Larry Hancock: Someone Would Have Talked

[Larry Hancock]

Hi Ron, sorry to say I can't be of any real help - those notes of Hemming about Johnson are part of Noel's extensive interviews and much of it didn't make it into Noel's book as he points out. I suspect this is the same Johnson as described in Deadly Secrets and I'll make a few inquires to see if I can gather more.

One of the problems is that there is a whole different track of research that one could lose themselves in on the Haiti thing, comlete with lots of CIA documents from the segregated collection. And then there is the whole track going back to Hemming and Hargraves where Hemming speculates about people that were recruited for the MLK assassination and then later while he and Hargraves were in L.A. doing strange things there is the RFK murder. Hemming, Howard, Hargraves have all pointed fingers in regard to Sirhan and some involvement by some of the same characters.

Frankly I have managed in most cases to stop myself from going off there, trying to stay focused on 1963 and JFK. There is much still to develop there and if you get sucked off with Hemming and Hargraves into all the other avenues you can easily go on forever in other directions.

I'll post anything that I can find about Bob Johnson.

-- Larry

[James Richards]

Larry and Ron,

I always felt that this Robert Johnson character was a way to deflect focus away from what Hemming and Hargraves were doing.

This quote from Hargraves on the RFK assassination speaks volumes -

"Three of us from the JFK thing were on the ground at that time, here. (laughs) Fat Larry, Gerry and I. Yeah, We were here. And I pulled the operation. I don’t even know Larry is out here. I knew he was up in California, bull didn’t know he was on the ground at the time."

Fat Larry being Lawrence Howard and Gerry being Gerry Hemming. If one was going to really look into who Raoul was in the MLK killing, I believe one should start with Hargraves himself.

FWIW

James

[Larry Hancock]

Ron, I don't know this for certain but I suspect that that the Rita Wilson mentioned is Steve Wilson's daughter - I'm pretty sure she had photos from the camps.

Steve Wilson is one of the best candidates for being an Oswald impersonator; he and Seymour both may have done so but Wilson is a very close look alike to Oswald in some photos that I've seen from the camps.

-- Larry

[John Simkin]

Steve Wilson is one of the best candidates for being an Oswald impersonator;  he and Seymour both may have done so but Wilson is a very close look alike to Oswald in some photos that I've seen from the camps.

-- Larry

You can see pictures of Steve Wilson on James Richard's Photo Archive.

See for example:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PHOTOinterpen14.htm

[James Richards]

Gentlemen,

I was just going through my poorly organized notes on an unrelated matter, and noticed that Robert Johnson was one of the aliases used by Mitch WerBell.

FWIW.

James

[Nathaniel Weyl]

SAMPLE PAGES FROM ENCOUNTERS WITH COMMUNISM (144-5) Xibris, 2003

The welcoming vessel had become overcrowded. I was the superfluous man. This delighted Sylvia, who had visions of a fiasco, a takeover by Castro's military, and a possible public trial and firing squad for me. As for me, my macho persona voiced regret that I was to stay home in Florida; my inner self was not displeased.

This ends my eyewitness account. The Bayo operation has been covered in several article and books. It has been a hunting ground for conspiracy theorists, such as Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death ofJFK, University of California Press), who suggest that the Bayo affair was linked to the Kennedy assassination.

We know now that the defecting Soviet colonels never existed, that there were no Russian missiles left in place in Cuba, that the Bayo story was a hoax.

What happened to the Cubans who were offloaded from the Flying Tiger, heavily armed with ClA-supplied weapons? We know that the Pawley yacht weighed anchor ten miles to sea from the port of Baracoa in Oriente Province on the night of June 8, 1963. Three CIA people kept machineguns trained on Bayo and his Cuban commandos as the latter piled into the speedboat that was to take them to shore (Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, Deadly Secrets, p. 194). Weapons were aimed at the Cubans because the CIA considered the possibility that they were Castro agents and that the operation was an ambush.

