THE CIA
TRAINERS
Every
Intelligence Agency in the world trains its intelligence officers, agents and
operatives so everyone knows how the Great Game is played, and there are rules
that haven’t changed that much since the days of Sun Tzu.
The
major difference is the expanding use of science and technology, branching off
the spy business into radio, radio interception, photo and film images,
satellites, and what they now call HUMINT- human intelligence, which is the area
we are dealing with.
The CIA
organizational chart is divided into different areas – Security, Personnel,
Plans/Operations, Counter-Intelligence, International Organizations/Properity
Companies, Domestic Contacts and Training. The Training Division is what we are concerned with
here.
Charles Ford, Paul Linebarger, Napoleon Valeriano, Carl Jenkins, John "I.F." Harper, Bradley Ayers and Edward Roderick are not well known names but they are key players and were instrumental in the assassination drama.
As the
CIA was an offshoot of World War II’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS), much
of what became the CIA, especially in its early years, stemmed from the British
MI5 and MI6 Military Intelligence agencies, with MI5 handling
counter-intelligence and MI6 foreign intelligence.
General
William “Big Bill” Donovan – director of OSS, was an understudy of Sir William
Stevenson – “Litte Bill,” the Canadian industrialist who opened Camp X in Canada
where many OSS officers were trained. Donovan asked Stevenson’s associate, Ian
Fleming – the assistant to the Director of British Naval Intelligence, to write
a basic outline of an intelligence agency, for which Donovan gave Fleming an
engraved .38 Special revolver.
Both Ian Fleming and David Atlee Phillips in his book "Careers In Intelligence" outlined the best attributes of the perfect agent, and both agreed that no one person has them all, so training is a key aspect of the espionage business.
The
British took training very seriously, so their top intelligence officers were
tasked with training the Americans in a master-apprentice type of relationships
with Kim Philby mentoring his principle protege – James Jesus Angeton. Besides
being a top British intelligence officer, Philby was also a double agent for
the KGB, having been recruited as part of the Cambridge spy ring.
Loren Singer, the author of the novel The Parallax View, on which the Warren Beatty film was based, told Len Osanic on Black Op Radio that the Parallax test and the film within the movie were based on his actual OSS testing and films the agents had to undergo in their training.
The two Czech partisans who were parachuted back into their homeland and assassinated Nazi Reinhard Heydrich were well trained by the British to undertake Operation Anthropoid, but so many Czechs were killed in retaliation by the Nazis that such assassinations were not undertaken again.
From
what they learned from the British Donovan had training manuals prepared for
different aspects of the intelligence operation manuals that were used by the
early CIA officers in training agents, operatives and assets.
The CIA’s Training Division was headed for some time by Charles Ford, an
Atlantic City, N.J. native and Princeton graduate who was given custody of the
CIA’s copy of the Zapruder Film, which was “for training purposes only.” According
to OSS documents Ford was sent on a mission to China with another OSS officer –
J. Walton Moore, who would become the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division Chief of
Station (COS) in Dallas for many years. Moore would serve as the Domestic
contact officer for a number of people in the JFK assassination drama,
including George and Jean deMohrenschildt and Hugh Aynesworth. Moore often
played racket ball with a White Russian exile, Colonel Lawrence Orlov. When Lee
Harvey Oswald arrived in town, back from the USSR, Orlov and George
deMohrenschildt visited the Oswalds and they became good friends.
One CIA
document mentions that at least one Agency analyst considered using Oswald
“operationally,” a key word, as the Plans/Operations division of the CIA is
where all the dirty tricks are devised.
[ DOCID-32347922.PDF ]
Charles
Ford worked primarily out of the CIA’s training office at Quantico, Virginia,
an FBI-CIA joint training facility and served primarily in the Training
Division his entire career, except for one year, and it’s a big exception. For
one year he was cross assigned to the Plans/Operations Division, worked on the
Cuban desk – Task Force W, and JMWAVE. There, according to Kennedy baiters and
haiters like Sy Hersch and Samuel Halpern, both of whom claimed Ford served as
Robert F. Kennedy’s personal emissary to mobsters Sam Giancana and John
Rosselli, who were both part of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro.
