Larry Hancock
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Posts posted by Larry Hancock
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Mark, you raise a couple of very important points with the latter one illustrating why debates like this generally don't come off well. Much of the arguement for conspiracy begins with an examination of the cover-up, which is now very well documented on the medical side - not only by the work by Horne and others with the ARRB but in the recent research and book by William Law. More evidence of FBI evidence management and manipulation is being documented all the time...as in the recent article by Thompson and Aguilar. Beyond that is the matter that none of the investigating agencies including DPD or FBI gave any real consideration to the fact that some of the evidence may have been introduced as part of a frame of Lee Oswald. Frames are hard enough to proove when you investigate them, when you don't they tend to work. So if the non-conspiracy side is accepting the original WC evidence as fact and not open to the concept of managed or manufactured evidence a meaninful debate starts to grind to a halt pretty quickly.
-- Larry
Mike and Mel,Welcome to the forum. I agree with other members that you are entitled to argue your case and look I forward to reading your side of the debate.
Just a couple of warm-ups before the pace bowlers come on:
1. Like Stephen, I can't imagine how LHO could be described as a crazed psychotic. The way he reacted to his predicament is the same way any intelligent, rational, innocent person would.
2. The thing that irritates me most about LN theorists is the way they rebut arguments by saying, "but where's the evidence?". This, to me, is a Homer Simpson rebuttal. Firstly, much evidence was destroyed or removed--the president's car was repaired immediately and all the evidence destroyed, for example. Also, it presupposes that anyone who doubts the WC bears the burden of proof. Mel, there was no LHO trial, no conviction, so no-one bears that burden. If anything, it should be you who is asked that question, because, as John pointed out, the official verdict, as at 1979, is conspiracy.
p.s. I don't believe in moon landing conspiracies.
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At the risk of sounding cynical I would say that Lorenz at least was being
very consistent in maximizing her mystery and melodrama in order to
continue being of value as a source to any and all parties. I doubt it
was anything as structured as "disinformation" or even getting at Fonzi.
Lorenz and Sturgis were made for each other, Fonzi's investigation and
chapters on both of them should be read by everyone with an interest in
this subject.
From Gaeton Fonzi's The Last Investigation"Who besides the dozen people I could name off the top of my head?" I asked.
"Marita Lorenz," he said.
That wasn't one of them. Then Moriarty told me he had been asked to take a report from a Customs agent named Steve Czukas who had come to Washington at the orders of his Miami chief to file a complaint with the Assassinations Committee about a member of its staff who was leaking information to Frank Sturgis. That information, said Czukas, came from a Customs informant named Marita Lorenz. She claimed that Sturgis had shown her a "classified Government document" which he said was given to him by a Committee staff member named Fonzi. As a result, said Czukas, Lorenz now does not trust that Committee staffer and will no longer deal with him. Or, as Moriarty's report would later put it, "her concern is of sufficient magnitude to preclude further contact with Fonzi."
Besides the complaint, however, Czukas brought new information he thought the Assassinations Committee should have directly. He said that the Customs Service had put Lorenz and her two children under protective custody in a Miami hotel for two months after she expressed fears that her life was in danger. While there, she admitted that she had been unwittingly involved in the plans to kill President Kennedy. She said she had driven from Miami to Dallas in two cars with a group of men, including Frank Sturgis and Lee Harvey Oswald, with high-power rifles. Two days before the assassination she was ordered to fly back alone to Miami.
It sounded like an incredible story, said Czukas, but there was some documentation. During the time that Lorenz was voluntarily sequestered in Miami, she filled sixteen pages of a green notebook with the details of her involvement. She subsequently gave him the notebook for safe keeping and he had it under lock and key in Miami.
I was stunned and then infuriated. It would take time and effort to deal with this development. I felt Customs was allowing itself to be manipulated by an informant.
I deliberately dawdled. It was more than three months before I put a response on the record. I had no concern about the reactions of my bosses, Chief Investigator Cliff Fenton and Chief Counsel Bob Blakey, because I had documented all encounters with both Sturgis and Lorenz. But in sending Czukas to the Committee, it seemed to me that Marita wanted attention and wanted to be called to testify at the public hearings. What was she trying to accomplish?
