THE CIA AND OSWALD in NEW ORLEANS: Larry Hancock and David Boylan on the Newest JFK files

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:09]Let me introduce our two special guests tonight. Larry Hancock and David Boland, JFK researchers extraordinaire, uh, authors of a fine book, the Oswald puzzle, the aptly named Oswald puzzle, where they apply themselves to understanding the story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the study of uh, you know, the documents and the story the documented story of his life as it it was known to the US government. The Oswald puzzle is a book is a invaluable resource if you want to understand this whole bewildering issue. Um this whole complex issue and puzzle is the right word. But they put themselves to it and they've given us pieces of the puzzle. So let me introduce Larry and uh David. I'll tell you a little bit about them. Larry uh Larry is the proverbial blue spot in the ocean, the red ocean of Oklahoma. Uh he's somewhere out there on the prairie.

[00:01:10]Um he's uh grew up out there um and uh went into the Air Force, civilian Air Force employee um uh communications, marketing um career. Um and along the way somehow managed to write 17 different books and is a director of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Um David Boland's in Providence, Rhode Island. He's a retired IT manager from Brown University and these guys are a pair of researchers uh work together and um you know let's hear from them. I think what's really um interesting about these guys, what what what I really appreciate about their methodology is they really understand the bureaucracy, the you know the the institution of espionage as it functioned in 19 in the early 1960s and have really taken care to understand, you know, something that is often reduced to caricature through either movies or conspiracy theories and is neither. uh you know the reality of the world of the CIA was not a movie and it was not a conspiracy theory. It was a workplace. It was a place with rules and personalities and all of that. So that's what they're here to talk about and especially with reference to the new JFK records that have come out in the past year. They're not only going to talk about that, but a lot of what you know they're doing is looking at the very newest things and trying to understand what they mean. So, I've gotten a sense of what they're going to talk about tonight, and I'm very, very intrigued. So, welcome, Larry and David.

[00:02:52]And, um, you know, um, Larry, tell us, give us an overview. What have you been doing? What are you going to tell us? I tell us, yeah. Is this a part of a new piece of the Oswald puzzle? Are you going to write a new chapter in the Oswald puzzle? What exactly is this going to be?

[00:03:09]>> That's where it started. Jeff, thanks for having us, by the way. Uh yeah, when we finished the Oswell puzzle, David and I were very unsatisfied. It's we we were left in New Orleans now. We could we could follow Oswald up, you know, to a certain point leaving New Orleans. We know what happened in Dallas. Okay, fine. What happened in between? So basically, it remained a mystery to us and we kind of made a promise to everybody that we weren't going to give up. Uh and so when the new records started coming up, we kind of reset basically and we said okay let's look at what's coming up and not look at just a single document uh but look at what's being unredacted look at the new new information that's even available in the distribution information. One of one of David's specialties on documents is not just looking for the text in the document, but who held the document, who held the information, who did they share it with, who did they circulate it with, what is that, as as Jeff said, the CIA is it's a day job. It's a bureaucracy. It has rules. You know, they document things for themselves to communicate internally. That's difficult for them sometimes. But you know, they don't make up these documents to fool us. They make up these documents so that they can do their day job, right? And and it's amazing in a bureaucracy how many people are copied. Sometimes you think it's all super secret like only two guys know and then you see that like half a dozen different divisions are copied, you know, to either to share information or to do CYA so nobody says you're holding information from us. The FBI is the same way. So basically we dug back into it and and and looking at everything together and Jeff you asked us to try to maintain some focus. Basically, we came up with two areas that we felt had new leads. One new area of leads and and Jeff and others have developed this before is basically Oswell as a known figure within the CIA as of September, October, as of fall 1963.

[00:05:30]Who knew what about him? regardless of the fact that they all said in 1964 that nobody knew anything about him, right?

[00:05:39]We all know that. It's like we we don't know this guy. Don't blame us. Not our fault. Um that was a lie. Okay? And their own documents show that to be a lie. So, so we focused on that one one area is what is the breadth of knowledge and who knew what and how contemporary was it in the fall of 1963 regardless of what they were saying after the assassination. Uh the other thing that we we got a lead on were a couple of people that were involved in a project that may well have made Oswald of potential operational interest or actual operation. We think it was actual operational interest in Oswald in regard to a new propaganda project, a black propaganda project that was coming out of special affairs staff in Miami that to this day we know nothing about. In fact, it's kind of the only operation that's mentioned. You know, it it's clear from the documents that people were doing it, people were preparing for, they were engaged, they were obtaining information about it, but we don't even have a crypt for it. It's just disappeared entirely off the record other than a couple of mentions that it was being launched. Why would that be?

[00:06:59]Pretty interesting. But so these are a couple of things that we got into in regard to the CIA and Oswald and potential operational interest. Then the other area that we got deeply into how critical New Orleans looks like it was into bringing Oswald into the conspiracy that developed that fall and actually what individuals were involved in that.

[00:07:24]How did New Orleans loop into Miami?

[00:07:28]And uh one of the things that David did was a wonderful job of tracing some relationships between characters that were around New Orleans and Oswald, but also around key people that we often talked about in regarded conspiracy in Miami. So it's kind of the New Orleans Miami loop. So that that's what we'd like to share with you. We we actually added two new chapters to the Oswell Puzzle. We went back to the publisher and said, "You're going to come out with this in paperback. Why don't you share what we've learned in the last, you know, four or five months?" And they went, "Oh, geez, that's more work, but okay, fine." Um, so the new paperback edition that's that started shipping this week, as a matter of fact, has two new chapters in it of about 75 pages of information that come out of this additional research. And and it sources the documents. It sources sources of documents. we're talking about. But the first and I think it's great great way to bring David into this because essentially David does all the work and I just kind of go, "Oh, that's that's meaningful, David. Let's do something with it." You know, it's kind of like, "Okay, good." Um, is to give everybody a picture of what I'm talking about in terms of the breadth of knowledge within the CIA. Now this is breadth of knowledge about Oswald in terms of in New Orleans in August September his background since he had returned to the to the US which actually the FBI collected from Dallas from agent Hosti and shared with the CIA. Like nobody mentioned that because when Oswell was arrested in New Orleans, the FBI immediately informed headquarters, okay, and sent it to their Cuban desk. Makes sense. In headquarters, and the guy that's in charge of that immediate put a flag on it and sends a message down to Dallas and says, "Is this guy a national security problem?"

