Parrot Jungle Incident

[Larry Hancock]

Bill, the first part is correct, he had worked in the Havana casino's and had been helped enter the company by McClaney . At the time of the incident he was reported staying in one of McClaney's

Miami properties, that is in the reports. I have never seen anything that linked him to the abortive air attack that was going to be made with the cache of explosives from the trailer at

McClaney's brothers outside New Orleans though. If you have SWHT you will find some further detail on him but he appears to have been more a Casino worker who would have been hanging

and gossiping with some of the more activist exiles McClaney was paying to put together some raids...all of which aborted or got busted via informant feeds to the FBI, the McClaney exile crowd

seems to have been especially loose lipped.

Anything putting the fellow in Louisiana would be interesting and certainly new to me...

[William Kelly]

Bill, the first part is correct, he had worked in the Havana casino's and had been helped enter the company by McClaney . At the time of the incident he was reported staying in one of McClaney's

Miami properties, that is in the reports. I have never seen anything that linked him to the abortive air attack that was going to be made with the cache of explosives from the trailer at

McClaney's brothers outside New Orleans though. If you have SWHT you will find some further detail on him but he appears to have been more a Casino worker who would have been hanging

and gossiping with some of the more activist exiles McClaney was paying to put together some raids...all of which aborted or got busted via informant feeds to the FBI, the McClaney exile crowd

seems to have been especially loose lipped.

Anything putting the fellow in Louisiana would be interesting and certainly new to me...

Thanks Larry, I'll check my source on his being at Wm. McLaney's place in Louisiana.

Hope to see you in Dallas in November,

BK

[Larry Hancock]

Hi Bill, I'm looking forward to Dallas too and surely we should be able to connect, not like there will be crowds or anything...grin.

As to some further background, we know he was in Miami on Nov. 11 which is when the Parrot Jungle incident occurred, the report says he was

working as a bellhop at the Fountainbleau - McClaney had gotten him the job - he had worked for McClaney in Havana. It also says he was a

recent exile and was living at the McClaney estate on Pine Tree Drive in Miami.

Now depending on what recent means I suppose he could have been in La. that summer but it sounds more like he had emigrated directly

into the U.S. via Miami and had not been floating around all that long.

[William Kelly]

JFKCountercoup2: Parrot Jungle Incident - Jorge Soto Martinez

From the Cuban - exile Archives:

http://jfkassassinationlegacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/m.html

MARTINEZ SOTO, JORGE
DOB: 2/15/28. POB: Havana, Cuba. Granted a US resident visa at U.S. Embassy, Havana, on June 28, 1960. Arrived Miami via Pan Am Airways July 21, 1960. His "sponsor" was Michael J. McLaney, 4855 Pine Tree Dr., Miami Beach, FL.
CD 829, pp. 1-9

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_101-125/doc0122.html

The Parrot Jungle incident involved different characters. Initial information in this case came from former Dade Circuit Judge Alfonso Sepe, whom I contacted about the Milteer tape.

During our discussion, Sepe revealed a "super-secret investigation" he had directed as assistant state attorney in 1967. He had initiated it because of exciting information he received from a friend.

What he discovered was disturbing. In sworn testimony taken by Sepe, Mrs. Lillian Spingler, an employee of the Parrot Jungle gift shop in 1963, told how a Cuban man had entered the shop in late autumn and "initiated a conversation with her in which he stated that he could write with both hands simultaneously and that he was a sharpshooter. This Cuban male allegedly told Mrs. Spingler that he had a friend named Lee who could speak Russian and German and was living in Texas or Mexico, and that Lee was also a sharpshooter. Mrs. Spingler told some friends, but the conversation she had with the Cuban male was passed off until the night of President Kennedy's assassination (22 days later) when Mrs. Spingler was riding in a car with her husband, a close friend and a relative from New Jersey, on their way back from Key West to Miami. Mrs. Spingler said that before she heard the name of the President's assassination, she remarked that she knew who the assassin was. Because she had told several friends, the incident was reported to the FBI.

