XIII. 544 CAMP STREET AND RELATED EVENTS

  1. On August 9, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on Canal Street in New Orleans and charged with distrubing the peace.(1) The arrest was the result of a confrontation with anti-Castro Cuban exile Carlos Bringuier and two of his associates, Miguel Cruz and Celso Hernandez.(2) Oswald was handing out pro-Castro leaflets(3) when Bringuier, Hernandez and Cruz approached him.(4) When Hernandez tried to take the leaflets from Oswald, a shouting match began;(5) the New Orleans police then intervened, arresting all four individuals.(6)

  2. Samples of Oswald's literature were confiscated by the police.(7) One of the pamphlets bore the hand-stamped imprint of an address for the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee-of which Oswald was the president and only member in New Orleans-as "544 Camp Street, New Orleans, La."(8)

  3. This pamphlet was among the materials turned over by the New Orleans police department to the Secret Service following the assassination.(9) The Secret Service and the FBI then set out to investigate the 544 Camp Street address.(10) These agencies established several facts:

  4. The address had been stamped with a home printing kit in the same manner Oswald had stamped other literature with his alias "A.J. Hidell" or "L. H. Oswald,"(11) indicating it was by Oswald's own hand that the 544 Camp Street address was printed on the pamphlet.

  5. It was learned also that Oswald had written to the national president of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Vincent T. Lee, on August 1, 1963, 8 days before his arrest.(12) In the letter, Oswald mentioned he had rented an office for his local FPCC chapter, but was told to vacate after 3 days because the building was to be remodeled.(13)

  6. The FBI and the Secret Service investigation apparently focused on whether or not Oswald actually had rented an office at the 544 Camp Street address.(14)

  7. In interviews with the FBI and the Secret Service, the building owner, Sam Newman, denied renting an office to Oswald.(45) Others renting office space at 544 Camp Street were questioned, but none recalled seeing Oswald at the Newman Building or elsewhere in New Orleans.(16)

  8. During the course of that investigation, however, the Secret Service received information that an office in the Newman Building had been rented to the Cuban Revolutionary Council from October 1961 through February 1962.(17) Leaders of the CRC were contacted and asked if they had any association with or knowledge of Oswald or the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.(18) The Cubans said they had none because they had vacated the building 15 months prior to Oswald's appearance in new Orleans.(19)

  9. The investigation of a possible connection between Oswald and the 544 Camp Street address was closed.(20) The Warren Commission findings concurred with the Secret Service report that no additional evidence had been found to indicate Oswald ever maintained an office at the 544 Camp Street address.(21)

  10. The committee investigated the possibility of a connection between Oswald and 544 Camp Street and developed evidence pointing to a different result.

  11. The committee learned that the Newman Building occupied the corner lot facing Lafayette Square. On one side its address was 544 Camp Street.(22) Its other entrance was addressed 531 Lafayette Street.(23) It was a three-story granite structure owned and operated by Sam Newman as a rental income property for commercial offices.(24).

  12. The committee interviewed Sam Newman and other witnesses to obtain a complete list of the occupants of the building for the period from May 1963, when Oswald arrived in New Orleans, to September 1963, when he departed.

  13. Newman told the committee he had great difficulty renting space in the building.(25) Consequently, there were few tenants there in the summer of 1963. The Camp STreet address was the main entrance to offices for two workers' associations: the Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America.(26) It was also the entrance that led to the quarters of the building's janitor, James Arthus.(27) There was only one office at the Lafayette Street address, that of Guy Banister Associates, a private investigative firm.(28) The offices once rented by the Cuban Revolutionary Council at 544 Camp Street still lay empty.(29) "Mancuso's," a small coffeeshop, was located on the ground floor with its own entrance onto the corner of Camp and Lafayette Streets.(30)

  14. The committee located and interviewed individuals associated with these organizations. Whenever possible, the committee obtained relevant records from the organizations to check for any link to Oswald or persons implicated in the assassination investigation. The committee investigation produced no evidence of any connection between Oswald and any person or organizations occupying the Newman Building in 1963, except for that involving Guy Banister's private detective agency.

  15. Before discussion of the investigation of the Banister office, this material sets forth the results of the investigation into the other occupants of 544 Camp Street.

  16. The Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Employees Union is known today as the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders' Union (International).(31) Although the committee was unable to locate personnel who had worked in the office at 544 Camp Street and had been interviewed by the Secret Service following the assassination, the committee did obtain a "master" membership list from the union.(32) The lists contained names of members for the years 1962 through 1964 that were studied for names of associated of Oswald or others of interest in the investigation. Among the names appearing on the list as a member from October 30, 1962, "through April 1963" was Kerry Thornley,(33) who had been an acquaintance of Oswald's for "3 or 4 months" in 1959 when both were stationed at the El Toro Marine Corps base in Santa Ana, Calif.(34) Later, Thornley learned of Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union from newspaper accounts.(35) Thornley found the story so interesting that he set out to write a novel based on Oswald's defection.(36)

  17. nevertheless, the committee's investigation of Kerry Thornley uncovered nothing of significance in the appearance of Thornley's name on the list of members of the union. As reflected in the union's records, Thornley dropped his membership after April 1963.(37) Thornley had left New Orleans to travel to California and Mexico and did not return to New Orleans until August 1963,(38) leaving little overlap of time in which Oswald and Thornley could have possibly come in contact.

  18. Thornley firmly denied contact with Oswald at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans or at any time since his Marine Corps days.(39) His statements have been corroborated and no evidence has been found to contradict him.

  19. The committee also located and interviewed George S. Gray, present president of the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motor Employees of America.(40) Gay has been president of the union since 1960(41) and confirmed for the committee that the union's office was located in the Newman Building in 1963.(42) While Gay reiterated what he had told Secret Service agents, that he did not recall ever seeing Oswald in the building,(43) he told the committee he was not in the office very much due to frequent business trips.(44) He said he did not mingle with the other tenants in the building.(45) Gay believed the union's secretary at the time, Mrs. Eugenia Donnelly, would have more information about others in the Newman Building.(46) Subsequent attempts to locate Donnelly proved futile and she was believed deceased.(47) Unfortunately, she was not questioned by investigating officials following the assassination of President Kennedy.

  20. Jack Mancuso, owner of Mancuso's Coffee Shop located on the ground floor of the Newman Building, was interviewed by committee investigators and questioned about his customers.(48) Mancuso recalled that Guy Banister and his associates Jack Martin and David Ferrie were "steady" customers, but Mancuso could not personally recall ever having seen Oswald.(49) Mancuso was not interviewed by FBI or Secret Service agents following the assassination.(50)

  21. James Arthus was interviewed by Secret Service agents immediately following the assassination.(51) He told the agents that an unknown man had attempted to rent an office at 544 Camp Street, but that he had discouraged him.(52) Arthus could not describe the man and recommended the agents speak with "Mrs. Downing," presumed to be Mrs. Donnelly, since she had also seen the man and could possibly provide a description of him.(53) As pointed out above, Mrs. Donnelly was not interviewed by either the Secret Service or the FBI on this matter. The committee learned that Arthus died in 1967.(54)

  22. The FBI and the Secret Service apparently failed to question all the occupants of 544 Camp Street, including a witness who may have had information about a man who had attempted to rent space there. While the FBI did speak to Guy Banister, there is no indication from the report of that interview that Banister was asked any questions about Oswald. Instead, he was asked about Serigo Arcacha Smith and the Cuban Revolutionary Council.(55)

  23. The overall investigation of the 544 Camp Street issue at the time of the assassination was not thorough. It is not surprising, then, that significant links were never discovered during the original investigation. The committee concentrated on an investigation of the activities and individuals in and around the office of Guy Banister, since this was the area of the least investigation in the days following the assassination. Various resources were consulted by the committee for information regarding Banister and his colleagues. These included: original documents from Banister's office collected during the 1967-69 investigation into the Kennedy assassination by the New Orleans District Attorney; investigative reports of the district attorney's office dating from that investigation; materials amassed during the1961-63 investigation of David Ferrie by Federal Aviation Administration officials including transcripts of Ferrie's grievance hearings; information obtained from Aaron Kohn of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans; and information obtained from reviews of relevant files of the FBI, Secret Service, DOD and CIA. In addition, the committee interviewed several surviving witnesses, many of whom had worked for or with Guy Banister.

  24. According to one of Banister's own biographical sketches dated March 1964, he was born in a log cabin in rural Louisiana in 1901, the eldest of 7 children.(56) He started his career in criminal justice with the police department of Monroe, La.(57) In 1934, he became a special agent for the agency of the Department of Justice that was soon to be named the Federal Bureau of Investigation.(58) Banister served in the FBI for 20 years, 17 of those years as special agent in charge.(59) He retired in 1954 to become assistant superintendent for the New Orleans Police Department and was assigned the task of investigating police corruption.(60) After a falling out with the mayor of new Orleans, allegedly over Banister's attempt to have the mayor indicted on charges of "malfeasance, etc.", Banister quit public service and formed his own private detective agency, Guy Banister Associates, Inc.(61)

  25. According to FBI files reviewed by committee staff, Banister also became excessively active in anti-Communist activities after his separation from the FBI and testified before various investigating bodies about the dangers of communism.(62) The CIA file on Guy Banister indicated the agency considered in September 1960 using Guy Banister Associates for the collection of foreign intelligence, but ultimately decided against it(63), for several reasons.(64) Early in 1961, Banister helped draw up a charter for the Friends of Democratic Cuba, an organization set up as the fundraising arm of Sergio Arcacha Smith's branch of the Cuban Revolutionary Council.(65) Banister described his work for the Council:

    Our work was primarily to gather food and clothing for the refugees. However because of my being known in connection with that,(and) my background being known with Arcacha Smith and others, I have had high-ranking Cuban refugees in my office asking me how to go underground, and I gave them diagrams for that. I have talked to military and political leaders from the various provinces of Cuba that have slipped out and slipped back. (66)

  26. The FBI files also indicate Banister was performing another service for the Cuban exile group. He ran background investigations on those Cuban students on the campus of Louisiana State University who wished to be members of Arcacha Smith's anti-Castro group, ferreting out any pro-Castro sympathizers who might be among them.(67) Banister also talked Sam Newman into leasing 544 Camp Street to the Cuban Revolutionary Council.(68)

  27. It was probably a result of such anti-Castro activities that Banister became acquainted with David Ferrie. Ferrie, an Eastern Airlines pilot, was also extremely active in Sergio Arcacha Smith's anti-Castro group.(69) Ferrie shared Banister's anti-Communist and anti-Castro fervor.(70)

  28. Both Ferrie and Banister were implicated in a raid in late 1961 against a munitions depot in Houma, La., in which various weapons, grenades and ammunition were stolen.(71) Banister's role may have been limited to storing the materiel which was reportedly seen stacked in Banister's back room by several witnesses.(72) Others who actually participated in the raid, include Andrew Blackmon, a Ferrie associate and former Civil Air Patrol cadet, and Sergio Arcach Smith.(73)

  29. In February 1962, Ferrie requested Banister's assistance in fighting his recent dismissal from Eastern Airlines.(74) Banister investigated the case for Ferrie's defense to charges brought by the airline and local New Orleans police of crimes against nature and extortion.(75) In exchange, Ferrie provided Banister research services, such as analysis of autopsy reports.(76) Banister worked with Ferrie's lawyer, G. Wray Gill, on this matter until its culmination in Ferrie's hearing before the Airline Pilot's grievance board in the summer of 1963.(77) Banister testified on Ferrie's behalf during those hearings.(78) According to the statements of witnesses in the fall of 1963,Ferrie and Banister worked together again with G. Wray Gill for the defense of new Orleans organized crime head Carlos Marcello on a deportation case.(79) Little is known of Banister's exact contribution to that investigation which ended in acquittal on the day and at almost the precise hour that President Kennedy was shot.(80)

  30. The long-standing relationship of Ferrie and Banister is significant since Ferrie became a suspect in the Kennedy assassination soon after it had occurred.(81) The information to the district attorney's office that had put the spotlight on Ferrie had emanated from Banister associate, Jack Martin.(82) As detailed elsewhere in this staff report, although Ferrie was cleared of suspicion in the assassination during the original investigation, the committee found evidence of a possible association between Ferrie and Oswald.

  31. Although Banister as questioned by the FBI following the assassination in regard to the activities of the CRC at 544 Camp Street, the FBI and the Secret Service failed to discover the significance of Banister's connection to 544 Camp Street; Banister's close association with a suspect in the assassination, David Ferrie; and Banister's close association with Ferrie's accuser, Jack Martin-all of which raised the question of what, if anything, was Banister's relationship to Lee Harvey Oswald.

  32. Witnesses interviewed by the committee indicate Banister was aware of Oswald and his Fair Play for Cuba Committee before the assassination. Banister's brother, Ross Banister, who is employed by the Louisiana State Police, told the committee that his brother had mentioned seeing Oswald hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature on one occasion.(83) Ross Banister theorized Oswald had used the 544 Camp Street address on his literature to embarrass Guy.(84) Ross Banister did confirm Guy's interest in the assassination and Oswald, but knew of no direct association between Oswald and Banister.

  33. Ivan E. "Bill" Nitschke, a friend and business associate and former FBI agent,(85) corroborates that Banister was cognizant of Oswald's leaflet distributing. Nitschke was deposed by the committee in July 1978.(86) He testified that he had known Banister when they were both in the FBI and for a short time worked for Banister in the office in the Newman Building.(87)

  34. Nitschke said he never saw Lee Harvey Oswald at 544 Camp Street and does not know if Banister ever met Oswald.(88) Nevertheless, Nitschke recalls that Banister became "interested in Oswald" during the summer of 1963 when Oswald had been distributing handbills.(89) Nitschke recalls Banister had some of these handbills in his office or made reference to them.(90) From the context of the conversation, however, he was not pleased.(91)

  35. Delphine Roberts, Banister's long-time friend and secretary, stated to the committee that Banister had become extremely angry with James Arthus and Sam Newman over Oswald's use of the 544 Camp Street address on his handbills.(92)

  36. The committee questioned Sam Newman regarding Roberts' allegation. Newman could not recall ever seeing Oswald or renting space to him.(93) He did recall, however, asking a young man who was in the office once used by the Cuban Revolutionary Council to leave.(94) Newman did not think this person was Oswald.(95) Newman theorized that if Oswald was using the 544 Camp Street address and had any link to the building, it would have been through a connection to the Cuban Revolutionary Council or Banister's office.(96)

  37. The committee questioned other individuals once affiliated with Guy Banister, including; Joseph Newbrough and Vernon Gerdes, investigators who had worked with Banister in 1963;(97) Mary Helen Brengel, one of two secretaries in Banister's office from approximately June 1963 to December 1963;(98) Louise Decker, a secretary in Banister's office for the period from October 1961 to January 1962;(99) Joseph Oster, one time partner of Banister's who set up his own private detective agency, Southern Research, in 1958;(100) and Carlos Quiroga, the Cuban exile who visited Oswald at his home on approximatelyAugust 16,1963, endeavoring to learn more about the FPCC.(101) Quiroga told the committee he frequently visited Banister's office and Mancus's coffee shop in the company of Sergio Arcacha Smith and David Ferrie when all were heavily involved in Cuban exile activities. (102) Yet this would have been in 1961 and 1962.(103) None of these individuals recalled seeing Oswald at 544 Camp Street. Several witnesses recommended the committee speak with jack Martin or Delphine Roberts since they were in most contact with Banister.(104)

  38. Martin and Roberts have both been interviewed by the committee on several occasions. Roberts, who initially refused to speak with the committee staff, told the committee she was very active in anti-Communist activities in the early 1960's.(105) She said she worked with Banister as a volunteer typing correspondence, making files and clipping newspapers because Banister was working for what Roberts believed in.(106) Roberts claimed Banister had an extensive file on Communists and fellow travelers, including one on Lee Harvey Oswald, which was kept out of the original files because Banister "never got around to assigning a number to it."(107) Roberts did not remember what was in the file other than that it contained general information on Oswald such as newspaper clippings.(108) Roberts also related the incident described previously in this section in which Banister became angry over Oswald's use of the Camp Street address.(109) Roberts gave the committee her version of an incident that took place late in the evening on the day of the assassination. She said Jack Martin came into the office and approached the area of the office where the files were kept, when Banister walked in.(110) Banister accused Martin of stealing several files and hiding them in his coat.(111) When Martin protested, Banister pulled out his gun and struck Martin on the head, causing him to bleed.(112) Both men then went into Banister's private office and continued their discussion beyond Robert's earshot.(113)

  39. During another interview, Roberts told the committee that Oswald came into the office seeking employment and sometime later brought Marina in with him.(114) Contrary to her statements in the initial interview, that she had never seen Oswald, she stated that she saw Oswald come into Banister's office on several occasions.(115) Because of such contradictions in Roberts' statements to the committee and lack of independent corroboration of many of her statements, the reliability of her statements could not be determined.

  40. A New Orleans police complaint filed by Jack Martin on November 22, 1963, corroborated Roberts' story insofar as it established Banister's assault against Jack Martin with the pistol.(116) According to the report, Martin and Banister had been drinking at a bar neighboring the Newman Building, then visited the Banister's office and became involved in various discussions about "personal and political subjects."(117) They then began to argue about unauthorized long-distance telephone calls which Banister accused Martin of making from the office.(118) The discussion became more heated and Banister pulled out a 357 magnum revolver and hit Martin on the head four or five times with the butt of the gun.(119) When Martin began to bleed, Banister stopped hitting him and Martin went to the restroom to clean up.(120) Banister told Martin to watch himself and be careful.(121) Martin then went to Charity Hospital for treatment, returned home and called the police to file the report.(122) Martin refused to press charges as Banister was "like a father" to him.(123)

  41. Martin was questioned by the committee regarding the incident and for information about Banister's office. Martin told the committee he is a part-time investigator and writer, as he was in the early 1960's.(124) Martin was one of the members of Banister's investigative "pool" and was frequently in and out of Banister's office.(125) Martin told the committee that on November 22, 1963, he was having drinks with Banister at a local bar and they got into an argument. (126) They went to Banister's office and, in the heat of the quarrel, Banister said something to which Martin replied, "What are you going to do-kill me like you all did Kennedy?" (127) Banister drew his pistol and beat Martin in the head.(128) Martin believed Banister would have killed him but for the intervention of Banister's secretary, who pleaded with Banister not to shoot Martin.(129)

  42. It was the day after this incident that Martin related his suspicions about David Ferrie to the New Orleans district attorney's office.(130) Martin had at one time been a close associate of Ferrie. (131) Ferrie told the FBI he met Martin in the fall of 1961, probably not long after Ferrie had met Banister.(132) Martin apparently shared Ferrie's interest in obtaining a position with an ecclesiastical order, although Ferrie insisted he became involved with these religious orders only to assist Martin in a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare investigation into the sale of phony certificates of ordination and consecration.(132) Ferrie said he and Martin had a falling out when he put Martin out of attorney G. Wray Gill's office in June 1963, because Gill did not want Martin "hanging around the office."(134) Gill said Ferrie and Martin had been "close friends" until they got involved in an "ecclesiastical deal wherein Martin was supposed to represent a large territory of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of North America."(135) Martin held Ferrie responsible for not getting the job and has "slandered Ferrie at every opportunity." (136)

  43. Martin has also told the committee he saw Lee Harvey Oswald with Ferrie in Guy Banister's office in 1963.(137) Nevertheless, in light of Martin's previous contradictory statements to authorities shortly after the assassination in which Martin made no such allegation about having seen Oswald,(138) it may be argued that credence should not be placed in Martin's statements to the committee.

  44. The committee sought to trace Banister's office files that had been reportedly scattered to various individuals or agencies soon after Banister's death in June 1964.

  45. Mary Banister Wilson, Guy Banister's widow, told the committee she had not retained any of the files but had given many away to various organizations.(139) Mrs. Wilson said she sold some of Banister's files to the Louisiana State police in a transaction involving Russell Willie of the State police.(140) She said another portion of the file was given to Aaron Kohn of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission.(141) The committee learned several books from Banister's collection went to Banister's associate, Kent Courtney.(142) The rest of Banister's "extensive" library of books was donated to the Louisiana State University Library.(143)

  46. Russell Willie and Joseph Cambre of the Louisiana State Police confirmed for the committee that they purchased from Mary Banister in late 1964 a five-drawer file containing file folders belonging to the late Guy Banister.(144) The "half-filled" file cabinet contained 10 large manila folders, each subject titled and numbered.(145) One of the folders contained a group of 3" by 5" index cards.(146) The index cards contained numbers and subject headings corresponding to the file folders in the cabinet.(147) Not all the files listed in the index were among those files given to the Louisiana State Police; most of the files obtained by the State police dealt with Communist groups and subversive organizations, according to State Police Officer Cambre.(148) Cambre recalled that although Lee Harvey Oswald's name was not included among the main subjects of the files, Oswald's name was included among the main subjects of the file on the Fair Play forCuba Committee.(149) Cambre had read the FPCC file and found news clippings and a transcript of a radio program in which Oswald had participated, presumably a transcript of the August 21,1963, debate between Oswald and Carlos Bringuier on WDSU radio.(150) Unfortunately, this file was routinely destroyed in keeping with the requirements of the Privacy Act.(151)

  47. Aaron Kohn, managing director of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, acknowledged that he received files from Mary Banister Wilson after Guy Banister's death.(152) The files received by Kohn dealt with an investigation of corruption within the New Orleans Police Department, which Banister had conducted while he was assistant superintendent of police in New Orleans in the mid-1950's.(153)

  48. While the committee was unable to trace or recover all of Banister's files, a partial index of the files was made available by Jim Garrison, former district attorney of Orleans Parish, La.(154) Garrison had sent investigators to the Louisiana State Police intelligence section in 1967 during his investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy.(155) The index did not include the name of Lee Harvey Oswald or the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.(156)

  49. Thus, the committee could find no documentary proof that Banister had a file on Lee Harvey Oswald nor could the committee find credible witnesses who ever saw Lee Harvey Oswald and Guy Banister together. There are indications, however, that Banister at least knew of Oswald's leafletting activities and probably maintained a file on him. As for Jack Martin's reasons for calling attention to Ferrie as a suspect in the assassination, they may not have been based on personal knowledge. Martin never claimed such information but his action seems to have been based on sincere concerns and some legitimate suspicions. Consequently, it is not possible to determine definitely the reasons for Banister's assault on Martin the night of the assassination, specifically, whether it had anything to do with martin's suspicions of Ferrie.

  50. The primary import of the 544 Camp Street address must be analyzed within the context of evidence of a Ferrie-Oswald link. Unfortunately, the precise nature of their relationship may never be known.

  51. As can be seen by the committee investigation into Ferrie's associations and activities throughout his life and especially during the summer of 1963, there are several factors which explain why Ferrie and Oswald could have become closely associated, as improbable as this may seem:

  52. A. Both men spent considerable time in the same locale: Ferrie frequently visited the office of Guy Banister in the building at 544 Camp Street;* Oswald worked only one block away and had used 544 Camp Street as the address of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Additionally, the testimony of a number of witnesses from Clinton, La., placing Oswald and Ferrie together in early September 1963, may be credible. Evidence also exists to support the belief that a Ferrie colleague, Guy Banister, knew Oswald's pro-Castro leafletting.

  53. B. Both men had similar, fervent interest in political topics, especially the Cuban question. Although Ferrie stood firmly on the anti-Castro side of the issue and Oswald was involved in pro-Castro activities, this alone would not rule out the possibility of an Oswald-Ferrie association.

  54. Oswald, on at least one occasion, made a friendly overture to a known anti-Castro activist, Carlos Bringuier, the New Orleans delegate to the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) and even offered Bringuier assistance in military training of Cuban exiles. The Oswald-Ferrie association may have begun in the same manner.

  55. C. Significant to the argument that Oswald and Ferrie were associated in 1963 is evidence of prior association in 1955 when Ferrie was captain of a Civil Air Patrol squadron and Oswald a young cadet, This pupil-teacher relationship could have greatly facilitated their reacquaintance and Ferrie's noted ability to influence others could have been used with Oswald.

  56. D. Ferrie's experience with the underground activities of the Cuban exile movement and as a private investigator for Carlos Marcello and Guy Banister might have made him a good candidate to participate in a conspiracy plot. He may not have known what was to be the outcome of his actions, but once the assassination had been successfully completed and his own name cleared, Ferrie would have had no reason to reveal his knowledge of the plot. Further, fear for his life may have prevented him from doing so.

