Chris Cox

Detailed and interesting work John You are telling the story of the men at consulate cocktail parties while I'm more interested in "cowboys" like Rip and DeLarm, but you've gathered a tidy overview-very helpful. Now I'm looking forward to 1959 Cuba installment moving us up to more contemporary "Dems in DC" JFK tie in. Jerry Fred DeLarm was like a Gerald Murphy loved flight first then involved in intrigues of highers up but really the guys doing the work. More beer than cocktails. A bit of skim left over for them, maybe, but they were in the fight more for flying adventure and anti-red cause than pay. Jerry Fred more successful than some. DeLarm stepped up for Castillos's bounty on a radio station and claimed the lives of 200 at Fort Matamoros. Rip's from the same mold, tho' his claim to fame in Guatemala is less glamourous. These guys were heros to a young LHO I figure. See Flying Magazine July 1957 for the complete tale of Guatemala from the commie hating pilot perspective. Chance Vought is on cover with an F8U-1 Crusader. Small world this.

Mr. Ray could you tell us more about the early days of 1959, your experiences with the 26 July and the SNF Escambray factions? As a young man, how did you view groups other than Castro's did you see any division or conflict? Had you met any Americans like Wm Morgan, GP Hemming or Paul Hughes or Alex Rorke who were aiding the revolution, later against, inside Cuba? These were men who came out of Korean conflict and joined the Cuban students studying in US or arrived in Cuba as tourists, journalists, trainers of rev. military, etc. Had you any contact in those days with Americans, students in the US or the US embassy in Cuba? Do you feel history needs any correction regarding the revolution, later efforts against Castro? What misconceptions are there? Why do you think or how does this history in Cuba connect to JFK's death? How can it be separately considered? Is it possible in your view to re-examine the history with Castro still alive? I'm a family member with a parent dead, the body still missing, as a result of involvement in this secret war. For many of us out there we have questions for Cuba that the US also refuses to fully answer. We aren't clear why this is after many years of waiting, even with relations being what they are. It's been so long and many are dead now. Is dialogue possible to give us our answers? Would you be a part of such a mission? Have you been to Cuba since the 60s or would you like to return one day? Thank you for your replies

Interesting posts, all. Another ripping question.... Did Colonel Robertson ever mention any work with ROTC at Georgia Tech, mid to late 50's? Thx

“It means that their failure in 1963 has been covered up and the causus belli of a dictator accepted as a fait accompli—for the sake of mere political convenience in Langley If the film is to be believed all failed in their duties to report accurately. This is perhaps believable. “ A fair analysis, Jeff. I called it a conspiracy of silence US/CU, in my presentation in Dallas but maybe it was more a hearty faretheewell “handshake” between our countries. We had long histories too much for the public to swallow at a time of great grief and political complication. For my family project, researchers at CIA pointed out documents on Antulio, not my researcher buddies. The records are there in the public domain, how I missed them is a wonder. Antulio recently told me the story about his cellmate in Cuba following hijacking. He claims American cellmate interrogated, poss. executed. CIA identified him as my father for HSCA. HSCA apparently missed, dismissed the relevance. I dig through that old stuff to catch up. Now, this movie and what are the facts? We need the facts to weigh the claims in this big landscape. The docs, our map. An American “soldier of misfortune” got left behind for political expediency. Warnings of Dallas went unheeded. We were all supposed to live with that. True, in the FOIA program we’ve been "Glomar-ed" but to be fair, cryptic comments from Escalante don't help. What is a lie what is truth? Touché that, I guess.

