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Ted Shackley and the Secret Team


John Simkin

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Some follow up questions:

(1) “For example, and I speak from experience, operatives depend on "keys" to prove that they are dealing with who they can trust. These keys can be as simple as a torn in half business card which can only match perfectly with the other half when presented by the proper person.”

The heroin traffickers in the Mertz-Marcello-Trafficante group that was busted in 1963 running heroin from Mexico City through Texas also used the torn dollar bill method to identify their conspirators.

According to Antonio Veciana CIA agents used the torn dollar method to identify undercover agents.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested he was found with a torn-in-half box top. Do you think it was possible that he was going meet someone in the movie theater with the other half?

Torn-in-half dollar bills were also found in his apartment. Do you think Oswald was a CIA agent?

(2) “It becomes difficult to prove what anyone is doing. In "confessions" or betrayals it is often circumstantial evidence and guesswork. This results in scapegoating or the creation of false trails. But, and this is a big one, when top people are guilty of "sins". You should look at their "support" structure. For example, a journalist "exposes" wrong doing. It's not the journalist we should investigate for the "leak", but the people who benefits by the leak. In a knife fight at the top, the knives are blackmail and counter-betrayals. The fight ends when the price is paid.”

This is a very good point. I believe the CIA is sometimes behind the discovery of information about agents involved in illegal activities. These agents are nearly always dead and are therefore not in a position to tell their story. This helps to take investigators away from more important agents still alive or senior officials whose reputations they are still protecting. For example, information about David Sanchez Morales can be given up whereas Carl E. Jenkins, who is still alive, is protected.

(3) “Did Ed Wilson supply arms (a couple of rifles) to the Libyans? Most probably, but where did the payments go, who benefits, who supplied?”

Do you really mean “a couple of rifles”? According to the prosecution, it was 42,000 pounds of plastic explosives. As William Kelly has pointed out, Wilson sold “a couple of tons of C4 plastic explosives that have probably killed thousands and are still being used by terrorists all over the world.”

(4) “In Vietnam, who ran Shackley? Obviously the answer ultimately is who "created" a Wilson, or a Chi Chi?" Who had the authority or power to create such powerful agents?”

This is of course the big question. Was Shackley freelancing or did others, higher in the command chain, running the show? Did Shackley use investors for his various illegal activities. For example, according to to Fabian Escalante (The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62), in 1959, Jack Alston Crichton and George H. W. Bush raised funds for the CIA's Operation 40. One would assume that Crichton and Bush got back something in return. We know that by the 1970s Bush was very close to Shackley. Is it possible they were working together in the 1960s?

I am reminded of something Gene Wheaton said in 2002: “Reagan never really was the president. He was the front man. They selected a guy that had charisma, who was popular, and just a good old boy, but they got George Bush in there to actually run the White House. They’d let Ronald Reagan and Nancy out of the closet and let them make a speech and run them up the flagpole and salute them and put them back in the closet while these spooks ran the White House. They made sure that George Bush was the chairman of each of the critical committees involving these covert operations things. One of them was the Vice President’s Task Force On Combating Terrorism. They got Bush in as the head of the vice president’s task force on narcotics, the South Florida Task Force, so that they could place people in DEA and in the Pentagon and in customs to run interference for them in these large-scale international narcotics and movement of narcotics money cases. They got Bush in as the chairman of the committee to deregulate the Savings and Loans in ’83 so they could deregulate the Savings and Loans, so that they would be so loosely structured that they could steal 400, 500 billion dollars of what amounted to the taxpayers’ money out of these Savings and Loans and then bail them out. They got hit twice: they stole the money out of the Savings and Loans, and then they sold the Savings and Loans right back to the same guys, and then the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - the taxpayers money - paid for bailing out the Savings and Loans that they stole the money from and they ran the whole operation, and Bush was the de facto president even before the ‘88 election when he became president.”

(5) “Who had the authority or power to create such a powerful agents? The answer will lead you to people much bigger than Ed. And, why did Ed not defend himself by revealing the things he knew? Can you imagine accepting a lifetime of solitary confinement in prison? Who, or what would be worth that?”

