Larry Hancock

Hi Greg, no problem and although I can't relate to the twins (your'e a better man than I, I'd never survive) - I can relate to the late hours as I was up to 2am working on some additions to the book. -- Larry

Greg, I don't think we disagree at all unless I misread you... The premise of my book is that the murder of JFK was absolutely to frame Oswald (and others) as Castro agents, to force a war with Cuba and an invasion and ouster of Castro. But as Martino said, as soon as Tippett was shot and Oswald taken into custody the whole thing fell apart - there were various efforts afterwards to keep pushing the scanario but Johnson moved to a solid no conspiracy/cover-up stance and took complete mastery of the situation.... despite his early public remarks about conspiracy and later private ones on Castro being behind it (which became sort of a fall back for Johnson it appears). -- Larry

John, I don't have any information on any of the individuals on your list other than what has been widely written and other than Pawley I've never viewed any of them as associated any any way with the conspiracy (the cover-up is of course a separate story and that certainly could involve Scott who I think knew or suspected what was really going on with Oswald in Mexico City). I had heard that Pawley was very ill at the time of his death (shingles possibly related to a nervous condition) and that it was suicide - but I have no direct information on that. The CIA officers that continue to be of much more interest to me beyond Morales are David Phillips and Tracy Barnes. I've been doing some study on Barnes lately and find it interesting that the two not only worked on the Cuba Project (BOP) together but that Barnes career was directly affected by it, he became physically ill over it for a period of time (as Phillips had) and became one of the primary sources for the view that JFK had betrayed everyone, later being quoted in some very strong negative remarks about JFK. Given the fact that he was in charge of the new Domestic Ops division in 1963, that he recruited Phillips into doing joint duty in that group while working in Mexico City and also that this group would have been the one most likely to have been using Lee Oswald in any anti Cuban projects he is of far more interest to me at the moment than the other names on the list and I'd welcome any correspondance from individuals who have studied him in more depth. -- Larry

Hello Zhenia, the answer to your question gets pretty lengthy but I'll try to be brief. There were several incidents/sources which were floated after the assassination in an attempt to associate Oswald with Castro. They include: 1) Several anti-Castro groups and their supporters put forth this story, such sources included were DRE, John Martino and Frank Sturgis - and much later John Roselli via Jack Anderson. None of these sources were credible and several of them may well have been associated with the actual conspiracy to kill the President and blame it on Castro. 2) Several ultra-right organizations - none offering any specific evidence. 3) The FBI investigated a number of purported connections ranging from letters supposedly sent from Cuban agents to Oswald (Pedro Charles letters) to observations of Oswald with Cuban agents in Mexico City (including Gilberto Alvarado who had presented himself to the CIA and was initially heavily endorsed by David Phillips of the CIA). None of these proved to be credible and in the latter case raised questions as to the motives of the CIA officers involved with the story in Mexico City. 4) The CIA, in addition to Alvarado, investigated indications that Oswald had been in contact with senior KGB assassination officers in Mexico City. Nothing concrete came from this although there is considerable evidence that this Oswald was actually impersonated in some of these reported contacts - again raising issues about the behavior of certain CIA officers and CIA counter intelligence (CI/SIG). 5) The CIA also floated several reports of possible Castro agents in the US at the time of the assassination but investigation revealed nothing substantive in the reports. In addition, there is no evidence that any of this had any real impact on LBJ or that he showed any real interest to it - in one case, when Hoover reported the Oswald impersonation in Mexico City, Johnson did not even comment and there is no sign that he asked questions about or showed any interest in the other items listed above. This includes his lack of any comment on the Alvarado incident which was reported to him and no evidence that he was ever even briefed on Kostikov (probably the most potentially dangerous of all these incidents). Based on the Johnson tapes there is no evidence that any Agency, individual or the media was putting any pressure on Johnson over the subject - all the significant pressure in regard to communist involvement a potential atomic war was being asserted by Johnson himself, apparently on his own initiative. -- Larry

