Larry Hancock

Guys, I don't have time at the moment to dig back into this; I have visited it on multiple occasions before and what I found was that following the war, a number of reserve and guard units were created in Texas, essentially as devices to keep members on a roster and provide some minimal income. To some extent it was more of a social thing than anything else; I interviewed one fellow who described it that way but said they were really upset when a lot of them got called back to duty in Korea because of it. The units were generally of a staff nature and involved officers not enlisted, certainly they were not combat units. As far as the numeric designations and reporting goes, just don't recall but it got pretty complicated especially because those units don't keep histories all that far back, especially the reserve and guard units.

Steve, Tommy really covered this already but my suggestion is to take a close look at the CIA cables out of MC which were copied to various different groups including military groups in different versions. Bill Simpich covers all that in his book and of course the cables are available to us now and show the distributions. Tommy described the issue of the mole hunt which was likely something in and of itself but I think the point in relation to this question is whether any group in Texas, either military or police would have been copied with the description you are seeking and of course on Harvey Lee. From that point its a matter of a real close look at time frames to see how quickly, if the info was in Dallas, it could have gotten to DPD in time for your original reference to Lumpkin and Truly. Good luck with the chase..

Steve, if you have not done so you might want to check into the messages that the 112th were sending to DPD from San Antonio. Certainly along with the Hidell/Oswald info that originated in NO they were sending other info from their files - although most of it was from being copied by the FBI. I don't remember who else might have copied them but it would be worth a check, its just possible that description for a Harvey Lee came from them. Also, the series of confusing pre-assassination cables from MC were copied to a variety of agencies and I think Harvey Lee was in some of them, with a bogus physical description. Might be worth who was copied, meaning who in Dallas might have had that in their files that day. Having said all that, my guess is that you have got it right and it came off a door stop that day....later nobody might want to have admitted they just let the assassin walk out the front door.

"The cable we have on hand is a message dated November 26, 1963 from the Commanding General, U.S. Continental Army Command re-transmitting a message dated November 23, 1963 from someone at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio to CINC U.S. Strike Command at McDill Air Force Base in Florida. The November 23rd message summarizes a telephone conversation between a Captain Saxton in Strike Command and a Lieutenant Colonel Fons, Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston that took place on November 23, 1963" .....Steve, one thing we do see in the message traffic from that day is a pattern of constant cross sharing and copying of information between the FBI, DPD, Fourth Army and other groups as well. I don't recall seeing the exact message you describe since it seems to summarize a telephone call. What I can imagine however, based on the wording of the info on Oswald being so similar to what we see in FBI messages and most especially from Hoover himself, is that the original source was FBI, and that Fourth Army HQ was copied on a message that prompted the telephone call. A Lt. Col calling a Captain sounds more like a staff officer calling STRIKE command and getting a duty officer on the line. Why he would make the call is a good question, its also possible a call or message was sent to the Continental Army Command from Fourth Army and we don't see that. Given the chaos of the day Fons might just have been distributing the info to other continental commands to be through. As far as the transmission three days later - heck, the Pentagon comm center might have gotten behind in its traffic (little doubt about that). What seems clear is that Jones was confirming that the message came from higher staff levels at Fourth Army and it wasn't his fault...you might want to look at the larger set of messages going to Fourth Army that day. I put a number of them on my DC years ago but more might be available now and the ARRB might have collected more as well. I doubt that we will ever be able to fully connect the dots in the message traffic though.

