that come up in conjunction with this; interestingly enough Loredo was also a Soviet contact name given by Nagell. This was one of the biggest FBI counter intelligence breaks of the time and there is reason to belive that Hoover was very much interested in exploiting it.

Tim, one caution and one suggestion. First as to the test for reliability I'm afraid that with some of the sources involved in the secret war your criteria would be underestimating the informants. Both the exiles and their fellow travelers were wont to go to both the FBI and CIA frequently with a definite agenda. Their official information often was structured to meet their political or tactical agenda. We have recently learned (once again) that exile groups are very dangerous sources of information since they conciously seek to maneuver their supporting powers into conflict with their enemies. Which leads to bad intelligence and bad intelligence estimates, after our experience with the paperclip/Gaelin (sp) network, with nationalist China, with the Cuban exiles, in Vietnam - you would think we would learn that eventually but it seems not. I can show you numerous examples of exiles and secret warriors making reports to the FBI which can now shown to vary from their true knowledge. Calls me to discuss examples if you want. In fact Martino as an FBI informant is a case in point. Veciana has admitted he would never identify Phillips as Bishop even if it were true pretty well undermines his HSCA testimony. Escalante can be shown to be basing much of his commentary on JFK research books...its only when he gives unique Cuban data that he becomes of interest. So my caution is that consistency may only reflect agenda, not reliability. My suggestion, especially for the CIA and FBI Castro leads, the ones identifying purported agents is to list out the chain of info as to ultimate source, evaluate whether that source would indeed be privy to any quality information or the info they claim (Alvarado convinced everybody in MC for several days and the CIA station guys continued to support him....even a simplistic evaluation would have written it off plus we know know they had photo coverage that would have answered the question in about 15 minutes and proven him a xxxx). Then you have to break out the case officer or filter for the report and see if you find any patterns there. Those investigating in MC found a very interesting pattern, all the bogus Castro leads were coming from sources who would have been part of Phillips CI network. But at least when you slog through all this and present it you will have helped educate everyone. It's something Russo didn't even attempt, he just repeats the stuff at face value and third and fourth hand in some cases, rumors and gossip stuff. -- Larry

Gary, this really does not sound at all like the material Goltz covers in his newspaper report. The material in the box he writes about was left in a closet and found after her roommates sudden departure by the girl who turned it into police. She thought it might have been from her roommates latin boyfriend. Some of the material was notes written on the stationary of the theatre company where the girl worked. However much of what the officers reported were receipts and other material. It would be pretty strange for Preston to write a report on what Goltz described and not mention hotel receipts and telephone charges for Jack Ruby. In fact if this memo is on what Goltz reported and confirmed by interviewing the officers then it certainly obscures what was actually in the box. In Goltz's story the officers only report physically handing off the box, nothing about making a report of it or doing more than turning it over to the DA's office. Certainly nothing about reporting it to the FBI. I'd sure love to know if this is the same incident and if so why this memo differes so radically from Goltz's interviews with the officers themselves. Then again it is an FBI report, from the same field office as the agents who backdated Ray January's RedBird encounter by six months making it look nowhere nearly as important as it really was. And by the way, since when do FBI reports not itemize contents...grin. -- Larry

Let's try to parse some of this out with the following: 1) There is an identifiable pattern of activities which were intended to frame Oswald and Ruby as being associated with Castro. A good deal of this was done by impersonation and association prior to Nov. 22, more of it was done immediately afterwards. What was done before hand was well thought out and pretty well executed and some of it may have had nothing to do with the conspiracy but rather with Oswald's intelligence dangle to the Cubans as a fervant Castro supporter.... which of course is what made Oswald the most attractive patsy the plotters had found up to that point. What was done after the assassination (when the plan to fully frame Oswald after the murder fell apart) was iterative, catch as catch can and not nearly well enough put together to match Johnson's clout in driving the cover-up. Some of it, such as the Pedro Charles letters and the Gilberto Alverado incident was really badly done and even Hoover and Phillips respectively had to give up on Castro after a few weeks of investigation - even though Hoover had told Johnson he really wanted to hold in the possiblity of conspiracy in the FBI report and Phillips had strongly endorsed the Alvarado story (didn't seem to be a real black mark in his career file though). 2) There is also a pattern of exiles who sincerely felt that Castro was behind it since he was behind pretty much anything evil going on (which easily leads to the temptation of identifying DGI agents in photos as much as we tend to see our favorite suspects in DP). 3) There is also a pattern which includes virtually all the "secret warriors", exile and fellow travelers at least being suspicious of Castro and open to the suggestion he did do it (let's list Mann but again its easy to demonstrate that both FBI and CIA were far more receptive to leads that Castro agents were involved than exile Cubans...think I pretty well document that in the book). Plus the real secret Cuban warriors are going to blame Castro whenever they can reasonably do so - sort of a knee jerk reaction (why does this make me think of red and blue states and party politics?). I would be as skeptical of Veciana inserting a DGI agent into a DP photo as I am of Escalante reading assassination books and throwing in any name tied to the CIA. Works both ways. Seems to me that the only way to deal with it is to list out the incidents and suspects and then study them individually rather than talk in general terms. Tim, that takes you back to analysing the source, timing and credibility of your Castro agents suspects in the same manner I did the other side. And when I say credibility, you need to dig up enough background on your Castro agents to at least demonstrate they have some background or experience that would make them credible as running some sort of conspiracy or some tactical participation. As an example, an FPCC member who is a U.S. resident and has been trying to travel to Cuba for a considerable time, gets permission and transits to Mexico City via Dallas .....well I'd just like a little more detail before seeing how he makes a very credible assassination participant since the only way to get to Cuba was to go via Texas to Mexico. What would be really interesting would be to see you do a detailed presentation of the people and at least a strawman theory of how Castro thought he was going to pull it off. Until we get to that point we are still up at a super high level arguing motive and opportunity. Which you can obviously do forever. How about taking it down a few levels if you want to do it justice? -- Larry