The Arrogance of Power

by Anthony Summers

  Chapter 16

  1. In the memoirs Nixon said Helms “refused to give Ehrlichman the agency’s internal reports.” There are four principal postmortem style reports on the efforts to overthrow Castro. CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick’s Survey of the Cuban Operation was closely held until its 1998 release following a Freedom of Information suit by the National Security Archive. The 1967 Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, also from the inspector general’s office, was declassified in 1994. A history of the Bay of Pigs, compiled by CIA house historian Jack Pfeiffer in the mid-seventies, is still withheld, although some of Pfeiffer’s interviews with CIA personnel are available. CIA Director Helms could have produced the Kirkpatrick report and the Castro assassination study for President Nixon had he chosen to or had Nixon persisted. According to Helms, “Nixon never told me later that he hadn’t received what he wanted.” (Reports: MEM, p. 515, Kornbluh, op. cit., and Thomas, The Very Best Men, op. cit., p. 344–, reference the reports thoroughly; Helms: Powers, op. cit., p. 327, and int. Helms, and Ralph Weber, Spymasters, Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1999, p. 270.)

  2. The start of the 1971 pressure coincided with a memorandum from Charles Colson to Haldeman. Colson reported that Howard Hunt, who as a CIA agent played a major role in the Bay of Pigs project, had told him that “if the truth were ever known, Kennedy would be destroyed.” A few days later Hunt began working at the White House, with assignments that included digging for dirt on President Kennedy. One of his exploits involved the forgery of cable traffic to suggest the Kennedy administration had been behind the 1963 killing of Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. (“If the truth . . .”: Colson to HRH, July 2, 1971, memo extract released Nov. 1994, NA, E, vol. VII, p. 700; assignments: WHT, Sept. 18, 1971, and Hunt, Undercover, op. cit., p. 147; Diem: ibid., p. 179.)

  3. Greek émigré journalist Elias Demetracopoulos, whose January 1961 interview with Admiral Arleigh Burke had upset President Kennedy, told the author of a late-night visit to his apartment by Buzhardt in June 1973. Fearful of bugs, Buzhardt persuaded Demetracopoulos to come out and talk while walking around the block. He wanted Demetracopoulos’s file on Burke because Burke had been chief of naval operations at the time of the Bay of Pigs. Demetracopoulos declined to help. (Int. Elias Demetracopoulos.)

  4. Helms has recalled Haldeman’s bringing up the Bay of Pigs but has denied shouting. His biographer Thomas Powers thinks he probably did lose patience. He had after all been badgered on the subject over a long period. (Powers, op. cit., p. 476, n. 57.)

  5. Earlier, before seizing power, Castro told Paris-Match correspondent Enrique Meneses that he would allow gambling to continue, but only for foreign tourists. In a radio broadcast before the revolution, however, he said he was “disposed” to deport the casino operators or even shoot them. (Meneses, op. cit., p. 58; Lacey, op. cit., p. 252.)

  6. Former CIA agent Ross Crozier, interviewed in 1996, says both Castro and Che Guevara knew he was with the agency. Crozier was told—he thinks reliably—that no less a figure than J. C. King, CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division chief, himself flew in to meet and assess Castro. Later, as described in this chapter, King favored Castro’s assassination. (Int. Ross Crozier, but see Dorschner and Fabricio, op. cit., p. 94.)

  7. Smathers has said he discussed Castro’s assassination with President Kennedy in 1961. Kennedy disapproved of the notion, he told a Senate committee. Smathers told this author in 1994 that Kennedy in fact approved of the idea and that his brother Robert was aware of the later CIA/Mafia plots. (U.S. Senate, Assassination Plots, op. cit., p. 123–; Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, op. cit., p. 188.)

  8. Pawley claimed he had heard the young Castro talking as though he were a Communist in 1948, in a radio broadcast during the violent uprising in Colombia known as the Bogotazo. An official probe, however, found no Communist involvement in those disturbances. (Broadcast?: Mario Lazo, American Policy Failure in Cuba, New York: Twin Circle, 1968, p. 144; untrue?: Geyer, op. cit., p. 94.)

  9. The journalist Andrew St. George, who knew Castro and wrote extensively about Cuba, was present as they left Nixon’s office. He too recalled Nixon’s saying words to the effect that the United States would be able to work with Castro. (Int. Andrew St. George.)

  10. Those cited indicate Nixon felt sure Castro was a Communist once he had met him. As in his report to Eisenhower, however, he suggested in a private letter to the editor of the Miami News that he thought it “possible” Castro might “change his attitude.” (AMI, p. 516.)

