Larry Hancock

Yes, it should show up in the archives....it might even sound better that way rather than in the AM...

Thank you sir, and the good news is that its the first hour so that minimizes the pain for those who may not be night-owls.  I'd love to have anyone who's up at midnight Central or the appropriate hour in the other respective time zone tune in for a listen.

I suspect some of it, particularly for those exiles who wanted to continue military action against Castro, had to do with the increasing pressure that was being placed on them by the FBI, ATF, INS etc to interdict operations.  That was especially true in Miami and south Florida and there was escalating surveillance by several law enforcement agencies not to mention the new Cuban Intelligence Service operated by JM/WAVE.

New Orleans had been the first fall back position, with efforts to set up training camps there, but based on informants in Miami, several of those operations were exposed and the crack downs began to make that area less attractive. 

What we don't really know is whether or not there were efforts to regroup in the Texas port cities such as Houston or Galveston,  Dallas may seem to stand out because we simply know more of what was going on based on information revealed in the various JFK investigations.

Another factor in the whole thing was the simple fact that the Kennedy administration was putting lots of support and lots of money behind the off shore Artime/AMWORLD project, essentially freezing out groups they had been supporting, such as DRE. The independent groups were becoming even more stressed for funds - that's why I write about the whole context changing in 1963, between insiders and outsiders. Bottom line was that one apparent source of funds were the ultra right, big money oil and ranching people in Texas - some of the first to have committed money to covert CIA ops back in 1960.  No doubt the exiles thought it might be a good place to raise money - although I don't think that really worked out for them, they were certainly trying to get money out of Texas though, that's clear.

There are a number of points that might have led the FBI to interview Orcarberrio during 1963, related both the the people involved with the House on Harlandale, to weapons purchasing activities in Dallas and after the assassination in regard to both reports about the house and Oswald and issues like Sylvia Odio's statements.

As an example, Jorge Salazar. a vice secretary of Alpha 66 in Dallas, had rented the Harlandale house and was an associate of Oswaldo Pino Pino who in turn was later questioned by the FBI about visiting Sylvia Odio.  FBI agent Heitman had been involved for several months in an investigation of Pino Pino who had moved from Miami to Dallas and had been reported to the FBI in Miami as a potential Castro agent and supporter. Several of the individuals associated with DRE and Alpha 66 and the Harlandale house were the subject of weapons buying investigations by ATF and FBI.  

Any one of those things could have led to an interview with Orcarberrio and would have drawn further attention to the house, there is even possibility it was under surveillance at points.  

The common practice in this case would be for the FBI to interview individuals and for those individuals to show some sort of cooperation to clear themselves - while not revealing anything else that might need to be covered up at the same time. There are a lot more connections between these individuals and efforts to obtain weapons in Texas, all of which brought attention to them. Unfortunately while we some great records in certain areas, the key FBI agent (Heitman) has very little about his Cuban exile activities prior to the assassination in his files and although I have a copy of his book, he says virtually nothing about that in regard to Dallas.

None that I can think of but of course if somebody can I'm all for it...

I think you are on the money with that characterization Mark,  and given that it was sort of a hub of exile activity I would not be at all surprised if Oswald had visited at least once...no way to prove it of course...

I am cautious about being too definitive from memory but we do have the name from FBI reports and it is Manuel Rodriquez Orcarberrio.  I didn't find any record of his actually being involved in military operations against Cuba, in Dallas he was associated with promoting Alpha 66, recruiting, fund raising and attempts to buy weapons - a fact known to the ATF and Frank Ellsworth at the time. I'm not sure how that gibes with the photos in fatigues?

We also know that the left for Puerto Rico within a couple of years after the assassination and and there is good reason that he himself was a source for the FBI, and the source used to refute the fact that Lee Oswald had actually been at the house on Harlandale. That's not totally unusual because the FBI often used sources that were actively engaged in things being investigated, and often got misinformation. Its worth note that some familiar names such as Howard, Hall and Heming can all be found named as offering information to the FBI....often an effort to divert attention to people they didn't like and buy themselves a little leverage (not sure that part worked).

