Larry Hancock

Unfortunately I can't cite the specific articles - I think one was in Probe - but there has been much work done on this issue. The best I can give you is the following scenario: After WWII, when the Russians were exercising huge political pressure in essentially taking over the Balkan states as clients, the US was covertly opposing them. The Communists began civil wars in Bulgaria, Greece etc. The U.S. wished to supply arms to the opposition but in part of a grand tradition, CIA was asked to do it with deniablity. Which meant they had to find a large stock of non U.S. basic infantry rifles quick. Several of the CIA ex OSS folks had very good ties into Italy and due to the course of WWII it just so happened that Italy had huge stocks of unused MC rifles available for use in these projects in the Balkans. However they did not have nearly enough usable ammuniton. So according to the Covert Ops that Fletcher Prouty describes so well in his book on same, it appears the Marines were used as a cut out to order a large ammo build and then transfer it off their books to go to the Balkans. But by the time all this came together the need/opportunity for all the weapons and ammo had passed and it seems that a lot of both ammo and rifles got dumped into the US mail order market and to independent gun dealers. Which is why the FBI was able to find two dealers in Dallas stocking MC ammo - although they could never trace it's sales to Oswald. Actually I always wondered why more MC rifles and ammo didn't end up in the BOP operation but that's just curiosity. In any event, that's one seemingly credible scenario to explain the document for what it's worth. -- Larry

Hello Nathaniel, thank you for the insights - on a side note, I'm curious as to whether or not you knew about the Life Magazine participation and coverage at the time and if you knew Dick Billings was along. If so did you think it was curious that the CIA was letting Life Magazine cover a secret mission involving such a well know figure ad Mr. Pawley? -- thank you again, Larry

Lee, in regard to your "count" behind the fence, Edd Hoffman's count is pretty specific and would seem to include what Bowers saw. In "Eye Witness" Ed describes: 1) A man in a bule suit near the stockade fence, wearing a hat. This man walked around a good deal before the motorcade showed up, and at one point before the motorcade arrived was briefly joined by a man in a plaid shirt who had come around the north leg of the stockade fence. They were together only briefly and the "shirt" man went back behind the north leg - passing a uniformed police officer who was in that area and who followed him back on the north side of the fence. The "puff of smoke" Ed observed was in the area of the Hat man. There is absolute photographic evidence of a man in a hat - well at least the hat - behind the fence at approximately the point Ed identifies, that was first brought out in Josia Thompson's six seconds. In addition there are multiple witnesses to the "puff" of smoke including Sam Holland. And of course Lee Bowers tried to talk about something like a flash or puff of smoke in the location of where he had seen two men together. It's possible to argue about that for a long time - and of course the WC did not take the time to have Bosers mark up a map as to the location of anything that he was describing in his testimony. 2) Ed describes the Hat man going down the fence line and pitching the rifle to a tall slender man in work clothes who ended up walking or running north through the rail yard where Ed lost sight of him behind the parked railroad cars. There is at least one other witness who describes a man running out to the north in the railroad yard. Ed describes the hat man walking slowly around the north end of the fence after the shooting and encountering a policeman who confronted him. So at the time of the shooting that places only two people behind the fence, the policeman who appears to have been playing a covering role was behind the north leg of the fence, possibly behind the pergola - in an idea position for blocking any last minute passers by who seemed inclined to go behind the fence. Now having said all this I would still feel better about Ed's story if he had mentioned all the parked cards pulled up behind the fence which clearly show in photos of the day and said something about the cars blocking his view of the man when he was at the fence or made some mention of them at least. In any event, as far as your count goes, based on Ed and Bowers statement I would put it at no more than two people behind the fence at the time of the shooting - of course that does not mean there could not have been people in vehicles or people concealed behind parked cars, etc. The Paschell film actually seems to show motion of someone moving behind the north leg of the fence, just west of the corner, only a short time after the limo has gone under the overpass. -- Larry

