Rolando Cubela. New essay by Jeff Morley

[Guest]

From the article : "Then, he [Jenkins] served as chief of a CIA base in Guatemala, where he trained the leaders of Brigade 2506, the U.S.-backed invasion force that was defeated at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in April 1961"

They could have asked him [Jenkins] if he had coffee with George de Mohrenschildt (GdM just happened to be in town according his own statement)

One doesn't know what to believe anymore...

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

I had no idea that Morley had recently obtained an interview with Jenkins; that is friggin slick. Kudos.

I wonder if he is planning to make the full transcript of the interview available. I'd like to hear more about Carl Jenkins involvement in the planned Varadero beach estate attack. What year was this attack planned for - 1961 in advance of the BOP? I wonder if this was in some way related to the Feb 1961 assassination plot involving Felix Rodriguez which failed.

[David Boylan]

I'll post a few slides from my 2020 Lancer presentation

 

Jenkins and Pathfinder - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=104139#relPageId=14

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by David Boylan

[David Boylan]

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=99953#relPageId=2&tab=page

…Because of his credentials (Felix Rodriguez), is quickly recruited by the CIA and begins to train, in a Panama Canal base, in explosives, demolitions, sabotage and other covert operations techniques.

In an interview granted in 2005 to the Cuban Magazine program of a radio station in Puerto Rico, he confessed: "While there, a colleague of mine who has already died, Segundo Borges Ranzola, a young boy just like me, was the same age as me, 19 years old, we talked to the American who was in charge and we volunteered to physically eliminate Fidel Castro.”

Segundo Borges would later join Manuel Artime and Rafael Quintero as part of the AMWORLD project.

  

Edited October 11, 2022 by David Boylan

[Larry Hancock]

Gerry, the full details - as far as we know them now - about the Varadero Beach plan are in the Wheaton Leads papers that David and I published on the MFF site as well as in Tipping Point. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_The_Wheaton_Lead.html

And yes the chief figure was Felix Rodriquez although a second Cuban appears to have been involved.  Felix himself confirmed his involvement in a sniper attack plan, although without giving any details.

....Looks like David posted at the same time I did...

Edited October 11, 2022 by Larry Hancock

[Gerry Down]

37 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

Gerry, the full details - as far as we know them now - about the Varadero Beach plan are in the Wheaton Leads papers that David and I published on the MFF site as well as in Tipping Point. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_The_Wheaton_Lead.html

And yes the chief figure was Felix Rodriquez although a second Cuban appears to have been involved.  Felix himself confirmed his involvement in a sniper attack plan, although without giving any details.

....Looks like David posted at the same time I did...

In his book "Shadow Warrior" Felix Rodriguez talks about the three times he tried and failed to get into Cuba to carry out the assassination. Felix talks about "an American we knew as Larry” that he was in contact with regarding these assassination plots. I suspect this Larry was Carl Jenkins.

However Felix says the assassination plot he was going in to Cuba for was to take place in Havana (SOURCE: Page 65 of “Shadow Warrior”). He talks about the plan being to land at Varadero beach and then being “driven to Havana” (SOURCE: Page 66 of “Shadow Warrior”). This appears to go against the idea that Felix was to be the assassin at the Varadero Beach Estate.

Of course there were so many assassination plots, its difficult to arrange them in order and very easy to mix one in with another one. Also, the possibility exists that for security purposes Carl Jenkins told Felix that the assassination plot was to be in Havana itself and then when Felix arrived in Varadero, it was only then that he was told that the assassination was to take place at Varadero. Though Felix only volunteered to assassinate Castro around New Years day 1961, and there had been substantial planning for the Varadero beach estate attack including annotated photos and such. One would think that with all that planning for the Varadero beach estate attack that they also would have lined up a sniper well before Felix volunteered his services around New Years day 1961. But maybe Felix was a better option than anyone they might have lined up before Felix volunteered his services. 