Aha, the Strike command memo resurfaces....but its a good question and prompts me to think of a new possibility. First off let's start with what Fourth Army really was circa 1963, and that was one of the non-combat, continental Army commands. During WWII its mission had largely been training and some defense missions for the west coast. By 1963 it was largely a recruiting and training command - later in the decade it would do special training in Louisiana for Vietnam bound infantry. In 1965 it lost the recruiting mission as the USA Continental Army Command activated a separate command for recruiting. Lets also throw into the pot that the HSCA did not know much about military structure, and most definitely not much about the 112th and that it called the wrong person to testify to it in calling Jones. It should have called the commander of the Dallas officer if it wanted to ask about possible security support on Nov. 22, or at least the Regional G3/Operations officer. Fortunately the ARRB did a much better job of clearing those things up but we are still left with a muddled interview of Jones. The point is that the RIF for the memo says it is a Pentagon telecommunications document (not a Fourth Army document and not an intelligence document). It originated from the Commanders office of the Continental Army Command and I suspect the HSCA got it from the Pentagon; I also suspect communication went to Strike command but was copied to all Continental Army Commands of which Fourth Army was only one. The originating agency would have been US Army. This begins to make a whole lot more sense and also becomes much less mysterious (darn). The wording in the memo is very similar to what Hoover and the FBI were saying the afternoon of the assassination. I think it is at least possible that the Army at Pentagon level picked up that information (just as the 112th was getting info fromt he FBI and the DPD) and sent it to Strike Command (located in CONUS) as well as continental Army commands. Nagle was mos likely in a clerks position in the Commanders office, or at the communications center. If the RIF is correct and the origin was the Pentagon, Continental Army Command, the communication makes a lot more sense. Jones failure to interpret it clearly for the committee reflects a good deal of the rest of his testimony which I do consider muddled at best and also the lack of preparation or the questioning (I mean its a Pentagon level memo from the Army, why ask a guy down in San Antonio about it).

I'll try to tackle Paul's question first - " in reading over Peter Dale Scott's review of Oswald's conversations while in New Orleans custody it is apparent that he had no ID at that time which would show the Hidell name. How is it that Colonel Jones, getting information from that meeting, opened two files, one on Oswald, and one on Hidell, which he considered to be Oswald's alias? What do you make of the fact that Oswald had no Hidell ID on him at that time, but later Hidell ID was found in one of the 3 wallets supposedly belonging to Oswald, I believe the one found at the scene of the Tippett murder?" The source for all of Jones information was out of New Orleans. As I mentioned before one task for the regional military intelligence groups had to do with monitoring the port cities in their areas related to Americans - primarily students - attempting to travel illegally to and from Cuba. To what extent that had to do with port security I can't say but we know it was a 112th agent in NO who picked up a leaflet in the dock area from Oswald's distribution of them in the area of a US naval vessel. The FBI and 112th appear to have shared some information, things like the leaflet and a good deal of the FBI investigation material on Oswald/FPCC in NO. Oswald was ex-service, and the FPCC was a major target for both the FBI. There were a number of memos about the FPCC and Oswald and Hidell in the 112th files...coming from the FBI. One included FBI speculation that there was no real Hidell and that it was an alias used by Oswald. They did not know for certain at the time and were wrestling with identifying Hidell. What they did have were letters to the FPCC...from their informant in the FPCC office. So that is how Jones knew of the possible Hidell/Oswald connection and as he claimed he did pass that on to Dallas via his liaison with the DPD. As to the Hidell ID, the wallets etc, I'm as up in the air as everybody else about that but I'm tempted to wonder if that wallet relates to some idea that Oswald might have had about getting into Cuba under that name - since his only conceivable way in was via FPCC endorsement, as we see in the AM/SANTA program. I see no value in the ID unless it was used in conjunction with the material he had assembled in NO...and which he or somebody did take to MC and presented there to endorse his travel visa request.

Yes Paul, the sting was pretty much routine. Once again its a matter of being specific, in this case it was a 112th regional Army intelligence problem first because somebody was trying to buy Army weapons illegally out of the military in their region of responsibility. The buyer was Masen - he could have been buying for his Minutemen customers or pretty much anyone and it would still have been an Army investigation along with the FBI since it would be a federal crime. Based on actual documents we know the regional military units were tasked with maintaining surveillance on Americans trying to go in and out of Cuba illegally but that would have been something entirely different. As far as monitoring Alpha 66, that was an FBI task since they had orders not only to interdict weapons sales but to prevent any exile group (well the ones not sanctioned by the Administration at least) from engaging in actions against Cuba. That was a JFK policy handed off to FBI and ATF. In the Mason incident the ATF was not brought in because the FBI was carrying the case with MI only assisting and the FBI does not normally share. On the other hand ATF was monitoring Masen because of his record of illegal activities with ultra right groups and both investigations crossed paths and then tripped over each other. After that there was some move to share, which resulted in the Nov. 22 meeting...intended to keep them from messing each other up and probably for the FBI to claim primacy, which would be normal for them.. It does have to do with tasks and individual cases becoming entangled around Masen...this specific weapons deal that he tried to promote through his Army contact seems to have had to do with a DRE shopping list while his normal customers were Minutemen and other ultra right folks. As a side comment, there has been talk for a long time about Masen being the guy at the Harlandale sighting....that made sense based on Dick Russell's description of them being almost twins. But once we got a photo of Masen, I for one see little resemblance and suspect that it was indeed Oswald on Harlandale, up to his usual activities of hanging out with various types of Cuban exiles - either pro or con.

