Larry Hancock

Lee, actually one of the elements of the WC report was a study of SS protection and I think you will find extensive proposals for changes in procedures. If you had both pre and post versions of the guidelines I expect you would find the post much longer and very much different - the JFK assassination brought a great change in Presidential and even VP protection. One of the mistakes that can be easily made is to compare protection post 1963 with what was accepted practice at the time of Dallas. ...and I think that Driver section is a direct response to Greer's lack of training and preparation. Very timely comparison to the high level conclusions in the release of the 911 report today. I expect that you will find many sentences and paragraphs that would be interchangeable with Presidential protection circa 1963. -- Larry

Steve, I've heard of Stringfellow in general but the only DPD name I see associated with intel SPOT reports out of Dallas is DPD Captain Dowdy. By the weekend, Lt. Col. Boyd of the Dallas 112th office had been assigned to be on site with DPD to get reports directly; he was Deputy Commander of Region II which included Dallas. His superior in Dallas was Lt. Col. Roy Pate. Either Pate or Boyd would have been the correct people to have questioned about what the 112th was doing in Dallas on Nov. 22, not Jones who is listed as S2 Intelligence Officer. The other candidates would have been Lt. Col Stanley Greer who was actually the Operations officer or his boss the Group Commander Col. Williard Mize; both located at 112th headquarters in San Antonio. .....Larry

On the two questions about the Texas Trip, that's is a very long and involved story - essentially starting several months earlier when the President made a trip to west Texas and met with Johnson and others, discussion began at that time of the need for a major political visit to the state as part of the ramp up for the election campaign. Over the next several months the trip grew from first being a visit to NASA in Houston to expand to other cities and speaking engagements as well as a major reception by the Gov. and a night at the Johnson Ranch. The remark about Fort Worth and Dallas is not very suspicious though, the two cities are very close, long time rivals and it would have been terrible politics to visit one and not the other. The Johnson camp afterwards tried to portray the whole trip as being one desired by the Kennedy staff to raise money but that is simply not true and in general the Kennedy staff was not happy about the trip and felt forced into it in order to try to pull the factions of the Texas Democratic party back together before the campaign begin. Cliff Carter does a fine job of offering disinformation about the trip in his oral history at the Johnson library, not even being willing to discuss any serious fraction in the state party politics. As to the Limo, yes JFK always used an open limo for visiblity whenever possible, even on international trips. -- Larry

To follow up on a point by Ron, there were a couple of very unusual things about he motorcade which can be traced in a direction other than the Secret Service. Ron's point about the Press Truck is extremely important because most political motorcades - which this was - are for the purpose of generating not only exposure but media coverage. Which is why an open truck with ample room for extensive press photography is a fixture of most motorcades. Although I have not studied this from a comparative standpoint (somebody should) my gut feel is also that the Dallas motorcade also uniquely placed JFK way to close to the front of the motorcade. And thirdly, it is now documented that at least two cycles were stripped off the flanks of the Limo at Love field....under instructions of someone who seemed to be associated with the Vice President's security detail. The reason I bring this up is that the selection of vehicles, positioning and even who rode who where were coordinaed by Jack Puterbaugh who was acting as DNC advance man and who was coordinating with Cliff Carter - Johnson's key aide and the man who in his Johnson library oral history states that he observed a SS man with an automatic wepon look up to the TSBD and prepare to fire back - he just couldn't acquire his target in time.... which of course is easy to show as untrue from DP photographs. -- just to introduce the thought that there may have been more subtle maneuvering in play on Nov. 22 -- Larry

Paul, actually Jones was not the Operations Officer on Nov. 22, he was G2 - as can be demonstrated by the message traffic that went through him and his own messages to the FBI as well as the organization chart which the ARRB obtained. The ARRB investigated the issues of the so called stand down, the action of the 112th and Jones remarks about the possiblity of it being one of his officers who showed the ID behind the fence. I encourage you to read their extensive investigation and reports which I have published via Lancer on CD. One of the things that they were rather put off by is that several of the things Jones said can simply be shown to be untrue - and they corroborated this by interviews with several 112th Dallas personnel. In fact their own internal memos show that they were left with the question of whether Jones was simply talking off the top of his head, was for some reason making up information or was simply unreliable. After considerable study I can't answer that any more than they could but I can affirm to you that Jones is a terrible source and the only net effect was that his testimony managed to divert the investigation of the people with ID - a very serious issue. If I knew who actually selected Jones and brought him to the Committees, rather than the actual Commanders of the Dallas office of the 112th and the actual Unit Commander - whose names are well documented in the 112th unit history - I might have an opinion but at the moment it could either have been a mistake, or something else. -- Larry

