Tipping Point serialization now in progress on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site

[Pete Mellor]

11 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Hope that helps, Larry

Certainly does.  Thanks for your time.  I have had SWHT (2010) on order for a while, so looking forward to that, + future instalments of TP.  Great work Larry!

[Larry Hancock]

Great,  for an update we expect Part 2 go live on MFF this coming weekend.  It is shorter than Part 1 and deals with Oswald's entry into Cuban affairs and specifically the co-opting of his image and identity by the CIA for various purposes in 1963.

It does not attempt to be a full back story on Oswald, others have done and are doing that.  It does but does not discuss his service as a "source" for the FBI (something far different than an informant and something which always holds from risk for the Bureau since it is not uncommon for someone to play a double role, volunteering information but with their own agenda).  Stu Wexler detailed one major instance of that in our work on the King assassination and its worth remembering that individuals ranging from Jack Ruby to Gerry Hemming and several of the Interpen figures were at time voluntary sources for the FBI.

Part 2 will be focused on Oswald in 1963 and the various connections CIA activities which I feel brought him into view of the Dallas conspiracy,  as a diversionary element pointing the assassination towards Cuba and Castro - not an actor in the attack.

[Larry Hancock]

Part 2 of Tipping Point is now online for reading on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part2.html

I've made a few introductory remarks about it on my blog for those who follow it.

 

[Gary Murr]

Many thanks for all of your work on this project Larry; I, for one, am greatly appreciative and look forward to the remaining parts of this book.

On another note, good luck to yourself, Deb Conway, and everyone participating and/or involved in any way in the virtual conference this week. I am sure it will be a great success!!!

Gary

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Gary, its been sort of challenging this  year....first In Denial, now Tipping Point and then with the virtual conference emerging full blown over a very short time due to the pandemic.  Gabriella deserves the praise for that; I just hope that we have enough attendees to justify all her hard work and make it an ongoing event.

And for next year, its on to Ian's and John's books....shows you that its only over when we say its over!

[Robert Montenegro]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Part 2 of Tipping Point is now online for reading on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part2.html

I've made a few introductory remarks about it on my blog for those who follow it.

 

A brilliant exposé, Mr. Hancock!

However, if I dare interject, I have always felt that any thoughts, statements or writings attributed to Lee Harvey Oswald (or his many doubles), are a well-structured narrative, in of itself.

That is to state, quite plainly, the man was an agent provocateur of the worst order, and the bulk of what is attributed to Oswald is suspect to being scripted.

Just my two rubles, no harm intended...

Edited November 20, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Larry Hancock]

I certainly would agree that the bulk of it was "directed", or manipulated in some fashion - other than items such as the late appearing letter to the Russian embassy, that may have been created out of whole cloth.

As examples, I think his "manuscript" in regard to Russia was a beautiful job of covertly obtaining a full debrief in writing - and very possibly was intended to serve other propaganda purposes down the road, on a path that ended up not being taken.  The letters at the end of August may have been rather similar, certainly there is a huge disconnect in the two.

All of which leads to a full blown Oswald exposition that I'm leaving to others as I try to reverse engineer from what actually came down in Dallas on November 22. 

I'll leave the total Oswald story to better minds than mine.

 

[Steve Thomas]

14 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Part 2 of Tipping Point is now online for reading on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point_Part2.html

I've made a few introductory remarks about it on my blog for those who follow it.

 

Larry,

Do you know if the name, "Harvey Lee Oswald" ever popped up in any of the DRE communications?

You wrote, "Either very relevant documents or being withheld or both SAS and JMWAVE were ignorant of the DRE related contacts with Oswald that summer."

Since we know that CIA ignorance of Oswald's contacts with the DRE is an impossibility, that leaves documents being withheld.

What you wrote in your piece is causing me to rethink something.

Fritz, Curry and Revill all told various government investigative bodies that they didn't know who Oswald was, and that he was not in their intelligence files. And yet, the name Harvey Lee Oswald was the first name to appear on the list of TSBD employees CE 2003 located in (24H259). I'm beginning now to wonder if the Dallas Police Department's Intelligence files were purged the same way the CIA's were.

