The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (25 page)

Frustrated by the lack of progress, having no clear strategy, and lacking time to give the difficult situation the attention it needed, JFK delegated Cuba to Robert Kennedy. However, the constant bickering and never-ending requests for money by Cuban exile groups receiving CIA support quickly frustrated RFK. In addition, the extensive attention RFK gave to Cuban matters was on top of an already full plate of activities he had to oversee as Attorney General, issues ranging from civil rights matters to the war on organized crime.

Robert Kennedy turned to his exile friend Harry Williams, telling him he didn’t want any more Cuban exile leaders coming to RFK for money. Instead, the exiles were to go through Williams, who would then identify for RFK the select few he thought were serious and deserved US backing. By using Williams, RFK also established his own channel into the exile community so he wouldn’t be completely dependent on the CIA. RFK turned to Williams because they had grown increasingly close since the Bay of Pigs prisoner release. A frequent visitor at RFK’s Hickory Hill estate, Williams even stayed at RFK’s New York apartment on visits to Manhattan. The fact that Williams was close to—and trusted by—RFK has been confirmed in accounts by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Haynes Johnson,
Newsweek
editor Evan Thomas, and historian Richard Mahoney. Thomas wrote, “Increasingly through 1963, RFK relied on [Harry] Williams, organizing and motivating the others to keep the pressure on Castro.” Years later Haynes Johnson wrote in the
Washington Post
that of all “the Cuban leaders of the Bay of Pigs invasion,” Williams “was the closest such person to the [JFK] administration” in 1963.

Word soon spread in the exile community—and even in Cuba—that Williams was essentially the gatekeeper for RFK and JFK. Those wanting the support of either man would have to go through Williams.
Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli took notice as well. Rosselli used mob money to fund a phony Cuban exile group, the JGCE (Junta of the Government of Cuba in Exile), run by Paulino Sierra. CIA agent Bernard Barker, also working for Trafficante, helped spread the word about the new group. The mob bosses wanted Sierra’s group to get Williams’s—and the Kennedys’—blessing, in which case it could be used as cover for the plot to kill JFK. However, a journalist raised suspicions about Sierra’s Mafia funding in May 1963, and my interview with Sierra’s daughter confirmed Sierra’s ties to the mob. Sierra’s group lingered for several months, but it never received the backing of Williams or the Kennedys and thus was of no real use in the JFK plot.

A MAY 10, 1963, Associated Press report that would have a huge impact on the secrecy surrounding JFK’s assassination appeared in the
New York Times
and other newspapers. Long overlooked, the article gave surprising details about Harry Williams’s work for Robert Kennedy, information that both men had hoped to keep out of the press:

A new all-out drive to unify Cuban refugees into a single, powerful organization to topple the Fidel Castro regime was disclosed today by exile sources. The plan calls for formation of a junta in exile to mount a three-pronged thrust consisting of sabotage, infiltration, and ultimate invasion. The exile sources said the plan had been discussed with Cuban leaders by US Central Intelligence agents. Seeking to put together the junta was Enrique [Harry] Ruiz Williams, a Bay of Pigs invasion veteran and friend of US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. . . . [Tony] Varona, former Premier [of Cuba], said he had told Mr. Ruiz Williams he would cooperate in plans to unify the exiles.

RFK and Harry Williams were furious when they saw the article revealing information about their secret plans. The information was probably leaked by Tony Varona, who had volunteered to become the first exile leader to join Williams’s operation, no doubt at the urging of Santo Trafficante. Varona had worked on the CIA–Mafia plots with Trafficante and Rosselli, and he was still working for Trafficante in 1963. That Varona was working on behalf of Trafficante and the Mafia was confirmed soon after Varona began working with Williams when the CIA received a report that Rosselli’s associates had paid a bribe of $200,000 to Varona. Neither RFK nor Williams knew about Varona’s work for Trafficante and Rosselli or about the ongoing CIA–Mafia plots, and the CIA never informed RFK about Varona’s bribe from the Mafia. Thus the Kennedys’ covert plans for Cuba were penetrated by Trafficante almost from the start.

However, the May 10, 1963, AP article quickly caught the attention of Commander Juan Almeida, Williams’s old friend in Cuba, still head of the Cuban army. Commander Almeida reached out to Williams within forty-eight hours of seeing the article, getting a message to him to call a certain number in Cuba, a line that was safe from wiretaps. (Almeida helped oversee some of Cuba’s electronic surveillance operations.) At that time Almeida was in many ways the third most powerful official in Cuba, behind only Fidel and his brother Raul Castro, and he wielded far more authority and men than Che Guevara.

