But Kennedy disagreed. In 1975, during the Church Committee hearings into crimes of the intelligence community, William Attwood, an aide to the United Nations delegation, testified that he was chosen as an emissary for the White House in the Kennedy/Castro back channel operation. Attwood knew both men. He had written a two-part article on Castro for Look magazine in 1959. He had been a speechwriter for Kennedy and also his ambassador to the West African country of Guinea. As he stated in a September 1963 memo to Kennedy and his boss at the UN, Adlai Stevenson, he had enough rank to make Castro think the talks would be serious, but he was not well known enough to be easily noticed in his comings and goings. The negotiations were about to enter into high gear. By this time, Kennedy tried to freeze out the CIA and conduct his own diplomacy through private channels: Howard, Attwood, Cuban ambassador to the UN Carlos Lechuga, and as we will see later, French journalist Jean Daniel. But, Helms already knew the previous steps. And the National Security Agency was intercepting hundreds of calls per month from the USA to Cuba. Further, as Arthur Schlesinger notes, the CIA had wiretapped the Cuban counsel’s phone at the UN. And in October of 1963, Vallejo—the man who started it all—now became a subject of interest to the Mexico City CIA station. Further, there is information that one of these CIA messages about Vallejo refers to a point of contact between him and an asset of David Morales’ AMOT counter intelligence group out of JM-WAVE.67 In other words, Morales’ counterintelligence group may have had a basis for knowing about the back channel.
William Attwood later addressed the issue of what the CIA and Cuban exiles would do if they learned about the back channel. He said that if the CIA had found out about the back channel, it would have trickled down to the exiles and their gung-ho type handlers “who had been involved in the Bay of Pigs …. I can understand why they would have reacted violently …. This was the end of their dreams of returning to Cuba and they might have been impelled to take violent action. Such as assassinating the President.”68
Attwood would have been apprehensive, maybe fearful, if he knew that there were Cuban exiles who appeared to know about the negotiations. While with the HSCA, Gaeton Fonzi interviewed many anti-Castro Cubans. One of them was Rolando Otero. Otero told the HSCA that the word being passed around Miami was that “Kennedy was a communist. He’s against us, he’s messing up the whole cause.”69 Otero went on to say that something big was being planned for the late summer or fall of 1963. Fonzi did all he could to find out Otero’s source for this information. It turned out to be one Bernardo DeTorres.70 DeTorres was a member of the Bay of Pigs invasion brigade. He was wounded and then captured. He was released from prison in December of 1962. Upon his return to Miami, he quickly rose up the ranks of the exile leaders to become a CIA favorite. Another exile with more specific information about why “something big” was being planned was Felipe Vidal Santiago. In a raid into Cuba in 1964, Vidal was apprehended by the Cuban internal security forces. He was tortured and then executed. While being interrogated, Vidal revealed a rather interesting piece of information. He began talking about what he had been doing in the fall of 1963. According to Fabian Escalante, a high officer at that time in Castro’s G-2 forces, Vidal talked about his intense effort to communicate a key message to the other exiles at that time. That key message was that Kennedy had opened up negotiations with Castro and further, that President Kennedy was going to get the Soviets out of Cuba and try to establish normal relations with the revolutionary government. When that happened, the exile cause would be doomed.71
Operation TILT exemplified the desperation felt by the Cuban exiles and their allies in the summer of 1963. This was a renegade project. The Special Group inside the White House, headed by RFK, did not authorize it.72 This was a June 1963 infiltration operation that was meant to bring back two Russian officers from Cuba. Once returned, they would testify how all the nuclear missiles on the island were not yet gone. In advance of the project, individuals like the wealthy industrialist William Pawley and John Martino—a close ally of the exile community who had served time in Castro’s jails—and exile groups like Alpha 66 shopped the story in advance. In fact, a reporter from Life magazine was a part of the boat mission to Cuba. And even though the Special Group did not authorize the project, Theodore Shackley of JM-WAVE provided logistical support for it. The mission was a complete failure. In fact, the Cubans who went ashore never returned. And it is doubtful that the two Russian officers ever existed. But it shows just how badly Kennedy’s opponents wished to upset his evolving Cuba policy.