  57. While it could not be definitely determined whether Ferrie had any contact with Oswald after Oswald left New Orleans on September 24, 1963, until the day of the assassination only 2 months later, the possible Oswald-Ferrie relationship is a significant Oswald association.

    Submitted by:
    GAETON J. FONZI,
    Investigator.

    PATRICIA M. ORR
    Researcher.

    *Strangely, although Ferrie seemed to be straightforward during his interviews with FBI agents in discussing his opposition to Kennedy, his conflict with Jack Martin, his involvement in the Marcello case, et cetera, Ferrie denied outright that he had ever known "of the Cuban Revolutionary Front maintaining an office at 544 Camp Street, nor does he have any knowledge of Sergio Arcacha Smith maintaining an office at that address during the time he was head of the organization and later after he was replaced."(157) This is clearly in contradiction to the accounts of the witnesses on this subject. 133

    REFERENCES

    (1) Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), p.728 (hereinafter cited as the Warren Report).
    (2) Ibid.
    (3) Hearings before the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), vol. XXVI, CE-2966 A and B (hereinafter cited as Warren Commission Hearings).
    (4) Warren Report, p.728; Deposition of Carlos Bringuier, May 12, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp.126-129 (J.F.K. Document 009084).
    (5) Ibid.
    (6) Warren Report, p.826.
    (7) Ibid.
    (8) XXVI, Warren Commission Hearings, p.30, CE-3120, Pamphlet, "The Crime Against Cuba," Corliss Lamont.
    (9) Ibid., vol. XXVI, p.11, CE-3119, Secret Service Report, Nov. 30, 1963, CO-2-34,030.
    (10) Ibid.; FBI teletype, FOIA materials, 62-109060-1668, Nov. 26, 1963, pp.1-3.
    (11) XXVI, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-2966 A and B.
    (12) Ibid., vol. XX, Lee DE-7.
    (13) Ibid.
    (14) Warren Report, p.408; XXII, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-1414; FBI teletype, FOIA materials, 62-109060-1668, Nov. 26, 1963, pp.1-3.
    (15) Ibid.; XXII, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-1414.
    (16) Ibid.
    (17) Ibid.
    (18) Ibid.
    (19) Ibid.
    (20) Ibid.; FBI teletype, FOIA materials, 62-109060-1668, Nov. 26, 1963, pp. 1-3.
    (21) Warren Report, pp.292 and 408.
    (22) Deposition of Sam Newman, Nov. 6, 1978,House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.21 (J.F.K. Document 014020).
    (23) Ibid.
    (24) Id. at p.5.
    (25) Id. at p.22.
    (26) XXII, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-1414, Secret Service Report, CO-2-34,030, pp.4-5.
    (27) See ref. 22.
    (28) Id. at pp.9,21.
    (29) Id. at pp.23-24.
    (30) Id. at p.13.
    (31) Outside Contact Report with Attachment, Mrs. Anna Stewart, Apr. 11, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 007364).
    (32) Ibid., attachments: Rosters through October 1962, April 1963 and March 1964.
    (33) Ibid., roster through October 1962, p.14 (first list);roster through April 1963, p.16(second list).
    (34) FBI teletype, FOIA material, 62-109060-1668, Nov. 26, 1963, p.9. 133
    (35) Kerry Thornley affidavit, Jan. 8, 1976, p. 1, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 012740).(Note: This statement, while rambling and confusing, remains consistent on the major point that Thornley had no contact with Oswald after service in the Marines.)
    (36) Ibid.; see also testimony of Kerry Thornley, May 18, 1964, XI, Warren Commission Hearings, pp.96-97.
    (37) Outside Contact Report, Mrs. Anna Stewart, Apr. 11, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, attachment roster through March 1964 (J.F.K. Document 007364).
    (38) FBI teletype, FOIA material, 62-109060-1668, Nov. 26, 1963, p.9.
    (39) Ibid.; Secret Service Report, Dec. 2, 1963, CO-2-34,030 (J.F.K. Document 003675): Thornley testimony, XI, Warren Commission Hearings, 110.
    (40) Outside Contact Report, George S. Gay, Jan. 13, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 005191).
    (41) XXII, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-1414, Secret Service Report, CO-2-34,030, Dec. 9, 1963, p.5.
    (42) Outside Contact Report, George C. Gay, Jan. 13, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 005191).
    (43) Ibid.; XXII, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-1414, Secret Service Report, CO-2-34,030, Dec. 9, 1963, p.5.
    (44) See ref. 42.
    (45) Ibid.
    (46) Ibid.
    (47) Outside Contact Report, George S. Gay, re: Eugenia Donnelly, June 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 009115).
    (48) Outside Contact Report, Jack Mancuso, Jan. 26, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 014120).
    (49) Ibid.
    (50) Ibid.
    (51) XXVI, Warren Commission Hearings, CE-3119, Secret Service Report, Nov. 30, 1963, CO-2-34,030, p.15.
    (52) Ibid.
    (53) Ibid.
    (54) Outside Contact Report, re: James Arthus, June 1, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 009047).
    (55) FBI Teletype, FOIA material, 62-109060-2668, Nov. 26, 1963, p.2.
    (56) Material received from files of New Orleans district attorney's office pertaining to investigation and trial of Clay Shaw, 1967-69, attachment D, section 5, regarding Guy Banister, "Biographical Sketch" (J.F.K. Document 007271).
    (57) Ibid.
    (58) Ibid.
    (59) Ibid.
    (60) Ibid.: FAA materials, Systems Board of Adjustments Grievance Hearing of David Ferrie, testimony of Guy Banister, Aug. 5, 1963, p. 828 (J.F.K. Document No. 014904).
    (61) See ref. 56.
    (62) Staff review of FBI files for Guy Banister, Oct. 28, 1978, pp.1-2.
    (63) CIA document.
    (64) Staff review of FBI files for Guy Banister, Oct. 28, 1978, pp. 1-2. (Note: Coincidentally, Gerard F. Tujague, owner of Gerard F. Tujague, Inc. Forwarding Co., who had employed Oswald as a messenger from November 1955 to January 1956, was also a member and officer (vice-president of Friends of Democratic Cuba (see FBI teletype, 62-109060-1668, Jan. 26, 1963, p.5.)
    (65) Ibid.
    (66) See ref. 60, p.828.
    (67) Staff review of FBI files for Guy Banister, Oct. 28, 1978, pp.1-2.
    (68) Deposition of Sam Newman, Nov. 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.22 (J.F.K. Document 014020).
    (69) Staff report, "Anti-Castro Activist and Organizations and Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans," Appendix to the Hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 2d session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), vol. X, par. 419ff (here-inafter the Anti-Castro Cuban staff report).
    (70) Ibid., pars. 402 and 418.
    (71) FBI teletype, FOIA material, 62-109060-5237, May 7, 1967, pp.1-2. 134
    (72) Outside Contact Report, Vernon Gerdes, Jan. 10, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations,p.3(J.F.K. Document No. 005208); see ref. 68, p. 49; Outside Contact Report, Jack Martin, Dec. 5, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.6 (J.F.K. Document No. 005212).
    (73) FBI teletype, FOIA material, 62-109060-5237, May 7, 1967, pp.1-2.
    (74) See ref. 60, p.825.
    (75) Ibid., p.481.
    (76) Ibid.
    (77) Ibid.
    (78) Ibid., pp. 825-855.
    (79) Outside Contact Report, Mary Helen Brengel, Apr. 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document No. 008861); and ref. 69, Anti-Castro Cuban Staff Report, par. 439ff.
    (80) Ibid., par. 390.
    (81) Ibid., par. 390ff.
    (82) Ibid., par. 392.
    (83) Outside Contact Report, Ross Banister, Feb. 20, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.3(J.F.K. Document No. 005967).
    (84) Ibid.
    (85) Ibid.
    (86) Deposition of L E. "Bill" nitschke, July 31, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp.5 and 12 (J.F.K. Document No. 012308).
    (87) Id. at pp.12-14.
    (88) Id. at pp.36-37.
    (89) Ibid.
    (90) Id. at pp.38-41.
    (91) Ibid.
    (92) Outside Contact Report, Delphine Roberts, July 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations,p.3 (J.F.K. Document No. 009979).
    (93) See ref. 22, p.27.
    (94) Id. at pp.35-36.
    (95) Ibid.
    (96) Id. at p.30.
    (97) Outside contact report, Joseph Newbrough, Apr. 10, 1964, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (J.F.K. Document No. 009113). Newbrough was associated with Banister's agency from approximately 1958 to 1964; Outside Contact Report, Vernon Gerdes, Jan. 10, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document No. 005208). Gerdes was associated with Banister for the period 1960-63.
    (98) Outside contact report, Mary Helen Brengel, Apr. 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (J.F.K. Document No. 008861).
    (99) Notes of an interview of Louise Decker, May 30, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 015045).
    (100) Outside contact report, Joseph Oster, Jan. 27, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 005207).
    (101) Deposition of Carlos Quiroga, May 23, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp.21-27 (J.F.K. Document 009394).
    (102) Id. at pp. 50, 51, and 57.
    (103) Ibid.
    (104) See ref. 22, p.31. Newman recommended the committee speak with Martin because he was in Banister's office "90 percent of the time; every day almost" and he "kept up with all that stuff" related to the Cubans. See also ref. 86. pp.59-60. Nitschke told the committee, "* * * If you were trying to explore this to the fullest extent, I would say that Delphine (Roberts) would be No. 1 * * *."
    (105) Outside contact report, Delphine Roberts, July 6, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (J.F.K. Document 009979).
    (106) Id. at p.3.
    (107) Ibid.
    (108) Ibid.
    (109) Ibid.
    (110) Ibid.
    (111) Ibid.
    (112) Ibid.
    (113) Ibid.
    (114) See ref. 105, p. 3.
    (115) Ibid.
    (116) Guy Banister file, Garrison papers, Aug. 14, 1977, item GB-2, "Report of Offense Against Persons," Nov. 22, 1963, New Orleans Police Department (J.F.K. Document 002066). The report indicates the incident took place at 5:15 p.m. and was classified as "aggravated battery"; the motive was "sudden anger."
    (117) Ibid.
    (118) Ibid.
    (119) Ibid.
    (120) Ibid.
    (121) Ibid.
    (122) Ibid.
    (123) Ibid.
    (124) Outside contact report, Jack Martin, Dec.5, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations,p. 1 (J.F.K. Document 005212).
    (125) See ref. 86, pp.9-16.
    (126) See ref. 124, p.3.
    (127) Id. at p.4.
    (128) Ibid.
    (129) Ibid.
    (130) FBI interviews of Jack Martin, Nov. 25, 1963 and Nov. 27, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69.
    (131) FBI interview of G. Wray Gill, Nov. 27, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p.2.
    (132) FBI interview of David Ferrie, Nov. 26, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p.9.
    (133) See ref. 124, p. 1; FBI interview of G. Wray Gill, Nov. 27, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p. 2; and FBI interview of David Ferrie, Nov. 26, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p. 9. See also FAA Systems Board of Adjustment Grievance hearings for David Ferrie, July 15-17 and Aug. 5, 1963, for more discussion of Ferrie's and Martin's involvement in unusual religious orders.
    (134) FBI interview of David Ferrie, Nov. 26, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p.9.
    (135) FBI interview of G. Wray Gill, Nov. 27, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p.2.
    (136) Ibid.
    (137) See ref. 124, p.2.
    (138) Ibid.; see also FBI interviews of Jack Martin, Nov. 25, 1963 and Nov. 27, 1963; Secret Service interview of Jack Martin, Nov. 29, 1963, reported in report of Dec. 13, 1963, p.5. Martin makes no mention of the alleged sighting of Oswald and Ferie together.
    (139) Outside contact report, Mary Banister Wilson, Apr. 7, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 012448).
    (140) Ibid.
    (141) Ibid.
    (142) Outside contact report, Kent Courtney, Mar. 19, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 006676).
    (143) See ref. 139.
    (144) Outside contact report, Russell R. Willie, June 8, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 009262); outside contact report, Joseph Cambre, June 8, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 009263).
    (145) Ibid., outside contact report, Willie.
    (146) Ibid.
    (147) Ibid.
    (148) Outside contact report, Joseph Cambre, June 8, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document No. 009263).
    (149) Ibid.
    (150) Ibid.
    (151) Ibid.
    (152) Outside contact report, Aaron Kohn, Jan. 20, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document No. 005121).
    (153) Ibid.
    (154) Guy Banister file, Garrison papers, Aug. 14, 1977, item GB-1, index of Banister file (J.F.K. Document No. 002066).
    (155) See ref. 148.
    (156) Guy Banister file, Garrison papers, Aug. 14, 1977, item GB-1, index of Banister file (J.F.K. Document No. 002066).
    (157) FBI interview of David Ferrie, Nov. 26, 1963 and Nov. 27, 1963, Bureau file No.89-69, p. 10.

    XIV. MANUEL RAY RIVERO (MRP-JURE)

  58. When he first came into prominence as a Cuban exile leader, Manuel Ray Rivero was described as "softspoken and unassuming," a person of "highest intellect, sincereity, and conviction"--in other words, a natural leader.(1) In 1947, the 23-year-old Ray was granted a scholarship by the Cuban Ministry of Public Works to study civil engineering at the University of utah.(2) Ray was in the united States for 2 years before returning to his native Cuba in 1949 and obtaining various positions in the engineering field, one of which was project manager for the construction of the havana Hilton Hotel.(3)

  59. Reacting to the excesses of the military rule of Fulgencio Batista, Ray organized the Civic Resistance Movement in 1957 and began supervising sabotage and acts of terrorism against the Government.(4) His political posture and active resistance to Batista was recognized by Fidel Castro who, upon assuming control of the Government of Cuba, appointed Ray his Minister of Public Works in February 1959.(5) Within a few months of his appointment, Ray confided to two anti-Castro Cubans that he had recognized the symptoms of communism in the Castro regime but was not prepared to conspire against "El Lider Maximo."(6)

  60. Ray's tenure in Castro's government was short lived. he was relieved of his official position in November 1959.(7) No definite reason for this sudden move has been documented but, according to one source, Ray did not leave Castro because of ideological or policy discrepancies, but rather because of a personality clash with Castro's Minister of Labor who almost shot Ray after a stormy cabinet meeting.(8) Another theory about his leaving was that he opposed Castro's plan to declare Hubert Matos a traitor and execute the Cuban revolutionary hero with whom Ray had been associated.(9)

  61. For whatever reason, Ray did continue to permit his name to be associated with the Castro regime(10) until May 1960 when he formed the Revolutionary Movement of the people (MRP).(11)

  62. The MRP was an anti-Castro organization that believed that the ideas and aims of the democratic left best suited the needs and aspirations of the Cuban people.(12) It did not wish to reinstate the 1940 Cuban constitution, rather it favored continuation of the laws passed by Castro at the beginning of his regime(13) and advocated the regulation of private investment and nationalization of all utilities.(14) Associated with Ray in this underground organization were Rogelio Cisneros,(15) Rufo Lopez Fresquet, Felipe Pazos, and others.(16)

  63. Organized in each of Cuba's six provinces, the MRP was considered the most important underground group.(17) Working in tightly organized cells, the leadership in one province was unaware of the identities of their counterparts in other provinces.(18) The MDC engaged in acts of sabotage and was supplied with explosives sent by launches from the Florida Keys.(19)

  64. Having waited until May 1960 to organize his resistance group, Ray was criticized as being suspiciously tardy to the anti-Castro movement.(20) Charges of "Fidelism without Fidel" were made against him and the MRP because of their leftist ideologies.(21) Perhaps for these reasons, Ray's background was questioned by some in the State Department(22) and the Miami CIA station (23) when, in the summer of 1960, he was in the process of becoming a member of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD), a newly formed anti-Castroorganization sponsored by the U.S. Government.(24) The U.S. Government considered him an important political asset(25) and facilitated his entrance into the United States(26) on November 10, 1960.(27)

  65. Nevertheless, there was disagreement within the U.S. Government about Ray's political compatibility with U.S. Government policy. In a memo for record, dated November 21, 1960, one officer declared ". . . Ray did not politically represent anything to cheer about."(28) An officer who met privately with Ray in November 1960 noted that his political posture was "doubtful" as far as U.S. Government acceptance was concerned,(29) and a further assessment portrayed Ray as so far "left in his thinking that he would be as dangerous to U.S. interests as Castro."(30)

  66. Some prominent Cubans also expressed negative opinions about Ray, among them Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, president of the FRD. Miro opposed Ray because he considered his program too Marxist(31) and declared that Ray was bitterly anti-American as well as probably totalitarian in his thinking.(32) Manuel Artime, head of the Movimento Recuperacion Revolucionaria (MRR), noted that Ray's group was opposed to banning the Communist Party and in favor of "nationalizing everything."(33) Although aware of his controversial political philosophy, attempts were continued to recruit Ray to join the FRD(34) because the White House and State Department pushed for his inclusion.(35)

  67. Ray received full operational approval as a "political asset" on February 7, 1961.(36) He resisted joining the newly formed Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) just as he had resisted inclusion into the FRD. He said he felt the members of the CRC were too restrained and he did not want to become a part of a situation in which someone else was running the show for the exiles.(37) Three weeks before the Bay of Pigs invasion, however, Ray was persuaded to join the CRC as a show of unity.(38)

  68. In recalling the events of this period, Ray told the committee that he was aware of the fact that certain influential and wealthy Americans, among them former Ambassador William Pawley, were opposed to him and that a lot of heavy propaganda was being circulated accusing him of being a Communist.(39)

  69. Ray withdrew from the CRC shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion. In a miami news conference on May 28, 1961, he said the major reason for the MRP break with the CRC was that the Council had failed to live up to the written promises given it in March, outlining conditions Ray had insisted upon before joining the organization.(40) The first condition had been that the Council was to give first priority to the underground fighters in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Second, Ray had insisted that anyone too closely associated with the Batista regime would not be used in the invasion. In addition, he said, he was to have been allowed prior approval of any appointment of invasion military leaders.(41) Ray told the assembled newsmen that his program to overthrow Castro was based on maximum mobilization of the discontented people inside Cuba, and that he thought the leadership of this underground should come from Cubans who could prove they had access to such a potential force.(42)

  70. Ray sought U.S. Government support for the MRP independent of the Council,(43) claiming that the group had an effective underground organization but needed material and financial support.(44) Ray felt the MRP had to be allowed to plan its own operations and broaden its base of financial support to include sympathetic Latin American governments.(45) He was totally opposed to another large invasion.(46)

  71. A recommendation was made that Ray be given an initial $50,000 for operational expenses.(47) Reaction in the u.S. Government was immediate. Within 24 hours a memorandum was circulated, objecting to the recommendation and claiming that Ray did not ever produce any substantial military actions against Castro.(48) Ray was told to submit a "prospectus" of his plans for the MRP and advised that no financial help would be forthcoming until such a plan was reviewed.(49)

  72. Ray went to Puerto Rico about July 1961, where he received sympathetic support for the MRP from the Governor of that island, Luis Munoz Marin, who personally liked Ray.(50) While Ray was in Puerto Rico, a member of the MRP underground in Cuba reported to the MRP Executive Council that he had been told that no material resources would be available for the group until Manuel Ray was dismissed as general coordinator.(51) Charging the U.S. Government with repeated interference in the affairs of the MRP, Ray resigned so that there would not be any obstacle to the group's cohesion.(52)

  73. In October 1961, the Puerto Rican Planning Board announced that Ray had accepted a $12,000-a-year position as consultant to that Board.(53) Although there was no evidence that the Puerto Rican Government was supporting the MRP, Ray was looked upon with great favor by puerto Rican officials(54) and he endeavored to rebuild the MRP with Cuban exiles residing there.(55)

  74. Although still associated with the national leadership of the MRP in April 1962,(56) Ray began formulating plans for a new anti-Castro organization, Junta Revolucionario Cubana (JURE) (57) which, he said, would be only political in nature.(58) Ray freely admitted that this group, organized in July 1962 (59) would cooperate with the CRC but ultimately hoped to dominate it.(60)

  75. Concurrent with his JURE activities, Ray began giving information to the U.S. Government regarding possible recruitment or defection of Castro officials.(61) Specifically, he discussed plans to approach a Cuban Ambassador.(62) The degree of Ray's success in this area is not documented, but his efforts continued into the summer of 1963.(63) It was noted that Ray's abilities were quite impressive.(64)

  76. In June 1963, the concept of "Autonomous Operations" was inaugurated under which JURE could be financed independently, not through the CRC.(65) Military operations were also initiated (66) with Rogelio Cisneros as JURE military coordinator.(67)

  77. Under his interpretation of the "Rules of Engagement of the Autonomous Operations," Cisneros felt that JURE was not obligated to report its military or political plans to the U.S. Government but that the latter was obligated to finance JURE's purchase of military equipment.(68)

  78. By the fall of 1963, Ray was devoting his full time to JURE,(69) traveling extensively in Latin American countries to gain support which would allow JURE to mount resistance operations inside Cuba.(70) Ray told this committee that he and Cisneros were in Caracas for this purpose on November 22, 1963. He remembered that the assistant to a Venezuelan official came into the JURE meeting shortly after lunch that day and announced that President Kennedy had been shot.(71)

  79. In January 1964, Ray's organization was making plans to move their operations to another area (72) and, at the same time, establish a guerrilla training base.(73) He also began to formulate plans for his own infiltration into Cuba(74) declaring that he would turn the operation of JURE over to Rogelio Cisneros during his absence.(75)

  80. Ray's plan was delayed until May, at which time he quit his job in Puerto Rico and dropped out of sight.(76) His infiltration plans were known throughout the Miami Cuban exile community.(77) Soon the story spread to Cuba where Castro ordered a full-scale military alert and rounded up scores of suspected Ray supporters.(78)

  81. After several days of bad weather and dodging Cuban patrol boats, Ray and his crew of seven,(79) including a reporter-photographer team from Life magazine,(80) landed at the Anguilla Cays, 40 miles off the Cuban coast.(81) There Ray intended to make a final equipment check and a final radio transmission.(82)

  82. Because of their proximity to Cuba, the Anguilla Cays were heavily patrolled by Castro forces and by the British who owned them.(83) The British discovered Ray and his group and their cacheof weapons and explosives, arrested them for illegal entry into the Bahamas and took them to Nassau.(84) The minimal fine of $14 was levied on each member of the group and each was admonished to never trespass again.(85)

  83. Upon his release, Ray said that he was as determined as ever to infiltrate Cuba: "Fidel knows me," he said, "and he knows I'm coming."(86)

  84. Compounding Ray's problem was the revelation by the FBI and U.S. Treasury that Rogelio Cisneros had illegally purchased $50,000 worth of arms for JURE from a California arms manufacturer.(87) It also caused considerable embarrassment.(88) Because of the autonomous nature of its relationship with JURE, no attempt was made to stop Revenue's investigation.(89) Ray was told to move all his operations outside U.S. territory.(90)

  85. In order to shore up his waning credibility within the Cuban exile community, Ray again tried to infiltrate Cuba in July 1964 but, again, his boat developed motor trouble and the plan was aborted.(91) The failure this time led three exile groups to withdraw from JURE.(92)

  86. All these events, from May through July, resulted in a decision to stop financing Ray until he ceased all activities from the U.S. mainland.(93) A final payment was made to the group to facilitate the move,(94) thereby "closing the books" on JURE.(95)

  87. Ray kept his organization together until August 1968(96) although it was relatively ineffective. He personally maintained an interest in anti-Castro activities. In 1969, he called together a congress of Cuban exiles to create a new organization.(97) As late as 1972, he was actively engaged in the formulation of the People's Revolutionary Party, hoping to reinvigorate the anti-Castro movement,(98), but it, too, failed to make an impact.(99)

  88. In 1978, Ray was residing in Puerto Rico and headed his own engineering consulting firm in San Juan.(100)

    Submitted by:
    GAETON J. FONZI,
    Investigator.

    ELIZABETH J. PALMER,
    Researcher.

