Larry Hancock

Hi Jim, I know you are closing out the thread but I'd like to make a couple of suggestions and bring up something not discussed earlier. There are a few early books like Accessories after the Fact by Meagher, Manchester's book, Weisberg's work - especially his unique work on New Orleans where he did first hand research for Garrison - that should be required reading for anybody - Meagher's work on the WC "ages" very well since it's built largely around her excellant logic and illustration of contradictions and "holes". And Manchester was extremely through and cites all his sources (problem being of course that some of them may have been witholding or managing information). The same can't be said for many of the earlier books because of the simple fact that they did not have documents and even statements from individuals who have talked in the last decade available to the authors. I think many newcomers still do not realize the immense amount of new information turned up by the ARRB, the releases of the 90's and statements from Doctors, medical personnel, FBI agents etc. Lifton's early Bethusda work has been greatly expanded by first Livingston's interviews and then later by Horne's fantastic work with the ARRB - Horne's Lancer presentations and the medical essays in Fetzer's MIDP are invaluable. The same goes for William Law's Lancer presentations and upcoming book. When you get to areas like Mexico City you will find Newman's document research and presentation online at Lancer via Joe Backus's efforts, complemented by Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics II. My baisic point is that a good deal of what was written 30 years ago plus seemed good at the time and some of it has been validated but some of it turned out to be simple lack of information.....and the more current information is not in books, it is in conference presentations, articles or document releases. And some of it is in very good history books that are not on the above lists at all, those include books on the Johnson tapes (Taking Charge) as well as in books such as The Last Investigation by Fonzi and more recently Sons and Brothers by Kennedy historian Richard Mahoney and J. Edgar Hoover by Keil. Sons and Brothers gives better and more comprhensive coverage of the conspiracy than a great many of the "conspiracy" books published over the past 40 years. If you want documents, go to Lancer's collections and CD's or to Rex Bradford's History Matters site for starters. --just my opinion, after 15 years of slogging, Larry

James, I would think that Dunkin would be in somewhat the same mold but probably much less "connected" inside Life itself....he had orders for the same sorts of stories and photo journalism. He must have heard the same gossip and some of the same rumors afterwards - but he surely didn't go running to the WC. not that it would have done any good. I can't help but belive that many people who heard the rumors in Florida, New Orleans and Dallas caught a quick drift of the way the "wind was blowing" and decided just to keep their suspicions to themselves. Certainly we have quotes from FBI agents who could clearly see their jobs depending on following the official story and we know Mann said the same thing about many personnel in Mexico City. I guess that's my cut on Dunkin unless anyone can come up with some further insights - which I would certainly welcome. -- Larry

John, as far as we know from the records, when RFK was told about the CIA using mob assets against Castro he became very upset and ordered that he be informed if anybody even thought about doing that sort of thing again. However at that point nobody informed him that Harvey was in the progress of restarting the project and nobody went back to tell him that Roselli was being used again (and Verona for that matter as well as other Trafficante network assets). And indeed it was the 1962/63 activities that Roselli did not talk about in his first visit to the Committee and which were rumored to have been the focus of the next round of questionin...which was pre-empted by his murder. All I can say is that according to the documents Bobby did not know about the project restart with Roselli and also did not know that Harvey had indeed been given permission to refund and continue ZR/Rifle through 1963 for that matter. If anybody has some different data I've certainly got an open mind on the subject. -- Larry

