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Bernard Barker on the grassy knoll?


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I read on the Spartacus site the bio of Bernard Barker where it says that Seymour Weitzman had identified him as one of the people identifying themselves as SS agents on the grassy knoll. I was very interested by this but was wondering where you got that info from John as I have not heard it before.

Is there much else known about Barker in relation to the JFK case? Doing an internet search seem to mainly bring up stuff about Watergate which I know he is more famous for being involved in.

Anyone know his whereabouts now? I never saw a date of death listed anywhere so I presume he is still alive?

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I read on the Spartacus site the bio of Bernard Barker where it says that Seymour Weitzman had identified him as one of the people identifying themselves as SS agents on the grassy knoll. I was very interested by this but was wondering where you got that info from John as I have not heard it before.

See the following from Ron Ecker's website:

http://www.hobrad.com/acregree.htm

Then there's Seymour Weitzman, a county deputy constable, who also looked around behind the Grassy Knoll fence right after the shooting. 14 Researcher Michael Canfield visited Seymour years later--this was after Watergate--in a VA hospital (Seymour was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia), to try to find out who that Secret Service imposter on the Grassy Knoll was. When Canfield showed Seymour a photo of E. Howard Hunt's fellow Watergate burglar Bernard Barker, the schizoid patient said, "That's him." 15 (Wait a minute! Was Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon in Dallas too that day? As a matter of fact, he was--representing Pepsi at a bottlers convention. 16 Ha, ha, ha! I'll bet they used Pepsi bottles for target practice. He left town, though, before the shooting, which was just as well, since Nixon couldn't shoot straight anyway.)

14. Warren Commission, 1964, VII:105-109.

15. Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, Coup D'etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (San Francisco: Quick American Archives, 1992), pp. 55-57; for Seymour's version of this episode, see HSCA Document 180-10088-10083.

16. Dallas Morning News, November 22, 1963, section 4, page 1.

Anyone know his whereabouts now? I never saw a date of death listed anywhere so I presume he is still alive?

He still works in the Real Estate business in Miami where he keeps an eye on old colleagues from Operation 40.

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This was from an interview conducted by either Weberman or Canfield when Weitzman

was in a rest home/sanitarium ...several years after the assassination.

Weitzman refused to sign a statement to the effect and later others interviewed one

of his Doctors who said that he had been terribly stressed by the interview and

willing to say virtually anything to get the interviewer satisfied and to leave.

One of those things that is just what you want to hear...and then starts to fall apart.

-- Larry

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See the following from Ron Ecker's website:

http://www.hobrad.com/acregree.htm

Then there's Seymour Weitzman, a county deputy constable, who also looked around behind the Grassy Knoll fence right after the shooting. 14 Researcher Michael Canfield visited Seymour years later--this was after Watergate--in a VA hospital (Seymour was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia), to try to find out who that Secret Service imposter on the Grassy Knoll was. When Canfield showed Seymour a photo of E. Howard Hunt's fellow Watergate burglar Bernard Barker, the schizoid patient said, "That's him." 15 (Wait a minute! Was Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon in Dallas too that day? As a matter of fact, he was--representing Pepsi at a bottlers convention. 16 Ha, ha, ha! I'll bet they used Pepsi bottles for target practice. He left town, though, before the shooting, which was just as well, since Nixon couldn't shoot straight anyway.)

14. Warren Commission, 1964, VII:105-109.

15. Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, Coup D'etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (San Francisco: Quick American Archives, 1992), pp. 55-57; for Seymour's version of this episode, see HSCA Document 180-10088-10083.

16. Dallas Morning News, November 22, 1963, section 4, page 1.

Thanks for the info John. Interesting indeed! The very fact he was mixed up with Hunt, just raises my suspicions somehow!

Anyone know his whereabouts now? I never saw a date of death listed anywhere so I presume he is still alive?

He still works in the Real Estate business in Miami where he keeps an eye on old colleagues from Operation 40.

Oh right - he must be about 90/91 by now? Must be one of the oldest survivors connected to all this. Do you know if he has ever spoken to any researchers?

This was from an interview conducted by either Weberman or Canfield when Weitzman

was in a rest home/sanitarium ...several years after the assassination.

Weitzman refused to sign a statement to the effect and later others interviewed one

of his Doctors who said that he had been terribly stressed by the interview and

willing to say virtually anything to get the interviewer satisfied and to leave.

One of those things that is just what you want to hear...and then starts to fall apart.

