Larry Hancock

Hi Tosh, thanks for the post. I do think its important that somebody try to some up with the source what you described in regard to C. David Heymann’s book, RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy (1998). Hopefully somebody can come up with a copy and let us know - that would be a heck of a bombshell for a writer to throw into a book and not cite a source for it. As many forum members know, I certainly belive that Roselli aided and abetted the conspiracy as one of the organizers of the attack - not only that but there is evidence to suggest that he was directly involved not only into bringing Ruby into the plot and perhaps more importantly in covering up Ruby's associations and actually managing Belli's defense of Ruby in a manner to take Ruby out of circulation and get him convicted. There are also some very specific holes in the FBI surveillance and records on Roselli. My goal for some time now has been to point them out and get others involved in trying to run down the specific holes that we do know about. I appreciate your taking time on the questions I sent and I won't pester you on any of them until you are ready - I have been investigating the Texas Military Intelligence leads you provided with little luck so far. We actually do have pretty solid documentation on Fourth Army and the MI units attached to it because of all the background work the ARRB did but so far no luck in turning up the specific detachements or individuals you referenced. -- Larry

If anyone can identify some specific documents pertaining to Roselli that are still being held confidential until some future date I would love to see the list so we can try to get them via FOIA. Roselli's testimony to the Committees is released and available, it is extremely lengthy though. In addition you can find literally thousands of pages of FBI documents on Roselli on the WEB including surveillance documents. These documents pretty well detail the FBI's position on Roselli - unfortunately large portions pertaining to his business contacts and associates was redacted by the FBI. The documents in this release came from a FOIA and cover a period of some 20 years. There is a hole in the documents as far as the FBI surveillance goes and that hole is from the September - November time frame in 1963; a related hole appears to be the lack of any reports from SAC Miami on Roselli. Beyond that, there are a host of CIA IG, Church committee and State Department documents that detail his part in the Castro assassination plot - including correspondance between the FBI and CIA on his role. Most of this is on the CIA segregated CD's available from the ARRC - I mention that because it is a huge amount of paper and the CD's are definitely the easiest way to get it. Also these documents contain all the details of the FBI and Dade country investigation of his murder. -- Larry

David, I've posted the speakers here before so I won't repeat that. The conference is a mix of i) new research ii) presentations on new resources for research and on working at NARA iii) exposure to people with first hand information such as Aubry Rike, James Teague, the manager at the Cellar and Richard Caine's brother (who is a researcher himself) plus a couple of general items for newcomers including a guided walking tour of the Plaza (and there are still necomers to this subject such as our student researcher of the year). There is a good deal of new information, much of it coming out of documents released from the work of the ARRB but also some from primary research. Examples include new first hand chemical tests and evaluation of the WC NAAA findings (and comparison to the released internal documents on that), new interviews with Bethusda staff and especially with the FBI agents at the autopsy, a new presentation on the internal medical reports at Parkland. A combination of new documents and primary research is in my presentation on an apparent NSA station intercept of gossip about the planned attack on JFK a month before the assassination. Rex Bradford will be presenting an analysis of what we now know fo the very strange handling and disposal of the JFK coffin.... well one of them at least. Jeff Morley and Lamar Waldron will be presenting topics related to Cuba, the Kennedy administration and the CIA, both presentations are directions to more work that needs to be done - both or either may eventually turn out to be explosive but for right now it's just basic research on things we didn't even know a couple of years ago. I wish I could tell you there were a host of "explosive" items on the agenda but based on my experience it doesn't work that way most of the time; however I can say that some of the most active current day researchers working on new areas of research will be in Dallas and it's a great way to network with them and get the newest information that may take some time to get into print or even online. -- Larry

Dave, I would have a hard time thinking that was Martino for a variety of reasons - I do know there are a number of interviews relating to who Sylvia was contacting to try to buy guns for Rey and Jure. She was far more active in that early in 63 than is picked up in most discussion and even met with Rey's people about during a visit to some of her relatives that year (either Puerto Rico or the DR, forget which without looking it up). I would more likely think that it was a contact through some of those people than Martino, hard to think that Sylvia's sister who attended Martino's speech and told Sylvia bout their family being mentioned by Martino would not know if Martino was a close friend in Dallas. Also I have certainly turned up nothing that would indicate Martino driving to Dallas in 1963, if he did his family didn't know about it and incidentally they said he stayed at home most of the time except for his speeches and the Tilt mission, not unusual for someone just out of a Castro prison. ....don't have an ID for you but doubt that it was Martino.