Then there was the matter of the "classified Government document" that Frank Sturgis said I had given him. Actually it was an unclassified memorandum written in 1964 by Al Tarabochia, an investigator with the Senate Security Committee, then headed by Mississippi's notorious Commie hunter, George Eastland. The memorandum concerned a rumored visit to Cuba by Jack Ruby. (As mentioned earlier, Sturgis himself had also given me a story about a Ruby visit to Cuba, this one a detailed account of a meeting to plot Kennedy's assassination.) A copy of Tarabochia's memorandum was in Schweiker's working files and, one night, Sturgis called me and asked if he could have a copy, saying he had Tarabochia' s permission. I called Troy Gustavson in Schweiker's office, Troy got the OK from Tarabochia and a copy of the memo was sent to Sturgis directly from Schweiker's office.
So much for the "leak." When I called Marita Lorenz, she admitted that Sturgis had shown her "that Tarabochia thing," but denied she said it had come from me. She also denied that she had ever told Czukas she no longer trusted me or that she didn't want to speak with me. On the contrary, she was delighted to hear from me.
"I was down in Miami for a while and was looking for you," she said. I didn't tell her I knew that Customs had picked up her tab for a couple of months and I didn't mention anything about her reported trip to Dallas with Frank Sturgis and Lee Harvey Oswald. Neither did she.
What I found fascinating, however, was that Sturgis was still in such close contact with her, and how much she knew about his current activities. She said, for instance, that Sturgis had recently called, telling her he was "doing something" in Africa. "He was with some heavy people over there," she told me, "some major and some wealthy people who are sponsoring his thing there, raising an army to fight Castro's army in Angola." Sturgis also said he had been in Paris, Switzerland and London, in addition to Africa, and that he had asked her to go to Europe to work with him. "He sent me a first-class, round-trip plane ticket on TWA," she said. She discovered, however, that she couldn't go because on her last trip to Madrid to see her daughter's father, General Jímenez, she didn't have the return fare. Until she repaid the State Department, she couldn't travel abroad.
After I spoke with Marita, I called Steve Czukas, who confirmed she was behind his trip to Washington. She had pressed him very hard, he said. "I went up there just to get them to talk with her. What I'd like to do is get rid of her story, whether she's got something concocted or not. I'd just like to get rid of it, and I'm sure my Service would too. I don't know what's going on, it's so far out of my field, but the sooner she gets to Washington the happier I'll be, I tell you that -- however she gets there."
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So, was Czukas and Lorenz trying to set up Fonzi and get rid of him? Or was she trying to feed disinfo?
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Call for Presentations/Papers
The focus of this year’s JFK Lancer conference is “Evidence Not Considered”; Lancer’s goal continues to be to add to the body of available historical research documenting significant evidence of conspiracy and cover-up not properly considered by either the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
See the following for conference details:
http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas05/index.html
New research, including work with documents, physical evidence and witnesses is invited. This can either be research on new material or new analysis of material previously available, including materials inaccurately or incompletely presented to prior official investigations.
One of JFK Lancer’s primary goals is to serve as a resource for both primary materials as well as research. In line with that, paper submissions for the 2005 conference will be selected for publication in the first volume of a series under the conference theme. Priority will be given to conference presenters but all researchers who feel that they have serious contributions to this topic are invited to submit papers for publication. All papers should be footnoted and referenced including RIF numbers for documents if at all possible. In addition all papers published will be subject to a peer review process prior to publication.
If you have a topic which fits the conference theme and are interested in presenting at the conference or in submission of a monograph for publication please contact me at larryjoe@westok.net - a synopsis of your topic with major sources identified is requested.
-- thanks all, Larry
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Thanks Mark, as to something coming of it, a few observations:
1. The first step would be to corroborate the information Estes says he was given by Cliff Carter, that could be done by his making the tapes available. An interim step would be for the three people who have supposedly heard portions of them to give legal affidavits....that would be particularly important for Kyle Brown. Brown has stated on video that he was present in meetings with Carter and Wallace but has not given any details independently of Estes.
