by Gus Russo
Because he had infiltrated the exile community, the Cuban dictator (unlike the American populace) knew what was going on from the start. A year after the Bay of Pigs invasion, in an exposé of the camp, a local newspaper would state, “As a matter of fact, only the Castro government ever formally named New Orleans as a Bay of Pigs training ground. And as a matter of fact, he was right.”80
When Lee Oswald came to New Orleans from Dallas in 1963, there were as many as six Cuban exile training camps and weapons bunkers situated on and around Lake Ponchartrain. By far, the two most important were what came to be referred to as the “McLaney Camp” and the “MDC Camp” (Movemiento Democratica Cristiano, or, the Christian Democratic Movement).
The McLaney Camp
On July 31, 1963, the FBI, acting on a tip, raided the Lake Ponchartrain property of William McLaney. Kept in the dark about AM/LASH, AM/TRUNK, and OPLAN 380-63, the FBI agents confiscated more than a ton of dynamite, 20 100-pound bomb casings, fuses, napalm, and other assorted explosive paraphernalia.81 Some of the material, according to one source, had been part of the Banister arms transfer at Schlumberger two years earlier.82 As one investigator in New Orleans discovered, “The explosives had been found crated for shipment to Cuba.”83 FBI interviews in Miami also suggested that some of the explosives were to be loaded on two planes near the camp—B-25 aircraft slated for an imminent bombing run to Cuba.84
Mrs. McLaney told reporters that she and her husband had turned over their cottage as a “favor to friends” they had known from their days in Havana. What she didn’t say was that her husband William was the brother of Mike McLaney, with whom he had worked at the Nacional Hotel-Casino in Cuba. She also neglected to mention that some of their “good friends” included the Kennedys. Six weeks earlier, in a similar raid in Miami, William McLaney’s brother Mike was “detained, but not arrested,” even after it was determined that he supplied the money and explosives for the operation.
The FBI briefly detained eleven men, none of whom was ever charged with a crime. This is a curious omission, given the amount of illegal weaponry confiscated and the fact that the McLaney’s past history ostensibly connected the weapons with organized criminals such as Meyer Lansky In addition, the Bureau was aware that the same individuals who, six weeks earlier had supplied the explosives to Mike McLaney, had also stocked William’s cottage on the lake. It has now been accepted that both operations were overseen by Mike McLaney, and his brother was merely letting him use the cottage for storage after the Miami raid.
Ever since the raids, researchers have been confounded by the fact that no one was ever formally charged with a crime. Some have inferred that the FBI was in league with certain exiles to dilute the efforts of the Kennedy “crackdown”— a crackdown now known to be superficial in nature. Others suspected that it had more to do with the Kennedy/McLaney relationship.
In an attempt to determine if this played a role, the author made contact in 1994 with Mike McLaney, William McLaney, and Mike McLaney’s aide, Steve Reynolds. Reynolds was the most direct: “The Kennedys got us off,” he said. “They were aware of that operation from the start.” William McLaney, measuring his words, would only say, “My brother and I both met Robert Kennedy many times. We did favors for him, and sometimes he’d return them.”85 William McLaney first met Bobby in Haiti on an occasion Reynolds remembered: “At the time, Mike owned the Royal Haitian Hotel. Bobby Kennedy used to come down with Peter Lawford.”
If the FBI had pursued the tangled web, it would have discovered that those seized at the camp effectively implicated their highly-placed sponsors. Among those seized were:
Victor Espinoza Hernandez—Hernandez, it would later be determined by the Church Committee, was the lifelong friend of Rolando Cubela Secades (AM/LASH), the man who would, according to Manuel Artime, be suggested by the President as a likely candidate to assassinate Castro. The Church Committee left little doubt that Hernandez and Artime were in constant friendly contact with both Cubela and Robert Kennedy. And, the Cubela/AM/LASH operation was under the personal supervision of Robert Kennedy.