    REFERENCES

    (1) CIA Cable to Director from MASH, Nov. 17, 1960.
    (2) FBI Manolo Ray references, section 2, p.9, item 8 (J.F.K. Document 006468).
    (3) Ibid.
    (4) Memo to G. Robert Blakey, June 28, 1978, interview of Manolo Ray Rivero, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document 009005).
    (5) Ibid.
    (6) E. Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day (New York: Popular Library Edition, 1963),p. 91 (hereinafter Hunt, Day).
    (7) FBI correlation study, Manolo Ray, file No.97-4546, section 1, p. 2 (J.F.K. Document 005990).
    (8) CIA memo, July 16, 1962.
    (9) CIA report, Mar. 16, 1961.
    (10) See ref. 6, Hunt, Day, p.92.
    (11) See ref. 4.
    (12) CIA document, June 9, 1962.
    (13) CIA document, Nov. 17, 1960.
    (14) Ibid.
    (15) CIA document.
    (16) See ref. 6, Hunt, Day, p.92.
    (17) Tad Szulc, "Castro Foes Map Multiple Forays," Apr. 10, 1961, New York Times.
    (18) Ibid.
    (19) Ibid.
    (20) See ref.6, Hunt, Day, p.92.
    (21) CIA report, Oct. 17, 1960.
    (22) CIA memo, Sept. 27, 1960.
    (23) CIA cable from MASH, Sept. 29, 1960.
    (24) CIA memo, Sept. 7, 1960.
    (25) Ibid.
    (26) CIA cable to Director from MASH, Nov. 5, 1960.
    (27) CIA cable to Director from MASH, Nov. 11, 1960.
    (28) CIA memo for the record, Nov. 21, 1960.
    (29) CIA cable to Director from MASH, Nov. 17, 1960.
    (30) CIA memo for the record, June 2, 1961.
    (31) CIA information report, Dec. 22, 1960.
    (32) CIA memo, Mar. 16, 1961.
    (33) CIA cable from JM/WAVE, Mar. 1, 1961.
    (34) CIA cable to Director from MASH, Nov. 17, 1960.
    (35) See ref.6, Hunt, Day, pp.172-173.
    (36) CIA administrative form.
    (37) See ref. 4.
    (38) CIA memo for the record, Mar. 27, 1961.
    (39) See ref. 4.
    (40) Sam Pope Brewer, "One Cuban Group Quits Exile Body," May 28, 1961, New York Times.
    (41) Ibid.
    (42) Ibid.
    (43) CIA memo for the record, June 2, 1961.
    (44) CIA cable from JM/WAVE, Apr. 29, 1961.
    (45) Ibid.
    (46) Ibid.
    (47) CIA cable from JM/WAVE, May 4, 1961.
    (48) CIA memo, May 5, 1961.
    (49) CIA memo, June 2, 1961.
    (50) CIA memo, Dec. 19, 1961.
    (51) Peter Kihss, "Cuba Exile Group Criticizes CIA," July 17, 1961, New York Times.
    (52) Ibid.
    (53) CIA memo, Oct. 10, 1961.
    (54) CIA cable to Director, July 2, 1962.
    (55) CIA memo, Dec. 19, 1961.
    (56) CIA document, Apr. 20, 1962.
    (57) CIA memo, July 25, 1962.
    (58) CIA memo, July 12, 1962.
    (59) CIA cable to Director, July 25, 1962.
    (60) CIA memo, July 12, 1962.
    (61) CIA cable, July 25, 1962.
    (62) Ibid.
    (63) CIA cable to Director, June 19, 1963.
    (64) CIA dispatch, July 2, 1963.
    (65) CIA memo, July 9, 1964.
    (66) CIA memo, Aug. 23, 1963.
    (67) See ref. 4.
    (68) CIA cable to Director from JM/WAVE, Sept. 11, 1963.
    (69) CIA draft, Oct. 4, 1963.
    (70) CIA cable to Chief, Oct. 22, 1963.
    (71) See ref. 4.
    (72) CIA cable to Director from JM/WAVE, Jan. 14, 1964.
    (73) CIA cable, Feb. 4, 1964.
    (74) CIA cable to Director from JM/WAVE, Mar. 28, 1964.
    (75) CIA memo, Apr. 14, 1964.
    (76) "The Hemisphere-Cuba," Time, June 12, 1964, p.48.
    (77) Ibid.
    (78) Ibid.
    (79) Ibid.
    (80) CIA cable to Director from JM/WAVE, May 20, 1964; cable to Director from JM/WAVE, June 3, 1964.
    (81) See ref. 76.
    (82) Ibid.
    (83) Ibid.
    (84) Ibid.
    (85) Ibid.
    (86) Ibid.
    (87) CIA memo, May 20, 1964.
    (88) Ibid.
    (89) Ibid.
    (90) CIA memo, June 29, 1964.
    (91) CIA cable to Director, July 15, 1964.
    (92) CIA wire service printout, Miami, Fla., July 24, 1964.
    (93) CIA memo, June 29, 1964.
    (94) CIA, "Autonomous Operations--Operating Plan."
    (95) CIA memo, draft, Sept. 22, 1964.
    (96) CIA cable, June 4, 1969.
    (97) Ibid.
    (98) See ref. 4.
    (99) Ibid.
    (100) Ibid.

    XV. ADDENDUM TO THE JUNTA DEL GOBIERNO DE CUBA EN EL EXILIO:CARLOS RODRIGUEZ QUESADA

  89. Carlos Rodriguez Quesada was general coordinator of the Cuban underground movement known as the 30th of November,(1) named for an anti-Batista uprising on November 30, 1956, led by Frank Pais who was killed in the assault.(2) The organization was made up mainly of labor union members.(3)

  90. Quesada was also a leader of the labor movement among sugar and agricultural workers in the Province of Las Villas and rose to national prominence in the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC).(4) Although Quesada had fought Batista with Castro and was elected to Secretary General of the CTC after Castro took power, he grew disgruntled with Castro's Communist leanings.(5)

  91. Likewise, the 30th of November that philosophically leaned toward socialism and nationalization of industry, was totally opposed to Castro and communism.(6) The group began across-the-board anti-Castro activities including guerrilla actions, sabotage, propaganda, and exfiltrations of members from Cuba.(7) The 30th of November was considered to be one of the most effective organizations in the Cuban underground until infiltration by Castro agents and Cuban Government repression following the Bay of Pigs invasion severely crippled its activities.(8)

  92. Quesada and other 30th of November members were forced to seek asylum.(9) Quesada escaped to the United States in March 1961 aboard a fishing boat.(10)

  93. During his last days in the Cuban underground, Quesada had been in contact with U.S. agents in Havana.(11) Nevertheless, after he took asylum, he began to disagree with them about how to utilize the underground members within labor and peasant organizations.(12) But the 30th of November did join the Cuban Revolutionary Council, and was funded by it.(13)

  94. Yet Quesada also had his troubles with the council. One incident occurred when Quesada went to Puerto Rico on a special operation for the council.(14) It was learned that Quesada had been independently courting sympathetic military leaders and Senators who disagreed with what was then State Department policy toward Cuba.(15) At the same time, Quesada was involved in discussions among the leaders of the DRE, MRP, and the 30th of November about forming a new unity group outside the council organization umbrella. (15a)

  95. These activities put Quesada at odds with the council leadership and in March 1962 he was expelled by Antonio de Varona, the council's general coordinator, for "lack of discipline."(16) The actual reason given for Quesada's expulsion was his involvement in organizing a hunger strike in Bayfront Park in Miami at which 152 people were arrested.(17) The strike had been planned as a peaceful demonstration during President kennedy's March 10 visit to Miami.(18) The strikers called for aid for the liberation of Cuba and the resignation of Jose Miro Cardona as head of the council.(19) Other well-known Cuban exile leaders such as Laureano Batista Falla of the MDC had joined Quesad in the protest.(20) The so-called peaceful demonstration, however, deteriorated into a wild melee and the arrests ensued.

  96. A few weeks later, Quesada held a press conference criticizing the council.(21) These actions caused a division among the members of the 30th of November.(22) Part of the group elected to remain with the council while Quesada set up a rival faction named the Movimento Revolucionario de Frank Pais.(23) Because the 30th of November had been so closely identified with Quesada and his followers, Quesada's group continue to be referred to as the 30th of November. Having lost the healthy council subsidy, however, Quesada spent the next few months trying to gain recognition for his group and findways to fund it.(24)

  97. The group soon became known as one of the more outspoken of the anti-Castro organizations. In April 1962 an FBI report noted that the group's leaders no longer trusted the U.S. Government.(25) Quesada revealed that in a February 1962 operation the 30th of November group had given names of the participants in Cuba to the CIA but those individuals had been subsequently arrested.(26)

  98. By 1963, Quesada's attitude toward the U.S. Government showed no signs of softening. In March, he wrote a letter to President Kennedy requesting immediate armed intervention in Cuba to fight communism.(27) "You are either with or against America," Quesada claimed.(28)

  99. Shortly after, Quesada and his followers joined Paulino Sierra's Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio.(29) Quesada became the junta's head of internal affairs.(30)

  100. Several reports reviewed by the committee, however, raise questions about Quesada's motivation in joining the junta. One report indicated Quesada wanted respectability to cover illicit dealings.(31) The report also suggested Quesada was living suspiciously high for someone receiving assistance from the Cuban Refugee Center.(32) Other reports were more critical. One called Quesada unreliable and untrustworthy, describing him as a man who surrounds himself with "thieves, homosexuals and drug addicts."(33)

  101. In early 1964, after the junta had ceased activities, Quesada was expelled from his own group, the MRFP.(34) There were reports that Quesada had been misappropriating funds for his own use.(35)

  102. In assessing Quesada's role in the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba and the effectiveness of the junta itself, Quesada's personal relationship with the anti-Castro organizations may be significant. Several reports reviewed by the committee suggest that "opportunists" made up much of the membership of the junta and contributed to its final demise.(36) Quesada may well fit into that category of individuals who sought funds from the junta but made no effort to recruit followers or help unify all the anti-Castro groups into the junta. In fact, Quesada may have been less a true leader of a group than one who used his role in the organization for his own ends.

    Submitted by:
    GAETON J. FONZI
    Investigator.

    PATRICIA M. ORR
    Researcher.

    REFERENCES

    (1) Staff summary of the CIA handbook (hereinafter handbook summary); see also staff summary of CIA file, p. 1(ref. memo, May 19,1962) (hereinafter CIA-Quesada).
    (2) See ref. 1, handbook summary.
    (3) See ref. 1, CIA-Quesada, p. 1.
    (4) Ibid.
    (5) Id. at p.3 (ref. Jan. 18, 1961, memo).
    (6) See ref. 1, handbook summary.
    (7) Ibid.
    (8) Ibid., see also staff summary of FBI file for Carlos Rodriguez Quesada, p.5 (ref.105-107224-16, Mar. 15, 1962, Miami) (hereinafter FBI-Quesada).
    (9) See ref. 1, CIA-Quesada, p.3 (ref. Jan. 18, 1961, memo).
    (10) Id. at p. 1.
    (11) Ibid.
    (12) Ibid.
    (13) Ibid.
    (14) See ref. 8, FBI-Quesada, p.7 (ref.105-107224-16, Mar. 15, 1962, Miami).
    (15) Ibid.
    (15a) Id. at p.6 (ref.109-584-3414, Feb. 14,1963, and 97-4133-60, Apr. 30, 1963).
    (16) Id. at p. 7 (ref.105-107224-16, Mar. 15, 1962, Miami); see also ref.1, handbook summary.
    (17) Id. at p.4 (ref.105-107224-A., Mar. 19, 1962) and p.8 (ref. 105-92196-24, Mar. 15, 1962).
    (18) Id. at p.1 (ref.109-584-3102, Miami, Mar. 15, 1962).
    (19) Ibid.
    (20) Ibid.
    (21) Id. at p.4 (ref. 109-584-3183, May 28, 1963, Miami).
    (22) See ref. 1, handbook summary.
    (23) Ibid.
    (24) Ibid.
    (25) See ref. 8, FBI-Quesada, p.8 (ref.105-92196-30, Apr. 16, 1962).
    (26) Ibid.
    (27) Id. at p.7 (ref.105-92196-70, Apr. 12, 1963).
    (28) Ibid.
    (29) See ref. 1, handbook summary.
    (30) Ibid.
    (31) See ref. 1, CIA-Quesada, p. 1.
    (32) Ibid.
    (33) See re. 1, handbook summary.
    (34) Ibid.
    (35) See ref. 8, FBI-Quesada, p. 4 (ref.105-137256-4, Apr. 21, 1964).
    (36) Staff summary of FBI file for Paulino Sierra Martinez, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 7, memo, Feb. 28, 1961, re JGCE.

    THE EVOLUTION AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE CIA SPONSORED ASSASSINATION CONSPIRACIES AGAINST FIDEL CASTRO

    CONTENTS

    I. FOREWORD

  1. The attempt of the U.S. Government to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders during the 1960's seriously disturbed the American people. When it was disclosed that the Central Intelligence Agency solicited and received the assistance of various members of organized crime in the furtherance of plots, additional concern was expressed.

  2. These assassination attempts, moreover, gave birth to the theory that Fidel Castro may have orchestrated the assassination of the President in retaliation for the plots on his life.

  3. In its final report published in April 1976, the Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities (SSC) considered this theory.

  4. In its report, the SSC focused on two operations of the CIA that may have provoked Castro into retaliation. First, the SSC documented the joint effort of the CIA and organized crime to eliminate Castro. Second, the SSC examined the nature and extent of the CIA AMLASH operation. The SSC concluded its analysis with the statement that " [t]he committee believes the investigation should continue in certain areas, and for that reason does not reach any final conclusions."(1)

  5. This staff report is an effort to summarize the result of additional investigations. Not every detail of the CIA-Mafia plots or of the AMLASH operation is reviewed. Neither is any effort made to resolve all of the conflicting viewpoints of the SSC and the CIA in regard to the importance of the vaious operations.(2) Instead, this report presents a review of the CIA operation AMLASH and of the involvement or potential involvement of organized crime in the CIA operations against Castro during 1960-63. From this review, it will then be possible to analyze the nature, scope, and implications of these operations.

    II. BACKGROUND MATERIAL-RELEVANT SUMMARY

    A. CIA-MAFIA PLOTS

  6. The genesis of the use of the national syndicate of organized crime by the CIA to attempt to assassinate Castro is placed by the 1967 report of the inspector General (I.G. Report) as occurring during a conversation between the Deputy Director of Plans, Richard Bissell, and the Director of Security, Col. Sheffield Edwards.(3) These plots extended from late 1960 until early 1963 and can be divided into two stages.(4) The first stage occurred from August 1960 until April 1961 and can best be termed as phase I or the pre-Bay of Pigs period. (5) From April 1961 until late 1961, CIA records indicate that theoperation was inactive.(6)

  7. In late 1961, the CIA decided to renew the CIA-Mafia plots, then creating phase II, and kept them active until late 1962 or early 1963.(7)

  8. During the initial stages of phase I, Edwards assigned the specific task of locating the proper persons to assassinate Castro to the Chief, Office of Security Operations Support Branch.(8) Both men agreed that the Support Chief should contact Robert A. Maheu, a private investigator and former FBI man, whom the CIA had previously used in several covert operations, to recruit the necessary personnel.(9)

  9. Maheu subsequently contacted John Roselli,(10) an organized crime figure, who in turn recruited two persons known initially to the Support Chief as "Sam Gold" and "Joe."(11) The Support Chief says he, along with Maheu, later discovered the true identities of these persons to be Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, respectively,(12) two major figures in organized crime.

  10. After meeting several times in Miami and deciding upon poison pills as the method of assassination, the I.G. report states that Trafficante made the arrangements for the assassination of Castro with one of his contacts inside Cuba on one of the trips he allegedly made to Havana, Cuba.(13) This contact was a Cuban official who held a position close to Castro.(14)

  11. The I.G. report then stated that Roselli passed the pills to Trafficante.(15) Roselli subsequently told the support chief that the pills were delivered to the Cuban official in Cuba.(16) The Cuban official apparently retained the pills for a few weeks and then returned them since he was unable to fulfill any plan.(17) The Cuban official was no longer in a position to kill Castro because he had lost his Cuban post.(18)

  12. With the Cuban official unable to perform, the syndicate looked elsewhere. Roselli next told the support chief, sometime during early 1961, that Trafficante knew a man prominent in the Cuban exile movement who could accomplish the job.(19) After receiving approval, Trafficante approached this person about assassinating Castro and reported that he was receptive.(20) The I.G. report stated that the support chief again distributed pills that eventually reached the Cuban exile leader.(21)

  13. This activity concluded the pre-Bay of Pigs phase of the plots. The I.G. report did not document any actual attempt to administer the pills to Castro.

  14. The I.G. report relate that after a period of apparent dormancy,(22) Bissell directed William harvey, a CIA agent, in approximately November 1961 to reactivate the CIA-Mafia plots.(23) The support chief then introduced Harvey to Roselli.(24) During this phase, the CIA decided against using Giancana or Trafficante; instead, a person referred to as "Maceo" entered the plot as the person who would help provide Castro contacts.925) In addition, the plots still utilized the services of the Cuban exile leader.(26)

  15. Even though the plots no longer included Trafficante and Giancana, the CIA admitted that Roselli most likely kept them informed. The 1967 I.G. report note that "[i]t would be naive to assume that Roselli did not take the precaution of informing higher-ups in the syndicate that he was working in a territory considered to be the private domain of someone else in the syndicate."(27)

  16. In June 1962 Roselli reported to Harvey that the Cuban exile leader dispatched a three-man team into Cuba with the general assignment of recruiting others to kill Castro and, if the opportunity arose, to kill him themselves, maybe through the use of pills.(28) In September 1962, Roselli reported to Harvey in Miami that the "medicine" was reported in place, that the three-man team was safe, and that the Cuban exile leader was prepared to dispatch another three-man team to infiltrate Castro's bodyguard.(29) In December 1962, Roselli and Harvey agreed that not much seemed to be occurrring and by February 1963, Harvey terminated the plots.(30)

    B. LAS VEGAS WIRETAP INCIDENT

  17. The I.G. report also mentioned an event that occurred during phase I of the CIA-Mafia plots that resulted in the first dissemination of the details of the plot to persons other than the ones involved in the operation. One October 31, 1960, Las Vegas police arrested Arthur J. Balletti, an employee of a Florida investigator named Edward DuBois, for placing an electronic bug in a hotel room in Las Vegas.(31) Subsequent investigation determined that Robert Maheu authorized the surveillance and possibly the wiretap of the subject involved and that Maheu probably acted on behalf of Giancana and the CIA.(32)

  18. The violation of the wiretap statute placed the case under Federal jurisdiction and the FBI soon began an investigation. In the course of this investigation, Maheu informed the FBI that he instituted the surveillance on behalf of CIA efforts to obtain Cuban intelligence through the hoodlum element, including Giancana.(33) In its efforts to prevent the prosecution of Balletti, Maheu, and an unidentified individual known as J. W. Harrison, who had allegedly assisted Balletti in the wiretap, the CIA eventually told the Justice Department the details of phase I of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. This communication can most accurately be related through the following memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to Attorney General Ramsey Clark (quoted in par):(34)

    To: Attorney General
    From: Director, FBI

    [Attorney General Robert Kennedy] indicated that a few days prior to [5-9-62] he had been advised by the CIA that Robert A. Maheu had been hired by the CIA to approach Sam Giancana with a proposition of paying $150,000 to hire gunmen to go into Cuba and kill Castro. He further stated CIA admitted having assisted Maheu in making the "bugging" installation in Las Vegas which uncovered this clandestine operation and for this reason CIA could not afford to have any action taken against Giancana or Maheu.
    Mr. Kennedy stated that upon learning CIA had not cleared its action in hiring Maheu and Giancana with the Department of Justice, he issued orders that the CIA should never again take such steps without first checking with the Department of Justice.
    Mr. Kennedy further advised that because of this matter it would be very difficult to initiate any prosecution against Giancana, as Giancana could immediately bring out the fact the U.S. Government had approached him to arrange for the assassination of Castro. He stated the same was true concerning any action we might take against Maheu for any violation in which he might become involved.

  19. In summary, the Las Vegas wiretap incident forced the CIA to acknowledge the existence of the CIA-Mafia plots to non-CIA Government officials and provided the first occasion for participants to manipulate the operation to prevent prosecution.

    C. ROBERT MAHEU AND THE LONG COMMITTEE

  20. The next major event related to the CIA-Mafia plots occurred in 1966 when Maheu used his involvement with the CIA to avoid testifying before Senator Edward Long's committee, which was investigating invasions of privacy.(35) The attorney for Maheu, Edward Pierpont Morgan, informed the committee that Maheu contacted him during the fall of 1966 and said he was going to be called before the Long committee in conjunction with the Morganthau investigation.(36) Maheu then informed Morgan of the plots and suggested that any testimony might necessarily reveal his previous covert activities with the CIA.(37) Morgan then contacted Senator Long and Lawrence Houston, the General Counsel to the CIA, to reiterate Maheu's concerns in an apparently successful effort to block any testimony.(38)

    D. EFFORTS OF JOHN ROSELLI TO AVOID PROSECUTION

  21. The SSC related that in May 1966, the FBI threatened to deport Roselli "for living in the United States under an assumed name unless he cooperated in an investigation of the Mafia."(39) The SSC then stated that Roselli contacted Edwards who subsequently spoke to the FBI in regard to Roselli.(40)

  22. The SSC reported that Roselli again contacted CIA sources in an effort to thwart prosecution when Roselli was arrested for fraudulent gambling activities at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 1967.(41) Roselli contacted Harvey, who was no longer a CIA employee, to represent him.(42) Harvey subsequently attempted unsuccessfully to influence the CIA into preventing the prosecution.(43) The Justice Department, however, subsequently convicted Roselli for a violation of the interstate gambling laws.(44)

    E. DEBUT OF THE RETALIATION THEORY

  23. The genesis of this theory can be attributed to an interview that Premier Castro held on September 7, 1963, with Associated Press Reporter Daniel Harker. in that interview, Castro warned against the United States "aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders."(45) He stated, according to Harker, that u.S. leaders would be in danger if they promoted any attempt to eliminate the leaders of Cuba.(46)

  24. In early january 1967, Edward Morgan approached Columnist Drew pearson, related the background of the plots, posed the possibility that the plots could have provoked a Castro retaliation, and asked Pearson to inform Chief Justice Earl Warren of the operation.(47)Warren subsequently informed Secret Service Director James J. Rawley who in turn notified the FBI.(48) Morgan informed the committee that Roselli initially approached him complaining of excessive FBI surveillance ever since he had been involved in this patriotic venture.(49) Roselli also informed Morgan that Castro had retaliated for these plots by assassinating President Kennedy.(50)

  25. After receiving this information the FBI decided not to investigate the allegation further.(51) Following the publication of the Jack Anderson and Drew pearson articles of March 3 and 7, 1967, however, where the theory of retaliation first gained public notoriety, President Johnson ordered the FBI to investigate the matter.(52) (25a) The FBI consequently interviewed Edward Morgan on March 20, 1967.(53) Morgan informed the FBI that he represented clients that were reasonable individuals who entered into a project that they understood to have high governmental backing and that involved the assassination of Fidel Castro.(54) Morgan then stated that his clients had reason to suspect that Castro learned of these plots and killed President Kennedy in retaliation.(55)

  26. The FBI investigation resulted in President Johnson acquiring a personal interest in the retaliation theory, which prompted CIA Director Richard helms to prepare a report on the assassination plots.(56)

    F. CIA 1967 INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT

  27. On March 23, 1967, Director Helms ordered the CIA Inspector General to prepare a report (I.G. Report on the CIA assassination plots.(57) This report detailed the accounts of various CIA plans and operations against Castro including an analysis of the CIA-organized crime plots and the AMLASH operation. The I.G. Report also examined the 1960 Las Vegas wiretap incident.

  28. In reference to the AMLASH operation, the I.G. Report related AMLASH's activities in Madrid, Spain in late 1964 and early 1965, where AMLASH was meeting with Manuel Artime.(58) The I.G. Report noted further that Rafael Garcia-Bongo, a former lawyer in Cuba for Santos Trafficante, was in Madrid, Spain in March 1965.(59) Bongo claimed to be in contact with dissident Cuban military leaders, including AMLASH.(60)

    G. ANDERSON ARTICLES

  29. In 1971, Anderson once again published information setting forth the retaliaiton theory in two articles dated January 18 and 19. These articles exhibited more detail, relating that several assassins made it to a rooftop within shooting distance of Castro before being apprehended, that this event occurred in late February or early March 1963, that Robert Kennedy at least condoned the CIA-Mafia plots, and that Roselli delivered poison pills to be used in killing Castro to a contact at the Miami Beach Fontainebleau Hotel on March 13,1961.(61).