You cannot get more powerful than George H. W. Bush. Wilson of course hinted that he was covering for more powerful figures than himself. The journalist, Diana Wilson wrote: “I talked to Edwin Wilson after he was arrested, indicted and convicted while he was on appeal and in the Marion Illinois prison. I spoke to Wilson by phone on two occasions because I wanted to write a book because I knew some of his employees who "knew" that his operation was "sanctioned" by the CIA. In the early days of Wilson's imprisonment, he was sure that the CIA would not "abandon him" and that it was only a matter of time when the truth would come out.” Why has he not told the story since his release?

(6) “It takes a man who understands that when you start rolling up the net, you will be destroying the fabric of our national security. Perhaps Nixon earned his pardon by silence.”

I suspect it also worked the other way. The full-truth about Nixon was not revealed as long as he remained silent. For example, Nixon’s role in the destroying of George Wallace and Edward Kennedy’s presidential campaigns. To my mind, Watergate was a result of Nixon threatening to expose the illegal activities of the CIA.

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A possible important CIA figure not mentioned is John Denley Walker - does anyone know of him? (David McLean)

World War 2 Navy aviator and CIA operations officer. One of his last assignments was as a liaison officer between the CIA and the HSCA. He died a few years ago.

James

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Some follow up questions:

(1) “For example, and I speak from experience, operatives depend on "keys" to prove that they are dealing with who they can trust. These keys can be as simple as a torn in half business card which can only match perfectly with the other half when presented by the proper person.”

The heroin traffickers in the Mertz-Marcello-Trafficante group that was busted in 1963 running heroin from Mexico City through Texas also used the torn dollar bill method to identify their conspirators.

According to Antonio Veciana CIA agents used the torn dollar method to identify undercover agents.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested he was found with a torn-in-half box top. Do you think it was possible that he was going meet someone in the movie theater with the other half?

Torn-in-half dollar bills were also found in his apartment. Do you think Oswald was a CIA agent? [emphasis added]

[...]

____________________________________

Now that's interesting. I wonder how many matched and/or unmatched halves of dollar bills were found there altogether? Very suspicious "hobby," especially for a man who was so short of money...

--Thomas

____________________________________

Edited by Thomas Graves
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Do you really mean “a couple of rifles”? According to the prosecution, it was 42,000 pounds of plastic explosives. As William Kelly has pointed out, Wilson sold “a couple of tons of C4 plastic explosives that have probably killed thousands and are still being used by terrorists all over the world.”

(4) “In Vietnam, who ran Shackley? Obviously the answer ultimately is who "created" a Wilson, or a Chi Chi?" Who had the authority or power to create such powerful agents?”

This is of course the big question. Was Shackley freelancing or did others, higher in the command chain, running the show? Did Shackley use investors for his various illegal activities. For example, according to to Fabian Escalante (The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62), in 1959, Jack Alston Crichton and George H. W. Bush raised funds for the CIA's Operation 40. One would assume that Crichton and Bush got back something in return. We know that by the 1970s Bush was very close to Shackley. Is it possible they were working together in the 1960s?

Comment from the undercover agent:

Regarding the 22 tons (depending on who you believe ) of explosives (mostly Semtex from the Czechs) is mostly fiction. In the first place there was no source of that much production. And, C4 in such amounts would have left a trail a mile wide.

There is no doubt, of course, about the rifles. Their delivery was with the approval of "see-a".

Correct your report on Ed's cover companies to include Maritime Consultants (a Navy front) and Fed Com Inc, both formerly housed in the Postal Union building near the Capitol They shared a suite with Ed's offices (in those days Ed could travel via the old underground tunnels from the parking garage, into the New Senate Office Building (NSOB) tram system.)

Ed is still under threat of prosecution and at his age, I suspect he will maintain his silence. I think even he would be shocked at who his enemies were...and who now are his defenders. But, John, except for historical research, Ed's story is only part of the prologue.

Note: The VP says very little as expected, but when it comes to listing the real power brokers inside the Beltway, He would top any list. His companies and contacts are such legends that they almost define arrogance.

Gates is a very good chief of shadows, he would be anyone's candidate for Number 2, he should get the vote.

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Regarding the 22 tons (depending on who you believe ) of explosives (mostly Semtex from the Czechs) is mostly fiction. In the first place there was no source of that much production. And, C4 in such amounts would have left a trail a mile wide.

Libya definitely blew up some things with C4 so they got it somewhere.