Commander Almeida told Williams that Fidel was becoming nothing more than a dictator, betraying the very Revolution they had all fought so hard for. Then Almeida surprised Williams by offering to stage a coup against Fidel—if JFK would back him. As soon as he got off the phone, Williams immediately called Robert Kennedy about Almeida’s offer. Williams and RFK were in near daily contact by May
1963, and Williams appears often in RFK’s official Justice Department phone logs. Williams also made many calls and visits to RFK’s Virginia home, Hickory Hill, and to his New York City apartment.

Robert Kennedy wasted no time in discussing Almeida’s offer with President Kennedy, since this appeared to be the big break regarding Cuba they’d been hoping for. RFK’s official phone logs at the National Archives indicate some of the timing. The logs show that on May 13, 1963, at 5:50 p.m., RFK took a call from President Kennedy. The very next call RFK accepted, at 6:05 p.m., was from Harry Williams. RFK told Williams that JFK had decided to accept Almeida’s offer to stage a coup to overthrow Fidel and that the US government would give Almeida its full backing for the attempt.

That was the start of the JFK–Almeida coup plan, one of the most secret covert US operations since D-Day. In fact, that very term was used on May 29, 1963—just over two weeks after Almeida contacted the Kennedys via Williams—when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Maxwell Taylor wrote a memo saying that it was “a matter of priority” to examine the possibility “of an invasion of Cuba at a time controlled by the United States in order to overthrow the Castro government”; the memo included “a proposed date for D-Day.” Select officials at the Pentagon later played major roles in the JFK–Almeida coup plan, with the CIA relegated to supporting status.

Williams and other aides to John and Robert Kennedy, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk (who also gave an on-the-record confirmation to
Vanity Fair
), verified the JFK–Almeida coup plan to me. Though the vast majority of files about the plan are still classified, a surprising number have slipped through. They include a 1963 CIA report to the Agency’s Director, with information from Bernard Barker about an “operation including Juan Almeida” designed to “overthrow”
Fidel, who would be replaced by a new Cuban government to “be recognized immediately” by JFK’s administration. Another CIA dispatch discusses a plan for “an internal uprising” in Cuba by “Cuban military figures, who are conspiring against Fidel Castro. Among the key figures in the plot [is] Juan Almeida.” Hundreds of pages of files about the US military side of the operation have been declassified.

The JFK–Almeida coup plan was designed to avoid the main problems that befell the Bay of Pigs operation, which had been a relatively open secret known to dozens of officials, aides, agents, and military officers in the US government, as well as to numerous journalists and even partially to Fidel. This time, any knowledge of the coup plan would be tightly held. Only about a dozen people—including JFK, RFK, CIA Director John McCone, and CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms—would know the full scope of the plan. The leading US role in the coup plan was never supposed to be revealed, even after the coup succeeded—and not even years later, since US officials hoped Almeida and trusted exiles might play roles in Cuba’s new government for decades to come. If things worked as JFK and RFK hoped, it would simply appear as though JFK had responded well to the unexpected situation of Fidel’s “elimination” (the term the Kennedys used with their aides).

In the five months of strategizing about Cuba before Almeida’s offer in May 1963, General Maxwell Taylor and other top officials had approved three drafts of a purely hypothetical “Plan for a Coup in Cuba.” After Almeida’s offer was relayed to the Kennedys, the planning took on a new sense of urgency. In just the next four months, ten drafts were completed, some growing to more than eighty pages. Officials at the CIA and State Department reviewed and approved them all. At that point no one at State knew about Almeida, and Dean Rusk would be told about him only after JFK’s death. Thus most—but
not all—of those working on these drafts thought they were only contingency plans, just in case a ranking Cuban official could be found to lead a coup. Only about a dozen officials knew the plans were not just a contingency—they were for real, and one of the highest officials in Cuba was already working with JFK. However, these drafts still give a surprisingly accurate overview of the coup plan. None of those files were declassified for over three decades, until the mid-1990s, partially as a result of information I provided to the staff of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board.

