Legacy of Secrecy (8 page)

well to an unexpected crisis, removing Cuba as a liability to his 1964

presidential campaign. Part of their publicity plan included a Kennedy-

backed book and television project about the Bay of Pigs, though the

JFK-Almeida coup plan was unknown to the journalists involved.

While it may seem odd for JFK and Bobby to have wanted to remind

voters of their biggest disaster, it makes sense given the individuals

involved in the projects. Bobby was friends with Washington reporter

Haynes Johnson, who was working on a book with the help of four Bay

of Pigs veterans trusted by the Kennedys, including Harry Williams

and Manuel Artime. Chet Huntley, another Kennedy friend and one of

the top news anchors of the day, was handling the TV project. Along

with David Brinkley, Huntley anchored America’s most popular news

broadcast each weekday evening on NBC. Bobby knew that Huntley’s

Bay of Pigs special was slated to run after the coup, allowing the pro-

gram to end with the triumphant return to Havana of Bay of Pigs heroes

like Harry and Artime.16

Harry Williams usually shied away from publicity, but at Bobby’s

request he was involved with both the book and TV projects. The per-

sonable Harry became close friends with journalist Haynes Johnson and

friendly with Chet Huntley. Both men admired Harry for his bravery,

as did JFK and Bobby. Harry had distinguished himself not only in

fighting at the Bay of Pigs, but also even as he lay gravely injured in a

field hospital after his capture. In a well-documented encounter, when

Fidel showed up unexpectedly to visit the wounded captives, Harry

weakly pulled a pistol out of his boot, pointed it at Fidel, and squeezed

the trigger.

But Harry’s pistol only clicked—his fellow prisoners had removed

the bullets because they were worried Harry might use them on himself,

due to his capture and grievous injuries. Coupled with Harry’s agree-

ment with Castro—to return to his Cuban prison if he were unable to

get JFK and Bobby to make a deal to free the remaining prisoners—his

actions cemented his heroic stature in the eyes of Cuban exiles, Bobby,

and JFK. Journalists from Haynes Johnson to
Newsweek
editor Evan

Thomas have written about the close personal relationship that devel-

oped between Harry and Bobby by 1963, which is why Bobby and JFK

put Harry in charge of the exile side of the JFK-Almeida coup plan.17

It was up to Harry to recommend a handful of “selected Cuban exile

leaders” who would become part of the coup plan, subject to approval

from Bobby and JFK. Most of Harry’s recommendations were accepted,

and five groups were selected. The hundreds of other Cuban exile

groups, many of whom had received lavish support from the CIA for

years, had their financial aid cut back severely or cut off completely,

creating much resentment.

The exile leaders and groups Harry, Bobby, and JFK chose were:

• Manual Artime, the extremely conservative former Bay of Pigs

leader and best friend of CIA agent E. Howard Hunt.

• Tony Varona, a former Cuban senator who had recently headed

the largest US-backed Cuban exile group, the CRC (Cuban Revo-

lutionary Council).

• Manolo Ray, head of JURE (Junta Revolucionaria Cubana), con-

sidered one of the most liberal exile groups, and hence distrusted

and disliked by Artime and Hunt.

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

• Eloy Menoyo of the SNFE (Second National Front of Escambray),

also seen as very liberal; Harry called him “a man of action” because

(unlike many office-bound exile leaders) he had been willing to

personally lead raids into Cuba the previous year.

• The Cuban American US Army troops in officer training at Fort

Benning, Georgia, considered the cream of the Bay of Pigs veterans

from a military standpoint. This multiracial group of Cuban exiles

would be the first US troops into Cuba after the coup.

Many of these men had worked with Fidel and Almeida during the

Revolution and its immediate aftermath. One by one, they left Cuba or

were forced to flee. Now, Harry was trying to meld them into an effective

group that could help to rule Cuba after the coup, during the transition

to democracy and eventual free elections. But this goal proved difficult,

because their political differences were so great. Recently declassified

memos show the scope of Harry’s problem: As of June 26, 1963, an FBI

informant reported that “Menoyo would not be welcome” to work with

Ray’s JURE group, and on September 26, 1963, Artime told one of his

AMWORLD CIA case officers that “Menoyo . . . is indeed a traitor.”