John, as far as money goes for Interpen goes there were multiple sources including a lot of direct fund raising, that was a major effort by GPH in particular. They solicited funds all over the place including anti-communist and right wing sponsors from New Orleans, Dallas and California. I think Hemming makes a point that despite their big talk, none of these sources came up with any serious donations - one of them solicited - Walker - had no money of his own and depended on right wing donations himself, from folks like Hunt who financed his campaign for Gov. Hemming has talked about their fund raising at great length; I've even seen an interview he did on TV (I probably would have donated). Much of the money they got was local, from donations in the community, from exile groups who contributed to get their folks trained. In general they often were just scratching by day to day. One of the reasons for this of course that the CIA put it's money into people it could control (or thought it could) or who were designated by the Special Group - such as Artime. It did it's own training, vetted its own exiles and minutely controlled them. And in doing so was often either less successful and certainly less visible than the independent action groups like Alpha 66/SNAFE or Commandos L. The Interpen folks that did get involved in actual expeditions into Cuba seem to have done it with exiles - Hargraves is one of the most visible in that. On a side note there are plenty of FBI interviews and CIA memos (most from the FBI) about various Interpen folks serving as informants over the years but that was voluntary on their part, not as paid agents as Sturgis was, he actually reported to Barker as a case officer. And Hemming was even cleared for a provisional CIA security status after his return from Cuba and debriefed; that was cancelled later after an incident with a fire arm. CIA demanded control and deniability and ultra low profiles -and even polygraphed all its people. Not exactly a good fit for the more action oriented exiles and the Interpen folks. -- Larry

Hello Lia, your question is a fascinating one for two reasons. First, the release of the Johnson tapes gives clear evidence that Johnson used the excuse of something which had happened in Mexico City and the related threat of an atomic war to force the creation of the Warren Commission, the personal participation of Warren and very possibly the cover up itself. However although that is now very public, we have not seen a rush of media nor historians to reexamine the issue that a conspiracy existed and was left unexplored due to Johnson's actions and the pressure of the war issue. Second, there are several aspects of Johnsons documented behavoir which suggest that this issue was a sham. 1) A detailed analysis of Johnson's behavior on the evening of Nov. 22 and over the weekend reveal no indications he was concerned either about any Communist plot nor an atomic exchange (a Soviet first strike would have been a strong possiblity if he truly belived their plan had ended up with a Cuban/Soviet agent in custody and potentially talking about his sponsors). 2) In Johnson's first conversation with Hoover early on the morning of the 23rd, Hoover informs him among other things that there is strong evidence that Oswald had been impersonated in Mexico City - obviously an indication of conspiracy. Johnson makes not a single remark to this information from Hoover and appears to show no interest in it. 3) Johnson's own behavior over the next few days shows no indication that he considered any Communist conspiracy or threat worth his focus nor energy, no special military planning nor any indications that he gave orders to investigate such a conspiracy. One indicator of this is in his call record, even when recruiting WC members and pressuring them with the war threat, all his other calls relate to politics, fund raising and making the Kennedy program agenda his own. - corroboration for this lack of concern is seen in his first personal remarks to Defense Secetary McNamara upon arrival in DC which are a trivial exchange, his reported lack of interest in a serious briefing from the CIA Director on his morning arrival at the White House and the fact that he did not even call Hoover in to meet with him Friday night nor did he meet with any military personnel. One of the problems in any study of this nature though, is that we are missing key data from the first two days. We do not have the complete communications records from AF1 on the flight back, we do not have transcripts or even summaries of his first CIA briefings over the weekend. And it is possible that key information may have been suppressed in regard to Oswald which would have quickly removed suspicion that he was indeed a Communist agent - if that was covered up it becomes extremely difficult to accurately evaluate Johnson. However, on the surface it appears that his use of the "war issue" is highly questionable and accepting that as an explanation of his behavior may be way to simplistic. -- Larry

