Larry Hancock

I do have photos that illustrate Sturgis, Ferrie and Ferrie's people involved in the camp that was being planned and may have operated for a time in late 1962. Ferrie was clearly involved in that, Bannister might well have been. The effort was even described in newspapers, however it seemed to fall apart after the missile crisis and with the Kennedy administration crackdown on exiles. Not sure how that relates to Newbrough but thought I should mention it. Personally having lots of problems with Davie Ferrie flying a B-25 over the Bay of Pigs landing...

On page 52 I discuss a Hernandez mentioned as an assassination suspect by Escalante, supposedly he had been a Castro supporter, had left Cuba via Mexico and then on into the U.S. He was very violent, had carried out actions against the Cubans in MC and was a friend of another generically named Cuba, a Garcia...which of course makes one think of Hermonio Diaz Garcia purportedly named by Tony Cuesta as having been involved in the Dallas attack. Problem is that this is all interwoven and although its possible to use those names to connect dots which would be consistent...there is no way I've found to take it onto any firmer ground.

As much as I would love it to be I can't swear to it.....the name Hernandez is too common and shows up in a bunch of suspicious places....I think Victor was too young to have been the fellow McKeown describes having known in Cuba. But its certainly a possibility. Victor's whereabouts in the Fall of 63 are very unclear and the HSCA did a terrible job of pursuing that. If you check out Appendix I in SWHT you will find that I certainly speculate that Victor was either involved with the conspiracy or that he was close enough to those involved to have heard about it. He is also an ideal candidate for having carried word about Oswald back from New Orleans to Miami at the end of the summer and of being one of the "mysterious" out of town exiles in touch with Oswald in New Orleans.

Yes, that is definitely one of the documents I was referring to and its important to note that the Victor Espinosa mentioned in the report is actually Victor Espinosa Hernandez (one of the great problems in the FBI's connecting dots with the exiles was their inability to always give full names so that individuals who are the same often appear not to be...sigh). He is the individual I write about at length in Appendix E of SWHT and actually had been in the CIA pre-BOP Belle Chase training camp outside New Orleans for a period before the landings. His information is important because it is substantiated independently and in his own HSCA testimony where he provides further remarks about the abortive McClaney bombing project. Certainly I think a lot of the statements are less than forthright, but my suspicion is that its less about the particular incident being charged than a lot of other things they had been engaged in...Espinoza Hernandez was more than willing to dump all over the McClaney project but in other areas I absolutely know he was telling less than the full story about his own activities. -- Larry

Chris, its not impossible that somebody did speculate on Sturgis.....but in the end the Miami field office did trace it back to info that had been relayed from the exile who had gone to LA to check it all out....and left totally frustrated. There had long been speculation that Oswald might have been the source so this stuck in my mind when I came across it. I'm tied up with some things at the moment but when I get a chance I will see if I can find the reference. Its just possible that I put some of the relevant docs on my web site in regard to the chapter where I discuss this but I can't swear to that from memory. The other thing that I did find is some actual interviews with Davis and those involved in the one MDC camp and it has a lot of detail. Chris, take a look at the documents in Ch. 5 http://www.larry-hancock.com/documents/index.html and see if you find anything new to you. I see that a lot of what I recall is actually from Victor Hernandez HSCA testimony as he was the guy pulled in by McClaney contacts in Miami who went down to Louisiana.

Actually as I recall the FBI reports from Miami name their source as a Doctor relating info from a dissatisfied exile who thought the whole bombing mission was silly because the explosives and bomb casings they had gotten didn't at all work with the aircraft they had....definitely not Sturgis Chris. I'm sure I referenced the relevant FBI documents in SWHT in the chapter I mentioned earlier. The Miami reports give a good deal of info about the aircraft and info from relayed by their source from one of the Miami exiles who was recruited for the project. I'm doing this off the top of my head but the names and document references are in the book.

Well since this thread is sort of all over the place, I'd like to offer Brian an option. That option being that the shooters would be using the best weapons to ensure a kill, but is an an ambush and the priority is to kill JFK. Its not even a classic covert operation since rather than going for deniablity, there is a corollary effort to point to Castro. With such an option there is no particular effort to be totally covert or to disguise multiple shots...the only criteria is to make the kill and then ex-filtrate. The only thing demanding the involvement of a Carcano in any way is to associate the attack with Lee Oswald. In this scenario its perfectly acceptable to leave evidence of multiple shooters and a conspiracy. And if you get the chance to tie in Oswald, great, if not, that's secondary. I know this is old stuff and I hesitate to toss it out once again but it seems to me that jumping through hoops to involve Carcano's as the required weapon for all shooters is an assumption, not necessarily a given.