The commandos vanished into the night. Pawley saw to it that a Catalina flying boat search the skies for them until a week had elapsed. The generally accepted theory is that their secret purpose had been to get modern arms with which to kill Castro, but that they had been intercepted and killed or captured in a firefight. A year or so after the tragedy, Bill Pawley told me he believed that the men never landed. When they boarded the speedboat, he warned them that it was dangerously overloaded and urged them in vain to take rubber rafts aboard. Pawley heard a large freighter pass between the Flying Tiger and the shore. He believed that the Cuban boat was swamped in the freighter's wake and that the men drowned.

Was their secret purpose to get CIA arms with which to kill Fidel Castro? This is the conclusion researchers have arrived at, but it seems to me illogical. When I was approached to find a yacht and meet the defectors at sea, there was no mention of sending armed commandos ashore. Nor did I have any access to assault weapons nor did Martino have any reason to imagine I would be willing or able to supply them.

The source of guns was the CIA and Bayo and his companions had made it abundantly clear that they distrusted the agency and wanted to have nothing to do with it.

The conclusion I draw is that Bayo's initial plan was to land two or three mysterious people in Florida, to allege that they were Soviet colonels and spread the story of missiles still in Cuba to influence the American presidential elections. The purpose would have been to defeat Kennedy since many Cubans believed he had betrayed them and their cause.

Would any such imposture have been promptly detected and exposed? Or would continuing uncertainty and suspicion have poisoned the air for the young President?

When the plan mushroomed to comprise a Cuban commando force, heavily armed by the CIA with weapons, none of which was, of course, of U.S. origin, plans may well have changed. Assassination? Mere havoc and sabotage? We will probable never know.

Operation Mongoose?

Toward the close of the Kennedy Administration, an American of non-Hispanic origin, called on me at our oceanfront place in Highland Beach, Florida. He wanted to interest me in a plan to send commandos secretly into Cuba to blow up the petroleum storage facilities in the Havana area. This seemed to me a senseless and criminal terrorist act.

Sabotaging oil facilities would deprive the Cuban people of a vital resource without necessarily weakening the dictatorial regime. Since we were not at war with Cuba, any incidental loss of life would constitute murder.

I told the mysterious person who approached me that this was not the sort of thing I do and that I was not interested.

[Larry Hancock]

Hello Nathaniel, thank you for the insights - on a side note, I'm curious as to whether or not you knew about the Life Magazine participation and coverage at the time and if you knew Dick Billings was along.

If so did you think it was curious that the CIA was letting Life Magazine cover a secret mission involving such a well know figure ad Mr. Pawley?

-- thank you again, Larry

[James Richards]

Steve Wilson is one of the best candidates for being an Oswald impersonator; he and Seymour both may have done so but Wilson is a very close look alike to Oswald in some photos that I've seen from the camps.

Okay, now that we have the attachment thingy working, I can post this profile comparison with Steve Wilson aka Justin J. Wilson.

James

[Chris Cox]

Nathaniel Weyl? Fabulous to have your input, welcome here. I'm currently re-reading your "Red Star Over Cuba." I emailed you sometime ago about my father Paul Hughes and our life in Cuba 1959. Please visit my website at: http://members.cox.net/chc5000/

No Name Key was interesting. Sorry fellas, no answers (physically) there. It's a foul-smelling swamp and I mean that in the most literal of terms. They are having a problem with decomposing sea grass and it was almost unbearable. The place is lovely in every other way. Conservation is in place and wildlife abound. Fishing was great and snorkeling not. Florida has vicious weather and the winds were high.

Anyone taking a trip to the Keys must visit the No Name Pub. Quite a venue in those parts. On the wall are old photographs of the area in the fifties and sixties. No doubt a place of intrigue, to an extent lesser than Sloppy Joe's. Unfortunately some no-shows but we spoke with other researchers and families, always fun.

We women in our small group, met with local reporters interested in our stories and the Cuban revolution. See www.herald.com for the article from last Sunday's Miami Herald.

[Lee Forman]

Hello Larry!

I am down to my last few pages...thought I'd post a few observations and questions...