Ed is still under threat of prosecution and at his age, I suspect he will maintain his silence. I think even he would be shocked at who his enemies were...and who now are his defenders. But, John, except for historical research, Ed's story is only part of the prologue.

If that is the case, Ed Wilson will have to go to the grave knowing that people will believe the official story.

Note: The VP says very little as expected, but when it comes to listing the real power brokers inside the Beltway, He would top any list. His companies and contacts are such legends that they almost define arrogance.

Gates is a very good chief of shadows, he would be anyone's candidate for Number 2, he should get the vote.

I am sure you are right about George H. W. Bush. Will Ed Wilson tell the full story when he dies?

Interesting idea about Gates. Maybe he is being groomed to become the next VP.

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Libya definitely blew up some things with C4 so they got it somewhere.

________________________________________

John,

To use the vernacular, "It don't take much Semtex to "blow up some things," yes?

--Thomas

________________________________________

Edited by Thomas Graves
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I am sure you are right about George H. W. Bush. Will Ed Wilson tell the full story when he dies?

Reply from the undercover agent:

"Regarding Ed Wilson's silence. I believe he will carry his secrets to the grave. I don't think he gives a damn what "people" or the official story says about him. Ed is not about being a historical personage. If I were writing his obit, it would be short and concise...."A Patriot".

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  • 4 months later...

Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep. At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America.

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  • 3 months later...

(4) David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (1994)

On a winter's day, Shackley drove to Capitol Hill for unpleasant business. In Church's office, Levinson and Blum were amused to meet this man. Levinson had heard from his CIA contacts that some spooks referred to the blond fellow sitting across from him as the "Butcher of Laos." He looked more like an uptight businessman-tough, but no secret agent. He was stiff, no-nonsense all the way. He made no small talk. He was there to discuss the ground rules for what would be a historic occasion: the public testimony of a CIA officer.

From: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhecksher.htm

Shackley was called The Butcher? How known is that? Only in inner circles or widely?

Wim

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  • 3 years later...
Guest Tom Scully

In the past I have argued that there are connections between the JFK assassination and Watergate. Recent research has suggested that there are a series of events that are linked together. The key figure in this seems to be Ted Shackley and what has been called his “Secret Team”. ...

....From 1977 until 1979, Richard Armitage operated a business named The Far East Trading Company. This company was, in fact, from 1977 to 1979, merely a "front" for Armitage's secret operations conducting Vang Pao opium money out of Southeast Asia to Tehran and the Nugen-Hand Bank in Australia to fund the ultra right-wing, private anti-communist "anti-terrorist" assassination program and "unconventional warfare" operation of Theodore Shackley's and Thomas Cline's "Secret Team". (Daniel P. Sheehan’s affidavit).

The Secret Team still used the Nugan Hand Bank to hide their illegal profits from drugs and arms. The President of the Nugan Hand Bank was Admiral Earl F. Yates, former Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning of US Forces in Asia. Other directors of the bank included Dale Holmgree (also worked for Civil Air Transport, a CIA proprietary company) and General Edwin F. Black, (commander of U.S. troops in Thailand during the Vietnam War). George Farris (a CIA operative in Vietnam) ran the Washington office of the Nugan Hand Bank and the bank’s legal counsel was William Colby (Joel Bainerman, The Crimes of a President).

The bank grew and had offices or affiliates in 13 countries. However, the bank did little banking. What it did do was to amass, move, collect and disburse great sums of money (Jonathan Kwitny, Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA, Crimes of Patriots).

However, in 1980 Frank Nugan was found dead in his car. His co-founder, Michael Hand had disappeared at the same time. The Australian authorities were forced to investigate the bank. They discovered that Ricardo Chavez, the former CIA operative who was co-owner of API Distributors with Thomas Clines and Raphael Quintero. The Corporate Affairs Commission of New South Wales came to the conclusion that Chavez was working on behalf of Clines, Quintero and Wilson. They blocked the move but they were unable or unwilling to explore the connections between the CIA and the Nugan Hand Bank. ....

While I researched the background of JFK's "best" friend, Charles Bartlett, I wondered why Prescott Bush and Bartlett had teamed up in an effort that resulted in the resignation of the secretary of the Air Force, and a Pulitzer journalism prize for Bartlett.

