CHAPTER 16:
“AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS”
President John Kennedy made a dramatic appearance before a large crowd of Cuban exiles in the Orange Bowl in Miami on December 29, 1962. He had choppered down from the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach to mark the return of the Brigade 2506 prisoners of war, captured at the Bay of Pigs.
John and Jackie Kennedy drove into the Orange Bowl football stadium in a gleaming white Lincoln Continental convertible with its top down as 40,000 Cuban exiles cheered and waved U.S. and Cuban flags. As they approached the 50 yard line, the Kennedys stood up in the presidential limousine, radiating glamour like Hollywood stars on a sunny 79 degree day.
President Kennedy walked over to the Brigade 2506 leaders on a platform at midfield. He shook the hands of Commander José Pérez San Román, second-in-command Erneido Oliva, Brigade political officer Manuel Artime, and Cuban Revolutionary Council leader José Miró Cardona as the national anthems of the United States and Cuba were played by the U.S. Air Force Band. Then Kennedy marched across the field to review the troops of Brigade 2506, who stood at attention in formation. He walked down each line shaking hands and offering words of encouragement to the Bay of Pigs veterans.
“Pepe” San Román spoke on behalf of the Brigade. “The 2506 Brigade, we offer ourselves to God and to the free world as warriors in the battle against communism,” San Román declared. “We don’t know how or in what form the opportunity will come for us to fight in the cause of Cuba. Whenever, however, wherever, in whatever honorable form it may come, we will do what we can to be better prepared to meet and complete our mission.”
As Oliva presented Kennedy with the blue and gold flag of Brigade 2506, San Román said, “Mr. President, the men of the Brigade 2506 give you their banner—we temporarily deposit it with you for safekeeping.” Kennedy unfolded the banner and spoke with emotion. “I want to express my great appreciation to the Brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag,” he asserted. “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this Brigade in a free Havana.”
The Brigade cheered wildly. Family members and supporters stomped their feet in the stands as they chanted “¡Guerra! ¡Guerra!’” (“War! War!”) and “¡Libertad! ¡Libertad!’’ (“Liberty! Liberty!”). “The Brigade is the point of the spear, the arrow’s head,” Kennedy continued. “It is the strongest wish of this Hemisphere that Cuba shall one day be free again, and that when it is, this Brigade will deserve to march at the head of the free column.”
Kennedy did not mention his agreement with Nikita Khrushchev to end the Cuban missile crisis, or his pledge that the United States would not invade Cuba, which had angered the Cuban exile community. Jackie Kennedy addressed the crowd in Spanish. “I feel proud that my son has met the officers,” she said. “He is still too young to realize what has happened here, but I will make it my business to tell him the story of your courage as he grows up. It is my wish and my hope that someday he may be a man at least half as brave as the members of Brigade 2506.”651
President Kennedy got the idea for his appearance at the Orange Bowl from a meeting with Brigade 2506 leaders in Palm Beach on December 27. The Cuban exiles invited Kennedy to inspect the Brigade 2506 troops at a formal ceremony. Kennedy’s aides warned him not to go to the Orange Bowl. “Don’t go there,” White House political aide Kenny O’Donnell told Kennedy. “After what you’ve been through with Castro, you can’t make an appearance in the Orange Bowl and pay tribute to those rebels. It will look like you’re planning to back them in another invasion of Cuba.”
Brigade 2506 leaders had made no secret of their desire to resume the fight against the Cuban revolution. On December 25, Artime told a gathering of 4,000 Cuban exiles in Miami, “We have come to call you with the voices of our dead to war again in the name of our mothers who gave their sons.” But Robert Kennedy encouraged his brother to appear with the recently released Bay of Pigs prisoners of war.652
The Bay of Pigs disaster had weighed heavily on the president. In summer 1962, the Cuban Families Committee retained attorney James B. Donovan to negotiate with Fidel Castro for the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. In November, Robert Kennedy got involved, setting up a prisoner-release operation in the Department of Justice. Castro indicated that Cuba would release the brigadista prisoners of war in exchange for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Interamerican Affairs Richard Goodwin.
