the ronnie republic: JFK researcher Larry Hancock

Showing posts with label JFK researcher Larry Hancock. Show all posts

Nov 25, 2017

Larry Hancock: Impressions from November in Dallas--JFK Lancer Conference

New post on Larry Hancock

Impressions

Its hard to convey the extent of the material that gets covered at the annual November in Dallas research conference. That's partially because of the breadth of speakers but beyond that its the extent to which informal conversations and dialogs allow you to explore thoughts stimulated by those presentations. Having been around the subject of President Kennedy's assassination for some time I'm going to share a few of the points which intrigued me personally.

First, the extent to which Malcolm Blunt and John Newman have been able to map out so much of the CIA's organizational structure and internal communications is amazing. And while that might not seem of interest to all those who continually search for smoking guns - it should. As an example it appears not that they have traced out a routing request which directed that internal communications relating to Lee Oswald's defection were to only be circulated to Counter Intelligence - before you yawn, the second point is that the request appears to have been placed before Oswald's pseudo defection to Russia.

In another presentation, John Newman reviewed documents which showed that Henry Hecksher - a topic of previous posts here and a candidate for Richard Case Nagell's "Bob" in Mexico City - had been stationed in Havana at the same time as David Phillips and was heavily involved in security activities for Phillips, who was under commercial cover in Cuba. When you add that to travel documents showing Hecksher going to Mexico City at the same time Nagell was there and the fact that Hecksher was later assigned to head the AM/WORLD project, things become even more interesting.

Finally, I have to say that for the first time in a great many years I am fairly well convinced - by Michael Chesser's conference presentation on the enhanced HSCA skull X-rays - that there were two shots to JFK's head and that one was most definitely from the front and into the hairline, impacting at exactly the same point the Parkland Doctor indicated in his television interview that afternoon as he pointed to his own head. The presentation also confirmed the degree of post Bethesda tampering with the medical evidence which have become so clear over the years.

I can't even begin to detail the rest of the conferences, DVD's will be available from Lancer early next year. I can say that after all these years it is encouraging to see that dedicated researchers are still surfacing important new information.

copied from Larry Hancock and here is a link to the page:

https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2017/11/25/impressions/

Thanks, Larry, for all of your hard work and research on this very important issue.

Dec 12, 2016

Larry Hancock from SWHT Talks Jack Ruby and Who Remains Important in The JFK Mystery

Finally got to meet my hero Larry Hancock this year at the 2016 November in Dallas Lancer JFK Conference.

I always like Larry because he is someone I can understand and he takes time to explain things.

One of Larry's best things is that he is able to tell me why one story is important and one may seem important at first but as time goes on the story may become embellished with items other than facts, even though it remains a good story and interesting conversation.

To me just as a regular person that has followed this JFK thing forever and feel it is still the most interesting and important story of the day his words are very appreciated.

Also, Larry is very kind in responding to the regular persons questions.

Listen to Larry on his radio interviews and hear what he has to say about Madeline Brown and James Files. It is important because their stories make sense and it is easy to grab on to their words. One can remember those stories when some other important research details fade over time when they are not latched on to the human touch.

Larry told me in the long run these two stories just do not hold up because the facts are plainly not there to support them.

Thanks, Larry, for giving us a heads up in what to pay attention to in this whole confusing JFK thing.

Check out Larry Hancock's website and see the comments on this story:

https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/the-risks-of-knowing-jack/#comments

Everyone interested in JFK should think about attending the Lancer November in Dallas Conference.

Seriously, I could have spent all day listening to the experts and researchers takes us on a tour of Dealey Plaza.

Thanks, for all of your hard work, Larry, in putting on this informative conference and telling us about your important information on JFK.

New post on Larry Hancock

The Risks of Knowing Jack

by Larry Hancock

These days ongoing discussions of the JFK assassination tend to focus on either events along Elm Street on that day in Dallas or upon the activities and background of Lee Oswald. It’s even possible to miss the fact that in the earliest days, a great deal of investigative effort was initially focused on Jack Ruby – not simply as Oswald’s killer but as a potential window into the conspiracy which killed President Kennedy. During the months following the murder a number of leads surfaced which suggested that Ruby had prior knowledge of the attack, that his elimination of Oswald was something forced on him by his involvement and that phone calls and visits connecting him to Los Angeles and Los Vegas deserved intense scrutiny.