Ron, I don't know this for certain but I suspect that that the Rita Wilson mentioned is Steve Wilson's daughter - I'm pretty sure she had photos from the camps. Steve Wilson is one of the best candidates for being an Oswald impersonator; he and Seymour both may have done so but Wilson is a very close look alike to Oswald in some photos that I've seen from the camps. -- Larry

Hi Ron, sorry to say I can't be of any real help - those notes of Hemming about Johnson are part of Noel's extensive interviews and much of it didn't make it into Noel's book as he points out. I suspect this is the same Johnson as described in Deadly Secrets and I'll make a few inquires to see if I can gather more. One of the problems is that there is a whole different track of research that one could lose themselves in on the Haiti thing, comlete with lots of CIA documents from the segregated collection. And then there is the whole track going back to Hemming and Hargraves where Hemming speculates about people that were recruited for the MLK assassination and then later while he and Hargraves were in L.A. doing strange things there is the RFK murder. Hemming, Howard, Hargraves have all pointed fingers in regard to Sirhan and some involvement by some of the same characters. Frankly I have managed in most cases to stop myself from going off there, trying to stay focused on 1963 and JFK. There is much still to develop there and if you get sucked off with Hemming and Hargraves into all the other avenues you can easily go on forever in other directions. I'll post anything that I can find about Bob Johnson. -- Larry

John, I am reluctant to make a solid statement that Johnson was involved in the plot per se although I certainly feel that he may have been an accessory - to the extent of having some level of pre-knowledge. There is a case to be made that he may have been more than a passive accessory, either willingly or subject to blackmail. It is rather dramatic coincidence that Roselli's best friend, Fred Black was in a posiiton to destroy Johnson's career merely by telling the truth if called to testify before a congressional committee or grand jury. I'm not trying to ignore Johnson, as you and a few others know I've actually drafted a separate work presenting the case for Johnson's role as an accessory. The problem is that case rests on a foundation of the following: 1) The purported Estes tapes of calls from Cliff Carter admitting Johnson's involvement (and his own), said tapes supposedly having been heard by two other individuals willing to swear to them but the tapes themselves still being held by Estes. 2) Kyle's Browns statements about being in a personal meeting between Carter and Estes and hearing Carter describe this involvement. 3) An unidentified fingerprint from the "snipers window" being identified by at least one fingerprint expert as belonging to Malcolm Wallace. 4) Independent statements by Loy Factor placing Wallace in the TSBD with a weapon. And at this point I am unaware of any concrete work being done to further explore or validate this foundation; I hope it's happening but that's just a hope at present. The relationship between Malcolm Wallace and Johnson can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt; if either the Carter dialogs or the Wallace fingerprint were to be validated then there is no doubt that Johnson, for whatever reason, exposed himself dramatically by having a known killer who could be directly tied to Johnson and his sister being in a terribly exposed position on the Sixth Floor of the TSBD on Nov. 22, 1963. As a side note to this, I think probably many researchers may not be aware of some of Johnson's rather bizarre behavor in the days immediately following the assassination. As time went on he repeatedly made remarks indicating that he belived in one conspiracy or the other, most likely Castro being behind Oswald. However in the very beginning, he made remarks to the effect that JFK's death was actually some sort of retribution or act of fate in response to Kennedy's allowing Diem to be killed in a coup. ....Larry

It's a busy day but these documents are looking more and more valid and internally they seem to be very consistent. It's totally understandable that an AF MSGT would turn over any such letter to OSI and that OSI would investigate. That file would be really interesting. And as William pointed out it looks like somebody at Kirknewton could indeed have pulled up a commercial link and hit a name on a Watch List, the Watch Lists are key, we know they included lists targeted US citizens as well as others and major crime figures could indeed have been on the list. Interestingly it sounds from the letter like the writers military supervisor did not allow that particular intercept to be reported up to NSA or perhaps just not highlighted in the routine message traffic. Which means NSA may never have had a record. Of course the ex-serviceman in Wyoming clearly was trying to scam some disability to a certain extent, how reliable was he? Hard to say, if only we could get unredacted copies of those documents or somebody could try a little graphic work on the mark outs to see if anything is legible. In any event, this one is certainly new and pretty interesting at this point..thanks William. -- Larry

