Legacy of Secrecy (56 page)

casino, around the time that both mob bosses first became involved in

the 1960 CIA-Mafia plots. Diaz had left Cuba in July 1963, first going to

Mexico City, where David Atlee Phillips ran Cuban operations. After

arriving in the US, Diaz told the CIA in September 1963 that he wanted

to assassinate Fidel—and that he knew about Commander Almeida’s

and Rolando Cubela’s dissatisfaction. By October 1963, a CIA memo

confirms that Diaz had captured the interest of Desmond FitzGerald and

Ted Shackley, Chief of the CIA’s Miami station, where Rosselli regularly

visited David Morales. In the 1990s, a former Cuban official claimed that

Herminio Diaz had been in Dallas for JFK’s assassination; if true, Diaz’s

work on the Castro assassination plots might have simply been a cover

for his role in JFK’s murder.49

The December 6, 1963, attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro involving

Herminio Diaz was first documented in 2006 by author Larry Hancock.50

More CIA files have since been discovered, reporting the “wide rumor

of [an] assassination attempt against Fidel Castro after his TV appear-

ance Dec. 6, resulting in [the] killing of [a] man next to him. Castro [was]

uninjured. Would-be killer at large.”51 Hancock quotes a CIA cable to

LBJ’s national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, that described “an

assassination attempt on Fidel Castro after his TV appearance on 12/6,”

reported by the wife of a Havana diplomat. CIA headquarters, likely

FitzGerald or one of his men, added a comment linking that attempt to

“continuing rumors of a plot to assassinate Castro which is connected

with Herminio Diaz.”52

The CIA comment about Diaz is important, since FBI files show that

Diaz was trafficking narcotics for Trafficante around that time. CIA

records released so far about Diaz are clearly incomplete, raising the

possibility that Diaz was involved in activities involving the CIA that

Helms decided to keep hidden.53

Reports of an attempt to assassinate Fidel so soon after JFK’s mur-

der, especially one involving Trafficante’s bodyguard, raise several

possibilities. By December 6, it was clear that the US was not going to

be rushed into a quick invasion of Cuba because of Oswald’s seeming

ties to Cuba and Russia. Some Cuban exiles, and CIA personnel like

Morales, may have decided to remove Fidel themselves. Diaz still had

ties to Cuba, and Morales’s Mafia-linked operative Tony Sforza could

travel freely in and out of Cuba. If Diaz was involved in the December

6 attempt, his participation could be seen as part of the unauthorized

CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro.

Likewise, if Herminio Diaz was involved in JFK’s assassination, link-

ing him to the December 6, 1963, attempt to kill Fidel could inoculate him

and his associates against scrutiny regarding JFK’s murder. FitzGerald

and Helms would worry that it might appear that an assassin trained

by the CIA to kill Fidel had instead killed JFK. Even if the two CIA offi-

cials had not engaged Diaz directly, they would still worry that one of

their operatives might have, and that anyone digging too deeply might

uncover their unauthorized operations. From Trafficante’s perspective,

any of those possibilities were good. Even if Diaz’s involvement, or the

attempt itself, were just rumors, having them circulating at CIA head-

quarters and the White House was still a plus for Trafficante.54

depended on how he and a few trusted subordinates handled several

crucial matters. These ranged from continuing the CIA’s operations

against Castro to dealing with streams of suspicious information flow-

ing through the CIA pipeline from Mexico City, stories that tried to link

Fidel to JFK’s assassination. Those tales were eventually discredited and

Helms viewed them skeptically from the start, unlike high officials such

as President Johnson and McCone. In the tense times following JFK’s

death, Helms may well have helped the US avoid a potentially deadly

confrontation with Cuba and the Soviets. On the other hand, one has

to wonder if he ever questioned the central role his Cuban operations

chief in Mexico City, David Atlee Phillips, played in many of the suspi-

cious stories.

Disinformation involving a young Nicaraguan named Gilberto

Alvarado began flowing through David Atlee Phillips on November

26, 1963. On that day, at the American embassy in Mexico City, Alvarado

claimed that two months earlier, he had seen Oswald receive $6,500

at the Cuban embassy “for the purpose of killing someone.” Anthony

Summers noticed that a phrase Alvarado attributes to Oswald matches

the wording used in the Silvia Odio incident. Alvarado’s accusations

created a huge stir among high officials in Washington for more than a

week, and US ambassador to Mexico Thomas Mann was convinced the

account proved that Fidel was behind JFK’s murder.1

Alvarado soon admitted he was lying—only to then claim that he

wasn’t lying. After failing a lie-detector test, Alvarado finally admitted

that he was really a Nicaraguan intelligence agent. Summers writes

that Alvarado “explains his presence at the Cuban Embassy” around

the same time as Oswald by saying “he had been sent to Mexico to try

to get to Cuba on an infiltration mission.” The Alvarado investigation

was dropped, and even though the CIA concluded that “Alvarado’s

allegation was indeed fabricated,” some who want to blame JFK’s death

on Castro keep dredging it up.2

In addition to Alvarado and Oswald, a third unusual man visited the

Cuban embassy around the same time; Summers says he “behaved as

though he was on some sort of undercover mission in Mexico, and [his]

movements ran parallel to Oswald’s.” Like Oswald and Alvarado, this

individual “tried to get a Cuban entry visa.” The young man then left

Mexico, traveled to Dallas and New Orleans, and had met earlier with

anti-Castro activists. Just as Alvarado worked for Nicaraguan Intelli-

gence, this individual worked for Costa Rican Intelligence, which knew

he “planned to infiltrate Cuba.”3

One thread all three young men had in common was Manuel Artime,

who had camps in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and ties to their intelli-

gence services.4 Oswald, Alvarado, and the other man were apparently

all on the same type of mission in Mexico City at the same time, trying to

get into Cuba. But who controlled their movements—and gave Alvarado

his phony story? Artime or David Morales (along with their mob associ-

ates) seem to be likely suspects, as does David Atlee Phillips.