"I interrogated Mrs. (Ruth) Bastholm, Mr. (William) Vander Wyden (Mrs. Spingler's boss at Parrot Jungle), and Mrs. (Aliese) Trigg. Mrs. Trigg remembered learning of Spingler's conversation from Mrs. Spingler prior to the assassination, and corroborated to some degree Mrs. Spingler's version."

He also said he hated the President and "could shoot Kennedy between the eyes."

Sepe said the incident was relayed to the FBI in late December 1963 when Mrs. Spingler called them. After a quick investigation, FBI agent in charge, James O'Connor told her to "just drop it and not mention it." Mrs. Spingler is still taking O'Connor's advice and has refused to comment, saying only, "They told me not to talk about it. Goodby." The FBI would say nothing.

The investigation the FBI conducted bears examining. Several months after the threat relayed by Mrs. Spingler, the man who made the threat was identified when he returned to the Parrot Jungle and was spotted. Alertly, Parrot Jungle employees wrote down the license number of his car. They informed the FBI.

Several weeks passed before Special Agent O'Connor called Mrs. Spingler to tell her that he had in custody Jorge Soto Martinez. O'Connor told her that Martinez, at the time of the threat, had been employed as a Fontainebleau Hotel bellhop.

Martinez didn't deny having a conversation with Mrs. Spingler. He did deny making threats against the President or saying he knew Lee Oswald.

From Sepe's report: "Agent O'Connor asked Mrs. Spingler if she wanted to come to the FBI office and identify the man. Agent O'Connor and Mrs. Spingler both state that Mrs. Spingler refused to go to the FBI office to identify Martinez because she was afraid of personal harm." Still, O'Connor was satisfied the Mr. Martinez was not involved in an attempt to assassinate President Kennedy and did not know Oswald. So the FBI closed its investigation.

In 1967, Sepe threw some light on the FBI's earlier report. He called O'Connor and received the opinion that Martinez had nothing to do with the assassination. O'Connor offered the theory that Mrs. Spingler had "exaggerated the conversation she had with Martinez and that in all probability (had) misunderstood Martinez when he said that he would like to kill Castro." O'Connor also obligingly pointed out that because of Martinez' heavy accent, Mrs. Spingler thought Martinez said "Lee," when he had said "he."

"Lee" could certainly be mistaken for "he," but "Kennedy" doesn't rhyme with "Castro," even when spoken with an accent. Or by an FBI man.

In her statement to Sepe, Mrs. Spingler reasserted her belief that she had heard Martinez correctly. "I know – was sure he said Lee because I associated General Lee with it . . . That's my way of remembering, like ‘He's a sharpshooter, General Lee,' you know."

Mrs. Spingler told Sepe she had never been contacted by anyone representing the Warren Commission. "Mr. Conley (sic) told me to forget it all and I figured, well, I told what I knew to the FBI. If they want to further investigate it, then do it. I was just following his instructions."
Curiously, the FBI never even had her identify the man she saw. She was shown some pictures of possible suspects, but never one the could identify. Sepe asked her if she was certain the FBI had picked up the man she had talked to.

"I really don't know for sure," she replied. "It didn't even dawn on me until now that you are questioning me. I just had the license number and I never met him again or saw his picture."

Sepe probed, trying to learn how the FBI had identified the man they had picked up. He asked Mrs. Spingler why she hadn't gone to the FBI office and identified him through a one-way mirror. She answered that the agent-in-charge had never suggested it.

Mrs. Spingler finally identified Martinez as the man she had talked to, in 1967, when Sepe located Martinez and obtained a photo.

