Dick Russell on Richard Case Nagell. New podcast

[Allen Lowe]

22 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But Gene---Nagell's explanation for shooting up a bank is totally nutty. In fact, in prison, lacking any food or water other than that served by authorities, how safe is anybody? Jack Ruby comes to mind. 

In addition, surely in prison there are people who could be induced to put a shiv in any particular prisoner. 

On the other hand, back in 1963 anyone could enter Mexico, and stay at a low-cost villa 50 miles south of Ensenada. 

Nagell appears to have been deeply troubled. 

A thought occurs to me...intel agencies might actually prefer to use mentally troubled individuals for certain assignments. Then later, even if the "crazy" person tells the truth in court, they are easily discredited by all the other nutty commentary they make. 

The CIA may have actually dangled Nagell in front of Garrison. But Garrison did not bite. 

Just a thought. 

 

you are entirely missing the point about Nagell's whereabouts. You really think, if they went after him, a receipt from a motel would be sufficient? Look at Oswald and Mexico; nobody knows for sure if he was there, but that didn't bother the Warren Report. And we know Oswald could not have been on the 6th floor shooting; does this exonerate him? Where have you been?

The truth is that Russell book on Nagell, when it first came out, had what seemed like a lot of wild stories, but many of which, in our current day, thanks to researchers like Larry Hancock and Jim DiEugenio have been confirmed; like the use of a supposed squad which was supposed to be going for Castro but instead turned their guns on JFK. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are revelations like that all over Dick Russell's book.

And I cannot believe people are still citing Nagell's brain injury as proving he was unreliable - the unreliable, mentally damaged aspect of Nagel was clearly jhis LEGEND. It was set up to make him look flakey and to throw people off. This guy was also declared competent (by different doctors) and his conversations with Russell are coherent and intelligent.

Re-read the book if it's been a while. It all looks a lot less outrageous than it did when it came out.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Allen Lowe

[David Andrews]

I agree - Dick Russell should do more podcasts.  He barely did this one.

[Gene Kelly]

23 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But Gene---Nagell's explanation for shooting up a bank is totally nutty. In fact, in prison, lacking any food or water other than that served by authorities, how safe is anybody? Jack Ruby comes to mind. 

In addition, surely in prison there are people who could be induced to put a shiv in any particular prisoner. 

On the other hand, back in 1963 anyone could enter Mexico, and stay at a low-cost villa 50 miles south of Ensenada. 

Nagell appears to have been deeply troubled. 

A thought occurs to me...intel agencies might actually prefer to use mentally troubled individuals for certain assignments. Then later, even if the "crazy" person tells the truth in court, they are easily discredited by all the other nutty commentary they make. 

The CIA may have actually dangled Nagell in front of Garrison. But Garrison did not bite. 

Just a thought. 

 

Ben

What comes to mind for me about the bank robbery is, it's an FBI matter (not just local police) ... Nagell wanted to get the FBI's attention (imho).  Plus, I think that the "Cubans" were onto him ... the violent anti-Castro crowd that were cultivating Oswald and had operational roles in Dealey Plaza.  He sought federal protection, from both the KGB and CIA (i.e., any port in a storm).  Just my two cents.  

Gene

[Gene Kelly]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:44 PM, Matt Allison said:

I bought TMWKTM back when it was first published, and read it countless times.

I never believed Bundren's statement referenced here. Not then, not now.

It sounded overly dramatic, not real, and it didn't make sense with the chronology. To me, it sounded like yet another of the Texas tall tales that various people have verbalized over the years that have done nothing but make JFKA research look foolish. Madeline Brown, Beverly Oliver, etc

Matt

According to Dick Rusell's book, "On the Trail of the JFK Assassins", Nagell first went to a nearby post office before entering the bank, where he mailed five-hundred-dollar bills to an address in Mexico. He then mailed two letters to the CIA (one was apparently addressed to Desmond Fitzgerald). From the post office, Nagell walked over to the State National Bank where he approached a teller and asked for a hundred dollars in American Express traveler's checks. But before Nagell could retrieve the checks, he turned and fired two shots into a wall right under the ceiling.

