FINALLY, PROOF: Charles Tracy Barnes was the CIA Chief of Domestic Operations Division, Support!

[David McLean]

From old research, I recall that prior to the coup against Allende, Donald Kendall of Pepsico created  a position for Agustin Edwards, publisher of El Mercurio and a key CIA cash conduit and propagandist.  It allowed Edwards to travel freely to the US. Pepsico and Kendall also got Nixon to Dallas as a company lawyer during their merger with FritoLaythe during the week ending November 1963.

Deltec International was a King Ranch (and Rockefeller) affiliated joint venture operating in South America about then too, corporate digests show. I am also pretty sure King Ranch operatives played a role in Australia’s 1975 coup.

Would these  be under the purview ofDCD or DOD? 

[David McLean]

BTW, Leslie,was Richard Nixon ever  considered to be  T….he was definitely Tricky.

[Denny Zartman]

On 7/9/2023 at 2:53 AM, Leslie Sharp said:

A BRIEF STOP: J. WALTON MOORE AND ASSOCIATES

I found all of this part fascinating and informative. Thanks. I didn't know anything about Moore's background.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Denny Zartman

[Leslie Sharp]

On 7/11/2023 at 7:35 AM, David McLean said:

BTW, Leslie,was Richard Nixon ever  considered to be  T….he was definitely Tricky.

Love It!  You're the first to make the connection.

Barnes was "Trick" during his early years with the agency so that factored into the competition.  But why would Lafitte know him as "Trick"; and why use the first name initial when he spells out surnames as a general rule. What circumstances might he have known Barnes personally? Maybe through Angleton. I think Alan Kent gets into these weeds in his essay which I haven't revisited in some while.

I'm still looking at Steve Tanner; if we turn that stone, we're faced headlong into the Ukraine - Russia crises today.  Gen. Willoughby was in personal communication with Stetzco. Stetzco was planning to move OUN headquarters form Munich to DC.  Tanner met Otto Skorzeny after the war and according to Ralph Ganis, they became friends for life.  Wisner who appears in the datebook as well, was running Tanner's parachute operation after the war. However, if T was Tanner, that could have possibly unraveled the Cuban connections entirely. A hill to high to climb and still meet our pub date.

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

43 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

I found all of this part fascinating and informative. Thanks. I didn't know anything about Moore and his background.

Kudos to Alan Kent for the further dive into Moore.  We've since focused more deliberately on Col. Lawrence Orlov and de Mohrenschildt because they both appear in Lafitte's records.  An interesting three legged barstool.

[Denny Zartman]

16 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Kudos to Alan Kent for the further dive into Moore.  We've since focused more deliberately on Col. Lawrence Orlov and de Mohrenschildt because they both appear in Lafitte's records.  An interesting three legged barstool.

Learning that someone else was present during de Mohrenschildt and Oswald's first meeting is big imho. I definitely appreciate Alan Kent's work on that. I never thought to probe much into Moore (I didn't know what information was even available), but it makes a lot of sense to take a closer look now.

One of the very first things anyone ever said to me in a discussion about the JFKA was "guys like de Mohrenschildt don't just make friends with guys like Oswald", and in my opinion the statement still remains insightful. So I'm grateful for your continuing research into him as well.

[Gerry Down]

On 7/9/2023 at 10:19 AM, Robert Montenegro said:

Thanks Mr. Down, for provoking me to search harder and find a supporting document.

Glad i could be of some small help to your research.

By the way, how far have you got in establishing other people in the DOD (Domestic Operations Division) and the DOD structure itself? For example:

• What directorate was the DOD located in?
• Who did the Chief of DOD, Tracy Barnes, answer to?
• Who was Tracy Barnes deputy? (Chiefs usually have a Deputy Chief)
• Was the Domestic Contacts division inside the DOD or was that something entirely different?

Larry Hancock stated:

On 7/10/2023 at 1:14 AM, Larry Hancock said:

As Pat said, this has been discussed for some time and I think it brings into play the fact that Domestic Operations had a fairly broad remit (legal or not) at the time.  Ostensibly it did not "spy" on foreign agents - the CIA was to hand that off to the FBI and we have concrete examples of that, one being "Tumbleweed". 

Domestic operations did a good deal of work establishing domestic "covers" for foreign operations - which was actually one of Barnes' long time specialties and possibly the reason he was given the assignment. It also identified and maintained contacts with American's with international contacts or those traveling abroad who could be used as sources or assets. 