  11. Howard Hunt claimed in a 1973 book that the CIA did not use the code name Pluto—and surmised that it was perhaps, rather, a name used by the Pentagon. The name Pluto, however, was still being used in the context of CIA usage in 1986—by the author John Prados. (Hunt, Give Us This Day, op. cit., p. 214; Prados, op. cit., p. 178–.)

  12. Figueres said this in 1977 in a taped interview with the politics editor of the New Republic, Ken Bode. He added that he “came to believe that Eisenhower actually did not know about Nixon ordering preparations. . . .” Obviously the president did know about the plans, at least in a general executive sense. Conversations with Bode lead the author to infer that Figueres meant Eisenhower did not fully understand the hands-on nature of Nixon’s involvement. (New Republic, Apr. 23, 1977.)

  13. Haig became involved in Cuban matters, and with relevant military and intelligence personnel, somewhat later. As military assistant to the secretary of the army he worked with returning members of the Cuban exile force that had been defeated at the Bay of Pigs. Later still Haig served as President Nixon’s last chief of staff.

  14. In corroboration of Hunt’s account, CIA historian Pfeiffer also referred to this meeting. Pfeiffer placed it in late June, Hunt in July. (Notes of Pfeiffer int. by FB, FBP.)

  15. Kohly, Jr., who himself became an exile activist, said his father got Nixon to intercede on his behalf in 1959, when he was having trouble obtaining a U.S. visa. The visa came through within twenty-four hours of his father’s meeting with Nixon. (Int. Dr. Mario Garcia Kohly, Jr.)

  16. Nixon did use the Burning Tree Club golf course, which, coincidentally, would also one day be the setting for the very first attempts to cover up Watergate. (Klein, op. cit., p. 360; Liddy, Will, op. cit., p. 344.)

  17. Another affidavit to the same effect was signed by Robert Morrow, who claimed to have been a CIA contract agent. Morrow was arrested for counterfeiting in 1963 along with Kohly, and later pleaded nolo contendere. Morrow later spun his story into books that expanded his involvement to supposed knowledge of alleged plotting in the John F. Kennedy assassination. The author does not find Morrow’s books credible in that respect. Morrow’s appendices, however, are a useful source for relevant public documents. (Ints. the late Robert Morrow, Professor John Williams; Robert Morrow, Betrayal, New York: Warner, 1976 and First Hand Knowledge, New York: S. P. I. Books, 1992.)

  Chapter 17

  1. The committee took into account the testimony of Robert Johnson, a former National Security Council staffer, who recalled Eisenhower’s saying something at an NSC meeting that “came across to me as an order for the assassination of Lumumba.” Later in the testimony Johnson seemed to retreat from this statement, but he also emphasized the “profound moral dilemma” he had in discussing matters he had learned under conditions of secrecy. In an interview for this book he reiterated his belief that Eisenhower had ordered or at least agreed to the killing of Lumumba. CIA officials, for their part, said they believed the Lumumba plotting was authorized by the president or “at the highest levels,” which tends to mean the same thing. Beyond what is covered in the main text, next to nothing is known of Eisenhower’s position on the Castro plotting. Jacob Esterline, the CIA officer who directed Operation Pluto and thus had to authorize disbursement of operational funds exceeding $50,000, recalled challenging two 1960 requests for $150,000. The colleague making the requests swore him to secrecy and explained that the money was for a Castro assassination project, authorized by �
�the President of the United States.” Esterline had no way of knowing if his colleague was telling him the truth. (Johnson: int. Robert Johnson; U.S. Senate, Assassination Plots, op. cit., p. 55–; “highest levels”: ibid., p. 65–, and see also Stephen Ambrose with Richard Immerman, Ike’s Spies, Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1981, p. 293–; Esterline: int. Jacob Esterline by Gus Russo, 1998.

  2. Many now accept that the Kennedy brothers, both doomed to be assassinated, authorized later plotting to kill Castro. There has been enduring speculation that President Kennedy’s murder was somehow linked to the Castro plots. Lyndon Johnson, who apparently learned of the plots after succeeding Kennedy, died not long before the Senate committee began its probe. In 1974, at a meeting of New York Times editors, President Ford said he expected the forthcoming Rockefeller Commission on the CIA might come upon matters that could “blacken the reputation of every president since Truman.” “Like what?” asked the Times managing editor, A. M. Rosenthal. “Like assassinations!” Ford replied, “That’s off the record!” The Times observed the restriction, but word soon leaked out. Noting that “every president since Truman” would clearly include Nixon, the author wrote to former President Ford asking if he knew whether Nixon had been privy to Castro assassination plans while vice president or whether he was aware of any assassination plans made while Nixon was president. Ford replied:

  1) I do not specifically know of any knowledge President Nixon may have had of assassination plans.