2. The next step would be to somehow determine if Malcolm Wallace was away from work and from his family frequently enough in the fall of 1963 to organized that attack and make the Oswald connection as Estes describes. The problem there is that Glen Sample did make a serious effort to dig into that and he presents all he could find in his book; anything further would require legal authority and some sort of official investigation which seems hard to imagine...although step 1 above would be the first hurdle there I think.
.... one of the real open issues in both Barr's work and Estes story to date is how Malcolm Wallace could have connected with Oswald and the assumption that Oswald was brought in as basically a hired shooter. That's pretty hard for me to buy personally as it seems very inconsistent with Oswald - that's probably the least developed of anything I've seen in the Estes scenario to date.
3. Fingerprint analysis would not rule out the story....Wallace seems to have been terribly sloppy but absense of a Wallace print doesn't mean Estes is wrong. However given the fact that the Houston police are stonewalling any access to the only known primary prints again presumes legal authority for any breakthrough.
I don't want to be too negative, there are certainly areas on both Carter and Wallace that could be worked for further corroboration but it would require some intense primary research and I don't know how that would happen at this point?
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Hi Jeff, let's see if I can tackle your questions and not miss any.
1) As to Hoover's remark, I think researchers have amassed plenty of evidence to show that Hoover himself believed that Oswald had at a minimum been influenced and associated with others. Hoover implied that to Johnson when he told him Oswald had been impersonated in Mexico City. In addition, people studying the transcripts of various Hoover- Johnson calls have come up with solid indications that portions of their conversations are missing....the transcripts are way to short to match the tape times. Beyond that we know Hoover asked to leave the issue of conspiracy open in the FBI report and Johnson stonewalled him. And beyond that there is plenty of evidence emerging that the FBI managed and manipulated its forensics evidence. That is going to be an important part of the JFK Lancer conference in Dallas this November; the theme of the conference is "Evidence Not Considered". Bottom line, Hoover knew there was more to it than Oswald and knew that Johnson had ordered a cover-up. Knowing that a President had covered up a conspiracy in the death of the man he succeeded would certainly explain Hoover's remark.
2) Actually I spent a lot of time on Johnson's activities prior to November, including day by day study of his Diary, call logs etc. However in truth I really could not find anything I considered suspicious until getting to the events that I relate in October. Not that I haven't missed something but as you have probably noticed, I'm pretty conservative about conspiracy, especially when I'm putting things in print. On the other hand, his behavior in the timeframe of October through January is extremely suggestive and to me it at least implies some level of prior knowledge and some degree of self guilt.
3) Two groups and a connection.....yes, my speculation is that is what happened. I know that Estes says Carter told him differently but I just can't bring myself that Cliff Carter had the skills and contacts to organize a Presidential assassination any more than I can belive Barr M. that Johnson called on a lawyer to do that. And given Malcolm Wallace's horrendously poor track record in one and probably more deaths I can't see Johnson putting his life in Wallace's hands.
Which leads me to belive that some people with a lot more expertise and a lot better track record organized the assassination and brought Johnson (blackmailed Johnson) into some level of involvement to ensure they were covered and to ensure that he wouldn't turn on them. I feel the very sloppy and very much thrown together cover-up (including Johnson's iterative legal strategy - I mean after all, even the Texas AG was suspcious when Johnson's private lawyer turns up in Texas and says the is the President's assassination coordinator)
.....Larry
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Jeff, it is my understanding that Billy Sol has sold some limited quantities of a new book in recent months that it has most recently been out of stock.
I've seen at least one post from someone who has read it and apparently he does name some additional details and specifically some names of those involved or with knowledge.
I don't have a copy of the book myself at this point.
It is not being distributed or promoted by a major publisher as far as I can tell.
Larry
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Steve, both Peter Dale Scott - in Deep Politics III - and John Newman - in a series on Mexico City available on the JFK Lancer WEB site - have studied this exchange and all the MC events in detail. I'd recommend both for the huge amount of background required to deal with this exchange.
There is speculation that the address in question is where to contact Oswald in MC, and further that the Cubans are actually housing him somewhere which is why they have the address......that line of thinking relates to the call being an impersonation and setting up Oswald as having some deep ties to the the Cubans.
