Larry Hancock

"1970 to 2016 46 years did Putin wake up the ghosts of 1970 and sprinkle them on 2016? Putin was probably about 10 years of age in 1970. It would have been an old school KGB agent who informed Putin of their 1970 exploits. I thought communism was thrown out the window after they called Reagan daddy. The old KGB agents are no more. Neither the new or the old KGB agents make the news in this day and age." George, I'm afraid you just are not following the sources which focus a great deal of attention on the continuation of KGB practices through the SVB era post Cold War and into the FSB era which Putin has created. I would recommend "The New Nobility" by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan and "All The Kremlins Men" by Mikhail Zygar for some good insights on what's going on in Ruddia and the reach of those within its long established intelligence network. Those "old" KGB practices remain alive and well and are being reinvigorated with new technology. I'm blogging about them a great deal because there is such continuity and folks need to become aware of that. And nobody needed to "inform" Putin as he was an experience KGB officer himself. Its a new world, Communism may have faced away but when you get down to it Russian political action and covert warfare practices today look a lot like they did when the Czar's were involved in the Great Game with the British. Deniability, shaping the political battlefield, economic hegemony - new names, new faces, new technology - same old story.

An oldie but goodine, we have actual KGN documents showing how hard they tried to push that scenario during the 1970's, leveraging it off Hunt and Watergate...its in the Mitrokhin archives. Putin seems to be increasingly channeling his KGB background.

David, I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm trying to work it backwards step by step. 1. The man wearing the clothes in the photo was not there that day so....so the photo was taken earlier. 2. The picture was taken earlier and if the man had been Oswald why would he just happen to have a photo taken much earlier (can we date that photo) with him in MC and not have taken it to the Consulate....makes little sense. 3. So....what Agency other than Oswald himself would have had a copy of that photo and how could they have gotten it. 4. And the man in the Consulate had a variety of materials including FPCC correspondence and other correspondence that Oswald might have had copies of (why would he be keeping copies of his own correspondence, did he keep a scrapbook)? 5. What Agency would have had copies of that material - the FBI comes to mind based on intercepts and their inside person at the FPCC but would the CIA have had the same sort of materials. Just trying to flesh out how it would come down and who would be supporting the visit given that it was an imposter.

Ok, next two questions. Do we agree that the Oswald inside the Consulate was not wearing a sweater and tie according to the staff descriptions? If so, then where is the first known occurrence of this particular photo and what agency would have had it in their files prior to October, 1963. Along with those questions, what Agency or group would have had copies of the materials that the person at the consulate showed during the visit. The answers to both questions would seem to tell us who was behind the visit, assuming it was not Oswald.

David, I apologize, should know this...do we not have a copy of the photo which was actually submitted along with Oswald's application, did the Cubans misplace it, not keep it, fail to hand it over, etc. If we do and it turned out to be the Oswald in a sweater and time image I remember then I become increasingly suspicious. Its possible that an impersonator might have tried to make an impression without having a photo but if pressed come back with an old Oswald photo just to get it in the record. Probably nobody would look that closely and of course after the fact, it would be Oswald. -- very interesting, Larry

David, I certainly agree Pepper is the most forward, on the other hand Stu and I (mostly Stu) have continued our work at the Cold Case level, Stu and his class even got legislation introduced at a Federal level last month and we continue to do research - we will have a second edition of our King book out in spring 2018. One of the things that troubles us, and we point out in an appendix in our book, is that Pepper has repeatedly changed a great many things and abandoned witnesses and sources along the way. Indeed he later trashes the witnesses he introduced in the civil case. We also pursued the military and intelligence issues in detail, interviewing the fellow who had started some of the original rumors by getting a black police officer taken off overwatch detail. This isn't the place for going further but I guess with advancing age I'm feeling a bit more compelled to speak out on subjects that I or Stu and I have done a great deal of work on - and which doesn't seem to have received that much attention, possibly because we don't have media reach or focus on Youtube...grin.