  2) I do not know whether President Nixon as Vice President under President Eisenhower was privy to plans to assassinate Fidel Castro or other Cuban leaders.

  3) When I became President, I did not become aware of any specific plans made during the Nixon presidency.

  The author asked for clarification. Ford replied saying, “I was very precise in my wording. I do not intend to revise or add. Please accept my response as final.” This may suggest that, while Ford knew nothing of the situation during the Nixon vice presidency, he did gain nonspecific knowledge of assassination plans or operations during the Nixon presidency. (For the Kennedys’ apparent involvement in the Castro plots and the possible ramifications, see, inter alia, this author’s articles on Judith Exner in the New York Daily News, Oct. 6, 7, 8, 1991, and in Not in Your Lifetime, op. cit., pp. 187–, 247–, 305–; Ford: Daniel Schorr, Clearing the Air, New York: Berkley, 1978, p. 144; Ford-author corr.: author’s letters, Dec. 6, 1996, Apr. 1, 1997, Ford letters, March 4, Nov. 26, 1997.)

  3. The Senate report notes that authorization could also have come from the Special Group (or 5412 Committee), a body consisting of “designated representatives” of the president and the secretaries of state and defense assigned to study and agree on proposed operations. At least on occasion Nixon was briefed on the Special Group’s deliberations. (Special Group: Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, op. cit., p. 212; RN briefed: notes of Jack Pfeiffer int. by FB, FBP.)

  4. In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bissell said he believed Dulles had “probably” talked to Eisenhower about the CIA-Mafia plots and “guessed” the president had given authorization, “perhaps only tacitly,” based on his knowledge of Dulles’s mode of operations. This conflicts with a Newsweek report of a Bissell interview that cites him as saying he was “certain” Dulles told no one at the White House. (U.S. Senate, Assassination Plots, op. cit., p. 111; Newsweek, Dec. 11, 1995.)

  5. A year later, interviewed for television by David Frost, Nixon suggested that had President Roosevelt ordered Hitler’s assassination before World War II, the act would have raised a “tough call” for constitutional authorities. (Frost, op. cit., p. 185.)

  6.Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1980) says “goon” also refers to someone hired to “terrorize” an opponent, the sense intended by John Ehrlichman when he described Nixon’s order to hire “goon squads” during election campaigns to rough up hecklers. In relation to agents sent to Cuba, however, the word surely referred to “elimination” of opponents rather than the mere scaring of them. (Ehrlichman, op. cit., p. 33; int. John Ehrlichman.)

  7. The journalist Tad Szulc, Hunt’s biographer, has reported that Hunt took part in a later, (1964) Castro assassination plot. According to Szulc, Hunt was at one stage assigned to the office of Allen Dulles and was asked to help him with his memoirs. Dulles was aware of the anti-Castro plots. (Szulc: Tad Szulc, Compulsive Spy, New York: Viking, 1974, pp. 97, 95; Dulles aware: Grose, op. cit., p. 552.)

  8. According to June Cobb, who worked alongside Lorenz in Castro’s Havana office, it was not Castro but a senior military aide, Captain Jesús Yánez Pelletier, who fathered Lorenz’s child. Castro, she said, spent intimate time with Lorenz, but never had sex with her. According to a document in a CIA file, citing notes by Alexander Rorke, Cobb was instrumental in Lorenz’s having the abortion. Cobb said in a recent interview that she opposed the abortion. (Cobb, abortion: John Newman, Oswald & the CIA, New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, p. 110–, citing CIA documents and Cobb int. by John Newman; Rorke notes: CIA Domestic Contacts Division report to chief, Jan. 22, 1964, JFK files, Jan. 1994 release, p. 2, NA.)

