Antonio
Veciana Comes Clean
“Make
sure you never discuss what I tell you, ever.” – “Maurice Bishop”
Antonio Veciana and Jerry Policoff (Kelly Pix)
Antonio Veciana and Jerry Policoff (Kelly Pix)
Antonio
Veciana came into the picture in 1976 – that seminal Bi-Centennial summer when
he was interviewed for the first time by Congressional investigator Gaeton
Fonzi.
The
Church Committee, named after its chairman Sen. Frank Church (D. Idaho), was
established by Congress to investigate the intelligence community in the wake
of Watergate and an explosive Seymore Hersh article in the New York Times (Dec.
1976), and included a bi-partisan JFK Assassination subcommittee of two
Senators – Gary Hart (D. Col.) and
Richard Schwiker (R. Pa.), who were not to investigate the assassination itself,
they were only charged with investigating the role and response of the
intelligence community to the assassination.
Schweiker,
a liberal Republican from Pennsylvania, hired Gaeton Fonzi as an investigator
based primarily on his reputation as a journalist whose Philadelphia Magazine
investigative articles were guided by its editor Alan Halpern.
As an
Italian from Philadelphia, Fonzi earned the respect and loyalty of people who
confided in him, and often had to remain anonymous, a trait shared by other
reporters on this story – Dick Russell and Anthony Summers.
Veciana
first came to the public’s attention in a Saturday Evening Post article –
“Dallas – The Cuban Connections,” which mentioned Veciana and his Alpha 66
terrorist militia that attacked Cuban and Russian ships and was hell bent on
killing Castro. [See: Sat Evening Post]
When
Dick Russell went looking for Veciana in Miami he found Fonzi had already
interviewed him, as he was listed in the phone directory and met him at a
little café.
Veciana
told Russell, as he had told Fonzi, that many of his anti-Castro activities
were directed by his intelligence case officer known to him as “Maurice
Bishop,” a shadowy spymaster who also “ran” Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused
assassin of President Kennedy.
As
Veciana summarized the significance of that personal information he put it
bluntly – “that means – coup d’etat.”
When
Veciana recognized the accused assassin as the same man he had met a few months
earlier, he expected to be arrested, he waited for them to come to his front
door but they never came, at least not until Senate investigator Gaeton Fonzi
tracked him down and asked about his covert Cuban operations.
The
devil is in the details, and Veciana gave Fonzi and the sub-committee staff all
the details they wanted, and a sketch artist did a facial profile of Veciana’s
description of “Maurice Bishop,” which produced a profile that Sen. Schweiker
recognized as someone who had testified before his committee – former CIA
officer David Atlee Phillips. The background of “Maurice Bishop,” as detailed
by Veciana, matched perfectly to that of the career of Phillips and based on
his own autobiography – “Nightwatch – 20 Years of Peculiar Service.”
Veciana
however, refused to identify Phillips as “Bishop,” even after confronting
Phillips as a meeting of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers
(AFIO), where the keynote speaker was Clare Booth Luce.
Despite
Veciana’s refusal to positively ID Phillips, Fonzi, Bob Tannenbaum of the HSCA
and others believed Phillips was “Bishop” and Veciana refused to identify him
to protect his family, - he had survived an assassination attempt, was shot in
the head, framed for drugs and had participated in assassination plots with
“Bishop” before, so fear of him and the security of his family were factors.
Veciana also had a loyality to “Bishop” for years of service, and paying him
royally – not only getting him well paying jobs, but cashing him out after a
decade of service with a large payment – over $200,000 in cash. Veciana also wanted
to revive his anti-Castro Cuban activities and thought that “Bishop” would back
him again.
When the
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed and Fonzi was hired
by its first chief counsel Richard Sprague, Veciana was reluctantly convinced
to testify before the whole committee in a public session with the media
present, as was Sylvia Odio, who also had to be persuaded to be questioned by
Congressmen in a public session. But then, at the last minute, both Veciana and
Odio were scratched from the list of those to be called to testify, and they
felt betrayed and abandoned. “They don’t want to know the truth,” Odio said
when told she wouldn’t be permitted to testify in public.
Then,
decades later, after Phillips and Fonzi had died, Fonzi’s widow Maria persuaded
Veciana to come clean and issue a public statement that David Atlee Phillips
was indeed “Maurice Bishop” – the mysterious spymaster who directed Lee Harvey
Oswald, the accused assassin of the president, and he agreed. “Gate didn’t push
too far,” Marie said, “I’m a bit more pushier than Gaeton.”
So it
was with some anticipation that Antonio Veciana was to speak publically at the
AARC Conference and decades after being denied the opportunity to testify
before Congress, he would tell his story and take questions from ordinary
citizens.
Although
he understands and speaks English, he prefers to talk in his native Spanish and
did so with the able translator Fernando Amati.
“I want
to state unequalvocally that David Atlee Phillips is Maurice Bishop, who met
Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Veciana
was working as a banking accountant in Havana in 1960 when he met and went to
lunch with “Maurice Bishop,” an American who used a Belgian passport and
claimed to work for a Belgian company. At the Floridita, a restaurant also
frequented by Ernest Hemingway, “Mr. Bishop” recruited Veciana to work with him
against Castro.
While he
wouldn’t acknowledge being with the CIA, “Bishop” told Veciana “I will help you
fight Castro,” and did so in a hundred meetings over the course of a decade.
“Bishop”
took Veciana to an office in the Pan Am Bank building in Miami, where Veciana
signed a security agreement and began lessons in tradecraft, psychological
warfare and propaganda.
“I was
trained by the CIA, as was Oswald. Over the years of training I became a
professional conspirator.”
“Oswald and Fidel Castro were ideal scapegoats
for the murder of the president. Bishop told Oswald to travel to Mexico City.
…Phillips knew of the difficulty of getting a visa for Cuba from the Cuban
Embassy in Mexico City. That resulted in the Mexico City incident. Oswald was
directed.” There was no official meeting to plan the assassination. Groups of
officers got together to plan the murder because they thought he was a threat
to the national security of the United States. The U.S. military accepted this
and incorporated certain elements (of the assassination plan). It really was a
coup d’etat.”
Malcolm
Blunt wanted to know about Veciana’s work for U.S. military intelligence, and
made note of the fact that Veciana’s CIA file describes him as being “straight,
honest and truthful.”
4 comments:
So Veciana testified UNDER OATH that
Phillips was NOT Bishop. Now he says he lied under oath.
Good luck convincing rational people with the word of a self-admitted LIAR!
PS Any corroboration for Veciana's claim that he saw Bishop & Oswald together in Dallas?
JRC
Veciana was framed and went to prison, and someone tried to shoot him; so he has no credibility issues, only survival ones. Read Fonzi's book and you see clearly that Veciana, though allied with many questionable types, was himself a man of great honesty and integrity.
just to add, the corroboration is Veciana himself, who has no reason to lie and who was a major figure in Alpha 66.
I believe Veciana.
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