Gerry Patrick Hemming discusses E Howard Hunt

[Paul Trejo]

I disagree completely with Larry Hancock.

If Cuba had been the prize, we would have taken it. After the assassination we didn't take it because we didn't need to take it. Castro was OURS after that. And he still is and he knows it.

We have the ability to "take" Cuba at will because of the mountain of incriminating evidence that had been falsely generated implicating him through Oswald's actions. We contained communism in the Western Hemisphere, limiting it to Cuba and Cuba alone, for over 50 years without firing a single shot... after Dallas.

There were no plotters seeking to gain Cuba. That is myth. The only concern Cuba posed was its Communist Political affiliation and connection to the Soviet Union. It was both a military and idealogical conflict where the Soviet brand of Communism, to which Fidel was most closely aligned, seeks always to expand. THAT was perceived as a threat to National Security.

Once Kennedy was eliminated and the murder was ABSOLUTELY pointing to a Castro plot, the need to intervene militarily in Cuba became moot. Because we could justify such a thing (and everyone knew it) we didn't need to carry it out. It was our trump card--and still is...militarily.

Why do you think there are files being withheld? Because the American People will scream about us NOT attacking Castro. Watch how fast the files are freed once Castro passes away. Tick tock tick tock...

So, Greg, let's see if I understand your viewpoint.

If you disagree that Cuba had been the prize for the murder of JFK, then you must be saying that Vietnam was the prize, correct?

Certainly you overspoke when you claimed that "There were no plotters seeking to gain Cuba. That is myth." We know, for example, that the Mafia wanted Cuba back as a casino island, and they donated millions to somebody for the murder of JFK.

Now, perhaps they wasted their money and simply paid some big-mouth swindlers (as Gerry Patrick Hemming alludes) in one of the 200 plots against JFK that existed out there. I admit that is possible. But to say that these anti-Cuba plotters did not exist is to overstate the case.

Probably what you meant was that there were no successful plotters seeking to gain Cuba -- that is, the plotters who successfully murdered JFK were those who sought to gain victory in Vietnam. Am I correct about that, Greg?

You're also arguing that since Oswald was framed so well as a Communist, that the case against Cuba was already granted, and Cuba persisted in its Communist condition only by the grace of the patience of the American People. Perhaps.

Nobody ever doubted for a minute -- before the JFK murder or afterwards -- that the USA could overwhelm Cuba with superior military force if it chose to do so. The only question had been about the willingness of the USA to do so, because the Bay of Pigs disaster expressed the exact opposite of such willingness.

Anyway -- it comes down to this, I believe -- you are saying that the entire motivation for the Plotters of the JFK murder was the goal of victory in Vietnam -- do I have that right?

Then, Greg, you end with a zinger:

* Do you really believe that Fidel Castro was behind the JFK assassination?

* Do you really believe that this fact is the main reason that Oswald's CIA 201 file is still being withheld?

* Do you really believe that when Fidel Castro dies (probably soon) that all secret files on Oswald will be released?

If so, then that's very interesting -- and controversial.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 27, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

Paul,

You are putting words in my mouth, forcing me to conclusions that I do not hold and misinterpreting my positions. I have lost patience and

now I am done.

[Paul Trejo]

OK, so Greg Burnham won't further elaborate on his comment from two days ago, namely:

"Why do you think there are files being withheld? Because the American People will scream about us NOT attacking Castro. Watch how fast the files are freed once Castro passes away. Tick tock tick tock..."

So, I'll turn the topic back to Gerry Patrick Hemming and his various and sometimes contradictory opinions.

One of those contradictory opinions was stated in the context of this thread, namely, the Plotters would never use hot-headed Cuban Exiles or rightist mercenaries when they had impartial professionals at their disposal.

In other words, to identify the shooters themselves, we should look away from Cuban Exiles and rightist mercenaries (who would have been too emotionally involved to be trusted) and look toward paid professionals only, presumably those without a political position on JFK.

In that regard we should also recall that Gerry Patrick Hemming was the leader of a mercenary organization named, Interpen, which consisted largely of hot-headed Cuban Exiles and rightist mercenaries.

But what is most important in this context is the fact that Gerry Patrick Hemming contradicted his 2001 statement in his 1974 interview with Dick Russell (ARGOSY Magazine). Here's an excerpt from that interview:

--------------------------- BEGIN Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

ARGOSY: Do you think it's possible that the Kennedy killing involved some of the Cuban exile community?

HEMMING: Yes, very possible. It wasn't that hard a job. I've seen and been on the scene for harder jobs than what happened in Dealey Plaza. You had a hard core of characters in the Dallas Police and County Sheriff's Department that would blow somebody's head off at a whisper. When you've got people running around who have friendships with organized crime, Federal agencies, and have been in bed with so many people – well, when the assassination goes down, everybody's covering their tracks.

