Larry Hancock

Ron, its not just you - David remembers them all - I have to look them up myself before I make mistakes. The brothers you probably remember are the Rodriquez brothers, who provided a key link between New Orleans and SAS/WAVE in Miami in regard to Oswald. Arnesto Rodriquez Jr. was the owner of the language school whom Oswald approached and who referred him to Bringuier and the DRE (his father, Arnesto Sr was a long time ultra right figure in the New Orleans Cuban community). The key is that Arnesto Jrs brother Emilio had been a key, very deep cover CIA stay behind officer in Cuba but had come out and in 1963 was running some key counter intelligence programs for SAS targeting Cuban embassy personnel in Mexico City and at the UN. The Rodriquez connections are critical and you can find them starting on page 149 in Tipping Point. To be clear, this family was not related to the well known CIA officer Felix Rodriquez who had been sent into Cuba on sniper missions agaisnt Castro and whom some suspect as a shooter in Dallas. Andrej, Jeff Morley has worked the DRE community in Miami intensely - its hard to think that if they knew or wanted to say something they would have by now. However in the scenario where a couple of people hijack Oswald and set him up as a Castro link in the conspiracy only they would know - and even the folks at Red Bird with Oswald might well have seen it as an extension of the DRE propaganda effort using Oswald that had started back in New Orleans. I'm afraid the best you are going to get is third and fourth party repeats of gossip from the Cubans that were either involved or who knew them well enough to speculate - it would be on the same level as what Wheaton heard from Quintero. And as far as family, children, grandchildren - that gets you no further, they either suspect or (as I've been told) their uncle or grandfather isa sweet old fellow who just sits in the sun, plays with children and would never do something like that.

Ron, I'll let David reply in more detail on his document but Carlos Hernandez, while a significant military figure for DRE (especially in 1962 on its Cuba boat raid) was not its senior leader in 1963. His resume goes way beyond that - he was a long time WAVE maritime operations guy having come out of a special CIA cadre created under Jenkins for Cuban infiltration prior to the Bay of Pigs. He was both a propaganda and military asset for JMWAVE as of 62/63 and he engaged in very independent activities in 63 including both an abortive bombing missions against Cuba which took him to the New Orleans area that summer and an association with a JURE affiliated group in Miami. You will read a lot about him in Lead 2 of the Red Bird research paper (and in Tipping Point). He was a close friend Victor, not his brother, and the two had been associated since the original Cuba project. Both were in the New Orleans area in 1963 - but while Victor went to Chicago, Carlos is the best candidate for going on to Houston (and McKeown) and for very possibly having gone on to Dallas. He had been one of Artime's earliest recruits for AMWORLD but was being taken off the WAVE grid to go into black exfiltration out of the country to join AMWORLD by the end of 1963. He would turn up offshore after the assassination. .

I've always been a fan of the Douglas aircraft, both the DC-2 and DC-3.....excellent examples of designs which, like the earlier Ford Trimotor, that live seemingly forever. Same could be said for the Piper Cub. And of course the Buff.

John, just for reference the aircraft Vinson claimed to be on was large, four engine transport aircraft - a C-54, even unloaded its weight was around 39,000 pounds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_C-54_Skymaster

Rick, I was at the Lancer conference when Vinson's attorney first showed up to present his story and was able to take copious notes....which turned out not exactly to match what showed up in later book. I communicated with his lawyer directly for several years; he would never allow me to talk directly to Vinson even though Vinson would do television interviews. I prepared a list of questions for Vinson at that point, researched several of his claims and ultimately when the book came out contacted his lawyer again (as the book offered) and asked if I could talk with him - the answer was not. I asked if I could submit the questions in writing and he assured me I could and here would be a response. I did - there was no response. There are a number of problems with his basic story beyond the fact that he clearly confused his CIA screening with that which was done for all assignments to the CIA's SR-71 project - and assignment which he did get. Given that the sensitivities in Dallas after the assassination were enough that there were calls complaining that a single engine aircraft at Red Bird was reeving its engine I find it next to impossible that a four engine airport could land and take off at that point in time from a riverbed which runs right though downtown Dallas and not have it reported. I'm not sure what Vinson's basic experience was but I can say that literally nothing about it makes any sense in terms of covert operations and certainly not that he would be allowed to just walk away freely from the aircraft if the guys on board had just assassinated the President. It certainly was an exciting and sensational story and it had me going for years....not unlike others of its ilk unfortunately.