Ford was
called to testify twice before the Church Intelligence Committee, and his testimony,
released under the JFK Act, and memos on his testimony have been released and
don’t reflect what Seymour Hersh and Halpern said, though their false tales are still
repeated by those who maintain JFK and RFK knew of and approved the CIA-Mafia
plots to kill Castro, though Ford was in the thick of all things Cuban at a key
place and time.
In order
to understand what’s going on here, if you want to follow the JFK assassination
narrative, you have to take a basic course in intelligence crafts and
techniques in order to figure it out. Basic intelligence training instruction
is given to every new recruit, agent, operative or asset. First they are given
a code name for use in official correspondence, and an alias and fake identity
for use when going “operational.”
Lines of
authority are well established, as every agent is assigned a case officer – and
once an agent is established, other intelligence agencies are notified so no
agent is run by two different agencies.
For
instance, when George deMohrenschildt was on his way to Haiti, he stopped in New
York City where he met with CIA agents at the offices of John Train, who was
responsible for running CIA propriety companies. At the same time intelligence
officers from the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) wanted to
talk to him, but backed off when the CIA appeared on the scene. ACSI then met
with DeMohrenschildt in Washington.
While
some agents, operatives and assets are “walk-ins” – volunteering their services,
most are recruited because of their location, job or associations.
Rolf M.
Larssen said at the Dallas CAPA conference (2019) that he was particularly good
at recruiting targeted individuals.
Antonio
Veciana has described in detail how he was originally recruited by David Atlee
Phillips in Havana, though John Newman has called this account into question,
based on what’s contained in recently released records that indicate that
Veciana was actually run not by the CIA, who Phillips worked for, but rather by
ACSI, military intelligence.
Watergate
burglar Frank Sturgis was reportedly a CIA agent, but his records reflect that
he actually worked with Air Force Intelligence, mainly because of his early
association with the head of the Cuban Air Force – Diaz Lanz.
Sometimes
a recruiter will approach a target under a “False Flag” operation, meaning that
the agent thinks he is being recruited by one agency or even country, when in
fact it is another.
Regardless
of the Intelligence Agency or country, the basic techniques and trade crafts
remain the same.
Sometimes
a “Cut Out” is used to serve as a buffer between the agent and the case
officer, things are conducted on a “Need to Know” basis, Post Office boxes are
used for written communications, and secret “Dead Drops” are used to convey
records or film, known only to the agent and his case officer. Sometimes public
“Hand Offs” is practiced and documents are kept in magazines and newspapers
that are furtively handed off as Agents pass in the street or sit on a park
bench.
Then
there are “Psychological Operations,” that utilize psychological warfare and
propaganda.
When
Carlos Bringuier was questioned as to whether he was the JMWAVE commando boat
leader “Julio Fernandez,” he replied that he wasn’t in “Maritime Ops,” but was
trained in psychological operations, as was Ed Butler, who engaged Oswald in a
radio debate with Bringuier after their arrest in New Orleans.
Antonio
Veciana said that he too was trained in psychological operations; shortly after
“Maurice Bishop” aka David Atlee Phillips recruited him in Havana. Veciana said
that in Miami, he was taken to an office in the Pan Am Bank where he signed a
security oath and given his first lessons in psychological warfare.
The Pan
Am Bank of Miami appears in other areas of the JFK narrative as well, with
Castro gun runner Robert Ray McKeown saying he was paid in money sealed in Pan
Am Bank wrappers, and Jack Ruby deposited money in the Pan Am Bank that came
from McWillie’s casino owned by the Fox brothers. Mitch Werbell, who developed
gun silencers for the CIA, told Congressional investigator that the Pan Am Bank
of Miami was used by the CIA as a major asset. Fonzi’s taped interview with
Werbell was erased, but we still have Fonzi’s notes that reflect the Pan Am
Bank connection.
The
primary CIA trainer of psychological operations and propaganda was Paul
Linebarger, who was affiliated with the John Hopkins University Center for
International Studies. Linebarger wrote the official military textbook on
Propaganda, but also used David Maurer’s book The Big Con – which was the basis
for the popular movie The Sting.
In his
book “Portrait of a Cold Warrior,” Joseph B. Smith wrote about his CIA training
in trade craft that is worth quoting extensively. Smith was told such trade craft training took three months, but he was given a crash course in 8 weeks by Paul Linebarger, that is worth quoting at length.
“…As far as psychological
warfare is concerned; it’s a brand new field. We are all learning. You remember
it was one of Hitler’s strongest weapons. The Communists depend on it a lot to.