Probably should have used more words there.....the word "collections" is sometimes used to describe simply picking up information on intelligence targets from "open sources", that includes published materials, media, and of course just talking with people either from overseas, especially if they are military, scientists, business persons, academics, etc. Outside the spy novels, much non military, real world intelligence covers foreign political activities, business trends, and a host of routine demographics information. Which is why international business people are good sources to gather and report such information. Its not national security type stuff but goes into the general mix of assessments, its part of the grist for the CIA's world books describing foreign nations. Take a look at the Senate Intelligence Committee's reports and see what comes up listed as "foreign topics of interest" and you find - which was a surprise to me - a range of topics far beyond those of a foreign military and security nature. So, that was probably too many words, but it just makes sense to have Shaw as an open source collections agents due to his ongoing contacts with international business people and his foreign travels.

Given the Agency mandate for intelligence collection it would have been strange not for them to be looking for informants and actual collections agents among all the international trade marts and business centers. That would have to be considered SOP. Same goes for employees of such operations doing overseas travel....which Shaw did.

After following this thread quite a ways, I'd really like to hear both Pat and Robert's thoughts on some basic questions: 1. Was there a shallow, non penetrating wound in the back or not? 2. What is the most probable reason for such a wound if it existed? 3. Why would someone use a weapon and ammo not corresponding to Oswald's if Oswald was to be set up as a lone nut patsy? -- thanks in advance, Larry

Paul, I believe there was a letter, who, when and where it was written remains an open question to me as to whether or not it connects to the Walker incident or was written for some entirely different purpose. Its not a question I could address properly without revisiting the issue in depth and that's just not a priority for me at this time. Perhaps someone else will engage with you on it.

Hi Chris, certainly can't swear to it from memory but I thought the FBI reports I got from NARA either had addresses or some pretty specific directions to the property. I do know some FBI reports have had considerable removal of redactions over the years. Also, some of the reports I saw were out of Miami and related to the plane and the exiles who had traveled there for the abortive operation. I reference separate reports on the camp, perhaps some of it might help, its been a good while since I read or wrote about them. All in all though I think there were three locations which have been discussed, the McClaney cottage where the trailer was parked, the air strip with the plane and a separate house and grounds where the CD/MDC camp was being set up....that didn't last long though.

Chris, if he was able to land that plane there then he would have been a natural for later air operations in Laos...! If those looking for details on the McClaney sites haven't checked, as I recall the FBI documents on the weapons bust (a U haul trailer parked by the McClaney house) give some pretty specific addresses and locations for that house and also for the site where the plane to be used in the bombing project was located...which was a good distance away as I recall. The training camp which was actually a combined effort by Christian Democrat and MDC groups, brokered by Richard Davis was a distance from the McClaney property; don't recall if he owned the land it was on or not. If you have SWHT check chapter 5 and it should give references to the FBI documents.

Paul, sorry but I think my meaning was very literal. During the initial inquiry Marina did not defend Lee nor proclaim his innocence. In addition, she offered nothing that would explain his action or motive. She allowed him to be presented as a killer, indeed offering points such as the Nixon threat and the Walker story which supported the lone nut image of him as highly emotional and a potential killer. I've seen her say that now she says Lee is innocent of the JFK murder, without offering much explanation other than that her opinion has changed from information provided to her...by researchers. To me this simply indicates that Marina's statements have been "situational", made to her and her children's best interest at the time they were offered. That would hardly be surprising. However it also suggests that there is a fundamental problem with her position that Lee attempted to kill Walker, wanted to kill Nixon and yet could not have killed JFK. Actually I agree with you that at present she may be using the Walker letter simply as a filter to keep away anyone who would question her remarks or become challenging in talking with her. I know her position on Walker is integral to your view and I've said many times I won't try to move you from that - you have demonstrated enormous energy in maintaining and promoting that view in the face any counter dialog and I'm happy to leave you with it. In regard to your question on the letter, I would have to dig far back into the issue of the letter to do justice to its pros and cons, not something I would do off the top of my head and I will leave that to someone else.