Sam Benton—Mike McLaney’s lieutenant at the Nacional, who, according to Gerry Hemming, had cooperated with Robert Kennedy on a stolen securities investigation. Hemming has recently stated that Sam Benton introduced Johnny Rosselli to Robert Kennedy at the infamous Miami houseboat meeting with Michael McLaney.86
Rich Lauchli—Lauchli, an Illinois-based arms supplier, was the co-founder of the Minutemen, a fanatical right wing group. Lauchli was also the arms supplier for the provisional Cuban government led by Dr. Paulino Sierra, of Chicago. Sierra’s contacts, like Benton’s and McLaney’s, went straight to Bobby Kennedy.
At the time of the raid, Sierra had expressed concern that the Nicaraguan training camps are “a political maneuver of GPFOCUS [RFK], to protect GPI-DEAL [JFK] in the coming elections.”87 According to State Department records, two weeks after the raid, Bobby Kennedy’s office contacted the State Department’s Coordinator of Cuban Affairs, John H. Crimmins, advising him to meet with Dr. Sierra. Bobby’s exile liaison Harry Williams then called Dr. Sierra in order to set up the meeting.88
Years later, Sierra noted that both he [Sierra] and Crimmins were mutual friends of “Bobby’s Boy,” Harry Williams.89 At the meeting, Sierra said that he had recently visited Luis Somoza in Nicaragua, where “Somoza told him that he was heading a movement of the five Central American countries to overthrow Castro and that he had the blessing of the United States government.” Somoza had been “telling Carribean notables [including another exile leader named Laureano Batista Falla] that he had received ‘the green light’” directly from Robert Kennedy.90 After Batista Falla “received the green light” from Somoza (who stated that he received it from Bobby Kennedy), his men “left Miami for the camp on July 23, 1963.”91
The FBI would learn in 1967 that “the arms cache was an operation of the Directorio Revolutionario Estudiantil (DRE),”92 which was created by the CIA in September 1960.93 The DRE was under the wing of Dr. Paulino Sierra’s provisional government, the Chicago Junta (approved by JFK), and in direct contact with Bobby. Most importantly, as the New York Times confirmed, the Louisiana camps had been conceived in 1961 by the Cuban Revolutionary Council,94 whose local branch had been founded by Bobby Kennedy intimate Sergio Arcacha.
The MDC Camp
The Christian Democratic Movement (MDC) was an early underground movement in Cuba that split off from Castro when it detected his Communist leanings. The MDC’s military chief was an independently wealthy young Cuban named Laureano Batista Falla. The HSCA referred to Batista’s MDC as “one of the most active and effective underground groups in Havana in the early 1960’s.”95 Like other underground groups, the MDC migrated to Miami after the Castro revolution.
When Artime set up his Latin American camps in 1963, he used part of the money Bobby Kennedy provided to, in effect, subcontract with the MDC the job of recruiting and training troops on the outskirts of New Orleans. According to company employee, Nilo Messer, the MDC’s New Orleans operation used the “cover” of being a lumber business called Maritima BAM, with headquarters in Miami. “Funds from the U.S. government backed the company. It was a mobilization of hundreds of men, and it was expensive.”96
Richard Davis, a Cuban exile and MDC leader living in New Orleans, had struck a deal with a wealthy right-wing geologist named David L. Raggio to assist Batista in training exiles. Raggio, who had ties to the John Birch Society, agreed to finance the training to the tune of $10,000 a month. The “cover” was Raggio’s Guatemalan Lumber Company, which he co-owned with Gus DeLaBarre. The camp’s public purpose (as told to DeLaBarre) was to train Cuban workers to log mahogany trees, then relocate the workers to Latin America. By this time, Somoza had approached Costa Rican President Francisco Orlich to go along with the Washington-approved plan. Orlich convinced his brother to supply the land.97
According to Maritima’s treasurer, Luis Arrizurieta:
The Costa Ri
cans were told by their government that a group of Cubans had been given the opportunity to extract wood from the Sarapiqui River to Colonel Orlich’s [the president’s brother’s] farm. That was our cover. We would chop down a few trees in the beginning to build the camp, but then we didn’t chop down anymore. We created the image of a timber yard, where wood was cut and exported.98
Back in New Orleans, one of the camp managers (hereafter referred to as Juan) played his own role. He recently recalled, “Our camp was located four miles from Covington, on a 70 acre spread. The camp was in operation until right after Kennedy was killed.”99 Most estimates put the total number of trainees at between one and two dozen men. Gus DeLaBarre’s nephew Frank DeLaBarre describes the camp as “a big lodge. They all had separate rooms in one large building. It had a large porch and a swimming pool.”
