(1)
Anthony
Summers,
Conspiracy (1980)
Gerry Hemming was
to become well known in the Sixties for his links with ClA-backed
anti-Castro exiles; but in January 1959, as American policy hung
in the balance, he was still working with Castro's people.... Hemming
explained that he believed Oswald's service at the Atsugi base made
him a likely recruit for intelligence... Hemming offers only his
personal opinion, based on a gut feeling at the time, that Oswald
was involved with one of the intelligence services when he met him
in 1959.
(2)
Gerry Hemming
interviewed by Anthony
Summers in 1979.
He (Lee Harvey
Oswald) was attempting to get in with the representatives of Castro's
new government, the consular officials in Los Angeles. And at that
point in time I felt that he was a threat to me and to those Castro
people, that he was an informant or some type of agent working for
somebody. He was rather young, but I felt that he was too knowledgeable
in certain things not to be an agent of law enforcement or of Military
Intelligence, or Naval Intelligence.
As a radar
operator living in a highly restricted area, he would have been
fraternizing with CIA contract employees. Sooner or later he would
fraternize with a case officer, one or more, that handled these
contract employees. He would be a prime candidate for recruitment
because of job skills, and expertise, and the fact that they could
personally vouch for him and give him a security clearance.
(3)
Thomas Bethall,
letter to Edward
Jay Epstein (25th
July, 1967)
We were recently
paid an unannounced visit by two Americans who were intimately connected
with Cuban exile groups in the summer of 1963. One, Gerry Patrick
Hemming, was even dressed in fatigues. The main purpose of their
visit seemed to be to point an authoritative finger of suspicion
at Hall, Howard and Seymour, (to an extent that we began to wonder
if they knew that others were involved and were trying to protect
them.) Gerry Patrick told me the following story which I thought
might interest you.
According
to Gerry Patrick, (he usually drops the Hemming) there were in 1963
numerous "teams" with paramilitary inclinations out to
"get" Kennedy. Some of these teams had been approached
by wealthy entrepreneurs of the H.L. Hunt type, (though not, I think,
in fact H.L. Hunt) who were interested in seeing the job done and
even provided financial assistance. Then, on November 22, 1963,
Kennedy is shot down on the streets, ("Maybe Oswald got there
ahead of them," Patrick commented) and then for 2 years or
so, there the story rests.
However,
since all the mounting controversy of the last 12 months, a startling
new development has occurred, according to Patrick. Recently, members
of the "teams" have been returning to their sponsors,
taking credit for the assassination, and at the same time requesting
large additional sums of money so that they won't be tempted to
talk about it to anyone. In turn, the sponsors have apparently been
hiring Mafia figures to rid themselves of these blackmailers.
Gerry Patrick
admitted that his own association with some of these extremist groups
in 1963 has recently been causing him some concern. Incidentally,
this may very well be the true story behind the Del Valle murder
in Miami, reported this spring in the National Enquirer.
(4)
John
Kelin, review of Noel Twyman's book, Bloody Treason (1998)
Chapter 27 (is)
a long account of the author's interviews with and analysis of Gerry
Patrick Hemming. Hemming is a figure whose exact ties to the case
have always been unclear to me. But this is a fine example of Bloody
Treason being loaded with, if not new evidence, at least a lot
of information that has not been brought together like this before,
as far as I know.
Twyman says
that unnamed "prominent researchers" had warned him not
to take Hemming seriously or Bloody Treason would be "completely
discredited." But I am glad he did take him seriously, going
so far as to meet with him on a number of occasions and probe his
story in depth. Hemming is mentioned throughout the assassination
literature. The author fills in much of Hemming's background (he
formed a paramilitary group as a teenager) and demonstrates how
his later activities, specifically Hemming's group Interpen, may
have involved him in the JFK assassination plot(s). Hemming comes
across as very credible in these pages.
(5)
Tom
Dunkin,
letter
to Richard
Billings (June,
1967)
First contact
with No Name Key group was in July or August, 1962, when small group
was camping on south shorts of Lake Okeechobee, near Pahokee-Belle
Glade.
Among those
present were Howard K. Davis, identified as "car leader",
Gerald Patrick Hemming, aka "Jerry Patrick", Joe Garman,
and Steve Wilson.
Group a
bit publicity shy, but in September, at request of WFLA-TV Tampa
friend, Don Starr, tried for footage on their activities. Met with
Davis and Patrick in Miami on Sat. Sept. 15, finally, around 2 a.m.
Sunday Sept. 16, got approval.
Two carloads
departed Miami for No Name Key, including Davis, Patrick, Cuban
known only as Pino, among others. At the camp on No Name Key, Steve
Wilson was in charge. Other Americans there included Ed Collins,
Bill Seymour, Canadian Bill Dempsey, one individual identified as
Finnish and in doubtful status with Immigration, named Edmund Kolbe,
also Roy Hargraves.
Number of
men transported by boat from No Name Sunday, Sept 16, for a demonstration
which was filmed on Big Pine Key, near No Name, by WFLA-TV sound
crew, by myself with film going to WTVT Tampa, plus stills which
were used in Miami Herald story on 20 September and in Glades County
Democrat 21 September 1962.
Democrat
article read by a friend Larry Newman Jr., managing editor of Dayton
(Ohio) Daily News, resulting in request for a feature with fresh
art, dated 15 October.
Returned
to Miami on Saturday 20 October, or possibly Friday. At any rate,
after beer-drinking session in bar of Hotel Flagler, at which time
Dennis Harber first encountered, accompanied Roy Hargraves to tourist
court on Flagler where he was living with female know only as "Betty"
whom he later reportedly married.
Arrival
at 2 a.m. brought protest from Betty, who rather profanely instructed
Hargraves to "get the hell out of here and take your queer
friend with you." Later gratifyingly learned she had thought
Harber was outside instead of me.
