Larry Hancock

Well I'm getting use to being a contrarian and trying not to sound old and grumpy, but Ron did ask for comments.  Personally I think its way easy too jump on bandwagons when something new comes along. Perhaps I feel that way because I've seen so many new and "sexy" scenarios pass by in the last few decades, all very exciting at the time (admittedly I would be in the front row listening to them, eagerly taking notes).  Interestingly Larry Haapenen, whose name many will not recognize, and I spent a number of years looking at the military angle - starting with the Silver Dollar lead and then looking at LeMay et al.  These days it appears that Lemnitzer may replace LeMay as the military suspect of choice.

And as Steve notes, there have always been spooky meetings - he refers to one above, but Joan Mellon wrote at length about something equally mysterious with Crisman and Beckham. I years on those two and collecting extensive files, recently I put my files on he and Crisman on a CD so folks could decide for themselves - I think Lancer sold maybe two CDs of the Beckham/Crisman  collection.

Specifically to your point Ron,  I'm following the newer leads like Skorzeny and Lemnitzer but so far I've seen nothing compelling - interesting but nothing that connects all the dots to Dallas. Of course that doesn't mean it may not appear next year.  I've just reread Newman's Vietnam book and dug into his two newest works in minute detail as references for my upcoming book on covert warfare and the Bay of Pigs. But I'm not jumping on any new bandwagons yet. 

As an example, much of what John found soundly deconstructs Veciana's book...but as far as the Army being involved with him and Alpha 66, that's not really new at all.  And its also not mysterious considering the Army;'s tasking on Cuban affairs circa 62/63 - and not just the exiles going on missions but on the FPCC and travel to Cuba.  You see all these groups copying each other and circulating information on individuals and activities...often with military intelligence and CIA and FBI on the same document distribution (which is the way its supposed to work actually).

Not to be redundant, but we have a concrete example of the planning for an attack very much like Dallas, using CIA resources and Cuban exiles - a sniper attack on Fidel Castro which aborted in spring 1961.  And we can trace some of those same people to Dallas.  And there is a good bit of detail to corroborate a scenario involving those same people.  As for me, I'm going to have to see an equivalent amount of detail and corroboration to switch to a new scenario.  Of course there might have been a Plan B and I remain open to that.  Hopefully next year will be very interesting if John's forthcoming book and the Alberelli book make it out. 

Fort those really  interested in these documents (which is not me since I looked at them years ago when the DMN had them up) I've had a couple more exchanges with the Museum archivist who is very helpful.  She wanted me to be clear that the Museum got its paper copies from the Dallas Country DA's Office - not the Dallas Morning News.  To research the DMN holdings or to pursue where the pdfs might have gone, you should contact the DMN archivist who is  Erin Sood,  her email is esood@dallasnews.com

What we do know for certain is that the CIA had an informant close to people inside Alpha 66,  he was the fellow who has initially provided the Tejana for CIA  infiltration operations.  Years ago I wrote about a document in which Morales expressed the irony that the CIA was being provided advance info on Alpha 66 missions via him as an asset - and was doing nothing to interdict the missions. Alpha 66 was providing information if not mission plans to the Army in exchange for some supplies, that's in the documents. The CIA knew about missions in advance through their own source. As far as bases, I would imagine both Army and CIA had information from where Alpha 66 was launching its missions. What we do know for sure is that overall Alpha 66 did not trust CIA at all while they were willing to be more open to the Army, especially circa 1962.   However in 1963 when Army personnel in the Special Group proposed using Alpha 66 operationally, the CIA opposed doing so on the grounds that they could not be controlled. 

I have no idea what John may have that's new, all the above is from the 2010 version of SWHT and from NEXUS - the source documents are cited there.

The collection is described in the Museum’s Finding Aid.  It has not been digitized yet other than a sample of some 24 items that can be accessed on line at this link:

https://emuseum.jfk.org/collections/16831/dallas-county-district-attorneys-jack-ruby-trial-collection;jsessionid=C53735DF9EFF0E6E6CD3DDA2A3682F2C

The archivist tells me that the plan is ultimately to make the entire collection accessible from their online collections page.

