Tony Sforza

[Charles Drago]

At least 30.

[John Simkin]

There were many days in November.......

I agree. Another source tells me that he was also involved in the Miami plot against JFK.

[Larry Hancock]

CIA documents covered in SWHT, and months back on this forum, relate that he was to make a social visit out of Cuba to Mexico city

over the period of November 21-23. That trip was a dummy and was to allow him to bring out information related to a planned

exfiltration, an urgent one important to CIA HQ, that was to come through the keys with JMWAVE support. David Phillips was to pick

up the info in Mexico City and get it to David Morales who was handling operational elements of the exfiltration.

I've speculated that this appears to have to do with getting Castro's sister out...separate documents connect Sforza to that....and that

the plan for this date aborted due to the assassination, she actually came out quite a bit later but for some reason it appears urgent

that she was initially to come out of Cuba at the end of November.

-- Larry

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.

[James Richards]

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.

U. S. Army Major, explosives expert/Corp of Engineers, attached to JMWAVE and later CIA employee upon retirement from Army

Anyone know what Operation Red Cross was? I believe Ayers mentions it in the Zeneith Secret.

Peter,

Operation Red Cross was in fact Operation Tilt. Red Cross appeared in a Soldier of Fortune article but I'm not sure how that designation came to be.

Regarding Tony Sforza, he was highly regarded by Agency personnel. In 1965, he was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit.

FWIW.

James

Edited September 7, 2007 by James Richards

[Larry Hancock]

The documents appear to be concurrent, they talk about Sforza coming out and they specifically assign Phillips to pick

up and transfer the exfilitration information. They appear to be generated beyond Phillips own level and he is being

given the assignment. It certainly appears that this is a project generated above both Phillips and even Morales

level and they are being assigned duties.

I think James may have posted at least one of the relevant documents here before.

[John Simkin]

Here is information from someone who wishes to remain anonymous but from my experience, a extremely reliable source:

Tony Sforza worked closely with the Tepedino family (father and son)..... Mr Sforza was hidden in the home of Carlos Tepedino Snr (in Cuba) at the time of the Bay of Pigs..... he worked with the son Carlos Tepedino jr (AM/WHIP 1) who was involved in the AM/LASH assassination plots against Fidel (Rolando Cubela).He was closely involved with Emilio America Rodriguez, Frank Belsito and other covert CIA warriors on a mission run out of New York in the fall of 1962.

[James Richards]

Here is information from someone who wishes to remain anonymous but from my experience, a extremely reliable source:

Tony Sforza worked closely with the Tepedino family (father and son)..... Mr Sforza was hidden in the home of Carlos Tepedino Snr (in Cuba) at the time of the Bay of Pigs..... he worked with the son Carlos Tepedino jr (AM/WHIP 1) who was involved in the AM/LASH assassination plots against Fidel (Rolando Cubela).He was closely involved with Emilio America Rodriguez, Frank Belsito and other covert CIA warriors on a mission run out of New York in the fall of 1962.

John,

Carlos Tepedino is a very interesting character. William Harvey had quite some interest in him regarding suggestions that Tepedino was smuggling jewels.

I think Tepedino was actually born Carlos Lopez. Can you ask your contact if they can confirm that?

James

[John Simkin]

I think Tepedino was actually born Carlos Lopez. Can you ask your contact if they can confirm that?

I will do so.

Joan Mellen has some interesting information about him in A Farewell to Justice:

Phillips blames the Soviet Union for masterminding the assassination, mingling truth with fiction. Warren Commission critics, as Helms had outlined, were dupes of the KGB, as Max Holland's thesis about Jim Garrison once more can be traced, not only to Helms, but also to the most skillful of CIA propagandists, David Atlee Phillips. In an amusing side note, CIA's Win Scott steals Harrison's journal, even as, in real life, it was James Angleton who broke into Scott's files after his death and stole his novel manuscript.

Yet another trace of David Atlee Phillips' connections to the events of November 22nd, which included both the assassination of President Kennedy and the arming of Rolando Cubela with the means to assassinate Fidel Castro, emerges in a CIA cable. Miami is informing its Mexico City station that one "Henry J. Sloman," an alias for longtime CIA asset Anthony (Tony) Sforza, would be arriving in Mexico on November 22nd. Because the CIA was fond of providing Mafia cover for some of its assets, many people mistakenly concluded that the Mafia had been behind the assassination of President Kennedy. CIA's Sloman, himself, as Seymour M. Hersh points out, "was considered a professional gambler and a high-risk smuggler directly linked to the Mafia."

