Larry Hancock

Steve, David covered those meetings and the references as well as speculation on who the individual was in our more recent work and I think its mentioned in both Tipping Point and in the Red Bird Leads monographs ...he can probably provide those from memory although I can't.  Its his work so I will leave that and the naming of the individual to him.

Tom, if the Court finds in favor of the action, NARA would have the responsibility and direction to recover known and missing materials - as Bill pointed out, both documents and items such as films - and make them accessible to the public.  Legally NARA already holds the authority since it legally inherited the mandate and duties of the ARRB under the JFK Records Act.

That is one reason the lawsuit is written as it is and if it succeeds, its not just a matter of records release and redaction removal, but of empowering NARA to complete JFK related collections - and you can be assured they already know where to look for a good bit of missing material and will receive advice on more.

Its gotten extremely good media coverage....with much of that being due to efforts by Jeff.  I was pretty amazed to find that someone in New Zealand that I was in a Zoom call with today had actually seen a news item on it.

I'll leave that to Bill to answer, certainly we are familiar with it but I have no idea whether he can be treated as release from an agency?

The complaint gets pretty detailed in certain areas, especially where we cite examples.  And of course if opportunity allows Bill and Larry can get even more detailed in terms of specific, known materials. 

Greg,  if you read though the actual brief you will find reference to the material that relates to Marcello....check page 25

https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/files/jfkrecordslawsuit/mffvbidenfiledcmp.pdf

Some of the media are getting a good grip on the real story:

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/19/jfk-records-lawsuit-biden-national-archives

Some of the media are getting a good grip on the real story:

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/19/jfk-records-lawsuit-biden-national-archives

We hope that the legal action will force compliance in all areas of the JFK legislation...which actually involve a lot of things beyond just document releases.  The timing was important since indeed the can was kicked down the road last time and this December is a critical time for things to actually happen.

I encourage everyone to read the full link to the action itself; a number of people spent a great deal of time on this effort and the complaint addresses not only issues of release, but redaction, and compliance with the full scope of the JFK Records Act.  You can't really appreciate all those issues without diving into the details in the complaint itself.

Here are some further details about the document issues and the legal action:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/JFK_Records_Lawsuit.html

Well I figure my expertise extends back to what a person in Dallas might indeed be eating - or not eating including the sandwich and a Dr Pepper (the national Dr Pepper museum is in Texas and yes there is one and yes I went there, admittedly having taken the wrong road at the time but still...).  

Its a pleasure to bring that level of experience to the table...grin...(we didn't have emojis either).

Well sometimes you get in a hurry, grab whatever is in the refrigerator and slap something together to get back into the field, or wherever you were working.   Eating down south could be less than a gastronomic experience during certain seasons and you sort of get used to it. 

Clearly a much dated version of today's far superior and evolved "fast food".

Gerry, although many will disagree, Powell was not on assignment that day.  He had requested the day off specifically for the motorcade.  For that matter nobody from the Dallas office had been requested to be assigned to JFK duty by headquarters or locally.  Powell did however offer a report to his supervisor and did other interviews.  Way to long a story to cover here but you will find the interviews on line and also interviews with various 112th officers in the ARRB papers.

And yes I'm as old as Ben describes....as a child I helped my mother catch the chickens - she would then cut the heads off of with a cleaver and then have to get the feathers off.    The feathers were the nasty and especially smelly business. 

Hard to imagine but food does not just appeared packaged....not that I miss the chicken thing at all and have no desire to return to those days.

Just a little bit judgemental and insulting there David, trust us to have enough sense to eat around the bones (which may be minimal depending on how the chicken was cut) and if you like fried chicken you may like it enough to put some bread on it and eat it as a sandwich. 

Not to mention that there was a world with chicken in it before chicken nuggets or heaven forbid boneless hot wings.

Actually I've had both fowl in fish in China in banquets and neither had the bones removed, in fact the chicken was apparently chopped up with a cleaver bones and all.  Challenging to eat but locally seen as a preferred dish. 

Not sure why this sounds funny to you all, pretty standard fare down my way...if you were in a hurry you took a piece of fried chicken (often cold) and slapped some bread on  to hold things in place....just thought of it as a chicken sandwich.

I too would be amazed at an advance for a JFK book, or almost any book that does not have a large market estimate - tens of thousands.

And although I hate to be a contrarian (ha)....I would personally not call it the Deep State since I think that term is generically overused and not very useful.

My view is that Peter Dale Scott had it right in the first place and what  you see at work with Gregory is the support provided by Deep Politics, the existence of a well funded infrastructures (both liberal and conservative) which establishes positions for individuals and pays foundations, academics, media outlets etc to constantly present its views. 