[00:09:35]I mean, straight out, is Lee Harvey Oswel a national security problem?

[00:09:40]Should we be concerned?

[00:09:41]>> What's the date? What's the date on that, Larry?

[00:09:43]>> Um, that would have been I think in uh end of August. I mean, just like two weeks of his arrest. Um, so they're they're interested and Hosti accumulates his information and sends it back. You know, he talks about he's Oswwell's been interviewed. Oswell has job problems. Oswell has problems with his marriage. Oswell may be a wife beater. Anything that they had collected that is, you know, pretty much negative about us, well, they send to CIA headquarters. CIA headquarters shares it with interesting people at headquarters.

[00:10:20]Uh, counter intelligence, uh, Jane Roman. Okay. Name out of the past. Okay.

[00:10:27]Um, and special affairs staff sends it down to Miami operating base and it shared more than that. That's before he went.

[00:10:37]>> Go ahead.

[00:10:38]>> That was before he went to Mexico.

[00:10:40]>> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

[00:10:43]>> Oh, way way before Mexico. 90 days. You know, this is So, it's it's hard to describe all of this. David's done some great work in preparing some charts. So, David, why don't why don't you come on board and show the slides that you've got to to really kind of trace this information from the FBI three headquarters down to Miami.

[00:11:07]>> Sure.

[00:11:07]>> Yeah. And let me let me let me just let me just preface that. This is what's really interesting to me because I knew a lot of this story about the CIA FBI interchanges, but that it circulated back to Miami.

[00:11:22]That's part of the story that I didn't know. So, let's hear from David. That's very intriguing to me. Tell us more, David.

[00:11:30]>> So, I'm one of those people. I have to see the picture. You know, if I can see the picture, I can understand it better.

[00:11:36]You know, when I read all the documents, they're just pieces. So, I try and put the pieces together and realize what am I looking at here? So, let me share a couple docs. Um, I did some org charts.

[00:11:50]Uh, let's see where they are.

[00:11:55]All right. Let me know if you can see these. Um, do I have to share?

[00:12:03]>> You have to hit the share button.

[00:12:05]>> All right, there it is.

[00:12:09]Um, there we go.

[00:12:18]All right. First of all, I just want to cover some of these statements Jeff was involved here. So, give him credit for like way back. This is when Newman and Jeff actually talking to uh Jane Roman.

[00:12:30]I don't know how many years ago, Jeff, but it's when you interviewed >> and when you looked, you know, what Jane Roman said is, you know, what was going on with Oswell was indicative of some sort of operational interest file is what Newman asked. Jane Roman said, "Yes, to me it's indicative of a keen interest in Oswald had held very closely on the need to know basis." This is key right here by the special affairs staff.

[00:12:55]They thought that somehow they can make some use of Oswald. I mean, I'll go right into the documents in a minute, but there's another key point. I think she said, uh, >> for those who don't know who's SAS, >> um, the special affairs staff. I could go into that a little bit. Um, >> I mean just for for people that's shorthand for the CIA's Cuba operation in 1963.

[00:13:22]>> What had been known in 1962 as Mongoose gets this more bland bureaucratic name, special affairs staff in 1963. And that's kind of the umbrella for all of the efforts to overthrow the Cuban government. So um >> yeah, Desmond Fitzgerald was uh was appointed he took over at William Harvey's place and pretty much like 90% of the people too for um special affairs staff were Harvey guys, you know, he had them in place and a lot of them just remained there, you know, other than some uh new additions. But down the bottom, this is key.

[00:14:02]There has to be some point for withholding information from Mexico City. If you notice Mexico City, they didn't know who Oswald was. They didn't know, you know, what was going on there, you know, uh, Mexico City. So, that's key that we could trace that it is actually the SAS, special affairs staff that was has something going on with Oswald. They kept the information close to them, their vest for some reason.

[00:14:33]Let's take a look at who's actually signing off on their documents. This is key.

[00:14:38]CIS that's your liaison counter intelligence you know Angleton's group who's signing off Jane Roman right there official signature SAS counter intelligence that's Austin Horn who was also the liaison to the FBI so he and Sam Papage would meet daily um of the FBI like what's going on who are these guys you know >> yeah key over here is LD the I believe that's Aloo Danti who's running the AM Santa project which is huge you know that's the FPCC uh informant um and uh they get an eye on Oswald you know which I think is very interesting >> what does this chart tell us David >> this is the special affairs staff the actual org chart who reporting to who all the way up to Fitzgerald um and where you want to see are the people who are aware of Oswald for the special affairs staff. I get the arrows pointing to them. Um on the far left you got John Tilden for um the Miami operations branch.

[00:15:52]You have two main branches here for the special affairs staff. You have the external operations branch and the Miami branch.

[00:16:00]Um so under the external operations branch counter intelligence I don't know if you can see my uh point here >> you got Hal Swenson and under here you have Austin Horn he's the leaison so he's very much aware of what's going on you got Anna Pitakei whose husband Will Pitakei works for James Angleton and they're you know very close to uh William Harvey Harvey stayed at their house um when he was uh in Washington. Uh you got Lud Danti. You know, Lou Danti shows up twice here because he's part of the counter intelligence, but he's also part of the counter intel CP, which we believe is Communist Party. So, he's aware of what Oswald and he's run the AM Santa program, which is I think pretty amazing, you know. So, um, >> yeah, because because I mean, yeah, just to develop David's point here, I mean, this is what's really interesting about it. So, Danti is running a program to penetrate the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a separate program, okay, that that has a it's kind of a worldwide program to use Communist Party and front organizations to penetrate the Cuban regime. So while Lud Danti is running that program, he's also receiving reports on a guy in the FPCC named Oswald three months before the assassination.

