Douglas Caddy

Joe: I don't think that I have your email address but you can reach me at douglascaddy@justice.com

Or you might try the Wall Street Journal. I once submitted an article and the paper published it on the editorial page. Most Americans alive today were born after 1959, so your revelations would be fascinating to them as well as to active and retired military people.

April 17 is the 59th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. Why not submit an article to the Washington Post weaving the theme you wrote just above along with something like the untold story of the Essex and the Independence and cite your forthcoming book as evidence of your authority to write about the topic?  

Rothstein did say at one time that had the bombs been used, they would "have sunk Cuba." That is about the extent of what I recollect from my conversations with him. 

I am pleased to learn that not only did you provide new insights to him, which he must have been delighted to hear, but that what he had impart will prove helpful to you in your research and writing. Best wishes on your forthcoming  book on the Bay of Pigs that could ignite a renewed public examination of this key historical event.

Rothstein has maintained to me that the reason for over 50 years the role of the Essex was covered-up was because of the two bombs that he has described as nuclear. He and many others on the Essex have been denied Veterans  benefits because the official record failed to  credit the Essex even being involved in the Bay of Pigs. I think you have to go with what he told you today as any discrepancy may be attributed to my not probing deeper in my conversations with him wherein he mentioned the bombs. You are a historian and I am not. Rothstein's and my conversation have covered a number of topics besides the Bay of Pigs. For example a fellow from the Brookings Institution called me last week about government and political figures who have been gay and I happened to mention Forrestal because the NYPD records show that he was according to Rothstein as was Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana who Rothstein and his NYPD partner Rubenstein confronted in a gay bar in NYC to alert him that he had been compromised and could expect to be blackmailed by forces that wanted to control him.. Hartke soon thereafter withdrew from seeking the Democratic nomination for president. The Brookings fellow was not aware of either of these two gay victims. According to Rothstein based upon his NYPD work, the world revolves around who has been compromised and by whom, something the late Epstein was all about.

No, until he mentioned it yesterday I did not know his brother was on the Independence. Rothstein handled the wrench in pulling up the bodies of some of those killed in the invasion who were then put in containers and lowered into in the Essex. He was present when the Captain came out and said he had just got a call from President Kennedy who told him to cease all hostile operations. When he arrested Frank Sturgis who had come to kill Marita Lorenz in 1976 he and Sturgis sort of bonded once Sturgis realized Rothstein was on the Essex during the invasion and they talked for two hours before Sturgis was booked. Sturgis must have told him things of interest about the invasion. Castro agreed later for Rothstein to come to Cuba via Mexico to reclaim the bodies of 8 who had been killed in the invasion to bring them back to the U.S. Because of his age this may be the last time he is able to tell what he knows.

Doug