William Bishop Mexico City 1963

[John Bockmon]

In Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much", it states that Bishop had been in Mexico City two or three times in 1963. But when asked for what purpose he stated, " I'd rather make no comment on that. It was National Security.

Has anyone ever been able to determine why Bishop was in Mexico City and was he working for David Phillip's at that time?

Thanks,

John

[John Bockmon]

In Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much", it states that Bishop had been in Mexico City two or three times in 1963. But when asked for what purpose he stated, " I'd rather make no comment on that. It was National Security.

Has anyone ever been able to determine why Bishop was in Mexico City and was he working for David Phillip's at that time?

Thanks,

John

Please help

[Michael Hogan]

In Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much", it states that Bishop had been in Mexico City two or three times in 1963. But when asked for what purpose he stated, " I'd rather make no comment on that. It was National Security.

Has anyone ever been able to determine why Bishop was in Mexico City and was he working for David Phillip's at that time?

John, I'm not able to answer your question, but as you know Colonel Bill Bishop (aka Oscar del Valle Garcia) also told Dick Russell that "it had something to do with Cuba, but not as such." Cryptic.

In his interview with Russell, Bishop claims that it was he that "made the hit on Trujillo." Colonel Bishop seemed to be quite aware of Alpha 66 and all the dark forces swirling about during the period after the Bay of Pigs and leading up to Kennedy's murder. FBI documents linked him with No Name Key and Rolando Masferrer.

According to David Phillips, who was running covert activities out of Mexico City at the time, the reason why there was a lot of activity there, was because the CIA used Mexico City as a launching point for all sorts of third world covert operations. A lot of Cuban exiles actually had cover as Mexican nationals.

With all the spook talk, its hard to tell black from white, or up from down sometimes.

I bet Larry Hancock would know the answer to your question and he graciously makes himself available for questions on this Forum. You might try asking him.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Michael Hogan

[Larry Hancock]

I wish I could offer something significant about William Bishop, in Mexico City

or anywhere else. I've spent a good deal of time talking to those researchers

who knew him best and in going through the materials he did make available.

All with no more success than anyone else. The following is the best that I can

make out.

He did have military connections to Florida Guard and Reserve units and

clearly had been given some sort of introduction to them, I suspect this was

prior to the Bay of Pigs when so many actions had to be taken even within

Florida and La. that had to be kept out of the press. He clearly did know the

names and address of a number of anti-Castro, secret war participants...

especially in Miami. There seems to be nothing to indicate that he was

an official part of JMMARC or JMWAVE however and given his noted ability

to run scams I suspect it would have been hard for him to ever pass an

Agency security screen.

My best call is that he was a back alley, deniable asset for either Morales or

someone else very much like Morales who desired the ability to do things they

needed to do without getting wrapped up in agency reporting or rules. The sort

that claimed to be CIA when it suited their purposes but were never really

affiliated, giving them the option to do lots of interesting things on the side...

he certainly would not have been the only one playing that game.

If he went to MC my guess there is that it was to do some rather violent actions

against Cuban G2 or their fellow travelers, the sort of thing that never shows up

in Agency memos. The sort of things that David Morales seems to have been able

to organize very efficiently.

-- I do wish I could be more helpful, Larry

[James Richards]

There is no proof so one can dismiss this outright, but Bishop's connections for Mexico City were primarily Felix Bernardino and Robert Emmett Johnson.

As Larry suggests, G2 hunting was on the agenda as were some other things.

James