[00:17:35]So this is Keep going, David, because this is really interesting.

[00:17:39]>> Sure. I mean, so let's take a look at Wiltz's receipt. David, before you leave, tell everybody how important Tilton was and who reported to him and what his position was.

[00:17:53]>> Yeah, Tilton over here on the left, he pretty much was running the show as far I mean, he worked very closely with JM Wave. Um, he handled both the paramilitary and your psychological warfare guys. So I mean Joe and Edes would actually meet with him um in headquarters and most of the time Tilton was at headquarters but people who come from uh JM Wave Miami to go meet with him. Um as you can see right underneath him you got the paramilitary group now Cal Hicks he ran assassination programs. Um and you got a lot of these guys down the bottom the um propaganda crew. Most of these guys worked with and for David Phillips over the years. This was his crew for the Bay of Pigs. All these guys, Harrison, uh, Orville Baith. So these he was plugged into pretty much anything that was going on in Miami was John Tilton.

[00:19:01]>> Dave, would this been the same structure when Harvey was running it?

[00:19:05]>> No. This is an improved thing. You got Fitzgerald.

[00:19:09]>> Yeah. you know >> Harvey would have been >> Harvey there but he did have Bruce Chver Chver was um Harvey's assistant but he also remained in that position after Harvey left Sam Halpern same thing but this over here in the special operations group that grew um with the they created that pretty much after when they started to go with the autonomous operations program um end of March beginning of April and you can see the guys there Neestor Sanchez, he was their case officer for Rolando Kubella, Alfonso Rodriguez, he was running jury, you know, uh, Emanuel Ray, Roilio Cisneros, he was their case officer and again, he knew quite a bit about Sylvia Odio, you know. Um, >> why wouldn't they be part of Jamwave?

[00:19:59]>> Because they're the higher level guys.

[00:20:01]these guys um are headquarters although they go back and forth to Miami and um Puerto Rico San Juan you got Alfonso Rodriguez he's in San Juan quite a bit meeting with Manolo Ray um they were Rodriguez and Simo Bolton they were like two of Harvey's special assistants you know they were high level guys um the JM Wave crew they're in Miami everybody's working for Shackley he's got I don't know four to 500 people there at any time Um it was a different crew in JM Wave than it is here in headquarters >> because like JM way is out there. They got no one reporting to them or like it's amazing. That was the first thing that popped out at me.

[00:20:43]>> It's like staff versus operations. You got you got staff that are assigned to a project. And it took us a long time to get here to understand the differentiation. Literally SAS is staff assigned to the Cuba project. They use resources wherever they find it. They have resources in Mexico City. They have resources in Miami. They have, you know, literally Miami is just a base with resources as far as they're concerned.

[00:21:12]>> Ah, right.

[00:21:16]>> So, >> and isn't it fair to say that we're dealing in a I mean, we're obviously dealing in a post task force W era. So, so they've shifted from, you know, as far as the the DR is concerned, as far as the Cuban exiles are concerned, they've shifted entirely to propaganda or they've tried to and and that might be also part of why JM wave is sort of off to the side. Is that is that fair to say?

[00:21:43]>> I I think after the Cuban missile crisis and and when Harvey was sidelined in January and when Fitzgerald took over, they kind of went into a beholding pattern. Um, they weren't doing much.

[00:21:56]They were doing quite a bit of propaganda, but as far as paramilitary stuff, I think they only had five raids up until March. Very small little pin pricks. And then come the end of March, beginning of April is when they got the gohead to start the autonomous operations. Um, Fitzgerald met with, you know, RFK, JFK, Helms, um, and that crew. Out of that came the autonomous operations which became Amworld and am trunk and you know commandos man BC's and all that crew. Um, >> if I could if I could just add one sort of historical perspective there also that this this shift is predicated or caused by uh the Kennedy's crackdown in Miami and they say no more raids launched from US soil and they were seriously enforced that and so the most militant Cubans in Miami including the DR and other groups get these orders from INS. you can't leave Dade County without our permission.

[00:23:01]So, so the most militant exiles who want to keep attacking relocate. Some go to Louisiana um and others go to Central America, Nicaragua, you know, looking for new bases from which to launch operations where they won't be impeded by the FBI or by these orders by the Kennedy administration. So that's part of the context of what is going on here with these autonomous groups. They're letting these groups be autonomous. Go. You can attack Castro.

[00:23:33]Just don't do it from South Florida. You know, >> they would be under special ops rather than Miami operations branch.

[00:23:41]>> Uh yeah. Uh let's see.

[00:23:50]>> I think they also went to Dallas. They were they were spreading everywhere they could go.

[00:23:55]>> Well well ba basically I mean what you've really got is you've got the the old-timers who have been doing maritime ops out of JM Wave continue to do it just fewer missions. They're waiting on approval for some some they do without anybody apparently knowing it and like Tilt and then Fitzgerald tells people after the fact that they did something.

[00:24:18]uh JMWave becomes it's has its own autonomy. You've got the autonomous groups that are being as Jeff said directed you know do it anywhere but from the US. You've got JM Wave kind of doing its own thing. They came up with a whole equivalent thing called Commando Mambces, which was a secret operations project from American soil at the same time we're telling all the Cubans, you can't operate from American soil. So draw a big cloud around all of this and just list it as chaotic >> because like when I work corporate you know or or charts I mean where Jamwave is is at the same level practically as Fitzgerald which is a weird it's like they really are their own >> group. Yeah.

[00:25:08]>> So but but amidst all of this David's pointing out this apparatus is starting to focus on this chap Oswald.

[00:25:16]>> Yeah. So tell us about that David. What have you what do you discern from the new records about the knowledge about Oswald?

[00:25:34]Well, you could see how it's it's spreading. Um you could see right here again arrows. These are the people who have knowledge of Oswald by the summer of 63, August, September into October.

[00:25:47]You can see Shackley, he's getting all the reports, anything that's going on.

