Pathfinder at Dealey Plaza - Part 4 - AMLASH

Pathfinder 4 – AMLASH at Dealey Plaza - Part 4 

[Note: This is a continuation of the Pathfinder series: :https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/10/pathfinder-at-jmwave-1-2-3.html  ]

  

If John Rosselli is the Joker in the pack of rats that were responsible for the JMWAVE based covert intelligence operators who were behind the Dealey Plaza Operation, then Rolando Cubela is the other Joker.

David Atlee Phillips – the Ultimate Spook, was born on Halloween – October 31, 1922 in Fort Worth, Texas, as I note in my profile of him and his inside knowledge on the assassination of President Kennedy.

[ http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/10/david-atlee-phillips.html ]

When David Atlee Phillips died of cancer in 1988 he left behind an unpublished manuscript – “The AMLASH Legacy,” a novel about a CIA officer who lived in Mexico City, as he did when Lee Harvey Oswald was ostensibly there trying to get a visa to Cuba.

 In the novel Phillips writes: "I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald... We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba... I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president's assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt."

The title of the novel - “The AMLASH Legacy” stems from the CIA’s code word for Dr. Rolando Cubela, an original founder of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) at the University of Havana, originally established to fight dictator Batista and later redirected their efforts to oust Castro. Oswald was arrested after getting into a fight with DRE Cubans in New Orleans.

The Cubela-AMLASH Legacy weaves its way through the JFK assassination narrative like a needle through fabric, tying loose ends of threads together so we get a better picture of what really happened.

When Batista fled Havana on NewYear’s eve 1959, Castro was still fighting in the back woods while Cubela took over Batista’s office, sat at his desk and smoked his cigars. 

It is curious that both David Atlee Phillips in his autobiography Nightwatch - 25 Years of Peculiar Service, and Colonel Frank  "Brandy" Brandsteter claimed to be the first to report Batista's fleeing to Washington, with Phillips conceding to Brandy as getting the scoop first.

When Castro arrived in Havana days later, instead of taking over Batista’s office, he accepted an invitation from the manager of the Havana Hilton to use the penthouse of the new and lavishly furnished hotel.

The manager of the Havana Hilton was Lt. Col. Frank “Brandy” Brandstetter, officially an officer in the 488^th Dallas Army Reserve Intelligence unit, but he didn’t report to the unit’s founder and chief officer Jack Crichton, but instead reported directly to Colonel William Rose of ACSI. Rose worked out of the Pentagon for the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI).

As I report in my review of Roger Stone's book on the assassination [ JFKcountercoup: Roger Stone's Take on Dealey Plaza ], Stone has many references to John Crichton listed in the Index of his book, but none of them are in the actual text, so they must have been removed, and Crichton remains a major suspect of those with boots on the ground in Dallas. 

 While Brandy was the manager of the hotel, his chief engineer at the Havana Hilton was Manolo Ray, the head of JURE, which became a major anti-Castro group that Sylvia Odio’s father was affiliated with.

Castro’s stay at the Havana Hilton Penthouse sets the scene for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone program staring Peter Faulk (Columbo) as Castro who sees assassins in a mirror, and the assassins were after him.

[ http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2017/08/rod-serling-and-jfk-assassination.html /   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirror_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29  /  https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror ]         

When the CIA began their “detailed study” of the German military’s Valkyrie Plot to kill Hitler to be adapted for use against Castro, they found that most of the top level military leaders who became disenchanted with Castro had defected, and were no longer in a position to engage in an assassination plot and coup.

The Higgin’s Memo reports  [ https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10246 - relPageId=5&tab=page] that by late September 1963 there were only about ten top level Cuban military officers who had been identified as being “disenchanted” with the Castro regime, but they were not “talking to each other.”

Cubela was there however, and the CIA recruited him, but when he announced he wanted to defect, the CIA talked him into staying there as a much more valuable “agent in place.” There were however, strong doubts about his loyalty to the CIA. Was he a double-agent and informing Castro of the CIA’s plans? 

As John Simkin’s Sparticus Encyclopedia on Cubela reads:

Rolando Cubela was born in Cuba. He trained as a doctor but as a student he became very involved in politics. A strong opponent of Fulgencio Batista, Cubela joined the Directo Revolucionario. In 1956 he assassinated Antonio Blanci Rico, the head of Batista's security forces. Cubela joined the rebellion led by Fidel Castro and was involved in capturing the Presidential Palace in Havana. At first, Cubela and the Directo Revolucionario refused to surrender the building to Che Guevara but eventually it was turned over to the new revolutionary government. Cubela was given the highest rank in the Cuban Army. Later he became an official in Castro's government and was leader of Cuba's International Federation of Students. In March 1961 Cubela approached the Central Intelligence Agency about defecting to the United States. He was persuaded to work for them as an uncover agent in Cuba. He was given the code name AMLASH and reported to JMWAVE.

As Simkin reports, “Joseph Langosch, of the CIA’s Special Affairs Staff, suspected that Cubela was a ‘dangle’ - a double agent recruited by Castro to penetrate the American plots against him. This idea was reinforced when Cubela refused to take a lie-detector test. In September, 1963, Cubela had a meeting with the CIA (Nestor Sanchez) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was suggested that Cubela should assassinate Fidel Castro, as he had previously killed Batista’s henchman. According to a CIA report Cubela asked for a meeting with Robert Kennedy: ‘for assurances of U.S. moral support for any activity Cubela under took in Cuba.’ This was not possible but the Chief of the Cuban Task Force (Desmond FitzGerald) agreed to meet Cubela. (The Chief of JMWAVE) Ted Shackley was opposed to the idea as he was now convinced that Cubela was a double-agent.”

The very next day after Cubela's meeting with Nestor Sanchez in Brazil, Castro appeared unexpectedly at a reception at the Brazilian embassy, gave an impromptu speech and an exclusive interview with the Associated Press correspondent Dan Harker. 

Harker’s piece, “Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba,” was published two days later in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on September 9, 1963, which was apparently read by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was in residence there at the time. Those who blame Oswald alone for the murder of the President often site this news report as a spark that gave him the missing motive to kill JFK.

Harker quoted Castro as saying, “U.S. leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe”.

 JFK had told numerous associates that when pressed to authorize the assassination of Castro, JFK commented: "If we get into that kind of thing, we'll all be targets."

The key points here are in the headline “Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba - Says US Leaders Imperiled by Aid to Rebels.” That clearly indicates Castro knew the CIA was behind the Cuban terrorists who were attacking industrial targets in Cuba. It also sends a clear message to the President that it isn’t a good idea to promote political assassinations, - a warning, not a threat. And giving this speech at the Brazilian embassy Castro sent a clear message to the CIA that he was aware of the CIA assassination intrigues against him, especially the meeting with Cubela the previous day in Brazil.

Harker’s AP report of his interview with Castro at the Brazilian embassy was published in the New Orleans newspaper and was ostensibly read by Lee Harvey Oswald. Articles about the CIA’s maritime commando raids on Cuba were published in the two communist magazines that Oswald subscribed to and are featured in the backyard “mission” photo Oswald had Marina take of him dressed in black with the rifle and pistol said to be used to kill President Kennedy and Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. So Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy, was well aware of these events and their significance.

As Simkin continues: “FitzGerald and Nestor Sanchez met Cubela met in Paris on 29th October, 1963. Cubela requested a "high-powered, silenced rifle with an effective range of hundreds of thousands of yards" in order to kill Fidel Castro. The CIA refused and instead insisted on Cubela used poison.

Cubela comes into the Pathfinder picture at this point, as Cubela reportedly had a seaside residence near Veradero that was considered for use by the CIA as a possible staging area or even a sniper’s nest for a sniper attack on Castro as he rode past in an open jeep on the way to Xandau, the Dupont estate he was known to frequent.

Veradero is a North Shore resort area, and near the ELINT - listening post where Soviet and Cuban technicians listened in to US radio transmissions, much like the US-Australian listening post in the Australian outback.

Former CIA officer Brian Latell, who adheres closely to the Dealey Plaza Operation cover-story that Castro was behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, wrote a book based primarily on the confessions of a Cuban defector who worked at the Soviet-Cuban listening facility. That defector claims that Castro himself instructed them to listen closely to the radio reports from Texas, where JFK was known to be campaigning. 

While Latell uses this as false evidence that Castro knew of the assassination in advance, actually that’s Latell’s faulty logic, as it is really only an indication that Castro knew JFK would be in Texas, not a state secret.

After Cubela requested a high powered rifle with a scope to shoot Castro, as the Pathfinder plan called for, at least two arms shipments were delivered to the North Shore near Veradero that included high powered rifles for Cubela to use.

On 22nd November, 1963, Sanchez met Cubela in Paris and gave him a fake pen/syringe that he could use to stab Castro. Cubela was told to use Black Leaf 40 (a deadly poison) to kill Castro. As Cubela was leaving the meeting, he was informed that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

At the same time, Desmond FitzGerald and Samuel Halpern were having lunch at an exclusive private club in Georgetown when word of the assassination reached them, and according to Halpern, FitzGerld wondered aloud if his Cuban operatives were involved. Something we should also wonder.

Both Nester Sanchez and “Chi Chi” Quintero were paid and trained by the CIA, were among those who were working on Cuban operations with FitzGerald, and are mentioned by Gene Wheaton as among the close associates of Carl Jenkins, all being involved in covert intelligence operations before the assassination of President Kennedy and afterwards.

Before the assassination they were involved in the Guatemala Coup of 1954, the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the JMWAVE maritime attacks on Cuba in 1963. After the assassination, they were together in the Congo, trying to checkmate Castro’s Cubans there before joining David Atlee Phillips and the US Marines LBJ sent into the Dominican Republic in 1964. After that they were in Vietnam, and twenty years after Dealey Plaza they were still working together in Nicaragua training the Contras to fight the Sandinistas.

In the aftermath of the assassination of the President, in 1964, they continued their association with Cubela, with “Chi Chi” Quintero traveling to Europe to meet with him personally. In Europe Quintero also met with Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny was the former German military officer who promoted and directed Nazi covert operations. Skorzeny kidnapped the imprisoned Italian Prime Minster, who met with Hitler the day after he survived the Valkyrie plot to kill him. Skorzeny led the Valkyrie “Clean-Up Crew” who arrested and executed many of those who were involved in the Valkyrie conspiracy – some 3,000 souls.Some conspiracy. 

Skorzeny also directed the units of the English speaking German soldiers, dressed as American soldiers, who infiltrated behind the lines ahead of the Nazi counter-attack that became known as the Battle of the Bulge. British Naval Intelligence Commander Ian Fleming, who directed his own covert commando unit, considered Skorzeny his opposite number in the German Army.

So in the months after JFK was killed, “Chi Chi” Quintero went to Europe where he met with Cubela about continuing the assassination plot against Castro, and with Skorzeny, the Nazi pioneer of covert commando operations who helped round up the Valkyrie co-conspirators.

As it turns out, there are two books by Major Ralph P. Ganis, a retired Air Force officer, about Skozeny's connections to the assassination of President Kennedy, including "The Skorzeny Papers," ostensibly based on a cache of Skorzeny's personal records that Ganis purchased at auction. 

[ The Skorzeny Papers  Skyhorse, 2018 ]

While I haven't read this book yet, which is subtitled "Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK" or the one Ganis apparently co-wrote with Hank Abarelli, Michael Le Flem wrote an interesting review at Kennedys and King [  Kennedys And King - Major Ralph P. Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK ], in which he calls attention to Operation Tropical, a plan to use Skorzeny to kidnap Castro as he had done with Musollini.

[ CIA doc: OTTO SKORZENY PLANNED TO KIDNAP FIDEL CASTRO ]    
            

This document is headlined: "OTTO SKORZENY PLANNED TO KIDNAP FIDEL CASTRO," and reads:  "Otto Skorzeny, the former SS colonel who rescued Mussolini, planned to kidnap Fidel Castro and take him to an undisclosed place, according to a feature article in the Sunday supplement of La Cronica published in Lima, Peru, on 7 August 1966. The article says that the plan, known as “Project Tropical,” having the approval of Allen Dulles, head of CIA, was to have been carried out in 1961 but was vetoes by President John F. Kennedy."

[Approved For Release 2007/01/22: CIA-RDP75-001490-0014R00700270013-5

https://aarclibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Skorzeny-Castro-kidnapping-plot.jpg

26 August 1966 ]

As Le Flem notes, "Conspicuously absent in The Skorzeny Papers are any substatical sub-headings dealing with Cuban exiles, Allen Dulles, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or any of the genuine suspects in the JFK assassination,...:" though we now know Skorzeny met with Rafel "Chi Chi" Quintero after the assassination in 1964, and that Skorzeny was involved in the plot to kidnap Castro. 

So we can now add Skorzeny to the list of those who the CIA could have consulted for their "detailed study" of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hilter that they intended to adapt to use against Castro, including Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft and Hans Bernard Gisivious. 

The Valkyrie plan that the CIA studied to be used against Castro was the overall strategic plan that was utilized for the Dealey Plaza Operation, while Pathfinder was the tactical CIA plan to shoot Castro with a high powered rifle as he rode in an open jeep, using anti-Castro Cuban commandos paid for an trained by the CIA to kill Castro, that was redirected to JFK in Dallas.

MORE TO COME – PATHFINDER Part 5.