  9. Researching the Lorenz story poses multiple difficulties, not the least of them the fact that Lorenz herself is one of those rococo figures in the Cuba saga who has expanded her story over the years to include elements that, to most investigators, are not credible. Most notably she has spun a tale linking key figures in her story to the assassination of President Kennedy. The scenario covered in this text, however, is backed by evidence. That Lorenz had some sort of relationship with Castro is supported by photographs of the two of them together and by the statements of June Cobb and Frank Sturgis. The first reporter to report the Lorenz assassination mission, Paul Meskil of the New York Daily News, found her account believable. Gaeton Fonzi, a meticulous investigator for the Senate Intelligence Committee, believed Lorenz to be truthful on many points while not so on others. The deputy chief of the CIA’s Security Analysis Group, Jerry Brown, treated her story seriously in a six-page report. He was struck by the similarity between Lorenz’s account and FBI Director Hoover’s October 1960 memo to the CIA referring to leakage of a plan to use a girl to poison Castro’s drink. (Expanded story: Fonzi, op. cit., p. 93–, and Lorenz, op, cit.; photographs: New York Daily News, June 13, 1976, Lorenz, op. cit., and Fonzi saw relevant documents; Meskil: New York Daily News, Apr. 20, 1975, June 13, 1976; Fonzi: Fonzi, op. cit., conv. with author and partial transcript of int. Marita Lorenz by Fonzi, Feb. 3, 1976, NA; Brown: undated [late seventies] report to chief of Security Analysis Group, no. D02016, Box 2, 1993 CIA release, NA.)

  10. Orta took refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy in early April 1960 and finally received a safe passage to leave Cuba in late 1964. (CIA Inspector General, Plots to Assassinate Castro, op. cit.)

  11. Varona was used again when the CIA-Mafia plots were revived in 1962. He was supplied with poison pills and weapons, but again with no result. The real reason Castro survived the poison plots may be that the intermediary, mob boss Trafficante, duped the CIA. “The CIA had all this crazy talk about poisoning,” Trafficante’s attorney Frank Ragano quoted him as saying in 1967. “Those crazy people. They gave me some pills to kill Castro. I just flushed them down the toilet. They paid us a lot of money and nobody intended to do a damn thing. It was a real killing.” (Varona: CIA Inspector General, Plots to Assassinate Castro, op. cit.; “real killing”: Frank Ragano and Selwyn Raab, Mob Lawyer, New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1994, p. 209.)

  12. As the CIA inspector general admitted in his opening sentence, his report on the Castro murder plots was “at best an imperfect history.” When and how who first proposed what to whom will probably never be known. Doris Mirage, a CIA secretary, recalled that the overall head of Cuban operations, Richard Bissell, “got calls from the Mafia, but he wouldn’t take them. I don’t even know how they got his inside number.” An offer to kill Castro, in writing, mysteriously arrived from one of the Mafia bosses, Joe Bonanno. While he reportedl
y recoiled from these direct contacts, Bissell wrote in his memoirs, posthumously published, that “the Mafia seemed a reasonable partner.” (“imperfect”: CIA Inspector General, Plots to Assassinate Castro, op. cit., p. 1; Mirage: Thomas, op. cit., p. 234; “reasonable”: Richard Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 157.)

  13. “Pulley” appears spelled variously in the Diggs correspondence file, the Brewster papers, and in Robert Morrow’s books, as “Pulley,” “Pullay,” and “Polley.” “Pulley” is probably correct, as rendered in the letter of introduction to Cushman. A file on Pulley in the Nixon vice presidential records indicates contact in 1959, and one note is written under an Americans for Constitutional Action letterhead. The ACA, a conservative group, included on its board of directors the chairman of United Fruit, the U.S. company loathed by Caribbean revolutionaries. The late Charlie Mc Whorter, a Nixon aide who processed some of the relevant correspondence, told the author he did not remember Pulley. Robert Morrow, who was arrested with Mario Garcia Kohly in the Cuban peso–counterfeiting case, was asked about Pulley shortly before his death in 1998. He said “Pulley” was an alias and seemed to link the name with Myron “Mickey” Weiner, a lobbyist from New Jersey. Weiner featured in a 1964 Senate probe of former Majority Secretary Bobby Baker, in connection with suspect payments and the services of “party girls” for government officials. A Rules Committee report spoke of Weiner’s “unrestrained and unpoliced wrongdoing.” A March 30, 1961, letter from Diggs to Brewster just before the Bay of Pigs invasion is worth noting. It refers to “Mario,” who was “ready to roll,” and to asking for help from “your friend Joe.” It seems likely that the Mario in question was Diggs’s client Mario Garcia Kohly and conceivable that “Joe” referred to Trafficante, who used that name in contacts with the CIA. (See sourcing for main text for location of Diggs and Brewster material; Weiner: WP, Dec. 4, 1964, and WP, NYT, and Washington Evening Star, July 1, 1965.)