[00:25:51]Uh his deputy chief of station, Bob Moore, um David Morales knows everything that's going on with the DR. Um he knows, you know, he was handling the uh the military section of the DR. You know, the AM hit guys. Um, you got under covert action. We had Phil Tumi who was George Shan's supervisor up until about August 1st. Then Georgees took his place. I don't know where Phil Tumi went after that. That's a tough one to find.

[00:26:21]But um, he was up to his neck and pretty much anything that was going on with the DR and the um, also the the teachers a re revolutionary group too. though.

[00:26:34]Um, you got Ross Croer, who was still hanging around, who was the original, uh, DR guy. Calvin Thomas, who handled a lot of the propaganda for the DR. Tony Coo, he ended up doing quite a bit with the DR come uh, early uh, 64, you know.

[00:26:52]So, you got all these people know pretty much everything that's going on with Oswald at this time. They're getting these guys getting the reports. Um, we don't have anything where they're signing off their names, but this is the crew that's who's getting it, you know.

[00:27:06]So, if Morales gets it, you know, some of his guys might know a little bit, too. And got some interesting people there that work under the special operations, the paramilitary group.

[00:27:16]These are your paral paramilitary guys that's doing the infiltrations. You know that's these are >> we know Joeites having an arrow on the bottom level but on the top level when he's in charge I assume that the arrow means both him and Tony know about Oswald.

[00:27:34]>> Yes.

[00:27:35]>> Yeah.

[00:27:36]>> And I mean it's fair to say you know he's not high enough in the hierarchy but there should be a blue hour next to Amelia Red Rodriguez as well considering he was in the courtroom. I I'm just guessing maybe not at this point but well it is September so so he's already had a runin.

[00:27:52]>> So Amelio's brother was an acquaintance of Aresto was acquaintance of Lehavi Oswald. He knew um Oswald pretty well.

[00:28:02]Ernesto it's Aresto. I don't want to go too far to the side but Ernesto I can show you some some of his sayings. Um Oswald approached Anesto to learn how to speak Spanish so um Oswald could get to Cuba, you know, learn how to speak Spanish. And um Anesto pointed him to local Cubans, pointed them to this guy called Kalispringier who's really good friends with Aresto. Um pointed him to know Raspina's place, uh a couple other local Cubans. You know, if you look at Oswald's address book, he's got, you know, the Cuban addresses in there to be able to go see. So he went, you know, he went to go see Bring Gear and brought his, you know, marine manual say, "Hey, I want to help you guys, you know, I want to help, you know, help the anti- Castro community, you know, train them because I'm a Marine, you know." So that's where that came from. It came from Amelio Rodriguez's brother, Ernesto, who went to Kos Gear. Um, let me see if I can >> Yeah. And if I just make a point about Ernesto and Amelio Rodriguez, they grew up in New Orleans. They were of Cuban extraction and went back to Cuba in the 50s and were both picked up as CIA agents. By 1963, it seems like Ernesto had dropped out. The the CIA wasn't interested in him anymore and he went into the language business. Um, but his brother Alio was highly regarded as one of the best penetration agents they had.

[00:29:32]So these guys who Oswald encounters, you know, have this CIA background. Um, you know, then that's just one of the people on this chart, you know, >> and Jeff, I think one of the things David and I have learned and that we never fully considered before, there really are two charts. There's a reporting organizational reporting structure chart on Oswald that goes from the FBI to the CIA and and down to Miami. It goes from the DR ends up in Miami. You know, there this is an organizational bureaucracy day job reporting on on things in the Cuban world. Okay. Especially the counter intelligence world. But there's another overlay on that that is the social network overlay that you just brought up of these Cubans that have have been in New Orleans from the first Bay of Pigs, the first Cuba project, right? We're now in the fourth one, but they go date back to the Cuban Revolutionary Council. The the these are this is the old guard that's been in New Orleans that that stole music munitions and and broke into bunkers and were associated all the way back to the Bay of Pigs era. They're still there and they're in the courtroom with Oswald. And if you think that they don't talk to their old compatriots in Miami about what's happening with this Oswald character, I would say you're really mistaken because this this is this is the cause of life for these guys. This is what they talk about.

[00:31:06]Cuba, Castro, Cuban agents. They've all volunteered to be sources for the CIA and the FBI. Okay. And they volunteer.

[00:31:16]Um, Alio, as you just said, did that while he was still on island before he came out of Cuba and was one of the key assets inside Cuba for Tony Seorza, David Morales, you know, they and that's why he comes out so highly rated. He is he is kind of the Emlio is the same level in intelligence collection for the CIA as Felix Rodriguez was in military operations. These these guys are the trusted Cubans on board with the CIA as actual officers. No, not not on the paper. Yeah, these guys are actual officers and acknowledged as officers.

[00:31:59]Um, so we've got to understand there had to have been a social communications going on. If you're if you're in the courtroom with Lee Harvey Oswald supporting Fidel Castro, going on the radio and TV and talking about him, when you talk to your relatives and your friends in Miami or to your relative in Dallas like Sylvia Odio, this has got to come up in the conversation, >> right?

[00:32:28]Yeah. Um, so David, um, you mentioned the Cuban teachers directorate. This, I think, is one of the most interesting things that you found. Something that I I I might have like glimpsed it before, but I didn't understand it. What was the Cuban teachers directorate? Who was involved in that? How does that figure in the story?

[00:32:53]>> Yeah, Jeeoff, it was one of those things I just glanced over myself, too. like you know teachers you know they're not as active as the students the students are the militant you know and so you know I kind of registered that you know somewhere deep in my head that you know when I looked at George uh Joe's file you know they they gave him a medal for you know supporting the you know the student organization and the teachers or organization so when I started looking at that a little bit more that's interesting you know this the latest show and thing that came out. And so then I started looking at um it was a combination. I was looking at Sylvia Oddio's uncle Augustine Guat. He was a CIA asset. Um he reported to Carl Trenton who's on the organization chart we have up above, you know, for SAS. So you have an SAS member talking to Sylvia Odio's uncle, you know, he's his case officer, you know. So I was looking more at the uh guat file and I looked he was also a member of the teachers revolutionary directorate you know same as the you know that George Stony's is supporting and these are his guys.

