by Gus Russo
Much as Luis Rabel was linked to RFK’s “Cuba Project” through the CRC, his brother Ricardo became the key component of another secret, Kennedy-inspired Cuban operation in 1963, known as AM/TRUNK. The dramatic details were given the author by family members, and supplemented by recent CIA disclosures.
93 Luis Rabel Nunes, testimony to HSCA, 11 May 1978.
94 Delphine Roberts, interview by author, 8 February 1994.
95 Mary Brengel, interview by author, 6 June 1993 (FL).
96 New Orleans States-Item, 25 April 1967; in Flammonde, 119.
97 FBI bio of Ferrie supplied to FAA, 30 October 1961.
98 There are also indications that an earlier raid was undertaken before the Bay of Pigs, as some Schlumberger weapons were seen in the hold of the Santa Ana, piloted by Nino Diaz from New Orleans to Cuba (Turner and Hinckle, 85).
Chapter Seven (The Kennedys and the Communists)
1 Graham, 193.
2 Haynes Johnson, 213.
3 Lazo, 378.
4 The details of the individual raids are found in HSCA, vol. X, 12-14. Robert Morrow, who helped the exiles counterfeit Cuban currency, described a raid on his operation in his book Betrayal
5 Article cited in Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, 147.
6 Kennedy to McNamara, Memo, FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 379.
7 Kennedy to McNamara, Memo, FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 381.
8 “Cuban Missile Crisis and its Aftermath,” State Dept. Release, 1997. (Summarized in Associated Press, “Papers: Kennedy Broke Pledge,” 6 April 1997.)
9 Hinckle and Turner, 176.
10 CCR, 171; also FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 781-782.
11 Kennedy’s knowledge of history made him skeptical of unqualified statements, and cautious about predictions. But writing a year later, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Kennedy’s aide and biographer, had time to consider the results of the “Peace Speech.” Schlesinger entitled his chapter on the missile crisis “The Great Turning.”
12 Until recently, opposing tests had been regarded as “madness, if not treason,” as summarized by one of American’s soberest political commentators, Tom Wicker.
13 What everyone then knew was substantially less than the whole truth. The dismantling of the Soviet missiles was as much a horse trade as a clear-cut victory for Kennedy, who secretly promised to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey, installation of which had been one of the chief threats to the neighboring Soviet Union that prompted Khrushchev to take his extremely risky gamble on Cuba. As agreed, almost a year later, the Jupiters were withdrawn—so quietly that no public link would be made with the Soviet “blink” and retreat from Cuba. Kennedy insisted that the bargain not be revealed, and Khrushchev complied.
14 Remarkably, the Soviet press interrupted its distorting and censoring to publish the full text of the speech, which many citizens tore from newspapers to preserve. Many also heard a Russian translation on the Voice of America, whose broadcasts were not jammed except for the paragraph about the “baseless and incredible” Soviet claims that the United States intended to achieve world domination by war. The Soviets stopped jamming most Western broadcasts soon thereafter. During the following years, they would resume and stop again, in accordance with fluctuating Cold War temperatures.
15 Parmet, 352.
16 Ayers, 76-77.
17 Memo for the Special Group, 19 June 1963, 1; cited in CCIR, 173, fn. 2.
18 Al Haig, interview by author, 26 February 1998.
19 Excerpted from “Memo For General Lansdale: Ideas in Support of Project, from: DOD Caribbean Survey Group,” 2 February 1962, Califano Papers, compiled 1 May 1963.