Artime also disliked Ray, and memos from the summer of 1963 show

CIA officials lying to Artime, telling him “that [Ray] is not one of [the

CIA’s] chosen” leaders, when the CIA had actually being supporting

Ray with an average of $25,000 a month since late June 1963.18 If it had

been up to CIA officials like Richard Helms and E. Howard Hunt, Artime

would have been the sole exile leader receiving support, but that wasn’t

what the Kennedys wanted. After much work by Harry, by November

1963 Menoyo and Ray had met to reach a “working agreement,” and

exile informants began to report that Artime had reached an accommo-

dation with each man. Also on board were Tony Varona and the leader

of the Cuban exile troops at Fort Benning.19

The five were not a cohesive group, and their level of commitment to

Harry and Bobby varied. This was partially because Harry felt he had

to withhold some information about the coup plan from them (such as

Almeida’s identity), until the exile leader was fully committed to the

operation. For example, newly released CIA files cited here for the first

time confirm Harry’s account of meeting with Manolo Ray in September

1963. Shortly after that, Almeida’s name came up in a meeting between

Ray and his CIA case officer, but they both talked so cautiously that it’s

hard to tell just how much Harry or Bobby had told Ray about Almeida.

Menoyo was even more problematic, and as late as mid-November, after

months of wooing, Harry Williams was still trying to get him fully on

board.20

Tony Varona had been eager to join Harry’s plan—perhaps too eager.

Unknown to Harry and Bobby, Varona had ties to mob bosses Santo

Trafficante and Johnny Rosselli. When the first round of CIA-Mafia plots

to assassinate Castro in 1959 failed, the CIA began greatly ramping up

their efforts in the summer of 1960, three months before the presidential

election. Richard Nixon had been Eisenhower’s point man for Cuba,

and Fidel’s death was apparently supposed to be the original October

surprise that would propel the incumbent vice president to victory. The

CIA admits they brought Varona into the plots at that time, along with

Santo Trafficante, Johnny Rosselli, and his boss, Sam Giancana.21 Carlos

Marcello told an FBI informant that he joined the operation at a later

date. Despite a series of failures, the CIA continued their work with the

Mafia. Bobby Kennedy was told about some aspects of the CIA-Mafia

plots in May 1962, after they threatened to interfere with the prosecu-

tion of Giancana. However, the CIA admits they told Bobby the plot-

ting had stopped, when in actuality it continued. Without telling Bobby,

JFK, or his own CIA Director, Richard Helms continued having Rosselli

work with Varona on the project, through the rest of 1962 and into June

1963, under the supervision of William Harvey, Desmond FitzGerald’s

predecessor. The rotund, hard-drinking Harvey was sometimes called

America’s James Bond, though he was replaced after clashing with

Bobby Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Evidence indicates

that the CIA-Mafia plots were still going on in the fall of 1963, and that

Miami CIA Operations Chief David Morales grew close to Rosselli in

the process.22

JFK, Bobby, and Harry were determined to exclude the Mafia from

their coup plans and from any role in post-coup Cuba: The Mafia would

not be allowed to reopen their casinos after Castro was eliminated. But

Trafficante and Rosselli had other ideas. The Kennedys and Harry were

never told that in August 1963, the CIA learned that Varona received

$200,000 from associates of Rosselli. A few weeks later, CIA files show

that Varona secretly aligned himself with Trafficante associate and for-

mer death-squad leader Rolando Masferrer, whom Harry had banned

from the coup plan and who had once been arrested on orders from JFK.

A CIA cable says Varona told Masferrer that he could become part of the

coup plan once certain “obstacles” were removed.23

CIA files withheld from Warren Commission and Congressional

investigators, and not published until 2005, confirm that Manuel Artime

was also part of the CIA-Mafia plots in 1963. Neither Harry nor the

Kennedys were aware of Artime’s work with the Mafia. CIA memos

show that Artime planned to use funds provided by the Kennedys to

30

LEGACY OF SECRECY

obtain an airplane in Dallas in the summer of 1963, with the assistance

of Frank Fiorini, a bagman for Trafficante’s organization. Also that

summer, Artime briefly operated a minor-league exile training camp

just outside of New Orleans, an operation that reportedly involved two

associates of Carlos Marcello: Marcello’s pilot, David Ferrie, and a low-

level “runner” for Marcello’s organization named Lee Oswald.24

Though Menoyo had been involved with Santo Trafficante in a 1962

arms deal that went awry, Menoyo was generally considered honest

and was not actively involved with the Mafia by the fall of 1963. How-

ever, he was closely aligned with one of the most violent Cuban exile

groups, Alpha 66, which JFK had denounced for mounting unauthor-

ized attacks against Cuban ships earlier in 1963. Alpha 66 was not part of

the JFK-Almeida coup plan, but it was so closely aligned with Menoyo’s

SNFE that the FBI considered them practically one group. The leader

of Alpha 66, Antonio Veciana, told us that he was receiving aid from a

CIA agent named “Maurice Bishop,” who had introduced him to Lee

Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1963 in Dallas; Veciana said he and

Oswald discussed “killing Castro.” Congressional investigator Gaeton

Fonzi investigated the incident extensively and found it credible, iden-

tifying “Maurice Bishop” as CIA officer David Atlee Phillips. CIA files

confirm that Phillips was assigned to support AMWORLD at that time,

and used a variety of aliases and cover identities, at least one of which

he withheld from Congressional investigators.25

Manolo Ray, of JURE, was considered by the Kennedys and Harry to

be of very high integrity, and a natural leader. A CIA cable describes Ray

as having the “highest intellect, sincerity, and conviction,” though some

CIA officials, like E. Howard Hunt, didn’t like Ray’s liberal politics.26 In

addition to the Kennedys’ insistence on including Ray in the coup plan,

Richard Helms knew that Ray was also in touch with Rolando Cubela

and Cuba’s top journalist, Carlos Franqui, connections that could also

prove useful. While Ray had no known Mafia connections, two months

before JFK’s murder, three associates of Santo Trafficante (including

Rolando Masferrer) were involved in a deliberate effort to link Ray’s

JURE to Oswald and the assassination. In that September 1963 effort,

a JURE supporter in Dallas named Silvia Odio received a visit from

two exiles, accompanied by a man said to be Lee Harvey Oswald. This

incident, detailed in Chapter 13, would take on a huge significance for

investigators after JFK’s murder.

While that effort was a deliberate attempt to stage an encounter

that would taint Ray and JURE after JFK’s murder, another incident

is not so clear cut. A CIA report from October 29, 1963, says that Ray’s

second-in-command boasted that “JURE had obtained military equip-

ment through robbing unidentified [US] installation,” a military base of

some sort.27 This didn’t seem to alarm Ray’s CIA case officer, because it

was one way to equip US-backed Cuban exiles with “deniable” weap-

ons. In a Texas incident involving arms stolen from a US military base,

an exile had apparently hinted at the JFK-Almeida coup plan, according

to FBI and Treasury Department reports from October 1963. The exile

told a Dallas gun dealer that in “the last week of November 1963 . . .

a large-scale amphibious operation would take place against the Cuba

mainland [and] United States military forces or Government agencies

would possibly be involved [as well as] rebel Cuban forces.” (Jack

Ruby’s auto mechanic was involved in this gun-theft ring, and another

Ruby associate had similar dealings.) FBI reports say that the Dallas

gun dealer was probably the source of the bullet found in Oswald’s rifle

after JFK’s assassination.28 Thus, even Oswald’s bullets were linked to

pre-assassination reports of the JFK-Almeida coup plan.