The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (41 page)

President Kennedy was doing a great deal regarding Cuba, but none of it was in the public eye. Even while JFK was making his final attempts to reach a peaceful solution with Castro, he continued his efforts to overthrow the Cuban leader. As the December 1, 1963, date for the coup approached, Commander Almeida indicated to Harry Williams that he wanted JFK’s personal assurance that the President would fully support the coup once it began. The plan was that on November 18, 1963, following JFK’s long motorcade in Tampa, the President would go to Miami to deliver a speech, several lines of which would specifically reassure Commander Almeida that he had JFK’s personal backing.

A CIA report from 1963, uncovered years later by Congressional investigators, confirms that in “Kennedy’s speech of November 18, 1963 [in Miami], the CIA intended President Kennedy’s speech to serve as a signal to dissident elements in Cuba that the US would support a coup.” The CIA report states the wording was intended for “dissident elements in the Cuban Armed Forces [who] must have solemn assurances from high-level US spokesmen, especially the President, that the United States will exert its decisive influence during and immediately after the coup.” Years later, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sy Hersh wrote that CIA officer Seymour Bolten—an aide to Cuban Operations Chief Desmond FitzGerald—told a Congressional investigator that he had personally delivered the key paragraph written for JFK’s speech. Declassified files withheld from Congress and not seen by Hersh confirm that Bolten’s supervisor, FitzGerald, was a key participant of AMWORLD and the JFK–Almeida coup plan.

The last memo declassified from the Cuban Contingency planning shows that on November 12, 1963, the subcommittee was still
working on “the preparation of contingency plans to counter the following possible actions by Castro,” including the attempted “assassination of American officials.” However, apparently John and Robert Kennedy—still digesting the political and security fallout from the canceled Chicago motorcade—decided against sharing information about the Chicago threat with the entire subcommittee. Telling all the subcommittee members would have meant their supervisors, aides, and secretaries could also find out, which could compromise the security of the impending coup plan. So most of those working on the Cuba Contingency planning, and other key personnel, hadn’t been told crucial information about the assassination threat in Chicago. Declassified files show that Robert Kennedy was set to meet with coup plan exile leaders Harry Williams and Manuel Artime in Washington on November 17, 1963, the day before JFK’s important speech for Almeida. But neither Williams nor Artime was told about the Chicago threat.

The stakes were incredibly high for JFK and RFK, since just five days after the Chicago attempt, American newspapers reported that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had publicly warned the “US that attack on Cuba will lead to war.” That made it all the more crucial that no hint of the coup plan could emerge from any investigation of the Chicago threat, or any threats that might emerge during JFK’s upcoming trips to Tampa and Miami on November 18, 1963.

On November 17, in Florida, President Kennedy and his aides were putting the finishing touches on the image that JFK wanted to project to assure Commander Almeida of his support. That weekend, JFK had been at the Kennedy Palm Beach estate with Richard Goodwin and other aides, creating the final draft of his important Miami speech. JFK already had the passage the CIA had carefully
crafted for Commander Almeida. The aides working on the speech didn’t know about Almeida or that the CIA had written a small portion of JFK’s remarks, as Goodwin confirmed to me. JFK’s recent activities had been orchestrated to send a show of strength to Almeida and his allies in Cuba. That day, Florida newspapers featured major front-page coverage of JFK viewing the launch of a Polaris missile from a submarine. In Tampa JFK was scheduled to have a private—though widely publicized—meeting with the head of Strike Force Command (now Central Command) and other military brass, including some brought in from Washington. Coupled with the special lines in JFK’s speech, all this was designed to reassure Almeida that JFK would back him and the coup all the way, even with US military force.

THE PLOT TO kill JFK was also proceeding on November 17, 1963. In Tampa, Gilberto Lopez was waiting on a very important phone call. According to the Senate Church Committee, Lopez “was at a get-together at the home of a member of the Tampa Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee [where he was] for some time waiting for a telephone call from Cuba which was very important. It was understood that it all depended on his getting the ‘go ahead order’ for him to leave the United States.”