I know I'm raining on parades but for something much more accurate take a look at the Army Intel after action reports on Memphis, they are available and cover the deployments in great detail. Or read Stu and my analysis of the military and police intelligence activities in The Awful Grace of God - which presents our alternative view as compared to Pepper...who literally changes witnesses, sources and suspects in every successive book - while calling each previous set dishonest. .

What Ollie and Steve said...but if you have not been around for awhile, this is not a new sort of message from Harry...would be good to keep that in mind...

It is amazing that the pick up truck was there and left there that long and apparently not with any thought to immediately having it towed away. But the same could be said for the DPD officers allowing all the spectators on the bridge and it not being cleared in advance - which was in direct conflict with the security briefing which had been given to senior DPD officers. There just was not much oversight on the motorcade route - the one lead traffic car had gone though the area way to far in advance and there appear to have been on senior officers monitoring the route itself - possibly becasue all of them were focused on the Trade Mart and that's where they were. The "parade" was being viewed as a traffic problem, not a security matter. It was very much a different time, at least in America. I would also offer that the whole idea of an abort option has been created over the years by people I'm personally dubious about and I would offer two other trips that fall for reference. When word of a threat in Chicago became clear at the last minute that trip was canceled. When advance word of potential threats in Miami surfaced there were extreme security measures put into place and a lengthy motorcade route was switched to travel by helicopter. When there were known threats special measures were taken; the thought that JFK knowingly took himself and Jackie into what was a known ambush in Dallas is the sort of thing that you find in fiction, not reality. Of course as usual, that's just my opinion, but I've found the abort story to be among one of the prime diversions and that means for myself as well, spent way too much time on it years ago.

I think its much more likely that the ambulance was timed to be in the intersection and slow or block the motorcade at a critical point..in what would be considered the kill zone. The motorcade was slowed only minimally, you can actually see the ambulance leaving in film taken from the motorcade. The same plan was probably in play for the pickup that was stalled under the overpass and diverted police attention for a good while before it two was taken away before the motorcade arrives. Diversion and blocking are basic military/paramilitary practices in ambush.

I'm sure that David and others can respond with more specifics but generally speaking for the first several days following the assassination key staff in Mexico City including the CIA Station Chief, the Ambassador, and officers such as Phillips were expressing strong concerns that there had been Cuban/Russian involvement including involvement with Oswald. That story line was accompanied by a constant flow of purported sources who claimed to have seen Oswald in suspicious contacts with Cubans. That sent the FBI off on a follow on series of investigations which largely deconstructed those sources. We also have both Hoover and Johnson's phone calls about Mexico City and information coming into special meetings in the White House over the weekend. Rightly or wrongly the early "window" in MC sees a strong push promoting conspiracy coming out of MC - one so strong it elicited direct push back (much like Hoover had pushed back against the DPD). How much of that MC story was simply a mistake or had more sinister undertones - or both - can be debated. But whether Oswald was physically in MC or not, enough had happened there, been documented and reported, that it resulted in a picture of conspiracy being presented to Washington by principals there.

Sandy, Bill Simpich is probably your most reliable source on what still exists and where to find it....I'm not sure that actual transcripts of all of them were ever entered into the record or releases. There were several calls in question. I'm assuming you have Bill's book. Its also important to research the two translators, the Tarasoffs and their remarks. I'm not going to try and characterize all the details from memory since I know I would make a mistake or two ..or more.. I'd also comment that once again if you are in search of total one hundred percent factual proof of who made what call, from where and what was real and what wasn't...I don't think you will find that. Bill simply gets as close as we can probably get at this late date. One thing we do know though, the calls and the apparent difference in callers was driving MC nuts at that point in time, regardless of Phillips later lies in his book about Oswald not even being on the MC station radar. Larry

I'm open to either scenario Sandy, one thing we have to add in though is that there were a series of telephone calls and at least one of which, involving both a male and a female, involved a different male than the others. Things get really complex when you have an imposter being impersonated (cue brain imploding). Of course I can offer a far out scenario for that which is that someone well versed in MC counter intel activities saw the opportunity to raise the visibility of what might have been planned as a very small scale, low profile CI effort and by doing so left individuals at both the station and HQ trying to figure out who was doing what but all very much into Lee Oswald and sending lots of messages about him - a level of attention and intel interest which none of them were going to want to admit after Nov. 22. Sort of reminds me of the old spy vs. spy cartoons in Mad magazine but this time both would ostensibly be on the same side.

