Larry Hancock

I think a huge amount of time has been spent tracing the movement of the Z film and in particular how the FBI got its copy. I'm looking forward to some posts on this as this story adit certainly does not match my memory of the research and the thought of Hoover waiting for a secretary coming on a train rather than having his agents hand carry it is interesting - especially since other items of evidence were being hand carried or hand delivered by airline crew members. As a matter of fact by now somebody must have posted a flow chart showing the movements of the original and each copy....would be nice to see a link to that for reference. What do you say Z film gurus, its this really a true story?

One of the things that is surprising about that is that you would think the professionals would either use primary sources - such as the HSCA report - or even Blakey for that matter - or make some use of materials people with credentials such as as John Newman and others. Since when did we start teaching history off the New York Times best seller list? I suppose we can only be thankful Bill O'Reiley was not on that list...

I'm sorry Michael, that was confusing. I should have said I am calling in remotely and will be doing my presentation that way, with a PowerPoint shown locally. I've done that for several years with DPUK after going once in person. As far as I know you have to be there as an attendee to join in the conference other than as a speaker.

I'll be joining in remotely with a presentation doing a comparative study of the national security response of Nov. 22, 1963 compared to the responses of other major crises such as the Reagan shooting and 9/11.

Bart, given the subject of this thread, derailing it would probably be to the good...grin. On a minor side note, Beckham was working as a radio DJ at the time and as I recall his job would have put him downtown...it was also one of the few times he was making enough money to "dress up" so to speak. I'll note that I have problems with his credibility in regard to many things...and even more with his later partner in scam,s Fred Chrisman...but in this instance totally disregarding Beckham would probably be a mistake.

We have been over this several times and I have referenced Beckham's own remarks about being there....there is also an additional photo showing Beckham off to the side with three young Latino women, one who is most likely his new under age bride...which actually led to charges against him over the age thing. Don't have it available to post but someone should be able to find it...

I'm just waiting to see how Trump would tie in Cruz's grandmother...

As Tom says, impressive and a good example of what the forum can produce...thanks Andrej!

There is a lot of good, relatively new information on this subject in documents at the National Security Archive. Actually Ike tried to get Batista to step down and walk away from the corruption - Pawley was used as an envoy which was pretty high risk because he was privy to a good deal of highly secret, strategic dialogs under the Eisenhower administration. When that failed Ike was going to give Castro a pass for a year or so to see which way he might move but J.C. King as head of West Hemisphere CIA quickly started pushing for removal of Castro, including via assassination....and with Nixon jumping in on that Ike was quickly persuaded to begin a regime change operation. Debate will go on for decades as to which direction he might have turned but if nothing else its clear that our early actions after the revolution pushed him towards the Soviets. Interestingly, over the follow years he often sounded pro Communist but also conducted a series of internal communist purges inside Cuba. But before JFK (and after) our leaders had a very poor ability to differentiate nationalism from communism...

Terry, I suspect Castro would not differentiate between the early B-26's flown by the exiles or the one flown at the very end by American National Guard pilots on detached assignment. He certainly was aware even at the time that there were a number of large American Navy ships off shore, doing everything from diversions to providing protection for the exile ships ....if they original Eisenhower plan had been followed the rules of engagement would have allowed the destroyers to come all the way in shore to the original site and provide air cover for the ships as they docked. No doubt that would have led to full scale combat with US forces since Cuban forces would have been unlikely not to fire on covering destroyers or aircraft. If you want a fuller picture of what was supposed to happen before JFK really began to force people to put things in writing, you might want to check the Bay of Pigs post on my blog.

Terry, Castro personally still hates the US for its actions against Cuba and I suspect would have preferred to be isolated forever - and at his age he is also living in the past - but to your point, yes there were numbers of American funded and at the end American piloted aircraft involved in the attacks which took out much of his air force and did indeed kill hundreds of his soldiers. There were some highly effective bombing and strafing runs even after the landing that chewed up a good number of the early reacting Cuban forces on the way to the beaches. And yes there was a carrier off shore and flew jets over the beach during the evacuation. even though they did not engage. There was also a significant Navy task group off shore. The Navy / Marine commitment to the operation was quite substantial but that's another story, as a footnote to the point about the Carrier, the Navy commander in charge had all operational documents and ship records destroyed before the ship even left the area.