Other issues are whether or not the call was from an impersonator and whether that implies both the man and woman were impersonators ....speculation on that ranges from whether its part of an effort to connect Oswald to the Cubans or perhaps a legitimate CIA ploy to probe the Russian embassy about Oswald's visit and to evaluate their interest in him.
Not that PDS and Newman resolve all this but they do provide the background to at least try...
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Gary, it's pretty clear that QK/Enchant was a Domestic Contacts program to
obtain foreign intelligence. I just ran across yet another individual who had been investigated for the program and that was the terminology used. It appears to have been a project to identify and obtain information from individuals who had contact with international business people and possibly scientists. Basic data collection within the U.S. on foreign intelligence. When I say Domestic Contacts, that would have been the CIA office with such interests circa 1963 but there were precursor departments with different names who had the same interest and responsiblity for the project.
Which explains why both Clay Shaw and the L.A. International trade mart fellow (whose name escapes me) were used as sources.
-- Larry
“In June 1969 Central Cover Staff evidenced interest
in Mr. McDonald under Project QKENCHANT. Commencing in
January 1970 Mr. McDonald initiated meetings with the
Domestic Contact Service suggesting that his firm,
World Associates, Inc., soon to be involved
internationally in bank security, do not reflect the
outcome of the Domestic Contact Service and the
Central Cover Staff interests.”
Does this paragraph make sense? Is there a sentence missing? Broken down it says he met with them and told them his firm does not reflect the outcome of the DCS' interests. If it means he told them his firm is not to co-operate with the DCS, why not just say so?
Oops! It does look like there is a missing sentence there. I will try to dig up the document and post a correction. I have been trying to figure out just what QK/Enchant was.
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David, Robinson filed a report with the FBI relating to his observation of seeing a light colored Rambler stop on Elm and a man come down the grass incline and enter it before it drove away.
In addition, Robinson's boss, Roy Cooper also filed a statement that he had been driving behind Robinson (they had both been at a meeting together) and he observed a white male 20-30 years of age wave down a Rambler as it pulled away from the cornor of Elm and Houston. The man jumped into the Rambler which pulled out from the curb so quickly that Robinson had almost rear ended it.
The fact that Craig's remarks about observing the person flagging down the Rambler, the driver being dark complected and his telling his Chief all that - which were confirmed by news remarks about the report of a dark male driving away with the suspect - are confirmed by photos as well as two eye witnesses pretty well suggestthis part of Craig's remarks whatever one things about the rest.
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John, it seems unlikely since it had showered in the early morning
before the motorcade; indeed Sam Holland speaks of observing
footprints in the wet dirt behind the fence and mud on the bumper of
the adjacent car as if the person had stood up on it.
Seems like unlikely conditions for dust to be an explanation?
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Robin, on page 102 of That Day in Dallas, Trask has a photo of Hill
leaning out the window and time stamps the photo as "shortly afer 1:00 pm".
My recollection of talking to Alyea is that they reached the snipers nest
area and he starting filiming there about 1 o'clock so that seems to fit.
My impression is that officers would have reached the windows on the sixth
floor perhaps around 12:55 but I don't think they would have changed the
positioning of any of them until afer 1pm.
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I'm pretty sure that some checking will show there were no officers
searching or at the windows on the fifth or sixth floors up to ten minutes
after the shooting. The only officer that far up the building was Baker
and he was by the stairs and elevators.
One other option for the fifth floor were the three men there who stated
they ran to the west side of the 5th floor to watch what was happeing
on the knoll/fence.
Sort of strange behavior given their later statements about being
aware of a shooter above them on the sixth floor....common sense
would suggest going into hiding....not rushing to the far end of the
building and possibly being seen by the exiting gunman.
In any event, if anything - given their remarks - they would have been
opening windows on the west end of the fifth floor for a better view.
P.S. one time reference for when officers might have been first opening
windows is in POTP - it shows a senior DPD officer leaning out a window
and yelling down that they have found something in the "snipers nest"
area just to his left.
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And if memory serves did not the ACLU send a representative to offer
defense services to Oswald - after he had issued a public call for help -
only to be told he was not interested at that point?
Charged with killing the President, no luck in contacting Abt (sp?) and Oswald
turns down legal assistance from an organization he has just joined? Given
his normal responses to authority I'd have thought he would have jumped
at the chance to "engage" the legal process?
