Larry Hancock

Well generally David's normal recollection of all things JFK related, and particularly things about Dallas, has been generally far better than mine so I doubt I would diagnose a memory problem...grin.

However I would say the ins and outs of the SGA are enough to befuddle most people and I continually have to revisit my own work to keep straight how things changed with it over the course of even a couple of years.  First you had the SGA (Special Group, Cuba policy, augmented with the participation and direction of RFK) replaced by the SG (with RFK moving his attention to a new group formed under JFK's direction) and having Cuba strategic responsibility (as Mongoose and Task Force W disbanded) - all at the beginning of 1963. 

Then you had that new high level coordinating group (Cuba Coordinating Committee) now meeting with RFK and RFK not attending SG meetings but rather leaving that, after a few months, to Desmond Fitzgerald who essentially replaced the function of William Harvey and Task Force W with the Special Affairs staff) actually being led by the State Department as a multi-agency group. And you have Fitzgerald sharing some operational details with SG, some with the Oversight Committee and some not at all with RFK and JFK (like Tilt).

........but with nobody in actual Cuban operations at WAVE paying much attention to the new Cuba Coordinating Committee, its plans but instead panning everything that the Cuban Operations Group approved, like AMWORLD.

Anyway, if David does not remember all this I would say its just symptomatic of the chaos in Cuban affairs at the time, I have the same problem so I can assure him its not fatal but just requires frequent recourse to notes and a calendar and headache medication.

LIFE at its executive level was dominated by the Luce family and if something got their attention they focused the magazine on it - just as Henry and Clare Booth focused the magazine on Castro and a campaign to overthrow him, focusing field reporters on the exile story, and media coverage of the valiant exile raiders. Targeted photo journalism.  That's editorial policy.  However LIFE employed reporters who had their own interests, ethics and agendas.  There is a collection of materials from a secret post assassination conspiracy investigation archived at a small university  (Ky or Tn, I forget which) investigated by first generation JFK researcher Wallace Millam.  It was apparently done without Luce's knowledge and the reporters on it were looking for a conspiracy - seriously. 

The reporters at LIFE did a number of stories in the early days which did highlight issues and the possibility others were involved with Oswald. Some of it got into print, some didn't,

Bottom line, painting LIFE or any other group, agency or institution with a single brush, viewing it as monolithic and attributing a single unified motive is unrealistic in my view.  Did the LIFE organization participate in covering up a conspiracy during the first few weeks...yep,  did it help set up Oswald as a Lone Nut....yep.  But it had staff who were just as skeptical about that as we are (so did the DPD, the FBI - and even the CIA).

David, just a thought...given that it was the FBI who deconstructed (demolished would be more accurate) the story that Phillips and the MC station were aggressively promoting in regard to Oswald being recruited and paid inside the Cuban embassy for the assassination (something Phillips even supported in at least two of his later books) I've wondered if that would not have been part of what Hoover was referring to in his remark.

After all, if the FBI had not quickly done its work on that story it would have meant a major crisis decision at the highest levels - and we have good reason to think Phillips at least knew the story was bogus from the beginning (not to mention being almost insane in the level of detail it offered of having Cuban agents talk assassination and present money to Oswald in a public area of the embassy). 

And on two occasions, once when Hosty spoke at a Lancer conference and later in my personal exchanges with him, he described that his FBI friends in Mexico City had spoken with him about Oswald being under surveillance when he was there.....

Good job David!,  so the gossip came to Penn who just collected up Jack among others to help make the call on Witt...makes perfect sense given how much information came Penn's way one way or the other, his columns had made him something of a clearing house for such JFK related information. 

Hopefully Gary will remember the details, I think he may have been helping Jack with the course or vice versa.  Of course another take is that Witt had made up the story - being something of a braggart apparently - and just got caught up in it as things evolved, not being willing to admit he had made up parts or all of it on his own.  The folks who contacted him in Dallas would have the best take since I'm doing this off third party exchanges from many years ago.  Actually this all may have been written up in Jerry Rose's Third/Fourth Decade journals which are on MFF now.  I'm pretty sure I recall seeing at least some of it written up in research articles.

If I remember correctly it was Jack White who surfaced Witt - who did not himself "come forward" per se or even voluntarily.  Jack was teaching a course on the assassination at a local college and one of his students mentioned that a fellow he worked with would tell stories, among other things talking about being on Elm street with an umbrella during the assassination.  Jack, being Jack, got a couple of folks together and confronted Witt at work on the story.  Witt was reticent at first but Jack essentially backed him into a corner and Witt began to repeat the story he had been telling and Jack began to repeat it and things went from there.  Gary Shaw was likely involved with this ...surely some of the real "old timers" her recall this better than I do although most are not longer posting on the Ed Forum.  In any event I don't think it was a matter of Witt suddenly coming out on his own and offering information...

Another option for the midnight dialog with Ruby may well have been to emphasize to him how deeply he had gotten his police connections in trouble and make it clear that it was up to him to get everyone associated with him out of same...or he would be the only one taking the fall, perhaps literally.

