Larry Hancock

Haven't seen anything about a Castro contact yet, that's not in the Ganis book. There is no mention of Merix in the book's index and I don't find it in my markings in the book which include all the commercial companies mentioned. What is clear (and has been for some time) is that Skorzeny marketed his war time connections and served as a sort of "personnel recruiter", locating German scientists, engineers and military personnel and passing them on to interested parties - Argentina being the major client but he did actually help locate German rocket scientists for Egypt (including those he later led into being killed).

Actually I researched Interarmco at considerable length and wrote about Sam Cummins and his companies in Shadow Warfare (focusing on global arms sales and on AMWORLD) and again to a lesser extent in Creating Chaos (focusing on Indonesia). And no, Interarmco is not what Ralph was writing about in regard to Skorzeny. His references to Cuba have to do with a purported meeting with Batista after his ouster, possible meetings with Cuban exile political figures in Madrid in the early 1960s and Skorzeny's involvement with Operation Tropical (which is sourced only to a single Latin American newspaper article). Unfortunately the type of end-noting that Skyhorse used for Ralph's book makes it almost impossible to find the exact sources for some of these things (which frustrates Ralph himself) and he has been kind enough to offer Stu Wexler and I access to his own source materials. Its going to take us some work in those to fully appreciate and evaluate certain assertions in the book and Ralph is very understanding in that regard.

As a side note, we know from the records that one of Henry Hecksher's main roles was serving as a political/propaganda/security advisor to Artime (who had a real problem with talking about secure information to many people in order to establish his own importance). As part of that role Hecksher was mentoring Artime on setting up propaganda programs and it appears David Phillips was brought in as an advisor in those activities. He was the only officer cleared for AMWORLD at the Mexico City station. Phillips was also assigned to handle safe houses for the project in Mexico City. Which makes David's post about Sambora interesting in that I would have expected only the most senior CIA officers supporting the project or the most senior exiles involved in it to go to Mexico City to meet with Phillips. That makes Sambora/the "mexican" a very special figure at that point in time.

Anyone wanting to follow the release of the records and new items in them might want to follow the Mary Ferrell postings on the release process - and survey the following early synopsis by Bill Simpich: https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/07/26/analyzing-the-new-jfk-revelations/

I did discuss this with John Newman who told me that his findings on the other use of the crypt are in his second new volume. Apparently the crypt was used as a cover for one or more individuals working out of a California office in liaison work on drug smuggling. The CIA had an interesting habit of doing such liaison with the drug enforcement agency and then essentially stealing informants for itself. We find that in Europe and later all across Latin America. I have not had time to pursue the exact citation in John's work myself.

Having been pretty deeply immersed in the UFO subject since the mid-60's I can certainly second Lance's assessment of Lezar - one more diversion of a great many in that arena.

If you have not read this I would definitely recommend it...covers his time in Italy and then back in the US. His association with Angleton is documented in great detail. https://www.amazon.com/Flawed-Patriot-Rise-Legend-Harvey/dp/1574889915

Glad to see John doing this, personally I've become more and more skeptical of Halpern as a source the more I've waded into the documented details of the matters on which he often commented.

For what its worth I took walking tours to the purported Carr viewing position on number of occasions during Lancer conferences and asked them if they could see what he claimed to have seen. As an add-on I asked them if they could see windows in the TSBD clearly enough to describe someone in them in any detail whatsoever. I don't recall anyone ever being comfortable with what he described after their personal experience.

Hecksher was not just stationed in Berlin, he actually became station chief prior to Harvey. Would have to look it up for the exact time period. Both he and Morales moved into PB/SUCCESS in Guatemala from Berlin Station. As to Hecksher in Mexico City, some of the strongest confirmation comes from Australian researchers who managed to dig up his air travel records which show his travel to Mexico City after this assignment to the first Cuba project.

To elaborate a bit, the longer backstory on Hecksher is important since he was Station Chief in Laos, was reassigned to work with independent nationalist troop formations working drugs in the golden triangle - troops that were being recruited as anti-Communist insurgents in Laos, before CIA shifted there attention to the Hmong. Then Hecksher became station chief in Japan during the time Oswald and Nagell were there, came back for the first Cuba project, was in Mexico City on a highly secret assignment when Nagell was there and I suspect Hecksher was "Bob" (for Berlin Operating Base where he had been chief) as described by Nagell. His role in 63 is more interesting in terms of the individuals he had high level authority over like Jenkins and Quintero - which leads...well which leads to what David and I have been doing that I will present in Dallas next month. More on that after the conference.