Which is why De Morenschildt was cultivated as a source for Domestic Operations.  I've always been curious as to what Divisions actually used Clay Shaw.  The same would be said for Meheu and his operations against foreign diplomats.  That may even be revealed in more current documents; I admit to never going back to take a look at either Shaw or Meheu in that respect.

And of course J Walton Moores files remain largely a mystery - they would give us a very interesting insight into Domestic Operations activities.

This statement led me to understand that the Domestic Contacts Division (DCD) was located inside the DOD. I dont know if i am correct in that interpretation. I don’t know who the Chief of the DCD was in 1962/1963 but seeing how Tracy Barnes was the Chief of DOD, this would effectively make Tracy Barnes the boss of the DCD also? Am I correct in that interpretation?

Then I was trying to understand who might be Tracy Barnes boss.

According to this document: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32404115.pdf  in the early 1960s the Office of Operations (OO) was located in the Directorate of Intelligence. This office was later renamed to the Domestic Contacts Division and put in the Directorate of Plans. I think this happened sometime after the assassination but am not sure. If so, Tracy Barnes boss in 1963 would be the Deputy Director of Intelligence (ie head of the Directorate of Intelligence). Am I correct in that interpretation?

On 7/10/2023 at 2:38 AM, Pat Speer said:

To my recollection, there were two nearly-identically-named segments of the CIA: Domestic Contacts Service and Domestic Operations Division. To my recollection, the first dealt primarily with American citizens who had traveled abroad, and the second kept tabs on foreign nationals residing within the U.S. I definitely recall thinking that whatever ops were aimed at Lechuga would have been handled by the DOD. I also seem to recall that McCord was involved with this as well.

But maybe I'm just hallucinating after watching too many Watergate-related programs. 

Were both the DOD and DCD inside the Directorate of Intelligence? And was one inside the other (i.e. was the DCD inside the DOD?, thus making Tracy Barnes the boss of the DCD?)

[Larry Hancock]

Gerry, I would need to see a lot more Domestic Contacts / Domestic Operations documents to offer an answer - my impression has been that they were separate groups under the same management at HQ but that is only an impression.  I would assume they would be compartmentalized as Domestic  Operations would be supporting a lot of highly covert activities - quite different than Domestic Contacts. 

Email me a few dozen documents on both and I'll call in some help and give a shot at coming up with an answer, sounds like fun...email document links to larryjoe@westok.net

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Glad i could be of some small help to your research.

By the way, how far have you got in establishing other people in the DOD (Domestic Operations Division) and the DOD structure itself? For example:

• What directorate was the DOD located in?
• Who did the Chief of DOD, Tracy Barnes, answer to?
• Who was Tracy Barnes deputy? (Chiefs usually have a Deputy Chief)
• Was the Domestic Contacts division inside the DOD or was that something entirely different?

Larry Hancock stated:

This statement led me to understand that the Domestic Contacts Division (DCD) was located inside the DOD. I dont know if i am correct in that interpretation. I don’t know who the Chief of the DCD was in 1962/1963 but seeing how Tracy Barnes was the Chief of DOD, this would effectively make Tracy Barnes the boss of the DCD also? Am I correct in that interpretation?

Then I was trying to understand who might be Tracy Barnes boss.

According to this document: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32404115.pdf  in the early 1960s the Office of Operations (OO) was located in the Directorate of Intelligence. This office was later renamed to the Domestic Contacts Division and put in the Directorate of Plans. I think this happened sometime after the assassination but am not sure. If so, Tracy Barnes boss in 1963 would be the Deputy Director of Intelligence (ie head of the Directorate of Intelligence). Am I correct in that interpretation?

Were both the DOD and DCD inside the Directorate of Intelligence? And was one inside the other (i.e. was the DCD inside the DOD?, thus making Tracy Barnes the boss of the DCD?)

These are org charts from various time periods. I only saw one reference in 1972 for the Domestic Contact Service under the Deputy Director for Intelligence. FWIW

 

Item 02.pdf (hood.edu)

Edited July 13, 2023 by Bob Ness

[Larry Hancock]

Bob, the best guess I can make from the 1964 chart is that Barnes would have been moved under DDI....to keep him away from DDP for one thing,  I'd love to see the charts that go under Office of Operations and Office of Basic Intelligence.