Certainly the house on Harlandale would be hard to consider as a true safehouse of any sort, certainly not if it was suspicious even to Deputy Sheriff Walther's mother....way too many people coming and going.  Apparently it was used as temporary lodging for a number of exiles traveling to and from Dallas over a couple of points and by individuals from several different groups including Alpha 66 and DRE as well as other fellow travelers.

Angleton entered the Cuba picture in 1961, following the failure at the BOP - which among other things had involved a major failure in CIA project intelligence about Cuba as well as apparent penetration of the project by Cuban intelligence.  The CIA's intelligence assessments had been in direct conflict with those coming out of the higher level joint intelligence council. Because of that Angleton was tasked with an independent evaluation of intelligence and counter intelligence related to Cuba.  In that project he made use of Cuban personnel trained by Morales - reconstituted into he Cuban intelligence group at JM/WAVE.  As I've noted before, Morales was virtually the only person in the project to receive a glowing recommendation for his own work in the Cuba project.

Later, when Harvey was tasked with supporting the Mongoose project and specifically with assassinating Castro, he appears to have gone to Angleton for advice on a number of areas, including where and how to effectively hide the project within the CIA itself. Angleton made introductions for him and also appears to have utilized some of his own foreign contacts who had assets inside Cuba - for what exact purpose is unclear.

No problems Michael, and I have to say I was fascinated by coincidences such as the Nagell/Thorneberry/Johnson intersection - Thorneberry's handling of the case is fascinating in itself, he essentially gave Nagell a get out of jail card anytime Nagell wanted to accept the insanity claim and quietly recant.  Nagell's time in jail and prison is also fascinating.

My only problem is that I know longer recall all that well enough to bring it all back without some digging and I don't want to offer bad information here.  Personally I think Nagell had a good deal to offer about the games that were in play around Oswald and about Oswald's contacts with Cuban exiles impersonating Castro agents. He also gives us an insight into a plot for DC which aborted when Nagell himself was made by the actors in New Orleans.  Oswald's own letters and other activities confirm that.

Unfortunately I don't think Nagell has anything directly to tell us about Dallas, other than the fact that JFK was at risk from Cuban exiles, beginning with the Vaughn Marlowe thing in LA early in the year and increasingly as of late summer.  I might also note that I followed up with Marlowe as Russell had and found him convincing and his story consistent.

Paz, what I meant is that I've offered the sources that I can as well as my basic assessment of his story - like many things I consider such a subject way beyond what I can accurately offer from memory - so its running beyond what I would be able to offer without bringing myself back up to speed (even after researching it for years).  I have a problem going into such subjects without all the context being in play.  If anyone has a direct question just tag or email me and I'll respond but I just don't try to deal with such complex subjects with memories "off the top of my head" longer.  To easy to mis-remember or leave holes..

OK, it looks like this thread is going off on its own...if anybody has any other Nagell questions just drop me an email.  What I know about him is all in SWHT 2010 and in the research CD in any event.

Since this had moved on to throwing out names and I did throw out Thornberry myself I should point out that he was in Dallas at the time of the assassination, rode back on AF1 with Johnson and ended up with several other Johnson companions at the VPs residence that night...and stayed for a period of time, being consulted by Johnson.  All that is in my books and is sort of ancient history to me, at one time I found it fascinating and even went to great lengths to dig up news articles proving all of it.  Of course that was before the internet...maybe I should just have waited, would be much quicker now I suppose...grin.

Jim, once again this is extremely complex, and you have to do the chronology in detail. According to Nagell he was involved both with individuals he knew to be Soviets and with CIA officers known to him as well as individuals he later suspected as being double agents.  Over a period of months he engaged with a number of individuals and his activities included icluding going to the US Embassy and positioning himself as a potential defector.  As best I recall in the end he felt he had worked with actual CIA officers, with individuals who were double agents and with Soviets and he really wasn't sure who to trust, feeling that he had been manipulated by all parties.  As indeed he would be years later during his quest to get his kids back and his travels into Europe including East Germany.