But it may have been worse than that. In a visit to Washington in April of 1963, CRC leader Miro had asked Kennedy for 50 million dollars and permission to launch a new invasion of Cuba. At a press conference on April 17, Miro said that this request was turned down. TILT may have been part of a larger operation to instigate an invasion. For in the Miami Herald of June 20, 1963 a story led with the statement that 500 Cuban commandos had landed in Cuba and that this was the beginning of a campaign to liberate the island and that this information was generated by Tony Varona of the CRC, the new leader of that group after Miro had resigned after his meeting with the Kennedys. But two days later, that same newspaper carried an article bannered with “U.S. Skepticism on Cuban Commando Raid Grows.” This article said that if there was any landing, it could not have been anywhere near that large. One day later, The Miami News carried an article saying that the “invasion” was a hoax. Later FBI reports confirmed this was a hoax done with the tacit approval of other CRC members.73 And, in fact, even after it was exposed as that, certain members of the CRC still tried to sustain the fraud. After the FBI transmitted this information, the CIA came to agree the invasion was a hoax and concluded it was appended to TILT. Further that there were no Soviet contacts on the island.74 After this dangerous attempt at provocation, the CRC lost its 80,000 dollars per month U.S. subsidy.
There was another way of provoking action of course. That was to reactivate the Castro assassination plots. In March of 1961, a CIA officer in Mexico City met with a dissatisfied member of Castro’s government named Rolando Cubela.75 Allegedly, Cubela had been overheard talking about eliminating Castro. In August of 1962, he was given some training by the CIA but refused to be polygraphed. This put his mission on hold.76 It was taken off of hold in the early fall of 1963. Meetings took place in Paris with Cubela. Cubela insisted on meeting with a senior U.S. official in order to make sure that what was being attempted had the sanction of the American government at the highest levels. Cubela, whose code name was AM/LASH, suggested a meeting with Robert Kennedy.77 This was not possible since the CIA was hiding these plots from the Kennedys. So on October 29 Desmond Fitzgerald went instead. Meeting Cubela in Paris, he said he was a friend of RFK. Fitzgerald’s decision on impersonation and deception was discussed with Richard Helms. The Inspector General Report specifically states it was not cleared with the Kennedys.78 Once given assurances, Cubela requested high powered rifles to kill Castro. Although there is some evidence that this was considered, the Inspector General Report states that he was actually given a poison pen device. The actual poison being Black Leaf 40. The delivery was reportedly made in Paris on November 22, 1963.79
As Arthur Schlesinger stated, the whole episode with Cubela raised serious questions. The resumption of the plots took place when, at the very least, Helms knew about the back channel and the change in policy. Schlesinger concluded that “it was a studied attempt to subvert national policy.”80 He then went further and agreed with Attwood, “Undoubtedly if word leaked of President Kennedy’s efforts [in the back channel], that might have been exactly the kind of thing to trigger some explosion of fanatical violence. It seems to me as a possibility not to be excluded.”81
This last comment seems an appropriate note on which to conclude our summary of what actually did happen with the back channel. Through Howard’s communications with Castro, Attwood got a message that Castro wished to talk to Kennedy’s emissary directly. He would send a plane to Mexi
co to pick up the official and fly him to a private airport near Veradero, where Castro would talk to him alone. The plane would then fly him back.82 Howard added that Castro wished to talk directly with Kennedy’s representative, but would not rule out sending an emissary if necessary. In September, Kennedy then had Howard arrange a meeting between Attwood and Lechuga under the cover of having a party at her house. Attwood told Lechuga that Stevenson had authorized him to talk to the ambassador and he would be flying to Washington in a few hours to inform Kennedy of the feasibility of a rapprochement between the two countries.83 Attwood continued that Kennedy felt that a change had to be made in the relations between the two nations. It would not happen overnight, but a start had to be made. Lechuga replied that Castro had wanted to make a new start with Kennedy, but the Bay of Pigs had rendered that futile. But he had liked Kennedy’s American University speech of that summer urging peaceful co-existence. Both men pledged to keep in touch about developments since both leaders now knew the other was interested in an official visitation. The next day, Attwood reported on this to Robert Kennedy. RFK felt Attwood going to Cuba was too risky. The negotiations would surely leak out then. He wanted to know if Castro would be willing to meet elsewhere, perhaps at the UN. He told Attwood to pursue the matter with Lechuga.84
Kennedy and Attwood then took a dramatic next step. Attwood now arranged a new channel. Knowing that his friend, French journalist Jean Daniel, was going to interview Kennedy and then proceed onto Cuba to talk to Castro, he alerted Kennedy to Daniel’s itinerary. Thus, a historic conversation took place on October 28 between Kennedy and Daniel. Kennedy wanted Daniel to tell Castro that he understood the horrible exploitation, colonization, and humiliation the history of Cuba represented and that the people of Cuba had endured. He even painfully understood that the USA had been part of this during the Batista regime. Startlingly, he said he approved of Castro’s declarations made in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. He added, “In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.” Daniel was somewhat taken aback by these sentiments. But, Kennedy continued, the dilemma now was that Cuba—because of its Soviet ties—had become part of the Cold War. And this had led to the Missile Crisis. Kennedy felt that Khrushchev understood all these ramifications now, after that terrible thirteen days.
