Larry Hancock

Thanks Jim, I understand the restrictions but I hope Stone does share details some day - plus I would love to see him do a Director's Cut with the materials, including your annotated script! Cannes sound like a great idea but even if I manage to get my second Covid vaccination I'll probably not make it...grin.

I trust my response to Jim made my position clear and I have emailed it directly to him. What I am interested in are the details behind Stone's remark about fact checking...I could guess or speculate or whatever about what he encountered in his efforts to place it but nobody would learn anything from that. I want to know about the exchange he faced in trying to place it, the process, the objections and demands from Netflex and National Geographic, their supposed fact checkers, etc. And along those same lines, Jim mentioned several items which I hope will become available for viewing along with the documentary and certainly published if it does not get placed. It seems to me that the work behind the documentary would be as important for our research efforts as the documentary itself.

Jim, I'm concerned you have taken my remark directly opposite of what I said - my assumption is that Stone's production is fact based and appropriately sourced and cited. I have no idea of it peer reviewed in any fashion but regardless, I expected it would be factual based on your being his primary resource. That's an assumption too but I never really doubted it would be correct. That means he would also have you at his back in any fact checking and that would not bode well for "establishment" historians who might try to counter what we have learned and what is in his work. What I was trying to get at was some details about his fact checking remark - what Netflix demanded, what sources they offered to fact check it, what they objected to, etc? None of that is about you, its about them. And beyond that what rebuttals were in play from Stone and for that matter from you. Bottom line - I assumed it was factual because you were involved. What I want to know is the details of their push back, for a bunch of reasons, but also because it would reveal what are still contemporary media sore spots even as of 2020. -- Sorry if I was not clear but I did say I was assuming he had the facts which meant he had the high ground. Edited 5 hours ago by James DiEugenio

If its about real facts - as in deconstructing the obviously bogus trajectory - then fact checking should not be a problem....if anything it would serve to illustrate the weaknesses of the official story. And you can prove it by citing the WC ballistics study among other things and the the report of the ballistics study panel. With what we know now fact checking should be a weapon, not a weakness.

Just to be a bit contrarian, I'm personally not adverse to a bit of "fact checking" these days, throw stones if you like but the consequences of making up your own versions of either historical or contemporary reality are pretty obvious. If the program is offered as a historical documentary it seems reasonable to have some sort of minimal factual review, if its entertainment, not at all. Of course its hard to tell the difference these days given the performance of outlets like the History Channel. I've become fed up with a lot of cable channel content that is presented as scientific or historical when I know there are serous issues with what I see presented as undisputed fact. But what would be most interesting would be something from Oliver Stone as to what "facts" were being checked and what the objections were? Jim, can you get any feedback as to what the fact checking issues were? Or did Stone just object to the whole concept? As PDS pointed out long ago, sometimes the "holes" in the date can tell you a great deal, in this case I would love to know what facts Netflix or National Geographic might have been taking issue with in the Stone documentary.

As I recall there was one three wheeler was off to the northwest of the TSBD, something like half a mile or more, doing traffic control on a street/bridge by the Stemmons freeway.

Well checking the end note in the Wiki article that quote is cited to Shane O'sullivan's book... which I don't have myself. I would have to believe that he cited a secondary source though because as far as I know only Fonzi, Dorff and myself would have talked to Ruben who I would believe would be the only viable source of a quote like that. And the quote does appear to come from Reuben. I did talk to Fonzi and Dorff at length about Morales over the years but we never really discussed RFK, nor did I discuss RFK with Reuben. So I can't say Morales didn't say it....but if that last part about getting Bobby was added I would have thought Dorff or Fonzi would have elaborated on it to me. Not much more I can say. In the interest of full disclosure Stu and I did spend a great deal of time on RFK and in the end our research ended up taking is in a much different direction, although of course we started out with all our usual suspects from Miami. Which included long looks at Hemming and Hargraves who were in LA by then - with Hemming claiming to have been at Sirhan Sirhan's house in a police car the next day. I'd have to go back and say anyone interested should reach out to Jeff for a full brief on what they did in regard to investigating the identification claims, that would be your best resource.

If you dig into Morley and Talbots work they did identify both real world individuals and confirmed their presence at the Ambassador. I'm not going to recall any more from memory but I think that was part of what convinced them.

