CHAPTER 5:
GANGSTERISMO REGROUPS IN EXILE

A Cuban air force DC-4, with General Fulgencio Batista and his inner circle onboard, touched down in the Dominican Republic in the early morning darkness of New Year’s Day 1959. Two other DC-4s, carrying other Batistianos, were on their way to the United States. The U.S. Ambassador in Cuba Earl E. T. Smith later wrote, “The government of the Dominican Republic was not aware of Batista’s intention to seek asylum in Ciudad Trujillo. It was a case of ‘Here I am.’”

Smith had been the one to inform Batista that he would not be permitted to return to his old home in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he had lived in exile from 1944 to 1948. When Batista turned down William Pawley’s December 1958 proposal that he leave Cuba in order to prevent Fidel Castro’s rise to power, President Dwight Eisenhower ruled out exile for Batista in the United States.

Dominican military intelligence chief Arturo Espaillat was sound asleep at 5:30 a.m. when the telephone rang. It was Generalissimo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, who told Espaillat to go to the airport immediately to meet with Batista. Espaillat recalled the scene at the airport. “Batista and his entourage were assembled in the airport building,” Espaillat later wrote. “All were clean-shaven, wearing immaculate uniforms, and looking as unruffled as if they had arrived on a holiday. They had fled, they said, ‘to avoid further bloodshed.’”

The Batistianos began almost immediately to plan the overthrow of the Cuban revolution. General José Eleuterio Pedraza, one of Batista’s most able commanders, met with Trujillo, the longtime strongman of the Dominican Republic. Trujillo was enthusiastic about Pedraza’s plan to train a Cuban expeditionary force in the Dominican Republic for an invasion of Cuba.

Espaillat wrote, “A ‘Cuban Liberation Army’ was organized and its ranks swelled as hundreds of refugees began to arrive from Florida and Cuba. An exile training camp was set up, former Cuban naval personnel began invasion preparations at our Las Calderas navy base, and exiled air force pilots began service with our own squadrons.”

There was no love lost between Batista and Trujillo. “El Benefactor,” as Trujillo liked to be called, had been hostile to Batista in the past. But Trujillo disliked the Cuban revolution even more, so he was willing to join ranks with the Batistianos to overthrow the new Fidel Castro–led government in Havana.183 In contrast, Batista and Pedraza had been allies for the previous twenty-six years. Pedraza played a major leadership role in the Sergeants’ Revolt of 1933, and as Havana’s military governor he led Batista’s brutal crackdown in Cuba between 1933 and 1935, and later served as Batista’s army chief of staff.

Retired Brigadier General José García Tuñón told the Department of State “Pedraza represents one of the worst elements of the former Cuban military and has a notorious reputation as a killer.” Retired Colonel Raúl Corzo referred to Pedraza and his associates in exile in the Dominican Republic as “gangsters and assassins.”184

The FBI monitored the progress of the Pedraza plan. A credible source briefed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that “A total of six million dollars has been contributed by Cuban business leaders and exiles to finance the new anti–Fidel Castro movement.” Hoover stated in a memorandum, “Former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista has contributed two million and thirty or forty other wealthy Cubans… [also made large contributions]. The source described the promoters, leaders and financial backers as influential Cubans who are anti-communist and pro-United States.”185

Pedraza and Francisco Cajigas, who had made a fortune in mining in Cuba, put up money to finance the invasion force. Other Batistianos contributed financially to the Pedraza plan, including Colonel Orlando Piedra and Roberto “Chiri” Mendoza, both of whom were connected to the Mafia gamblers in Cuba.

According to FBI reports, Piedra amassed a fortune of “between two and four million dollars from the take on gambling operations” when he was chief of the Bureau of Investigations of the Cuban National Police. A CIA memorandum adds, Piedra was “directly involved in the torture and killing of Cuban citizens.” Mendoza, a close associate of Batista, Pedraza, and Trafficante, was the principal owner of the casino at the Havana Hilton.186

Comandante William A. Morgan of the Cuban rebel army also became involved in the Pedraza plan. He offered to establish a front against the Cuban revolution in the Escambray mountains in support of the Pedraza expeditionary force. Morgan had left his home in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1957 for Cuba, where he joined the Second National Front of the Escambray. He earned a reputation for bravery in battle against the Cuban army.