As it turns out it was possible to get a bit more detail on the estate and I put that in TP....another DPD officer also did guard duty there (you might ask yourself what was going at a place that was essentially said to be unoccupied without even a phone that would require that much security) and another of the officers associated with these connections was actually working security in the motorcade that day. Some here may remember that Jean Hill's police officer/motorcade rider told her that he was upset because after the murder it felt to him like he and his fellow officers were under some sort of suspicion. 

The sequence should be in TP,  I think the car stop was after his call at the record store.  Which brings up the obvious question of what would lead him to think Oswald would be in the back seat of a car (suggesting an accomplice at least).  Its interesting that very early on LIFE magazine put in a map which explored the question of whether Oswald might actually have been on the way to Ruby's apartment before being diverted...other than that many people may not realize the proximity of all this in Oak Cliff.

Harry Olsen was far from just another cop, he was close enough to Jack Ruby to have purportedly badly sprained his ankle "ice skating" with Ruby (on a date, with partners, unclear?) shortly before the assassination. That took him off duty but left him capable of doing guard duty at what was an abandoned estate that day - yet apparently walking several blocks to his girl friends house after hearing about the attack on the president.  Virtually everything about his activities on November 22 is questionable and he is actually one of the key figures pointing towards Ruby's possible use in bringing in DPD officers - including one motorcycle officer in the motorcade - into roles as unwitting accessories.  

I spend considerable detail on Olsen, his movements and his extremely suspicious behavior in Tipping Point...

Here you go:

https://gregwagnersite.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Roy-Hargraves-Interview.pdf

https://tangodown63.com/roy-hargraves-documents/

Noel never had the second tape transcribed because at that point he was concerned about legal action from Hargraves;  I tried to obtain the tapes from him but he was in ill health and they were in deep storage.

Noel's book Bloody Treason can still be found on ebay and he discusses the interview with Hargraves and with Hemming as well as I recall:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285185703297

Specifically in regard to the Bay of Pigs landings, the link below gives a list of Cuban Brigade members. 

https://www.bayofpigsbrigade2506.com/the-members

In my scenario it would be Vidal's close friend and operational partner in anti-Castro activities Roy Hargraves.  Not sure who Steve would propose in his scenario?   Both Hargraves and Vidal were both almost killed in a mysterious boat explosion not long after the assassination,  Hargraves moved out to California and Vidal ended up on the boat mission into Cuba that resulted in his capture and death.

Mervyn, as you say a lot of the ex-pats did turn on each other, some got out entirely (Verona, the CRC leader went to NYC to sell used cars), others moved into smuggling but retained their associations with the Agency - a real problem by the seventies.  However the most activist continued on with their crusade - and the most interesting to some of us ended  up either out of action fairly quickly like Vidal or out of the country in the new CIA AMWORLD project or even off in the Congo.

Hi Mervyn,  actually you can get a reading copy of Tipping Point off the Mary Ferrell site and that should give you some background on Vidal - there is just more detail in SWHT (paperback edition). 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html

Vidal was a close friend of John Martino, and of Roy Hargraves - more importantly he was well established and regarded within the anti-Castro community in Miami and had been involved in plans for major boat missions against Cuba.  He did not run drugs for anyone, but instead was killed on a high risk boat mission into Cuba, possibly outed to Cuban agents to make sure he was eliminated after the assassination. 

He was in Dallas "ostensibly" trying to get money from Walker - on the other hand that was the same story given by Hemming, Hall and basically anyone traveling to Dallas that year, even though Walker never appears to have donated any money and was short on funds for his own political campaigns.

As to the roles of Vidal and Hargraves in Dallas, Noel Twyman revealed that in his interviews with Roy Hargraves; Noel gave me permission to include that with the very first spiral bound edition of SWHT but then it had to be removed in further editions based on objections from Hemming's brother who was serving as Hargrave's lawyer at the time.

Joe, I'm going to be very straight forward about this - I have written extensively on Filipe Vidal in SWHT, in NEXUS and in Tipping Point - including how is was connected to the Dallas attack and the tactical team that went from Miami to Dallas.  That all goes back to the very first edition of SWHT in 2006.   I'm not going to get into the debate about the radio, maybe, maybe not, but his presence there is the key point as well as his personal relationship to the fellow beside him, Roy Hargraves. 

Having researched and written about him repetitively I'll refer you to those works for the details  in your questions.

We know a lot about him if, as I have written in considerable detail, he is Felipe Vidal Santiago (someone reported to the FBI as being in Dallas at the time).   Other people have different identifications...

Yes,  it was a strange set up with Bissell ostensibly conducting a project in J.C. Kings Western Hemisphere Directorate but in reality acting almost entirely independently.   Then Barnes was under Bissell and the military officers under Barnes. 

Another problem with the organization chart was that Bissell insisted on keeping Brigade air and ground operations totally compartmentalized with separate chains of command to HQ.  You can imagine how well that went when the amphibious operation actually launched.

