Larry Hancock: Someone Would Have Talked

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Any news on the release? Amazon lists the book as being unavailable.

[John Simkin]

Any news on the release? Amazon lists the book as being unavailable.

The review/galley copies were sent out last week. Looks like the book will go into full print and general

distribution in early November. In other words it will be available at the JFK Lancer Conference.

[Larry Hancock]

The status is that soft cover reviewers copies of the galley printing have gone out to 40 some individuals - they completed mailing by this last Monday. These copies do not have the index, they do not have absolutely final versions of the appendices and end notes which I continued to update as recently as last week. We are waiting for another week for comments back from these initial reviewers and readers and Debra is putting in all my final copy.

The exhibits for the first edition are now on a web site and we will be working on this WEB site next week, it will contain new exhibits, photo sections and social diagrams.

The current goal is to have the book printed and in circulation by the first week of November. Hopefully it will be worth the wait,

[Michael Hogan]

The current goal is to have the book printed and in circulation by the first week of November. Hopefully it will be worth the wait,

Someone Would Have Talked is a must read for anyone with an interest in the events surrounding the murder of President Kennedy. As members of this Forum might expect, Larry Hancock has done a remarkable job, and his efforts have resulted in a classic examination of events leading up to Kennedy's death and the ensuing coverup.

Building on the research of Russell, Fonzi, Summers, Griggs, and many many others, Larry has masterfully synthesized their research with much of his own. The results are powerful, compelling, and represent a major step forward in our understanding of the assassination.

I've yet to finish my second reading and this is not meant as a review, but just some of my first impressions.

1) As anyone that is familiar with Larry and his research knows, his documentation is immaculate.

2) The summaries at the end of each chapter are most helpful.

3)

Someone Would Have Talked

is remarkably current. It contains much new information.

4) Larry Hancock is a gifted critical thinker. Fortunately, he gives the reader the benefit of his reasoned conclusions.

5) Larry points the way for future researchers. This may be one of the most important facets of the book.

6)

Someone Would Have Talked

will endure as a useful reference tool for many of the perplexing events surrounding JFK's death.

7) Importantly, the book reads well. Starting with John Martino, Larry weaves a fascinating and convincing account of the roles of so many others.

8) Whenever possible, Larry has corroborated his evidence from multiple sources.

9) There is a lot to absorb, yet Larry does an awesome job of tying events together into a story that is not only believable, but compelling.

Larry, congratulations on this edition of Someone Would Have Talked. I think you deserve to be proud of your work. I'm certainly looking forward to discussions on this Forum by the members, once SWHT is released.

Someone Would Have Talked is destined to take its place as a classic work in the research of President Kennedy's murder. In my opinion, it was well worth the wait.

[John Bevilaqua]

Well, yes someone DID talk. And he talked to Mary Ferrell in the 1990's

His name was Elroy Roy Hargraves and he implicated operatiives from

The Pioneer Fund and characters like Homer S. Echevarria, Col Robert

F. Baird, Capt. Medric Johnson from Walker's AVG, Harold Chait of Baltimore

who worked for The Boston Metals Processing Company cited later in

the Iran Contra funding controversies and some others.

Roy Emory Hargraves and his connections is covered extensively in Larry's book. There is also an interview conducted by Noel Twyman with Hargraves which has been transcribed and is available in Larry's book.

James

James,

I have to change this posting to read "Emmett Johnson" instead of "Medric Johnson". When I spoke with Mary Ferrell in the 1990's, I gave her 2 choices of how one of the names of definitive JFK conspirators offered up by Roy Hargraves was pronounced and who he could have meant. (I only had 4-5 names in my database with a last name of "Johnson". She chose "Medric Johnson" instead of (Robert) "Emmett Johnson" from The Fish is Red by William Turner. This meandering conversation between Mary and Roy Ferrell occurred over a long distance phone line when Roy was "under the weather" as Mary put it, or just a tad inebriated and therefore not exactly pronouncing words very clearly to say the least. Therefore she was unsure at the time of her conversation with me, about the exact pronunciation of what she thought was the "first name". Your additional information recently posted has convinced me to change the name of this definitive suspect provided by Hargraves as a shooter in Dealey Plaza to read: Robert "Emmett" Johnson. I guess he went by the name "Emmett" or Mary did not hear him speak the name "Robert".

