Larry Hancock Interview (Out Of The Blank Ep. 1319)

[Gerry Down]

During a recent Larry Hancock interview with Robbie Robertson a number of points were brought up which might be of interest to readers on here:

Point #1: 

Between 37 and 40 minutes on the interview, Larry made a distinction, which is rarely made clear, between the CIA and the FBIs interest in LHO when he arrived back from Russia:

• The FBI: Their job was to see if LHO had become an agent while in Russia and was now a threat inside the U.S.
• The CIA: Their job was to see if LHO was going to try and connect with foreign networks inside the U.S. that would be sending intelligence abroad (such as to Russia or Cuba etc).

In this way, both the CIA and FBI had a legitimate reason to investigate LHO upon his arrival in the U.S.

In light of this, LHO appears to have written to the FPCC in August 1962. Paul Bleau talks about this in this article: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/exposing-the-fpcc-part-1 . The HTLINGUAL  program should have picked up this mail correspondence. And if my understanding is correct, both the CIA and FBI were in the same room at NYC airport opening these mails. Therefore this correspondence to the FPCC by Oswald should have gone in both Oswalds file at CIA HQ and FBI HQ. But apparently it did not because the FBI reports, on the back of the FBIs two interviews of LHO in June and Aug 1963, state that LHO was making no attempt to get in touch with known communist groups in the Fort Worth area. However this contact with the FPCC should have been worth a mention in such FBI reports. But there is no mention of it. LHOs letter to the FPCC was noteworthy as the FPCC were suspected of being funded by the Castro regime, thus making it somewhat of a foreign network.  Is it possible that when the FBI and CIA intercepted Oswalds Aug 1962 letter to the FPCC, that both the CIA and FBI determined that Oswalds writing to the FPCC fell under the remit of the CIA as their job was to see if LHO was trying to connect with foreign networks inside the CIA and so the CIA took responsibility for looking into Oswalds contact with the FPCC and the FBI took no further interest in this letter? This could explain why the FBI kept their file on Oswald closed during this time frame.

Point #2:

Between 37 and 40 minutes on the interview, Larry said that J. Walton Moore admitted to making enquiries about LHO when LHO arrived back in the U.S. However J. Walton Moores files now contain no mention of LHO anywhere. I hadn’t realized that Moore had made this admission. Does anyone know where J.Walton Moore made this admission – was it in one of his testimonies?

Point #3:

Between 40 and 43 minutes on the interview, Larry said that the CIA would have had a legal right to use the DRE in a propaganda operation against LHO.  

Is there a comparable example of the CIA doing this (Cuba related propaganda operations on U.S. soil) and it being a perfectly legal operation? Sometimes a comparison can be helpful to drive home a point.

Point #4:

At 57 minutes, Larry says that we have evidence that at the time of the JFK assassination LHO was looking for a job elsewhere and we have the application form to prove this. I was not aware of this. I had only been aware that LHO back in Oct 1963 had applied for a job at Love field but apparently Ruth Paine didn’t bother to pass that info on to LHO as LHO was already working at the TSBD by then. What job was LHO looking at at the time of the JFK assassination?

Point #5:

At 1 hour 47 minutes to 1 hour 49 minutes, Larry mentions that the CIA kept a private copy of storyboards made from the Zapruder film. I don’t study Zapruder alternation theories so I’m not very familiar with these storyboards.

If the CIA kept a private copy of the Zapruder film storyboards, does that suggest the CIA were conducting some type of private investigation into the shooting sequence in Dealey Plaza themselves? Much like how the KGB (as featured in the documentary “The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files”) and the Castro regime apparently conducted their own investigation and even carried out shooting reenactments to see if the bolt could be operated as quickly as shots appeared to have been fired on the Zapruder film? My understanding is that only the FBI should have been carrying out an investigation into the shooting sequence in Dealey Plaza – it would be outside the remit of the CIA to be carrying out such an investigation.