The president concluded with this, “but so far as Fidel Castro is concerned, I must say I don’t know whether he realizes this, or even if he cares about it.” Kennedy smiled and then ended Daniel’s instructions with this: “You can tell me whether he does when you come back.”85
Daniel then went to Havana. On November 19 Castro walked into his hotel. Fidel was fully aware of the Attwood/Lechuga meetings. He was also aware of Kennedy’s briefing of Daniel. He had found out about this through Howard. In fact, he had told her he did not think it would be a good idea for him to meet Attwood in New York. He suggested that the meeting could be arranged by picking up Attwood in Mexico and flying him to Cuba. Castro also agreed that Che Guevara should be left out of the talks since he opposed their ultimate aim. Attwood said that Lechuga and he should meet to discuss a full agenda for a later meeting between himself and Castro. This was done per Kennedy’s instructions, and JFK wanted to brief Attwood beforehand on what the agenda should be. The endgame was now in sight.
Daniel was unaware of the above when Castro walked into his room for a six-hour talk about Kennedy.86 After Daniel relayed Kennedy’s message, Castro spoke thusly, “Suddenly a president arrives on the scene who tries to support the interest of another class.” Clearly elated by Daniel’s message, Castro and the journalist spent a large part of the next three days together. Castro even stated that JFK could now become the greatest president since Lincoln.
On the third day, Daniel was having lunch with Fidel when the phone rang. The news about Kennedy being shot in Dallas had arrived. Stunned, Castro hung up the phone, sat down, and then repeated over and over, “This is bad news … This is bad news … This is bad news.” A few moments later, when the radio broadcasted a report stating that Kennedy was now dead, Castro stood up and said, “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.”87
Castro was correct. Attwood would later write that what it took eleven months to build was gone in about three weeks. By December 17 it was clear that President Johnson was brushing it all aside. Retroactively, Attwood came to conclude that it had all really ended in Dealey Plaza. He finalized his thoughts about the progress made up to that point with this sentence, which is quite appropriate to this discussion: “There is no doubt in my mind: If there had been no assassination, we probably would have moved into negotiations leading toward normalization of relations with Cuba.”88
The author has tried to show here how Kennedy’s foreign policy concepts differed from Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers and how those ideas were resisted. We should add one more important piece of information before leaving that topic for now. As noted above, Howard Hunt greatly admired Allen Dulles. And, in fact, he was detailed to him after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Together, they tried to shift the blame for the Bay of Pigs disaster to Kennedy. But there is another man who was even higher up in the CIA who admired Dulles perhaps even more than Hunt. In fact, he revered him. In his holographic will he called Dulles “The patriot.”89 Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton was appointed to his position by Dulles. His sponsorship of Angleton “was the key factor in the untrammeled growth of Angleton’s internal authority.”90 In life, jealous colleagues named him “No-Knock” Angleton, since, unannounced, he could walk into Dulles’s office almost anytime he wished. In death, Angleton exhibited his devotion by actually carrying his mentor’s ashes at Dulles’s funeral.91 Angleton could not have been very glad to see his friend, colleague, and benefactor from OSS days forced to leave the office he had nearly unlimited access to.