And while the rumors of mysterious deaths related to the Kennedy assassination are often no more than gossip or coincidence, there is no doubt that the investigators and reporters who became too interested in Ruby, especially those who became devoted to ferreting out his true connections, appear to have been uniquely at risk. Most people would be surprised to realize that the Warren Commission itself fielded only two field investigators reporting directly to it. They might be even more surprised to know that both were dismissed for being overzealous in pursuing connections related to Jack Ruby.

But there were much greater risks than losing a job, especially for those who knew Jack and had heard certain passing remarks before the assassination – remarks which suddenly had a new and sinister meaning as of the afternoon of November 22, 1963. Several individuals may well have lost their lives over just that – ranging from women who worked for him at the Carousel Club (although some of those fled for their lives within days and stayed successfully out of sight for years and even decades), to both local and national reporters who decided to dig deeply into his connections.

There certainly were people who heard Ruby gossiping before the assassination – about something explosive happening in Dallas during the President’s visit. In some instances they managed to stay out of the limelight, one instance of that can be found in an IRS informant close to Ruby who reported being invited downtown by Jack, to watch the “fireworks” during the motorcade. In some cases those individuals became too visible and died under mysterious circumstances – one young woman recorded as having hung herself in a holding cell in Dallas, a young Dallas vice beat reporter on a personal crusade found dead after being attacked in his apartment, a woman who had warned individuals of the Dallas attack later run over and left by the side of a road in Louisiana and finally nationally known investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen – who had declared she would run the conspiracy to the ground after haven spoken to Ruby during his trial in Dallas.

I write about most of these individuals in detail in Someone Would Have Talked, presenting the case that Ruby’s connections led back to the west coast and to Johnny Roselli, who arranged for Ruby’s legal defense with a phone call to Melvin Belli’s law partner the weekend after the assassination. The Ruby story is a key one, too often ignored these days. However at last month’s Dallas conference, two speakers presented on their new books – one (Fallen Petals, by her son) dealing with the life of Rose Cherami and the second (The Reporter That Knew Too Much by Mark Shaw) exploring Kilgallen’s initial investigation and why it turned fatal for her.

If you are interested in the Kennedy assassination and have not explored Jack Ruby in depth, you are missing a key lead. It was a lead that the Dallas Police and the Warren Commission chose to avoid but one which was significant enough to get a number of people killed – digging into Jack Ruby was risky business, suggesting that Jack represented a real threat in terms of exposing the conspiracy.

Jul 25, 2015

Larry Hancock Talks LBJ and the Odd Way He Acted After the Assassination

LBJ on Nov 22 1963

by Larry Hancock

One of my long time interests has been behavior of Vice President Johnson during the hours immediately following the attack on President Kennedy – an attack which at the time could not have been known to be limited to an action against only the President. There has been a good deal of speculation, including some of my own, that Johnson’s actions were not what should have been expected of the Vice President. Others have suggested that there was a broader pattern of national security failure.

One way to test such speculation is to actually compare the response of the people at the very top of the national security chain of command during major crises, including events that would have produced fears that the nation itself might shortly come under attack. To do that effectively it’s necessary to really dig into what the plans and preparations for such crises have been and to study their evolution over time. As it turns out there are ample incidents which do allow comparison, beginning with at least two instances under President Eisenhower when he was informed of an apparent, incoming Soviet attack on the United States. I’m not talking about some quickly resolved NORAD alert, but presumed incoming atomic bomber strikes which were tracked and monitored over several hours.

An even more direct comparison can be made concerning the Vice Presidential and national security response to the shooting and near death of President Reagan. One of the most dubious parts of Johnson’s response to President Kennedy’s death is his apparent ignorance of his responsibilities as Commander in Chief and his conduct in taking over those duties on November 22. Of course if he had prior knowledge that a Soviet “decapitation” attack was not actually in play, it would provide an explanation for what appears to be a dereliction of duty on his part. Some have painted the brush even more broadly, pointing to similar failure to act by the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser and other senior officials – indicative of a conspiracy involving one or even all of them.

The question then is how their actions compare to those of their counterparts during other crises, including President Reagan’s shooting or the attacks of 9/11. It is possible to explore that question in detail, even to the point of comparing events on and communications from the Presidential and Vice Presidential aircraft during major crises. I tackle those comparisons in Surprise Attack and while I’m not going to give away the conclusions I can say I found doing the research absolutely fascinating. The comparisons in the book apply not only to Johnson’s performance but to that of other positions, specifically that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser and beyond that to the Presidential military aides.

