Larry Hancock
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Posts posted by Larry Hancock
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I didn't say I was cutting them any slack - what I said is that there is a new reality in media. We need a little dose of realism now and then, at one point in time media was a business but also a profession. With media conglomeration it has become almost entirely a business. We can complain about that all we want; as I pointed out today's media is not the media I grew up with and that is a shame. But that media, when it was far more independent and investigative, missed the JFK story even though individual reports like Dorothy Kilgallon tried. Even LIFE did a second inquiry, directed towards conspiracy...only to have it internally aborted at the highest levels of management. The new media is generally far worse, and far more sensational but the public has to bear a large part of that fault - the media gives them what they want and we have moved into the age of sound bytes.
One of the few media efforts to reassert actual investigative reporting is the current Fact Checking initiative which I really admire; has that been getting a lot of praise? Do you see a loud public commendation and a turn to using Fact Checking and actual data before posting or in private discussions - I don't.
So - no I don't like it. No I don't think its what reporting should be. And it irritates me. If we want better then the public has to demand it, or somebody has to accumulate enough money to start their own retro media. Don't expect that from the new Trump media enterprise that will emerge next year, or from RT. Now I'm returning to my "no whining" zone. Maybe I'll take a listen to the Eagles "Get Over It" for a little inspiration first.
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Jim, I'm honestly not sure if its a matter of confronting the evidence or the fact that media in general, not just MSM but the hundreds of talk radio and internet blogging news sites have become entertainment sites, not news sites. News used to be reported, with relatively little comment - that was reserved for editorial slots as it was in newspapers. My view of media in general now is that its entertainment, driven by either sensation or "performance art - a type of trade-craft itself in itself. There is limited investigative reporting, now devoted to "fact checking" statements by people the media covers. The media in general has moved to the People Magazine" model - which appears to be what the public wants. This year's election campaign clearly shows that the public just wants to hear things that appeal to them or agitate them, they don't want both sides - which of course was forecast by the coming of "shock jocks" and agenda driven talk radio.
Does the public really have any interest in what we are turning up on the JFK assassination? Or are they more interested in hearing coverage of a bunch of nut cases...? Media is a business, so I suggest the later fits better with the entertainment model. It also reflects the fact that what Trump is really doing in this election is laying the groundwork for a new media empire, one that will be far more profitable for him than real estate. The Media I knew in the 60's is dead. People actually believe the talk radio celebrities and think reality TV is real. I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying that as far as the media are concerned we are about 20 years late. Don Henley described it all perfectly in his song "Dirty Laundry".
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Cheers to both DPUK and Bart...
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Perhaps the fact that the media does not take our work seriously is not entirely their fault?
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Yes, you will find it in the Garrison investigation materials... One young man was positively identified, name, parents, residence, etc. The second young man has never been identified.
This link will give you the name and info on one man as well as some additional context:
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Just for a bit of clarity, the crew of the Liberty noted low level reconnaissance passes over their ship well before the attack began. Now take a look at the attached photo of the ship or other photos on the internet and convince yourself that the ship could be mistaken for a trawler....especially with those large satellite dishes on the Liberty.
No accident....
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Pat, I'm afraid the Israeli's did not make a simple mistake....and once they were aware of the vessel as flagged U.S. they kept on attacking...and attacking....the Israeli ID was was even monitored on SIGNET by U.S. intel aircraft. I'm not going into this here further since I wrote about it in some detail in Surprise Attack, including the latest research done on the intercepts and who knew what as well as Johnson's despicable orders to call back carrier aircraft on their way to repel attacks that were still in progress on the ship. Why the Israeli's did what they did, with full knowledge of the identity of the ship has been discussed...including what the ship itself may well have picked up in terms of a war crime in progress. Anyway, anyone who has Surprise Attack can see the story I pieced together from some really good and relatively recent investigative work by others. As to LBJ, he should have been prosecuted and jailed for his actions on this alone...
