Larry Hancock

Ron says it well, based on David's work including Jeff Morley its pretty clear that the CIA was hiding things about Mexico City even internally and certainly from the FBI as well. The FBI was led down a path via CIA connections with the Mexican Federal Police and Hoover learned that only after the fact but was forced to go along with that as with well as covering up many other leads which pointed towards a conspiracy - including the autopsy reports from his own agents. The picture of Mexico City and of Oswald in Mexico is truly a swamp, revealing much about the cover up and probably little about the conspiracy, much less the attack in Dallas.

Steve, if you have the document or source on the Miami thing I'd like to look at it - certainly at that point in time there was a general directive out to FBI, CIA etc to disrupt and obstruct any missions against Cuba from US soil - seems like a less than subtle approach though.

What they could be trying to cover up might be simple, the CIA's use of an Oswald impersonator in counter intelligence activities with the Cubans in MC. Given their histories we know the CIA and FBI often covered up their activities from each other just as the CIA compartmentalized its activities within its own groups - for instance SAS using AMOT resources out of Miami very possibly was running an operation without informing other divisions or even its MC office (other than perhaps Phillips). And that might very well have been what Hoover was upset about in his note on the later memo we all know about in regard to not trusting the CIA even if you work with them. As to the tapes, the simplest answer would be that the CIA office in Mexico City (which itself seemed perplexed about the Oswald in question) sent up a tape and the FBI ran a signature comparison against the voice on it as compared to either a recording of Oswald taken from the news, from his appearance in New Orleans or from prior experience with him. Which would mean that the FBI and Hoover would immediately know there was a problem and likely an impersonation - what they would not immediately have known was that the impersonation itself had been conducted by the CIA...... If that were later revealed to Hoover, who hated not being all-knowing, you can bet it would have produced that remark about not trusting the CIA. I don't know how we could be sure but the the wording in the document seems to imply more than someone knowing Oswald listening to a tape.

Steve, its just possible they could have done it with a frequency spectrum analysis if they had a voice recording of Oswald from any source to compare patterns....that might explain the reference to a technical operations source.

Pretty sure this was routine message traffic in regard to the AMWORLD shopping that was in progress - we have seen versions of this before - some of the boats WAVE was looking at were referred to AMWORLD for their review and I think vice versa.

Thanks Vince, I was thinking that might be it, unfortunately I've not been able to locate original sources for a lot that is in the Black article although I've been looking for a long time....since my very first book with Connie Kritzberg. You would probably appreciate the pain involved, at the time I spent a good bit of money actually obtaining several hundred pages of Secret Service files on Vallee, seems that they kept visiting and re-interviewing him for years after having first put him on a watch list in regard to potential harm to Johnson and then just repetitively following up year after year. Talk about dull, it was a fight staying awake just wading though it..on and on...with nothing new that I recall. They were very systematic though. I did get a photo for the book though...grin.

I've written a great deal about Vallee, about Bolden and about Chicago so I won't repeat that here. However it was sometime before I bacame awere of the extent to which the Echeverria incident had indeed been investigated rather than covered up. Among my blog posts on Chicago this one focuses strictly on the follow up incidents so someone may be interested in that: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/chicago-threats-part-3/ Also, Vince could you pleas provide the source for the following statement by Vallee? Thomas Arthur Vallee himself brought up: “Soldiers Field. The plot against John F. Kennedy.” Mr. Vallee claimed he was framed by someone with special knowledge about him, such as his “CIA assignment to train exiles to assassinate Castro.”--! Was that from Black's article or elsewhere, I would be interesting in the primary document where Vallee made that remark and I wasn't quite sure from you post...

Hi Eddy, actually no I have not. The FBI had enough problems on its hand in regards to the timing and trajectories of the shooting given that their official report does not match the WC conclusions. I am aware of the West issue and it does not reflect well on their recreation, which certainly appears flawed. I suspect one of their problems was that certain of their people were doing what they were supposed to be at times and then that proved embarrassing to the story they were directed to write as of Sunday. No wonder they kept tripping over themselves.

