Larry Hancock

Great, you are definitely pulling out some of the key points Ron (and yes, these sorts of details are why we decided an actual book that somebody could work with hands on would really be helpful). The bond between Harvey and Angleton is key, indeed a look at some of the final letters between the two before Harvey's death brings out that they were sharing something very special. And explains why Angleton was most likely responsible for the attempts to steal key papers from Harvey's home after his death. Phillips connection to propaganda out of New Orleans is important, both as related to original Cuba project back in 60/61 and in regard to Oswald and both INCA and DRE in 1963. When you get to segment 4 you will find a lot more discussion about not just propaganda but several ways that SAS/JMWAVE were using Oswald and his "image". Some of which explain Phillips stop off in Miami on the way back from D.C. in the fall. You've already got a sense of why the work is titled "Tipping Point" - that develops in segment 4 as well. Looks like you are well on your way.

Boom indeed...grin. Yes Sturgis repeatedly failed to get through Batista security to get supplies to Castro, as did most of the other efforts to supply rebel groups. This comes from the records of the revolutionary groups themselves who became desperate for weapons and supplies - their folks in the U.S. were not being very successful either. Sforza's cover inside Cuba was as a professional gambler so that mandated lots of time in the Casino's, lots of networking with the locals and with the American employees....and of course put him in an excellent position to run a stay behind network of just those sorts of folks as Castro came into power. Its no wonder he ended up running the AMOTS when he came out. Yes, the McWillie / Ruby connection was very deep and long lasting and most likely key to using Ruby in Dallas. And Ruby's first use in regard to Cuba was much earlier, its easy to see why the WC wanted to stay away from the real depth of his connections to Cuba activities....

Hosty had presented at Lancer and Debra had spoken to him prior to that on multiple occasions and he was friendly enough. He said some rather dramatic things in his presentation, which should be on the conference DVD - mostly in regard to his friends on the Bureau in Mexico City telling him they had Oswald under field surveillance there, had photos with him in meetings outside the embassy with Soviet agents. I think Hosty also claimed that actually a Cuban Visa was mailed to Oswald and was recovered - we were very interested in all those things and I spoke to him afterwards and he affirmed them. Now that I think about it he was really continuing to position a Soviet conspiracy with Oswald in his remarks. I passed him a hard copy of the Patterson document while he was at the conference, saying I wanted to talk to him about it. We had at least a couple of telephone calls afterwards but at the time I was trying to get more details and affirmation on the sensational things he had said and while I brought up the document he just shifted to conversation back to what he had been talking about and I never really got him to engage on it. It was not my top priority at the time since the other things were seemingly new information (we had known about Patterson and Revill for ages) and I wasn't pushing him on it. Of course the new things he mentioned never solidified and remain pretty dubious at this point in time. I'm sort of surprised he didn't just take the time to kick back the Patterson remark to Kostikov like he did with the HSCA but he just simply ducked it...and I'm sure I had not seen the HSCA document you posted above or I would have brought that up. Seems like many years ago now....and it was...

Well I had written some of the relevant chronology in SWHT so after a quick scan I find the following: Patterson quotes Hosty as saying Oswald had contacted two "known subversives about two weeks before the assassination". Hosty also remarked to DPD Officer Jack Revill stating that Oswald was a "known Communist" and had been under observation. When chided for not sharing information he reminded Revill that it was FBI policy not to share "information pertaining to espionage". As far as timing goes, Hosty was first informed about Oswald visiting the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City on Oct. 18 (that came from INS, no mention of Kostikov). The FBI Director was informed of an Oswald letter to the Soviet Embassy in New York on November 19....so far I find no indication Hosty was copied on anything about that at that nor earlier, maybe I'm missing it. However both dates would be pretty inconsistent with Hosty's remarks to the HSCA. He pulls appears to pull both incidents together in his remarks to the HSCA but if you look closely he actually seems to be saying he only learned of the New York letter after the assassination. Based on what I see so far Hosty is citing Oswald's visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September, which Hosty learned about on October 8, as an explanation for what Patterson described as Hosty saying that the FBI observing Oswald with "subversives" within the two weeks of November immediately prior to the assassination. Not a good fit....