    H. ROSELLI DEPORTATION

  30. In 1971, the same year that Anderson released additional information on the plots, the CIA contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice, in an attempt to prevent information on CIA operations from being disclosed in the event INS brought deportation procedings against Roselli.(62) The CIA's concern was the protection of intelligence sources and methods. The SSC stated in its Interim Report, released in November 1975, that the deportation order was still in the process of being litigated.(63) InAugust 1976, authorities discovered Roselli's butchered body stuffed in an oil drum and floating in Miami's Biscayne Bay. His colleague in the plots to kill Castro, Sam Giancana, had been shot to death in his home in June 1975.

    I. SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

  31. In connection with its mandate to investigate the full range of governmental intelligence activities, the SSC "examined the performance of the intelligence agencies in conducting their investigation of the assassination and their relationship to the Warren Commission."(64) In April 1967, the SSC published its final report (Book V), which, in essence, faulted the CIA for its errors of omission in not informing the Warren Commission of the CIA's ongoing plots against the life of the premier, Fidel Castro.(32) After reviewing the details of the CIA-Mafia plots, the SSC stated that "Castro probably would not have been certain that the CIA was behind the underworld attempts" and that it would have been unlikely that Castro would have distinguished the CIA plots with the underworld from any plots sponsored by the Cuban exile community and not affiliated in any way with the CIA.(65)

  32. The SSC identified the AMLASH operation, however, as being "clearly different" from the underworld plots.(66) The SSC stated that AMLASH was in progress at the time of the assassination, that

  33. it could clearly be traced to the CIA, and that AMLASH's proposal for a coup had been endorsed by the CIA, the initial step being the assassination of Castro.(67) The SSC cautioned, however, that it saw "no evidence that Fidel Castro or others in the Cuban Government plotted President Kennedy's assassination in retaliation for U.S. operations against Cuba."(68)

  34. As related in the introduction to this material, the SSC did not reach any conclusion because it believed additional investigation needed to occur.(69)

    J. CIA 1977 TASK FORCE REPORT

  35. As a result of concern with the Senate criticism and the effort that Book V caused in the media, the CIA prepared a comprehensive report in 1977 designed to critique, at least within the CIA, the critical questions postulated in the SSC final report.

  36. The T. F. Report identified a principal them of Book V as the possibility that Castro retaliated against the United States for attempts on his life and that the CIA operations may have specifically caused such actions by Castro.(70) In responding to this theory, the CIA decided:

    1. to conduct a full review of information and operations against the Cuban target to identify andy activity that might relate to the assassination of President Kennedy; and
    2. To review the possibility that CIA activities against Cuba did, by their nature, cause Castro to order the assassination ofPresident Kennedy.(71)

  37. The details of the T.F. Report are related in this staff report because no source has previously released them publicly.

    1. Syndicate operations

  38. The T.F. Report first refers to a series of articles written by Paul Meskill and appearing in the new york Daily News in April 1975.

  39. In these articles Meskill described how Frank Fiorini, also known as Sturgis, allegedly recruited Marita Lorenz, a former mistress of Castro, to spy on Castro(72) and how Sturgis knew a Cuban official and planned to use him in a bombing assassination of Castro.(73) Meskill asserted that Sturgis claimed he had been a hired operative for the CIA for at least a decade and that Sturgis was in touch with all the casino operators in Havana during the period of the Castro takeover.(74) In another article on June 13,1976, Meskill related the claim of Marita Lorenz that in the fall of 1960 Frank Sturgis, acting for the CIA, gave her two capsules of poison powder, which she was tosprinkle in some food or drink of Castro.(75)

  40. The writers of the T. F. Report were concerned with these assertions because aspects of the newspaper story were similar in some respects to certain elements involved in phase I of the CIA operation. The possibility of some relationship with the CIA operation attracted the attention of the CIA.(76)

  41. In reference to Sturgis' allegation that he had been a hired operative for the CIA for a decade, the T.F. Report asserted that "he was in contact with some of the CIA Cuban employees in the Miami area, but had no direct relationship with the Agency."(77) The T.F.Report recognized that Sturgis, through his gambling activities and relationships with vaious casino owners, may quite possibly have known the Cuban official, and also raised the question of whether Sturgis may have been a source of information to Castro regarding the Cuban official's participation in any assassination plot.(78)

  42. In reference to the Lorenz-Sturgis poison pill plot, the T.F. Report noted the similarity of this plot to the details in an October 18, 1960, FBI memorandum describing a plot to kill Castro.(79) The CIA concluded that this October date is too early for the CIA syndicate operations and that therefore the syndicate may have been acting independently.(80)

  43. The CIA also concluded that the Cuban exile leader active in the CIA syndicate operations may have already been active in plots with the Mafia when the CIA approached him.(81)

  44. The CIA cited two FBI memorandums as support. First, a December 21, 1960, memorandum pertaining to underworld support for some Cubans; and second, a January 18,1961, memorandum relating an unconfirmed report that the Cuban exile leader was one of the Cubans receiving support.(82)

  45. The CIA acknowledged further that although the operation with the Mafia was suspended after the Bay of Pigs, it appeared to still be in progress when reactivated in early 1962.(83)

  46. The report summarized its position concerning non-CIA-sponsored syndicate operations in the following passage:

    It is possible that CIA simply found itself involved in providing additional resources for independent operations that the syndicate already had underway * * *[I]n a sense CIA may have been piggybacking on the syndicate and in addition to its material contribution was also supplying an aura of official sanction. (84)

    2. AMLASH

  47. The T.F. Report stated the SSC suggested that AMLASH was possibly a Castro agent assigned a provocation mission that would then justify retaliation, or, in the alternative, that AMLASH was a security risk through which details of the plotting may have surfaced to Castro, thus providing the impetus for provocation.(85) Additionally, the T.F. Report cited the SSC as holding that in either case, AMLASH should have been reported to the Warren Commission.(86)

  48. THE T.F. Report contended neither theory is correct.(87) stating that the relationship between the CIA and AMLASH before the death of president Kennedy was so "unsubstantial and inconculsive that it provided no basis for AMLASH/1 to feel that he had any tangible CIA support for plotting against Castro."(88)

  49. In support, the T.F. Report proceeded to narrate the Agency's understanding of the operation. On August 17,1962, the case officer for AMLASH reported that he "[has] no intention [of giving AMLASH/1] physical elimination mission as requirement but recognize this [as] something he could or might try to carry out on his own initiation."(89) Headquarters replied the next day, "Strongly concur that no physical elimination mission be given AMLASH/1."(90) From August 29, 1962, until September 1963, the CIA stated, it did not have any contact with AMLASH.(91)

  50. On September 7, 1963, the CIA received the following cable:

    AMLASH still feels there only two ways accomplish change either inside job or invasion he realistic enough to realize latter out of question. According AMWHIP, AMLASH still awaiting for U.S. reveal plan of action. (92)

    The T.F. Report noted that the SSC interpreted "inside job" as referring to an operation against Castro; the CIA, however, said it referred to a general commitment concerning how to effect change.(93) The T.F. Report also stated that at this point Book V said "characterization of this phase of the AMLASH operation is disputed."(94) The CIA contended that any dispute exists only in the eyes of the SSC.(95)

  51. The T.F. Report next commented on an interview of Castro by Associated Press reporter Daniel Harker in which Castro said that anti-castro terrorists had the support of U.S. leaders.(96) The T.F. Report stated that the Book V implied that AMLASH/1 may have reported to Castro what the SSC characterized as assassination plots. (97) The CIA response is that "Castro's remarks at that time could not have stemmed from anything said to AMLASH/1 by CIA officers as they proposed nothing and undertook nothing."(98)

  52. On October 11,1963, the case officer cabled headquarters and said that AMLASH/1 claimed to have the necessary people and equipment to overthrow Castro without U.S. assistance.(99) In October 1963, Desmond Fitzgerald met AMLASH/1 outside the United States.(100) At this meeting the CIA maintained that Fitzgerald rejected AMLASH's request for an assassination weapon: specifically, a high-powered rifle with a telescopic lens.(101) The T.F. Report contends that at this point it was clear that AMLASH was informedthat there would be no U.S. assistance until after the fact, which wascontrary to the SSC statement in Book V that it was uncertain how AMLASH interpreted the putoff by Fitzgerald.(102)

  53. On November 19, 1963, Fitzgerald approved informing AMLASH/1 that he would be given a cache inside Cuba and that a high-powered rifle with a scope would be included upon request.(103) On November 20, the case officer informed AMLASH that he would be receiving the meeting he requested.(104) This meeting occurred on November 22.(105)

  54. The T.F. Report summarized the significance of these contacts with AMLASH as related to the contention in Book V in the following passage:

    Whatever the relationship with AMLASH/1 following the death of President Kennedy, there is every indication that during President Kennedy's life AMLASH/1 had no basis for believing that he had CIA support for much of any- thing. Were he a provocateur reporting to Castro, or if he was merely careless and leaked what he knew, he had no factual basis for leaking or reporting any actual CIA plot directed against Castro. (106)

  55. Finally, in reploy to the SSC allegation that the CIA inade- quately responded to the Warren Commission's request for all possible relevant information, the T.F. Report observed:

    While one can understand today why the Warren Commis- sion limited its inquiry to normal avenues of investigation, it would have served to reinforce the credibility of its effort had it taken a broader view of the matter. CIA, too, could have considered in specific terms what most saw in general terms the possibility of Soviet or Cuban involvement in the assassination of (J.F.K.) because of tensions of the time. . . The Agency should have taken broader initiatives, then, as well. (107)

    K. RECENT ANDERSON ARTICLES

  56. In September 1976 and October 1978, Jack Anderson again published articles that propounded the retaliation theory.(108) In addition, for the first time Anderson revealed publicly that John Roselli served as his source for the retaliation theory in all of the articles published through the years.

  57. The September 7, 1976, article appearing in the Washington Post contained all components of the retaliation theory. The article stated:

    Mafia mobster John Roselli may have taken the secret of the John F. Kennedy assassination with him to his death. He was brutally murdered a few weeks ago, his hacked up body stuffed into an oil drum and dumped into Miami's Biscayne Bay.
    Before he died, Roselli hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy's murder. It was the same conspirators he suggest, whom he had recruited earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro.
    By Roselli's cryptic account, Castro learned the identity of the underworld contacts in Havana who had been tying to knock him off. He believed, not altogether without basis, that President Kennedy was behind the plot. The Cuban leader, as the supreme irony, decided to turn the tables and use the same crowd to arrange Kennedy's assassination according to Roselli's scenario.
    To save their skins, the plotters lined up Lee Harvey Oswald to pull the trigger. Roselli could never be pinned down on names or details. It was also difficult to assess whether he knew what he was talking about or whether he merely described what he thought might have happened. Certainly there is no real evidence to support Roselli's story. But there are enough curious circumstances to justify telling it. here are the fascinating highlights.
    The ruggedly handsome Roselli, a flamboyant mobster with underworld contacts in Havana, was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1960 to assassinate Castro. He had no authority, however, over the underworld elements in Havana. They were under the loose control of Florida's Mafia chieftain, Santos Trafficante.
    His gambling enterprises in Havana had been closed down by Castro after the 1959 revolution. In fact, Trafficante had been lodged for a period in a Cuban jail, an indignity that didn't endear Castro to him. After Trafficante made it back to his Florida haunts, he left part of his organization behind in Havana. Some of his henchmen even managed to develop contacts in Castro's inner circle.
    These were the people Roselli wanted to use to knock off Castro. But Roselli didn't have the stature inside the Mafia to make the necessary arragements with Trafficante. So Roselli called in his patron, The Chicago godfather Sam (Momo) Giancana, to deal with Trafficante. As Roselli's associates tell it, he persuaded Giancana that it would be to their advantage to win the good will of the CIA.
    Convinced, Giancana flew down to Florida to make the preliminary arragements. Once Giancana and Trafficante set it up, Roselli used the Havana underworld to plot Castro's demise.
    At first, they tried to plant poison pills, supplied by the CIA, in Castro's food. The pills would have made it appear that he died of natural causes. When this failed, snipers were dispatched to a Havana rooftop. They were caught. The word reached Roselli that some of the plotters had been tortured and that Castro had learned about the whole operation.
    The CIA called off the Roselli operation in March 1963, but recruited a Castro associated, Rolando Cubela, to murder Castro. In an impromptu, 3-hour interview with Associated Press reporter Daniel Harker, Castro indicated that he knew about the attempts on his life and warned that U.S. leaders also might not be safe.
    That was September 7, 1963. According to Roselli, Castro enlisted the same underworld elements whom he had caught plotting against him. They supposedly were Cubans from the old Trafficante organization. Working with Cuban intelligence, they allegedly lined up an ex-Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey oswald, who had been active in the pro-Castro movement.
    According to Roselli's version, Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may have acted as a decoy while others ambushed him from closer range. When Oswald was picked up, Roselli suggested, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminiate Oswald, making it appear as an act of reprisal against the President's killer.
    At least this is how Roselli explained the tragedy in Dallas. Several key CIA officials believed that Castro was behind the Kennedy assassination. It has also been established that Jack Ruby, indeed, had been in Cuba and had connections in the Havana underworld. One CIA cable, dated November 28, 1963, reported that "an American gangster type named Ruby" had visited Trafficante in his Cuban prison.

    III. ISSUE ANALYSIS

    A. PREFACE

  58. The committee investigated this material to determine what conclusions, if any, could be drawn concerning the nature, scope, and implications of these operations. In this regard, various issues are presented in the following sections and subjected to analysis.

  59. To fulfill this process, the committee reviewed material from numerous governemtnal sources that pertained to the persons and operations relevant to the investigation. These persons included:

    1. John Roselli-principal in CIA-O.C. operations.
    2. Santos Trafficante-principal in CIA-O.C. operations.
    3. Cuban exile leader-principal in CIA-O.C. operations.
    4. Sam Giancana-principal in CIA-O.C. operations.
    5. Robert Maheu-principal in CIA-O.C. operations.
    6. Michael McLaney-Involved in Havana casino business.
    7. Samuel Benton-Involved in Havana casino business.
    8. Norman Rothman-Havana casino operator.
    9. John Martino-Anti-Castro activist.
    10. Edward P. Morgan-Washington, D.C., attorney.
    11. Edward K. Moss-International public relations representative.
    12. Dino Cellini-Havana casino operator.
    13. Richard Cain-Associate of Sam Giancana.
    14. Charles Tourine-Involved in Havana casino business.
    15. Rafael "Macho" Gener-Associate of Santos Trafficante.
    16. Identity protected-Anti-Castro Cuban.
    17. Identity protected-Anti-Castro Cuban.
    18. Joseph Shimon-Former inspector for the Washington, D.C., Police Department; associate of Sam Giancana.
    19. Angelo Bruno-Reputed organized crime leader of Philadelphia.
    20. Sam Mannarino-Havana casino operator.
    21. Kelly Mannarino-Havana casino operator.
    22. Edward Browder-Pilot active in anti-Castro activities.
    23. Joseph Merola-Pilot active in anti-Castro activities.
    24. Arthur Balletti-Former private detective for Edward Du Bois.
    25. Dominick Bartone-Reputed organized crime figure from Cleveland, Ohio.
    26. Richard Helms-Former Director of CIA.
    27. Chief, Office of Security Operations Support Branch-Former employee of CIA.
    28. Luis Balbuena Calzadilla-Associate of the Cuban referenced in item 16.
    29. AMLASH-Cuban official in the Castro government.
    30. William Alexander Morgan-Figure active in anti-Castro activities.
    31. Identity protected-Cuban official close to Castro.
    32. Jack Anderson-Columnist.
    33. Frank Sturgis-Soldier of fortune active in anti-Castro activities.
    34. Fidel Castro Ruz-Premier of Cuba.
    35. Victor Espinosa Hernandez-Anti-Castro Cuban.
    36. Meyer Lansky-Organized crime figure.

  60. Whenever possible and desirable, the committee either interviewed or deposed these persons or subpenaed them to give testimony before the committee.

  61. The government and other sources where the committee requested and reviewed material were:

    1. Central Intelligence Agency.
    2. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    3. Drug Enforcement Agency.
    4. Department of Defense.
    5. Department of State.
    6. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
    7. U.S. Customs Service.
    8. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
    9. U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence.
    10. U.S. Secret Service.
    11. Chicago Crime Commission.
    12. Chicago Police Department.
    13. New York City Police Department.
    14. Public Safety Department, Organized Crime Bureau, Dade County, Fla.
    15. Cuban Government.

  62. In the majority of instances, review of the material at these sources and the statements from individuals were not pertinent to any assassination plots against Castro, particularly the CIA-organized crime and the AMLASH operations. Further, much of the relevant information acquired was already known through the SSC investigation and the CIA I.G. Report and T.F. Report. For this reason, the following analysis represents evidence derived principally from information sustantively the same as that which the SSC and CIA considered previously. Nevertheless the committee investigation resulted in additional factual corroboration of this information from a diversity of sources.(109)

    B. AMLASH OPERATION

    1. Characterization of the AMLASH operation

  63. Richard Helms, the former Director the CIA, stated in his testimony before the committee that the AMLASH operation was not designed to be an assassination plot.(110) As already indicated, the T.F. Report concluded that AMLASH had "no factual basis for leaking or reporting any actual CIA plot directed against Castro" during President Kennedy's life.(111)

  64. Joseph Langosch, the Chief of Counterintelligence for the CIA's Special Affairs Staff in 1963, the component responsible for CIA operations directed against the Government of Cuban and the Cuban Intelligence Services, offered a contrasting view to the testimony of Mr. Helms and the assertions of the T.F. Report.(112) Desmond FitzGerald headed the special affairs staff(113) that was respsonsible for the AMLASH operation.(114) In an affidavit to the committee, Longosch recalled:

    [T]he AMLASH operation prior to the assassination of President Kennedy was characterized by the special affairs staff, Desmond Fitzgerald (sic) and other senior CIA officers as an assassination operation initiated and sponsored by the CIA. (115)

  65. Langosch recollected further that as of 1962 it was highly possible that the Cuban Intelligence Services were aware of AMLASH and his association with the CIA and that the information upon which he based his conclusion that the AMLASH operation was insecure was available to senior level CIA officials, including Desmond FitzGerald.(116)

  66. In response to Langosch's sworn statements, the committee received the affidavit of Kent L. Pollock (CIA pseudonym), a former CIA employee. Pollock "served as executive officer for Desmond FitzGerald during the entire period in which he was chief of the special affairs staff. . . and discussed with him the AMLASH operation as it progressed."(117) Pollock specifically contested the assertions of Langosch stating:

    To the best of my knowledge, Mr. FitzGerald considered the AMLASH operation to be a political action activity with the objection of organizing a group under AMLASH/1 to overthrow Castro and the Castro regime by means of a coup d' etat. I heard Mr. FitzGerald discuss the AMLASH operation frequently, and never heard him characterize it as an assassination operation. Mr. FitzGerald stated within my hearing on several occasions his awareness that coup d'etat often involves loss of live. (118)

  67. He also stated:

    Desmond FitzGerald did not characterize the AMLASH operation as an "assassination operation"; the case officer did not; I, as Executive Officer did not, never discussed any aspect of the AMLASH operation with Joseph H. Langosch; the deputy chief, the other branch chiefs and the special assistants could not have so characterized it since they did not know about the pen (the pen was specially filled with a hypodermic syringe in response to urgings by AMLASH for a means to start the coup by killing Castro.) The case officer offered the pen to AMLASH on the day of President Kennedy's death. AMLASH rejected the pen with disdain. (119)

  68. The committee also reviewed numerous files in an effort to determine the true character of the AMLASH operation. In the course of its investigation, the committee found no specific evidence that the AMLASH operation provoked Premier Castro into assassinating President Kennedy. Although it is possible that he learned of it, and if so, that he assumed it involved both assassination as an objective (or probable consequence), and U.S. Government support.

    2. The probability that Castro would have assassinated the President of the United States

  69. In his interview with the committee, Premier Castro set forth some reasons why he would not have assassinated President Kennedy. Castro said in part:

    That was insane. From the ideological point of view it was insane. And from the political point of view, it was a tremen- dous insanity. I am going to tell you here that nobody, nobody ever had the idea of such things. What would it do? We just tried to defend our folks here, within our territory. Anyone who subscribed to that idea would have been judged insane . . . absolutely sick. Never, in 20 years of revolution, I never heard anyone suggest nor even speculate about a measure of that sort, because who could think of the idea of organizing the death of the President of the United States. That would have been the most perfect pretext for the United States to invade our country which is what I have tried to prevent for all these years, in every possible sense. Since the United States is much more powerful than we are, what could we gain from a war with the United States? The United States would lose nothing. The destruction would have been here. (120)

  70. Castro also added:

    I want to tell you that the death of the leader does not change the system. It has never done that. (121)

  71. In this interview Castro also commented on the speech of September 7, 1963, that has been cited throughout the years as an indication that Castro may have assassinated President Kennedy in retaliation. Premier Castro asserted:

    So, I said something like those plots start to set a very bad precedent. A very serious one-that that could become a boomerang against the authors of those actions * * * but I did not mean to threaten by that. I did not mean even that * * * not in the least * * * but rather, like a warning that we knew; that we had news about it; and that to set those precedents of plotting the assassination of leaders of other countries would be a very bad precedent * * * something very negative. And, if at present, the same would happen under the same circumstances, I would have no doubt in saying the same as I said (then) because I didn't mean a threat by that. I didn't say it as a threat. I did not mean by that that we were going to take measures-similar meas- ures-like a retaliation for that. We never meant that because we knew that there were plots. For 3 years we had known there were plots against us. So, the conversation came about very casually, you know; but I would say that all these plots or attempts were part of the everyday life. (122)

  72. Some general analysis here may be of some assistance. It does not seem likely that Castro would make a veiled reference to assassinating any American leader in retaliation for plots on his life if he was actually planning or contemplating such acts: he would want to call as little attention as possible to himself. Rather, it seems Castro was attempting to display his public dismay and knowledge of such attempts in an effort to prevent their continuance.

  73. Consequently, together with an absence of any evidence implicating Castro in the assassination, it seems probable that this incident, while displaying Castro's displeasure at American activities, does not implicate Castro in the assassination. This argument is not based on Castro's denial that he made a threat; Castro would naturally deny such a charge. It rests on what would seem to be reasonable.

  74. There are additional reasons to discount any involvement of Castro in the assassination. These reasons are also necessarily general in chapter.

  75. First, William Atwood, Special Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations, was involved in diplomatic effort to establish a framework for detente during the fall of 1963.(123) Atwood told the SCC that McGeorge Bundy, an advisor to President Kennedy, told him that President Kennedy was in favor of "pushing toward an opening toward Cuba" to take Castro "out of the Soviet fold and perhaps wiping out the Bay of Pigs and maybe getting back to normal."(124) Atwood also arranged for a French journalist, Jean Daniel to meet with Kennedy prior to a scheduled trip by Daniel to see Castro.(125) Daniel and Kennedy discussed the prospects for reestablishing United States-Cuba relations and Kennedy asked Daniel to see him after visiting Castro.(126).

  76. It seems likely that such efforts to establish a peaceful coexistence between the United States and Cuba would have dampened any desire by Castro to assassinate Kennedy.

  77. Second, in comparing the attitudes of the leaders of the United States, it can be argued that President Kennedy supported a less hostile attitude and position toward Cuba. Even if Castro felt the relations between Cuba and the United States were bad under the Kennedy Presidency, there were legitimate reasons to suspect they would have been worse under the Johnson administration.

  78. Consequently, assuming that AMLASH was not an assassination plot during the life of President Kennedy and that Castro uncovered its existence and scope, it is highly unlikely that Castro would have been provoked in a manner sufficient to induce assassinating President Kennedy in retaliation. Further, assuming that AMLASH was an assassination plot during the life of President Kennedy and that Castro uncovered its existence and scope, it is still unlikely that Castro would have resorted to assassinating the President of the United States in retaliation.

