by Gus Russo
On October 18, 1962, two days after Soviet missiles were detected in Cuba, President Kennedy met with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister. Kennedy emphasized a key point that he hoped Gromyko grasped clearly: The U.S. had no intention of invading Cuba.56 Three weeks after resolving the missile crisis, John Kennedy further remarked at a press conference, “We will not abandon. . . efforts to halt subversion in Cuba. . . but these policies are very different from any intent to launch a military invasion of the island.”
Recent disclosures, however, make clear that these remarks were intended more for Soviet consumption than the president’s policy-making minions. It now appears that the administration was moving rapidly towards a full-scale assault on the Castro regime, with AM/LASH its capstone.
Details of the AM/LASH operation, as well as the invasion predictions of Bobby’s Cuban exile allies, have been known for some time. However, until the CIA, Army, State Department, and the Cuban Coordinating Committee (CCC) were required to release their files in 1997, the true importance of those activities went unappreciated. It is now known that CCC actions—a well-planned U.S. operation to overthrow the Castro regime before the 1964 U.S. presidential election—were to have been coordinated with the operations of Artime, Williams, and Cubela in Central America. In fact, the CIA admitted that Cubela only agreed to meet and discuss assassination on the condition that the assassination would signal the prelude to a U.S.-sponsored coup.57 Cubela’s CIA case officer, in the presence of Bobby Kennedy’s emissary, Desmond FitzGerald, gave Cubela “assurances that the United States would help in bringing about that coup.”58
FitzGerald was referring to a top secret operation that had been in the planning stages since the Lansdale Mongoose days of early 1962. This was clearly the same operation that Nikita Khrushchev cited as his reason for the 1962 installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, merely five weeks after the northern hemisphere was threatened with nuclear annihilation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote in a memo to the President, “Our ultimate objective remains the replacement of the Castro regime.”59 One month later, the Coordinator for Cuban Affairs, in writing, suggested that the National Security Council support “the developments within Cuba that offer the possibility of replacing the Cuban government.” The U.S. government, he wrote, should be prepared “to employ U.S. combat elements.”
The use of U.S. combat forces was known as OPLAN 380-63, and it was the product of a year of planning by the State Department, Army, Navy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)—all under the control of the White House’s Cuban Coordinating Committee. Often revised and refined, the plan for the U.S. instigation of a Cuban coup d’etat was nearing completion by May 1963. Documents now available denote that the operation would be overseen by the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANT), Admiral Robert “Denny” Dennison. A May 1, 1963 JCS Memo stated that the plan called for “a full scale invasion, if necessary.” The end product was to be “the defeat of Castro’s government and establishing the groundwork for the installation of a government compatible with the aims of the OAS [Organization of American States] and friendly to the U.S. by 1 October, 1964.”60 The U.S. presidential elections would occur one month later.
The operational plans are well-detailed, with much thought given to coordinating the post-Castro provisional government. The timetable called for the introduction of Unconventional Warfare (UW), meaning sabotage and revolt-instigating agents, at least seven months in advance of U.S. conventional operations, which would occur “on or about July 15, 1964”—the same timeframe predicted by Quintero. August 3, 1964 was referred to as “D Day,” when all-out air strikes (OPLAN 316) would commence. The progressively escalating actions would start “when authorized by the President.” Based on what is known about U.S. operations in 1963, it appears that such authorization had indeed been given.
Although Robert Kennedy assumed the task of dealing with the nuts and bolts of policy implementation, this by no means implies that the younger brother was operating without JFK’s implicit agreement. When Robert Kennedy issued his April 23, 1963 directive seeking studies aimed at overthrowing Castro in 1964, he was merely echoing the President’s own words. Two months prior to the RFK directive, the President addressed General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, regarding the “Cuban Invasion Plan.” As he had in the wake of the missile crisis, Kennedy again stressed the need to develop plans for a quick-reaction invasion of Cuba.61
On April 29, 1963, President Kennedy wrote Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, asking, “Are we keeping our Cuban contingency invasion plans up to date?” Kennedy worried that new information showed the Cuban resistance to be stronger than originally anticipated. Kennedy added, “It seems to me that we should strengthen our contingency plans on this operation.”62
One week later, McNamara responded: “I wish to assure you that our contingency plans for an invasion of Cuba have been and are being maintained up to date.” McNamara noted the “planned employment” of U.S. forces, as well as the fact that more aircraft, heavy combat equipment, and troops had been added to the plan. “Through these measures, the weight of our early attacks will be increased and the probability of their success will be enhanced.” The secretary closed the memo with a reminder to the President of the 1964 military timetable for the invasion.63 Clearly, President Kennedy was thoroughly briefed on the continuing implementation of OPLAN 380-63.
