Authors: Lamar Waldron
It’s important to point out the gun dealer was not knowingly part
of JFK’s assassination, and Ray’s JURE might not have been the source
of the talk about the coup plan; FBI files indicate it was a man linked
to Eloy Menoyo. Still, it shows how the shadowy milieu in which the
Kennedys’ exiles operated gave the Mafia opportunities to learn about
or compromise each of the chosen exile groups.
The Cuban exile officers at Fort Benning were largely beyond reproach,
and many would go on to have distinguished careers. However, the base
was a stop on Marcello and Trafficante’s portion of the French Connec-
tion heroin network, which smuggled drugs into the US by hiding them
in automobiles and appliances of servicemen returning from Europe.
The Fort Benning part of the heroin network would not be exposed until
two years after JFK’s murder, though it was active in 1963.29 The mob
bosses had developed their ties to the area because Fort Benning was
just across the river from Phenix City, Alabama, which until 1954 had a
decades-long reputation as the most corrupt town in America (when it
was largely run by Trafficante).
Before looking more closely at the CIA’s role in the JFK-Almeida coup
plan, we should point out two high officials who were not involved,
and why: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Vice President Lyndon B.
Johnson. Both had been excluded from both the coup planning and the
Cuba Contingency Plans due to the animosity between them and Bobby
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Kennedy. Bobby had long been frustrated by Hoover’s reluctance to go
after the Mafia, and by the FBI director’s racism. As for LBJ, Bobby had
never gotten over their clashes when LBJ ran against JFK for the 1960
presidential nomination.
However, LBJ and Hoover were good friends, and by mid-November
1963, both probably knew something big was brewing about Cuba,
because of reports from FBI agents about the Kennedys’ exile leaders,
and incidents like the one involving the Dallas gun dealer. Also, Hoover
would have known about the FBI’s involvement in maintaining the
secrecy surrounding the November 1963 Chicago and Tampa assassina-
tion attempts against JFK.
Recently documented information about the state of Hoover’s and
LBJ’s relationships with JFK by mid-November 1963 is important,
because some researchers have claimed that Hoover and LBJ were
behind JFK’s assassination, even though no credible evidence has ever
surfaced. Their most suspicious activity occurred during the cover-ups
following JFK’s murder, but extensive evidence now shows that Bobby
Kennedy was equally involved, and that all three men had the same
goal: to suppress information that could have triggered a dangerous
confrontation with the Soviets.
By November 1963, Hoover was secure in his job even if JFK were
reelected, thanks to a deal arranged the previous month. Hoover had
first almost exposed—but had then agreed to cover up—JFK’s liaison
with an East German beauty. Anthony Summers first documented the
meetings that resulted in Bobby and JFK’s agreement to keep Hoover on
as FBI director, even past normal retirement age and into JFK’s possible
next term, if information about the liaison was suppressed.30
JFK had been introduced to the East German woman by Bobby Baker,
Lyndon Johnson’s former aide. The press was starting to devote atten-
tion to Baker’s and Johnson’s activities in November 1963. But because
what would become known as the Bobby Baker scandal touched JFK and
involved members of both parties, it would soon be shut down. Some
writers have said that JFK was going to drop LBJ from the ticket in 1964
because of the scandal, thus giving LBJ a theoretical motive to risk killing
JFK. But JFK could hardly dump LBJ because of a scandal in which the
President was also involved. Also, it would have made little sense for
JFK to publicly tie himself to LBJ in numerous public events in Texas in
November 1963 if he planned to dump LBJ a few months later.31
Rumors have long swirled that Hoover and Richard Nixon were
in Dallas, meeting with powerful Texas oilmen, the night before JFK’s
assassination; by some accounts, LBJ was also at the meeting, which
somehow involved JFK’s murder. However, LBJ’s busy schedule that
evening is well documented, and no credible evidence exists that places
the FBI director in Dallas on that date.32 Although Nixon was in Dallas
for a Pepsi convention, press reports verify that he was seen in public
with Pepsi board member Joan Crawford at a Dallas nightclub during
the time when he was supposedly meeting secretly with Hoover.
However, in November 1963, Hoover was keeping a crucial secret
from the Kennedys and the Secret Service. The FBI had tracked to Texas,
and then lost, a man using the name of Jean Souetre. Souetre was a for-
mer French officer who had been part of an attempt the previous year
to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle by spraying his car
with gunfire.33
The story of the CIA’s involvement in the JFK-Almeida coup plan, and in
the intelligence failures that led to JFK’s death, centers on AMWORLD
and CIA official Richard Helms. Unlike the Agency’s Director, John
McCone, and the CIA’s number-two man, General Marshall Carter,
Helms was a career CIA man. As the Deputy Director for Plans, Helms
was essentially the highest-ranking operations official in the CIA. In
other words, Helms focused on covert operations instead of on the
budgetary, personnel, publicity, and Congressional-oversight issues
the CIA’s top two officials had to deal with in addition to their main
functions of gathering and evaluating intelligence.
Helms had not been involved with the Bay of Pigs, which is one rea-
son he was promoted to Deputy Director for Plans after JFK had forced
those who were responsible to leave the CIA. McCone was a wealthy
industrialist and former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, with
no intelligence experience. General Carter’s background was in the
military. The only other official technically above Helms was Lyman
Kirkpatrick, formerly the CIA’s Inspector General, who had delivered
a scathing report about the CIA’s performance during the Bay of Pigs.
Kirkpatrick had been a rising star in the CIA until he was stricken with
polio in the previous decade which left him confined to a wheelchair.
By 1963, Kirkpatrick was in a newly created position called Executive
Director, but he had little active role in covert operations. Essentially,
that left Helms free to do whatever he wanted, with little or no effective
oversight. With thousands of agents and operatives around the world,
it usually fell to Helms to decide which operational reports addressed to
the CIA’s Director should actually be brought to McCone’s attention.
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Officially, the CIA’s roles in the JFK-Almeida coup plan were limited
to getting US intelligence assets into Cuba and assisting the officially
sanctioned exile leaders: Harry, Artime, Ray, Menoyo, and Varona. As
part of helping Harry Williams, the CIA also carried out several opera-
tions approved by Bobby and JFK. As described shortly, these included
handling the initial payment of $50,000 to Almeida through a foreign
account, and maintaining surveillance on Almeida’s family after they
had left Cuba on a pretext for another country. The CIA’s role in assisting
Artime was much bigger, and included helping him set up and supply
exile camps in Central America, since any exile operations by Bobby’s
leaders were supposed to be based outside the US. The CIA’s support
for Artime eventually topped $7 million, and was handled under the
code name AMWORLD. While JFK was President, support for Artime’s
small hit-and-run raids, as well as the lesser backing for those of Ray,
Menoyo, and Varona, was not intended to have any serious effect on
Castro. For JFK and Bobby, it was intended mainly as a way to deniably
support seemingly “autonomous” exile groups that were really under
their control. The exile leaders’ role was really to have their own way to
get into Cuba for the coup, so they could be part of the new provisional
government with Almeida.
Even within the CIA, AMWORLD was an unusually secret operation,
and many of those who knew about it saw it only as a way for the United
States to offer Artime clandestine support; they didn’t know about
Almeida and the upcoming coup. For example, Desmond FitzGerald,
the patrician blue blood who reported directly to Helms as his Chief
of Cuban Operations, was fully aware of the JFK-Almeida coup plan,
and Bobby had introduced FitzGerald to Harry at Bobby’s Hickory Hill
estate. However, FitzGerald’s assistants apparently didn’t know about
Almeida, and were thus confused about why the US was secretly fun-
neling so much money and support to Artime. With so much secrecy
surrounding the JFK-Almeida coup plan and AMWORLD, officials like
Helms and FitzGerald found ways to keep other secrets even from their
own superiors.34
The secrets Hoover was keeping from the Kennedys pale beside those
being kept by Richard Helms. Not only was Helms deceiving JFK and
Bobby, he was also withholding crucial information from CIA Director
John McCone. In addition to running authorized operations in support
of the JFK-Almeida coup plan, Helms had inherited two earlier opera-
tions that he had decided to continue without telling the Kennedys.
One was the CIA-Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, mentioned earlier.
In addition to Varona, these involved Trafficante, Rosselli, and, by his
own admission, Carlos Marcello. Others later linked to the fall 1963
plots by news accounts included Dallas mobster Jack Ruby and Chicago
hit man Charles Nicoletti. Coordinating with Rosselli for the CIA was
Miami’s David Morales.
The other operation Helms inherited involved a European assassin
recruiter named QJWIN. Years later, the CIA would refuse to identify
QJWIN to Congressional investigators, and even today, released docu-
ments and experts don’t agree on his identity. His job was basically to
spot potential assassins for the CIA, as part of the ZRRIFLE operation.
Finally, Helms had reactivated a former CIA asset named Rolando
Cubela, code-named AMLASH within the CIA. As mentioned earlier,
Cubela was a Cuban official with no real power, but who offered three
main advantages to Helms. First, Cubela could travel freely and exten-
sively throughout the world, making it possible for him to meet with
his CIA contacts far from Cuba. Second, he was still on friendly terms
with Fidel and several of his associates. Finally, Cubela owned a house
at Varadero Beach, next to Fidel’s.
As part of their work on the coup plans, several officials outside the
CIA knew about Cubela. But, they viewed Cubela simply as someone
who was helping to find higher officials to lead the coup, and who could
provide intelligence if a coup developed. However, Helms and his Chief
of Cuban Operations, Desmond FitzGerald, had other ideas. Accord-
ing to Cubela, his CIA contacts constantly pressured him to assassinate
Fidel.
In October 1963, FitzGerald had even traveled to Paris to meet with
Cubela in person, claiming to be the personal emissary of Bobby Ken-
nedy, but Helms later admitted that Bobby and JFK were never told
about the trip, or about Cubela’s role as a possible assassin. By Novem-
ber 22, 1963, one of FitzGerald’s men was in Paris meeting with Cubela
again, this time offering him a poison pen to use to kill Fidel, as well as
offering to arrange “rifles with telescopic sights” to use in assassinating
Castro.35
A CIA report sent to McCone about Cubela’s November 22 meeting
with his CIA case officer in Paris makes it clear that Cubela didn’t know
about the real JFK-Almeida coup plan. Cubela didn’t mention Almeida
as one of the four officials who could “be trusted for a move against
AMTHUG” (the CIA’s code name for Fidel). Almeida wasn’t even in the
next group—officers who could “be counted on to support the coup”
after Fidel had been “removed.” Instead, Cubela listed Almeida at the
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
top of the list of the
next
level of officers, those who would probably “fall
in line” after “the coup appears successful.”36
The cable, which would be sent to McCone by FitzGerald two weeks
after JFK’s death, doesn’t explicitly mention Cubela as the person who
would assassinate Fidel, something Helms acknowledged he never
admitted to McCone or Bobby. However, the cable does show the intel-
ligence value of using Cubela as someone to ostensibly seek out officers
willing to stage a coup. It provides a list of potentially sympathetic plot-
ters to supplement the allies Almeida had already developed himself.
Moreover, the fact that Cubela clearly didn’t realize that Almeida was
already set to lead the coup, and had gotten his family out of Cuba for