Wish I could offer more on that. We do know that Alpha 66 had active chapters in the Los Angeles area and that there were some individuals moving between Miami and LA in 1963 but that seems to have been fairly small scale. There was money to be solicited from right wing groups in southern California but there was a lot of competition for it from both the Minutemen and right wing Christian Identity connected groups. Generally speaking it looks like those folks took most of the money for themselves and collected a great deal of the available weapons - that's documented in a lot of FBI reports. In general the local groups wanted the money for their own causes and endorsed anti-Castro activities in spirit without all that much participation. The only donations I've seen go to the anti-Castro cause came from Cuban exiles in the LA area. You can judge how much was available for the taking by the trailer load of supplies and limited number of weapons Howard and Hall brought out of California. And as I recall that came largely from donations from a couple of Cuban professionals.

Hi Paul, there should be a citation for Ellsworth's own testimony on this; I recall reading it and it is available. The thing is that originally he was not aware of the sting targeting Mason because that was a joint effort of regional military intelligence and the FBI - the Army NCO involved had immediately informed Army CIC. It appears that when Mason received no joy from his Army contact (whom he was actually setting up to go into a fairly legitimate ammo business with on the side) he turned to some other contacts who did the Armory theft at Terrell and Ruby was a middle man for that. The weapons transfer from that was busted by DPD interference and that led to the joint DPD, ATF, Army meeting that Ellsworth was going to on the morning of Nov. 22. This is in the 2010 version of SWHT and probably not the earlier one; the citations should take you to Ellsworth's own interview on all that but he did not know the Army side, that is in a totally different set of FBI documents. There is no doubt this connects to the efforts to the Alpha 66/DRE guys (in Dallas most of them belonged to both groups) to buy weapons but Mason was having a really hard time coming up with military grade stuff beyond standard surplus and sporting weapons. Plus its pretty clear that neither DRE or Alpha 66 had that much cash, not much sign they were that successful in Dallas. Much more so in the Midwest but that may have been money from the Sierra funds which is a different story entirely.

Paul, their is a great deal of information available about Ellsworth, the weapons deals, Mason, the task force that was being set up, the armory sting that Ruby was a middle man for (probably), etc. I went into all that in SWHT and its a pretty old story by now...I'm thinking you must be talking about something else there but it not take a look at SWHT.

Ron, I did see that - but here is the problem as far as I can tell - the Office of Legal Counsel approved the language and wording of the executive order but did not look at the impact or legal complications – nor consider defense of the order in the face of legal challenge (which was virtually certain). However the Department of Justice leadership including the Attorney General were not consulted nor asked for opinions on those points – and they were the people who would have to go to court to defend it. We have the same problem in Oklahoma, passing legislation the State AG evaluates as indefensible when challenged in court but being ignored and then spending lots of State money in legal defense because the legislators involved were only interested in political image. Approving the wording and approving the intent and legal defensibly are two different things (to my simply non-lawyer understanding). It looks to me like we are often caught in this sort of Catch 22. I can find numerous cases including some under GWB following 9/11 where the President has issued orders that were correctly worded but legally questionable. Standard practice was to ask the AG and Justice staff if the order would stand challenge. In some cases the order went out after AG objection, in other cases it did not. Presidents do what they want for their own reasons. But in a number of cases the orders do not stand the legal challenges after the fact - as most of GWB's did not. I think my point in raising the issue was not that an AG who offers objections would get let go but that it would be good practice to consult with them. Currently one of my biggest concerns is that Trump and his closest staff don't appear to want any real give and take so they are doing the most minimal consulting possible - as with taking the DNI out of the NSC - which is indeed stone cold stupid...