ARGOSY: Can you be specific about the offers you received to kill Kennedy?

HEMMING: Look, there are people who didn't have a goddamn thing to do with it, but they think they did because they were conned by other people. If they think somebody's gonna point the finger at them, they're gonna get 'em. And I'd like to stay alive.

ARGOSY: You told the Senate investigators that you believed in 1963 that Loran [Lorenzo] Hall was somehow involved. [Hall, an ex-CIA contract employee, right-wing politico and trainer of Cuban exiles for a Cuban invasion, was named by the Warren Commission as one of three men who may have been in Dallas with Lee Harvey Oswald in September 1963.]

HEMMING: Yes, the day of the assassination, I made a call to Texas from Miami. And I pointedly asked, is Lorenzo Hall in Dallas? I made the call about 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon. He was there. My contact had seen him in Dallas the day before.

ARGOSY: Why were you suspicious of Lorenzo Hall?

HEMMING: Because he left Miami with the stated intent to get Kennedy. And he had my weapon, a Johnson 30.06 breakdown rifle with a scope on it that had been prepared for the Bay of Pigs. I'd left it with a private investigator who had previously worked under CIA Agency auspices on the West Coast. Hall got the weapon when we ran short of funds on a return trip from L.A. to Florida, and we ended up using Hall's car.

ARGOSY: You were working closely with Hall?

HEMMING: He came out to work with our group in 1963. Then he ran afoul with some people, and immediately went to work with a group that I thought was infiltrated by Castro's agents. Hall ignored this. He siphoned off a couple of people who had worked with me in the past, and started organizing his own operation with Frank Sturgis and some other guys.

ARGOSY: Hall left Miami again shortly before the assassination? Could you be more specific about his plans?

HEMMING: He was gonna stop and look up a number of people. Some he'd met through me, others when he was in Cuba in 1959. One was Santo Traficante's brother in St. Peter, and some others who operated under Meyer Lansky's auspices. And there were still other connections in Louisiana and Texas that had expressed an interest.

ARGOSY: In eliminating Kennedy?

HEMMING: Yes.

ARGOSY: And you believe Hall was directly involved...?

HEMMING: He knew how to do the job. We'd discussed various techniques as part of our schooling-techniques required for Havana, Port-au-Prince and other Latin American jobs. But I think somebody was trying to put him there [Dallas] so he'd be one of the patsies.

--------------------------- END Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

Knowing that Loran Hall was a rightist mercenary, working closely with Cuban Exiles inside Cuba at first, and then in several paramilitary raids on Cuba after he escaped from a Cuban prison, we see the obvious contradiction.

Obviously, the direction of this interview points in the exact opposite direction of the interview that Gerry Patrick Hemming gave Greg Burnham a quarter-century later.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 30, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

No it doesn't point in the opposite direction.

ARGOSY: And you believe Hall was directly involved...?

HEMMING: He knew how to do the job. We'd discussed various techniques as part of our schooling-techniques required for Havana, Port-au-Prince and other Latin American jobs. But I think somebody was trying to put him there [Dallas] so he'd be one of the patsies.

[Paul Trejo]

No it doesn't point in the opposite direction.

ARGOSY: And you believe Hall was directly involved...?

HEMMING: He knew how to do the job. We'd discussed various techniques as part of our schooling-techniques required for Havana, Port-au-Prince and other Latin American jobs. But I think somebody was trying to put him there [Dallas] so he'd be one of the patsies.

Well Greg, that snippet taken by itself does serve your theory. I'd already said, and it's well-known, that Hemming spoke in contradictory terms, mainly in self-defense.

But there are so many other quotes from Gerry Patrick Hemming there that suggest the opposite. For example:

--------------------------- BEGIN Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

ARGOSY: You told the Senate investigators that you believed in 1963 that Loran [Lorenzo] Hall was somehow involved.

HEMMING: Yes, the day of the assassination, I made a call to Texas from Miami. And I pointedly asked, is Lorenzo Hall in Dallas? I made the call about 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon. He was there. My contact had seen him in Dallas the day before.

ARGOSY: Why were you suspicious of Lorenzo Hall?

HEMMING: Because he left Miami with the stated intent to get Kennedy. And he had my weapon, a Johnson 30.06 breakdown rifle with a scope on it that had been prepared for the Bay of Pigs...

So, Gerry Patrick Hemming stands on both sides of this debate.

Loran Hall lied when he said he wasn't in Dallas the day JFK was murdered. Loran Hall left Miami with the "stated intent to kill Kennedy."

Combine this with Harry Dean's eye-witness testimony to the Southern California cabal of John Birch Society plotters including Ex-General Edwin Walker, down to the level of Loran Hall.