Andrej, Matthew did write about the aircraft being used for exfilitration but I think that had to be his speculation seeing as how January had not seen anyone board the aircraft or seen it actually depart. Certainly it could have been used for that purpose but that would have been a high risk move given that ground holds might have been placed at local airports (they were not) or that warnings issued and searches conducted (Red Bird did receive a warning and at least one DPD officer working there related that - but once Oswald was in custody the pressure was off - if he had still been on the loose searches and security might have quickly gotten really tight). It would seem like breaking the tactical team up and sending them out in cars would be far safer, with as many back roads out of Dallas as their are that would have been much lower risk. As to other aircraft, the one you refer to revving its engine was a small single enginre plane, definitely not the much larger transport aircraft being transferred out of Dallas. And there was a third plane that drew suspicion, flying out with four men and returning with three...that's an interesting story and I cover it in SWHT but it does not relate to the January incident. As to Sergio Archaca Smith, he had been a CRC representative - not DRE - and with the virtual dissolution of that organization in 1963 plus a good bit of local gossip about his possibly scamming donations to the cause, he left New Orleans that year and moved to Houston, taking a sales job. Names from the DRE in New Orleans would be Bringuier and also Quiorga who approached Oswald as a Castro supporter to feel him out after his initial contact with the DRE. More interesting are the new Cubans reported in NO with Oswald, Garrison tried to investigate that, sending people to Miami to try and identify them. Weisburg really explored that as well. David and I can name some of them, including Carlos and Victor Hernandez. Basically things had changed dramatically in the exile scene in Miami and New Orleans over a couple of years and I try to capture what was current and what had passed in Tipping Point. Its easy to get hung up on who was in, who was out and who was playing with who by the fall of 63. As an example, Carlos Hernandez was associated with DRE military activities, with CIA maritime operations and also with a JURE affiliated group - tracking all of this by summer and fall of 1963 is an immense challenge. Hope that helps, Larry

Not to jump in front of Paul but you will find the Houston dentist and the FBI contact with him discussed in these blog posts: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/jean-souetre/ https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/mystery-solved/

Thanks for posting this David, just as a reference, we originally thought this monograph would appear on the MFF site but due to Rex being deeply immersed in document work and other scheduling issues we were extremely happy to have DPUK offer to serialize our work in their journal and to make it the piece available for download. Our thanks to Bart for the web work and posting and to Dealey Plaza Echo editor Richard Lee-Van den Daele. I've been really pleased to worked with so many members of the DPUK group over the years and I think Matthew Smith would also be pleased to see his original work carried forward in this new research paper.

Mr. Boylan, you of all people - if you will pull out your much used copy of SWHT 2010 and consult Appendix B / Crossing Paths in the CIA you will find "It All Started with BOB", detailing Mr. Hecksher's entry into the CIA from his time with the OSS and his activities at BOP immediately after the war in Germany before joining others with a history at BOB (including David Morales) in Guatemala...