She protested
to Hargraves that he was wasting his time with a revolution. He
advised her he had too much time invested to quit. We slept in my
car outside Patrick's headquarters, Federico's Guest House, 220
NW 8th Ave.
Howard K.
Davis at that time lived at 3350 NW 18th Terrace. He accompanied
both trips to No Name Key, and was reported leader of group. (Davis,
interestingly, was listed in Associated Press Florida wire story
F56MH ( believed to be March 24, 1960, but could have been 1959)
as among 29 persons whom the Miami News listed as banned from aircraft
rental on Border Patrol orders. Davis, and another American known
only as "Art", later identified as Arthur Gerteit, were
check pilots for CBS-Rolando Masferrer Haitian invasion "air
Force" in November, 1966. Gerteit was later identified in United
Press International dispatch from Tifton, Cal, early 1967 (Apr.
11) where Cuban arrested with bombs as he rented an airplane, as
"an FBI Decoy")
On second
trip to No Name on behalf of Dayton Daily News, Harber accompanied
group, which included Cuban known to me only by last name of Pino,
who also had been present at first filming session. Pino reportedly
head of an exile group called Christian Army of Anti-Communist Liberation
(ECLA), and not quotable by name at that time.
Harber was
drunk on departure from Miami, and took one pint of whisky with
him, which he asked be rationed to him slowly. I performed this
task. Pino much amused at Harber, whom he called "el profesor."
Harber at
that time was night clerk for the Flagler Hotel, 637 West Flagler,
and also taught English (to Cuban exile students) at a language
school next door to the hotel.
Harber was
described by Patrick at that time as having terminal cancer. At
present, according to last report from Patrick, Harber was serving
sentenced in Mexico for murder, undocumented to me.
Harber lived
in a small apartment behind Flagler Hotel, and shared it with various
of the Americans occasionally, including Seymour, Collins, and a
Czeck lad known as Karl Novak, who I don't recall seeing on No Name.
(6)
James
Richards, JFK
Assassination Forum (15th July, 2004)
Interpen were a
pretty loose group. Their personnel changed regularly, in fact at
one low point, there was only about 6 men. The time they spent training
on No Name Key was an interesting period as the island was leased
by Rolando Masferrer and Lawrence Howard. I would have thought that
some funding would have come via Masferrer himself, maybe Carlos
Prio. There was also some money filtered in by some right wing groups
and Hemming was constantly campaigning for funds which were always
tight. His letters to General Walker are an example of that.
As Interpen,
these guys didn't actually do much in the way of covert activity
but as individuals, they were very active. Felipe Vidal Santiago
recruited Interpen guys for missions into Cuba (23 in 1962), men
like Roy Hargraves, Ed Collins and William Seymour. Collins and
Seymour also worked with Bernardo De Torres and Dennis Harber on
non Interpen organized outings. Steve Wilson ran guns down from
Chicago to Florida for Paulino Sierra, James Arthur Lewis participated
on the Bayo-Pawley Raid and Dick Whatley (in partnership with James
Arthur Lewis and Bobby Willis) was very active within the covert
world.
I have always
viewed this by concentrating on the individuals rather than the
group. For example, Roy Hargraves was one of the more active soldier
of fortunes at the time and his exploits were daring. He just happened
to be a member of Interpen for a short period of time.
I agree
that Interpen itself was not funded by the CIA, but individuals
within splinter groups may have been. I am also not counting anything
rogue that may have originated out of JM/WAVE but that can hardly
be called official Agency funding.
(7)
Tom
Dunkin, Intrigue
at "No Name" Key, Back Channels (Spring 1992)
Oliver
Stone's JFK seems to have achieved a double objective of being a
moneymaker and a political activity stimulus, one of the movie's
directors avers.
Although
he denies any spooky associations, it's going to be interesting
to see if future release of classified files on the Kennedy assassination
pinpoints new intelligence community involvement, Roy Hargraves,
a man with some shadowy past connections, acknowledges.
Hargraves
denies any "contract CIA agent" links, although he was
involved in military training of Cuban exiles in Florida and Louisiana.
British author Anthony Summers hung the contract agent tag on members
of the International Penetration Force in his book, Conspiracy.
Summer's
book on the JFK assassination cites an FBI raid and the closing
of a training site near Lake Ponchatrain several months before Kennedy's
death as a possible contributing factor in the assassination.
Hargraves
recalls there are many unanswered questions in the Cuban exile aspect
of the Kennedy case. Early in New Orleans District Attorney Jim
Garrison's probe, "Garrison accused us of training the ‘triangulation
team' of three alleged snipers at No Name Key."
No Name
Key was the principal Florida training site for the IPF freelance
volunteer instructors. "We testified before Garrison and convinced
him he was wrong," Hargraves recalls, "and we went to
work for him for about a month" early in Garrison's late 1966
and early 1967 investigation.
Garrison's,
whose two non-fiction books, A Heritage of Stone, and On the Trail
of The Assassins, were the basis of Stone's JFK said in them that
Kennedy's "ordering an end to the CIA's continued training
of anti-Castro guerrillas at the small, scattered camps in Florida
and north of Lake Ponchatrain "added to the disenchantment
which contributed to the President's murder.
Another
interesting aspect of the Garrison investigation, is that, according
to Hargraves, a Cuban exile investigator hired by Garrison"
ripped off half the budget" to handicap the probe. Bernardo
de Torres, a Bay of Pigs veteran, "was working for the CIA",
Hargraves said, during the Garrison investigation.
De Torres,
who has since disappeared from his former Miami haunts, also served
as a security consultant to local and federal law enforcement units
during President Kennedy's visit to Miami after Fidel Castro's release
of the prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion.
