John Newman's comment on Facebook yesterday

[Douglas Caddy]

"With Producer Ed Noguchi, NHK Tokyo (Japan's largest pubic television network), and Jay Harvey today for a six-hour taped interview focusing on the new material in my Volume III ("Into the Storm") and the leads now being followed in Volume IV ("Armageddon"). I won't have six hours for my CAPA presentation in Dallas (22 Nov), but I'll do my best to break brand new ground and overturn some sacred orthodoxies along the way. The sheer volume of new surprises reminds me of the Old Bretton prayer that President Kennedy used of keep on a block of wood on his desk: 'O God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.'"

[Paul Brancato]

I think he’s giving Lyman Lemnitzer a very thorough look.

[Douglas Caddy]

John Newman just posted this on Facebook:

 

I showed this chart to NHK Tokyo yesterday and will discuss it at my CAPA presentation in Dallas on 23 Nov. Fresh out of prison in the 1970s, Veciana swore under oath to the HSCA that all of his activities for Alpha 66 were directed by the CIA. They weren’t--as this chart shows. He was working for lots of officers in Army intelligence. And General Lansdale was behind those activities too—and was quite happy to let President Kennedy think the CIA was behind all of Veciana’s attacks on Russian ships during the nuclear tinged Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Paul Brancato]

All run out of Army Intelligence, ACSI. 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Could someone enlighten me. I understand that Army Intelligence was associated with Alpha 66 rather than the CIA. But, is Newman now saying that ACSI was running the Alpha 66 operations?  I have seen no evidence of this, only that they used Veciana and Menoyo (and others) to gather intelligence.

[Larry Hancock]

I got into the Army / Veciana files several years ago and Army was clearly using Alpha 66 as a source of intelligence on Cuba,  military intel including requests for any Soviet weapons they could collect. But this was regional Army intel, with reporting up to HQ.  Veciana did have an Army crypt and they certainly were in touch with him after Alpha 66 was formed.

Separately I found CIA documents which said they had inside assets giving them input on Alpha 66 raids before hand and afterwards but they were just sitting back and watching - this was out of JMWAVE - and not trying to stop them as they really should have been.  Morales made a comment that Alpha 66 would be really surprised if they knew.

And in spring 1963, the Army folks on the Cuba team proposed using Alpha 66 for missions, it was just a proposal, and CIA responded that they could not be controlled and as far as the documents I saw it was dropped at that point.

So....not sure where John is going with this but Army contact with Veciana and Alpha 66 is in itself not a new story.

 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

40 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

So....not sure where John is going with this but Army contact with Veciana and Alpha 66 is in itself not a new story.

This is speculation on my part, but I fear that Newman is trying to use the Army connections to Alpha 66 to promote his theory that Lansdale and others were behind the assassination. That is, despite JFK's crackdown on the exile raids, the Army people were running Alpha 66 against his orders. Newman's purpose in this would be to show that Lansdale and the others were extremely hostile toward JFK. If my speculation is correct, I hope Newman has some proof.

[Karl Hilliard]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

I got into the Army / Veciana files several years ago and Army was clearly using Alpha 66 as a source of intelligence on Cuba..  

..Separately I found CIA documents which said they had inside assets--

 

Is this anything that can be linked or copies be posted?  Some say that [was it General?] Lansdale was present in Dealey that afternoon and pictures of him were taken. Very suspicious.

[Larry Hancock]

There are lots of documents on Veciana that are online, I referenced a number of them with RIF numbers in SWHT but surely there are more now....and John gives lots of RIF numbers in his citations; you would have to search them but then again many should either be on MFF or Black Vault.  As to Lansdale in the tramps photo in the Plaza, its pretty much like all the images from the Plaza, you will find folks that accept its Lansdale and lots who don't. 

One of the things to remember about Lansdale was that he was not a covert ops guy in the sense of paramilitary action...he was a psychwarfare/counter insurgency specialist but if you look at his contacts and connections they were not really in CIA operations - in fact most of the CIA ops folks thought his Mongoose plans were totally unrealistic.  Interestingly my friend David Boylan just ran across a new document when Lansdale was  at the Pentagon;  both of them got involved with CIA requests to facilitate support for the Cuba Project and the CIA officers in that program thought both of them (mostly Prouty) were pains in the rear and and little good to say about the support they received from the Joint Chiefs, DOD or the Pentagon. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Larry Hancock

[David Andrews]

Larry will no doubt recall, as I do, that there's a recent back thread here with a .pdf of Lansdale's proposal for destabilizing Cuba, together with material quoting interested parties such as William Harvey, who complained that Lansdale's detailed methods were too complicated, and unworkable among the personnel on the ground; and Dick Helms, who advised that Lansdale had to be humored for the present.

I think these materials were provided by Bart Kamp, apologies if incorrect.  Memory doesn't serve - it rules, and it's a bad ruler sometimes.

Edited October 7, 2019 by David Andrews

[Larry Hancock]

Yes,  I don't recall the specifics but Lansdale had something like a 138 step program with details for each step....the sort of thing McNamara might have liked,  sort of like a GANTT chart for anyone familiar with that type of program management.  Looks great in presentations but the CIA paramilitary guys were well aware that sort of plan quickly falls apart once the actual engagements begin.

But Lansdale was great presenter and tended to be very convincing in writing reports and doing presentations - he managed to convince JFK in regard to his strategies for Vietnam and of course for Cuba.  JFK proposed him for both Station Chief and Ambassador in Saigon and all parties involved - JCS, State and DCI adamantly opposed both proposals. 

 

[Michael Clark]

23 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

Larry will no doubt recall, as I do, that there's a recent back thread here with a .pdf of Lansdale's proposal for destabilizing Cuba, together with material quoting interested parties such as William Harvey, who complained that Lansdale's detailed methods were too complicated, and unworkable among the personnel on the ground; and Dick Helms, who advised that Lansdale had to be humored for the present.

I think these materials were provided by Bart Kamp, apologies if incorrect.  Memory doesn't serve - it rules, and it's a bad ruler sometimes.

 

On 5/6/2018 at 10:39 AM, Michael Clark said:

General Landsdale report on progress of Operation Mongoose. 

I am becoming very impressed with Landsdale's intellectual genius.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/202-10001-10201.pdf

Maybe the above document?

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

 

Maybe the above document?

That may be a precis of Lansdale's plan, but there's a recent thread with an attachment  in which Lansdale's Cuba destabilization plan is worked out over multiple pages in a typed spreadsheet, accompanied by another doc stating Harvey's objections, plus Helms' overruling of Harvey's dump-Lansdale proposal.  I posted on that thread, if that can be used as a finding aid.  I asked why Helms would cite Lansdale's political patronage as the best reason to keep him on despite complaints.  The whole package is something to see.

 

 

[David Boylan]

ACSI used DUP crypts. I believe that DUP was used for assets in Puerto Rico. Veciana was DUP-748 and Eloy Guiterrez-Memoyo was DUP-749.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=155085

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by David Boylan

[David Andrews]

OK, for Michael and others interested, Lansdale's Mongoose "spreadsheet" is docid-32977054, supplied by DAVID JOSEPHS in the first post of the following thread:

My finding of Harvey and McCone objecting to Lansdale's ideas, and Helms diplomatically supporting Lansdale's involvement, was sourced from a DALLAS ACTION PODCAST linked to in my later post on this same recent thread.

At the end of the thread, MALCOLM BLUNT and BART KAMP provide additional Lansdale-Mongoose documents.

My apologies for a bad memory.  This is no country for old men.

Edited October 7, 2019 by David Andrews