In May 1959, Morgan attended a meeting with Dominican Counsel General Augusto Ferrando at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in Miami. Ferrando made a down payment to Morgan. Espaillat wrote, “The promised $500,000 in cash was turned over to Morgan in Miami, plus another $100,000 thrown in as ‘expense money.’” Espaillat added, “Large sums were sent to Cuban exile groups in Miami.”

The meeting between Morgan and Ferrando took place in a room registered to Dominick Bartone, an arms dealer tied to the Mafia and corrupt Teamsters union officials in Cleveland. Bartone also had connections with anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida. Morgan told the FBI that he and Bartone were “personal friends.”187

Bartone also hired Tony Beacon, a stringer for the Philadelphia Daily News, to handle “Morgan’s press relations.” Included in Morgan’s CIA file are copies of articles in Time, Newsweek, and Look magazines on Morgan’s exploits in Cuba.188

Morgan did not turn against the Cuban revolution for ideological reasons. He was a soldier of fortune without firm political beliefs. A North American, who fought with Morgan in Cuba, told the FBI that he believed Morgan had enlisted in the anti-Batista cause “in the hopes of being rewarded financially in the event they were victorious.”189

According to FBI reports, Morgan was to receive $1 million and a senior position in a post-Castro regime under the terms of his agreement with the Dominican Republic. The Bureau pointed out that Morgan had been arrested for armed robbery in 1950 and was a known “associate of the hoodlum element in the city of Toledo.”190

Interestingly, the Eisenhower Administration turned a blind eye to the use of Florida by the Batistianos to plan General Pedraza’s invasion of Cuba in apparent violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. Pedraza, his emissaries, and Morgan traveled frequently to Miami for planning meetings. Guns and planes were shipped from Florida to Cuba and the Dominican Republic for Pedraza plan conspirators.

A confidential source told the FBI that Pedraza was in Miami in April 1959 to meet with Augusto Ferrando and Johnny Abbes García, chief of the secret police in the Dominican Republic. Emilio Núñez Portuondo, Batista’s former chief delegate to the United Nations, served as an emissary for Pedraza, shuttling back and forth between the Dominican Republic and Miami.191

The FBI reported that Fredesvindo Bosque Cueto was also in Miami “recruiting and sending men to the Dominican Republic.” Bosque, an associate of Santo Trafficante, was a part owner of the Oriental Race Track casino and Havana-Madrid Jai Alai. Pedraza told the FBI that Bosque was his “political adviser.”192

Cuban exiles in the United States planned to join the Pedraza invasion force when it landed in Cuba. A June 1959 FBI memorandum stated, “Several loosely knit groups of anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, under the leadership of [Rolando] Masferrer, [Emilio Núñez] Portuondo and Julio Luis Pozo, are all looking toward Pedraza for the first stroke of action against Castro, as Pedraza has the means, men, and opportunity to make such a move… [and] all the anti-Castro elements inside and outside Cuba will immediately join the action.”193

According to FBI Director Hoover, Batista’s former Defense and Interior Minister Santiago Rey was also in the United States in July on a visit “sponsored by the CIA.” Rey’s first stop was Washington. His next stop was Miami, where he met with senior Batistianos. Hoover suspected the CIA’s sponsorship of Rey’s travel might be a sign of “official or semiofficial encouragement” of the Batistiano plan to invade Cuba from the Dominican Republic. Hoover noted, “A definite date” for the invasion would be set at the end of Rey’s “current trip.”194

In late July 1959, Morgan was back in Miami. He met with a group of Cuban exiles at the home of his friend Dominick Bartone. A source advised the FBI that Dominican Consul General Augusto Ferrando gave Morgan $200,000 during this visit. Morgan told the Bureau that he was in Miami to seal the deal with Ferrando “to send a shipment of arms to Cuba for anti–Fidel Castro revolutionaries.”195 Morgan was to throw the knock-out punch by assassinating Castro. A CIA report stated, “The group headed by Morgan planned to assassinate Castro between July 31 and August 3 and immediately thereafter touch off an uprising by 5,000 members of the Cuban Army.”196

But the Pedraza plan began to unravel. On May 22, 1959, Bartone, Ferrando, and five others were arrested in Miami by U.S. Customs agents. Bartone and Ferrando were caught loading guns and ammunition into a C-74 Globemaster aircraft for delivery to the Dominican Republic for the Pedraza expeditionary force.197

