Wheaton Names / Who Knew?
Larry Hancock and David Boylan, 2018
Version 4.0
From Larry's Lancer Presentation
One of the
most fundamental challenges in JFK assassination research is dealing with third
party sources who appear to provide insights into the origins and motive(s) of
a conspiracy related to President Kennedy’s murder. The starting point in
evaluating the sources is obvious. First there must be independent
documentation verifying that they were personally associating with the
individuals they themselves name, at a point in time when they claim to have
obtained the information. Second, their sources must be determined to have been
in a position to have heard or otherwise obtained the information being
described.
Beyond
that, information which has been officially offered to law enforcement or
official investigative bodies gains an additional level of credibility given
that the source is not only exposing themselves to legal action but also
demonstrating a personal risk by being on record with information which may
become public.
Beyond
that there are consistency checks on the information itself. One of the most
important is whether any connections can be determined among the names related
by the sources. If multiple independent
sources independently provide names which can then be verified to actually have
been connected in a historical context, the information rises to a higher level
of credibility.
With those
guidelines in mind, the following paper examines third party information
presented to the Assassinations Records Review Board by Gene Wheaton. The ARRB itself interacted with Wheaton on
several occasions, but that interaction was very much pro forma and there is no
indication that, even though he presented a series of corroborative documents
relating to his own sources, that they seriously considered his information. It
was only after his communications were released as part of the routine
disclosure process that his story – and documents relating to his sources –
became visible to researchers. Wheaton himself had assumed that his information
would remain confidential and he was shocked when researchers approached him to
show him the paperwork he had submitted and ask for his comments. Only a single
interview, conducted by William Law and filmed by Mark Sobel, is available to
offer his personal confirmation of his information.
Wheaton Interview:
Wheaton’s
attempt to offer the information to the ARRB, which he had previously been
willing to take to Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, was intended to
stimulate an official investigation, provided confidentially and clearly not in
any attempt at personal visibility or gain.
This paper
summarizes our efforts to investigate Wheaton’s story and apply rigorous
vetting criteria. As it developed, the effort expanded into a study that went
well beyond Wheaton himself - on to a series of other sources which appear to
be corroborative. Those individuals and the information they independently
provided are discussed individually as sources.
In addition, the backgrounds of certain of the individuals who seem to
be common to all the information which has emerged are reviewed in Appendix A.
Appendix B contains new information regarding the involvement in Castro
assassination efforts of key figures in the Wheaton story such as Jenkins and
Rodriquez.
Source 1: Gene Wheaton related to the ARRB that in the mid-1980s he had heard
conversations among individuals who described the motives and participants in
the murder of President Kennedy. The conversations involved former CIA
operations (paramilitary) officers as well as Cuban exiles who had been
involved in CIA activities for decades. At the time Wheaton was managing a
transport airline company and seeking business shipping materials to Central
America in support of the Reagan era covert North/Secord Contra warfare against
the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
Based on
documents Wheaton supplied to the ARRB, we know that two of the men involved in
the conversations were Carl Jenkins, hired by Wheaton to lead his sales effort,
and Rafael Quintero, a personal friend of Jenkins and one of the two Cuban
exile field managers running Contra support operations in Central America for
Oliver North and Richard Secord.
While
Jenkins did not specifically name the other individuals involved in the
conversations it seems likely that they included Felix Rodriquez, the other
Cuban exile logistics manager working for North/Secord, and possibly Luis
Posada - brought into the Contra project and working for Rodriquez. Rodriquez
himself was literally a legend within the CIA and Cuban exile communities, one
of a very few paramilitary officers to be publicly acknowledged as a CIA
employee. We now know that he was also a key figure in a highly secret CIA
effort to kill Fidel Castro in a sniper attack, prior to the Cuban exile
landings at the Bay of Pigs beaches in Cuba.
Released CIA operational and personnel documents now provide a good deal
of context on the anti-Castro operations of 1960-1964, including the personal
backgrounds of both Jenkins and Quintero, as well as Felix Rodriquez.
Wheaton
described the JFK assassination remarks he heard as simply conversation among
the men he was associating with during his Contra support sales effort, the
recalling of old projects and individuals they had worked with operationally in
anti-Castro efforts for the CIA. The individuals being discussed had either
been trained by Jenkins or were known to him through anti-Castro CIA
projects. Apparently Jenkins and
Quintero had both worked with the individuals being discussed during the early
1960’s. It is unclear whether
individuals discussed in respect to the Dallas attack were actually named,
however Wheaton stated that it was clear that those who attacked JFK were
seeking revenge for friends who had died and the free Cuba, a cause they felt
Kennedy had betrayed. However those “above them” had a higher level goal than
simple revenge.
It seems
most likely that the anti-Castro era names who would come up during these
conversations in the 1970s would include men who had not only been involved in
efforts against Castro’s Cuba but who would have also had some history in
Nicaragua, the contemporary focus of all the individuals meeting with Wheaton
and talking among themselves. Given that assumption, we can posit certain
individual’s individuals who might well have been the subject of the exchanges
Wheaton heard.
One such
individual, one of the earliest Cuban exile volunteers to enter the Contra
struggle in Nicaragua, was Nestor “Tony” Izquierdo. Izquierdo had also been one
of the earliest volunteers for the CIA anti-Castro project circa 1960. He had
escaped from Cuba via Mexico and shortly after his arrival in Miami had been
recruited into a group being trained to go into Cuba as part of a covert effort
to organize a successful resistance movement against the Castro regime. His
skills earned him entry into parachute jump training and he became one of a
select number of exiles (including Felix Rodriquez and Rafael Quintero) who
were infiltrated into Cuba prior to the 1961 Cuban Expeditionary Force
landings, in a variety of missions.
While
Rodriquez and Quintero went into Cuba multiple times by boat, Izquierdo
reportedly dropped onto the island in a very risky night parachute jump.
Izquiredo was inside Cuba at the time of the Bay of Pigs landings but managed
to work his way out of Cuba following that disaster. After making his way back
to Florida he became a CIA asset, part of the exile group used in ongoing CIA
JMWAVE maritime infiltrations. He continued in that effort into 1963,
participating in covert maritime missions into Cuba – missions personally
organized and led by Rip Robertson.
In the
fall of 1963 Izquierdo joined a new, highly secret and highly autonomous,
Kennedy Administration project designed to move anti-Castro operations out of
the U.S. and make them totally deniable – the project was designated as AMWORLD
and Rafael Quintero was its military leader, working with CIA officer Carl
Jenkins.
By early
1964 Izquierdo, along with Felix Rodriquez (who had been personally recruited
by Artime) had been covertly sent to Nicaragua.
Later in 1964 Izquierdo was recruited by Rip Robertson for a very select
paramilitary team sent into secret operations in the Congo. Following his time
in the Congo, Iquierdo became involved with some of the most radical exile
groups including CORU. Ultimately he became one of the earliest Cuban volunteers
to go to Nicaragua to train Contra rebels to fight against the Sandinista
regime. He as killed in 1979, during an air mission into Nicaragua.
Luiz
Posada, brought into work Contra logistics support operations by Quintero and
Felix Rodriquez had, along with Izquierdo, been involved in some of the most
violent and activist Cuban exile groups – CORU. Posada was one of the founders
of CORU and had been personally associated with both assassination attempts
against Fidel Castro (working as a covert asset of CIA officer David Phillips)
and the mid-air bombing of a Cuban air liner.
War stories:
We can
only speculate as to the exact names which were at the root of the
conversations Wheaton heard, which he describes as war stories told by those
involved in the contemporary Nicaraguan Contra activities. Given that Quintero
had recruited Izquierdo into the Artime project and worked with him
operationally - and that Izquierdo had been the first of the Cuban exiles to
die in the Contra effort - it certainly seems that his name would have come up.