An interesting read is "Evidence and the Big Easy III", Carmine Savastano's TPAKK blog, dated January 09, 2019.  Carmine cites an El Paso Police Department Supplementary Offense Report ("Attempted Robbery of State National Bank", Ref: Richard Case Nagell, September 21, 1963).  Based on evidence from the El Paso police, Nagell did not fire shots, walk to his car, and calmly await the police ... he tried to escape and surrendered a distance from the bank. Unknown to many was the presence of police officer J. Bundren assigned to guard a Treasury Department currency display in the west lobby, which Carmine surmises might have been what attracted Nagell. Following the sound of shots in the east lobby, the officer rushed to the area where he learned Nagell had fled running out the side door.  The police officer "ran out the door of the bank chasing the subject to the corner of Oregon and Overland and then west on Overland" and Nagell's trail led to a local alleyway where he emerged in a vehicle but now faced the pursuing officer pointing a gun at him and stated "All-right, I give up".  After some questioning Nagell was taken into custody, and his vehicle was impounded.

When Bundren searched Nagell, one thing found on him was a mimeographed newsletter from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. When Bundren notified the FBI, Nagell asked them to get the machine gun out of the trunk of his car (but there was no machine gun).  However, there was a suitcase, two briefcases filled with documents, two tourist cards for entry into Mexico (one in the name of Aleksei Hidel), a small Minolta camera, and a miniature film development lab. And according to Russell, on the way to the El Paso Federal Building, Nagell issued a statement to the FBI: "I would rather be arrested than commit murder and treason."  According to Jim DiEugenio's article in Kennedys and King ("The Most Important Witness, Part 2", June 2009), Officer Bundren later told Dick Russell that, at a preliminary hearing for Nagell, the defendant shared that he wanted to be caught. To which Bundren replied that he knew Nagell was not out to rob the bank, and following statements were made:

Nagell: Well, I'm glad you caught me. I really don't want to be in Dallas.  Bundren: What do you mean by that?  Nagell: You'll see soon enough. 

When Bundren later went to the FBI to try and talk about Nagell's prediction, the agent he (Bundren) knew there told him he was not at liberty to discuss it.  I doubt that Bundren would misrepresent all of this to Dick Russell years later ... there seems no reason for that.

Gene

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

Officer Bundren later told Dick Russell that, at a preliminary hearing for Nagell, the defendant shared that he wanted to be caught. To which Bundren replied that he knew Nagell was not out to rob the bank

Yes, this conversation doesn't sound real to me. Police officers aren't inclined to have casual conversations with inmates inside a courtroom. Or, frankly, to give a damn about what comes out of an alleged bank robber's mouth.

[Paul Brancato]

Refresh my memory- did Nagell say the Soviets were behind it?

[Matthew Koch]

7 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Refresh my memory- did Nagell say the Soviets were behind it?

He thought the Soviets were aware of the assassination and wanted to stop it by Killing Oswald. 

[Gene Kelly]

On 1/14/2023 at 3:41 PM, Matt Allison said:

Yes, this conversation doesn't sound real to me. Police officers aren't inclined to have casual conversations with inmates inside a courtroom. Or, frankly, to give a damn about what comes out of an alleged bank robber's mouth.

Matt

I don't think Russell would misrepresent Bundren's comments, and he told him quite a few things.  Hard to imagine that Russell would've related it, if he didn't think Bundren was credible.  Here is what Russell wrote:

When Kennedy was assassinated, the full impact of Nagell's prediction did not hit Bundren … but when Jack Ruby shot Oswald, it did. Bundren exclaimed to himself, "How the hell would he have previous knowledge of it? How would he know what was coming down in Dallas?"  When Bundren went to the FBI to try and talk about Nagell's stunning prognostication, the agent he knew there told him he was not at liberty to discuss it. Bundren concluded from the experience that "Nagell know a lot more about the assassination then he let on, or that the government let on. It bothered me ever since." Indicating Bundren was right about what the government knew, Russell notes at this point that one of the notebooks seized from Nagell that day was not returned to him for eleven years. The other notebook was not returned at all. 