We figure that if we analyze what they’re doing and study the countries in our
area closely, we can beat them at their own game. Oh yes, another thing,” she
added, “We won’t be able to spare you for any clandestine tradecraft training.
That would take another three months. We need you now. You’ll have to learn the
business on the job. I’m afraid.”
“Well,” she added as an afterthought, “we will be able to help you with
psychwar. Paul Linebarger, our consultant, is one of the few real experts and
he gives evening seminars for us. We’ll try to get you into one of them after
you’ve settled in.”
...One important contingency to consider in case a situation worsened rapidly
and a take over by the Communist guerrilla armies appeared imminent was the
operational effectiveness of assassination of the leaders of these groups…All this was far in the future
and far less important to me in the early winter of 1952 than the fact that I
got the chance to attend Paul Linebarger’s seminar in psychological warfare.
Linebarger had served as an Army psychological warfare officer in Chungking
during the war. He had written a textbook on the subject in 1948
In 1951 he was serving as the Far East Division’s chief consultant. He also
served as the Defense Department in the same capacity, giving advice on U.S.
psychwar operations in Korea, and he was professor of Asian politics at the
School for Advanced International Studies of the John Hopkins University. His
book by this time had gone through three American editions, two Argentine
editions and a Japanese edition.
He was far from a textbook warrior, however. He best described himself when he
wrote the introduction to his book, “Psychological warfare involves exciting
wit sharpening work. It tends to attract quick-minded people – men full of
ideas.” His wits scarcely needed sharpening, and he was never at a loss for an
idea.
The seminars were held in eight weeks, every Friday night at his home. Going to
Paul Linebarger’s house on Friday evenings was not only an educational
experience for those who attended the seminar, it was also an exercise in
clandestinity. Learning covert operational conduct was considered part of the
course. Each seminar was limited to no more than eight students. They were told
to pose as students from the School of Advanced International Studies, to go to
Paul’s via different routes, and to say they were attending a seminar on Asian
politics. Senator McCarthy had alerted everyone to the possibility that
Communist operators might be expected to turn up at almost any place in
Washington. The School of Advanced International Studies had its campus in
Washington, but over in Baltimore at the main campus of John Hopkins
University, Owen Lattimore, the expert on Asian geography, held sway. McCarthy
had called Lattimore the principal agent of Communist China in the United States.
Although no one called Paul Linebarger the principle agent of Chiang Kai-shek,
his father had been Sun Yat Sen’s legal advisor and Paul never hid his full
devotion to the Chinat cause. The feeling of the clash of mysterious powers was
abroad in the cold winter nights around Paul’s house. It could just be possible
that some Communist surveillant might follow one of the students up Rock Creek
Park to 29th Street. They might even be operating from the Shoreham hotel, a
few blocks away. We had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the fear of Communist
subversion....It would be difficult to say whether it was the political
atmosphere in general, the office routine of the day just closed, or the drawn
drapes in Linebarger’s living room, but students at the seminar met in an
appropriately conspiratorial mood tht raised the level of their appreciation of
their subject.
The mood was fitting if not essential to an understanding of the material. The
first point that Linebarger made was that the purpose of all psychological
warfare is the manipulation of people so that they are not able to detect they
are being manipulated. Wartime psychwar had been a matter of undermining the
enemy civilian and military will to continue the fight. The audience, in brief,
was very clearly defined. Determining just who it was they wanted to manipulate
and for what ends was also pretty clear to the OPC personnel. Their targets
were the Communists and their allies. Having this firmly in mind, any methods
of manipulation could be used, especially “black propaganda.”
Black propaganda operations, by definition, are operations in which the source
of the propaganda is disguised or misrepresented in one way or another so as
not be attributable to the people who really put it out. This distinguishes
black from white propaganda, such as news bulletins and similar statements
issued by one side in a conflict extolling its successes, of course, or other
material just as clearly designed to serve the purposes of its identifiable
authors...
Paul Linebarger’s was a seminar in black propaganda only. One reason for this
was that the United States already had an overt propaganda agency as part of
the cold war apparatus.....
Paul Linebarger loved black propaganda operations probably because they
involved the wit-sharpening he liked to talk about. Also, he was so god at them
that his was one of the inventive minds that refined the entire black
operations field into shades of blackness. Linebarger and his disciples decided
that propaganda that was merely not attributed to the United States was not
really black, only gray. To be called black it had to be something more.