    3. Summary

  79. Thus, with the prospects of renewed diplomatic relations in the air and the knowledge that Kennedy possessed a more favorable attitude toward Cuba than other military or political leaders, Castro would have had every reason to hope that Kennedy maintained the Presidency. Further, eliminating Kennedy would not necessarily have favorably altered the U.S. operations and ties toward Cuba. In addition, it does not seem probable that Castro would have assassinated President kennedy because such an act, if discovered, would have afforded the United States the excuse to destroy Cuba. The risk would not have been worth it.

    C. CIA-ORGANIZED CRIME PLOTS

    1. SCOPE AND NATURE OF PLOTS

    (a) Roselli knowledge of CIA sponsorship

  80. The support chief informed the committee that Maheu told Roselli he represented an international group of clients who had vested interests in Cuba. Roselli, however, testified to the SSC that Maheu told him from the beginning that the support chief was with the CIA.(127) Maheu confirmed this account to the SSC.(128) Maheu has also indicated that Giancana knew at the time that the support chief was with the CIA.(129) Further, Trafficante testified to the committee that Roselli informed him that he (Roselli) wasoperating as an agent of the CIA.(130)

  81. The weight of the evidence indicates that Roselli, and thus Giancana and Trafficante, knew the CIA was behind the assassination plots at an early stage.

    (b) Discovery of true identities

  82. Roselli arranged for the entrance of Giancana and Trafficante into the plots and introduced them to the support chief as "Sam Gold" and "Joe."(131) The support chief contends he learned the true identities of these persons a few months after the operation was in progress when he and Maheu saw an article in one of the Sunday sections of the Miami newspaper.(132) This article supposedly pertained to organized crime in the United States and contained pictures of top hoodlums, including Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante.(133) In the I. G. Report the support chief stated that the article came from the Parade magazine(134) in the Miami Times. Maheu also con-tended that he did not know the true identities of Sam Gold and Joe until this article appeared.(135) The support chief also stated that this incident occurred after "we were up to our ears" in the operations and consequently the CIA decided to progress forward.(136)

  83. The SSC conducted a search of supplements to all Miami newspapers for the requisite time period and could not locate any such article.(137) The committee consequently searched Parade magazine for the fall of 1960, all of 1961, and all of 1962, the years that spanned the entire operation. The committee found that on January 21, 1962, Parade published an article entitled "The Untold Story: Our Government's Crackdown on Organized Crime," written by Jack Anderson, which contained a listing of the top 10 hoodlums in the country as well as several photographs of mobsters, including Santos Trafficante.(138)The article focused on the efforts of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's campaign against organized crime and mentioned both Giancana and Trafficante.

  84. Although this Parade article appears to correspond with the support chief's and Maheu's description, it is over 1 year past the beginning months of the operation. Indeed, it occurred 9 months after the completion of phase I of the plots. Neither the SSC nor the committee has discovered any other article pertaining to organized crime in Parade magazine or the supplements of any Miami newspaper for the alleged time period.

  85. It appears the support chief and Maheu are not telling the truth in an attempt to look for an ex post facto reason for continuing the operation after the introduction of two of the top organized crime figures in the United States. Implicit in their contention is that while the CIA wished to solicit criminal sources to assassinate Castro, it would not knowingly have recruited any figures from the top echelon of organized crime.(139) Additionally, the support chief's statement that "we were up to our ears in it" is even more difficult to fathom since according to the I.G. Report, the operation was in its embryonic stage in the fall of 1960 and no pills were even delivered until approximately February or March of 1961. Without additional support, thecontentions of Maheu and the support chief are not believable.

  86. Further, this CIA plot to assassinate Castro was necessarily a highly volatile and secret operation. Once Roselli introduced additional contacts into the scene, it is not logical that the CIA would have neglected to verify the identities of such principals. On the contrary, it is more believable that the CIA ascertained the true identities of "Sam Gold" and "Joe" at an early stage and progressed consciously forward in the operation, confident that these two persons, in the words attributed to Col. Sheffield Edwards, were individuals "tough enough" to handle the job.(140)

    (C) Roles of Principals

    (1) Phase 1

  87. Col. Sheffield Edwards assigned the support chief the task of finding someone to assassinate Castro.(141) They both decided to use Maheu as someone to recruit persons to effectuate the operation.(142) The support chief also described his role as the liaison to the CIA and confirmed that all reports or information would proceed through him to the Agency.(143) In addition, the support chief said he acted as a "babysitter" to Roselli: He remained with him to occupy his time to insure that Roselli was fulfilling his role.(144)

  88. There exists a discrepancy over who suggested Roselli for the operation,(145) but in any event, he was recruited because he had connections with persons who could handle the assignment.(146)

  89. Conflict arose over the role of Giancana. Roselli informed the SSC that Giancana was only a "back-up" man.(147) Giancana was murdered 4 days before Roselli made this statment. Maheu, however, described Giancana as having a key role and characterized his job as "to locate someone in Castro's entourage who could accomplish the assassination."(148) Joseph Shimon, a close friend of Roselli who had knowledge of the plots at the time, stated that Roselli contacted Giancana to provide Cuban contacts.(149) Shimon further characterized Giancana as only providing contacts, specifically Santos Trafficante, and not as an active participant.(150)

  90. The most sound analysis is that Giancana served solely as a person Roselli could approach who could then make the necessary contact into the Cuban domain, specifically Santos Trafficante. Roselli, who FBI files indicate represented Giancana's interest in Las Vegas and was subordinate to him, probably would not directly contact the organized crime boss of the Cuban and southern Florid area without first contacting his superior, Giancana, who would then make any necessary arrangements. Both Giancana and Trafficante, being bosses of two organized crime domains, would have the means, power, and stature to arrange for the assassination.

  91. After contacting Trafficante, who had the influence to recruit the necessary personnel to perform the assassination, Giancana probably was not an active participant in handling the poison pills or actually arranging the assassination.(151)

  92. The role of Trafficante, the only living major organized crime figure involved in the plots, is a major source of conflict. The I.G. Report contained several references to Trafficante which characterize his function. In discussing how poison pills could be given to Castro, it stated that "Trafficante('Joe, the courier') was in touch with a disaffected Cuban official with access to Castro and presumably of a way that would enable him to surreptitiously poison Castro."(152) Later the report stated that "Roselli passed the pills to Trafficante" and that "Roselli reported to [the Support Chief] that the pills had been delivered to [the Cuban official] in Cuba."(153) After the Cuban official lost his position in the Cuban government and could no longer pass any pills, the I.G. Report said "Roselli told [the Support Chief] that Trafficante knew of a man high up in the Cuban exile movement who might do the job."(154) Roselli identified him as a leading figure in the Cuban exile movement.(155) The following passage further confirms Trafficante's role:

    Trafficante approached [this Cuban] and told him that he had clients who wanted to do away with Castro and that they would pay big money for the job. [The Cuban] is reported tohave been very receptive, since it would mean that he would be able to buy his own ships, arms, and communications equipent. (156)

  93. Trafficante testified in public to the committee that Roselli asked him to act solely as an interpreter between the American operations and the Cuban contacts.(157) Trafficante denied handling or carrying any poison pills used in the operation,(158) denied recruiting the Cuban exile leader,(159) and denied recruiting the Cuban official.(160). In his Senate testimony, Roselli confirmed Trafficante's role as that of a translator.(161)

  94. The support Chief, however, informed the committee that Trafficante was the person in contact with Cubans in Havana.(162) Giancana partially confirmed this, according to the I.G. Report, by identifying Joe as a man "who would serve as a courier to Cuba and make arrangements there."(163) The Support Chief also confirmed that he was the only CIA conduit and that if the I.G. Report states Trafficante contacted or procured the assassin then it accurately reflects the information the CIA received.(164)

  95. The 1975 and 1978 congressional testimony of Roselli and Trafficante corroborate each other, but remain contrary to how the principals reported the facts in 1967. The evidence indicates strongly that Trafficante was not merely an intrepreter but an active participant in passing the poison pills and in recruiting the potential assassins. One can understand why Trafficante today wishes to downplay his role; the facts, however, simply do not support his assertions. The evidence supports the I.G. Report.

  96. The committee also heard testimony from the Cuban exile leader. he stated that he is not aware of any CIA assassination plots to kill Castro and denied involvement in their operations.(165) He is obviously not telling the truth.

    (2) Phase 2

  97. In phase 2 William Harvey assumed the Support Chief's role.(166) Giancana and Trafficante were no longer involved in the operation.(167) The I. G. Report states that Roselli remained as a prominent figure and worked "directly with the Cuban exile community and directly on behalf of the CIA."(168)

  98. Although the I.G. Report does reflect that Trafficante was not involved in phase 2,(169) it contained this caution:

    Trafficante was one of the principals in Shef Edwards phase 1 of the operation. He presumably was not involved in phase 2 under Harvey, but we cannot be sure of that. After all, Trafficante was the man who brought the Cuban exile leader into the operation late in phase 1, and the Cuban exile leader was one of the main players during phase 2. (170)

  99. It is reasonable to assume that Roselli at least kept both Giancana and Trafficante informed of the operation's progress.

    (d) Delivery of the pills

  100. Neither the i.G. Report nor the SSC pinpoints the date on which the support chief delivered the pills to Roselli during phase 1 of the plots. The chain of custody, as already mentioned, was for Roselli to deliver the pills to Trafficante. The subsequent steps remain a mystery but Roselli reported to the support chief that the pills had been delivered to the Cuban official in Cuba in late February or early March 1961.(171)

  101. Joseph Shimon informed the committee that he and Maheu traveled together to Miami to the Fontainebleau in March 1961, to witness the Patterson-Johansson fight.(172) Once there Maheu informed him of the plot to assassinate Castro.(173) Shimon also says that during this trip he attended a meeting where a poisonous liquid to be used in the assassination was passed.(174)

  102. Shimon is probably the csource for Jack Anderson's column of January 19, 1971, which fixes the date of the passage of the poison at the Fontainebleau as March 13, 1961.

  103. In any event, it appears that the CIA did not pass any pills, poison, or assassination weapons before February 1961. The fall segment of the plots only constituted a planning stage; no one undertook any operational activities.

  104. Richard Helms stated in his testimony to the committee that he doubted if the pills ever left the United States or even if this project was an assassination plot. He said:

    I also understand that there was a question of poison pills which were supposed to be transported to Havana. There was never any evidence they were transported there or ever left the United States. There was never any evidence that the plot ever left the Florida mainland, and if it was indeed an assassination plot, it was misadvertised to me because I had understood it was an effort to see if a connection could be made between the Mafia in Florida and the Mafia in Havana. As to the best of my knowledge, the connection never was made. (175)

    (e) Location of Trafficante

  105. To support the description of Trafficante as a courier, the I.G. Report states that "[A]t that time the gambling casinos were still operating in Cuba, and Trafficante was making regular trips between Miami and Havana on syndicate business."(176)

  106. The committee has obtained some evidence that indicates that Trafficante was not traveling to Cuba during this period. No records available to the committee from INS, State Department, or the FBI reflect any travels after February 1960. During this time, the FBI maintained physical surveillance on Trafficante.(177) Trafficante testified before the committee that he only made two trips to Cuba after his release from the Trescornia prison, Cuba, in August 1959, and that these trips occurred within 2 to 3 months of this release.(178) Additionally, considering Trafficante's reputed top position in the La Cosa Nostra, it seems more reasonable that Trafficante would send a representative to Cuba to conduct any business rather than risk being detained by Castro again.

  107. If Trafficante was actually traveling between Miami and Havana, the implications are interesting. He was either willing to risk being detained again or had acquired assurance from the Cuban Government regarding his safety. In any event, the presence of Trafficante during the fall of 1960 in Cuba raises the possibility of a more cooperative relationship between himself and the Cuban Government than believed previously. Such a relationship during the period when Trafficante was scheming to assassinate Castro invites the theory that Tra-ficante was possibly informing the Cuban Government of activities in the Miami area in general and of the plots in particular. In return for such information, Trafficante could have been promised lost gambling operations as well as support and a Cuban sanctuary for the smugglingof contraband into the United States.

  108. There are enormous ramifications to such a theory and it should be stated explicitly that the committee has not received any information or evidence that would demonstrate it. In addition, the available evidence indicates Trafficante was not traveling between Miami and Havana although it is recognized that Trafficante, probably could have made such trips and not disrupt his normal route in Miami and Tampa, notwithstanding the effect of any surveillance.

    (f) Cuban exile leader's other contacts

  109. As previously related, the FBI forwarded to the CIA a memorandum dated December 21, 1960 revealing that U.S. racketeers were making efforts to finance anti-Castro activities and subsequently forwarded another memorandum dated January 18,1961 that associated the Cuban exile leader with those schemes.(179)

  110. Other sources were also providing assistance to the Cuban exile leader to conduct anti-Castro operations. At the time of his introduction into the CIA-organized crime plots, the Cuban exile leader was active in the Revolutionary Democratic Front and the Cuban Revolutionary Council.(180) The exile leader informed the committee that the purpose of the council stemmed from an agreement with the American Government to invade Cuba and establish democratic control of the island.(181)

  111. Adding to the support for the Cuban exile leader were the promotional efforts of Dino and Eddie Cellini who reportedly were working through a Washington, D.C., public relations firm: Edward K. Moss & Associates. Moss had previous CIA associations. He also was supposedly acting as a conduit for funds supplied by the Cellini brothers with the understanding that this group would receive privileged treatment in the Cuba of the future.(182)

  112. In his testimony before the committee the Cuban exile leader also described a meeting with an anti-Castro Cuban and Meyer Lansky in Lansky's home in Miami in the summer of 1960.(183) Lansky said he had business interests in Cuba and wanted to help the Cubans fight Castro, destroy Castro, and try and establish a democratic government.(184)

  113. The logical inference to be drawn from this is that the CIA, organized crime, and other persons interested in removing the Castro regime all setteled upon the Cuban exile leader, probably independently, as a person who had the potential of uniting the multitude of exile groups to overthrow Castro. Additionally, the exile leader's reported contacts with organized crime raises the possibility that he was involved with them in a plot to kill Castro before the evolution of the CIA-organized crime plots. If this was the case, then Trafficante's recruitment of the exile leader into the CIA operation wouldresult in providing official U.S. sanction to an already existing independent operation. The CIA recognized this in stating, "It is possible that the exile leader already was involved in independent operations with the criminal syndicate when first approached prior to the Bay of Pigs in March 1961 to carry out the Castro assassination."(185)

    (g) Introduction of "Joe" and "Gold" and related events

  114. The timing of the introduction of Giancana (Gold) and Trafficante (Joe) is important to the analysis of the true role of organized crime in the Castro assassination plots. This introduction, together with other related events, suggests further the thesis that the CIA found itself involved in providing additional resources for an independent operation that the syndicate already had commenced.

  115. According to the I.G. Report, the entrance of Giancana and Roselli occurred during the week of September 25, 1960,(186) In contrast, the SSC did not assign a precise date for their entrance because of conflicting evidence between the I.G. Report and Maheu's Senate testimony which set the date after November 1960.(187) The SSC did conclude, however, that Giancana was involved in the operation during October because of the Las Vegas wiretap incident which occurred on October 30, and because of the October 18,1960, FBI memorandum that revealed Giancana had told several people of his involvement in a plot to assassinate Castro.(188)

  116. Although these two events that the SCC cited many support the involvement of Giancana during October, they also invite speculation of independent organized crime operations. The October 18,1960, FBI memorandum is particularly applicable. This states:

    During a recent conversation with several friends, Giancana stated that Fidel Castro was to be done away with shortly, said it would occur in November. Moreover, Giancana said he had already met with the would-be assassin on three occasions, the last meeting taking place on a boat docked at the Fontainbleu Hotel, Miami Beach. Giancana stated everything had been perfected for killing Castro and that the assassin had arranged with a girl, not further described, to drop a "pill" in some drink or food of Castro. (189)

  117. Since the poison pills that the CIA prepared at Giancana's request were not ready for delivery until late February or early March 1961, it is doubtful that Giancana's November 1960, assassination plot was part of the CIA operation. Rather, it appears that organized crime already had its poison plan in progress, using a mistress of Castro to accomplish the deed, when the CIA entered the scene fortuitously. Organized crime then occupied a perfect position: If their private plot succeeded, they then would possess far-reaching blackmail potential against the CIA that they could exercise at an opportune moment. If their intrigue failed, however, they could then assume the position that they were only executing the directives of the Government and could possibly still use their involvement as blackamail potential.

    (h) Richard Cain

  118. The assassination attempt that is referenced in the October 18 memo may have involved Richard Scallzetti Cain. Cain, in connection with the top echelon criminal informant program, informed the FBI of his criminal activities and close association with Giancana.(190) Cain admitted that he had worked covertly for Giancana and been on his payroll while he was a member of the Chicago Police Department from 1956-60, director of a private detectiveagency from 1960-62, and chief investigator for the Cook County Sheriff's Office from 1962-64.(191)

  119. Several of Cain's activities during the fall of 1960, together with his past experience, support the proposition that if Giancana was involved in any Cuban affairs, specifically an assassination of Castro independent of the CIA plot, he would have recruited Cain to assist him.

  120. First, Cain maintained a record of providing information voluntarily to the CIA concerning his foreign ventures, a practice Giancana may have promoted in an effort to gain possible leverage with the CIA. In a CIA memorandum to the FBI dated November 4, 1960, Cain supplied the following information in his first contact with the CIA:

    1. That in 1950-52 while in Miami, Fla., he initiated several telephone taps on various Cuban revolutionary figures under the supervision of William Buenz, a private detective who had contact with the Batista government;
    2. That on October 2, 1960, William Buenz, then operating out of New York City, met with Cain at O'Hare Airport and offered him $25,000 to travel to Cuba at the request of former President Piro to install telephone taps on various Cubans; and
    3. That is 1959, Constantine Kangles, a former attorney for the Cuban 26th of July movement, inquired whether Cain would instruct Castro army officers in the use of polygraphs.(192)

  121. It seems more than coincidental that Cain's approach to the CIA to supply this information occurred simultaneously with Giancana's meeting with Roselli and Maheu. Cain subsequently volunteered information to the CIA during 1961-63.

  122. Second, on november 2,1960, a confidential informant told the Bureau that on October 20, 1960, Serapio Montejo, the former head of the July 26 movement in Chicago, met Richard S. Cain in the office of Constantine kangles, the former attorney in Chicago for the Cuban 26th of July movement and former counsel in the United States for the Cuban Government headed by Fidel Castro.(193) Cain indicated to Kangles that he had clients who wished to get news stories and photographs out of Cuba concerning rebel activity in the Cuban foothills.(194) Cain indicated further that he wanted to cover this story and was soon going to Miami in an attempt to enter Cuba, and that Jack Mobley, a Chicago columnist, and Bob Ajamian, of Life magazine, had knowledge of this venture.(195)

  123. Third, on november 2, 1960, the FBI interviewed Cain in Miami at the Sands Hotel, Miami Beach.(196) Cain said he was a representative of Accurate Detective Laboratories,(197) Life magazine, and 64 other newspapers.(198) After providing information on the military armaments in Cuba, Cain said that the resistance movement had 800 men fighting in the Escambray Mountains and that he was awaiting the opportunity to parachute into the Escambrays to take photos for life. Cain said that the Cuban exile leader gave him the information on the Cuban armaments.(200)

  124. When Cain's plans to visit Cuba, either to install wiretaps for former President Prio or to take photographs of rebel activity, or both, are considered simultaneously with Giancana's presence in Miami, Giancana's reference to the assassination of Castro in November and Cain's approach to the CIA, the true purpose and possible interrelation of these events become even more suspect. The wiretap assignment and the photographic story may have been covers: Giancana may have been attempting to send Cain to Cuba to supervise the poisoning attempt on Castro. Cain was connected to La Cosa Nostra, spoke Spanish, had extensive contacts in latin America, was well-versed in sabotage and investigative procedures, had been on Giancana's payroll for 4 years, and apparently was attempting to arrive in Cuba by approximately November 196.(201) Further, Cain's reference in his FBI interview to the Cuban exile leader, the person that the CIA concedes may have been active in independent organized crime assassination plots against Castro prior to his recruitment by Trafficante in March 1961, raises more suspicion.

  125. It can, therefore, be argued that these events indicate that Cain may have been the "assassin-to-be" whom Giancana referred to in the October 18,1960, FBI memorandum, or he may have been the contact man for the operation.

  126. Cain could also have provided another service to Giancana. As already indicated, a second person, called J. W. Harrison, allegedly accompanied and assisted Balletti in the wiretap. Although the Justice Department pursued this investigation vigorously and prepared to indict the principals, no one could determine who Harrison was and no participant would admit to knowing his identity.

  127. There is no doubt he existed: he signed the hotel register and accompanied Balletti on the flight to Las Vegas.(202) DuBois, the private investigator Maheu hired to conduct the surveillance, maintained that Maheu arranged for J. W. Harrison to accompany Balletti from Miami to Las Vegas to assist in the operation.(203) The support chief, the CIA liaison man, informed the committee that whoever Harrison was he was not a CIA employee.(204)

  128. Clearly, someone arranged for Harrison's presence and knows his true identity. Since DuBois and Balletti acted only as the instruments of Maheu, it seems logical that they would have revealed Harrison's identity in the face of Federal prosecution if Harrison were just an employee of DeBois with no connection to the CIA or to the associates of Maheu in the CIA operation against Castro. Thus, Balletti and DuBois either did not know the identity of Harrison or felt that their client's interests prohibited them from revealing such information.

  129. The theory that Maheu provided Harrison at the request of a source that had a direct interest in the surveillance seems most logical. Maheu, however, denied ever recruiting or arranging for Harrison to participate in the operation.(205) Maheu did say, however, that he instituted the surveillance to pacify Giancana's concerns in a personal matter and to uncover any possible leaks regarding the operation.(206) Roselli confirmed these two accounts in his Senate testimony.(207) Shimon informed the committee further that Giancana told him he paid $5,000 for the Las Vegas operation.(208)

  130. Assuming that Maheu did provide for Harrison, he did so at the request of someone else. Maheu did not have any reason independently to prefer one person over another; the CIA or Giancana, however, did have such a personal interest. Giancana's interest obviously stemmed from this personal matter and it is probably correct that Giancana requested Maheu to bug the room. This personal interest could have prompted Giancana to direct Maheu to use a person of Giancana's choice: Cain fit that role perfectly. He was a skilled elec-tronic surveillance technician and was in Miami during late October and early November, which was the debarkation point for Harrison and Balletti on their trip to Las Vegas.

  131. As already mentioned, Maheu, in a deposition to the committee, denied any knowledge of Cain.(209) When shown several photographs of Cain from the late 1950's and early 1960's, Arthur Balletti also could not identify Cain as harrison.(210) These denials do not detract from the theory that Cain was Harrison: If no one would identify Harrison in 1960 there is no reason to expect any change in testimony.

  132. In regard to the wiretap incident, the CIA had an interest in surveilling target A (two persons were targets, target A and target B) because of the October 18,1960, memorandum where Giancana discussed an assassination plot against Castro. The SSC concluded that this memo caused the CIA to be concerned about determining if Giancana was leaking information on the CIA-organized crime plots. This may be partially correct, but as already indicated, the FBI memorandum depicts a plot substantially in progress and involving a girl who cannot be found in the October status of the CIA operation. The CIA could have been more concerned that Giancana was involved in a separate assassination plot and consequently could have been concerned with its nature and extent.

  133. The reasons why target A was the object of such surveillance were two-fold. First, target A's relationship with Giancana might have entailed the learning of certain clandestine activities. Second, target A was one of the "several friends" in the conversation related in the October 18 memo.(211)

  134. The CIA interest would also explain why a wiretap was installed. Maheu informed the committee that he only ordered physical surveillance of the target and could not understand why anyone installed a wiretap since the primary intent was to check on the personal matter.(212)

  135. Physical surveillance and a room bug would, admittedly, be more than adequate to uncover any evidence of the personal matter. If, however, Maheu also wished to investigate the possibility of leaks in the operation as well as the possibility of Giancana's involvement in an independent plot, then the use of a wiretap would have been logical.

  136. Assuming that investigating the personal matter was not the primary focus of the Las Vegas operation, it can be argued that direct surveillance of target A in target A's own room and other habitats, as opposed to investigating target B, would have been the optimum method to investigate for any leaks and information that Giancana may have provided. This type of investigation, however, would have run the risk of incurring the wrath of Gincana and his possible departure from the CIA assassination plots if he detected the surveillance. Through the cover of surveilling target B for a possible association with target A, however, the CIA had the opportunity tosurveil target A to obtain information on the assassination plots for a reason which met the approval of Giancana. Indeed, Giancana probably always believed that his directive to investigate the personal matter was the only issue involved in the surveillance.

  137. In any event, the objectives of both Giancana and the CIA could have been achieved whether Harrison was a Giancana choice, specifically Cain, or an Agency operative.

  138. After the Las Vegas operation backfired, the CIA obviously decided to continue the assassination plots. This indicates that the Support Chief felt the security of the CIA organized crime plot had not been seriously breached. Additionally, it possibly indicates that the CIA determined that even if Giancana was involved in an independent operation, that it would not hamper their efforts, and that all interests could be reconciled.

    (i) The "girl" in the October 18,1960, FBI memorandum

  139. In this memo, Giancana spoke of a girl who was going to drop a pill in some food or drink of Castro. This format is again in contradiction to the CIA operation which initially relied on the Cuban official, someone close to Castro, to administer the pills.

  140. The identity of this "girl" referred to by Giancana has not been conclusively ascertained, but it is reasonable to assume that Trafficante was in a position to recruit a mistress of Castro because of his numerous contacts in the Cuban gambling and prostitution circles. Consequently, the use of a girl is quite logical and further supports the involvement of organized crime in an independent plot to kill Castro.

  141. Therefore, the CIA is probably correct in asserting what the Agency "may have been piggy-backing on the syndicate and in addition to its material contribution was also supplying an aura of official sanction."(213)

    (j) articles on Frank Sturgis

  142. As indicated in section II Paul Meskill of the New York Daily News wrote several articles in 1975 and 1976 concerning activities of Frank Sturgis. These articles reflect further the theory that organized crime was involved in independent Castro assassination plots.

  143. The following points should be made about this theory; they also more thoroughly respond to the allegations in the Meskill articles"

  144. First, organized crime probably initiated independent assassination plots against Castro prior to any CIA involvement in late 1960. Such plots may have been in progress when the CIA reactivated its plans to kill Castro in April 1962.

  145. Second, organized crime could quite possibly have been directing activities such as those described in the New york Daily News article.

  146. Third, Frank Sturgis most probably established contacts with organized crime through his gambling associations and probably was used by them in some capacities. This does not mean that he was connected to organized crime.

  147. Fourth, Frank Sturgis probably knew the Cuban official and could have been involved with him in an assassination plot. Since Sturgis is not a reliable source, however, his allegations are suspect.

  148. Fifth, according to the available evidence, the CIA was not involved in any operations with the Cuban official prior to late 1960.

  149. Sixth, Sturgis was not necessarily involved with Marita Lorenz, one of Castro's witnesses or the Cuban official in a plot to kill Castro. He may have learned of plots involving the Cuban official and possibly Marita Lorenz in Miami after the Cuban official arrived there in 1965.

  150. Additionally, the April 1975 Meskill articles did not include the Sturgis-Lorenz plot to kill Castro with poison pills. It was only after the publication of the SSC interim report in November 1975 and the Final Report in April 1976, that Meskill described this plot. Thus, Sturgis may have combined accurate information obtained from the Cuban official and other Miami sources with the facts the SSC presented and then fabricated the Marita Lorenz story, which, together with other evidence such as the October 18 memo, can unfor-tunately succeed in appearing both logical and believable.

    (k) Implications arising from phase 2

  151. Significant differences are apparent between phase 1 and phase 2 which reflect upon organized crime's motivation and seriousness in fulfilling its part of the bargain originally initiated in 1960.

  152. First, in phase 1, Roselli and his colleagues demonstrated their ability to execute the contract on Castro by naming their source who was, indeed, in a position close to Castro. In phase 2, the modus operandi and the ability of the assassin or assassins becomes quite vague. Harvey reported that the Cuban exile leader had an asset in Cuba who had access to someone in a restaurant which Castro frequented who could administer the poison.(214) In June 1962, Roselli reported to Harvey that the Cuban exile leader had dispatched a three-man team to Cuba to recruit persons to kill Castro, or to kill him themselves, maybe with poison pills, if the opportunity arose.(215)Harvey said they had no specific plans.(216)

  153. Second, as already indicated, the cast of the organized crime figures involved changed. Maheu, Giancana, and Trafficante allegedly retired from the scene, with a "Maceo" assuming the position of Trafficante. Roselli and the Cuban exile leader remained. The CIA is probably correct in suggesting that these figures, at least Trafficante and Giancana, were kept informed of the progress of the plots.

  154. What is puzzling is the introduction of a person simply referred to as "Maceo" into a highly sensitive and covert CIA operation without any apparent attempt by the CIA to check his background or ascertain his identity. It seems extraordinary that the CIA would permit the plots to go forward without performing any security check. Indeed, it sees more logical that at least Roselli and Harvey did ascertain the identity of maceo and for whatever reason decided to withhold this information.

  155. Further, although the I.G. Report characterized Maceo as Roselli's man, it is more probable that Trafficante, who had recruited all the Cuban personnel used previously in the attempts and who maintained the most complete network of Cuban allies in Miami and Cuba, provided this individual. If this argument can be sustained then it displays Trafficante again performing a direct role during phase 2, a function every source has denied.

  156. A related issue is whether "phase" actually existed or whether the operations to kill Castro encompassed a continuous time period. As previously indicated, the CIA suggests that the plot was dormant from the Bay of Pigs until Harvey assumed direction in the spring of 1962. Both Harvey and the Support Chief stated, however, that Harvey "took over a going operation." Considering that Roselli was immediately able to mobilize his forces in 1962 in response to Harvey's request, and that this mobilization involved the Cuban exile, whom Trafficante recruited in phase 1, it seems reasonable to assume that some of the individuals in phase 1 were actively attempting to killCastro after the Bay of Pigs and probably until the advent of Soviet solidification. These efforts, however, may well have been conducted without CIA knowledge and further support the theory of independent organized crime plots.

  157. During late 1962 and early 1963 phase 2 terminated undramatically and slowly. In retrospect, the ambiguous modus operandi, the lack of identity of the potential assassins, the total reliance of Harvey on Roselli for any information, and the seemingly apathetic desire of the CIA to corroborate any information from Roselli, all converge to posit the theory that organized crime was not seriously attempting to assassinate Castro following the solidification of Soviet influence in the Castro regime.

  158. In this regard Trafficante, Lansky, and other Cuban casino owners must have realized by mid-1962 that the "golden goose" of Havana had laid it s last egg, and that fortunes were to be made elsewhere. Certainly, history shows growing Lansky influence in the Bahamas and Las Vegas, Trafficante projects in the Dominican Republic, and bureoning bolita operations in Florida arising from the influx of Cuban exiles. Further, organized crime may have determined that the new Justice Deparment crackdown may not have permitted the "wide open" Cuba of the pre-Kennedy era even if the United States had succeeded in ousting the Cuban regime.

  159. Consequently, while the U.S. Government, specifically the CIA, still possessed a viable interest in assassinating Castro, organized crime apparently did not.

    2. MOTIVATION OF ORGANIZED CRIME TO BE INVOLVED IN THE PLOTS

  160. Despite the reasons just presented to discontinue attempts to kill Castro, organized creime still had strong incentive to string the CIA along. Specifically, this incentive was to establish a relationship with the CIA for subsequent use in thwarting prosecution for various offenses and thus blunting any Justice Department proceedings against organized crime.

  161. It seems likely that organized crime, while always recognizing the benefits of establishing a relationship with the CIA, was also initially seriously interested in assassinating Castro to regain lost territory. As already indicated, this desire probably ebbed with the solidification of Soviet influence and other factors just mentioned. After this occurrence organized crime may only have put forth the "appearance" of involvement and good faith in the plots to define further a relationship with the CIA. Indeed, the CIA prevention of prosecution in 1961 in the Las Vegas wiretap incident would have given Maheu, Roselli, and Giancana confirmation of the value of such a relationship and impetus for continuing it in 1962 even though the assassination of Castro may no longer have been a viable alternative.

  162. The actions of Maheu, Giancana, and particularly Roselli in the years following these plots support this theory. As related in section II, these individuals actually did use their CIA affiliation and knowledge of the plots in attempts to hinder law enforcement prosecutions and objectives.(217)

  163. The success of some of their efforts verifies the tremendous blackmail potential they possessed. As Sam Papich, the FBI liaison to the CIA, commented in May 1967, Giancana and Roselli had the CIA "over a barrel" because of "that operation" and he doubted that the FBI would be able to do anything about either Giancana or Roselli because of "their previous activities" with the CIA.(218)

  164. In an interview with the committee, former Deputy Director of the CIA Richard Bissell discussed the issue of blackmail, stating that he had come to feel that the threat of blackmail by the underworld figures involved had constituted the single greatest danger in the plots.(219) Bissell, as Deputy Director for Plans, had been personally involved in the planning and authorization of the CIA-Mafia plots in 1960-61.(220) Bissell had not been interviewed by the Inspector General's Office during their 1967 investigation of the plots, and thus his recollections and views were not contained in the Inspector General's Report.(221)

  165. Bissell told the committee that he believed he and other Agency officials should have been more cognizant of the possiblity of blackmail by the organized crime figures involved in the plots.(222) Bissell stated, "We didn't give it sufficient attention at that time. It was unwise. We only though of the possibility of blackmail later."(223) The former Deputy Director recalled that the CIA's main fear at the time had been "some sort of unfavorable publicity, if by chance it leaked out," rather than the potential ramifications of entering into such a sensitive relationship with powerful criminal figures.(224) Bissell went on to state: "I knew it was serious. I knew theses were Mafia leaders. And I knew they were in a position to makevery damaging revelations about the Agency. But we thought it was all under control."(225)

  166. While Bissell stated that he and his colleagues had not realized the potential for blackmail when they first enlisted Mafia leaders in the assassination plots, the CIA officer who later assumed control over the continuing plots has stated he was well aware of and fearful about such a possibility.(226) William Harvey, the clandestine services agent who coordinated the reactivation and continuation of the plots in 1962 and 1963, testified in 1975 that he and then Deputy Director Richard Helms had concealed the existence of the assassination plots from CIA director John McCone partly out of concern over the potential for such blackmail. In his Senate testimony, Harvey stated that he and Richard Helms decided not to inform McCone about the plots:

    * * *until we reached the point where it appeared it might come to fruition or had a chance to assess the individuals involved and determine exactly the problem wefaced, including the possible problem-and it was a very, or it appeared to be, and in my opinion was, at that time, a very real possibility of this Government being blackmailed either by Cubans (exiles) for political purposes or by figuresin organized crime for their own self-protection or aggrandizement, which as it turned out, did not happen, but at that time was a very pregnant possibility. (227)

  167. Upon learning partial details of the plots, both Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had immediately recognized the disturbing leverage the participants in the plots had gained through their involvement with the CIA in the murder attempts. As noted earlier, Attorney General Kennedy was partially briefed about the pre-Bay of Pigs assassination attempts, authroized during the Eisenhower administration in May 1962.(228) Upon being informed of the plots, Kennedy had met with FBI Director Hoover to share the information and to voice his anger over the CIA's actions.(229) In the memorandum of their conversation prepared on May 10, 1962, Hoover stated that Kennedy had angrily noted that the CIA's use of these figures had resulted in the possibility that "the CIA was in a position where it could not afford to have any action taken against Giancana and Maheu."(230) Hoover further noted that he had been greatly disturbed over the Agency's use of these individuals, stating, "I expressed great astonishment at this in view of the bad reputation of Maheu * * *. The Attorney General shared the same views."(231)

  168. In his interview with the committee, former Deputy Director Richard Bissell stated that he had been distressed over reports that CIA Director John McCone had never been told about the Agency-Mafia assassination plots during the period in which they were occurring.(232) McCone had been appointed Director of the Agency by President Kennedy in November 1961 thus serving as head of the CIA during the last 15 months in which the plots were continuing.(233) In his Senate testimony in 1975, Richard Helms (who served as McCone's Deputy Director during the period in which the plots were continuing) stated that he could not recall telling McCone of the existence of the plots while they were occurring.(234) Helms went on to state, "[I] was trying to scratch my head as to why I didn't tell him at the time and my surmises are the best I can come up with. I am really surprised I did not discuss it with him at the time."(235) McCone's former Executive Assistant, Walter Elder,told the Senate that McCone had once notified Deputy Director Helms that "assassination could not be condoned and would not be approved," and that the Agency was never to become involved in such activity.(236) In his Senate testimony, William Harvey stated that Director McCone had one personally told him that the Agency and U.S. Government must not engage in such plots against any foreign leader, and further, that "if I got myself involved in something like this, I might end up getting myself excommunicated."(237) As noted earlier, Harvey went on to testify that he and Helms had withheld their knowledge of (and personal involvement in) the murder plots from Director McCone, partly out of fear "of this government being blackmailed * * * by figures in organized crime* * *."(238)

  169. Speaking of the failure of Helms, Harvey, and other Agency personnel to inform Director McCone of the plots, former Deputy Director Bissell told the committee, "The Director should have been informed. This was bad, and shouldn't have gone on."(239) Bissell, who left the Agency in January 1962, stated, "The Director should know if his subordinates-his top subordinates-are in a position of being subject to blackmail or are infact being blackmailed by Mafia figures or anyone else. This is very bad."(240) Bissell commented that"in something that sensitive, involving national security, you shouldn't have that potential of blackmail going unknown to the Director."(241)

  170. Bissell told the committee that he would not have become involved in the early plots without then Director Allen Dulles' personal authroization, stating, "If Dulles told me not to become involved in such a thing, I know for sure I wouldn't. You can't disobey the Director."(242) Speaking of Director McCone's reported notification of both Richard Helms and William Harvey that the Agency must not become involved in assassination activity, Bissell stated, "I cannot say what McCone's reaction would have been if he found out about such a violation of his wishes at the time. I do know that helms would have been in a most uncomfortable position, but I can't speculate."(243) he former Agency official stated, "It's wrong. Obviously senior officials should follow directions, especially on something like that."(244) Bissell further commented, "If McCone told Helms and Harvey not to get involved, then it raises obvious questions about their actions. I would rather not speculate about this. I don't know who gave what orders to whom after I left."(245)

  171. Speaking of the CIA's withholding of all information pertaining to the existence of the CIA-underworld assassination plots from the Warren Commission, Bissell stated that the Agency probably "didn't think it was relevant I would guess."(246) Bissell further stated, "I can't believe the potential concern over blackmail by the Mafia people would have been allowed by the Agency to serve as a reason for shielding the existence" of the plots from the Presidential Commission.(247) Nevertheless, issell added, "I guess you couldn't absolutely rule out such a possibility."(248)

  172. Asked if he believed that the Agency would have informed the Warren Commission of the CIA plots if there had been substantive news reports at the time linking Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, or other organized crime leaders to the assassination of President Kennedy, Bissell stated, "I can't speculate what it would have done. I would hope so."(249) Bissell went on to state that he believed that if the Agency actually suspected such Mafia involvement in the President's murder, it would probably have informed the Warren Commission of the CIA plots. Bissell stated, "They wouldn't have liked to. But I do think they would have told Earl Warren."(250) Bissell stated hisbelief that had the Agency found that Trafficante or Giancana had been involved in some way with President Kennedy's assassination, it would have informed the Warren Commission of the CIA plots against Castro, even though such information would have led to the disclosure of the Agency's own prior involvement with these same Mafia elements in assassination conspiracies.(251)

    3. RETALIATION THEORY

    (a) Results of the committee's investigation

  173. The committee found no evidence that these operations provoked Premier Castro to assassinate President Kennedy in retaliation.

  174. The committee also found no specific evidence that Castro knew of CIA sponsorship of these activities or even knew of their existence prior to the death of President Kennedy. If Castro did discover their existence, however, the contention of the SSC that Castro would not have connected them with the CIA seems invalid.(252) It is recognized that only a few persons actually knew of the CIA sponsorship and that the Cuban operative and others engaged in penetrating Cuba or directly participating in the assassination efforts were reportedly told that the U.S. businessmen and organized crime sponsored the operation. It still seems more probable, however, that while not being able to be certain, Castro would have highly suspected the CIA in any assassination plot he uncovered, at least to the degree that he would have suspected the CIA was funding the person or persons plotting his murder. The reason is that Castro suspected the CIA of constantly attempting to overthrow his government through every possible method including assassination. Castro's meeting with Senator George McGovern where Castro gave McGovern a listing of alleged CIA-sponsored assassination plots supports this contention.(253)

  175. Consequently, there is no reason to assume that Castro would not have attributed most plots, including these plots, to the CIA.

    (b) Propoenent of the retaliation theory

  176. In an article in the Washington Post on September 9, 1976, Anderson revealed that ex-CIA agent William Harvey, attorney Edward P. Morgan, and reputed mobster John Roselli were the sources for his newspaper articles. It seems certain that John Roselli was the person who informed Harvey and Morgan about the plots and the retaliation theory; thus, only one source, John Roselli, actually existed. Further, John Roselli supplied all information concerning the operation to the CIA through either the Support Chief or William Harvey.

  177. The public dissemination of the details of the plots corresponds remarkably to the efforts of John Roselli to prevent his deportation in 1966 and 1971, and to prevent his prosecution for illegal gambling activities in 1967. These coincidences plus other evidence indicate that John Roselli manipulated the facts of the plots into the retaliation theory in efforts to force the CIA to intervene favorably into his legal affairs to prevent the further disclosure of the plots in general and the retaliation theory in particular and to prevent further waves of public paranoia. In some instances John Roselli was successful.

    (c) Summary

  178. Even assuming that Castro did ascertain the existence of the CIA-organized crime plots and that the CIA sponsored them and ignoring the belief that Roselli fabricated the retaliation theory, it is still unlikely that Castro would have resorted to assassinating the President of the United States in retaliation for the reasons indicated in the AMLASH portion of the issue analysis section. Specifically, these reasons are:

    1. The prospect of exposing Cuba to invasion and destruction would not have been worth the risk;
    2. The act of changing a leader does not necessarily change the system;
    3. Castro may have recognized that among the leaders of the United States, Kennedy may have maintained the least hostile approach toward Cuba; and
    4. The growing prospect of detente between Cuba and the United States would have refrained Castro from assassinating an American official.

    4. RELATED ORGANIZED CRIME ACTIVITIES

  179. The committee reviewed additional evidence that raises the possibility that various organized crime figures were involved in attempts to assassinate Castro that were unrelated to the efforts of the CIA.

    (a) Norman Rothman

  180. To ascertain more information about organized crime's knowledge about Castro assassination plots, the committee investigated Norman Rothman, who was active in operating various casinos in Cuba before the Castro takeover and who consequently maintained associations with organized crime and the Batista regime.

  181. At various times, Rothman served as manager of the Sans Souci and Copacabana Clubs in Cuba representing the interests of the Mannarino brothers of Pittsburgh.(254)

  182. FBI files on Rothman indicate that a proposal to kill Castro was allegedly made to Rothman as a "quid pro quo" in which Rothman expected to avoid imprisonment for a 1960 gun running conviction.(255) During an FBI interview, Rothman stated that he had been in "personal contact with White House attorney Harry Hall Wilson, as well as Assistant Attorney General John Seigenthaler, both of Washington, D.C." and members of the Kennedy administration.(256)

  183. In a deposition to the committee taken in Miami on April 16, 1978, Rothman expanded on this theme to include a series of mysterious telegrams summoning him to the White House for a series of two or three meetings that began in Attorney General Kennedy's office with members of his staff and continued in a conference room where Rothman's assistance in providing contacts inside Cuba was explored.(257) At the last meeting Rothman says that:

    One of them happened to discuss (the assassination of Castro) with me, but not in a technical way. You know, just in a casual way. That is about it. I cannot for the moment remember it word for word because it is too far back. (258)

  184. The evidence suggesting such an approach to Robert Kennedy is entirely uncorroborated and makes little sense when viewed in light of the Justice Department crackdown on organized crime. Further, it seems extremely doubtful that any meeting with Rothman on this topic would have occurrred at the White House. Consequently, it is highly unlikely that any such event ever occurred.

    (b) Name links between the AMLASH and the CIA-organized crime operations

  185. The committee also reviewed evidence which indicates that organized crime may have been aware of the AMLASH operation during its existence.

  186. The I.G. Report identified three name links between the AMLASH operation and the organized crime operation. The I.G. Report did not sufficiently analyze, however, that the common denominator in two of the links was Santos Trafficante.

    Link 1

  187. In March 1961, the CIA received information that both a high-ranking military figure in the Castro regime and a former official close to Castro wished to defect.(259). The military officer was AMLASH and the official was the Cuban official used in phase 1 of the CIA-organized crime plots. As already indicated, the IGR documents revealed that Trafficante recruited the Cuban official.

  188. Other than the coincidence of both the Cuban official and AMLASH seeking infiltration at the same time there is nothing to suggest a relationship between the two men in attempting to assassinate Castro: no common denominator exists among Trafficante, Roselli, Giancana, or any other members of the American gambling syndicate. This link is insignificant.

    (2) Link 2

  189. In mid-march 1965, Rafael Garcia Bongo, a Cuban lawyer whose brother occupied the prestigious position of Minister of Sports in Cuba, contacted the CIA to inform the agency that "he was in contact with a group of military officers who were planning to kill Castro."(260) It quickly became clear to CIA employees that Bongo's reference was to AMLASH and the group of military men who were allied with him in attempting to depose Castro.(261) Although the I.G. Report and the T.F. Report were silent regarding an attitudetoward Bongo's information, it must be assumed that the CIA did not respond affirmatively since the AMLASH operation was in progress at the time and the process of deliving arms caches to the Cuban official's people within Cuba was underway.

  190. Interestingly, Bongo identified himself to Agency personnel as a lawyer who represented the Capri Hotel and Casino in Havana, and who had ben jailed in July 1962, for a period of 75 days, allegedly as a reprisal for representing Santos Trafficante.(262) Bongo's utilization of the short prison term to establish his "bona fides" is questionable since Trafficante was in jail during August 1959. For the Cuban Government to wait 3 years to exact retribution for that representation seems unlikely. Possibly, Bongo was involved in approaching the Castro government in 1962 on Trafficante's behalf for permission to reopen the Capri casino.

  191. One aspect of the Bongo-Trafficante relationship deserves fuller treatment. As already indicated, it has been reported by Jack Anderson that the secret source until his death, John Roselli, had reason to speculate that Cubans recruited originally by Santos Trafficante to kill Castro were "turned around" and sent back to the United States where they were directly involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. If this line of hypothecation is adopted, then the trip by Bongo could assume other implications such as the possibility that Bongo's real purpose in contacting the CIA was to acta a double agent for Castro in ascertaining the nature and scope of the AMLASH operation. Castro probably became aware of the meetings with AMLASH in the fall of 1964 since the list of charge upon which AMLASH went to trial in 1966 began with these meetings. If Castro had begun his suspicions of AMLASH's role with the CIA during late 1964 or early 1965, it is likely that he would have begun counterintelligence measures to confirm his fears that could have led to Castro sending Bongo on the trip to contact the Agency. Given the Trafficante-Bongo relationship, it can be postulated that Trafficante would have been aware of Bongo's true mission prior to his departure or at least became knowledgeable at some later date.

  192. Given the extent of Trafficante's high-level contacts within the exile community and the low-level security in the CIA exile operations, it is therefore logical that Trafficante and other members of the underworld knew, in some fashion, part or all of the AMLASH plot. The question becomes: So what? Short of being able to blackmail the Government about the modus operandi of the 1960-62 events, the significance of mob knowledge of AMLASH is not readily apparent.

  193. If, however, Trafficante was a double agent, working for the CIA but actually supplying information to Castro, then another scenario emerges. It is then logical to assume that Castro knew of the AMLASH and CIA-organized crime operations from their inception. As mentioned earlier in this material, Trafficante could have received a sanctuary and assistance in smuggling contraband for such information. As also discussed earlier, this knowledge would not, however, have prompted Castro to kill President Kennedy. Never-theless, contemporaneous knowledge of the plots would have been beneficial for another reason: Castro would then have been able to neutralize the effects of the assassination plots.

  194. Consequently, while any contacts between AMLASH and Bongo would not have necessarily effected the untenability of the retaliation theory, they would have been extremely valuable.

    (3) Link 3

  195. The SSC may have intended to imply that information contained in the I.G. Report from "A," an anti-Castro Cuban, raised the possibility that a link existed between the AMLASH operations and the 1960-62 CIA plots to assassinate Castro using underworld contacts.(263).

