Oswald's Escorts: The Garrison Files

[David Boylan]

Who Was Carlos Hernandez?

• Trained in Panama under Carl Jenkins and Rocky Farnsworth. Member of the “cadre”
• (Orest Pena, Caballero and the “cadre”)
• Spent 3 weeks in August 1962 at the World Youth Festival at Helsinki as a provocator under US Government direction
• Was close friends with Miguel Alvarez Jimenez and Victor Espinosa Hernandez. They trained together in Guatemala in infiltration
•  Friends with Bernard Barker, Manuel Artime, Rafael Quintero, Juan Salvat and Jose Basulto Leon.
• Member of Quintero’s Commandos as part of the AMWORLD Project
•  Was at JMMOVE training Nino Diaz troops prior to the BOP
• Training: “Full of PM courses - including Raider and guerilla ops to maritime and air drops”
• Was a member of MRR, DRE and Cuba Libre where he was Military Coordinator
• Was friends with Humberto Solis who was a member of Cuba Libre
• Bodyguard for Artime (black belt in Judo)

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, David Boylan said:

Who Was Victor Espinosa Hernandez?

• Was a close friend of Rolando Cubela

• Considered himself a “playboy”

• Papucho translates to “Hottie”

• Trained with Carlos Hernandez in the “camps”

• He and Carlos were close friends. Went on two raids with him

• Trained in Panama and Guatemala. Most likely with Carl Jenkins  and Rocky Farnsworth (was a member of the “Cadre”)

• Was a close friend of Mike McLaney

• Trained Manuel Artime in Panama on demolition techniques. He didn’t like him

• Knew Norman Rothman. Friends with his son Cappy Rothman

• Leader of the Lake Pontchartrain bombing attempt

• Was at JMMOVE training Nino Diaz troops prior to the BOP

 

13 hours ago, David Boylan said:

Who Was Carlos Hernandez?

• Trained in Panama under Carl Jenkins and Rocky Farnsworth. Member of the “cadre”
• (Orest Pena, Caballero and the “cadre”)
• Spent 3 weeks in August 1962 at the World Youth Festival at Helsinki as a provocator under US Government direction
• Was close friends with Miguel Alvarez Jimenez and Victor Espinosa Hernandez. They trained together in Guatemala in infiltration
•  Friends with Bernard Barker, Manuel Artime, Rafael Quintero, Juan Salvat and Jose Basulto Leon.
• Member of Quintero’s Commandos as part of the AMWORLD Project
•  Was at JMMOVE training Nino Diaz troops prior to the BOP
• Training: “Full of PM courses - including Raider and guerilla ops to maritime and air drops”
• Was a member of MRR, DRE and Cuba Libre where he was Military Coordinator
• Was friends with Humberto Solis who was a member of Cuba Libre
• Bodyguard for Artime (black belt in Judo)

 

Okay, so Carlos Hernandez and Victor Espinosa Hernandez were friends and unrelated. Carlos was stocky and had a boil/scar in his left eyebrow. He was Oswald's escort/shepherd. He and Oswald met with and tried to buy a gun from Robert McKeown. Right?

Earlier, Gene Kelly said that it was Victor Hernandez who, with "Oswald," met with Robert McKeown. I take it then that Gene Kelly was wrong about it being Victor.

(Unless Victor was yet another escort.)

 

[Larry Hancock]

The individual with "Oswald" at McKewons near Galveston was most likely Carlos while both Carlos and Victor (who had worked together that summer, and both been in the New Orleans area) could very well have been the visitors to Odio in Dallas - who said they came from New Orleans.