 

[Gerry Down]

11 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Gerry, I would need to see a lot more Domestic Contacts / Domestic Operations documents to offer an answer - my impression has been that they were separate groups under the same management at HQ but that is only an impression.  I would assume they would be compartmentalized as Domestic  Operations would be supporting a lot of highly covert activities - quite different than Domestic Contacts. 

Email me a few dozen documents on both and I'll call in some help and give a shot at coming up with an answer, sounds like fun...email document links to larryjoe@westok.net

Thanks for that generous invite but i'm a newbie to the the DOD so I don't know much about it to begin with. However from studying some CIA charts, i have come to conclude that the OO ("Office of Operations", commonly referred to as the "Domestic Contact Division") was in the Directorate of Intelligence from at least 1959 to 1972 (as per the link Bob Ness provided above). And that the DOD was inside the Directorate of Plans during this same approximate time period (there is no sign of the DOD in a 1959 diagram of the DDP but it shows up in a 1964-1968 plan of the DOD. From this i deduce that the DOD was possibly in existence in 1963 and was located in the DDP but i cant say that for sure). So the OO and DOD were not only separate entities, but located inside different directorates. Therefore, Tracy Barnes, it would appear, was not J. Walton Moores boss. Here are the charts I have used to come to this conclusion:

FROM: "Inside The Company: CIA Diary" by Philip Agee

FROM: "Inside The Company: CIA Diary" by Philip Agee

I presume the "Division D" mentioned in the above two diagrams refers to "Staff D". 

FROM: "The CIA And The Cult Of Intelligence" by Victor Marchetti. This diagram however does not appear to have any date on it. 

9 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Bob, the best guess I can make from the 1964 chart is that Barnes would have been moved under DDI....to keep him away from DDP for one thing,  I'd love to see the charts that go under Office of Operations and Office of Basic Intelligence.

 

Same here. I would like to know who J. Walton Moores superiors were. As far as i understand it, he would have had a boss at the Dallas CIA field station, and then there would have been an individual at CIA HQ overseeing the whole of the Office of Operations. With regard to the Office of Basic Intelligence, the only chart i could come up with as being underneath that is this chart:

FROM: "Inside The Company: CIA Diary" by Philip Agee

I guess the issue that i'm pondering on here is how did the debriefing report on LHO, which apparently J Walton Moore got GDM to provide, get from the Directorate of Intelligence over to the SIG office, in the Counterintelligence Department which was located in the Directorate of Plans. I'm talking about the "Andy Anderson OO on Oswald" document. John Newman, in 1993, spoke about this document in the SIG office:

"In addition, a memo from James Angleton's CIA mole hunting unit, the CI/SIG, which stands for Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group, has surfaced in these files with handwriting on it which gives the name of a CIA Domestic Contact division employee - a name which appears to be one "Andy" Anderson - as a CIA contact for Harvey Oswald. This document, which, like the SR 6 document, was in a "soft file," meaning it was not in the original Oswald 201 file, confirms the recollections of other Clandestine Services employees that Andy Anderson did in fact debrief Oswald. Don Deneselya, who worked in the Russian Branch, Foreign Documents Division, Office of Contacts [OO/FDD, USSR] read Anderson's debrief in 1962. The very branch chief in the Domestic Contacts Division who would have overseen incoming debriefs like Anderson's confirms that his branch recovered the debriefing from the field office that had it."

SOURCE: Excerpted from John Newman's testimony to Rep. Conyer's oversight committee on November 17, 1993 and originally reprinted in the Coalition On Political Assassinations newsletter, Open Secrets, Vol. #1, August, 1994.

Its quiet easy to see how the Oswald debrief, which was generated by OO (Office of Operations) got to Deselyna as Deselyna was also in OO. It was all the one office. But how did the debrief then get over to SIG which was located in a completely different directorate. According to John Newman, it does not appear the debrief went into Oswalds 201 file and SIG simply then got the debrief from the 201 file. Perhaps the Oswald debrief was sent over to Oswalds file in the Office of Security and Angeltons team simply retrieved it from there. 

By the way, does anyone have a link to the "Andy Anderson OO on Oswald" document? I'd like to see what date is on that document. 

From what i understand, the notation "Andy Anderson OO on Oswald" is handwritten on a document that has nothing to do with Oswald or a debrief, that someone possibly in SIG, made a handwritten note about Oswald on a document that had nothing to do with Oswald and this is how the CIA inadvertently released the document to the public.

