DESMOND FITZGERALD AND ROLANDO CUBELA
Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA officer who briefed the Chiefs on CIA covert
operations against Cuba, was personally involved in the case of Dr. Rolando
Cubela (AMLASH), a founder of the anti-Castro DRE – Student Directorate, who
the CIA considered their best bet to fit the disgruntled Cuban military
officer who would lead an assassination attempt and coup.
We first
learn about Cubela when he was a co-founder and leader of the Cuban Student
Directorate (DRE) that was founded at the University of Havana to oppose
Batista. On New Year’s Eve 1959, after Batista fled Cuba, the DRE took over
Batista’s official government offices, Cubela sat in his chair, put his boots
up on Batista’s desk and smoked his cigars.
When Che arrived in Havana and went to Batista’s offices, he found the DRE
already there and they refused entry to Che. Shortlly thereafter when Fidel
himsef arrived, and learned of the situation, he took up the offer of the head
of the new Havana Hilton to use the penthouse suits as his headquarters.
Colonel Frank “Brandy” Brandstetter was a Dallas native and officially part of
Col. Jack Crichton’s 488th Intelligence unit, but reported directly
to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) at the Pentagon.
When Castro
assumed power he gave Cubela an officer’s rank in the Cuban army and made him
head of the Cuban International Federation of Students, which permitted him to
travel outside the country frequently.
In
March, 1961 Cubela approached the CIA about defecting but instead was told to
remain as an agent in place, and did so, despite CIA officer Joseph Langosch’s
suspicion Cubela was a “dangle” and working as a double-agent.
In
September 1963 Cubela, given the code AMLASH, met with CIA case officer Nestor Sanchez in
Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Sanchez suggested Cubela should assassinate Fidel
Castro. Cubela asked for a meeting with RFK, “for assurances of U.S. moral
support for any activity Cubela under took in Cuba.”
The very
next day Castro visited a reception at the Brazilian embassy where he gave an
extended interview with Associated Press Reporter Daniel Harker in which he
denounced the Cuban commando raids against Cuba and the threats to his own life
saying, “United States leaders wold be indanger if they helped in any attempt
to do away with leaders of Cuba.”
[https://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2019/02/harkers-complete-original-report.html]
Of
course the selection of the Brazilian embassy to make these statements
supported the idea that Cubela was a double-agent and reporting his CIA
contacts directly to Castro, but FitzGerad and Sanchez continued their
courtship of Cubela.
On
October 29, Sanchez and FitzGerald himself met with Cubela in Paris, with
FitzGerad falsely stating that he was a personal representative of Robert
Kennedy, who knew all about these activities. FitsGerald was a charismatic
character who looked like a Kennedy and some wrongly thought he was a cousin;
and FitzGerald was a neighbor of and did play tennis with RFK on occasion. But
FitzGerald later admitted he never told RFK the details of these plans to kill
Castro.
FitzGerald’s
assistant Sam Halpern has said: “Des was
really more interested in starting a coup, and he hoped that Cubela could
organize other army officers. But in coups, he understood, people die. The way
to start a coup is to knock off the top man. Des felt it was a long shot, but
it might work. We were desperate. Des was willing to try anything.”
Because
Cubela owned or used a resort apartment near Veradero that overlooked a road
frequently used by Castro to travel in an open jeep to the duPont’s former
Xandau estate, the CIA considered using that apartment as a staging area for
the Pathfinder plan to kill Castro with a high powered rifle as he rode by in
an open jeep.
When
Cubela requested a high powered rife he could use to shoot Castro, FitzGerald
balked, and instead suggesed poison.
And just as a bet on the Preakness Stakes was used as a code for the Seven Days in May movie plot, FitzGerald made a bet on Castro.
According
to Evan Thomas (“The Very Best Men”):
“FitzGerald did not think
it was such a long shot that he was unwilling to make a small bet, giving
reasonable odds. Just six days before he formally signed off on a high-powered
rifle for AMLASH (Cubela), he accepted a little wager from Michael Forrestal,
an official on the National Security Council staff who was a member of the
Georgetown crowd (his father, James V. Forrestal, had been the first secretary
of defense). A memo in FitzGerald’s personal files records a $50 bet with
Forrestal on ‘the fate of Fidel Castro during the period 1 August 1964 and 1
October 1964. (Apparently, Fitzgerald saw a window of vulnerability for the
Cuban leader that was roughly coincidental with the 1964 U.S. presidential
election campaign.)”
“Mr. Forrestal offers two-to-one odds ($100 to $50) against Fidel’s falling (or being pushed) between the dates 1 August and 1 October 1964. In the event that such a thing should occur prior to 1 August 1964 the wager herein cancelled. Mr. FitzGerald accepts the wager on the above terms.” This memo is dated November 13, 1963, a day after FitzGerald briefed Kennedy on the progress of the Cuban operation and one day before the Special Group approved his plan of continued covert operations against the Castro Regime.
According
to Thomas,“On November 22, 1963, Des FitzGerald had just finished hosting a
lunch for an old friend of the CIA, a foreign diplomat, at the City Tavern Club
in Georgetown, when he was summoned from the private dining room by the maître
d’. FitzGerald returned ‘as white as a host,’ recalled Sam Halpern. Normally
erect and purposeful, FitzGerald was walking slowly, with his head down. ‘The
President has been shot,’ he said.”
“The
lunch immediately broke up. On the way out the door Halpern anxiously said, ‘I
hope this has nothing to do with Cubans.’ FitzGerald mumbled, ‘Yea, well, we’ll
see.’ In the fifteen minute car ride back to Langley, FitzGerald just stared
straight ahead. He was well aware that in Paris, at almost the moment Kennedy
was shot in Dallas, one of his case officers had been handing a poison pen to a
Cuban agent to kill Castro. It was at the very least a grim coincidence.”
Back in
Paris on November 22, 1963 Sanchez met with Cubela and gave him a special
pen-syringe, developed by the CIA Technology division that was sharp and would
not be felt, and used Black Leaf 40 – a deadly poison. As they left the meeting
they were informed that President Kennedy had been killed.
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