It is shocking when you look back on the details but as the CIA's own IG and its own historian noted, Barnes' management of the project was literally atrocious - and he chose not to use the same sorts of covert contract and military assets the CIA had used in Guatemala and even in Indonesia.  Its just a guess but given the extent to which he later gave JFK one story and his own commanders something totally different he may have done the same in the first round - its all good, until it clearly is not. 

You knew it was bad when in the after action inquiries even Dulles agreed the CIA should be removed from military covert action.

Jim,  the first Cuba Project operation, the one  Eisenhower approved, was to exfiltrate and train a cadre of a few dozen anti-Castro Cubans.  They were then to be infiltrated again, to lead guerilla groups in a series of attacks moving towards Havana - much like the Guatemala operation.  Those groups would be supplied with weapons, and some level of tactical air support to help them advance - again, like Guatemala. The assumption was that Castro had a substantial opposition and well led groups putting pressure on him would collapse his regime. The goal was to have him either ousted or with his back again the wall by September/October.  By October a cadre of leaders had been trained but when the request was made to HQ to send them in it developed there was no way to do so, by sea or air.  In addition there was no available tactical air, or transport air yet in place and the air drops that had occurred had been totally ineffective.

At that point the first operation was abandoned, and the trainees were shifted from guerilla training, reformed into conventional army units, heavy weapons groups and a tank unit were added and by December the second operation had emerged - a full scale amphibious landing of a Brigade sized force with heavy weapons, tanks, trucks and a paratroop unit. That was nothing at all like what had been initially planned and the whole project essentially reset and started over in the November/December time frame.

That was only one of the long shots as it were,  there was a very good chance of a strong on island upraising up to only a few weeks before - and there was the apparent false flag plan for an attack on Guantanamo....I really wish folks would dive into the complexity of events in the book....it really is misleading to make general statements about the Cuba Project, which was actually two separate projects over a bit more than a year.  The Bay of Pigs landings are only one part of a very complex story, even though they get all the attention. 

Once the supply ships (manned by civilian crews - essentially shanghaied into the operation - refused to return to the beachhead even under escort the first night after the landing it was pretty much over).  To your point, the military had said all along that a landing could be made but the beachhead would collapse in days without a massive civilian uprising to support it as well as highlighting the fact that CIA logistics were totally inadequate to support the force for any extended time after the landing.  The CIA absolutely knew no uprising was not going to happen, made to effort to make it happen and ignored the whole point in meetings - and did not fully brief JFK on that issue.   The Joint Chiefs then failed to go directly to JFK and make their points.  So in the end everybody allowed it roll on and did what people always do, dump on somebody else. 

My impression is that there really was no "loop",  in the beginning it was a Guatemala scale project, totally covert with similiar assets as had been used in Guatemala successfully and Indonesia not so much.  It had a short fuse, a six month time frame to put trained leaders on island to lead existing anti-Castro movements, do a lot of propaganda, and provide limited, contract air support.   The leadership was Barnes serving under J.C. King.   Dulles never involved himself operationally, just signed off on the project.  There was little real reporting or oversight above the covert operations 40 Group. 

When Bissell changed the rules of the game from Guatemela, the whole time frame went out the window and apparently he raised few flags until Sept/Oct when it was obviously not happening (when the first groups were trained there was no sea or air logistics to get them into Cuba) and around November totally shifted to a large scale, conventional amphibious operation it took on a life of its own. Nobody wanted to stop it but then few realized what it had morphed into - there was no written plan or review process until JFK ordered something in writing for review by the JCS early in 62. 

We have no idea to what extent JFK was fully briefed, it appears his impression was that still essentially a plan to put Cuban exile volunteers into Cuba, and trigger a revolution - which is what the plan assumed.  He was never told about the roll up of the Cuban groups weeks before....

When you read the inquiry panel material you get the impression that both Dulles and J.C. King were just totally ignorant of the issues....if not they did a great job of appearing so...and Dulles even agreed that the CIA should not be tasked with military operations in the future.  Of course that idea died along with JFK.

Dulles had totally stepped away from decision making on the Cuba project, its hard to see how much he even knew about it.  The thing is that deniability was SOP for CIA covert ops but once this thing became a conventional amphibious landing its like nobody took notice that it was a new game.  Even Ike did not realize how the plan had foundered until election time, ditto Nixon.  The original project was supposed to have an full fledged revolt against Castro going on by Sept. 

Ike's conversation was with Bissell, its like he tried to step back into the whole thing after the election and make something happen but Bissell had restructured the whole project - its unclear how much Ike even knew about it (which may explain why JFK was shocked Ike did not talk that much about Cuba in their transition meeting).

You really get the impression that everybody but Bissell and Barnes were out of the loop....including J C King who as Western Hemisphere chief was actually at the top of the chain of command as the project was going on in his territory.  In the follow on inquires he is embarrassingly clueless.