I'm familiar with some of that material on Morales...like the special credit cards...I heard that from his friend Reuben. Just don't know about that remark on being in LA.....although I have to say he did have family in the area and did occasionally visit them, I do know that. On his death, certainly Reuben thought it was suspicious - and also knew that Morales was concerned about his and his familie's security - over threats from people he had worked with during his career. As to the photo imaging, it might be interesting for you to contact Morley and see if they did any image enhancement in their work....although I seem to recall they actually located the men who had been identified as CIA including Morales and verified that they were indeed at the Ambassador at the time. You should be able to get in touch with Jeff...don't know if he is a member here or not. I did write about Morales's career in Shadow Warfare, taking it beyond 1963 and I can tell you that his position in Laos, where he did move his family, was a very demanding one.....by 1968 he and the base were under seriously increasing military pressure.

As far as I know Morales was deceased by the time this came up, I don't recall his family stating anything about his admitting anything about RFK and I was close to a researcher who was close to them and have some of that correspondence relating to his wife - which has nothing of the sort. Certainly his family was aware he had done things he did not talk about - his wife had been with him on Latin American assignments and in SE Asia. Up to the point of this RFK claim she had been open to some dialog. Personally I had much more communication with his friend Reuben and that was all about JFK. As Jim said those involved in the RFK research were quite interested but that faded once they really dug into it, and checked out some of David's sources against others. As I said, Talbot ultimately was convinced it was not a valid claim but its hard to go back and correct books or even have a forum for retraction so that didn't really get circulated. As far as responding to posts on new leads, its a fine line for me as I have been at this so long and down so many false trails that initially looked promising or even sensational but just chewed up time - sometimes years worth - that I've become more than a little jaded and also very cautious about photo identifications. Not to mention that at my age I've become opinionated and grumpy - well at least according to my wife - so I need to watch myself. What I've found which I feel is valid and corroborated as far as JFK is in Tipping Point - on RFK its in my book length monograph published on the MFF site as "Incomplete Justice". The RFK material should be joined soon by John Hunt's book on the RFK assassination, which should be published posthumously this year. Its now though a huge edit thanks to an immense amount of work Gary Murr and the manuscript is now with Lancer for final formatting for publication. As is Ian Griggs massive work on the DPD.

He was assigned overseas at the time, at that time he would have been Chief of Base at Pakse...with his family...he came out of Laos to Vietnam circa 69/70 and out of Vietnam in 1971.

I think this is probably a good example of why I should stop responding to these sorts of posts...of course I did talk with Jeff about their research and did a variety of other work on the subject as well as have lengthy talks with Shane about the information Talbot and Morley turned up. As Jim says, Talbot himself determined that the identifications were wrong and had been convinced in the beginning. As far as Shane is concerned he did admit to me in exchanges that he had decided he was wrong as well but he didn't ever really issue a retraction of any sort that I'm aware of so its still in his book. What I was really trying to do was point out this whole issue had been explored before and that it was ultimately debunked to the satisfaction of all those involved at the time. I should have just said what Jim did. Hopefully I'll remember and just restrain myself from commenting when these sorts of things come up again, as they do periodically.

Some things just never go away.... this was researched and debunked years ago... https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_The_BBCs_Flawed_RFK_Story.html

So far I've seen nothing but the document I posted which would even suggest a contact between Ruth and Oswald's family - and it says nothing specific (or verified) about Ruth Pain contacting Oswald's family....t

Calvin, the document I provided certainly does not support Ruth requesting information about Oswald's family and at this point I think I've said all I have to say about this.....appears to me to be just one more diversion that keeps people going in circles.

I highly recommend Eric Tagg's self published book on Walthers, very hard to get these days....I got a copy long ago and talked with Tagg and then with Walther's long time partner and friend who was a bit guarded but with only good things to say about Walther's credibility. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30358529064&cm_mmc=ggl-_-COM_Shopp_Rare-_-naa-_-naa&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3vudotCo7gIVl-bjBx2higF0EAQYASABEgID3vD_BwE https://www.amazon.com/Brush-history-personal-journey-into/dp/B0006RU1OW

Ron if you read section Five again I think you will find all of that mentioned and Ruby role described as actually a working asset in Dallas - then evolving to being ordered to first monitor and then kill Oswald, giving him no choice and threatening him with his family. Pretty sure I cover all that in considerable detail - connecting him to Roselli, and linking them all the way back to Jack's trips to Havana (financed out of Vegas) and ultimately to Roselli himself.