This past weekend, after researching for more than 18 months the names of the males in the 1955 wedding party of Albert B. Carter, Jr.; a wedding which came to my attention because it came up as a Google news search result of the name "Thomas Devine", who was an usher in that wedding, I focused on an usher's name I had almost ignored, Lt. James K. Donaldson, USMC.

The wedding announcement described Donaldson as the "stepson of James H.", but there was no last name displayed. It turned out that the resignation of the secretary of the Air Force that Charles Bartlett was a catalyst for, opened up an opportunity for Donaldson's stepfather, James H. Douglas, appointed by Eisenhower as secretary of the Air Force in 1957. I posted background on my discovery earlier today, here.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17658&view=findpost&p=225051

...HOURS AFTER HIS DEFEAT, GEORGE RECEIVED A TELEPHONE CALL FROM Washington

columnist Charles Bartlett.

Bartlett lived in Georgetown near Pres(cott)and Dottie (Bush) and had won a Pulitzer Prize

in 1956 for a series of articles on corruption at the Department of Defense. Pres,

who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time, had been a source,

and the two had been friends ever since.

Bartlett has received a tip that Treasury Secretary David Kennedy was....

It also turned out that Douglas's son, Donaldson's stepbrother, John Douglas, maintains his own website and is interested in and has been writing about related matters. ("Elinor" was James K. Donaldson's mother and John Douglas's stepmother. She married James H. Douglas in 1950."):

5702801577_27cbcbea29_z.jpg

http://www.redrat.net/vietnam/bangkok.htm

let's see... the thompson family of wilmington delaware. i recall stories of guests and youth, partying at the US Embassy in the Phillipines in the 1920's, sliding down the stairs on silver paltters after dinner.... Elinor (who was my step-mother) was visiting her ambassador uncle there at the time. i recall too, Elinor (was Jim Thompson's sister) recommending that the Dulles airport be decorated with Siamese Silk (Thaibok) to the head of the FAA. then... Najeeb Haliby (recent head of PanAm, father of Queen Noor... Elinor's god-daughter) .... so much for the context.

(I recently posted about Najeed Haliby, here.):

Just some food for thought....

Najeeb Halaby, father of Lisa Halaby, aka Queen Noor of Jordon.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1&tbs=bks%3A1&q=wisner+%22he+tried+to+hire+away+Najeeb%22&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

The very best men: four who dared : the early years of the CIA - Page 357

Evan Thomas - 1996 - 432 pages - Preview

Wisner worked very long hours. "He would be in at eight and still working at eight, with Polly on the phone, telling him he was late to dinner," said Arthur Jacobs. Wisner could be an enthusiastic schemer. He tried to hire away Najeeb...

http://www.google.com/search?q=jim+thompson&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a#q=Katherine+Thompson+Wood&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aunofficial&sa=X&ei=XVLITeGGD8TJgQezu8TLBA&ved=0CBgQpwUoCw&source=lnt&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A7%2F21%2F1967%2Ccd_max%3A9%2F30%2F1967&tbm=nws&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=bfc638d2affb955f

Police Probe Fatal Beating Of Socialite .

Calgary Herald - Aug 30, 1967

Mrs. Katherine Thompson Wood was found beaten Wednesday in her secluded home She was the sister of James Thompson, the Thailand silk magnate who disappeared ...

http://www.google.com/search?q=jim+thompson&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aunofficial&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A4%2F21%2F1967%2Ccd_max%3A5%2F30%2F1967&tbm=nws&source=hp&q=Edwin+F.+Black&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=bfc638d2affb955f

CLUES ARE SOUGHT ON LOST AMERICAN; Friends Believe Thompson...

$3.95 - New York Times - Apr 29, 1967

Edwin F. Black of the United States Army and hundreds of volunteers-has failed to find Mr. Thompson. Rewards offered for information about him now total ...

Project Hammer - Covert Finance And The Parallel Economy - Red Rat ...

In fact, the precise sum is US$223104000008.03.2 THE NUGAN HAND BANK CONNECTION One of the central characters associated with Project Hammer was Brigadier ...

http://www.redrat.net/thoughts/money/hammer.htm

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  • 4 months later...

