Bart Kamp & Malcolm Blunt discuss CIA-Tennent Pete Bagley.

[Pete Mellor]

 

[David Boylan]

I love to listen to Malcom and Bart's talks. I learn something new every time. I found the mention of Cal Hicks "being in the basement" with Alpha-66 interesting. "In the basement" is a term used by CIA for an off the books project.  Don't ask, don't tell. We know that Hicks was Antonio Veciana's case officer until, reportedly, Oct 1962 give or take. Veciana was moved in the ISR (intelligence source registry) from CIA to Army at this time.

Hicks was primarily a PM (Paramilitary) operations officer. He was an early recruit for the BOP/Cuba Project. He would later work for Bill Harvey's TFW and Desmond Fitzgerald's SAS. He worked closely with Guy Vitale and James Pekich. Pekich and John Peters (I'd love to know more about John Peters) were case officers for AMPANIC-7 (Emilio Rivero Caro aka Brand). AMPANIC-7's Havana contact was AMIRE-1/Emilio Rodriguez.

We know that Cal Hicks, Jim Pekich and someone using the name of Harold Bishop (additional ref) were working with Jose Pujal/AMCOAX-1 , Alfredo Izaguirre/AMPUG-1, Reinol Gonzalez/AMCALL-1, and Antonio Veciana/AMSHALE-1 on a few operations to assassinate Castro.

Bill Simpich writes on these plots - http://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=191905

So, who was Harold Bishop? Someone that worked closely with Hicks and Pekich.

Transcript of Fonzi-Escalante Interview, Part 1

April-August 1971: "Another anecdote: I don't know what Antonio Veciana has told you but I'm going to tell you what I know. The case, as we call it, From The North Terrace of the Palace. To us it was a puzzle. First of all we arrest on August 8, 1961, a CIA agent named Jose Pujals Maderos/AMCOAX-1). This man had been a very old informant of the CIA in Havana. And after the Bay of Pigs he was enrolled by another CIA agent, Isedro Izzajidre (note: Alfredo Izaguirre/AMPUG-1) on a plot to kill Fidel and Raul Castro...But they both had some differences, and about middle of June, Pujals leaves for the United States. The actions against (Izaguirre), if I don't recall wrong, was on July 22. We arrested the main people in the plot...the CIA radio man Jorge Garcia Rubio...And the main thing was that plot was organized. This plan was also linked with a provocation at the Navy base in Guantanamo. But that's another story...It looked like the end of July...let me give you another detail that I didn't give you before - according to what Pujal Madero/AMCOAX-1 said, that he gets to Miami and has a meeting with Howard Hunt and he travels to Washington and has an interview with someone called Harold Bishop...and he was the person who told him to contact Veciana and Reynold Gonzalez...We don't even have a description of him...but that is a detail so you can bear it in mind...The interesting thing is Bishop and that its not Maurice, it's Harold...And then he (Pujols) comes back to Cuba at the end of July and contacts Veciana and Gonzales and we captured him on August 8th...From August 8th we already know that it was a new plot to kill Fidel, but we didn't know where it was going to be or when or how big it was..." 12/9-10/95, Gaeton Fonzi interview of Fabian Escalante, p. 25.