According to the plans, the Cuban leader of the coup had to “have some power base in the Cuban army,” and the United States would also “seek the cooperation of selected Cuban exile leaders.” The point of the plan was to stage a seemingly internal “palace coup in Cuba [that would] neutralize the top echelon of Cuban leadership.” The plan stresses that “it is important [that] the revolt appear genuine and not open to the charge of being a façade for a forcible US overthrow of Castro [since] a well-planned and successful ‘rescue’ of a revolt could be made politically acceptable” to US allies and the Soviets. After Castro’s death, President Kennedy would “warn [the] Soviets not to intervene.” The leaders of the coup “would have announced via radio and other means the . . . establishment of a Provisional Government. They would have appealed to the US for recognition and support, particularly for air cover and a naval blockade, ostensibly to make certain that the Soviets do not intervene but actually, by prearrangement, to immobilize the Cuban Air Force and Navy.” That was important, since “twelve to thirteen thousand Soviet military personnel of all kinds remain [in Cuba].” After “completion of such initial air attacks as may be necessary, provision will be made for the rapid, incremental introduction of balanced forces, to include full-scale invasion.”

However, it’s important to point out that “full-scale invasion” was a worst-case scenario that JFK and others hoped wouldn’t happen. It was possible that Commander Almeida could stage the coup without US military forces. A multiracial group of Cuban American Bay of Pigs veterans—commanded by a black exile officer—was soon training at Fort Benning and Fort Jackson. They would be the first US troops into Cuba if US military forces were needed on the ground. In fact, Commander Almeida could actually ask for the intervention of US forces to help prevent a Soviet takeover of Cuba. A careful reading of all the declassified files and of exclusive interviews with participants in the coup plan shows it was even possible that US military forces could wind up fighting side by side with Commander Almeida’s Cuban troops against forces backing Raul Castro or old-line Cuban Communists.

JFK’s “Plan for a Coup in Cuba” with Almeida was vastly different from the CIA–Mafia plots. The United States wanted support from its allies, and the Kennedys’ ultimate goal was a free and democratic Cuba. According to the plans, “The OAS [Organization of American States] will send representatives to the island to assist the Provisional Government in preparing for and conduct of free elections.” The “Provisional Government” would include the Cuban America exile troops and the leaders of four exile groups, who would secure bases outside the United States prior to the coup. The four exile leaders would represent a broad spectrum of politics, from the ultraconservative Manuel Artime, E. Howard Hunt’s best friend, to the extremely liberal Manolo Ray (and his group JURE) and Eloy Menoyo (and his SNFE). Among them, unfortunately, was Tony Varona, who was working for the Mafia.

Within several months, CIA memos began to describe those disparate groups as working on a major plot to overthrow Castro. As
mentioned, one CIA memo noted that Manolo Ray’s “JURE was currently sponsoring a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro and other high ranking Cuban government officials as part of an operation designed to incite an internal rebellion in Cuba.” The same memo says, “This plan involves an internal uprising with the support of certain Cuban military figures . . . among the key figures in the plot are Juan Almeida.”

The American public knew nothing about the JFK–Almeida coup plan for decades. Finally, some documents were declassified in the 1990s, but the few mentioning Almeida were separate from the files about the “Plan for a Coup in Cuba,” so most historians thought the plans were only a what-if contingency. The JFK–Almeida coup plan didn’t start to become fully exposed until 2006, after the US government sent me a written determination that some files describing Commander Almeida’s secret work for JFK could be released.

The secrecy surrounding the JFK–Almeida coup plan helps explain why so much related to JFK’s assassination stayed secret for so long. Nonetheless, a surprising number of documents slipped through over the years, though some of their significance is clear to historians only now, in hindsight. Among those documents are files about Tony Varona’s summer of 1963 $200,000 bribe from the Mafia. Other memos, such as two from June 1963, outline the goals of John and Robert Kennedy: “The ultimate objective [was for] dissident elements in the military . . . of the Cuban regime to bring about the eventual liquidation of [Fidel] Castro [and] the elimination of the Soviet presence from Cuba.” The handful of exile leaders who were willing to help do that, chosen by Harry Williams and approved by RFK, would receive major funding from the Kennedy Administration to base their operations “outside the territory of the United States.” Those exiles had to be dedicated “to the idea that the overthrow of
[Castro] must be accomplished by Cubans inside and outside Cuba working in concert.” In addition, “an experienced [CIA] liaison officer would be assigned to each group to provide general advice, funds, and material support.” Although the groups would be called autonomous, RFK made it clear they were really working for the United States, but “if ever charged with complicity, the US Government would publicly deny any participation in the groups’ activities.”