Martinez was totally cooperative during Sepe's investigation, even submitting to a lie detector examination. During the test, he denied all Mrs. Spingler's allegations. Warren Holmes, nationally recognized polygraph expert, determined that Martinez probably was telling the truth "with the exception that in a temperamental outburst to Mrs. Spingler, (he) might have said some unkind things about President Kennedy which he had originally denied to (Sepe). Specifically, he showed deception in his denial to the question: "Did you tell the woman at the Parrot Jungle that you were going to Washington and shoot the President between the eyes?" He later admitted to Holmes, following the examination, that he recalled making some stupid statement like that . . . He stated he had a habit of shooting his mouth off, but vehemently denied mentioning the name of Lee."

Sepe still thinks Mrs. Spingler was truthful in her statements concerning Martinez.

If the FBI had chosen to check into Martinez' life more thoroughly, his alleged remarks might have been taken more seriously.

Martinez had gotten his job at the Fontainebleau because of a plug given him by a Mike McLaney. McLaney had been Martinez' employer in Havana. He had hired Martinez to clean out slot machines at the casino he operated at the Nacional Hotel. When Castro banned gambling, both McLaney and Martinez fled to Miami. McLaney lived in a houseboat docked across Collins Avenue from the Fontainebleau and prevailed on them to help get Martinez a job. Both McLaney and Ken Humphreys, Martinez' boss at the Fontainbleau, confirmed McLaney's role in the hiring.

Told of the allegations against Martinez, McLaney said that he knew nothing about any assassination plot and offered his impression of Martinez. "George (Jorge) wouldn't harm Mickey Mouse. He has the courage of a little less than a mouse. It's startling to me to hear this." He said he doesn't know where Martinez is now. I made repeated efforts to locate Martinez to no avail.

Do the tangled facts that surround both the Milteer and Martinez incidents mean anything? Perhaps not, but the fact that they were never sufficiently explained is unsettling.

There are numerous implications that have been raised by this investigation. Ponder this list of questions that still need answers.....

-Why did the Warren Commission report fail to mention this Miami connection?
-Why did the FBI tell Mrs. Spingler to forget about the Parrot Jungle incident and not to mention it to anyone?
-Why do Warren Commission files fail to make mention of it?

Sepe thinks the Martinez incident is important. "It is far more significant in hindsight than it was at the time," he believes. "So man facts have surfaced, and so much intrigue has been suggested, that gives rise to challenges to the authenticity and thoroughness of the Warren Commission investigation. I believe a new investigation is fully warranted, and all record should be unsealed and everybody who has any relevant information should be questioned exhaustively.

Edited August 14, 2013 by William Kelly

[Chris Newton]

Is this just a coincidence or could this be the same person (or a relation)?:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/marysdb/showRec.do?id=9734

A Record from Mary Ferrell's Database Record: VASQUEZ, ANTONIO SOTO Sources: New Orleans Times Picayune, 8/1/63; HSCA Reel 56, Box 32, Folder C, D (AMKW 32) Mary's
Comments: Cuban "sponsored" by Mike McLaney when he entered United States. He was picked up by FBI in LaCombe raid on McLaney property. See Antonio SOTO Vasquez.

[Larry Hancock]

First off, with the US arrival date Bill posted I think we can write Soto Martiniz out of La. or at least specifically out of the abortive McClaney sponsored bombing raid given that the trailer with the explosives for that which was raided on the McClaney farm on July 31. McClaney had been very active with a number of exiles that summer, trying to stage raids against Cuba - exactly why is unclear but several of those he contacted, such as Carlos Hernandez, were well placed in the DRE. Things get confusing because apparently his brothers property was being used by a number of people...I go into that in some detail in SWHT ....Chris's guy above would have been involved in a separate incident from that of the explosives in the U Haul and the "childish and incompetent" bombing plan...as described by Hernandez who was a pilot. McClaney really did not have the experience for this sort of thing and attracted a small following more with money than anything else.