[Larry Hancock]

Doesn't look like a newbie post to me Gerry..   Unfortunately I've gotten to the point where unless I can see some documents with routing and sign off information on them I am uncomfortable with reaching conclusions.   As I posted above I suspect in 63 Domestic Contacts and not under Barnes but indeed under DDI.  Given Barnes problems after the Bay of Pigs its sort of hard to see him remaining under DDP but possible I suppose - certainly if Domestic Ops is the way I envision it then it would be supporting field operations overseas so that would make some sense.  In that event moving him inside DDP would not really have been a demotion, just getting him out of the spotlight.

In reference to Moore and debriefing Oswald via De Mohrenschildt keep in mind that De Mohrenschildt's first visit to Oswald was some time after his return, Oswald had already made Russian community contacts and been introduced to a number of folks in the Fort Worth community before De Mohrenschildt visited him - and Oswald's manuscript had already typed well before that time.

[Greg Doudna]

47 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

In reference to Moore and debriefing Oswald via De Mohrenschildt keep in mind that De Mohrenschildt's first visit to Oswald was some time after his return, Oswald had already made Russian community contacts and been introduced to a number of folks in the Fort Worth community before De Mohrenschildt visited him - and Oswald's manuscript had already typed well before that time.

But that is based on de Mohrenschildt's sayso, which is not always consistent, and uncorroborated? Maybe the assumption of the delay ("some time after [Oswald's] return") should be questioned, in the timeline? Isn't there something about de Mohrenschildt having been involved in assisting, or encouraging, or something, Oswald with that manuscript, which could suggest earlier contact between de Mohrenschildt and Oswald (after his return to Fort Worth) than is often assumed? I am going from memory, no time to dig into the details at this moment but I recall something along this line, in which de Mohrenschildt here, as in other instances, might be off on his timeline, whether by mistake or for a reason. And logically, somehow de Mohrenschildt seems like part of the expected CIA "debriefing" of Oswald (in the form of Oswald's manuscript?) which would happen soon, as in essentially immediately, after Oswald's return, rather than the significant delay before first contact with de Mohrenschildt as often supposed? I suppose the alternative is someone else was handling Oswald's "debriefing" immediately other than de Mohrenschildt, but de Mohrenschildt seems like an obvious non-asset asset (deniability?), in light of the Minsk connection coincidence, to have involved with Oswald? 

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

In reference to Moore and debriefing Oswald via De Mohrenschildt keep in mind that De Mohrenschildt's first visit to Oswald was some time after his return, Oswald had already made Russian community contacts and been introduced to a number of folks in the Fort Worth community before De Mohrenschildt visited him - and Oswald's manuscript had already typed well before that time.

 

14 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

But that is based on de Mohrenschildt's sayso, which is not always consistent, and uncorroborated? Maybe the assumption of the delay ("some time after [Oswald's] return") should be questioned, in the timeline? Isn't there something about de Mohrenschildt having been involved in assisting, or encouraging, or something, Oswald with that manuscript, which could suggest earlier contact between de Mohrenschildt and Oswald (after his return to Fort Worth) than is often assumed? I am going from memory, no time to dig into the details at this moment but I recall something along this line, in which de Mohrenschildt here, as in other instances, might be off on his timeline, whether by mistake or for a reason. And logically, somehow de Mohrenschildt seems like part of the expected CIA "debriefing" of Oswald (in the form of Oswald's manuscript?) which would happen soon, as in essentially immediately, after Oswald's return, rather than the significant delay before first contact with de Mohrenschildt as often supposed? I suppose the alternative is someone else was handling Oswald's "debriefing" immediately other than de Mohrenschildt, but de Mohrenschildt seems like an obvious non-asset asset (deniability?), in light of the Minsk connection coincidence, to have involved with Oswald? 

I started a new thread on this very topic to prevent hijacking this thread which is more about Tracy Barnes and the DOD. Here is the new thread:

[Larry Hancock]

I'd like to thanks everyone on this thread - from Robert starting it through all the exchanges to David's eventually coming up with a document that is truly revealing as to the evolution of CIA Domestic operations - it makes me wish I could magically edit my books retroactively in real time and add or correct things, but at least I can still blog on Domestic Operations.  And I think it really opens a window to the fact that a lot more historical research should be done on Domestic Operations in the sixties than has been done in the past:

https://wordpress.com/post/larryhancock.wordpress.com/1836