Just as clearly, he had failed to take seriously the dangers implicit in invading a Soviet satellite nation. Most astounding, the U.S. planners appear not to have been at all chastened by the near holocaust of the missile crisis, and showed no fear of baiting the Soviet bear once again. In one bravado-laced memo, the JCS, the State Department, and the Army cited the “military inferiority of the Soviet Union in the Caribbean” as a reason to not fear its military intervention. The memo continued:
Our air and ground forces would have to be given explicit instructions at the time on the conditions under which they would engage Soviet forces in Cuba. This point should be made quite clear to the Kremlin. US. planning should include plans. . . for the possible neutralization or elimination of Soviet forces in Cuba.64
Bobby Kennedy tightly supervised the invasion-provoking coup, and only the most trusted Kennedy allies in the various federal agencies had access to its planning. Incredibly, its existence was kept even from then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who recently acknowledged that he only learned of the coup operation after the President’s assassination.65
Phase one of the impending coup would be overseen by the CIA, and called for an insurrection by rebellious military officials in Castro’s army. The operation carried the CIA code name of AM/TRUNK.
Operation AM/TRUNK
While the military handled large-scale logistical planning, the CIA undertook the “UW” (Unconventional Warfare) aspects of the plan. These operations were so sensitive that when the Church Committee investigated plots against Castro, the CIA code names for their related operations were not only withheld, but the entire program was relegated to a footnote. The footnote read:
During this period, the CIA also sponsored a separate operation to “penetrate the Cuban military to encourage either defections or an attempt to produce information from dissidents, or perhaps even to forming a group which would then be capable of replacing the then present government in Cuba.” The case officers for AM/LASH were also involved in this second related program.66
At various times, the coup-related operations were given cryptonyms such as MH/APRON, and OPERATIONS PICADOR & TOREADOR. Inside Cuba, the upcoming revolt was known as OPERATION JUDAS. However, all came under the umbrella of a project code-named AM/TRUNK, whose inspiration came not from the government planners, but a well-connected newsman (“AM,” when used to name a CIA project, specifically meant Cuba).
In February 1963, New York Times correspondent Tad Szulc learned through one of his Cuban contacts, Dr. Nestor Moreno, that dissension was rife in the hi
gher echelons of Castro’s Rebel Army. Moreno convinced Szulc, who had access to both the President and the Attorney General, that a program of Cuban infiltration and exfiltration should be proposed to the White House. Originally named “The Leonardo Plan,” the strategy of encouraging an army revolt was indeed passed up the chain of command by Szulc. According to the CIA, Szulc “had had a standing invitation, since November 1961, for direct contact with President Kennedy, Attorney General Kennedy, or Mr. McGeorge Bundy, on matters concerning Cuba.”67
When CIA Director John McCone heard of the plan, he presented the idea to Robert Kennedy at a Special Group meeting in March 1963. Bobby much preferred this proposal to that of advisor McGeorge Bundy, who at the same meeting proposed an accommodation with Castro. Bobby wrote a memo to his brother, who showed no immediate interest. A week later, Bobby again wrote the President, complaining that JFK had not moved on the idea.68 Soon, JFK was persuaded to let the idea proceed. Szulc testified in 1975 about what happened next:
I was invited to lunch with Mr. [Robert] Kennedy at the Justice Department. We discussed in considerable length the situation in Cuba following the invasion, the pros and cons of some different possible actions by the United States government in that context. At the end of this conversation, the Attorney General asked me if I would have objections to meeting with his brother the President. I said I would of course be pleased to do so. The following day I received a call from the White House indicating that the President would like me to come in at 11 o’clock in the morning on that day in November, which I did.