Lee, you make some good points and I sure don't know enough to make the call, I do know the FBI investigators thought it could be either way - either somebody in the syndicate was tired of Roselli's visibility or thought he was still trying to keep his hand in certain deals (especially in LA) or that it might have been some of the guys associated with him during the Castro assassination attempts. Points in support of each are: 1) Some high level syndicate boss or bosses just got tired of the amount of press Roselli had been getting and Giancana had gotten through Roselli or might get when called to testify. I did read one book written by a mob guy (sorry, can't remember the name) who claimed to be relatively close to Roselli as an underling and stated that he had been harassed by a syndicate leader about the guy having put the contract out on Roselli and essentially bragging about it. Roselli had told this fellow that he and Giancana took the CIA offer on their own to try to get some leverage with the Government (which didn't work) and that they had no approval. The guy also says that Roselli suggested the whole thing might have been a scam on the CIA (sort of supporting the theory of Trafficante playing both sides with Castro). Obviously Harvey had been suspicious of that which is why he kicked Giancana and Trafficante out of the project when he took over with Roselli). Anyway, both Giancana and Roselli were "retired" and somebody may have decided they were simply a PR liability what with Anderson reporting on the CIA and the mob. 2) Some of the folks associated with the actual tactical activities against Castro or in Cuba may have decided they didn't want Roselli dropping names, or Giancana for that matter - after all the barrel thing and the shots around the mouth are as much TV Mob signatures as anything else, almost like somebody was trying to suggest the mob was behind it. Fred Black could probably break the tie between the two options, I don't know of any way to make the call. -- Larry

Chris, some excellant observations....and the quote on St. George is very revealing. Given the common Luce family and Pawley attitudes towards JFK, very close to considering him a traitor or at least a unwitting tool of the Commists - and given the Luce personal relationship with David Phillips, it is certainly possible to speculate that at the very highest levels Life magazine had an agenda. First to try and force JFK into action against Cuba, second to make sure he did not get re-elected and then possibly later to make sure nobody looked at the Cuban connections. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that after the assassination Pawley had some suspicions about some of the people he had supported being involved and perhaps so did the Luces (given Claire Booth's rabid politics she may not have cared much though). It's not at all hard for me to see Life a) doing its own investigations just to be first to see what potentially explosive stuff might be found by any real investigation and then making sure it got buried. That certainly seems to be the case in the Life reinvestigation circa 1966-67 that Wallac Millam turned up. Except in that case one of the principals was old friends with Shaw so his defense team got some of the intelligence. And if some day I learned there had been a Luce - Phillips meeting were both parties agreed that JFK had to go one way or the other it would not be a major shock to me. -- Larry

John, I would probably give Billings more benefit of the doubt in some areas than others and would give Blakey none (sorry Chris, at least not until he steps up and admits he might have been a tool, at least Anderson had the guts to acknowledge that). My logic would be that as far as I can tell in regard to "Tilt" Billings was just pursuing his orders to look for exiles doing missions, help them if it didn't cost too much and then do photo journalism. Even Pawley did not know Life was involved until the last minute and that Bayo had taken money and equipment from them. Now if someone turns up a personnel file on Billings I'll be happy to eat my words on all the above, I just don't seen the evidence to support Billings being a CIA asset in Miami - nor any contact reports for him as we see for Sturgis. It's also important to remember that Luce had basically declared war on the Kennedy administration and was using his entire publishing empire to push for an overthrow of Castro by the U.S. (sort of a Hurst sequal). Was Billings acting for the CIA in Dallas....or with Garrison. Or was he just doing his media job? Certainly what he was telling Garrison would be consistent with what we know of him and with the investigation Life was doing at the time. For anything more I'd need some data. On the other hand it is clear that Billings elected not to provide input on a possible exile connection to the WC, the HSCA or even on Watergate. And he had to have heard the threats against Kennedy that were the street gossip in Miami and he certainly knew how key a player that Martinez was in JM WAVE infiltrations despite Helms statements. At a minimum Billings didn't help the cause, whether he activiely undermined any investigations is an open question to me. The one extremely suggestive point that he may have been more sinister is his hiring by Blakey...if we knew the how and why of that it might resolve he whole question. Certainly there is no doubt that Blakey was manipulated by CIA if not worse....and certainly he cannot have been naive enough to think a CIA guy was breaking into their safe by mistake....yet he shows no mistrust of the CIA at all, ever. Is that because he was a career beauracrat or something more? Anyone reading Fonzi's book can see that Blakey gutted the HSCA as a real criminal investigation and that his main contribution was getting records locked out of reach for even longer than the WC. And his follow-on book is pure disinformation direction in my view, a little truth and a lot of mis-direction. All in all my speculation would be that Blakey was definitely part of an ongoing cover-up, the how and why of that cover-up may yet be revealed but I personally suspect it has nothing to do with the conspiracy per se. -- Larry