Well it would be a stretch to call a foreign embassy staffer in Mexico City (or an entire embassy in New York) a "subversive" (pretty sure the Patterson material talks about subversives rather than foreign agents), especially coming from someone who performed counter intelligence activities as Hosty did. So that usage is something to check. Good find Matt, I actually don't recall seeing that before - and certainly Hosty did not give me that answer (or any answer) when I asked him about it directly. But more to the point, my recollection is that Hosty specifically referenced a contact in his remarks which would have occurred a week to two weeks before the assassination. That would not fit this explanation...I also think he said he had been "observed" in contact with the subversives which would raise another issue. It would be interesting to check the timeline and see exactly when Hosty would have received an Oswald file which referred either to the contact in Mexico City (specifically to Kostikov) or the mail intercept. This certainly deserves some further checking, given the destruction of the note to the FBI, the destruction of a page in Oswald's notebook and a substitution, I would tend to think this was more diversion - simply another "misunderstanding". I certainly don't think there was a follow up to share information of any nature with the Secret Service, which Hosty would indicate surely would happen. If the FBI really did feel those two contacts were of real consequence, it should have been a definite national security lead which deserved an investigation of Soviet conspiracy with Oswald.

Thanks Matt, much appreciated...and of course there are many, many scenarios - Jim Marrs did one of the best jobs in highlighting alternative scenarios in Crossfire. There are also individuals of interest that I don't focus on in Tipping Point simply because they were either not directly relevant to the Dallas plot (in my view) or the body of information on them was not the equal of the names I do introduce. What I am doing with some of those people and tangents is blogging on them individually, giving my reasons for not including them, but also as much information as I've found relevant. So Tipping Point is becoming interwoven with those blog posts. I will likely do the same with some of the points brought up here - Eddy made a good one about "risk" and I expect to blog abut that sometime in the next few days. I can do the same with other points brought up here....I'm not sure I can encapsulate "the only plot afoot" point you brought up in the last post in a blog post but I'll probably give that a try. So basically I would encourage anyone reading Tipping Point to either bring up those sorts of thoughts (that occur as you read) here or email or message them to me and I'll respond in one form or the other, possibly with a blog post if that seems feasible.

Matt, I think if you read Tipping Point closely I cover exactly what you posted - yes the hate and the talk did begin after the Bay of Pigs and continue after the missile crisis. The first concrete attempt might well have been at the Orange Bowl ceremony in Miami. Now grand conspiracy folks might want all those to be connected, I don't think so nor do I think Chicago was a sophisticated plot - I've blogged over and over on that and cover it in Tipping Point again but I know I'm not likely to change anyone's minds on that - there are really three different and independent aspects to Chicago and they have to be considered independently to avoid them becoming entangled. On the other had I get very specific about people who had made threats against JFK who going to Chicago and name names and the major group/clique where that was happening. There is no doubt in my mind that they some of them wanted JFK dead and for that matter that some of them were involved in the Dallas plot in one fashion or another. What I've written in Tipping Point is how the very specific plot for Dallas evolved, when, who, and more on how in Segment 5. As to the Dallas attack, there are indications of a couple of back up plans but its all anecdotal. Heck, if we can't be definitive about exactly what happened in the plaza its hard to do much more than speculate. Of course Hargraves did say his bomb just wasn't needed and there were cars parked on the Stemmons access ramp and the off ramp at Parkland...not to mention the stalled pick up on Elm Street (maybe innocent, maybe not, maybe with a bomb in the driver didn't even know about). In any event, I have no intention of trying to force the Dallas plot scenario in Tipping Point on anyone, what you see is what you get; but my choice was to focus on the attack that unfortunately worked rather than go off on tangents (I did enough of that in SWHT).

I really do need to add something else to consider when thinking about "risk". Although its purely speculative, if the tactical team members in the Plaza were the radical Cuban patriots that I characterize in Tipping Point, they had already risked their lives on multiple occasions. If they had been killed in the attack in Dallas, it would have been an acceptable risk. If they had been taken prisoner, they would have had two very effective options. If JFK were dead or insured they would have had the option of claiming to to have been double agents working for Castro. If JFK had escaped, they could have revealed his secret dialog with Castro - which would have caused a Congressional inquiry . That would have blown away the back channel negotiations and blown that apart as well as severely damaging him politically. In any of those contingencies, for a patriot willing to die for the cause, there was really no risk at all in terms of accomplishing their objective. While that thinking is pure speculation it would be perfectly consistent with earlier actions, including the attempt to damage the Kennedy Administration via the TILT mission.

