Larry Hancock Says Likely LHO Not State Asset

[Benjamin Cole]

One of the brightest stars in the JFKA research community constellation is Larry Hancock, and one who is also very circumspect.

In this video, Hancock presents LHO as not a CIA or intel-state asset, but rather someone who could be used, even as they entirely followed their own agendas. 

I have some reservations about this view of LHO.

1. Tennent Bagley, a high CIA veteran and counter-intel guy, told Malcolm Blunt, in an unrecorded interview, that he (Bagley) thought LHO was a "witting asset." 

2. LHO's trip through Helsinki to the Soviet Union, and his conversations in the Embassy there, and his staged "suicide" attempt...strike me as someone who is getting coaching---and this was all the pre-internet era. Today one might easily "learn the ropes" on an infinite range of topics by researching online, but not back then. How did LHO learn about this unusual way into Russia? 

3. LHO's return to the US seems to have had the the skids greased. Obviously, the US government could have, probably legitimately, thrown LHO into prison. My guess is for a while LHO was going to be touted as someone, in a state-PR program, "who tells the truth about the Soviet Union, and had his eyes opened there."  That idea either wilted, or LHO came to be viewed as a little too unconventional and unpredictable. 

4. LHO seems to have been frequently impersonated, in the US and in Mexico. Was this counter-intel work? LHO knew he was helping on a mole-hunt? 

5. The whole trip to New Orleans, and the mysterious darked records of Joannides, and LHO embedding in Guy Banister's office---again, is this really something a 24-year-old guy does on his own? Why? 

6. The Mexico City trip again looked arranged, largely for the purpose of having LHO meet Kostikov, which I believe he did. LHO's meeting with Kostikov, on a Saturday, sure looked like something the CIA arranged (in part by intentionally "leaking" curated info on LHO to the Russians, that piqued their curiosity). Why would LHO go back to the Russian Embassy on a Saturday? Why would Kostikov meet with a wayward tourist on a Saturday? 

7. LHO's murder. Why murder LHO? If LHO was really not connected to US intel, then LHO had little to reveal. 

8. LHO's involvement in the JFKA. LHO was invisible when shots rang on 11/22.  Either he was in fact on TSBD6, or ensconced somewhere else, out of view (LHO had an interest in politics, JFK and photography. One would expect LHO to try to take some pictures of JFK, down on the street or other vantage point).  LHO appears to have immediately figured out he was the patsy post-JFKA, and went home for his revolver. This implies LHO was coordinating with someone pre-JFKA. 

That is not to say anyone has proof that LHO was a CIA or state-intel asset. Larry Hancock is always worth listening to:

 

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Reasonable questions Ben, and ones that have been around for decades now. They were there when I started researching and writing and formed many of my earliest thoughts about Oswald - several of which have evolved and changed with time and with more information. What they are now - and why - will be explored in a forthcoming book by David Boylan and myself, The Oswald Puzzle.  As it turned out nothing short of a book was sufficient to deal with those and many other questions about Oswald.

And given the work that is still going into that book I'll be reserving further comments until it is available.

 

[Kevin Balch]

3. LHO's return to the US seems to have had the the skids greased. Obviously, the US government could have, probably legitimately, thrown LHO into prison. My guess is for a while LHO was going to be touted as someone, in a state-PR program, "who tells the truth about the Soviet Union, and had his eyes opened there."  That idea either wilted, or LHO came to be viewed as a little too unconventional and unpredictable.

I have wondered about this myself. Or used to infiltrate left-wing groups as someone with “street creds” Seems like the FBI was more interested in Marina.

4. LHO seems to have been frequently impersonated, in the US and in Mexico. Was this counter-intel work? LHO knew he was helping on a mole-hunt?

Oswald was reportedly upset when asked about Mexico City. If LHO was on some kind of CIA operation, would they have let the FBI  spill the beans on it? How did Oswald’s presence in Mexico City first come to the attention of the FBI?

7. LHO's murder. Why murder LHO? If LHO was really not connected to US intel, then LHO had little to reveal.

Assuming it was just not a case of Ruby “snapping”, it was a high risk operation. Had to have been a contingency plan. It need not mean that LHO was connected to US intel. The timing of the Western Union telegram and leaving the dog in the car were good touches.

8. LHO's involvement in the JFKA. LHO was invisible when shots rang on 11/22.  Either he was in fact on TSBD6, or ensconced somewhere else, out of view (LHO had an interest in politics, JFK and photography. One would expect LHO to try to take some pictures of JFK, down on the street or other vantage point).  LHO appears to have immediately figured out he was the patsy post-JFKA, and went home for his revolver. This implies LHO was coordinating with someone pre-JFKA. 

