Julio Fernandez @ JMWAVE

 JULIO FERNANDEZ 

I first heard of Julio Fernandez in the fall of 1969 when I began to peruse the 24 volumes of Warren Commission testimony and exhibits at the University of Dayton library. 

After awhile I began to focus on the documents and testimony that refered to Cuba, as I was doing my Latin American history thesis on the Bay of Pigs. One document stood out, official Pennsylvania State Police reports on Mrs. Margaret Hoover of Martinsberg, Pa., whose brother reported to the police that his sister had information that might have a bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Mrs. Hoover told them that she discovered some paratially burnt trash in her yard, including a trailer advertisment with the words "Ruby" and "Lee Oswald" written on the back, as well as an AMTRACK train ticket recipt that she at first believed belonged to her recently divorced husband, and Ruby and Lee were girls he was seeing. She showed the items to her daughter, but then realized that the trash had blown over to her yard from the yard of her neighbor, who was burning trash. 

Moving next door, the police learned that the neighbor was a Cuban exile, Dr. Julio Fernandez, the publisher of a Cuban newspaper and his wife and son, who had recently defected. Fernandez was teaching Spanish at the local high school. The train ticket was used by his son, a Penn State University art major who traveled to Florida in the summer of 63 to attend a conference of Cuban journalists in exile at the University of Miami, that I later learned was the home of the CIA's JMWAVE operations. 

I also learned that Fernandez and his family was assisted by the Philadelphia based Catherwood Foundation, that David Wise and Thomas Ross in their book The Invisible Government, was used as a front for dispersing CIA funds for covert intelligence operations. 

While that's where the official investigation ended, I called Mrs. Hoover and talked with her on the phone. She told me that Fernandez suspiciouly moved away shortly thereafter, but other men in suits had visited her to inquire about him, so somebody was interested in this story besides me. 

I later learned that British-Soviet double-agent Sir Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queens Pictures, had given a series of lectures at Penn State while young Fernandez, Jr. was in attendence there, and wondered if there was a connection. I also wanted to get any reports, press items, or U of Miami records on the confernce for Cuban journalists in exile held there during the summer of '63, but have yet to learn any more about it. 

Then the Ladies Home Journal, of all places, had a feature story about Clare Booth Luce, the former US Ambassador to Italy, wife of Time-Life founder Henry Luce, that focused on her recceiving a phone call late on the night of the assassination. From her bedroom phone she answered, and said it was from one of her "Cuban boys," Julio Fernandez. 

Her "Cuban boys," as she refered to them, were anti-Castro Cuban commandos who were paid and trained by the CIA at JMWAVE, the CIA's base in Miami, who she supported in various ways and wrote about them in her weekly Life Magazine column (BK Notes: That I have been unable to find). 

Fernandez told Luce that he had photos and a tape recording of Oswald, the accused assassin, in which he promotes Fidel Castro, as well as some other material that implicated Oswald with Castro. What should he do?, he wanted to know. 

Luce said she told him to call the FBI, but he apparently didn't, and a few days later the Cuban Student Directoate (DRE) released a phamplet with the photos and story of Oswald's arrest giving out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets and his radio debate with two men who had been trained by the CIA in psychological warfare - Ed Butler and Carlos Bringuier. 

When Bringuier was asked about the call to Luce, he said he wasn't a commando, as Julio Fernandez was, but rather a psychological warrior. 

BRADLEY AYERS 

Things went quiet for awhile on the Julio Fernandez front, until I read a book at the local library called The War That Never Was by former US Army Ranger Captain Bradley Ayers, who trained some of the JMWAVE Cuban commandos, including one named Julio Fernandes. While I knew at the time that the book contained information that was relevant to the assassiantion of President Kennedy, I didn't know that the book was vetted and edited and censored by the Indiana book publisher's attorney William Harvey, after he had retired from the CIA. 

It was also called to my attention that the publisher Bobs-Merrell, was primarily a school books putlisher who maintained an office and secretaries in the Texas School Book Depository, from where shots were fired at the president. 

It was years later when I obtained a copy of Ayders' followup book The Zenith Secret, published by Vox Pop, who operated out of a decrepid storefront in the Bronx, New York. This uncensored version of Ayers' storyincluded a letter from the CIA that confirmed that in 1963 he was a US Army Ranger Captain cross posted to the CIA to train anti-Castro Cuban commandos at JMWAVE. 

The book was very revealing, however it recently came to my attention that much of it is total bullcrap, though he gets a lot of names and dates correct, and gives some good insight into the otherwise closed JMWAVE base, that used Zenith Technological Services as its cover front. 

In any case, I do accept the fact that Ayers was training Cubans out of JMWAVE, at secret operational bases including Pirate's Lair in the Everglades, Point Mary off Key Largo, and others, utilized a small navy of ships including The Rex and The Leda, and mobster John Rosselli was a principle JMWAVE trainer under the alias of a US Army Colonel in uniform who worked closely with Ayers' cohort US Army Ranger Major Edward Roderick. 

I also accept what Ayers' says about some of the personnel he worked with including the head of JMWAVE was Ted Shackley, had a secretary Maggie Craine, who was brought in after working with William Harvey in Berlin and at the Cuban desk in the basement of the CIA HQ at Langley, Task Force W. Harvey's official biographer (B. Stockton) confirms that Maggie Craine was Harvey's secretary, who sat on the floor to drink her martinis becaues she said that's where she always ended up. I tracked her down and learned that she had married a CIA officer who was stationed in Southeast Asia, but failed to contact her, though I realize that secretaries know all the secrets. 

I also believe Ayers when he says RFK visited JMWAVE bases at least twice, once to meet with the top brass and case officers at a golf course safe house, and a second time at an Everglades base where he met some of the Cuban commandos, including one named Julio Ferenandes. 

Bradley Ayers had a lot to say about the anti-Castro Cuban commando named Julio Fernandez, as he worked closely with him training him and his men in small boat maneuvering, covert tradecraft, and basic commando training that all Rangers go through. US Army Rangers are also known by their nickname the Pathfinders, and a small, elite group of the JMWAVE commandos, some of whom were involved at the Bay of Pigs, were especially selected and trained and known as the Pathfinders. 

At JMWAVE Julio Fernandez was known as a "team leader" who was in charge of a ten man team of commando, who also had a CIA case officer, possibly Porter Goss, who later became the last Director of the CIA before the appointement of a Director of Homeland Security. 

I blieve that the JMWAVE's Julio Fernandez is one and the same Julio Fernandez who was one of Clare Booth Luce's "boys" and called her on the night of the assassination. 

I also consider this Julio Fernandez to possibly be the son of Julio Fernandez, Sr. the Cuban newspaper publisher in exile who lived next door to Mrs. Hoover in Martinsberg, Pa. and attended Penn State Art School. 

It should also be noted that Lyndon Johnson shared a limo with Clare Booth Luce on the way to the inaguration, and she asked him why he took the Vice Presidencey over the more powerful House Chairmanship, and he replied that one in six presidents die in office and he thought he could improve those odds. 

Clare Botth Luce was the wife of the Time-Life publisher Henry Luce who was at the heart of the CIA's Mockingbird Program to obtain the cooperation of publishers and broadcasters. 

And Clare Booth Luce was the featured keynote speaker at the dinner meeting of David Atlee Phillips' Association of Former Intelligence Officers when Gaeton Fonzi had Antonio Veciana confront Phillips to determine if he was the mysterious spymaster known as "Maurice Bishop." 

I would like to get a copy of Mrs. Luce's address to that conference, as well as anything I can get on the conference of Cuban journliasts in exile at the University of Miami in the summer of '63. 

In any case, there may be a number of Julio Fernandezs, and while that name may be as common in Cuba as Joe Smith is in New York, the name seems to crop up a lot among the anti-Castro activities, especially around JMWAVE, and I think it's important and more research must be done. 

Bill Kelly

billkelly3gmail.com