An overall assessment:

I believe you have very effectively demonstrated that the confusion surrounding investigating the overall assassination has largely been due to the unfortunate assumption that the conspiracy, the action and the cover-up were all related to some greater overall 'synchronized' plan - a well oiled piece of machinery. Instead, what you have related, demonstrates that the object of conspiracy and the players involved were actually quite different than the cover-up, and it's object. While multiple questions remain, IMHO, this presents the most logical scenario. I find that, even for my own part, when attempting to understand a certain 'Why,' I most oftentimes assume logic, reason and planning. Instead, I am certain that multiple pieceparts of the action and cover-up, were hurriedly put together on the fly, leaving behind a trail of bizarre results, from what we would have expected of such a large, pre-planned conspiracy.

From page 197 - "The cover-up was not planned and the cover-up was executed in a manner to produce a result totally contrary to the goals of the plot."

This is succintly, and most eloquently summarized, and fits in logically with everything I have thus far read on the subject.

The main question that begs to be answered here, again, IMO, is whether the conspiracy itself had 'plans within plans,' which were intitiated through the approval of one Lyndon Baines Johnson [see below when I reach Milteer]. You provide a very plausible scenario following the events of 11/22/63, which provide a very questionable sequence of events for LBJ to have pursued, if he in fact was not previously informed and in some way cognizant beforehand as to the conspiracy.

Personally, I'd like to know what frequency LBJ was tuned into, with the radio pressed to his ear and the volume turned low, as per the account of Senator Yarborough, during his ride in the motorcade.

Page 184 - Oswald's Minox camera. I remember reading elsewhere that film from this camera had been developed, and that it contained photographs of what appeared to be an industrial complex [possibly Minsk?].

Page 193 - LBJ tapes. As in the Nixon investigation, several sequences had been erased multiple times, but still were audible, through the use of sophisticated technology. Has anyone attempted to reconstruct some of the missing pieces of the LBJ / Hoover conversation from the tapes?

Page 196 - "Dr. Crenshaw, I want a deathbed confession from the accused assassin." ...a pistol clearly visibl in his back pocket." Very interesting. Without stooping too low here, I think it can be implied that LHO wasn't going to survive Ruby's bullet - no matter what. Makes logical sense to me.

Page 202 - 'a Murchison owned slaughterhouse in Haiti." Are there any ties to DeMohrenshildt and Murchison? Sorry - found one myself:

"Employed by Three States Oil & Gas, A Murchison company (Scott, C&C, p 34-36).

What was going on in Haiti at that time? Bobby Baker is implicated, but perhaps the operation went far beyond a simple 'meat' operation? Perhaps Dem was involved also?

Page 208 - "three other prominent Texans had been appointed by Connally to represent Texas at Kennedy's funeral." Do we have any idea whom these Texans were that accompanied Carr? If someone says, Hunt, Murchison and Abe Fortas, well, I don't know what I'd say.

Page 213 - Plan within a Plan? Distance and create a confusing trail between the various organizations and operations within the CIA?

http://www.law.uga.edu/academics/profiles/...k_6milteer.html

Even more significant information is found on page 121 of CD 1347, which was suppressed from the public until 1976 when it was published in Model and Groden's book. According to page 121, Milteer had a conversation with an informer (presumably Somersett) on the morning of Nov. 24, 1963, at the Wade Hampton Hotel in Columbia, S. C. During this conversation "MILTEER advised that they did not have to worry about LEE HARVEY OSWALD getting caught because he 'doesn't know anything' and that the 'right wing' is in the clear. MILTEER further related that, 'The patriots have outsmarted the communists and had infiltrated the communist group in order that they [the communists] could carry out the plan without the right wingers becoming involved.'"

Page 249 - Now I found this VERY interesting. I had never before known about the train moving over the underpass. As I had posted somewhere else in the forum, if you accept that radio signalling was used, and that the Knoll was one of the 'last place' position's, you may still need a final assurance for security. One last stopgap measure.

www.jfkmurdersolved.com

From the testimony of Chauncey Holt, the train did in fact have a large cargo load of explosives.