[Gene Kelly]

Sandy

It's easy to confuse the two (plus there's also a Celso Hernandez).  Robert McKeown was interviewed on March 28, 1978 (coincidentally, the day of the Three Mile Island accident) by the HSCA. That is where I got the Victor name from:

Mr. PURDY - Approximately how old was Mr. Hernandez?
Mr. McKEOWN - I imagine he was in his 40's. He was a distinguished looking gentleman.
Mr. PURDY - Did he appear older than Oswald?
Mr. McKEOWN - A little bit. You could say he was well-shaven, you know, clean-shaven. You could tell that he had a heavy beard.
Mr. PURDY - Did Mr. Oswald defer to Mr. Hernandez in any way?
Mr. McKEOWN - No, he just introduced him to me.
Mr. PURDY - Did Mr. Hernandez introduce you as Carlos or Victor Hernandez?
Mr. McKEOWN - I think it was Victor, yes, but I am not sure.
Mr. PURDY - Was the man named Hernandez the man in the Cuban prison Carlos or Victor?
Mr. McKEOWN - It could have been.
Mr. PURDY - You say it could have been?
Mr. McKEOWN - It could have been Carlos. He was not a Cuban, he was a Costa Rican.
Mr. PURDY - You said before that you knew the man in prison so you believe you knew Carlos Hernandez.
Mr. McKEOWN - It was not the same person.
Mr. PURDY - Have you ever seen Mr. Hernandez and Oswald prior to this meeting?
Mr. McKEOWN - No.

Gene

[Paul Jolliffe]

I agree with the theory that the reason for the bizarre visit by an "Oswald" lookalike plus Hernandez to Robert McKeown's place in September 1963 was to implicate the leftist "Oswald" with Castro's gun-runner from 1959. If the/an/any assassination rifle could be traced to Castro's former buddy/ally/gun-runner Robert McKeown, then Castro himself would be blamed for 11/22/63. 

However, I am far from convinced that our man "Oswald" actually was the real visitor to McKeown's place in Baytown Texas during Labor Day weekend in 1963. 

This article is from the Houston Chronicle of April 28th, 1959 edition in which Fidel Castro is quoted as offering a "post in government or perhaps franchises" to McKeown as thanks for his help running guns to Castro's men during the Cuban Revolution. 

The anti-Castro Cubans and their CIA handlers wanted to implicate Castro in the assassination by getting Castro's former buddy to sell rifles to an "Oswald" lookalike in early September, 1963. 

Because McKeown smelled a rat (correctly), he refused the deal. 

[Larry Hancock]

An interesting remark from the McKewon visit - which does not get much notice - was that the two men were wanting to buy a quantity of rifles for a revolution in Central America.  At that point in time such revolutions were all being viewed as sponsored by Castro and the CIA was even planting stocks of weapons cached in one country and telling JFK they were evidence of the Cuban revolution being exported - which was a total lie.

The point being that if McKewon had reported this or even gone to the media right after the assassination it would have helped sell the story of Oswald as not just a political supporter of the FPCC but elevating him a notch to a level of participation in Cuban revolutionary activities.  One way to look at it is that Oswald was being set up to be more radical and even more dangerous following his departuere from New Orleans...something which continued with the Odio visit and subsequent phone call about his being a loose cannon.

 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

- which was a total lie.

From you, that's quite a statement!  Thanks for your continued work.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Ron, but just to preserve my "circumspect" reputation...grin...I should back up and qualify that the cache was almost certainly a false flag by the CIA and specifically Helms - although arguably there is no absolute proof of that.

The early suspicions were that it was an effort to frame Castro for continued export of the Cuban revolution - but with what we know now and given the timing and dramatic introduction of the cache to JFK, I suspect it was just one more last minute effort by Helms to sabotage the rapidly emerging JFK/Castro dialog.

For background we have this blog post from Bill K:

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/04/venezuelan-arms-cache-northwoods.html

[David Boylan]

 

After working with Larry over the last few years I've learned some of the key principles that he uses in his research: Does it fit the context? Is it consistent? Does it make sense? Does it fit with what we know?

 

If we apply some of these questions to Oswald's "escorts" and the Sylvia Odio visit:

 

Would Oswald travel with people that he doesn't know? Would "Angel/Angelo" and "Leopoldo" travel with each other unless they knew each other or were friends? After visiting Odio did Angel and Leopoldo stay in Dallas or did they go onto Mexico City? If this was part of a CIA Op to get Oswald to Mexico City what was the Op? Were they CIA assets? Would the CIA take a chance on those that weren't trusted assets? How would her visitors know about Sarita (DRE) and her, Sylvia (JURE), and her father (MRP)?

