James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 Thanks, Larry. Terrific information as always. To your knowledge, was it Morales who signed off on Operation Tilt? James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Plumlee Posted October 20, 2004 Author Share Posted October 20, 2004 (edited) [x Edited March 21, 2008 by William Plumlee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Plumlee Posted October 20, 2004 Author Share Posted October 20, 2004 (edited) x Edited March 21, 2008 by William Plumlee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 (edited) Right on James: And he had a large Adams Apple. I could not recall all the details and would not be in a position to know all the details about him. It was outside my expertise, a pilot, "bus Jocky" as Hemming used to call me. None the less, I can tell you how he lost his finger or fingers. He used to capture alligators and put on displays at an alligator farm near West Palm Beach and one got him one day. That was before he became engaged with the mob and the Cuban cause. I think he was also known as "the Assination" and ran around with " Charlie the blade". I know who this is (the blade; its recorded by me years ago ask Marrs) his real name) He used to work in Havana at Mayer Lansky's Casino, before the fall of Batista. Later came to Florida and got engageded in Ops as a "contract employee" for Johney Rosellie. However, I can not confirm that this is the man in the picture.. It does look like the man on the Dallas flight and I am on record as saying that years ago... to the FBI and to Jim Marrs and others. It went no where and I was accused of making up the story. Thanks for the memory jog... tosh (Tosh plumlee) Tosh, I believe that you were correct in your original belief that El Gato was not Bosch. This El Gato character was supposedly a real bad ass. He also allegedly had an association with Tony Varona, Bernie de Torres and a dude by the name of Edgardo Buttari Puig. Buttari was the Director for Social Assistance for the First Officers of Brigade 2506 Association. De Torres was the Vice Director for a time. Buttari and Bernard (Macho) Barker also handled Cubans for clandestine activities - guys like Reinaldo Pico Ramon, Felipe de Diego and several of the guys arrested in the Watergate burglary. It sounds like El Gato fell in with that lot. Give me a week or so and I should be able to get his name and a photo. James Edited October 20, 2004 by James Richards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Plumlee Posted October 20, 2004 Author Share Posted October 20, 2004 (edited) [x Edited March 21, 2008 by William Plumlee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Hancock Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 James, Morales was definitely in charge of the Tilt mission support. He assigned the people and signed off on the supplies and even the deployment of the radar support mother ship. He also wrote the after action summary report representing JMWAVE. However Shackley signed off with Pawley on JMWAVE support for the project. For some time it appeared that Shackley was the "approving officer". Very recently however, we have obtained some rather amazing correspondance revealing that Marshall Carter gave written permission for Pawley to involve LIFE magazine, take their photo journalist and do photo coverage of the mission - including apparently giving LIFE first dibs on the coverage of the story if it succeeded or did not. I'm sure you can appreciate the number of security regs such an approval violated; not to mention it's potential impact on the Kennedy administration. We are still working on that aspect but as of now what we had once thought of as a somewhat small scale rogue mission clearly was far more than that. On the other hand it was definitely not cleared by the Cuban working group, nor on the Presidential approved mission list nor apparently known to RFK (if it had been Marshall Carter would have retired in pieces rather than going on over to the NSA). Much more to be learned here I think. -- Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 Thanks James: Toney Varona and Barnard Baker (Macho) a friend of Masferrer (?) I did know. Sometimes I have confused Varona with John Martino..., not sure why. These are some of the people I was associated with in the gun-running dasys into Cuba. Barnard Baker was also known as "Burnie". Most of these people used code names, or mob names like "CharlieThe Blade" "El Toro" Shorty the snake" and Snake Eyes" If any of these were connected to the company then ther were assigned alases or code names... like 'Redbird' Gator" Hawk, or Eagle" along with a fake name, like "William H Pearson" or "Buck" or "Col. Rawlson" or "Rawlston" and others I can't remember. These names would become "cut-outs" and were only used for a short time frame or for a paticular operation, then be droped... thanks. looking forward to the pictures.... Tosh (Tosh Plumlee) Thanks, Tosh. Edgardo Buttari Puig who I mentioned in my previous post is present in this photo below but I don't know which one he is. I can tell you that is Bernie de Torres 4th from the right and Ed Collins in the white shirt on the far left - Collins being closely connected with Bill Seymour, Roy Hargraves, Felipe Vidal Santiago and Hemming's Interpen group. Are you able to identify any of the others? Even if you can't remember names, rough time lines and places would be of huge assistance. Cheers, James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 James, Morales was definitely in charge of the Tilt mission support. He assigned the people and signed off on the supplies and even the deployment of the radar support mother ship. He also wrote the after action summary report