Steve Thomas

PS: Considering the amount of detail in his "Memoire", do you think Oswald wrote the entirety of his "Memoire" after he he got out of the Soviet Union by memory, or do you think  he wrote it in parts and smuggled it out of Minsk piecemeal"

Edited November 20, 2020 by Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

Very interesting question Steve,  problem is that we don't have the DRE internal documents and of course not the CIA documents Jeff has been pursuing.   What we do have are the various communiques from DRE to and from the other groups and their letters to Congress about Oswald.  As far as I know those were all Lee Oswald but Morley would probably be the best person to answer that....I'll ask him about it.

My guess however is "no" based on the fact that DRE was using the name that had become quite visible in New Orleans, in newspapers, radio etc - and that was always Lee Oswald or Lee Harvey Oswald as far as I recall.  I don't remember any confusion at all in the public usage of his name.

I can't fathom why "Harvey Lee Oswald" would be on the list of TSBD employees; I do think his employment application and pay records are on file somewhere - unless they say Harvey Lee then it surely does raise a major question about that list.

[Steve Thomas]

2 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

  As far as I know those were all Lee Oswald but Morley would probably be the best person to answer that....I'll ask him about it.

I can't fathom why "Harvey Lee Oswald" would be on the list of TSBD employees; I do think his employment application and pay records are on file somewhere - unless they say Harvey Lee then it surely does raise a major question about that list.

Larry,

If you could ask Jeff about that, I'd appreciate it.

Re the TSBD employee list, I became convinced a long time ago, (although I can't prove), that the origin of the name Harvey Lee Oswald lies in military intelligence. With the extensive connection of Army Reserve intelligence with the Dallas Police Department, I have no doubt that that is how it ended up on a list of TSBD employees.

The "Sanchez" who told James Buchanan that the man who who showed up at the Miami docks in March, 1963 "used his true name Oswald". Sanchez did not tell Buchanan what his first name was.

I edited my original question to you, asking about Oswald's "Memoire", but you were in the process of replying to me, and may not have seen it.

Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

Steve, first on the employee list - I just don't see how that list of names would have come from anywhere other than the school book depository itself, given to DPD.   Of course that would raise the question of out of all the employees why was that name wrong....did Oswald himself apply that way or use that name there?  

Assuming that an employee list would have to come from the TSBD itself, and that it would be Lee Harvey, that would imply it was changed in DPD custody...why?

On the memoir, I suspect Lee made some notes for himself and that the whole thing was indeed written after his return. He did have a good memory and we do know he made wrote a good deal while in Russia.  Don't have a hundred percent answer but its hard for me sending stuff like that out piecemeal - unless he somehow embedded it in letters?

 

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Steve, first on the employee list - I just don't see how that list of names would have come from anywhere other than the school book depository itself, given to DPD.   Of course that would raise the question of out of all the employees why was that name wrong....did Oswald himself apply that way or use that name there? 

Larry,

I do not want to detract from your excellent research,so I don't want to go too much further into this here, but it's not only the name, but the address given in that list of employees that is a problem. Oswald had no connection to Elsbeth when he was employed by the TSBD. He did give 602 Elsbeth in his application at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall in October, 1962, and George Bouhe has Elsbeth on a card from November, 1962 that he showed to the FBI; but by October, 1963, he was long gone from there. Hosty knew about Elsbeth back in March of 1963.

The list of TSBD employees reproduced in CE2003was compiled by Roy Westphal, Detective, Criminal Intelligence Section and P.M. Parks, Detective, Administrative Section, and given to Jack Revill. Westphal and Parks were both Detectives in the Special Service Bureau.