I'm certainly not going to pretend I understand all his interactions in Mexico City when he didn't himself.  However his trip to the American Embassy in which he discussed a defection and offering conventional information of value to a foreign power is documented - and the documentation shows no sign of any American counter intelligence response.  Which is strange give that Nagell had been an Army CI officer, had provably been in contact with CIA officers in California and had the names of other officers at headquarters. Any such American Embassy contact should have set up some alarm bells and a follow up when he arrived back in the U.S.  Why it did not is as interesting as many of his other activities but again I'm short of any explanation and can only speculate. 

Paz, Fensterwald came into the picture much later, he was not Nagell's trial lawer for his initial defense against the incident in the bank. Actually Nagell had several lawyers over the years given that he placed numerous appeals for his initial charge and then later entered into legal action involving custody of his children and a quest for disability payments from his military service. As I said, this is a very complex story and you have to take what happened with him chronologically to understand his varous actions - which were often very situational.

Dick does name Negell's defense lawyer in his book and interviewed him at some length - I don't recall his name but you will find those details in Dick's book.  Ironically the lawyer told Dick he would have mounted a much stronger defense if there had actually been proof that Nagell had been in Mexico - which there certainly is, in plenty.  Because he had nothing to confirm that at the time he felt compelled to present nothing more than an insanity defense for Nagell.

Another ironic point is that the trial judge was Homer Thorneberry, a long time friend of LBJ who LBJ later unsuccessfully tried to appoint to the Supreme Court

As best I can tell Nagell initially thought he was being tasked to look into Oswald by someone with CIA connections but later determined that person to be a double actually working for the Russians and believed that he had been compromised and that for a span of time at least could have been charged as working for a foreign power.  Dick could probably clarify since he talked directly with Nagell and I'm only going from memory.  I don't know that we can guess who that individual might have been but Nagell clearly had separate tasks in Mexico City - as an example, we have documents of his going to the embassy and informing that he was essentially going to defect to a foreign power (most likely Cuba) and that he would disclose confidential information to them. 

That is documented yet it appears no security flag was raised or any attention declared towards Nagell for that...raising the possibility that it was a security test, a dangle to a suspected double agent at the American embassy or a dangle to the Cubans or Soviets....that may well have been how he got connected ...

You have to ask yourself once more how an American citizen could show up at the US embassy in Mexico City and declare he was essentially defecting - and have it draw no response, including his not being questioned.  That certainly has the earmark of a counter intelligence activity. 

There were three related programs which trained exiles for intelligence work in Cuba and while we have numbers we don't have names so its impossible to say for sure. I suspect that Felix was and as a particularly apt student was actually inserted ahead of the invasion as a handful were.  The majority of the AM/MOTS, AM/CHEERS etc were deployed with the Brigade but not in the initial landing groups and the majority were not directly involved in combat...coming back to be recruited into the Cuban intelligence group formed at JM/WAVE after the fiasco.  Interestingly Morales and James Angleton were both involved in a project to totally readdress Cuban counter intelligence after the BOP and most folks are unaware of how much exposure to Cuba Angleton actually had - one reason Harvey called him in for advice after getting the assassination project.

As to Iran/Contra, Felix was heavily involved as was Quintero and I got into that in considerable length in Shadow Warfare.

The very, very bottom line is that by the summer of 1963 Nagell was monitoring both select Cuban exiles in the U.S. who had been speaking about getting revenge on JFK, Nagell had first crossed paths with them in Mexico.  Separately, Nagell had been doing certain work in Mexico for some deep cover CIA officr, someone he had known in Japan - at present I pretty well convinced, and new evidence supports this, that agent was Henry Hecksher.

In addition, Nagell was also monitoring Lee Oswald, at the request of someone he found out eventually to be a double agent, working for the Russians - who were very worried about what Oswald was doing and what he might eventually do that would cause them grief based on his time in Russia.

By late August Nagell was in New Orleans, monitoring both exiles and Oswald and watching Oswald being manipulated by Cubans posing as Castro agents.  At that point he was spotted by the Cubans who made him as an informant, possibly interfering with their Oswald contacts. At that point in time Nagell knew they were setting Oswald up for some sort of major incident on the East Coast, in or around Baltimore/DC. 