Honestly given Angleton's mental state that would be hard to say...we now know that he secretly traveled (secret from the CIA itself) to Europe to pursue leads on major foreign government figures he felt were Soviet agents, that he did break ins on his own, that he kept things in his own isolated files that the CIA itself destroyed as they went through them after his departure. I'd say that by 63 he was probably certifiable, certainly he was at the end of his career. From what I can gather at that point he was simply wondering around HQ, visiting with only senior officers he trusted from years past and rambling on about things that worried him....then just walking out. He may well have started something without fully realizing it. As to Barnes, we also now know that he literally lied to everyone above and below him in regard to the Cuban landings, that he became virtually unhinged after they failed and that he was moved into domestic ops to more or less just keep him out of further trouble since busing him would have meant acknowledging what really happened at the BOP. Given that if there was any CIA monitoring of Oswald or contact with him in 63 inside the US it would have fallen under domestic ops that makes things interesting. And as a side note those familiar with him admit that he developed an intense personal hate for JFK over the BOP ...again almost certifiable given his total and adamant rejection of his own failure. And of course Barnes would have known all the Cuba operation players from 1960/61...which included Hecksher, Morales, Robertson et al.

The Golden Triangle connection is important in a much larger context than we normally take it. It developed largely though the efforts of the US in supporting independent nationalist chines armies in actual invasions of China. These efforts created some of the first CIA commercial covers, actual proprietaries and field officer links to what later evolved in both Indonesia and Laos. It was the venue in which former OSS officers in SE Asia and China first connected and networked with each other. The drug thing developed much later. When State tried to have Hecksher removed as station chief in Laos and Helms refused, it ultimately led to Hecksher being designated to help bring in the rogue nationalist forces to act against Laotian communist rebels. It was only after that work that Hecksher was transferred to Japan - in the same time frame both Nagell and Oswald were in Japan. Certainly the drugs did get inserted into the operations in Burma and later Laos, as I've said...when you set up covert commercial covers to move weapons and supplies into an operation, someone will figure out how to make money sending something illegal back the other way...the nature of the beast. But for interest there is another story entirely and its how the CIA field officers came to work together and establish a social network that extended beyond their day jobs.....who would trust each other, who would share information and who figured they knew more than headquarters.

Thanks Steve, actually I went down the Detachment 101 road twice, most recently when I did Shadow Warfare. I spend a lot of time there following OSS 101 members who became locally influential in Burma after the war, who helped establish the first CIA presence there and to some extent many of the basic practices for CIA covert operations during the Cold War...long before PB/SUCCESS. If you have SW check Chapter 4 on Armies of Opportunity and Chapter 4 on Fighting China...Deniably. I think you will find some names that are familiar to you and others that are not...but a lot of connections that later turn up in Laos and the Golden Triangle, including Lucian Conein.

It was amazingly ballsy, especially since the jumps were at night, during the dark of the moon and coordinated strictly with local resistance folks who could easily have been compromised by the occupation forces. It largely succeeded due the the strong personal bonds between the British and French, involving Brits who were quite fluent in French and personally familiar with the territory and French personnel who had gone to Britain and moved back and forth as infiltrators. The only sad point is that while it worked in France and to a lesser extent in the low countries, certain of the senior OSS officers who became involved with it used it as a model for infiltration into occupied Europe after the war and later into North Vietnam - both efforts for total disasters (largely because unlike in France there were no comparable resistance networks). Hundreds of volunteers were sacrificed in the effort, I discuss it in Shadow Warfare. If you really want to get a personal feel I would recommend what is actually a humor book but one written an Army officer who volunteered for the OSS, went through OSS training and then did jump with the Jeds into occupied France. While being told humorously it gives the real inside story of the field officers, from a participants perspective. The title is "You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger" by Roger Hall. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Youre-Stepping-on-My-Cloak-and-Dagger-Bluejacket-Books-Hall-Roger-Paperback/382597883963?epid=30425006&hash=item59149c683b:g:NH8AAOSwKkhZsdHS:rk:7:pf:0 I highly recommend it.

As a WWII history buff I feel compelled to chime in that the Jedburgh operation was largely a British SOE affair, initiated by the British and with the majority of the clandestine air drops were done by British aircraft and the contacts were with French and other resistance fighters in the occupied territories. The OSS did participate but were relative late comers and learned the ropes from the Brits, they were not running the show. In fact OSS officers had to go though Jed/SOE military training to qualify for inclusion. Operation Jedburgh was a clandestine operation during World War II, in which personnel of the British Special Operations Executive, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the Free French Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action ("Intelligence and operations central bureau") and the Dutch and Belgian Armies were dropped by parachute into occupied France, the Netherlands and Belgium to conduct sabotage and guerrilla warfare, and to lead the local resistance forces in actions against the Germans. The British were fighting the clandestine battle on the continent before the U.S. entered the war.