Nagell ended up serving more than four years in federal prisons, after two trials presided over by Judge Homer Thornberry, a friend of LBJ, who resigned a congressional seat to take over the Nagell case in 1964. Following Nagell’s release from Leavenworth in April 1968, he obtained a passport, quickly left the country, and traveled to East Germany.  That's quite a long incarceration for Nagel's "crime" in that El Paso bank.

Gene

[Paul Brancato]

On 1/14/2023 at 4:06 PM, Matthew Koch said:

He thought the Soviets were aware of the assassination and wanted to stop it by Killing Oswald. 

Thank you. That’s what bothered me. Nagell’s story is about Oswald the assassin. That is similar to the CIA and FBI admitting that if they hadn’t screwed up Oswald would not have been able to get in position. 

[Paul Brancato]

33 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

Matt

I don't think Russell would misrepresent Bundren's comments, and he told him quite a few things.  Hard to imagine that Russell would've related it, if he didn't think Bundren was credible.  Here is what Russell wrote:

When Kennedy was assassinated, the full impact of Nagell's prediction did not hit Bundren … but when Jack Ruby shot Oswald, it did. Bundren exclaimed to himself, "How the hell would he have previous knowledge of it? How would he know what was coming down in Dallas?"  When Bundren went to the FBI to try and talk about Nagell's stunning prognostication, the agent he knew there told him he was not at liberty to discuss it. Bundren concluded from the experience that "Nagell know a lot more about the assassination then he let on, or that the government let on. It bothered me ever since." Indicating Bundren was right about what the government knew, Russell notes at this point that one of the notebooks seized from Nagell that day was not returned to him for eleven years. The other notebook was not returned at all. 

Nagell ended up serving more than four years in federal prisons, after two trials presided over by Judge Homer Thornberry, a friend of LBJ, who resigned a congressional seat to take over the Nagell case in 1964. Following Nagell’s release from Leavenworth in April 1968, he obtained a passport, quickly left the country, and traveled to East Germany.  That's quite a long incarceration for Nagel's "crime" in that El Paso bank.

Gene

Gene - I just read up a little on Judge Thornberry. Is there evidence that he left the House specifically for the Nagell trial? Also, calling the Judge a friend of LBJ is almost an understatement, since LBJ later nominated him to associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a nomination he withdrew when Abe Fortas, whose position Thornberry was nominated to fill, ran into Congressional opposition when LBJ tried to promote him from associate Justice to the Supreme Court. And it also turns out that Thornberry won LBJ’s congressional seat when LBJ became a Senator. What any of this has to do with Nagell I don’t know, but it’s peculiar. 

[Gene Kelly]

9 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Gene - I just read up a little on Judge Thornberry. Is there evidence that he left the House specifically for the Nagell trial? Also, calling the Judge a friend of LBJ is almost an understatement, since LBJ later nominated him to associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a nomination he withdrew when Abe Fortas, whose position Thornberry was nominated to fill, ran into Congressional opposition when LBJ tried to promote him from associate Justice to the Supreme Court. And it also turns out that Thornberry won LBJ’s congressional seat when LBJ became a Senator. What any of this has to do with Nagell I don’t know, but it’s peculiar. 

Paul:

Nagell's claims regarding the assassination boil down to observing Cuban exiles representing themselves as Castro agents meeting with Oswald to manipulate him and maneuver him into some action in Washington DC - Baltimore area in September.  All that he ever alleged was that Oswald was part of a conspiracy to murder Kennedy (not necessarily the assassin) which he thought would take place in late September of 1963.  Jim DiEugenio's Kennedys and King article speculates that this is why Nagell acted out in El Paso on September 20th. 

