Larry Hancock

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