[Larry Hancock]

Its always good to find somebody listening closely....grin.  I will leave many of the points to others but most are addressed SWHT/2010 including the extended discussion of the storyboards (taken from Doug Horne's original work and a bit of follow up on my own).  The quick answer on that is that the first set of photo boards, along with a shooting scenario, was taken and I suspect used in a presentation to unidentified senior officials.  The only clue we have on when that occurred  is a note about members of the NSC in a closed meeting on Sunday morning on the assassination (we also have an anecdotal remark by McCone a few days later that he had seen something that convinced him there were multiple shooters).  Following that, and covertly (without the knowledge of the NPIC personnel involved with the first set of boards), on Sunday evening a separate set of boards were prepared to support the official lone nut story and those ended up at the national archives.  Apparently the first set were just tucked away at NPIC until they were noticed during the HSCA and rather hurriedly disposed of at that point.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Larry Hancock

[Guest]

Point #2: Between 37 and 40 minutes on the interview, Larry said that J. Walton Moore admitted to making enquiries about LHO when LHO arrived back in the U.S. However J. Walton Moores files now contain no mention of LHO anywhere. I hadn’t realized that Moore had made this admission. Does anyone know where J.Walton Moore made this admission – was it in one of his testimonies?

I don't think Moore ever admitted this.   But... I also think it is save to conclude Moore enquiried about Oswald simply given the contacts he had with GDM, IMO it's pretty safe to say they "discussed" Oswald (Moore did meet GDM more than he would admit...).  

That doesn't mean DOD had an actual debriefing with Oswald, perhaps Moore used GDM to keep a soft file on Lee... don't know...  

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Its always good to find somebody listening closely....grin.  I will leave many of the points to others but most are addressed SWHT/2010 including the extended discussion of the storyboards (taken from Doug Horne's original work and a bit of follow up on my own).  The quick answer on that is that the first set of photo boards, along with a shooting scenario, was taken and I suspect used in a presentation to unidentified senior officials.  The only clue we have on when that occurred  is a note about members of the NSC in a closed meeting on Sunday morning on the assassination (we also have an anecdotal remark by McCord a few days later that he had seen something that convinced him there were multiple shooters).  Following that, and covertly (without the knowledge of the NPIC personnel involved with the first set of boards), on Sunday evening a separate set of boards were prepared to support the official lone nut story and those ended up at the national archives.  Apparently the first set were just tucked away at NPIC until they were noticed during the HSCA and rather hurriedly disposed of at that point.

(we also have an anecdotal remark by McCord a few days later that he had seen something that convinced him there were multiple shooters).---LH

McCord? As in Watergate? 

[Larry Hancock]

Ooops....typo or neuron glitch or maybe both.... it was McCone who made the remark to an associate...also in regard to the Moore remark, DeMohrenschieldt did eventually identify Moore by name as the "government man" asking him to check on news on the arrival of the Oswald's back in Forth Worth, which pretty well ties down the contact.  Although I do recall an interview of Moore half halfheartedly admitting to the contact that might be an error and its not in official testimony.  Which is strange because there would be no real reason to conceal such a contact ....on the other hand Moore's documents appear to be incomplete and some are still withheld - I've identified that as a major collections priority should we make any process in encouraging NARA to actually do more collections.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Larry Hancock

[Gerry Down]

50 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

Ooops....typo or neuron glitch or maybe both.... it was McCone who made the remark to an associate...also in regard to the Moore remark, DeMohrenschieldt did eventually identify Moore by name as the "government man" asking him to check on news on the arrival of the Oswald's back in Forth Worth, which pretty well ties down the contact.  Although I do recall an interview of Moore half halfheartedly admitting to the contact that might be an error and its not in official testimony.  Which is strange because there would be no real reason to conceal such a contact ....on the other hand Moore's documents appear to be incomplete and some are still withheld - I've identified that as a major collections priority should we make any process in encouraging NARA to actually do more collections.

We previously discussed how Moore might have gone about getting info on Oswald once he came back from Russia. At that time, I was thinking that Peter Gregory gave a copy of the manuscript to Moore and this ended up on Donald Densylia desk as a contact report. I then thought something must have happened for Moore to then change over from using Gregory to get info on LHO to using GDM to get info on LHO. However having recently read Peter Gregorys new book, I was unsure how such a change over might have occurred. I had thought that maybe Oswald cut off contact with Peter Gregory, in so far as getting the manuscript published, because he did not want to get too close to the Gregories as Paul as around Oswalds age and good looking. Competition for Marina affections. However in his new book, there was a hint that LHO somewhat liked Paul and while he did not leave Paul and Marina alone, neither did he try to stop Paul from getting any of his lessons off Marina. The lessons went on for weeks unhindered. 