Hi Lee, first on your questions: 1) I absolutely agree on Hoover and the lack of FBI involvement in planning, organizing or execution in a conspiracy. Not only did he keep looking for a conspiracy (especially one involving Commies (he loved the Pedro Charles letters and really hated being pressured to at least not leave a small window for something conspiratorial involvoving Oswald in the FBI report) but he also generated a lot of memos and calls in the first day or so that look terribly stupid and uniformed (Hoover would have really hated not being in the know, witness his letter annotation later about not trusting the CIA due to what had been witheld from the FBI about Mexico City and other things). On the other hand Hoover certainly played a role in the cover-up, part due to pressure from Johnson and part due to the things the FBI needed to do for CYA. Hoover's preoccupation with FBI PR drove him not only to "not reveal" certain things (note the lack of mention of the Oswald-Kostikov incident in any memos or calls from Hoover in the first 48 hours) but to actively cover up the extent to which the FBI was monitoring Oswald and using him as both a witting and unwitting informant. 2) Ah yes, network maps or social diagrams, you bet, I have file folders full of pencil and pen versions and used them as tools throughout the preparation of the book. Noel did a great job with diagrams in his book and I should have taken the time to put something like that together for print, sorry about that. I'll consider that strongly for a second edition if we make it to that. 3) On your segmentation, I absolutely agree with the strategy however as you get to the end of the book my conclusion is that the cover-up was indeed largely "decoupled" from the conspiracy and that you see a very large number of very honest people simply doing their jobs and following orders - and when those orders come from the President, his cabinent officers and agency directors under National Secuity seal it explains why it took 30 plus years for some things to be revealed and why a good deal may never be. Security directives and oaths do not go away and many of the people in governement then remained in government, some still are in high positions. I also agree with Jame's comment, I don't think the numbers or the scope are nearly as high/broad as you might think - specifically for the Dallas conspiracy, not including other discussions, other plans or other plots that did not pertain to tactical matters in Dallas on Nov. 22. But of course that's just my opinion. -- Regards, Larry

William, I am attempting to determine something about the NSA documents you have posted. To date the results are minimal but I can confirm that they would be consistent with a box of NSA files released in 1998 to NARA due to the work of the ARRB. Two problems, first I have a friend who went through that whole release and certainly would have been struck by such documents, he recalls nothing like these. Second these do not have the declassification and release stamps that should be routinely found on such documents. If they truly released NSA documents they should be found at NARA and I encourage serious researchers to try and locate them, I'll do what I can. There are still a host of "missing" NSA documents, some still classified from the WC period, many still classified from the Church committee and some - primarily interviews with Watch list personnel - just flat missing. Without doubt the most sensitive (and missing) ones seem to have to do with possible monitoring of Oswald's calls from Russia. Everyone should be on the lookout for this stuff - one reason for keeping it off the record is clear - if NSA was monitoring Oswald overseas it would have been really hard to explain the lack of any interview or official contact after his return. Anyway these particular documents deserve some real work and I will post anything I find, would love to hear more about them. Knowing exactly when Files received them and how he knew they were declassified would be of real help. -- Larry

Lee, I've seen Ed serveral times over the years and he was never wearing glasses, could have contacts I suppose. I'll see if I can find out. On Ed's question, the man handling the weapon passed off the weapon and the second man "broke" it into two separate sections to carry in something appearing to Ed to look like a tool box. Again, given the distance Ed may simply have seen the man kneel and do something with the weapon, I still have a hard time with details at the distance he was viewing. I would encourage someone to recreate his observations and get a sample of observers to do controlled descriptions of what they can see. That would require totally neutral observers in addition to people who have heard Ed's story. A little science could go a long way to clairifying this issue, same with the Carr story about the man with glasses on the sixth floor. -- Larry