Then again, he had asked Ruth Paine, supposedly a pure liberal, ACLU
member, for help in obtaining legal support and she apparently just decided
to ignore him period. No call from her to the ACLU
....or am I missing something here?
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It's a tempting scenario and one that seems to fit Hunt's personality which makes it an even easier sell - especially considering that Hunt was involved both with Domestic Operations as Covert Ops chief and with the Artime project in 1963.
A couple of things jump out at me though.
First off, we have what would have been a pretty simple plan e.g. get
Oswald to stand in a window and fire a shot in the air and claim Castro
sponsorship. Nice, neat, doesn't require a lot of support. So why bring
all sorts of different agencies into it and risk the confidentiality of the whole
thing? Heck, Hunt or even Phillips could decide to do something like that
all on their own. The more people you tell the bigger the risk of somebody
not approving it or of blabbing. If Oswald asks you tell him everybody
approved including JFK himself.
Second, if somebody was compelled to surface the truth, what a risky way to
do it. Of course anybody knowing the intimate details would be under
surveillance from Friday afternoon on. And warned that they would be....at
minimum.
Third and worse, we have the traditional "thick manila envelope, sealed with wax with a thumbprint on it, that contained the documents John said would prove his story." Do we really think somebody documents a project like this with enough paper trail for a think manilla envelope. Or that if you did John would have been able to walk off with copies and keep them aferwards....back to the warning, surveillance and of course retrieval of any documents he had.
Or does anybody think Hunt is/was to moral and ethical to cover his rear if this were true? If you give your plotters the will and skill to do this sort of thing you pretty much have to give them the ability to do whatever it takes to cover it up.
...not to mention that reportedly Estes is now saying that one of the main players in the Johnson plot was none other than our good Sheriff Decker.....so perhaps this is all Decker disinformation?
All in all its still tempting and maybe true, fellows like Morales and Roselli could easily hijack such a plan. But I just wish that manila envelope complete with thumbprint wasn't in it. And I still keep thinking John would never have been on a long enough leash to carry it as far as the story relates?
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Pat, right on target. When you look a little further at Twiford's Merchant
Marine background and add in the interviews by a researcher who has found
Oswald apparently spent a good deal of time down by the docks in NO talking
to seaman coming in and hanging around the boats....well you could get the idea that one of his minor assignments was to poke around looking for ways for people to get in or out to Cuba....something the FBI and even MI was extremely sensitive aobut in 1963. That was part of their FPCC crackdown.
Then consider his appearance at McKewons, trying to trap him into another gun dealing rap....and McKewon's background was with Castro.
When you look at the things Oswald was doing - well if he wasn't a dangle they should have been watching him like a hawk anyway.
And then there is the thing Oswald didn't do (in tribute to Holmes). Oswald, the outspoken, always ready to debate, supposed Marxist political student....didn't ever hunt up any actual Socialists or Marxists.....even in the Soviet Union he appears to have avoided personally entering into any of the available political forums. He would write (think paper trail) to the organizations at length but as far as contacting them in person no dice......and we know he wasn't bashful.
You might almost think it was the "game" that interested him, not the politics per se.
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It's important for historical accuracy to recall that all three intelligence
agencies (CIA, FBI and the regional MI groups like the 111th and 112th)
had very active programs underway in 1963 against both sides of the
Cuban conflict.
All three groups, with the lead by the FBI and CIA were actively penetrating, bugging, monitoring and performing psych ops and more overt disruption against the FPCC not to mention Counter Intelligence against Cuban intelligence.
All three groups were monitoring targeted exile groups who might engage
in missions against Cuba from U.S. soil and all were active in trying to
identify and disrupt individuals involved in organizing and supporting such
actions. An example of that can be seen in the sting run against Masen
by a combination of MI and FBI (with Ellsworth and ATF totally out of the loop)
with the objective of finding out more about the Cubans talking about a new
military action against Cuba.
If you belive Oswald was being used by U.S. intelligence as a "dangle" as I do, then standard practice would be to have him associate with any Cubans of whichever stripe and change his tune to match the circumstances. That gives maximum "production" and the agencies watching him would be interested in anybody who approached him from either direction.