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Sandy, I follow your distinction on the systems, I'm familiar with expert systems and their development and familiar with AFIS. I have to admit I didn't know a true "expert system" for fingerprint ID even existed so I really
can't say anything about that one way or the other.
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Thanks Dawn...got it, so the exact material Darby used was stolen but it was actually a print of what Jaye had obtained. Which means that Jaye still retained the material and I suppose should have received it with Jaye's effects. Which means it existed separately and Walt might have gotten it. I'm not really in touch with Walt and it seems to me that I have not heard him weighing in on the print issue for some time... would be nice to hear from him..
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Dawn, could you elaborate on who stole the material Darby had to work with...did someone steal it from Jaye, did not Walt Brown get film with the rest of Jaye's material. What happened to the first generation copy
that Jaye, gave to Darby? If Richard had a copy of that film then its not really lost and he could make it available to everyone - including Joan's fingerprint person? Just not following this...
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Sandy, you wrote:
"Expert systems are not very good. If they were they would be widely used."
......but the FBI's AFIS Automated Fingerprint Identification is in very wide use and has been for some time...could you give us a reference for your statement?
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Chris, I had the same problem. I can see test/development flights done under Army contract having some sort of security clearance for observers but I'd think would
come from the Army security folks or from TI itself who obviously had to comply with government security regs as a contractor.
On the other hand, a plane with generic equipment that would be used for marketing and sales flights would be a bit different. TI might still have to comply with
some security regs but it seems to me then the passenger list would just be vetted by TI to make sure the folks are real government customers with the
appropriate clearance that goes with their jobs.
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If it was indeed Ruby as Jack remembers I suspect its more likely that it was a joy ride....but doesn't Jack say the flight was out of the East Coast and not Dallas, which was one of the reasons he was so surprised to see him? At one time I thought maybe somebody was sneaking Jack on to the flight to make him comfortable with some sort of covert mission but I could never figure out what that might be given the date. Such a flight would have little to do with getting weapons into Cuba but if there was some particular individual that would only go in or out in Jack's company it might make sense....question is who...
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There is actually a good deal more background on that, apparently TI first submitted the technology for the Army contract and a good deal of work was done under that, from what I see that dates back to as early as 1958 and its possible that the low level water Gulf flights might have been done for that development, the Army apparently never fielded the missile but TI marketed the tech for a bunch of other contracts and it was used in the F-111 and the Navy A-7. The F-111 was
already under development in the 62-63 time frame. Anyway, TI was marketing it for a number of purposes to the military and some government agencies - which explains the flights out of DC and over the Appalachians.
I've looked extensively into DARPA history and also the history of the Air Force Big Safari program which used custom tech to modify a number of aircraft for special projects - including work on one off, special use aircraft and helicopters for the CIA - but I have not found anything that fits into this.
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Chris, I think there were two sets of flights, developmental flights out of Texas over the Gulf and marketing flights out of Virginia; if I recall correctly those involved flights over the Appalachians. You might want to
check out this link on the history of the radar:
http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/history/timeline/defense/1950/docs/58-terrain.htm
Flights over the Gulf out of Texas certainly are reasonable enough for development, but I don't quite follow his remarks about the secrecy of the developmental flights? Certainly there was nothing secret
about the marketing flights he wrote about in Virginia, they were just very low altitude. That would have been one of the flights he logged Jack in on according to his remarks. I'm wondering if what he
was describing occurred after they actually signed a government contract and were developing specific military systems for it?
After all the F-111 actually flew with that radar only a few years later so it had to be fairly well developed in 1961, they were actively trying to sell it and bidding on contracts. Of course it
would not be the first or only time the CIA used new technology, just trying to figure out what they would have done with one of the planes or Jack in the fall of 61, following the BOP all
the Cuban operations really turned down for most of the rest of the year, the CIA was more busy exfiltrating people by boat than anything else. The big question is what Jack would have to
contribute to anything the CIA was doing at that point in time?