Greg, the sources for my remarks were Westin's research, published mostly in the Third and Fourth Decade but also in some of his posts on the Lancer forum - plus some primary research by Glen Sample in relationship to Loy Factor's remarks about being in the TSBD. I've done no primary work on it myself.... One thing to keep in mind though is that there were a series of Oswald "sightings" where he was apparently being impersonated looking for jobs or making inquiries about buildings and views on Main Street. There is also a documented job application from Oswald out towards the general area of the Trade Mart after he was in the job at the TSBD. It seems likely that the plotters were creating optional backgrounds for a varitey of possibly attack sites in case of a last minute route change. Main street would have been a given in just about any case though. Best wishes in your TSBD research, Larry

Tosh, I'm checking in with Gordon and will post any remarks he has about the logs and whether or not he has them or knows where they are... -- Larry

Tim, I don't really play games with this subject - so no its not. I have seen Roselli described as a Col. in a couple of places, Brad Ayars is one source for that. I think Hinckle and Turner may have described him as having a military rank too. However I don't recall ever seeing any CIA document that confirms that - frankly after looking at thousands of such documents that doesn't mean I haven't seen it, it very well could mean I saw it and have forgotten - my memory is fair but far from photographic. I think that if I had seen such a document I would have referenced it and put it in my book though....maybe somebody will remind me it's in there... After about 14 years at this my memory "buffer" is overflowing, no doubt about that. If you have seen it and can describe the source I may well remember it and probably have it somewhere in my files or on CD. In that case I would add it to my errata and credit you as I have a host of people who are helping me make that work as historically accurate as possible. -- Larry

That's a good lead Tosh, and maybe I can help a bit there. I have the file on the local investigation of the Roselli murder and several of the internal memoranda from the agents as well as their requests for information on a list of individuals. Black was on the list and there were several other names including Cuban names. In addition to background information on associations the investigators (in the same letters) asked for the names of any exiles who Roselli had named in his confidential HSCA interviews. (On a side note, we know from Roselli's lawyers that in his last testimony he did give names for a couple of Trafficante people that he had used to network into Cuba to find folks to plant the poison pills - apparently word that he had mentioned some real names did get back to Miami and that may have led to the contract on him). Anyway, by asking for those names, the investigators pressed the normal CIA hot button for protecting information and CIA began its typical stonewalling process - reading their correspondance gives one a good feel for their prorities and certainly protecting sources and methods always comes before minor things like solving muders... These internal memos do include short profiles for some of the names including Black (for internal consumption only; sort of like the ones produced internally during the Garrison investigation - not to give out of course but just a quick look to see if they should really be worried about the names being requested. As I recall they did list some very basic info. about Black but nothing suggesting any Agency association). However they essentially refused to provide anything to the invistigators at all and as far as I can tell they didn't, as usual defending their general right not to disclose information and invoking National Security as a blanket justification (sort of like Presidential Previlege...sigh). You are certainly right that the investigators wanted to know about Black - but he was only one person on the list. One lead the guys were following was that not long before his death Roselli had gone back to LA and reportedly had some meetings which they thought certain parties might have interpreted as Roselli thinking about coming out of retirement - leading to some push back and perhaps a contract on him. -- hope that helps, Larry