John, Billings is interesting indeed although it's somewhat difficult to separate his personal activities from what agenda or portfolio he may have been carrying from Life magazine at any point in time. Certainly he was a major Life resource with the work he did in the Miami area in regard to Cuban affairs and his point role in coverage of the Bayo mission is further proof of that. The detail you posted on his contact with the Garrison team is new to me although through the work of Wallace Millam we do now know that there was a very serious "re-investigation" of possible conspiracy which had started either before or in conjunction with Garrison's investigation - we also know that one of the lead players was a personal friend of Shaw and apparently turned over much of the Life magazine research to him. We don't know why the Life project apparently aborted and why it's data was never used by Life. To some extent Billings remark to Garrison about Life's new interest in conspiracy may well be true, the net result though was any information turned up by Life more likely went to Shaw than Garrison. It's speculation of course but Bethel's remarks about Billings feelings might possibly reflect that Billings had indeed been persuaded by the stories that Oswald was under Cuban/Castro influence hence the whole story had not been revealed? It is certainly true that Life turned against Garrison and Billing may have been sincere or have been fed the party line that Garrison was not trustworthy and his motives were questionable. How much of that is Billings vs. Life magazine home office executives having been lobied by CIA is a good question - certainly we do now have extensive documentation on the efforts of the CIA Garrison task group and the assistance given to Shaw's defense team by the Justice Department. It's certainly hard to belive that Billings did not hear the Castro/Oswald/Ruby rumors and stories out of Miami but he certainly does not seem to have ever repeated any of that to investigators. Perhaps more importantly during the Watergate affair he nor Life ever introduced any of the Bayo background material in which at least one Watergate member (Martinez) was a key player. Life had lots of photos showing Martinez on that mission and none of it was ever used in developing the Miami and Cuban exile associations of Watergate. As to the Blakey - Billings Mob slant for Blakey's book, I'm not sure we will ever really know the purpose behind that but poor Blakey (a proven friend of the CIA) and career beauracrat was left holding the bag of an HSCA report which determined that Lee Oswald did not act alone - possibly the simplest thing to do at that time was to throw suspicion on an easy target like Marcello. However it is interesting to the extent that although Blakey prefers to focus on Marcello and New Orleans, he had totally failed to have his investigators puresue a first party convession to a conspiracy participation by Marcello which had given in two sets of testimony by Thomas Beckham. There is very good reason to discount Beckham at this date in time but I'm told by HSCA investigators that at the time there was strong support for Beckham and Blakey chose to ignore his story - strange behavior for Blakey who slanted his book in that direction. -- Larry

