Larry Hancock

Given his job and daily duties its difficult to see Morales in New Orleans, in the vicinity of Oswald in anything related to a sanctioned CIA operation....related to joint CIA / FBI operations against Cuba or even any of the new propaganda operations. You don't use a Chief of Operations for that sort of thing, not when you still had missions going into and out of Cuban waters on a daily basis as well as a lot of other intel collection activities going on. On the other hand, Morales was known to be very hands on in those things that he was personally involved with and if someone had proposed using Oswald for some action against JFK I can see him wanting to take a personal look at how the kid behaved on the street and under pressure....

Mark, take a look at my post on number 114 and then check out this article on the subject....that was something that Shane O'Sullivan came up with but even he now agrees it was not Morales at the hotel. https://www.maryferr..._RFK_Story.html

I'm afraid this is a problem that we run into with a lot of "sources", it takes a huge amount of work and a very close attention to matching chronology to statements over time. In regard to Caufield's book I think it applies to Sommersett and to Beckham among others. Stu and I worked long and hard evaluating Sommersett's information at various points in time and we discussed that in AGOG, essentially singling out "situational" changes and giving our reasoning for when we thought he was reliable and when he was not. The same challenge holds for Nagell and for Martino for that matter (both of whom provided information for different purposes at different times). There is third party documentation which clearly shows that Sommersett was providing good information early on, much of that relates to a Miami PD and FBI sting in regard to a rifle that was "tagged" to be provided and traced into a plot to assassinate Dr. King. However as time passed and suspicions grew about Sommersett, it appears that he got fed diversionary information on a broad range of subjects. That's one reason the FBI backed off from him, another was that he had been useful as a potential informant in activities he was personally involved in but later became more a general conduit for rumors and gossip. Miami PD stayed with him longer because he did have some solid contacts there with local radical groups, but in contrast, its pretty clear that Sydney Barnes, who had been close to him before moving out of Miami, really began to play him - and the FBI. Its important not to underestimate some of the radical right wing players, they were masters at compartmentalizing operations and in attempting to "play" agencies like the FBI. In a number of cases individuals functioned as sources while continuing to perform violent crimes...something the FBI tolerated in order to get inside information. In AGOG we write about one individual who was in routine contact with the FBI at the same time he was conducting bombing and terror attacks, playing both sides of the street. Sort of reminds me of some of the Interpen gang who also routinely attempted to provide info to the FBI and CIA, of course it was info of their choice...often about each other.

For those who don't know, Jefferson Morley and David Talbot dug into the RFK aspect of this in great detail and thoroughly debunked it. Later work actually located and named the individuals named in the video as CIA officers - they were not - and Shane himself no longer supports the Morales identification at the Ambassador; we have exchanged email on that. Yet the internet being what it is, the story will never die and neither will photo id of suspects, its just all to good to pass up. This is a good example of why any story on the internet needs to be fact checked so for balance I suggest the following: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_The_BBCs_Flawed_RFK_Story.html

Paul, Sommersett reported on gossip about threats to King.... one I recall was from labor union folks who he claimed had remarked how King's support of the strike in Memphis was hurting their image. By that tune he was no longer being treated as a valued FBI source and they were not taking him very seriously. However, he had provided some very accurate info about a plot to kill King in a sniper attack and a successful sting involving a rifle to be used in that had been recovered ...but that was years earlier. Both Miami PD and the FBI had been involve in that and it was very real. Its all covered in The Awful Grade of God.

Two comments, first off Sommersett was a fine informant, repeating to Miami PD and to the FBI for a period everything he heard or personally saw. When you start digging into it, it was accurate in his personal observations but also passed along a whole lot of third part gossip that was just that...which is why the FBI stopped using him after a time. An argument can be made that they threw the baby out with the bath on that one. However its also important to note that relatively early on he became known as a "snitch" and JB Stoner identified him as such to his contacts in Miami, warning him not to trust Sommersett....and opening the door to feeding him misleading info. As far as Tippett goes, I would also counter that he did security work at a theater which showed Spanish language films and was frequented by Cuban exiles. Personally I'd hesitate to make too strong a connection ("linkage") to conspiracy off either employment.

After thinking about it a bit more, the whole timing of the purported New Orleans meetings and specific knowledge of an active Castro outreach involving Atwood seems doubtful. Atwood himself did not become involved with Lisa Howard and JFK on the backchannel contacts until mid-September and his involvement only jelled at the end of September, and in October. Oswald was leaving New Orleans just as Atwood was becoming involved. Now if you want to make it the general subject of JFK and possible talks with Castro, that dated back much earlier in the year - but it had all stalled out by late spring and only really re-ignited in October. Which is when I started to find evidence that the CIA was indeed spying on JFK and looking into the people involved in the new contacts being conducted outside normal channels. So....general talk about JFK going easy on Fidel and possible talks was circulating as gossip in late summer but nothing specific to new talks or Atwood. This is the reason we need details to go with sources such as Beckham, if you don't have dates, locations, specifics then its just talk, and not verifiable. In any event, for those interested, the full timeline, prepared by Atwood himself is at the link below: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/631108.pdf

Wow, that's a really fascinating way to connect dots Paul, via "touching" broad areas of interest such as "red politics". That could be used to connect a great number of people. And I still fail to see anything in the text you cited that mentions "Morales" as being involved with a purported meeting with Marcello or Bannister...which was what this was really all about as I recall.