There is even more evidence marking Loran Hall than the contradictory (self-defensive) evidence we get from Gerry Patrick Hemming.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Believing that one knows which of Hemming's statements are fact and which are fiction is folly. Natural tendency is to believe him when he says something that fits in with ones theory.

[Paul Trejo]

Believing that one knows which of Hemming's statements are fact and which are fiction is folly. Natural tendency is to believe him when he says something that fits in with ones theory.

However, Paul. B., your cynicism there simply shields Loran Hall from any further research. Loran Hall was a xxxx, we know that. What kind of person claims to be a CIA Agent when actually he is only one of the cheapest assets the CIA exploited in their haphazard battles against Fidel Castro?

Toward the end of his life Loran Hall also accused his one-time friend, Gerry Patrick Hemming of being a Communist -- and threatened to beat up or shoot anybody who tried to interview him -- because at the end he became a paranoid speed-freak.

Yet in his hey-day, from 1960-1963 Loran Hall was a capable fund-raiser and speech-maker. His speeches on YouTube today are a case in point. Hall was a capable mercenary soldier.

Just like Gerry Patrick Hemming, with whom he fought both FOR and AGAINST Fidel Castro (but always on the side of the CIA), Loran Hall did what he believed was RIGHT. It was not his fault (just as it was not the fault of Harry Dean or Frank Sturgis) that Fidel Castro faked out his US Supporters and proved to be a COMMUNIST.

So, this whiplash burned Hemming, Hall and Dean, Sturgis, Ferrie and countless others.

It basically ruined their lives.

But this should not convince us to stop giving Loran Hall the attention he surely deserves in JFK research. I invite everybody to review his own words (as taken down by Harold Weisberg) in 1968 at this URL:

http://www.pet880.com/images/19680903_Natl_Enquirer_NB.pdf

There is gold in there for the mining. Note for example his reference to "Ex-military" plotters in the JFK murder.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited July 3, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Pulleasse. The best explanation for Hall and Hemming's alternatively believable and not believable statements is disinfo. Garrison's star witnesses like Hall and Perry helped ruin his case.

Btw, I love the way you capitalize 'communist'.

[Paul Trejo]

Pulleasse. The best explanation for Hall and Hemming's alternatively believable and not believable statements is disinfo. Garrison's star witnesses like Hall and Perry helped ruin his case.

Btw, I love the way you capitalize 'communist'.

Well, Paul B., the intrigue of Gerry Patrick Hemming -- and the mystery -- is as resilient today as it was for Jim Garrison 46 years ago. The same with Loran Hall.

They were both consummate liars -- and yet there is so much evidence that places them so close to the JFK murder, both the people and the events, that we are always tempted to see if we ourselves will be better at separating their truths from their lies than the previous generation.

I realize that Gerry Patrick Hemming -- especially -- was specifically trained in disinformation. Nevertheless, I think that his many, many, many interviews in public (and even his year-and-a-half on this very FORUM) suggests that he hoped somebody would "read between the lines" so to speak, and pick out his truths from his lies.

But why lie at all? Because of fear -- nothing else -- sheer fear for his own life. Hemming was clear about this, IMHO, in the Argosy interview mentioned above. Here's an excerpt:

--------------------------- BEGIN Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

ARGOSY: Can you be specific about the offers you received to kill Kennedy?

HEMMING: Look, there are people who didn't have a goddamn thing to do with it, but they think they did because they were conned by other people. If they think somebody's gonna point the finger at them, they're gonna get 'em. And I'd like to stay alive.

--------------------------- END Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

This tells volumes, IMHO. It repeats something every JFK researcher already knows, namely, that there were several plots to murder JFK circulating throughout the USA, among the Mafia, among fanatic Right-wingers and in the South over the MLK scene.

Because of the CIA blunder of hiring street thugs in their effort against Fidel Castro, the USA saw a new phenomenon -- hundreds and hundreds of petty thugs from the Mafia, the fanatic Right-wing and Southern racists, all claiming to work for the CIA.

The more bold among them literally claimed to be actual "CIA Agents." Johnny Roselli was one of these. Loran Hall was perhaps another. Fred Crisman, Jack S. Martin and David Ferrie were three more. This became their smoke-screen to get away with almost anything.

Naturally this drew a large number of swindlers into the mix. One could make a speech to the JBS or some other right-wing group, and then in a back room somewhere, one would agree to kill JFK for $50,000 (as Loran Hall openly discussed in the National Enquirer magazine of 3 September 1968. This article can be found here:

http://www.pet880.com/images/19680903_Natl_Enquirer_NB.pdf )

So, now look at what Gerry Patrick Hemming said: he wasn't about to go on record as naming names, simply because there were way too many people who believed that they contributed the money to the team that killed JFK -- even though most of them did nothing of the kind. Most of these people financed the wrong team.