Recently mentioned an Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, hijacker of first plane to Cuba on May 1 1961. He claimed (not sure date the claims FIRST made) that he saw files in Cuba that indicated: Soviet intel interested in using LHO even tho' he's an "emotional adventurer"; that Marina was instructed to come to US by USSR. ARO also claimed to have given the Swiss Embassy negatives of photos made by Russian (stolen from the Russians' apt) whom Castro approached, to stage an offensive directed at US with intent to engage USSR and US. USSR found out, became enraged at Castro and Russian was deported. By that time the Swiss rec'd the negs via regular mail. Later when ARO was released in Cuba he went personally to Swiss, (Abel Eddlehoffer rings bell but files aren't nearby) they tired of his presence and showed him the door. ARO's objective was to get this info to DC/JFK and Swiss failed to do this in his view ignored compelling evidence that Castro was up to no good and the President's life was in danger. Cuban DGI names associated with this episode are: Valdes, Aquiles, Torres. CIA did analysis and translation and the claims came back with most elements deemed reliable. The HSCA took testimony fr. ARO and in the end rejected this evidence on basis that a prisoner wouldn't have this kind of access, that Cuban state security would have kept such info out of reach. My question for viewers of this film-- does this story sound like what is coming out in this film? Any names above appear in film?

Big book. Just cracked the pages and there's a ton of stuff here, some repeated and some fresh stuff but worth the space next to Hinckle Turner tomes as a reference guide to topic. I have many questions. Question for authors: How much contact with Menoyo did you have during the 17 yrs research and has he commented on the finished piece? Did you interview Masferrer family members and do they concur with the research? How about Olga Morgan who is on a mission to restore Morgan's lost citizenship? Was there cooperation from her as well? Any cooperation from sources in Cuba? Were guys like Wayne Smith or other USemb/State people helpful to you? Just started reading and jumping around the book so maybe these q's are answered within. Thank you for illustrating there was an ongoing program to get to Castro and also that he didn't triumph on his own-important to keep in mind. I'm curious why you don't name key individual C-day, is it because they are still alive? If the docs are avail and declassified I wonder why not refer researchers to the source or the documents that name source in some manner so the researchers can sleuth it out? Verona seems to come out of book an opportunist not well respected and I've heard this in Miami during interviews myself. I wonder why you don't mention the Feria/Masferrer 27 man invasion prior to BOP but I may have missed it in bk. Side story of this event, I was told, is that Verona gave Castro the heads up on 27 man invasion team out of fear he would be superceded by Masferrer in a new Cuba. Castro's men were waiting and men were captured and executed on heels of JFK election which should have been an indicator that this mini Bay of Pigs was a forshadowing of failure to come six months later, mho.

Lamar Did "Harry" Williams ever use an alias "Frank Williams?" I've already asked around including Bill Turner. This man Frank Williams and a man Canizares were involved in a mission six mos. prior to BOP near Navas Bay. Most were caught and executed the rest imprisoned by Castro, three escaped: Frank Williams, Canizares and my father Paul Hughes. Could you ask Enrique for me? Thank you.

Gerry, any idea where Bradley is today? I'd sure like to find how he got with Lacayo etal. Any relationship between Bradley and Hudson (both Brits)? What happened to Hudson? Is the periodical where the Herter article appears only El Mundo? Did Revolucion have such? What is relationship of Lacayo and Efren Picardo and Nicaraguan ruse with a Trujillo operation before? See Latin American studies dot org. And, G please clarify, Martino didn't move? He's bothering people? What is Martino role? Anything on the six Americans mentioned in his book? They appeared and then vanished from the history.