President Kennedy told Goodwin, “[W]hatever it takes, let’s do it. I put those men in there. They trusted me. And they’re in prison now because I fucked up. I have to get them out.” On December 21, Castro signed an agreement with Donovan to release the Brigade 2506 prisoners. In return, Donovan guaranteed the delivery of $53 million in foodstuffs, medical supplies, and pharmaceuticals to Cuba. The first of ten airplanes carrying the released prisoners arrived in Florida on December 23.653
President Kennedy’s appearance at the Orange Bowl boosted his credibility in the Cuban exile community. A CIA memorandum stated, “Exile hopes were lifted by President Kennedy’s Orange Bowl speech at the end of 1962, and it was hoped that the returning Brigade 2506 veterans would provide the nucleus for exile unity.”654 Kennedy used his ties to San Román to recruit Cuban exiles for a new phase of covert operations against Cuba. On October 31, Edward Lansdale went to Miami to supervise the termination of the covert operation.655
In early 1963, Artime, Pepe San Román, and Enrique Ruiz Williams met frequently with the attorney general in Washington. Robert Kennedy biographer Evan Thomas writes, “Kennedy had been meeting privately with Cuban exiles.” He continues, “RFK was entertaining Cuban exiles at Hickory Hill and calling them at their apartments at the Ebbitt Hotel downtown, where they were housed by the Agency.”
In January 1963, the CIA reorganized its Cuba operations. Des FitzGerald, appointed chief of the new Special Affairs Staff (SAS), replaced William Harvey as the Agency’s point man on Cuba.656 Harvey and Johnny Rosselli tied up the loose ends of their plotting to assassinate Castro. The report of Senator Frank Church’s Senate Select Committee stated, “Harvey was told that the pills, referred to as ‘the medicine’ was still ‘safe’ in Cuba.” The poison capsules were delivered to Cuba in May 1962. On February 15, 1963, Harvey flew to Los Angeles to meet with Rosselli. According to CIA Inspector General J. S. Earman, Harvey and Rosselli agreed that the poison pill “operation would be closed off.”657
Cuban exile leaders had not expected the Cuban missile crisis to end peacefully. They fervently hoped that the United States would intervene militarily to remove the missiles and overthrow the Cuban revolution. They were demoralized when Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba as part of his agreement with Khrushchev to end the missile crisis.
A U.S. Army Intelligence report noted the deep dismay of Cuban exiles caused by “the U.S. failure to invade Cuba as had been expected a few days earlier.” Former Havana attorney Mario Lazo, whose clients included U.S. business interests in Cuba, had close ties to the U.S. Embassy in the 1950s. He called Kennedy’s no-invasion pledge “a soul shattering blow.” Rafael Quintero told former Miami Herald reporter Don Bohning it was a betrayal of the first magnitude. “This was bigger for me than the Bay of Pigs, because the Bay of Pigs I could understand.”
Dismay turned to anger when CIA-backed commando operations against Cuba were suspended at the end of October 1962. The Cuban exile movement’s anger boiled over when Attorney General Kennedy announced a crackdown on unauthorized exile action group raids on Cuba, which he worried would jeopardize the continuing negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to finalize the Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement.
Cuban exile action groups planned to defy the administration’s ban. On October 30, a CIA memorandum reported that Alpha 66 and the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) “pledged that they will renew their armed fight against Castro.”658 On October 31, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo’s Segundo Frente Nacional Del Escambray challenged the stand-down. Ten SFNE commandos were arrested on the yacht Sigma on the Miami River. Customs agents seized weapons and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.659
On December 4, U.S. law enforcement officials also prevented a hit-and-run team from the International Penetration Force (Interpen) from leaving Florida. In the Florida Keys, federal officers arrested thirteen Interpen commandos, including ten North Americans. United Press International reported that Interpen “had been training for a guerrilla attack on Cuba for the past six months at No Name Key forty miles northeast of Key West.”660
Meanwhile, President Kennedy had to tread carefully in Cuba. He did not want to unravel his agreement with Khrushchev that had ended the missile crisis, or risk another dangerous Cold War confrontation over Cuba. To Cuban exiles, however, U.S. policy toward Cuba appeared to be adrift.
