Tony Sforza

[John Simkin]

In a letter sent to John R. Tunheim in 1994, Bradley Ayers claimed that he believed that the following " have intimate operational knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assassination" of John F. Kennedy: Theodore Shackley, Grayston Lynch, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, Gordon Campbell, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Edward Roderick and Tony Sforza.

I would be grateful for any information anyone has on Tony Sforza.

http://www.namebase.org/xsen/Anthony-J-Sforza.html

The namebase entry for Sforza:

Cuba 1959-1962 Chile 1970 Mexico 1970-1971

Assn. Former Intelligence Officers. Membership Directory. 1983

Atlantic Monthly 1982-12 (45-6, 55-6)

Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (261-2, 302)

Fonzi,G. The Last Investigation. 1993 (384)

[John Simkin]

As the Namebase entry suggests, there is not much on Tony Sforza. However, he definitely seems a person worth investigating. Sforza was was based in Cuba in 1959. He lived in Havana under the cover of working as a professional gambler and developed contacts with the Mafia in Cuba. A close associate of Theodore Shackley he was based at JM/WAVE in the early 1960s and worked as a paramilitary agent with Grayston Lynch and Rip Robertson.

In 1970 Sforza served in Chile. According to David Corn (Blond Ghost), Sforza worked with General Roberto Viaux in the overthrow of Salvador Allende. Corn quotes a memo written by fellow agent, John Murray, that Sforza and Bruce MacMaster, took part in a mission "to help create a situation which would encourage the Chilean military to activate a military takeover of the Chilean government."

Sforza moved to Mexico in 1971. Bruce MacMaster, a veteran CIA operative, claimed that Sforza had exploited "Agency pouches to ship contraband" and "had sent a large package of hard-core pornography to the Mexico City station".

In May, 1973, John Murray, chief of the CIA station in Mexico City, sent documents to Theodore Shackley that Tony Sforza was involved in the assassination of General Rene Schneider in Chile. Shackley did nothing with this material and instead sent Murray to be chief of station in Jamaica.

In his book, The Last Investigation, Gaeton Fonzi quotes Ruben Carbajal as saying that Sforza was very close to David Morales. According to Carbajal, both men admitted that "they killed men for the agency". Fonzi also saw a CIA document that stated "Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous".

After leaving the CIA Tony Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami. Like David Morales Sforza died in 1978 of a heart-attack before being interviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

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

[James Richards]

John,

There is a CIA man still living who would have information on Sforza. His name is Don Winters and he is known for being open regarding his time with the Agency.

For anyone who wants to put the time in to contact Winters, may indeed be rewarded.

FWIW.

James

[John Simkin]

Bruce MacMaster is someone who is closely associated with Tony Sforza:

http://www.namebase.org/xmac/Bruce-Macmaster.html

Nicaragua 1962-1966 Dominican Rep 1966-1968 Mexico 1968-1971 Chile 1970 Guatemala 1971-1974

Atlantic Monthly 1982-12 (55-6)

Corn,D. Blond Ghost. 1994 (261-2, 302)

Hitchens,C. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. 2001 (64)

Neuberger,G. Opperskalski,M. CIA in Mittelamerika. 1983 (193)

Neuberger,G. Press Conference in Costa Rica. 1981-11-05

State Dept. Biographic Register. 1973

[John Simkin]

Christopher Barger, memorandum to Jeremy Gunn (18th May, 1995)

I interviewed former US Army captain and CIA employee Bradley Ayers on May 12, 1995, at Ayers' home in Woodbury, Minnesota. The interview lasted from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. The following is a summary and report of the interview...

Q. Did Morales ever try and pass himself off as Cuban?

A. Not to Ayers' knowledge, but "he could easily pass for Cuban." Morales was allegedly a very good actor, and "could pull off lots of roles." Here the conversation drifted into a discussion of David Morales and his emotional makeup. Ayers charged that Morales was a "mean" man who "paraded around the station like a tyrant." Everyone was apparently afraid of him. Morales hung with what Ayers called the "circle" - Morales, Roselli, Tony Sforza, Manuel Artime and Rip Robertson. The four were drinking buddies and of like mind on politics. Ayers said they were vicious, too. "If anyone put together a sniper team to hit the President, Morales, Rip, Rosselli and Sforza would have done it." Ayers noted that Artime, Robertson, Rosselli and Sforza all died just as the HSCA began investigating. He suggests checking for Morales' whereabouts during the late seventies, especially on the times these men were killed.

Ayers is right that these men all died in the 1970s: Rip Robertson (1970), John Roselli (July 1976), Manuel Artime (November, 1977) and Tony Sforza (December, 1978). However, David Morales could not have killed all these men as he himself died six months before Tony Sforza (May, 1978).

[Shanet Clark]

I notice Tony Sforza had "social network" ties to the ultimate

Latin American conspiracy figures:

Ford, Rockefeller and Kissinger

[John Simkin]

Tony Sforza's daughter has contacted me. She points out that he died in 1984 and not 1978. If that is the case, why was Sforza not asked to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Maybe it was put around that he was dead so that he was not investigated by the HSCA.

If you have any information or questions on Sforza please post it on this thread and I will pass them onto his daughter.

[Tim Gratz]

Do we know that this man's name was even known in 1977-1979?