I've tried to avoid discussing Tipping Point here rather than in the book section of the forum but I would agree that the Dallas plot was high risk - although comparable to any major political assassination involving paramilitary action, certainly no more than the attempted attacks on Castro and for that matter other assassinations of major political figures. The people I've called out were mentally prepared for that sort of risk and for penetrating and operation in a far more secure and denied environment. Which brings up the point that there may well have been back up attack plans in Dallas and we only know about the one which actually succeeded. As I said recently in another post, the people who risk such attacks know its all or none, if they succeed the chaos will cover their action from a tactical standpoint. If they fail the world falls on them. Segment 5 will expand on some of the points you mention here Eddy, including the actual nature of the cover up as well as what was supposed to happen but did not when the full plan failed early in the afternoon after the murder of the President. The important point to deal with is that there was never any intention by the plotters that a conspiracy would not be obvious - there was no need to conceal it, just the opposite. The only need was to get the team exfiltrated, then the rest of the plot would divert and redirect the obvious response. But yes, it was indeed high risk - still if you follow the scenario, for those most directly involved there was no chance. It either worked or their exile would be permanent and their country and their families would be forever lost to Communism and a dictatorship. That sort of motivation was more than enough to drive extreme, very high risk actions. I have responded separately and in more detail with some thoughts on "risk" in the Dallas attack: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2020/12/11/risk-in-dallas/

I have no doubt that the April meeting involved talk, especially during the drinking sessions, that somebody should kill that SOB. Its also quite likely that talk went into more detail about how such a thing could be done, using well trained Cuban volunteers who they knew hated JFK, even discussing some of the tactics, tools and assets they were all familiar with from their years of efforts to kill Castro. Some level of "plotting", could have developed in those conversations. There is also good reason to believe that independently there had been talk inside some of the Cuban exile groups about not just seeking revenge but removing JFK as an obstacle between them and the overthrow of Castro. We find a letter within the AMWORLD documents, written to Artime and copied to Quintero, that no action against Castro was possible with JFK in the picture. Don't recall the exact date on that but it was that fall. We also know there were threats against JFK as early as his Orange Bowl appearance at the time of the Brigade's return. But what I've tried to do is separate the talk, perhaps even some fairly minimal plotting and actions (such as a rifleman and a bomb associated with that trip to Florida), from what in reality was a much more complex plan (and conspiracy) to kill JFK that focused specifically on Dallas. Look back at the People in Motion section and you find good indications for when the Dallas plot begins and the period in which it evolved. My focus in Tipping Point was to dial down specifically on the conspiracy, the assets and the actors who killed the President in Dallas - I have no doubt some of those people had been talking about killing him before September, but see no solid evidence that a concrete plan was developed. What I do see is that there was a "tipping point" where all that talk jelled into action and a specific plan for Dallas was developed and put into motion in a relatively short period of time.

Mervyn, I do write a good deal about Cummings, Interarms and the CIA in Shadow Warfare - using material which Gary graciously provided and a number of other sources as well. Beyond that you will also find a book written solely about Cummings and the arms trade: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Business-Cummings-Interarms-Trade/dp/0393017664/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2FDOQH3J7YRB7&dchild=1&keywords=sam+cummings&qid=1607351632&sprefix=sam+cummin%2Cdigital-text%2C312&sr=8-1

Ron, I was really only offering some insight into the story from contemporary documents - none of which appear to have been reviewed or used by the author of the story. Given that particular remark by Crist is documented I suspect that their might be at least some embellishment of the story - and the TNT would be a good example. As far as his wife was concerned, I've no reason to suspect she didn't reach out to anyone in the CIA that she could - and anyone else for that matter. He was a prisoner, that was public and her pushing any button possible to get his release would be expected. I'd just say his experience is dramatic and personal enough to make a good adventure story and certainly elements of it are provable - but it while its a good story it probably needs a little balance and I thought the documents might help provide that.

Readers might find some background documents interesting: https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=ZRCHEST

“Context for Conspiracy” / Segment 4 of Tipping Point is now available for reading online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part4.html

“Context for Conspiracy” / Segment 4 of Tipping Point is now available for reading online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part4.html

I have to say I've never really studied him in any depth although I know of the general discussion on him and jogged my memory by looking back at the thread on the forum. His belonging to the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers doesn't really surprise me. This is probably one of the times when its best for me to say I don't have anything to offer about him and don't find him on the direct path I'm trying to follow in Tipping Point. Sorry I don't have anything to contribute, not even an opinion.

One of the key points in bringing a focus on her was her travel in the summer and the fact that the FBI was very seriously trying to interdict all sales. Regardless of any success on her part she should defnitely have been on their radar. When you add in the very real conflict between JMWAVE and JURE you get a complex mix - with her and Dallas standing out as the only entry point for JURE inside the U.S. outside Miami. The documents now let us see how seriously both FBI and CIA were all over such things and if she would not have been under some form of observation would be strange. We also know that JMWAVE used the AMOTs for both dangles and stings (including in Mexico City). Given all that and Sarita's likely association with DRE members at school, we have to think the Odio's would have been an counter intelligence target.