I can also say that certain of Johnson’s activities on November 22, 1963 were impossible to compare – and for readers of Someone Would Have Talked, I refer to the calls from Presidential aides to Texas on the evening of November 22. What would be most revealing, and something someone should undertake, is a study of the phone calls and contacts made by Johnson immediately following the Tonkin Gulf incident and the attack on the intelligence ship Liberty. The question being, was it routine practice for Johnson to initiate major cover ups for any incident in which he failed his duties as Commander in Chief. I have gone down that trail to a certain extent and some of that is discussed in the book; there is a much expanded story to tell though, of that I’m sure.

Chloe Louise says:

July 26, 2015 at 12:14 am

Dear Larry…..Just can’t resist mentioning…..just today I asked the guy at the dog park, “who do you think killed JFK,” as I had just been watching the you-tube show about Tippit by the author McBride…….

I said to my friend it is so fascinating and I often spend my spare time looking at this kind of thing.

He said he did not know who killed JFK and he did not care since it was 30 years ago and people have moved on.

Well, not only does he have a problem with addition, but he should be more interested in the whole thing–this ultimate mystery of the century really should be solved–the cover-up won the minute LHO appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.

Has anyone ever noticed how odd LHO acts in custody…..to me he does not act like the average 25 year old just accused of murdering the president……always admiring your work…..what do you think?

copied from the webpage of Larry Hancock............

About Larry Hancock

Larry Hancock is a leading historian-researcher in the JFK assassination. Co-author with Connie Kritzberg of November Patriots and author of the 2003 research analysis publication titled also Someone Would Have Talked. In addition, Hancock has published several document collections addressing the 112th Army Intelligence Group, John Martino, and Richard Case Nagell. In 2000, Hancock received the prestigious Mary Ferrell New Frontier Award for the contribution of new evidence in the Kennedy assassination case. In 2001, he was also awarded the Mary Ferrell Legacy Award for his contributions of documents released under the JFK Act.

Jun 27, 2015

Larry Hancock Talks Conspiracy Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and The Kennnedy Assassination

New post on Larry Hancock

Conspiracy

by Larry Hancock

Over the past twenty five years I have studied, researched and written about three murders, the practices of “political” assassination, the investigative practices of the FBI and various police departments and national security practices relating to deniability – both in regard to operations security for cover/clandestine actions and the protection of sources and methods (and careers via CYA) after the fact. Generally I’ve found career and political CYA to be as significant a historical factor as true security.
One of the things I’ve learned in those 25 years is that the blanket term “conspiracy” is very overused, actually explains little and because of that true conspiracies don’t receive the attention they deserve. My friend Peter Dale Scott, a poet by heart and nature, understands intuitively understands the value of words while I wrestle with them in the more clinical context of historical and cultural analysis/synthesis. In an effort to address the problem, Peter coined the term “deep politics”, an immensely important term which describes the interrelationship between commercial/private interests and government decision making – especially at the highest political levels. Deep politics is the way the world works and has always worked, it would be naïve to think that personal and corporate financial interests do not consistently attempt to drive government policies based on their self-interests – and commercial concerns.
Stu Wexler and I visited areas of deep politics and their influence on various presidencies in Shadow Warfare. In doing so I began to get a much clearer picture of the fact that deep politics are “complemented” by what I would call “deep crime” and “deep money”. Just as respectable businesses and moneyed individuals try to drive national policy to their own agendas (and yes that includes various “complexes” from the much discussed military/industrial complex to newer associations such as “big pharma” or “big healthcare”) there are groups engaged in illegal activities and individuals engaged in questionable global business transactions who actively suborn individuals and “game” legitimate activities. While “deniability” is key to their activities, it’s really all about making or investing money, rather than manipulating long term national policy or strategic military/trade positions.
Personally I’ve found using the term “conspiracy” to be increasingly unproductive – to some extent because a great number of folks have begun to use it as if it were synonymous with “government conspiracy”. While I have a healthy respect for the ability of both administrations and agencies to engage in deniability and media management, I think calling that sort of activity “conspiracy” not only obscures its actual practices and methods but can cover up actual conspiracies. Unfortunately I don’t have a good phrase to describe it – or not one nearly as good as Peter’s “deep politics” - so I generally fall back on simply calling it “damage control” when I think it’s truly security related or “CYA” when I think it’s primarily career or political. Which is why I write about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy separately from the national security level damage control and agency CYA that prevented a true investigation of the crime. Stu and I made the same distinction when evaluating the MLK and RFK murders; both which involved true conspiracies and were followed by activities at the national and local law enforcement levels which prevented exposure of the actual conspiracy.
All of which leads me to the point that there are very real and very dangerous conspiracies that need attention. And for what it’s worth that does not include radical Islamist attacks, which would be better termed and addressed as warfare rather than individual acts of terror. What I’m talking about is very real domestic conspiracy, which Stu and I tried to address in The Awful Grace of God and which Stu has gone on to pursue and write about in his new book on the subject. If you want a look at what real conspiracy looks like I encourage you to read the following:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/behind_dylann_roofs_race_war_the_highly_motivated_secret_white_supremacy_movement_working_toward_the_battle_of_armageddon/#comments