Correct me if I am wrong but I understand the HSCA was not even aware of important CIA officers working on the Cuan problem such as George Joannides and Carl Jenkins. So unless you have evidence to the contrary perhaps Sforza was simply a man whose name did not appear on the radar screens.

Edited September 7, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Do we know that this man's name was even known in 1977-1979?

Correct me if I am wrong but I understand the HSCA was not even aware of important CIA officers working on the Cuan problem such as George Joannides and Carl Jenkins. So unless you have evidence to the contrary perhaps Sforza was simply a man whose name did not appear on the radar screens.

Extract from Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (page 384):

It was on that first trip, Carbajal says, that he, Walton and Morales, outlasting the others, stayed up until dawn, "just drinking and bullxxxxting and having a good time." On subsequent trips only he and Walton made, Morales arranged for them to meet some of his Agency associates. At a cocktail party in a large, luxury apartment somewhere in nearby Virginia, among those Carbajal remembers being introduced to were Ed Wilson, Tom Clines and Ted Shackley.

Everyone hit it off so well at that first meeting in Washington, that Morales arranged to fly the whole Carbajal family and the Waltons down to Miami with him, where he also kept an apartment. "I remember when we got to the airport there wasn't enough room on the plane," recalls Rocky, "but Didi pulls out this card, I remember it was a black card, and the stewardesses actually bumped people off that plane so we could get on." Morales showed the group a good time in Miami, and took them around to the old haunts of his anti-Castro comrades, including a visit to Les Violins, the classy Latin show bar where once the Agency spooks, the local soldiers of fortune and the Cubans would huddle at dark tables and plan their next infiltration raids into Cuba. Bob Walton still has his swizzle stick as a souvenir.

Later Morales arranged another trip to Miami for Carbajal to have him make additional contacts who might be helpful in the commodities business. One was Manuel Artime, the CIA's military leader for the Bay of Pigs. Artime was an especially valuable contact since he was then business partners with Nicaragua dictator Anastasio Somoza. Carbajal remembers meeting Artime in E. Howard Hunt's house where, he was told, Artime was living while Hunt was in prison for his Watergate role. (More likely, Artime was simply entertaining there; he actually lived across the street from Hunt.) That Morales should reveal to Carbajal the level of his associations in the Agency illustrates both his own status and his absolute trust in Carbajal. Because of that trust, one of Morales's comrades, Tony Sforza, also took Carbajal into his confidence.

"Sforza got very close to me because of Didi," Carbajal says. "Didi told him, `This is my brother, man. He's like a brother.' They both used to tell me some stories. Oh, yeah, they killed people for the Agency."

I had not previously mentioned Sforza's name to Carbajal and he didn't know it was familiar to me. It had appeared, along with the names of Morales and Shackley and the others, in that "Highly Sensitive" document I had received in 1978. "This man handled anti-Castro activities on behalf of the CIA," the document noted. "He still runs a Cuban `blow-up group.' Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous." Like Morales a veteran deep-cover agent, Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami after his "retirement" from the CIA. He died within six months of Morales, also from a sudden heart attack.

Fonzi was of course an investigator with the HSCA. Was he told he was dead so that he did not carry out an investigation into Sforza?

[Tim Gratz]

Excellent reply and good question, John.

Perhaps I can ask Gordon Winslow to make this inquiry of Mr. Fonzi.

Edited September 7, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

This is what Larry Hancock had to say about Sforza: (page 420)

David Morales also retired in 1975 and died in 1978, shortly before Tony Sforza. Sforza is known to have operated within Cuba and to have conducted JM/WAVE exfiltration missions for Morales. His contact for one such mission involved passing information to David Phillips in Mexico City. Sforza (cryptonym SLOMAN) had been a major CIA covert operative inside Cuba and there is reason to speculate that he used the alias Frank Stevens, known as Enrique inside Cuba, where he operated under the cover of being a professional gambler. If so, he is associated with at least one major CIA Castro assassination attempt and at one point he served as case officer for Morales' AMOT group an attempt verified in a newly located document and one which was apparently withheld from the Church Committee.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

If you have any information or questions on Sforza please post it on this thread and I will pass them onto his daughter.

John, you could just ask her how many of these statements about her father are correct.

He still runs a Cuban `blow-up group.' Sforza is a hit man and should be regarded as dangerous." Like Morales a veteran deep-cover agent, Sforza ran an import-export business in Miami after his "retirement" from the CIA.

While you are at it, might as well ask her if he was in Miami on November 22.

[Ron Ecker]

In a letter sent to John R. Tunheim in 1994, Bradley Ayers claimed that he believed that the following " have intimate operational knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assassination" of John F. Kennedy: Theodore Shackley, Grayston Lynch, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines, Gordon Campbell, David Morales, Rip Robertson, Edward Roderick and Tony Sforza.

Who was Edward Roderick? I don't recall seeing that name before.

[John Simkin]

Who was Edward Roderick? I don't recall seeing that name before.

See my page on him here:

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

[John Simkin]

John, You might ask her if she has any way of knowing where he was 'on a trip' during the assassination. My hunch is the truth would be in the thickets of Dallas. Ask her also if she knows what countries he was travelling to, in the months leading up to Nov. 22. While she might well not know or have been too young to care or notice, but anything on the last times he met/worked with any of the names listed on this thread after the assassination mght also be of interest.

I have it on good authority that he was in Mexico City in November, 1963.