Legacy of Secrecy (91 page)

seasoned men to their drug network. Within a few years, this new exile

influx would accelerate a major shift in the Mafia’s heroin and cocaine

networks, leading to new CIA exile drug scandals in the 1970s and ’80s.

But in 1967, the usual French Connection heroin routes through Mexico

City and port cities like Montreal and New Orleans were still going

strong. Because of Michel Mertz’s political and intelligence ties, he had

not yet been arrested for the earlier Fort Benning bust, so his allies in

Montreal and Mexico were free to prosper.

The Montreal World’s Fair that began in the spring of 1967, popularly

known as Expo 67, was the unlikely catalyst for both Cuban-exile

terrorism and a rise in Canadian heroin trafficking. It also helped to

bring together drug running and gunrunning operations involving the

Mafia, Cuban exiles, and far-right racists—including an escaped convict

(detailed shortly) named James Earl Ray, who would soon travel from

the US to England and Canada.

Felipe Rivero’s Cuban Nationalist Movement (CNM) had only about

a dozen members, but according to the FBI, it “claimed credit for acts of

violence committed in England, Canada, and the United States.” Rivero

was the aristocratic-exile friend of Alberto Fowler, the sophisticated

Cuban assisting Jim Garrison in 1967. Fowler’s work for Garrison might

be characterized more accurately as diverting suspicion from himself,

Rivero, and other exiles who hated JFK. Garrison didn’t know about

Fowler’s close friendship with Rivero, who had helped Fowler shadow

JFK the day before the Tampa assassination attempt, nor was Garrison

aware that just hours after Lee Oswald’s arrest, Fowler had tried to

spread disinformation about Oswald to Harry Williams. Instead, Gar-

rison told
Life
magazine writer Richard Billings that “Alberto Fowler

[was one of the] legit Cubans who have contempt for wildcat, outlaw

Cubans.”8

Both Fowler and Rivero had worked for the CIA during the Bay of

Pigs operation, but by 1967 Rivero and his small but violent CNM exile

group were similar to the more deadly racist groups in the South. Miami

authorities described Rivero as a neo-Nazi; he was a Holocaust denier at

a time when the Ku Klux Klan was stepping up its anti-Semitic violence.

Anti-Semitism was just one trait that the Miami-based Rivero shared

with white supremacists like Joseph Milteer, who made regular visits to

Miami. Both men belonged to organizations that also trafficked in arms

and explosives, and some of these deals were brokered by the Mafia.

Both men also had associates involved in drug trafficking.9

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

It’s important to stress that the vast majority of Cuban exiles didn’t

share Felipe Rivero’s extremist politics. However, the violence of Rivero

and his associates would drive many more moderate exiles out of the

movement, leading to a wave of terrorist exile bombings and killings

in the 1970s, including Rivero’s terrorist bombing of Chilean diplomat

Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C.10

Exiles like Rivero had learned, or been told, to attack Cuban interests

only outside the US, a policy that evokes CIA guidelines dating back to

1963. While there is no evidence that the CIA supported Rivero directly

in 1967, some in the Agency would have liked his results: increasing

psychological pressure on Cuban officials over their presence at Expo 67,

with minimal damage and no loss of life—and no obvious connection to

the CIA. Some writers feel that at various times the CIA was assisting, or

at least tacitly approving, Rivero’s associates. The idea is not inconceiv-

able, since CIA files confirm that the Agency did employ bombers, like

Luis Posada, at the time. The bottom line is that the hazy lines of CIA

command and support allowed men like Rivero and Posada to operate,

often with tragic results.