Morgan also negotiated a deal with Edward Browder, a Mafia-connected arms dealer. According to an FBI memorandum, Browder delivered a shipment of “arms, ammunition and green uniforms to Morgan in Florida in August 1959.” Browder told the FBI that the Mafia put up the money for the guns.198

In the meantime, Morgan’s attempt to recruit Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo backfired. As we have seen, Menoyo was the leader of the anti-Batista guerrilla group Segundo Frente Nacional del Escambray, which Morgan joined. After the triumph of the revolution, Menoyo was promoted to comandante (commander), the highest rank in the Cuban army. Menoyo told the FBI that he became disgruntled because the senior “positions of command in the army were given to followers of Fidel Castro.” He said he had “already decided to do something about it” before he was approached by Morgan about the Pedraza plan. But Menoyo got cold feet. An FBI report stated, “Subject [Menoyo] stated he then realized he could not work with the group because it was made up of Batista officials and because it was sponsored by Trujillo whom he felt was little better than Batista.”

Menoyo insisted on telling Fidel Castro about the planned invasion of Cuba, and he and Morgan briefed Castro on the Pedraza plan. Morgan was trapped and turned into a double agent for Cuban intelligence. An FBI report stated, “Castro ordered them to continue negotiating with Pedraza but to keep him informed of developments.”199

Ever more recklessly, Morgan continued to lead Pedraza and Trujillo on as the August 1959 date for planned invasion drew near. Espaillat recalled, “He [Morgan] and Johnny Abbes [Trujillo’s chief of secret police] had long since thrown away their [code] dictionaries and talked to each other in the clear for hours on end. Morgan demanded immediate action. He talked endlessly, pleading, demanding, giving orders… in transmissions which could have been monitored in Helsinki, let alone Havana.”

Morgan shouted over an open radio to Generalissimo Trujillo, “Trinidad is ours! Don’t let us down! We need guns, supplies!” The taking of Trinidad was the designated signal for the start of Pedraza’s amphibious invasion of Cuba. But Pedraza and Trujillo’s confidence in Morgan had been shaken by his erratic behavior. Trujillo ordered two planes loaded with munitions to fly to Trinidad, but held back the rest of the invasion force.200

On August 13, Castro and a Cuban army unit watched from a nearby mangrove thicket as the first plane from the Dominican Republic landed and unloaded. When the second plane landed, Castro and the Cuban army unit rushed the planes and took the crews into custody. Cuban intelligence had been monitoring Menoyo and Morgan’s activities. The Cuban army G-2 (intelligence section) had become suspicious because of Morgan’s repeated trips to Miami. The G-2 had infiltrated the Pedraza network in Miami.201 Cuban intelligence took advantage of the collapse of the Pedraza plan to arrest counterrevolutionaries on the island, according to a despatch from the U.S. Embassy to the Department of State.

“One of Morgan’s subordinates is said to have gathered the entire leadership of the conspiracy at Morgan’s home on the night of August 7,” the embassy reported. “The house was then surrounded by revolutionary authorities and the leaders of the plot were all captured. Subsequently, a wave of arrests took place all over the island. By August 10, over 1,000 persons had been arrested, including 500 members of the Army, all of whom, however, were ex-soldiers of Batista’s army who had been integrated into the revolutionary forces.”202 With the implosion of the Pedraza invasion plan, Batista set up an operational headquarters in the United States.

In September 1959, Fulgencio Batista dispatched his wife, Marta, and his brother-in-law General Roberto Fernández Miranda to Florida with $2 million in hand. Señora Batista purchased the Biltmore Terrace Hotel on the Miami Beach strip as a front for a Batistiano headquarters to organize covert paramilitary attacks in Cuba.

The Biltmore Terrace Hotel operation was pure gangsterismo. Cuban gangster Alberto Ardura also had a financial stake in the Biltmore Terrace Hotel. Ardura, a close friend of Batista and General Fernández Miranda, was one of the owners of the Tropicana nightclub. Mafia gambler Norman Rothman was the manager of the Biltmore Terrace Hotel. Sam “Stretch” Rubin, Rothman’s Mafia colleague from Cuba, was the chief doorman.

As we have seen, Fernández Miranda and Ardura profited handsomely from the take from the slot machines in Mafia casinos in Cuba in the 1950s. Rothman worked under Ardura in the slot machine concession in Cuba. Colonel Orlando Piedra was another principal in the Biltmore Terrace group. Piedra had amassed great wealth from Mafia gaming establishments when he was head of the Bureau of Investigations of the Cuban National Police.