In NEXUS I laid out what I still feel was the chain of conspiracy....starting out with Angleton inciting Harvey over the secret JFK/Castro backchannel talks and Harvey carrying that message to his meeting with Roselli. Angleton had also worked with Morales and actually helped organize the Cuban Intelligence Service which was created at JMWAVE after the failure of the BOP. Nobody really discusses that but I document it in NEXUS. The plot began to really jell only after the meeting in Florida - with a tangent that would ultimately lead via Roselli to Ruby, a tactical tangent though Robertson that would bring in some people that I will be discussing in my Lancer presentation next month ...with just possibly another tangent via Barnes - but that is something yet to be fully explored. So yes, Ghost in the background would be very accurate and indeed Angleton most likely did not know "who struck John" specifically...but I believe he knew precisely why...although by the end I suspect he was so close to dementia that he might not have remembered...

Paul, the only contact that we I can document (as far as such things can be) between Harvey and QJ/WIN is the trip that Harvey took to Florida in the spring of 1963. Harvey charged the trip expenses to that crypt under the the QJ/WIN funds Helms had approved for it that year. As Twyman first demonstrated, based on AMKW's research, in his book and as several of us has chased down further, the individual Harvey was meeting with was John Roselli. I plan to ask Dr. Newman personally about the other QJ/WIN documents that he has found once we are all together in Dallas.

Cory made me think a bit on this one, is there any film footage from further up the street that shows him with his arm in motion or raised....in reality any real signal would be made well before the limo is right beside him. Just curious.

Martin, if I'm reading Amazon correctly, while it talks about publication in November it actually shows availability in April. I've been trying to confirm that - at this point it looks like it may have slipped until next spring. In addition, I think one of the issues, as it is with the Ganis' book at this point, is exactly how and when Hank will offer his actual documentary evidence in support of his book. As I understand it the supporting material is quite different for the two books. However the good news is that Ralph has agreed to offer some key pieces of his documentation when he presents at the Lancer conference next month.

Looks like a wave to me...sort of a strange one and pretty lively but a wave nonetheless...thanks Chris!

That was my read too Steve, I would be interested if someone could do that with a gif as I can't see it any better than you described even though I've looked at it many times. As I said earlier though, tactically though, either or both those guys could be [postioned there simply to gain the attention of the driver for a moment or to give a visual signal that no abort had been called for on Elm. Pure speculation but consistent with the other points about the pick up, ambulance etc.

Steve, I think I would forego the movies and check out the standard infantry hand signals guides...grin. Probably focusing on WWII hand signals. https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=sprLW-CBL8WatgWdzJ2IDA&q=infantry+hand+signals&btnK=Google+Search&oq=infantry+hand+signals&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l3j0i22i30l7.19265.26900..28260...3.0..0.96.1557.24......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i131j0i10.UaRh5KvlRQc

There is no evidence that de Torres was among those trained by Morales and it appears the majority of the AMOTS and AMFASTS were either infiltrated early or pulled for OP40 and never made it onto the beach. On the other hand, Morales would certainly have known of him not only becase of de Torres's brothers detective agency but because de Torres was involved in at least on Commandos L mission and was active with the reformed Brigade in Miami...as its intelligence officer as I recall. On the other hand there is a verifiable connection between Moralaes and de Torres in the late summer and early fall of 1963 via Robertson/Martino/Vidal.

Can't resist a couple of tactical comments. First, it would be desirable to slow the limo down in any kill zone and this particular stretch of street would be a place where the driver would normally be accelerating. To slow him down you need to get his attention and you need to make him pause (this is before the shooting starts). The UM would stand out to the driver since nobody else on the street had an open umbrella and it was not raining...if you look at the Z film I think you can catch a point where Greer is actually looking towards UM - as he should have been since the raised umbrella did stand out at that point in time. It would have stood out even more if it was being moved up and down, don't know if the film captures that. As I recall Greer himself says that he also was disconcerted, hence distracted and possibly slowed, when he saw people on the overpass - a major violation of all Secret Service security protocols. That was something that had actually been covered in the security briefings with DPD by SS advance man Lawson. People on an overpass are a risk for several reasons including simply dropping items into an open limo (something that happened to RFK in Los Angeles but that's another story). The whole thing would be compounded if there were another man by the UM raising and lowering his arm in an unusual fashion. I would add that there had been a minor panic in the Tampa motorcade when something was thrown into the president's limo; it turned out to be candy but there had been threats in Tampa and it could well have been a bomb. Of course none of this proves anything but if you glance through an infantry manual on vehicle or convoy ambushes, some action to slow or otherwise get the attention of the target is routinely mentioned. In addition a paramilitary attack on Elm street would not need a signal to start the shooting, however it might well need a visual signal to abort the attack. None of this proves anything however a number of the oddities that we see on Elm Street that day - like a stalled pick up diverting the police on the overpass and an ambulance pick up at Houston and Elm doing the same thing only moments before the motorcade arrives certainly fit tactically - even more so because if the motorcade had been on schedule the ambulance would have been in the intersection itself....picture the effect of that. If nothing else it would slow the vehicles even more significantly.