"We saw, the box car was not a fully loaded box car, but in this box car was ammunition, unusual ammunition. Defcord?, crates that looked like they were possibly claymore mines, drums marked : MUD, which seemed like drilling mud, which was unusual to be with the rest of this material. Which I assumed to be C-4 or some plastic explosives."

From Files letters, he claims that the entire mess was set up for a radio controlled detonation.

I find it an extremely interesting coincidence that, if you accept Holt's account as credible, the 'escape route' planned by 3 of the individuals directly involved in the operation would have been a train car filled with explosives. However, Holt's account is a bit confusing, as relating to the time at which all 3 tramps boarded the train. It would be interesting to note whether or not this exact car was positioned directly over the underpass.

Page 249 - Some clarification. The uniformed DPD officer that approached W.W. Mabra - who was it? Wouldn't they have realized this individual wasn't one of their own [Officers Mabra and Orville Smith]. I have never seen this account, and I'd very interested in it, as it lends additional validity to Gordon Arnold's claim.

Page 254 - Just an open ended question: Why on earth would Clay Shaw implicate himself by recommending council for LHO, unless he himself was unaware of the conspiracy?

Page 262 - It would appear that Hargraves reaction ["Not nice..." and leaving the room] could be due to the implication that it was Hargraves himself. Correct? Later on in the actual transcript of the interview, the thread gets lost by the interviewers [Ponce de Leon], but it seems one conclusion that could be drawn was that the Hargraves was the 'good looking kid' that was at Martino's house.

Page 263 - An observation. General Walker's house and the photo, which was later 'damaged' to prevent reading the license plate. Curry's book supposedly has an undamaged photo, and I would imagine that the ID is legible. Did anyone ever run this down?

Page 277 - Raoul. Robert Evan Johnson. What was Raoul's role supposed to be?

Again, posted elsewhere [the 3 tramps] from Dick Spague's notes on RB Cutler's ID of individuals present in Dealey Plaza on 11/22:

'The name is Jerry Hoy. That is Raoul - the guy that paid Ray - and the "lead" tramp in Dealey Plaza." No clue as to whether or not this means anything at all.

Sorry - almost done. R. Hemmings - who the heck is he? Gerry Hemmings brother? Even Hargraves rips into his credibility. Hemmings implies at one point that some of the men in Dealey plaza were 'Oswald's' and that "They'd be found dead with guns clutched in their hands, if they had to be." Is he simply posturing? This implies a much larger role than patsy for LHO.

Page ? - the Jack Lawrence reference. I humbly submit, in my opinion, that his eyewitness account of LHO test driving a car, bragging about coming into some bigtime money and returning to Russia was all disinformation, provided at high risk, by someone that was an active participant on 11/22, as per my post elsewhere on this topic. What do you think?

Final comment: I find that you have introduced a number of areas with outstanding observations and recommendations for research and follow-up. Do you have any plans to separately post these on a website or someplace, with a register? I'd like to even see all of them as a separate post in this forum. Actionable, and interesting, and with opportunity for additional validation, with plenty of experts on hand.

Tremendous work overall Larry! As I stated before, I am strongly compelled to give it at least another reading or 2, just to assimulate the massive amount of data points.

- lee

[Larry Hancock]

Lee, thank you very much for the comments. Now I'll try to respond on your

questions/points as best I can:

1) I belive there is a case for Johnson's pre-knowledge as an "accessory" with pre-knowledge. I've written six chapters detailing that case which is contingent upon three or four specific pieces of evidence. However I'm waiting for some further shake out on certain of those pieces before publishing it and hoping that occurs. It all boils down to the Estes tapes, Kyle Brown's statements about the Cliff Carter meeting, the Wallace fingerprint and any one of the three validating Loy Factor.

2) Honestly in regards to the Minox film, the situation is so confused over the cameras, the films, the photos etc that I'm not sure it's ever been resolved; if the WC or HSCA published any detailing of those films which proved who took each photo, where and when I've not seen it. Clearly they tried to imply that many of them were taken by Michael Paine while he was overseas in the military while others were taken by Oswald on his assignments in the Far East. But then again FBI would like us to think he didn't own a Minox? Anyway, I'd love to have someone educate me on that....no answer from me.