After the Bay of Pigs, Angleton was tasked with conducting a review of Cuban intelligence and also helping to create and train a more competent intelligence corps to serve the CRC.92 This would have brought him into contact with both Morales and his AMOT service, and David Phillips who—as we will see—was moved to Mexico City and tasked with conducting anti Cuba operations from there.
As we have seen, the more militant wing of the Cuban exile community actually thought Kennedy was a communist for winding down the secret war against Castro and considering a diplomatic approach to Cuba. There was no more reactionary an anti-Communist than James Angleton. Angleton thought that the Soviets had actually installed about 30 communist sympathizers as either heads of state, in high-level political positions, as foreign intelligence officers, or even CIA officers. This included Lester Pearson of Canada, Olof Palme of Sweden, Willy Brandt of West Germany, Harold Wilson of England, and Averill Harriman of the United States.93 As we have seen above, both Harvey and Angleton were tasked by Richard Helms with exploring techniques of assassinating foreign heads of state.
Allen Dulles left office in late November of 1961. Five months later, Lee Oswald and his Soviet wife notified the American Embassy in Moscow that they planned on leaving Russia to return to the USA. The reader should take passing notice of this fact. Because as we will see, in the declassified files of the ARRB, there exists much evidence to show that, at the very least, James Angleton had a strong interest in Lee Harvey Oswald. At the most, Angelton was his control officer. In light of that, in the summer of 1963, Oswald, in a move that has never been fully explained, relocated from Dallas to New Orleans. We shall now begin to move our focus there in order to elucidate some of the fascinating evidence the Warren Commission would ignore about what Oswald did while in the Crescent City. Jim Garrison would later be convinced by this evidence that Oswald was being manipulated in advance of the assassination. As we will see, for this discovery, he would be targeted by James Angleton.
CHAPTER FIVE
New Orleans
“Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. The bastards have done something outrage
ous.… They’ve killed the president.”
—Gary Underhill, November 23, 1963
In retrospect, both the giveaway and the key was always New Orleans. It seems strange that no one picked up a pattern at the time. But as we shall see, the official investigatory agencies weren’t really looking for anything suspicious.
The Woman Who Foresaw the Assassination
Very late on November 19, 1963, at a bar on U.S. Highway 190 near Eunice, Louisiana, a woman got into an argument with two men she had driven up to the saloon with. The seedy bar was called the Silver Slipper Lounge, and the bartender was named Mac Manual. Eunice is due west of Baton Rouge, northwest of New Orleans.1 Rose Cheramie was a woman with quite a shady past, one which dealt with drugs and prostitution. On this night, she was involved in a heroin deal with the two Cubans who were with her. Their journey had begun in Florida and was scheduled to end in Dallas. But at the Silver Slipper, she got into an argument with the two men who were scheduled to meet a third party at the saloon. The argument got heated, and Manual and the two escorts threw her out. She then started hitchhiking on 190. She was hit by a car driven by one Frank Odom.
Odom then delivered her to Moosa Memorial Hospital in Eunice.2 On November 20, Lieutenant Francis Fruge of the Louisiana State Police received a phone call from Mrs. Louise Guillory, the hospital administrator. She knew Fruge worked the narcotics detail, and she felt that Cheramie, who was addicted to heroin, was going through withdrawals.3 Fruge drove to the hospital. When he got there, he encountered a middle-aged white female sitting down in the waiting room outside emergency. She was only partly coherent. The reason Guillory had called was because Moosa was a private hospital, and Cheramie seemed bereft of funds. Fruge took Cheramie to the Eunice City Jail and then attended the Eunice Police Department’s Annual Ball. About an hour later, a police officer came to the function and told Fruge that Cheramie was undergoing severe withdrawal symptoms.4 Fruge then called a local doctor who suggested a sedative. Dr. Derouin then suggested she be taken to the state facility at Jackson. Fruge now called for an ambulance from Charity Hospital in Lafayette, and he accompanied her to Jackson.
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