Michael, you will find considerable detail in my RFK essays on the Mary Ferrell site. They also contain some excellent graphics done by Sherry Feister - based from scans of police sketches and diagrams of the Ambassador hotel. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Robert_Kennedy_Assassination.html The material is in the Incomplete Justice essay series

There are no photographs to document exactly how it went down but it appears that at that point Cesar was doing security duty in the waiting area right behind the stage, there were people in the service hall which went past several meeting rooms and also connected into the kitchen. Those people were beyond a set of pantry doors which blocked access from the kitchen/service corridor to the area behind the stage. When RFK stepped down from the stage and into the corridor, Cesar began guiding him back down the corridor - which RFK had used to enter the stage area, avoiding crowds. The corridor provided access to a meeting room designated for the press and RFK was on his way there. Some of his aides apparently thought he would attempt to move there through the huge crowd in the ballroom but RFK had wanted to avoid that crowd coming in to speak. In any event, Cesar was leading RFK through the pantry doors, even holding him by the arm and steering him through the people trying to get RFK to stop and talk in the service corridor (as he had done on his way in).

I agree to disagree....and I personally think a good bit of what is authorized in the National Security acts and codes of 1947/1948 is morally repugnant, ethically repulsive and beyond that generally counterproductive. I try to make that case in Shadow Warfare, magic bullets like assassination and for that matter torture are tempting, they don't work in the long run and almost always produce worse results than if you had not fired them. Worse yet they fool you into thinking you are actually accomplishing something when in reality you are making things worse. But it all sounds really macho and if said with enough conviction fools people into thinking you know what you are talking about - which reminds me of certain contemporary presidential candidates.... Don't think I'm defending it, I'm trying to be clinical about exposing it. The same extends to all the issues of "gray warfare" in counter terrorism.... You know you are in trouble when the military is sent on missions under national security legal code rather than that of the UCMJ .....but enough...

No, the CIA is not a criminal organization. You are simply wrong. It was created legally with Congressional legislation and operates under legal codes. And the legal codes for it, as for the military, approve murder, assassination and a lot of other normally illegal acts - acts that are illegal under civil code but not under natl security or military code.....whether you or I like them or not. We don't get to call what is illegal or not, the laws and legal codes themselves do. Your earlier comment that Bush was a criminal because he headed a criminal organization is just flat out wrong. Beyond that, the CIA itself is not above the law, CIA officers have been prosecuted and convicted for illegal activities not authorized under national security code. A number of officers were charged and convicted over Contra activities..only to be pardoned later by President Bush. Presidential pardons for such things are a real problem, as is the ability of the CIA and other Agency directors to overrule their own IG's and not investigate and prosecute employees due to improper behavior or negligence. The point that I brought up earlier is a good example. In terms of Contra activities the CIA Director asked for an "understanding" with Justice that CIA personnel could be waived from reporting drug activities with their assets. The officers themselves were clearly not exempted if they engaged in those same activities. What was really out in left field was giving North the authority he was given to take over those same activities - with no legal authority to do so or to act if he saw drug smuggling going on...which he did....and even North complained about what he was being asked to do. I'm not going to change your mind on this and won't attempt to...but the reality is that there are legal measures and oversight in place to deal with unlawful actions for both national security agencies and the military. Its true that Agency heads, President's and Congress have all been terribly negligent in its oversight of such matters, and they are legally part of the control mechanism. One of the big problems with covert action is that Presidents are encouraged to isolate themselves from it to provide deniablity - which of course makes them useless in controlling it. In my own view, when we overgeneralize, talk about ruling classes and untouchables it's an easy out. And it lets you stand outside the political system (as annoying as it is) and just surrender. Your choice, I prefer to keep butting my head against it - and deep politics as well. My personal position is simply that failure to engage is not an option......

Ron, actually I don't believe we have a criminal system. I believe that we have a sets of civil, military and national security laws and legal codes which are in conflict with each other - what is illegal under civil code is actually authorized for the military and for national security operations. That leads to a lot of conflicted behavior and offers the opportunity for individuals at all levels - not just a ruling class - to game the system for their own agendas (sometimes political, sometimes personal) or profit. The people with the most access to lawyers become especially successful at manipulating the system and getting away with it under all three classes of code. And President's have the unique option of going to the AG for legal opinions and proceeding on that basis with those opinions - which are never tested in a legal sense - Bush's authorizations of previously extralegal activities following 9/11 is one of the most recent examples. I prefer to be as specific as possible in discussing such things because I don't think using generic terms accomplishes anything. In Shadow Warfare I make a number of recommendations in areas where parts of the legal code need to be reconciled - do I think its ever going to happen, no, for reasons I also explore in the book.