There is another possibility as to why Moore changed from using Peter Gregory to GDM for getting info on LHO. In this scenario, Peter Gregory gave a copy of the manuscript to Moore and this ended up on Donald Densylia desk as a contact report. At this point the CIA stopped having what little interest they did have in Oswald and had no interest in him beyond June of 1962. Then the HTLINGUAL program picked up Oswalds letter to the FPCC in Aug 1962 which reignited their interest in Oswald. At this stage Moore was requested by his superiors to gather more intel on Oswald. Moore however could not get Peter Gregory to spy on Oswald because Peter and his wife didn't particularly like Oswald and so were not willing to spy on Oswald anymore beyond the passing on of the manuscript to Moore in June of 1962. So Moore then had to get GDM to spy on Oswald. This scenario explains the large gap in time between Peter Gregory "spying" on Oswald in June 1962 and GDM continuing it on in Sept 1962. The trigger point for GDM getting to know LHO in Sept 1962 was Oswalds Aug 1962 letter to the FPCC.

However, to make this scenario work, i'm having difficulty understanding how the CIA could have taken such an interest in Oswald off the back of this Aug 1962 letter to the FPCC while at the same time the FBI were so disinterested that they closed their file on Oswald at this time. That would appear to be a contradiction. That was what I was getting at in Point #1 in my opening post. But i'm not overly familiar with how the HTLINGUAL program physically picked up mail and who was in the room when this was done. In that interview with Robbie Robertson you mentioned how the CIA were always trying to steal informants from other agencies such as the FBI. Is it possible that in the room at the NYC airport, the CIA (on opening Oswalds Aug 1962 FPCC letter) saw an opportunity to gather intel on the FPCC and didn't bother to tell the FBI. In other words, they saw an opportunity for a scoop on the FPCC and didn't want to share the spoils with the FBI. And so the FBI never found out about this Aug 1962 letter to the FPCC. 

The FPCC letter is interpreted by some to be postmarked 25th Aug 1962:

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by Gerry Down

[Matt Allison]

LHO was fined for disturbing the peace in 1963, so I don't understand the document pic above saying news clippings about it were sent a year earlier in 1962.

[Gerry Down]

2 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

LHO was fined for disturbing the peace in 1963, so I don't understand the document pic above saying news clippings about it were sent a year earlier in 1962.

LHO put the news clipping from his Aug 1963 fight with Bringuier into the old FPCC envelope from Aug 1962. When the envelope was found at LHOs rooming house after the assassination, the officers made the mistake of thinking the FPCC had sent LHO the news clipping. 

[Matt Allison]

Gotcha. Thanks, Gerry.

[Bob Ness]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Their job was to see if LHO had become an agent while in Russia and was now a threat inside the U.S.

 

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Although I do recall an interview of Moore half halfheartedly admitting to the contact that might be an error and its not in official testimony. 

At what point did Hoover/FBI divest Latin American operations to the CIA? Under the OSS I believe LA was under the FBI's remit. Maybe not later though...?

Edited January 17, 2023 by Bob Ness

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

But apparently it did not because the FBI reports, on the back of the FBIs two interviews of LHO in June and Aug 1963, state that LHO was making no attempt to get in touch with known communist groups in the Fort Worth area.

I’m a little rusty on this, but I believe the official story is that only one letter was ever intercepted between Oswald and the FPCC: his April ‘63 letter about leafleting in Dallas wearing the “Viva Fidel” placard around his neck. 

According to the FBI, numbered informant NY-3245-S* told the New York Field Office about Oswald’s FPCC letter on 4/21/63 - but New York didn’t inform Dallas about the letter until 6/27/63. This delay caused quite the uproar after the assassination, and the agents involved were reprimanded. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=117797#relPageId=132

What’s odd is that several of Oswald’s letters to the CPUSA and SWP were also picked up by informants in New York, but that information was always disseminated within a maximum of about two weeks. 

It doesn’t look like NY-3245-S* was a normal informant however. The asterisk is part of the informant number - I’ve seen it on other informant numbers but I’m not sure what it means. As far as I can tell, the identity of NY-3245-S* is still being protected. 

NY-3245-S* is also the same informant who obtained stationary samples and a copy of the FPCC mailing list for the CIA in late October ‘63 for the operation to counter the FPCC in foreign countries.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=177156#relPageId=1

This informant clearly had top-level access to the FPCC, so why the hell was only one letter from Oswald (allegedly) ever turned over to the FBI?

