H.P. Albarelli has passed away.

[James Lateer]

If Skyhorse takes Hank's book and puts the name of another author on it (I'm not saying that they will), then IMHO that would be fraud.

James Lateer

[Lauren Johnson]

I have been struggling with this for a few days now, unsure of what to say or how best to honor the memory of one who has fallen. I have written too many of these in the past few years. I don't want to write any more. But, as they say, life is what happens when you've made other plans. Life, and the leaving of it.

Hank Albarelli had worked in the Carter White House and for the US Treasury Department. He traveled the world, and we had been to a lot of the same places in our time which made him a congenial personality. I had been interviewing a famous "wandering bishop" in Indian Lakes a man who had worked with JFK assassination suspect Jack Martin back in the day and made a side trip to see Hank. I visited him at his home on Florida's Gulf Coast: a fabulous place with some beautiful artifacts he had collected on his travels. We spoke of Watergate and Nixon, as well as Frank Olson: the subject of his monumental work, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments (2009). I say "monumental" for several reasons. In the first place, it is a masterful work that ties together many of the loose threads in the Frank Olson story, threads you might never have known existed were it not for Hank's remarkable ability to do deep research and get inside of a story to the extent that he lived it for years. In the second place, the physical book is itself monumental in size, coming in at over 800 pages. I was honored to write the Introduction, which sadly comes nowhere close to preparing the reader for the exhilarating voyage down a series of rabbit holes in an American history we never knew, or blissfully had forgotten: rabbit holes that converge in a deep, dark cavern below the circus of political discourse and lethal conspiracies. That's the cavern where you will discover what really happened to an American scientist who had been dosed with LSD in 1953 and then was murdered, defenestrated from a Manhattan hotel room. Sounds simple, straightforward, but it isn't.

The energy and intelligence Hank brought to that story his doggedness in getting files, in getting people to talk, and his sharp eye for the telling detail, the odd piece of evidence that everyone else ignores is intimidating. He was a bear of good humor and love of life. A few years after we met, he wrote to tell me he had bought a building in New England that had once been a Masonic temple. He found a cache of old books, documents and ledgers there and wanted to know what they were. I was amused to think that Hank of all people would be the one to fall into a situation like that.

Any time he showed up in my Facebook feed it was always just pictures of his family, of whom he was obviously and especially proud. No snarky trolls of other researchers; no ad hominem attacks; none of what we have come to expect from social media communication. That said, he didn't suffer fools gladly; when someone put forward a contentious or controversial claim, he would ask for the source. "Where are the documents? Where is the proof? How do you know?"

Hank was not a "search engine researcher", of which there are far too many these days: people who claim they are investigative journalists because they looked something up online. He was a real investigator who went where the story was. Who talked to people. Who went after the files. Who did the hard work. Who put the pieces together.

He suffered a massive stroke on May 20, and another lethal one 10 days later. He left us. He had just finished a book about the Kennedy assassination. "Another book on the assassination?" I can hear you say. If it's Hank's work then it isn't just another book; it isn't a rehash of old research or the theft of ideas from other writers. He had something to say. He had a point of view, a sharp perspective and a keen sense of smell that was honed by decades of dealing with liars, prevaricators, conmen, spies, politicos, and bureaucrats. The book Coup in Dallas: Who Killed Kennedy and Why is listed on amazon for pre-order now. It will deal, among other things, with some of the lesser known but equally important figures around the assassination, including former Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny (on whom I devote a lot of space in my own work, so I am eager to learn what Hank has uncovered). It bears a foreword by Dick Russell, another friend (famous in the JFK assassination community for his riveting The Man Who Knew Too Much and who also kindly wrote a foreword to volume two of my own Sinister Forces).

Coup in Dallas will be a fitting testament to the astonishing career of a real researcher who loved the truth and hated the stench of lies. We use words like "indefatigable" and "relentless" and "dedicated" when we speak of people like Hank, but Leslie Sharp a friend, colleague and co-author of of Hank's who informed me of his passing said it best: "He died a warrior."

God speed, Hank.

[Magda Hassan]

What a lovely memory of Hank. He was all those things. Generous of spirit, warm, kind, but a fighter too. For truth and justice. What a loss. Thank you Peter and Lauren for posting it.

[Peter Lemkin]

So, maybe it is this Leslie Sharp [not the actress] that was helping Hank Albarelli on this book.....don't know yet....just speculating. I don't think, however, it was Hank's daughter. I have reached out to one more person who knew HPA well and am awaiting a reply.

