Larry Hancock

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edition was in print) and also another man in Texas who was a good friend of Madeleine Brown and who was writing an unpublished manuscript on the Texas Mafia at the time of his death.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

Gary, the Enquirer has things a bit wrong but are in the ballpark. For the real story you need to go back to a news article that Earl Goltz wrote in Dallas. It names the officers involved and traces back the origin of a box of materials that certainly would have tied Oswald and Ruby as well as suggested that the two men were involved with parties outside the U.S. As I recall there was nothing specific about Castro per se but various leads across the border into Mexico. Jim Marrs first surfaced this in his book Crossfire and you will find some good details there. I cover it in Chapter 13 of my book along with a variety of other indications that Ruby may indeed have been set up as being tied to Oswald and some sort of conspiracy. Certainly Ruby was tied to an interest in doing business with Castro by his McKeown contacts and McKewon was brought back into play in 63 by an apparent Oswald impersonator. There are a variety of other apparently planted stories from Miami and Dallas about Ruby being involved.....Martino related to Weyl that reports out of Cuba indicated that Ruby went to Havana to make a shady deal at the same time Oswald was in touch with Cuban intelligence. I'm pretty sure Bringuier was floating a similar story in New Orleans. And in Dallas we have an amazing and somewhat corroborated report of a man named Yates giving a ride to an Oswald impersonator with a rifle and dropping him off at the TSBD...after the fellow had floated the question of whether JFK would be shot when he came to Dallas and asking if Yates was familiar with the Carousel club. This story was confirmed by a fellow employee of being told by him to Yates before the assassination. Bottom line is, if officials had really been interested in tieing this to Castro it there would have been material for them to use. Which of course is just what the plotters had arranged...if Yates had gone to the FBI earlier or to the press on November 22....hard to say how history might have been written.

Chris, the report I mentioned is one of thousands of documents in the Russ Holmes collection of the segragated CIA files. I made no record of it simply because it was so transparent. An older Cuban exile, a Doctor, reported to the FBI that he had seen a magazine photo of DP which showed one of the people in the plaza to have been someone he remembered as being a Castro "spy/agent/cadre" in Cuba. There are several exchanges in the file trying to tie down the magazine, the exact photo, the name of the person etc and in the end there was nothing concrete at all that could be developed other than the gentleman felt Castro must have been involved. If you slog though the Holmes files you can find other examples of the same. As I've pointed out before, the FBI and CIA were actually pretty diligent about following up on any reports that pointed to Castro or Castro agents, they show much less interest in reports that deal with suspicions about exiles. I provided several concrete examples of that in my book.

John, that's a fine idea and if someone has a way to contact him I will surely do so, there will be several presentations on things relating to Cuba and secret war history and it would be fine to simply have him on the appropriate panels as a commentator - to make observations about what is presented. I'd love to have as much participation as possible from historians and authors dealing with the period in question as I think (and tend to bore people by saying) that the history profession is not making full use of the huge amount of data in regards to several areas of U.S. history which have been brought forth by the JFK records act and the ARRB. I that that some authors and commentators writers from the 70's and 80's would be amazed to see some of the material available to us now. As far as I know its the type of raw, once highly classified, data that is probably available for no other country in the world during the cold war with the possible except of some niche topics pertaining to the Soviet Union or East Germany. -- Larry