John, you pose some great questions; I don’t know if we will ever be able to resolve some of them but here are some thoughts: As to Trafficante’s remarks indicating he ordered Roselli killed, I don’t see that would be the necessary implication. Trafficante was extremely well connected into all things Cuban via his network and may well have been playing both sides of the street based on a deal with Castro or with senior Castro aides. Any such deal could have involved trading information relating to the people being infiltrated for assassination attempts against Castro for access to Cuban for drug running and other money making activities as they could be conducted in south Florida and the East Coast in general. Certainly there are documents to show that there was some law enforcement suspicion of a deal between Trafficante and Castro. Aside from that, we do know that Trafficante allowed individuals and elements of his network to be used for courier and other purposes in support of Roselli’s activities. And we have a report that Roselli had mentioned some of these names to the lawyers representing him in his committee appearances and may actually have mentioned names in committee. The agents investigating his death tried hard to get those names but were stonewalled across the board – one name that does seem to have been known though was Verona who had been associated with Trafficante and his network. Bottom line, Roselli was getting older, Roselli had talked at least some (including his remark about Ruby to Anderson) rather than “taking the fifth” as standard practice and Roselli was going back to the committee again – the folks associated with him at any levels and especially some of the lower level Cubans he had worked with may have decided he was a risk with or without Trafficante being involved in the call. Black’s warning to Roselli is another story and I’ve wondered if indeed it was more of an effort just to get Roselli to stop talking – after all, Black was in a unique position, extremely well networked, extremely wll to do, a survivor of the Baker scandal and other military influence scandals as well yet one of perhaps only one or two people to whom Roselli confessed the conspiracy and his involvement in it. Yet Black had no day to day Cuban connections. However he may have had some long term syndicate connections from which he could have heard that there was enough nervousness about Roselli for someone to have a contract out, even if it had nothing to do with the conspiracy? I’ve recently received some new Roselli death investigation files and it is clear that the investigators at one point thought that a trip by Roselli to L.A. and some meetings there ay have made certain people think that Roselli was not totally in retirement and that his contacts there might have been resented. To me it’s perhaps as much a question not of some giant, powerful conspiracy acting all those years later but again a matter of Roselli (and Giancana for that matter) having gone out on a limb in playing with the CIA and getting involved in things that kept bringing government and press attention to any number of violent people. It was one thing for Stugis to get cozy with a media name like Anderson but syndicate folks just aren’t supposed to get in print in the way Roselli had been. -- Larry

Hi John, a few remarks on the points you raised and the role of Anderson in spreading the "turned assassination team" story. First, in regard to Tosh Plumlee I would point out that Tosh has taken great exception to the use of the word "confession" in regard to his remarks about going to Dallas, he feels that gives a totally wrong impression of his role there and recently was very adamant about that on the Lancer forum. I would also suggest that anyone who is really interested in Tosh's information start by ordering the NARA files that are available on him and reading though them in detail to establish some context. Tosh frequently shared information with both police agencies and the FBI as well as legislators and government committees - and was the subject of a good deal of FBI inquiry over gun running to Cuba. All these documents are available and essential to evaluating his overall story. Second, it is very hard for me to belive that Roselli "liked" JFK circa 1963 - perhaps he didn't dislike him as much as RFK but anyone who has read excerpts of the phone taps on Giancana and some of the FBI and Chicago PD files which deal with the Justice Department pressure on Giancana (one of Roselli's main patrons within the syndicate) will find ample evidence that both Giancana and Roselli felt that the Kennedy's had turned on them after Giancana had given support to the Kennedy election. There are some pretty nasty remarks by Roselli telling Giancana that it's time to hit back in terms the Kennedy's will understand - and that is followed by the clearly documented effort by Roselli and Giancana to use Exner as a blackmail device against Kennedy. Roselli even lets her use his apartment during the period she was seeing Kennedy and calling the White House -when Roselli knows his phone is tapped by the FBI. In regard to Anderson, it would be very interesting to see if he would accept that some of his sources had been using him; that does not seem to be the case from from what I've read in his biography but apparently he may have finally come to wonder about it as he is quoted in an interview years afterwards as remarking that in regard to the story being floated by Roselli and Morgan - " I may have been a card in the hand he was playing." It's also interesting to see that Meheu - who recruited Rosellin into the CIA/Castro project - stated that he was skeptical of the whole incident and thought that Morgon or someone else might have been "putting words in Johnny's mouth." -- Larry