[00:34:04]>> So just for way of background Augustine Gart was a professor of physics at Xavier University in Louisiana >> um and was part of this group which was a kind of parallel to the Cuban student director. was professors and teachers from Cuba who were opposed to the communist regime and who were funded by them. But the fact that Joaniti had worked with the group, you know, um I would presume knew Guard, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a huge organization.

[00:34:43]>> It certainly wouldn't have had a lot of members in New Orleans. Um, so the fact that Joe and Edites probably knew somebody who was in the courtroom with Oswalt. You talk about the social network effect. Yeah, they were they were talking about this among themselves. I mean, that's that's the only explanation, right? It they weren't not talking about it. We can be sure of that, you know. So um so who else is in this um who else is in this millu David and the sort of Miami New Orleans millu?

[00:35:18]>> Well ju to jump back in if I could David could you go back to the chart that has Tilton on it.

[00:35:31]Jeff, I think this is an area where it really gets interesting in regard to some of the groundwork that you've laid with Joe and Edites because one of the things that when we get turned on to this correspondence between the FBI and the special affairs staff, you know, they they're providing they've provided information on Oswell on his arrest, on his background, hostage information.

[00:35:57]Okay, Tilton has all this. Okay. Um, it is Lambert Anderson at the Cuba desk at the FBI who who's in contact with Tilton. Okay, you already mentioned David mentioned Am Santa. Okay, that's fine. We've got this FPCC thing going because the informant at the FPCC is an FBI informant, not a CIA guy. As a matter of fact, the FBI is going to be sending him into Cuba and and looks for the CIA to brief him on, you know, what you need to collect, questions you need to ask, and so on and so forth. But one of the interesting memos is the FBI is is clearly open to the fact that the CIA may try to sta steal him as the CIA often did. And they even make a remark if they manage to plant him in Cuba, he will remain an FBI source. So like hands off guys. Um so I it's great to see this. You don't see that often but clearly they were staking him out and he's the one that's going to be the interesting thing is what we found. This is a new finding to me. John Tilton writes to Lambert Anderson and says this in September time frame. We're starting this new black propaganda project now.

[00:37:19]black propaganda project involving the FPCC.

[00:37:23]This this is going to be an overseas project. This is going to be preparing materials, letters, statements, documents that are all fictitious relating to the FPCC. and we're going to plant it overseas in these countries that we're dealing with where we hope to send the autonomous groups, you know, and we want to sensitize these countries to how dangerous Castro is and the fair play for C, you know, we need to make these guys very sensitive to the threat of Cuba. Okay? So, we're gonna do a black propaganda project. So Tilton to do this, if you're going to manufacture all this dirty stuff on the FPCC, he needs information that is FPCC stuff, you know, it's got to be modeled after real letters and exchanges and correspondence. And so, um, Tilton asked Anderson, you know, use your source to give us stuff that we can use in this propaganda operation. And of course their source is the one who's been exchanging letters with Lee Harvey Oswald.

[00:38:31]Um so you know we don't have a list of what they were provided but but there's a very good chance that Oswald's letters and Oswald material is provided to Tilton as part of that. I would love to see that and we would know something about it except this is the black operation that totally disappears from the record. We know it was started.

[00:38:53]There's no sign of what happened to it in the documents. However, the interesting thing is this is going to be a propaganda black propaganda project starting up under Tilton. And who are the two people that we think went to work for special affair affairs staff and propaganda on a special project as of the late summer of 1963?

[00:39:15]That would probably be David Phillips and Mr. Joan Edites.

[00:39:22]But then you have Tilton is under Miami.

[00:39:26]You have the the Santi all the way down here on this counter intelligence. So you're saying Tilton is going to the FBI rather than talking to Danti?

[00:39:36]>> The FBI is the one that has the data that he wants. He needs real time data like correspondence and letters that they can forge. I mean, they need need real people's names that they can forge and make look really dangerous. So, the Black Propaganda Project is going to make somebody who's been corresponding with the FPCC look really dangerous and scare people in these foreign nations.

[00:40:02]And guess who that might be, >> right? If you look at >> and just just by way of background to that. So the FBI informant is a man named Victor Vicente who worked in the FPCC office in New York and he becomes this FBI informant and then the FBI makes him available to the CIA while keeping control of him. So when Tilton goes to the FBI and says, "We're launching an operation against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, the they go back to Vicente and the information that that they had obtained because he let them break into their office and they have photographs and this is documented in the FBI report of a 100 pages of photographs from the file and in there is Oswald's correspondence where he's asking for pamphlets from the FPCC. So, this is the material from the FBI breakin at FPCC headquarters. That material arrives at the CIA in the fall of 1963 in the form of John Tilton. And the thing about Tilton is he's also a heavyweight in this thing. He goes on from this assignment to become station chief in Bolivia. and he oversees the CIA's manhunt for Chevara.

[00:41:26]So these are people who make things happen. You know, he's not he hasn't risen as high as he's going to go, but he is the type of guy who makes things happen. So that's what they have. But but David, tell me. So you think this is a Joe Phillips operation that Tilton is kind of putting together? Is that what you're saying?

[00:41:50]>> Could be. That's um >> if we look at the I just want to cover this point. If you look at the AM Santa um document that we have, who was signing off on it? Who's actually included in it? You got Lud Santi, right? Anna Pitaki, Austin Horn, and at the top you have Alonso Rodriguez who is the case officer for jury.

[00:42:15]you know, they're all in that, you know, am Santa, which is I find very interesting, you know, so why why are all these people you could see why the counter intelligence people are, but why the special ops guy, you know, if you look at that document, strange, but Tilton, I think Larry's done quite a bit on more on Tilton and Phillips in the black.