Lee, Ed's pastor and sign language interpreter addresses many of those issues in the booklet "Eye Witness", anyone seriously interested in Ed's story and what he has described over time should get a copy. Specifically the booklet deals with Ed's observation of a policeman up by the fence after the shooting (in something that sounds much like the "Baker - unidentified man with SS credentials encounter" wjocj Ed simply did not interpret as important) especially when first trying to tell his story to the FBI) as well as his observation of a train passing over the overpass shortly after the limo passed by him. However, there is still considerable controversy over how much detail Ed really could see at that distance, how he could see the figures up by the fence given the number of cars and how they were parked up against the fence. The fact that the running man would have had to be behind those cars and the issue of how much depth perception Ed would have had at that distance to accurately call out specific locations. I've personally watched Ed locate the men behind the fence, trace their steps and describe his observations and there is no doubt in my mind of his sincerety. And he does describe the running men going out of sight behind the parked rail cars as he ran north into the rail yard. However in attempting to duplicate his specific observations last year on a DP tour (the same way we attempted to see the detail Carr describes for a man with glasses on an upper floor), the whole tour group and myself were hard pressed to see how Ed could have seen that amount of detail pertaining to the "suit man" shooter that he describes ...especially given the parked cars. Again, personally, I have no doubt Ed saw something going on behind the fence and saw multiple people......beyond that I just don't know. But you should get hold of the booklet by Ron Fredrich and give it a read for reference. -- Larry

John, in the case of Kilgallen, no I don't and I think Lee Isreal presents a convincing case that it was most likely murder. As to the who and why and whether it had to to with JFK, it is significant that her husband appears to have destroyed her notes and working papers on the JFK conspiracy and that his final remark on the subject to Mark Lane as quoted by Isreal was that "I'm going to destroy that. It's done enough damage already." Apparently the FBI was still intersted in locating her papers up to four years after her death. Kilgallen is definitely on my sort list of possible JFK conspiracy related deaths. I think the information Isreal presents in relation to her murder is very suggestive - and way to similar in comparison to the investigation of Robert Kennedy's murder for that matter. I remind open minded but unconvinced in regard to Howard or Meyer. -- Larry

John, your scenario certainly is an interesting one and actually it's been elaborated at some length over the years, especially in the 90's. In fact the very interesting book "A Very Private Woman", the Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer reviews some of the same speculation although the author - Nina Burleigh - says she could find no evidence that any of the three woman knew each other (page 290). She points out that Mary Meyer had indeed become one of the most dreaded fears of any intlligence agency - the "runaway wife" of a long term and senior career officer. And she details Angleton's personal involvement in santitizing Meyer's recent past and gaining posession of her diaryl after her death (I even have a CIA report which mentions Angleton having to pass up on a critical meeting right after her death as he is busy dealing with the potential security problem of Meyer's death). Certainly anyone really interested in this subject should try to contact Nina Burleigh and determine how diligently she investigated the possible connection between Kilgallen and Meyer or Lisa Howard for that matter. I'd also encourage anyone interested to read Lee Israel's book on Dorthy Kilgallen, he also deals with "mysterous death" question at length. I think it's safe to say that either author would have loved to turn up something concrete. In comparison of the three, I would have to say that Kilgallen perhaps comes closest to a true JFK mystery death given her private conversation with Jack Ruby, her expressed desire to crack the case and the timing of her death following a TV appearance in which she had only been persuaded at the last minute to postpone remarks about a conspiracy. Without a doubt she thought there was a conspiracy I personally belive that most of the real mystery deaths in this relate to Ruby and individuals who knew that i) he had crime and Cuba associations which could have lead in very dangerous directions and ii) he did indeed know Lee Oswald and could be shown to have been at least marginally associated with Oswald immediately before the assassination. A person with the media clout was truly a danger, not to the CIA but to those directly involved in the assassination. And to Johnson's drive to cover it up for that matter. Anyone showing a connection between any two if not all three of these women would be breaking real ground - but for starters I'd suggest reading the work already done for background. "A CIA report (3rd August, 1962) claims that they were recording telephone conversation between Kilgallen, Howard Rothberg (a close friend of Kilgallen), Monroe and Robert Kennedy." -- By the way, could you give me a reference on the CIA report you mentioned, I'd sure like to take a look at the document itself. As far as I know Matthew Smith has done most of the work on pulling together the "Marilyn story" and had a new book coming out on it in the U.K. late last year which I have not seen myself. -- Larry

