AI finds CIA documents about George Bush CIA Operative

[David Josephs]

@Larry Hancock

Thank you...  "former" military though? 

As I read the docs he never left the military...  Isn't that what Newman is looking to prove with Veciana?

 

[Larry Hancock]

It gets complex when people are allowed to stay in their service as a cover....Morales held an Army cover for a long while....ditto State, ditto USAID as compared to when they are simply "detailed" to the CIA as Lansdale was so his promotions and pay came from the Air Force.  The simple answer is who was cutting their check at a given point in time i.e. who was their legal federal employer.  You would have to find who signed off on their promotions, their pay, their retirement... but the reality would always be who was giving them their day to day tasking.  Vietnam was especially difficult in that since the Ambassador was nominally in charge, same for Laos. 

Lots of military in SE Asia were detailed to the CIA for orders and tasking while still paid by their service, that was especially true for pilots early in Vietnam and in Laos or Cambodia later.

[Benjamin Cole]

On 7/15/2023 at 7:07 PM, David Josephs said:

@Benjamin Cole @Michael Griffith

Mostly for Ben who enjoys seeing the docs

 

Thanks DJ-

 

Yes, that mention of George Bush always rates a chuckle. 

Of course, the CIA HQ is named after George Bush, and he was was director fo the agency for a while. 

My totally speculative guess is Bush Sr. was connected to the CIA going way back, to the 1950s. The memo says Mr. George Bush of the CIA, but maybe Bush was merely representing the CIA in a meeting. 

Some say Bush was running CIA-type ops during the Reagan presidency. 

[David Josephs]

19 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Thanks DJ-

 

Yes, that mention of George Bush always rates a chuckle. 

Of course, the CIA HQ is named after George Bush, and he was was director fo the agency for a while. 

My totally speculative guess is Bush Sr. was connected to the CIA going way back, to the 1950s. The memo says Mr. George Bush of the CIA, but maybe Bush was merely representing the CIA in a meeting. 

Some say Bush was running CIA-type ops during the Reagan presidency. 

I have no doubt getting GW in as his VP almost sealed his fate.  An ex Intelligence agency Director running a major world power?   

And of course there is Prescott Bush, his dad, which is where I'd bet these relationships began.

Take care

[Gerry Down]

On 7/15/2023 at 5:18 PM, Larry Hancock said:

As an example the MIG's were tasked with monitoring travel to and from Cuba as well as both pro and anti Castro activities and they reported on that to other agencies and in turn were copied by other agencies.  A 112th officer in NO picked up a leaflet from Oswald's first outing, made a report, it got into a file and the FBI and others were copied.  In turn the FBi returned the favor and an Oswald file resulted at the 112th HQ....which is why on Nov. 22 when an officer heard the name Oswald he could pull a file on it, find the name Hidell (from the FBI) and advise DPD of that.  We have all that correspondence on the record, no mystery.

Nobody apparently reads the intelligence community books I post on - yes they are expensive - to see how things are set up to work - so you can look for exceptions which would be suspect.  Painting with such a broad brush in terms of Army intelligence (with many levels under many commands) or the JCS (with many staffs but no direct command authority) here is really as bad as just talking about the Mafia, which used to the the suspect community of choice.

You made two points here:

Point #1: Its interesting that the FBI told the 112th (after the 112th had first contacted the FBI about the Wharf incident) that Hidell was Oswalds alias. I wonder how this plays in with the issue of Oswald being DeBrueys informant. Oswald told Quigley that Hidell was a real person, and in Hostys book Hosty says that when DeBrueys called up to Dallas after the assassination that DeBrueys was unsure if Hidell was a real person and it was not until he went through Oswalds belongings with Hosty that DeBrueys realized he knew for sure that Hidell was Oswalds alias, and according to Hosty DeBrueys let out a sigh of relief in realizing that Hidell was not a real person. Considering this, i wonder how the FBI were able to tell the 112th before the assassination that Hidell was Oswalds alias. Perhaps the FBI simply informed the 112th that Hidell was a possible alias of Oswalds. Do you have a handy link to the correspondence between the FBI and 112th regarding Oswald before the assassination? Would that be in the various Gemberling reports here: https://archive.org/download/JFKAssassinationFBI ?