Gerry here’s a challenge to researchers: Take the files and separate them into JFK and Cuba Rev and ops afterwards. Sort the history and start there. Each batch requiring separate analyses to form some whole. Two separate piles with the invisible line between that (call it Garrison’s aptly put ‘gossamer thread’) and take each event uniquely. Is this impossible to do? Why in your opin? For families who have searched high and low for info regarding disappearances and Cuba intrigues of their members this has been the task. Somehow the archivists have made the Cuba story the JFK story. Simple as that they pile up files that should be considered separate historical events. The killing of a president takes center stage while authors concede that to understand the death you must look to the Secret War with Cuba. You and I and others know this is a separate history. People conjure the assassins the motive. Not everyone was in DP but a bunch of history re: Cuba and points south has become the JFK story to our detriment. IOWs bury it deep in JFK and no one will look further. Why have operations before, concurrent with BOP and events after been thrown into the Oswald/Kennedy boxes? Why do we find that we are always referred to these files? In my case, my father disappeared three years before (10/1960, prior to election) but JFK records is where I’ll find the pieces of the disappearance puzzle. In another case the files on Oswald were given as part of a lawsuit to a party to explain away another disappearance with no conclusion. The parties walked away shaking their heads. I’m sure they didn’t take the bait because they knew the story was more complicated. In Cuba my father’s file is tossed into the Oswald file as well. Escalante parrots the investigation stateside giving a story researchers want to hear without those researchers’ having the tools to ck to see if it’s correct. My research on Paul Hughes not conclusive but there are leads and for that I‘m appreciative for the JFK Act and AARRB work. Now a book comes along to explain this phenomenon with a body of evidence that says Kennedy bros. Planned an attack that backfired (I will read book to be fair) . Have yet more researchers taken some bait?

Actually Tim regarding the pulp-- this is a great comment on the way stories made it (almost) to the mainstream. The Martino bk (today a collectors item), Weyl's books perhaps and stuff like Youngblood's dime store novel (cover price 50 cents today worth 25 dollars) and the articles about operations in Swank, http://www.cuban-exile.com/doc_276-300/doc0287.html , this article from Stag mag all the "man media" available at time are fascinating sources and should be considered by good researchers as are articles in LIFE and other big ones. Soldier of Fortune is also a good source of stories of action and intrigue. I have an old Flying mag that gives backgrnd of air ops in Guatemala before that story was fully unraveled. There were numerous manuscripts to be published that didn't make it that could reveal a lot of data to researchers. First hand stories that are gathering dust in personal collections gone unread (in some cases stolen) is a tragedy IMO. From Morley “If you look at the history of Cuban revolutionary politics from 1954 to 1964, Castro and his advisers consistently rejected assassination as a political tactic. They were not averse to killing their foes, they just didn't think that eliminating a single man was an effective way to achieve their goals.” I’m bit confused on that To be fair there were surely wish lists of those who could be eliminated on both sides for political effect. Many such docs are unclassified and can be viewed by any researcher. The frus docs on web show US side’s objectives but to think Cuba didn’t have such a trail of documentation is a little naïve. We haven’t seen perhaps the rest of the data that exists from that corner so statement seems premature in that assumption. After all revolutions are political events and elimination is the main feature.

Wilson Hudson (Brit under journalistic cover Chile) did give FBI lead and FBI did follow it up to extent that they knew to back off IMHO. Like others (perhaps justifyably) Wilson soundly discredited and the story of Ruby Santo Cuba etc went away like it was supposed to. Another Mob did it book? Yawn and stamp it "JFK."

well, James (wink)? John, this story reminds me that the agencies all draw participants/officers from various corners. The idea that agencies only battle isn't entirely correct. Spying is a confederated biz.

Anyone know how the Brad Ayers presentation went in DC? Details of that? Was he also in Dallas this year? thx

How can one not remember where they were on that historic day-impossible. I was six, living in New Jersey. My beloved first grade (a Negro woman- to give a little perspective on the time) teacher, Mrs. E, was called to the door of the room. She came back in tears and school let out somberly. Our temporary classroom (the baby boom built schools) was in a local church and a lot of bells rang that day. Cronkite did the honors on the news and we were glued to every word from the lousy black and white set that you had to hit or wiggle its "rabbit ears" to keep picture straight. Days later I was in front of grandmother's TV when Oswald was killed. I thought he was "like" my father. Something about him, the Cuba/Soviet talk the weapon the secrecy made it spooky and relative to me somehow. With a child's intuition I knew this man was caught up in something familiar. Years later after many files, study and travel on my topic found under heading "JFK assassination collection"-- I met a woman who lost her father in Bay of Pigs. She told me she stepped on a school bus 11/22/63 as a kid said something about the assassination to her. She told me she felt a satisfaction that JFK had died as others had died for him. A part of me concurs while I look for the sad truth of an apparent coups over a president who might have made the nuclear world safer. No matter what you feel about presidents Blue or Red, they’re a rare breed of wealthy and powerful that will send some of us to fight their wars. JFK was martyred that day regardless of his failure or success. I wonder if that was anticipated.