David Corn wrote a very good book Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (1995) on the CIA chief, Ted Shackley. Interestingly, his follow-up book, Deep Background (1999), was a novel about the assassination of a president.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcornD.htm

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David Corn wrote a very good book Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (1995) on the CIA chief, Ted Shackley. Interestingly, his follow-up book, Deep Background (1999), was a novel about the assassination of a president.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcornD.htm

In his book The Secret History of the CIA, Joseph Trento writes about Shackley and some of his players in Laos.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3uPBM7z_62gC&pg=PA344&dq=trento+cia+and+the+drug+lords+mongoose&hl=en&ei=fKdrTrL0PMLIgQey3_DXBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

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  • 11 years later...

The last post to this thread was in 2007, but I think  this thread is relevant to today's discussions.  For example , this was said in a post " 

An account of the formation of Operation 40 can be found in the Senate Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. On 11th December, 1959, Colonel J. C. King, chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, sent a confidential memorandum to Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. King argued that in Cuba there existed a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries." (3)

As a result of this memorandum Dulles established Operation 40. It obtained this name because originally there were 40 agents involved in the operation. Later this was expanded to 70 agents. The group was presided over by Richard Nixon. Tracy Barnes became operating officer of what was also called the Cuban Task Force. The first meeting chaired by Barnes took place in his office on 18th January, 1960, and was attended by David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Jack Esterline and Frank Bender.

According to Fabian Escalante, a senior officer of the Cuban Department of State Security (G-2), in 1960 Richard Nixon recruited an "important group of businessmen headed by George Bush (Snr.) and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for the operation". This suggests that Operation 40 agents were involved in freelance work. (4)

In 1990 Common Cause magazine argued that: "The CIA put millionaire and agent George Bush in charge of recruiting exiled Cubans for the CIA’s invading army; Bush was working with another Texan oil magnate, Jack Crichton, who helped him in terms of the invasion." (5) This story was linked to the release of "a memorandum in that context addressed to FBI chief J. Edward Hoover and signed November 1963, which reads: Mr. George Bush of the CIA" (6)

Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo claim that in 1959 George Bush was asked “to cooperate in funding the nascent anti-Castro groups that the CIA decided to create”. The man “assigned to him for his new mission” was Féliz Rodríguez. (7)

Daniel Hopsicker also takes the view that Operation 40 involved private funding. In the book, Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History, he claims that Nixon’s had established Operation 40 as a result of pressure from American corporations which had suffered at the hands of Fidel Castro. (8)

Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin have argued that Bush was very close to members of Operation 40 in the early 1960s. In September, 1963, Bush launched his Senate campaign. At that time, right-wing Republicans were calling on John Kennedy to take a more aggressive approach towards Fidel Castro. For example, in one speech Barry Goldwater said: “I advocate the recognition of a Cuban government in exile and would encourage this government every way to reclaim its country. This means financial and military assistance.” Bush took a more extreme position than Goldwater and called for a “new government-in-exile invasion of Cuba”. As Tarpley and Chaitkin point out, beneficiaries of this policy would have been “Theodore Shackley, who was by now the station chief of CIA Miami Station, Felix Rodriguez, Chi Chi Quintero, and the rest of the boys” from Operation 40. (9)

Paul Kangas is another investigator who has claimed that George Bush was involved with members of Operation 40. In an article published in The Realist in 1990, Kangas claims: "Among other members of the CIA recruited by George Bush for (the attacks on Cuba) were Frank Sturgis, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Rafael Quintero.” In an article published in Granma in January, 2006, the journalists Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo argued that “Another of Bush’s recruits for the Bay of Pigs invasion, Rafael Quintero, who was also part of this underworld of organizations and conspiracies against Cuba, stated: If I was to tell what I know about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the greatest scandal that has ever rocked the nation." (10)

Fabian Escalante names William Pawley as being one of those who was lobbying for the CIA to assassinate Castro. (11) Escalante points out that Pawley had played a similar role in the CIA overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala. Interestingly, the CIA assembled virtually the same team that was involved in the removal of Arbenz: Tracey Barnes, Richard Bissell, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Rip Robertson and Henry Hecksher. Added to this list was several agents who had been involved in undercover operations in Germany: Ted Shackley, Tom Clines and William Harvey.