-- Larry

Hi Larry,

thanks for the info, wasn't aware of it. I take it then that the story of Barker being one of the men on the knoll should be taken with a pinch of salt? But I wonder what prompted Canfield to show him Barker's photo in particular? Some kind of evidence or just a hunch?

Sad story about Weitzman, I didn't know he developed schizophrenia.

Do you believe Barker was involved in any way in the assassination?

And another thing that has always made mewonder, why does he and several of the other cubans (eg Lawrence Howard) have anglo saxon names? 'Bernard Barker' could hardly be considered to be cuban! Or did they change them?

Btw, I know I always pester you with this same question but any idea of a release date yet for your book? :-)

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Hi Francesca, well first I certainly would not write off Barker from being of interest. If nothing

else he was in the ideal position to circulate information among some truly suspicious

folks in 1963.

However that's a far cry from making him part of the tactical team in DP - unless you want

to posit that he was willing to take the fall as a Castro double agent in case he got caught.

Otherwise he would be pointing at some people in Miami that would not have been all

that happy coming under scrutiny.

I imagine his photo was being shown because of Weberman's focus on Howard

Hunt as being one of the three tramps and Barker having worked with Hunt prior

to the BOP.

On a side note, I ran across an interesting memo in which Morales remarks that

Barker had a real problem keeping anything confidential and was known to talk

about way too many things to too many people. Which doesn't seem to give him

the right credentials to be pulled into a serious conspiracy of serious people (and given

Hunt's reputation for poor tradecraft and his screw ups at Watergate, well Barker seems

more like a Hunt type than the sort of folks I belive put Dallas together).

Thanks for asking about the book, I'm deep in doing proffing of the publishers first layouts

and things are going resonably well. I'm still thinking that June availability is possible, the one

thing I can say is that the delay has given a bit more time to include brand new information from

archives document research.

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Hi Francesca, well first I certainly would not write off Barker from being of interest. If nothing

else he was in the ideal position to circulate information among some truly suspicious

folks in 1963.

However that's a far cry from making him part of the tactical team in DP - unless you want

to posit that he was willing to take the fall as a Castro double agent in case he got caught.

Otherwise he would be pointing at some people in Miami that would not have been all

that happy coming under scrutiny.

I imagine his photo was being shown because of Weberman's focus on Howard

Hunt as being one of the three tramps and Barker having worked with Hunt prior

to the BOP.

Hi Larry,

thanks for the clarification. I didn't know he had worked with Hunt before the BOP.

On a side note, I ran across an interesting memo in which Morales remarks that

Barker had a real problem keeping anything confidential and was known to talk

about way too many things to too many people. Which doesn't seem to give him

the right credentials to be pulled into a serious conspiracy of serious people (and given

Hunt's reputation for poor tradecraft and his screw ups at Watergate, well Barker seems

more like a Hunt type than the sort of folks I belive put Dallas together).

Interesting - so Morales was associated with Barker then? Will this memo be in your book?

Thanks for asking about the book, I'm deep in doing proffing of the publishers first layouts

and things are going resonably well. I'm still thinking that June availability is possible, the one

thing I can say is that the delay has given a bit more time to include brand new information from

archives document research.

Great news, June is not too far off! Look forward to reading the new research, do you know yet if the book will be sold on the UK amazon?

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Fancesca, I know that there are plans to make it available in the UK but I'm not sure

about Amazon/UK. I'll try to find out. It should have broader distribution than the

first edition, partially because the format for the second edition will be that of a standard

size and bound commecial book. That makes it far easier to ship overseas.

We will also be moving all the original and the new documents onto a WEB site, as

well as the new charts. That should make the reference documents much easier

to browse than on the CD and allows for easier update as well. I expect there

will be a variety of support material on the WEB site that simply won't fit

in the size constraints of the print book....the charts and some of the photo pages

just don't work well when you squeeze them onto a book page. So in reality it

gets to be two pieces of work, not just one.

In any event, both the book and WEB site will hopefully be available this summer.

-- Larry

Hi Francesca, well first I certainly would not write off Barker from being of interest. If nothing

else he was in the ideal position to circulate information among some truly suspicious

folks in 1963.

However that's a far cry from making him part of the tactical team in DP - unless you want

to posit that he was willing to take the fall as a Castro double agent in case he got caught.

Otherwise he would be pointing at some people in Miami that would not have been all

that happy coming under scrutiny.

I imagine his photo was being shown because of Weberman's focus on Howard

Hunt as being one of the three tramps and Barker having worked with Hunt prior

to the BOP.