As David said, Hecksher was given a major headquarters assignment in 1963, one directly from SAS Chief Fitzgerald. Prior to that he had been a Chief of Station in Laos, done some deep counterintelligence work in the border regions of that country after taking criticism for being to radically anti-Communist by the Ambassador to Laos (Hecksher was well respected for his ability to operate under cover, first demonstrated in the Guatemala operation) and after that was appointed to COS in Tokyo, a premier job in the Far East. He was brought back into headquarters staff as something of a very high level troubleshooter, which would explain a special assignment to Mexico City. All of which is why Nagell might refer to him as Bob (since Hecksher had also been chief of the Berlin Operation Base) but as with everything else about Nagell he did spin his own webs, he did confabulate and misdirect and it makes no sense that after his abortive defection (which might well have been arranged under Hecksher) that Hecksher would be the guy who sent him off after Oswald. As Ben says, there are few if any straight lines when dealing with Nagell, its all "situational" as per his own agenda at a given time. Which is why, at this point, my interest in him is really only that summer in New Orleans and whether or not he corroborates approaches by anti-Castro Cubans presenting themselves as Castro agents to Oswald and recruiting him for some special action directed in the Baltimore/DC area. If true that would have been the first step in drawing him into a particular set of contacts - but its critical to remember that what Nagell was warning about was something on the East Coast, not about Dallas.

That really never made any sense to me at all.....especially given that it would have to have occurred at the same time Nagell was going to the US embassy, offering to defect and give information to an adversary foreign power.......not sure that anything that happened back in Tokyo would trump that. Which is why my interpretation is that Hecksher may indeed have used Nagell as a dangle in a CI op against the Cubans (one can wildly speculate that he might have used him the same way to some extent in Japan) but Hecksher blackmailing Nagell into something relating to Oswald makes no sense to me. In fact Hecksher knowing or caring about Oswald at the time of the missile crisis makes no sense to me.

Dick may very well have said that, in fact Nagell may have said that....but if so I would suspect that Nagell confabulated two people into Bob as he presented him to Dick. If I recall my discussions with Dick correctly that was one reason he could not buy into Hecksher as the Bob who sent Nagell after Oswald. And for that matter, I can't see Hecksher sending Nagell off after Oswald - for what reason - or if so never contacting him again. Plus if Nagell was playing both sides in Tokyo, because he was so upset about dirty tricks....and if that would compromise him...it would be Soviet intel that would know that, not Hecksher. If Hecksher had known it Nagell would have been dealt with in Tokyo and not promited within Army CI.

David, I'm doing this from memory so it will be imperfect - Nagell was recruited by some unknown party to go to Mexico City for some activity related to Cuba during the general time frame of the missile crisis....the only thing we know for sure that he did was to approach the embassy and express his intent to defect, providing information to a foreign government. That was documented, there was no response from the US intelligence community but it seems likely that it was some sort of test of our personnel and a dangle to the Cubans or Russians. Nagell was also contacted in Mexico City by someone who he had known in Tokyo, in the intel community, named Bob. I suspect that was Hecksher. Whether Hecksher was involved in the Embassy project or some related CI activity for Nagell is unclear, Nagell suggests the latter...possibly follow on work to his embassy dangle. While in MC he was contacted by someone who he said he had known in Tokyo, someone who knew that Nagell had mixed emotions about many of the things the US did in its counter intelligence work and who knew the Nagell had some level of exposure to Oswald in Tokyo, apparently in regard to Oswald's interest in the Soviet embassy there. That person recruited Nagell to investigate a risk that Oswald was felt to represent. I have never been clear that Bob/Hecksher was actually the individual that put Nagell on to Oswald, perhaps but I deem it unlikely given Hecksher's role at the time. Nagell may have confabulated this, he was rather upset with how the CIA had handled him. And for that matter Hecksher left Mexico City well before Nagell did. My guess is someone from Soviet intel followed up on Nagell's defection offer, responded to the dangle, got a file on him (the KGB was relentless with files) and realized that Nagell had been compromised in Tokyo and could be maneuvered into checking into Oswald (who I can see the KGB as being interested in since he seems to have been a mystery to them too). So personally I cannot directly connect Hecksher/Bob to Nagell's Oswald adventure.

Nagell traveled cheaply, in his own car and staying with relatives along the way...and checking into a veterans hospital in Florida as well. Nagell intimates that the Russians had provided some funding for him to investigate Oswald but it appears that as usual he took off on his own after Dallas and visiting his own relatives. Dick Russell might have more insight on where his money was coming from but that is an excellent question. Its also not impossible he might have had some money left over from whatever he was asked to do in Mexico City in the fall of 62. As for myself, I didn't run across anything that would tie down his finaces or spending - but it was clear that to some extent he was literally living out of his car during those travels.