Its not a new find Matt, I wrote about it even in the earlier editions of SWHT. Not sure if its been discussed here before or not, at this point it seem like almost everything has but I could not be sure. It certainly is a key part of the final Dallas story and its chronology and like some topics it not got much discussion in recent years. I can say that I had the opportunity to discuss a few things with Hosty before and after he spoke at a Lancer conference. He was very open on the telephone and brought up several points where he took odds with the official story on Oswald. The single thing he would not discuss was this item. Even when I provided him with a document confirming Patterson's remarks he simply refused to comment. .....there is also another line on this in which a similar remark was made to one or more Dallas Police officers - that became a major bone of contention for a time until they backed off and it dropped out of sight. That's covered elsewhere and in SWHT and I did not insert it into tipping point. It does support the view that the FBI in Dallas was monitoring subversive activities and Oswald showed up during that activity - it may well have been an FBI activity directly involving Heitman rather than Hosty.

Maybe the holidays will help ...grin. Segments 4 and 5 will definitely take some time..

Segment 3 of Tipping Point is live on the Mary Ferrell Foundation now: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html It delves into the chronology of what I found to be especially significant events and movements of individuals during the Fall of 1963. The commentary in the end notes also gives my opinions on topics of that period that are widely discussed and debated. Segment 3 completes the background for the final two segments, which are both much longer and much more detailed - segments 4 and 5 explore what I see as the context in which the Dallas attack involved, the specifics of the personnel involved and the tactical aspects of the attack - and what followed President Kennedy's murder.

Segment 3 of Tipping Point is live on the Mary Ferrell Foundation now: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html It delves into the chronology of what I found to be especially significant events and movements of individuals during the Fall of 1963. The commentary in the end notes also gives my opinions on topics of that period that are widely discussed and debated. Segment 3 completes the background for the final two segments, which are both much longer and much more detailed - segments 4 and 5 explore what I see as the context in which the Dallas attack involved, the specifics of the personnel involved and the tactical aspects of the attack - and what followed President Kennedy's murder.

Definitely much of Nagell's story is corroborated...its ironic that his defense lawyer in that case told Russell he would have gone to the mat for him if he only had proof that Nagell had been in Mexico City - which of course we now have. One of the big problems however is that over the years Nagell did bounce back and forth on things, often based on where he was in regard to knowing where his children were and trying to get custody of them. The "situational" aspect of that is a lot of what I tried to draw out in my analysis that is on the CD, you can only really do that by tracking his statements, letters, correspondence etc over a timeline as compared to his legal actions and later his effort to get his children back. Once you factor that in things become much clearer. Its just very important to plot out what he did/could have known at various times as compared to what we can confirm about his movements and activities. A big part of that can be resolved by identifying Hecksher the Bob that Nagell talks about in Mexico City; once you decode Bob as Hecksher and show he was in Mexico City at the right time and in Tokyo as well, its a whole new ballgame.

Hi Alan, yes you can order the CD from JFK Lancer at: http://jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html Its CD-163 I have recently blogged on Nagell and my current views on what I consider the most important parts of his story so you might want to take a look at that on Wordpress. I consider him very important to the overall backstory of Oswald and as corroboration of both local and non-local Cuban exiles in contact with Oswald in late August in New Orleans. Nagell certainly knew that Oswald was being manipulated and that some action using him was in play as early as September in the DC area. But we also have realize the limitations of what he could have known about anything beyond that once he fled New Orleans and ended up in jail. What is absolutely certain is that what he did know would have blown apart the lone nut myth and pointed any real investigation in the direction of conspiracy.

Thanks Vince, I was thinking it must be an oldie...my memory now only goes back either two days or fifty years, the interim period requires a lot of cogitation - and luck - to bring things back. Good thing you have it covered!

Well first off personally I certainly would describe LBJ as extremely corrupt, perhaps somebody said he wasn't with an intent to be sardonic, don't recall. As to Ferrie, I suspect someone has called out as a shooter although I'm not sure exactly who. I'll leave his importance to be argued by others. Most of the discussion I recall had to do with the reliability of Jack Martin, the library card etc. Not something I'm going to wade into - Ron, I'd suggest you go to the conference page and take it up with the speaker directly since most of the folks here won't have heard that presentation. The discussion of various presentations is still in progress there.