[00:42:37]>> Yeah, I would say Jeff, this is speculation. So, this is this is just me speculating. David doesn't have to follow along. So the the but the the point we do know is we do know that two things you you've brought out that uh Joanites was assigned to a a new special project. Okay, you developed that. We know from David Phillips that he was assigned to a new special project with SAS and it was propaganda. Okay, there's no doubt about that. That's what he he was the specialist. We know that he traveled to uh Miami Station to work on this project uh in September. Uh at the same time, he was there right after Lee Harvey was in Mexico City. Okay. So, there's reason to believe that this could very well be associated with the propaganda operation. So, since there's no record of it in the documents, where else would you be able to find it? Well, if you look back at New Orleans, you do find a new propaganda operation, a black propaganda, something developed for overseas use, not domestic use, being developed by a group that David Phillips has worked with before and someone a group we all know and love as Inca, Information Council for the Americas.

[00:43:55]Okay. And Inca is has is a CIA surrogate. We have the documents that show that that the CIA has used them to disperse has actually provided them with list of CIA media sources throughout Central America that they can use to disperse their material. So what is the program that we find under development Inca that that surfaces in November immediately following the assassination that they were already building? We find tapes of Oswell in it. We actually find a record of Oswald transcribed to Spanish. We find a variety of collateral material talking about how dangerous Lee Harvey Oswald and the FPCC are. It looks exactly what you would find in a proper pro black propaganda program that was being developed to plant overseas through David Phillips contacts channel it through Mexico City to his outlets in Central America. So I can't prove it. If we had Tilton's documents, if we had his operations files, maybe we could. But I my speculation is that's the reason why we don't have him because that would be the first thing that you would ditch to show that you were just not interested in Oswell. But you already had a program in play that made him like the target for the program. You do not want that to show up in the official record. So pure speculation on my part. Do >> you think that Arwell was the target or that he was knowingly participating in this pro? He was he was a target.

[00:45:37]They're going to they're going to fake this stuff around the image that comes out of New Orleans, his appearances, his interviews. They don't need him. In fact, they don't want him because >> he would have to go along with this project. You know, he's going to have to make himself look dirty and dangerous and a threat because that's what the black propaganda is being built around.

[00:46:00]Uh, of course we do see that come into play a little bit if you if you trace the Sylvia Odio story of, you know, this guy is a loose cannon. He could kill anybody. Uh, your the telephone. We can get into that later, but no, Larry. Uh, no, I'm not. They're using information they've obtained about him as a model for how to set up the program.

[00:46:24]>> Right.

[00:46:25]>> So, Larry Phillips and Joanites work with Tilton. Is that what you're suggesting?

[00:46:30]>> Correct. In propaganda work.

[00:46:33]>> Yeah. A line that jumps out at me jumped out at me in the in the Joanites file from his uh his last performance review in Athens before he comes to Miami.

[00:46:46]Um he gets high marks for a very specific thing, PPA, propaganda and political action. and and the job description, his job evaluation describes that propaganda and political action through clandestine or controlled means. This was Joan's bread and butter.

[00:47:09]This was what he did. So what does that mean? Propaganda, political action. So propaganda is the written word, you know, the denunciation, the message.

[00:47:18]Political action is the thing you do in reality on the street, you know, whatever. um through clandestine or controlled means. So controlled means is a controlled agent. You have somebody who you have some control over and they and they do it or you do it through clandestine means where the person isn't witting. Well, I mean that's the skill set that's being applied to Lee Harvey Oswald. you know, uh, that's what we finally see now is this is propaganda and political action through clandestine and controlled means. That's the job description. That's what he's doing.

[00:47:58]>> And of course, that is Philip's specialty, too. I mean, that >> Yeah. And right and and and you know where Joites fits in the hierarchy, he's not a mover and shaker. He's even less so than David Phillips. He's kind of executing the orders of the people above him more on the level of Phillips and Harvey and Helms, you know, he's he's the guy who exe the guy in the field who's executing.

[00:48:27]>> Can you tell me who who actually like tapped Phillips for this tasking?

[00:48:33]>> Fitzgerald and and Phillips writes about that.

[00:48:38]Phillips writes about the fact that that summer he was approached by Fitzgerald to be doubledheaded basically to be he's going to stay in Mexico City um because that's he's useful in Mexico City for his channels but he is going to be double-headed wear a hat within special affair staff for a new project and he writes about that he doesn't go into any great detail but he writes about that which is which is why we see him going, you know, in September, early October, going from Mexico City to Headquarters DC and then going down to my to special affairs staff in Miami Station. Wish we knew who he met there. We don't. Um, but I will again since I'm I often go out on the end of tree limbs these days, I'll also speculate that Oswell Oswell might have appeared as a great opportunity to David Phillips uh being in um Mexico City and contacting both the Cubans and the Russians. And David Phillips may have realized that there was an opportunity to use, say, tapes of Oswalt. Um, we go into this a lot in the book, but Oz Phillip's specialty was is known in the CIA and described himself.

[00:49:59]He did reverse propaganda. He took reality and turned it 180 degrees and made a different reality. That was a specialty. He learned that in Guatemala.

[00:50:11]And he himself said that he was used as a consultant within the agency because his skill set was special. taking one thing and making the opposite out of it, which would be exactly a match for taking Lee Harvey Oswald, who wasn't dangerous, and making Lee Harvey Oswald very dangerous, which actually may be the source of what ended up being the Gil Gilberto Alvarado story.

[00:50:37]>> I'll leave it at that.

[00:50:39]>> Yeah, >> the original Bizarro World >> Seinfeld.

[00:50:45]Um David um we've talked about Sylvia Odio um in this um and um Augustine Guard who is a CIA asset for Joanites um uh is the uncle of Sylvia Odio. He's active in anti-com anti-castro activities. Um so is Sylvia Odio's father. Sylvviodio receives a visit that she describes as two Cuban men and somebody they describe as Leyon late September 1963 and they're talking about you know threatening language about Kennedy killing Kennedy and Soviet audio told this story uh was you know it was known to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission went to great lengths to get rid of it um because it was quite incriminating otherwise. In all of this work, do you have any insight into I mean, first of all, did it happen? Is Sylvia Odio's story, right? Was that Oswald at her door? And if so, who was he with?

[00:51:53]Do we know anything about >> Well, first of all, I think Sylvia Odo was involved in a lot more things than, you know, just simple housewife, you know. Um, >> right. She she wanted to be um actually the head of propaganda for Jur, which a lot of people didn't know. She asked Manol Ray, I want to be a head of propaganda and he he said no. Um he also was attempting to use her as an asset to recruit Kos Lachuga.