Furthermore, they divided gray propaganda into shades of gray. So-called light
gray was defined as propaganda that was not attributed to the United States
government, but instead, for example, to a group that was known to be a
friendly source. Medium gray or “gray gray” was the term LInebarger used for
propaganda that was attributed to a neutral source or, in any case, to one that
was not suspected to be about to say anything friendly concerning the United
States or its national or international policies. Dark gray was the term for
propaganda attributed to a source usually hostile to the United States. This
left the term black propaganda for a very special kind of propaganda activity.
Black propaganda operations were operations done to look like, and carefully
labeled to be, acts of the (Communist) enemy….. Linebarger was always careful
to point out that to have a chance of success, these black operations must be
based on good solid information about how the Communists Party we proposed to
imitate actually conducted its business... [Communists Huks in the Phillipines
used as an example].
Linebarger said, “I want you all to go out and get a copy of David Maurer’s classic on the
confidence man. It’s called The Big Con and its available now in a paperback
edition,” Paul continued. “That little book will teach you more about the art
of covert operations than anything else I know.”
“Your job and the confidence man’s are almost identical.
“Maurer’s book will give you a lot of ideas on how to recruit agents, how to
handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they’re no use to you
any longer. Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all.”
We were all soon avidly reading The Big Con. The tales it told did, indeed,
contain a lot of hints on how to do our jobs. For me one sentence seemed to sum
it all up beautifully, “The big-time confidence games,” wrote Maurer, “are in
reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except
the mark knows his part perfectly.” * [
David W. Maurer, The Big Con (New York: Pocket Books, 1949), p. 102.]
[ BK Notes: Maurer's book was used as the basis of the Paul Newman-Robert Redford movie The Sting. When former head of the ACSI and NSA General Odom was asked what makes the best case officers, he responded, "The Sting," so we know he took Linebarger's class.]
Paul taught by the oldest
method, precept. His injunction was to follow the example of proven successful
practitioners.
He had two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for
lessons he wanted us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow.
One was Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale, the OPC station chief in Manila, and the
other was E. Howard Hunt, the OPC station chief in Mexico City. Both of them
had what he called “black minds,”
E.
Howard Hunt and Ed Lansdale had what Linebarger called “black minds.”
One of
Smith’s CIA assignments, after being trained by Linebarger, was to the
Philippines – where Smith was sent under cover of the ostensibly philanthropic Catherwood Foundation, which appears multiple times in the course of this
narrative.
There
Lansdale was to assist in putting down the Hulk rebellion, and did so with the
help of Linebarger, who he took to the Philippines to personally train Napoleon
Valeriano, a military aide and counter-insurgency expert to President Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay, Sr.
The
Hulks were rural peasant guerrillas who fought the Japanese during World War II,
but after the war were branded communists and considered a threat to the
government.
From Joseph Smith's Portrait
of a Cold Warrior (Putnam, 1976, p. 94):
“A large
psychological warfare unit was developed and trained...History and traditions
in all of the Huk areas were studied for clues to the appropriate appeals to
make to wean the populace from supporting the Huks. Paul Linebarger made
a number of trips to the Philippines to advise Lansdale on operations. It was
in connection with Linebarger's involvement in Philippine operations that I had
one of my few direct contacts with the events that transpired there. In the
fall of 1952, I was given the assignment of picking up one of the Lansdale
team, Napoleon Valeriano, at the Philippine Embassy and taking him to
Linebarger's house for a training session. Valeriano and I arrived at
Linebarger's at five o'clock one afternoon and stayed four hours. Paul
concentrated on his con-man line concerning how to use a subject's own hopes
and longs to achieve results desired in a psychological operation........Supporting
this basic program were propaganda efforts - films, special radio programs, and
so forth….”
“Valeriano
was not only one of the key members of the team, but he was one whom Lansdale
counted on in future operations. When Valeriano was in Vietnam helping Lansdale
in the early days of the Diem regime, he carried off to Saigon the wife of a
wealthy Filipino businessman. The injured husband immediately put out a
contract on Valeriano, and he was never able to set foot in Manila again. It
would have meant instant death. Subsequently, Valeriano worked in the Pentagon,
trained the Cuban brigade preparing for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and was
involved in post-Bay of Pigs activities with which Lansdale was concerned.”
When
Lansdale was assigned to the Cuban operations, he brought Valeriano along with
him and they began to train the Cubans in Florida, Nicaragua and Guatemala for
what would become the Bay of Pigs.
Not all
of the Cubans were trained at JMWAVE bases in Guatemala and Florida, according
to a memo written by David Atlee Phillips, the former New Orleans Navy base at
Belle Chase was used to train Cuban frogmen in underwater demolition and such
things.
According
to the CIA’s Official History of the Bay of Pigs:
“While attending John F. Kennedy’s
inauguration in Washington in January 1961, General Anastacio Somoza met
secretly with CIA director Allen Dulles to discuss the creation of JMTIDE, the
cryptonym for the airbase the CIA wanted to use in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua to
launch the attack on Cuba…..A small group of high-level CIA officials sought to
use part of the budget of the invasion to finance a collaboration with the
Mafia to assassinate Castro. In an interview with the CIA historian, former
chief of the invasion task force, Jacob Esterline, said that he had been asked
to provide money from the invasion budget by J.C. King, the head of the Western
Hemisphere. “Esterline claimed that on one occasion as chief/w4, he refused to
grant Col J.C. King, chief WH Division, a blank check when King refused to tell
Jake the purpose for which the check was intended. Esterline reported that King
nonetheless got a FAN number from the Office of Finance and that the money was
used to pay the Mafia-types.” The Official History also notes
that invasion planners discussed pursuing “Operation AMHINT to set up a program
of assassination.”
Jake Easterline,
who was responsible for Operation Success in Guatemala, was in charge of the
Cuban operation. In Guatemala Easterline effectively used Linebarger’s
psychological operations, having David Atlee Phillips man a radio station that
broadcast reports of an oncoming army invading the capitol, and having sonic
booms sound like cannon fire. The communist supported dictator then fled, and a
leader freiendly to the United States and United Fruit was installed. President
Eisenhower had the leaders of Operation Success at the White House to
congratulate them on their success without much loss of life. And it was the
Guatemala operation that was to be adapted to Cuba.
And David Atlee Phillips ran the psychological aspects of the operation and set up a radio on Swan Island to broadcast to Cuba.
At first
Easterline, Lansdale, Valeriano and Marine officers Hawkins and Carl Jenkins
began training the Cubans as commandos that were to be infiltrated in small
groups into the eastern end of the island where they could establish a staging
area in the mountains much like Castro himself had done. That was the Trinidad
Plan.
But at
some point, as the official history reports, “the CIA task force in charge of
the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an
open invasion supported by the U.S. military,” which the National Security
Archives considered “the most important revelation of the entire official
history.” The target for the invasion was also changed from eastern Cuba to the
Bay of Pigs.
Apparently both Lansdale and Valeriano were relieved of their training commands and the Trinidad Plan - the insertion of commando teams into the eastern mountains was replaced by a full fledged mechanized invasion. The person(s) who made this decision have yet to be identified but I suspect it was the military, possibly even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when they were finally briefed and asked their advice.
When the
plans were changed, both Easterline and Hawkins threatened to resign, but were
persuaded to stay on by Richard Bissell, Jr.
The best
of the Cuban commandos trained by Lansdale, Valeriano and Jenkins were named
the Pathfinders, and inserted into Cuba a few weeks before the invasion to pave
the way for the invaders, and included Felix Rodriguez and Chi Chi Quintero.
In his
Oral Histories, General LeMay always said that the CIA never asked the military
for advice, at least not until the last minute, but Bill Simpich found a Bay of
Pigs document that includes LeMay’s initials, and the Official History records “General
Curtis LeMay demanding on the phone to know ‘who was the sonofabitch who didn’t
approve’ the request.” So LeMay did have some influence in the Bay of Pigs
planning, despite his denials.
When the
final air strike against Cuba’s planes was cancelled, Air Force General Charles
Cabell made a last ditch plea with the President but failed.
When the
invasion itself failed, some of the Pathfinders in Cuba were captured, some
killed, but others escaped and made their way back to Florida where they were
again assembled and retrained at JMWAVE bases for continuing officially
approved attacks against Cuban economic targets.
JMWAVE
The CIA’s
JMWAVE base at the University of Miami South Campus was headed by Ted Shackley
and came under the Cuban desk at CIA headquarters which was named Task Force W
by it’s head, William Harvey, who came in after his successful Berlin Tunnel
operation.
Harvey
and Shackley submitted contingency plans for covert operations to the National
Security Council for approval. There, a special group reviewed them and if
approved, they went to “higher authority” – JFK and RFK for their approval.
Gordon
Campbell was responsible for “Maritime Operations,” and a small fleet of ships
and boats were assembled, including the larger “Rex” and “Ledia,” that carried
smaller 20 foot motorized speed boats to the shores of Cuba where the Cuban
commandos were infiltrated, deposited weapons and attacked economic targets.
General
Victor “Brute” Krulak, then Special Assistant For Counterinsurgency and Special
Activity, was responsible for the
military assistance to the CIA for covert operations. One of the things he did
was assign two US Army Ranger Captains to JMWAVE to help train the Cuban –
Capt. Bradley Ayers and Capt. Edward Roderick.
In a resume Bradley Ayers put together after he left the Army he described some of the training he underwent in the military and CIA: "Underwent
Infantry and Army Ranger training where I received extensive training in the
use of a variety of weapons and learned the techniques of self-defense. Underwent
Psychological (Warfare) Training where I received training in prisoner
interrogation, use of psychological tools of intimidation, persuasion, analysis and profiling, propaganda, symbolism and semantics. Was
assigned overseas (Germany)…..In preparation for and in connection with this
assignment, I received specialized training in anti-terrorist tactics and
counter-insurgency operations….I became involved in the use of electronic
surveillance means and clandestine photography…"
Bradley Ayers: "...In
early 1963 I was offered an opportunity (selected) for an undercover assignment
with the Central Intelligence Agency (shown on service record as TDY Support
Group, Washington, D.C.). In this
assignment I was trained in and practiced working undercover, with various cover
identities and documentation and fictitious names, etc., in connection with
various covert and clandestine activities and investigations. I also received
additional training in anti-terrorist operations including evasive and
counter-ambush driving. I used the techniques of clandestine trade craft to
include surveillance, interrogation, surreptitious entry, photography, mail
cover, secret writing, electronic surveillance, etc. I acquired agents and used
informers. I also experienced the use of polygraph and utilized results from
polygraph test in my work….I learned to function in a cellular structure in
espionage and intelligence organization…."
[Thanks
to Bart Kemp and Malcolm Blunt for the Ayers’ document]
The
Cubans were broken down into small six to eight man teams that would each man a
20 foot boat. Ayers taught them small boat maneuvering and maintenance at a
remote Everglades camp known as Pirates Lair, while Roderick and Jenkins (and
possibly John “I.F.” Harper) taught the snipers at Point Mary, off Key Largo.
Shooting wasn't the only part of the sniper training, not even the most intense aspect of the training. Rather infiltration, camouflage and exfiltration and extraction were given more priority.
Ayers’
team was lead by one Julio Fernandez, who would become entangled in the post
assassination drama on the day after JFK's murder when he contacted one of their financial supporters Clare
Booth Luce, and told her he had deep background and a recording of Lee Harvey
Oswald, the accused assassin.
Each of
the teams were apparently “adopted” and supported by millionaires like Clare
Booth Luce, Richard Paley and mobster John Rosselli.
Rosselli
had been originally recruited by Robert Mahu to assist the CIA in getting rid
of Castro and getting their hotel and casino interests back. Rosselli’s first
CIA case officer Big Jim O’Connell, was replaced by William Harvey after the
Bay of Pigs. Harvey and Rosselli became close friends and drinking partners
over time. At JMWAVE Rosselli donned a US Army Colonel uniform, was known as “Colonel
Rawlins" and was assigned to Roderick’s Point Mary sniper team.
In
support of his team Rosselli requested and Shackley approved additional,
untraceable CIA arms, ammunition and explosives that were delivered to the
Cubans by a rented U-Haul trailer.
At one point William Harvey flew from Washington to deliver four poison pills to
Rosselli, who gave them to Tony Varona to kill Castro. Then later Harvey and Ted Shackley, the chief of the JMWAVE base, drove a
U-Haul truck filled with the requested arms to a parking lot in Miami and handed the keys to Rosselli.
In the
midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Harvey sent three Pathfinder
commando teams into Cuba on missions that were to prepare for a possible
invasion of Cuba, as the developing crisis was expected to require. But when RFK
learned of Harvey’s unauthorized move he called the Pathfinders back, much to
their chagrin. Then RFK fired Harvey for his insubordination, and Harvey was sent
packing as CIA Chief of Station in Rome, where Clare Booth Luce and been
ambassador and James Jesus Angleton had worked with the OSS during the war.
Harvey’s
replacement as head of Task Force W – Desmond FitzGerald, later said that he
was unaware of some of the operations that Harvey had been conducting and
apparently continued even after he was reassigned. Harvey also maintained his
close relationship with Rosselli, who he met in Florida in June 1963. They went
drinking and dining and stayed at a fancy hotel, with Harvey picking up the tab
and filing the bill as part of the ZR/RIFLE assassination program.
On
September 25, 1963 Desmond FitzGerald briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on CIA
Covert Operations against Cuba and among other items, mentioned that they were
conducting a “detailed study” of the German military’s July 20, 1944 “Valkyrie”
plot to kill Hitler to “develop an approach” to kill Castro.
According
to a memo of the meeting, FitzGerald, “… commented that there was nothing new
in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in
getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and
stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are
talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that
degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in
history; i.e., the plot to kill Hitler; and this plot is being studied in
detail to develop an approach.”
This is
the momo and the “detailed study” the Assassination Archives and Research
Center filed a FOIA request for and is now the subject of a Supreme Court
review and decision that should come in October, the next Supreme Court session.
The Cuban commandos called their training instructors “Black
Hats” because of the black baseball caps they wore. Besides Ayers, Roderick,
Jenkins and Harper, one of the top Black Hat “trainers” was Rip Robertson, a real
cowboy who was one of the few Americans to disobey orders and go ashore at the
Bay of Pigs. According to CIA records released under the JFK Act, Robertson was
well respected by the Cubans and on one mission, did a speedboat drive by of
Raoul Castro’s beach side home, raking it with a 50 caliber machine gun.
According
to the same CIA document, Carl Jenkins was responsible for the Pathfinder Plan,
which was described as a sniper shooting of Castro as he drove by in an open
jeep enroute to the former Dupont estate at Varadero, which he often did. That
plan however, was “disapproved by higher authority,” even though the commandos
were trained especially for it.
Carl Jenkins
When
Rosselli testified before Congress he told them that his commando team had been
sent into Cuba three times and failed. The final time they were captured.
Both of
the communist publications Oswald held in the Backyard Photos – the Trotyskite
Militant and Moscow backed Worker contained articles about the official CIA
commando raids against Cuba. Castro himself ranted about them in his interview
with the Associated Press reporter Dan Harker at the Brazilian embassy the day
after Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) met with CIA agents in Brazil to discuss
assassinating Castro.
On
November 1, 1963 the New York Times ran a front page story on the CIA raider
ship “Rex,” that had deposited commandos in Cuba who were captured. The “Rex”
was fired on by the Cubans but made it back to its Palm Beach port, just blocks
from JFK’s house. The Times said the “Rex” was owned by Somoza of Nicaragua but
leased to Collins Radio of Richardson, Texas for “electronics research.”
Castro
paraded the captured commandos on TV, they admitted they were trained by the
CIA, and their mission was to kill Castro. Their names are listed in Carlos
Bringuier’s book “Red Friday.”
What
became of the other Pathfinders once LBJ became president and put Cuba and
Castro on the back burner? Jake Easterline replaced Shackley and was ordered to
close down the base and its operations.
What to do with the Cubans they had
trained there?
Cuban Commandos in the Congo
CIA internal memos reflect the fact that the CIA officials
thought it too expensive to train others down the line for similar operations,
so they kept them on and just reassigned them to other missions – first in the
Congo, then Dominican Republic, Vietnam and Nicaragua, where the same trainers
and some of the Cubans trained the Nicaraguan Contras to fight the leftest
Sandinistas, who had taken over Nicaragua after Somoza.
And two
of those trainers – Carl Jenkins and John “I.F.” Harper, and some of their
Pathfinder commandos including Felix Rodriguez - are still alive today, and I
am going to try to talk to them.
July 16, 2020 - Updated July 19, 2020
If you
can please support JFKCountercoup research and my upcoming road trip to try to
interview Jenkins, Harper and Rodriguez about these things.