Seven months before the April 27, 1967, opening of Expo 67, one of

Rivero’s members allegedly used a bazooka to attack the Cuban embassy

in Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Just three weeks before the Expo’s opening,

the FBI had questioned the same Rivero operative and his brother about

the Montreal bombings of a restaurant and a Canadian company that

did business with Cuba.11 The focus of exile violence shifted briefly to

Mexico on May 3, 1967, when four people were wounded after someone

threw a bomb into the car of Cuba’s ambassador.12

According to the
Miami News
, US authorities arrested Felipe Rivero

on May 12, 1967, and “charged [him] with threatening to blow up the

Cuban pavilion at Expo 67.”13 The FBI said that Rivero’s supporters

tried to rally exiles in Florida for a general strike on his behalf, but

when a more moderate exile group (RECE) “opposed the general strike

and” urged “Cuban exiles to not participate . . . the office of RECE was

bombed [and] almost completely destroyed.” Two of Rivero’s men were

arrested for that bombing, but charges were later dropped against one

of them.14

Rivero and his men had more plans for Expo 67 and Montreal: While

Rivero remained in a Dade County jail, the FBI said that two of Rivero’s

men “went to Montreal, Canada, by automobile [and] at Expo 67 . . . placed

a bomb under a bridge adjacent to the Cuban Pavilion. The bomb sub-

sequently exploded.” However, the bridge shielded the Cuban Pavilion

from the blast. To ensure the incident garnered attention, Rivero’s

group issued a statement in Miami, proudly taking responsibility for

the attack.15 The FBI reported that four days later, on June 3, 1967, two

of Rivero’s men met with another exile leader and “Tony Varona [to

discuss] a two-pronged plan to assassinate the Cuban Ambassador to

Canada and to attack a Cuban ship in Montreal.”16

Because of Rivero’s bombing campaign, and information that the FBI

picked up about additional exile attacks planned for Montreal and Expo

67, Canadian authorities had to increase the city’s security—especially

at Expo 67, where attendance would suffer if visitors did not feel secure.

Yet a heavily armed presence would hardly yield the type of fun atmo-

sphere that Expo organizers knew attendees wanted. Only one type of

Canadian security wouldn’t clash with, and would actually enhance, the

Fair’s festive atmosphere: red-jacketed officers of the Royal Canadian

Mounted Police (RCMP).

Unfortunately, many of the RCMP members diverted to security

duty at Expo 67 came from their expert narcotics squad, which was

then dealing with a surge of heroin into Montreal and Toronto. While

much of the world thinks of the RCMP as horse-riding Mounties, most

of its members do the same type of investigative work as the FBI. The

RCMP was close to tracking down the source of the new heroin surge,

which involved members of the same Mertz/Trafficante/Marcello

heroin network busted at Fort Benning the previous year. According

to Canadian crime reporter Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, when Canadian

authorities increased security, “experienced [narcotics squad] officers

suddenly found themselves in scarlet RCMP tunics patrolling [Expo 67].

For six months the Narcotics Squad ceased functioning [thus creating]

an unhoped-for opportunity for traffickers” in the summer and fall of

1967.17 Felipe Rivero’s bombing campaign hadn’t produced major dam-

age or deaths, but it did have the unintended effect of creating a rush

to smuggle more heroin through Montreal. Seasoned criminals would

soon be recruited to help with the increased narcotics traffic, among

them James Earl Ray.

As 1967 progressed, two major personnel losses—Win Scott and Des-

mond FitzGerald—would further complicate Richard Helms’s and the

CIA’s increasingly problematic anti-Castro operations. Win Scott was

the CIA Station Chief in Mexico City, as he had been in 1963. Mexico City

remained an important station for anti-Castro operations, since it both

housed a Cuban embassy (subject to extensive electronic surveillance

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

by the CIA) and offered regular flights to Havana, sometimes utilized

by CIA agents like Tony Sforza, an operative for David Morales.18

Win Scott’s biographer, Jefferson Morley, writes that in the wake of

the IG Report and the CIA memo directing CIA Station Chiefs to support

the Warren Report’s “lone nut/magic bullet” theory, “Scott responded

by ordering a comprehensive review of his Oswald files. Then he

retired and wrote his memoir disputing the Warren Report.” Morley

thinks “Scott wrote his JFK conspiracy theory mainly to protect himself

[because] he knew that top officials—including himself, Angleton, and . . .

David Atlee Phillips—had far more knowledge about Oswald’s travels

and intentions than the American people could imagine.”19

Scott’s departure no doubt had a negative impact on anti-Castro oper-

ations, especially since Deputy Director for Plans Desmond FitzGerald’s

health was in sharp decline, though he still forced himself to show up for

work each day. Even while Felipe Rivero remained in jail for attempting

to blow up the Cuban Pavilion at Expo 67, CIA files confirm that the

Agency continued to employ bombing expert Luis Posada. Posada was

working with an alleged Mafia figure who would later manage a Las

Vegas casino following a deal brokered by Carlos Marcello. According

to a CIA report to the FBI on June 27, 1967, this man was “tied in with

organized crime figures in [the] Miami area and also involved with 7

recent bombings in Miami.” The man got “in touch with Posada” by

going through Norman Rothman, who had worked for Trafficante in

Havana and also run guns with Jack Ruby and Carlos Prio. The man

“understands Posada [was] attached with [the] CIA and claims Posada

supplied him with caps, primers, and C-4 explosives.” The CIA admits

its Miami headquarters had previously okayed Posada’s work for the

man, giving him “hand grenades and silencers.”20

Perhaps someone in the CIA realized it might look odd for the US to

prosecute bombers like Felipe Rivero while a bomber like Posada was a

full-time CIA employee. A CIA memo claims “Posada [was] terminated

7/11/67 because he resigned from position as military coordinator for

RECE. JMWAVE does not have current need.” However, other CIA files

place Posada’s termination as a full-time employee in 1968, and, in any

event, an Agency memo admits that the CIA rehired Posada almost

immediately “as an independent contractor from 1968–75.” Another CIA

memo says the Agency retained “Posada [until] 2-13-76,” even though

three years earlier the CIA was “sure that Posada [was] involved with

narcotics drug trafficking”—confirming previous reports that “Posada

may be involved in smuggling cocaine . . . to Miami.”21

All of this information had a three-part implication for CIA Cuban

operations in 1967. First, the CIA was trying to downgrade its violent

operatives to a less official status, while still using them. Second, CIA

records, as in the case of Posada’s service dates, were sometimes fudged or

altered when the operative was linked to terrorism or political scandals—

in Posada’s case, that included his involvement in the bombing of a

Cubana airliner, work for the CIA in Iran-Contra, and later attempts to

assassinate Fidel Castro. Finally, drugs were an increasing aspect of anti-

Castro operations in the late 1960s and early ’70s, and the CIA did not

regard drug trafficking (and contact with the Mafia) as a reason to ter-

minate certain operatives. As the CIA had written about Manuel Artime

and AMWORLD in 1964, perhaps the impression that covertly backed

CIA exiles got their weapons and explosives from Mafiosi benefited the

CIA more than the impression that the agency had provided them.22

The bottom line is that the CIA’s method of operation made it increas-

ingly difficult to determine which exiles were actually working for the

CIA—and where their allegiance ultimately lay. That situation had been

a problem while JFK was still alive, and it continued even as CIA super-

vision of exile operatives decreased. The soft treatment of some arrested

exiles might indicate which Cuban exiles were supported or sanctioned

by the CIA. Felipe Rivero’s two men who had been arrested for firing

a bazooka at the UN in 1964 were also questioned in the 1967 Montreal

bombings and “arrested [in the Montreal case] by Jersey City PD for pos-

session of explosives,” according to a June 29, 1967, FBI report. However,

both were released on only a small bond by July 10, 1967.23

In the summer of 1967, Felipe Rivero’s men formed an alliance with

another group, headed by Cuban exile Juan Bosch. A July 14, 1967, FBI

report says that one of Bosch’s men negotiated with a “Cuban exile

arms dealer in Miami . . . to order .30 and .50 caliber machine guns, a 20

millimeter cannon, a 57 millimeter recoilless rifle, and a large amount