Larry Hancock and David Attlee Phillips

[Eddy Bainbridge]

In my view, to establish the following statement as fact is a very high bar : ' Oswald travelled alone to Mexico City by bus to meet Kostikov, the 'wet ops' Russian Agent'. Every part of that statement is unsound. 

I used the statement to crystallise my thoughts. Phillips is highly likely to have used Oswald as part of the pressure campaign on Kennedy to change the policy on Cuba. Larry Hancock has led me to consider Phillip's motives :

Kennedy was in a position to lead his nation. The right would have relished an invasion and the left would have broadly trusted Kennedy. JFK was the ideal leader to mount the invasion. Phillips may have aimed for that result. His hatred of Kennedy may have been akin to Tucker Carlson's for Trump.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Following my previous post: 

Phillips may have stated that he believed Oswald made a 'mistake'. I have never come up with a view of what he may have meant until Larry Hancock's valuable recent words and his book Nexus.

Was Phillips meaning Oswald made a mistake in associating himself (witting or unwitting) with the assassination plot? The plot being separate from Philip's propaganda op.

[Mervyn Hagger]

I just came across this clipping that I put on Facebook several years ago ....

[Larry Hancock]

This would have had nothing to do with AMWORLD, none of these people were involved with it.  When you look at the names this is a pretty classic mix of what I call "outsiders" in SWHT.  All these groups were being highly frustrated by the Kennedy administration orders to shut down Cuban exile operations from the US and were frequently issuing radical statements during 1963, the CRC began it and then effectively folded and individual groups carried on the dialog and claims.

At this time Commandos Mambisis was becoming active in raids against Cuba in missions run by JMWAVE and approved by SAS/Fitzgerald - using the Rex and LEDA motherships.

AMWORLD was just beginning to recruit and bring on personnel and start buying what it was going to need for offshore missions, it did not begin those for another six months.

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 8/28/2023 at 5:29 AM, Mervyn Hagger said:

I just came across this clipping that I put on Facebook several years ago ....

Mervyn,

Do you have any idea who "Armando Fleites, Miami, secretary general of the Second Front of Escambray" was?

I never heard of him, but apparently, he got his info about a late 1963 invasion of Cuba from somebody in Washington. Where else could he have received a high-level assurance that such an invasion was imminent?

The source for "Armando Fleites" may well have been a conduit for the assassination sponsors.

 

[Mervyn Hagger]

13 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Mervyn,

Do you have any idea who "Armando Fleites, Miami, secretary general of the Second Front of Escambray" was?

I never heard of him, but apparently, he got his info about a late 1963 invasion of Cuba from somebody in Washington. Where else could he have received a high-level assurance that such an invasion was imminent?

The source for "Armando Fleites" may well have been a conduit for the assassination sponsors.

 

Ask Larry

[Larry Hancock]

Well since I got an introduction, Fleites was with the SNFE as far back as inside Cuba, a Menoyo group that for a time later joined in operations with Alpha 66.  But by 1963 Alpha 66 and DRE as well as the other exile groups were under extreme pressure from the FBI, INS and even military intelligence.  Only JURE was in a position to launch attacks and that was from a base in the Caribbean.  All these groups other than DRE were what I call "outsiders" in SWHT.  There were getting no funds, weapons buys dried  up, operations ceased and they had become frustrated and outspoken. 

Only DRE was still in the mix with CIA and competing for support with Artime's new project - but everybody from Alpha 66 to DRE was desperate for money and talking about new attacks on Cuba to support the fund raising. 

At the same time Artime was talking to one and all in the US and Central America claiming US support (that was driving the CIA nuts) for new attacks on Cuba. The reason I go though all the above is that you would pick up rumors for new attacks throughout the Cuban community, some real based in the new Artime project, some being touted for fund raising, especially DRE and JURE and some just wishful thinking. 

The talk about new attacks on Cuba, with or without the US was all over the place and I relate a good deal of it in SWHT.   Given that, the fact that Fleites would make such remarks does not reflect any special insider information (especially since no major US military operation was in the plans, only small scale deniable actions with Artime by 1964 and down the road with the CIA's Commando Mambieses being replaced by US covert military action).

So my short answer should have been, no he was not in a position to know anything special, he was just channeling Cuban exile community gossip.

 

[Mervyn Hagger]

Thanks Larry for taking the time to explain all that!