Sandy, I accept the fact that an imposter might well pass muster in person, however we know that Castro ordered an internal study of all the MC contacts with Oswald post-assassination and that Cuba was in possession of the visa application with photo. I would have to think they would be intensely compared then, at length. And Castro and the Cuban govt have always been eager to point towards evidence of conspiracy and challenge the lone nut story. So I feel the impersonator would have to be a virtual twin. Now there are some persons of interest who are indeed very close in appearance and I've posted photos of them on my web site, perhaps they could fool Cuban intelligence even after the fact. Problem then is why the discrepancies in descriptions by the Cuban staff? Plus the FBI search in MC for a photo shop failed - when a photo of Lee Oswald was shown. That would seem to imply that the impersonator was not that close a match to Oswald and the visa photo would out the impersonation ASAP. Unless of course the impersonator had already been supplied with a photo and just neglected to take it along... But the point I'm most focused on now is when and how the final, official photo of Lee Oswald in the records...which clearly is Lee Oswald in dress shirt, sweater and tie...gets into the official record. If it came from Cuba then that is indeed Lee Oswald and Oswald was at the consulate. If Cuba provided a photo of someone else then what we see now did get substituted...and I do not remember when that hand-off was supposed to have occurred. Those are points that have long kept me on the fence so I'm eager to see some scenarios that would resolve them. I admit to not being up on all this so answers to the above would be welcome.

Still thinking about the photo for the application; going strictly from memory the photo in evidence shows Oswald in good clothes and even a sweater, and it is clearly Oswald. So what I am stuck on is did the person in the consulate leave, get a photo that matched him including clothes, and come back to complete the application. I can see that ...but that would leave somebody else's photo with the Cubans, to be checked after the fact - and its hard to thing they did not and would have raised a hue and cry if it were not Oswald. To make sense of this you have to assume they did not check and at that some pint the application that is now in evidence had an Oswald photo substituted for the record. I admit to having been away from this stuff for ages but I'm having a hard time thinking the Cubans did not check the photo against media coverage of Oswald?

Indeed it was the visa application is why the person who applied did not have a current photo available and had to leave an get one, not efficient and presenting two opportunities to be filmed or observed. If it was an Agency impersonator you would think they would go in prepared, if Oswald he knew the requirement for photos so why the slip up. So what scenario has either showing up unprepared, especially a professional impersonator. Your point raises another question....are you saying the Cubans had a visa application with a person other than Oswald, and handed that over to the U.S. and then at some point a real photo of Oswald was substituted? And the Cubans never noticed? Could you or David timeline out how that would work...

That sounds reasonable but the photo ID raises a real question. Surely professionals would have know that would have been requested and given him one. Oswald himself should have known but at least might have just figured if he had a US passport that would be enough. Or was this a new consulate procedure. And the photo vs. the clothes the guy was wearing seems a problem. I'd like to see some discussion on that particular point and a scenario that makes sense of it...I certainly can't offer one myself.

That's a fascinating scenario David, has Simpich gone though all your material. Putting it in sequence like that is excellent, I don't have time to go though all four parts right now but it's certainly looking persuasive. The thought of the CIA doing one operation in MC built around Oswald, of it possibly being compromised and to an extent stolen and then for the FBI to be using Oswald for their very own tasks in Texas. Neither would be a problem at the time but as of Nov. 23...talk about karma, irony, whatever you want to call it. I certainly hope to take a look at the full thing soon and would love to see Bill's assessment.

