Larry Hancock

Just for reference, in a later discussion with Dick Russell, McKewon stated that he actually recognized the individual with Oswald and that was one of the things that made him cautious. He recognized him as someone who had been a Castro supporter and someone he had seen during his time smuggling weapons into Castro's forces prior to the overthrow of Batista. If true that suggests someone who had been a Castro supporter inside Cuba, who had turned on Castro and come out to the US - and by 1963 was in contact with Oswald fairly deeply. All of which would match one of the two mysterious exiles reported in contact with Oswald in New Orleans, recruiting him for the operation in the DC area - corroborated by Oswald's letters about moving there - which aborted in September.

Micah, there are certainly open issues with the physical evidence, irrespective of the DOJ report. Unfortunately they are just that and open means that its virtually impossible at this late date to resolve them one way or the other. The one exception may have to do with unidentified fingerprints - or even the identified prints and even the HSCA inquiry found some serous problems there. Stu Wexler and I summarized all this in our book The Awful Grace of God dealing with the King assassination - our research is ongoing as is our effort to have it officially reopened as a Cold Case. Stu is the real expert on the evidence and where the various items stand - certainly our view is that the open issues are just that and that they were not resolved in court or by the DOJ. Along with that our view is certainly that there certainly others involved, not just Ray.

OK, I'm going to do it again.....this has been discussed many times earlier here and in other venues. I was there when Vinson's lawyer first presented his story at a Lancer conference - he showed up unannounced, asked for time and the only thing we could do was let him go on during the lunch break. I listened, took copious notes, and tried to talk to him afterwards however he literally ran (well walked very quickly at least) out of the area, refusing to stay or take questions. Over several years I exchanged letters and made phone calls to him, trying to approach Vinson directly - which he never would allow. I submitted a number of questions and issues which he also failed to address. Ultimately when his book was published it asked readers to respond and I went back again with questions - and received no response. It should be noted that his lawyer has some pretty strong general conspiratorial views on his own, whether that influenced Vinson or not I can't say. I researched Vinson's story in detail over some three years or more, as far as I could at least without more information than initially given in the video his lawyer showed or in the book - and there were some serious differences between the two. Having been Air Force and traveled military air I knew there were some problems with his basic story but there were even larger issues including the fact that he clearly did not either recognize that the CIA and security contacts with him had to do with the fact that he was being vetted to work on the SR71 project, which he admittedly did do eventually. What he makes out to be mysterious in that regard is really very much standard security practice for a joint AF/CIA project. In terms of landing a four engine transport virtually in downtown Dallas, with nobody noticing or commenting on an afternoon when even the most minor anomalies were getting attention (like a single engine plane revving its engines at Red Bird, which produced multiple calls to newspapers) - that is extremely unlikely. Even more unlikely is any aircraft later landing at a SAC base at night, unchallenged - especially one of the few then housing both SAC bombers and Atlas ICBM's. Take this for what its worth but I'm seeing a lot of these older stories resurfacing on the forum - yes they are mysterious and they are entertaining but don't think nobody ever looked into them...if they went nowhere there may be a good (non conspiratorial) reason.

Michael, I think this is repeating myself but these days I'm never sure....the most likely reason for Hoover having a single share is that he was one of a number of well known state and national figures who received a single share as a promotional mailing - if you dig far enough on my blog you will find some great research by one of my readers discussing that mailing program, intended to promote new Colorado businesses...why was DUO filed as a business in Colorado, that frustrated us for quite a time until Alan Kent tracked them down. My guess was that it was to keep it out of state to conceal some of the stock multiplication sales that were being carried out. Its important to note that DUO itself didn't bring attention to itself in the promotional mailing, it was a Colorado promotion of business in the state.

Michael, you should be following my blog... I've researched both the DalTex and Duo in great detail over the years and like many things from the earlier years its not at all as mysterious as it was when I and others started the quest. Its discussed in the 2010 version of Someone Would Have Talked and pretty well resolved in a series of blog posts from earlier this year. The short answer, which is really no fun at all, is that the stock most likely got to Hoover via a publicity stunt by a Colorado official promoting Colorado companies (which Duo was legally) by mailing single copies to a number of prominent people around the country. It appears they may have picked Duo because of its exciting focus on both oil and uranium and because it had an exceptionally attractive stock certificate. That in itself was most likely because the company itself was largely not much more than a stock scam - a huge amount of shares with no significant company assets, a couple of dry wells and no income - so it needed all the marketing clout it could get. As with many of these old leads I was hoping for much more, it was a great mystery and sucked up immense amounts of time...sigh.

Always hate to disagree with Jim but I've dug deeply into it recently myself and there is a tremendous consistency in the Russian intelligence disclosures over some 40 years - not just in what was brought over from their side by their officers but in corroboration by FBI and CIA information essentially revealing the same practices from the other side. Of course everyone needs to make up their own minds of course and I always recommend primary research. However I find it entirely to easy to discount Russian covert action and political action practices based on a tendency to hold American and the West to higher standards or focus on their misdoings while giving the both the Soviets and Russians the benefit of the doubt. I find both equally culpable...but that's just me.

"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...