Tosh, I'm curious as to what particular files or documents you feel are un-released on Black? Unfortunately the NARA search engine seems to be down this afternoon but when I can I will hit it and post if I see any unreleased documents on him. If you have something specific on him that you know is unreleased we can check it out but that would be new to me......also you had asked if researchers had ever interviewed him and the answer on that would be yes they have. Rappleye and Becker interviewed him and in fact researched him at some length for their book on Roselli, that was in the early 90's. Morrow interviewed him earlier but got nothing more than dinner conversation as I recall. Schriber did some digging on him when he wrote his book on the "Bobby Baker Affair." About the only thing that Rapplyeve and Becker found was that Black denied passing on a warning to Roselli that was described by friends and relatives. That may well have been because Black would have had to explain why he was well enough connected to get a rumor that a contract was out on Roselli. Such a contract has been mentioned by oher associates of Roselli but of course that's something in the rumor class. -- Larry

Hi Greg, yes I'm aware that Williams said that - he may have been told that by supervisor or just heard it as talk at work. I think it was Williams who normally worked at the other TSBD building over NW of the Plaza and who was moved over to the Elm street building work on the floors - so it would make sense as he might indeed have been out of work otherwise. One of the confusing remarks has been something to the effect that an outside crew had been brought in to work on the flooring - apparently what that really meant was that some people who were working on it that were either new hires or from the other building. The floor project wasn't the only work under way, they had worked on the elevators previously and were working on the back stairs as well in November as I recall. They had just finished the fifth floor work and were in the first phase of reworking the sixth on November 22, moving boxes to clear space to work. -- Larry

For the real deal on the TSBD building and various activities there I'd refer you all to various research articles by William Weston. He has done more work on it than anyone else - actually the repair project was not at all make work but it was driven by the fact that the TSBD had only moved into the'building within the last year or so and it had been a grocery warehouse before that with much of the upper flooring badly damaged and not in condidition to bear the weight of large amounts of heavy book cartons. What is perhaps more interesting though is why the TSBD had grown it's inventory so dramatically in a short span of time and why there were so many books in the building in November - usually a light inventory time as the school year shipments should have been virtually over, it was a pretty seasonal business. .... Larry

Tosh, I can supply a little information although I don't know if Black is still alive, if so he would be quite old as he was certainly middle aged in 1963. I've certainly never seen him on any suspicious death lists. Black's connections were almost entirely high level legal and government associations, he was one of the first "super lobbyists" making hundreds of thousands of dollars from corportations circa 1960. His two major clients appear to have been North American Aviation and Howard Foundries, both with significant government contracts. He was the subject of both FBI and Congressional investigation related to both those clients, the Baker affair was big trouble to him but even more was the Howard Foundry investigation which blew up in 1964 and was a major concern to Johnson as it involved a 2.7 million Air Force contract. Black was also the subject of an FBI wire tap investigation and successfully challenged the FBI in Court and as part of the Baker thing. I recall seeing Black testimony but I don't know if that was HSCA or some of the other investigations, in any event Black said as little as possible and pretty much denied knowing anybody he was asked about other than in passing. I don't think there has ever been any sign that Black had been associated with operational Cuban exiles or really with anybody other than lawyers, high ranking government employees and various high flyers within the Las Vegas and L.A. crime set such as Roselli and Levinson. -- Larry

John and William, there were a host of warnings from Dallas and Texas in general. Some in writing, most verbal. From community leaders, from politicians etc. Manchester probably does the best job of laying out exactly how many warnings with examples - in several cases the folks were worried enough to go to Kennedy's staff. Remember, the fears of violent demonstration were strong enough for the City Council to pass a special law dealing with that specifically as a last minute precaution for the JFK visit and the Chief of Police felt strongly enough to go on public TV to call for everyone to help the police quell any such demonstrations or protests. -- Larry

Tim, I'm very interested in the FBI/CIA records which identify Roselli as "Col" ......I'm familiar with the name as an alias but I'd really appreciate the document references where is is discussed with a military rank.. -- thank you, Larry