In Mexico City, Sloman/Sforza was to meet the wife of an agent designated as AMHALF-2, and retrieve a message regarding the "Martime Exfil of headquarters asset" who was to arrive in Mexico "on 22 November," and may have been Fidel Castro's sister, Juanita. Sloman was ordered to contact Phillips, mentioned here under his longtime alias "[Michael] Choaden," on the next day and pick up the information that had arrived from "[02] Exit-3." AMHALF would be a link person, part of the communication circuit providing intercepts for island assets. Between 1960 and 1963, there were something like 350,000 such intercepts either by land lines or on island assets, all directed to CIA.

Sloman was the case officer for, among others, Emilio Rodriguez, the oldest son of Arnesto Rodriguez and brother of Arnesto, Junior, whom Oswald had visited in New Orleans in an attempt to learn how he might involve himself in training camps for sabotage against Castro.

The header of this November 22nd, 1963, CIA cable includes the cryptonym PBRUMEN, which referred to Cuba. By its timing it suggests the Cubela assassination attempt of November 22nd. It also seems to suggest that Oswald believed that he was involved in the attempts on Castro's life and did not know he would be linked to the shooting in Dealey Plaza.

This extraordinary document, if fragmentary, is interesting, too, because it provides an alibi for David Atlee Phillips under the alias he used in Cuba, "Michael Choaden." If Phillips was down in Mexico, as he would be expected to be, waiting to be contacted by Sloman, he was not in Texas; this cable would confirm for any record that David Atlee Phillips was somewhere other than at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

[William Kelly]

From Bradley E. Ayers' The Zenith Secret - p.87-88

After RFK leaves a remote Everglades camp area by helicopter, Ayers is told by Gordon Campbell that, "....You'll be happy to know that the Special Group has finally given us permission to use two-man submarines to strike Castro's ships in the harbors. Some of your UDT people will be involved in that. And next week Rip's boys are going to Elgin for parachute training, so an airborne commando raid may not be far off. But right now we've got a go-ahead to hit one of the major oil refineries from on the islad. All we've got to do id get a commando force in shape to do the job."

"...Rip has his commandos just up the Key, and Rosselli has his group at Point Mary some of th time.....My outside man Karl will help you with logistics. Take the deliveris and carry the items to the island yourself. Order as little as you have to from logistics, and buy all of your own food....Here's the safehouse key and $1,000 to get things moving....I signed the unmarked, commercial cash-receipt and went back to the fire. Campbell introduced me to Tony Sforza the commando-team contact man, and Karl, then he led me to the H-13 helicopter and instructed the pilot to take me back to Tamiami Airport and then return for the rest of the men."

"...At the end of the week I went ashore to see Tony. But the meeting was disapointing. He gave me only a brief background sketch on each of the men, but from spending so much time with them, I already knew most of what he told me...."

p.189

"...The reader may recall that it was the Letelier car bombing that initially prompted the interest in Morales and Sforza by HSCA investigators...."

[John Simkin]

Tony Sforza has been named as the CIA agent who recruited Juanita Castro:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/2...ister-cia-agent

To the CIA she was Donna: a Cuban spy who hid documents inside cans of food and sent secret messages via a clandestine radio and two tunes – a waltz and a song from the opera Madame Butterfly.

Today, Donna was revealed to the rest of the world as Juanita Castro – the sister of Fidel and Raúl, rulers of Cuba and legendary conquerors of US espionage efforts – when she blew the whistle on her career as a CIA agent.

The rogue sibling revealed extraordinary details of her hidden identity in a memoir, Fidel and Raúl, My Brothers: The Secret History, which could force a partial revision of the CIA's role in Cuba. For half a century its efforts against Fidel were considered fiascos, prompting recrimination and ridicule. It tried and failed to kill him, tried and failed to invade Cuba, and tried and failed to foment revolt.

Cuba was just 90 miles off Florida, but its ruler was thought too wily and his regime too hermetic for the hapless American spies. Now, in what she describes as the family's best-kept secret, Juanita has revealed that the CIA infiltrated the world's most famous communist clan.

The 76-year-old Miami exile recounts how she sheltered government opponents in her Havana home, among other subversive acts, before leaving Cuba in 1964 and publicly denouncing Fidel and Raul as despots, a bombshell which damaged the revolution's image in Latin America.