Hi Larry,

thanks for the clarification. I didn't know he had worked with Hunt before the BOP.

On a side note, I ran across an interesting memo in which Morales remarks that

Barker had a real problem keeping anything confidential and was known to talk

about way too many things to too many people. Which doesn't seem to give him

the right credentials to be pulled into a serious conspiracy of serious people (and given

Hunt's reputation for poor tradecraft and his screw ups at Watergate, well Barker seems

more like a Hunt type than the sort of folks I belive put Dallas together).

Interesting - so Morales was associated with Barker then? Will this memo be in your book?

Thanks for asking about the book, I'm deep in doing proffing of the publishers first layouts

and things are going resonably well. I'm still thinking that June availability is possible, the one

thing I can say is that the delay has given a bit more time to include brand new information from

archives document research.

Great news, June is not too far off! Look forward to reading the new research, do you know yet if the book will be sold on the UK amazon?

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I think there is strong reason to believe that the all the watergate burglary operational figures had some role in Dallas. Howard Hunt could never shake these links, and neither could Frank Fiorini Sturgis, Bernard Barker and Eugenio Martinez are also circumstantially linked, there names come up in association with both Dallas and the Watergate.

Barker admitted to loudly hammering the hinges off the DNC offices while MCCord had signed in under a phony name in the Watergate...Barker Sturgis and Hunt, along with Liddy are so bizarre..............the Miami counter counter revolutionaries

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Fancesca, I know that there are plans to make it available in the UK but I'm not sure

about Amazon/UK. I'll try to find out. It should have broader distribution than the

first edition, partially because the format for the second edition will be that of a standard

size and bound commecial book. That makes it far easier to ship overseas.

We will also be moving all the original and the new documents onto a WEB site, as

well as the new charts. That should make the reference documents much easier

to browse than on the CD and allows for easier update as well. I expect there

will be a variety of support material on the WEB site that simply won't fit

in the size constraints of the print book....the charts and some of the photo pages

just don't work well when you squeeze them onto a book page. So in reality it

gets to be two pieces of work, not just one.

In any event, both the book and WEB site will hopefully be available this summer.

-- Larry

Thanks, the new website sounds brilliant. As a last resort I could always order the book from the US if it comes to it but it would be much less hassle if it was available in the UK!

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I think there is strong reason to believe that the all the watergate burglary operational figures had some role in Dallas. Howard Hunt could never shake these links, and neither could Frank Fiorini Sturgis, Bernard Barker and Eugenio Martinez are also circumstantially linked, there names come up in association with both Dallas and the Watergate.

Barker admitted to loudly hammering the hinges off the DNC offices while MCCord had signed in under a phony name in the Watergate...Barker Sturgis and Hunt, along with Liddy are so bizarre..............the Miami counter counter revolutionaries

The link of course is Operation 40.

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On a side note, I ran across an interesting memo in which Morales remarks that

Barker had a real problem keeping anything confidential and was known to talk

about way too many things to too many people. Which doesn't seem to give him

the right credentials to be pulled into a serious conspiracy of serious people (and given

Hunt's reputation for poor tradecraft and his screw ups at Watergate, well Barker seems

more like a Hunt type than the sort of folks I belive put Dallas together). (Larry Hancock)

Larry,

Have you come across anything in the Morales material or anywhere else for that matter that talks about Barker when he was with Batista's special police, the Servicio de Intelligencia Militar (SIM), and how he might have served as a liason with the FBI?

James

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Hi James, actually I have....

I have a June 21, 1972 memo of a conversation of Morales in which he relates

that Barker was recruited as a support agent in Havana in 1959. Barker was

used to provide information on police and political matters and also to transport

agents to various harbors for exfiltration.

Barker himself was exfiltrated to Tampa in 1959.

Morales expressed the opinion that Barker was such a loudmouth and talked to

so many people that he considered him a security risk and had recommended

that he be terminated in 1962.

In addition a CIA Biography on Barker, prepared in 1973 mentions that Barker

recruited agents for the CIA while in Cuba in 1959. Barker was recruited because

his police position had detailed him to be liason with a number of US agencies

in Havana; the FBI is not specifically mentioned but its pretty obvious that the

Bureau would have Havana police liason.

For reference, Barker went on full contract as a CIA employee in April 1960 ...

his first assignment was to a group working on "psychwar" projects against

Castro. Unfortunately his primary Havana contact is not identified other than

as A-1.

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  • 10 years later...

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