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To save everyone time, the officer in question is J.D. Foster. Foster was one
of the to officers stationed on top of the overpass and ran down from that position onto the "infield" between the two streets.
Foster did report on what was observed down in that area and describes calling
for the CSI unit to make a check. The unit apparently did as there is
at least one surviving photo from that area showing a view back twoards
the TSBD with what appears to be a forensics kit in the foreground, however I don't know of anyone who has managed to trace any report on their findings or observations (makes one recal the list made of the individuals in the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's capture). I put the photo on page 506 of November Patriots.
Those interested should check Fosters statements plus those of the Hartman's, a married couple who described a track through the ground/grass. I talked with Mr. Hartman's son a few years ago and he related that his father was totally convinced that there had been a bullet strike in the area.
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Tim, this is pure speculation of course, but I'm not sure the thought at that point would have been to associate JURE with the assassination. It could have been as simple as associating JURE with a Castro advocate and Russian defector like Oswald.
That sort of political ploy would have worked well against Rey and JURE even short of an assassination, say if Oswald had agreed to participate in some sort of demonstration or incident like the one that may well have been planned for the D.C. area (keep in mind his burst of letters just before leaving New Oreleans - all about moving somewhere in the NorthEast, possibly Baltimore). Nobody has ever really explained that and it has to be considered in any theory of the overall conspiracy that used him.
If my scenario is correct, the initial goal could have been as simple as a political stroke against Rey. Its important that the political in-fighting among the exiles was just about as animated as their efforts against Castro.
The ongoing line against Rey - used by virtually all the right wing parties - was that Rey was putting on a front and was to be distrusted as much as Castro, he would turn Commie after getting in power just like Castro had.
At this distance being able to separate short term / political objectives from things related to the actually conspiracy that played out on Nov. 22 is a real challenge. Hemming has reminded us all before that there were lots of players and lots of agendas, viewing them all against Nov. 22 os always tempting but probably not accurate.
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It may be worthwhile to consider that the first objective of the visit was to persuade Sylvia to wrote some fund raising leaders for her visitors. And the visitors represented themselves as JURE connected. And they had gone to some trouble to get background info on her father including his closely kept war name.
If the letters were the primary objective, the phone call back to Sylvia may have been a fall back developed after they failed to get letters from her.
In that case, the main goal would have been letters referencing JURE and signed by a JURE member with high level ties to Rey.
If such letters were planted along with a patsy after either an attempt or an actual assassination of JFK they could have been used to associate a Cuban sponsored assassin with JURE...many right wing exiles were constantly painting JURE with a pink brush anyway. Net result, get rid of Castro, get back into Cuba, eliminate JURE and Rey as a contender for power in a "free" Cuba. Nice neat package.
...except Sylvia didn't buy it....she thought the vistiors were suspicious, maybe even Castro agents.....which with the phone call afterwards would still have served to tie Oswald with possible Cuban agents if Sylvia had gone to the FBI
or Police the afternoon of Nov. 22.
Just think what a report like that from Odio would have done when combined with the Kostikov and Cuban embassy visit in Mexico City...and then Gilberto Alvardo shows up to close the loop.....still a nice package.
....excpept Sylvia didn't report it....by the time her information got in the loop the fix was in....no conspiracy, Lone Nut.
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Robert, I'm glad you detailed out the Parrot Jungle incident, I view it as
extremely key in lining out the real source of the conspiracy - perhaps
even more key than the Odio visit.
It's way too long to go into detail here, but my Lancer 04 presentation dealt
with what I feel to be a common link between the Parrot Jungle leak, the
leak (gossip) that Echevarria heard in Chicago and very possibly the same
source as related to the Kirknewton intercept incident and (remotely possible
at least) the Dinkin rumor.
At this point in time I'm putting forth the premise that Victor Hernandez may well have been the common source for all this gossip.
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Tim, I'm afraid this is one case where Sons and Brothers is repeating a piece of information which may have some problems. I suggest you closely read Ayears book and look at the timing of his visits to Point Mary and do some work with the calandar and map. I did that and although I wouldn't question the basic observations he may be simply repeating gossip about some of Roselli's earlier involvement with these folks. If you check the timing against Roselli's FBI surveillance logs its pretty clear that Roselli was spending his time in LA and Vegas by the time Ayears was making his first camp visits in 1963.