  196. A review of the I.G. Report did not sustain such conjecture. While the I.G. Report indicated that as of 1965, "A" had knowledge of AMLASH's plans to assassinate Castro, and thus possibly knew about the AMLASH operation,(264) there was no available evidence cited in the I.G. Report, however, to suggest that "A" had knowledge of, or involvement with, any of the syndicate or Cuban exiles who participated in Phase 1 or 2 of the CIA-Mafia assassination plots during 1960-62. To make this connection requires seizing upon the I.G. Reports tentative identification of "name links" between the 1960-62 organized operation and AMLASH intrigue, and expanding the amorphous nature of those "name links," which included "A," so that a possible theory could emerge that "A" was the conduit through which the syndicate became knowledgeable of both the AMLASH operation and the initial CIA efforts to eliminate Castro.

  197. The only basis for such a nexus between AMLASH and the 1960-62 CIA syndicate plots is based upon "A's" exile activities in June-July 1963.(265) Reports of these activities detailed his involvement with anti-Castro exiles and "underworld figures" who were operating the guerrilla training camp in New Orleans in July 1963.

  198. The "underworld figures" reference related to Michael and William McLaney, who have been considerd organized crime affiliates by some law enforcement and media personnel. Again, however, no evidence from any source places either of the McLaney brothers into the early CIA plots to kill Castro or into the AMLASH operation. A review of the June-July 1963 activities of McLaney and "A" led only to the inference that their operation was a private limited venture with no agency or syndicate support and little chance of success.

  199. Since the Senate did not interview either of the McLaney brothers or "A" nor ask principals of the 1960-62 plots of their knowledge of or relationship to McLaney or "A" the question of organized crime knowledge of the full range of CIA Castro plots was based on little investigation. What little "evidence" there is consists partially of "A's" admission to being friends with "Cappy" Rothman, norman Rothman's son, and of "A's" casual knowledge of American gamblers gained from his visits to Havana casinos during his student days. There is no evidence, however, that Rothman, or any other associate of "A", were knowledgeable of the AMLASH or CIA-organized crime operations.

  200. Other evidence pertains to Mike McLaney's ties to organized crime, which have been investigated within Federal law enforcement agencies since the 1950's. No solid evidence, however, has linked him to Trafficante, Roselli, or Giancana, possibly because McLaney has most frequently been mentioned with Meyer Lansky. To establish a link between McLaney and the principals in the 1960-62 plots, requires a series of hurdles that include:

    1. Meyer lansky was a plotter with Trafficante;
    2. McLaney was Lansky's "action" man; and
    3. The various underworld figures acted in concert in promotinganti-Castro operations.

  201. These premises are not easily supportable with facts. Consequently, there is no evidence to support a possible "A" link.

    5. DEATHS OF ROSELLI AND GIANCANA

  202. As indicated earlier, both Sam Giancana and John Roselli were murdered: Sam Giancana was shot in the basement of his home in Chicago in June 1975, just prior to his scheduled testimony before the SSC regarding the CIA-organized crime plots; John Roselli's butchered body was found inside an oil drum which was floating in Key Biscayne Bay, Fla., in August 1976, shortly after his testimony before the SSC regarding the CIA-organized crime plots.

  203. Various theories have surfaced concerning why they were killed and who was responsible. One theory relevant to this investigation is that Giancana and Roselli were killed because of their participation in the Castro assassination plots and the SSC attempts to elicit information on the plots. In this regard, Trafficante has most often been the person assigned responsibility for the deaths. On the other hand, the Justice Department informed the committee that it believes that organized crime performed the murders for reasons that were unrelated to the CIA-organized crime plots.(266)

  204. The Justice Department is still investigating both murders. The committee has not uncovered evidence relevant to solving these murders. It is likely, however, that a variety of motivations inspired the deaths. These motivations included internal mob conflict, especially in the case of Giancana, and participation and knowledge of the CIA-organized crime plots.

  205. It is quite possible that Trafficante approved of and assisted in the murder of John Roselli. Trafficante's motivation could have been to maintain a low profile in connection with the CIA plots and to prevent disclosure of other unknown persons involved in the plots as well as other operations and activities which an investigation of the plots might uncover. This does not mean that such activities were necessarily connected to the assassination of President Kennedy. For instance, Trafficante may have wished to protect a covert relationship with Castro that may have entailed his running contraband through Cuba into the United States.

  206. Consequently, although the deths of Roselli and Giancana may have been related to the CIA-organized crime operations, they are not necessarily related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

    6. CIA ACTIONS IN CONCEALING THE REACTIVATION AND CONTINUATION OF THE ASSASSINATION PLOTS FROM ATTORNEY GENERAL ROBERT F. KENNEDY

  207. From an examination of the CIA's use of organized crime in assassination conspiracies against Castro, it appears that the Agency concealed the continuation of those plots in 1962 and 1963 from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

  208. As already indicated in section II, part B, Attorney General Kennedy had been told of the pre-Bay of Pigs phase of the plots during a CIA briefing on May 7, 1962.(267) Rather than the CIA volunteering this information about the existence of such plots, the meeting had come about when Attorney General Kennedy had inadvertently learned that the CIA had secretly utilized the services of former FBI Agent Robert Maheu and Chicago Mafia leader Sam Giancana a year earlier.(268) This information had surfaced during the course of a wiretap prosecution against Maheu; a prosecution the Agency had warned might "result in most damaging embarrassment to the U.S. Government."(269)

  209. During the briefing CIA officials Sheffield Edwards and Lawrence Houston informed Kennedy about the Agency's use of the underworld in a 1960-61 plot to assassinate Castro.(270) As the CIA's own evidence and internal records of the plots has shown, as well as the Senate committee's investigation of the matter, Edwards and Houston told Attorney General Kennedy that the assassination efforts against Castro had begun during the Eisenhower administration, had climaxed at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and "had been terminated completely."(271)

  210. Yet, as the CIA (272) and Senate evidence makes clear, and as the committee's investigation has confirmed, the CIA-organized crime plots were actually being reactivated and intensified at the very time that Agency officials were telling Attorney General Kennedy that they had been "terminated." (273) In the I.G. Report, it was noted that:

    The Attorney General was not told that the gambling syndicate (assassination) operation had already been reactivated, nor, as far as we know, was he ever told that CIA had a continuing involvement with U.S. gangster elements. (274)

  211. While noting the accuracy and veracity of the preceding conclusion from the I.G. Report other statements in the I.G. Report that seemingly attempt to justify, excuse, or even deny the CIA's concealment of this important information about the plots from Attorney General Kennedy have been disturbing.

  212. Lawrence Houston, the CIA's former general counsel, testified in 1975 that Attorney General Kennedy had voiced strong anger over the CIA's use of the Mafia during his briefing by Edwards and Houston on May 7, 1962. (275) Houston, who testified that while Edwards was familiar with the plots, he (Houston) was not, stated that Kennedy had specifically ordered that he be personally notified before the Agency ever considered utilizing organized crime figures again.(276) Houston testified: "If you have ever seen Mr. Kennedy's eyes get steely and his jaw set and his voice get low and precise, you get a definite feeling of unhappiness."(227) Houston testified thatKennedy had stated, "I trust that if you ever try to do business with organized crime again-with gangsters-you will let the Attorney General know."(278) Former Office of Security Director Edwards similarly testified that Kennedy had demanded, "I want you to let me know about these things."(279)

  213. In the 1967 I.G. Report, it was noted that Attorney General Kennedy believed that as a result of the meeting, he would be told of any such future actions contemplated by the Agency. The Inspector General concluded, "From reports of the briefing, it is reasonable to assume that Kennedy believed he had such a commitment from Agency representatives."(280)

  214. The Inspector General's report then went on to conclude, however, that Edwards had "probably acted properly" in concealing knowledge of the reactivation and continuation of the Mafia plots from Robert F. Kennedy. The CIA report stated:

    The gambling syndicate operation had been taken from him, and, in retrospect, he probably acted properly in briefing the Attorney General on only that aspect of the operation for which he had been responsible and of which he had direct, personal knowledge. (281)

  215. One page later in the report, the Inspector General went on to state: The Attorney General on May 7, 1962, was given a full and frank account of the Agency's relations with Maheu, Roselli, and Giancana in the Castro operation * * *."(282) These inconsistencies in the Inspector General's report, the official Agency document on the CIA-Mafia assassination conspiracies, demonstrate a lack of good faith. The statement that Edwards "probably acted properly" in concealing the continuation of the murder plots from Attorney General Kennedy is misleading and inexcusable. This statement is all the moredisturbing when considering that the Inspector General's Office knew that Edwards' own assistant was then still involved in the plots, with Edwards' personal knowledge.(283) Further the I.G. Report's description of the briefing on May 7, 1962 as "full and frank" is also untruthful, in light of the reactivation and continuation of the plots under the direction of Deputy Director Richard Helms, CIA agent William Harvey, and mafia leader John Roselli. Additionally, the Inspector General also knew that Edwards had personally prepared a fraudulent internal memorandum for the files, in which he stated falsely that the assassination plot and utilization of john Roselli was being dropped.(284)

  216. The implications of the I.G. Report's conclusions about the adequacy and propriety of Sheffield Edwards and Lawrence Houston's May 1962 briefing of Attorney General Kennedy are serious. The Inspector General's Office was cognizant of the fact that Edwards had withheld-and thereby concealed- the continuation of the plots from the President's brother, Robert Kennedy, and more importantly, that this concealment of information concerning the Mafia murder plot was in direct disobedience to the Attorney General's personal direction.

  217. The concealment of the reactivation and continuation of the CIA-Mafia assassination plot from Attorney General Kennedy-and hence, in all likelihood President Kennedy- was serious. The Inspector General's apparent endorsement and justification of such concealment in the report prepared for Director Helms in 1967 is also troublesome.

  218. The Agency's withholding of information pertaining to the CIA-Mafia assassination attempts from the Warren Commission becomes all the more troubling when the withholding of the same matters from the Attorney General (who did ask for such information in 1962) is considered.

  219. While the propriety of these Agency actions in 1962 and 1964 must be seriously questioned, the judgments and statements of the I.G. Report must be weighed just as seriously. As the most important embodiment of internal checks and balances within the Agency, the Inspector General's Office is intended to serve the function of conducting official internal reviews and investigations of potential wrongdoing and internal abuse. The findings and judgments of the Inspector General have long been integral to the continuing integrity andwell being of the Agency's operations and activities.

  220. Consequently, the judgments reached by the Inspector General in 1967 regarding the propriety of Sheffield Edwards' actions in the briefing of Attorney General Kennedy about the assassination plots in May of 1962 tainted the function of the Office of the inspector General. To state in 1967 that Edwards had "probably acted properly" in withholding the important information that he did, and to characterize the May 7 briefing as "full and frank," represents a serious mistake in judgment. As former Director Richard helms described the plots themselves, it is "not* * *very savory."(285)

    Submitted by:
    T. MARK FLANAGAN, Jr.,
    Researcher.

    REFERENCES

    (1) The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies, book V, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, April 23, 1976, p.2. Senate No.94-755 (hereinafter cited as Book V).
    (2) The complete details of the AMLASH and CIA-organized crime plots can be reviewed in book V and Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, Interim Report, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, November 20, 1975, Senate Report No.94-465 (hereinafter cited as interim report).
    (3) 1967 Report of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency, p.14
    (hereinafter cited as I.G. Report); Interim Report at p.74.
    (4) See generally, I.G. Report
    (5) Id. at pp. 3, 14.
    (6) Id. at p. 3.
    (7) Id. at p. 15.
    (8) Ibid.
    (9) Ibid.
    (10) Ibid., p. 16. There is some disagreement between Robert Maheu and the Support Chief over who suggested that Roselli be contacted; each believes the other did. In any event, Maheu initiated the contact with Roselli.
    (11) Id. at p. 19.
    (12) Ibid.
    (13) Id. at p. 20.
    (14) Id. at p. 25.
    (15) Id. at p. 27.
    (16) Ibid.
    (17) Ibid.
    (18) Id. at p. 28.
    (19) Id. at p. 29.
    (20) Id. at p. 31.
    (21) Id. at p. 32.
    (22) The CIA contends that the plots were dormant after the Bay of Pigs
    (see fn. 6). The possibility exists, however, that the plots were an on-going operation.
    (23) I.G. Report, p. 39.
    (24) Interim Report, p. 83.
    (25) I.G. Report, p. 48.
    (26) Id. at pp.47,49.
    (27) Id. at p. 49.
    (28) Id. at p. 51.
    (29) Ibid.
    (30) Id. at p. 52.
    (31) Interim Report, p. 77.
    (32) Interim Report, pp. 78-79.
    (33) FBI memorandum to Sullivan from Wannall, "CIA's Intention to Send Hoodlums to Cuba to Assassinate Castro," March 6, 1967.
    (34) FBI blank letterhead memorandum to the Attorney General from the Director, FBI, March 6, 1967.
    (35) Interim Report, p. 79.
    (36) Interview with Edward Pierpont morgan, HSCA, June 22, 1978, p. 1
    (JFK document No. 009530).
    (37) Ibid.
    (38) Ibid.
    (39) Interim Report, footnote 4, at p. 85.
    (40) Ibid.
    (41) Ibid.
    (42) Ibid.
    (43) Ibid.
    (44) Ibid. See also Deposition of Robert Maheu, August 8, 1978, HSCA, p. 30 (J.F.K. document No. 012926), in which Maheu discusses the issue of Roselli using Agency connections as assistance in court proceedings. Maheu stated that Roselli's attorney called him to ask him to participate in a statement to be submitted in the Friar's Club case regarding Roselli's involvement in the CIA-organized crime plots.
    (45) Book V, p.14.
    (46) Ibid.
    (47) See fn.36, Interview of Morgan, p.3. 190
    (48) Book V, p. 80.
    (49) See fn. 36, Interview of Morgan, p.2.
    (50) Id. at p.3.
    (51) Book V, p.82.
    (52) Ibid. The I.G. Report noted in reference to the release of these plots that: Pearson's "ultimate source," Roselli, knows more about certain details of the gambling syndicate operation than we do, and he evidently has talked (I.G. Report, p.126).
    (53) FBI airtel, to Director, FBI, from SAC Washington Field Office, March 21, 1967, FBI document No.62-109060-4839.
    (54) Ibid., p. 3.
    (55) Ibid. It should be noted that during this time, march 1967, Roselli met with Jim Garrison in Las Vegas. Garrison, of course, was then in the midst of his highly publicized trial into the death of President Kennedy. The I.G. Report stated: The Roselli-Garrison contact in Las Vegas in March is particularly disturbing (I.G. Report, p.127).
    (56) Book V, pp.6,85,86.
    (57) Id. at pp.85-86.
    (58) I.G. Report, pp.101-103.
    (59) Id. at p. 103.
    (60) Id. at p. 104.
    (61) The Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1971, section B, p.7; Jan. 19, 1971, section D,p.15.
    (62) Interim Report, footnote 4, at p.85.
    (63) Ibid.
    (64) Book V, p. 1.
    (65) Id. at p.68.
    (66) Ibid.
    (67) Id. at p.5.
    (68) Id. at p.2.
    (69) Ibid.
    (70) 1977 Task Force Report, Central Intelligence Agency, pp.1,2 (hereinafter cited as T.F. Report).
    (71) Ibid., tab A, at pp.1-2.
    (72) Paul Meskill, New York Daily News, Apr. 20, 1975.
    (73) Paul Meskill, New York Daily News, Apr. 21, 1975.
    (74) Paul Meskill, New York Daily News, Apr. 21, 1975 and Apr. 23, 1975.
    (75) Paul Meskill, New York Daily News, June 13, 1976.
    (76) Book V, p.80.
    (77) T.F. Report, tab C,p.15.
    (78) Ibid., tab C, p. 17.
    (79) Id. at p. 19.
    (80) Id. at p. 18.
    ( (81) T.F. Report, at tab C, p. 19.
    (82) Id. at p. 20.
    (83) Ibid.
    (84) Ibid.
    (85) T.F. Report, tab D, p. 1.
    (86) Ibid.
    (87) Id. at pp. 1, 2.
    (88) Ibid.
    (89) Id. at p. 5.
    (90) Ibid.
    (91) Ibid.
    (92) Id. at p. 8.
    (93) Id. at p. 8.
    (94) Ibid.
    (95) Ibid.
    (96) Id. at p. 9.
    (97) Ibid.
    (98) Ibid.
    (99) Id. at p. 10.
    (100) Id. at p. 11.
    (101) Id. at p. 13.
    (102) Id. at p. 14.
    (103) Id. at p. 15.
    (104) Id. at p. 16.
    (105) Ibid.
    (106) Ibid.
    (107) T. F. Report, p. 10.
    (108) Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, "Behind John F. Kennedy's Murder," The Washington Post, Sept. 7, 1976; "CIA Withheld Data in J.F.K. Probe," The Washington Post, Sept. 9, 1976; "Roselli Points From His Grave," The Washington Post, Oct. 23, 1978; "The Story Behind Trafficante's Testimony on J.F.K. Assassination," The Washington Post, Oct. 2, 1978.
    (109) For this reason information previously footnoted in this report which is used in the following analysis may not be cited again.
    (110) Executive session testimony of Richard Helms, Aug. 9, 1978, hearings before the house Select Committee on Assassinations,pp.26-27.
    (111) See reference No. 106.
    (112) Affidavit of Joseph Langosch, Sept. 14, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1.
    (113) Book V, pp. 3, 8, 79.
    (114) Ibid.
    (115) Affidavit of Joseph Langosch, Sept. 14, 1978, p.4.
    (116) Ibid.
    (117) Affidavit of Kent L Pollock, Oct. 5, 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1.
    (118) Ibid., par. 3, p. 2.
    (119) Ibid., par. 4, p. 2.
    (120) Interview of Fidel Castro Ruz, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Apr. 3, 1978, pp.38,39 (J.F.K. Document No. 011776).
    (121) Id. at p.40.
    (122) Id. at pp.2,3.
    (123) Interim Report, p.173.
    (124) Id. at p. 174.
    (125) Ibid.
    (126) Ibid.
    (127) Ibid.; see in particular p.76.
    (128) Interim Report, p.76; fn.1.
    (129) Deposition of Robert Maheu, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Aug. 8, 1978, p.18 (J.F.K. Document No. 012926).
    (130) Immunized testimony of Santos Trafficante, Sept. 28, 1978, hearing before House Select Committee on Assassinations, 95th Congress, 2d Session
    (Washington, D.C.; U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), volume V, p.361.
    (131) Affidavit of the Support Chief, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Sept. 25, 1978, pp. 7, 8.
    (132) Id. at p. 8.
    (133) Ibid.
    (134) I.G. Report at p. 19.
    (135) Deposition of Robert Maheu, Aug. 8, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 17 (J.F.K. Document No. 012926).
    (136) Interim Report, p. 77.
    (137) Ibid., footnote 1, p. 77.
    (138) Jack Anderson, "The Untold Story: Our Government's Crackdown on Organized Crime," The Washington Post, Parade magazine, Jan. 21, 1962.
    (139) Such a distinction is invailid: the action of dealing with any criminal sources in a plot to kill is reprehensible enough.
    (140) Interim Report, p.74.
    (141) Id. at p.74.
    (142) Ibid.
    (143) Affidavit of the Support Chief, House Select Committee on Assas-sinations, Sept. 25, 1978, p.12.
    (144) Ibid.
    (145) Both Maheu and the Support Chief attribute each other with suggesting that John Roselli be recruited. See Interim Report, p.75.
    (146) Interim Report, p.75.
    (147) Interim Report, p.77.
    (148) Ibid.
    (149) Interview of Joseph Shimon, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Aug. 17, 1978, p.4 (J.F.K. document No. 013889). See also Interview of Joseph Shimon, British Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 19, 1977, p.6. 192
    (150) See footnote 149: Interview of Joseph Shimon, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.4; BBC Interview, p.2.
    (151) This contention refers only to the CIA-organized crime plots and not to any independent operation that Giancana may have been involved in.
    (152) I.G. Report, p.25.
    (153) Id. at p.27.
    (154) Id. at p.29.
    (155) Ibid.
    (156) Id. at p.31.
    (157) See ref. 130,immunized testimony of Santos Trafficante, Sept. 28, 1978, volume V, p.361.
    (158) Id. at p.365.
    (159) Id. at p.363.
    (160) Id. at p.365.
    (161) Testimony of John Roselli, Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, June 24, 1975,p.20.
    (162) Affidavit of the Support Chief, Sept. 25, 1978, p.17.
    (163) I.G. Report, p.19.
    (164) Support Chief, p.17.
    (165) Executive session testimony of Cuban exile leader, hearings before House Select Committee on Assassinations, Mar. 16, 1978, p.58.
    (166) I.G. Report, p.43.
    (167) Id. at p.48.
    (168) Ibid.
    (169) Ibid.
    (170) Id. at p.49.
    (171) Id. at p.27.
    (172) Interview of Joseph Shimon, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p.3 (J.F.K. Document 013889).
    (173) Ibid.
    (174) Ibid.
    (175) See reference 110, Testimony of Richard Helms, volume IV, pp.5-250.
    (176) I.G. Report, p.19.
    (177) See file on Santos Trafficante at the Department of State.
    (178) See ref. 130, Immunized Testimony of Santos Trafficante, volume V.
    (179) I.G. Report, p.29.
    (180) See ref. 165, executive session testimony of Cuban exile leader, hearings before House Select Committee on Assassinations, Mar. 16, 1978, pp. 7,10.
    (181) Id. at p.10.
    (182) I.G. Report, p.30.
    (183) See reference 180, executive session testimony of Cuban exile leader.
    (184) Ibid.
    (185) T.F. Report, tab C, p.19.
    (186) I.G. Report, p.18.
    (187) Interim Report, ref. 2, p.76.
    (188) Ibid.
    (189) FBI memorandum, Oct. 18, 1960, to the Director, CIA, from J. Edgar Hoover, subject: "Anti-Castro Activities IS-CUBA,"file No. 109-584-2053.
    (190) FBI report, Mar. 8, 1973, Richard Cain file, 92-12846-11.
    (191) Ibid. Cain's superiors dismissed him from office in 1964 when Cain went to trial in a drug case investigation. After 1964, Cain traveled extensively with Giancana throughout the world and also served a 3-year sentence in the Texarkana Federal penitentiary following a 1969 conviction for conspiracy in the 1963 robbery of Franklin Park Bank, Illinois. As a result of the bank robbery Cain became a target of the TOP echelon criminal informant program. Early in his career, Cain established a reputation for experience in sabotage, polygraphs, and electronic surveillance. Cain was reportedly fluent in Italian and Spanish and traveled extensively throughout Latin America. In 1973, Cain was slain in gagland fashion in a Chicago restaurant. See generally FBI file on Richard Scallzetti Cain, file 92-12846. (192) CIA memorandum to FBI, Nov. 4, 1960, to the Director, FBI, from Deputy Director of Plans, CIA, file No. 105-93264-2, subject: Cain.
    (193) FBI letterhead memorandum, Nov. 2, 1960, office: Chicago, Ill; subject: Anti-Fidel Castro Activities-Internal Security-Cuba; file No. 105-93264; also contained in Richard Cain file, which was supplied to House Select Committee on Assassinations. See also FBI report, Dec. 1, 1960, Chicago, Ill., subject: Accurate Detective Laboratory, aka, Cain Investigation, file No. 139-1403-3.
    (194) Ibid.
    (195) Ibid.
    (196) FBI blank letterhead airtel, Nov. 3, 1960, to the Director from SAC, Miami, subject: Military and naval Matters-Cuba; file No. 105-93264.
    (197) Ibid.
    (198) Ibid.
    (199) Ibid.
    (200) Ibid.
    (201) See reference 191.
    (202) FBI report, Apr. 11,1961, subject: Arthur James Balletti, p.3, con- tained in House Select Committee on Assassinations request to FBI of Aug.10, 1978. See also Dec.23,1960 FBI interview of Balletti contained in FBI report, Jan.28,1961, Arthur James Balletti, J.W. Harrison, file No.139-1201-15.
    (203) FBI report, jan.28,1961, Arthur james Balletti, J. W. Harrison, file No.139-1201-15, p.4 (interview of Edward DuBois).
    (204) Outside Contact Report of Support Chief, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Sept. 19, 1978 (J.F.K. Document No. 012367).
    (205) Interview of Robert Maheu on June 2, 1961 contained in FBI report, June 9, 1961, subject: Balletti, Unknown Subject; file No. 139-1201-50.
    (206) Deposition of Robert maheu, Aug. 8, 1978, p.42 (J.F.K. document No. 012926).
    (207) Interim Report, p.79.
    (208) Interview of Joseph Shimon, Aug. 17, 1978, p.5 (J.F.K. document No. 013889).
    (209) See reference 44, deposition of Robert Maheu, p.46.
    (210) Outside contact report of Arthur Balletti, Aug. 14, 1978, p.3 (J.F.K. document No. 010826).
    (211) Outside contact report, review of FBI file, Mar. 16, 1979 (J.F.K. document No. 014932).
    (212) See footnote 44, deposition of Robert Maheu, p.40.
    (213) T. F. Report at p.20. To support the proposition further that organized crime may have had separate plots in progress before the CIA-Mafia plots, it is interesting to note the series of news articles during July and August of 1960 that related a serious "sickness" Castro was combatting. The Cuban Government said the sickness was pneumonia. See articles in the New York Times, July 11, 12, 31, Aug. 1, 7, and 11, 1960.
    (214) I.G. Report, p.50.
    (215) Id. at p.51.
    (216) Ibid.
    (217) Id. at p.74, where the CIA states that Maheu is aware of three times that the CIA intervened on Maheu's behalf to prevent any prosecution.
    (218) Id. at p.131.
    (219) House Select Committee on Assassinations staff interview of Richard Bissell, Dec. 15, 1978 (J.F.K. Document No. 014997).
    (220) "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders," p.74.
    (221) Staff interview of Richard Bissell, Dec. 15, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. document No. 014997).
    (222) Ibid.
    (223) Ibid.
    (224) Ibid.
    (225) Ibid.
    (226) "Alleged Assassination Plots," p.102.
    (227) Id. at p.69. The 1967 Inspector General's report took note of the leverage that those involved in the murder plots had attained as a result of their association with the CIA. In one section of the report (pages 128-129) titled, "Should we try to silence those who are talking or might later?" (emphasis theirs), the Inspector General's Office noted that one or more of the conspirators, most likely John Roselli, was then leaking information about the plots to newsmen Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. The report discussed the possibility that Agency pressure could be brought to bear on Roselli and the others to preserve the secrecy of the past assassination plots. The report went on to note that, "None of them would have compunctions about dragging in his CIA connection when he was being pushed by law enforcement authorities." (228) Id. at p.133.
    (229) Ibid.
    (230) Ibid.
    (231) Ibid.
    (232) Staff interview of Richard Bissell, Dec. 15, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. Document No. 014997).
    (233) "Alleged Assassination Plots," pp. 84-85, 99-103.
    (234) Id. at p.100.
    (235) Id. at p.101.
    (236) Id. at p.106.
    (237) Id. at p.105.
    (238) Id. at p.102.
    (239) Staff interview of Richard Bissell, Dec. 15, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (J.F.K. document No. 014997).
    (240) Ibid.
    (241) Ibid.
    (242) Ibid.
    (243) Ibid.
    (244) Ibid.
    (245) Ibid.
    (246) Ibid.
    (247) Ibid.
    (248) Ibid.
    (249) Ibid.
    (250) Ibid.
    (251) Ibid.
    (252) Book V,p.68.
    (253) Castro report, Senator George McGovern (J.F.K.document No. 000593).
    (254) See generally, FBI files pertaining to Norman Rothman: File No. 87-57043, file No.97-4030, volumes 3,5,6.
    (255) FBI files on norman Rothman; see specifically FBI Interview of Norman Rothman, June 29, 1961, SA John P. Lenchin and George E. Davis, Jr.
    (256) Ibid.
    (257) Deposition of Norman Rothman, Apr. 6, 1978, p.56 (J.F.K. document No. 007235).
    (258) Id. at p.68.
    (259) I.G. Report, p.80.
    (260) Id. at pp.103-104.
    (261) Ibid.
    (262) Ibid.
    (263) Book V, pp.11-14;I.G. Report, p.105.
    (264) I.G. Report, p.105.
    (265) Book V, pp.11-14; I.G. Report, p.105.
    (266) Outside contact report, Edward Sharp, Department of Justice Special Investigations Division, June 7, 1978 (J.F.K. Document No. 009888).
    (267) Interim Report, pp.131-132.
    (268) Ibid.
    (269) Ibid.
    (270) Ibid.
    (271) Id. at p.74.
    (272) Id. at p.132.
    (273) Id. at pp.83-84,133.
    (274) Id. at p. 133. The Inspector General sets forth Robert F. Kennedy's partial knowledge of the plots in a similar manner in another section of the 1967 report. In an analysis of the newspaper column by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson in 1967, in which it was stated that, "Robert Kennedy may have approved (the) plot," the Inspector General's report disagreed with that statement. The report stated: "Not true. He was briefed on Gambling Syndicate-Phase One after it was over. he was not briefed on Phase Two." The report went on to state (pp.118-119) that Pearson and Anderson had "a garbled account of the role played by Robert Kennedy." (275) Interim Report, p.133.
    (276) Ibid.
    (277) Ibid.
    (278) Ibid.
    (279) Ibid.
    (280) I.G. Report, p.64.
    (281) Id. at pp.64-65.
    (282) Id. at p.66.
    (283) Interim Report, p.134.
    (284) Ibid.
    (285) Id. at p.103.

