Legacy of Secrecy (106 page)

sentenced, but not shot.” Former JFK aide Richard Goodwin later wrote,

“I had seen enough of [Che’s] personal vitality, his love of life, to believe

that he would have preferred survival—even as a prisoner—to mar-

tyrdom.” However, Felix Rodriquez “remembered how the prisoner

[Che] blanched when he heard the news that his fate was sealed” and

he would be executed.11

Felix Rodriquez saw how low Che had sunk by the time he was finally

captured—Castro’s lack of support had taken a harsh toll. Rodriquez

wrote that Che’s “clothes were filthy, ripped in several places, and

missing most of their buttons. He didn’t even have proper shoes, only

pieces of leather wrapped around his feet and tied with cord.” Some-

what incongruously, the ragged Che had only one item of real value: his

expensive “Rolex GMT Master” watch, which Felix Rodriquez wears

proudly to this day.12

While Rodriquez has said the CIA wanted Che alive, E. Howard Hunt

later stated, “We wanted deniability. We made it possible for him to be

killed . . . it was just important that it was done.”13 Hunt never explained

why it was more “important” that Che be killed instead of captured.

However, Almeida was still in place and unexposed at the time, and

remained potentially useful. If Che were alive and kept in Bolivian cus-

tody or allowed to get information to the media, the CIA had no way

of knowing what he might say about Almeida or the CIA’s work with

Cubela. Congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi writes that David

Morales claimed he was “involved in the capture of Che Guevara in

Bolivia” and that Morales, formerly Phillips’ superior back in pre-Castro

Havana, had become “David Atlee Phillips’s most valuable action man.”

Larry Hancock confirmed that “Morales’ Army cover documents do

show him as being assigned to Bolivia [in 1967].” David Morales later

confided to his attorney and close friend that he “had the Bolivian police

arrest [Che and] told them to shoot him.”14

Back in Cuba, Castro got word of Che’s death—but oddly, he was

“frankly euphoric” about it, according to journalist Carlos Franqui.

Shortly after that, Franqui finally left Cuba for good and never returned.

Ironically, if Fidel really did want Che dead, either because of suspected

coup plotting or just to eliminate a rival, then Hunt, Morales, Phillips,

and Helms helped to give Fidel what he wanted.15

While Che’s capture and execution in early October 1967 was a high

point for Helms and Phillips, the rest of their operations against Cuba

remained in transition. Longtime assets like Luis Posada and Antonio

Veciana were being moved to foreign bases, while Felipe Rivero and

his violent associates still faced legal problems. Aside from a few well-

documented cases—like Posada, who remained on the CIA payroll—

historians and Congressional investigators had trouble identifying

which exiles were working for the CIA and which were acting on their

own.

Drug smuggling among the (seemingly) former CIA Cuban exile

operatives whom Tom Tripodi wrote about continued to worsen, and

exiles—along with the Mafia and racist groups—remained major buyers

for illegal guns and explosives. The situation was rife with opportunities

for any of those groups to exploit. One person who apparently became

involved in anti-Castro operations at that time, while running both arms

and drugs, was James Earl Ray.

Chapter Forty-three

In early October 1967, James Earl Ray was still living at a rooming house

in Birmingham, Alabama, as he prepared to enter a new phase of his

criminal career. According to notes Congressional investigators obtained

from an interview with one of Ray’s brothers, Ray’s “contact in Montreal

[had] put him in touch with a guy in Birmingham.” Ray’s purpose in

“going to Birmingham [was to] establish residence [and] live there while

[doing] drug runs.” Ray’s Montreal contact “put him in touch eventu-

ally with The Fence in New Orleans,” an older criminal connected to the

Mafia whom Ray had known more than a decade earlier.1

HSCA investigators found that while he was in Birmingham, Ray

had ordered photographic equipment from a Chicago firm, that Ray

described as “a new type of camera or movie and had something to do

with distant movie taking and infrared.” Ray also purchased a .38 pistol

and obtained an Alabama driver’s license using the alias Eric Starvo

Galt. Driving his 1966 white Mustang, by far the nicest car he had ever

owned, Ray left Birmingham for Mexico on October 6, 1967.2

Ray later testified that he started “to make a detour to Dallas to con-

sult an old acquaintance from Leavenworth,” who had been “a narcotic

smuggler in Mexico.” Ray wanted the former drug smuggler to tell him

“how to handle the current situation.” However, Ray began to worry

that his old friend “may be under surveillance,” so he decided not to go.

Ray said he stopped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and called a number he

had been given in New Orleans. The person answering said Ray was to

go “to Mexico [and] gave me an address and gave me a name of a motel

in Nuevo Laredo.”3

Ray originally indicated the “Mexican operation was going to involve

narcotics.” But he later mentioned that it was “what [he] thought was a

gun deal.” What type of a gun deal? The answer may lie in a statement

to the press that one of Ray’s brothers later released, saying it was based

primarily on his conversations with Ray.

According to the press statement, James Earl Ray said he “was work-

ing with agents of the Federal government . . . they told me that I was

helping them to supply arms and guns to Cuban refugees to overthrow

Castro and the Communists in Cuba. The reason why I made trips to

Mexico was in regard to helping the agents of the Federal government

to supply arms to Cuban refugees there to overthrow Castro.”4

When that statement about James Earl Ray and Cuba was first released

to the press in 1969, more than a year after his capture for King’s murder,

Ray went ballistic. That reaction was unusual, because Ray was usually

quick to go along with any story that would exonerate him, no matter

how wild. The statement also indicated that Ray thought he was help-

ing Cuban exiles “overthrow Castro” while he was in Memphis when

Dr. King was shot, and “that the federal agents merely used me to be

the fall guy when they killed King. I now realize they had no interest in

overthrowing Castro.”5

That would seem to be in line with other stories Ray told to depict

himself as an innocent patsy, but Ray’s response to the statement’s release

was angry and unprecedented for the usually cool Ray. He immediately

issued a signed notice disavowing it, and for a time Ray even banned

the brother who released it from visiting him in prison.6

When the statement about Ray and Cuban operations was released

in 1969, the American press and public were largely unaware that the

US government even had “federal agents” helping Cuban exiles after

the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It would be the mid-1970s before that started to

become widely known, because of the CIA operatives and Cuban exiles

involved in Watergate and the resulting revelations about the CIA-Mafia

plots.

