A few days ago, my friend David Boylan and I posted a lengthy research paper at the Mary Ferrell Foundation. It is the culmination of at several years’ work on a JFK assassination lead which was confidentially taken to the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) back in 1994.
At the time the ARRB chose not to pursue it, possibly because it did not relate to documents, but rather to a source who was felt to hold special information about the assassination. However, even if the ARRB had been interested, it would have been quite difficult to vet the individuals disclosed in the lead or to understand their significance.
Over the last decade, new CIA records releases and particularl ground breaking work on translating CIA crypts and pseudonyms have allowed us to establish the context for the names offered in the Wheaton lead – and to interpret the contextual information Wheaton provided at a level never before possible.
The timing of this research is especially relevant in that it actually deals with many of the same names and Cuba Project activities that appear in my new book, In Denial / Secret Wars with Air Strikes and Tanks?
Of you are reading or plan to read that book, be sure to take a look at our Wheaton Lead Exploration paper, available for a free read at the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Main_Page.html
And if you have questions, as always feel free to post them here or email me directly.
Larry Hancock 
Hi
Can I just say thank you to both if you and the other researchers that have worked on this over the years. It’ll take me a while to read and properly consider this…it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for some time!
Thanks Anthony, it is indeed a pretty deep dive into the the history of the early 1960’s. A few of the names mentioned will be familiar – but in surfacing “Carl Jenkins”, Wheaton introduced us to someone who has been generally unknown, despite his playing a major role in anti-Castro activities of that period. Much like the discovery of David Morales led into a new understanding of JMWAVE opratons, Jenkin’s history takes us into a totally new level of detail in regard to the Cuba Project, maritime operations against Cuba, and social networking among a key set of anti-Castro paramilitary actors.
It all came together – the materials he provided to the ARRB, new document releases under the JFK records act, major strides in “crypt busting” by Bill Simpich, David Boylan and John Newman, and finally the level of detail about the Cuba Project and the Bay of Pigs that I waded though in writing In Denial over a few months – following years of research on Wheaton contact with the ARRB.
For those who read the Wheaton Lead exploration paper and begin to shake their heads at the plethora of new “true” names, operational crypts, pseudonyms and aliases – just imagine dealing with all that while you are writing a new book challenging the popular history of the Cuba Projects and especially JFK and the Bay of Pigs. Writing while David Boylan and Bill Simpich are digging up new names and connections every day. The only saving grace was that I could toss a name back to David (or ask for a name by context) and he would be back within minutes or hours….saved my life, but also put my mind at risk…grin.
Hello
Thanks again to both of you for the article on the Wheaton names. It is a very thorough piece of work and the scenario you are putting forward seems very credible to me. There is a good chance that you have identified a shortlist of individuals from within which the actual shooters came.
The scenario works well across the full ‘warp and weft’ of the evidence.
Can I ask a couple of very specific questions…
i.) Carlos Hernandez…
Have I imagined reading somewhere that the ‘Hernandez’ who met Mckeown with someone resembling LHO re arms deals was described by McKeown as in his 30’s and having working in the Cuban casinos? I’d written off both Carlos and Victor Espinoza as being the ‘Hernandez’ in question based on that…but I may well have got muddled up on that somewhere along the line?
I’ve been gradually trying to check out any other ‘Hernandez’ who crops up…There is a Rodolfo ‘Sea Fury’ Hernandez in one of the photo’s in your paper, with Hal Feeney and Tony Izquierdo. I wonder if you know anything more about him?
ii.) Connections to Dallas
An area of interest to me at the moment is the operational practicalities in Dallas. The house on Harlandale is one element of that as a possible ‘safe house’. Orcaberro is variously described as being DRE or SNFE so he appears to potentially connect in to this group. I haven’t found too much more about him though, and I was wondering if he closely connects into this group?
iii.) John Tilton
This connects back to the Mexico City work I was doing. There is documentation about an joint FBI-CIA anti-FPCC operation in Septemebr 1963, with a memo about it going to John Tilton an JMWAVE, who headed maritime operations at WAVE. I struggle to imagine what WAVE maritime ops (into and out of Cuba?) would have been doing in a disinformation operation against the FPCC….
Whilst we have evidence linking Morales and Robertson into this I was wondering if Tilton had close links in to this core group, beyond simply being at JMWAVE in Miami?
Thanks, an apologies in advance in any of the above is a bit dim or I’ve missed something I should really have found for myself!
On Hernandez, actually McKewon told Summers that he had met Mr Hernandez when he was smuggling arms into Cuba for the revolution against Castro. Thanks to research by David, I’ll be able to offer something pretty solid to tie in the most likely Hernandez in my upcoming monograph – which is finally in peer review as of yesterday. About 170 pages and just over 300 citations.
On Orcaberrio and the house the references to Orcaberrio are probably a bit of a diversion, thrown in because he was a source for DPD and they used him to essentially write off any visit by Oswald or anyone else suspicious. The house was actually rented by Jose Salazar and his friends are of much more interest – including Oswaldo Pino Pino who the FBI was investigating as a Castro agent during the period in question…long story there which will be in the monograph.
As to Tilton, David knows more about what he was actually doing so I will ask him; don’t see any direct connections but a number of JMWAVE officers were used in pretty peripheral tasks since there were not that many of them. For example Soforza was sent on the TILT mission as a translator, makes little sense. What is clear is that JMWAVE personnel were much more involved in counter intelligence tasks than we might have thought, especially as military maritime missions had diminished so significantly during 1963 – other than the Commandos M activities. Also, ops personnel were still very much involved in infiltration/exfiltration – which of course makes little sense for anti-FPCC propaganda work.
Checked with David and he says that actually Tilton was working for SAS under Fitzgerald at that point…his specialty was pssych warfare and propaganda had worked under Harvey in propaganda for Task Force W. Most of Harvey’s guys stayed on and simply went under SAS and Fitzgerald.
Makes total sense he was working on the anti-FPCC project and may actually have been working in tandem with Phillips since that was a new assignment for him as well when he was given a second hat under SAS and Fitzgerald.
Like several others working for SAS, he was stationed and headquarters but frequently traveled to Miami Station / JMWAVE. Bill Simpich coves Tilton in some detail in State Secret.
Thanks, Larry….looking forward to the monograph.