Operation 3111 Analysis
A memo approving CIA
covert operation 3111 is one of the JFK assassination related documents among
the records of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy that was sought by Max
Holland and mentioned in his February 2012 FOIA suit filed with the NARA.
Holland withdrew
the suit once it was clear that all the records being sought were released.
We get the document thanks to Max Holland’s persistence, but
it comes with his spin on it.
On 28 February 2013, under the title of RFK OK’d Sabotage Against Cuba in November 1963 Holland distributed
the document and wrote:
“Ever since the Church Committee’s investigation of the intelligence community
in the mid-1970s — if not earlier — it has been well known that Robert F.
Kennedy was deeply involved in the Kennedy administration’s efforts to subvert
and overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro. RFK regularly attended meetings
of the so-called Special Group of the National Security Council, which
directed and coordinated US
policy toward Cuba,
including most covert operations. And as Harris Wofford observed in his 1980
book, Of Kennedys and Kings
within the Special Group the attorney general was the driving force behind
the clandestine effort to overthrow Castro. From inside accounts of the pressure
he was putting on the CIA to ‘get Castro,’
he seemed like a wild man who was out-CIAing the CIA.”
“Still, extant records specifying RFK’s direct involvement
are few and far between. One of seven documents released by the National
Archives in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, however, is an EYES
ONLY memo that reveals Robert F. Kennedy personally signed off on a
sabotage operation against Cuba
in November 1963.”
EYES ONLY
SECRET
4 NOV 1963
4-13
FROM THE COORDINATOR OF CUBAN AFFAIRS
SUBJECT: Prosposed
Infiltration/Exfiltration Operation
For 8 November 1963
- The
purpose of this memorandum is to present for your consideration and
approval, the initial infiltration/exfiltration operation for the month of
November 1963. Additional proposals for operations during the month of
November 1963 will be presented at a later date.
- The
proposed operation is as follows:
OPERATION: 3111
DATE : o/a/ 8
November 1963
PLACE/PURPOSE: A low-key sabotage operation against a
warehouse and pier at Nazabal on the coast of Norther Las
villas. This operation will be accomplished by a commando group landing on the
pier and destroying the pier and warehouse with demolitions and Incendiaries.
This operation, if successful, will reduce dockage and storage facilities as
part of our continuing long-range program.
- It is
required that approval be granted for the conduct of the operation
outlined in paragraph 2 above.
Initial
Oval Seal: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Received NOV 4 1963
EYES ONLY
SECRT
Declassified under the provisions
Of the JFK Assassinations Records
Collection Act of 1962 (PL1DQ4161(?)
By_____NARA, Date 9/22/90
Indeed, there’s RFK’s oval seal and imprimatur that proves
to me that RFK read the memo and approved the operation 3111, but that’s not
the most interesting thing about this document.
For starters, Operation 3111 is most certainly one of the few
– one a month – officially approved CIA
operations that would be carried out by the CIA’s
JMWAVE maritime unit in Florida,
one that we know quite a lot about.
This makes me wonder if there is a relationship between this
“Operation 3111” and the U2 “Mission
3111” of October 1962 – a year earlier, which detected Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Mission 3111 – a U2 flight over Cuba that took place on 18
October 1962, a year earlier – makes me wonder why the CIA
would identify two different missions a year apart with the same tag number,
unless there is a specific difference between a mission and an operation?
CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) By Mary S. McAuliffe see
p. 263 and 281. 76. Lundahl, Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence
and Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, “Additional Information – Missions
3111 and 3113,” 21 October 1962 p. 263
The State Department had previously announced that US policy
would forbid attacks against Cuba from US shores, and the FBI and other
branches of government cracked down on the unauthorized raiders – though they
did work with some (ie. Pawley Operation
Red Cross).
Operation 3111 appears to be one of the approved missions,
and its date – November 4 approval for a mission on November 8, four days
later, must be reviewed in relation to the previous mission – the October 30-31
mission that resulted in an all out shoot out on the beach, the loss of an
infiltration team and the cover blown of the mother ship Rex, a photo of which
was published on the front page of the November 1, 1963 New York Times.
CASTRO SAYS C.I.A. USES RAIDER SHIP
He Asserts Cuba
Captured Small Boats From Vessel – Miami
Owner Denies It
By The Associated Press
WEST PALM
BEACH, Fla. Oct., 31 – Premier
Fidel Castro charged last night that the Central Intelligence Agency was
operating a raider ship called the Rex, and that she had been used in a
sabotage mission against Cuba. He said two small boats from the Rex and several
C.I.A. agents had been captures.
Premier Castro described the Rex as a 150-foot diesel vessel flying the
Nicaraguan flag. He said she was based in West Palm Beach.
A vessel called the Rex, 174 feet long, returned to Palm
Beach Monday and was tied up today in the Port of Palm Beach. She flies the
Nicaraguan flag and carries large searchlights, radar and a crane on the stern.
Two motor launches were missing from their davits.
The port director, Joel Wilcox, said, “The dockage is paid
by the Sea Key Shipping Company from a post office box. I know nothing of the
Rex’s activities. “
Oil Man Claims Ship
J.A. Belcer, a Miami
oil company executive, told The Miami Herald that the Rex belonged to him, but
denied hat it had participated in raids against Cuba.
He said he bought the vessel from the Paragon Company,
identified by The Herald as a Nicaraguan firm formerly owned by the family of
Luis Somoza, an ex-President of Nicaragua.
Mr. Belcher told The Herald that for most of the year he had
leased the Rex for electronic and oceanographic research to the international
division of the Collins Radio Company of Dallas.
He said the ship’s captain, identified as Alexander Brooks, had told him the
Rex had never been in Cuban waters.
Premier Castro, in a radio and television broadcast, said
that the captured agents might face death sentences.
In his three-hour speech, the Premier accused the C.I.A. of
“stepping up its activities against Cuba
in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Flora.”
He accused the Central Intelligence Agency of murdering
workers, landing weapons and infiltrators in Cuba,
hiring saboteurs and using postal packages to send explosives into Cuba.
“This was the kind of aid the United
States sent to Cuba
after the hurricane,” he said. “They thought they had their opportunity after
the hurricane. This explains and justifies Cuba’s
rejections of the United States
offer to aid.”
There are two other mysterious vessels of Nicaraguan
registry operating out of ports of Florida’s
southeast coast. One sometimes changes color.
The Leda is tied up at Port Everglades and the Port
of Fort Lauderdale, 45 miles south
of Palm Beach. She is registered
from Greytown, Nicaragua,
which is now known as San Juan del Norte.
A Miami man who
knew a crewman on the Villaro said today, “She was a funny ship. She changed
colors all the time. Sometimes the hull would be blue with a green deck. Other
times it was gray with an orange deck. My friend said she was working in oil
exploration.
Coast Guard headquarters in Miami
said it had no listing for any of the ships or their companies.
END NYT ARTICLE Nov. 1, 1963 p. 1
The Rex was also on a sabatoge mission according to William
Turner (Rearview Mirror – Penmarin
Books, CA. 2001, p. 185-186), when he wrote that it was “a sabotage attack on a
shore installation in Pinar del
Rio Province,” and
a deposit a team of commando assassins infiltrators. “It was a CIA
operation,” with an all Cuban crew, says Turner. He also reports, “When a
mission was scheduled, they received a phone call, then a nondescript CIA
van picked them up and took them to the West Palm Beach
berth where the Rex was tied up. The dockage fees were paid by a CIA
front, Sea Shipping Company, which operated out of a post office box.”
The Captain of the Rex, Alejandro Brooks, received his orders from Gordon
Campbell, the director of the CIA’s naval
operations. “The men belonged to the Commando Mambises,…the CIA’s
elite, the Green Berets of the secret war. They were led by Major Manuel
Villafana, a spit-and-polish officer who had commanded the Bay of
Pigs air force. Villafana insisted that his men be paid low
because he wanted them driven by hate, not money.”
According to Turner, “The Rex was not listed in Jane’s Fighting Ships. It was a
World War II subchaser pulled out of the mothball fleet at Green
Cove Springs, Florida. Painted
a classy dark blue, the 174-foot vessel could cut through the waves at twenty
knots. It flew the blue-and-white flag of Nicaragua, whose strongman, General
Luis Somoza, had hosted the Bay of Pigs invasion brigade…”
“There were oversized searchlights, elaborate electronics gear that towered
amidships, and a large crane on the aft deck capable of raising and lowering
twenty-foot speed boats,” wrote Turner. “After the Rex put to sea, its guns
were brought up from below decks and secured in their topside mounts: two 40-mm
naval cannon, a 57-mm recoilless rifle, and two 20-mm cannon.”
Having interviewed some of the crewmembers, Turner got a full report on what
happened. “The target on this mission was the giant Matahambre copper mine near
Cape Corriente on the bootheel of Pinar del Rio Province…when the Rex arrived
at the landing zone, there was a sense of foreboding: the Cape Corriente light,
normally flashing a warning to maritime traffic, was dark….As the vessel came
to a stop, two specially designed fiberglass speedboats, called Moppies, slid
down the high-speed davits on the afterdeck…They were to link up with two
commandos who had infiltrated a week earlier to reconnoiter the target. The
answer came back in the wrong code; it was a trap.”
“The commandos fired at the riverbank,” only to be raked by return fire from
heavy machine guns. One raft was torn apart by tracer bullets, spilling the
dead and dying into the water…Then one of the Moppies was framed in the
searchlights of a Russian built P-6 patrol craft: the Rex quartermaster
piloting it surrendered….Brooks made a feint toward open sea, then doubled back
and hugged the coastline…The move paid off. Minutes later, a pair of Cuban
helicopters…dropped flares…..(illuminating)…the 32,500 ton J. Louis, …carrying
a cargo of bauxite from Jamaica
to Texas. Five Cuban MiGs began
strafing….US Navy Phantom jets took off and headed for the scene. But just
before arriving, the Phantoms were called back….”
[BK Notes: After I wrote a blog post about the Rex mission,
I received an email from the son of one of the mambasies who escaped in another
moppie. He told me that the physician for the Rex Dr. Armando Cruz is
still alive and practicing in
Florida,
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2012 Son from Moppie One]
Bill,
My dad was on that second moppie you mentioned in your article. They
were picked up by the merchant ship and taken to Panama where
they were in jail and questioned until the CIA
intervened and got them out. I’d love to know more. I only know the
stories my dad told me but would love to read any additional research you have
on this…. They had casualties on board. They didnt know what had happened
to the other Moppie and the Rex had gone. They later saw from afar the
glow of the freighter being attacked. They thought it was the Rex under
fire. He didnt mention their stopping the merchant ship by firing any
weapons. He said they signaled the ship and their story was that they had
gone out to fish but had engine trouble. Of course no one would believe
them because their boat was all shot up. But they werent allowed to talk
and that was their story and they were sticking to it….
Thank you.
Onan Cordova
Both the target of the Rex attack Pinar del Rio
and the 3111 – Nazabal, are on the North Shore of Cuba within easy reach of Florida
Keys.
The proposed target - pier and warehouse at Northern Las Villas
Here’s a video of Nazabal today, a quiet fishing village
without much industry though it appears to have a train and trolley, and an
extensive boat pier though few if any boats.
Nazabal today video showing pier, though there appears to be some ruined pier as well
-
NAZABAL 3 - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqLTZc6J-Mc
The 3111 operatioon to Nazabal, if it proceeded and
completed, should have made the news like the Rex mission did, since you can’t
blow up a pier and warehouse without attracting attention, but I haven’t found
any evidence of this yet, and some of the sabotage missions that Brad Ayers
planned and practiced for were often postponed or called off.
In any case, we know that RFK approved it, as did the
Special Group and
CCC, and we suspect that
these Cuban missions out of JMWAVE are connected to the Dealey Plaza operation,
as some of them are – Bayo-Pawley, Rex, Clare Booth Luce’s Julio Fernandez and possibly
Operation 3111, if we can learn more about it.
As for RFK, concludes White (editor of the Cuban documents), “Robert Kennedy,
such a conspicuous figure on the Cuban matters in 1961-62, was less prominent
in 1963 in shaping administration policy towards Castro. But his role remained
significant.”
Witness reports place RFK at JMWAVE when William Harvey was
there, as Harvey instigated an incident when RFK tried to read a
classified cable and Harvey snatched it out of his hands saying he wasn’t
cleared to read it. Later, RFK ostensibly flew in to the Everglades to
meet with some of the commandos assigned to certain covert raids approved by
the Special Group and the President, which included five raids in the summer
and fall of 1963, which were presented in April and approved in early June,
1963.
On April Fools Day, April 1, 1963, the Cuban Coordinating Committee – Covert Operations
in Cuba (CCC-COC) met, the subject of an April 3 memo from Gordon
Chase of the National Security Council to McGeorge Bundy, the President’s
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. It included a still classified
agenda and matters discussed by the Cottrell Committee, which White identifies
as “An interdepartmental committee, chaired by Sterling J. Cottrell, in early
1963 to coordinate the administration’s covert and overt Cuban policies.”
In summary, Gordon Chase notes, “In approving the three programs for Special
Group considerations, the committee recognized that they will probably be of
marginal value only: however, they will cost us very little, financial or
otherwise.” Under agenda item number four, “Sabotage of Cuban Shipping – The Committee…will
recommend to the Special Group the incendiaries which would be timed to go off
in international waters and the abrasives in the machinery. While the
propaganda boost might be nil, they are easier to effect than limpets and could
really hurt Castro.”
Then Chase tells McBundy, “The Committee gave the CIA the
option of using its own Cubans or of using DRE as
a cut-out.”
The DRE are the anti-Castro Cuban
Student Revolutionary Directorate, whose members interacted with Oswald before
the assassination.
JFKcountercoup: DRE REPORT