20 Haig, 109-110.
21 Al Haig, interview on ABC’s Nightline, 29 December 1997.
22 Al Haig, interview by author, 26 February 1998.
23 CIA to Church Committe, Memo, “Approved CIA Covert Operations into Cuba,” 11 July 1975; cited in CCIR, 173.
24 CIA, “Memo for SAS,” 17 July 1963.
25 Manolo Reboso, Roberto San Román, John Nolan, interviews by author, 1993-94.
26 Haynes Johnson, 161-162.
27 Harry Williams, interview by Hinckle and Turner, quoted in Hinckle and Turner (The Fish is Red), 168.
28 Hinckle and Turner, 168
29 Guthman and Shulman, 377.
30 Harry Williams, interview by author, 22 December 1993.
31 Harry Williams, interview by Hinckle and Turner, quoted in Hinckle and Turner (The Fish is Red), 170.
32 Harry Williams, interview by author, 22 December 1993.
33 Harry Williams, interview by author, 22 December 1993.
34 Hunt wrote his own account of his involvement with the Cubans entitled Give Us This Day, listed in the bibliography.
35 Szulc, Compulsive Spy, 96.
36 Frank Sturgis, interview by Andrew St. George, True Magazine, August 1974.
37 Dinges, 61.
38 Associated Press dispatch, 10 May 1963.
39 Morrow, First Hand Knowledge, 187.
40 Ibid.
41 Lamar Waldron, interview by author, 1 May 1998.
42 Anthony Summers and Robbyn Summers, “The Ghost of November,” Vanity Fair, December 1994, 100-101.
Chapter Eight (Yet Another Invasion Plan)
1 Hinckle and Turner, 36.
2 L. Fletcher Prouty, interview by Aureliano Sanchez Arango, Jr., 7 May 1998; also Prouty, 50.
3 Bernard “Macho” Barker, interview by Judith Artime, in Artime, 16.
4 Carillo, 182-184, cited in Artime.
5 Angelo Kennedy, interview by author, 8 January 1998.
6 Roberts, 99.
7 Christopher Marquis, “Behind the Scenes after the Bay of Pigs,” Miami Herald, 29 April 1996. The article drew on newly-released State Departnment documents.
The dungeons were built in 1774. The 1,179 prisoners had one toilet, for which the wait was two days. They slept on concrete floors in dimly lit cells. The men told of how they were rarely fed, and even then their food was a horrific concoction that tasted like dirt mixed with water. Sometimes their meals consisted of a stew made from small animals—the heads of rats or cats often surfaced in the pots. There was no medicine for the hepatitis and gastroenteritis which raged in the overcrowded cells.
8 “We Are Frantic,” Newsweek, 13 August 1962.
9 Haynes Johnson, 328.
10 Angelo Kennedy, interview by author, 24 April 1997.
11 Orlando Sentinel Star, 12 June 1977.
12 Pam Turnure started seeing Kennedy in the late fifties when Jack was a (married) Senator. The conjugal visits to the 21 year-old Turnure’s Georgetown apartment so infuriated her landlady, Florence Kater, that she began surveilling the lovers. In her personal effort to thwart Kennedy’s rising political star, Kater photographed and recorded the goings-on. JFK then had Turnure (whom the president had hired as an “assistant”) move in with another of his mistresses, Mary Meyer. After winning the election, Jack got Turnure hired as Jackie’s appointments secretary, the effect of which was said to be a daily embarrassment to the First Lady.
13 Bernard “Macho” Barker, interview by Judith Artime, in Artime, 39.
14 Manuel Hernandez would go on to become a history professor at Georgetown University.
15 H.L. Hunt, Memo For the Record, 5 April 1963.
16 Haig, 111.
17 Hinckle and Turner, 170.
18 Miami News, “Profile of Artime,” 27 July 1977.
19 Nilo Messer, interview by Judith Artime, in Artime, 46-47.
20 Manuel Hernandez, interview by author, 5 January 1998.
21 HSCA, vol. X, 68.
22 Haig, 112.
23 Manuel Artime, interview, in HSCA Memo, Gonzales to Blakey, 3 November 1977.
24 Letter from CIS to Robert Kennedy, 26 January 1963, National Archives JFK Collection.
25 Hinckle and Turner, 165.
26 Files of CIA/DDO “Ray,” vol. XVI, Memo for Director of Central Intelligence, 9 July 1964, from De
s FitzGerald, Subj: “Chronology of Concept of Autonomous Operations and Summary of Financial Support to Manuel Artime,” in HSCA Staff notes, Gaeton Fonzi, JFK Collection.
27 Orlando Sentinel Star, 12 June 1977.
28 Profile of Artime, Miami News, 27 July 1977.
29 Orlando Sentinel Star, 12 June 1977.
30 Raphael Quintero, interview by author, 6 November 1997.
31 Blight and Kornbluh, 122.
Quintero knows what he is talking about in making this comparison: he would become a major player in North’s and Casey’s “Iran-Contra” resupply scheme of the 1980’s.
32 Ted Shackley, interview by author, 12 December 1997.
33 Colonel James Patchell to Joseph Califano, Trip Report, 30 June 1963; in Joseph Califano Papers, JFK Collection, National Archives.
34 Corn, 98.
35 Sam Halpern, interview by author, 9 March 1998.
36 Blight and Kornbluh, 121.
37 CIA Memo for SAS, 17 July 1963.
38 Des FitzGerald to DCI, “Chronology and Concept of Autonomous Operations and Summary of Financial Support to Manuel Artime,” Memorandum, 1964.