[00:52:23]Um so I think that that's interesting.

[00:52:26]Probably don't have time to go into that though.

[00:52:29]um Grace said he hope to penetrate the Cuban delegation soon and Ambassador Chuga through a woman member of Jere who continues but without significant progress. So I think that's interesting.

[00:52:40]So I mean first of all we had to look at who Sylvia Odo knew and who um her uncle was hanging with you know he had some unbelievable connections. you know, it's just like he was not just like a friendly college professor like you say, you know, um he was close to uh Frank Bartz. Frank Bartez was the head of the CRC in New Orleans and the uh August Todd her uncle was the assistant delegate of of the CRC in New Orleans.

[00:53:10]So he knew all these guys, you know, he knew an close to Ernesto Rodriguez and I don't know did he know Amelia Rodriguez?

[00:53:18]We don't know. you know, you know, Klo Koga. Klo Koga was the guy that delivered the hand bills to Oswald. Um, and if you start to look at the connections like Bartz, who did Bartz know he was he knew a lot of people in Miami, you know, he'd go to Miami often. You know, Con Verona was his, you know, his boss, you know, essentially. So, he met with that whole crew. Um, and he actually was close to and knew Victor Espinosa Hernandez and and Victor's right-hand man, the best friend, Carlos Hernandez Sanchez. Um, these guys were highly trained. Um, they were, you know, Bayer Pig veterans. They were infiltration guys. Um, they were trained by Kyle Jenkins, Rip Robertson. you know, these you not your ordinary anti-Castro Cubans. These guys were, you know, military. Um, Carlos Hernandez was a member of the DRE. Um, he was close to, uh, Juan Salvad. I mean, all those guys.

[00:54:24]He, you know, Louie Fernandez, uh, you know, uh, he knew all those guys. Um, he also after he left it, you know, he was also a member of the MR, you know, uh, Emanuel Artame's group. Um, he was his body god, you know, so he was plugged into everybody and anything that was going on. This is just Carlos Hernandez.

[00:54:46]Um, I tend to ramble here. Cut me off if you want me to. Um, and Victor, he was highly trained. Uh, but his his thing was he was close to a lot of the casino crowd in Havana, which is an interesting lead that a lot of people haven't looked at. He was close to uh Mike Mlan. He lived at Mlan's house. I think uh Larry might be able to go into some things uh about Sodto um living with >> ML. Do do you think, David, that any of these people were the the two people who were with Oswald at Sylvia Odo's house?

[00:55:27]>> Sure. I think it was Carlos and Victor.

[00:55:29]Um, they fit the description.

[00:55:31]>> They're both Mexicanl looking. Um, they're Cuban. I mean, I kind of tore apart her whole uh what she had to say for herself and who they were.

[00:55:44]Mhm.

[00:55:44]>> And we looked at, you know, the the description of the short guy. Carlos Hernandez was 5'7 and a half, 5'8, 180 lbs. He was the shorter one. Um Leopoldo was no 6' 51, kind of skinny, 165 lbs. So was um Victor. Both came from New Orleans. So, we know that um Victor and Carlos had been in New Orleans at Mlan's place doing a raid know the air raid on Cuba and they got arrested well questioned by the FBI. Um and that was in end of July in the beginning of August. They're still talking to the FBI. Um Victor is um his brother Renee Espinosa is close to Bartz's daughter. He call her all the time in New Orleans. Um, I mean, we can make a lot of connections here to actually who they were.

[00:56:39]>> Yeah. So, so, so the the point being Oswald's thick as thieves with these Cubans, right? I mean, he's he he's swimming in a sea of CIA Cubans basically.

[00:56:52]>> Yes.

[00:56:53]like every person he talks to uh somehow has some connection to >> Jeff I think Doug Doug described it well when we talked with him he used the word hovering >> and it's like Oswald in New Orleans is just these old line Cubans are just hovering around them whether it's Bringer or Kuraga or Bartz I mean they all know him >> and I this is where this is really the second chapter that we added to the the paperback edition is to look at this social connection, social loop between these New Orleans Cubans and the Miami Cubans. Uh, which is not just the Miami Cubans that are average run-of-the-mill Cubans. We're talking about somebody like Antonio Verona who had been in the Castro assassination project in the from the beginning with Johnny Roselli and Mayhew uh the poison poison attempt on Castro who William Harvey had brought back into the project when he re reinvigorated it.

[00:58:02]Antonio Verona is an extremely trusted guy. This is one ofart's best friends. Antonio Verona is a guy who is in New Orleans staying with Guitart in November 1963.

[00:58:17]Um there's a there's a >> Yeah. So So the >> Yeah. And the point being, not only is it well known, but these are people who are high in the hierarchy that has been in the counterrevolutionary hierarchy that has been created, you know, after the after Castro takes power.

[00:58:38]You know, the the the Cuban Revolutionary Council is it's not really an independent organization. It's kind of the umbrella group of all of the Cuban. It didn't have any independent capacity. Um, but it purported to speak for all of them and as such it was very well funded by the CIA at least for a long time. So, and these characters like uh uh Guard, you know, they're they're the leaders of this group in in New Orleans.

[00:59:07]>> So, that's who Oswald that's who Oswald is mingling with >> all the while. Um, we're coming up on 9:00.

[00:59:16]>> We're coming up on nine o'clock. If people want to comment about what we've been talking about, um, please raise your hand, um, if you want to talk about something else, uh, wait till next week.

[00:59:30]We're going to confine the conversation to, uh, Larry and David's presentation here tonight. But if you have a question, raise your hand. There's an icon at the bottom of the screen. Um, and let's hear from Dave Luvara.

[00:59:46]You might need to unmute, Dave.

[00:59:47]>> There you go. Thank you. Um, Larry and, uh, David or anybody else, what was, can you trace exactly the first time Oswald's appearing in the CIA files?