Ron if I did I don't know where it would have come in on this thread and I didn't see it. As to crime, unfortunately what I described as far as it applied to the AG and the CIA was perfectly legal....not that I agree with it. What certain contractors, assets etc were doing was absolutely illegal and as I describe in my book, folks like Oliver North were quite well aware of it, references show up in his diary and correspondence. And the CIA director was as well,hence his request to the AG...otherwise he would not have requested the authority to avoid reporting it and losing assets. I spend a good deal of time in Shadow Warfare discussing how various perfectly legal Congressional legislation has authorized a broad spectrum of crimes - justified by in regard to national security. Obviously I would recommend reading the book.

Uh, if you all are talking about this Larry, I don't think I mentioned Mena at all. I did spend some time looking into Mena but that's another subject entirely. What I do have to say about Contra related drug activities, both during the CIA period and later under the North effort is in Shadow Warfare. It's a big story and far too convoluted to deal with in posts here so I will just refer to the book. What might be relevant to note is that once again there was a dynamic going on between the Justice Department and the CIA - completely independent of the President or Congressional oversight for that matter. That dynamic grew out of correspondence between the CIA director and the AG and resulted in an "understanding" which allowed the CIA and its personnel to ignore (and not report to DEA as required by law) drug activities of its assets....assets was interpreted to mean individuals other than actual CIA employees (exempting contractors and sub contractors) as well as Contra members and those folks they chose to do business with - its a really valuable education on how such things work in the real world of covert political operations and regime change.

In the OKC bombing case, it would be extremely interesting to take a close look at the documents going between Justice and the FBI on the case. I can say that Stu and I did that in regard to the King case and we found that Justice was very interested in a broader investigation and in being involved but Hoover stonewalled them, ordered his people not to talk to Justice Dept staff and essentially aborted any broader investigation right there within the FBI. We described some of that in AGOG. Hoover managed to get away with that since the actual prosecution was local, and the FBI was simply "assisting" Memphis prosecutors. Justice had no ownership. I admit to being clueless on the legal dynamics within the OKC case but I suspect some of it is in the book my the defense lawyer that I mentioned and I'm just not remembering it....too much data, too little storage. One of the things I have learned in all of this is that all the agencies will do some hard to believe things in order to protect informants and also to cover up field information that headquarters failed to react to before an actual crime. Its hard to underestimate the degree of CYA that occurs.

Actually the FBI did have some of them, in regard to the ultra right cult group in eastern Oklahoma the FBI even sacrificed one of their most important informants to protect the fact that they were monitoring the group and Nichols connections and visits to it.....they have a bad habit of doing that when events after the fact might prove they were holding back on arrests to get more information. Certainly there is plenty of evidence now, that they were very much aware of Nichols and of plotting against Bureau agents and offices over the Bureau's actions in Waco. Beyond that, actually the defense lawyer, an Oklahoman, turned up a great deal of the evidence related to the Philippines, I would recommend his book. Some of that information the FBI was aware of, some they were not. Its the old matter of the prosecution coming first, with no desire to be distracted by other leads that might prove embarrassing if you chase them down. I can't claim to have turned up anything special myself other than compiling and associating things that came up in the decade following the Davis book, Stu took this further in his research for his book American Jihad. The other point is that during the period of time in question, the CIA and FBI were not playing well together, I go into that in detail in Surprise Attack. My suspicion is that the CIA may well have had files related to a jihadi terrorism connection to American anti-government radicals, connections worked through the Philippines. If I'm correct we will never see that now, certainly not in my lifetime. In short, its a lot like the other crimes we are familiar with, its not that the FBI did not have some of these leads, especially leads that point to a broader conspiracy, its a matter of whether they were ordered to pursue them. And surely the CIA was not going to volunteer anything. At the time of the actual bombing, tracing any jihadi connection into the U.S. was held extremely closely within both the CIA and at NSA as well.