Cuban gangster Evaristo García, “a very close friend” of Batista tied to the Biltmore Terrace group and a partner with Santo Trafficante in several casinos and hotels in Havana, told the FBI that Batista passed $700,000 to Fernández Miranda to subsidize paramilitary operations against Cuba. Rothman distributed the funds to Cuban exile commando groups. He also made arrangements for exile groups to obtain guns and explosives.

FBI reports indicate that Rothman supplied dynamite to an unnamed Cuban exile group to blow up Cuban aircraft at the Miami International Airport in August 1959. He sold more than 100 pounds of dynamite to another Cuban exile group “to blow up the Revolución newspaper” in Havana. Rothman also assembled a private air force to carry out bombing missions in Cuba. North American mercenary pilots flying small airplanes set sugar-cane fields ablaze with incendiary bombs, and destroyed sugar mills with iron bombs in a campaign to destabilize the Cuban economy.203

According to the FBI, the Biltmore Terrace group hired a group of pilots to fly ten fire-bombing missions over Cuban sugar-cane fields, naming Paul Joseph Hughes, Matthew Duke, Roy Pinkston, Robert Ellis Frost, and Eduardo Whitehouse.204 At the request of the U.S. Embassy, the FBI investigated allegations in the Cuban press about a bombing raid on January 12, 1960. Havana charged that the plane, which bombed Cuban sugar-cane fields, took off from the United States. An FBI source reported that the Biltmore Terrace group was “flying men and munitions (including phosphorus to destroy Cuban sugar cane fields) from New Orleans and Mobile to Mexico.”

Among the CIA files on Rothman is a report on a trip he and Eduardo Whitehouse took to Mexico in December 1959. Rothman wanted to secure a “landing strip” in the Yucatán peninsula for “a base of operations.” The anti-Castro operation was to be led by Colonel Piedra and General Fernández Miranda.

In February 1960, the FBI discovered another link between the bombing raids in Cuba and the Biltmore Terrace group: “Inquiry indicated that subject [Roberto Fernández Miranda], Rothman and others associated with the Batista group were connected with the bombing mission over Cuba in February 1960, in which Robert Ellis Frost was killed.”205

FBI records also disclose that Rothman, Stretch Rubin, and Mafia arms dealer Joseph Merola purchased a B-26 aircraft for bombing missions in Cuba. Ricardo Madan Rivas and Eduardo Whitehouse, head of the Cuban Civil Aeronautics Administration under Batista, were also involved, along with Rothman, in the acquisition of small planes. Madan, described by the FBI as “a Prío man,” was a bridge between former President Carlos Prío and the Batistianos and Mafia gamblers. Madan served as treasurer for the Prío group in Florida after Prío was driven from power in 1952.206 In the meantime, Rothman collaborated with Rolando Masferrer Rojas, a man with a most sinister reputation. Rothman met with Masferrer at the Biltmore Terrace Hotel on August 23, 1959. They plotted vengeance for William Morgan’s “double cross” of the Batistiano plan to invade Cuba a few weeks earlier.

According to an FBI report, Rothman and Masferrer discussed a contract with “an American syndicate” to assassinate Morgan on behalf of Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, who had put $500,000 on Morgan’s head. Rothman expected to get $100,000 for his role in the assassination. On October 24, 1959, Rothman had dinner with Masferrer at the Biltmore Terrace Hotel. Rothman told Masferrer that he was “in solid” with the Mannarino organized crime family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The gangster offered Masferrer financial assistance for sabotage operations in Cuba “in exchange for certain concessions” for the Mannarino family if Masferrer were “successful in toppling the government of Fidel Castro.” Rothman gave Masferrer $120,000. As we have seen, Rothman managed the Sans Souci nightclub and casino for the Mannarino family in the early 1950s.207

When Masferrer went into exile in the United States, Park Wollam, U.S. consul general in Santiago de Cuba, sounded a warning: Masferrer could become a political embarrassment for the Eisenhower Administration. A CIA memorandum reported that Masferrer was infamous for the use of his private army, known as the “Tigers,” to terrorize Batista’s civilian opponents. “Masferrer is considered here to typify the worst of the former [Batista] regime,” Wollam wrote from Foggy Bottom in January 1959. “The name ‘Masferrista’ connotes assassination, torture, and extortion, and many local people have been subject to shakedowns by alleged members of his private army.”208