Sean, I'm afraid this is way to complex to really deal with in limited posts - I answered John's question literally and in respect to certain specific behaviors of the FBI and CIA after the assassination. Overall the FBI's response was mixed just as you would expect given that they were in a reactive mode. You have a note from Oswald flushed, subversive source files destroyed in New Orleans, a page in his diary rewritten - but you also have Hoover talking about an impersonation in Mexico City, his sarcastic note about the CIA hanging out the FBI there, his note to Johnson wanting to pursue a Cuban conspiracy in the FBI assassination note, his deep interest in using Martino as a source on that initially, and a great deal of bungling and obfuscation with the evidence itself - even written DPD that they would have to renumber their list or explain why it will not match what HQ is returning. I try to pull all those pieces together in SWHT/2010 in terms of how both the CIA and FBI responded re-actively, and lied about parts of the response. The CIA even lied about the investigation they did in Miami and then suppressed.

Absolutely John, in my view ONI covered up certain information in Oswald's military files, the FBI covered up a variety of contacts and the use of Oswald as a source and the CIA covered up a series of propaganda and counter intelligence activities built around Oswald's identity. Circa October the conspiracy began hijacking Oswald, knowing full well the blow back that would be created in any investigation of his involvement with the assassination - and also very much aware of the proclivities of the agencies to protect their sources, methods and operations over any other considerations.

Paul I would agree with your assessment and indeed also with Greg's scenario...

Joe, David and I explore the "then what" in the second part of our upcoming monograph on the Red Bird leads. We presented on it at the Lancer Conference and we did an earlier interview on it with Chuck Ochelli which you can find here: https://ochelli.com/jfk-january-lead-number-2/ The whole point is putting the Odio incident in context with what was being done around Oswald starting in August and continuing on to Dallas in November. And of course, who was doing it. David and I are finishing up an extended monograph (with our usual extensive citation links) which addresses our new work on both Red Bird leads and that should go up on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site early in 2022.

There are other additions to the mix as well, stretching back to McKewon in Houston......the problem is that as of Nov. 24 the FBI was being instructed to write a report on Oswald as the lone shooter and regardless of how many leads might surface, each lead was individually pushed back and officially rejected, never allowed to develop into a critical mass.

I find this a fascinating scenario - from personal experience from that period of time I would expect a gun shop to remain open on Saturday (especially during hunting season) regardless of Veterans day. However that might actually mean only one person was working and Ryder was there alone, for at least part of the day. I also have no trouble visualizing Oswald taking off on his own with the car to have the scope removed, Marina thinking she and the kids were just going for a short ride while he practiced driving, then getting mad at him. It seems typical "Oswald" to me, especially if he was shielding ownership of the weapon. Ruth not believing it happened seems standard for Ruth and Marina not wanting to upset Ruth at first and then not wanting to talk about Oswald and a rifle also strikes me as very believable. None of that provides any corroboration but its a scenario I find very consistent with all three personalities as I've come to visualize them and it would resolve an incident that has bothered me since I first learned about it.

Paul, here is my answer to the other part of your question: My discussion in SWHT covers the points that in 1963 Souetre was indeed visible to elements of the U.S. government, we have CIA documents showing that in May he presented himself as the OAS coordinator for external affairs and in June offered the CIA a list of Communist penetrations in the de Gaulle government, both attempts to turn the US against the de Gaulle regime. The CIA held a personality file on him as of March, a 201 file with no date and a memo records commentary on his associates, finances and travel as of July. We also have a memo from Angier Biddle Duke regarding his request for Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities dated June 1963. FBI memoranda on him in April and May come from their New York office, apparently related to his possible travel to NYC – there is some sign that they placed an international mail trace on him out of that office…which would likely have been the source of the later mail trace which located mail from him to the Dr. Lawrence Alderson in Houston. Of course the reason we even have those records is that they come out of the background information from the 1964 request from the French who contacted the FBI liaison in Paris in regard to the press coverage of Souetre in the French newspaper – relating him to the JFK assassination. So to your questions, Souetre was certainly known to both the CIA and FBI in 1963, due to his own outreach and to the possibility that he might travel to the US legally, either to NYC or Washington D.C. representing the OAS. However, I find no evidence the FBI had knowledge of him inside the U.S. or in Dallas, only that they investigated – at French request – their suspicion that Souetre he might indeed have been in the country and in Dallas. I covered the details of that inquiry in a separate blog post here: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/jean-souetre/ Given the above and the two blog posts I have referenced, I find no evidence that the FBI had any information that Souetre had been in Dallas or anywhere else in the U.S. They simply investigated a story that had initially been confused and confabulated and informed the French security service of their negative findings. Obviously, that does not prove Souetre was not in the U.S. but it does deal with one of the longest standing points which has been cited as proof he was, and was in Dallas – at least it deals with it for me.