Stephen, a couple of comments. First, I have to say that most of us who have seriously wrestled with the conspiracy make use of the type of source material which is being discussed here - in this particular case Veciana's remarks about Phillips and Veciana's cousin in the MC embassy has some real potential value. The problem of course is that you always have to try to assess the remarks against the source. And a couple of things you can almost always count on is that any exile deepley involved in war against Castro will try to do to things in respect to the subject of JFK. The first is to cast suspicion on Castro for JFK's murder, that is so consistent as to be almost universal and its pretty easy to understand why. The second is to disclaim that they really had nothing against JFK and he was OK - that's not quite as universal but its frequently said by individuals who are on record saying the exact opposite when not talking to an interviewer. I've seen more than one interview including approaches to the FBI by exiles with stories about Castro agents in DP, in at least one other case I recall the person mentioned seeing a spy in a photo in Life magazine. When it was really investigated it just turned to vagueness. Reminds me of Roselli telling his media friends he could name the Castro agents involved in the hit on JFK and the only individual he eventually was forced to cite was found be found was a long term inmate in a mental hospital. Tim is going to be able to find many sources pointing to Castro. Problem is that they will either be cases of generic exile hatred of Castro or they will be cases of planted stories with just that intent. Some as part of the conspiracy and some as part of the cover-up. ....OK, so that's my estimate of the data... Larry Tim, thank you for posting the link, now we can all make our minds up as to what this is worth. Just a few questions. 1,You say his statement does not form part of the C/C report, do you know why such an important observation was left out? 2,Do you know what his actual words were? 3,Do you know the name of the Attorney who took his deposition? 4,Do you know which photo he is refering to? 5,Do you believe that more than one DGI agent was present in Dealy Plaza at the time of the shooting? What do you believe their operational roles were? Why does photographic evidence not support this scenario? Tim, I am a long, long way from being satisfied. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nic, it would be extremely difficult to corroborate Broshear's remarks but Dick Russell did an interesting follow up interview with him in 1975. Many of his remarks remained consistent, interestingly enough he did not point Dick at the CIA in regard to Ferrie but rather to a plot driven by Marcello. And in a familiar theme is stated that the whole idea was to kill Kennedy and blame it on the Communists. All in all Broashear's seems to be a total wild card, the only thing that ever struck me that might be testable was something that I ran into while researching Beckham and Crisman and the religious credentials scam....Broashears ended up helping draft dodgers in California representing himself as a priest, and apparently turned some of them in as an informant. In the materail relating to that he stated that he left New Orleans because Ferrie had also told him something about Johnson being involved and that Broshears had spoken out against Johnson in public and had been questioned, harrassed and perhaps even charged by the Secret Service for threatening the President. An interesting tangent made more interesting by the fact that he named one of the agents that called on him.....an agent named Youngblood. It's that sort of thing that can drive you to distraction. -- Larry

Hello all, just to keep everyone updated, I'd like to announce that we are pleased to have Jim Marrs return as a speaker at this year's Lancer conference. Jim will be addressing the fundamental and hard core issues in JFK research, including the range of possible motives for a conspiracy against JFK along with issues dealing with both document and witness reliability. -- Larry

Possibly also relevant that there is some mention that FAL's were the weapon of deniable choice for one of the last of Roselli's plans for Castro - James, you probably recall that better than I... As I recall the weapons, uniforms and general appearance of the Menoyo camp put it virtually in a league by itself as far as exile group camps went. It seems to have been extremely professional and dedicated to advanced training - specifically including a heavy emphasis on sniper training. Larry

James is absolutely right, we just got some new Customs documents on Rose from the period immediately following the assassination and as it turns out because Fritz of DPD was unresponsive to her JFK information literally nobody questioned her in any detail about the JFK lead, only about her drug information. There is a bit of a mystery in that some of the memos reflect communication with the Secret Service but the related SS documents appear to be missing....how strange...not. As it turns out given the information available it seems very unlikely that Rose actually heard anymore than some general gossip that was running through certain networks out of Miami. Its unlikely the two men with here had anything to do with the conspiracy and very unlikely that they were Arcacha Smith or Santana. I've added an appendix dealing with this to the forthcoming second edition of my book and it will reference the new documents. Its possible to make a speculative but reasonable case that several of the pre-assassination leaks were coming from one small group of folks in Miami...but the gossip spread as far as Chicago and New Orleans. -- Larry Hi Antti, I am going on memory here so if I get anything wrong, hopefully a forum member can correct me. A Lt. Fruge was investigating the Cheramie claims and interviewed Mac Manual, the bar owner of an establishment called the Silver Slipper. Fruge showed Manual some photographs of which he picked out Arcacha-Smith and Emilio Santana who accompanied Rose that evening. I'm not sure if any solid connections between these men has ever been established. Santana below. James <{POST_SNAPBACK}>