Hi Chris, good to hear from you. On a couple of your points, Ruby's trip to Cuba is a fascinating one - perhaps the most "humorous" is his explanation that he went down there strictly on vacation. Which would mean he picked the point in time to go on vacation just as Castro was locking up all the gamblers - great timing on his part. And of course none of the investigators raised that as an issue at all. But then they didn't tie in his contacts with McKewon which fully explain his dual role in wanting to make sales into Cuba as well as serving - at a minimum - as a courier in the efforts to get a deal for Trafficante. They also managed to ignore their witness that stated he and McWillie were trading coded messages at the time of his trip. The WC commission really had to work at it to avoid Ruby's connections and the implication of a common thread about things Cuban. Say hi to the South Florida gang for me. Larry

John, I think that Robbyn may well have interviewed Cummings; I do know that she was heavily involved in doing investigative field work and telephone interviews during that period. I have tried through second parties to get in touch with Summers and more especially to get access to his original interview notes with Flo Martino but have had no luck in reaching him myself. As to Cummings, I do know that the La Fontaines talked with him and that he was at least moderately accessable in the late 90's, they relate a dialog with him in their book but he would not really do anything further than confirm the basic information in Summer's works. They tried to get anything knew that they could out of of him and he did remark that Martino had been very concerned at the time of the Watergate arrests and that one of the men involved in that had been close to Martino. I pursued that aspect with some research of my own and have pretty well satisfied myself as to the identity of that person - you will see him with Martino in one of the Bayo mission photos in my book. Certainly if any real Water gate investigation had tied in the Bayo mission connection it would have been real cause for concern. -- Larry

Hi James - given that the investigators really were looking to build on the case against Oswald, Arce's questioning really focused on that rather than on Arce himself - virtually no background on him. About the only thing we do know is that based on HSCA inquiry, it appears that the assassination may have had a real impact on Arce - or something did - as he seems to have acquired a significant drinking problem within a fairly short time following November 22. -- Larry

Manchester is one of the best around for having documented his sources, in regard to remarks about the feeling against JFK in the TSBD it appears to have come from one or more of the following individuals - all of which were interviewed by Manchester on Sept 9, 1964: Roy Truly Billy Lovelady Wesley Frazier It certainly would be interesting to know the exact source... -- Larry

Hi John, thanks for the comments on the book and here are some responses to your questions: Classen certainly did not try to profit from the story, indeed he tried to insulate himself from it. An HSCA memo from Lawson to Fenton and Klein relates that Classen first made 5 anonymous calls to the HSCA , was extremely nervous and did not wish to disclose his identity. At first he would only call from pay phones. At the time was contacting the HSCA, early Spring 1977, there was no commitment nor schedule for investigating his investigation and based on an apparent lack of interest he finally stopped calling. Classen did refer the Committee to Mrs. Martino and to her son Vincent, to Jorge Maldonato in Guatamala and to Alan Ross - Miami Inport/Export. Eventually the HSCA did contact Flo Martino but she supplied them with no corroboration at the time - they approached her out of the blue as it were and I'm led to understand it was rather a shock for the family to have it come out of the blue so long after the fact. At no time is there any indication that Flo or her sons tried to profit from the story, indeed they have maintained an extremely low profile and have talked to only a very limited number of people. As far as Cummings is concerned, as far as I know Summers is the one who found him with some good investigative leg work. Anyone taking the time to really make a list of Martino's contacts and associates after his return from Cuba would have come up with Cummings, Summers did. Summers had never surfaced the story nor written about it and simply confirmed that Martino had made the same sort of remarks to him as to Classen in the same few months before Martino's death. Given the elapsed time it seems unlikely Cummings had any plan to make money off the story and he certainly has not sense Summer's published his remarks, not even with a single article. To my knowledge Summer's first surfaced his research in the Vanity Fair article and later incorporated it into his book update - in terms about his remarks in the book, as far as I know Summers did not begin any major new investigation beyond what he put into the Vanity Fair article and then simply used that material and other items to update the book for another edition. I would love to see him start fresh in a new investigation based on that direction but as far as I know it seems unlikely. -- Larry