A report for the Special Research Office at the American University in Washington, D. C., called Masferrer “one of the most hated men in Cuba.” Norman LaCharite writes, “In Oriente, Batista’s close friend and ally, Senator Rolando Masferrer, had a personal army of 2,000 men who wore army uniforms and rode in khaki-colored short-wave radio cars…. [T]his vigilante force known as the Socialist Revolutionary Movement, worked hand-in-hand with the [Cuban] army in suppressing disorders and eliminating revolutionaries.”

A CIA document stated, “Masferrer was accused by the Castro regime of having committed seventy murders and having absconded with 17 million dollars.”209 Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Philip Bonsal worried about diplomatic backlash from the Eisenhower Administration’s decision to allow 300 Batistianos to live in exile in the United States. In August 1959, in a telegram to Secretary of State Herter, Bonsal urged the administration to make the Batistianos “move on to some other country.”

Bonsal wrote, “One basic cause of the revolutionary leaders’ persistent hostility toward U.S. is asylum which they consider U.S. has voluntarily given to Cuba’s ‘war criminals,’ notably [Rolando] Masferrer, [Esteban] Laurent and [Conrado] Carratalá, ‘freedom’ in which they believe these individuals are permitted to carry on their counterrevolutionary activities in U.S.”210

Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Rubottom was also uneasy about the Eisenhower Administration’s hands-off policy toward the paramilitary operations of Cuban exile groups. He noted that Cuban exile groups in Florida were numerous and “well financed,” adding their activities have been “steadily increasing in recent months.” Rubottom urged the Administration to stop Cuban exile commando attacks in a memorandum to Herter in October 1959.211

But the Eisenhower Administration did little to clamp down on the Biltmore Terrace group’s paramilitary operations in Cuba, and local police were paid to look the other way. According to an FBI informant, “Rothman had various police officials and officers on his payroll.” Ultimately, however, President Eisenhower’s refusal to allow Batista to live or travel in the United States, or endorse Batista’s leadership of the Cuban counterrevolution in exile, put a crimp in the Batistiano strategy.

Batista had hoped the Biltmore Terrace group’s paramilitary operations would bolster his claim to leadership of the anti-Castro Cuban exile movement, but the exile community in the United States did not rally around him. The FBI report added, “Batista is disenchanted with the anti-Castro movement, the lack of backing by the United States for him, and for such a movement, and the way the United States and Cuban exiles are handling the problem of Castro.” Batista pulled the plug on the Biltmore Terrace operation.212 Nonetheless, Mafia arms merchants continued to be attracted to the turmoil in Cuba.

When Batista was Cuba’s leader, the Mafia provided him with specialized weapons not available through regular channels from the United States. Weapons dealers connected to the Mafia also sold arms to the July 26th Movement and other anti-Batista groups. Arms sales were the incentive at the heart of the quid pro quo the Mafia gamblers offered. The recipients of arms were required to support the Mafia’s ambition of reopening its casinos, hotels, and nightclubs in post-Castro Cuba. After the victory of the Cuban revolution, the gangsters sold arms to Cuban exile action groups in the United States for sabotage operations in Cuba.

The career of Joseph Merola opens a window on the world of Mafia arms merchants in Cuba. In 1956, Merola moved to Miami Beach from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to look after Gabriel and Sam Mannarino’s gambling interests in Cuba. An FBI report stated, “He will work in Havana and will act as the Mannarino representative in order to see that they get a fair share of the proceeds from the slot machine business.” The Mannarino brothers shipped 2,000 slot machines to Cuba in 1957. A CIA memorandum reported that Merola cultivated a close relationship with Batista and General Roberto Fernández Miranda. Merola served as a “personal pilot” for both Batista and his brother-in-law.213 At the same time, however, Merola sold arms to anti-Batista guerrilla groups to hedge the gangsters’ bets on the future of Cuba.