representing JMWAVE. However Shackley signed off with Pawley on JMWAVE support for the project. For some time it appeared that Shackley was the "approving officer". Very recently however, we have obtained some rather amazing correspondance revealing that Marshall Carter gave written permission for Pawley to involve LIFE magazine, take their photo journalist and do photo coverage of the mission - including apparently giving LIFE first dibs on the coverage of the story if it succeeded or did not. I'm sure you can appreciate the number of security regs such an approval violated; not to mention it's potential impact on the Kennedy administration. We are still working on that aspect but as of now what we had once thought of as a somewhat small scale rogue mission clearly was far more than that. On the other hand it was definitely not cleared by the Cuban working group, nor on the Presidential approved mission list nor apparently known to RFK (if it had been Marshall Carter would have retired in pieces rather than going on over to the NSA). Much more to be learned here I think. (Larry Hancock) Thanks, Larry. Muchly appreciated. I didn't know Carter was the one who gave LIFE permission to tag along. That is certainly interesting. I do agree that there is much more to be learned. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Plumlee Posted October 20, 2004 Author Share Posted October 20, 2004 (edited) x Edited March 21, 2008 by William Plumlee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Hancock Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 Tosh, Billings was actually the LIFE photographer who went on the Tilt mission with Bayo, Pawley, Martino et al. As far as the JMWAVE records go including Morales follow up reports, there was only one mission....which was supposed to get the Russians and from which supposedly no personnel ever returned - according to Morales. And there is no doubt that Morales was very much up the food chain, Chief Ops officer right under Shackley and with direct access to the SGA...he went back and forth to DC for briefings. In fact he behaved more like he was on the same level as Shackley and wore some other hats to it appears, some involving operations in Mexico. There were rumors that Bayo and others came back later - certainly their JMWAVE boat guide came back with the Tilt mission - but as far as Morales and the CIA summary report went at the time, Bayo and his team remained in Cuba, whereabouts unknown. -- Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 There were rumors that Bayo and others came back later - certainly their JMWAVE boat guide came back with the Tilt mission - but as far as Morales and the CIA summary report went at the time, Bayo and his team remained in Cuba, whereabouts unknown. (Larry Hancock) Indeed, Larry. Boat operator Eugenio Martinez did return as did Virgilio Gonzalez (arrested in 1972). Rip Robertson returned as did James Arthur Lewis. Alfredo Mirr and Luis Cantin also returned hooking up with Tony Cuesta. Do you think that Morales may have been stretching the truth? James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Hancock Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 James, I'm shocked, implying that our buddy Dave might stretch the truth? Bend, break and tie in knots maybe but stretch... Your point on Martinez is well taken and from all the reports I've read it was common practice for he and Robertson to go in shore....after all, he was the expert coastal boat guide. On the other hand, certainly Bayo and others did not return with Pawley; interestingly enough Martino was even reporting some of them alive and well and needing exfiltration later that fall. All in all it's clear that it was in someone's best interest to make it look like they had remained and were most likely dead in Cuba. Whether that had anything to do with the JFK conspiracy when it happened in June I very much doubt. Actually Morales concluded that it was more likely they had been snookered into helping put a Bayo combat team into Cuba.....and given the weapons in the photos I'd say that may not have been a bad guess. Certainly the team was armed for far more than simply slipping in covertly and extracting a couple of Russian officers.... -- Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 .....and given the weapons in the photos I'd say that may not have been a bad guess. Certainly the team was armed for far more than simply slipping in covertly and extracting a couple of Russian officers.... (Larry Hancock) Larry, There seemed to be a lot of Belgian FAL's being waved about in the Op Tilt photographs and according to Rappeleye and Becker in 'All American Mafioso', William Harvey secured FAL's for covert use so they would not be traced back to US agents. These were the weapons used by the Cuban army. Mmm. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ecker Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 Tosh and James, I'm confused about Gator and El Gato. Was Gator really El Gato (which means The Cat in Spanish), or were Gator and El Gato two different people (both with a missing finger)? Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted October 20, 2004 Share Posted October 20, 2004 I'm confused about Gator and El Gato. Was Gator really El Gato (which means The Cat in Spanish), or were Gator and El Gato two different people (both with a missing finger)? (Ron Ecker) Hi Ron, I'm not 100% sure they are the same man but I do know El Gato had some fingers chomped off by an alligator. Bizarre coincidence if they are not the same guy. Anyway, I am trying to get a photo of El Gato for Tosh to have a look at. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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