Steve, I didn't do the interview myself but I think I have documented it in print somewhere - I would be less than honest if I could tell you where that was off the top of my head. I think I've been writing on this too long...and at this point I can't even recall who briefed me on the interview, could be one of two or three folks I was working with about 4-5 years ago...sigh. It may very possibly be in the article I did to go with the documents on the 112th CD, I should have put it there. In any event, the best I can do from memory is tell you that one of the DPD officers in the car was good friends with the reserve officer and told him he had a great position in the motorcade - apparently his friend asked if he could get in. The DPD officer actually took his friend to the DPD morning briefing and from there to the airport to meet the President and then just slid him into the car as if he was assigned to be there. These days that sort of thing would be laugable (well maybe) but as you know Puterbaugh was introduced at the airport variously as a White House Aide and/or somebody from the DNC and nobody questioned either. My impression is that the fellow just gracefully eased away at the hospital, knowing full well he wasn't really supposed to be there and certainly not wanting to make a big issue for his buddy at that point in time as to why he was. -- Larry

Steve, I'm sorry for the confusion, the reason I picked the term "point" car was to try and differentiate it from the "lead" car which you are describing. Call it the "scout" car if you like but it drove the route a considerable way in front of the motorcade... something like 45 minutes. It was driven by a single traffic officer whose main focus was checking the positioning of assigned traffic officers in intersections and the blocking of designated streets, ramps etc. This is a further illustration of the fact that in 1963 things like traffic, crowd control and at the very worst, demonstrations, were the things that were on the mind of the DPD and to a large extent even the SS. A lot of the things we automatically think about in our far more security challenged age just were not on the radar screen at the time. Read the days DPD brief and you get a sense of what their priorities were. Today we would have trained security personnel doing a threat evaluation on the route - in 1963 a stalled pick up under the railroad bridge was something to get out of the way, not a potential car bomb - in terms of police experience. As to the "Lead" car, again in those times the lead car was just that, it lead the motorcade and Greer followed it. In his testimony he describes that as his job, he didn't review maps in advance, didn't drive the route himself to prepare for the next day - he followed the lead car assigned to lead the motorcade. And the lead car was focused on the motorcade as a logistics device and to support the motorcade as part of the days PR agenda - Puterbaugh actually fits there because he had the responsiblity for organizing the motorcade, designating what people went in which car and what sequence the vehicles were in. The ead car was not really about serious security, it was way to close to the President to do much in that regard, to close to even successfully abort or stop the cars behind it in time to avoid something bad, especially the JFK so far up front - and the reserve MI officer in it was not from the 112th, he has been interviewed and was simply there for personal reasons to get a ride in the President's motorcade. He was worked into the car by one of the officers who was his friend. -- Larry

Lee, I suggest you obtain the ARRB interview with Col. Prouty and review his remarks to them on the subject of his actual knowledge of SS procedures and of security preparations - I think you will find a considerable varience in his interview with them, a lengthy voluntary interview on his part actually. It's part of the CD collection I published on the 112th MI. -- Larry