Much of the remainder of Szulc’s testimony is still withheld. However, through various other sources, we can begin to piece together the ensuing activity.
After JFK’s meeting with Szulc, Robert Hurwitch, the State Department’s representative on RFK’s Cuban Coordinating Committee was called in to meet with the President. “I’ve just had a meeting with a well-known journalist,” Kennedy told Hurwitch. JFK proceeded to outline an aggressive plan aimed at ridding the world of Castro once and for all. As usual, Bobby was to be in charge, with Lansdale as the coordinator. As Hurwitch wrote in his unpublished memoirs:
I was speechless, and regrettably failed to object to what had seemed to me to be a doomed, romantic adventure. . . [Lansdale] obtained this assignment despite his total lack of experience in Latin America in general, and Cuba, in particular.69
By February 9, 1963, Szulc was accompanied by Moreno and Hurwitch to a CIA safe house in Washington, D.C. to formalize the stratagem. Hurwitch recalled, “After the first meeting, I regretted more than ever not having objected at the White House meeting.” To object, Hurwitch knew, was to doom his career. “What the hell do you do with the brother of the president of the United States?” Hurwitch recently lamented to journalist Seymour Hersh. “I’ve got four kids.” Thus, the project proceeded, given the CIA code-name AM/TRUNK.70
Apparently, despite his nonmilitary background, Szulc remained a consultant on the project as it progressed. A note found on a September 23, 1963 CIA cover sheet written by Helms (“going back many months”) instructs the CIA’s Cuba Project officer Alfonso Rodriguez to “maintain periodic contact with Szulc on Cuban matters at Presidential request.”71 (Author’s italics)
Hurwitch’s assistant at the State Department’s Cuba Desk, Robert Stevenson, recalled in 1996 a key facet of the program to which he was privy. “I remember hearing during the Kennedy term that there were plans afoot to kill Castro,” says Stevenson, adding that he most likely became aware of the plotting through his boss, Robert Hurwitch.72 Raphael Quintero, a coordinator of the infiltration scheme, readily admits that “taking out” Castro was always part of the 1963 AM/TRUNK plan, further confirming that AM/TRUNK was indeed coordinated with AM/LASH.
It was quickly decided that the two key Cuban exiles to be used in the AM/TRUNK operation would be Jose “Ricardo” Rabel Nunes and Miguel Diaz Isalgue. Ricardo was the brother of Luis Rabel Nunes, who succeeded RFK confidante Sergio Arcadia as the CRC delegate in New Orleans. Luis supplied the laundry truck used by David Ferrie and others to transport munitions in the “Houma transfer.” Ricardo had been raised in the U.S., but, like many Hispanic-American idealists, had moved to Cuba in the 1950s to aid the anti-Batista effort. He became the manager of the Havana Hilton hotel and, after the revolution, was appointed by Castro to lead the Agrarian Reform Movement. However, Castro retained suspicions about Ricardo, who had spent so much time in the U.S.
Similarly, Ricardo Rabel had grown disillusioned with Fidel Castro. In 1960, Ricardo entered into a long relationship with a CIA contact on the island. He spent the next two years collecting intelligence data for the United States. By 1962, Ricardo was tipped off that Castro was on to him and that his days were numbered. The CIA started to make escape plans for him and his wife, Sylvia. He was promised eventual passage to the U.S. in return for secreting Cuban government documents in his baggage.
Late one night, in December 1962, Ricardo, accompanied by his wife Sylvia, kept his rendezvous with a CIA escape plane at a dirt airstrip in the Cuban jungle. Sylvia, however, seized by fear and the possibility of never seeing her family again, refused to board the plane. Ricardo, Cuban documents in hand, had no choice, because he had received word that his execution was imminent. Amid tears and hysteria, Ricardo pleaded with his wife, but to no avail. Accompanied by Navy planes, with Castro’s Air Force planes giving chase, Ricardo made his escape. Upon arriving in Miami, the CIA assured him that they would bring his family out. It never happened, and Ricardo Rabel never saw his wife again.73
Throughout 1963, Ricardo Rabel assisted the CIA in screening Cuban military leaders for inclusion in AM/TRUNK, as well as helping infiltrate exile spies back to the island. The other key AM/TRUNK exile, Miguel Diaz, was busy infiltrating the island, helping incite the forthcoming rebellion. Diaz told members of the Cuban Army that he was authorized by “Bob Kennedy” to offer a large sum of money if a Cuban pilot would fly a Russian MIG 21 to the U.S.