Dave, the only thing to be cautions about with that report is that about mid-way through his meetings with Martin, Nagell became suspicious of him (and I think it turned out later that Martin did have a former CIA affiliation - should look into that but I think he was on their list of approved firms if not more). Nagell pulled the plug at that point. Which means that the names on the tape might be Arcacha and Q (Quiroga) for real, it could be a Nagell smokescreen or it could be Martin disinformation (love this stuff). In any event it's very likely that it was really Arcacha as he was out of New Orleans for months first in Florida and then in Texas before this was going down. Arcacha and Quirogo would be nice since they both were stongly suspected of being Castro double agents and CIA still suspected Quiroga as of the Garrison investigation. However I'm just not sure we can trust this report - for several reasons. .....life is just unfair, grin, Larry

Comments on both John and Steve's posts. First, John, I think you captured a very important point about Nagell. Nagell was the ultimate in focus - as we know from his Korean war and later Japan intel assignments, he was hugely singleminded and would do whatever it took to gain his goal regardless of personal risk. I think there is a very good case that he made exile introductions to both Marlowe and Oswald in order to gain access to the exiles and leverage with them. That's the only thing that explains the speed of his penetrations in New York, Miami and indeed New Orleans. If that meant helping them with their assassination concept, so be it. Russell speculates that Nagell actually picked up Marlowe from his LAPD contacts and gave him to the exiles; I concur and suspect he may have given them Oswald too. However when all that got very real in September and he couldn't break Oswald from them, that was another story. Second, Steve, I also think it's safe to say that all of Nagell's tasks in Mexico were "counter intellingence", that brings him much more under the purvue of CI and CI/SIG (who were playing games with Oswald in Mexico City) much more than Plans/Ops with Fitzgerald. Problem is we (or I for sure) have almost no insight into how Angleton really operated, his reports, how he reached beyond Washington D.C. (we know he personally did black bag jobs and bugging in D.C. but surely he must have had agency assets elsewhere). I'd love to get educated on how Angleton really worked - I expect David Phillips could have told us. But if Nagell was being manipulated by somebody I myself would suspect the CI side of things vs. Fitzgerald. -- Larry

John, rather than comment myself, let me introduce Ambassador Mann from Mexico City...the follow is an excerpt from one of the additions to my next issue of the book errata/news sheet: HSCA (RIF 180-10113-10404) In an interview with HSCA staff the former Ambassador stated that “the investigations by the CIA and FBI after the assassination did cause him concern.” He specifically stated that “instructions were received from Washington to stop investigative efforts to confirm or refute rumors of Cuban involvement in the assassination….Mann said his instructions came from Dean Rusk and he believed that Scott, CIA Station Chief, and Anderson, FBI Legat, had received similar instructions from their respective directors.” In addition, “Mann stated that in his opinion, if he had to make a guess, there was a 99 percent chance that the investigation was stopped because it would have resulted in the discovery of a covert U.S. government action….he also stated that RFK was heavily involved in counterintelligence activity in 1964.” -- Larry

John, one of the difficulties with Nagell's remarks is that some of them are very much "situational". In the beginning he was extremely low profile and his first letters on the conspiracy were to Congressmen involved with investigations, he did not seek publicity at all at that point. Later his initial approach to Garrison was in the same vein, until he realized that Garrison's investigator was most likely CIA affiliated (Nagell was dead on about that and realized it long before Garrison). However there was a period in time when his wife had taken his children away from him that Nagell basically went off the deep end - this was after his deal with the CIA, his travel to Europe. At that point he started going to US embassies, making statements about the CIA and essentially raising the ante on publicity to get the CIA too cooperate and get his kids back - which he eventually did. This resulted in some very strong statements about people at high levels in the CIA which I take with a grain of salt. Now there are certainly some mysterious things about Fitzgerald and there are also indications that the Cubela contact was turned into an assassination project by Fitzgerald and Helms without any oversight....but there is little doubt that Fitzgerald was very much tied up with that in the fall of 1963. At this point I've certainly seen nothing that would tie him directly to the JFK conspiracy, I have not doubt he knew some things that could have jeapardized certain officers career paths though. On the other hand if I had copies of all the memos between Phillips and Des Fitz or knew what the two had agreed to in private I might feel differenly. Phillips was reporting to him in the critical period and if nothing else Fitzgerald might have know that Phillips was using Oswald in some fashion. If that were true it could be the cause for Nagell's remark and it may be more accurate than I know.. -- wish I knew more, Larry