In Larry Sneed’s interviw with Ray Westpjal in No More Silence

https://books.google.com/books?id=7uT-47ysB5MC&pg=PA326&lpg=PA326&dq=Dallas+"+Roy+Westphal"&source=bl&ots=eii6yRhLo8&sig=nr0C2_dukxaBfdcQiFnDLg3ugKM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt-9Xpi8nRAhVpwFQKHZBBDX0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Dallas " Roy Westphal"&f=false

It says that it was his understanding the Hosty was trying to recruit Oswald as an informant because he had been to Russia. Says it didn't pan out.

He had gone home and realized that he hadn't written his Report on the man at the Trade Mart wanting to wave a “Free Cuba” sign and was denied that opportunity. He picked up Preston Parks and returned to the “office which was in a little building at Fair Park”. “As I was writing the Report, the Captain called and wanted to check the School Book Depository employee list with our files. We hand handwritten, partial lists; some of them you couldn't read the names. But we did find one, a member of the American GI Forum. The Captain then instructed me to bring the entire file down to his office.”

He recognized Joe Molina and helped serve a search warrant on him, but does not say anything about Harvey Lee Oswald and the 605 Elsbeth St. address.

I do not know at what time of day the list of TSBD employees was typed up, but Lieutenant Jack Revill testified before the Warren Commission on May 13, 1964.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/revill2.htm

The questioning concerns a Report that Revill wrote out at approximately 3:30 to 3:35 on the afternoon of the 22^nd concerning Lee Harvey Oswald at 605 Elsbeth St.

This Report is CE 709 at (17H495)

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134#relPageId=521&tab=page

 

Did Hosty give Revill the Elsbeth St. address, or did it come from somewhere else? I know it didn't come from the TSBD.

 

Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Steve, some of this I recall but its been ages since I revisited it.   I would suggest  you open a new thread to discuss it.....my rather simple minded view is that the detective would have been given access to TSBD personnel files and made his list from that source.   The police certainly could not generate that themselves quickly unless they sat down with personnel files.

A side question would be why would Oswald be the first person on such a list which would normally be alphabetical, by date of employment, etc.  The answer to that would be that it would have to have been long enough after the assassination for Oswald to be known as the suspect and for the detective to intentionally put him at the top of the list.  Still, after that the list should probably have been alphabetical (with a payroll register as the source) or by date of hire (a personnel roster), otherwise it assumes the TSBD kept a separate employment file on each employee...or perhaps just a folder full  of time cards. 

Your info above is very interesting, I'd suggest starting with a chronology of events which would have produced the list and then exploring where the data came from - with a major question being if the list was compiled from TSBD records why would only Lee Oswald have the varying information, what the heck would be the point.

Anyway it would be a fascination thread but I'm way too far away from those sorts of records to be of much help other than trying to think though the process and asking you questions...grin.   I did however drop a note to Jeff about DRE.

[Larry Hancock]

Segment 3 of Tipping Point is live on the Mary Ferrell Foundation now:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html

It delves into the chronology of what I found to be especially significant events and movements of individuals during the Fall of 1963.  The commentary in the end notes also gives my opinions on topics of that period that are widely discussed and debated.

Segment 3 completes the background for the final two segments, which are both much longer and much more detailed - segments 4 and 5 explore what I see as the context in which the Dallas attack involved, the specifics of the personnel involved and the tactical aspects of the attack - and what followed President Kennedy's murder.

[Ron Bulman]

35 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

Segment 3 of Tipping Point is live on the Mary Ferrell Foundation now:

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Tipping_Point.html

It delves into the chronology of what I found to be especially significant events and movements of individuals during the Fall of 1963.  The commentary in the end notes also gives my opinions on topics of that period that are widely discussed and debated.

Segment 3 completes the background for the final two segments, which are both much longer and much more detailed - segments 4 and 5 explore what I see as the context in which the Dallas attack involved, the specifics of the personnel involved and the tactical aspects of the attack - and what followed President Kennedy's murder.

I'm downloading the Saturday presentation as I type to re listen to.  It was fascinating, like the intro on MFF.  I still have to make time to read parts 1, 2, and now 3.  .3 GB to go.