John, I think there is little doubt that Lisa Howard tried to continue her work towards some sort of Cuban-US reconciliation although there is no doubt from the document trail that Johnson wanted nothing to do with it in 1964 - even when Castro offered Johnson the option of staging some threatening incident against Cuba to help ensure his re-election so a deal could be done later. JFK and RFK had both been doubtful that a Cuba dialog would have been political disaster. I'm not sure that Lisa Howard going public with a "Johnson's not listening to Castro" message would not have been anything other than a huge political benefit to Johnson in 1964. And we have the documents showing that CIA high level people opposed the JFK-Cuba diolog at ever step of the way - and State Department wanted Howard out of it as well. I can see Lisa Howard as a good person with great intentions - totally frustrated by the Johnson administration and everyone else - and very depressed about it. I don't see any special threat she posed to Johnson and I (naive or not) draw the line at thinking that the CIA routinely killed U.S. citizens in 1964 just out of caution - or to protect JFK's image. Not that they would not take great steps to cover up the her activities after her death - as witness Angleton's personal involvement in cover-up relating to Mary Pinchot Meyer. Of course there was a lot more Agency family history there. -- Larry

Hi William, first, sorry for the confusion, I was not referring to originals but rather the fact that the copies included copies of the original letter pages not just memoranda about them. The reference to Wyoming is because the first page of the letter appears to have an inside address to a VA hospital in Wyoming even though the second page refers to the recepient being in Florida? As to the classification, I see the strike outs but I don't see any sign of either the standard classification/declassification block which removes a classification nor of any release stamp which designates when and who released the document from a file. The "letter" refers to the incident no longer being classified but in regards to the official memos and letter the NSA counsel cautioning that distribution and handling be restricted to personnel carrying appropriate security classifications. If this document was sent directly from someone to files it would be very good to know if it actually is released or declassifed as files says because otherwise it could still be classified and legallay actionable. I will have to read this through several times before I could be comfortable in commenting on it but I very much doubt that it is in the HSCA collection; it could be in NSA documents released to NARA due to the action of the ARRB and that would make sense of the 1999 date - and you should be able to verify that through the archives. I'm a little skeptical that NSA counsel could have written and signed a letter in 1978 during the HSCA investigation on this explosive subject and not remember it at all - I've seen one letter written from Justice and one from the IRS in the same period, both bringing serious information to the HSCA and you can tell those Agencies took it seriously. I would expect NSA would have as well (and actually they should have written Justice not FBI I think but that's another story). I was amazed to see a detailed acknowledgement about NSA monitoring activities overseas including actual comm links, I can't belive that was routine NSA correspondance - hard enough to get them to talk about such things under legally binding orders. I think a key to this will be determing if this was really part of a NSA release to NARA based on the ARRB; if that is confirmed then this gets really interesting. Although since the letter and documents seem to refer to Security Service perssonnel, most likey Air Force stationed in Scotland I'm not sure why anybody would have seriously thought Files was the writer? Oh, on my book, I'm afraid Amazon would indeed be your option - on the Lancer site, I really don't have any operational involvement in that although occasionally I try to answer questions Debra sends my way. I'm having the same problem this morning that you see and can't do much other than drop Debra a note or call her. It may be back up now, hope so. -- Larry

William, just to make sure I understand, the header on your site above the documents seems to me to say that someone send Files the original letters (one to someone in Wy and a reply to someone in Fla) along with the official memos essentially showing the NSA bringing a mail intercept of these letters inside the U.S. to the attention of the FBI so that they could bring it to the attention of a JFK investigation (from the date, apparently the HSCA). Am I reading the header correctly? Are you able to state when Files received all the items including the confidential memos and were they from a Goverment agency or an anonymous source? Have you been able to verify the documents are held by NARA or were ever turned over to the HSCA or more recently to NARA via the ARRB - or does it appear someone essentially lifted the documents from FBI and NSA files and just sent them to Files? Before commenting on the documents themselves - which certainly don't seem to have been investigated by HSCA or brought to their attention - it would help to understand how Files received them (not only the letters but classified documents about them which seem to reveal a possibly illegal mail intercept program by NSA among other things). -- thanks, Larry