But the problem is that there were too many other them. Some of those victims had also been the victims of a double swindle, that is, their swindlers then came back to them (having proved they were nice and stupid) and tried to blackmail them by threatening to tell the FBI and CIA that they financed the murder of JFK.

Well, as Gerry Patrick Hemming tells the story, those swindling blackmailers always ended up on the wrong side of a new Mafia hit contract.

So -- there was already a culture of death that haunted those who dealt in donations to any of the several teams to murder JFK, most of which were bogus, some of which were bankrupt in Chicago, in Miami, or waiting in vain at the Trade Mart.

So, Gerry Patrick Hemming had a damn good reason for speaking in mysteries.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited July 6, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[David Andrews]

But why lie at all? Because of fear -- nothing else -- sheer fear for his own life. Hemming was clear about this, IMHO, in the Argosy interview mentioned above.

Fear and a paycheck, I suspect. Shouldn't there be a carrot factored into the familiar equation? I'd want one if I had to sit still for a portrait by Webermann.

Edited July 7, 2014 by David Andrews

[Paul Trejo]

But why lie at all? Because of fear -- nothing else -- sheer fear for his own life. Hemming was clear about this, IMHO, in the Argosy interview mentioned above.

Fear and a paycheck, I suspect. Shouldn't there be a carrot factored into the familiar equation? I'd want one if I had to sit still for a portrait by Webermann.

Ordinarily yes, David, but matters are different when life and death are on the line. This wasn't the only time that Gerry Patrick Hemming refused to name names -- we can see this behavior even on this Forum when Hemming was a member back in 2006, before he died of poor health in 2008.

He was asked in this Forum why he didn't name names, he stated plainly that his friends were still alive, and they could be expected to react violently to having their peaceful home lives disrupted by extreme publicity.

We should reflect however, that he used the word 'friends,' and in this regard we know his friends, his key comrades, were those freedom fighters who fought alongside him for so many years, first for and then against Fidel Castro (but always in the pay of the CIA -- not as agents, but as flunkies).

In other words, Hemming was speaking of the unnamed members of Interpen, who at various times included Loran Hall, Larry Howard and William Seymour, to name only a few.

Harry Dean affirms, and Loran Hall alludes to the story that Larry Howard threatened to kill Loran Hall (and actually tried to do that, twice) after the FBI harassed Larry Howard because Loran Hall had named Larry Howard to them during the Sylvia Odio investigation.

The Warren Commission was so close to solving the JFK murder, especially with their constant pressure on Ex-General Edwin Walker, the John Birch Society folks (e.g. Bernard Weissman) and the Sylvia Odio incident. But the Lone Nut theory first announced by J. Edgar Hoover had become a dogma by that time, so they failed to complete their investigation.

I digress. My main point is that Gerry Patrick Hemming admitted to Weberman that he was indirectly involved in the JFK murder, and he hinted at the involvement of Loran Hall, and he also insinuated that other Interpen members were involved.

Coincidentally, Ex-General Edwin Walker had entertained Interpen members at his home in Dallas -- on his back porch -- shortly after the 10 April 1963 shooting incident. We have that story from Gerry Patrick Hemming himself.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited July 7, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

Paul,

Since you seem to have so much insight into this, would you mind posting any of the interviews that you conducted with Hemming? Thanks in advance.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul,

Since you seem to have so much insight into this, would you mind posting any of the interviews that you conducted with Hemming? Thanks in advance.

Greg, I never interviewed Gerry Patrick Hemming. I was invited to join this FORUM three years after Hemming died; otherwise I would have loved to have interviewed him.

Yet Gerry Patrick Hemming was among the most interviewed person of interest in the JFK assassination, and he was enormously knowledgeable -- although also circumspect.

This is clear from the interviews that OTHERS have done -- which are widely circulated and very public.

I understand that your own interviews of Hemming are being rolled out, Greg. It will be interesting to review those, as well. Yet the question remains -- how can we navigate through the resistance that Hemming showed toward "coming clean?"

In other words, Greg, even though you personally interviewed Gerry Patrick Hemming (to the benefit of all readers) you're also obliged to offer your own interpretation of his words, and to defend your interpretation, like the rest of us.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited July 8, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Greg Burnham]

I am not obliged to do anything of the sort. Sometimes I may offer my opinion and other times I may just let others draw their own conclusion. However, if that conclusion is not well reasoned I will point it out.

[Paul Trejo]

I am not obliged to do anything of the sort. Sometimes I may offer my opinion and other times I may just let others draw their own conclusion. However, if that conclusion is not well reasoned I will point it out.

My only point, Greg, was that having interviewed Gerry Patrick Hemming -- which is a real accomplishment -- that does not automatically result in a full understanding of his words.

Hemming took special care to speak in a way that would protect him from multiple sources and manners of criticism, and he is famous for being hard to understand.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo