Larry Hancock

This is just a guess but the way I understand it the sequence would be a Potential CI would be a source either providing info direct or even through a third party (makes them a prospect). Offices were measured each month by how many potentials and provisional they had in their reports - identification and recruitment were part of the office's job. Once it became clear that a potential source was willing - or actually involved on some action of interest they would be bumped up to provisional and given some support (if not money, equipment). Ruby was bumped to a provisional for two years, likely due to association with gun running and Cuba - which is why the FBI totally stonewalled anything other than admitting he had been on board with them. But after a time (and the arrest and conviction of the gun runners he may have associated with he was dropped - we have no idea if he actually provided anything to that prosecution, if so they would have had to pay him but that would be another reason for their stonewalling). Its only if the provisional informant has testimony that would be useful in an actual prosecution that they were bumped up to informant level, and actually had to be paid since they could have been called to provide either sealed or open testimony. Its interesting that Hoover at one point chided someone about calling Oswald an FBI informant, saying that the fellow in question was familiar with FBI practice and what would constitute a true informant. Hoover was of course very pick about terminology so he could get away with that even if Oswald had been either potential or provisional.

Allen, I did and that was actually the reason for my post. One of the things we have to consider is that Oswald could show up in an ONI file (or any agency file) as a source when he was simply in contact with a third party contact and totally unwitting. We see Cuban names show up all the time in CIA documents when the individual is simply the subject of information being passed on and has no idea the person he was talking to was a voluntary source - not even a paid informant, an asset etc. In recent presentations I've been outlining a broader picture of Oswald, who admittedly frequented bars and engaged in conversations with not just women but as he himself said, young Japanese with his general political views who really expanded and reinforced his own ideas. My friend Jack Swike, a Marine CI officer at Atsuki, wrote that the military was quite aware of what was happening in those bars and clubs and conducted surveillance and placed its own informants to identify military personnel who would be monitored as security risks. All of which means Oswald could very well be showing up in ONI files - and very likely did - and being talked about by name for a number of reasons. Oswald actually "working" for ONI as an informant would be something else entirely and that claim would need some sort of corroboration. It would not be at all out of the question for ONI to be playing Oswald as an unwitting dangle - or even arranging to test him in the case he decided to be more active in passing on actual intelligence. Given Oswald's personality and proven history of not taking orders and doing his own thing from his teen years on, personally I could see him being used unwittingly more than as some sort of actual "asset", tasks by ONI and making reports or taking specific assignments. As usual the devil is in the details...

As far as the agencies, both FBI and CIA go (as well as ONI, AFOSI) etc, there was a good bit of differences between "sources" (some witting but some used through cut outs not revealing an agency connection), informants (who were closely involved with some activity to provide detailed information, not just suspicions, rumors, gossip), informants who could be used supporting arrests and charges and assets (people who were approved for use in actual intel operations). Oswald could have been any of these at certain times, he did volunteer information to the FBI and in the case of the ONI he could either have been a witting or unwitting source (perhaps just offering information on his bar contacts to a third party who was cleared as an actual ONI source and turning up in a file because of that).

Matt, I'm afraid Murgado and others will remain loose ends. We have to face the fact that a number of individuals have come forward with or made personal statements that they cannot corroborate, and that we can't either. I've run out of explanations for it but I've also decided that such things really do get in the way of work on leads that do have some corroboration, are consistent from multiple sources and at least have a provable backstory.

Hi Matt, actually David discussed the other "set" in extreme detail in both our recent presentations to the DPUK and at the Lancer virtual conference. I will leave it to him to toss out the names, which go back to New Orleans and who are extremely important in understanding Oswald's earliest activities in New Orleans. They are new in the Odio context and likely not all that familiar although I do discuss both of them at some length in Tipping Point. As to Victor, yes I'm pretty sure I mentioned the Mexico background in the appendix (Student Warrior) in Someone Would Have Talked. For a number of reasons, including being in an assassination team in Havana during the revolution, it seemed especially interesting. So that Victor Hernandez is the same fellow that David and I are talking about along with Carlos in the Odio context. For unknown reasons Victor seems to drop off the radar at the end of 1963, having been very active through the summer as part of the abortive McClaney bombing mission. The only real sign we have of him is as a person of interest in the Odio visit and then the next time he turns up he is overseas, possibly with drug connections and in France. He seems to have taken himself out of the picture and does not go on to participate in further anti-Castro efforts over the years as did several of his compatriots.

As I recall it Nagell said that Oswald was contacted by anti-Castro Cubans who were contacting Oswald in the guise of Castro agents, in an attempt to use him for some purpose of their own. Nagell knew they were bogus as he had been aware of them in Miami and the groups they were associated with and knew them to be anti-Castro. He said he warned Oswald that he was running the risk of being used. He warned Oswald to break away from them but that was not happening and Nagell literally fled New Orleans because he felt the Cubans were on to him and were a real time threat to him.

