Tipping Point now on Amazon

[Larry Hancock]

In regard to Prouty,  David was good enough to come up with the document I was referring to, and yes Prouty was strictly an Air Force contact (Air Force Office of Special Operations) for the Cuba Project. His involvement had to do with acquiring aircraft for the Cuba Project. The early 1961 document discussing that can be found here:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146516#relPageId=70

 

[Matt Allison]

On 8/10/2021 at 5:50 PM, Matt Allison said:

The section on Hal Hendrix reminds me that I've always wondered if the Gilberto Policarpo Lopez event was a setup, planned before the assassination, to also point the finger at Castro. Something I need to read up on more.

I'm revisiting this because I ran across a document in Wednesday's file release.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2023/104-10320-10086.pdf

I am convinced the 11/22/63 plane trip from Mexi City to Havana story was part of the plot in advance; part of the plan to blame Castro and Cuba for the assassination. IMO, the idea was to convince the public that the assassin had escaped the crime scene, gotten into Mexico, and then on into Cuba. Perhaps this was even the plan for LHO. But once LHO was caught, the ruse was still continued, as there were still active efforts to blame the assassination on Castro. JMO.

[Larry Hancock]

Matt, over the  years their has been some follow up on this, I seem to recall a fairly lengthy article in either the Third or Fourth Decade journal - wish I could rake up more from memory but apparently the story was that the plane was even held up in departure waiting for a last minute passenger - unidentified of course.  But there was more detail if  you can locate it and all the journals are achieved on MFF.

I did manage to locate the following detail in a quick online search:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10103-10062.pdf

I always had the sense that the story, essentially gossip from a questionable source, might have been one of the bits and pieces introduced, possibly by Phillips, post assassination to point towards Cuban involvement.

The fact that it was not investigated more diligently at the time certainly suggests to me that it was about the same quality as the poorly done  Gilberto Lopez construct.  Phillips and his ilk were certainly much better at putting together much better quality disinformation .

 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Larry Hancock

[Matt Allison]

Thanks, Larry. Yes, at a minimum, this would be an insider planting disinformation to blame Castro. I wonder if there is a timeline of the "Blame Castro" stories, because I am curious about the timing of this one. Also the fact that it undoubtedly was sourced from the inside, if it made it that far into the CIA system.

But it's the fact that it dovetails perfectly with a theoretical plot that let Oswald get into Cuba provided he participate in an "incident" in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 that intrigues me.

[Larry Hancock]

That brings up an interesting question Matt, because if it were to be Oswald he would have been required to show passport and visa for boarding the aircraft (assuming it was not a Cuban conspiracy with him acting for Cuba and if so its hard to see them using one of their commercial airliners).   Of course if it were full bore CIA that could have been faked with quality documents but still where does he go when he lands? 

Seems to me that it works better if it just appears the Cubans had a plane waiting for him...but even then why a commercial aircraft. 

Of course if it had somehow been effectively tied to the Lopez lead it could have reinforced it and perhaps stampeded people in DC in the first 24-48 hours - but neither this or Lopez came forward that early as I recall.  I still get the sense that its more like throwing stuff against the wall to implicate Castro and take advantage of events rather than part of a well thought out advance plan. 

 

 

[Matt Allison]

44 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

neither this or Lopez came forward that early as I recall.  I still get the sense that its more like throwing stuff against the wall to implicate Castro and take advantage of events

Could very well be. But wouldn't that then mean that CIA was deliberately trying to destroy the Lone Nut conclusion by suggesting there was a conspiracy, and that someone besides Oswald was involved?

[Larry Hancock]

I would say not the "CIA" but definitely certain CIA officers were - for example Phillips was writing in his book Nightwatch years later that there had been a Castro conspiracy and that Oswald was indeed paid to shoot JFK....just as he orchestrated in the Lopez story. Actually Phillips wrote three books - nobody reads the others it seems - and put that into all of them.  There is no doubt he was pushing a Castro conspiracy just as DRE and others were. 

For that matter Mexico City station as a whole was pushing the Castro conspiracy angle for days if not longer - until HQ moved to shut them down and the FBI destroyed the Lopez story.  The FBI even destroyed Martino's story about a Castro plot even thought Hoover had been eager to support it at first.

