Shadow Warfare

[Larry Hancock]

For those interested, I've begun a new series of posts introducing my new book - written with Stu Wexler - "Shadow Warfare". The posts are on my blog at:

http://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/shadow-warfare-2/

The book is a broad study of American covert action and undeclared warfare beginning prior to WWII and extending to contemporary activities as of 2013. Its going to come out close to 600 pages rather than the initial 350 page estimate on Amazon and has some 800 citations/end notes. Which seems a lot but then it does cover 70 years and that's a good deal of covert action. I will also try to relate portions of it to things of interest in JFK research, today's post comments on the larger picture of David Phillips activities across some 13 years of association with Antonio Veciana.

I won't burden folks with extensive descriptions of it here, that will be in the blog posts.

In the interesting of shameless huckstering, it is available for pre-order on Amazon and pre-orders are always appreciated... Larry

[Chris Newton]

Larry,

I read a couple of the blog posts. Good thought provoking stuff! I'll try and get me mitts on it when it comes out.

I've heard a couple names bandied about in the context of "who had the knowledge" to plan and coordinate an operation as vast as the Kennedy Assassination. Rip Robertson comes to mind but I feel he's more of an "senior field operator" than a planner. My choices at the Operational Level would be either the CIA's Dulles or Angleton. Angleton, in particular, was fascinated by the Soviets long - term planning, operations that might take decades to come to fruition. This, in part, drove his mole hunt and paranoia.

Who do you think are the best candidates at the Operational Level?

[Larry Hancock]

Chris, I think in terms of the genesis of the idea that JFK was becoming dangerous and perhaps "out of control" I'd look at Helms and Angleton, Helms had been adamant in opposing and pushing back against any dialog with Castro to neutralize Cuba. Helms may well have shared such thoughts with Dulles, but its also certain that he would have shared with such thoughts with Angleton. I went though a good deal of thought about this in NEXUS. My take is that the concerns passed from Angleton who passed the paranoia and worries to Harvey (supposedly Angleton only really talked to Helms and Harvey) - who passed it down to Morales and Roselli and then... Morales had extensive experience as an Ops manager and Roselli had his own skills as a "facilitator". Both were pros.

Operationally I would think it would have been someone highly trusted and the person in that position surely would be Robertson, from then on it would go down to the people who Robertson had personally worked and who he trusted. In terms of the operational team it would be a match of skills and trust.

Another comment I would make, which I explore at length in Shadow Warfare, is that in real Agency executive action, the CIA officers were always directors and coordinators, surrogates did the lethal action.

[Chris Newton]

Larry thanks for that opinion.

One more question… I know the services were all watching each other and there has been some speculation that people in the FBI fed information back to the CIA outside of normal channels. In any of your research has there ever been a suggestion that the Secret Service could have been penetrated by the CIA? It occurred to me while reading Horne's chronology of events at the NPIC regarding the Zapruder film that it's doubtful, to me, that the Secret Service could gain access to a facility of that nature and commandeer it's staff.

[Cliff Varnell]

Operationally I would think it would have been someone highly trusted and the person in that position surely would be Robertson, from then on it would go down to the people who Robertson had personally worked and who he trusted. In terms of the operational team it would be a match of skills and trust.

Larry, I'd like to run this by you...

My suspicion is JFK's killers had nothing to do with Lee Harvey Oswald, no connection personally or institutionally.

I'm applying a negative template to Lee Harvey Oswald and all his incarnations. Any organization or group with any connection whatsoever to any Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with the actual murder of Jack Kennedy, as a matter of hopefully street-wise speculation.

As accessories and potential back-up patsies, Oswald's CIA/ONI/Cuban/Mob connections may have played key roles in sheep-dipping LHO as an agent of Fidel, but they weren't in on the hit (or so I surmise).

Two compartmentalized operations -- the killing and the cover-up.

My question is: what possible connections did Oswald have to US Army Special Forces specifically?

[Mark Knight]

Cliff, to a large degree I tend to agree with where this leads. I think that most researchers may have been misled by Oswald's service as a Marine. They keep looking to ONI for any intelligence connection...when it's possible that Oswald MIGHT have been connected to ARMY intel. Which would mean that most FOIA requests are barking up the wrong tree. I once suggested such an idea to Hemming, and he seemed to indicate that he thought I was on the right track. [Of course, that assumes that Hemming a) actually knew, or wasn't talking crap...for which he was well-known.] Crossing branches of service, after all, isn't unknown in the world of intel...or so I've been told. ONI is obvious, based upon Oswald's service; Army intel isn't obvious...and isn't the concept of undercover work based upon the idea of not making it obvious WHO you're working for? Seems Army intel sure had a lot of info on Oswald available almost instantly on November 22, 1963...

Edited December 4, 2013 by Mark Knight

[Larry Hancock]

I'll try an to combine thoughts on this one.

First, I thank that the conspirators were very much aware of Oswald, beginning with his activities in New Orleans. They may very well have connected with him in a guise that he didn't recognize or simply as one set of contacts out of many he was making. Distinguishing a couple of Cuban exiles with a story line from several other sets would have been very difficult for him. The information from the Parrot Jungle incident does suggest that exiles in Miami were not only aware of and talking about Oswald but had some fair amount of timely detail since in that incident his whereabouts are described as either in Mexico or Texas, which was really quite accurate given his recent travels of the period. I also take the Patterson comment from Hosty of Oswald being observed with "subversives" very seriously. However none of that suggests that Oswald was doing more than talking to people who matched his interests, which that fall certainly included things Cuban. I've come to think he was very much "unknowingly" patsied in the Dallas attack.

As to the Army connections you and Mark mentioned, after having spent an immense amount of time on the 112th Army documents, I an say that they show virtually all of the Army intelligence was material that had been copied to them out of New Orleans, first when an officer picked up a leaflet from Oswald's first Navy pier effort and then as the FBI began to copy the 112th on his activities and their investigation of his FPCC activities in Dallas. Those memos included the speculation that Hidell and Oswald were both suspects in that or that Oswald might be using the Hidell name. Remember that it was Army intelligence who was tasked with monitoring the students who were illegally going in and out of Cuba, sometimes with FPCC assistance. Illegal Cuba travel in or out was one of their tasks in domestic intelligence. Most of the other stuff in the Army files is communication between Dallas and the 112th after the assassination. Simpich is also demonstrating in his work that the Army and Navy were both copied on some of the Mexico City related memos, but certainly not all of them.

Having said all that, its pretty clear that the real major missing military files are from the ONI, that ONI did have a large file on him, that they investigated after his "defection" and that those files have never surfaced. My personal speculation is that the reason they did not is that they do or did contain info on Oswald reporting his bar girl contacts in Japan and the possibility that he was requested to make follow on reports ....that's important in terms of my speculation that he first became visible to the CIA's during his visits to the area of and possible attempts to actually enter the Soviet embassy in Tokyo.

I don't want to mislead anyone with this thread though, while "Shadow Warfare" is about a great number of the CIA officers and Cuban exiles we are familiar with from the early 60's and follows all of them for a much greater period of time....including discussing several of their infrastructure warfare activities in both Vietnam and Latin America though the 70's, its not another JFK assassination book.

-- so I may be "huckstering" with the thread, but at least with full disclosure...grin Larry

Edited December 4, 2013 by Larry Hancock

[Blair Dobson]

interesting direction people.