An FBI report stated, “Mannarino began watching the activities of Fidel Castro and his July 26th Movement with a view toward gaining favor with him in the event the Rebellion was successful.” A CIA memorandum reported, “Merola… stated that he had actively engaged in gunrunning on behalf of Fidel Castro during the revolt against Batista.”214

For similar reasons, former President Carlos Prío also supplied the July 26th Movement and other anti-Batista rebels with arms and ammunition. Merola told the FBI that he was “in close and frequent contact” with Prío. According to FBI informants, an intermediary for Prío consulted with Merola about buying napalm in 1958. Merola also allowed Prío to use his boat to infiltrate anti-Batista rebels into Cuba.215 Prío did not hide his connections to the Mafia gamblers. He told the U.S. Embassy “he learned that the people whom it was necessary to hire for these [arms] smuggling operations—[were] the gangsters…”

In exile in Miami, Prío established a discreet relationship with Norman Rothman. A June 22, 1953, FBI report stated, “[Rothman] made an appointment to see Prío at his home under rather confidential circumstances.” The Bureau received numerous reports of Rothman’s “arms purchases on behalf of Prío.” Most of the weapons Robert KcKeown delivered to Cuba for Carlos Prío were purchased from the Mafia.216

According to FBI records, the Mafia also turned to crime to obtain weapons for Cuba. In October 1958, the Mannarino family broke into a National Guard armory in Ohio to get “arms and ammunition for the rebellion in Cuba.” Merola and Rothman were indicted for the theft of $25,000 worth of weapons from the National Guard armory in Canton, Ohio. The 317 stolen weapons included M-1 rifles, submachine guns and two .50 caliber Browning machine guns. They were also charged with arranging the transport of the weapons from western Pennsylvania to Florida and then on to Cuba.217

Rothman was also indicted for a Mafia bank robbery in Canada related to an arms-for-Cuba scheme. Bank robbers stripped clean the vaults of the Trust and Savings Company of Brockville, Ontario in May 1958, taking $13.5 million in bonds and other valuables. According to a CIA memorandum, Rothman was charged for his role in “disposing of the loot of securities, gems and cash in a labyrinthine international conspiracy…”

The CIA memorandum reported, “The robbery was touched off when the Canadian branch of the Mafia received a hurry-up order from the Caribbean for arms. The Canadian Mafia did not have the money to buy arms, but it knew how to get hands on the contents of the Brockville, Ontario bank. It called upon the U.S. Mafia for assistance, and it was then that Rothman entered the picture…”

Guiseppe Cotroni and Rene Robert were also indicted in the Canadian bank robbery. Cotroni, a French Corsican, was Canada’s biggest heroin trafficker.218 A year earlier, Mafia arms shipments to Cuba were on the agenda of a historic meeting of Mafia leaders in Apalachin, New York in 1957.

According to a confidential FBI source, “[T]he Apalachin meeting had been called for the purpose of each member contributing $10,000 to a fund which was to be used in backing Fidel Castro….” An FBI report stated, “In return for this support, they would obtain the concession for gambling in Cuba.” Santo Trafficante attended the meeting in Apalachin.219 Frank Fiorini also smuggled arms to Cuba for the July 26th Movement in the Sierra Maestra as a means by which to gather intelligence on the Fidelistas for Carlos Prío.

When Virginia Beach nightclub owner Frank Fiorini arrived in Cuba, he was on a mission for former President Carlos Prío. Prío told Fiorini, “Go to Cuba, join Castro’s army and let me know what he’s doing.” Fiorini met Prío through his uncle’s Cuban wife, who worked for Prío in Miami. In 1957, Fiorini traveled to the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he met Fidel Castro and volunteered his services. He served as a courier for the July 26th Movement, carrying messages between the guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra and the underground in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. He also organized arms shipments to the Sierra Maestra.

In the mid-1970s, Fiorini testified about his Cuba-related gun running to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States. By the time he testified, Fiorini had gained notoriety, using the name “Frank Sturgis,” as one of President Richard Nixon’s “Watergate burglars.” “In order for me to get very close with Fidel personally, I went to a great risk in buying guns and equipment and smuggling guns and equipment to Cuba,” Fiorini testified.220

The Eisenhower Administration was aware of arms sales related to Cuba. According to a Department of State memorandum, an unnamed company in the Washington, D.C. area informed the U.S. Munitions Control of an August 1957 sale of weapons “to Cuban exiles,” who loaded 500 machine guns, twenty-five bazookas, and Italian rifles into a trailer. U.S. law enforcement officers followed the trailer to Florida, where they seized the arsenal. The memorandum added that Carlos Prío was likely “involved” in the arms deal.221