As a follow-on to James remark, it is interesting that in his DPD statement immediately following the assassination, Arce gives not only the names of fellow workers but that it is not necessarily just their first names as he might have heard them called but in most cases their full names. Seemed interesting for a virtual new hire to have that complete a knowledge of all his fellow workers. About the only other thing of note is that based on arrest records it appears that he developed a pretty bad drinking problem starting not long after the assassination. -- Larry

John, Cubela was not executed but spent several years in what was reportedly pretty light confinement - not exactly the sort of thing you would expect for someone who had offered to kill Castro for years. As I recall he was eventually released but I don't know when or if he is deceased. It's important to know that Castro was extremely good at compromsing potential "traitors"; the records we have from AM/TRUNK and AM/WHIP tell us that Castro approached many of the less trusted members of his cadre and would tell them that he knew the CIA would be approaching themand that all they needed to do was report the fact to him and play along and there would be no problem. This worked really well and CIA eventually shut down the whole project because they realized that virtually everyone had been compromised and was under surveillance. It's almost impossible that Castro did not suspect Cuebela or take some special precautions considering Cubela's relatively frequent foreign travel. -- Larry

Shanet, CIA used crypts written communication "crypts" for individuals, for groups and for projects. Normally all CIA officers used crypts in internal communications and in their professional contacts. Carlos Prio Socarres was a former Cuban President and one of the old school leaders among the Cubans, he helped finance Castro's overthrow of Batista and then went into exile. His surrogate political action man after that was Dr. Antonio de Verona. Verona's cript was AM/HAWL Rolondo Cubela was a Cuban student leader who was pretty much a competitive leader to Castro during the overthow of Batista and became part of Castro's ruling clique. However he was recurited by the CIA and for a number of years was courted as a CIA asset; Cubela offered numerous times to assassinate Castro but the CIA was more interested in him organizing a coup. It is still a matter of debate whether he was sincere of a Castro double agent. His crypt was AM/LASH. -- Larry

Tosh, there is a huge amount of information about both Black and Morgan available. Black was investigated very througly because of his business partnership with Baker, the Baker influence pedaling scandal and later because of other charges brought against Baker for at least one of his other clients. Morgan and his role are documented in State Department documents, Church Committee documents and HSCA documents all of which resulted from the investigation of the CIA's use of Roselli. Fred Black is also covered extensively in the autobiography of Roselli. -- Larry

James, a few years ago Carlos B. began selling certain items online and since that point I know several researchers who have chatted with him on line and one who went to the effort of going down and meeting with him. The net result is that Carlos sticks 100% to his remarks about Oswald and Castro sponsorship and that is all anybody is going to get from him. Having him at a conference would net you the same story that is in print in many places....it might be interesting to some to meet him as a witness to Oswald but I don't think it would contribute anything to research per se. However I don't know of anyone who has ever offered him an invitation. On the other hand if the DRE DIA memo files were to come to light they could possibly go a long way to resolving the whole question of the initial contact with Oswald and the exile reaction to him. It's pretty hard to belive that they would not report a suspicious new contact or talk about the leafletting or street encounter. -- Larry

James, I think a Morley/JFK search will show you some background on this but as I understand it much of the question comes from the fact that we know that the DRE was very involved with Oswald in NO - from the scuffle to the radio debate and they were supporting the preparation of a good deal of propaganda material against Castro and the FPCC based around Oswald. DRE was amont the first responders after Dallas to jump in with a comprehensive Castro was behind Oswald story, in both NO and Miami. Now the DRE was one of the exile groups courted at length by the CIA not for their operations use but because of their great intel links into Cuba, they maintained some of the best contacts going and CIA wanted that intel. So they had a CIA case officer and there should be extensive DRE files. As it turns out their case officer worked with the HSCA, never mentioning his assigment of course nor anything he might have seen in DRE files about the Oswald contacts. We are beginning to see large amounts of documents on various exile groups and there should be some files for the summer and fall of 63 showing us their take on Oswald, nothing like that has yet turned up. I know Jeff is still doing field and NARA research on the subject but that's all I know; at the moment it looks like one of Peter Dale Scotts classic "holes", you look for what should be there and when it's gone you have a clue you may be going in an important direction. ....Larry