Nothing more than you mentioned...simply that there was something in the Navy files about Ruth Paine trying to contact Oswald long before he showed up in Dallas. Its actually quite a good match to what shows up in this document although looking at the document suggests all sorts of problems with the claim...

I don't think so and I'm surprised there have been so few comments on what has been rumored for so long...this would seem to resolve years of rumor and speculation. I assume folks are reading the link but its hard to tell that anyone but John has paid any attention to it?

Certainly that could not have been the plan, that's why Martino said the full plan aborted with Oswald's being taken into custody alive. They could not know what he would say, and they had very little in the way of resource on the ground - Ruby was it, which his why his involvement had to totally change, he became physically ill, and took off on a completely different tangent...first reporting on Oswald, trying to capture any rumors he could get about what Oswald was saying and ultimately had to do everything he could to silence him. I really tried to get that across in Tipping Point with the extended discussion of Ruby - but the larger part is that whatever the full plan was to manipulate Oswald, link in Castro definitively and ensure Oswald could not blow it failed. So we can only reverse engineer up the a point - the point Martino himself gave us.

I talked at some length with him and as I recall he described running up the steps to the west of the pergola in the encounter...

You should verify with the moderators that re-posting is allowed, not sure myself. If they approve it definitely needs to be cited to my post here and attributed to Malcolm Blunt and his research.

I suspect this document linked at the end of this post is the one that created the discussion that has previously appeared online; I have no idea if it is the exact one Jim mentioned, but if not its certainly related to it. The document itself is courtesy of the research of my favorite guru, Malcolm Blunt. It is an ONI document released to the JFK Records Collection from NCIS. The document was originally referred to the Navy/ONI from the FBI; it is not something that came out of Navy own historical files on Oswald or their own investigation of Oswald. It is a post-assassination document, not something that comes pre-assassination. It is also typical of many FBI summary reports in that it combines multiple pieces of information and if you are not familiar with that practice it’s easy to read things into it that are not there (been there, done that). Perhaps there were follow-on inquires to resolve the inferences and lack of dates specifications in the report. If so we don’t have them nor do we have the source interview by the FBI with the former Young Friends Movement source – which might clear up some important things like dates. Or not, depending on what questions the FBI interviewer asked. Element One: The FBI appears to have documented that Ruth Paine attended Summer Sessions at the University of Philadelphia in 1957 and studied Russian. Element Two: The individual contacting the FBI after the assassination described Ruth Paine as belonging to the Young Friends Movement of Philadelphia (the memo does not confirm that nor give a date as to when she belonged, the inference is that it would be in 1957). The source stated that the Young Friends were interested in relaxing East-West tensions and in pursuit of that somehow contacted Lee Harvey Oswald as a pen-pal (the inference is that it was Ruth Paine who made the contact, but that is not directly stated). The source also did not implicitly state the year in which the pen pal contact was made. For reference in the summer of 1957 Oswald was just shipping out to his assignment in Japan and is unlikely to have been visible in Philadelphia for his interests in Russia. Read it for yourself and see if you get more from it than I do, if nothing else it’s a lead to where the conversations about Ruth writing the Navy about Oswald might have started: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ZOL5oTCu1ByVTxV90BNDUAxlxYwWnt3/view

Chris, I think perhaps the most frustrating have been those materials that ostensibly responsible people have written about seeing that never make it into public view. I won't go through the list but it includes history professors who write, then talk about putting their documents or tapes into university archives and then that never happens. Having gone though a good bit of trouble putting my own special collections out on CD (the Chrisman/Beckham documents being one example) with Lancer's help I find that annoying to say the least. Equally frustrating are documents that you know must have existed within the official files, like the DRE files Morley has chased, which we can't get...and the "soft files" that show up in lists but then disappeared because they were never sent outside field offices. Of course we have absolute proof that documents and records were sanitized through destruction or alteration so not finding some things is no shock....but I'm "over" claims of tapes and photos that people claim to have in their possession but retain without release, just no time for those sorts of mysteries anymore.

It still comes out the same Calvin, we have encountered that sort or thing over and over again, references to tapes someone has, photos, documents....its happened so many times most of us old timers just insist on some sort of corroboration to even consider those things. Sometimes you file it away mentally and wait for something to show up but it really never seems too... It all adds to the mystery and sensation...and drives people back into old leads and theories...but to answer you question we have seen it so often over fifty plus years that you don't find a lot of enthusiasm for third party stories about sensational evidence that someone has but never shares.