There had been widespread speculation for many years about Juanita's recruitment, said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst who is now a senior researcher in Cuba studies at the University of Miami, and author of the book After Fidel. "She was considered a success by the CIA. It was very pleased with her, especially after she left Cuba. She was very outspoken and played a critical propaganda role in travelling around Latin America. She had quite an impact in Chile's 1964 election."

Juanita initially hailed the revolution's 1959 triumph over the US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and supported its social programmes by working in health clinics. But executions of opponents and the squelching of democratic hopes disillusioned her. She was already discreetly aiding dissidents when, according to her book, the wife of the Brazilian ambassador in Havana, Virginia Leitao da Cunha, asked her to meet a CIA agent, Tony Sforza. Sforza had previously worked on a Cuba-related CIA project known as Operation Mangosta.

"Many of our men are working there [in Cuba] and run the risk of being discovered," Sforza told her at the Hotel Camino Real in Mexico City. "The mission involves protecting them and helping them move from one place to another with as much security as possible, finding them places to stay in houses that are safe." Her family links gave her invaluable access to prisons, he added.

Juanita agreed to take on the code name Donna and gave Sforza two tunes that, when played over a clandestine radio, would signify that she had, "or did not have", a message. One of them was Madame Butterfly; the other was a waltz, Fascinación.

Her first mission was to take money, messages and documents back to Cuba from Mexico, hidden inside cans of food. She also carried a codebook back with her and, after receiving a shortwave radio, persuaded two former school friends to aid her. She says she refused to take part in anything that would cause bloodshed and refused payment for her services.

Her cooperation was a rare cold war success for spymasters tasked with toppling the Soviet Union's tropical ally. The Kennedy White House authorised many CIA assassination attempts – ensuing decades racked up 638 efforts, according to one estimate - as well as the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by exiles.

Juanita held no senior government rank and was not thought to be privy to official secrets, but her enlistment by the US, if verified, dents the reputation of Cuba's formidable intelligence service.

Raúl, the then defence minister and now president in place of the ailing Fidel, knew of their sister's wayward political views in 1964, but still approved her trip to Mexico, where she defected.

The revelation that the CIA appeared to have been pulling strings, and not simply applauding, is likely to annoy Cuba's government, even though the events were so long ago, said one western diplomat in Havana. "Under Obama, relations between the US and Cuba are going in a slightly better direction. This won't help that process."

State media will report the news if authorities calculate they can turn the story to their advantage, said the diplomat. "Even if the media here ignore it, the story will do the rounds among the public. But it's history, and Cubans are used to not being surprised by anything."

This week the UN will take its annual vote against the US embargo of the island, a 49-year-old policy widely deemed anachronistic and unjustified.

It is unclear why Juanita, who spent the past two decades quietly working in a pharmacy in Miami, waited until now to tell her story. She began working on the book, published by Santillana, with her co-author, the journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, in 1999, but then stopped and resumed only this year.

Published simultaneously in the US, Mexico, Colombia and Spain, the memoir had Harry Potter-style secrecy and was kept in sealed boxes and secured pallets to avoid leaks.

[Jennifer Brooks]

On 5/23/2006 at 8:56 PM, James Richards said:

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

Dear James: I have some letters from my father, mentioning his friend Don Winters. Do you believe he might still be alive and there is a way I could contact him? Thank you! Cheers! Jennifer

[Kirk Gallaway]

6 hours ago, Jennifer Brooks said:

Dear James: I have some letters from my father, mentioning his friend Don Winters. Do you believe he might still be alive and there is a way I could contact him? Thank you! Cheers! Jennifer

Welcome Jennifer, James Richards last post here was Jan. 2016. Other people here might have some insight into his whereabouts.  If he's still around and checks in occasionally, you might click on his picture and write him a private message.

[B. A. Copeland]

Do we have an image of Sforza? I've always wanted to know what he looks like, like so many others involved in this case.

[Jennifer Brooks]

On ‎9‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 1:36 AM, Kirk Gallaway said:

Welcome Jennifer, James Richards last post here was Jan. 2016. Other people here might have some insight into his whereabouts.  If he's still around and checks in occasionally, you might click on his picture and write him a private message.

Thank you so much! I will try that route! 

[Jennifer Brooks]

1 hour ago, B. A. Copeland said:

Do we have an image of Sforza? I've always wanted to know what he looks like, like so many others involved in this case.

I found these: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184978604/anthony-joseph-sforza