John, I'm happy to correspond by email about possible suspects but honestly I've found that it gets pretty unproductive in a forum so I tend to keep my opinions to myself or at least on a one to one basis. Except of course for those individuals I can present a case for myself and with one exception their names are not on that list. The name that is and that can definitely be linked to the planning, coordination and possibly even the cover-up is John Roselli (or John Roselli, Stratigest as his business cards read). Lots of evidence there. -- Larry

John, as to a good book on Executive Action, actually I would recommend first hand historical material including the Church committee report which is now available on the WEB at and on CD. There are also a great number of internal memos on ZR Rifle available from the CIA's segretated files that are available on CD. I'm not sure I know of a current book which has really gone to these historical resources and put it all together but I'll check into it. Oh, State Department documents are also available on the internet also give a great deal of detail about the ZR Rifle project and Meheu's testimony is available as is Roselli's. I don't know that Martino's remarks are on the WEB anywhere. The HSCA reports might be - certainly they are available on my book CD. Further corroboration has been done by interviews with his family members by Summers (that's is in his latest book edition and in his Vanity Fair article), by Bill Kelly (unpublished, notes currently missing...sigh) and by myself. I'm currently working at making a CD available which is a copy of a book related record that Martino himself made back in 1963, a fascinating original historical source but mostly an elaboration in his own words of what was in his book. The reference you give in your email is most likely in regard to the fact that the HSCA did a fairly minimal job in investigating Martino - although in their defense they simply did not have the leads that we do now. Gaeton Fonzi has read the additional material now available and in my book and is really disappointed that they didn't have the data we have now back during the investigation - the Martino/Morales connection alone would have driven his investigation in a major way. So you have a quote from someone in 1994 looking back at HSCA data which is indeed only suggestive; without additional investigation he is absolutely correct - but of course the ARRB was not an investigative body. If they had gone to talk with the surviving family members he would perhaps feel differently but again the ARRB largely restricted themselves to document hunting or primary evidence investigation such as Horne drove in the medical arena. -- Larry

Fred Korth / TFS, the Vending machine / Black business, the Murchison / Ag Dept affairs in Haiti and the Reynolds kickbacks were all being covered in the Baker scandal investigations and they all got dropped once Johnson became President. It is interesting to note that the Korth/TFX and Baker scandals were top concerns to JFK who Johnson from DC to Johnson's ranch at 7:45 am in the morning on October 18 and talked to him specifically about the ""Baker-Korth problem" for possibly as long as an hour, spurring Johnson into several calls to Abe Fortas and a return call to JFK. It's also interesting to see in the Johnson tapes that even months after he was President Johnson was making telephone calls about military contracting kickback concerns....apparently triggered by another scandal involving Fred Black. -- Larry

John, I think you may have some incorrect information about Martino, or at least information that requires qualification. Unfortunately there is a good deal of that in certain books, especially those written before access to some of the internal CIA documents we now have available. Martino was a "technician" who worked on everything from gambling "wires" to games to "bugs". He did live in Miami which placed him nominally under the Trafficante organization and he did work in Havana for at time. However he also ran his own independent scams while in Miami, most having to do with gambling wires and bookmaking. Martino was not a "CIA" covert operative or asset in the accepted sense and certainly did not work in the Guatamala opertion in the 50's although he did business there and elsewhere in Latin America after the assassination. It's a good bet that some of his Latin American introductions and business can be directly traced to David Morales whom he may have met in Havana and whom he most certainly knew in Miami circa 1963. Martino's sole CIA association was in regard to the Bay/Pawley/Rec Cross project which JM WAVE and Shackley supported but which was initiated by Pawley not by the CIA. The concept was brought to Pawley via Martino and certain of Martino's press contacts in Miami after his release from prison. We have a record of Shackley and Pawley discussing having Martino participate but Shackley speakingly negatively of him because of his crime network association. Martino certainly did have CIA connections in 1963, primarily Morales and Rip Robertson. However he did not work for Roselli and in fact (contrary to Hinckle and Turner) there is a rather small window in which they might have associated in Miami (based on what we have of Roselli's FBI surveillance records). That window would have been in the August -September time frame. Martino very likely was a disinformation source for the conspiracy after the assassination but that does not mean he was acting for the CIA. On the other hand we know from David Phillips book that he spread a great deal of information, especially about Oswald in Mexico City. However there is still a question of how much of that was CIA party line and how much might have involved Phillips own agenda or CYA. It's very clear that both CIA and FBI knew much more about Oswald's activities and contacts in Mexico City than they ever wanted to become public knowledge. Especially in 1963 while the Warren Commission was seated. -- Larry