[Peter Lemkin]

So, maybe it is this Leslie Sharp [not the actress] that was helping Hank Albarelli on this book.....don't know yet....just speculating. I don't think, however, it was Hank's daughter. I have reached out to one more person who knew HPA well and am awaiting a reply. So far, what I've heard from sources I both know and trust is that Albarelli was the author and researcher of this new book - with the two others helping out in as yet undefined ways. My contact said he felt the manuscript had not yet been completed and we have another, above, stating they they felt the manuscript had been completed. I think from this we can assume that it was either complete or very near completion and being improved upon/added to. Let's just all hope that it comes out soon, and in the form HPA intended!

.

[Magda Hassan]

As co-author with H.P. Albarelli, Jr. for his forthcoming book, "Coup in
Dallas: Who Killed JFK and Why," I have the right and responsibility to
provide the following statement. In late April of this year, Hank
submitted the preliminary manuscript to Skyhorse Publishing with the
understanding that the final two percent which involved polishing certain
chapters, the bibliography, and finetuning footnotes would be sent them on
June 1, 2019, for the announced publishing date of November 19, 2019. He
decided to take a brief and much needed break and made one of his infamous
cross-country drives with Buddy, his faithful four-legged to Texas and New
Mexico where we continued a chapter by chapter analysis and created a list
of detail that might have fallen thru the crack. In mid-May, Hank returned
to his home with the plan to spend 20-25 hours on the manuscript before
submitting the final version to the publisher. Sadly - an inadequate
expression to capture this loss he fell gravely ill. He had watched the
final episode of "Game of Thrones," and around midnight texted, "All over
it is. Last episode. Nite." In the early dawn hours of May 20 his beloved
wife Kathleen rushed him to ER. He died June 18, 2019. Hank left me with
a copy of the detail we identified during his trip along with firm
directives as to how he anticipated this book will be published and
defined. He was fully content with Skyhorse Publishing and expressed on
numerous occasions, I really like working with these guys.' Along with
co-author Alan Kent and the editor, we will put closure on the book to the
high standard Hank set for investigative journalism. It's all good, my
dearest friend Hank Albarelli. Leslie Sharp, Santa Fe, July 2, 2019.

[Anthony Thorne]

Checking Leslie's FB profile (and noting that we have ten mutual assassination researcher FB friends), I see posts from a year or two back showing that the two were working together as described, and that Hank was openly appreciative. He'd posted cheerful comments about the process on FB.

The documentary film mentioned elsewhere in this thread appears to be A SECRET LEGACY: CUBAN EXILES, THE CIA AND THE CONGO, which is still in post-production, and which has an official site below. Taking Leslie's post at face value, I remain sad at HP's departure but am looking forward to reading his final book.

http://www.asecretlegacy.com/

[James Lateer]

The first chapter of Hank's book was posted here (and I read it, about 74 pages). The book sales can't be all that great on Coup in Dallas. So who is Leslie Sharp and why was the first chapter published with no reference to her? How could Skyhorse or anybody plow that much time and effort into a book that might only sell a couple of thousand copies?

I have personally seen evidence released about this issue which says Hank's book was being held up due to legal issues involving powerful people. That's all I can say about that fact, and no more. So don't ask me.

And why did Hank "break up" with co-author Ralph Ganis? Nobody has published any explanation as to that question.

An most bizarre of all, on the very day when he was to submit the final version of Coup in Dallas, he died unexpectedly, despite having just completed a somewhat grueling cross country trip along with various horses.

I guess I have to be the one to ask: have any medical people ruled out the possibility of foul play or other causes in Hank's death? Not that I want to upset any of his family or close friends, but there are certain things that you would imagine that Hank would want to be answered in light of his major role as an assassination writer and researcher.

James Lateer

[Anthony Thorne]

Posted by Leslie Sharp on Facebook, a comment by author Stephen Kinzer

.......

"Albarelli's book "A Terrible Mistake," concludes that the CIA chemist Frank Olson did not commit suicide in 1953 but was pushed because he was about to reveal deep secrets. The Olson case is a central part of my forthcoming book "Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control." Albarelli was most generous in helping me with my research. Thanks and RIP." -- Stephen Kinzer

[James Lateer]

I notice that Hank's book "Coup in Dallas" has now been listed as coming out in February, 2020.

Does anybody still think that Skyhorse is legitimate?

James Lateer