This is where the plot thickened ... as I understand the story (reading Russell's work), Nagell was working counterintelligence for CIA by 1962 - as part of the Domestic Operations Branch - when he got wind of the plot. He was communicating through a Mexico City contact up to Tracy Barnes. While in Mexico, his CIA contact stopped meeting meet him; his only communication about the plot was now with the KGB, who allegedly told him to try and separate Oswald from the conspirators by telling him he was being duped (or eliminate him).  By then Russell and others believe that the CIA was freezing Nagell out (he got no reply from an attempted communication with Desmond Fitzgerald). Russell speculates that Nagell had been duped into thinking that he was working on this mission for both sides.

When he appeared before the court on November 4, 1963, Nagell told the judge, "I had a motive for doing what I did. But my motive was not to hold up the bank. I do not intend to disclose my motive at this time." Author Dick Russell went to El Paso in 1975 and discovered that - even though two FBI agents were in on his arrest, and the Bureau confiscated his belongings - no FBI representative testified at his trial. Yet in a newspaper story of 1/24/64, Nagell revealed that the FBI had asked him about Oswald's activities. Nagell was sent to Springfield prison and was part of their behavior modification program (as was Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden). Nagell's sister's widower later told Dick Russell that Nagell's mission was to eliminate Oswald before the assassination. He also told Russell that the FBI visited them in 1965 to see some of the papers Nagell had sent to them; while they were on vacation, someone later broke into their home and stole the documents.

To address your question about Homer Thornberry, the first judge at Nagell's trial retired before the trial began. He was replaced by Thornberry, on a recommendation by then Texas attorney Leon Jaworski. After his conviction and sentencing, Nagell was dragged from the courtroom screaming that "the FBI had allowed Kennedy to be shot" and that they had questioned him about Oswald before the murder. While in jail, he was warned not to talk about Oswald and later transferred to Leavenworth where he was allegedly tortured (and during trips back to El Paso for appeal hearings, beaten up). Nagell's 1967 prison letter to Arthur Greenstein (aka "Arturo Verdestein") characterized Oswald as a patsy and an apparent pawn of David Ferrie. 

To gain his release from prison, Nagell's attorney, Joseph Calamia, got his client to cooperate with the government in a psychological ruse. According to Jim DiEugenio, Thornberry and the FBI apparently brokered a deal with the defendant: a chance to go free if you go along with our discreditation of you as a witness. Urged on by Calamia, Nagell went along with this ploy, but reluctantly. Eventually this is how Nagell was finally released. DiEugenio writes that "Calamia made a deal with the devil to get his client out of jail" ... Nagell got out in April of 1968. 

Gene

[Gene Kelly]

14 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Gene - I just read up a little on Judge Thornberry. Is there evidence that he left the House specifically for the Nagell trial? Also, calling the Judge a friend of LBJ is almost an understatement, since LBJ later nominated him to associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a nomination he withdrew when Abe Fortas, whose position Thornberry was nominated to fill, ran into Congressional opposition when LBJ tried to promote him from associate Justice to the Supreme Court. And it also turns out that Thornberry won LBJ’s congressional seat when LBJ became a Senator. What any of this has to do with Nagell I don’t know, but it’s peculiar. 

Paul

Thornberry became a protege of Sam Rayburn. In 1963, LBJ persuaded Kennedy to appoint Homer to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.  This trusted friend stayed at LBJ’s side during the hours after Kennedy’s assassination (according to his biography). In 1965, Johnson named him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he advanced the cause of civil rights. When LBJ nominated Abe Fortas in 1968 to replace Earl Warren as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he put forward Thornberry for Fortas’ seat, but Fortas withdrew from consideration so Thornberry remained on the Court of Appeals until his death in 1995.  Attached is a 1965 photo of Thornberry sworn in as Judge at the LBJ Ranch in Texas.