Jim, actually the ARRB first put in a lot of background work on the structure, mission and assignments for the 112th...including tracking down the actual unit records to determine who was really in charge of what in given time frames. That was a little difficult because the 112th was cross-supporting another MI organization which was being rebuilt after a move in that period. But you can't really figure out what was going on without getting it's structure and tasking correct - which they did. Then you will see a lot of work papers dealing not only with the stand down but other issues like Col. Jones testimony and Powell's photographs. Lots of background work before they starting asking any questions at all. Then you will find interviews with several unit members including Dallas personel and the officer supposedly in charge of the stand-down. His interview and letter to the Army about the stand-down story is pretty interesting. Only then did they invite Col. Prouty who was very gracious about coming in and giving a long interview including remarks about how he heard the stand down story - at that point it actually becomes possible to do enough leg work to determine what rank the person who called him actually held. But you have to dig into the personnel rosters. This is a story that is still being investigated as there are some additional internal communications for the group which have been turned up but nothing at variance with the ARRB leg work. If you are going to NARA drop me an email and I may be able to direct you to some interesting new documents that have recently become visible including some relating to the Bayo mission that I have not seen myself. As to the 112th and the stand-down, I'll leave that to your interpretation but the good news is that there is a great deal of data and as far as I can see no particular obfuscation. There is also universal agreement among all the 112th personnel with the exception of Col. Jones....he (and who called him to testify to the Church Committee and HSCA) remains a mystery (especially since his assignment and duties on November 22 are clearly supported by the documents we do have going to him from Dallas and he seems to have forgotten what job he was really performing as of that time when he gives his committee tesimony) - if there is obfuscation it may well be Jone's testimony which seems to have absolutely and incorrectly diverted attention from the mystery man behind the fence with government identification. That is especially important since we have an FBI report naming a possible candidate for at least one person in Dallas with fake Secret Service ID. -- Larry

Hi Jim, I'll leave these comments for your return...you've raised some items which are far to broad for an easy forum reply but maybe I can provide some food for thought. 1) It is amazing how much more we know of the cover-up and indeed the details of the hours and days immediately following the assassination now. Much of it is from ARRB era releases, CIA segragated files esp. on Mexico City, the Johnson tapes and areas like Horne's ARRB work on Bethusda - the two brains etc. You can draw your own conclusions from the book but mine is that the cover-up was much more reactive, iterative and in many cases marginal than commonly accepted. In fact without Johnson's ongoing pressure back on Dallas, on Hoover, on Mexico City, on the press and his manipulation of first the Texas Court of Inquiry and later the WC I think conspiracy might have been the generally accepted conclusion. Hoover did not want to exclude it from the FBI report, Mexico City CIA, FBI and Mann were pushing it heavily and had D.C. badly stressed over first Kostikov/Oswald and then Oswald/Alvarado. It is important to realize though that Johnson was not the only one actively countering talk of conspiracy - so was Robert Kennedy. Mann makes this clear in a letter to the HSCA. There are also suggestions that there was actually a high level contingency plan that kicked in based on prior concerns (initiatially established at RFK's request) about Castro retaliation against senior U.S. government officals for the attempts on his life. This area is very cloudy at the moment but you may well see more detail emerge on it within the coming year. This plan was apparently leaked to the HSCA early on but as with many things was not explored - at least for the record. 2) As to the cabinent flight and code book, I'm not sure that's terribly significant because the reality of the situation was that there were really only two people who could have changed the course of events, the new President and the Attorney General. If RFK had aggressively championed a case of conspiracy not even Johnson could have stood against him, but he didn't. There are some tantilizing rumors that from the very inner Kennedy circle that there was at least minimal discussion about what would have to be done to prevent Johnson taking office but that is sheer gossip and I'm not sure it will ever be more. As we all know though, to this day the Kennedy family in general is very uncooperative in regard to anyone on this subject ...especially in regard to access to primary evidence, we won't even go into dumping the coffin (a primary piece of evidence in regard to Bethusda as Lifton and Livingston developed) into the Atlantic ocean at Bobby's request. 3) As to the 112th and Prouty, a very long story there with much work done by the ARRB including an extensive follow-on interview of Prouty in regard to his remarks about the stand down, and with others in the 112th. Still a lot of questions about some areas but I'd urge you to read the actual interviews with all parties, the background material on the 112th and the ARRB working papers. You can get it all from NARA or from Lancer on my CD which includes my work on the 112th. 4) You mentioned the other investigations - for reference we also know a great deal more about the subversion of the Garrison information since we have the CIA internal working files and memos on their Garrison Team and we also have the Justice Department files. Interestingly one can make a great case that Justice was a great deal more active in subverting the investigation and especially in aiding Shaw's defense than the CIA. In fact in most cases the local FBI office was reporting to Justice who informed CIA and it was the local FBI who arranged the actual meetings with Shaws lawyers and support for them. This could be a book in itself for anyone wanting to slog through the documents. -- Larry