Ron I tend to agree with you in wondering what all this is doing on a JFK research forum but since you mentioned it and the threadis here, could you give me a citation on the DOJ reviewing and approving the immigration order? The AG is officially charged with providing advice on all Presidential directives and orders and that has been going on for decades - with Presidents sometimes proceeding against AG advice. The AG is also supposed to be available for consultation by Congress on the same matter since Justice does not simply serve Presidents - at one time Congress was actually thought have a role in national/strategic policies - a quaint notion perhaps. Anyway, if you could give me a citation it would be appreciated, from what I've seen the issues with the order were more due to its lack of vetting with agencies that could have helped shape it for implementation and hence avoided some of the trauma (which affected a great number of people other than those at airports that day including individuals working with our military) and I seem to have missed the DOJ review of it...thanks, Larry

Lance, meaning no disrespect but I'm just going on record that I think a lot of the current damage to our society is using terms like "lefties"...which is slightly better than "libtard"...or right winger or fascist etc. It allows people to write other peoples views off without even a discussion. Personally, depending on different issues my views range from libtard to rabid hawk, you wouldn't know for sure unless we talked. Hopefully most people are not stuck in such boxes they they truly are confined to one rigid worldview on every issue - that implies never really thinking about anything, just reacting. I think its a bad way to approach the world - just as I keep harping on the fact that throwing around broad terms like Mafia or CIA is a poor way to approach something as complex as conspiracy - I suspect even LN or CT is questionable as well given that you could have a combination of Oswald as a single shooter but influenced by others to take the action. So I will shut up after this but I've decided to stand up and urge people to talk with each other and I don't think that is going to happen if everyone automatically puts somebody else in a preconceived box - whatever that box might be. When you start a conversation by calling somebody a name its more likely to end in a bar fight.

Well Paul, just because you asked...grin....I just blogged on that very thing: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/

Correct Sandy, the shooter could not have have been firing from his feet; the section of the window that was open would not allow that since the windows begin only a couple of feet above the floor. In addition if he was firing from the seated/box rest position in the official WC scenario and then stood up he would have been well back behind a fairly dusty/dirty window and not clearly visible. Only if he was right up against the glass standing up could a figure have been seen; you can evaluate that by comparing other figures that can be seen in windows on the lower floors. There are other problems with the whole WC scenario including the fact that shooting at a box rest position would not leave a rifle barrel hanging way out the window to be seen. Beyond that, there were some good photo studies done quite awhile ago, on the Lancer forum probably, that raised some real issues of where Brennan was looking at the time of the shooting and pointed out the contrast between that and the way he appears in the recreation photos done afterwards. Personally I suspect Brennan would not have lasted more than ten minutes on the witness stand in the face of a good attorney.

Michael, you found the transcription on Lancer that I was just about to link in for you so you have that. Things have evolved a good bit from that particular presentation and probably your best and most current source dealing with the whole issue is Bill Simpich's book State Secret. I wrote a bit about the MC scenarios in NEXUS and then collaborated with Bill while he was working on his book; of course he has talked with and brainstormed at length with Newman as well. There are a couple of schools of thought (OK, that was understated) but perhaps the simplest take is that links were planted (to a great extent via telephone impersonations) in Mexico City that would have connected Oswald to Cuban or Russian sponsors, exposing that connection would have meant war. That is a follow up to Peter Dale Scott's early research on Mexico City and give you the WWIII scenario leading to a Lone Nut alternative to prevent war. A different and even deeper take is that the telephone impersonation, the taping and the tapes themselves might have revealed that the impersonations were planted to frame Oswald and the Cubans/Russians, but in such a way as to have only been done by insiders - pointing not towards foreign conspiracy but a domestic one involving CIA officers or their agents working with the electronic surveillance in Mexico City. Rather than going that route, and perhaps destroying the CIA in the process, at the height of the Cold War, it would have been decided to go Lone Nut instead. Of course you can mix and match both scenarios too. Hope that helps a bit, Larry

Michael, could you elaborate, certainly John has written at length about a poison pill and about planting information in MC that would force the highest levels of government to back off a real conspiracy investigation...Peter Dale Scott, Bill Simpich and I have all pursued that idea in our writings. But I don't recall John writing about manufacturing and planting the Lone Nut scenario itself months in advance, just the apparent connections that would force that story after the assassination.