According to CIA documents, the CIA’s Richard Helms and Seymour Bolten held secret AM/TRUNK meetings in the White House with, among others, JFK aide Ralph Dungan, whose name is reflected dozens of times in RFK’s phone logs for the period. Still, the complete list of White House attendees can only be surmised.74 When asked how preparations were going for the upcoming revolt, a CIA officer who worked on both AM/LASH and AM/TRUNK told the author, “We were excited. Things were looking good, and it was beginning to look as though we had turned the corner on the Castro problem.”75
The CIA’s senior officials knew otherwise, and saw the folly of the AM/TRUNK operation. Ted Shackley, the Miami Station chief, recently recalled, “We didn’t see any evidence that the military revolt would be successful. There was no proof of large numbers of Cuban officers interested.”76 At the “troop” level, Brigade leader, and RFK confidante, Raphael Quintero tended to agree, saying, “The underground was kaput in 1963.” Certainly as an isolated action, AM/TRUNK would have failed, but in concert with AM/LASH and the invasion scenario of OPLAN 380-63, anything was possible (including another nuclear confrontation with the USSR.)
The fact that military planners had a “contingency plan” for invading Cuba means nothing by itself. Senior defense officials will describe hundreds of such contingency OPLANS, some fanciful, which are written regularly and never see the light of day. However, some do get implemented—and OPLAN 380-63 was clearly on the fast track to full implementation. The proof is in the context. Consider:
OPLAN 380-63 called for UW (Unconventional Warfare) elements to be carried out in Cuba by the CIA in the months before escalation. This is exactly what happened with AM/TRUNK, and was attempted with AM/LASH.
The plan further called for the initial landings to involve Cubans trained in the US. and Central America. In fact, in 1963, the Cuban Officer Training Program was in full swing in places like Ft. Holabird, Maryland; Ft. Benning, Georgia; and other Army facilities. Also, Artime and associates had large camp
s functioning throughout Central America. These camps, secretly endorsed by the White House, were often supplied forces by camps near New Orleans.
Cuban exile groups in Miami and New Orleans (especially within the Cuban Revolutionary Council) were talking openly about an imminent U.S.-supported invasion that would start in late 1963 and culminate in 1964—exactly the timetable described in the newly-released JCS papers. The very exiles making these predictions were meeting with continuing frequency in 1963 with Bobby Kennedy—whom they point to as having authorized the Central American camps. These meetings continued until the very day John Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
General Alexander Haig, assigned to the CCC, but excluded from the most secret sessions in Bobby’s office, opined in 1998 that no unprovoked invasion would ever have been undertaken by the U.S.. However, when shown the recently-released OPLAN’s call for a coordinated pre-invasion revolt, Haig said, “Now this certainly was something different. This would change the landscape.” Haig conceded that this change of landscape could clearly be utilized to justify the 1964 invasion plan.77
In fact, the ongoing activity appeared to be slightly ahead of the OPLAN timetable and there is not the slightest reason to suspect, with all this investment, that the plan was not going forward. The heightened activity demonstrates that, “crackdown” notwithstanding, the Kennedys had big plans for Castro. An integral part of these plans concerned maneuvers that were occurring on the shores of a body of water north of New Orleans known as Lake Ponchartrain.
The Camps on Lake Ponchartrain
Para-military training camps were a fact of New Orleans life in the 1960s. From the days prior to the Bay of Pigs, when Nino Diaz, in violation of international law (but backed by the U.S. government), trained there for the invasion, New Orleaneans had made their land available to those engaged in the liberation of Cuba. The weapons in the Santa Ana’s hold (Diaz’s ship) were, it was later learned, packed in crates labeled “Schlumberger”78—the very company whose bunker Banister, Ferrie, et al, emptied after the invasion, allegedly under the Kennedys’ aegis.79 Through the efforts of New Orleans volunteers like Dave Ferrie, Cuban exiles, again citing Kennedy acquiescence, continued to occupy camps for training and homesteading for a number of years.