I checked with the Museum and they do hold the materials in question - specifically the Dallas County District Attorney's Jack Ruby Trial Collection.  Judge Brandon Birmingham, Criminal District Judge in Dallas County and a former Dallas County prosecutor facilitated the loan of District Attorney Henry Wade's prosecution file for the Jack Ruby trial. The materials were presented to The Sixth Floor Museum on loan in 2017.

They are not online but are available to any researcher on request; the Museum requests two weeks notice to assemble them and prepare them for viewing.

Steve, honestly I would have to leave someone else to pursue this....if the pdfs can be found I'd be happy to work on getting them onto the MFF site but I looked at some of the material long ago when it was on the news site and I don't have any further interest in it myself at this point in time.

Well if anyone ever locates them we would certainly work to get them on MFF....my guess is somebody just decided it was no longer newsworthy at the paper and din't think much about just wiping them.  I will try and contact the Archivist and confirm the museum has them.  Anyone really interested in them should pursue it there as well I would think.

Steve, this thread is a bit hard to follow for me....who created the pdfs?    Seems like a waste of energy if they were not to be posted someplace....  

It should be pretty easy to resolve whether they are at the Sixth Floor Museum, just contact the archivist.  And as far as we have seen in recent years the only restriction on access would have to be something established by the owner during the grant of transfer.

I would also add that circa 67 and 68 other groups - generally known as the Dixie Mafia - were competing with Marcello and had enough nerve and clout to muscle in on several of his ventures and even rob a few of them.  Marcello's reputation has been considerably enhanced by a number of authors who have written about him. -

Its important to realize that Nagell's story is very "situational",  while he did not change the most fundamental parts he did adjust his dialog at times when he was reaching out to Congressmen while in prison, seeking a settlement over his disability and especially when he was bargaining with the CIA for help in getting custody over his children (he did that deal, went to Europe and got the kids back).  I spent a huge amount of time putting his remarks/documents in chronological order and analyzing all that in a CD that is available from JFK Lancer.  If you want the full story its there.  I've worked with Dick on Nagell and touched based with some of the same corroborative sources and its certainly necessary to be cautious.  I also worked with an Air Force security officer who was stationed at Atsugi right after Oswald left and he added some very useful context - one of the real mysteries of that though is that there is a photo on Oswald's camera film that shows a jets on a flight line...to get close enough to take that photo somebody had to have access security and the really strange thing is that a check on the aircraft's tail number reveals the location is at a base in Washington State, someplace Oswald was never known to have been...

Nagell was interviewed by Garrison in person in 1968.

However Nagell was in prison and the ongoing contacts were supposed to be with Garrison's volunteer - until Nagell began to mistrust him and broke it off.   That's why he did not become an actual figure in Garrison's grand jury or trial work.

The reason Nagell told nothing to Garrison is that he viewed the volunteer investigator sent to him from Garrison to have CIA connections and be a plant .....it was indeed confirmed years later that the fellow did have intel community connections and like many of Garrisons "volunteers" was really there to either spike or divert Garrison.  Negell's caution was correct. As to Oswald's motive, in regard to assassination JFK he had none since that was not part of what he was doing...which was serving voluntarily as a dangle to the the Cuban exiles and other FBI targets.  Its also important to remember that Nagell's 1963 contacts with Oswald were limited and stopped as of New Orleans, therefore it was highly unlikely that he could give more detail than he did - which was to continually warn that Cuban exiles posed a threat to JFK; the threat Nagell knew about was in DC....which is corroborated by Oswald's letters about moving to DC in Sept.

In reply to Bob's comment....(and I did work with telephone switching equipment for some 12 years), there were test numbers which would generate calls for troubleshooting and other types of switch testing - but that would be entirely different from a WATs line.  And of course there would be no need to specify the name of who you were giving the number to - like to Judyth or Oswald.  And yes they were routinely changed.  Long distance test and maintenance calls were billed, those sorts of test calls went to special maintenance and test accounts.  And of course with the right type of signalling you could fool the billing system entirely. Again, nothing to do with WATS.