Point #2: Have you considered starting a thread on your top 5 or even top 10 intelligence community books? Alot of posters on here would find that helpful. Recently you recommended three such books and why you were recommending them: 

• Understanding Special Operations by Fletcher Prouty: You said you always made use of Prouty's book on Understanding Special Operations,  it was an early educational text for you.   And he along with a handful of former CIA operations officers were key in disclosing the details of how the CIA's covert operations infrastructure worked - or often didn't.  
• The US Intelligence Community by Jeffry Richelson: You said this book is good to look at the current position of the CIA in the context of the whole intelligence community. Conversations about the position of the various agencies and their influence really need this sort of concrete reference to be credible.  It gives a summary of the whole community - which post 9/11 is huge - it explores each group in terms of its org chart, divisions, functions and tasking so its immense.  You can't get a full feel for the relative role the CIA plays in the whole apparatus these days without comparing it to the whole apparatus. 
• The Secret War Against Hanoi by Richard Shultz: You said this was a good source on who was doing what when in terms of covert operations in Vietnam and also contained some useful overview information on stay back teams and infiltration/guerilla warfare efforts in Europe following WWII.

With so many books out there, it would be useful to know what books you consider to be the best especially for someone studying the JFK assassination. 

[Larry Hancock]

On point 1, unfortunately all my research on the 112th was from paper documents directly from NARA.  I supplied them all to JFK Lancer and we put them on a CD - The Research of Larry Hancock.  The CD was available for years, the documents stayed with Lancer and no doubt are lost at this point, a victim of Debra's moves and medical problems.   Gabriella has committed to putting the CD on memory sticks and making it available at the upcoming conference and offering it for sale.  I hope that happens as I no longer have a Laptop that will even read my own single copy.

On Point 2, as to other book recommendations specifically on the assassination, I would recommend the following as they largely shaped my views on why the crime scene and autopsy evidence could not be trusted and led me to go off on my own "backdoor" approach that  you find in my books.

William Law   In the Eye of History

Ian Griggs  No Case to Answer

Douglas Horne Volume 5 on the medical evidence

Sherry Fiester Enemy of the Truth

Beyond that I recommend much broader reading, outside the JFK genre, in the history of the period and in regard to the CIA on various books related to covert operations which I cite in my books Shadow Warfare, Creating Chaos and In Denial.  Better yet the documents I give links for in all those books.

  -- that's about the best I can offer.

 

[Gerry Down]

Hopefully everything that is for sale at the Lancer conference will also be for sale on the Lancer website for those who cant make the conference. "The Research of Larry Hancock" sounds like a must!

Thanks for those recommendations. I have yet to read the Sherry Fiester book, but from watching her interviews online, it sounds like a book that would help dispel alot of myths surrounding the head shot in particular. 

[Gerry Down]

On 7/15/2023 at 10:13 PM, Larry Hancock said:

The first answer is easy,  Chief of Station/CIA was John Richardson during 62/63,  nominally he would have reported to the Hemisphere Director for the CIA whose name escapes me at the moment, who then reported to the CIA Director John McCone and as usual the Deputy Directory acting for the Director.

I'm surprised by this chain of command. Have you left out the Deputy Director of Plans? I thought the chain of command (ie who reports directly to whom above them) would have been as follows:

• Director of CIA
• Deputy Director of Plans
• Chief of the Far East Division
• COS Saigon - John Richardson

[Larry Hancock]

Its hard to tell about the Lancer web site,  especially the sales side.  The reason it has been down for two years is that it was badly hacked multiple times.   I hope Gabriella is able to get it back up and keep it up but that's going to entail a major effort on her part. 

[Larry Hancock]

There is the official chain of command as you describe and the real life chain which is often real time with higher echelons being advised after the fact but not operationally involved.....as far as I can tell in regard to SE Asia, a great many decisions were made and implemented without much chain of command oversight, even on the military side - especially in regard to operations  in Laos.  And of course in Viet Nam Johnson himself often jumped the whole military chain of command, forcing himself into tactical decisions like the selection of bombing targets.  

I'd be way out of my depth to try and describe the real world, woefully entangled chain of command between CIA, State and MACV in Vietnam, in cross border operations in Laos....

 

[Gerry Down]

14 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

There is the official chain of command as you describe and the real life chain which is often real time with higher echelons being advised after the fact but not operationally involved.....as far as I can tell in regard to SE Asia, a great many decisions were made and implemented without much chain of command oversight, even on the military side - especially in regard to operations  in Laos.  And of course in Viet Nam Johnson himself often jumped the whole military chain of command, forcing himself into tactical decisions like the selection of bombing targets.  

I'd be way out of my depth to try and describe the real world, woefully entangled chain of command between CIA, State and MACV in Vietnam, in cross border operations in Laos....

 

Thanks for that clarification, the kind of detail that takes many years of research to see.