[01:00:02]>> Well, the first time he appears in CIA files are State Department records on Oswald that are associated with his entry into Russia. the State Department starts copying >> 1959.

[01:00:16]>> Yeah. 1959. So he he's in the system now. He doesn't actually get there there's a delay which Malcolm Blunt goes into. That's a long story. But when when he goes to Russia, he starts showing up in the CIA's files, headquarters files, counter intelligence files.

[01:00:35]>> And how about how about the FBI? When's the first time he appears in FBI files?

[01:00:39]>> Same time.

[01:00:40]>> Okay. same thing. Yeah.

[01:00:42]>> Thank you very much.

[01:00:43]>> Yeah.

[01:00:45]>> Mark Bhas.

[01:00:47]>> Yeah. Hello. Um, yeah. The paperback edition, uh, is is there any revisions?

[01:00:53]Is that the original text? Is it going to be exactly the same in just the two chapters or did you revise any of the >> just the two chapters were added? No revision in the other copy. And and just in case someone's interested, >> probably within two or three weeks, the paperback editions will go into the Kindle version >> there. You know, that that takes time to do, but they won't go into the hard cover.

[01:01:20]>> And this Spanish document that you mentioned, it was translated about Oswald. You mentioned it right after you did Inca. What's the significance? You mentioned that in passing. What's the significance of >> Well, the point is this black propaganda project, it's different than what we normally think of. Normally, we think Jeff talked about, you know, the DR started putting out material, you know, criticizing Oswald and drawing attention to Oswald in the United States as as being, you know, this is this is what Cast Castro can beguile and mislead these young Americans, even ex-Marines.

[01:01:55]That's domestic propaganda. This new project was designed to be black propaganda to go into the Spanish-speaking Central American countries where these autonomous ops are going to reside in the future hopefully for the CIA. And it it needs it can't it can't come from any group supported by the CIA. It's got to be planted as if it came from some other source totally. So that it's it needs to be in information about Oswell's got to be translated into Spanish and planted through agency contacts and David David Phillips had a whole string of media contacts in Central America that would be used to do that and had been done Inc. had been used for that purpose before. Uh David, do you recall there was actually is was it AM Kiss? There's some strange name for that program. Do you remember what it was in Mexico? Um, it's in the book, but he actually ran that program to distribute black property, but that's that's the reason it would all need to be. It was intended for a Spanish market, not a domestic US market.

[01:03:06]>> Is this document on Mary Ferrell?

[01:03:09]>> Oh, what document?

[01:03:10]>> That Spanish translation. How did you find that?

[01:03:13]>> No, actually, actually the document the they Inca issued this record. it they issued it in English in the US and my understanding from commentary is they issued it in Spanish in Latin American countries you know themselves it I think it first came out in like December January of 6364 um we talk about it in the Oswell puzzle but you know it's not associated with the CIA it's an Inca production and then those interviews and transcripts there's The transcript of Israeli interviews too were picked up by other outright ultraright media outlets anti-com the anti-communist network and they also issued some of it.

[01:04:00]>> Yeah.

[01:04:01]>> Quick quickly is there is there can I just one is there a time discrepancy with Sylvia audio? Do I mean is it is it possible that >> Oswald went to went to Mexico City and is it does it work?

[01:04:16]>> Here's the problem. If you take the the Warren Commission/FBI timetable for Oswell literally, it doesn't work. There are a lot of problems with that. There are a lot of problems with the bus ride. There are a lot of problems with when he was in Houston, when he wasn't in Houston.

[01:04:36]I personally I don't think David and I feel that we can accept the official travel report of Oswald as factual.

[01:04:45]There are a lot of questions and if you put that in I mean there are there's testimony from people that saw Oswell being including a border guard a US border guard that testified he was driven into Mexico City or driven to Mexico by two guys in a car and Oswell was with him and he listed his occupation as photographer. There's a whole series of alternative documentation that raises travel questions about that. And if you if you open that open that window, then ODO is possible. If you take the official travel version, it's not.

[01:05:20]>> Are you familiar with that statement by her priest that said Odo said that it was the same night that Janet Lee appear appeared in?

[01:05:29]>> I I'm familiar with it and and again, everybody has to make their own call. uh that happened.

[01:05:35]>> Do we know do we know when that was that?

[01:05:39]>> Someone has dated it. I know. I've seen a date for it. I don't remember it off the top of my head.

[01:05:44]>> Could it have been September 11th?

[01:05:46]Because that that's when she was Okay.

[01:05:49]So, we don't we don't know.

[01:05:52]>> But that's when that's when she was when she was in Dallas.

[01:05:56]>> Mark, we got more people that want to ask questions. We got I'm >> finished. I'm finished. Thank you, John.

[01:06:01]Dan and then John.

[01:06:04]I uh this is to to e either to Larry or to David, but uh following up on that question of Marks uh about the possibilities of where Oswell was, doesn't your your theory or your um belief that there may have been a black op involving Oswald render it less likely that he would have personally been with those two fellas to visit Sylvio because He he would be he he wouldn't be involved in that because he that would give him knowledge that he was kind of implicating himself, wouldn't it?

[01:06:41]>> That's that's a very interesting question. I'll take it because there are two things going on. We think I mean there is a sanctioned propaganda operation going on by the guys that we talked about earlier. Oswell's going to be the model for that, not a witting participant. There is a conspiracy that's starting to develop that is going to take control over Oswald and manipulate him and ultimately make him into a pathy. They have got to make him look dangerous eventually since he's going to be a pacy to kill the president. An interesting thing to keep in mind is at Sylvia Odio's the conversation is in Spanish largely. He's introduced in English, but the telephone call that makes him look dangerous is the day after and he's not present. So, he doesn't hear any of that conversation. What Davis pointed out, Sylvia said that they came to her >> because they were hoping to get help because supposedly she knew how to get people into Cuba.

[01:07:47]The suspicion is the story is Oswwell was being taken to Macauans and then to odos to create an image, you know, to manipulate him to think, >> okay, >> that these guys are on his side doing what he wants to do.

[01:08:03]>> So, it doesn't make it impossible that he was there. It could well have been him. Thank you.

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