One of the reasons that it's so difficult to give a pure yes or no answer to that question is that as far as I know nobody had ever produced a copy of an actual SS procedures handbook from 1963 - understadably at the time nobody was eager to do that for security reasons and afterwards their procedures had changed considerably. However to be a little more realistic about matters, even if the guideline had called for that, the SS was faced with a trip which put the President in five cities over a three day period with major social events and public speeches at multiple locations plus motorcades of some sorts in each city. Given the size of the SS at the time they would have literally had to organize a huge mobilization most likely involving military units to accomplish that - not a thing JFK would have encouraged I expect. In Dallas specifically, major preparation and personnel went into security efforts at the trade center where they expected militant and aggressive protestors on the model of the Stevenson visit. Because of expected demonstrations of the Chief of Police even went on TV and a special new city ordinace was passed related to public meetings and demonstrations, the Chief actually called on all citizens to help ensure that demonstrations did not get out of control. Bottom line, you can find locations where buildings were checked on the Texas trip and where there were officers on buildings (Fort Worth for example) but sadly the SS and police were preparing for demonstrations and for traffic problems (the daily briefing conducted by DPD for officers focused on traffic and the point car for the motorcade was actually driven by a traffic officer). As the HSCA said, they simply were not prepared for a long distance attack on the President. On a side note even if the handbook called for something different, there is ample evidence to show that even known rules such as not staying out late and drinking (as applied to next day duty personnel) was routinely violated - including in the early morning hours before the assassination. -- Larry

Dale, that remains a hotly debated question even today, as much so as at the conclusion of the work of the House Intelligence/Church Committee hearings a couple of decades ago. Bottom line is that you will not find any memoranda or documents showing that JFK gave specific instructions or was made aware of specific plans to murder Castro. On the other hand you will find numerous discussions of the need to eliminate Castro or remove Castro from power - one of the problems is that with Presidential deniability as a guideline, the CIA is then allowed to interpretate for themselves what that means and preserve the reputation of the President. One interesting memo shows that even in high level staff meetings the subject of assassination was taboo and memos were written over the stupidity of even discussing such a thing conceptually. When RFK was briefed on a mob connected project to murder Castro he commented on the stupidity of using organized crime and how that would make it impossible to prosecute certain people. He ordered that he be briefed if that were ever considered again (he was not told that the project had been reactivated) however there is no sign that he was outraged by the concept of assassination per an se. I think the bottom line is that we have extensively documented proof that JFK was pursuing two tracks at the time of his death. One tracked involved reaching an agreement with Castro to get the Russians out, put Castro back in a neutral position and reopen relations. The other track involved sponsoring a coup against Castro, backing an exile force to support that coup and a contingency plan to involve US forces subsequent to that - obviously this track would have involved the overthrow and death of Castro one way or the other. Beyond that I think you will find the question purposefully blurred due to the practice of deniability which which basically leaves the CIA with the onus of doing things the President may want done - without his being tied directly to the deed..... the ethics of that are perhaps even more important than the question of whether JFK himself personally ordered someone to go out and murder Fidel and Raul. There is also no doubt such orders were given inside the CIA, multiple times. -- Larry

The November in Dallas Conference will be held November 18-21 this year. As Conference Chair I'd like to encourage researchers to consider submitting proposals for papers for presentation at the conference. Guidelines for Papers and a link for submission are at: http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas04/call.html Papers need to be in a normal academic format with both primary and secondary sources indentified and should be capable in being presented in a 30 minute to hour long time frame including time for a question and answer period. If anyone has questions please feel free to email me directly. -- thank you, Larry

Hi, I'm Larry Hancock and I live in in Oklahoma in the United States. I'm a graduate of the University of New Mexico, served in the United States Air Force and went on to work in a variety of communications oriented companies including Continental Telephone, Hayes Microcomputer and Zoom Technologies. I'm currently Marketing Manager for Zoom Technologies of Boston. I've been involved in the study of cold war history and the Kennedy assassination for approximately 14 years and am co-author of November Patriots, a docufiction novel and author of "Someone Would Have Talked" a factual analysis of both the conspiracy and cover-up, published in November of 2003; details at: http://www.jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html In addition I've researched and published several document collections dealing with the 112th Military Intelligence Group, Richard Case Nagell and his intelligence connections and the CIA segregated files: http://www.jfklancer.com/catalog/CDrom.html I've been a contributor to the JFK Lancer Chronicles and to the journal of the UK research group; DPUK, have won two Mary Ferrell research awards and most recently served as Conference Chair for the 2003 November in Dallas Conference: http://www.jfklancer.com/Dallas03.html

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