I just wanted to let everyone know that we have been able to gain Jefferson Morley as a speaker for this year's conference. He will be doing a presentation on the CIA and the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Morley is a world news editor for WashingtonPost.com and does a weekly World Opinion Roundup column. He is known for his research on the CIA's obfuscation with both the Warren Commission and the HSCA; he has also focused his attention on Oswald in Mexico City and to Oswalds contacts with the DRE. We are very pleased to add Jeff as one of our conference speakers and Debra has also asked me to announce that she is holding the early bird conference fee open to the end of this month so you still have time to register and get the lower fee. Just go to: http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas04/index.html -- I hope to see many of you in Dallas next month, Larry

Carly, in evaluating the content of the report, a very useful approach would be to look at the internal dialogs that went on among the commissioners. That sort of information has not been available for view until the records releases of the 90's however now it is easy to find evidence that the Commissioners themselves realized how "controlled" their content was.. Examples: 1) The Commissioners can be seen to complain that they have no real investigators of their own and that they are totally dependent on the FBI for field work. They were well aware that the FBI had already concluded their own investigation and published their own findings so it was very unlikely that Hoover would be enthusiastic about his agency turning up something during the tenure of the WC that would show his own work to be at fault. The FBI had already found for "no conspiracy", the WC was expected by LBJ to simply endorse that finding (as confirmed in released Johnson tapes) so essentially WC was constrained by both LBJ and the FBI report (which had been issued with only a few weeks of investigation; eseentially compled within two weeks at the most). 2) When presented with indications that Lee Oswald was an FBI informant the WC members can be seen discussing the fact that they know Hoover would never admit such a thing and they have no leverage to pursue the issue. 3) The FBI itself can be shown to have manipulated evidence given to the WC, examples include the Hosty note and sanitizing of Oswald's notebook. They can also be shown to have witheld information (Secret Service Agent Patterson's report of a dialog with Hosty about Oswald meeting with subversives). 4) When pressured over specific issues by the WC and asked for further investigationt the FBI can be shown to have obfuscated - examples are the Sylvia Odio incident and the unidentified box fingerprints from the sixth floor. My point would be that when addressing the content of the WC work you have to evaluate the investigative resources that were avilable to them, the management of the data provided them and the fact that their staff were not trained criminal investigators or even criminal attorney's (perhaps explaining many of the rather pitiful witness interviews). A good DA with an experienced crime task force might have had a chance....equipped with the power to plea bargain...which of course the WC did not have either. Unfortunately the WC was a committee, not a criminal investigation. ...hope that helps a bit Larry

Hi Chris, nope for a change they passed on St George and it was Billings who went on the mission. And Billings would go on to join the Life team in Dallas, to spend time on the Garrison investigation and then to take a contract from Blakey to write the summary for the HSCA. And some of the other TILT alumni would go on to Watergate - guess Billings got the best of the deal. -- Larry

Steve, I will try to get it off this afternoon - I will only be faxing you the personnel for Region II which included Dallas. There were a lot of other Regions and that get pretty extensive. In addition there was the 316th but it's personnel in 1963 were largely virtual since it was moved into Texas with no personnel and during its start up period its staff were 112th HQ staff who wore two hats...including its Commander William Reich. 112th HQ at San Antonio was commanded by Williard Mize, with William Greer as its Ops officer (contrary to Jones claim that he was Ops officer), Jones as G2 intel. Region II (Dallas) was commanded by Roy Pate with his Deputy commander as Edgar Boyd....it was one of those two who should have been called to testify on the 112th in Dallas, not Jones. -- Larry

Steve, I'm sorry but its several pages as I recall (it was on the CD I did but I'm guessing you don't have that?) and I don't have a scanner myself. If you email me a FAX number I can dig it out and FAX it to you sometime this week... -- Larry