The visit itself is relatively neutral and may even have been a sanctioned counter intelligence action against Odio given her personal connection to Ray and her involvement in efforts to obtain weapons for JURE. However the follow up phone call, which presents Oswald as violent, radical and uncontrollable...possibly a threat to JFK...and personally hostile to JFK...is another story and one more effort to position a more radical and dangerous view of Oswald than simply the political actor we see in New Orleans. It would be very much in line with the McKewon visit which would present him has joining an effort to support Castro style revolution in Central America. If we accept that certain anti-Castro CIA assets were moving into a conspiracy against JFK, buried within normal CIA activities, we have to consider a multiple levels in play - and one of the complexities would be conspiratorial activities carried out under the cover of routine, sanctioned CIA tasks.

Well if they contained his reporting on Lee Oswald from DeMohrenschildt and others in Forth Worth / Dallas they would certainly undermine the "we had no interest in and knew nothing about Lee Oswald" mantra given the WC. Even more interesting might be the routing on those memos disclosing who at headquarters and in other areas of the Agency were being informed on Oswald after his return to the US - or who had requested certain types of follow up on him. Dangerous to National Security, unlikely (although they might indeed reveal some violations of CIA restraints on domestic activity including mail intercepts and other things related to an American citizen inside the U.S.) but potentially damaging to the CIA distancing itself from Oswald....oh yes...

Thanks Ron, but just to preserve my "circumspect" reputation...grin...I should back up and qualify that the cache was almost certainly a false flag by the CIA and specifically Helms - although arguably there is no absolute proof of that. The early suspicions were that it was an effort to frame Castro for continued export of the Cuban revolution - but with what we know now and given the timing and dramatic introduction of the cache to JFK, I suspect it was just one more last minute effort by Helms to sabotage the rapidly emerging JFK/Castro dialog. For background we have this blog post from Bill K: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/04/venezuelan-arms-cache-northwoods.html

An interesting remark from the McKewon visit - which does not get much notice - was that the two men were wanting to buy a quantity of rifles for a revolution in Central America. At that point in time such revolutions were all being viewed as sponsored by Castro and the CIA was even planting stocks of weapons cached in one country and telling JFK they were evidence of the Cuban revolution being exported - which was a total lie. The point being that if McKewon had reported this or even gone to the media right after the assassination it would have helped sell the story of Oswald as not just a political supporter of the FPCC but elevating him a notch to a level of participation in Cuban revolutionary activities. One way to look at it is that Oswald was being set up to be more radical and even more dangerous following his departuere from New Orleans...something which continued with the Odio visit and subsequent phone call about his being a loose cannon.

We do what we can with what we have - the goal is to get the attention of at least some press, in a time when interest and opinions on the JFK assassination are not going the way most of us here would like. The press in general has very little idea of what has been discovered over the past two decades from the work of the ARRB or even the limited compliance with the JFK Records act. The same goes for the extent to which the CIA and other agencies have stonewalled the effort. To write stories encouraging further work you have to get their attention and give them something concrete to write about. The measure of success will be the extent to which any stories at all appear supporting full records release and further records collection - in other words its about bringing attention to the need for compliance with the law, which Presidents have not been doing and NARA had not had the empowerment to step up to its fully defined role as the successor to the ARRB. If no stories are written then it will be a fail, and several people will have wasted time and money on the effort - there are never any guarantees in press work. Bottom line, its all about reaching the press and generating some support for the legal action, its not a reveal for the JFK community.

Exactly right, the event will be live at nine thirty, if for some reason the live stream does not kick off on Youtube the event is being recorded and will be made available for view later as well. That may take some time but hopefully it will be live with no technical issues at nine thirty Eastern time.

The individual with "Oswald" at McKewons near Galveston was most likely Carlos while both Carlos and Victor (who had worked together that summer, and both been in the New Orleans area) could very well have been the visitors to Odio in Dallas - who said they came from New Orleans.

Its scheduled for nine thirty eastern time at the National Press Club....if you use the link on the Mary Ferrell Foundation web site it should work at that time....hopefully....

Its important for everyone to remember that this is a press conference on JFK assassination related documents ...not some sort of "reveal". Its in support of an effort to push legal action to force document release and new document collection. The goal is to give the press at least one example of what still remains undisclosed (or missing) from the record. Something they might actually write a story about, one with some facts, not just speculation.

