Dick Nagell story

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Below is a link to a short thread discussing the copy of Oswald's ID in Nagell's posession.

In my opinion, Oswald was practicing spycraft when he pasted a photo of himself that had a Soviet stamp on it. Oswald tried to make the stamp look like some kind of official U.S. stamp. Nagell took a different approach -- he penciled in a suitcoat to cover up the Soviet stamp, and spent a great deal of time erasing Oswald's "stamp."

Quoting myself from the thread linked to below:

 

Quote

There is only one way Nagell could have possibly gotten a  copy of Oswald's ID card after the assassination, and that is by making a photocopy of the photo of the card that was in the 1969 book Investigation of a Homicide by Judy Bonner. After which he spent a good deal of time erasing the "postmark" stamps Oswald apparently used to cover up the old Russian stamp on the photo. And then he covered up [the Russian Stamp] instead by drawing a suit coat over that area.

If Nagell copied the ID card for the purpose of making people think he had been with Oswald, why would he then have altered the card?

BTW, FWIW, Investigation of a Homicide by Judy Bonner is not critical of the Warren Commission. It is just a chronicle of a Dallas police officer's experience with the investigation. It seems unlikely that Nagell would have sought out this book. 

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Hi Alan, yes you can order the CD from JFK Lancer at:

http://jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html

Its CD-163

I have recently blogged on Nagell and my current views on what I consider the most important parts of his story so you might want to take a look at that on Wordpress.

I consider him very important to the overall backstory of Oswald and as corroboration of both local and non-local Cuban exiles in contact with Oswald in late August in New Orleans.  Nagell certainly knew that Oswald was being manipulated and that some action using him was in play as early as September in the DC area.  But we also have realize the limitations of what he could have known about anything beyond that once he fled New Orleans and ended up in jail.

What is absolutely certain is that what he did know would have blown apart the lone nut myth and pointed any real investigation in the direction of conspiracy.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Just bought the book from the US "the man who knew too much", looking forward to the read. 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Hi Alan, yes you can order the CD from JFK Lancer at:

http://jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html

Its CD-163

I have recently blogged on Nagell and my current views on what I consider the most important parts of his story so you might want to take a look at that on Wordpress.

I consider him very important to the overall backstory of Oswald and as corroboration of both local and non-local Cuban exiles in contact with Oswald in late August in New Orleans.  Nagell certainly knew that Oswald was being manipulated and that some action using him was in play as early as September in the DC area.  But we also have realize the limitations of what he could have known about anything beyond that once he fled New Orleans and ended up in jail.

What is absolutely certain is that what he did know would have blown apart the lone nut myth and pointed any real investigation in the direction of conspiracy.

 

 

 

 

Larry I'm really glad to see you post this.  Roughly a couple of years ago someone was posting about basically everything that Russell and in turn Nagell said was junk.  I got bashed for trying to argue that at least some of it seemed legitimate and important.  All I've read is The Man Who Knew Too Much, posts here and elsewhere, maybe an article or two on line.  Shooting a hole in the roof of a bank, but not robbing it, waiting on the cops quietly to arrive could make somebody appear a little nutty.  Then predicting an attempt to assassinate the president might compound that thought for many.  But when it happened they should have been questioning him immediately on a federal level.  The exact opposite happened.  Lock him up in a federal mental institution to keep him under wraps/shut up instead.  

[Larry Hancock]

Definitely much of Nagell's story is corroborated...its ironic that his defense lawyer in that case told Russell he would  have gone to the mat for him if he only had proof that Nagell had been in Mexico City - which of course we now have.  One of the big problems however is that over the years Nagell did bounce back and forth on things, often based on where he was in regard to knowing where his children were and trying to get custody of them.

The "situational" aspect of that is a lot of what I tried to draw out in my analysis that is on the CD, you can only really do that by tracking his statements, letters, correspondence etc over a timeline as compared to his legal actions and later his effort to get his children back.  Once you factor that in things become much clearer.

Its just very important to plot out what he did/could have known at various times as compared to what we can confirm about his movements and activities.  A big part of that can be resolved by identifying Hecksher the Bob that Nagell talks about in Mexico City; once you decode Bob as Hecksher and show he was in Mexico City at the right time and in Tokyo as well, its a whole new ballgame.

 

[Micah Mileto]

On 11/27/2020 at 2:34 AM, Richard Booth said:

Not an opinion you hear that often, that is for sure.

However, anything is possible. I never like to be too stringent in my beliefs because I have found in the past that I was wrong about one thing or another as new evidence came in, and think it's intellectually proper to be open to differing positions.

What specifically makes you think that Nagell faked the ID, and what published book do you think it was from? 

What makes me think that Nagell knows something, and isn't just some nut, are the unusual occurrences in his life. The people showing up at his house after he dies looking for things. The fact his son's apartment was broken into around the same time (Robert Nagell's apartment). The fact that the family said their storage locker was broken into and items were missing. That kind of thing is really strange to me and it strikes me as things the family wouldn't/didn't fabricate, and if these are real then it lends to the notion there were people willing to break the law just to find something Nagell might have had.

As with all things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of the events described in TMWKTM didn't exactly happen in the way it was put forward. I've listened to some podcasts that were critical of Nagell and in one Carmine Savastano presented a compelling case that the bank robbery didn't go down as depicted in Dick Russell's book. 

I remain, as always, curious, open, critical-minded, and interested in new details. 

See here

 

[Richard Booth]

6 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

See here

 

Thanks Micah. Sandy's post is indeed where I was able to find that information -- having read it many years ago the details were lost to the sands of time.  

I have not put Nagell into the category of a nut or a fraud - and I've got lot of people in that column. For different reasons. But there are many of them in this case. 

I will defer to, and highlight, the work of others more knowledgeable than I am on the matter of Nagell and his bona fides. Larry Hancock is, I think, very much right when he says that you have to view what Nagell says within the context of his position at the time he said anything. The basic idea being he used his position of having been involved in sensitive things in order to advance his position regarding being reacquainted with his kids, or receiving his pension or military benefits, and then he shut the hell up once he got what he wanted. 

One of Larry's blog posts about this is here:

https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/richard-case-nagell-2/

I know that there are others who believe that Dick Nagell was a total fraud and I've heard the case made about this by Carmine Savastano and, if I recall correctly, heard about this on an episode of either The Dallas Action or Quick Hits with Rob and Doug. In spite of the best efforts to characterize Nagell as a fraud, I remain unconvinced.