One clue, on the delay at least, is this FBI document which just had its final redactions removed in the latest release (the relevant info was already available). 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=231635#relPageId=2

It says that NY-3245-S* turned over financial information on the FPCC on 4/21/63, the same date as the Oswald letter. John Newman may have been correct that it just took a while to develop all the negatives from a break-in that occurred around that time at FPCC headquarters; and my guess is that the break in was facilitated by this embedded informant.  Either that or the informant number was just a cover for wiretaps, break-ins, etc., which I think was Newman’s theory. 

My point is that the FBI source in the FPCC may have just had bigger fish to fry than individual correspondence. It might be worth it to look around for other examples of personal letters to the FPCC getting turned over to the FBI, from NY-3245-S* and/or other sources. 

Edited January 17, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Larry Hancock]

Bob,  Hoover grudgingly gave up Latin America after the war, and officially with the formation of the CIA - however there is no doubt he competed with them in Mexico.  There was supposed to be a liaison with the CIA where individuals suspected of being foreign agents were handed off by CIA to FBI, the Tumbleweed case is an example of that. And the CIA appears to have been pretty good about handing off Americans in Mexico who appeared to be potential foreign assets or on the road to becoming one.  Heitman wrote a book about his time in Mexico, keeping Americans under surveillance, including American film industry folks who had gotten on Hoover's Red List.  Of course the one thing he does not really talk about in that same book is his time in Dallas.

In line with questions in this thread, this is a pretty interesting read on CIA Domestic operations /I ntelligence - Rockefeller Commission
Report -:

https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0005/1561495.pdf

 

 

[Guest]

On 1/17/2023 at 4:57 AM, Tom Gram said:

I’m a little rusty on this, but I believe the official story is that only one letter was ever intercepted between Oswald and the FPCC: his April ‘63 letter about leafleting in Dallas wearing the “Viva Fidel” placard around his neck. 

According to the FBI, numbered informant NY-3245-S* told the New York Field Office about Oswald’s FPCC letter on 4/21/63 - but New York didn’t inform Dallas about the letter until 6/27/63. This delay caused quite the uproar after the assassination, and the agents involved were reprimanded. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=117797#relPageId=132

What’s odd is that several of Oswald’s letters to the CPUSA and SWP were also picked up by informants in New York, but that information was always disseminated within a maximum of about two weeks. 

It doesn’t look like NY-3245-S* was a normal informant however. The asterisk is part of the informant number - I’ve seen it on other informant numbers but I’m not sure what it means. As far as I can tell, the identity of NY-3245-S* is still being protected. 

NY-3245-S* is also the same informant who obtained stationary samples and a copy of the FPCC mailing list for the CIA in late October ‘63 for the operation to counter the FPCC in foreign countries.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=177156#relPageId=1

This informant clearly had top-level access to the FPCC, so why the hell was only one letter from Oswald (allegedly) ever turned over to the FBI?

One clue, on the delay at least, is this FBI document which just had its final redactions removed in the latest release (the relevant info was already available). 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=231635#relPageId=2

It says that NY-3245-S* turned over financial information on the FPCC on 4/21/63, the same date as the Oswald letter. John Newman may have been correct that it just took a while to develop all the negatives from a break-in that occurred around that time at FPCC headquarters; and my guess is that the break in was facilitated by this embedded informant.  Either that or the informant number was just a cover for wiretaps, break-ins, etc., which I think was Newman’s theory. 

My point is that the FBI source in the FPCC may have just had bigger fish to fry than individual correspondence. It might be worth it to look around for other examples of personal letters to the FPCC getting turned over to the FBI, from NY-3245-S* and/or other sources. 

NY-3245-S* or Dallas T-1

Don't know if T-1 has been one and the same for some time,  but if he was there is a lot on him

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Larry Hancock]

For what its worth we know the FBI did use the T-1 designation (anonymous) for post office mail intercepts and also for assets inside target groups like FPCC who would copy materials off mailing lists or names from mail.  As I recall the FBI had a T-1 informant whose name is now known but which I don't recall doing  both those things.  The interesting point would be where his reports went at HQ and whether any of his work got copied to the field routinely, or at all.

[Guest]

124-90132-10024 (5 pages, but ones with * ..... ID elswhere)

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
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