Oh, hell I just had to skip to the end of this mess. I can’t keep track. The larger community of research has me convinced that if Oswald himself stepped out from the mist with a “yea or nay”, there'd be the same "he said she said" rot, none of which gets us closer to any truth, just more data to comb through, and arguments to pursue, egos to clash and mend. Can someone recap? Why is the Odio story important? Because it forewarned of the assassination? Because LHO may have arrived first at the apt and this means some relationship could have possibly existed between the subjects (it doesn't IMO)? Isn't the next interview that's needed, Sylvia's? Wonder why Joan didn't hire a PI and find the Odio's to interview, it would have made things clearer and sold more books. The LHO Odio(s) saw (I would show her several photos) could be other Oswald’s as some researchers have put forward-isn't this a possibility that could explain some things? Seems to me a source has now (Mr. Murgado) come forward with something someone writes down or doesn't (what matters is it was said and there were witnesses) prints a book and sells. Isn't it, naturally, inferred that Murgado's statements are his own and not the scribe's? Over the years things get easier to talk about older sources feel less threatened and want to clear the air, was this the motivation of Mr. Murgado? My question for Mr. Murgado's son is: have you ever filed a FOIPA for your father and do you have a 201 file, FBI historical files, things on deposit at NARA II or anything that might show the background of your father, what he was doing where and with whom? Has your father seen the various photos of Oswald that could be of different men, for instance the Marine photo vs. later ones? Does your father feel it's possible there were decoy LHOs? Does your father have any opinion if LHO was part of a serious counterrevolutionary effort by the Kennedy admin or just a "lookyloo informant?" Also thank your father for clarifying for the record that the Kennedy brothers were in the thick of it. These brothers were certainly very aware and active in striking back at Castro up until the time JFK was killed IMO. The WC certainly knew about the plots and hid this as did the later HSCA, more for reasons of Nat Sec IMHO. All of us who lost family in this secret war are still waiting for more to surface, every little piece of the puzzle helps.

Would like to ask Mark Lane why he was with Wes Swearingen in the woods escaping Jim Jone's wrath? Anyone know more about this?

Baiting and Hating aside: Question for Gerry and Harry and others who may have similar backgrounds: when people call you SOFs, Mercs playing war games, wannabees gov't wouldn't want or use, etc. what emotion comes to you, what can you say in return and in defense of what you participated in? I ask since I'm looking for a man that fits the description of a loser but seems to have been so everpresent, used again and again because he made himself available for work he was skilled/schooled in, but also because there's a trust coming from somewhere. His jail was very flexible so to speak, for a long time until the end. Do you remember the point where you knew you had to stop? Today there's the gap between lowpaid soldier and highly paid contractor, whispers about state sponsored assassinations are now loudly proclaimed. Same world only the pay scale changed. New book "The Assassination Biz" aptly states: "In the assassination business everyone ends up with strange allies at one time or another." Gerry you mentioned that if you look good in a file it was not good. I have seen lots of files on lots of people and noone looks "good", yet so many continued for years to do what made them look so bad on paper. Despite this arrests and confiscations magically evaporated, sentences were avoided or reduced, citizenships taken and given back -- stakes so high. Why sign on? The money wasn't good, the life was dangerous and families stay pissed (angry) that's if you survive. Is there just an indy spirit within that found a niche? RE: the Nicaraguan inv. thing summer '59 -- I saw latinamericanstudies.org has the entire transcript of Castro's speech that indicates he has many of those pix we talked about. Some people involved in that were also involved in M&M's Trujillo doublecross-any reason for this? RE: sanctioning groups or picking out the "official" from the ngo so we researchers can be comfortable using them as a source later? naagonnahappin. Thanks Harry and Gerry, I'm borrowing computers (another crash and burn)so have to jam in a lot excellent example, Thomas.