Larry Hancock | June 27, 2015 at 3:11 pm | Categories: Everything else | URL: http://wp.me/p1DeOb-9Z

Dec 4, 2013

Larry Hancock Talks David Atlee Phillips

A Broader View

by Larry Hancock

The recent written confirmation from Anthony Veciana that his long time associate Maurice Bishop was indeed CIA officer David Phillips gives me the opportunity not only to write a bit about that revelation but also about how it fits into the much broader picture that we developed with "Shadow Warfare". Actually there was no doubt in my mind about the identity of Bishop and I think the extensive information developed by Gaeton Fonzi and Tony Summers fully supports the expanded study which I did in my Phillips chapter in SWHT. Veciana also made it quite clear to Fonzi and others why he would not identify Phillips in his formal testimony without Phillips permission and its clear that he has now only done so following Fonzi's death and out of respect for Gaeton and his wife Marie.

What a good deal of the discussion about Veciana's recent statement is missing however, is that the relationship between the two men started in 1960 inside Cuba and continued for a full decade, with Phillips assisting Veciana to get a USAID position in Latin America in 1968 - even while Veciana was under official INS restriction to Miami's Dade county and should have never have been allowed out of the U.S. This long term relationship becomes extremely important in two areas that we address in "Shadow Warfare".

First, in the context of Kennedy Administration policies and CIA official positions, it is clear that Phillips worked with and was in contact inside Cuba with a very well organized revolutionary group which almost did assassinate Fidel Castro in a bazooka attack...only very bad luck on their part saved Castro. And it appears that Phillips continued to contact and work with Veciana in attempts to kill Castro over the next decade, including one extremely complex plot developed in Chile in 1971. Given that there appears to be no Presidential approval or CIA executive sanction for the ongoing attempts, a serious question is raised as to whether Phillips was pursuing his own private agenda and to what extent the plots were supported by CIA vs. private resources. There is also a major question about whether or not his superiors were aware of this, to what level within the Agency and to what extent the Agency officially covered up his activities to the Church Committee and HSCA investigations.

That becomes much more critical in terms of Phillip's long term influence on events in Latin America, including his admitted contacts with Louis Posada, Posada's terror attacks and the activities of other CIA related Cuban exiles across South America - something we discuss in great detail in "Shadow Warfare", including Phillips (and David Morales) seminal activities in what became known as the Condor operation.

Another explosive issue raised by Veciana's confirmation is the relationship between the CIA and Alpha 66, which according to Veciana was instigated, funded and directed by Bishop/Phillips. Exactly who inside the CIA knew that Phillips was helping create Alpha 66 and who knew that he was directing it towards attacks on Russian targets inside Cuba though 62/63 in direct opposition to Kennedy Administration policies and presidential directives? In "Shadow Warfare", we discuss the issue of CIA rogue action and the real risk posed by decisions by officers who decide to obstruct and subvert administration policies.

In short, those interested in the Kennedy assassination sometimes come to view people like Phillips, Hecksher, Morales, Shackley, Sforza, Robertson and their Cuban exile associates only in terms of 1963, in "Shadow Warfare" we follow their careers and activities over some 30 years and readers will see there impact on a global scale. Its a much broader view and we think a much more revealing one.

copied from the blog of Larry Hancock

Thank you, Larry, for all of your hard work and sharing it with us.......cl

just saying shall we put this together with the recent post from the Boston Globe talking about the suspicions of RFK after JFK was shot?

Then we will ask Vincent Bugliosi his opinion after that.