Another individual with an operational history with all Wheaton’s current
associates, as well as an extended history in Nicaragua, would have been Rip
Robertson.
Robertson (crypts Irving Cadick and William
Rutherford) was one of the first
post-WW II CIA paramilitaries (as was Carl Jenkins) and had served in
PBSUCCESS, the Guatemala project, along with CIA officers such as David
Phillips and Henry Hecksher. Hecksher would become the CIA senior officer in
the AMWORLD project, working with both Carl Jenkins and Rafael Quintero.
During
PBSUCCESS, Robertson, known as a “cowboy” within CIA field operations, had
become so close to Nicaraguan president Somoza that at Somoza’s urging he had
sent an airstrike against a neutral freighter off Guatemala, causing an
international incident. That had so annoyed CIA headquarters that Robertson was
essentially banned from CIA missions for several years, taking up residence in
Nicaragua and starting his own business there.
However
with the start of the CIA Cuba project (JMARC/JMMATE) Robertson was brought
back into CIA activities – primarily because of his long and close personal
relationship with President Somoza. In fact Robertson was designated as the key
American liaison to Somoza for the first Cuba project. Robertson coordinated
all JMATE activities in Nicaragua and was effectively in control of
establishing and operating the CIA strike base established at Porta Cabezas in
Nicaragua (JMTIDE).
(Official History of the Bay of Pigs
Operation, Volume II: Participation in the Conduct
of Foreign Policy Author: CIA, Mary
Ferrell Foundation; MFF146717.PDF, 268 pages)
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Robertson
was in Nicaragua from December, 1960 through mid-February 1961. He returned to
Guatemala in April to sail with the Cuban Expeditionary Force and participate
in the Bay of Pigs landings. He earned the respect from the Cuban volunteers by
going ashore and fighting alongside them – against specific orders not to do
so. His reputation as a “cowboy” and his trust by the Cuban volunteers was
enhanced by his personally leading maritime missions into Cuba for the CIA
following the disaster at the Bay of Pigs. During those missions he repeatedly
violated standing orders; on one mission he directed his mission crew to
conduct machine gun attack on Che Guevara’s residence. There was no CIA officer
more respected and well regarded by Cuban anti-Castro fighters than Robertson,
who always fought right along with them, irrespective of orders.
Robertson
died in Dallas in 1970 after overseas service in the Congo and Vietnam.
Anecdotal reports, circa 1964 in the Congo, describe him as a separate source
of information about the JFK attack in Dallas, He appears to have rather openly
discussed the nature and motives for the attack with his Cuban exile team in
the Congo, a team which included several of his long time maritime mission
personnel including Nestor Izquierdo.
Robertson
is especially interesting to this story in regard to the missions he was
involved with during the summer of 1963, including the TILT operation – a
mission which violated a host of standard CIA security guidelines and involved
a number of non-CIA authorized Cuban exiles, as well as civilians such as John
Martino and former American ambassador William Pawley.
JFK story origins:
If we
assume the war stories Wheaton heard involved the common experiences and
associates of Quintero and Rodriquez, two points quickly emerge. The first is
that they had both been involved in the earliest CIA paramilitary operations
against Cuba, operations carried out by specially selected Cuban exile cadre
who had received initial training at American military facilities in the Panama
Canal Zone. Several of those individuals had been selected for advanced
training even before the Cuban Expeditionary Force Guatemala training camp was
established. Carl Jenkins had overseen the Panama camp training (JMRYE) and had
gone on to become Chief of Base at the Guatemala ground training base (JMTRAV).
Jenkins had been in charge of the Guatemala base from Sept, 1960 until December
10, when Frank Egan took command. Jenkins himself appears to have been moved
into special maritime operations against Cuba, missions which involved both
Quintero and Felix Rodriquez – missions very possibly associated with extremely
secret special projects aimed at assassinating Fidel Castro.
If the men
involved in the JFK war stories Wheaton heard were indeed Quintero and
Rodriquez, the two may have been relating information heard from their
associates in the early, covert Cuba missions into Cuba as well as the later
AMWORLD and Congo projects. Information from other sources appears to support
that possibility.
Source 2: Rolondo
Otero was a
source for HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi, expressing to Fonzi his personal
knowledge that a CIA officer had been circulating among certain Cuban exiles in
the early fall of 1963 - talking of treasonous activities of JFK in regard to a
secret diplomatic outreach to Cuba and Castro.
Otero himself was a personal friend of Nestor Izquierdo, associated with
him in a parachute group and also with Luis Posada in CORU activities during
the early 1970s. Otero also claimed to
have heard a similar story to that related in the Wheaton conversations – that
Cuban exiles had been involved in the attack on JFK, in revenge for his failure
to support the Cuban landings with air cover and for his ongoing treachery.
Otero provided Fonzi with the name of a local Cuban exile who purportedly had a
broader knowledge of those involved – Bernardo de Torres.
Otero’s
remarks in regard to a secret JFK/Castro outreach have been confirmed in a
variety of sources. As early as June 1963. Special Group Augmented discussions
included the possibility of establishing new and highly secret channels of
communication to Castro. Notes from that meeting relate that there was a
“discussion of “various possibilities of establishing channels of communication
with Castro”.
However it appears that the CIA officer Otero described was
talking about something far more specific, something more imminent and far more
threatening to the Cuban exiles. Something which involved the possibility of
actual negotiations between Fidel Castro and President Kennedy. The activity in
question would have been secret negotiations which might have changed Cuba’s
relationship with Russia, ended the American embargos and sanctions and
formally acknowledged the continuity of Castro’s regime.
That new Kennedy/Castro secret was indeed very real,
extremely secret. It was being conducted with deniable State Department assets
– entirely outside the purview of the CIA, the Special Group Augmented and even
the National Security Council. It was underway by early fall and as it
proceeded the first actual meeting between American and Cuban representatives
was being scheduled for November, 1963.
There are indications that the CIA officers at JMWAVE in
Miami were aware of the developing Kennedy/Castro contacts, contacts involving
highly personal backchannel communications supposedly known only to the
President and two State Department officers. Documents indicate that by early
fall the designated Castro representative (Rene Vallejo) – previously the
subject of no CIA interest at all – was being targeted for CIA intelligence
collection and possible surveillance. That interest was relayed to JMWAVE in
Miami, to the Cuban intelligence group units (AMOTS). Assets to be used in
targeting Vallejo were being evaluated, including AMOT assets in Mexico City.
What becomes especially interesting - and supports Otero’s
remarks about a CIA officer spreading the word against JFK in Miami – is that
highly secret JFK/Castro outreach was known beyond CIA headquarters and the
Miami CIA station. In addition to Otero, it appears to have been communicated
to a civilian in Miami, a civilian with whom Rip Robertson was operationally
and personally involved beginning in the summer of 1963. That civilian was John
Martino and Martino was quite public in his remarks about a secret Kennedy
Administration accommodation with Castro.
Source 3:
John Martino admitted to close friends, shortly
before his death, that he had been involved in a minor role in a conspiracy
(including acting as a courier in trips to Dallas) against JFK. He related his
limited knowledge of both the plan for Dallas and the motives for those who
were involved in the attack. His friends, first anonymously, and then
officially relayed that information to the HSCA. In later years both his wife
and his son confirmed that he had prior knowledge of the attack in Dallas and
provided a limited amount of information as to whom he had been associating
with in the period in which he had apparently become involved.
Martino
independently supports other sources who described that the word had been
spread among certain Cuban exiles in Miami that there was a secret JFK/Castro
dialog emerging. That fact can be confirmed by references which Martino made in
speeches and writing, both prior to and following the assassination. He also
admitted to the knowledge that that Lee Oswald was being used in a relatively
minor role in the conspiracy, pointing the attack on JFK towards Fidel
Castro. Martino had actually observed
Oswald leafletting during a trip to New Orleans.
Speculation
on Martino’s sources, and who might have involved him in the conspiracy, seems
to rest with individuals known to be Martino’s most trusted associates in the
September/October, 1963 time frame. Certainly his most relevant anti-Castro
activity, one quite surprising for a man his age, had been his personal
participation in a highly secretive maritime mission into Cuba, CIA Operation
TILT.
That
mission (intended to obtain evidence that Russian ballistic missiles were still
deployed inside Cuba) was approved by Western Hemisphere chief J.C. King, at
the highest levels of the CIA - approved apparently without knowledge of the
Special Group Augmented, the NSC or RFK/JFK. If it had succeeded the
revelations would have been a tremendous political blow to the Kennedy
administration. TILT included the participation of William Pawley, previously
an American ambassador, earlier a secret Presidential liaison to the Batista
regime and one of a very select group who had made am early, highly classified
evaluation of American intelligence for President Eisenhower.
Pawley
himself personally participated in the TILT mission along with Martino, a
number of non-CIA vetted and non-operationally approved Cuban exiles and a
photo journalist from LIFE magazine. The participation of Pawley, Martino, the
LIFE photographer and the unvetted Cubans were all major violations of standard
CIA security protocols. Given Robertson’s operational role at JMWAVE, Martino
would have been one of the few “outsiders” that Robertson would have been in
contact with in the summer of 1963.
The TILT
mission itself was under the operational command of Rip Robertson. However
beyond contact during the mission into Cuba, Martino’s son related that Rip
Robertson was a frequent visitor to the Martino home during much of 1963;
another definite violation of CIA security protocols. Other visitors included Felipe Vidal and
Frank Sturgis (Fiorini). Both men circulated at will through the Cuban exile
community.
Although
Vidal was not a major exile “political” figure, he was well respected for his
bravery, commitment and naval experience. During 1963 Vidal was operationally
involved in ongoing efforts to stage independent paramilitary missions into
Cuba with Roy Hargraves and Bernardo de Torres. Hargraves was photographed
preparing for maritime missions against Cuba, in the company of Bernardo de
Torres and Felipe Vidal. Vidal and Hargraves were independent actors with
extremely limited resources and certainly with no connections to or support
from the CIA
It should
also be noted that Vidal himself related the information that he was aware of
the fact that JFK was about to betray the Cuban exiles once again, negotiating
some sort of accommodation with Fidel Castro – an accommodation that would
leave Castro in power and abandon the Cuban exiles. Vidal described himself as
having devoted an effort to spreading the word within the exile community that
JFK was actually a threat to them. It is also a matter of FBI record that, like
Martino, Vidal himself did travel to Dallas during the fall of 1963.
In
addition Roy Hargraves was independently reported to the FBI as having known of
and possibly as being involved in some fashion in a plot against JFK.
Source 4: Ray January
January operated an aircraft servicing and sales company at Red Bird
airport in Dallas and during 1963 was involved with a small number of
multi-engine transport aircraft which were being sold to a third party company
associated with the Houston Air Center. January
was responsible for servicing, checking and making any fixes required by the
buyers who were accepting the aircraft.
The last aircraft being sold was actually a WWII troop carrier which had
been heavily modified, having all the seats removed and reconfigured as a cargo
carrier.
While the
aircraft was being accepted, the pilot/aircraft mechanic conducting the
acceptance identified himself as a Cuban (he spoke English with no particular
accent) who had previously flown similar aircraft in Cuba but who had also been
a pilot at the Bay of Pigs (both B-26 fighter bombers and parachute troop
transports were involved in support of the landings). He was outspoken in
relating that his friends had died during that effort - because JFK had not
delivered the promised air cover for them. The pilot told January that JFK
would be killed in revenge for those deaths. January felt the man to be quite
sincere but simply did not believe him until the afternoon of Nov. 22. He spoke
briefly to the man before the transport departed in early afternoon and was told
that things were simply happening as the Cuban had stated earlier.
Nothing
about the pilot’s remarks indicates he was directly involved in the Dallas
attack; he had been there working on the aircraft’s checking and acceptance
since Nov. 18. It does suggest that he
was associating with individuals who were talking about JFK in terms of
betrayal and revenge. His remarks reveal the same motives overheard by Wheaton
and independently related by Martino, Otero and Vidal – that revenge was the
motive and that to those involved, JFK’s death was a matter of executing a
traitor.
As with
the Wheaton incident, the question becomes whether the pilot’s remarks can be
associated with any particular group of individuals. Only now, while still
speculative, it is actually possible to detail a potential common origin –
among people working in and associated with the new Artime/Quinero/AMWORLD
project which had begun in the summer of 1963.
Artime/AMWORLD project:
That
project was headed by CIA officer Henry Hecksher. Hecksher had previously
served with the CIA in Berlin, Guatemala, Laos, and Tokyo as well as on the
Cuba projects – including special missions to Mexico City in 1962. Hecksher’s second in command was Carl
Jenkins. Jenkins had prior service
across SE Asia including Laos and Indonesia, as well as in training the initial
Cuba project Cubans in Panama and in running pre-invasion maritime missions
into Cuba out of CIA bases in the Florida keys.
As Artime began to prepare for new offshore, deniable missions against
Cuba in 1964, he brought in former personal associates such as Rafael Quintero,
Nestor Izquierdo and Carlos Hernandez.
Although it is not possible to be specific on their assignments, at
least one of those individuals appears likely to have been associated with a
new element of the AMWORLD project, a renewed effort to assassinate Fidel
Castro (AMTHUG).
Given that
the Artime project was to be exceptionally deniable and intended to be highly
autonomous, associates of Artime and the Cuban exile project personnel became
directly in field activities without direct CIA officer supervision or
involvement - to an extent never seen in previous CIA projects. Working under
the umbrella of Desmond Fitzgerald’s new Special Affairs Staff, Hecksher and
Jenkins and a very small CIA staff provided AMWORLD support including the
provision of false identities and travel paperwork (required to covertly
exfilitrate them outside the United States) as well as business and employment
covers.
The
AMWORLD staff also facilitated coded communications, enabled logistics and
coordinated funds transfers – Artime’s own people moved money and managed the
monies from the CIA, using a variety of shell accounts and banking covers. The majority of AMWORLD purchasing, leases, shipping
and money management was performed entirely by Artime’s associates. For example
it is a matter of record that Artime’s close friend Frank Sturgis was
dispatched to Dallas in June, 1963 to begin arrangements for obtaining
transport aircraft for Artime’s use.
While AMWORLD was to be focused on deniable attack missions
against Cuba from offshore locations – making it almost entirely a maritime
effort – it did require limited air transport and a small number of pilots were
brought into the project. One of the AMWORLD pilots was Antonio Soto. Soto had previously been in the Cuban Air
Force, he was recruited into the Brigade and had flown a B-26 in support of the
Bay of Pigs landings. He had further pilot training in the U.S. and CIA
documents cite him as speaking good English.
Another AMWORLD pilot was Jorge Navarro. Although Navarro
was a pilot and had been in training in the Cuban Air Force before going into
exile, he did not fly for the Cuban Expeditionary Force but rather was assigned
to paramilitary operations. His experience in unarmed combat and in
sharpshooting appears to have qualified him for assignment to the special group
of individuals inserted into Cuba prior to the Brigade 2506 landings. The
record indicates that his insertion was operationally conducted by Rip
Robertson.
Navarro was recruited into the Artime project in August,
1963 and served in it as a pilot until 1966, at which time he and many other
members were recruited by the CIA for special operations in the Congo. Navarro
stated that he was one of the pilots that flew C-47s in Nicaragua for the
Artime project. Antonio Soto was also recruited for CIA air operations in the
Congo. His stay in Nicaragua was very brief and he never actually flew for
AMWORLD before transferring to the Congo. His first Congo tour was from the end
of 1963 until May 1964.
We have no way of positively determine if either Soto or
Navarro was the individual who talked to Ray January in Dallas the week of
JFK’s assassination. However research on
the aircraft in question does support that it was intended for the Artime
project, which is also on record using leased military transport planes.
Documents confirm that as of February, 1964 Artime had one transport aircraft
available to his operations
Talk
against JFK:
In addition to the remarks from the sources previously
noted, there are other instances of threatening talk against JFK, that talk was
reported to the FBI in both Chicago and Miami. We know now that a motorcade in
Chicago was canceled following an FBI advisory that individuals it was
monitoring had traveled to Chicago and might pose a risk to the president. In
addition, threats in Miami were well enough known that a number of special
security measures were taken in regard to the president’s trip there during the
fall. We also know that Secret Service records relating to the Chicago trip and
to the president’s fall travel were destroyed, some as late as the ARRB record
collections activities in the 1990s. While we have no idea what was in those
records it is apparent that some still unknown factor resulted in one of the
first acts by President Kennedy’s brother Robert immediately following word of
the attack in Dallas.
On the
afternoon of the assassination, Robert Kennedy made two significant personal
contacts. Neither has ever been explained nor was RFK ever questioned about
them. One was an outreach to the new
director of the CIA, specifically asking whether or not the CIA had been
involved in the murder of his brother.
The other was an attempt to reach his personal friend, Harry Ruiz
Williams - Ruiz Williams had been one of the Cuban exile officers at the Bay of
Pigs, seriously injured in the fighting. Williams’s injuries were such that in
he was released in April 1962, with some sixty other badly injured prisoners.
After that he worked closely with RFK in negotiating the release of the rest of
the Brigade.
RFK was
unable to connect directly to Williams but he did reach author Haynes Johnson,
who was working on a book with Williams at the time. RFK indicated to Johnson
that he wanted to talk to Williams because he felt “his people” had been
involved in the attack on his brother.
At the
time Ruiz Williams was involved with forming a Cuban political coalition in
support of the new and deniable Kennedy administration AMWORLD (external
military attacks) and AMTRUNK initiatives (Cuban domestic coup effort)
initiatives. Williams appears to have been the administration’s candidate to be
the leader of a new Cuban republic - in the event that the AMWORLD / AMTRUNK
initiatives were successful in ousting Castro.
There is
no doubt that there was talk against JFK in the Cuban exile community, about
the idea that he had become a major obstacle to any effort in ousting Castro.
Such talk can be documented within certain exile circles, including within the
student revolutionary group, the DRE. A DRE member engaged in an effort to buy
weapons in Chicago was reported by an informant; he had stated that his group
had new backers and they were going to be moving against Castro – as soon as
JFK was out of the way. Another Cuban exile, recently arrived in Miami and
apparently trying to impress a girl he was chatting up at the Parrot Jungle
restaurant was reported to the FBI as saying that he hated Castro as did his
friend Lee – his friend was in either Texas or Mexico at the time and was
capable of shooting Kennedy between the eyes.
At the time the new Cuban exile was living on the estate of former
Havana casino operator Mike McClaney, who had helped him gain entry to the U.S.
The
obvious challenge is not in documenting such talk against JFK, but rather in
dealing with sources that at first glance seem to be totally unrelated. In
addition to remarks from Chicago and Miami, we have reviewed similar comments
from within the CIA paramilitary community in Miami, or from individuals
operationally associated with individuals like Quintero, Jenkins, and
Robertson.
At first
glance there seems no obvious connections between comments from within a Cuban
exile student group (DRE) or from a new Cuban exile whose only obvious
connection was to Mike McClaney. How could those two connect to CIA
paramilitary personnel or to a Cuban exile pilot in Dallas?
Only now,
after literally decades of research, and the ongoing availability of new
documents, is there an indication that there may be common threads linking a
number of seemingly disparate sources. Threads which all lead back to the CIA
paramilitary network that had developed during the covert missions against Cuba
in 1961 through 1963, and to names found to be associated with the Artime
project which began during 1963 – a network of individuals who by the fall of
1963 would be working with each other once again.
Manual Artime:
Manuel
Artime Busa (crypt AMBIDDY-1): Manuel
Artime had been one of the Cuban exiles meeting with Senator Kennedy as early
as the Democratic Convention in July 1960; he became well acquainted with RFK.
Artime became one of the more well-known Cuban exile political figures. Known
widely inside Cuba for his anti-Batista activities, he became a highly symbolic
figure in the American anti-Castro efforts. While the CIA would ultimately back
away from the idea that a wide scale uprising against Castro was part of the
plan for sending the Cuban Expeditionary Force on to the island, we now know
that to be false. In fact we know that their plans involved sending Artime into
Cuba in advance, with special groups of pathfinders and scouts, to link up with
active resistance groups on the island.
A number of the personnel used in those infiltration teams, were taken
from the CIA’s Guatemala camp, as of January still under the command of Carl
Jenkins. Others were taken from maritime operations teams (AMHAZE) which had
been established at bases in the Florida Keys.
Beyond
that there is strong reason to speculate that putting Artime and a total of
four special teams into Cuba, in an operation approved directly by the CIA
Director, was part of an initiative to assassinate Fidel Castro and trigger a
general uprising which would have been climaxed by the arrival of the Cuban
Expeditionary Force.
Under
orders from CIA Director Helms, Artime and two special Cuban exile teams were
sent under extremely high and compartmentalized security from Guatemala to
Florida in early February, 1961. Seven team members were to personally
accompany Artime. In addition a separate three man team traveled on the same
transport aircraft, carefully isolated from Artime and his team. Related
documents suggest that prior to the actual mission teams proceeding into Cuba,
Artime was to receive a special CIA headquarters briefing.
Those
missions and the overall assassination initiative are not directly related to
our exploration of the Wheaton names, however what is currently know is
detailed in Appendix B of this work. In contrast, Manual Artime and certain
individuals closely associated with him, and with anti-Castro paramilitary
operations are directly related to the Wheaton names studies, much more so than
previously understood.
Artime and AMWORLD
What we do
know is that the plans to put Artime into Cuba in February/March did not come
to pass. Instead he rejoined the expeditionary force and Brigade 2506 in
Guatemala and became the senior exile political leader to actually go into the
fight with the Cuban brigade. Along with many of them, he was captured and
spend 20 months in a Cuban prison during 1961/62.
In late
1962 Artime was released from Cuban captivity along with the remaining
prisoners from Brigade 2506 and he initiated a new contact with the CIA through
JMWAVE operations chief David Morales – as well as direct personal contacts
with RFK. In January, 1963 William Harvey,
acting head of Task Force W (which was still supporting the second
generation anti-Castro Mongoose project) recommended Artime for use by the CIA,
initially for propaganda purposes. Artime also continued to meet directly with
RFK from February –April, 1963. There
were May meetings between Theodore Shackley, head of JMWAVE (crypt Andrew K.
Reuteman), David Morales (crypt Stanley R. Zamka), Henry Hecksher (crypt Nelson
L. Raynock) and Artime (crypt AMBIDDY-1; alias Ignacio).
While we
know a good deal about the logistics, funding and even the purchasing
activities of Artime’s new project we have very limited details on the activities
of his personnel, especially during 1963. Given that the role of the CIA
officers assigned to AMWORLD was vastly different than previous CIA covert
operations, this is understandable. Hecksher, Jenkins and the small logistics
staff functioned as advisors and coordinators rather than directly in either
personal activities or actual military operations. Their role was to support
financing, shipping and the purchasing activities that required to support what
was to appear as a totally independent and autonomous military initiative
against Castro. A variety of commercial and civilian covers were required, not
just for personnel but for major buys of deniable weapons from commercial arms
dealers. Ships and barges of various types had to be bought or leased, transit
papers arranged, and most importantly off-shore bank accounts established. And
in addition to offshore accounts, deniable shell accounts were established
inside the United States.
Those
accounts were run by Sixto Mesa, a close personal friend of Artime’s from the
days of anti-Castro activities in Cuba. It appears that multiple “working
accounts” (including accounts at the First National Bank of Miami) were
established inside the U.S. each constantly funded at the level of $25,000. Those accounts were used for domestic travel
and lodging, recruiting, maintaining communications channels such as letter
drops and generally funding activities including the purchase of materials
available in the United States. Over the period of its life, the overall AMWORLD
project as a whole was provided with some $7,000,000.
It also
seems important to note that Artime’s official cover story for the AMWORLD
operation – vital to distance it from the CIA, the United States and the
Kennedy administration – was that it was a totally independent movement, funded
by President Samoza of Nicaragua and with European donors. Artime is quoted in
telling potential recruits at Fort Benning that the U.S. government was not
going to do anything more against Cuba, they had become an obstacle and he
intended to obtain bases and support totally outside the U.S.
Initial
organizational moves in the new project began in June and by July/August the
first funding and recruiting for AMWORLD was in progress. By the end of June
matters had proceeded to the point where Artime’s close friend Frank Fiorini
(Sturgis) was dispatched to Dallas by Artime to investigate a source for
transport aircraft to be used in project operations. While most of Artime’s
military operations were intended to be sea borne raids, transport aircraft
would be required and records show that at least one C-47 transport was
obtained for AMWORLD use. Major covert financial funding for AMWORLD began in
July, 1963.
Available
documents do give us some level of information on the recruiting and staffing
of Artime’s project. We now have documents which identify certain of his
“commandoes” although there is no overall personnel list. Among the individuals
personally recruited by Artime was Felix Rodriquez, in addition Artime brought
a number of individuals into the project who he had worked with inside Cuba and
who had been specifically named in his pre-Bay of Pigs mission. One of the
names - Felix Rodriquez – is already familiar to the Wheaton story. However
what the documents reveal is that the personnel selection for AMWORLD was
totally unlike any previous CIA operation. There appears to have been no
extended security vetting and even when JMWAVE received recommendations for
AMWORLD, it simply forwarded them on through the Special Affairs Staff,
earmarked for AMWORLD reference.
It is
especially significant that prior participation in independent and unsanctioned
maritime missions against Cuba or in illegal activities involving violations of
U.S. federal statutes did not prevent individuals from being taken into
Artime’s operation. In fact several individuals being investigated by the FBI
for federal crimes may have escaped charges by being quickly taken into the
Artime project. That represented a dramatic break with prior exile activities
sponsored by the CIA, where all personnel were security screened prior to any
assignments.
One of the
early 1963 AMWORLD recruits was Carlos Hernandez (Brigade trainee 2523). Carlos was well known to Artime, having been
a member of Artime’s “Commandos Rurales” in Cuba, along with Nestor Izquierdo
and Rafael Quintero. Hernandez was a
black belt in Karate and a sharpshooter. It was his expertise in Karate and his
friendship with Artime that had led to Artime to request Hernandez as his
personal bodyguard while Artime was traveling in Latin America early in 1960.
Carlos had
also been one of the first volunteers for the CIA’s Cuba project. That project
began strictly as an operation to train a relatively small number of exiles
into Cuba. Their mission would be to join on-island resistance groups,
stimulating a guerrilla activities and triggering a counter revolution.
Carlos
Hernandez began his CIA paramilitary training under Carl Jenkins at the CIA’s
Panama camp (JMRYE). Training included
infantry combat, guerilla operations, and sabotage as well as radio
communications. Following training in Panama, Hernandez was moved into advanced
training in the use of explosives and infiltration skills, at a CIA camp
operated outside Belle Chasse, Louisiana (JMMOVE). A number of the earliest
Cuban exile volunteers went through Panama training and moved on to Belle Chase
– that list includes Carlos Hernandez, Victor Hernandez, Frank Bernardino and
Jorge Navarro. Those individuals were then “sheep dipped” as malcontents and
officially taken out of the program, while actually being moved into safe
houses and then into Cuba infiltration missions managed out of the CIA’s base
in the Florida keys (JMFIG).[1]
While
many of these missions remain to be explored, we do know details of one
involving an AMHAZE team, a team involving Carlos Hernandez and designated as
Operation Yeast. That mission was to launch from Ramrod Key and was intended to
stimulated an uprising in Cuaba’s Oriente Province (one of the team members,
Luis Sierra, would later head Artime’s 1963 AMWORLD project). As with several
of the missions associated with stimulating on-island resistance to Castro,
Operation Yeast apparently aborted due to Castro military forces in the
intended landing area.
Several of
these individuals involved in those maritime missions were personally known and
especially trusted by Manual Artime. In January 1961, in preparation for his
still mysterious mission inside Cuba, Artime he had requested Carlos Hernandez,
Nestor Izquierdo and Frank Bernardino, as part of his own special commando
group. While they were not available at that time, already dispatched for
maritime infiltration missions (AMHAZE). But again, in April, Artime
specifically requested that that the CIA locate and transport several of the
individuals - including Hernandez, Izquierdo and Bernardino – to Guatemala, to
accompany him as a special commando group during the upcoming landings in Cuba.
Those same
individuals, are also found among the CIA vetted Cuban paramilitary personnel
participating in in various post Bay of Pigs missions (AMHAZE)[2] into
Cuba - with certain of the missions under the operational control of Rip
Robertson.
Some of
these individuals – including Tony Izquierdo and Felix Rodriquez were inserted
into Cuba prior to the landings; they managed to evade capture and make their way back from Cuba.
They continued with CIA activities into 1963. Others, such as Carlos and Victor
Hernandez continued in maritime infiltrations, eventually being taken out of
operations as the CIA began to limit such missions even before the Cuban
missile crisis.
These
individuals remained fervent anti-Castro activists but upon being separated
from the CIA began to affiliate themselves with independent exile groups such
as the student revolutionary movement (DRE). After his releas from post-Bay of
Pigs JMWAVE maritime missions, Carlos Henandez became a very active DRE member,
part of its military leadership. He was a participant in a dramatic and
internationally publicized boat raid on Havana in August, 1962.
By the
summer of 1963, Carlos Hernandez and John Koch Gene (whose brother had died at
the Bay of Pigs landings) had been recruited by Victor Hernandez (another DRE
member) into projects which involved launching independent aerial bombing
missions against Cuba from both the Miami and New Orleans (LaCombe La.) areas.
The Cuban
exiles participating in those 1963 projects were Student Directorate (DRE)
members and the financing had come from former Havana casino figures, primarily
from Mike McClaney, via Sam Benton. The FBI conducted an extensive
investigation of the bombing efforts (the FBI summary report runs to 112 pages)
but in the end no charges or other legal actions were taken against any of
those involved - even though the incident had involved the illegal purchase of
explosives and their transport across multiple state lines. Explosives and
other materials for the abortive bombing project had been obtained in Illinois,
where DRE members had been traveling in the summer and fall of 1963, seeking
weapons for new military activities. By
that point in time the Kennedy Admiration was opposing any of their military
missions and supporting them only in public relations and propaganda
activities.
Apart from Carlos Hernandez and John Koch Gene (AMHINT-26), other exiles involved in
the McClaney funded aerial bombing projects included Victor Hernandez, Frank
Bernardino, Antonio Soto and Gonzolo Herrara. Both Soto and Herrera had flown
Brigade 2056 aircraft in support of the Bay of Pigs landings. John Koch Gene,
Carlos Hernandez and Victor Hernandez had met with Mike McClaney as part of the
bombing project and McClaney was identified by the FBI as the source of funding
for what was essentially a DRE rogue mission.
Victor
Hernandez’s (CIA crypt AMHINT -25) activities following the abortive bombing
projects are unknown. Although he was interviewed by the HSCA they failed to
question him about virtually anything beyond that incident. His CIA operational approval had lapsed in
May, 1963, only two months before he became involved with the first attempted
McClaney bombing mission, to be flown out of Florida.
While we
don’t actually know what Victor was involved in during the rest of 1963 and
into 1964, we do know several Cuban exiles investigated in the LaCombe air
attack plan were recruited by Artime and were taken into his project by early
fall, 1963. Those individuals included Antonio Soto and Gonzolo Herrara, who
would both go on to join covert CIA air operations in the Congo. Carlos Hernandez and John Koch were also
requited for AMWORLD, as part of “Quintero’s Commandos”.
Coming together:
A deep
dive into the documents released during the last few years reveals that a
considerable number of Artime’s AMWORLD recruits had prior experience in the
special maritime infiltrations run against Cuba both before and after the Bay
of Pigs disaster. Those missions launched from the Florida Keys and many of the
individuals directly involved in the post-BOP missions worked directly with Rip
Robertson.
The group
that came together in the AMWORLD project was first organized inside the U.S. beginning
in the summer of 1963. The location and movements of all those involved are
still hazy but we do know there were funds made available for domestic
activities such as lodging, travel and even the purchase of supplies and
weapons. Only in December and January were personnel given cover identities and
covertly exfiltrated out of the United States to Nicaragua and the Dominican
Republic. In addition to now familiar names such as Rafael Quintero, Felix
Rodriquez and Nestor Izquierd, the recruit list also included names from the
independent DRE and McClaney funded projects of summer, 1963 - including Carlos Hernandez, John Koch Gene,
Antonio Soto and Jorge Navarro.
Some of
these individuals were likely together inside the United States in the fall of
1963. The majority of them were together in Nicaragua in 1964 – and some of
them including Rafael Quintero, Felix Rodriquez and Nestor Izquierdo would
return to Nicaragua in the 1970’s, key figures during the North/Contra era.
“The Names” - Connections and corroboration:
What
begins with conversations heard by Gene Wheaton turns out to be something much
more “connected” than isolated war stories from a couple of people. When his
1970s Nicaraguan Contra logistics sales effort reunited Carl Jenkins with
Rafael Quintero it brought together not only current Contra project people like
Felix Rodriquez and likely Luis Posada, but individuals who had a decades long
history with covert paramilitary action against Fidel Castro, including high
risk one and two men missions run directly into denied and highly dangerous
territory.
These men
were the alpha cadre of the CIA’s Cuba projects, repeatedly selected for covert
projects and missions before and after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, ultimately
picked for the new and highly autonomous AMWORLD project – some would continue
to be picked for clandestine missions such as the Congo operations and the
mission that finally killed Che Guevera.
As to the
war stories themselves, particularly those that involved the talk of an attack
on JFK, in terms of motive and incentive it appears they are fully consistent
with the other sources we noted – Vidal, Otero and Martino – all associating
the attack on JFK as involving Cuban exiles, individuals dealing with a sense
of betrayal and with a fundamental motive of revenge.
Beyond
motive, it appears that a number of pre-assassination remarks about a threat to
JFK are also repetitive and consistent. Those remarks – to Ray January in
Dallas, at the Parrot Jungle in Miami and from a DRE member in a weapons sting
in Chicago – all appear to connect back to unsanctioned DRE activities in the
summer of 1963 (with financing from gambling figures in Miami and Los Angeles)
and to people who became involved with new Artime/AMWORLD autonomous
anti-Castro effort the end of that summer.
Those individuals had been frustrated enough to join in efforts to
procure weapons and launch missions against Cuba even as the CIA and JFK was
denying the DRE any further military role in efforts to oust Castro – and as
Artime himself was telling recruits they had been abandoned by the US, the CIA
and the Kennedy administration.
The names,
the motives, the threads do all seem to be interwoven. At a minimum what they
suggest some type of rogue CIA/Cuban exile action against JFK. An action
incited and abetted by certain CIA officers and involving the most activist
Cuban exiles. At this point, based only on these sources and stories it is
impossible to be more specific – however the one name common to all the
threads, and the one directly associated with John Martino, who himself
admitted to being a minor participant in the conspiracy, would seem to be that
of Rip Robertson.
Appendix A / Backgrounds:
Gene Wheaton
In
October, 1995 Gene Wheaton advised John Tunheim, the Chairman of the
Assassinations Records Review Board that he had “relevant information” for the
Board’s inquiry. He included a four page personal biography as well as a
personal commendation from President Nixon for his work in Iran, targeting the
global heroin network.
In
response to a blanket communication sent to everyone who had contacted the
ARRB, he responded with a one page CV of a former CIA officer – a close
personal friend and employee of his at the time Wheaton was serving as Vice
President of National Air Cargo, operating a fleet of 23 turboprop primarily
involved in overnight UPS transport services. The former CIA officer had been
employed in Washington D.C., as a sales liaison seeking air transportation
contracts for support of the Reagan Administration humanitarian and military
efforts against the government of Nicaragua.
The ARRB
did follow up with a contact, at which time Wheaton advised them that he could
produce documents relating to two former CIA officers who had related details
pertaining to the assassination of President Kennedy, specifically information
related to the Cuban exiles who had carried out the attack (motivated by their
hatred of JFK as a “traitor” to the anti-Castro cause) and to those individuals
above them who had acted for their own reasons.
Although
the ARRB totally failed to respond to Wheaton’s outreach, the eventual release
of the ARRB files, their discovery by researcher Malcolm Blunt and subsequent
investigations (including confronting Wheaton with documents he had never
realized would be made public) revealed that the individuals Wheaton had
desired to name as sources for the ARRB were former CIA Directorate of
Plans/Operations officer Carl Jenkins and a well-known Cuban exile who had
worked extensively with the CIA in military activities against Cuba. Wheaton
stated that both men were in possession of names and details related to the
attack on JFK in Dallas and had discussed the attack and those who participated
in it in his presence. The CIA
paramilitary officer employed by and a close friend of Wheaton was Carl
Jenkins.
Carl Jenkins
Jenkins
began his military service during WWII, following the war he was commissioned
as a Second Lt. in a Reserve Rifle Company (1940) and became an instructor for
the CIA in 1952, teaching courses in paramilitary operations, survival and
Evasion and Escape during 1952 and 1953. During the 1950s he conducted training
across SE Asia, including training Thai and Nationalist Chinese personnel and
served in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. His specialties
included maritime infiltration and guerilla/resistance tactics.
In 1960
Jenkins (CIA crypt James D Zaboth) was assigned to the CIA’s Cuba project (JMATE) in 1960/61,
placed in charge of training of Cuban exiles and expatriates. The initial
training work was carried out at a CIA camp in Panama. From Panama Jenkins was
assigned to develop a much larger training facility in Guatemala. He served
Chief of Base for the ground forces training in Guatemala (JMTRAV). In February
Jenkins was reassigned, apparently to run a variety of highly covert infiltration
missions into Cuba, missions related to preparing the way inside Cuba for the
landing forces. He was associated with
the abortive effort to move Artime and special teams into Cuba in March and
appears to have been involved with the covert efforts to send in personnel to
carry out attacks against Fidel Castro in early April.
Following
the failed landings at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, Jenkins was sent to
Vietnam, where he served as a special warfare advisor to I Corps in the
northernmost region of South Vietnam, operating out of DaNang. In 1963 Jenkins
was assigned to a new project, designated AMWORLD. That assignment most likely
had to do with his earlier experience in covert Cuban operations as well as his
prior service as a case officer for Rafael Quintero (AMJAVA-4), a participant
in the very early covert maritime missions into Cuba.
|
AMWORLD
continued as an active CIA project following the death of JFK, however Cuba
did not remain a priority for President Johnson and as all attention turned
towards Vietnam. The Artime project struggled on, only to be quietly closed
down by 1965. Following his AMWORLD assignment Jenkins was assigned as a
senior advisor to the Dominican National Police and following that as Senior
Advisor on Security and Training to the national police of Nicaragua. In 1969
he moved to Laos, becoming Chief of Base for CIA military operations in
southern Laos during 1971-73 (a position earlier held by David Morales,
former Operations officer for the JMWAVE station in Miami). Jenkins retired
at the end of the SE Asian conflict, although he was called back for special
duties as late as 1979.
|
Rafael Quintero
Quintero,
was the second individual named by Gene Wheaton as having knowledge of the
individuals involved on the attack on President Kennedy.
Quintero
had been involved with infiltration missions into Cuba prior to the failed
landing of the Cuban Expeditionary Force and had operated covertly on the
island, as had Felix Rodriquez. He had managed to evade and escape during the
landings and the following massive round up of suspected insurgents, as had
Rodriquez. Following his return to the United States, he had had drafted plans
for a new covert operations initiative and presented them to Special Group
leaders Robert Kennedy and Maxwell Taylor, who in turn offered the plans to CIA
Deputy Director Richard Helms.
Quintero
was well respected, both within the CIA community and by senior members of the
Kennedy Administration who thought highly of him. Helms was favorably impressed
and forwarded Quintero’s plans on to the president’s military representatives.[3] As
the Artime project evolved into AMWORLD, Quintero was appointed second in
command of the new project and accompanied Artime to the most secret meetings –
with Carl Jenkins continuing as his case officer as he had been during the
early 60/61 JMATE project. .
Quintero
was involved in AMWORLD military operations through 1965. It appears that given
his experience with autonomous operations and deniable military logistics, he
was then retained as a contract employee working with a variety of companies in
Mexico and Central America that functioned as CIA fronts. He officially
separated from the CIA in 1971, maintaining contact with his former associates.
In 1976 he was approached by former CIA officer Ed Wilson and personally loaned
Wilson ten thousand dollars to help set up a new freight forwarding company. Shortly
afterwards Wilson approached Quintero to take part in an assassination;
Quintero assumed it was CIA sanctioned and he and an experienced Cuban exile
demolitions expert flew to London to be briefed on the mission.
During the
briefing it became clear that Wilson was involved with a strictly private
project and that Russians were involved. The project was actually one of the
Gadhafi/Libyan deals that Wilson and other Americans had become involved with
and Quintero immediately returned to the U.S. and reported it to his longtime
friend, Carl Jenkins. Jenkins advised him to have nothing to do with Wilson.
By 1985
Quintero was in a new position, as field logistics coordinator for the Reagan
Administration Contra initiative against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He
traveled across Central America, arranging shipping and weapons clearances with
multiple governments – working directly for Richard Secord (under Oliver North)
and with no official US government clearances or standing Quintero established
senior level government arrangements with foreign governments and military
agencies. Quintero supported Secord in establishing airfields and setting up a
covert air operation in support of the Contra effort – all after Congress had
passed legislation officially removing the CIA from Contra military activities.
At the
same time, another long time CIA asset – Felix Rodriquez – had also been
brought into the North era Contra operation.
Felix Rodriquez
Rodriquez
had been deeply involved in the pre-invasion maritime missions into Cuba, as
well as in plans for an abortive sniper attack on Castro. He became one of the
earliest recruits for the AMWORLD project, personally approached by both Artime
and Quintero while in U.S. Army training at Fort Benning in the earl fall of 1963.
Rodriquez
was among the Artime recruits “black exfiltrated” out of the U.S. at the end of
1963. He carried out a number of activities, including radio communications
coordination, in the AMWORLD project. Following the end of AMWORLD, Felix
Rodriquez was retained by the CIA as a totally deniable field agent. In his own
biography he describes being paid as a principal agent but only under a verbal
agreement with no contract and no paperwork. Following a short assignment to
Venezuela, Felix Rodriquez, along with two other Cuban exiles, was moved into a
project in Bolivia – a project specifically targeting Che Guevara. Operating
under commercial cover, Rodriquez became a key figure in the operation which
ultimately led to Guevara’s death.
Afterwards
Rodriquez continued activities across Latin America, conducting counter
insurgency training under the cover of being an American military officer.
Following that service he was moved to SE Asia, where he supported Project
Phoenix field operations out of Saigon; after Vietnam he was redirected back to
Latin America, to a post in Argentina in 1972.
While
working as an “off the books” CIA employee, Rodriquez had also pursued other
work - serving as a security consultant in Lebanon and then joining Ed Wilson
(as Quintero did) for work supplying weapons to militias in that country. He
writes of “hoaxing” his CIA case officer to go overseas for that work. His
activities across Latin America introduced him to a host of senior military
officers in the region. He officially separated from the CIA in 1976 and
received a virtually unique approval to publicly talk and write about his CIA
employment. By 1981/82 he became involved in a number of private initiatives
against the Sandinista leadership in Nicaragua, implementing what he called his
own “tactical task force” of experienced anti-Castro Cuban exile fighters.
Ultimately
Rodriquez, like Quintero, became deeply involved with the North/Secord Contra
operations, organizing and managing transportation and supply logistics for the
effort. It was during this involvement that Quintero became reacquainted with
Carl Jenkins and in which Jenkins went to work for Gene Wheaton, seeking air
transportation contracts to support the North/Secord Contra effort.
Nestor “Tony” Izquierdo
Another of
Artime’s early recruits for the AMWORLD project was Nestor Izquierdo, another
Cuban exile with a long history of anti-Castro operations. He had been one of
the earliest anti-Castro revolutionaries inside Cuba, along with both Artime,
Quintero and Tony Verona.
Izquierdo
was among the earliest exile volunteers - along with Quintero and Felix
Rodriquez – to volunteer for the CIA’s Cuba project, taking his initial
training in Panama under Carl Jenkins, Reported he parachuted into Cuba prior
to the Bay of Pigs landings. Following the disaster at the Bay of Pigs
Izquierdo managed to make his way out of Cuba and joined CIA JMWAVE maritime
missions against Cuba, missions often personally led by Rip Robertson. Like
Artime, Robertson clearly had a good deal of respect for Izquierdo’s
operational skills, actually taking him out of the AMWORLD project (under
Quintero and Jenkins) for a special hostage rescue mission into the Congo in
the fall of 1964.
Izquierdo ended up being one of the last
AMWORLD recruits to leave Nicaragua as that project was being closed down. He
and Silvano Pozo Carriles helped secure the cache of AMWORLD armaments at
Monkey Point in Nicaragua. In June 1965 Carl Jenkins managed to obtain work for
both men in Panama, in jobs under George Cabot Lodge, son of Henry Cabot Lodge.
Upon his
return to the United States, Izuierdo became involved with some of the most
activist Cuban exile groups, joining CORU along with Rolondo Otero, Orlando
Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Izquierdo was also one of the earliest
volunteers to train Contra rebels to fight against the Sandinista regime in
Nicaragua. He was killed in 1979 during an air mission into Nicaragua.
Rip Robertson and TILT
The TILT
mission remains somewhat mysterious for many reasons, even though we do have
documents on its origins and a detailed after action report from the
operation’s mission leader, Rip Robertson.
TILT was first floated by DRE members in the spring of 1963. It was also endorsed and promoted by John
Martino through his anti-Castro political contacts in Miami. The purported
objective of the mission was to connect with a revolutionary group inside Cuba
who was hiding defecting Russian missile technicians. Those Russians supposedly
(according to the DRE sources) had remained in Cuba after the Russian agreement
to remove all ballistic missiles from the island. Supposedly they were willing
to provide statements and evidence that Russian ballistic missiles - and
possibly nuclear warheads - remained in Cuba.
Arrangements were in place to immediately provide that evidence to
Congressional and media sources in a manner that would have been highly
damaging to the Kennedy Administration and JFK’s upcoming election campaign.
What the
available documents confirm is that the TILT mission was authorized at the
level of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere chief, JC King, and supported by Ted
Shackley, the head of the JMWAVE station in Miami. It was approved and carried out at a point in
time when all missions into Cuba required approval by the Special Group
Augmented (SGA) covert action oversight committee (headed by RFK).and
Presidential concurrence. Yet there is no indication that TILT was communicated
to the SGA or approved by RFK or JFK.
The TILT
mission itself involved a host of violations of standard CIA security
practices, including the participation of a LIFE magazine photo
journalist. In addition it involved the
personal participation of William Pawley, a former US Ambassador. Beyond his
work as an ambassador, Pawley had been a consultant on national security and
the organization of the CIA, submitted an eyes only secret report on the
national intelligence t0 President Eisenhower. TILT also involved the participation
of a number of non-CIA vetted Cuban exiles involved with Alpha 66 (a proscribed
exile military group at that point in time) and of John Martino, recently
released from prison in Cuba and a highly visible critic of the Kennedy
Administration policies on Cuba.
Appendix B / Castro Assassination Efforts:
We are far
from having the full details of the extremely secret CIA military initiative
which targeted Fidel Castro for assassination in early 1961. It is even unclear
to what extent the heads of the Cuba project and the CIA Director himself were
informed as to the operational details of its various efforts. As with many
areas of the overall Cuba project, deniability and compartmentalization appears
to have overruled effective communications and operational coordination. The best we can do is to detail some of the
elements now known to have been occurred.
During the
first three months of 1961 at least two different military missions were
planned. Those missions targeted Cuban leaders and specifically Fidel Castro.
Theyt were intended to lay the groundwork for a popular uprising which would
have supported by the landing of the Cuban Expeditionary Force. One mission
(possibly planned under the “Pathfinder” operations) was intended to carry out
an attack on Fidel Castro at a location near the Bay of Pigs resort where he
routinely vacationed. It appears that plan may have included details of
Castro’s personal travel and activities, including information from sources
previously close to Castro inside Cuba such as Frank Sturgis. Prior to his
departure from Cuba Sturgis had offered to personally carry out a lethal attack
on Castro, however the CIA had declined his offer at that point in time.
Sturgis’s name appears in one January 20, 1961 report which includes a
reference to “Pathfinder”.
A second
plan – known to Carl Jenkins, if not operationally managed by him - did go
operational; it involved the insertion of personnel who were to carry out a
well-planned sniper attack on Fidel Castro at his retreat on Varadero Beach,
east of Havana. The mission was supported with maps and annotated drawings of
the Varadero (formerly DuPont owned) Estate. Those materials were prepared from
aerial and possibly satellite photo imagery processed by the imagery staff
assigned to JMWAVE. We only know about these two assassination projects because
certain of the WAVE personnel were later transferred to the National Photo
Imagery Center (NPIC) and they provided information the Church committee on
assassinations. The very limited records
which describe the two plans were submitted to the Church Committee by managers
at NPIC, they included statements from some eight personnel who had worked on
projects related to attacks on Castro.
According
to Edward Cates, the chief of the Image Exploitation Group at NPIC, “a number
of our photo interpreters [8 individuals] supported Carl Jenkins of the DD/P
(Deputy Directorate of Plans) concerning a plan to assassinate Castro at the
DuPont Veradero Beach Estate, east of Havana. Castro was known to frequent the
estate and the plan was to use a high powered rifle in the attempt. The photo
interpretation support was restricted to providing annotated photographs and
line drawings of the estate.”
It appears
that the CIA may have performed its own internal investigation of those
missions in the mid-1970s. Two memoranda from June and August, 1975 record the
statement of a Cuban CIA officer (in 1961 a contract employee) that he
participated in three abortive Cuban infiltration missions, including an effort
to land him near Varadero Beach. The objective of that mission was a long range
rifle attack on Fidel Castro. One of the memos mentions the names of two Cubans
involved in the mission, “Felix” and “Segundo”.
Based on this information, it appears that Carl Jenkins may have been
transferred out of Guatemala to manage a number of covert infiltration missions,
involving at least one which involved Felix Rodriquez and a sniper attack on
Fidel Castro.
The memo
also discloses that the boat used, the “yacht” had aborted one insertion due to
engine problems. That observation, when
combined with information in related documents, allows us to identify both the
yacht as the Tejuana III and the individual named Felix as Felix Rodriquez. CIA
documents record the missions of the Tejana III, which began in late February,
1961 and ended in early April. The Tejana made four trips into Cuba during that
period, carrying infiltration personnel and supplies for on island groups
intended to support the planned uprising. Some 27 personnel and 60 tons of
supplies were covertly transported into Cuba. It appears that Felix Rodriquez
was sent in on a one man mission in early April, a mission which was forced to
abort due to an engine problem with the Tejana III.[4]
A separate
CIA document, the debriefing of Felix Rodriquez prior to his separation from
the CIA in 1976 (and a very unusual authorization for the public disclosure of
his CIA service) records his own statement that in December 1960 he had
volunteered to kill Fidel Castro, stating that it was the only solution to the
Cuban problem. He also stated that he had been supplied with a special sniper
weapon for missions into Cuba and that he and another CIA Cuban had made three
missions into Cuba.[5]
Rodriquez did not identify the CIA officer who had given them the assignments
or state any details on the missions. In
his own biography, Rodriquez provides more detail on the assassination plan,
describing a German bolt action sniper rifle with a telescopic sight. The rifle
itself was pre-sighted according to the specifics of the mission, based on the
exact location in which Castro was to be attacked.
While we
have a good level of detail on the abortive sniper attack involving Felix
Rodriquez, the earlier mission – apparently scheduled for March – remains far
more mysterious. However we do know that Director Helms himself approved the
transportation and staging of four different teams that apparently were
scheduled for missions in the March time frame, but which either aborted or
failed. One of the teams would have involved Artime, another a special three
man mission which ultimately did attempt and failed in a major sabotage effort
on the Havana power system as well as the assassination of Castro. While characterized to the Church committee
as a rogue operation, that effort clearly was sanctioned and involved a three
man team sent out of Guatemala by Carl Jenkins.
At the same
time, another team consisting of 7 exile personnel and two deniable team
leaders was also sent out of Guatemala. Interestingly, one of the team leaders
may have been one of the Russian defectors who had been used for Cuban exile
military training in both Panama and Guatemala.
That possibility is indicated by the fact that a CIA document indicates
him as associated with AEDEPOT. The AE crypt can be shown to be used for Soviet
Union sources, in particular defectors and agents.
For
reference it should also be noted that the CIA’s efforts to use Havana casino
connections to actually poison Fidel Castro did not get underway before
March. The first effort failed and a
second effort was hurriedly put together in early April, immediately prior to
the dispatch of the Cuban Expeditionary Force. That effort aborted because the
conduit for the poison, Tony Verona, was sequestered along with other exile political
leaders immediately before Brigade 2506 sailed from Guatemala. President Eisenhower’s initial time frame for
putting exile forces into Cuba would have inserted them prior to the November,
1960 elections. When that failed he
requested that the CIA carry out an operation in December. However the CIA’s plan had changed so
dramatically over time that even the basic missions in support of an internal
uprising in Cuba – much less the actual elimination of Fidel Castro - were not
operational prior to January, 1960.
[1] Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, JFK Lancer Publications,
2010, Appendix E, “Student Warrior”, 360-363
[2] A CIA maritime operationas group consisting of
exiles initially recruited for the 2506 Brigade. This brigade was the
anti-Castro Cuban exiles and allies that participated in the Bay of Pigs. https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=AMHAZE&search=amhaze
[3] RIF 145-10001-10121 and 145-1001-1022,
“Operational Plan Submitted to CIA by Quintero”
[4] Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked,
Appendix D, “The Way of JMWAVE”, 352-359
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