When Ray’s brother released the statement, he was working for

J. B. Stoner, and Congressional investigators seemed to feel that Stoner

was behind it, though Ray’s brother denied it. (Ray refused to allow

Stoner to testify to the investigators.) However, Stoner had no known

involvement with covert Cuban operations. On the other hand, Stoner’s

associate Joseph Milteer had dealt with Guy Banister, who had numer-

ous contacts in anti-Castro operations.7

A decade after the statement’s release, Ray’s brother clarified to the

HSCA what was still a touchy subject, testifying that he wrote the state-

ment based on conversations he’d had with Ray, who would “agree with

the general thrust of his statement [even if] he might disagree with the

emphasis” of certain parts. For example, he said that that James Earl Ray

“thought he was working for” the “Federal agents” regarding Cuba, but

“he didn’t know [for sure, and] that was just suspicion on his part.”8

Ray’s sensitivity about the matter might be explained by the fact that

Cuban exiles were involved in both drugs and explosive violence in

530

LEGACY OF SECRECY

1967, at the time of Ray’s trip to Mexico, and in 1969, when the statement

was released. While Marcello’s heroin network was ruthless, equally

fearsome were the reputations of Cuban exiles like Felipe Rivero, who

didn’t hesitate to try to blow up their former comrades.

Ten years after the original statement was released, Ray himself talked

about Cuba to Congressional investigators. His testimony not only indi-

rectly confirms the statement Ray tried to disavow six years earlier, but

also provides a reason why someone might have thought Ray would

be drawn to Cuban operations, aside from the chance to make money.

Ray testified that in late 1967, a contact in New Orleans “told him their

next venture would be a gunrunning operation into Mexico” that would

involve “some type of military equipment, rifles, or something.” After

“that Ray would end up in Cuba, from where he would be able to book

passage anywhere in the world he wanted to go.” That should have

appealed to a fugitive like Ray, though Ray claims he told his contact

he “wasn’t too interested in [going to] Cuba.”9

If Ray felt he was involved with “Federal agents [trying] to overthrow

Castro,” his suspicions evoke the experience of Antonio Veciana with

“Maurice Bishop” (likely the alias of David Atlee Phillips), and Oswald’s

contacts with Phillips and Guy Banister. In Veciana’s case, drugs were

eventually also involved. Ironically, Richard Helms revealed in his auto-

biography the way someone like Ray might have been recruited for

a CIA Cuban operation. He wrote that “in the real world,” a person

sought out for “an operation like this would have been recruited by

a cutout” using an alias, “who would say he was fronting for some

well-heeled [Cuban] émigrés. . . . It would have been a cash-and-carry

event—all cash and no checks.” If caught, the person recruited “would

[not] have anything to reveal but a sterile telephone number and a physi-

cal description of” the man using the alias, “who would have vanished

the moment” problems developed. In his autobiography, Helms was

writing about Watergate, not Ray, but his account evokes not only the

story of Veciana and “Bishop,” but also James Earl Ray’s tales about the

mysterious “Raoul.”10

Ray probably had not yet been offered the contract on Dr. King when

he went to Mexico, since he was still proving himself as a member of

Marcello’s heroin network. That network also involved Cuban exiles,

Cuban operations, and other forms of smuggling. Just nine months

after Ray’s trip to Mexico, a familiar name was arrested in a smuggling

operation on the Texas–Mexico border that used ex-cons and anti-Castro

operations: Trafficante’s operative Frank Fiorini.

According to the Justice Department, Fiorini’s scheme “was really a

conspiracy to smuggle stolen automobiles out of the United States” into

Mexico, which Fiorini claimed was all leading up to “a commando raid on

Castro’s Cuba.” Using “ex-cons and [those with] military [experience]”—

the same kind of background Ray had—Fiorini smuggled stolen cars,

apparently along with firearms, from Texas into Mexico. One of Fiorini’s

men in the car-smuggling operation had also helped Fiorini spread

John Martino’s phony stories after JFK’s assassination. The smuggled

vehicles were late-model American cars, including Mustangs; Fiorini’s

men would drive them across the border into Mexico, return to Texas,

and drive another car over the border.

Frank Fiorini’s scheme went on for quite some time and involved

more than a hundred cars, after which Fiorini and some of his men

were captured in British Honduras while supposedly en route to Cuba.

However, according to the
Miami Herald
, Fiorini called “somebody in

Washington,” and subsequently “a Fort Lauderdale lawyer says he got

a call ‘from a man at the State Department’” about representing the

men. Fiorini and his crew were all released, with no charges at the time.

The lawyer said, “I gather it had the tacit approval of somebody in the

government, or they would have been in trouble.” Fiorini was not pros-

ecuted until five years later, after he was arrested for Watergate.11

Fiorini’s scheme was just part of a large, ongoing operation involving

Mafia associates of Marcello and Trafficante, the corrupt Mexican Fed-

eral Police (the DFS), and the heroin network they shared. As Peter Dale

Scott noted, Sam Giancana and Richard Cain were living in Mexico, and

their mob was “simultaneously involved in smuggling stolen cars . . . in