According to Daniel Hopsicker, Edwin Wilson, Barry Seal, William Seymour, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Hemming were also involved in Operation 40. (12) It has also been pointed out that Operation 40 was not only involved in trying to overthrow Fidel Castro. Frank Sturgis has claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents."

Virtually every one of the field agents of Operation 40 were Cubans. This included Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Felix Ismael Rodriguez, Antonio Veciana, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra. (13)

Most of these characters had been associated with the far-right in Cuban politics. Rumours soon became circulating that it was not only Fidel Castro that was being targeted. On 9th June, 1961, Arthur Schlesinger sent a memo to Richard Goodwin:

“Sam Halper, who has been the Times correspondent in Havana and more recently in Miami, came to see me last week. He has excellent contracts among the Cuban exiles. One of Miro's comments this morning reminded me that I have been meaning to pass on the following story as told me by Halper. Halper says that CIA set up something called Operation 40 under the direction of a man named (as he recalled) Captain Luis Sanjenis, who was also chief of intelligence. (Could this be the man to whom Miro referred this morning?) It was called Operation 40 because originally only 40 men were involved: later the group was enlarged to 70. The ostensible purpose of Operation 40 was to administer liberated territories in Cuba. But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism. The liberal Cuban exiles believe that the real purpose of Operation 40 was to "kill Communists" and, after eliminating hard-core Fidelistas, to go on to eliminate first the followers of Ray, then the followers of Varona and finally to set up a right wing dictatorship, presumably under Artime.” (14)

In an interview he gave to Jean-Guy Allard in May, 2005, Fabian Escalante pointed out: “Who in 1963 had the resources to assassinate Kennedy? Who had the means and who had the motives to kill the U.S. president? CIA agents from Operation 40 who were rabidly anti-Kennedy. And among them were Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Antonio Veciana and Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia." (15)

This is not the first time that Fabian Escalante has pointed the finger at members of Operation 40. In December, 1995, Wayne Smith, chief of the Centre for International Policy in Washington, arranged a meeting on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in Nassau, Bahamas. Others in attendance were Gaeton Fonzi, Dick Russell, Noel Twyman, Anthony Summers, Peter Dale Scott, Jeremy Gunn, John Judge, Andy Kolis, Peter Kornbluh, Mary and Ray LaFontaine, Jim Lesar, John Newman, Alan Rogers, Russ Swickard, Ed Sherry, and Gordon Winslow. During a session on 7th December, Escalante claimed that during captivity, Antonio Cuesta, confessed that he had been involved in the assassination of Kennedy. He also named Eladio Del Valle, Rolando Masferrer and Hermino Diaz Garcia as being involved in this operation. All four men were members of Operation 40. (16)

It has been argued that people like Fabian Escalante, Jean Guy Allard, Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo are under the control of the Cuban government. It is definitely true that much of this information has originally been published in Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party.

Is there any other evidence to suggest that members of Operation 40 were involved in the assassination? I believe that there are several pieces of evidence that help to substantiate Escalante’s theory.

Shortly before his death in 1975 John Martino confessed to a Miami Newsday reporter, John Cummings, that he had been guilty of spreading false stories implicating Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of Kennedy. He claimed that two of the gunmen were Cuban exiles. It is believed the two men were Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez. Cummings added: "He told me he'd been part of the assassination of Kennedy. He wasn't in Dallas pulling a trigger, but he was involved. He implied that his role was delivering money, facilitating things.... He asked me not to write it while he was alive." (17)

Fred Claasen also told the House Select Committee on Assassinations what he knew about his business partner’s involvement in the case. Martino told Classen: “The anti-Castro people put Oswald together. Oswald didn’t know who he was working for – he was just ignorant of who was really putting him together. Oswald was to meet his contact at the Texas Theatre. They were to meet Oswald in the theatre, and get him out of the country, then eliminate him. Oswald made a mistake… There was no way we could get to him. They had Ruby kill him.” (18)

Florence Martino at first refused to corroborate the story. However, in 1994 she told Anthony Summers that her husband said to her on the morning of 22nd November, 1963: "Flo, they're going to kill him (Kennedy). They're going to kill him when he gets to Texas." (19)

Herminio Diaz Garcia and Virgilio Gonzalez were both members of Operation 40. So also was Rip Robertson who according to Anthony Summers “was a familiar face at his (John Martino) home. Summers also points out that Martino was close to William Pawley and both took part in the “Bayo-Pawley Affair”. (20) This anti-Castro mission, also known as Operation Tilt, also involved other members of Operation 40, including Virgilio Gonzalez and Eugenio Martinez.