David will provide the full scoop on Victor I'm sure...but basically he was a friend and fellow fighter along with Carlos and others from the Cuba Project on. He had actually been on one of the student assassination teams going after Batista administrative leaders during the revolution. If you have SWHT you will find an exploration of Victor in one of the appendices... He trained with Carlos and in 1963 worked with him in the abortive bombing mission staged off the McClaney property outside New Orleans. At one time he was a candidate for the Hernandez with McClaney but I'm pretty comfortable that at this point we have dialed that down to Carlos....the possibility remains that one or both may have been at Odios but I'll leave that to David.

Gerry, its a quandary, there are so many angles - even operational angles - that relate to CIA and FBI pre-knowledge and association with Oswald that its easy to become wrapped up in what you could say, so much so that you quickly lose everyone not intimately familiar with all the aspects of what we have learned in the last two decades. What stands out is that the press conference is targeted to the press, and they want something they can build a story around and enough solid information to put with it to make story simple enough for a column and and credible if not conclusive. Plus we want them convinced to the point that at least some of them would jump in and help with the push for pro-active collection of new materials assuming we do have success with the legal action. Is there need for enough sensation to make a story - sure, but there has to be enough substance to make it real even if its more limited than it deserves (or would please any one of us...grin). -- Larry

Ben, my whole view of Oswald has evolved over the years - I reviewed the present state of it in my Lancer 2022 presentation. One of the reasons for my current thinking was a recent, deep dive into primary sources that I had really not paid sufficient attention to previously - after realizing I had based a lot of thinking and writing on what has been written over the decades in the JFK community. The thing that made most clear to me was that Oswald's thinking, character and personality had remained quite consistent since his teenage years when he applied to the Young Socialists for a membership and to start a chapter. His later experiences in both Japan and Russia certainly refined his view, - as an example he became very negative towards Soviet style communism and even more so towards "nationalistic" thinking and racism. As to whether he was a "witting" asset for either the CIA or the FBI, that is certainly possible. I see signs he was more than willing to act as a source for the FBI and provide information on the ultra right and on anti-Castro military activities in New Orleans. And I think that was what the FBI was protecting in New Orleans. In regard to the CIA, it is quite likely that he may have been "steered" at some points (that would be in line with the "useful idiot" take), and he certainly was a known and of operational value to the Agency. As to his being "witting" and to what extent, I leave that as an open question but if so I see it as being entirely Oswald's own decision and in line with his personal agendas at given points in time - I don't see Oswald simply following orders and bouncing from task to task, that was not his nature. I've reached the stage (somewhat like Oswald) that my contrarian nature is showing and I've become cautious about simply accepting established lines of thinking, even if it comes from "authority". And as I've stated many times, my view of the attack in Dallas only jelled with a final conspiracy (one among many targeting JFK that year) that jelled over a tipping point related to the possibility of an accommodation over Cuba which became very real in September, October, 1963 - which means that whatever went on with Oswald (to my view) and Walker in Dallas had to do with Oswald's personal agenda not anyone else's. Actually I doubt we will ever find common agreement on any of this so I don't necessarily expect anyone to following my line of thinking; I do however find this thread innovative and worth a lot of consideration. Kudos to Greg for bringing the scenario forward for consideration.