Richard Helms received suspicious information about two more

young men who went to Mexico City, trying to get into Cuba—only

this time, the stories tied them more directly to events in Dallas. They

were Tampa suspect Gilberto Policarpo Lopez and Miguel Cases Saez,

the shadowy Cuban who had seemingly followed JFK to Chicago and

Dallas. Helms did not take these allegations as seriously as Counter-

Intelligence Chief James Angleton, who saw Lopez and Saez as part of

a Castro conspiracy involving Oswald.5

Gilberto Lopez crossed the border from Texas into Mexico on Novem-

ber 23, 1963, but he didn’t check into his Mexico City hotel until Novem-

ber 25.6 His whereabouts between those dates are unknown; it was as if

someone kept him secreted away until Oswald was dead and it was clear

no evidence had emerged that required a co-conspirator. (Lopez “entered

Mexico by auto,” even though, like Oswald, he neither owned nor could

drive a car.) An FBI report includes claims that “on November 27 last,

Lopez departed Mexico City by special airplane for Havana, Cuba,” and

that Lopez had “a probable role” in JFK’s murder.7 However, the most

incriminating information came from a “Covert American Source” in a

Mexican ministry involved with the corrupt Mexican federal police (the

drug-connected DFS). The story about Lopez’s being “the only passen-

ger [in a] special plane” to Havana fell apart under close examination

three times: in late 1963, when it surfaced again in the spring of 1964,

and in the late 1970s when it was debunked by the House Select Com-

mittee on Assassinations. Historian Richard D. Mahoney observed that

Lopez’s story seemed designed to trigger “what David Phillips, David

272

LEGACY OF SECRECY

Morales, and Bill Harvey and the thousands of anti-Castro fighters in

their training had demanded: a second invasion of Cuba.”8

Some high US officials knew Lopez had left Tampa just three days

after the attempt to kill JFK there, and that he had contact with the

Fair Play for Cuba Committee, so it’s not hard to see why they took

the reports seriously at first. The FBI even tapped the telephones of

people who had only brief contact with Lopez, which we describe in

Chapter 22.

As the Lopez story rose through official channels, it was supplemented

by stories about Miguel Casas Saez, who had appeared to shadow JFK

while staying one step ahead of US authorities. Reports from Mexico

said Saez was in Dallas when JFK was shot, then fled to Mexico City,

where a Cubana Airlines plane was held for him for five hours. Saez

then supposedly rode in the cockpit so the passengers wouldn’t see him.

Thirdhand accounts by David Morales’s AMOT Cuban exile informants

said the formerly poor Saez suddenly had money and American clothes

once he returned to Cuba. Like Oswald and Lopez, Saez also had a Rus-

sian connection: He had taken a Russian-language course and “speaks

Russian quite well,” according to a CIA memo. (If true, it meant that like

Oswald and Lopez, Saez would have also made a good patsy for a CIA

assassination of Castro.)

Though the Saez allegations concerned US officials in the crucial early

period after JFK’s death, they eventually fell apart. When the initial

report of the Cubana plane’s being held was finally declassified, it didn’t

mention Saez at all. The most incriminating information in CIA reports

was thirdhand, from sources of questionable reliability whose names are

still withheld today. One CIA memo says that “in view of the vagueness

of the original report [and its] unknown sources . . . I’d let this die its

natural death, as the Bureau [FBI] is doing.”9

Whether Saez was a real person or simply a creation of Morales’s

informants has never been established. If he was real, he might have been

a Cuban on a low-level smuggling mission to the US who was simply

manipulated so that his travels later looked suspicious. Trafficante and

even Jimmy Hoffa engaged in these types of smuggling activities—one

of Hoffa’s lieutenants later wrote about “times when Jimmy asked that

Castro send people over here to do little jobs for him.”10 After reviewing

all of the available information, we conclude about Saez what we did

about Gilberto Lopez: Neither man was knowingly involved in JFK’s

assassination, but their movements were probably being manipulated

by someone who wanted it to appear as if they were.

None of the stories about Saez or Lopez were reported in the news

media at the time. However, one of the long-secret CIA memos about

Saez used wording similar to that from the Odio incident and the

Alvarado allegation, saying that Saez “was capable of doing anything”

after claiming “he had firing practice.” As journalist Anthony Summers

suggests, it was almost as if the conspirators in each instance were read-

ing from the same script. The question is whether the authors were men

like confessed conspirators Martino, Morales, and Rosselli, or whether

they also included far more experienced writers like propaganda expert

David Atlee Phillips and spy novelist E. Howard Hunt.

While dealing with the disturbing information about Saez, Lopez,

and the others, Helms had to continue the CIA’s efforts against Cas-

tro, including his own unauthorized attempts to assassinate Fidel. If

one of his unauthorized attempts was successful, or those plots could

be merged with plans authorized by the new president, it would give

Helms additional cover. At the same time, Helms had to withhold crucial

information from other agencies and investigators that could damage

Helms, his associates, or the CIA.

Just one example among many, the following CIA memo from

November 25, 1963, disproves one of Helms’s cover stories to the FBI,

LBJ, and eventually the Warren Commission: that no one in the CIA had

ever expressed an operational interest in Oswald, even after he returned

to the US with a Russian wife. The CIA agent who sent this still partially

censored memo says that due to “the number of Soviet women marrying

foreigners, being permitted to leave the USSR. . . . we eventually turned

up something like two dozen similar cases [so] we showed operational

intelligence interest in the [Lee] Harvey [Oswald] story.”11

Even as Richard Helms withheld information like that from LBJ and