3) I'm not sure the big issue on the LBJ tape is reconstruction or whether it is interpretation. There are some serious challenges that some of the material in the published transcripts are either inaccurate or not very good transcription - that was a big bone of contention which surfaced last year. Thanks to Rex Jackson we do however know of one very precise tape erasure very similar to Watergate and in that case the LBJ library has supposedly explored restoration or at least was considering it. Check Rex's site at historymatters for a fascinating article on that.

4) There is more to Haiti but whether it involves gambling concessions or something more convoluted is a mystery....if we knew why George D, Haiti and Martin Marrietta are in Howard Burris' date book we might understand it. Right now the subject could be another book all by itself but not one I'm young enough to tackle...grin.

5) The prominent Texans going to DC for the funeral are listed; we have their

names and they were all State officials who went on behalf of the gov - not private citizens as I recall and certainly not "those" citizens.

6) The uniformed officer who approached Mabra was recognized by Mabra as DPD which raises the issue of an actual DPD officer having been hired or blackmailed into providing cover on the knoll. Mabra actually stopped talking to researchers when it became clear that no officer was officially assigned back of the fence in the rail yard.

7) Hargraves reaction appears more likely to the fact that it was unknown to him that Martino had indeed confessed a minor role in the conspiracy and any elements of it; he was the first to do so and I think that shook Hargraves a good bit. Hargraves and Robert Hemming - Gerry's brother - broke off for a call back to Gerry at that point. You will notice that from that point they divert Noel from any further elaboration of Martino's comments.

8) The Raoul thing would seem to be an issue of whether or not one of the Cuban exiles involved in Dallas might have gone off to do some free lancing. We know they were all extremely anti-Communist and it may well be that given MLK's positions on Viet Nam and his association with JFK and RFK, it represented another

opportunity for what was seen to be an anti-communist action.....but that's another story entirely, as would be a connection to RFK's murder.

9) In regard to the train, radios etc. This is sheer speculation but when you

look at some of the blow ups of the "Cuban" on elm it is rather clear that

he has something stuffed in his jacket and somethin in his back pocket as well.

Could it be a radio...or a radio transmitter for a bomb in a car, a train, planted

in the overpass? Sheer speculation...

10) The reference to men in DP found dead with guns in their hands may be to the fact that the shooters were selected in a manner that any of them who might have been killed or captured would have had a believable cover-story that they were either deep cover Castro agents (such plants were wll known) or simply a well paid Castro shooter. This scenario extends to the car buying incident you mentioned where the Oswald impersonator is clearly setting Oswald up not as some Castro political activist but rather as somebody who is expecting big money for doing a job.

11) On the research and follow up - that is certainly a good suggestion. You will find that much of the material in my errata/news sheets is specifically related to further research on points called out in the book...like the Red Bird DC3 incident...and there have been a few very aggressive volunteers who have stepped up to work some of the points. I'd love to have something more formal but just have not had a venu or sufficent interest yet.

-- let me know what I missed in the reply, Larry

[IknowWhoDidIt]

John Martino was acting on behalf of culpable parties in the CIA to perpetuate the fallacy that Cubans were behind the assassination.

Please see my post entitled "The Warren Commission: Information They Covered Up and Why"

Edited May 24, 2004 by IknowWhoDidIt

[John Simkin]

Larry, Lee raises the point: "Why on earth would Clay Shaw implicate himself by recommending council for LHO, unless he himself was unaware of the conspiracy?"

This is something that has always puzzled me. If he did do this, I think we can safely say that Clay Shaw had nothing to do with the conspiracy. I suspect he didn’t. Why then did Jim Garrison make him the target of his prosecution? I know David Ferrie and Guy Banister were dead by them so they could not be brought to court. But everybody agrees that his case against Shaw was very weak.