Hey Harry, Thought of you as I picked up recent issue of Newsweek. Cover was the growing power/membership rolls of LDS. Read recently Joe Smith was Mormon and Mason FWIW. Best to you as always Here, here. I'd take a one hour intervu with LHO over many hours with Garrison, Russo or whichever piper readers choose to follow.

Maybe mentioned before but: "The Assassination Business--A History of State-Sponsored Murder" by Richard Belfield (Carroll & Graf/NY 2005) is also very interesting read.

Thanks for your support--I push on. I wondered what you'd think at the HSCA explanation of the G2 being too well-run (files kept organized, security tight...) enterprise that a guy couldn't just waltz in and poke through the stacks. Remember from Colin's documentary the office he found the marriage license in looked real organized didn't it? I jest tho' incredibly, he found the marriage certificate.

Tim, read somewhere--search under "history of Pledge of..." pledge penned by socialist preacher, with no "God" in it at all. Just an interesting aside FWIW.

No bait my way, no agenda if you must know, just a fact that has come my way recently yet there since the HSCA began its investigation. All public domain which is code for "do your homework." No points given for those that just read other people's analyses. Ron has responded, while others hurl insults at whomever jarrs the status quo--ground laid before most of us even got here. Keep this in mind. Almost like presenting at a conference, many will walk out on you and wonder "what's this got to do with the story?" and the handful that stay give you the impetus to keep at it. Tim have you read the manuscript?

Ron, thanks for your interest. Ortiz looked under both names. In different parts of Latin America, different cities in a country, I've been told filing may be different. In CA there is a convention for only the father's surname. With two surnames you'd cover all bases and ck both, which is what he did and he found his file. No mystery there IMO. My confusion with HSCA investigators is why they came to the BS conclusion so quickly-- based on what? It's unclear from their final comment -see the other thread under "Blakey." Thanks for cking Russo's book, I don't have copy and wondered if issue addressed there. Will find and re-read. HSCA interviewed A.R.O. in executive session. Are any/all of these executive session interviews released and available? Is Edwin Lopez (the Spanish speaking reader you mention and co-author of "Lopez Report") still alive, anyone know where he is?

From history matters site: "The committee, in executive session, questioned Ramirez, ...The committee sought from the FBI and CIA independent evidence of the accuracy of Ramirez' allegations, but there was no corroboration of the existence of an "Osvaldo-Kennedy" file to be found. On the other hand, in every instance where there was independent evidence of allegations made by Ramirez (the identities of Cuban officials named by him, for example) Ramirez' statements were found to be accurate. (151)In the end, however, the committee was forced to dismiss Ramirez' story about the "Osvaldo-Kennedy" file. The decisive factor was the committee's belief that the Cuban intelligence system in the 1961-63 period was too sophisticated to have been infiltrated by Ramirez in the manner he had described. While some details of his story could be corroborated, the essential aspects of his allegation were incredible." IMHO, you couldn't have read this manuscript (in Holmes collection) "incredible" is right, and have come to this conclusion without some add'l chking around. Maybe a case of running out of money but I doubt it.

depo indicated here on AARC site Deposition of Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, Nov. 15, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 14-16 (JFK Document 013095). Id. at 16-29. Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, Castro's Red Hot Hell (unpublished) (JFK Document 005134). Executive session testimony, Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, Apr. 11, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Document 014674). Id. at 26-27.