Paul, there were a lot of questions in your post and I will be out this morning and most of the day....will return later to complete it but on one question I can quickly answer. We invited Ralph Ganis to present at the Lancer conference when his book came out. Stu Wexler and I managed to speak to him privately and in some detail at the conference and then he was kind enough to invite Stu to his home and go through research materials with him. That did not include anything from the Lafitte diary as Ralph did not have that and it had not become part of his book. While Stu was doing that I spent a couple of months digging into the book and doing background research on Skorzeny and other individuals/material in the book. It was at that point I revisited Souetre yet again (you really should read what I wrote about that in SWHT earlier) and did the Souetre blog posts I referenced. As to my impression of of Ralph's book, I thought it was interesting history on Skorzeny but it did not change my views in regard to the nature of the JFK plot and attack - I wrote my final view on that on Tipping Point which came out after reading and researching Ralph's book. I'll be back to address your Souetre questions by this evening...

Andrej, I don't know if you have seen it but it not I would refer you to the recent work extending Matthew Smith's Red Bird leads which David Boylan and I have done, you will find two several post on my blog related to "Red Bird Leads" including a link to extended interviews on two shows with Chuck Ochelli. We also did two presentations on this at the recent JFK Lancer conference and there will be a lengthy monograph on both leads going up on MFF in the first quarter. I suspect you will want to consider what is in Red Bird Lead#2 in respect to your "Symptoms" piece.

Paul, I examined the Soutre, Mertz and the French Connections in SWHT 2010, including the French links to Angleton and citations to that, you would find that on p. 367-368. Later, after Ralph's book, I re-approached this subject, did a good bit more research on Soutre, and put it into a post on my blog (not the web site) which includes a chronology and a more detailed examination of the FBI and French security investigation of the Soutre lead. You should be able to find that at: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/mystery-solved/ If for some reason you can't get to it just email me and I will copy and send it to you - the blog will just be faster since it has embedded citation links. My email remains larryjoe@westok.net

Paul, I received an early review copy of the book and have had ongoing conversations with Leslie. I also invited her and Alan to present on the book at last weeks Lancer conference but that was declined due to their prior book promotion plans. I assured Leslie that I don't do book reviews or spend time publicly critiquing other peoples work - I also shared some initial issues with her at that time. At that time I also shared with her my own research on Soutre which I had done as far back as SWHT an then again following the publication of Ralph's book. That has been discussed in this forum previously but you can find it here: https://wordpress.com/post/larryhancock.wordpress.com/1103 We had a healthy discussion on that. I need to reread the part of Skorzeny training Soutre to find the source and validation for that, I noted the remarks in my first scan of the book but did not dig deeply into that. I'm reading that section in detail now and will post on it, so far what I have found was Soutre having providing training for a U.S. Army commando unit out of Germany. I had follow up on that from Ralph's and found that to be a pretty much one off thing as the Army commander who had authorized the training felt that Skorzeny's WWII tactics had become a bit dated and his troops had not picked up anything they already didn't know. I'm certainly not ignoring the book but given that I have worked with Alan previously and have been in contact with Leslie on different points for over a year I think I owe it to them to provide my feedback directly to them.