If anyone wants to see how an American associated with the FPCC would get into Cuba in 1963 and even do intelligence work there - and how it could very probably relate to Lee Oswald - take a look at the AM/SANTA joint FBI/CIA program which had just started that year. That should be enough of a lead for those who want to really dig into it...

George, I would agree with your starting point and with the timeline, its the same one I laid out in NEXUS. Actually it comes in two phases. The first phase with Howard went into a holding pattern during the summer but it was well known and opposed at the top levels of the CIA. However JFK initiated a second phase of contacts in early fall, working back-channels via Howard and the UN and doing it pretty autonomously, with contacts through New York City to Cuba. That outreach was picked up by the CIA, probably via taps on those involved and you can find traces of sudden high level interest in the individuals involved. The first talk of rapprochement was serious enough but when the second, and far more serous outreach was discovered it did serve as the final catalyst...

In my earlier post I mentioned that the Artime offshore initiative was part of a dual track which was intended to stimulate and hopefully support on island counter revolutionary movements against Castro - the hope had been that AM/TRUNK would drive that sort of thing and of course AM/LASH, AM/WHIP etc were all other paths to stir up things on the island. Since none of that ever came to fruition and given that we now know Castro and his counter intelligence people were all over those contacts the whole premise of outside pressure via Artime complimenting on island action just never happened. I should have elaborated on that there, all those were initiatives which began under RFK and which really had very little support within the CIA; you can find memos from from Artime's commanders talking about Hecksher expressing his doubts himself but soldiering on just because it was his assignment. It took a while for it all to tail off though, the programs operated through 64 and I think largely came to an end in 65 or 66, not sure of the exact date from memory.

Most definitely yes Jim, not only spending money on Artime's project but assisting with the purchase of ships, weapons, and supporting him overseas...in Spain primarily. Which is why Hunt moved over there. And yes, the whole point of the RFK driven project in 1963 was to move Artime off shore for deniablity. Johnson backed off from some exile activities within months but there was a lot of inertia with AM/WORLD and it took a couple of years for it all to come apart, largely related to some scandals around Artime and some bad press overseas because certain of the air strips and bases he was setting up were also used for drug smuggling by third parties. Same thing as the later Contra dual use issues. JFK signed off on it initially, Johnson just didn't shut it all down completely immediately. A considerable amount of the detail on this is in Shadow Warfare - much of it is from Gary but you can also find a goodly number of documents related to the project going well beyond 1963. Certainly it was not ever set up to conclude with an invasion in Nov. 63; they were just barely started in their logistics process at that point in time.

Second Naval Guerilla was one of the group covers used for certain of the Artime activities and people under the AM/WORLD project which was really just barely getting operational in 64 - and by operational that means actually having boats, weapons and some operating bases although doing relatively little in the way of actual attacks. Since the plan was to have Artime's raids fully deniable and all going in by sea, in support of hoped for on island uprisings the SNG name sort of made sense. If anybody has Shadow Warfare you will find it described in the chapter titled Autonomous and Deniable. Gary Murr has done more research on the related documents and especially the funding/logistics than anyone else and was kind enough to let me refer to much of that work. There was never a real US military component associated with it - that whole concept takes you back to Lamar Waldron and his views about a US invasion to support Artime. All this stuff was very mysterious back in 1976 but now that we can see a great amount of the actual documentation associated with the project its really pretty clear.

Steve, it is very strange and I suspect from a legal standpoint would have been pretty damaging....certainly it raises the issue of why the DPD was not treating him as an important witness at that point and it raises big questions about his later identifications and statements. Its almost as if somebody was dubious about him and just slipped him in to watch and check his reaction....when it turned out to be rather vague and not a positive ID they decided it would be best not to get him on record. Remember, at that point in time the whole thing was still a very real, live investigation - later he would become useful to the Lone Nut story line and be retrieved...at least that's the way it looks to me.

Ian Griggs did some great research on this and its all in his book No Case to Answer. Basically there never was a special Brennan line up per se....Brennan was brought into one of the DPD line ups, don't remember which one. At that point he failed to give a solid ID on Oswald and was simply taken home with no record being made. That's from memory but someone with Ians book handy should be able to give all the details; he also presented on this at Lancer many years ago.

I don't see any sign of either on Amazon yet, am I missing them?