On the other hand, some of the individuals who did spend some time in his plans and who did travel from Miami to New Orleans and back that summer, such as Victor Hernandez, are some of my main suspects in carrying word back to Miami about Oswald's high visibility activities in New Orleans. My suspicion is that Soto Martinez heard some of those same guys talking about Oswald and just repeated it while attempting to chat up Lillian. I've always considered it to be a major per-assassination lead, confirming that Oswald was known and even being gossiped about in some detail by certain exiles in Miami with connections to multiple groups including both DRE and Alpha 66. I should also note that McClaney had a documented connection to Roy Hargraves, and if anyone has not researched Hargraves, you should

Of course what Soto Martinez would not have known was that some of them had decided to put Oswald into play as a patsy, as early as September.

Finally another source on all this is Dan Christienson, a Miami reporter who did a great deal of follow on work with all parties involved, bottom line is that the FBI clearly backed away from this lead as they did with several others....since it didn't involve any direct contact with Lee Oswald and could not be used to make a case against him it simply was not in line with the Hoover directive on focusing on and making a case against Oswald.

[Thomas Graves]

JOSE JURAZ

The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy by William W. Turner

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:dCWCdu...=clnk&gl=us

ON AUGUST 1, 1963 the front page of the States-Item carried two news stories which, Garrison asserts, symbolize the bitter end of the paramilitary right's tolerance of John F. Kennedy. "A-Treaty Signing Set On Monday" was the lead to one story, disclosing that the test ban treaty was about to become reality and that a NATO-Warsaw bloc nonaggression pact was in the wind.

"Explosives Cache Home Lent to Cuban, Says Owner's Wife," announced the lead to another story, telling of an FBI raid on a military training site and arms cache on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. Agents had seized more than a ton of dynamite, 20 100-pound bomb casings, fuses, napalm ingredients and other war material.

The whipsaw developments -- Kennedy's patent determination to effect a rapprochement with the communist nations on the one hand, his crackdown under the Neutrality Act on anti-Castro paramilitary groups on the other -- triggered a rage against the President that would find vent in his assassination.

The true nature of the group raided at Lake Pontchartrain was not evident from the story. The FBI announced no arrests, and the wife of the property owner, Mrs. William J. McLaney, gave out the cover story that the premises had been loaned to a newly-arrive Cuban named Jose Juarez as a favor to friends in Cuba.

(McLaney had been well-known as a gambler associated with the Tropicana Hotel in Havana before being ousted by Castro in 1960.)

http://hum.uchicago.edu/~jagoldsm/Papers/J..._NewOrleans.pdf

Paramilitary training in Louisiana

Gerry Patrick Hemming and Frank Sturgis, operating under the aegis of the New Orleans branch of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), established a military training camp for Cuban exiles in 1962, used variously by "the DRE, the 30th of November Movement and the MIRR"22, all associated with Paulino Sierra. It was located near Lacombe, LA, outside of New Orleans and just north of Lake Pontchartrain. It was set up by Gerry Patrick Hemming and Frank Sturgis, and it was being used by the MDC [Christian Democratic Movement] at the time, under the leadership of Laureano Batista.23 One of the instructors was David Ferrie.24

Mid-July saw new recruits and arms coming in from Florida.25 This was on a property controlled by William Julius McLaney.26 There was a raid on the explosives on July 31, 1963 in which large quantities of dynamite, 100-pound aerial bomb casings, and related military materiel

22 22The Fish is Red 201

23 23The Fish is Red 201

24 24Summers, Conspiracy, 346.

25 25Summers, Conspiracy, 346.

26 26William Julius McLaney himself had investments in Cuban gambling before the Castro revolution; he was also the brother of Mike McLaney, who had sponsored the bombing effort scotched by Customs the month before.

27 There is evidence, described by Dick Russell (The Man Who Knew Too Much, pp. 408ff), that Richard Case Nagell was sent by Tracy Barnes during this period to infiltrate and investigate the Lake Pontchartrain training base. At this point, Nagell apparently was no longer able to contact his CIA case officer (who was, according to Robert Morrow, Tracy Barnes); Nagell then sent the information that he had uncovered to the FBI. Nagell was focusing on two Cubans whose code names were Leopoldo and Angelo (or Angel), who were by August 20 still in New Orleans. These may be the same two Cubans who used those names when visiting Sylvia Odio (see below).….were seized.27 Eleven men were detained, but they were released without being formally arrested.