Frank DeLaBarre remembers:
We [Frank and Gus DeLaBarre] were originally approached by Richard Davis on behalf of the Catholic Church. We thought we were offering land as homes for Cuban refugees. One day I heard gunfire out there, and I wondered if we had been duped.100
Juan, who readily admits that the camp was indeed used for military training, says, “Batista’s military aide, Commandante Diego [Victor Paneque], was involved with the training. We stopped after the assassination, because it was no longer kosher to go after Castro.” Another camp member, Angel Vega, testified that the men were put on a physical fitness program, and trained in rifle assembly and disassembly—hardly prerequisites for lumber cutting.101 Carlos Quiroga, who admitted being involved with the Houma arms transfer (allegedly approved in Washington), told the New Orleans D.A. that some of the Schlumberger weapons “went to Richard Davis’ MDC group.”
Frank remembers asking his “Uncle Gus,” “What the hell is going on out there?” Gus DeLaBarre responded by saying, “I already checked with the FBI. They know everything we’re doing and they said just to forget about it.”102 Frank remembers, “The local sheriff reported that heavy armaments were being used on the property. [After the assassination,] I wondered if we had harbored, unknowingly, an assassination squad aimed at Castro by Kennedy.” Frank says that after Kennedy was killed, he sought out the FBI, and was advised by an agent not to worry. “We know all about it,” the agent said.103
During this time, Dave Ferrie was believed by many to have been involved in training Cubans at one of the camps. It was probably the MDC camp. Ferrie had once told Julian Buznedo, “I’m working with some wealthy people from the John Birch Society who are helping at the refugee camps.”104 Ferrie/Banister friend Joe Newbrough told the author in 1993, “I understand Dave was there [the camps] frequently. He had a daily involvement with the Cubans as a whole. He met with them at a place on Bienville Street almost nightly.”105 Ferrie’s godson, Morris Brownlee, remembers, “There were often Cubans at Dave’s apartment. They had maps of Cuba, and appeared to be in training for a re-invasion.”106
Juan recalls an incident at the camp that would put the activists on constant alert: “It involved a pro-Castro infiltrator named Fernando Fernandez.” The details of the Fernandez incident also corroborate the invasion planning underway in Central America.
On July 23, 1963, Batista Falla, in Venezuela, wrote a letter to the camp, partially in English “for security reasons.” Fernandez, who spoke excellent English, was asked to translate. The letter gave specific details of the administration’s plans:
We have acquired the necessary financial resources as well as military bases so that we can now hit Castroland with everything we have. I have received a check for $9,575 from Mr. Davis and his friends with which we have paid for two Mustang’s (P-51) and one B-26 bomber. All with their bombs and ammunition. [We will] hit the refineries of Bellot in Habana Bay and the Naramjito power station. The commandos. . . will cut all telephone communications, and proceed in 14 minutes to kill every Russian, [and] shall be immediately evacuated by the U.S. Navy submarine U.S.S. Barracuda. . . The men under your command will leave your base on August 1st, 0700 hours, and shall proceed to Nicaragua.107
By this time, for reasons not known, the exiles had become suspicious of Fernandez’ true allegiance, and another camp member was assigned to monitor him. On August 1st, a letter Fernandez had written to the Cuban Ambassador to Mexico City, Carlos Lechuga, was intercepted and opened by his monitor.108 The letter “reported his ‘chance’ infiltration of a ‘serious operation’ whose imminent attack ‘is leaving from Central America.’ He said he had ‘detailed reports of this military plan.’”109
The letter went on to say that Fernandez wanted to return to Cuba. The letter’s parting sentence advised, “In short, we await instructions.”
