The Lake Pontchartrain Training Facility and the McLaney Brothers

[Douglas Caddy]

The Lake Pontchartrain Training Facility and the McLaney Brothers
June 28, 2015

http://gaylenixjackson.com/jfk-assassination/the-lake-pontchartrain-training-facility-and-the-mclaney-brothers/

[Stephen Roy]

The McLaney cottage was not a training camp.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Stephen Roy

[Thomas Graves]

The McLaney cottage was not a training camp.

Stephen,

Did McLaney or his brother own any land in that area which could have been used for training or storage purposes?

--Tommy

[Chris Newton]

Tommie,

McLaney's wife admitted that they owned the cottage where one or two U-Hauls were seized containing 2500 lbs of explosives and shell casings. This was one of the properties raided.

I agree 100% with Roy's comment that the cottage was not the site of a training camp. I do believe that there may have been a camp on the property purportedly owned by Sam Benson farther down the same street that the Mclaney Cottage was on. This "other" camp is not the one that I found North of Lacombe and mapped the location to.

-chris

Edited August 16, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Steven Gaal]

Bill Simpich

====================

Banister was good at this kind of thing -- he had people such as his associate Don Campbell and staffer Tommy Baumler working to infiltrate left-wing college groups. [31] Someone had to spy on the New Orleans Council for Peaceful Alternatives, who invited troublemakers like Father Phil Berrigan to speak on the immorality of nuclear weapons.

In May, Oswald started off by leaving FPCC fliers at the Tulane Library, a good way to flush out pro-Castro types that might try to infiltrate anti-communist groups. [32] In June, he was leafleting sailors at the USS Wasp. Using the waterfront was second nature for an ex-Marine like Oswald. No surprise that FPCC agitation at the harbor resulted in the circulation of the Oswald legend throughout military intelligence.

The DRE had been thoroughly penetrated by Carlos Bringuier's relative Jorge, and was considered totally insecure by the CIA

The DRE took the CIA's money but were difficult to work with. This group was young, motivated, and very dangerous. In August 1962, they shelled government buildings in Havana and then bragged about it, while Castro was infuriated at this latest act of terrorism and attempted assassination. They attracted the attention of the Cuban's government's DGI. The role of the DGI in Cuba was to penetrate counter-revolutionary organizations. Counterintelligence analyst Ray Rocca made it very clear years later that he agreed that the DRE was heavily infiltrated by Cuban government DGI agents by 1962.

Several CIA officers had also concluded that the DRE was totally insecure. Officer Calvin Thomas was concerned that the DRE might have even played a role in killing Kennedy.

Jorge Bringuier was the brother-in-law of New Orleans DRE leader Carlos Bringuier. (While DRE official Juan Salvat describes him as nephew, Carlos says brother-in-law.) Jorge Bringuier disgraced the family by becoming a Castro agent and betraying the Cuban wing of the DRE. After he became national coordinator in Cuba in 1962, just about all of the Cuban DRE members were arrested. There's a contemporaneous memo about this betrayal in early 1963. Jorge was pitched to defect on 12/6/63, and he sent a telegram to his mother on 12/13 saying that he was "out" and with the Americans. Jorge was a CIA agent by 1968.

In late July, ten Cuban exiles traveled from Miami to New Orleans and joined an anti-Castro training camp north of New Orleans. This training camp was on the land of Michael McLaney, a friend of "gamblers in Cuba", and the new arrivals at the camp had obtained some dynamite and were planning to bomb Cuban oil refineries. The leader of the dynamite procurement was Victor Espinosa Hernandez. Espinosa's group asked New Orleans DRE leader Carlos Bringuier to assist them. Bringuier had worked for some time in the same building as Banister, serving as the press and propaganda secretary of the aforementioned CRC.

On July 31, the FBI swooped into a home in the New Orleans area and seized a ton of dynamite, bomb casings, napalm material and other devices. Eleven people were arrested. Bringuier escaped arrest. Why? It looks like US intelligence forces wanted a more subtle approach to test Bringuier's loyalties.

Oswald Came to Center Stage After the Arms Seizure As An Asset

This arms seizure by the FBI triggered Oswald to go public, who had been working with Banister doing some quiet leafleting on behalf of the FPCC. At a minimum, Oswald was being used as an asset, defined by the House Select Committe on Assassinations as "anyone used in an operation or project, whether or not that (person) is aware that he is being used". The CIA referred to a person who did not know that he had done anything to help the CIA as an "unwilling co-optee". Whether he knew it or not, Oswald was being used as a counter-intelligence asset.

1. The main goal was to make the FPCC look bad.

2. Incidentally, an anti-FPCC operation would divert public attention from the recent terrorist plans of the anti-Castro underground. This vigilante plan to napalm Cuba did not look good.

3. Along the way, it made sense to try to determine if Carlos Bringuier might be pro-Castro, or if Jorge Bringuier could be brought back into the anti-Castro fold. Carlos may have been used by those using Oswald.

===

OH yeah WINK ,gaal

================

The CIA examined Celso Hernandez as a Castro penetration agent

There is an intriguing report of FPCC member Oswald being arrested with Celso Hernandez in New Orleans in late 1962 (see pp. 6-7, (follow-up at pp. 16-18) The ID of Hernandez was made years later and is admittedly shaky. The ID of Oswald is more substantive, as he id'd himself to the police as an FPCC member - but he was living in the Dallas area. The story is that the two men were picked up at the lakefront in Celso's work truck, owned by an electronics firm that was Celso's employer.

The most important thing is that right about this time, Bill Harvey - who worked both the wiretapping side and the Cuban beat for the CIA during 1962 - was tipped off on 10/1/62 that Celso Hernandez might be a communist. This kicked off an investigation that revealed in the autumn of 1963 that there was a left-wing Celso and a right-wing Celso, and a brother and sister who couldn't agree on who was who. [33] Oswald and Celso Hernandez were arrested together again in August 1963. What we do know is that throughout this era, Hernandez was under close scrutiny as a possible pro-Castro infiltrator. Below, we see Oswald's interactions with Carlos and Celso.

==

[33] Bill Harvey - who worked both the wiretapping side and the Cuban beat for the CIA during 1962 - was tipped off on 10/1/62 that Celso Hernandez might be a communist: For the 1962 Oswald-Hernandez arrest, see memo from investigator John Volz to DA Jim Garrison, 3/1/67, pp. 6-7, (follow-up at pp. 16-18) RIF# 180-10085-10407. http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/41827/rec/3 =======

Edited August 24, 2015 by Steven Gaal