Ron, Escalante actually talks about the witnesses who report a dark complected man in the TSBD so it's clear that is at least on the minds of the Cubans and is more evidence that they read JFK conspiracy books. However I belive there is a good deal of other suggestive material on Garcia aside from Escalante and I'm continuing to work on that - on a side note a recently obtained CIA document from the fall of 1963 identifies Garcia as the most likely exile to carry off an assassination of Castro and comments that rumor of the time in Cuba associates Garcia with a near miss which killed a man sitting beside Castro. ....Larry

John, all of Mr. Weyl's basic information is very consistent with what I've learned, esepcially as to the very early beginnings of the mission. However it got far more involved than that and the CIA did not insert itself; WAVE documents clearly show that Pawley went to Shackley and essentially pushed him into into it despite Shackley's concerns over some of those involved, specifically including Martino. And given Bayo's initial stance about the CIA, it is pretty amazing to see that the final mission included several CIA personnel - and not minor ones at all, Robertson was there (the senior WAVE tactical mission leader) as was Martinez (theie chief boat insertion pilot and a virtual legend). Gonzalez may also have been on the mission going under the Lomulru alias. Not to mention a chartered PBY and radar coverage by one ot the two main CIA raider mother ships...uunder the direct supervision of David Morales. Even more shocking is the CIA concession to allowing their employees to be photograhed by a LIFE magazine photographer on an actual mission - and the apparent coordination of this between Pawley and JC King. This at a time when the Kennedy Administration was denying any operations into Cuba. This CIA cooperation with LIFE in the face of all its normal guidelines, deniability etc is almost impossible to conceive and has never really been explained. Compare this to Helms testifying in regard to Watergate that Martinez could never have seen the sniper rifle he described in regard to his Cuban missions as all weapons were packaged and concealed on penetration missions - or the CIA being literally panic stricken during the Garrison investigation because Santana could identify a few operational personnel due to his one mission as a boat guide. All in all their was something going on that makes the TILT mission unique - I have nothing to relate that to the JFK assassination but I will say that JC King knowing LIFE was covering the mission shows something was going on that we really still don't understand. -- Larry

Hi John, the answer to the Cuesta question is that the primary source is Fabian Escalante and his remarks during the two Cuban conferences with reseachers. Secondary sources are articles writen by Dick Russell on the conference and notes posted by Gordon Winslow on his web site. There is no doubt Cuesta was captured and Garcia killed on the mission, but as far as any specific corroboration for Escalante's information it would have to come out of Cuba and of course some folks don't trust anything coming out of Cuba. I did find it persuasive that Escalante described the Cuesta incident in detail and was amazed that the Cuesta people came on shore in such an exposed location and right next to a Cuban militia group....it was a disaster and he was very surprised that someone with Cuesta's skill, apprent intel sources and previous mission record made such a terrible mistake. He also stated that Cuesta's remarks on JFK were at his own inititiave and were not really part of his Cuban interrogation - which certianly makes a lot of sense give that they were meaningless to the Cuban military's main concerns about exile raider groups. Cuesta brought it up at his own initiative. Having said that, certainly we have to be cautious with Cuban sources since they do have their own political agenda and one can see they have been influenced by JFK assassination books - however whenever they bring up primary sources such as interrogations or their own intelligence network information on things like exile activities or on counter intelligence it seems to me that their information should be considered. -- Larry

