Bill Simpich
How American Antiwar and Solidarity Movements in 60s Impeded
an Effective Invasion of Cuba
CounterPunch Weekend Edition July 24-26, 2009
Fair Play for Cuba
and the Cuban Revolution
by BILL SIMPICH
July 26, Cuba ’s
most important holiday, is the commemorative date in 1953 when Castro and his
forces unsuccessfully stormed the government stockade at Moncada and ignited
the Cuban revolution. On a day like today, it should be noted that Americans
made a successful Cuban invasion impossible with a campaign of determined
resistance.
Antiwar and solidarity activists came together to protect
the Cuban revolution during the era of 1960-1963 – the era of the Bay of Pigs,
the Cuban missile crisis, and the JFK assassination – in significant part due
to organizations such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). Professor
(and CISPES activist) Van Gosse has done groundbreaking research to make a good
argument that this period really was the birth of the New Left.
The release in the last few years of thousands of CIA
and FBI
files reveals that this resistance was central in preventing a successful
invasion of Cuba .
Like most activist organizations, the FPCC had approximately a three-year life
cycle – after that period, many of the core activists had returned to Cuba or
have moved on to other pressing causes. In the period from 1960-1963, recently
released documents show the powerful conflict between the forces of agitation
(the FPCC and its allies) and the forces of provocation (the CIA ,
FBI and military). This conflict ended with a political landscape that made any
future US
invasion of Cuba
impossible. This story is not founded on a theory about who killed JFK, but
rather examines an overlooked conflict.
The story below is largely set in New
York City , the headquarters of the FPCC, and the
revelation here of a key informant’s identity explains how different threads of
this drama weave together. As the Church Committee said in the seventies,
informants are used to “raise controversial issues” and “to take advantage of
ideological splits in an organization.” Many of the documents are hidden to
protect the identity of the informants, while the world is deprived of the
history of how these informants were used to protect the US
national security state.
An April 1960 New York Times advertisement paid for by the
Cuban government led to the formation of the FPCC
The founder and first leader of the FPCC was Robert Taber, a
CBS newsman who was befriended by the Santos Buch family when they learned that
Taber was interested in telling the rebels’ side of the story about Castro and
his followers. With the help of the Santos Buch family, Taber obtained a rare
exclusive interview with Fidel Castro while he was up in the mountains fighting
in 1957. This interview became the basis of the CBS Special Report “Rebels of
the Sierra Maestra: The Story of Cuba’s Jungle Fighters and his renowned book
on the rebels: “M-26: Biography of a Revolution”. “M-26" refers to the
aforementioned storming of Moncada on July
26, 1953 .
Working with CBS newsman Richard Gibson, they decided to run
a full page ad in the New York times in order to make a statement on the
importance of the Cuban revolution. Taber and Santos-Busch went so far as to
raise the money for the ad by obtaining a big donation from the Cuban
government with the assistance of Raulito Roa, the son of Cuban UN foreign
minister Raul Roa.
The advertisement caused a minor sensation in a number of
different circles. The authors were flooded with more than a thousand letters
of people ready to take action. Besides the timeliness of the appeal, it was
signed by other leading lights in the literary community: Simone de Beauvoir,
Jean-Paul Sartre, Norman Mailer, Dan Wakefield, even Truman Capote. African Americans
were prominent in the call – besides newsman Richard Gibson of CBS, it was also
signed by the historian John Henrik Clarke, novelists James Baldwin, Julian
Mayfield and John O. Killens, and the soon-to-be-famous Southern activist
Robert F. Williams. Other supporters in this period included Linus Pauling and
Allen Ginsberg.
The ad also caught the attention of the CIA ’s
Cuban affairs head William Harvey, whose love of alcohol and firearms caused
many to ask if he was the role model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Two days
after the ad ran, William Harvey bragged to FBI counterintelligence chief Sam
Papich. “For your information, this Agency has derogatory information on all
individuals listed in the attached advertisement.”
The Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party were
able to work together within the FPCC, marking a break from a bad history going
back to the Depression era when 20,000 Communist supporters marched through the
streets to denounce their Trotskyist competitors. Berta Green of the SWP was
able to provide deep experience from her organizing efforts in Detroit
and more recently in New York City .
Richard Gibson was a bridge to people like Robert Williams, Leroi Jones,
journalist William Worthy and other black activists in making the equation
between African American militance and solidarity with Castro and Cuba ’s
largely black population. Within six months, the FPCC had 7000 members in 27
"adult chapters" and 40 student councils on various college campuses
with emerging student leaders such as Saul Landau and Robert Scheer. When Fidel
met Malcolm X and other community leaders at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem
during the late summer of 1960, it was the social event of the year in New
York for African Americans and radicals alike.
In December, 1960, William Worthy released the documentary
“Yanqui, No!”, with a camera crew that included the legendary D.A. Pennebaker
and Albert Maysles. After doing a national tour for Fair Play, his work led to
an indictment for traveling to Cuba
– imposed on no other journalist.
“The Ballad of William Worthy” earned a spot in the Phil
Ochs canon:
William Worthy isn’t worthy to enter our door
He just came back fromCuba ,
he’s not American anymore
But it seems awfully funny to hear the State Department say
You’re living in the Free World
In the Free World you must stay.
He just came back from
But it seems awfully funny to hear the State Department say
You’re living in the Free World
In the Free World you must stay.
Sensing a deepening problem, the anti-Castro forces countered
by investigating the funding of the initial ad, calling the FPCC leaders before
a Congressional committee, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee with the
appropriate-sounding name of "SISS". It was also known as the
Eastland Committee; at the time, James Eastland was probably the most racist
senator in the United States .
The SISS was so powerful that its chief prosecutor Julian Sourwine had been
known in the 48-state era as the "97th Senator".
On January 6, 1961
Santos-Buch told Sourwine in executive session that he and Taber had received
the needed money from "eight different people". The documents reveal
that Santos Buch changed his story on January 9 at a subsequent executive
session, and that he was also given a promise that the CIA
would help get a number of family members out of Cuba .
On January 9, Santos Buch changed his story, at least in part because of his
desire to extricate his family from Cuba .
On January 10, Santos Buch publicly admitted that the Cubans provided the
crucial $3500 needed to place the NYT ad. A
week later, Jane Roman from James Angleton’s counterintelligence office in the CIA
reported that security concerns made it too dangerous for the CIA
to keep its promise to Santos Buch.
Taber had gone to Cuba
the previous month, in December 1960. For obvious reasons, he now felt it was a
good idea to stay. He passed on his executive secretary duties to Richard
Gibson, covered the ensuing Bay of Pigs invasion, and
was wounded by mortar shells in the effort. Meanwhile, CIA
operatives David Phillips and James McCord (of Watergate fame) ran an illegal
domestic surveillance on the FPCC throughout the year of 1961 until the FBI
apparently got wind of it while they began their own operation. The CIA
then backed away from the FBI’s turf for a period of time. During this same
period, Phillips was running an anti-Castro media campaign in New
Orleans . Phillips was the recent recipient of the CIA ’s
Intelligence Medal of Merit for the disinformation campaign he ran in Guatemala
that paved the way for the successful 1954 coup – it was stated that “this
achievement has no parallel in the history of psychological warfare”.
The upsurge of protest against the Bay of Pigs
invasion in the United States
Some people could sense the Bay of Pigs
coming, but the FPCC sounded the alarm. After the Nation magazine warned about
it in explicit terms during November of 1960, the LA chapter held a press
conference to get the word out. They “called upon Congress to investigate
immediately the widespread reports indicating that the Central Intelligence
Agency is implicated in the training of armed forces for an invasion of Cuba .
Persistent reports from Guatemala ,
Nicaragua and Florida
of invasion forces in these areas being tied to the CIA
raise into question U.S.
observance of the principle of nonintervention into the domestic affairs of
other countries.”
At what is described by Van Gosse as a "massive
inaugural rally of San Francisco Fair Play" in January 1961, the anarchist
Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote an homage to Castro and Walt Whitman that
sums up the passions of many people during this era.
One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro
I am sitting in Mike’s Place trying to figure out
What’s going to happen
without Fidel Castro
Among the salami sandwiches and spittoons
I see no solution
It’s going to be a tragedy
I see no way out
among the admen and slumming models
and the brilliant snooping columnists
who are qualified to call Castro psychotic
because they no doubt are doctors
and have examined him personally
and know a paranoid hysterical tyrant when they see one
because they have it on first hand
from personal observation by theCIA
and the great disinterested news services…
I see no answer
I see no way out
among the paisanos playing pool
it looks like Curtains for Fidel
They’re going to fix his wagon
in the course of human events…
What’s going to happen
without Fidel Castro
Among the salami sandwiches and spittoons
I see no solution
It’s going to be a tragedy
I see no way out
among the admen and slumming models
and the brilliant snooping columnists
who are qualified to call Castro psychotic
because they no doubt are doctors
and have examined him personally
and know a paranoid hysterical tyrant when they see one
because they have it on first hand
from personal observation by the
and the great disinterested news services…
I see no answer
I see no way out
among the paisanos playing pool
it looks like Curtains for Fidel
They’re going to fix his wagon
in the course of human events…
The radio squawks
some kind of memorial program:
“When in the course of human events
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bonds
which have connected them with another—“
I see no way out
no escape
He’s tuned in on your frequency, Fidel…
some kind of memorial program:
“When in the course of human events
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bonds
which have connected them with another—“
I see no way out
no escape
He’s tuned in on your frequency, Fidel…
History may absolve you, Fidel
but we’ll dissolve you first, Fidel
You’ll be dissolved in history
We’ve got the solvent
We’ve got the chaser
and we’ll have a little party
somewhere down your way, Fidel
It’s going to be a Gas
As they say in Guatemala…
but we’ll dissolve you first, Fidel
You’ll be dissolved in history
We’ve got the solvent
We’ve got the chaser
and we’ll have a little party
somewhere down your way, Fidel
It’s going to be a Gas
As they say in Guatemala…
Here’s your little tragedy, Fidel
They’re coming to pick you up
and stretch you on their Stretcher
That’s what happens, Fidel
when in the course of human events
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the bonds of International Tel & Tel
and United Fruit
Fidel
How come you don’t answer anymore
Fidel
Did they cut you off our frequency
We’ve closed down our station anyway
We’ve turned you off, Fidel
They’re coming to pick you up
and stretch you on their Stretcher
That’s what happens, Fidel
when in the course of human events
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the bonds of International Tel & Tel
and United Fruit
Fidel
How come you don’t answer anymore
Fidel
Did they cut you off our frequency
We’ve closed down our station anyway
We’ve turned you off, Fidel
I was sitting in Mike’s Place, Fidel
waiting for someone else to act
like a good Liberal
I hadn’t quite finished Camus´ Rebel
so I couldn’t quite recognize you, Fidel
walking up and down your island
when they came for you, Fidel
“My Country or Death” you told them
Well you’ve got your little death, Fidel
like old Honest Abe
one of your boyhood heroes
who also had his little Civil War
and was a different kind of Liberator
(since no one was shot in his war)
and also was murdered
in the course of human events
Fidel…Fidel…
your coffin passes by
thru lanes and streets you never knew
thru day and night, Fidel
While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel
your futile trip is done
yet is not done
and is not futile
I give you my sprig of laurel."
waiting for someone else to act
like a good Liberal
I hadn’t quite finished Camus´ Rebel
so I couldn’t quite recognize you, Fidel
walking up and down your island
when they came for you, Fidel
“My Country or Death” you told them
Well you’ve got your little death, Fidel
like old Honest Abe
one of your boyhood heroes
who also had his little Civil War
and was a different kind of Liberator
(since no one was shot in his war)
and also was murdered
in the course of human events
Fidel…Fidel…
your coffin passes by
thru lanes and streets you never knew
thru day and night, Fidel
While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel
your futile trip is done
yet is not done
and is not futile
I give you my sprig of laurel."
In the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs
in April 1961, the FPCC’s national influence was at its highest point.
"Actions with up to 2,000 outside the United Nations
began the same day as the invasion and lasted throughout the entire week of the
crisis, culminating in a rally of perhaps 5,000 in Union Square on 21 April –
the largest left wing demonstration there or anywhere else in the US since the
execution of the Rosenbergs, and one also unprecedented in that a young
Communist and a young Trotskyist shared the same public podium, brought
together by the 26th of July.
"…Meanwhile, San Francisco
saw demonstrations in which students played a leading role. Coordinated actions
on various Bay Area campuses on 19 April were followed by a student-only rally
of 2,000 in Union Square on 20 April, and an equally large all-ages Fair Play
demonstration…(where protesters) spontaneously took to the streets of the
downtown area to march to the offices of Hearst’s virulently anti-Castro San
Francisco Examiner, an unheard thing to do in those days."
Elsewhere, there was violence inflicted on numbers of Fair
Play protesters. Meeting halls were shuttered in Los
Angeles , Detroit ,
Newark and Tampa .
Campuses came alive with lively actions at Cornell, Swarthmore, Madison ,
Berkeley , City
College , Yale, the University
of Michigan and Oberlin.
On April 27, Hoover
himself ordered his agents to focus on pro-Castro activists, stating that the
FPCC illustrated "the capacity of a nationality group organization to
mobilize its efforts in such a situation so as to arrange demonstrations and
influence public opinion.”
Right after the Bay of Pigs , the FBI
organizes a campaign of disruption against the FPCC
In response, FBI man number three Cartha “Deke” DeLoach
began a well-documented red-baiting campaign against the FPCC during May 1961.
"As part of his counterintelligence responsibilities, DeLoach developed a
"Mass Media Program" that included over 300 newspaper reporters,
columnists, radio commentators, and television news investigators."
Meanwhile, during that same month, something very odd was
going on in Havana . Dr. Enrique
Lorenzo Luaces told Army Intelligence that Taber introduced him to “Lt. Harvey
Oswald, an arms expert” while having drinks at Sloppy Joe’s, better known as
the "Sardi’s for spies". When the FBI interviewed Taber, he denied
knowing Oswald. A popular position to take, especially since the common wisdom
is that Oswald was continuously in the USSR
between 1959 and 1962.
During June, 1960, a few months after Oswald’s defection to
the USSR in
late 1959, J. Edgar Hoover himself sent a memo to the State Department alerting
it to the possibility that an imposter was using Oswald’s identity. Hoover
was tipped to the problem by a telegram from Harold F. Good at the New
York field office. Former Cuban Prime Minister Tony
Varona testified to a House committee that he believed Oswald was in Cuba
during 1961. There is a long and well-documented history of reports involving
individuals impersonating Oswald, no matter where one stands on the JFK
assassination.
The FBI uses Victor Vicente, the head of the FPCC’s Social
Committee and informant T-3245-S*, to build a criminal case against Gibson
Back in Washington DC ,
SISS was now focusing its attention on Richard Gibson, issuing a subpoena for
him to come to Washington and
testify. They wrote a letter to INS , asking
them to take action to stop Gibson from leaving the country before his
testimony. INS explained that American
citizens were virtually never given such a “stop” order without a directive
from the Secretary of State. Within a matter of hours, such a directive was
issued against Gibson. Gibson spent years abroad in the 1950s in expatriate
circles, and this directive was a serious blow to his freedom.
In Gibson’s first appearance in April, 1961, he told SISS that
"on behalf of myself and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and speaking
personally for myself and many other American Negroes, I can only express
delight at the utter and dismal defeat of this act of international
banditry." The SISS, licking its wounds, ordered him to come back with the
FPCC membership list. When he came back on May 16, he provided the mailing
list, and claimed that there was no way to separate the FPCC members from those
who were on the mailing list. This infuriated the committee. The FBI was asked
to take action to obtain whatever membership list could be found, as well as
anything else that would expose Gibson to perjury charges. They immediately
ordered a mail cover on Gibson’s home at 788 Columbus
Circle .
On May 21 and 22, Special Agents Patrick Lundquist and
Harold Hoeg went inside the FPCC offices and photographed the list provided to
them by informant T-3245-S*. The identity of T-3245-S* has been the subject of
serious speculation over the years, especially because the “S” is a symbol for
a political informant.
With the flood of new documents released by the government
in the wake of the JFK Act, I can confirm with confidence after long and
careful study that the identity of this informant is Victor Thomas Vicente, who
was the head of the Social Committee for the FPCC. As the one willing to do the
difficult work of fundraising, he was given special trust. Vicente’s work
proved invaluable.
The dean of the study of FBI “black bag jobs”, also known as
“break-ins” or “surreptitious entries” for many years has been Athan G.
Theoharis, professor of history at Marquette History. In a black bag job, the
documents are photographed rather than stolen, so that the target does not know
that its privacy has been compromised. William Sullivan justified them in a
letter to the Director’s office in 1966: “Such a technique involves trespass
and is clearly illegal; therefore, it would be impossible to obtain any legal
sanction for it. Despite this, “black bag” jobs have been used because they represent
an invaluable technique in combatting subversive activities…aimed directly at
undermining and destroying our nation.”
Theoharis credits the FBI for eight black bag jobs to the
FPCC, far more than suffered by any other group in his study. He discovered an
initial black bag job at the FPCC NY headquarters during January, 1961, which I
have not yet located in the FBI records on-line. The second one is clearly
during the weekend of May 22-23, 1961 .
The purpose for the entry was to obtain evidence to contradict
Gibson’s testimony to SISS about the FPCC membership list and to the Fair Play
publication. In the material provided by Vicente in May, 1961, a voluminous
mailing list was included in this material, but the agents reported that there
was no way to determine whether a code system was being used on this list in
order to designate members or subscribers – names of members of student groups
were also provided, but no membership list and no list of subscribers to “fair
play” was included in this material. Thus, this material could not be used to
support a perjury charge against Gibson.
However, the data was used to focus on FPCC operatives in Dallas ,
Tampa and Miami
(major cities in the southern United States ).
What is fascinating is that the NY office mailed the relevant portions of these
mailing lists to Miami got the
mailing lists on 6/16/61 , Dallas
got the lists on 6/19/61 in
a letter from “FED ” in the New
York office to Dir. FBI urging an investigation of
the principal FPCC leaders in the area. Shortly after, Miami
was asked to bring the Tampa office
into the hunt. The Tampa FPCC had hundreds of members during this period, due
to the pro-Castro workers in the nearby cigar factories. The president of the
chapter during this time, VT Lee, later became Gibson’s successor as the last
national FPCC head. It seems like the FBI wanted the focus to be on FPCC
members in the vicinity of Cuba .
Within days, the FPCC mailing list were circulating in right-wing circles such
as the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and the Florida Legislative
Investigation Committee.
Taber returns to the USA ,
leaves the FPCC, is hounded by the red-hunters, but curiously not charged with
perjury – while Gibson seeks recruitment by the CIA
in exchange for money
Taber returned to the US
during the end of 1961. The stories were various: One was that he was
"homesick"; another was that Cuban currency was not convertible into
American dollars. In any case, Taber claimed that he could return
"quietly". He was subpoenaed in short order. He resigned from the
FPCC in February, and spoke with the CIA and
FBI on 3/19/62 . On 4/10/62 , he had to testify again
before SISS, this time in executive session, where he was confronted with his
testimony that clashed with Santos-Buch about the source of the money for the
ad. Despite the committee’s fury at Taber, he was never charged with perjury.
Instead, his testimony was publicly released in June 1963. Many people claim
that Taber had gone over to the CIA at this
point. The real question is more subtle – it isn’t whether he asked to be an
informant, but whether his offer was ever accepted.
In a dramatic incident during the summer, Gibson’s problems
with money finally got the best of him. On July 16, 1962 , Richard Gibson wrote a letter to Thornton
Hagert of Falls Church, VA, the stepbrother of Philip Reiss of the Dept. Of
Agriculture. Gibson writes in the letter that Reiss told him in the past that
he is a former CIA employee. Gibson wants to
make contact with the CIA , and suggests
either the 799 Broadway office or his home. (201-306052) (also see redacted
version at 105-93072-80)
On July 24, 1962 ,
the Nationalities Intelligence Section get the OK to interview Gibson. On
August 16, 1962, Gibson is interviewed by NY agents Hoeg and Day. James Day
writes the report in October, after Gibson skipped the country heading for
Algeria in 9/12/62 – some say "just ahead of an indictment" but I’m
not convinced any indictment was in the works based on these records. Gibson
initially went to Canada ,
and there is no sign of pursuit or even concern by his departure by the
intelligence agencies.
Although I don’t see anything in the file indicating a push
for indictment of Gibson, Gibson’s story to Lee was that the Cuban Mission told
him that indictment was imminent. From reviewing the documents, it seems like
this was Gibson’s cover story.
"On September 15, 1962, NY T-1 advised that on the
evening of September 14 Ted Lee (also known as VT Lee) advised that Gibson’s
departure from the United States was unexpected. Lee told the source that
someone from the CMUN (the Cuban Mission to the UN) had contacted Gibson and
had told Gibson that things were getting hot for Gibson in the United States
and that it would be necessary for Gibson to go to Canada for a short time.
According to what Lee told NY T-1, the employee of the CMUN gave Gibson an
envelope and instructions. Lee further stated that when Gibson got to the Cuban
embassy in Ottawa, Canada, Gibson was told that he should go to Algeria with
the result that Gibson left Ottawa, Canada by plane on September 13, 1962
headed for Algeria. Lee stated that Gibson told him of this when Gibson called
Lee from Ottawa, Canada on the evening of September 12, 1962. Lee further
advised T-1 that very few people know of the involvement of the CMUN in this
matter and that NY T-1 should keep it secret."
Gibson says he will assist the FBI for money, as he finds
the FPCC no more than a translation service and the whole leftist movement
"ineffective and inconsequential". He adds that the Cubans are stupid
and he hates stupidity, and that the Communists have failed to help the Negro
race.
Hoeg discusses in his report that he will submit the New
York office’s “recommendation for both a tactical and
strategic plan to be implemented to disrupt, dissolve, or at least neutralize
the FPCC as a subversive organization”.
Another report on this interview says: “We advised Attorney
General (Robert F. Kennedy) re (Gibson’s) interview with New
York office on 8/16/62 (redacted) wherein he wanted money to denounce
FPCC and wanted US to grant fugitive Robert Williams immunity from prosecution
if he returned from Cuba .
We told AG Gibson was untrustworthy and we were not initiating any more
communication with him. Data herein will be given AG, as well as CIA
and State Department, which agencies are aware of the previous interview.”
FBI reports Gibson is in Algeria ,
speculates that Gibson may have been picked up by the CIA
as an informant, but a handwritten note by Austin Horne of the CIA
says no. Chief of the Nationalities Intelligence Section Raymond Wannall told
his boss domestic intelligence chief William Sullivan that Gibson is very
untrustworthy and the approach has to be to accept any info he provides but not
to run Gibson as an informant.
A later document confirms that neither the FBI or the CIA
would accept Richard Gibson’s help at that time: "Gibson indicated that he
was willing to publicly denounce the FPCC, say he was duped, that the FPCC is a
tool of the Cuban government, that it is ineffective, and anyone still
remaining loyal (to the FPCC) was just wasting his time, or any other tactic
subsequently determined to be the most effective course of conduct.
However, there was an undertone that he expected to be paid
for any efforts in this regard. He stated that it was his personal opinion that
it would be much more effective to use the FPCC as a cover for intelligence and
counter-intelligence purposes, but when questioned for his specific thinking in
this regard, he commented only that this could possibly be worked out
later." Gibson clearly had some weak moments.
The Cuban missile crisis – protesting against the end of the
world
At this point, during October, 1962, the world was in the
full grip of the Cuban missile crisis. Even when protesting against the end of
the world, FPCC activists did not get a lot of support, but the show of
resistence made the powers that be even more irrational.
From Ron Ridenour’s on-line book, Our America:
I later learned that everyone in the United
States was scared to death, even my friends.
There were daily air raid drills—practice drills for children and workers in
air raid shelters, stacked with food and water supplies. Hoarding became a
national characteristic with rushes on supermarkets. The American people were
preparing for a world war; they were not acting to prevent one. A few thousand
rare souls braved the government-mass media-panic-created atmosphere to take up
picket signs. There were a few demonstrations. The largest mustered about
10,000 people. They marched before the United Nations plaza with slogans:
“US-USSR, No War Over Cuba”, and “Hands Off Cuba.” The latter, more “radical”
demand was opposed by the social democratic part of the tiny minority who
protested US bellicosity. The American working class—the population as a
whole—shunned the left-wing like pariahs. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in Force
of Circumstance, “To be genuinely left-wing in the United States takes a great
deal of character and independence as well as openness of mind…(they are)
lonely and courageous men and women.”
Van Gosse mentions that the FPCC-led demo in New
York on October 27 drew about 2500, and the SANE-led
one the next day had about 8000 participants. San Francisco FPCC led the
biggest one on the West Coast, with about 3500. These were among the few
actions led by FPCC that month – the organization was already much smaller and
weaker than during the Bay of Pigs eighteen months earlier. On October 8, the
FPCC did put together a picket line at the UN with 200 participants, where they
were attacked with bottles of red paint, rotten eggs and other objects.
The FBI "expanded its Security Index, establishing a
special "Cuban Section" that included not only names of suspected
Cuban agents operating in the United States ,
but also of people who had participated in organizations or picket lines that
supported Castro. Nearly twelve thousand persons were included on the main
index and another twenty thousand in two reserve indexes – all of whom were
targeted for arrest as "potentially dangerous" in the event of an
"internal security emergency".
Oh, yes, the Security Index is still around, under another
name. After 1971, the Security Index became ADEX
during the 70s. From the 80s on, it’s been known as "Main Core".
There’s been progress, of a sort – now, 8 million Americans are apparently on
the round-up list.
So members of the FPCC were on the Security Index, but not
Oswald. He was placed on the FBI’s watchlist (a level of slightly lesser
severity, denoted by a “Wanted Notice Card”) shortly after he relinquished his
passport at the US embassy in Moscow. This would be lifted a month before the
assassination, as shown below.
At the same time, Oswald became a subject of the CIA ’s
mail-reading project “HT LINGUAL”. Thus, even though no CIA
file was opened on Oswald for more than a year, Angleton’s CI-SIG unit was
reading his mail, ostensibly because he was a defector that might be contacted
by the Soviets.
Right at the time of the final Bay of Pigs
prisoner exchange, the FBI and Vicente conduct a key black-bag job at the FPCC
office.
During April, 1963, Vicente reports the contents of the FPCC
bank statements from Chase for the months of January through April 1963. Lee is
the person who can authorize withdrawal from the bank account. The FBI agents
are still trying to develop volunteer Ed Linton as a source.
During this month, Victor Vicente stated that Vincent Lee
had telephonically contacted him and asked that the NYC FPCC take care of the
month’s rent of the FPCC office.
Lee was on a speaking tour for the month of April, and
assured his colleagues that Ed Linton would handle the office Monday-Wednesday,
Lee’s wife Marjorie Speece would handle the office Thursday, and that the
office would be closed on Friday. The FBI agents entered on April 21, 1963 – a Sunday. Lee’s final words on
the subject were that "Victor Vicente will handle anything of importance
that happens during his absence."
4/18/63 is the postmark date of the letter sent from Dallas
by Oswald to the national FPCC office in New York, according to a It refers to
“photographs of the below listed material made available by NY 3245-S* on
4/21/63…in the event any of this material is disseminated outside the bureau,
caution should be exercised to protect the source, NY 3245-S*, and the
communication should be classified “Confidential”.
The FPCC notes stating that 50 pieces of literature were
forwarded to LHO on 4/19/63 . Lee informed the FBI that the notation
was written by him – but all the evidence is that he was out of town at the time.
It was a meaningless and stupid falsehood, and he was probably covering for his
ally Vicente in an absent-minded fashion.
On 4/21/63, Vicente “made available records and
correspondence currently maintained at FPCC Headquarters…Approximately 100
photographs were taken of this material…NYO will make appropriate dissemination
when the film is developed.”
Hoover biographers Dr. Anthan G. Theoharis and John Stuart
Cox have a copy of the FBI NY office’s “Surreptitious Entries” file, maintained
“informally” in the SAC’s personal folder, which says that “the FBI did break
into the FPCC offices during April, 1963".
On April 21, 1963 ,
Vicente – advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas ,
Texas , was in contact with FPCC of New York
City at which time he advised that he passed out pamphlets for the FPCC.”
Under the wing of the CIA ,
informant Victor Vicente goes to Mexico City
and meets Castro and Che
The document that tells us what was Vicente’s award for all
of his hard work is a 7/10/63 memo by CIA ’s
Louis de Santi of the counterintelligence division of the Special Affairs Staff
(SAS) which states: “(T)he FBI informant (blank) is an American-born (blank)
born in NYC (blank). He has been under FBI control for nearly three years
penetrating the three pro-Castro organizations in NYC: the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee (FPCC); the Casa Cuba, and the Jose Marti Club. Through the first two
years Subject was only a marginal asset, in the last six months he has become a
valuable penetration for the FBI into the above 3 organizations as well as the
(blank) having apparently won the complete confidence of the pro-Castro leaders
and Cuban officials. (blank) Recently he was asked to join the CPUSA…subject
has been instructed by his Cuban superiors to take a camera with him to take pictures
of Cuba for
organizational meetings in NYC.”
The LAD /JFK Task Force
wrote an analysis in the 70s that DeSanti debriefed the informant upon his
return to the US ,
and there is a reference that there were interviews with Castro and Che
Guevara.
In The Road to Dallas ,
author Robert Kaiser names the document quoted above that identifies Vicente:
“In July 1963, the agency infiltrated an informer from the New
York chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a
Puerto Rican named Victor Thomas Vicente, into Cuba ,
probably through Mexico City .
Vicente declined to settle there, as the CIA
hoped he might, but he met both Castro and Che Guevara and was debriefed after
he returned.”
Upon his return to New York ,
Victor Vicente showed a slide show of his recent trip to Cuba
on September 23 with about 100 persons in attendance. The FPCC was still
soldiering on with hundreds of people attending the various New
York forums, but it appeared to be reaching the end
of the three year life cycle that is the natural fate of most activist-oriented
organizations. Cuba
was no longer in the news on a regular basis. Getting the travel ban reversed
seemed hopeless in the political climate of the era. The FPCC was undergoing
more and more infiltration – some of the FBI reports refer to as many as forty
informants. But the intelligence agencies’ plans to make the FPCC look bad were
to blow up in their face.
Throughout this period, CIA
and Mafia forces were trying to assassinate Castro
Trafficante (Tampa ),
Marcello (Dallas ) and Johnny
Roselli (Chicago ) had the motive to
assassinate Castro, and they worked with CIA
operatives like William Harvey to get it done. In the wake of the missile
crisis, such an operation had to be done in secret. Officials like William
Harvey of Task Force W, Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms, and Desmond
Fitzgerald of the Special Affairs Staff had not informed the CIA
Director about some of their plots, which forced them to cover up after the JFK
assassination. Harvey testified to
the HSCA that he and Helms concealed the Castro assassination plots from the CIA
director.
David Morales, the Chief of Operations at JM/WAVE ,
was involved in all of the numerous CIA
actions against Castro in 1963. CIA
documents show that Morales was at an early AMTRUNK meeting at a “safe house in
Washington , D.C. ”,
along with “Tad Szulc, New York Times reporter”, someone from the State
Department, and two other CIA agents, before
the CIA and AMTRUNK apparently went their
separate ways in April. One of the more spectacular efforts happened on March 13, 1963 , when Morales and
“Colonel” Rosselli’s team tried to assassinate Castro from a house near the University
of Havana by firing a
mortar…bazookas, mortars and machine guns were taken. Demond Fitzgerald handed
poison to another operative to kill Castro on the very day that JFK was shot.
The Kennedys had their own projects for a coup or to push
the Soviets from Cuba
Kennedy also met with CIA
officials in May 1962 and told them not to join forces with the Mafia without
personally contacting him.
As quietly as possible during 1963, the Kennedy brothers
were brewing their own Cuban disruption campaign. They had a two-track
strategy: A coup launched from foreign shores if necessary, or an agreement
with Castro to rid the island of Soviet
influence. Working with a separate wing of the CIA
than those supporting the Cuban exiles, this project was known as AM/WORLD.
The leaders of this effort were Manuel Artime and Harry
Ruiz-Williams, with the CIA ’s Harry Hecksher
as the main case officer. The plan to create this junta in exile was picked up
by the Associated Press as early as May 1963. By October, JFK had approved
thirteen new sabotage missions as well a project called AMTRUNK proposed by New
York Times correspondent Tad Szulc to enlist Cuban military officers into the
coup effort. Although many referred to Artime as the Kennedys’ “Golden Boy”, it
is revealing that the CIA referred to him as
AM/BIDDY-1.
Oswald joins the FPCC and meets the CIA ’s
David Phillips of the anti-Castro forces, who is involved in a deceptive
operation designed to counter the FPCC in foreign countries
During this same period Oswald used the opportunity to build
up his resume as the head of his one-man FPCC chapter in New
Orleans , culminating in an arrest and widespread TV
coverage in August as he picketed on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
and outraged his Southern neighbors. The arrest for breach of the peace grew
out of a contrived fight between Oswald and the anti-Castro DRE ,
after what looked like a deliberately clumsy effort by Oswald to pose as an
ant-Castro activist to infiltrate the DRE .
Oswald even wrote VT Lee and described the fight several days before it
actually happened. The head of the DRE was
David Phillips.
At the beginning of 1963, the Cuban disruption program
Operation Mongoose is abolished with Harvey ’s
departure. Harvey ’s Task Force W
now becomes the Special Affairs Staff (SAS).
Throughout 1963, David Morales of the CIA ’s
Special Affairs Staff (SAS) was one of the coordinators of operations against
Castro (including new assassination projects), and to maintain contact with
Cubans and other enemies of the Kennedys.
That autumn, when CIA
agent David Phillips became Chief of Cuban Operations in Mexico
City , he became one of these SAS coordinators.
Phillips was in effect rejoining the officers he had worked with on the Bay
of Pigs in 1961, at which time he had been responsible for
propaganda operations against the newly-created Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
The SAS was packed with people who wanted to invade Cuba
and saw JFK as an impediment.
During September, Alpha-66 Cuban exile leader Antonio
Veciana met with David Phillips and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas
at the lobby of the Southland Building
for fifteen minutes. Oswald was talking about “something that we can do to kill
Castro.”
On 9/16/63, John Tilton of the CIA
asked the FBI to help obtain FPCC stationery and any existing foreign mailing
list in order to have a sample “to produce large quantities of propaganda in
the name of the (FPCC)” in order to “counter” their activities in foreign
countries.
Tilton also said that the CIA
was considering planting “deceptive information” which might “embarrass” the
FPCC in areas where it has some support. Tilton assured the FBI that no
"fabrication" would take place without advance notice and agreement.
The CIA request was
directed to the “Nationalities Intelligence Section” -to chief Raymond Wannall.
Its analogue in New York was
Harold Hoeg’s Squad 312. “The reply to CIA
should be delivered via Liaison.
On 9/26/63 ,
a memo then went out to SAC NY from LL Anderson on behalf of Director Hoover. “New
York should promptly advise whether the material
requested by CIA is available or obtainable.
If available, it should be furnished by cover letter with enclosures suitable
for dissemination to CIA by liaison.”
This is right when Lee Harvey Oswald left for Mexico
City for a week, and repeatedly visited the Soviet and
Cuban embassies in an unsuccessful quest for a visa to get to Cuba .
Wasn’t this the foreign FPCC activity the CIA
was gearing up to counter? Transcripts of calls that were supposedly made by
Oswald to the Cuban embassy reveal conversations so contrived that it is
obvious that an imposter was making these calls. Photographs and a tape recording
made available to members of the Warren Commission showed that someone
impersonated Oswald in Mexico City .
Even Hoover said it to LBJ the
morning after the assassination.
The 10/4/63
response from SAC NY James Kennedy reiterated his understanding that "CIA
desires information regarding the availability of samples of FPCC stationery
and FPCC mailing lists in connection with their consideration of plans to
counter the activities of FPCC in foreign countries. The NYO plans to contact
3245-S* (Vicente) on 10/27/63 ."
The attached blind memo is a COINTELPRO letter suggesting
that VT Lee should be asked “how many dupes are still contributing to Castro’s
propaganda arm here in the US …his
fervor for Castro’s cause is directly related to the amount of funds being
received.”
Angelton’s aide Jane Roman stated that the man who “takes
over Cuban operations in WH/3/Mexico on the
8th of October 1963 is named David Phillips.” The PR man who was
key in bringing down the Guatemalan government now has a second chance at
getting Cuba
right.
The next day after Phillips takes over Cuban operations in Mexico ,
October 9, FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling canceled a FLASH notice on Oswald
that had kept him on the aforementioned Watchlist among all FBI offices. As
mentioned earlier, Oswald was placed on this Watchlist due to his defection to
the USSR in
1959 and his statements to the US
embassy that he was going to provide military secrets to the Soviet
Union .
When Gheesling canceled the FLASH just hours before the twin
October 10 cables were sent by the CIA
containing critical information about Oswald, he “turned off the alarm switch
on Oswald literally an instant before it would have gone off”. Gheesling’s
explanation for why he released the “stop” on 10/9/63 is contained in a memo to
FBI #2 man Clyde Tolson from Inspector Gale: The “stop was placed in event
subject returned from Russia under an assumed name and was inadvertently not
removed by him on 9/7/62 when case closed.”
James W. Douglass, a Catholic theologian who has pondered
this question, suggests that Gheesling may have been misled by Tilton’s memo
"into thinking Oswald was only working under cover in Mexico
to counter the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As a CIA
operative, Oswald did not belong on the Security Index. Thus, his security
watch was lifted. His staged Soviet connection could then be documented for
scapegoating purposes after Dallas ,
but without sounding a national security alarm that would have put a spotlight
on Oswald and prevented Dallas from
happening."
The next day, the CIA
sent two totally conflicting documents. One was a teletype to the FBI, State
Department and the Navy about Oswald contacting the Soviet embassy in Mexico
City, inaccurately describing him as “approximately 35 years old, with an athletic
build, about six feet tall, with receding hairline…believed that Oswald was
identical to Lee Henry Oswald", a seeming error made by the CIA
in their initial filing of 1960 when the CIA
finally (and mysteriously) opened a file on Oswald a year after his defection
and his threat to reveal military secrets to the Soviets.
The other document was a cable sent two hours later to the
station in Mexico :
"Oswald is five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty five pounds, light
brown wavy hair, (and) blue eyes." This description came from his mother
to the FBI’s John Fain years earlier, which then ricocheted back and forth
between INS , the FBI and CIA
for years after that, although Oswald’s weight only varied between 130-150 and
was 150 at the time of his death. The description sent to the FBI, the State
Department, and the Navy is a deliberate lie.
The wording of this cable was repeated to the Dallas police
officers almost verbatim in a mysterious call-in to the dispatcher fifteen
minutes after Kennedy was shot: “white, slender, weighing about one hundred
sixty five pounds, about five feet ten inches tall, and in his early thirties.”
Despite repeated attempts to find out the source, even J. Edgar Hoover had to
admit that the information came from “an unidentified citizen”.
Both of these messages were drafted by Mexico City desk
officer Charlotte Bustos, while a key role in checking for accuracy was played
by Ann Egerter of Angleton’s CI/SIG mole-hunting unit (the woman who opened the
201 file on "Lee Henry Oswald") This may have been as part of a
larger strategy to confuse the FBI, with the goal to withhold information about
its anti-Cuban operations in Mexico City. Egerter admits that she thought
Oswald “was up to something bad” and that she knew he had spoken with a KGB
agent at the Mexican embassy.
Vicente comes through for the CIA
on October 27
Right on October 27, as predicted in the NY FBI memo earlier
that month, Vicente came through. He provided the Agency with the FPCC
stationery they sought, as well as a ten page mailing list. He also provided
them with "one hundred photos of the financial records and general
activities", which included a recent letter from Oswald.
In any case, Vicente brought home the bacon. Special Agent
James Kennedy wrote that he was "…advised that CIA
was interested in obtaining samples of FPCC stationery and also the existing
foreign mailing list of FPCC. On 10/27/63 ,
NY-3245-S* furnished the above material to agents of the NYO…3245-S* is a
highly confidential source, the unauthorized disclosure of which could be
prejudicial to national defense interests.”
After the assassination, Taber, wracked with guilt, appears
to have gone over to the other side
"At approximately 9:45
pm on the night of 11/22/63 ,
ROBERT TABER telephonically contacted the NYO at which time it was immediately
evident TABER had been drinking heavily He at first asked to speak with SAS
JAMES A DAY and LUNDQUIST, who had
previously interviewed him in Boston
and NY, and then spoke to HAROLD HOEG. He was regretful, saying he wished he
had never heard of the “damned outfit” the FPCC.
Told him they wanted him to cure his perjury about the Cuban
funding, he said he wanted to but didn’t want to go back to jail, he’s “got
four years under his belt” (note: to the SISS, he told them he did eight years)
FBI told him it was the best way to avoid prosecution. Taber called HOEG again
on 12/5, and had a similar conversation.
The CIA and the Assistant
AG Yeagley discussed plans to have a grand jury sit on 1/15/64 and prosecute Taber
for perjury about Cuba’s Raul Roa being the source of FPCC’s original 1960
start-up ad, as well as failure for FPCC to register, based on his statements
to Lundquist on 11/22 while intoxicated.
But, instead, FBI founder Robert Taber is interviewed by Lundquist
and O’Flaherty, and offers to provide info to the CIA ,
and even called back Lundquist on information about another case – almost
certainly the report about seeing "Lt. Harvey Oswald" in Cuba
after the Bay of Pigs invasion. Taber admitted that he checked
out of hospital on crutches in third week of April, 1961 and went to Sloppy
Joe’s tavern in Havana , but denied
knowing anything about Lt. Lee Oswald or anyone named Oswald.
Taber affirms that he’s willing to assist the US
government. A situation can be created to make it look like he’s fleeing to Cuba
to avoid prosecution. When Taber was interviewed by CIA ,
the agency initially said it was very interested in Taber’s offer. It is to be
noted that both newspaper articles in the accompanying letterhead memo feature
the possible prosecution of Taber, Gibson, and Lee.
Like with Gibson, the CIA
apparently got cold feet. On March 2,
1964 , Henry Real said that CIA
plans to use Taber are “indefinite”. During March 1964, Robert Taber applied
for employment with the CIA . The CIA ’s
Office of Security rejected him because "In view of Subject’s notorious
background, which raises serious questions on his honesty, loyalty, integrity
and (deleted) trustworthiness, (deleted). Leo J. Dunn." Wannall grumbled
to Sullivan a couple of months later that they should empanel a grand jury
against Taber if he goes to Cuba
as he has discussed.
During 1965, Taber released his classic work on guerilla
insurgency, War of the Flea. Ominously, this book was reprinted in 2002 by Potomac
Press, with a new foreword by Bard E. O’Neill, a military counterintelligence
author. The book is now a standard reference for the US
military on counterinsurgencies.
In 1966, it appears that the plan Taber discussed with the CIA
may have ripened into fruition. The CIA
reported that Robert Taber asked for and received political asylum in Cuba .
Allegedly, he was facing prison due to perjury before the Internal Security
Committee.
Taber, like Gibson, clearly had some weak moments.
Virtually all the FBI agents named here were among the 18
punished by Hoover , and then chosen
to lead the investigation into the assassination
18 FBI agents were punished by Hoover
for their pre-assassination work. Lundquist and Hoeg of New York were two of
them. At an HSCA hearing Gale stated, “Tolson called me on two of the agents in
New York they (the Warren Commission or the FBI) found had, they felt, were
derelict in the way they had reported the matter, and he asked me if we had
found those…and I told him that, yes, we had found those.”
The others punished included Gheesling for removing the
FLASH, Elbert Turner for not taking action on the CIA
memo received the day after Gheesling removed the FLASH, and Hosty, Kaack, and
Lambert L. Anderson for not following up more aggressively. Fain would have
been punished, but he retired in 1962. Nevertheless, the same men proceeded to
lead the post-assassination investigation as well.
As soon as the investigation was over, the FBI knew what it
had to do to protect its role in history. The Director’s office told New
York that since Warren Commission had issued its
report, “you are now authorized to mail an updated copy of the letter
previously submitted. Include a number of spelling and typographical errors in
the letter and use commercially purchased stationery. Use every possible
precaution to ensure that the letter cannot be traced to the FBI”. Originally
submitted for approval three months earlier was a hit-piece on the “left-wing
background and moral degeneration of Mark Lane ”.
The FPCC legacy remains a powerful one
The FPCC provides a legacy of resistance. It was an antiwar
organization and a solidarity organization, much like CISPES (Committee in
Support of People of El Salvador ).
Berta Green, to this day, continues to organize against the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan .
It is still a force in present day America
– when co-founder Alan Sagner was nominated as head of the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, Senator John McCain red-baited him about his history with
the FPCC. (Sagner said good things about the founding of the FPCC, and then
weaseled out with, “Within a year of two after the group was organized…I
perceived that people were getting involved whose purpose and mission was
different than mine.”)
Fair Play stood in solidarity with Cubans, and also with
African Americans. Cubans helped build it, and part of the reason for the
FPCC’s decline is that so many of them went back to Cuba ..
Some people fell or lost faith in the struggle; some were strengthened; and
some we won’t be sure about until all the files are opened.
The work of the FPCC and its allies made any successful
invasion of Cuba
impossible. They blew the whistle on the Bay of Pigs
loudly and clearly for months before the invasion. They mounted resistance to
the war plans of US military and intelligence advisors in the Bay of
Pigs aftermath. The agencies retaliated by infiltrating the FPCC
and demonizing its leadership. When JFK was allegedly killed by the FPCC activist
Lee Harvey Oswald, the agencies had to hide their war plans from the Warren
Commission in order to avoid punishment for public exposure of their illegal
plans to assassinate Castro, violate the Neutrality Act by creating shadow
armies and navies, and engage in dirty tricks on American citizens exercising
their First Amendment rights. The Kennedys’ AMTRUNK operation never regained
its momentum and slowly petered out to a close by 1966.
LBJ was petrified that any Cuban connection with Oswald
could result in World War III . That’s how he
persuaded Warren to chair the
Warren Commission. LBJ didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, any details about
the assassination. The net result was to greatly ease the heat on Cuba .
Many of these activists are still alive and with their
shoulders bent in defense of Cuba ,
such as Saul Landau. Lawrence Ferlinghetti still operates the City Lights Book
store in North Beach
and continues to inspire at the age of 90. Many others are unknown to anyone
but their loved ones. After the hard stories about that era, it heartened me to
know that Rosa Parks came to Robert F. Williams’ funeral in 1996 (he made it
back to the USA in 1969, where all charges were ultimately dropped), and gave
thanks that a warrior that faced so many dangers in the defense of the people
was able to return home with his family and live a long and happy life. Think
about what didn’t happen to Fidel.
Fidel…Fidel…
your coffin passes by
thru lanes and streets you never knew
thru day and night, Fidel
While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel
your futile trip is done
yet is not done
and is not futile
I give you my sprig of laurel."
your coffin passes by
thru lanes and streets you never knew
thru day and night, Fidel
While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel
your futile trip is done
yet is not done
and is not futile
I give you my sprig of laurel."
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