Lets see, now Marina will only talk to researchers about her husband's innocence in the JFK shooting - a position which has changed over time - if they are willing to discuss his attempt to shoot another person, Walker. Not the sort of behavior that would have served Lee well in court....

Pat, all your charts are lovely and I for one am not disputing them per se. However have you ever tried to hit a target say the size of a rabbit (comparable to a human head) at 50 or 100 yards with a 22 rifle ...with iron sights only....with a scope firing multiple shots....with your target moving....shoulder held without having sighted in your weapon at that distance....how about the same free hand shooting a 22 pistol. I for one am going to need to hear an experienced shooter say they would bet on making a lethal assassination shot with a 22 pistol at 100 yards...I will do some asking though.

My only comment would be that is certainly a far cry from the sort of real world shooting - in terms of hitting a target at distance and getting a lethal impact - that I was describing in my comments. Those comments were in regard to a person carrying a standard 22 and attempting to shoot game which is on the move....no bipod fixed rifle mount, no opportunity to fire shots to sight in rifle at a set distance. That is what I was talking about in my personal experience post. I will leave any more technical response to Robert.

I have nowhere near the shooting experience Robert has but I routinely shot both handgun and rifle 22's when I was growing up and I can't think of even a good shooter seriously thinking of making a lethal hit beyond about 50 yards and at 100 years, the distance of a football field, you best be practicing every day and be shooting at a deer or something larger. And at that range thinking a 22 would be lethal is ....strange. The CIA and other organizations did consider a 22 as a good assassination weapon but that was at extremely close range, with a stealthy shot holding the gun virtually at the back or side of the targets head. I'm also having trouble with the manual being cited that seems to imply 22 rounds have more carrying range than other handguns (which would usually think of as higher caliber).

David, the remarks from Brennan that I'm citing have to do with his purported first day positive identification of the man he saw shooting as Lee Oswald, something he did not state for the record at the time. I'm afraid I cannot rely on my memory to go further into his elaborations and issues relation to them, I just wanted to alert everyone that it is out there somewhere. If I'm correct it was being discussed well over a decade ago....

As much as I hate to butt in, my recollection is that some years later Brennan actually wrote either a short book or was cited in an article in which he made a number of claims far beyond his earlier testimony - he talked about his extremely exceptional vision (regardless of some factual questions about his eyesight and glasses), he did say he had recognized Oswald but had been afraid to say so ....there was a lot that would raise considerable questions about his credibility but it may be what was picked up on by Ford. Sorry, cannot recall the source but some searching might bring it up. The later statements, plus photo studies showing he was not in the position he stated nor could have seen what he said he saw at the proper times has come up before in research - its an oldie that I have not seen discussed recently.

Not exactly what I said Paul, what I said was that the WC was receptive to the story of Oswald shooting at Walker shooting, as it was of the story about Oswald wanting to shoot Nixon. That does not mean they invented either; by supportive I mean that they did not investigate either story intensely or raise the issues with both that you have seen mentioned here or which have been noted by research over the years. They simply took both stories into the record, finding them complementary to the portrayal of Oswald which they were presenting. I don't think JFK research has been eager to get away from either story as they have both been researched on commented on for decades.

Paul, one consideration might be that the WC totally failed on establishing a motive for Oswald shooting JFK, in fact they had to deal with sources repeating his positive comments about the President. Beyond that they had a difficult time setting him up as socially maladjusted or pathological - lone nut profile - and they were desperate for anything that would make him appear to be mentally out of control and dangerous. Supporting a Walker shooting attempt was one of the few things they could weave into the pot that at least helped sell Oswald as dangerous, the other was Marina's story about him wanting to shoot Nixon.

This is an example of how unchecked statements can lead us astray, even though Clarke field in the Philippines is closer to the Chinese mainland its still some 700 miles just to the coast, no way Donovan can be accepted as reliable....and you have to love the fact that he is quoting Oswald as saying the aircraft just took off from Clarke and is going over China - you have to laugh if you have even a basic knowldege of U-2 performance...

Well according to Stone's most recent remarks the title should be more like "I quit Trump and then he fired me". Looks like press releases at 20 paces comes next....

Don't give up David, its early days in this campaign - great potential for things never heard before I suspect....