[David Boylan]

Gerry,

If I remember correctly, Felix had three assassination missions which were unsuccessful. "Larry's" CIA pseudonym was Alton Pirnack. Larry was the "down range" instructor aka sniper instructor. Jenkins' pseudo was James Zaboth. "Larry" would have reported up to Jenkins and Glenn "Rocky" Farnsworth.

[Gerry Down]

36 minutes ago, David Boylan said:

Gerry,

If I remember correctly, Felix had three assassination missions which were unsuccessful. "Larry's" CIA pseudonym was Alton Pirnack. Larry was the "down range" instructor aka sniper instructor. Jenkins' pseudo was James Zaboth. "Larry" would have reported up to Jenkins and Glenn "Rocky" Farnsworth.

Thanks for that clarification regarding Larry.

Regarding you saying that there were "three assassination missions", the way Felix words it in his book "Shadow Warrior", the impression one is left with is that there were three infiltration attempts for the one assassination mission which was to be in in Havana - not that there were three separate individual assassination plots. This is why I find it difficult to tie the Varadero beach estate attack to Felix Rodriguez with any certainty. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Gerry Down

[Larry Hancock]

I suspect that taking Felix's own writing to literally would be a problem; he's a very bright guy, well trained in CIA practices including disinformation.  He might tell us enough to convey his general career and exploits but at best we get clues and leads from him.

As an example, he writes in some detail about the capture and killing of Che, however from documents we now know that he certainly was not the only CIA officer involved and that some of his personal remarks are not totally correct.

I think I probably read and studied his book a dozen times over the years to extract what I thought was useful.  One thing that is notable from it, including being impressed by his skills, is the lack of detail he provides about his movements and activities in 1963. His recruitment and involvement in AMWORLD would have been an interesting story - but its not one he decided to tell.

[Gerry Down]

37 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

I suspect that taking Felix's own writing to literally would be a problem; he's a very bright guy, well trained in CIA practices including disinformation.  He might tell us enough to convey his general career and exploits but at best we get clues and leads from him.

As an example, he writes in some detail about the capture and killing of Che, however from documents we now know that he certainly was not the only CIA officer involved and that some of his personal remarks are not totally correct.

I think I probably read and studied his book a dozen times over the years to extract what I thought was useful.  One thing that is notable from it, including being impressed by his skills, is the lack of detail he provides about his movements and activities in 1963. His recruitment and involvement in AMWORLD would have been an interesting story - but its not one he decided to tell.

Is it your opinion so that the most likely date for the Varadero beach estate attack was 1961? 

For example, there was no chance it could have been 1963 as Jenkins was in Vietnam most of that year?

[Larry Hancock]

Gerry, again we go though all the details on this including when Felix was infiltrated and how and in turn how that aborted in the Wheaton leads....but to answer your question the sniper attacks in question at the beach were most definitely in 1961, in the same time frame as the poison plots against Castro.  Both desperation moves to take him out prior to the Brigade landings.

As to 1963, we have strictly anecdotal information that a rifle team may have remained in play for attacks on Castro, but noting specific to suggest an actual effort was made in that year.  Its not impossible but it it had been done it would have occurred under Moore and Robertson's operational oversight.

[David Boylan]

4 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Is it your opinion so that the most likely date for the Varadero beach estate attack was 1961? 

For example, there was no chance it could have been 1963 as Jenkins was in Vietnam most of that year?

Gerry,

I believe Felix was infiltrated 5 times during Feb 1961 and March 1961.

Felix would be number 10 here - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=82739#relPageId=57

[David Boylan]

Allen Dulles gives a commendation to Jenkins (and Phillips) for their work on JMATE/Cuba Project aka Bay of Pigs,

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=186659#relPageId=1

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Gerry, again we go though all the details on this including when Felix was infiltrated and how and in turn how that aborted in the Wheaton leads....but to answer your question the sniper attacks in question at the beach were most definitely in 1961, in the same time frame as the poison plots against Castro.  Both desperation moves to take him out prior to the Brigade landings.

As to 1963, we have strictly anecdotal information that a rifle team may have remained in play for attacks on Castro, but noting specific to suggest an actual effort was made in that year.  Its not impossible but it it had been done it would have occurred under Moore and Robertson's operational oversight.