Hi Lee, I'm certainly glad you are finding the book worthwhile. Let me tackle a few of your comments/questions for starters. The update errata sheet is posted on the Lancer site, please see: http://www.jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html And of course I'll be happy to mail the current working version to anyone who asks; hope to have version four done by the end of May. Lisa Howard's death was very sad but may be explained by two facts, first she was apparently brokenhearted about seeing the Cuban backchannel she had opened up fail even though Castro tried to pursue it with Johnson - even going so far as to offer Johnson the out of staging some incident against Cuba to help ensure his re-election. Howard's career also suffered a good deal at this point and it's my understanding that she became extremely depressed and even despondent - and actually holidays are one of the worst times for suicides as everyone else being so overtly happy makes seriously depressed folks feel even worse. Groden's heavy set man image is over on the far left - the dark complected man/men have generally been reported to the far right. However the image is interesting in that some of the trajectories posed to explain Connally's wounds seem to come from the far left of the TSBD. Actually one of the safest firing positions would have been from an open west window on the sixth floor as that would have been much more totally concealed from the crowds on Elm. The Trafficante information is most interesting (side note - a friend of mine used to baby sit for Regano and was quite scared on the occasions when Mr. Trafficante dropped by looking for him, Trafficante had a reputation as a very scary man). In any event, his imprisonment has always seemed to me to be more in the way of a "negotiation" by Castro or some of his subordinates and I think it's a very good chance he did cut a deal of some sort. I tend to think that Trafficante may have been playing both sides at least for some period of time. His remark about an "arrangement" rings true to me. Sorry, no further detail on the station wagon....the description would fit most any of the models of the day....wish I did. -- Regards, Larry

Hi Jim, thanks for the remarks and just a little information about Noel Twyman, actually he did continue a bit of research after the publication of his book and he was kind enough to let me publish it for him as an appendix to my own (which is directionally a continuation of work done by both Gaeton Fonzi, Dick Russell and Noel Twyman). The appendix is Noel's extensive interview with Roy Hargraves and Gerry Hemmings brother. I also managed to integrate some additional work that Noel had done verifying that Col. William Biship (or whatever rank he really was) did indeed know Hargraves circa 1963. Noel had done the work with the thought of a second addition but age, health problems and a good sound view of priorities led him to decide to at least try and avoid the temptations of Kennedy conspiracy obsession - a challenge most of us cycle through every few years...grin. And it's definitely Larry, nothing more formal than that...