39 CIA, “Blind Memo,” 21 Aug 1963.
40 Rodriguez, 116-118.
41 Orlando Sentinel Star, 12 June 1977.
42 Corn, 98.
43 Tom Clines, interview by David Corn, 98.
44 Corn, 82.
45 Ibid, 100.
46 Sam Halpern, interview by author, 1 July 1995.
47 FitzGerald to Bundy, Memorandum, August 9, 1963, in FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 853-855.
48 Hinckle and Turner, 165.
A CIA document verifies Artime’s access to the President, stating that his organization “was supported by both the CIA and the White House,” and that “Manuel Artime. . .[and] the CRC had direct access to President Kennedy and top Executive Branch aides” (CIA Internal Memo, “CIA Involvement with Cubans and Cuban Groups,” 8 May 1967).
49 New Orleans States Item, 29 November 1956, 1.
50 Rolando Cubela Secades, HSCA interview, 28 August 1978.
The description of the officer points to the possibility that it was David Atlee Phillips, Cuba Counterintelligence Specialist at the Mexico City Station.
51 CCIR, 86.
52 Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance to Assistant Secretary of Defense, “Future U.S. Policy Toward Cuba,” Memorandum, 3 September 1963; in Joseph Califano Papers, JFK Collection, National Archives.
53 CC Final Report, bk. V, 100; also Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 639-640.
54 Raphael Quintero, interview by author, 6 November 1997.
55 Sam Halpern, interview by author, 15 October 1993.
56 FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 114.
57 CC Final Report, bk. V, 14, fn. 17.
58 CC Final Report, bk. V, 19.
59 Joint Chiefs of Staff Draft Memo for the President, 4 December 1962, JCS Papers, JFK Collection, National Archives.
60 The relevant documents are located in the JFK Collection at the National Archives in College Park, MD. See the personal papers of Joseph Califano, the Army, and the JCS Papers. Released in November 1997, the papers comprise over 1,500 pages.
61 Taylor Memo of Meeting with JFK, 28 February 1963, FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 711-712.
62 Memo from Kennedy to McNamara, 29 April 1963, FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 791.
63 Memo from McNamara to Kennedy, 7 May 1963, in FRUS, 1961-1963, vol. XI, 802-803.
64 JCS Memo for the Chairman, “Draft State-Defense Contingency Plan for Cuba (S), Sept. 26, 1963,” JCS Papers, JFK Collection, National Archives.
65 Dean Rusk, interviewed by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Summers, “The Ghosts of November,” Vanity Fair, December 1994, 105.
66 CCIR, 86.
MH/APRON is referred to in the CIA’s 1967 Inspector General’s Report on Castro Assassination Plots, 79 (it is censored in most available versions of this report).
67 CIA Interim Working Draft, “AMTRUNK Operation,” 14 February 1977.
68 Andrew, 303.
69 Seymour Hersh, 282-283.
70 Hurwitch, who later became Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, specialized in Cuban affairs, and had been instrumental in RFK’s Brigade prisoner release negotiations.
71 CIA Interim Working Draft, “AMTRUNK Operation,” 14 February 1977.
72 Robert Stevenson, interview by author, 22 February 1996.
73 In a dramatic postscript with parallels to Romeo and Juliet, Ricardo and Sylvia never abandoned their attempts to reunite. On September 7, 1963, having given up on the CIA and desperate to take her family to Miami, Sylvia tracked Castro to his beach house at Santa Maria Beach. Encountering the dictator swimming, Sylvia made her plea, “Commandante, please let me leave.” To that, Castro responded, “You will never leave Cuba. Your husband was a traitor to the revolution.” In 1965, after much planning, Ricardo borrowed a “cigarette” style motorboat, and traveled 90 miles across the ocean alone to a prearranged, secluded coastal point to pick up his wife. However, Castro’s omniscient intelligence apparatus, not Sylvia, met him upon arrival. After three years of aiding in the CIA AM/TRUNK operation, Ricardo Rabel was sentenced to thirty years imprisonment, and thrown into the infamous Cuban dungeons. After one year, he was transferred to the regular prison, where he died four years later. Sylvia and her family eventually made it to the U.S. during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.
74 Other key participants were Jorge Volsky (USIA), Alfonso Rodriguez (CIA), and Colonel Albert C. Davies, on loan to the CIA from the Army.
75 AM/TRUNK officer, interview by author, 8 February 1995.
Background on AM/TRUNK operation from author interviews with Luis Rabel, Sylvia Rabel, and other family members, February 6, 1994. CIA documents from AM/TRUNK file, released to the National Archives in 1994.
76 Ted Shackley, interview by author, 12 December 1997.
77 Alexander Haig, interview by author, 26 February 1998.
78 Hinckle and Turner, 230.
79 CIA documents released in 1993 confirmed the existence of a training camp located at the Naval Ammunition Depot in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. See David A. Phillips, Memo for the Chief of Counterintelligence, 26 October 1967.