Those behind the conspiracy would have been very concerned about Garrison’s investigation. If I was involved in this conspiracy I would have probably reacted in the following way. I would have used whatever influence I had to smear Garrison so as to undermine his credibility. The second strategy would have got someone into his investigation to direct him towards someone who had links to Ferrie and Banister but was completely innocent of the crime. I suspect this could have been the role of Dick Billings, the reporter with Life Magazine, when he arrived on the scene in January, 1967. Billings was of course, along with Hugh Aynesworth, was also involved in the smearing of Garrison (September, 1967).

[Larry Hancock]

John, in regard to the actions of Shaw and Bannister, in general I think both acted out of sheer panic. Both had known Oswald, both had been seen in his company by small numbers of individuals, both had probably said things about JFK in the company of said individuals that sounded really serious on the evening of November 22. Bannister got drunk and did something stupid and Shaw just did something stupider - trying to get Oswald a lawyer might have been his only shot at trying to make sure Oswald did not talk at all on the stand (lawyers are very good at that, note how well it worked in the Wallace and Estes cases). The fact that Shaw also made a totally unscheduled leg from SF to Washington state has always suggested to me that he was so upset that he may have been positioning himself to flee the country depending on what Oswald started saying or what a quick investigation would turn up in New Orleans... a quick, serious investigation that is.

Garrison certainly did not start with Shaw, his initial investigation started with mysterious people associated with Oswald in New Orleans...primarily Cubans. His first major investigation was in Miami where he eventually ended up using de Torres as an investigator and de Torres early press statements really helped blow that part of the investigation. You'll find the clippings on that on the book CD. It was only after this phase I of Cubans and CIA connected individuals like Santana blew apart that he stared shifting - although the major direct which got him hung up on the West Coast right wing came from Howard who was even more helpful in working with Garrison than Hemming, Hargraves and de Torres. Isn't it amazing that all four folks from Miami inserted themselves early on into the Garrison investigation?

Of course both CIA and FBI had their own concerns, FBI probably more so due to their association with Oswald himself....just look at the missing Oswald files in New Orleans and the Presidendial orders relieving de Burys from having to testify fully. And it was clearly Justice and the FBI that provided direct aid and support to Shaw's defense team. Of course they had another motiviation as well, a really through investigation of Bannister might have turned up the MO of the FBI using "retired agents" security companies for most of their counter intelligence projects....a methodology probably more effective than CIA front companies.

Anyway, enough rambling, hopefully some of that got close to your questions.

-- Larry

[Lee Forman]

Hi Larry.

Thanks for the answers, first off. That answers all of them, and I'll do a little more digging on Haiti and the LBJ tapes.

One more observation.

Somewhere on this forum I was alluding to the fact that it's logical to assume a sequence of events, in terms of the shooting teams, with a final safety measure in place. As I believe you've accurately pointed out, the intent on the part of the shooting crew wasn't to make it appear as if it was a single, lone nut shooter, but instead, to make sure Kennedy didn't leave Dealey plaza alive.

Anyway - if you credit the use of radio signals, and an overall orchestrated operation, coordinated by a single individual placed in a strategic vantage point:

Initial

- shot from TSBD for diversion

First volley

- shot from South Knoll shooter(s)

- shooters from rear [DalTex, TSBD, Records building]

Additional request for shots - hand signal by DCM or TUM pumping

- final shot from North Knoll shooter(s)

Where's your final 'gate' or last ditch measure to ensure success on this mission, in the event of a situation? The train? Or Roy Hargraves and a car?

As per your book and the testimony of Roy Hargraves, he had a car bomb prepared - that was his mission, as a 'cleaner.'

I remember reading about an altercation that ensued under the underpass as Greer finally got the car in gear and accelerated. There was a screeching of brakes, etc. I don't recall if this was due to the Lincoln pulling over to let the SS in the car behind take the lead, or perhaps there was a car parked in Greer's way?

Is there anything that lends credence to his account of having a car prepared as a final stop-gap measure? Set with explosives and radio controlled? Were there any cars parked under the underpass or shortly beyond it?

- lee