There is another key CIA figure in Operation 40 who has made a confession concerning the assassination of John Kennedy. David Morales was head of operations at JM/WAVE, the CIA Miami station, at the time of the assassination. Gaeton Fonzi carried out a full investigation of Morales while working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Unfortunately, Morales could not testify before the HSCA because he died of a heart attack on 8th May, 1978.

Fonzi tracked down Ruben Carbajal, a very close friend of Morales. Carbajal saw Morales the night before he died. He also visited Morales in hospital when he received news of the heart attack. Carbajal is convinced that Morales was killed by the CIA. Morales had told Carbajal the agency would do this if you posed a threat to covert operations. Morales, a heavy drinker, had a reputation for being indiscreet when intoxicated. On 4th August 1973, Morales allowed himself to be photographed by Kevin Scofield of the Arizona Republic at the El Molino restaurant. When the photograph appeared in the newspaper the following day, it identified Morales as Director for Operations Counterinsurgency and Special Activities in Washington.

Carbajal put Fonzi in contact with Bob Walton, a business associate of Morales. Walton confirmed Carbajal’s account that Morales feared being killed by the CIA. On one occasion he told him: “I know too much”. Walton also told him about a discussion he had with Morales about John F. Kennedy in the spring of 1973. Walton had done some volunteer work for Kennedy’s Senatorial campaign. When hearing this news, Morales launched an attack on Kennedy, describing him as a wimp who had betrayed the anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. He ended up by saying: “Well, we took care of that son of a bitch, didn’t we?” Carbajal, who was also present at this meeting, confirmed Walton’s account of what Morales said. (21)

Another important piece of evidence comes from Gene Wheaton. In 1995 Gene Wheaton approached the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) with information on the death of Kennedy. Anne Buttimer, Chief Investigator of the ARRB, recorded that: " Wheaton told me that from 1984 to 1987 he spent a lot of time in the Washington DC area and that starting in 1985 he was "recruited into Ollie North's network" by the CIA officer he has information about. He got to know this man and his wife, a "'super grade high level CIA officer" and kept a bedroom in their Virginia home. His friend was a Marine Corps liaison in New Orleans and was the CIA contact with Carlos Marcello. He had been responsible for "running people into Cuba before the Bay of Pigs." His friend is now 68 or 69 years of age... Over the course of a year or a year and one-half his friend told him about his activities with training Cuban insurgency groups. Wheaton said he also got to know many of the Cubans who had been his friend's soldiers/operatives when the Cubans visited in Virginia from their homes in Miami. His friend and the Cubans confirmed to Wheaton they assassinated JFK. Wheaton's friend said he trained the Cubans who pulled the triggers. Wheaton said the street level Cubans felt JFK was a traitor after the Bay of Pigs and wanted to kill him. People "above the Cubans" wanted JFK killed for other reasons." (22)

It was later revealed that Wheaton's friend was Carl E. Jenkins, A senior CIA officer, Jenkins had been appointed in 1960 as Chief of Base for Cuban Project. In 1963 Jenkins provided paramilitary training for Manuel Artime and Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero and other members of the Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution (MRR). In an interview with William Law and Mark Sobel in the summer of 2005, Gene Wheaton claimed that Jenkins and Quintero were both involved in the assassination of Kennedy.

It seems that members of Operation 40, originally recruited to remove Fidel Castro, had been redirected to kill Kennedy. That someone had paid this team of assassins to kill the president of the United States as part of a freelance operation. This is not such a far-fetched idea when you consider that in 1959 Richard Nixon was approaching oilmen like George Walker Bush and Jack Crichton to help fund Operation 40. We also have the claim of Frank Sturgis that "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents.""

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Chuck - I agree this was an important thread. Wheaton must have been talking to Daniel Sheehan in the late 1980’s, because when I wrote my Iran Contra cards I received everything the Christic Institute had dug up for their lawsuit, and among the nuggets was that same Quintero quote, which I used in the cards. I’m not actually convinced that the shooters were Cubans, but am pretty much on board with the idea that Shackley and Harvey were involved. 

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