Thanks Paul, certainly looks like it is a recollection by Beckham, and a very broad one....including the point that it references meetings at Algiers and at the Town and Country motel...but does not mention Marcello...who would be pretty unlikely to host group meetings of the sort described (this is the guy who felt the only way to keep a secret was to ensure that anybody else who knew it was dead). And Morales does not seem to be mentioned nor is there a time frame. Certainly I agree that Joan is solid, I think the issue here would be with Beckham....who in my opinion is another street type guy who enhanced his story over time and who has to be taken with more than a couple of grains of salt ....

I'll look forward to it Paul but I need to put in a qualifier. As I noted, there had been national media coverage of media interviews with Castro in the spring, with Lisa Howard's reports and Castro's remarks about some soft of dialog with the US. There was also much talk about JFK's crackdown on the Cuban exile group military activities and weapons buys, all linked to gossip about JFK being soft on Castro. It was the start up of highly secret back channel contacts starting in early fall that was the real secret since JFK was doing that largely on his own and confidentially at the UN and via State Deparment personnel. To find something significant, you need to locate something that is bringing that story to New Orleans from Miami in the late August/September time frame.

It would be interesting for someone to post a summary of the phone numbers and addresses for various groups in Oswald's notebook. I don't think Walker really stood out in being in being listed, there were some great 4th Decade Journal articles on this and as I recall there was quite a list of right wing and left wing personalities - both individuals and groups.

Paul, I certainly recall you have cited Joan as the source for the Morales contact on many occasions; but so far you have not given her source. Citing authors as a source is fine for starters, but then you need to back it up with the authors actual source so we can all evaluate it...especially on such a critical claim - and to do it justice having a quote would help too. Exactly what verbiage was used to discuss the outreach, what sort of detail does it give us. There is a world of difference between what was going on in regard to Castro that spring....his interest in talks was actually being reported in national media .....and the new and highly secret outreach that began in early fall via back channels at the UN and in New York City.

OK, lets follow along with a few more thoughts then...could you give me a primary source for exactly when and how Bannister knew about the Castro outreach ....is there anything quotable from him that shows he knew? Also, if you have it handy could you give the actual verbiage for Garrison using the term Mongoose, or what he repeats from Martin....any detail might be helpful in brainstorming that. As to Bannister/Morales being a long shot......knowing the timing would help but I kneed to now exactly how Bannister described and when. That story was circulating among certain exiles in Miami at a given point, and some of them did travel to the New Orleans area. That's the sort of thing we can verify, speculating a Bannister/Morales link just because they both hated JFK doesn't seem to do much unless you can show some personal or third part contact between the two, something to show that Morales would even think of Bannister as somebody he might share info with. Morales was notably tight lipped and according to all we know talked to few people and trusted fewer. You had to do something pretty impressive to get on his buddy list.

Does the book indicate or imply that Walker knew about it in advance and was a willing participant? Also, am I right in that this would put Oswald directly in touch with Bannister and under his influence well before going to New Orleans or is it all happening with Courtney following instructions from Bannister and Oswald just going along with what Courtney wants?

Well I can follow the point that Bannister might have still considered himself to be working on anti-Castro activities and describing Oswald as doing the same...which I'm pretty sure Oswald was....and Bannister might have used a code name (although Mongoose never really involved New Orleans). I just don't see any sign of anything involving Morales with New Orleans or Bannister in 63.

Thanks for the clarification Paul, just to further help me be clear then, is the scenario that Oswald was set up to take a shot at Walker with or without Walkers prior knowledge?

My impression is that Morales's remarks about his "own" people could either mean the CIA as an Agency or about a very select group of people that he knew first at JMWAVE and then later in Latin America. Those people were not necessarily CIA employees and were primarily Cubans or Cuban exiles. What they did for and with him was not necessarily officially sanctioned by the CIA. Which sort of leaves two options, Morales being concerned that certain of his sins while at the Agency would catch up with him and that he would need to be eliminated to prevent any serious investigation from discovering what the very top level people didn't dare explore in 1964 - or that certain of his former associates in late 1963 might have come to suspect that he had not been totally honest in what he was promising them in regard to what was supposed to happen as part of the attack in Dallas. The thing is that his retreat in Arizona was probably directed towards protection from the second group and his death may well have come from the first....certainly his friend Ruben thought he had been poisoned during a trip back to DC.