Gene

[Larry Hancock]

After writing extensively about what was credible in regard to RCN and his story (including the admitted CIA names in his notebook) in SWHT as well as publishing a situational study of his changing remarks over the years from his time in jail to his death (via CD including documents - which is unfortunately no longer available from Lancer but may soon go up on the Weisberg archives) and carrying that on to blog posts on his documented (and strangely not investigated) effort to defect to an adversary nation in Mexico City as well as the very likely possibility that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher I think I've done as much as I can to paint the full Nagell story as best we can know it at this distance in time.

Given how much time I've spent on it I've no interest in participating in a long winded forum dialog but I would advise there is a great more to Nagell than what is presented to challenge his stability - which certainly is a caution.  The real challenge is to map his claims to what was going on at given points in his life and then make your own estimate of his remarks at any given point in time.

I would also say that when you boil it all down, its unlikely he knew anything about Dallas - what he did know was that anti-Castro Cubans had approached Oswald to begin manipulating him in New Orleans.  Anti-Castro Cubans representing themselves as Cuban agants.  He just could not understand why Oswald would not break off from them - but of course that's another story entirely.  But in the end, his warnings and remarks about Oswald were simply that Oswald was being manipulated by other people and not a lone actor, a story which definitely needed to be suppressed at the time. 

Personally I think Dick captured it all in his conversation with Nagell's lawyer who said he would have made a totally different defense of Nagell if only he could have proved he had been in Mexico City - something we now know without a doubt.

[Matt Allison]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I would also say that when you boil it all down, its unlikely he knew anything about Dallas

Agree, and that's why I hold the opinion that Bundren was embellishing his experience with Nagell.

Larry- Have you gone through this release from the Archives?

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10305-10005.pdf

There is evidence in there to suggest that he was in Los Angeles for much, if not all of the Summer of 1963, as well as an interview with his cell mate in El Paso, who said Nagell told him that he was attempting "suicide by cop".

[Gene Kelly]

5 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

After writing extensively about what was credible in regard to RCN and his story (including the admitted CIA names in his notebook) in SWHT as well as publishing a situational study of his changing remarks over the years from his time in jail to his death (via CD including documents - which is unfortunately no longer available from Lancer but may soon go up on the Weisberg archives) and carrying that on to blog posts on his documented (and strangely not investigated) effort to defect to an adversary nation in Mexico City as well as the very likely possibility that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher I think I've done as much as I can to paint the full Nagell story as best we can know it at this distance in time.

Given how much time I've spent on it I've no interest in participating in a long winded forum dialog but I would advise there is a great more to Nagell than what is presented to challenge his stability - which certainly is a caution.  The real challenge is to map his claims to what was going on at given points in his life and then make your own estimate of his remarks at any given point in time.

I would also say that when you boil it all down, its unlikely he knew anything about Dallas - what he did know was that anti-Castro Cubans had approached Oswald to begin manipulating him in New Orleans.  Anti-Castro Cubans representing themselves as Cuban agants.  He just could not understand why Oswald would not break off from them - but of course that's another story entirely.  But in the end, his warnings and remarks about Oswald were simply that Oswald was being manipulated by other people and not a lone actor, a story which definitely needed to be suppressed at the time. 

Personally I think Dick captured it all in his conversation with Nagell's lawyer who said he would have made a totally different defense of Nagell if only he could have proved he had been in Mexico City - something we now know without a doubt.

Thanks Larry. 

I too am conflicted about Nagell's story.  In my recent posts, I have tried to summarize some key information (from a variety of sources) and also wanted to see what the experts like yourself, and David Boylan think.  Nagell is exasperating to understand, and I do agree with Matt and Ben (and others) that a lot of the "evidence" is word of mouth, interviews, and convoluted stories. The word "situational" is a wise caution here, in interpreting his story.  However, he did seem to have a lot of insider information, which would be very dangerous to know/have at the time.  One thing that struck me is your analysis that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher ... that would give me some pause. 

Gene