Oswald’s role could have been to facilitate the entrance and escape  of a shooter into the TSBD. And then to leave the building soon after to draw attention to himself but the DPD only broadcast that Charles Givens was missing. If Oswald was “Prayerman” it could have been deliberate and intended to provide an alibi either by witnesses or a planted photographer in the crowd should Oswald get captured and come to trial.

[David Andrews]

When you look at LHO's peregrinations and actions after the return to America, they resemble the movements of someone who's being told he has to work something off, some debt or misdeed.  Probably his precocious pro-Soviet stance in the military earned him the opportunity to become an intelligence-trained false defector, but the desire to defect was his original sin, and after his return the threat of prosecution was held over his head.  Every move he made thereafter inculpated him as a dangerous influence in America, regardless the reasons given to him for making those moves.

Is that what he tried to outflank when he sought Honorable Discharge status?  Maybe the dates of LHO's efforts and letters there hold a key to understanding the forces pressuring him to play Lefty Lee the Marxist, right to the end.

Was the FPCC a CIA front, an intellectuals' honey trap?  Then LHO'= was a state asset.  However, a "witting" (Bagley) intelligence-trained former false defector could be diverted from there into a "rogue" plot.

If we could definitely associate him with Clay Shaw, is he an asset or a patsy? 

Larry, are you saying that, returned to America, LHO was never an asset, but only made to feel that he was one, and getting paid for it, so that at the end of the long game he could be set up?  It seems that the chicanery with his CIA files, and a part of the later cover-up, were meant to conceal his asset status.

Edited May 20 by David Andrews

[Matt Cloud]

I'd like to introduce the thought that the "Oswald Project" -- I'd prefer to refrain from speaking of Oswald as a distinct individual, because in so many cases he is not -- is being run by persons both within and above intelligence organizations, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.  A short list of such persons would include, on this side, Leo Cherne, A. Harriman, Prescott and George H.W. Bush, Robert Macy, possibly Allen Dulles, Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott, perhaps certain Whiz Kids at RAND (e.g. Harold Brown, Paul Kecskemeti -- albeit no kid by then), maybe Roswell Gilpatric.  The other side is more difficult, but I would include KGB-head Shelepin, Oleg Kalugin, Alexander Yakovlev.  

The Oswald Project seems to be being run for the purposes of having the Oswald character take the blame for various Cold War "intelligence losses" up to that point, most specifically probably, the loss of U-2 plans.

Edited May 19 by Matt Cloud

[Larry Hancock]

David, and everyone else actually, what I have learned over the years and continue to learn is that I can't really tackle all the questions and views that have developed over sixty plus hears in 'sound byte' type posts...nor in interviews for that matter.  Discussing any topic which has evolved though decades and eras of information and writing - with some things highly mysterious and suspect at first but explained and demystified with more information - just gets any particular remark I would make entangled by what has gone before.

And in this instance, where the historical record regarding Oswald and the assassination has been intentionally obfuscated and in some cases filled with outright lies, its even worse.  Including the fact that in many cases positions have been taken on what people wrote or presumed about Oswald, not what he said and equally importantly wrote for himself.

We have learned a huge amount about CIA operations and practices since I started writing around 2000, some of the most key information only surfacing in the last five to eight  years. The same can be said about the operations of FBI field offices - much of which Stu and I learned in a different venue, working on the MLK assassination.  My view now is that context, continuity and consistency in regard to Oswald himself are critical to evaluating what Oswald did from his school years on.

Beyond that his activities beyond New Orleans were seriously affected by people he came in contact with there, people who misrepresented themselves and played to his personal goals (and ego). We have only really come to understand who those people were in the last five years or so.

In short, its a view of Oswald that developed for me only in the past two to three years once I decided to commit to focusing entirely on him, not Dealey Plaza, not the shooting scenario, not the cover up etc.  Just on Oswald.  It may be wrong, it may be right or just partially right.  But its a deep enough story to require a book and the book will without doubt be contrarian. 

Well not totally contrarian, Oswald did not kill JFK, he was manipulated, and the most shocking part might that it was done in a manner that if he had lived and told everything he knew it might have made no difference in the end.  Of course that is how 'true deniability works'. 

 

 

[Paul Cummings]

It's easy to forget LHO was 24 years old before Ruby silenced him. 

Edited May 19 by Paul Cummings

[Robert Morrow]

Very early on, Oswald's mother said he was CIA; he was a fake defector to the USSR; nothing legit about his background says he was a communist.

CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton kept very tight control on Oswald's CIA file.

THEREFORE, It is extremely likely that Oswald, who wanted to be just like Herbert Philbrick, was a low-level manipulated CIA asset.

And because Oswald was from the Marines, the odds are high he was an ONI asset as well.

And based on his New Orleans activities with former Chicago FBI special agent in charge Guy Banister, it is very likely Oswald was an FBI informer or FBI asset too when he got back to the USA.