Interestingly the first hacking started a in the mid-sixties, with things called Blue Boxes that could fool a switch into making free calls using the right type of signaling....and totally passing the billing systems.....a thing in the college world of the sixties...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box

Yes,  I don't recall the specifics but Lansdale had something like a 138 step program with details for each step....the sort of thing McNamara might have liked,  sort of like a GANTT chart for anyone familiar with that type of program management.  Looks great in presentations but the CIA paramilitary guys were well aware that sort of plan quickly falls apart once the actual engagements begin.

But Lansdale was great presenter and tended to be very convincing in writing reports and doing presentations - he managed to convince JFK in regard to his strategies for Vietnam and of course for Cuba.  JFK proposed him for both Station Chief and Ambassador in Saigon and all parties involved - JCS, State and DCI adamantly opposed both proposals. 

It might be good for anyone interested to read Walt Brown's new book on Judyth....

https://www.amazon.com/Judyth-Vary-Baker-Edited-Commentary-ebook/dp/B07RH9FXBG

There are lots of documents on Veciana that are online, I referenced a number of them with RIF numbers in SWHT but surely there are more now....and John gives lots of RIF numbers in his citations; you would have to search them but then again many should either be on MFF or Black Vault.  As to Lansdale in the tramps photo in the Plaza, its pretty much like all the images from the Plaza, you will find folks that accept its Lansdale and lots who don't. 

One of the things to remember about Lansdale was that he was not a covert ops guy in the sense of paramilitary action...he was a psychwarfare/counter insurgency specialist but if you look at his contacts and connections they were not really in CIA operations - in fact most of the CIA ops folks thought his Mongoose plans were totally unrealistic.  Interestingly my friend David Boylan just ran across a new document when Lansdale was  at the Pentagon;  both of them got involved with CIA requests to facilitate support for the Cuba Project and the CIA officers in that program thought both of them (mostly Prouty) were pains in the rear and and little good to say about the support they received from the Joint Chiefs, DOD or the Pentagon. 

I got into the Army / Veciana files several years ago and Army was clearly using Alpha 66 as a source of intelligence on Cuba,  military intel including requests for any Soviet weapons they could collect. But this was regional Army intel, with reporting up to HQ.  Veciana did have an Army crypt and they certainly were in touch with him after Alpha 66 was formed.

Separately I found CIA documents which said they had inside assets giving them input on Alpha 66 raids before hand and afterwards but they were just sitting back and watching - this was out of JMWAVE - and not trying to stop them as they really should have been.  Morales made a comment that Alpha 66 would be really surprised if they knew.

And in spring 1963, the Army folks on the Cuba team proposed using Alpha 66 for missions, it was just a proposal, and CIA responded that they could not be controlled and as far as the documents I saw it was dropped at that point.

So....not sure where John is going with this but Army contact with Veciana and Alpha 66 is in itself not a new story.

For a little more background, circa 1963 a WATS line would have been a connection between two businesses - each with the equipment to serve as a local exchange for the telephones attached to it i.e. a PBX or private business exchange.  Those went into long buildings and a WATS connection would have been accessed only though the phones connected to it.  There was not dial up WATS service until some years later.  In 1963 pay phone access to WATS was not happening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Telephone_Service

Jim asked the other Larry but for those interested, here is the CAPA November In Dallas information:

https://capa-us.org/capa-2019-november-in-dallas-conference/

Well said Pat...you can put that one in stone and set it outside the TSBD...

Everyone should note that we go to as much effort as possible citing the source documents and materials from which all the crypts, pseudo's and aliases are developed.  That allows everyone to make their own call as to how reliable they are;  some are extremely well corroborated but of course others may be single sourced, making them speculative.  The whole idea is for everyone to be able to see the sources behind the listings.  In many cases we have a number of back and forth debates in reviews before taking something live and continue to make modifications, even with the crypts.....its a work in progress and one that requires a huge amount of pure slogging in the documents.   The good news is that we can now understand some sets of documents far better than we could even a few years ago.

Those following this thread will find a good synopsis of articles and ongoing media coverage being presented by Russ Baker:

https://mailchi.mp/whowhatwhy/2019-daily-newsletter-762661?e=c2896979bd

CNN is certainly giving it headline coverage https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/10/politics/bill-barr-jeffrey-epstein-justice-department-investigation/index.html

The only good news is that it appears the Southern District of New York is continuing the conspiracy case: