Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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13-00000SECREThad Art Maloney as head of the PM Branch. Hal Swensen as head of the CI Branch. These were all very senior guys who were well regarded by everyone, and they were honest as the day is long, and they wouldn't take any horseshit from anybody, and ran a very tight ship. So the case officers here at this end, and we had case officers working against Cuban targets in from Washington, but they never ran across the Cuban case officers that Ted was running down in Miami. They each knew their fields. They each worked with each other. They kept each other informed so they didn't cross each others trails. That's something I think we did, I think from second nature, but it would have been nice to know, in that, from that report, that we were at least not doing something that we were wrong in doing, or doing something that we shouldn't have done. That report makes it clear that we did just the right thing. That everybody knew what the hell their piece was. I don't know if that's correct. The DDP's rebuttal doesn't really face that particular question about the case officers and where they looked for their guidance. It kind of sloughs it off more or less. To me it made no sense for, as I say, for the three senior guys in the Mongoose thing not to have seen that report so that they could be sure that they weren't making some of the same mistakes. McCone, I know, and Cabell, were trying to hide the whole thing. Within limits I agree with them, but not....You don't have to put it on the bulletin board like they've done now. It's on the internet.SH: (Conversation in progress)...poisonous pesticide and it was available in any hardware store you wanted to go to or Sears or what have you, and it was available in Havana or other parts of Cuba. It was done all over the world and the little bottles that it used to come in actually had a skull and crossbones, the old symbol for poison. The idea was the needle would be so fine that it would be just like a little tiny scratch and if AMLASH would get close enough to Fidel to use that to scratch him and at the same time have the Black Leaf 40 enter the bloodstream. How much you have to put in, or what have you, I never found out. Never asked. Manny Gunn gave all the technical details to Nestor Sanchez to pass on to AMLASH. When Nestor offered the ball- point pen to AMLASH he looked at it very disdainfully, and he said when Nestor tried to explain about the Black Leaf 40, AMLASH, who was a medical doctor in his own right, said "I know all about that. You don't have to tell me all about that." He said, "Come on, you fellows can come up with something better than that." And as far as I know he never took the pen. Although if he had been a double agent I think he would have15SECRET
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# SECRETtaken the pen to use at some kind of public trial, so he could show the evidence that the United States was behind it. The fact that he never took the pen, to me, is pretty good evidence that he was not a double agent. I don't think to this day that he ever was. In addition to that particular one thing that I know I was involved with Nestor, on and with Manny Gunn. The one thing that I don't know enough about is when we had to assign an officer to Bobby Kennedy, to be used by Bobby Kennedy to make contact with Mafia types in this country and in Canada. That Bobby Kennedy would pick and set the appointment time and place and our case officer would then go and meet whoever this person was and come back and report to Bobby Kennedy. The theory behind this apparently was that Bobby had some bright idea that the Mafia must have left some kind of stay- behind network in Cuba because of all of their interests that they had in Cuba when Fidel came in: prostitution, gambling, drug running and whatever else was involved. He said they must have had a good stay- behind network and we could get some decent information to what's going on. Well just to give you the QED of this, we never got any information that was worth disseminating. I never saw any information at all from it. The case officer I picked....Apparently the way the request came was from Bobby to General Marshall Carter, who was then DDCI, to Bill Harvey, Bill Harvey to me, to pick a case officer to assign to Bobby. I sat with Bruce Cheever and then, of course, with Bill himself and we decided on a guy named Charles Ford, Charley Ford. Charley was a huge man. Very stocky, make a very good lineman on any football team, and he know how to handle himself in any kind of problem. We figured he was the best kind of guy. Charley and I sat and we figured out he's got to have some kind of name to use we can't use Charley Ford. But Charley also had some handkerchiefs and some shirts with CF on it, and rather than risk an exposure of some kind, Charley and I sat in my office, the ground floor of the building, and we said "How about Charley Rocky Fiscalini." And ever since then, I always called Charley, til he died, "Rocky." We came up with Fiscalini. There are two different ways of spelling it. I spelled it FISCALINI and Angie Novella, Bobby Kennedy's secretary, spelled it on her appointment log, FISCOLLINI, which is probably more ethnic than mine. But anyway, Fiscalini is the way you pronounce it. So Charley went off and he made several trips in the United States, and I know he made at least one if not more in Canada I think it was Toronto. All at the behest of Bobby. Either Bobby himself would talk to Charley on the phone, or Angie Novella would call Charley on what we euphemistically called a secure phone nothing more than an outside line that we had
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13-00000SECRETin the front office of Task Force W - it was a bigbullpen where we had four or five secretaries. BillHarvey's office here [motions with his hands]. BruceCheever's office here. Mine over here, and thesecretaries out in what we called the bullpen. Therewas a big section in here where we had a bunch ofspecial assistants, and Charley Ford was one of thosewho sat in here. There were about four or five guys inthere doing all kinds of different things. Charleynever, as far as I know, never spoke. I know he neverspoke to me about who he saw what they talked aboutand I never never saw any intelligence information todisseminate, and as far as I know Charley never had anyintelligence information to disseminate. To us it wasa waste of time and effort, plus we were putting a manin real danger, since, from pure tradecraft point ofview we wanted to control, the meeting time and themeeting place. We wanted to set it up, and we don'twant to walk into a hornet's nest without knowing whoor what we're seeing. I have mentioned this to severalpeople, without mentioning Charley Ford's name untilrecently, and I'll tell you why in a minute. Imentioned it to Scott Breckenridge, and Scott mentionedit in his last book that he put out. I mentioned it toa fellow by the name of Goldfarb, who was an attorneyon Kennedy's staff at the Justice Department, andGoldfarb wrote a book in which he quotes me on this,and then he also says he doesn't believe me and hedoesn't know why I'm making these kinds of stories up.MW: He's defending Bobby Kennedy.SH: Oh, absolutely, no question about that. I mentioned itto other people along the way and I even mentioned itto Seymour Hersh when he was putting his book together"The Dark Side of Camelot." If you look at, I forgetwhat page it is, there's a footnote there. Sy was theone who found, in doing his researches, he found, as aresult of the Kennedy Assassination Records ReviewBoard, and all the documents that were produced as aresult of that, Angie Novella, in her log herappointment and telephone log for 1962 puts downGeneral Carter, Charles Ford (Fiscalini), for a date,for a meeting with Bobby Kennedy. I've got documentaryproof now. I'd like to shove it under Goldfarb's nose,but anyway....Hersh puts that as a footnote in his bookin which he says until he, Hersh, was able to show methe log. I had always refused to mention the name ofthe individual who was the case officer. The fact thatKennedy was involved in trying to work with the Mafiaat the same time. He, Goldfarb, couldn't believe thatKennedy would be working with the Mafia at the same17SECRET
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SECRETtime he's trying to send them to jail. "He's yourboss" I would say to Goldfarb, "he wasn't my boss, Ican't figure him out any better than you can." Now I'mtold by Chuck Briggs that in the pile of paper thathe's looking at now as a result of the AARB nonsense- they have found two memorandums from the Church  Committee the Schwieker subcommittee of the Church  Committee. I had forgotten that I had testified before  the Schwieker Subcommittee. Chuck now tells me that  not only did I testify and he's looking at my  transcript of my testimony but he also has Charley  Ford's testimony. Where Charley....I don't know what  he says Chuck hasn't shown it to me but he says  "That is there, it's in great detail, it's longer than  yours, so obviously Charley must have told the  Schwieker committee what I'm telling you now." That he  actually was assigned to Bobby and did what Bobby had  asked him to do. Which is to go meet Mafia types.  What they said, unless Charley says in his testimony  and all this is under oath I don't know what Charley  said, but you guys go ahead and look at it. I haven't  got the clearances yet until it's declassified. Can't  even look at my own testimony. Oddly enough, I told  this to Chuck when he called me and gave me the date.  I looked at my old calendars I keep all my old  calendars. I never had any calendar that I kept while I  was working but ever since I left the job, over 20  years ago, I've been keeping good records on my  calendar. Anyway, there it is, April something, 1976.  Written right in the little box, Schwieker- Subcommittee. I called Chuck back and I said, "you're  right, I did testify." People have said that, as a  result of this, that Charley and Bobby must have been  working on using the Mafia in some kind of  assassination plots. Check what Charley says in his  testimony; I don't know what they did. They never  said. Charley never talked to me about that. He would  always stick his head in before he left on another  trip, "I'm off again, Sam. Bye." The reason I know he  went to Canada I think it was Toronto was because- he came in for the first time and said, "I'm leaving  the country." I said "Where the Hell are you going?"  He says "Canada." Charley was a damn fine officer, and  I'm awfully sorry he died so early.In terms of talking about assassination platting, itgets kind of hairy after a while. It's hard to knowwhen to stop, and you don't even know when you startsomething. I remember under Des; when Des came in onthat Monday morning for example, on this crazy businessof the sea shallots had been all overeverywhere....Again it was a Monday morning and he hadjust come in from driving his VW with his foot through
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SECRETthe floorboards. When he got on those highways he wasmurder. This is what always made me think somewhereduring those weekends he must have seen Bobby, becausehe came in all charged up. I asked him over and overagain, not just once but several times, where the heckis this pressure coming from? I don't see it myselfexcept through you. He said "It's coming from highplaces." He never said Bobby. It's coming fromoutside the agency, and Des is an honest guy, I can'tsay he's making this up. Why would he be doing that?So I have to assume he's getting it from somebody who'sgot the authority to tell him, without going throughthe chain of command. It's a surmise on my part; Ican't prove it.BL: Who up the chain of command knew about Charley andBobby?SH: Carter. Marshall Carter, the DDCI.BL: And that was all?SH: As far as I know. Helms never knew. I know that much.MW: Fitzgerald?SH: No. It was all over by then. Charley's activitiesstopped after the Missile Crisis.MW: Ok, ok. Fitzgerald didn't come in until 1963.SH: January 1963.MW: McCone?SH: Unless Carter told him.MW: Why would Carter be in the loop and not McCone?SH: I don't know. I'm looking at Angie Novella's logs,that's the only way I know Carter's in the loop. Itsays Carter, right there.
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SECRETMW: You sure it's our Carter?SH: Yes, Marshall Carter. Take a look at the page. I've got a copy of the page at home, I should have brought it.MW: Send us a fax.SH: All right, I'll dig it up. You may have to remind me again. I got it through the courtesy of Sy Hersh. It is now available as a public document. When I saw that, as a matter of fact I hadn't yet gotten it....Sy once called me when he was still doing his research on the book, and we had talked about a guy working for Bobby, and he kept on asking me, who? who? who? I said "Not me, I'm not going to tell you the name." He called me on the phone one morning and he said, “How does Fiscalini strike you?" I said, "where in the goddamned hell did you ever get that name?" He told me. He said "It's from Angie Novella's appointment logs." I said run that by me again, slowly. Well because it's got Ford and Fiscalini but it could be Ford. He gave me Fiscalini. There were only two guys in the world that I knew of that had that name. We never told Harvey, we never told Bruce Cheever. Didn't need to. Theoretically we were professionals.MW: You just had it because you had to clear it. You basically had to sign his vouchers and make sure his travel was getting paid for and everything.SH: That's all we did. If you've got the finance records you can find out where he went and every time he went, but if I know Charley he probably fixed it up in such a way. I'm trying to remember the vouchers. He fixed it up in such a way that that didn't really show. He wouldn't ask for stuff. When Sy said "Fiscalini", I said "You got me hands down." I said "It's the only time I ever lied to you." It was true. It was the only time I ever held anything back. When I start talking I know my limits.BL: Did you lie to him or you just didn't tell him?
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SH: I hadn't told him. I must have never told him the name. He's got a note to that effect; a footnote on that same page where he talks about this operation in the book. If you've got the book around I'll show you. In terms of assassination plots, first of all they're few and far between. In terms of getting involved in one of these things. Being in the business we were in, with the old rules and regulations that we had and we didn't have to worry about a Senate Intelligence Committee and a House Intelligence Committee we did lots of things just by feel, by gosh and by golly. As Larry Houston told me when the Church committee started to expose lots of things, Larry said, “Sam, I told you. You should have talked to me about a lot of these things. We wouldn't be here today." I said, "Yeah, Larry, and you know why we didn't talk to you in those days? Because you would have stopped a lot of us from doing things. He says, "Very right." That's the way life was, and I'm sure that there are other officers.... I'm just one of many who were involved in different parts of the world, doing a whole variety of things, with almost no way to pin down somebody saying, "I authorized X, Y, or Z." That goes even for State intelligence collection, because some of the intelligence collection was done by some screwball ideas.BL: Sam, you've just talked about Bobby Kennedy and CIA and Mafia assassination plotting against Castro. Many scholars have concluded, though on just circumstantial evidence, that Jack Kennedy was also fully witting, if not involved in assassination plotting against Castro. Do you have a view about that?SH: Yes, I agree with the people who say the same thing because I can't imagine Bobby on his own without telling Brother Jack some of the things he's done, and including probably Jack being the inspiration for some of the things that Bobby finally did. I think they were so close together. There's a new book out, it's not new anymore this is now 1998, this came out in the Fall of 1997 it's *Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector*. You got it?MW: No.SH: The author is a fellow by the name of Hilty. University of Tennessee Press. It's got some of the weirdest stuff in it that you can think of. I only read the parts that I know something about, namely
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SECRETMongoose and its antecedent follow-on. He's got so many mistakes in there it's not even funny. On the first 24 pages there are 19 errors. Most of them serious ones. Including calling AMLASH a double agent. He doesn't know the language; he doesn't know what he's talking about. AMLASH was never a double agent by anybody's stretch of the imagination. A lot of other stuff, but even he says he's partially protecting the Kennedy image as well as everybody else. Even he says in there the same thing, that based on his researches there's no question that what one knew the other knew. They always worked in tandem on all subjects. The problem that Goldfarb had, for example because he was one of the Lawyers attacking the Mafia, trying to put them in jail - and he just couldn't....He was sitting in my living room and he just couldn't understand, and he kept on saying, “how could Bobby tell me to put the Mafia in jail when he's working with them?" I said, "I don't know how he could do that. You worked for him, you tell me." But he did. I couldn't prove it then, but if you guys ever release those Charley Ford memo's and my memo, at least we've got two statements done under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee, or the Church Committee really, where at least it's being discussed. I don't see how anybody, on any of this stuff, particularly after the Bay of Pigs Operation, dealing with the Agency, I don't think anything was said or done between the two guys that the other one didn't know. They had to. Bobby may have stayed away from the Agency up before the Bay of Pigs, but after the Bay of Pigs he was always Johnny at the rathole on everything. Didn't understand what he was doing either, in many cases.BL: Sam, is there anything else before we adjourn?SH: I don't know. You guys ask and I'll try and answer.MW: I've exhausted my... I've fired my shots.SH: I still like reading those two reports, and I agree completely, by the way, between the Kirkpatrick report and the Bissell rebuttal. I think McCone was right to say that the truth is somewhere in-between. I honestly think if I had been a case officer, or been involved like Jake was, if the President said "Don't go to Trinidad find some stupid place to go," I would have, really, I would have said "Not me sir, find somebody else to do it." That's number one, and that's an important one. Because for example, I'm the guy who
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13-00000SECRETtold General Carter to tell somebody, and I didn't knowwho the hell it was, he was not supposed to tell untilI found out later, it was Ike, Eisenhower, in ourSumatra operation. We were involved in all kinds ofcrazy nonsense, including air, by the way. Cabelldidn't get involved in that, thank the Lord. It wasCivil Air Transport planes we were using. A suggestioncame to me, through Cabel's office, to me, aboutsomething going to be done, I forget exactly what itwas, but something ought to be done in the field tomake things easier for the rebels. I'll call themrebels. It made no sense at all. Actually had norelation to reality in the field. I didn't even botherchecking with anybody, I just decided on my own. Itwon't work, it doesn't make any sense and the peopleout there will think we are crazy. Cabell said, itfinally got to Cabell talking to me, “Ok Sam, whateveryou say is fine." I find out later that the suggestioncame not from Cabell but from Ike, through Gordon Gray,who was then the National Security Council guy, throughthe Agency and down to me. I was the Exec. Why theydidn't call Al Ulmer I don't know - maybe he wasn'tthere - but anyway I get the draft. If they had saidthe President wants you to do such and such I mighthave given him a different answer. Ike's got a goodmilitary background, better than mine, for God's sakes.That's the one nice thing I liked about this Agency,and always have. I hope it's around, you can reallyspeak your mind.MW: Sometimes.SH: Well, all right. Things may have changed. I've beenout 20 years, but in my day we screamed bloody murderand we screamed bloody murder about Mongoose. Wescreamed bloody murder about other things, believe me,over the years, and when it didn't make sense we saidso. So help me, Trinidad and then the cutting 80% ofthe air support, I don't know if Bissell reallyunderstood the meaning. He may have thought that bythe time they would land Castro would be dead. That'sfine, but if you're running a vest pocket operationlike that, you had better be sure, and you don't takethe chance with 1,500 men or 1,400 men whatever hit thebeaches. Bissell was no kind of a guy to - let aloneTracy Barnes - to be involved in assassinationplotting. They didn't know what the hell they weredoing. Tracy wouldn't know. The record is clear, andit's even in the Church Committee report, for Christ'ssake, that a message came from headquarters to theHavana station, when it was still there, talking aboutassassination. The very next morning, when someone saw23SECRET
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13-00000SECRETthe confirmation copy, a flash went out saying "Ignorethe message." Who the hell wrote the message, Tracy.I mean that is the silliest thing I've ever seen. Thelast thing in the world you want on paper. Just likewhen Lansdale talked about elimination of leaders inthe August 10, 1962 meeting of the Special Group(Augmented). Puts it in writing and Harvey goesthrough the roof. It's all out there now, but that'sthe kind of people who don't know what the hell it'sall about. They never tried.BL: Sam, thanks so much. We appreciate you coming in.24SECRET
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104-10324-100022025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992SECRETINTERVIEW WITHSAM HALPERNRalph E. Weber 23 October 198730 October 1987SECRET
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SECRET# Interview with Sam Halpern23 and 30 October 1987INTERVIEWER: As one looks into the background of the Congressional investigations, what in your mind do you see as the most important factors for bringing about the Congressional Investigations in 1975? It is an awfully large area.MR. HALPERN: I think if you look into the history of the background of why the thing started it began long before the Seymour Hersh articles. The Congress was planning to go into something like this anyway for a whole variety of reasons. I think Morton Halperin and his group on the outside as well as the ACLU and liberal Senators (particular Senators) were itching to get at this for a long time. I am trying to think of the name of the (he is now a Washington Post reporter) investigative reporter (I'm trying to think of his name but I can't) who was in Government for a while, didn't like what he saw largely as a result of the Vietnam War. Oh, Walter Pincus.INTERVIEWER: Walter Pincus?MR. HALPERN: Walter Pincus had quite a bit, I think, to do in the background in organizing this whole effort. And not many people realize that the title (it is a long winded title) of the Church Committee was actually a title that was prepared by the staff people months before the Church committee was even heard of or even Senator Church knew what was going on.INTERVIEWER: Is that right?MR. HALPERN: It will take me some time to look for it but remind me to look for it. I put together some language on this many years ago in terms of the inner-workings, what was going on behind the scenes among the staff people in