In a way Paul, Morales and Robertson were the key CIA officers involved in supporting the TILT mission after it had been approved by King and Shackley. Robertson went on the mission with Martino, he had debriefed him earlier and apparently become personally close to him, visiting Martino at home on numerous occasions. Certainly its unclear from both Morales and Robertson's reports that they were all that impressed with the mission itself or with Pawley per se. Morales was linked to Pawley via the mission itself but beyond it there is no particular sign the two worked together, were socially linked or friends of any sort. Probably the more interesting operational linkages and introductions resulting from the mission would be Robertson/Martino/Bayo/Alpha 66.

Given your earlier post Paul, what I'm really interested in seeing is the scenario, a timeline and some proof that Oswald became personally close to Walker, close enough so that Walker would trust him to shoot at him (involving some level of confidence he would not be killed in the process; like knowing Oswald was a really good shot...or perhaps not actually being in the room when the shooting occurred) or that Oswald would do that for Walker....

Well welcome back Paul, but in this instance I think a bit of context would help you and it might have helped Garrison as well. In Shadow Warfare I try to break down the four phases of anti-Castro operations because they are really rather confusing (they certainly were for me) and timeline as well as associate figures involved in each. As far as New Orleans goes we have a great deal of detail on the CIA training camp there that was related to the Bay of Pigs effort in 61 and we know about the boat mission that originated out of La. under San Jenis....related to the very earliest incarnation of OP40. Of course none of that had to do with Mongoose and we know what Morales was doing at the time and it was a training mission at JMWAVE. After the BOP there was an open period of several months were it was all about regrouping and before Mongoose started and Harvey was assigned to it. To keep Mongoose in perspective it was limited to the CIA portion of the support effort under Lansdale which involved multiple agencies and the military. During Mongoose Morales was focused primarily on running boat missions into Cuba, doing infiltration and ex-filtration. Given that those boat missions also supported Phase 2 of the Roselli/Harvey Castro assassination plot, Morales would have been running highly compartmentalized missions in support of that as well as regular CIA missions. As far as we know that all ran out of Florida, out of the Keys and had nothing to do with New Orleans. Post Mongoose, following the missile crisis, and while the Special Group was trying to come up with some new strategy - before RFK began the Artime/AmWORLD initiative, Morales continued to managed support for missions in and out of Cuba as well as a variety of related activities like the TILT mission, and support for counter intelligence activities of Sforza's group in both Miami and Mexico City. During that period Morales himself spend time both in DC and traveling to and from MC. Of course there were exile activities going in in New Orleans during all of this but they primarily had to do with various exile camps and independent activities....which the FBI was actually trying to suppress starting in early 63. The thing is, we are able to detail this only after decades of work and with the document releases of the 90's and later. Seeing it with what Garrison had would have been almost impossible....so CIA just looks like CIA and as we know, lots of folks claimed to be working with the CIA who really were not or who were only having verbal contact with them for various reasons. So....no I don't see any reason for relating Mongoose to New Orleans in 63, it was over and done with late in 62 and with the detail we have on what Morales was doing I see nothing to connect him operationally to New Orleans in 63....at least based on what we actually know. Good to have you back but once again, making huge sweeping generalizations about CIA projects and activities might have cut it a few decades ago but should be avoided now. Not to mention that I'm still waiting for a citation from Joan Mellon that concretely ties Morales to New Orleans in any fashion, either to Bannister or Marcello....we've gone there before but just citing her as an author is also not enough these days, we need credible primary sources for statements like that.

We absolutely know that in his position at JM/WAVE, Morales was supporting Mongoose and Harvey's project during 62. He was also supporting the 1963 initiatives including the Artime project / AM/WORLD. His connections to Harvey are clear. I'm still waiting to see any verifiable sign of a connection to Bannister. Its true that both were staunchly anti-Communist and also heavy drinkers but aside from having that in common I see nothing that would bring them together and certainly Morales would never trust becoming operationally involved with somebody with no covert or military ops background, like Bannister. Marales was exceedingly strong willed and you would have to have some serious credentials to impress him....I can see Harvey doing that but Bannister was not playing in the same league.

Morales was quite intelligent, organized and a very structured manager....you can see that in reading some of his correspondence. Given that he ran the operations at JM/WAVE he was probably running the largest covert operations effort going on at the time and from there he went on to run the what was probably the largest CIA operations base in Laos, at Pakse. I think he is often underestimated because he was very intimidating, physically and otherwise but it would not do to underestimate his intelligence and organizational skills.

Thanks Brian...I have read David's book but don't have it at hand at the moment, much appreciated.

Jim, I finally got around to checking Flawed Patriot and in the 2006 edition page 208 under the headline Rome And The Italian Connection it describes an aide waking Harvey up on Nov. 22 in Rome to give him news of the assassination. When does Talbot have him flying off to Dallas?

Paul, I have no idea about Jim but I know the newspaper element has been discussed for years as has the issue of any traffic moving over the concrete road edging. For David, the concrete edging extends the length of the street, no ramp was over it was ever built the divided area between Main and Elm or was even contemplated by the Secret Service.....the concrete edging was most likely higher then than now since the road has been repaved a few times over the years. Certainly the concrete edging shows well in photos, its the same edging that has long been discussed in regard to the mysterious yellow stripes that showed up on Elm.