Knowing he had been made and deemed to be a risk to the plot, Nagell literally fled towards Texas and the Mexican border, very possibly killing one of the exiles along the way and with his life in imminent danger.  His ploy in the bank was a last resort thing to get himself off the street and safe. 

He knew that something was afoot between exiles and Oswald and that it involved JFK but that was the size of it.

The case for what I've just said has been made first by Dick Russell and secondly, with some expansion, by myself .  My CD with the Nagell research and documents is here:

http://jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html

Understanding the ins and outs of Nagell is a huge task....you need to read Dick Russell's books and if time permits the 2010 edition of Someone Would Have Talked (by me) which deals with him in considerable detail.  Also, my research CD from JFK Lancer includes a large number of documents on Nagell as well as a situational analysis of how his remarks varied with his personal issues...such as regaining custody of his children.  All I can really say is that most of what you read about him on the internet is far too superficial to capture either the man or his contacts on the periphery of the conspiracy.  I studied him for years before I felt I had even a basic grasp.

It's probably worth noting that Phillips stated that he had never heard of Veciana, even during his HSCA interviews....that is an utter impossibility given his stations and jobs - so its pretty safe to say he had something to cover up.

Paul,  Quintero the source that Gene Wheaton was citing as one of two individuals who had indeed heard inside information on the JFK assassination.  Jenkins was the other. Of course they later denied any such thing when challenged on the point but there is good reason to believe they had indeed heard information of that sort...the details are in SWHT 2010.

As to Felix,  I think I missed that comment, Felix is generally regarded to be Felix Rodriquez, someone closely associated with Quintero both in Cuban affairs and later in the Nicaragua Contra thing.  However Felix Rodriquex, although he may have been associated with what has come to be called Op 40 certainly was not in charge of it.

Jenkins worked as a paramilitary trainer at JM/WAVE, which means he worked for Morales who was chief of operations at the station. Prior to that he had actually served in Cuba.  Equally importantly he was selected to be the senior military officer in the AM/WORLD project under Hecksher;  their counterpoints were Artime and Quintero. I wrote on Jenkins in some length in the 2010 edition of SWHT. 

Yes, it was ...and given the pains being taken to make AM/WORLD fully deniable and totally operational off shore it took a relatively long time for its actually operations to jell, well into 1964.  If you have Shadow Warfare there is a chapter on it that relates that in considerable detail, largely based in a great deal of information from Gary Murr.

My own current opinion, including taking notes during John's presentation last year in Dallas,  is that Phillips was likely aware of Veciana while in Cuba, as well as the incipient insurgent groups Veciana was associating with...however the very expanded story that Veciana has only recently begun to tell in regard to Cuba (including his being recruiting inside Cuba as an operational CIA special asset of sorts) does not pass the acid test for me - for a number of reasons.

On the other hand, I think there is a possibility of some type of connection between the two men following Veciana's arrival in the United States, primarily dealing with the origins and media promotion of Alpha 66. That connection could well have extended on to Vecian's work in Latin America.  I'll await John's research on that time frame.  There is a good deal of circumstantial information showing that there was some sort of covert manipulation of Alpha 66 but its something also clearly outside standard/known CIA projects.  Morales makes mention of it and strangely enough in 1963 when senior Army members of the Special Group expressed interest in using Alpha 66 there was strong push back from CIA - regional Army intelligence clearly did have an informant relationship with Viciana.

I'm forced to approach both Viciana's self described and very much expanded role - as presented in his book - and Escalante's material very critically.  In terms of Escalante that's because he clearly did take material from prior, published JFK research and also because his book was written with a clear agenda and  its virtually impossible to document some of what's in it beyond taking him at his word.

Morale's and his trainers at JM/WAVE supported AM/WORLD training for Artime and some of his senior personnel. We have that documented in more than one instance from Hecksher and Jenkins; compliments were extended to Morales for the training.

So Morales was aware of AM/WORLD and the Artime project...as well as the fact that it was all being moved overseas and not logistically supported from JM/WAVE.  Beyond that he would have had virtually no involvement since the whole point was to make it operationally deniable and totally offshore.