Larry Hancock

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”

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.