Larry Hancock

I don't think we will ever fully resolve the question of Oswald personally being in Mexico - or Mexico City. Certainly there is good reason to question that he was ever at the Cuban consulate. Is it possible the Russians totally lied about his visit to their facility - maybe. Could everything else about the trip including souvenirs have been planted, maybe, not sure of the point in that. Was there considerable evidence immediately after the fact for the agencies to be in chaos about his being there - absolutely. Does the trip make sense if he was trying to get Russian permission to return Marina - yes, that is consistent with his letters. In our upcoming paper on the Red Bird Leads David and I discuss one more reason that at least getting Oswald into Mexico if not to Mexico City was important to the some of the conspirators in terms of setting up a Cuban connection to the attack on the President, however aside that I don't pretend to know anything other than the official story of his visit, involving both Cuban and Russian contacts, is something the CIA desperately wanted to minimize - and I've written very specifically as to why that was and what operations it would have compromised. The official story is bogus, there is good reason to know even Hoover was quite aware of that. But specifically to this thread, the additional document which mentions Oswald traveling to Mexico, and offers a statement about his occupation, is also consistent and to me supports the idea that he was driven to others at least to the border. In regard to the scenario I favor that makes perfect sense and I can certainly see the FBI, the CIA and the WC eager to obfuscate any evidence Oswald was in involved with others only weeks before the assassination. I guess I'm not sure why we would want to dismiss that out of hand.

I wasn't commenting about Lincoln Mercury and personally I see that as a totally separate incident - you will have to pursue that one with Greg. As far as the rest, extending this to the shooting, his behavior afterwards and the theater is also well beyond my comments. I'd also say Ruth might be a bit conflicted if at one point she says she was prepared to drive him to test for his license and at another says he had trouble turning into a driveway. As I said, I find Greg's line of thinking intriguing and it tackles a couple of problems that have long puzzled me - but that's my view and I'll leave it at that. Hopefully he will be posting further...

Well one obvious answer would be that he personally didn't have a car, nor did he plan a "getaway" after the assassination since he didn't shoot the president. I don't see that as relevant to the possibility of his "borrowing" a familiar and available car (one which he had actually been driving while getting lessons from Ruth) while she was away....

Lee had been taking driving lessons from Ruth Paine and had actually gone to take his test on one occasion when the office turned out to be closed....if he was to the point of taking his test certainly he could drive. And the thought of Lee driving somewhere without a license wouldn't shock me....

Steve, my view is that the imposter was at the Cuban consulate - it may well have been Oswald himself at the Russian embassy. I know some folks won't like that view as they don't want Oswald in Mexico at all. I'm open to the fact that he was taken to Mexico or at least the border by others and that what we see going on in Mexico City is a mix. What I'm absolutely convinced about is that the WC story and timeline for his activities related to Mexico is bogus, based on the FBI investigation which was both misled by CIA tampering in MC via the their Mexican political and police connections as well as by the marching orders the FBI was given to eliminate leads pointing towards Oswald and others ie. conspiracy. Of course those orders came a bit later than the telephone call with Hoover talking about an imposter and others - he had no idea at that point that the CIA was floundering around already trying to cover their connections to Oswald.

Wow, just wow! And I thought I had an obsession for details. Well done Greg, this thread keeps making more and more sense to me.

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.