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Chris, one of my thoughts early on was that it was some sort of cover for Cuban operations. But as far as I could tell the flights were all out of the East Coast, far beyond any effective operations over Cuba.
Also why put Jack in on a flight which was still clearly a marketing/sales flight. As I read it these were flights were not developmental as much as sales and marketing demonstrations. At one point I thought somebody
might have had a plan to insert Jack into Cuba and flew him just to show him that it was safe - Jack being something of the nervous type. Perhaps the key is to try and dope out what Jack could have contributed at that pint in time? How could he have been used?
Anyway, its a very interesting track and one I wrestled with but with no success...we know more now so its definitely worthwhile - good luck!.
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It would also be good to get more detailed about what a "security clearance" can really mean or might have meant for this particular incident. I'd suggest defining specifically what it meant in terms of getting on the list, who actually gave the clearance - was it the company, some agency, etc. Being on a list as being cleared by "security" can mean a number of things depending on who is "security" and what rules they impose for clearance. The other area would be to post a bit of context for Jack at that point in time....how does it tally with the time frame were he was treated as a potential informant, where was he traveling then, what would have put him in D.C. on that date....
I probably should elaborate a bit although I'm sure Chris and others know these distinctions quite well - personally I have held a military/government security clearance related to military duties, but I have also held various security clearances totally unrelated to that - several for what would strictly be called access control, issued by Corporate or industrial security groups. That has extended to clearance to enter government restricted facilities for business purposes, cleared by yet a different level of industrial security, required by everyone doing business with the government. There are different levels and standards for that too, my company was on government sales lists and had one level of clearance, others that I visited were actually classified business and that was another matter entirely, just to get inside one of their buildings. So just a caution, being on a cleared list produced by "security" can mean lots of things.
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I looked into this at the time, talked with Jack several times about it and in particular about that aircraft, who might have been interested in it for what purpose etc. Its a fascinating story but totally dependent
on his memories as far as I recall, in terms of both the identification and his memory of the log in sheet. I'd like to see someone dive into it really deeply, I could never take it further than that or come
up with a scenario that would make much sense given the details of the timing, Jack's activities and what the motive of putting him on such an aircraft could have been. The ground following radar aspect of
the aircraft technology is pretty interesting in regard to covert mission operations but it was still in development and being marketed at that point.
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For reference, other accounts describe the flooring crew as being TSBD employees pulled from regular duties and assigned to the work...including people from the second company building a few blocks away where the company had its headquarters. The big end of summer back to school shipping rush was over and employees were available for misc work...as I recall, the fact that there was even an opening for Oswald during what was normally the off season was because a "puller" had been assigned to the flooring and Oswald's job was most likely temporary.
As to the building itself, Ian Griggs interviewed employees in the building who made it clear it was unlocked through early evening because of the book company folks who had space
in the building and who came and went after hours on occasion. The same fellow told Ian that even that weekend when he came back to Dallas from vacation he found the place
unlocked and walked to throughout the place without meeting a policeman or seeing any security. Later the reason given for not further vetting prints was that the building had indeed
been open and uncontrolled all weekend so just matching to a list of employees was a waste of energy.
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I honestly don't know Brad, the folks who are reconstructing for the Ed forum may have just started by grabbing pages and rebuilding from scratch with all new linkages. If so their desgin
is probably something new and their security will likely be different because I'm guessing any package they use now is far different and hopefully offers more security. I'm just
not techie enough to know...my html goes back to about 1994, even in dinosaur years that makes me dated...grin.
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Brad, I have shared what I observed and know about the disconnection of links; I'm not involved with restoring the forum so your comments would be best directed to the moderators on that. All I can give you is the history I observed, which affected my own WEB site, hosted on the same server the Lancer forum was...