Among the men were:

v Sam Benton (who was "Mike McLaney's go-between with the mob-financed Cuban exiles"28; ïnvolved in dealing with stolen securities and other securities closely associated with...gamblers in Miami."29

v Rich Lauchli, cofounder of the Minutemen, and an arms merchant from Illinois who had sold guns to the provisional government of Paulino Sierra Martinez 30

"More than a ton of dynamite, 20 bomb casings three-feet long, napalm (fire-bomb) material and other devices were seized Wednesday by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in a rest area in St. Tammany Parish, between Mandeville and Lacombe," the Times-Picayune wrote.

McLaney's wife claimed that the property was on loan to a Cuban known as Jose Juarez.31

The training camp nearby shut down its operations shortly thereafter, an operation in which Carlos Bringuier assisted.32

Jose Juarez

NARA

124-10260-10194

124-109060-7437

The guy at the Parrot Jungle was identified and turned out to be a Cuban who had worked in the Havana casinos and knew Mike McLaney and stayed at the home of his brother William on Lake Pon in La,, is that right?

Dear Mr. Kelly,

Did you know that the first link in your post is nonfunctional? Is there anything you can do to "revitalize" it? Thank you!

Also, I thought I would inform the other members and guests that your second link goes to part (of a part) of a "Course on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" taught by linguist and computer scientist John A. Goldsmith at the University of Chicago in the Spring of 1994 and the Spring of 1995. Here's a link to his text for the whole course:

http://hum.uchicago.edu/jagoldsm/Papers/JFK/JFK.html

Note: Professor Goldsmith's "Chapter 10: The Garrison Investigation and its Critics" can be found by clicking on the following link:

http://hum.uchicago.edu/jagoldsm/Papers/JFK/

Sincerely,

--Tommy

Edited August 15, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

First off, with the US arrival date Bill posted I think we can write Soto Martiniz out of La. or at least specifically out of the abortive McClaney sponsored bombing raid given that the trailer with the explosives for that which was raided on the McClaney farm on July 31. McClaney had been very active with a number of exiles that summer, trying to stage raids against Cuba - exactly why is unclear but several of those he contacted, such as Carlos Hernandez, were well placed in the DRE. Things get confusing because apparently his brothers property was being used by a number of people...I go into that in some detail in SWHT ....Chris's guy above would have been involved in a separate incident from that of the explosives in the U Haul and the "childish and incompetent" bombing plan...as described by Hernandez who was a pilot. McClaney really did not have the experience for this sort of thing and attracted a small following more with money than anything else.

On the other hand, some of the individuals who did spend some time in his plans and who did travel from Miami to New Orleans and back that summer, such as Victor Hernandez, are some of my main suspects in carrying word back to Miami about Oswald's high visibility activities in New Orleans. My suspicion is that Soto Martinez heard some of those same guys talking about Oswald and just repeated it while attempting to chat up Lillian. I've always considered it to be a major per-assassination lead, confirming that Oswald was known and even being gossiped about in some detail by certain exiles in Miami with connections to multiple groups including both DRE and Alpha 66. I should also note that McClaney had a documented connection to Roy Hargraves, and if anyone has not researched Hargraves, you should

Of course what Soto Martinez would not have known was that some of them had decided to put Oswald into play as a patsy, as early as September.

Finally another source on all this is Dan Christienson, a Miami reporter who did a great deal of follow on work with all parties involved, bottom line is that the FBI clearly backed away from this lead as they did with several others....since it didn't involve any direct contact with Lee Oswald and could not be used to make a case against him it simply was not in line with the Hoover directive on focusing on and making a case against Oswald.