So Bill Turner goes down in history as being the first person to postulate the plotmasters names: Charles Willoughby and Robert Morris (along with Mae Brussell in a shared article) and now Bill gets credit for the name: "Emmett" Johnson published in The Fish is Red (later called "Deadly Secrets" as I recall).

Congrats, Bill.

[Peter McGuire]

I am currently reading Larry Hancock’s recently published book, Someone Would Have Talked. It is the best book I have read on the Kennedy assassination. As Larry is a member of the forum I thought it would be a good idea to use it as a means to discuss the contents of the book. I hope others will join in this discussion.

http://www.jfklancer.com/catalog/hancock/index.html

Me too. Did Someone talk?

[Margaret Myers]

I am currently reading "Presumed Guilty" by Howard Roffman. This a book I should have read a long time ago. Roffman basically gives a factual account based on the Warren Commission and then proceeds to show the circumstantial evidence and the ballistics. No theories, just facts. Oswald could not have fired a gun that day!

[William Kelly]

I am currently reading "Presumed Guilty" by Howard Roffman. This a book I should have read a long time ago. Roffman basically gives a factual account based on the Warren Commission and then proceeds to show the circumstantial evidence and the ballistics. No theories, just facts. Oswald could not have fired a gun that day!

I too believe that Howard Roffman's "Presumed Guilty" and Larry Hancock's book "Someone Would Have Talked" are critical to understanding what happened at DP that day.

Roffman's book clearly demonstrates that Oswald could not have been the Sixth Floor Sniper, though someone else most certainly was.

And Larry Hancock's book clearly presents alternative suspects, especially among the anti-Castro community.

While Larry has remained a committed and significant member of the JFK research community, Roffman was a student at the University of Pennsylvania (Phila) when he wrote his book, and has since moved on to become special secretary to a major motion picture director, and photographer of gay males. It would be a significant advance if Roffman could be convinced to rejoin the effort to obtain the truth about the assassination before the 50th anniversary.

Bill Kelly

jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com

Edited April 13, 2011 by William Kelly

[Thomas Graves]

Comments on both John and Steve's posts.

First, John, I think you captured a very important point about Nagell. Nagell was the ultimate in focus - as we know from his Korean war and later Japan intel assignments, he was hugely singleminded and would do whatever it took to gain his goal regardless of personal risk. I think there is a very good case that he made exile introductions to both Marlowe and Oswald in order to gain access to the exiles and leverage with them. That's the only thing that explains the speed of his penetrations in New York, Miami and indeed New Orleans. If that meant helping them with their assassination concept, so be it. Russell speculates that Nagell actually picked up Marlowe from his LAPD contacts and gave him to the exiles; I concur and suspect he may have given them Oswald too. However when all that got very real in September and he couldn't break Oswald from them, that was another story.

Second, Steve, I also think it's safe to say that all of Nagell's tasks in Mexico were "counter intelligence", that brings him much more under the purvue of CI and CI/SIG (who were playing games with Oswald in Mexico City) much more than Plans/Ops with Fitzgerald. Problem is we (or I for sure) have almost no insight into how Angleton really operated, his reports, how he reached beyond Washington D.C. (we know he personally did black bag jobs and bugging in D.C. but surely he must have had agency assets elsewhere). I'd love to get educated on how Angleton really worked - I expect David Phillips could have told us. But if Nagell was being manipulated by somebody I myself would suspect the CI side of things vs. Fitzgerald.

-- Larry

[emphasis added by T Graves]

Did these exiles pretend to be pro-Castro?

I wonder if Oswald thought that he (Oswald) was monitoring pro-Castro "subversives"?

That might explain why Nagell was unable to get Oswald to break away from them.

--Tommy

Edited December 31, 2014 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

Tommy, according to Martino the exiles presented themselves as Castro agents. Its my impression that Oswald was interested in establishing and maintaining contact

with Cubans of all stripes, pro and anti Castro agents. I also think Nagell had not idea of the role in which Oswald was operating...how much of that was self directed

and how much was instigated by the FBI is certainly unclear but I think both factors were in play. Nagell remembered Oswald from Japan as someone outside the normal

institutional box, very open to both the pros and cons of the American system - as was Nagell himself. Based on that I don't think the realized that Oswald's Russian

experience had turned him around a bit......and why he would continue hanging with anti-Castro exiles when Nagell told him who they really were.

So yes, I think that is the explanation and things were moving to fast for Nagell to figure it out. He was thinking of Oswald in the context of an earlier paradigm and as

a less complex individual than he had become.