John, Martino did not give any specific names - at least ones that have been shared by either Claasen or Cummings. One reason for that is probably that his remarks on the assassination were really not in the way of a confession, they were more like revisiting the old times in Miami with his two friends a few months before his death. Just getting a little bit of it off his chest perhaps - I have no doubt he never had the slightest thought it might become public, at that time the subject looked to be dead and buried. If the HSCA had not come along - and even then Claasen contacted them anonymously and was very nervous about what he did tell them. Currington may know more than he has told so far though, the La Fontaines are the only other folks after Tony Summers to track him down and talk with him and he implied to them that Martino had perhaps mentioned some names that Cummings would not share.....there is an indication that Martino was very nervous about Watergate, however my own research suggests that was primarily over the fact that if anyone had really investigated the Cubans at Watergate they would have ended up back in Miami, and back at the Bayo mission - perhaps finding the photo of Martino, Martinez and Gonzalez and deciding to pay John a call. Of course Helms lied through his teeth about Martinez and nobody really investigated Gonzalez at all so the whole thing passed on by. The only name mentioned by Cummings was not actually a name but rather a remark by Martino that there was a Cuban girl down in Dallas that could have been a very important witness - I suspect that would have been the Odio's, certainly we know they were knon to Martino in advance of the assassination. If somebody could track down Curington it would certainly be worth the effort to see if he might have anything more to offer, that's something I certainly haven't done. -- Larry

Hello Dr. Wagner, if you get a chance you might want to read some of the Church Committee or State Department reports on how Roselli was recruited (he made it clear at the very beginning he would take no payment) and how the various attemps he was involved in proceeded - the CIA wanted him to use shooters and he convinced them poison would be better, which was probably one of the biggest downfalls of his efforts. The first attempts went on very much independently from Mongoose but later if Hunt had not locked up Verona before the BOP one might have succeeded - indeed the BOP might have also but nobody had told Howard anthing about Verona's involvement. However there is some question of whether or not Roselli's continuing recourse to Verona and elements of Trafficante's old network may have not been the basic problem - plenty of reason to think that Trafficante had cut a deal with Castro way back when he was in prison and may have been slipping him warnings throughout. Which is one reason Harvey kicked Giancana and Trafficante out of the picture - but then Roselli still went back to Verona once again. Of course Mongoose itself was far bigger and broader than the relatively small assassination efforts - and didn't even include the ones some of the Cuban freedom fighers were running on their own like the Veciana associated bazooka attack that came literally within minutes of taking Castro out. Or the one apparently run by Diaz Garcia in the fall of 63 which reportedly killed someone sitting next to Castro according to CIA documents. I'll leave any discussion of Roselli with a rifle in DP to others, that's not my personal view of his role in the Kennedy assassination. On the other hand I think the remark by Roselli that he and Sam got involved with the CIA on their own, looking for some leverage, is probably correct. Certainly Sam got no slack though and if Roselli got any it sure didn't last. As for who took him out in the end, no conclusions on my part but three things stand out. First, the word got out that in his last hearing appearance he had actually given the names of a couple of the Trafficante network guys who were used in the Castro plots and that sort of thing might have started some people wondering if he was getting too talkative in his old age. Second, the new "bosses" couldn't have been all that happy continuing to read about the Mafia and the CIA in Jack Anderson's national columns courtesy of Johnny - they are not people who like publicity and third, Roselli had very recently been back in LA talking to some of his old connections and the FBI guys investigating his death at least pondered whether or not someone might have been unhappy to see him giving the appearance of not having fully retired. -- Larry

William, Phillips was most definitely Bishop. I devote a chapter to offering proofs for that in the book. However, a good number of the actions taken by Phillips as Bishop and the activities engaged in under the Bishop alias had to do with Phillips own private agenda and not his postion, role, or internal job/reporting within the CIA. The same can be said for David Morales. Which is why I belive making a statement that "Bishop" was Veciana's CIA case officer is not accurate as far as the agency and Phillips official duties is concerned. And just as misleading as thinking it would have been official US policy and a CIA task to incite Alpha 66 raids against Russian ships and personnel in Cuba at the time Bishop was pushing Veciana and Alpha 66 into those activities. -- Larry

William, I've seen nothing in the documents that reflects that Phillips was officially a case officer for Viciana; in fact Veciana was very much at odds with the CIA and makes it clear that he wanted no on ongoing relationship with CIA. On the other hand Veciana was much more positive about Army intelligence and indeed did have an informant number and an assigned army contact officer inside Military Intelligence. Veciana is on record in his conversations with Army Intel that he and Alpha 66 want no more to do with CIA than they have to in order to get some minimal support - and then they steal what they really need. And it is possible to determine who official case officers were in most cases as that is in the CIA records, for example Barker was case officer for Sturgis. In most cases there are good records of CIA exile contacts including recruiting files and polygraph testing for secuirty (crypt for that is "flitter"). More of these type records are becoming available daily in new CIA file releases following the ARRB work. I'm working on requests for some today as a matter of fact. Anyway, Veciana's attitude toward CIA is consistent with his stating that Bishop never represented himself as CIA and as a matter of fact distanced himself completely from CIA and claimed only to represented 'businessmen" interested in Cuba - very similar to the approach to Sierra by the businessmen from Las Vegas. My contention is that understanding people like Phillips and Morales means understanding that they had their own private agenda's, their own private networks and contacts and in fact their own private war which was often at odds with the Kennedy administration and sometimes with CIA HQ as well. There is also some good indication that people like Phillips and Morales may have intentionally picked up on exile assets that either told the CIA to kiss off or that CIA dropped because they did not like some of their associates - in several cases those associates were linked to gambling interests and the old Hanvana casino connections. Phillip's "Bishop" persona is an example of that as far as I can tell. In many cases this also complicates the situation a great deal as some operations - say the Alpha 66 raids against Russian targets - were totally at odds with authorized projects while in other cases I think that individuals may have assumed they were taking sanctioned orders from the CIA or US government when in fact they were taking orders based on the private anti-Communist wars Morales and Phillips were conducting. I try to give as many examples of that as I can in the book - one example is that Phillips himself was cited by the Church committee for his lack of authorization related to an assassinations project in Chile. So, in my view Veciana was definitely working with and for Bishop but that was something not handeld under any official case officer relationship between Phillips as a CIA office and Veciana. -- Larry

A most interesting letter Dave, that one is really going to make me think. Do we have any sign of whether or not Hall was really known to or in regular communication with Rey? Seems sort of unusual politics for the ultra right wing Hall to be tight with the more left leaning Rey? Of course Hall was quite a "talker", no doubt about that. On another side note, other than the trailer load of weapons that Howard helped him score in California, any other indications that Hall had ever managed to obtain any quantities of weapons. And by the way, I would be totally open to the idea that Hall was planning on dropping the weapons off in Dallas for Masen to convert to full auto. -- Larry

William, I spend a great deal of time on Masen, Nonte and the overall gun running sting by Ellesworth in my book. And I agree there is a case to be made that Ruby may well have been involved in a minor gun deal with some weapons stolen from a Natl Guard storage building. I present as much evidence as I could dig up for that in the book. The case in regard to Nonte gets much more complex because Ellsworth did not realize that Nonte had gone to military intel on his first appraoch from Masen about gun sales (they two were actually going into business with another man in a black powder business). MI turned it over to the FBI and the FBI was using Nonte in a sting against Masen at the same time Ellesworth was running his sting on Masen - but of course the FBI never tells anybody about such things so he was in the dark. Anyway, the FBI documents on this one are very comprehensive and all the documents are on the CD. Perhaps the most incirminating evidence bringing Ruby into it is a travelers check frome one of the army guys at the facility where the guns were stolen, the timing is ideal for it to be a pay off and it went through Ruby at the Carousel. -- Larry

I can't tell you who the female reporter was but I do know that one of the reporters present for the exchange was Otis H. King. I have his signed description of the event and of Ruby's quote which was "Ask the man who is up there now" in response to the question as to "What's behind this Jack." Mr. King was alive as recently as two years ago and had just published a book on his experience as one of the Marine surviviors of Batann and Corregidor. At that time he lived in the Dallas area. His book is tittled Alamo of the Pacific and was published by Branch-Smith of Forth Worth. His impression was that Ruby was certainly quite serious about the remark. -- Larry