Very interesting document David, I had never seen that one. In terms of Oswald sightings there are several that seem to be a problem in regard to the official time line. And again, I'm not totally comfortable with the Odio's dates so that makes it more complex for me. But something inolving an individual named Oswald and using Oswald FPCC documents did happen in MC, That was not created after the fact...it certainly did involve some level of impersonation so you have to ask yourself why would that happen if it was the real Oswald following some directions or even acting on his own. Which leaves you with some strange CIA counter espionage effort with the real Oswald back in the states, maybe in Dallas, Houston, at McKewons etc. Now if Nov. 22 had not happened would that have been any real problem - maybe not. Could CIA CI steal an identity for some short time frame operation in MC, sure they could and maybe they did and then after the fact traces of a real person had to be planted. Who planted the contradictory and questionable stuff you mention? Did CIA operatives do it, quickly and poorly and the FBI just found what they left? Is that why it looks so stupid? As I said, it would be no shock to me if he were not there....at this point its just going to take something new to fully knock me off the fence to one side or the other...worse yet I might still be on the fence with him there but not doing what the official story says... I'll keep watching...

David, the Hoover memo has long fascinated me. It may be as simple as Hoover being bitter about how much time Phillips and the CIA wasted by touting the Gilberto Alverado story - which the FBI finally deconstructed after a ton of field work. The FBI also spent a lot of time chasing down leads of others that Oswald reputedly contacted in and around the Cuban consulate and that is documented. Hoover really got irate when he thought FBI resources were being wasted by other agencies. A related issue would be the handling of Tumbleweed where the CIA dumped the whole thing on the FBI and it appears the FBI may have blown it. The FBI has never had a good reputation for sharing with other agencies, not then and certainly not as recently as 2001. But I can imagine how mad Hoover would have been if he learned Oswald had not been there at all. I'll certainly say that if it were possible to totally prove Oswald had never gone to MC at all I would not be shocked, but I do think at the time of his reported visit the CIA was surely reacting as if he were there....and that something complex was going on. Which might simply mean something compartmentalized but which became a major problem after the assassination. It would not be the first time counter intelligence played that sort of game and screwed up the Agency in doing so.

Hi David, well for one thing I've never been absolutely certain of the timing of the Odio visit so I still hold it possible that it was Lee Oswald at her place. For that matter I'm not sure they had not had prior contact as part of an assignment for Oswald to circulate among exiles looking for guns in Dallas. I find it a little hard to accept that a one time visit would be enough to make her pass out and end up in the hospital. While I suspect Oswald was in MC, at least for a time, I'm also not certain of the exact dates there nor of his travel. If I were pressed I'd say I think Oswald was in contact with Odio, one or more times and that the visit did happen with Lee somehow a part of it. I'm less sanguine that it occurred exactly as I wrote about it in SWHT than I was then although I still believe her visitors had come from New Orleans, most likely with the two individuals originating in Miami - and that it indicates Oswald was having a number of contact with people that we can only speculate on but that he certainly was known to a number of folks who lied about it afterwards. So, I mentally have Oswald in contact with Odio, with a variety of other exiles in both New Orleans and Dallas - most all of whom were shopping for weapons and talking paramilitary action while a couple were claiming to be Cuban agents. I also have a picture of him not at all understanding all their agendas or how much at risk he was throughout that fall. As to Mexico City, I can seen him there but not at all in sync with the official timeline and story. And for that matter questions asked during the first interviews with Marina indicate that the possible trips to both DC and the trip to MC...and to me corroborate Nagell's info..but that's another story. It seems like after this time I should be more certain about such things but while I think I can see the overall picture I get less and less certain of many of the details the more I learn.