80 Bill Stuckey, “Cuban Force Trained Here For Invasion,” New Orleans States Item, 16 April 1962.
81 New Orleans States Item, 1 August 1963, 1.
82 Flammonde, 119.
83 Harold Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, 374.
84 Wannell to Sullivan, FBI Memo, 29 July 1963.
85 William McLaney, interview by author, 10 April 1994.
86 Gerry Hemming, interview by Lamar Waldron, 10 April 1996.
87 SAS to DCI, CIA Telex, 10 September 1963.
88 John Crimmins, Memo of conversation, 17 August 1963.
89 It is a virtual certainty that Sierra’s Chicago-based “Junta” was part of the “autonomous operations” package approved by JFK in June.
90 Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 587.
91 SAC New Orleans to Director, FBI Airtel, 7 March 1967, #62-109060-4758.
92 SAC New Orleans to Director, FBI Airtel, 7 March 1967, #62-109060-4758.
93 CIA Internal Memo, “CIA Involvement with Cubans and Cuban Groups,” 8 May 1967.
94 “Anti-Castro Units Trained. . .” New York Times, April 7, 1961.
95 HSCA, vol. X, 71.
96 Milo Messer, interview by Judith Artime, 49.
97 Al Burt, “Cuban Exiles, The Mirage of Havana,” The Nation, 25 January 1965, 76-79.
98 Luis Arrizurieta, interview by Judith Artime, 46.
99 “Juan” [pseud.], interview by author, 14 May 1994.
100 Frank DeLaBarre, interview by author, 5 February 1994.
101 Angel Vega, testimony to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, 5 February 1967.
102 Frank DeLaBarre, HSCA interview, undated.
103 Frank DeLaBarre, interview by author, February 5, 1994.
104 Julian Buznedo, i
nterview by author, 13 July 1994.
105 Interview of Joe Newbrough, 6 May 1993 (FL).
106 Morris Brownlee, interview by author, 17 July 1994.
107 Various Miami News sources, cited in Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, 158-159.
108 UPI, The Charge, by Adolfo Merino, 3 Sept 1964.
109 Weisberg, Oswald in New Orleans, 154-155.
110 Hinckle and Turner, 226.
111 FBI Report of 25 February 1963, File #55-29, “Threat Against the President of the United States.” Also, Report of Miami FBI Agent Peter J. Nero to Secret Service, 7 February 1963, File #105-6932.
Chapter Nine (Kennedy and Oswald: Colliding Obsessions)
1 McMillan, 417.
2 McMillan, 397.
3 Marina Oswald to Ruth Paine, letter, 25 May 1963, CE 408.
4 Jesse Garner, testimony before the Warren Commission, 267.
5 McMillan, 412.
6 Ibid, 413.
7 Lynne Loisel to Jim Garrison, Memo about interview of Henry Gogreve, 7 March 1967.
8 L.J. Delsa (HSCA investigator who located the witnesses), interview by author, 10 May 1993.
9 McMillan, 452.
10 Charles LeBlanc, testimony, WC vol. X, 214.
11 McMillan, 452.
12 HSCA, vol. II, 252.
13 Jay Epstein, Frontline interview, 1993.
14 HSCA Report, 176.
15 Kennedy, Profiles In Courage, 11.
16 Ibid, 16.
17 One of the empty offices in the building was the former headquarters of Sergio Arcacha Smith. If Oswald had followed up and rented an office, the chances are good that he would have held Arcacha’s space—adding still another ironic twist to the Kennedy/Oswald story.
18 Morris Brownlee, interview by author, 17 July 1994.
19 “Juan,” confidential interview by author, 14 May 1994.
20 V.T. Lee, “Cuban Counter-Revolutionaries In the United States.” Pamphlet found among Oswald’s possessions on 22 November 1963.
21 McMillan, 410.
22 Interview of Joe Newbrough, 5 May 1993 (FL).
23 As we have seen, Oswald was a compulsive liar, prone to exaggerate his own importance. According to the building’s landlord, James Arthus, someone, possibly Oswald, approached him that summer to rent an office, but never followed up. At the time, Oswald worked one block away at the Reily Coffee Company. He had been denied his request to set up a New Orleans office for a local Fair Play For Cuba Committee, but he pretended to have leadership approval anyway, and therefore needed a physical office and address. Passing by the Camp street lobby, Oswald would have noticed the bank of mailboxes in the lobby. Joe Newbrough describes the scene, saying, “In the front, you would see a wall on your right side with multiple mailboxes—more mailboxes than were necessary for the number of occupants in the building.” Oswald’s use of the address therefore served multiple purposes. (Interview of Joe Newbrough, May 5, 1993 [FL].)