If you have read or intend to read Tipping Point, one of the things you are going to come across is that it contains considerable detail on several areas which you may not be familiar with from other JFK assassination writing. One example, courtesy of David Boylan's research, is an examination of the organizational structure of the CIA's JMWAVE station in Miami and its 1963 staffing relationship/connections to Desmond Fitzgerald's Special Affairs Staff. SAS was tasked with carrying on covert Kennedy Administration action against Cuba as the successor to Mongoose - ostensibly operating only under the oversight and direction of the new, higher level Cuban Coordinating Committee. Other examples of "deep dives" include an exploration of the DRE (Cuban Student Directorate) and its activities in 1963 as well as the relatively little discussed Commando Mambises covert maritime operations against Cuba in 1963. Readers familiar with my other books on the subject may deal with the complexity of names and cryptonyms by using the extensive end notes and citations in the book. However any serious reader, plus anyone who wants to use the book for further research of their own, will likely want to have reference to as through an index as possible. We did have a basic index available for the book but admittedly it was limited. The good news is that - thanks to some very dedicated volunteer work and several months of slogging - we can now offer a greatly expanded Tipping Point Index. You will find it in the Tipping Point area on the Mary Ferrell Foundation and it is available for download. I hope you find it helpful and for those who may still wonder what is in Tipping Point, it might give you a much better view to that. As a reminder, its only useful with the actual paginated, published book. And if you take a look and decide to use it I would certainly be interested in your feedback: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html

Thanks Jim, we are also pleased to have some UK presenters in addition to Bart and Malcolm - as well as to be able to bring in Gil Jesus from this forum. This year was extremely challenging with the web hosting problems and in particular Gabriella needs to be given huge credit for all the work in the trenches putting it together. Especially as she also works a full time day job of about ten hours a day. We appreciate all the presenters being so cooperative with their recording times given the challenges of her schedule.

Thanks Danny, we are really pleased with the breadth this year as speakers will not only cover history and research, but there will be updates on document releases, legislation, and what is going on in contemporary activities. I'm also happy that Bart Kamp will be able to give some extended views into the archival of Malcolm Blunt's extensive document collections. That in itself will represent a new venue for many, Malcolm has been a great personal resources for several of us over the decades, but now everybody will be able to benefit from his slogging away at the national archives all these many years.

Conference details and tentative speaker schedule: Sessions will be streamed Friday and Saturday beginning at 9 AM Central and Sunday at Noon Central on November 19-21 The conference will be “virtual” with presentations streamed during the conference dates, and with a dedicated Facebook page for registered attendees to ask questions and participate in dialogs with presenters. The fee will be $64.99 for conference viewing only, and $119.99 for conference viewing plus digital download. All ticketed attendees will have the ability to re watch any presentation as often as they want until the 30th of November. Reservations may be made at: https://jfklancerpublications.com/?fbclid=IwAR0MYMd_B2oq_oRZRd0mLlXFa7txmrDJblVzitni8uEgyw4RCP4N0XYHlV0 Speaker Schedule / Subject to Change Friday, November 19: Debra Conway Don Jefferies with Chuck Ochelli Bart Kamp with Malcolm Blunt (two part) Larry Schnapf Stuart Wexler Brent Holland Saturday, November 20: Debra Conway Russ Baker Bill Simpich Johnny Cairns Larry Hancock and David Boylan (two part) Gill Jesus Andrew Kiel Bill Kelly Sunday, November 21 Debra Conway Robert Groden Jim DiEugenio Mike Chesser

Ron, the photos show Craig looking up the street towards the Rambler - but as I recall he was actually responding to a loud whistle that got his attention, not totally focused on the man, the car or any special suspicions at the time. What is probably more important is that he did report the incident and there is a video of his chief being interviewed about "Oswald" getting into the car and departing the scene - yet there is no sign that was ever really investigated, that the Rambler (reported by at least two and perhaps three more people picking up someone) was searched for or investigated. Its one more example of leads that suggested conspiracy just being tossed. Also, I did some early photo work on this and others had cone far more but there is a picture which shows two men coming down the hill towards the location of the rambler "pick up" and one does resemble Oswald. The men are walking hurriedly down towards the street at the time. Just one more item suggesting we really have no idea of exactly what was happening at that time regardless of all the research that has been done.

Yes, that would be Hal Hendrix. If you have SWHT you will find a discussion of Hendrix in the chapter on David Phillips...