Given that I was originally highly impressed by Jayna Davis' book and recommended it to many people I need to go on record retracting that. After doing my own research, including with Oklahoma sources, and exploring a good bit of information that came up after she published, it is pretty clear to me that there was a terrorist connection - but not to Iraq. The connection was two fold, first to an ultra-right cult in eastern Oklahoma and second through connections to jihadi terrorists and bomb builders. Richard Clarke delves into that a bit in his book but nobody else has really published the full, more contemporary, story. As he points out Nichols and McVeigh could not get their bombs to work, then McVeigh made his mysterious trips to the Philippines and when he came back - the new bombs worked quite well. The fact that one of the most expert jihadi bomb builders just happened to visit the same small town that he did, at the same time, is very likely no coincidence. There are a number of additional connections, not much has been written about the fact that one of the first international jihadi networking events was at a semi-private conference in Oklahoma City or the fact that one of the most radical mosques was in Norman, Oklahoma. And few outside of this state are aware of the abortive student/terrorist bombing of an OU football game which would have killed hundreds - if the young man had not been turned back at the gate and later blown himself up on the OU campus. When the David book came out I was first impressed and then puzzled about the CIA endorsement - since when does a CIA director, ex CIA or not, give an endorsement to a conspiracy book. Eventually, and after a few head slaps it dawned on me that the book endorsement (published in 2004) was simply one small piece of the overall propaganda run up to the Iraq invasion. Make Saddam responsible for a terror attack on America. lets go get him. I have good reason to feel that Davis was quite sincere, whether or not all her sources were is another story. As far the CIA endorsement of the book - as well as endorsements from several conservative, neocon Congressmen, some from my state and some on the Congressional intelligence committee.... I suspect those may also have been part of the anti-Saddam campaign.

David, I am not familiar enough with that level of detail to make a really meaningful comment. My impression is that the Russian bureaucracy was always through, but plodding, for all I know they could not come up with her original birth certificate after her departure but needed to clean up her records so they just grandfathered something in... I'll check with Bill, we have discussed the Oswald/Webster thing over and over but he remembers this sort of detail and see who it was who obtained the interviews about Marina and dating up foreign visitors including businessmen. Its probably all in his manuscript which is available on the MFF site. Bottom line, I have no doubt that her contacts with Oswald were observed given that she had already been warned about her foreign dates. All in all I suspect they were happy to have her go off with Oswald. However I also think Hosty was smart to have focused on her - his book makes it clear she was just as much a suspect to him as was Oswald. As to what they could obtain, well they could obtain the same sort of open intelligence that the students the US who were being using as sources in Russia could. Even simple letters to friends or family could reveal a lot about the White Russian community in the US. Its important to keep in mind that a good deal of intelligence is very routine i.e. how was Marina processed into the US, who questioned her about what, how easy it was to make friends - with what type of people. Its always possible that some of her first contacts in the US were really Russian sleeper agents or source evaluating her for further use. And once she got fed up with her unpredictable husband, who knows what she might be willing to do. And it could all be handled through regular mail contacts. The amount of similar minutia which shows up in CIA documents is amazing; I have know doubt the same could be said for Soviet intelligence.

It may even be simpler than that, it appears that Marina was interested in foreign visitors and the higher quality of entertainment they tended to enjoy. She hung out at the right places, dated some of them and ultimately came under GRU attention, hence her relocation under her Uncle's over sight in MInsk. She might have been a source in Russia, she may have just been interested in more interesting dates. There our some pretty solid interviews on this, including her move. The source escapes me but somebody else should have this well in mind. Letting her leave with Oswald might have been an administrative bonus, and no doubt they held open the vague possibility she might become some sort of "legal" open source in the US, certainly that appears to have concerned Hosty.

Ditto here as well...

Lance, I think that it may have less to do with political ideology than with personal suspicions or even fear of government. I know a number of both liberals and conservatives who are anti-government and generally pro-conspiracy. Generally they look to conspiracy - or something on the order of deep politics - in regard to not just JFK or political assassinations but in incidents ranging from mysterious deaths and major events (from the OKC bombing through 9/11 to Sandy Hook). I'm not saying that does not translate into politics but I think it translates to both parties for different individuals. And of course for some, it leads to virtually everything becoming a conspiracy, with hidden forces in control. That's a much broader world view than party politics.