Fiorini told the Rockefeller Commission that he had set up “an elaborate system” to ship weapons from the United States to Cuba. He arranged for arms and ammunition to be delivered to the Sierra Maestra by air and automobiles brought into Cuba from the United States on the ferry from Key West, Florida.222 In late 1958 and early 1959, Fiorini provided intelligence to U.S. officials in Cuba on the July 26th Movement.223

A CIA cable reported on a meeting between Fiorini and a CIA officer in Cuba in January 1959. Fiorini volunteered to “cooperate 100 percent supplying info.” The cable noted, “Frank Fiorini… claims he has confidence friendship Fidel Castro and other top commanders. Personal friendship Pedro Díaz Lanz chief Rebel air force.” The cable recommended developing Fiorini as a potential asset: “Known background is subject [Fiorini] made several trips to sierras…. Possible he may lose value to Rebels but believe worthwhile KUBARK [CIA] endorse his staying on.” The message added, “C/S comment: *Stated would try develop Fiorini.”224

Fiorini told the Rockefeller Commission that he made contact with leading Mafia gamblers when he arrived in Havana from Santiago de Cuba. Fiorini’s new friend Samuel “Stretch” Rubin introduced him to the North American gangsters. Rubin took Fiorini around Havana to meet Santo Trafficante, Jake Lansky, Joe Rivers, Charles “The Blade” Tourine, and two of the Cuban owners of the Tropicana nightclub, Martin and Pedro Fox.

Stretch Rubin was indebted to Fiorini. Rubin, who collected the take from slot machines in Santiago de Cuba for Norman Rothman, was taken into custody by the July 26th Movement in early January 1959. Fiorini intervened on Rubin’s behalf and convinced the guerrillas to release him. According to the Legal Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Rubin was also an associate of Trafficante.

Fiorini also looked up Juan Orta y Cordova in Havana. Orta, whom Fiorini called “a friend,” was director of Fidel Castro’s executive office. Orta was a member of the July 26th Movement in Florida and a trusted aide of Carlos Prío. As an aide for Prío, Orta got to know the Mafia gamblers, when he was responsible for dispersing money for arms and ammunition to anti-Batista rebel groups.225

As Fiorini was leaving Santiago de Cuba, he was given the names of two men to look up in Havana: “Colonel Nichols” and “Major Van Horn.” Erickson Nichols and Robert Van Horn were air force attaché and assistant air attaché at the U.S. Embassy.226

Fiorini told the Rockefeller Commission that he met with Colonel Nichols “quite a number of times” at the U.S. Embassy. At their first meeting, Fiorini agreed to supply intelligence on the Cuban revolution. Nichols encouraged Fiorini to get “in a good position” to gain access to intelligence in the Cuban air force.227 Shortly thereafter, Air Force Chief Pedro Díaz Lanz appointed Fiorini head of security and intelligence of the Cuban air force, and supervisor of training for the Military Police. Díaz Lanz and Fiorini became friends through their work in the July 26th Movement arms-procurement network. Díaz Lanz earned a reputation as a brave and skilled pilot flying small planes loaded with guns and ammunition to the Fidelistas in the Sierra Maestra. Both Fiorini and Díaz Lanz had joined the arms network as agents of Carlos Prío.228

In March 1959, Fiorini traveled to FBI headquarters in Washington. Fiorini volunteered to furnish “information concerning the growth of Communism in Cuba as well as revolutionary plans which were being made to overthrow Caribbean countries.”229

When Fiorini returned to Havana, he continued to meet with Colonel Nichols at the U.S. Embassy. Fiorini told the Rockefeller Commission, “Colonel Nichols was very interested in the Communist infiltration into the military forces.” Fiorini also kept Nichols informed about his meetings with senior military officers in the Cuban air force critical of Castro’s leadership. The anti-Castro group included Pedro Díaz Lanz, his brother Marco Díaz Lanz, Inspector General of the Cuban air force, and Comandante Ricardo Lorie.