    ROSE CHERAMIE

    Staff Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives Ninety-fifth Congress Second Session
    ROSE CHERAMIE

  1. According to accounts of assassinations researchers, a woman known as Rose Cheramie, a heroin addict and prostitute with a long history of arrests, was found on November 20, 1963, lying on the road near Eunice, La., bruised and disoriented.(1) She was taken to the Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, La., to recover from her injuries and what appeared to be narcotics withdrawal.(2) Cheramine reportedly told the attending physician that President Kennedy was going to be killed during his forthcoming visit to Dallas.(3) The doctor did not pay much attention to the ravings of a patient going "cold turkey" until after the President was assassinated 2 days later.(4) State police were called in and Cheramie was questioned at length.(5) She reportedly told police officers she had been a stripper in Jack Ruby's night club and was transporting a quantity of heroin from Florida to Houston at Ruby's insistence when she quarreled with two men also participating in the dope run.(6) Cheramie said the men pushed her out of a moving vehicle and left her for dead.(7) After the assassination, Cheramie maintained Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald had known each other well.(8) She said she had seen Oswald at Ruby's night club and claimed Oswald and Ruby had been homosexual partners.(9)

  2. Ironically, the circustances of Rose Cheramie's death are strikingly similar to the circumstances surrounding her original involvement in the assassination investigation. Cheramie died of injuries received from an automobile accident on a strip of highway near Big Sandy, Tex., in the early morning of September 4, 1965.(10) The driver stated Cheramie had been lying in the roadway and although he attempted to avoid hitting her, he ran over the top of her skull, causing fatal injuries.(11) An investigation into the accident and the possibility of a relationship between the victim and the driver produced no evidence of foul play.(12) The case was closed.(13)

  3. Although Cheramie's allegations were eventually discounted, her death 2 years later prompted renewed speculation about her story. It was noted, for example, that over 50 individuals who had been associated with the investigation of the Kennedy assassination had died within 3 years of that event.(14) The deaths, by natural or other causes, were labeled "mysterious" by Warren Commission critics and the news media.(15) The skeptics claim that the laws of probability would show the number of deaths is so unlikely as to be highly suspect.(16) As detailed elsewhere, the committee studied such claims and determined they were erroneous.(17) Nevertheless, allegations involving Rose Cheramie, often counted among the "mysterious" deaths, was of particular interest to the committee, since it indicated a possible association of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby; an association of these individuals with members of organized crime; and possible connection between Cheramie's confinement at the State Hospital in Jackson, La. and Oswald's search for employment there in the summer of 1963.

  4. The committee set out to obtain a full account of the Cheramie allegations and determine whether her statements could be at all corroborated. The committee interviewed and deposed pertinent witnesses. Files from U.S. Customs and the FBI were requested. Information developed during the investigation by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison was examined. Records of Cheramie's hospitalization at the East Louisiana State Hospital were studied.

  5. Hospital records indicate Melba Christine Marcades, alias Rose Cheramie, was brought to the State Hospital in Jackson, La. by police from Eunice on November 21, 1963 and officially admitted at 6 a.m.(18) She was originally from Houston, Tex., where her mother still lived.(19) She was approximately 34 years old in 1963, had used many aliases throughout her lifetime and had lived many years in Louisiana and Texas.(20)

  6. According to the clinical notes, the deputy accompanying Cheramie said the patient had been "picked up on [the] side of [the] road and had been given something by the coroner."(21) The coroner in Eunice was contacted by doctors at the hospital and he told them Cheramie had been coherent when he spoke with her at 10:30 p.m., November 20, but he did administer a sedative.(22) He further indicated that Cheramie was a 9-year mainlining heroin addict, whose last injection had been around 2 p.m., November 20.(23) The doctors notedthat Cheramie's condition upon initial examination indicated heroin withdrawal and clinical shock.(24)

  7. Relevant to Cheramie's credibility was an assessment of her mental state. From November 22 to November 24, Cheramie required close attention and medication.(25) On November 25 she was transferred to the ward.(26) On November 27 she was released to Louisiana State Police Lieutenant Fruge.(27)

  8. The hospital records gave no reference as to alleged statements made by Cheramie or why she was released to Lieutenant Fruge on November 27, 1963. These records do indicate Cheramie had been hospitalized for alcoholism and narcotics addiction on other occasions, including commitment to the same hospital in March 1961 by the criminal court of New Orleans.(28) During this stay, the woman was diagnosed as". . . without psychosis. However, because of her previous record of drug addiction she may have a mild integrative andpleasure defect."(29) Her record would show she has "intervals of very good behavior" but at other times she "presents episodically psychopathic behavior" indicative in her history of drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, arrest on numerous, if minor, charges.(30)

  9. The committee interviewed one of the doctors on staff at East Louisiana State Hospital who had seen Cheramie during her stay there at the time of the Kennedy assassination.(31) The doctor corroborated aspects of the Cheramie allegations. Dr. Victor Weiss verified that he was employed as a resident physician at the hospital in 1963.(32) He recalled that on Monday, November 25,1963, he was asked by another physician, Dr. Bowers, to see a patient who had been committed November 20 or 21.(33) Dr. Bowers allegedly told Weiss that the patient, Rose Cheramie, had stated before the assassination that PresidentKennedy was going to be killed.(34) Weiss questioned Cheramie about her statements.(35) She told him she had worked for Jack Ruby. She did not have any specific details of a particular assassination plot against Kennedy, but had stated the "word in the underworld" was that Kennedy would be assassinated.(36) She further stated that she had been traveling from Florida to her home in Texas when the man traveling with her threw her from the automobile in which they were riding.(37)

  10. Francis Fruge, a lieutenant with the Louisiana State Police in 1963, was the police officer who first came to Cheramie's assistance on November 20, 1963, had her committed to the State Hospital, and later released her into his custody following the assassination to investigate her allegations.(38) As such, he provided an account further detailing her allegations and the official response to her allegations.

  11. Fruge was deposed by the committee on April 18, 1978.(39) He told the committee he was called on november 20, 1963 by an administrator at a private hospital in Eunice, La. that a female accident victim had been taken there for treatment.(40) She had been treated for minor abrasions, and although she appeared to be under the influence of drugs since she had "no financial basis" she was to be released.(41) Fruge did what he normally did in such instances. As the woman required no further medical attention, he put her in a jail cell to sober up.(42) This arrangement did not last long. The woman bega to display severe symptoms of withdrawal.(43) Fruge said he called a doctor, who sedat-ed Chereamie and Fruge transported Cheramie to the State hospital in Jackson, La.(44)

  12. Fruge said that during the "1 to 2 hour" ride to Jackson, he asked Cheramie some "routine" questions.(45) Fruge told the committee:

    She related to me that she was coming from Florida to Dallas with women who were Italians or resembled Italians. They had stopped at this lounge . . . and they'd had a few drinks and had gotten into an argument or something. The manager of the lounge threw her out and she got on the road and hitchhiked to catch a ride, and this is when she got hit by a vehicle. (46)

    Fruge said the lounge was a house of prostitution called the Silver Slipper.(47) Fruge asked Cheramie what she was going to do in Dallas: "She said she was going to, number one, pick up some money, pick up her baby, and to kill Kennedy."(48) Fruge claimed during these intervals that Cheramie related the story she appeared to be quite lucid.(49) Fruge had Cheramie admitted to the hospital late on November 20.(50)

  13. On November 22, when he heard the President had been assassinated, Fruge said he immediately called the hospital and told them not to release Cheramie until he had spoken to her.(51) The hospital administrators assented but said Fruge would have to wait until the following Monday before Cheramie would be well enough to speak to anyone.(52) Fruge waited. Under questioning, Cheramie told Fruge that the two men traveling with her from Miami were going to Dallas to kill the President.(53) For her part, Cheramie was to obtain $8,000 from an unidentified source in Dallas and proceed to houston with thetwo men to complete a drug deal.(54) Cheramie was also supposed to pick up her little boy from friends who had been looking after him.(55)

  14. Cheramie further supplied detailed accounts of the arrangement for the drug transaction in Houston.(56) She said reservations had been made at the Rice Hotel in Houston.(57) The trio was to meet a seaman who was bringing in 8 kilos of heroin to Galveston by boat.(58) Cheramie had the name of the seaman and the boat he was arriving on.(59) Once the deal was completed, the trio would proceed to Mexico.(60)

  15. Fruge told the committee that he repeated Cheramie's story to his supervisors and asked for instructions.(61) He was told to follow up on it.(62) Fruge promptly took Cheramie into custody-as indicated in hospital records-and set out to check her story.(63) He contacted the chief customs agent in Galveston who reportedly verified the scheduled docking of the boat and the name of the seaman.(64) Fruge believed the customs agent was also able to verify the name of the man in Dallas who was holding Cheramie's son.(65) Fruge recalled that the customs agent had tailed the seaman as he disembarked from the boat, but then lost the man's trail.(70) Customs closed the case.(71)

  16. Fruge had also hoped to corroborate other statements made by Cheramie. During a flight from houston, according to Fruge, Cheramie noticed a newspaper with headlines indicating investigators had not been able to establish a relationship between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald.(72) Cheramie laughed at the headline, Fruge said.(73) Cheramie told him she had worked for Ruby, of "Pinky," as she knew him, at his night club in Dallas and claimed Ruby and Oswald "had been shacking up for years.(74) Fruge said he calledCapt. Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department with this information.(75) Fritz answered, he wasn't interested.(76) Fritz and the Louisiana State Police dropped the investigation into the matter.(77)

  17. Four years later, however, investigators from the office of District Attorney Garrison in New Orleans contacted Fruge.(78) Fruge went on detail to Garrison's office to assist in the investigation into the Kennedy assassination.(79)

  18. During the course of the New Orleans D.A.'s investigation Fruge was able to pursue leads in the Cheramie case that he had not checked out in the original investigation. Although there appeared to be different versions as to how Cheramie ended up by the side of the road, and the number and identity of her companions, Fruge attempted to corroborate the version she had given him. Fruge spoke with the owner of the Silver Slipper Lounge.(80) The bar owner, a Mr. Mac Manual since deceased, told Fruge that Cheramie had come in with two men who the owner knew as pimps engaged in the business of hauling prostitutes in from Florida.(81) When Cheramie became intoxicated and rowdy, one of the men "slapped her around" and threw her outside.(82)

  19. Fruge claims that he showed the owner of the bar a "stack" of photographs and mug shots to identify.(83) According to Fruge the barowner chose the photos of a Cuban exile, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and another Cuban Fruge believed to be named Osanto.(84) Arcacha Smith was known to Kennedy assassination investigators as an anti-Castro Cuban refugee who had been active in 1961 as the head of the New Orleans Cuban Revolutionary Front.(85) At that time, he befriended anti-Castro activist and commercial pilot David Ferrie, who was named and dismissed as a suspect in the Kennedy assassination within days of the President's death.(86) Ferrie and Arcacha Smith were also believed to have had ties with New Orleans organized crime figure Carlos Marcello.(87) Arcacha Smith moved from the New Orleans area in 1962 to go to Miami and later to settle in Houston.(88) The weekend following the assassination, Ferrie took a trip to Houston and Galveston for a little "rest and relaxation," while police searched New Orleans for him after receiving a tip he had been involved in the assassination.(89) The committee has found credible evidence indicating Ferrie and Oswald were seen together in August 1963 in the town of Clinton, La., 13 miles from the hospital in Jackson where Cheramie was treated and where Oswald reportedly sought employment. Allegations regarding Arcacha Smith and Ferrie and the committee's investigation are set forth in detail elsewhere in the Report. (90) Clearly, evidence of a link between Cheramie and Arcacha Smith would be highly significant, Arcacha Smith, however, denied any knowledge of Cheramie and her allegations. Other avenues of corroboration of Fruge's identification of Cheramie's traveling companion as Sergio Arcacha Smith and further substantiation of Cheramie's allegations remained elusive.

  20. U.S. Customs was unable to locate documents and reports related to its involvement in the Cheramie investigation although such involvement was not denied.(91) Nor could customs officials locate those agents named by Fruge as having participated in the original investigation, as they had since left the employ of the agency.(92)

  21. Since the FBI had never been notified by the Louisiana State Police and u.S. Customs of their interest in Cheramie, the FBI file did not have any reference to the Cheramie allegations of November 1963.(93) FBI files did give reference to the investigation of a tip from Melba Mercades, actually Rose Cheramie, in Ardmore, Okla. that she was en route to Dallas to deliver $2,600 worth of heroin to a man in Oak Cliff, Tex.(94) She was then to proceed to Galveston, Tex., to pick up a load of narcotics from a seaman on board a shipdestined for Galveston in the next few days.(95) She gave "detailed descriptions as to individuals, names, places, and amounts distributed."(96) Investigations were conducted by narcotics bureaus in Oklahoma and Texas and her information was found to be "erroneous in all respects."(97)

  22. A similar tale was told in 1965: FBI agents investigated a tip from Rozella Clinkscales, alias Melba Marcades, alias Rose Cheramie.(98) Like the stories told in 1963, Cheramie-Clinkscales claimed individuals associated with the syndicate were running prostitution rings in several southern cities such as Houston and Galveston, Tex., Oklahoma City, Okla. and Montgomery, Ala. by transporting hookers, including Cheramie-Clinkscales, from town to town.(99) Furthermore, she claimed she had information about a heroin deal operating from a New Orleans ship.(100) A call to the Coast Guard verified an ongoing narcotics investigation of the ship.(101) Other allegations made by Cheramie-Clinkscales could not be verified. Further investigation into Cheramie-Clinkscales revealed she had apparently previously furnished the FBI false information concerning her involvement in prostitution and narcotics matters and that she had been confined to a mental institution in Norman, Okla. on three occasions.(102) FBI agents decided to pursue the case no further.(103) The FBI indicated agents did not know of the death of their informant on September 4, 1965, occurring just 1 month after she had contacted the FBI. Louisiana State Police investigating Cheramie's fatal accident also apparently did not know of the FBI's interest in her.

    Submitted by,
    PATRICIA ORR, Researcher.

    REFERENCES

    (1) "The Bizarre Deaths Following JFK's Murder," Argosy. March 1977, Vol. 384, No.8, p.52 (JFK Document No. 002559).
    (2) Ibid.
    (3) Ibid.
    (4) Ibid.
    (5) Ibid.
    (6) Ibid.
    (7) Ibid.
    (8) Ibid.
    (9) Ibid.
    (10) Louisiana State Police Memo, from Lt. Francis Fruge, Parish of St. Landry, April 4, 1967, in (JFK Document No. 013520).
    (11) Ibid.
    (12) Ibid.
    (13) Ibid.
    (14) "The Bizarre Deaths. . ." See FN No. 1.
    (15) Ibid.
    (16) Ibid.
    (17) See Anti-Castro Cuban section of the Staff Reports.
    (18) East Louisiana State Hospital, Jackson, La., records for Melba Christine Marcades AKA Rose Cheramie, (JFK Document No. 006097).
    (19) Ibid.
    (20) Ibid. Note: FBI records list Cheramie's (Marcades) birthdate as October 14, 1932, in Dallas, Tex.(See FBI file No.166-1640 in JFK Document No. 012979).
    (21) Ibid.
    (22) Ibid.
    (23) Ibid.
    (24) Ibid.
    (25) Ibid.
    (26) Ibid.
    (27) Ibid.
    (28) Ibid.
    (29) Ibid.
    (30) Ibid.
    (31) HSCA Contact Report, July 5, 1978, Bob Buras (with Dr. Victor Weiss)
    (JFK Document No. 009699).
    (32) Ibid.
    (33) Ibid.
    (34) Ibid.
    (35) Ibid.
    (36) Ibid.
    (37) Ibid.
    (38) HSCA Contact Report, April 7, 1978, Bob Buras (with Mr. Francis Louis Fruge), p. 1 (JFK Document No. 014141).
    (39) HSCA Deposition of Francis Louis Fruge, April 18, 1978 (JFK Document No. 014570).
    (40) Id. at p. 4-5.
    (41) Id. at p. 5.
    (42) Ibid.
    (43) Id. at p. 6.
    (44) Ibid.
    (45) Id. at p. 8.
    (46) Ibid.
    (47) Id. at p. 9.
    (48) Id. at p.13.
    (49) Ibid.
    (50) Ibid.
    (51) Id. at p.12.
    (52) Ibid.
    (53) Id. at p.13.
    (54) Id. at p.14.
    (55) Ibid.
    (56) Ibid.
    (57) Ibid.
    (58) Ibid.
    (59) Ibid.
    (60) Ibid.
    (61) Ibid.
    (62) Id. at p. 15.
    (63) Id. at p. 17; East Louisiana State hospital, Jackson, La., records for Melba Christine Marcades AKA Rose Cheramie (JFK Document No. 006097).
    (64) HSCA Deposition of Francis Louis Fruge, April 18, 1978, p.20 (JFK Document No. 014570).
    (65) Id. at p. 22.
    (66) Ibid.
    (67) Id. at p. 18.
    (68) Id. at p. 22.
    (69) Id. at p. 23.
    (70) Ibid.
    (71) Ibid.
    (72) Id. at p. 19.
    (73) Ibid.
    (74) Ibid. Note: Fruge also indicated the Club was called the "Pink Door," although ruby is not known to have ever had a club by this name. See also, Louisiana State Police Memo., April 4, 1967, from Lt. Francis Fruge, Parish of St. Landry, in JFK Document No. 013520).
    (75) Id. at p. 20.
    (76) Ibid.
    (77) Ibid.
    (78) Id. at p. 24.
    (79) Id. at p. 25.
    (80) Id. at p. 27-8.
    (81) Id. at p. 27.
    (82) Id. at p. 28. See also HSCA Contact Report, April 7, 1978, Bob Buras (with Francis Louis Fruge) (JFK Document No. 0141414).
    (83) Id. at p.28.
    (84) Id. at p. 28,30.
    (85) See Staff Report on Anti-Castro Cuban activity.
    (86) Ibid.
    (87) Ibid.
    (88) Ibid.
    (89) See Staff Report on Anti-Castro activity.
    (90) Ibid.
    (91) See Staff Memo., Rose Cheramie File, contact with Dennis Cronin, U.S. Customs (JFK Document No. 013520).
    (92) HSCA Contact Report, June 26, 1978, Marty Daly (with U.S. Customs),
    (JFK Document No. 009481).
    (93) See FBI file no. 166-1604 for Melba Christine Marcades, Vol. 1 of 1, (JFK Document No. 012979).
    (94) Id. at FBI 166-1604-3, February 11, 1966, Enclosure No. 1.
    (95) Id. at FBI 166-1604-2, December 14, 1965, Enclosure.
    (96) Ibid.
    (97) Ibid.
    (98) Id. at FBI 166-1604-1, November 23, 1965, p. 1.
    (99) Id. at p.3.
    (100) Id. at p.2.
    (101) Id. at p.4.
    (102) Ibid.
    (103) Ibid.
    (104) East Louisiana State hospital, Jackson, La., records for Melba Christine Marcades AKA Rose Cheramie (JFK Document No. 006097).

    VOLUME XI