Larry,

Regarding this thread, my guess is that some overly-influential researchers have, in the past, confused Jorge Soto Martinez (who was at Parrot Jungle) with Antonio Soto Vasquez (who was apparently arrested at Lacombe, Louisiana on July 31, 1963). I say this because I noticed that A. J. Weberman, in his Nodule 12, seems to confuse them when he says (in the section titled William Julius McLaney), "Jorge Soto Martinez was one of 11 men who were interrogated by the FBI about the [training] camp [at Lacombe]," but then a little bit further down (in the section titled Arrested at Lacombe) Weberman says, "John Koch Gene, Sam Benton, Richard Lauchuli, Earl J. Wassem, Jr., Ralph Folkerts, Victor Espinosa, Carlos Eduardo Hernandez Sanchez, Acela Pedro Amores, Miguel Alvarez Jimenez, Antonio Soto Vasquez, [and] Victor Panque [were the 11 men arrested at Lacombe]."

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/weberman/nodule12.htm

Sincerely,

--Tommy

Edited August 15, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[Larry Hancock]

I'd say you were right on Tommy....and unfortunately the FBI does it fairly routinely as well. Very dangerous to convert three and four word names to one or two as we are

more familiar with, often leads to confusion...well that and the fact that the name Hernandez was apparently as common as the name Smith used to be...

[Chris Newton]

Not to muddy the waters here or anything... but this may be the source of the confusion, see item 53 on the second document I posted, this is excerpted pages (I've included the first and last page for citation reasons only) from a G. Robert Blakey memo to the CIA:

(Note red underline mine - CN)

And to further Identify who this guy might have been (again red underline mine) :

Edited August 15, 2013 by Chris Newton

[Thomas Graves]

Not to muddy the waters here or anything... but this may be the source of the confusion, see item 51 on the second document I posted, this is excerpted pages (I've included the first and last page for citation reasons only) from a G. Robert Blakey memo to the CIA:

(Note red underline mine - CN)

And to further Identify who this guy might have been (again red underline mine) :

Chris,

Yep.

(Item 53.)

Blakey messed up by combining the names of Jorge Soto Martinez (Parrot Jungle) and Antonio Soto Vasquez (LaCombe, LA) to get the fantasy name of "Jorge Antonio Martinez Soto." What a joke.

Thanks,

--Tommy

[Chris Newton]

Chris,

Yep.

(Item 53.)

Blakey messed up by combining the names of Jorge Soto Martinez (Parrot Jungle) and Antonio Soto Vasquez (LaCombe, LA) to get the fantasy name of "Jorge Antonio Martinez Soto." What a joke.

Thanks,

--Tommy

Tommy,

I'm not convinced yet that it isn't the same guy.

[Thomas Graves]

Chris,

Yep.

(Item 53.)

Blakey messed up by combining the names of Jorge Soto Martinez (Parrot Jungle) and Antonio Soto Vasquez (LaCombe, LA) to get the fantasy name of "Jorge Antonio Martinez Soto." What a joke.

Thanks,

--Tommy

Tommy,

I'm not convinced yet that it isn't the same guy.

Chris,

Here's some 1961 CIA biographical information on former pilot Antonio Soto Vasquez (aka Antonio Vasquez) from an 18-page file on him:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=111330&relPageId=4

It's interesting that so much info about him on the other pages has been redacted.

--Tommy

PS Note the warning card on page 3 of the file. I know that "CI" stands for Counterintelligence. I wonder what "OA" means?

Edited August 15, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

I know that "CI" stands for Counterintelligence. I wonder what "OA" means?

The entire acronym "CI/OA" represents the "Counter Intelligence /Operation Approval Branch".

My understanding of this is when a subject/person is desired to be used as a CIA asset for an operation, a form (1050 - Personal Record Questionnaire) is submitted to the CI/OA for approval.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Chris Newton

[Robert Howard]

This document might be pertinent....It is from circa July, 1966.....

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=62388&relPageId=90