Juan says consideration was given to taking “this Castro agent” (Fernandez) deep out into the bayou and drowning him. He was eventually driven out of Louisiana by Angel Vega and released. “But the guy made it back to Cuba and became high in the Cuban Secret Service,” says Juan. Fernandez would tell Miami authorities that although he admitted that he was “Castro’s spy,” the MDC trainees had tortured him into the confession. A UPI story stated that Fernandez’s chief assignment in New Orleans had been “to follow the activities of Manuel Artime, one of the leaders of the unsuccessful invasion of the Bay of Pigs, who is connected with the so-called “Central American Plan.”
The Fernandez incident would greatly heighten tensions among the exile community in New Orleans, who, as a result, were constantly on the lookout for infiltrators.
Laureano Batista Falla later admitted under oath to the New Orleans District Attorney the true destination of the trainees: the Naval guerrilla base in Guatemala, under the direction of Bobby and JFK’s confidante Manuel Artime,. He also said this was done with the approval of General Somoza of Nicaragua.110
The Kennedy administration’s fingerprints were all over New Orleans and the surrounding environs—from 544 Camp street to David Ferrie to the training camps on the lake. The exile movement, which already “leaked like a sieve,” also seemed rife with Castro spies. Clearly, the pot was boiling.
In the winter and spring of 1963, the FBI intercepted letters from Cuba to Miami that, if authentic, indicated that President Kennedy’s Cuban agenda had placed his very life in danger. The intercepts stated that “there was a plan underway in Cuba to assassinate President Kennedy during his forthcoming visit to Costa Rica.” An FBI memo of February 25, 1963 said that ten unidentified Castro agents “will be furnished with false passports, transported to Mexico and then flown to Costa Rica.” In a separate intercept, the Bureau obtained a letter that “discussed a plan to assassinate the President of the U.S., and indicated there was a Cuban espionage group in the U.S.” The intercepted letter was released in 1994, and said in part:
I already told “your friends” in Miami and Passaic, as well as the people in Washington, the exact instructions for the attack we are planning on Kennedy. We must wound imperialism to the heart, a death blow. If we are able to kill President Kennedy, it would be an extraordinary success for Fidel. . . We would completely paralyze the future plans of the United States if we are able to kill Kennedy. Surely, after that, Vice President L. Johnson would not bother us for a long time. Get in touch with your friends and tell them they can pass on the instructions they have received through proper channels. . . Specific and detailed instructions will be sent by the channel that is known to you. Answer me by the same channel. Fidel is anxious to know how the plans are going.
Best Regards,
Pepe111
It now seems inevitable that someone in the United States, loyal to Castro, would decide to take action against the president. It seems all the more likely that that “someone” would be in a city teeming with members of Castro’s “espionage group” and the Kennedys’ escalating anti-Castro operation.
That someone appeared in New Orleans on April 25, 1963.
CHAPTER NINE
KENNEDY AND OSWALD: COLLIDING OBSESSIONS
By the time Oswald arrived in
New Orleans in the spring of 1963, Sergio Arcadia had long since vacated his Camp Street office. On the first day of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, he departed for Miami. Nonetheless, the network he established with Ferrie, Martens, Banister and others—with Robert Kennedy’s blessings—was still in place, and well-oiled. Its focus shifted from fund-raising to military training at a half-dozen camps along Lake Ponchartrain, east of the city. At least two of these six camps had links to Robert Kennedy and his bold Central American plan.
RFK’s new streamlined operations included preparing for a Cuban reinvasion while simultaneous assassination plots were planned. This new agenda was to be carried out by a group of Cubans that included Manuel Artime, Harry Williams, Dr. Paulino Sierra, and Rolando Cubela Secades. The group was predominantly composed of former members of Brigade 2506 and their associates whom Bobby had adopted into the Kennedy clan as they became more important to his plans.
Not only did the tentacles of this network extend into New Orleans, but they seemed to be everywhere Lee Oswald went. And virtually every New Orleans participant not only knew the network was penetrated by Castro’s spies, but thought Oswald was one of them. The words of Arcadia ring again: “Castro knew every move we made.”
Oswald in New Orleans
“How will it all end?”
—Marina Oswald, from New Orleans, in a letter to Ruth Paine