In the Cuban exile community, the optimism created by President Kennedy’s appearance at the Orange Bowl, soon turned into bitter disillusionment. But Alpha 66’s audacious attacks on merchant vessels in Cuban waters lifted the spirits of anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Antonio Veciana was the public face of Alpha 66. The group’s fundraising and propaganda work were done in Puerto Rico, but its commando operations were launched from Miami in small, speedy boats.
Veciana set out to challenge the Kennedy Administration on Cuba. A CIA report concluded that Veciana’s objective was “to create an incident which would involve the United States and the Soviet Union.” On September 19, 1962, Alpha 66 raiders fired on the British freighter Newlane, a Cuban coastal vessel, and another Cuban boat off Caibarien on Cuba’s north coast. On October 8, Alpha 66 claimed credit for another attack on Cuban and Soviet forces at a military encampment near Isabela de Sagua.
In a January 1963 speech in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Veciana announced that Alpha 66 would lead “a war of liberation” in Cuba. “It is useless to demand aid from the United States because U.S. policy on the Cuban situation is not cooperative.” Veciana claimed that “pacifist” members of the Kennedy Administration were seeking “rapprochement” with Havana.
In March 1963, Alpha 66 heightened Cold War tensions by launching brazen attacks on Soviet freighters in Cuban waters. On the night of March 17, Alpha 66 and Segundo Frente Nacional del Escambray commandos attacked the Soviet freighter Lvov at anchor in the harbor of Isabela de Sagua. The raiders opened fire with a 20-millimeter cannon, hitting the Lvov several times. As the exiles drew closer, they strafed the freighter with a .30 caliber machine gun, turned north and escaped into the darkness of the Caribbean.
On March 19, Veciana held a news conference in Washington to tout the success of the Alpha 66 mission.661 In late March, Antonio Cuesta and his Comandos L crew, a group that had split off from Alpha 66, accompanied by photojournalist Andrew St. George, left Miami on a sabotage mission on the Phoenix, a 22-foot speedboat.
Off the coast of Florida, Cuesta’s raiders rendezvoused with Santiago Alvarez Rodríguez’s 43-foot yacht Alisan. The two boats sailed to Anguilla Island in the Bahamas, where they picked up arms and ammunition from a secret cache. From the Bahamas, the Alisan, with the Phoenix in tow, headed toward Caibarien. The Phoenix decoupled from the Alisan and slipped into Caibarién harbor. Ramón Font fired his 20 mm Lahti cannon, hitting the freighter Baku ten times. The Comandos L crew also tossed overboard a magnet-equipped mine, which blew a huge hole in the Baku, according to St. George’s account in Life magazine. The Phoenix and the Alisan returned to Anguilla Island, where the Comandos L crew cached their arms and unused ammunition. The Alisan towed the Phoenix back to Florida.662
Meanwhile, declassified U.S. intelligence documents shed new light on Veciana and his backers.
Veciana, a former manager of the Banco Financiero in Havana, was a past president of the Cuban Association of Public Accountants. The Banco Financiero was owned by Julio Lobo. Before the revolution Lobo, who owned eleven sugar mills and had a half-interest in three other mills, was known as Cuba’s “Sugar King.” Lobo’s Galban Trading Company was one of the biggest sugar brokerage houses in the world. His holdings also included other banks, insurance companies, and real estate.663
Lobo had profited from gangsterismo. The gangsters turned to the Banco Financiero to finance the expansion of their gambling colony in the 1950s. Cuban writer Enrique Cirules cites documents from the Banco Nacional de Cuba and the Archivo Nacional de Cuba that outline the Banco Financiero’s role in financing the construction of the Mafia-owned Capri and Riviera hotels.664 Veciana was Lobo’s protégé. According to CIA records, Lobo, who left Cuba for Miami in October 1961, was an early source of funding for Alpha 66. One CIA document reported that Veciana received “large sums of money for Alpha 66 from Lobo in 1962.” Lobo offered to commit $250,000 for future Alpha 66 operations.665
Veciana later told Gaeton Fonzi, a House Assassinations Committee investigator, that he organized Alpha 66 at the behest of a man who used the allias “Maurice Bishop.” He said that Bishop, whom he believed was a U.S. intelligence officer, was the hidden hand behind Alpha 66. Veciana kept Alpha 66 combatants in the dark about the group’s inner workings. He also kept secret his alliance with Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the Segundo Frente Nacional del Escambray. Under a clandestine arrangement, Veciana funneled funds to Menoyo, who led SFNE sabotage operations in Cuba. As we have seen, Menoyo was controversial because of his betrayal of the Batistiano plan to invade Cuba in August 1959.
