Larry Hancock

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.

When Oswald was first looking for jobs in Dallas he focused on making use of his Russian skills for translation. Oswald obtained the name of two Russian speaking petroleum geologists in the Fort Forth area and he himself approached the elder Gregory (who taught Russian classes at a local Fort Worth library), he was impressed with Oswald's language ability and gave him a written recommendation. The association developed further with the elder Gregory making introductions for Oswald in the area Russian community and Gregory's son taking Russian language lessons from Marina... For details on Lee and Marina's earliest months in the US you should find this helpful: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=56967#relPageId=6&search="the_CPUSA" and oswald

Sandy is taking this the right direction, I've recently been revisiting Oswald in 62/63 and this connection among others has been of real interest, even to how Oswald connected to Gregory in the first place (based on Oswald's own initiative and his interest in getting a job as a translator) - by the way, Gregory tested Oswald's Russian skills and even wrote him a letter of recommendation. Very little contemporary information from 1962 or the testimony taken immediately after the assassination supports what appears to be in the book - sounds more like an old guy profiting by taking a sensational story to a publisher or just getting linked up with an editor who shaped it that way....of course sensation is the way to get publishers and books these days. Its even possible that Oswald pushed back on the short "friendships" over basics disagreements on politics or even because one of the two were "hitting" on Marina, something Oswald had been sensitive to even in Russia. There certainly are indications that Marina was a flirt and that some of the reported fights with Lee may have been about more than smoking or house cleaning. Probably won't find that in the book though... I do encourage everyone to really dig into the transcripts as Sandy has done and I think you will find they really undermine the factual and historical thrust of this new book.

Joe, I'm afraid you are a bit off on both Kathy and Olsen - its a shame that some of the great research done over the years seems to fade into the past. I suggest you check out Ian Grigg's article for the actual details: http://massinjustice.org/Kennedy 4 22 Search Stripper Kathy K.pdf

Jean Paul, I explore some details that you may not be aware of in regard to Olsen, his "guard" duty and a couple of his friends associates also involved - including one motorcycle officer assigned to the motorcade - in the last section of Tipping Point. Its a free read on MFF so you might want to take a look given your interest.

My take would be as you describe, Sforza using the network from within the US. For that matter we also have documentation showing that both Morales (probably related to possible boat exfiltration) and Phillips in Mexico (aircraft exfiltration) were both read into the attempt to extract Castro's sister....which aborted in 1963 but did happen later. As I said in another post, some of the early Sparticus material has become a bit dated in terms of what we have learned in more recent years.

Also in 1963 Sforza was well out of Cuba and running the operation of WAVE Cuban Intelligence Service / Counter Intelligence group - the AMOTS. AMOTs were used in Miami and elsewhere including on penetration missions against the Cuban embassy in Mexico city. The AMOT group monitored the Cuban communities in the US for unsanctioned military activities as well as to detect Cuban intelligence penetrations of the US.

.....I've developed as much detail on that question as we could find; its all given in chronological sequence in Tipping Point, up and though the formation of Commando Mambesis in the summer of 1963 - and the competition between it (a creation of JMWAVE) and AMWORLD (a creation of RFK and SAS). The best I can do is refer you to that as its far more extensive than any post here could be. If you want the exact details on the attempts at infiltration before and during the initial Cuba Project those come largely from the Taylor Commission report, the CIA's IG and historians reports on that project and some of my own research and you would it covered in my book In Denial. We have documents showing that the Castro assassination project restarted under Harvey was ongoing and funded through 1963, there are documents showing operational meetings (involving Harvey, Roselli and either Moore or Morales or both) and calls on the project through April of that year. In April a boat trip was made by Harvey and others down to the boat ops base in the Keys. As to sources, Ayers mentions briefly observing a very special and compartmentalized shooting team base was operating under Morales and Robertson when he arrived at WAVE in 1963. Roselli referred to sniper teams that were sent into Cuba in 1963 in information circulated in Washington DC circa 1967 but he later gave no details on that in his first testimony to the Church Committee. In those remarks he stopped at the poison plots; when he was called back to be asked about 62/63 and shooting teams he never made it, being murdered before that could happen. I will leave it to David to respond to your questions about chain of command for such missions in 1963 and he is far more deeply into the organization structure at WAVE and how it evolved over the years.