Which means folks like Gregory, with the right academic or prior government/administration credentials, can always find a job which literally pays them to get out a message they either find profitable or sincerely believe in - and that in turn gives them publisher access.

For what its worth I think there is another entity closer to what most call the Deep State - we young radicals called it The Establishment centuries ago. Its much more corporate, oligarchic, profit focused and involves what is called the military industrial complex with the addition of Big Energy and Big Pharma.

Sort of a modern day "robber baron" thing, all about the money; its composition morphs and changes composition and structure much more often than Deep Politics. Deep Politics seems to me to be similar to in some ways resemble articles of faith, something in the nature of a religious belief system.  Its not just about the money.

Possibly picky of me but I've sort of become obsessed with defining terms...

As to financing the book, well a brief dive into Diversion Press:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversion_Books

Diversion Books, originally founded as a digital publisher in 2010, is an American publishing company based in New York City. It publishes up to forty titles per year in physical, digital, audio, and other formats

It suggests they do a bunch of books across a wide variety of subjects but some of the titles suggest to me that they are particularly open to pitches from agents who can base history related book proposals on personal experience.  Sort of a "peripheral insider" thing that can give some punch to the books marketing. Not exactly "tell all" but with some similarity given their new book titles "Finding Jackie" or "Protecting Diana".

https://diversionbooks.com/

As to Gregory and his credentials and getting to a publisher:

"Paul Gregory is a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a pioneer in the study of Soviet and Russian economics. In addition to his scholarly work, he has been an active blogger on Russian affairs for Forbes, The Hill, and Wall Street Journal."

All in all I would say that given Gregory's credentials he would have no problem getting an agent (I can relate this from sad personal experience) and in turn the agent would find it easy to shop an insider story about Oswald (which is greatly exaggerated in the promotion pieces ie. "only friend"). 

In my limited experience that's the way the publishing game is being played for history oriented books these days, if you want an easier road to publishing do a travel or children's book...

Another element of the GDM contact is that he involved his whole family with Lee and Marina.  It appears that he engaged in a lot of geopolitical talk with Oswald (they did have international experiences in common) and let his wife do things like take Marina to the dentist or for medical treatment while they even stayed with kids for a time (he describes his son as far more conservative than himself; apparently his son did not get along nearly a well with Lee).  When he visited the Oswald's it was often with his wife. 

In Russia Oswald had demonstrated that he could actually make friends with individuals he trusted but then argue issues with them without breaking things off, that appears to have been true with GDM who would challenge him but show some respect for Oswald's experience and views - which were pretty sophisticated for someone who was self taught on such things.  The examples of Oswald's writings circa 63 stand up pretty well compared with most college undergraduates.

With Sr. making introductions within the Fort Worth Russian community perhaps it was hard to untangle from him, but if Lee got tired of Marina given Russian lessons to Jr. and in turn became disenchanted with the White Russian communities politics - and its preference for Marina, he might just have pulled the plug entirely. That would have left him open to someone who showed more interest in him and was of a more liberal political orientation.   While Oswald was a contrarian and could be obnoxious to people he felt were dismissive or had opposing political views he could also be quite engaging with individuals and families who he found accepting.

I think that would be quite reasonable Gerry, good call.  I had started to bring up the point that any really visible Russian speaking professional in the ara (such as someone who taught classes at the Fort Worth library) could very likely have been tagged as a potential source by CIA  Domestic Ops, or the FBI.   That would really be SOP because the goal was always to have as many sources out there in the community as possible - to spin the broadest possible net.

Pure speculation on my part but if either Gregory Sr. or Jr did something to annoy Lee Oswald - such as become too friendly with Marina - he might have pulled back from then rather than vice versa, causing a turn to GDM to prospect for Oswald in the White Russian community and attempt a contact.  I suspect that GDM would have been much more diplomatic about the approach.

I do recall this myself Gerry, however since Oswald did contact Gregory  and got the recommendation from him ..perhaps he had no need to contact the second Russian speaker.

I wondered the same thing about the remarks from the typist, but after seeing what Gregory now appears to be saying I'm also open to that fact that his WC denial may have been his distancing himself a bit?  Given his later politics the idea of a first person anti-Soviet book might have appealed to him at the time. 

Also with what appears to be coming out in his book I'm just not sure how much I trust that he told the full story of he and his son's association with Le and Marina then, and I'm definitely skeptical about what he is saying now. 

No idea, I was just referring to the information in the link I cited and I don't think it gives a name...

I think its more a matter of the Russian language and experience setting the context....certainly for Marina but for Lee as well; he kept himself immersed in the language though his subscriptions to Russian publications and reading material in Russian.  And in Fort Worth in 1962 there were not large Russian speaking communities much less individuals speaking Russian, that came from either emigres or from individuals/professionals whose work or particular interests led them to acquire some familiarity with the language.