I've read "The Wheaton Lead" but I must go through it again in more detail. When you say “As to 1963, we have strictly anecdotal information that a rifle team may have remained in play for attacks on Castro, but noting specific to suggest an actual effort was made in that year.” who are you referring to that gave that anecdotal information?

I’m trying to create a timeline of these Castro plots and paramilitary activities against Cuba, in so far as how they came about and eventually died out. After the BOP, Cuba became more and more difficult for cuban exiles to infiltrate. The old way of infiltrating a team was by use of a mothership which would stop off shore, lower a speedboat, and the speedboat would make its way to the Cuban shore. However by the autumn of 1963 Cuba had got better (as in faster) patrol boats from Russia which made it difficult for these cuban exile speedboats to come in. In his book “The War That Never Was” by Bradley Ayers, Ayers talks about how by Autumn 1963 the CIA were exploring a new method of infiltration using a fishing trawler instead of a mothership which would stop off shore from which much faster V-20 speedboats would go ashore and then make their way back to Florida afterwards without ever docking at the fishing trawler again. Ayers went on one of these missions to test out the V-20 and the mission was so precarious that Ayers was lucky to get back to Florida alive. I think Cuba had become so impenetrable by the time LBJ took office that LBJ looked at the Cuban issue as next to hopeless. Castro was here to stay and the JMWAVE activities then largely died out.

Ayers doesn’t mention names in his book, but I would imagine by the time Ayers arrived at JMWAVE in the summer of 1963, an infiltration team to carry out an assassination plot would have been carried out by a team that looked something like the below (using your guidance of Moore and Robertson in an earlier post to guide me):

• Chief of Station: Ted Shackley
• Deputy Chief of Station: Bob Moore
• Chief of Operations: David Morales
• Deputy Chief of Operations: Robert Wall
• Contract Paramilitary Agent: Rip Robertson
• Contract Paramilitary Agent: Tony Sforza

As you stated “As to 1963, we have strictly anecdotal information that a rifle team may have remained in play for attacks on Castro, but noting specific to suggest an actual effort was made in that year.” how would the above hierarchy have helped out such a rifle team inside cuba?

From what I understand, all of the above people would have been involved (and indeed you might be able to think of other key people that would be involved). If there was a rifle team inside of Cuba like you suggested there is anecdotal evidence of, Ted Shackley would have been head of the whole operation, Bob Moore and David Morales would have been working on the details of the plot and putting Rip Robertson and Tony Sforza in charge of the infiltration of any supplies to the rifle team and been in charge of the exfiltration of the rifle team inside Cuba afterwards. Bradley Ayers would not have been involved as I understand he was only involved in paramilitary activities and was never involved in Castro plots.

Based on your knowledge, what would have been the full chain of command for such a rifle team inside Cuba:

• Chief of Station: Ted Shackley (Role: Head of the whole operation)
• Deputy Chief of Station: Bob Moore (Role: Working with Morales on the details of the plot)
• Chief of Operations: David Morales (Role: Working with Moore on the details of the plot)
• Contract Paramilitary Agent: Rip Robertson (Role: Working with Sforza on details of infiltration of supplies and exfiltration of the rifle team afterwards)
• Contract Paramilitary Agent: Tony Sforza (Role: Working with Robertson on details of infiltration of supplies and exfiltration of the rifle team afterwards)

Do you think the hierarchy of such an operation would have looked something like the above? Perhaps Sforza was more senior to Robertson and therefore Robertson was not needed at all. I don’t know. I was surprised by your inclusion or Moore as I would have thought Morales would have been in charge of that and potentially reported directly to Shackley without necessarily having to go through Moore. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Gerry Down

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, David Boylan said:

Allen Dulles gives a commendation to Jenkins (and Phillips) for their work on JMATE/Cuba Project aka Bay of Pigs,

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=186659#relPageId=1

Damn, y'all are getting deep here, hard for me to keep up.  But this I understand.  Commendations for failure.