 

After looking at these questions, Larry and I came up with two sets of individuals. The first set was Carlos Hernandez (Angel?) and Victor Espinosa Hernandez (Leopoldo?). They were both close to each other having come up through the camps training for the Bay of Pigs. Carlos considered Victor one of his best friends. They were in New Orleans in summer of 1963 having come from Miami. Victor had the idea that they could bomb Havana. Victor's friend Mike McLaney volunteered his brother Bill's place at Lake Pontchartrain to store the dynamite and bomb casings.

 

Both were CIA assets. Carlos was AMHAZE-2523 and Victor AMHINT-24. Carlos had an active CIA Provisional Operational Approval (POA) in Sept 1963.

 

Carlos had been used in a previous DRE propaganda and psych warfare operation run by the DRE/APMSPELL case officer at the time (Aug 1962) Ross Crozier. He and 8 other members of the DRE travelled to Helsinki for the World Youth Festival to disrupt the Cuban delegation and I speculate, help with the defection of Rolando Cubela (AMLASH) [Victor Espinosa was also close to Cubela. He and Cubela would go out clubbing in Cuba. Victor was in Cubela's hospital room when Fidel and Raul Castro came to visit. Raul was particularly close to Cubela.]

 

The DRE (Student Revolutionary Directorate) was composed of young independent minded members. In other words, the CIA could not control them. One example was when Crozier under the alias of Roger Fox accompanied 9 DRE members to the 8th World Youth Festival in Helsinki, July-Aug 1962. John Koch and Enrique Beloyra were so disruptive that the Finnish police "detained" them. Koch and Beloyra were banned from joining the remaining members from speaking at the festival. Despite the ban, Carlos Hernandez, Juan Salvat and Anna Diaz-Silveira managed to speak and draw attention to Koch and Beloyra's detention. The Finnish police released them both on the condition that they leave Finland the next day.

 

From a previous essay:

 

It didn't take DRE members (Salvat, Hernandez, Blanco) long before they caused an international incident by firing on the Blanquita hotel in Havana (Aug 24th). Both Czech and Russian officers were staying there. The purpose was to bring attention that Russians were in Cuba. They also reported that there were Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The end for Crozier aka "the man in Miami" came when he asked Luis Fernandez-Rocha (AMHINT-53) and Salvat and three others to infiltrate Cuba on either Oct 23-24 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ostensibly to report on military intelligence but told they might have to direct artillery fire.

Their Today Show interview on Nov 12 and a newspaper article bought DRE members Fernandez-Rocha and Jose Lasa a face to face  meeting with Richard Helms himself on Nov 13, 1962. Nestor Sanchez translated.

Helms informed them at this meeting that there would be a change in their contact in Miami. (He would replace Crozier with George Joannides alias Walter Newby). He said that (Joannides) could come directly to him (Helms) if he needed any clarification.

 Fernandez-Rocha Report to Joannides aka Howard

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=18928#relPageId=3

Even after Joannides(Newby) replaced Crozier, the DRE were still doing their own thing. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16129#relPageId=3

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Did Carlos end up in Dallas? We know that his friends and fellow DRE members were in Dallas during early October 1963 giving speeches and were fundraising. Specifically, Juan Salvat and Anna Diaz-Silviera. As noted above Carlos was on stage with Salvat and Diaz. Here we have this report from Dallas in October 1963:

 

“In one such event the unidentified speaker made extremely hostile remarks about President Kennedy, stating that something was going to be done to deal with him. After the speech, and upon learning he had been taped, the speaker took it by force - warning that he held a black belt in martial arts. It is impossible to identify that speaker, but for reference, DRE member Carlos Hernandez is noted in CIA documents as being both skilled in martial arts, and regarded as a sharpshooter.”