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Brad, you highlighted one of the strange things about the original Lancer server hack in that it was largely a matter of breaking links...I first noticed it on my web site when people would ask for pages I knew were there and they were just gone. That's why Debra did not notice it for some time, its like they started breaking down deep and then just moved upwards so on the serface the site looked relatively normal and just kept losing links and degrading bit by bit. I have no idea how that would be done and for that matter it might be something particular to that host company and that particular server's security. Might not work somewhere else; again I suspect the folks rebuilding it might have an idea but then again sharing that might be a matter or ongoing security as well.
The train cars and the entire area behind the fence as well as the overpass were frequent topics of discussion; to this day I'm not sure about the DPD officer who said his view was blocked by a passing train, actually I just don't belive that. And I have never found anything that suggests the three parked work train cars were opened and searched that afternoon. You also brought up a point that bodes well for the restoration, there were people who posted there who are no longer active or who have passed away so that is the only way to retrieve their info. about the restoration, And yes Bill did seriously overload the system with graphics at times, I remember that well.
Sounds like you might have worked out at Tinker AFB? And no, before the current very low depth earthquake swarms (not at all like your standard quake) we didn't have any other than over
a couple of small fault lines in the east and one small one that actually runs right near my house down here in the SW, in the Wichita Mtns.
As to tornadoes, they have always been just a fact of life here, interestingly it led to Okla City having some of the most advanced and best weather forecasting in the nation, the first to introduce doppler radar, to deploy trackers. We just got missed by a tornado when living north of Atlanta and it was amazing how much different the weather forecasting and coverage was there....had never really been a problem for them because they didn't have many. Here its a seasonal thing....like severe ice storms have become - we never had those before the last few years either.
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Paul, having had some interaction with Kris I doubt that he would order an author to participate but he would certainly suggest/encourage it - Vince might be able to give us a better read.
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Oklahoma is doing well this fall, its been wetter than usual and that always makes us happy - of course moving to number two in terms of earthquake risk right behind California might be considered a bit of a downer, it used to be we talked about dealing with tornadoes but at least we were safe from earthquakes - now not not so much. If we start to get hurricanes too, some of us might become paranoid.
Your memory is far better than mine but I do recall the parking lot discussions and the missing list of license plates - just like the missing list of names taken by DPD at the theatre - I seem to recall a lot of discussion about sliding gates, how the lot at the train yard was sealed off and what Bowers could see, Debra did interview his brother who was adamant that he saw more than he felt safe to talk about.
The phantom train and the tramps (all sorts of tramps) were big areas of discussion, the train thing has always really bothered me. Another very hot topic was the question of what was actually recovered down on the south side of Elm and who was picking up what. The fact that evidence appeared to disappear there got lots of discussion.
There was always a lot of discussion about the TSBD on the Lancer forum, same as here. Also a lot of talk about folks behind the fence, especially so because for a long while Ed Hoffman was a subject of discussion as well. I'm hard pressed to recall what was being discussed when things went south, I know that a couple of threads had been segregated from the main forum, one I think about Judyth but not sure of the others, perhaps one on Tosh Plumlee. At this stage I sometimes have a hard time sorting out what were the hot topics on the old Compuserve JFK forum vs. Lancer. its becoming a blur - then again that may be those earthquakes...grin.
New York Times article on Oswald Conference in New Orleans
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Paul, Clinton won't have anything to do with it - although after the beating she has taken over classification of emails there is no reason she should step into the middle of it, It will be very much routine, the Agencies will unredact what they think is OK, and release those. And they will designate some as being retained under national security guidelines - if you want those you can appeal or sue and hope that a Judge will override...which has proved to be pretty unlikely.
Its a big thing to us and I hope we will get some new information out of it, but the actual process is pretty clear and if any Agency decides to fight for a document or documents its going to be SOP to go after them. At least that's the way I see it - but that's one reason we are having a special panel on it at the JFK Lancer conference and throwing the question up to some of the best NARA researchers still in the game.