John, let me tackle your four points separately. First, certainly there is now ample evidence of a cover-up, much now available due to the work of the ARRB, however it is also clear that the cover up was a combination of three elements: a) an official directive to eliminate indications of conspiracy especially relating to medical and other primary evidence such as the Presidential limo and coming largely from the new President the standard Agency response to avoid exposing assets and process (such as the Mexico City bugs and human sources relating to Cuba and Russia) and just plain old CYA relating to contacts and surveillance by the FBI and CIA relating to Oswald. One of the most interesting examples of item a) is Doctor Burkley's offer to the HSCA to reveal information suggesting that Oswald was not the sole shooter. The manipulation of the medical evidence in particular suggests it was more in the manner of "managing" the material that entered the official record so that it would not obviously contradict the "lone nut" scenario. As to Martino sources, one of the most compelling things about his remarks is that he first made every effort to maintain a Castro/Oswald conspiracy (public stance) but only very privately described the real conspiracy shortly before his death. And clearly he never indended his remarks to become public. Cummings is reliable in terms of having had Martino's confidence due to being one of the first people to really show an interest in his Cuban imprisonment after Martino's release but there is a second corroborative source, Fred Claasen, close to Martino in his later years and a business partner of his in South America, who also relates virtually identical remarks by Martino just before his death. Third, I myself would in no way offer a "CIA/Organized Crime/Castro" scenario since I belive the evidence points to individuals acting primarily at their own inititative and with no "permission". It can be shown that Morales and Phillips had a long joint history in waging their own private wars against Communism, often very much outside of Agency control. As to Roselli, he made it very clear that even when he took the initial CIA offer to assist in the Castro assassination he had no sanction from the organization, only from Giancana and they did it thinking it might buy them points to reduce the heat from the Justice Department crack-down. Finally, as to misjudging the situation as to triggering an invasion. They may indeed have mis-judged Johnson although we now know that Johnson was up to using a single incident (and a false one at that, with only marginal data when he made the decision e.g. the Tonkin Gulf incident) to order a major military response. However Martino makes the situation very clear in his statement that the plan was to take Oswald out of Dallas and eliminate him in a place and with evidence that would be totally compelling as far as pointing to Castro. When Oswald was arrested it essentially blew the whole plan and left the plotters with limited possiblities for pointing at Castro - they did try in many ways but by that time the national security mechanism had kicked in and they were unable to carry it off even with Mann and most of the agency people in Mexico City agitating on a Castro conspiracy and Hoover trying to get Johnson to let him pursue the possiblity that Oswald had been used by the Cubans. A view still maintained today by James Hosty to this day. -- Larry