So yes, I definitely believe individual CIA officers were - we now have the documents showing WAVE set off investigating Cuban involvement.  I have to wonder if we never saw the report from that because Sforza managed to come up with something that also implicated Castro. 

[Paul Brancato]

Isn’t it possible that there was an Italian on that flight who arrived in MC from Dallas? Of I get your point Matt that it seems like a planted story in line with other efforts to implicate Castro. I just think the insertion of the word’ Italian’ is interesting. 

[Larry Hancock]

Not sure what we could totally write off,  the private flights were reported either after the fact or from "unreliable" (but unidentified) sources. 

Based on the wording in one document the passenger reporting the Cubana flight hold actually might have been Italian (not the mystery passenger that did not show up but the source that reported the suspicious ground hold) - not really out of the question given that even diplomatic personnel from foreign nations traveled though MC to Cuba. 

And apparently the idea that the Cubana aircraft was held for a mysterious passenger may be pure speculation since the aircraft was on the ground for the routine service/hold time and the document even states that the "sources" information on the time of the hold was not reliable.

Its just another set of leads that lets us pretty much read whatever we want to into it I'm afraid. 

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Isn’t it possible that there was an Italian on that flight who arrived in MC from Dallas? Of I get your point Matt that it seems like a planted story in line with other efforts to implicate Castro. I just think the insertion of the word’ Italian’ is interesting. 

Yes, it is; that appears to be what was most recently redacted, and was cleared for this release. I believe one of the other docs on the subject mentioned that the claim was sourced to a diplomat from Italy.

[Paul Brancato]

Yes it says the diplomat who reported the incident to CIA was Italian, name unknown. Someone at CIA blacks out the word Italian? But now it’s put back in. Is that correct, or am I misunderstanding something? The memo goes on to state that they have no idea how this diplomat communicated this to CIA. The details of how likely a flight path through Tijuana is, or how many hours the plane was on the ground in MC before it took off for Havana, are less interesting than this formerly redacted word ‘Italian’. Matt’s theory is supported by this original redaction, since anyone then reading it would assume it points to Castro. And it’s just as clear that restoring ‘Italian’ makes that far less likely. The wording in item 2 on the last page of the document Matt posted is worth pondering: “ As close as we can determine the diplomat was an Italian. How he transmitted the information to CIA is not reflected in the Oswald files. Therefore we cannot provide or furnish copies of all messages, memoranda, or other documents which evidence transmittal of the information to CIA.” Wow. Translation is I think - ‘We know more, but are under no legal obligation to share with Congress’. This really smells fishy. 
Suppose this part of the story is true, and CIA hasn’t revealed all of what it knows. The first qualifier - ‘as close as we can determine’, refers to the identity of the informant. The second qualifier, where CIA says that’s all you’re entitled to know, refers to how this diplomat communicated with CIA. 
It seems likely there was a CIA agent or asset on board. 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Paul Brancato

[Larry Hancock]

The big question indeed is how the "diplomat" communicated with the CIA, for instance was it though the Mexico City station?  Its easy enough to imagine the station might have been active at cultivating sources inside Cuba and of course diplomats from friendly nations are always good targets in that respect.

Of course WAVE had always been on the look out for internal sources in Cuba as well.

If you want to get really wild its interesting to recall that Angleton had his own diplomatic contacts and sources in Havana, with enough reach to offer them to Harvey as back up in his Castro assassination efforts. 

Many folks are not familiar with Angleton's being assigned to reorganize CIA counter intelligence against Cuba following the BOP disaster, a project which he appears to have worked on with Morales and the Morales trained AMOTs who went on to become the Cuban Intelligence Service, reporting to Sforza by 1963.

If we could tie down where the report was submitted to the CIA it would really be helpful, in that regard my leading suspect is still Mexico City station - if true it could well be a matter of CIA officers there taking advantage of a sensational story to further prime the pump for a Castro conspiracy, as they had with Lopez.

What we need are the initial CIA intake documents which would tell us where the story came into the system...