Certainly Roselli may have slid in for a couple of visits - we can't know that since all the FBI surveillance out of Miami seems to have mysteriously disappeared from the record. However this is another case of where things that may have been true earlier had changed by the time you get to the summer of 1963. Roselli's official connection to JMWAVE was over by several months at that point - of course the real question is is possible ongoing relationship with both William Harvey and David Morales.
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About all I can do is pitch in a couple of observations. First, Martino knew some of the Embassy staff in Havana quite well as they totally abandoned him during his imprisonment. He certainly names names; however he does not describe any contact with Morales in that context and indeed would have had little reason or opportunity to contact Morales who was wearing a State Department cover at the time. Nor would Martino have the history that we have to guess that a State Department official would be a cover CIA officer. All in all no particular reason to connect Morales in his official capacity to Martino in Havana. On the other hand, plenty to connect him to JMWAVE starting about June and some to connect him before hand in that Rip Robertson seems to have frequented the Martino home over some period of time according to Martino's wife.
On to Vidal, so how did Martino get to be so tight with one of the more low profile and covert exile types, not a man would would show up in press conferences, speaking engagements or radio shows. After all, Martino only arrived in Miami back from prison at the very end of 1962, spent much time recovering and doing publicity activities, then into the book thing and then into Project Tilt... none of which obviously involve Vidal. Sturgis yes, Vidal no. So how and where did the two meet and become close enough so that Martino would name Sturgis and Vidal as friends to the FBI? Would be interesting to know who made the introduction.
-- Larry
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James, an interesting thought - I think that something like that would require that Morales somehow had an introduction to Martino from someone within the Casino crowd in Havana though. Martino was not that "visible", doing most of his work initially during construction of the Casinos and later as new equipment was put in. His specialities had to do with gambling equipment installation as well as equipment related to racing and the wires. Which meant that he didn't work during the public hours or in public areas. In addition, during most of '59 he was making a number of trips back and fourth to Miami, acting as a courier (transporting exactly what is unclear but its unlikely it was bulky long range radio eqipment) - which raises a good question as to where Morales was getting the long range sets he was planting, I'd bet he was using some "naval" assets to smuggle them in, not Cuban Navy of couse but perhaps the "smugglers route".
Of course there is a secondary implication in all this, when the Martino book was written early in 1963 it would appear that Martino had no concerns about listing Morales very visibly as someone he knew and to a certain extent blowing Morales identity as CIA.
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John, I don't have a transcript and doing one would be a pretty considerable effort.
I've not even listened to all of it myself; the portions I have are similar to what you will find in Martino's book. Which I probably should point out again - because it doesn't get much discussion - contains the true name of one David Morales, identifyed as filling a CIA slot in Havana. Of course how Martino would know Morales and know that he was CIA - especially when Morales was gone from Havana by the time Martino went into prison there - is worth a lot of thought.
Nonconspiracists United
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Mel, I won't really be joining the debate but I suggest you might want to examine a few points about Brennan as a witness. There is no doubt he did have a view of the TSBD although several photo analyses show that his position and head movements don't correspond all that well with some of the detail he provided. The photos do show that he did see something up there that got his attention and that he stayed around the front of the TSBD trying to point it out to officials.
However when you match his detailed description of facial expression, body positioning etc against the height of the window (which is unusally low, only slightly above floor level unlike most windows), against what you really can see through a dirty, closed TSBD window (many of us have conducted that experiment), and try to fit it all against the purported positioning of the snipers nest boxes and the very tight space available to move in front of them to the window it raises a lot of questions. Thre is also the fact that the DPD itself maintained that as of Saturday they had no witness to Oswald being in that window (which Currey maintained in his own book on the assassination and which Hoover told Johnson on Saturday morning)..... it may lead you to become open that Brennan became better witness for the FBI report and the WC than he was in the beginning and that his "positive identification" is open to some question. And his would not be the only witness statement that "improved" under FBI control and reporting.
-- Larry