Dick Russell on Richard Case Nagell. New podcast

[Larry Hancock]

Per Matt, yes certainly and there has never been any question that Nagell was constantly on the road during 1963, in LA (that is just key of his story, with his trailing of suspicious Cubans verified by Vaughn Marlow who I interviewed, following behind Dick).  And no doubt Nagell suffered from PSTD and other stress related to both his injury and his marital problems.  He never really denied that, and it shows in his ongoing visits to VA hospitals as in Florida that summer.

Bottom line, he was in Mexico City, arguably he connected with a CIA officer he knew in Japan who is a perfect fit for Hecksher and we can now put Hecksher in Mexico City on a mysterious mission in the fall of 1962 and into 1963 when he was pulled back to the US, very possibly just leaving Nagell hanging. Nagell's belongings show he had contacts with CIA employees in LA and one fellow at HQ...but he was also very conflicted and on the fence about the moral compass of US intelligence, military or otherwise. They might have only shown more at one point since only about half of what the police collected was ever returned to him or documented.

And Nagell knew and talked about Oswald and something in play for the East Coat in Sept long before we saw Oswald's letters to SWP and CPUSA about a move back to that area and "going underground".

When you parse it all out Nagell talks about seeing Oswald with Q in New Orleans, posing as a Castro supporter and Quiroga was almost certainly (actually admittedly) doing that to test Oswald (Quiroga had been suspected of being an actual Castro agent before the CIA cleared him),  Of course Nagell was only there for a sort time, recognized by Cuban exiles from Florida and fled the scene.  All he really knew is what he told us i.e. Cuban exiles were messing around with Oswald and attempting to manipulate him.  Which of course given the DRE propaganda going on around Oswald is undoubtedly true and probably extends to SAS and WAVE as part of that story.

Nagell is simply one data point.  And he is not the key to the attack in Dallas, only another source suggesting that Oswald was likely acting along with others, wittingly or most unlikely just being strung along..

The rest of what I have to say is in the SWHT, the blog posts and in a number of shows that I've been on that explore all the pros and cons...of which there are both...in regard to his story.  Nagell is not in Tipping point and I also explained why in a blog post.

 

 

[David Boylan]

Gene,

Hecksher is indeed interesting. He was a member of Fitzgerald's SAS/SO group. The SO group standing for Special Operations. These were the guys later involved in the Autonomous Operations. Hecksher was AMWORLD and Artime's case officer until that role was given to Carl Jenkins. Alfonso Rodriguez handled Manuel Ray, Rogelio Cisneros and the JURE group. Cisneros was close to Sylvia Odio during the time that A-Rod was his case officer.

Nestor Sanchez would work with Rolando Cubela/AMLASH. Others were Seymour Bolten and Charles Anderson. Anderson set up the original phone taping system In Mexico City. As we've seen it was Hecksher that recruited Emilio Rodriguiez in Havana.

Alfonso Rodriguez would later be promoted to Director of Training. The Office of Training would show the Zapruder film in 1965 and 1969. I wonder what the topic was that went along with the showing. The official position is "protective security." 

[David Andrews]

On 1/12/2023 at 8:34 PM, Ron Bulman said:

One thing that caught my attention was the Trent Parker of the ONI/CIA tape he had or had heard?  Nelson Rockefeller, LBJ, Dulles, Hoover with Harriman and David Rockefeller off to the side discussing the assassination before it happened?  I've never read of this.  Attributed to Defrauding America by a Rodney Stich.  Has anyone else here ever read this book? 

A problem in Stich's self-edited writings is that books such as the original Defrauding America are structured like long laundry lists of crimes committed by mid-level federal officials, separated into chapters by topic.  In later Stich books, whole sections of these lists are imported from Defrauding America into pertinent chapters without additional author comment or contextualization.  So - if you're interested in a topic, the best place to go is Defrauding America, to check Stich's coverage and see if any further revelations are worth pursuing in his later books.

For understanding localized aspects of intelligence community culture ahead of 9/11, I found Stich's FBI, CIA, The Mob, & Treachery useful and interesting, if unverified.  The book tells the story of a wrongfully imprisoned former FBI agent, his misadventures with CIA and the Mob in the New York area, and his prior engagement as a military officer supporting the Contra War (a well-detailed inter-agency involvement that jibes with Prouty's Secret Team).  Everyone in it is marvelously corrupt and seedy, yet portrayed in ways that would take further research to confirm.  Without that, I look for incidents and investigations consonant with other writings on pre-9/11 FBI culture. Still, a hell of an entertaining read, with the caveats cited.

Edited January 18, 2023 by David Andrews