"I was unaware of Hosty's report on the matter. As relayed by you, his report would appear to leave open the possibility that the FBI may have been given false information by the CIA. At this point in time would the FBI have possessed independently verifiable information on Oswald? I understand there was blurring of loyalties within the two agencies ranks. Is it possible the CIA ran an operation whilst keeping the FBI hierarchy misinformed? I am accepting your assessment of Hosty's sincerity. Am I right to be wary that he has an accurate picture of the events in MC?" ............. Hosty would only have had access to second hand information coming directly from FBI associates in MC and from other Dallas agents who had indeed served there previously. No way of knowing exactly how accurate and of course it would only have been fragmentary at best. However we do know from actual documents that it was standard practice for the CIA to inform FBI of Americans who had visited the Cuban facilities in MC - given that travel was illegal and that Cuba was considered a Communist nation, such individuals were immediately persons of interest. We also know from the records that the FBI routinely monitored a number of Americans living in MC who had been suspect or known to have Communist associations. If Oswald was in MC and contacting both the Russians and Cubans Oswald should have drawn far more attention from the FBI - which he may well have given Hosty's slip on Nov. 23 telling a Secret Service agent that Oswald had been under surveillance and observed meeting with subversives. As to a blurring of loyalties between the agencies, some of that is exaggerated in print. What is clear is that internally within both there was a great deal of compartmentalization, and each looked on the other more as a source of information that a partner. Interestingly though there was on joint operation going on in 1963, named AM/SANTA, and it sent FPCC members who had been turned into Cuba for intel collection, using the Cuban consulate in MC to enable travel. Some of the CIA names involved in that operation also show up in Oswald's file. And that operation, initially highly successful, seems to have stopped abruptly for no known reason at the end of 1963.

At this point in time my "opinion" is that Oswald did go to Mexico City and that the CIA was aware of it at the time - however my guess is that all the aspects of his time there certainly don't match the record constructed after the fact. A number of things bother me about his purported visits to the Cuban facilities, less to the Russian. The passport photo thing is a real problem, also the fact that Phillips also told the FBI in a memo that as of early 64 the CIA still had photos of everyone entering the Cuban facility at the time Oswald was being reported to have met with an individual the FBI was checking out (they were trying to check some of the many claims about Oswald contacts there) and the individual in question had not entered the building at that time. The period in question covered Oswald's reported appearances meaning that the CIA should have had Oswald's photo - which suggests they may have had a photo of someone impersonating Oswald. I'm also struck by the Hosty's story that his FBI friends in MC had Oswald under surveillance around the city. After talking to Hosty over time I believe he was sincere about that and operationally there would be every reason for both the FBI and CIA to be monitoring Oswald if he was there - we know from earlier incidents that the first thing the CIA did if they monitored a suspicious American contacting the Cubans was to hand it off to the FBI and Americans were tracked and detained for making offers of information to the Cubans, even in 1963. We also know that MC station had an AMOT trained mobile surveillance team, given the flap over unknown American contacting the Cubans (and that was a big deal; Phillips lied in his book) its hard to think that nobody went looking for him. Bottom line is that I'm afraid its much like the shooting in DP, we have bits and pieces and we lack other bits and pieces and we try to get really specific about exactly what did happen. But the bottom line is that, as with many other things, events in MC got "spun" to fit the lone nut story line after the fact and while we can poke holes in it that doesn't mean we can reconstruct what actually went down.

That's interesting, I had an email asking if it was canceled but there was certainly no sign of that in the quick searches I did. Plus the comments on the show site and network site were mixed at worst. Its hard to think the channel would drop it given that its paid for and as Pat says, "in the can". The only time I've seen that happen before was with the JFK/LBJ series where Valenti filed an immediate legal action....not sure who could have done that here or have the funds to carry if off but I can't imagine anything else stopping its ongoing broadcasts.

Hate to jump into this but I think Paul has given a better characterization. The thing everyone needs to realize is that for some 12 years at least, the FSB has been working on creating a new category of "agents of influence", Actually that operation goes all the way back to 2,000 but it really accelerated when Russia oligarchs accumulated enough capital for overseas investments. I could recommend some good books on this, they cover the standard recruitment practices - but bottom line is that they cast a broad net, never knowing which person may end up in a position of influence. Which is why you find not just Flynn but several Trump business associates who have been involved in various sorts of business with not just Russian firms but with Putin associates of all flavors, and not just Russians but Ukrainians and others. Think of it this way, when the US was the only big international money game in town the CIA leveraged American businessmen to the hilt. Now with so much legal and illegal Russian money and Putin associate money floating around, the FSB is able to play the same game.