Hal Verb

[Peter Lemkin]

Hi all,

I posted the following info to a site similar to this one. Hope no one minds the cross post.

Ray Marcus, an early WR critic, called me this afternoon (12-17) with the news that Hal Verb died a couple of weeks ago, on December 4. He had been in a hospice for the last six months or so.

Like Ray, Hal Verb was an early WR critic. He lived in San Francisco. I met him on several occasions, but when I was researching the early critics a few years back he did not reply to my query letters, so I don't know much about him. He worked with Harold Weisberg for a time, I think, and is mentioned in "Oswald In New Orleans." I think he taught a class about the assassination at San Francisco State College...? Not sure about that though.

I remember Hal speaking on the grassy knoll at a remembrance ceremony a number of years back. He modified a familiar quote usually associated with the CIA: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you MAD."


John Kelin

A CIA document (I cannot locate it at the moment) lists HAL VERB
as an officer in the San Francisco Branch of the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee and an agency informant. Once when confronted with
the document on an internet forum, he had no answer, but dropped
off the forum.

Hal once asked to borrow some slides from me and never returned
them.

My opinion of Hal is based on the above comments. RIP.

Jack

I've always known that he was listed as an officer of the FPCC, but hadn't heard the informant part. I knew Hal fairly well, and we exchanged many letters at one period about 15-17 years ago [he never became computer literate]. I must admit I find the informant part a bit unlikely [though not impossible]. Hal was very poor, and leaned toward Communism, even when I knew him. He seemed to have a genuine interest in the case, and if an informant, was paying out a strange bit part well past when anyone would pay him. I think it is very unlikely, personally, and if on a document might have been done to frame him with the research community. He was, and he admitted to have been a Communist. Rest in Peace, Hal. Bit by bit we are loosing all of our most informed and involved researchers who remember the events and THAT day!

Peter, I may be misremembering the document. I cannot locate it.
Maybe since the FPCC was run by the CIA, perhaps I assumed the
"informant" part. My impression of him was that I could not trust him.
If I run across the document, I will post it.

Jack

Hal was a bit eccentric [as are most JFK researchers - each in their own way] and perhaps a bit verbose [no pun intended], but I don't think he was likely working for 'them' when he was FPCC, and positive he was not at our conferences, etc. He and I exchanged letters and information on what I was working on - he never asked what I was doing [the purpose of the information I needed]. While I don't have the document, I have heard before there is one that states he was head of S.F. chapter of FPCC. He never denied it, though I never pointedly asked him about it. That, alone, would certainly make him interested in LHO - which he considered the focus of his research. Again, I have no reason to believe and many personal reasons to not believe Hal was [in 1963 or after] an informer - unless this was done without his knowledge [with phone taps et al.].