The post I was referring to went up on my blog this morning David - the approximate time of his Mexico City visit and appearance at the Embassy would have been Fall 62 in the same general time frame as the Cuban missile crisis. He told Dick that he had been asked to do something related to Cuba and interestingly enough Hecksher was on a special assignment to Mexico City in that same time frame - for exactly what purpose is unknown.

Given that Nagell - and my views on his story - have come up here recently, I thought I would share a recent blog post I made on that subject. More importantly the post contains a link to an extended interview I did this month on Nagell with Bob Wilson. I was pleased with it and think it gave me the time to capture enough about my research on Nagell to present why I wrote about him in Someone Would Have Talked but why he does not appear in my most recent work, Tipping Point. If you are interested you can find the blog post and a link to the interview here: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/richard-case-nagell-revisited/

On another subject, I have checked with Malcolm Blunt and he has no recollection of seeing any photo of Oswald in Florida...

In response to Jim's remark, I will be posting a more recent, extended discussion of Richard Case Nagell on my blog in the near future. The point I make in all my discussions about Nagell is that segments of his story about his time in Mexico City have been totally documented, and his description of his first contact in Tokyo with Oswald has been corroborated to some extent by showing that Hecksher was there as COS at the time (and also in Mexico City, likely being the BOB in Nagell's story) there are limits to what Nagell could have known about the attack in Dallas. What he could have known about Oswald as of August, and what is corroborated by Oswald's own letters to SWP and CPUSA, was that Oswald was being maneuvered into some action on the East Coast, in the DC area. He was also being maneuvered into appearing increasingly radicalized - per his request for advice to CPUSA (a group which he had skewered as being a tool of Soviet imperialism in his own manuscript little more than six to eight months earlier). And Nagell could also have warned them that the Cubans who were in contact with him were not Castro sympathizers but anti-Castro activists from Miami, where Nagell had just been. However following his arrest and with Nagell in jail, while he would have had information on his warning against an action against JFK on the East Coast and information about who was manipulating Oswald, there was literally no way for him to have gotten details on the attack in Dallas and the specifics of the Dallas conspiracy. Certainly there was more than enough reason to try to silence Nagell in terms of what he did know about Oswald and about his being used by anti-Castro Cubans. No doubt about that; what is could have known about any plan for Dallas, which only jelled in October, is questionable. All of which is why Nagell appears in SWHT but not in Tipping Point, given that the latter is totally focused on the Dallas attack.

If Christensen had any known or suspected history of talking about his intercepts he would definitely been a potential security concern, those in his career field were much like air crews in SAC, if not worse - virtually any concern about your reliability would get your supervisor's attention, potentially get into your personnel file and at minimum get you moved into another career area. That would be especially true for personnel tasked with highly sensitive criminal, economic and political watch lists - which would come from CIA, FBI, DEA etc. This sort of thing is no game, a handful of intercept operators did actually defect to the Soviets during the Cold War and created serious political and diplomatic flaps.

Ron, in regard to your question, the personnel assigned to those posts and duties were Air Force actually supporting NSA collections. Communications is one field in which extremely low ranking personnel are required to get relatively high classifications just to do their regular job - based on what they might see or hear in their work. These intercept personnel would be required to have TS at a minimum and are strict orders not to discuss anything about what they are monitoring much less what they hear. In fact all aspects of what frequencies, circuits and tasking lists are NSA level classified - and Kirknewton has special, non-military tasking which I discuss in SWHT. By that I mean commercial circuits where there might well be talk of drugs, major commercial shipments - not military but economic and political. And they have special names of individuals and topics that are on their watch list - that is what they report on, and nothing else. The HSCA investigation Scott reports on highlights just how seriously all that is taken. Christensen's chain of command would have faced a real problem in even how to report something (that would not go to NSA, the threat would have to go though Air Force HQ to DOD and on to Secret Service I suspect if not to the White House itself) that was not tasked - and clearly would have needed something solid to start though the authorizations. I trace though that logic in my writing on the incident in SWHT and speculate as to where talk of a threat to JFK would have come up. I tend to concur with David's last paragraph and to me Christensen seems to be trying to play the system without thinking about how much he was exposing himself with that letter - even relating that he had discussed details of an intercept with anyone other than the superior in charge of his activities and reports. A major, chargeable security violation right there - not that is not done, but putting it on paper is not smart at all.