I'm pretty sure that is not happening (Judyth and Anna)....but keep in mind, this effort is about document release and document collection. Its about what we know from documents we have gotten in the last two decades, and what leads they give us to other documents and files that exited - as well as who was on what distribution and copy list for the known documents. Which means by now we know a good deal about what still needs to be released and what paper trails existed at the time of the assassination - which opens the door to forcing the issue in terms of either "give it to us now or tell us what happened to it and why you can't". One of the goals of the press conference is to make sure the media knows precisely that and helps keep the legal pressure of the JFK act on both for release and NARA's ongoing collection of JFK records. For reference, Bill Simpich has provided the following - which is not the complete picture of potential collections but something laid out by the ARRB itself for starters: from Bill...The Guidelines for an "ARD" (assassination-related document) were provided by Jeremy Gunn in 1996: Deemed highly relevant - documents with the following names, as an example: Lee Harvey Oswald George de Mohrenschildt Elena Garro de Paz Antonio de Varona Silvia Duran Rolando Cubela CRC Bay of Pigs Castro assassination attempts Warren Commission HSCA Garrison Investigation Staff Preliminary Suggestions to Board: Factors suggesting possible relevance to assassination The obvious rules of thumb - Documents that obviously are related to the assassination. CIA internal investigations, Oswald records, Garrison investigation, Castro assassination attempts Documents falling within certain dates (dates may vary depending on issue) - Dates associated with Oswald - Dates associated with assassination - Dates of Warren Commission - Dates of Church Committee, HSCA investigations Individuals of importance - CIA officials in Mexico City David Phillips Win Scott - CIA officials involved in investigation John Scelso JJ Angleton Geographical relevance - USSR, Cuba, Mexico There was a public hearing on 8/6/96 with Tunheim and two of the CIA officials who created the "sequestered collection" also known as the "segregated collection" - J. Barry Harrelson and John Pereira. The sequestered collection is "those records that were made available to the HSCA during its investigation". It is about 300,000 pages. It is 64 boxes. Boxes 1-34 (Directorate of Operations) - a mix of CIA, third party, and Warren Commission/HSCA material Boxes 35-36 (Inspector General) - HSCA reports, Senate Select Committee reports, Cuban operations, Church Committee Book V final report Boxes 37-38 (Office of the General Counsel) - Cuban exile activities, Garrison investigation, name files Box 39 (Directorate of Science & Technology) - Photo comparisons, of Hunt, Sturgis and the Dallas tramps; chart of frames from Zapruder film Boxes 40-48 (Office of Security) - Name files Boxes 49-63 (Office of Legislative Liaison) - HSCA requests, notes, memos, correspondence and final report, plots against Castro, photos of unknown man, defector study, Nosenko, name files, Mexico City station files, FBI reports, Warren Commission reports Box 64 - 72 reels of microfilm Reels 1-20 - individual 201 files Reels 21-22 - Cuban defector AMMUG-1 Reels 23-25 - DO Project Files, Garrison investigation Reels 26-28 - Cuban exile organizations Reels 28-30 - Office of Personnel files, Mexico City records Reels 31-44 - Oswald files - 201 file is duplicate of hardcopy file Reels 45-47 - Nosenko, Mexico City records Reels 48-49 - CIA-HSCA correspondence, 1967 IG Report, Cuban Mugbook, miscellaneous Reels 50-56 - Individual 201 files (including Cubela) Reels 57-60 - Office of Personnel files Reels 61-62 - Nosenko, Golitsyn, anti-Castro activities Reels 62-71 - Cuban Revolutionary Council and other Cuban exile organizations Reel 72 - Project Files

I would second David and its important to remember that Oswald himself had two very long term personal views (long term for a short life at least, dating back to his teen age years). He was demonstrably socialist and Marxist in his beliefs and worldview but he was also very anti-racist (if you doubt either, read his public statements in Russia and then read the monographs he wrote in 62/63). Both his socialist and anti-racist views show up consistently as well as in 1963, his writings and the speech he gave in early fall were both solidly against radical nationalism and the ultra right. Given that consistency, the thought that he would be "infiltrating" the ultra right in both Dallas (per the statement to Michael Paine) and later in New Orleans would make perfect sense - with the goal of exposing them and their activities (very possibly to the FBI as he was seeking to expose the anti-Castro exiles in NO). Not to mention Marina's snarky "hunter of Fascists" note on the back of the photo left in the records that the DeMohrenschield's had loaned them. Two things that can be said about Oswald was that he marched to his own drummer, and he had no fear about pursuing his beliefs - he also didn't take orders well at all, not in military, not in Russia, not at work back in the US.

Gabriella confirmed that if you sign up for the conference download now, the full conference would be available for download as of December 1. I'll be on the Conference Facebook page routinely during the next three days, hope to see many of you there, Larry

Actually the conference is the download, its not live but prepackaged and streamed according to a schedule. So when you register with the additional feel you have access to streaming it though the end of December, you just do it at your own convenience and not on a one time basis per the scheduled stream. Its also possible that at some point a stand alone download of the conference may be made available after December but there are some issues in doing that as the host for the stream would normally only leave it up and available for the contracted period ie end of December. Making it available on an ongoing basis might well mean an additional hosting charge and I'm pretty sure a special price - if the host will do that. I will check with Gabriella on that and also pass on your specific question in case my understanding is off...

I have no information on his travel records being blocked, we have virtually no travel records for other than a couple of folks I am aware of and those generally were left in personnel files as expense vouchers. For example we do have his record of travel to Florida in April that year but its not really a travel record its an expense voucher. Given his position as COS in Rome I have no idea where his expense vouchers went or if he even filed any. Obviously David may have information on why he thinks the records exist/existed and are being with held....if he has information on that it would be really good to have the details in the event MFF wins its legal action and we can look specifically for them.

As far as I could determine after the book came out and presented that claim, the only support was an anecdotal remark by someone who worked with Harvey in Rome and who ran into Harvey at the airport. As I recall he asked Harvey about his trip and there was a mention about Dallas - which is what he much later related to Talbot. As far as I know the story rests totally on that.

I'd also recommend Tom O'Neill's book Chaos, Charles Manson the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties. I have no idea if it duplicates the Gottlieb material in the biography it surely has some inside information on Gottlieb and his experimentation that was brand new to me. Clearly he should have been somebody's patient rather than a Doctor - and most definitely institutionalized at the same time.