Just for reference, I'd recommend a book "Dirty Dealing" by Gary Cartwright which probably contains more actual detail on what Harrelson actually did where and when than anything I've come across. Certainly I wouldn't take his word on anything... it's possible that he might actually be more beliveable under the influence of Cocaine though? However there is one loose end that somebody should resolve and I've had no luck myself. In his murder trial for killing Sam Degelia the prosecution introduced an eyewitness, one Jerry O'Brien Watkins who supposedly at one time had posed as a CIA agent and tried to buy weapons for anti-Castro exiles in Miami, a scam that apparently involved Harrelson. There is good evidence that Harrelson had ties to exiles doing smuggling and other stuff in Florida after the assassination, perhaps some of the old OP 40 alumnae. It would be very interesting to know if he had any such connections prior to the assassination. I've talked to Cartwright and he just doesn't remember anything more on this as it was a minor detail in his book - however he says that the statements and testimony would still be in the trial records down in south Texas, not sure whether it would be Edinburgh or McAllan. If somebody could tie Harrelson to exile gun running and contacts immediately before the JFK assassination it could make things more interesting. It is pretty clear though that between 1960 when he was arrested for a petty crime in California and the mid-60's when he was driving big cars and wearing expensive clothes he did something to get a serious rep as a contract hit man. It's also clear that even after his very first arrest he had a habit of lieing about big crimes he had committed. -- Larry

William, this exchage is probably just wasting space but yes, I do look for need some form of "corroboration" for anything I deal with on this subject - not that I always find it. Corroboration can come in a lot of forms, in the case of the second document you posted (and for some reason I can't seem to get you focused on that one) it could be as simple as showing that Bush was spending time in Miami in 1960-61. It could also be as simple as a statement from the person who originally found the document saying when, where and under what circumstance they found it. We question the chain of evidence all the time when we look at the cover-up, the same has to apply to material we use. You provided some very interesting new documents on the Kirknewton incident and you know that I didn't just write those off, it was possible to find several types of corroboration for them and they point in some very important directions - but when I talk about those directions now I still have to call it speculation because I don't have the information that is redacted in the basic documents - maybe some day we'll be able to convert it to something solid. I didn't get involved in this to convince anyone except myself, when I do write something down I go as far as I can in showing everyone what I feel is solid and what is speculation and I think I'm pretty hard on myself that way. I'm equally hard on evaluating what others write and I plan to stay that way. In the end everybody had to be their own jury on this case so your'e free to use the standards you wish and so am I. Which says about all I have to say I suppose. -- Larry

William, I'm not sure any of these folks care enough about us or take any document or story that comes up serously enough to argue it one way or the other - now if it was about Johnson it would be different and Valenti would jump all over it. And as I said it's the second document that interests me much more than the first because appears to put Mr. Bush in the thinck of things in Miami - something which certainly has not come up before. But in either case if we could figure out how and where they came from it might lead us to something even more interesting. Any way, I'm certainly going to keep my eye out for such items in the FBI collections and anyone that is looking at State Dept documents should as well... we have a good record in finding memos over on that side that have appearently disappeared from other Agencies files. -- Larry

William, yes I am aware of it - I'm pretty much aware of all the dirt that has been published on the Bush family and especially George Sr. - after October Surprise, Iran Contra and Mena, well enough of that. My question is a lot simpler than that - I don't care who publishes what in a magazine article or on the internet, what I'm interested in is primary source information (where the document was found and how it was corroborated in the first place). In particular I need to know where the second document you have posted on your WEB site originated and how you vetted it to ensure that it is a real document. Actually I'd like to know the same about the first document on Bush as well but that is more curiosity. Once I know where the second document came from it will help me find out why it does not appear to be in the NARA collection and may also help me understand other things as well - as why Hoover would identify FBI informants in other agencies by name, a very strange thing for him to do. If the document can be proven to be real and not a one that has been manipulated, especially in the last paragraph, it will also raise a lot of interesting questions about involvement with a Pro-Castro group. If you can't provide the source or verify the second document that's fine and I'll keep trying to validate it myself. -- Larry

Thanks William but my only real question is about the two Bush documents, the one referencing to Miami and a pro-Castro group. I would like to verify that its indeed in the NARA collection - as well as the first "Mr Bush of the CIA" letter - because neither one of them shows on a search as far as I can find. If neither one is actually I'd like to ask the NARA folks why not - but to do that I need to know details on who found them where and when. -- Larry