 

 

Now if Joannides was running an Op against the FPCC (see what Jeff Morley discussed during the press conference), it would seem to me to use a trusted asset and someone on the CIA payroll.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 12/6/2022 at 6:13 AM, Gene Kelly said:

Sandy

It's easy to confuse the two (plus there's also a Celso Hernandez).  Robert McKeown was interviewed on March 28, 1978 (coincidentally, the day of the Three Mile Island accident) by the HSCA. That is where I got the Victor name from:

Mr. PURDY - Approximately how old was Mr. Hernandez?
Mr. McKEOWN - I imagine he was in his 40's. He was a distinguished looking gentleman.
Mr. PURDY - Did he appear older than Oswald?
Mr. McKEOWN - A little bit. You could say he was well-shaven, you know, clean-shaven. You could tell that he had a heavy beard.
Mr. PURDY - Did Mr. Oswald defer to Mr. Hernandez in any way?
Mr. McKEOWN - No, he just introduced him to me.
Mr. PURDY - Did Mr. Hernandez introduce you as Carlos or Victor Hernandez?
Mr. McKEOWN - I think it was Victor, yes, but I am not sure.
Mr. PURDY - Was the man named Hernandez the man in the Cuban prison Carlos or Victor?
Mr. McKEOWN - It could have been.
Mr. PURDY - You say it could have been?
Mr. McKEOWN - It could have been Carlos. He was not a Cuban, he was a Costa Rican.
Mr. PURDY - You said before that you knew the man in prison so you believe you knew Carlos Hernandez.
Mr. McKEOWN - It was not the same person.
Mr. PURDY - Have you ever seen Mr. Hernandez and Oswald prior to this meeting?
Mr. McKEOWN - No.

Gene

 

Thanks for clarifying that for me Gene. That HSCA exchange is  confusing.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 12/6/2022 at 6:01 AM, Larry Hancock said:

The individual with "Oswald" at McKewons near Galveston was most likely Carlos while both Carlos and Victor .... could very well have been the visitors to Odio in Dallas - who said they came from New Orleans.

 

Documented Descriptions:

Carlos:     Age ??     5' 7.5"     185 lb     Stocky     Cyst over left eye.

Victor:     Age 25     5' 10"     170 lb

 

Odio Descriptions:

Leopoldo:     Age 40     5' 10"     165 lb

Leon:     Age ??     5" 10"     Skinny

 

I got the Odio descriptions from Armstrong's book. Neither of them match Carlos.

 

[David Von Pein]

On 12/6/2022 at 8:13 AM, Gene Kelly said:

March 28, 1978 (coincidentally, the day of the Three Mile Island accident)

That incident occurred in 1979, not '78.

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Sandy Larsen]

On 12/6/2022 at 3:27 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

I agree with the theory that the reason for the bizarre visit by an "Oswald" lookalike plus Hernandez to Robert McKeown's place in September 1963 was to implicate the leftist "Oswald" with Castro's gun-runner from 1959. If the/an/any assassination rifle could be traced to Castro's former buddy/ally/gun-runner Robert McKeown, then Castro himself would be blamed for 11/22/63.

 

Yeah, that makes sense.

What I can't figure out is how "Oswald's" visit with Sylvia Odio makes him look like a Castro sympathizer. Or how it is supposed to implicate Castro in the assassination.

Anybody have any good ideas?

 

[David Boylan]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Documented Descriptions:

Carlos:     Age ??     5' 7.5"     185 lb     Stocky     Cyst over left eye.

Victor:     Age 25     5' 10"     170 lb

 

Odio Descriptions:

Leopoldo:     Age 40     5' 10"     165 lb

Leon:     Age ??     5" 10"     Skinny

 

I got the Odio descriptions from Armstrong's book. Neither of them match Carlos.

 

You forgot "Angel/Angelo"

 

[Larry Hancock]

The visit itself is relatively neutral and may even have been a sanctioned counter intelligence action against Odio given her personal connection to Ray and her involvement in efforts to obtain weapons for JURE.

However the follow up phone call, which presents Oswald as violent, radical and uncontrollable...possibly a threat to JFK...and personally hostile to JFK...is another story and one more effort to position a more radical and dangerous view of Oswald than simply the political actor we see in New Orleans.  It would be very much in line with the McKewon visit which would present him has joining an effort to support Castro style revolution in Central America. 

If we accept that certain anti-Castro CIA assets were moving into a conspiracy against JFK, buried within normal CIA activities, we have to consider a multiple levels in play - and one of the complexities would be conspiratorial activities carried out under the cover of routine, sanctioned CIA tasks.