Fiorini also shared with Nichols two scenarios for the assassination of Fidel Castro under discussion by the Díaz Lanz group. Fiorini recalled, “There was a lot of talk about assassination.”230 Fiorini testified about a “black bag job” he did at the Cuban army headquarters. “I broke into the chief of the army’s headquarters,” Fiorini stated, referring to the office of Army Chief Camilo Cienfuegos. “I broke into their files, and I did photograph and steal documents.” He turned the stolen documents over to Colonel Nichols.231

The Díaz Lanz group’s plotting against Castro did not go unnoticed by the Cuban G-2. In June 1959, the Díaz Lanz brothers and twenty-three other senior officers were cashiered from the Cuban air force with dishonor. In July, Pedro Díaz Lanz fled Cuba on a chartered sailboat to Florida, where Fiorini met him. A few days later Díaz Lanz was the star witness at a hearing on Capitol Hill.232

On July 10, 1959, Pedro Díaz Lanz, the former chief of the Cuban air force, appeared as the sole witness at a special closed-door session of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on “The Communist Threat to the United States through the Caribbean.” Díaz Lanz put the growing confrontation between the United States and Cuba in a stark, but exaggerated, Cold War framework. He condemned the Cuban revolution for turning Cuba into “a beachhead of communism in the Caribbean.” Vice Chair Thomas Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, called Díaz Lanz’s secret testimony “shocking.” Dodd promptly leaked Díaz Lanz’s remarks to the Washington press corps. When Díaz Lanz appeared before the panel four days later in an open session, he repeated his previous testimony, declaring that the Cuban revolution had become “a tool of Russia.”233 Díaz Lanz’s testimony inspired others in Washington foreign policy circles to make the case that Cuba was a dangerous new front in the Cold War.

Three days later, Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke declared that Communists were “using” Castro. Burke warned that the “danger” of a communist takeover of Cuba was “great” in a seminar on U.S. strategy at Fort McNair, a mile south of the Capitol on the banks of the Washington Channel. Inside the Eisenhower Administration, Ambassadors Robert Hill (Mexico) and Whiting Willauer (Costa Rica) were advocates of a tougher policy toward Cuba. Hill and Willauer considered Castro a surrogate for the Soviet Union and a threat to Latin America.234

The CIA handled Díaz Lanz at arm’s length, but kept him away from the Washington press corps. Díaz Lanz was portrayed as an “anti-communist” freedom fighter. His plotting with senior officers of the Cuban air force and Frank Fiorini to assassinate Castro remained a well-kept secret.235 The wisdom of the CIA’s decision to keep Díaz Lanz under wraps was proven a few months later, when he fully embraced gangsterismo. In October 1959, Díaz Lanz sent Fiorini to the Dominican Republic to negotiate with Batista’s top commander General José Eleuterio Pedraza. According to a CIA index card on Fiorini, Díaz Lanz wanted arms and financial support from the Batistianos to organize an anti-Castro guerrilla force of 200. To curry favor with the Batistianos, Díaz Lanz enlisted the support of Roberto “Chiri” Mendoza. Pedraza, however, was not impressed with Díaz Lanz, whom he dismissed as “a little boy playing a man’s game.”236

The CIA also wanted to keep Pedro’s brother Marcos Díaz Lanz under wraps. In October 1953, Marcos had been indicted in the United States for running guns to Cuba for Carlos Prío, in violation of U.S. neutrality laws. According to FBI records, Marcos and his sister Yolanda, a “personal friend” of Prío, were part of an arms-trafficking scheme which involved Q Airlines, a Cuban airline with a popular Havana to Miami route, where Yolanda worked as a stewardess.

The CIA also wanted to keep secret the Agency’s role in Marcos Díaz Lanz’s exfiltration.237 CIA asset Bernard “Macho” Barker, a Cuban-American who grew up in Havana and had “encyclopedic knowledge” of Cuban contacts, was the Agency’s liaison with the Díaz Lanz group in the Cuban air force in 1959. CIA records reveal that the Agency used Barker as a source on “communist penetration and control in the Cuban government and military forces.” Barker also had an insider’s knowledge of gangsterismo, having served in the Bureau of Investigations of the Cuban National Police at the behest of the CIA in the Batista era.238 A CIA document noted, “[Barker] organized a group to infiltrate the Cuban government.” A House Select Committee on Assassinations biographical sketch of Barker, drawn from CIA files, indicates that he played a role in the exfiltration of Marcos Díaz Lanz to the United States.

Meanwhile, in Washington, U.S. policy in Cuba was being rebranded. Cold War rhetoric would increasingly obscure the origins of the confrontation between the United States and the Cuban revolution, which evolved out of Cuba’s turbulent history and the U.S. role on the island since 1898.