The one thing Oswald was NOT, was a pro-Castro Marxist which is what he pretended to be.

Nor did Oswald shoot JFK or anyone else on 11/22/1963. Oswald was a pre-selected patsy for the JFK assassination:

https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/5-feet-10-inches-165-pounds-is-absolute.html  Dallas Police Dispatcher was immediately using Marguerite Oswald’s description of Lee given to Dallas FBI in May, 1960

[Oh I forgot to add to this post that the Dallas CIA chief J. Walton Moore asked George DeMohrenschildt to check on Oswald. This is another good sign that Oswald was low level CIA]

 

 

Edited May 20 by Robert Morrow

[Paul Brancato]

The question I hope Larry can answer is which individuals chose him as the Dealey Plaza patsy. 

[Denny Zartman]

In my view, the 1960 Hoover memo proves something was up with Oswald's identity long before it could have had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

I also believe James Wilcott's story of a so-called Oswald Project, and that this project involved Oswald's identity and espionage.

Why would a government agency want something like an Oswald Project? To create confusion. Look at us now, more than half a century later: still confused and still trying to untangle the mystery of who this guy really was - despite the fact that he was merely 24 years old and one of the single most researched individuals in history.

CIA connected Ruth Paine got Oswald his job at the TSBD.

CIA connected George de Mohrenschildt - Oswald's only friend despite their pronounced differences in age, social status, and political views - got Oswald to move to Dallas and introduced him to Ruth Paine.

I don't know the contents of the book, obviously. But imho, to argue this was all coincidence will be a tall order.

 

[Matt Cloud]

2 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

In my view, the 1960 Hoover memo proves something was up with Oswald's identity long before it could have had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

I also believe James Wilcott's story of a so-called Oswald Project, and that this project involved Oswald's identity and espionage.

Why would a government agency want something like an Oswald Project? To create confusion. Look at us now, more than half a century later: still confused and still trying to untangle the mystery of who this guy really was - despite the fact that he was merely 24 years old and one of the single most researched individuals in history.

CIA connected Ruth Paine got Oswald his job at the TSBD.

CIA connected George de Mohrenschildt - Oswald's only friend despite their pronounced differences in age, social status, and political views - got Oswald to move to Dallas and introduced him to Ruth Paine.

I don't know the contents of the book, obviously. But imho, to argue this was all coincidence will be a tall order.

 

I'll go a step further.  The purpose of the Oswald Project was an insurance policy, long in the making, against counter-intelligence exposure of The Big Mole -- and the social and structural re-alignment of American politics so associated.  Indeed, the entire rationale behind the assassination and its intended obfuscation to hide this political re-alignment and, if you like, infiltration, may have been designed, yes, some time before, even pre the 1960 election.  Many factors indicate this.  Once this is understood, or at least considered, many things start to make more sense.  

[Matt Allison]

This seems like a good time to remind folks that the intelligence officers that are considered masters of their craft, the real legends, pride themselves on getting people to do things so that it appears a person did a deed completely on their own volition, rather than at the behest of someone else with an ulterior motive.

Hiring or contracting someone to do something awful is for hacks; it's for buffoons that have no skill in the art of manipulating people.

Edit:

To clarify, since a 100% thorough investigation of the people LHO was in contact with was never done, and since he himself was taken out of the picture so soon after the assassination, this subject is as close to unsolvable as something can get.

Edited May 20 by Matt Allison

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Reasonable questions Ben, and ones that have been around for decades now. They were there when I started researching and writing and formed many of my earliest thoughts about Oswald - several of which have evolved and changed with time and with more information. What they are now - and why - will be explored in a forthcoming book by David Boylan and myself, The Oswald Puzzle.  As it turned out nothing short of a book was sufficient to deal with those and many other questions about Oswald.

And given the work that is still going into that book I'll be reserving further comments until it is available.

 

Fair enough. I always enjoy all your work, even when I have a different take, and I look forward to your book. 

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks - and of course different takes are fine, this time I (and David) just happen to be the one(s) bringing them to the party.

Edited May 20 by Larry Hancock

[Sandy Larsen]

7 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Oswald did not kill JFK, he was manipulated...

 

Oswald was indeed manipulated.

The assassination plotters manipulated Oswald into taking the role of patsy. Somehow they got him to take a job at the TSBD. Not only that, but the plotters manipulated Ruth Paine into facilitating Oswald into taking that job.

What kind of plotters could possibly have this kind of power over people? The only people I can think of are CIA officers who have operations going.

Larry, I fear that you don't place enough importance on circumstantial evidence. There's a ton of circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that Oswald was a CIA operative. Just look at all those goings on in Mexico City by... NOT Oswald, but by Oswald impersonators! What was that all about?? The evidence points to it being an operation designed to have the assassination blamed on Cuba and Russia. Along with Oswald.

This is a resolved issue IMO.