An Army Intelligence memorandum explained, “The Escambray Group… could not raise funds under its own name very probably due to the fact that the exiles who had money have refused to contribute to the political element which such groups represent.” But Menoyo was an experienced guerrilla commander with connections to counterrevolutionaries in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean.666 When details about Veciana’s secret alliance with Menoyo leaked out, there was a rebellion in Alpha 66. Antonio Cuesta, Santiago Alvarez Rodríguez, and others refused to work with Menoyo, whom they considered a radical leftist. Veciana worked out a compromise. The dissidents formed a separate faction of Alpha 66 called Comandos L. But Comandos L would cooperate in joint operations with Alpha 66 and Menoyo’s SFNE.667
The Alpha 66 raids in March 1963 provoked the first challenge to the Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement that ended the Cuban missile crisis. On March 27, the USSR delivered a diplomatic note to the U.S. Embassy to protest Cuban exile attacks on Soviet merchant vessels. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko also met with Ambassador Foy Kohler in the U.S. Embassy to lodge a protest.668 On April 3, President Kennedy responded angrily to the Alpha 66 and Comandos L raids, calling them dangerously provocative but militarily ineffective.
“It doesn’t seem to us that this represents any real blow to Castro,” Kennedy told reporters. “It gives additional incentives for the Soviet Union to maintain their personnel in Cuba; to send additional units to protect their merchant ships… [I]t will bring reprisals possibly on American ships. We will then be expected to take a military action to protect our ships.” To ease tensions with the Soviet Union, President Kennedy ordered a new crackdown on Cuban exile raids unauthorized by the CIA.
The Kennedy Administration sent a team of officials to Miami to meet with local representatives of the CIA, Coast Guard, Customs Service, FBI, and Immigration and Naturalization Service about the exile raids. According to an Army Intelligence report, “Prevention of Departure” notices were delivered to twenty-six Cuban exiles from Alpha 66, Comandos L, SFNE, and the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil. The exiles were informed that they would put their immigration status in jeopardy if they left “the land limits” of Dade Country, Florida.
The Department of Justice considered prosecuting Cuban exiles who participated in raids unauthorized by the CIA. Cuban exiles reacted angrily to the crackdown. A CIA cable reported, “Exile colony in uproar over notices to Cuban exile operations.” The cable continued, “Reaction among exiles appears universal over this issue and is anti-US and anti-Kennedy. Even though notices only sent to selected leaders, order being interpreted as applicable all exiles and as beginning coexistence [with Cuba].”669 The discontent in Miami put pressure on the administration to produce visible results in Cuba.
As the cherry trees blossomed around the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial, the Kennedy Administration reviewed its policy options in Cuba. There was little chance that the Cuban revolution could be overthrown in the short term. Soviet troops, which had remained in Cuba since the missile crisis, were a deterrent to U.S. military intervention.
Robert Kennedy spoke in favor of externally mounted Cuban exile operations. But other members of the Administration’s foreign-policy team expressed skepticism. SAS Chief Desmond FitzGerald questioned the usefulness of large commando raids. Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John McCone argued that the number-one priority of the administration should be “to assure the removal of Soviet troops” from Cuba. The administration estimated that 17,000 Soviet military personnel remained on the island in January 1963.670
Meanwhile, McGeorge Bundy raised the possibility of “some form of accommodation with Castro” in a “Tab” to a memorandum to the Standing Group on April 23. Bundy reasoned that more aggressive policy options, and the exploration of accommodation with Havana, were not mutually exclusive.671
But Robert McNamara gave short shrift to “accommodation” with Cuba. On April 23, McNamara told the Standing Group that the “elimination” of the Cuban revolution was essential. He argued that the administration “should aim at creating such a situation of dissidence within Cuba as to allow the U.S. to use force in support of anti-Castro forces without leading to retaliation by the USSR on the West.”
Robert Kennedy was unrelentingly hawkish on Cuba. On April 23, Kennedy referred to the possibility of the “death of Castro.” He called for three studies on covert policy options, including: “A list of measures we would take following contingencies such as the death of Castro; A program with the objective of overthrowing Castro in 18 months; A program to cause as much trouble as we can for Communist Cuba during the next 18 months.”
In May, the CIA’s Office of National Estimates (ONE) did an analysis of the likely impact of Castro’s death, as requested by Robert Kennedy. “We believe the odds are that upon Castro’s death his brother Raúl or some other figure in the regime would, with Soviet backing and help, take control. However, there is a good chance that a power struggle would ensue,” a draft ONE memorandum stated.672 Meanwhile, the interdepartmental Cuban Affairs Coordinating Committee approved three targets for CIA sabotage missions: A railroad bridge, oil storage tanks, and a molasses storage vessel. NSC staff officer Gordon Chase noted, “This will meet the President’s desire for some noise level and for some action in the immediate future.”673
Despite unauthorized Cuban exile raids and CIA covert operations on the island, the cornerstone of the Kennedy Administration’s post-missile crisis policy in Cuba would be “autonomous operations” by selected Cuban exile action groups.
SAS Chief Desmond FitzGerald presented a proposal for a program of “autonomous operations” to the Standing Group on April 25. The CIA would fund selected Cuban exile groups for sabotage missions in Cuba.
In June 1963, the CIA spelled out the “rules of engagement” for autonomous operations, which would be mounted by Cuban exiles from bases outside the United States. Direct U.S. involvement would be minimal. A CIA officer would be assigned as a liaison with each autonomous exile group, providing general advice, funds, and material support. The CIA would not control their operations, unlike in the past, when CIA-supported Cuban exile covert actions were effectively run by the Agency.
Cuba’s economic and transportation infrastructure was the priority target for autonomous operations, which were designed to cause regional economic breakdowns.674 On June 19, President Kennedy approved the CIA’s “integrated program of action.” The CIA’s new covert action plan, outlined in a paper for the Standing Group, was designed to prevent further consolidation of the Cuban revolution.
The CIA paper outlined six interrelated components of the covert plan: “A. Covert collection of intelligence, both for U.S. strategic requirements as well as for operational requirements. B. Propaganda actions to stimulate low-risk simple sabotage and other forms of active and passive resistance. C. Exploitation and stimulation of dissatisfaction in the Cuban military and power centers. D. Economic denial actions on an increased basis. E. General sabotage and harassment. F. Support of autonomous anti-Castro Cuban groups to supplement and assist in the execution of the above courses of action.”675
To implement its new policy of “autonomous operations,” the Kennedy Administration turned first to Manuel Artime and his Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionario (MRR) (Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution). The CIA would subsidize the MRR’s autonomous sabotage operations in Cuba.
A House Select Committee on Assassinations staff report on the MRR stated, “Manuel Artime… was soon scouting around Latin America for sites on which to establish guerrilla training camps.” Artime’s guerrilla force was recruited primarily from Brigade 2506 veterans. Artime’s “prestige” had been enhanced greatly by his presence with President Kennedy on the speakers’ platform at the Orange Bowl.676
Artime established bases in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and with funds from the CIA, the MRR purchased a small commando fleet. The CIA also helped the MRR procure small arms. FitzGerald’s assistant Sam Halpern recalls, “We supplied the money and told them where to buy arms.” Halpern added, “They bought them in the open market. We told them where the sellers were, what they could get, what they had to pay for it. It was decided to let the Cubans do it on their own.”
JMWAVE, the CIA station in Miami, provided logistical and intelligence support for MRR sabotage operations in Cuba, according to Shackley biographer David Corn.677 Manuel Ray’s Junta Revolucionaria Cubana (JURE) (Cuban Revolutionary Junta) was also designated eligible for covert funding as an autonomous operation. Ray founded JURE in September 1962, a year after he was ousted from the leadership of the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP) (People’s Revolutionary Movement) in Cuba. Robert Kennedy was an admirer of Ray.
JURE advocated working with dissidents in the Cuban armed forces to organize an internal uprising.678 By summer 1963, JURE had acquired a 25-foot boat for infiltrating operatives into Cuba. JURE also had a B-26 airplane, weapons arsenals in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and a training camp in Costa Rica. Felipe Pazos, Raúl Chibás, and Justo Carrillo were also included in the JURE leadership.
Behind the scenes in Washington, New York Times reporter Tad Szulc lobbied on behalf of Ray, even meeting with President Kennedy. Szulc’s CIA case officer Alfonso Rodríguez was troubled by the reporter’s role as an advocate for Ray. Manuel Ray also had critics in the Cuban exile community, who dismissed his politics as Fidelismo sin Fidel.
An airgram from the Office of the Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami to the Department of State described Ray’s standing in the exile community. “There is widespread dislike, resentment and fear directed particularly at Ray,” the airgram reported. “These feelings… seem to be inspired mainly by Ray’s reputed personal ambitions, radicalism, atheism, and dictatorial manner.” Ray was Minister of Public Works in the first revolutionary Cuban Cabinet from 1959 to 1960.679 As the administration’s policy of “autonomous operations” got under way, its effort to prosecute rogue Cuban exile raiders fell by the wayside.
In the wake of President Kennedy’s crackdown on unauthorized Cuban exile attacks, Attorney General Robert Kennedy had second thoughts about prosecuting Alpha 66, Comandos L, and SFNE commandos. Trials in open courts would reveal U.S. intelligence agency links to the exile action groups.
According to FBI Director Hoover, Army Intelligence used Alpha 66 raiders as intelligence sources on Cuba. The CIA also had shadowy associations with Veciana and Alpha 66. Lt. Col. Grover C. King, of Army Intelligence, wrote in an October 22, 1962 message, “There is a working agreement between Alpha 66 and CIA.” King pointed out that Alpha 66 used CIA explosives in its hit-and-run sabotage operation in Isabela de Sagua in October 1962. He wrote, “Prior to the raid on La Isabela an Alpha 66 member stole approximately $600.00 worth of explosives from the CIA. Explosives were used in La Isabela raid.”
In January 1962, the CIA authorized Veciana for “provisional operational use” in sabotage missions. Veciana was given the code-name AMSHALE-1.680 An FBI investigation found that some members of Comandos L were connected to Army Intelligence and the CIA. The FBI reported that the CIA had a prior “operational interest” in Santiago Alvarez Rodríguez, whose yacht, Alisan, was used in Alpha 66, Comandos L, and SFNE raids on Caibarien in March 1963. Alvarez was a “navigator” for the CIA-sponsored Frente Revolucionario Democrático during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA also had an “operational interest” in Alvarez’s son, Santiago Alvarez Fernández, who took part in a September 1962 sabotage operation in Cuba.
The FBI learned that the weapons and ammunition Comandos L used in the Caibarien attack belonged to the CIA. The weapons were from a secret arms cache the CIA laid down on Anguilla Island for the Bay of Pigs invasion.681 FBI reports also indicate that Santiago Alvarez Rodríguez was a hard-core Batistiano. Batista appointed Alvarez to his Cabinet as minister without portfolio in March 1952.
Alvarez was also linked to Rolando Masferrer, the infamous pistolero (political gunman) tied to Batista. A federal grand jury in Miami handed down an indictment of Masferrer, Alvarez, and five others on April 10, 1961. Alvarez was charged with using his yacht Mary Ann in a Masferrer operation against Cuba in October 1960.682
Meanwhile, Comandos L’s Antonio Cuesta had multiple connections to U.S. intelligence. Cuesta was a “small boat operator” in CIA “maritime operations” in 1961. Notes taken by a House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) investigator from FBI files on Cuesta, reported the “FBI had interest in January 1961.” A CIA Trace Request in May 1962 disclosed that Cuesta was also being “utilized” by Army Intelligence.683 The CIA also had a hidden interest in Comandos L. A February 1963 FBI airtel to Director Hoover stated, “CIA has reported that they have an operational interest in a dissident faction of Alpha 66,” referring to Comandos L.684
Even Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo was used by U.S. intelligence as an asset. When Menoyo first arrived in the United States, the CIA did not trust him. Menoyo and eleven of his SFNE guerrillas were held at the U.S. immigration detention center in McAllen, Texas from January until June 1961. As we have seen, Menoyo had alerted Castro to the Batistiano plan to invade Cuba from the Dominican Republic in 1959. In January 1961, a CIA cable to the Miami Station reported, “It is HQS position: subject cannot be trusted even though he passes LCFLUTTER [lie detector] test.”
Nonetheless, Menoyo and his associates were released when Carlos Prío and José Miró Cardona intervened on their behalf. Within a month, Menoyo began infiltrating SFNE guerrillas back into the Escambray mountains. According to CIA officer Seymour Bolton, “The purpose of the infiltration is to unite the underground inside Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro.” Army Intelligence recruited Menoyo as an intelligence asset from July 1961 through 1963.
Attorney General Kennedy decided not to seek the prosecution of Veciana and his associates. Trials in open courts could have compromised ongoing U.S. covert operations in Cuba.685
Antonio Veciana had a darker secret to hide than his links to U.S. intelligence. Veciana had plotted with “Maurice Bishop,” an alias used by a U.S. intelligence officer, to assassinate Fidel Castro on two occasions in 1961.
From the start, Veciana’s relationship with Bishop was shrouded in mystery. Bishop showed up at Veciana’s office at the Banco Financiero in mid-1960. He introduced himself and handed Veciana the business card of a Belgian mining company, then invited Veciana to lunch at El Floridita. Veciana recalled this meeting in one of numerous interviews with HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi. Bishop didn’t talk much about business. Instead, he shared with Veciana his concern about the radical direction Castro was leading Cuba. He said he had heard that Veciana felt likewise. Veciana was taken aback. He had mentioned his opposition to Castro only to a few trusted friends, including Julio Lobo. Bishop and Veciana met several more times. Then Bishop arranged for Veciana to attend nightly lectures and training sessions in the use of explosives, propaganda, psychological warfare, and sabotage. Bishop never revealed his true identity. But Veciana concluded that Bishop worked for U.S. intelligence, probably the CIA.
Veciana was appointed chief of sabotage for the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP) (Revolutionary Movement of the People) in Havana. Bishop gave Veciana the names of contacts at the U.S. Embassy for arms: Military Attaché Sam Kail, Political Officer Ewing Smith, and Vice Consul Joe D’Acosta.686 However, Veciana unnerved the CIA station in Havana when he made a clumsy approach in December 1960. With no prior consultation, Veciana presented the CIA station with a plan to assassinate Castro, and asked for help from the U.S. Embassy.
A CIA cable stated, “Veciana informed Hava[na] of plot to wipe out Prime Minister and top associates. Veciana said he needed visas for members of men assigned to job.” The cable pointed out, “COS [chief of station] gave Veciana no encouragement whatsoever.” Veciana’s “cold approach manner” aroused suspicion, but Lobo vouched for him with U.S. officials, reassuring diplomat Thomas Mann that Veciana was “reliable.”
In 1961, Bishop and Veciana discussed Castro’s assassination. Veciana recalled, “Bishop decided that the only thing left to be done was an attempt on Castro’s life.” The two men developed a plan to kill Castro during Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s visit to Cuba in July 1961, then later rejected the plot as unworkable.
The two men devised a second assassination plan in which Castro would be killed during a public appearance in Havana in October 1961. Castro would be shot on the balcony of the Palacio Presidencial as he stood alongside President Osvaldo Dorticós on Dorticós’ return from a diplomatic mission to the USSR and Eastern Europe.
Veciana rented an apartment on Avenida de las Missiones with a clear line of sight to the balcony of the Palacio Presidencial, fifty meters away. Fonzi writes, “He then recruited triggermen and obtained the weapons.” Fonzi continues, “A massive firepower attack, with automatic rifles, grenade launchers and a bazooka, was planned so that all of the aides appearing with Castro that day would be killed.”
At the last minute, Veciana got cold feet when his cousin Guillermo Ruiz, a Cuban intelligence officer, questioned him about his frequent visits to the U.S. Embassy. Bishop’s sources confirmed that Cuban intelligence was suspicious of Veciana’s activities. Veciana left Cuba secretly by boat for the United States the day before the assassination was to take place. The Cuban G-2 arrested Veciana’s accomplices, including MRP leader Reynold González. Veciana’s coconspirators fingered him as the chief organizer of the October 1961 assassination operation. The HSCA noted that Veciana’s account of the assassination attempt was, in part, corroborated by a November 7, 1961 report in the Cuban newspaper Revolución.687
In the meantime, Veciana resettled in Miami. Bishop reestablished contact and urged Veciana to form a new Cuban exile group to resume the fight against the Cuban revolution, and counseled him how to set up Alpha 66. Fonzi writes, “Every meeting was instigated by Bishop; he would call Veciana and set the time and place for a meeting. Usually it was in public place, on a street corner or in a park, and they would walk and talk.”
According to Veciana, it was Bishop’s idea for Alpha 66 to attack Soviet merchant ships in Cuban waters in the tense period before and after the Cuban missile crisis. Veciana recalled, “The purpose was to publicly embarrass Kennedy and force him to move against Castro.”688
But who was “Maurice Bishop”? The House Assassinations Committee failed to establish his identity. But the HSCA found it “probable that some agency of the United States assigned a case officer to Veciana since he was the dominant figure in an extremely active anti-Castro organization.” Both Army Intelligence and the CIA had used Veciana for intelligence purposes. CIA Inspector General John H. Waller reported, “Veciana was registered in the Inter-Service Registry by the U.S. Army for the period November 1962 to July 1966…” As we have seen, Veciana was also authorized by the CIA for “provisional operational use” in 1962.
Fonzi was convinced that Bishop was Phillips. “‘Maurice Bishop’ was David Atlee Phillips. I state that unequivocally, although Veciana cannot officially identify him publicly as such.” Fonzi added, “[B]elieve me I know that he was. And Bob Blakey and the House Assassinations Committee knew that he was, although its report did not admit that.” (Emphasis in original.) Blakey was chief counsel of the HSCA.
Evidence from CIA sources also suggests that Bishop may have been Phillips. In posthumously published memoirs, CIA officer E. Howard Hunt tied Phillips to Veciana and Alpha 66. “After the Bay of Pigs, Phillips helped formulate plans to assassinate Castro,” Hunt wrote. “In Miami, he helped support Alpha 66… and reportedly told the organization’s founder, Antonio Veciana, that he hoped to provoke the United States into interceding in Cuba by ‘putting Kennedy’s back to the wall.’” Fonzi’s belief that Bishop was Phillips was bolstered by Ross Crozier, a former CIA case officer for the Directorio Revolucionario Estudíantil in Florida, who worked with Phillips on matters related to the DRE and Cuba. In interviews with the HSCA, Crozier recalled that Phillips sometimes used the alias “Maurice Bishop.”
Meanwhile, CIA historian Jack Pfeiffer linked Phillips to a previously undisclosed CIA assassination plot in Cuba in 1961 involving the DRE. WH/4 Chief of Operations Richard Drain mentioned the CIA assassination operation in an oral history interview with Pfeiffer. Drain recalled that on February 24, 1961, he “asked Ed, Dave Phillips, Hinkle, Moore and Jake ‘why not proceed with operation AMHINT to set up [a] program of assassinations.’” AMHINT, the CIA cryptonym for a DRE propaganda team, later canceled the murder plan.689
Castro’s assassination was clearly on Phillips’s mind in 1961. Whether he was Maurice Bishop or not, the evidence is troubling: A U.S. intelligence officer was the hidden hand behind Alpha 66’s provocative attempts to push President Kennedy into a new Cold War crisis over Cuba.