No I don't and honestly in looking at his correspondence my impression was that he was literally trying to leverage the incident to bump his government payments...but then again I'm possibly overly harsh and that may have been a carryover from our discussion in which he certainly sounded like a smarta.... My take is that he heard a bit of the gossip about people going after JFK that was floating around the Miami to New Orleans circuits, in the drug trade, from the godfathers and for that matter in some of the Cuban exile groups. I explore that in an appendix in SWHT. As far as I know the most recent research has been the HSCA document related work that Scott did...

Mark Bridger is one of the DPUK folks who researched and wrote on Kirknewton, you can find his article here: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Featured_Dealey_Plaza_Echo_-_Volume_11_Issue_3.html https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=141150#relPageId=26

Gosh Jim, you mean you missed my lengthy study of the Kirknewton incident in SWHT, I'm disappointed. I mean I even talked to David Christensen myself back then - a brief conversation perhaps but he was working as a greeter at Walmart at the time, said he was very busy and was not interested in a lengthy interview. He also claimed to have had one or more brain operations over the years, which had pretty well wiped most of his memories. Strangely his wife had not mentioned that during our first call, I had the sense he just might have been putting me off a bit...grin. A couple of very excellent research articles were written by DPUK members following my exploration of the incident and and have appeared in their Journal over the years. I also communicated with Scott prior to his presentation on his paper at last fall's JFK Lancer Conference; the new documents he had found relating to its original investigation were quite interesting. In SWHT I offer my own speculation as to who was making the call, and to whom...you will find that in the appendices. If anyone is interested I can be a bit more specific.

Greg, I know nothing other than what I would consider the gossip mentioned in the report - including the fact that nobody who worked with Fritz, including a couple of folks I have interviewed plus a host of DPD officers interview by Ian Griggs and others, ever mentioned anything about secret recording equipment. And in 1963 tape recorders were not exactly pocket affairs and also would have required one or more special wired mikes to pick up anything useful a room away. Certainly Gary Mack has sources, including other Dallas researchers, in the position to pursue the gossip and he's never said anything further on what would seem pretty explosive as far as I know? I don't doubt that Fritz may have known more than he ever commented on officially - we do have a HSCA note with a DPD officer who was close to him implying that (but its only a hand written note in the marginalia) and introducing Martino's name. And for that matter who would have operated the recorder during the interview and why would not Fritz immediately have protected himself by handing the tape over to the FBI or Secret Service - holding something like that to himself is the most dangerous thing he could have done. I've have to see something solid more on this to take it seriously...

Oh I definitely think Phillips was involved with a longer term propaganda operation using Oswald, that would have been a joint operation with SAS staff at WAVE and possibly involving DRE as well who had begun running an active propaganda effort during September. Phillips would have brought in INCA as well. Beyond that I see Phillips as actively supporting a SAS counter intelligence effort against the Cuban consulate in Mexico City. Both of those explain why in not only went to DC in October but went on down for meetings at WAVE in Miami. What I am unclear about is whether he was directly involved in assassination conspiracy, peripherally involved or just went along with the event and tried to use his resources to point Oswald to Castro and take advantage of the situation. Clearly I see him as a key figure given that I gave him a chapter in SWHT, its just a matter of of degree - given that he chose to actually point towards Morales in one of his books (which Morales took great exception to) its even harder to make the call. Especially since at the end Phillips out and out said the assassination involved members of the intelligence community.