John, there has been much coverage of the Johnson connection in recent months, however some of the information presented has been weak to say the least and some of the documentation weaker. A contrast to this is the much stronger work available in France and elsewhere done by William Remond who is in direct contact with Estes and various sources related to Estes. At the moment Johnson's possible involvement primarily rests on the following: 1) Personal remarks by Johnson's long time aide Clifford Carter to Estes which are supposedly corroborated by a living witness - Kyle Brown - and by tape recordings made by Estes of Carter telephone calls. Brown's statements are in evidence now, the tapes are not. An examination of Carter's oral history at the LBJ library also reveals some interesting information that may peripherally support the conspiracy theory in regard to he and Johnson. 2) The possiblity that a fingerprint from the Sixth Floor of the TSBD may match known Johnson associate Malcolm Wallace - one expert has vetted the match but there are objections to his work, this remains an open issue. In regard to your remarks about Reynolds and the scandal, that aspect is certainly all true but the more damaging aspect of the scandal was the broad based influence peddling by Baker which could be linked to Johnson and various of Johnson's US government connections - from the Dept of Agriculture to military contracting. As an example the release of the Johnson Daily Diaries has given us confirmation that Johnson did meet in the summer of 1963 with Fred Black, Bobboy Baker and a senior executive from North American - the Baker/Black vending machine scandal claims would have been confirmed by either this document or Black's testimony if the Kennedy assassination had not allowed Johnson the political clout to nullify the associated federal investigations of Baker. -- Larry

John, I would maintain you were much closer on your first scenario - with the exception of using the term "Mafia" to suggest organized crime rather than focusing on the crime figures e.g. Roselli, Trafficante who had been directly involved in the CIA assassination activities directed against Castro. You've posed several issues and I can only give brief insights to each but I'll try to list sources for each: 1) One of the fundamental tactical elements of the conspiracy involved taking Oswald out of Dallas and killing him at a location and with materials which would directly associate him with Castro. This had to be done because he was not a willing participant in the conspiracy. The Tippett encounter and murder essentially aborted this plan and from then on the conspirators were forced into a variety of reactive moves to try and fram Castro after the fact - none of which worked after the cover-up moved into full play. The source for this is John Martino, an accessory to the conspiracy itself and subject of a far too superficial HSCA inquiry. 2) Johnson, while just possibly a minor accessory blackmailed into play over the Baker scandal via Black/Roselli had no Cuban agenda per se (and although he ran the cover-up he talked frequently about conspiracy of various sorts over the years) however he very quickly became embroiled in the Kostikov national security issue based on the CIA monitoring of Oswald in Mexico City and his contact with the Russian KGB officer charged with sabotage and assassination for North America. This was the major issue which was used to drive the cover-up and to convince Earl Warren that a finding of conspiracy could lead to an atomic war. This scenario is now clear in the Johnson tapes and in the CIA segragated file releases to the ARRB. 3) Hoover himself took exception with the cover-up to some extent, he wanted to pursue the Castro link primairly due to events in Mexico City, the Pedro Charles letters and the Miami investigation of John Martino who was offering up a Castro link to Oswald (and Ruby for that mattter). We have an FBI memo describing the fact that Hoover did not wish to eliminate all reference to conspiracy in the initial FBI report - however Johnson's agenda won not Hoover's. It is noteworth that we now know of Hoover meetings with JFK and RFK in 1963, the latest being an RFK meeting to discuss Ellen Rometch and that sex scandal (she had been introduced to JFK by Bobby Baker) in which Hoover had effectively gained total security for his own job as the price for not investigating the security aspects of that scandal. You will see the case for the Cuba/Castro conspiracy scenerio in "Someone Would Have Talked". -- Larry

Hello, my name is Larry Hancock and I do historical/document research relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. John Simkin has invited me to the forum and I'm happy to assist with questions on this subject. If you wish to contact me directly you are welcome to use my email at: larryjoe@westok.net. I've posted a brief biography below for your reference. Larry Hancock, born in 1947 in Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma State University and the University of New Mexico. After receiving his BA in History/Anthropology/Education he 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. He has worked in various areas of communications technology for 34 years and is currently Marketing Manager for Zoom Technologies of Boston. Hancock has been involved in the study of cold war history and the Kennedy assassination for approximately 14 years. He is 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. http://www.jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html In addition he has ressearched 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 He has been a contributor to the JFK Lancer Chronicles and to the journal of the UK research group, DPUK. He most recently served as Conference Chair for the 2003 November in Dallas Conference. http://www.jfklancer.com/Dallas03.html