Hi John, here goes on some short responses to your questions: 1) There is only partial documentation on the contents of Nagell's car, the items which I discuss in my book were listed on the second page of an FBI report and the first page seems to have vanished. Dick Russell could not find the detailed property reports in the court records nor was there a personal property report e.g. wallet, contents of wallet etc. What is documented is very suggestive but its worth noting that Nagell made continued efforts to get all the personal and car property back to aid in his defense and that was repeatedly denied. In fact only part of it was ever returned and that was many years later as part of his personal law suit. 2) There is no direct confirmation of a warning letter to Hoover, the only circumstantial points tending to confirm it are covered in the book including the special questions for the very early interview of Marina Oswald - questions sent from FBI HQ that could indicate that Hoover did indeed have an advance warning from Nagell specifically about Oswald. 3) As to Nagell's mental state, I spent about a year and a half going through literall all his medical records, court records etc before I was convinced that there was a clear pattern which would support him as a viable witness - clearly some of his statements are very conditional in regard to what his goals were at given times, especially during the period when his only main goal was recovering custody of his children. You will find all those documents and my analysis on the CD on Nagell available through Lancer; it's probably the largest composite collection of Nagell documents around. 4) I have no indication that Thorneberry was in the June planning meeting and he would seem out of place considering the stature of the other attendees... Carter was there though. 5) I have no real evidence that Thorneberry's appointment was anything other than sheer patronage; he clearly was a long term Johnson personal friend and Johnson had no qualms about appointing friends to positions regardless of their qualifications. It's certainly an interesting coincidence of course, it's just that we will never know for sure if perhaps Johnson called up his friend and asked for some minor favor in making sure none of Nagell's inflamatory claims about Oswald and a conspiracy got any public visibilty....for the good of the country of course. -- Larry

Dixie always makes good points I can say from personal experience that forums are invaluable for surfacing corrections, regardless of how much peer review occured before publication. On the basic question though, one solution is electroniclly available errata sheets. The third version for my book is posted on Lancer now with the fourth becoming available this month I hope. And the errata include not only corrections but elaborations on content (such as John's pointing out Billing's involvement in Garrison's investigation) and new research (such as the Red Bird DC3 incident). As I see it the author has to stay with a book for at least a year afterwards doing corrections and essentially improving it. Noel Twyman did a sincere job on a print errata sheet for Bloody Treason but his health did not permit his carrying that on beyond a certain point. And waiting years for a second edition really does not cut it. P.S. Anyone wishing to receive copies of my errata sheet can always email me directly as well as send corrections or elaborations. I'm all for colloboration in whatever form possible. -- Larry

Sorry, make that Rhode Island not New Hampshire...short term memory error on my part in posting. -- Larry

John, I think that's a very good point even if he would only talk some about the Bayo mission or about his activities in the Life investigations. Certainly he might even talk about how he was chosen by Blakey. The best I've come up with so far is that he is still alive and possibly in New Hampshire but nothing beyond that... -- Larry

John, I would certainly agree with you on two basic points: First, certainly Garrison's early premise is closer to the real truth of the conspiracy than the Billings/Blakey premise. I am not a proponent of the MOB did it theory (although almost every time I introduce Roselli into a thread for some reason some people want to take it that direction; when they do it indicates they really have not spent much time with Roselli or the syndicate dynamics circa 1963). Garrison did "cut the trail" of the conspiracy as it came into focus selecting Oswald as a patsy in New Orleans and his investigation posed a real threat in exposing Oswald as something far from a lone nut. However I have to say that for a full picture of how CIA and especially Justice neutralized Garrison you need to read the Garrison Team Documents (CIA) and the related Justice Department documents in the Russ Holmes Work File (available from the the ARRC and via Rex Bradford's site); whatever impact Billings had on Garrison is minor to the what you will find in full view in those files. And among them is the list of the people in New Orleans that the CIA was most worrying about Garrison exposing or putting on the stand....and that did not include Clay Shaw, it did include Emilio Santana and others that were serious operational CIA employees in the war against Cuba. Second, I agree that Billings certainly was pitiching mis-direction, as much so as Blakey's book. I just don't have the data to explain why or exactly who was behind it. Certainly I would open the door to Life's excecutives or Billings himself as much as the CIA ...I would note that as far as the data in hand it is not accurate to think of Billings as a CIA asset (probably not nearly as much as there is to point to a well known Dallas newspaper man who did far more to subvert Garrison and was a CIA asset and want to be employee). Sorry to ramble, I agree on your high level points but I can sometimes be painfully slow, at this point Billings motives and direction remain an open question to me - although the effect is clearly that of mis-direction. -- Larry