The released records give so many different reasons why Lopez claimed he wanted to return to Cuba that it’s hard to pin down the real reason. Congressional investigators wrote that “Lopez told his wife he had received financial assistance for his trip to Cuba from an organization in Tampa [and] he would not have been able to pay for the trip without help.” Lopez’s trip would be unusual because he didn’t own a car or drive—yet after JFK’s Tampa motorcade, Lopez would embark on a long journey by car to Texas. Lopez would then be
driven by a still-unidentified person to Mexico City, where he would catch a flight to Havana.

Declassified files say that Lopez had a brother “studying in the Soviet Union” at the time, which could have made Lopez useful to US intelligence, even though an FBI report says that Lopez “spoke very little English.” In addition to not being able to drive, Lopez also had no passport and little money, so someone who could help him get to Cuba could have used that as a way to manipulate him. That could have been a US intelligence agency, the Mafia, or—as in the case of Oswald—both. A 2003 newspaper report pointed out how Lopez might have come to the attention of the Mafia, concluding that “Gilberto Policarpo Lopez[’s] movements and activities suggest that he was a possible participant in Trafficante’s activities,” though on a very low level.
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As for the call Lopez was waiting on from Cuba, that could have been from any number of Mafia or US intelligence assets who traveled to Cuba, including some who worked for David Morales.

In her first interview with a journalist, Lopez’s wife (they never divorced, even after he returned to Cuba) told me Lopez was “a painter by trade” and that when she “left him in Tampa, he was working painting a big building . . . across from where they lived in Ybor City.” The small Ybor City enclave in Tampa was frequented by Santo Trafficante, since it was home to his favorite restaurant.

A high Florida law-enforcement official I spoke with identified the full name of a man linked to Gilberto Lopez and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee who “was watched closely in conjunction with JFK’s visit.” The man’s last name was Rodriguez, one of the names that had
surfaced in the Chicago threat investigation. However, neither that official nor Tampa Police Chief Mullins—who had recently taken over from Chief Brown—was ever told about the Chicago threat.

According to one account, Lopez had another suspicious associate. The
Tampa Tribune
later reported that “on Nov. 17, 1963 [when] Lopez attended a meeting in the home of a member of the Tampa chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee [also] thought to have been at that meeting was Lee Harvey Oswald.” The article goes on to say that “recently declassified FBI files quote ‘operatives’ as saying Oswald met with a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Tampa on that date [though] that information was never confirmed.”

My high Florida law-enforcement source stated that an “informant said that he’d met Oswald at an FPCC meeting in Tampa with several other people present, just before JFK’s motorcade. The informant remembered Oswald’s appearance, but not his name, so if it was Oswald, he may have been using an alias. This informant was different from the one cited by the
Tampa Tribune
, Joe Burton, who was known to our source as someone who “helped the FBI.”

According to John H. Davis, “over the weekend of November 16, 17 [1963], the real Oswald disappeared entirely from view and his whereabouts on those two days still remain unknown.” For the Tampa assassination attempt, the point is not whether the real Oswald was in Tampa or not on November 17, 1963; what is important is that someone wanted authorities to think he was, or might have been. Before JFK’s Tampa motorcade, officials there would issue a lookout describing a potential assassin that actually matched Oswald much more closely than the first description issued after JFK’s murder in Dallas.

THREE WEEKS AFTER Chicago, the Kennedys faced a shocking development at a critical time when officials discovered another plot to assassinate JFK, this time during his long Tampa motorcade on November 18. Officials uncovered the plot less than twenty-four hours before JFK’s arrival and advised him to cancel his visit, since at least two potential assassins were on the loose. Tampa Police Chief Mullins told me that he also advised the President and his staff to cancel JFK’s visit. However, another sudden cancellation was not a viable option for President Kennedy. While he and RFK had been able to keep the real reason for the Chicago cancellation out of the press, another major motorcade cancelled at the last minute would surely raise questions they couldn’t answer.

In addition, JFK was set to give his important speech that night in Miami, with the important lines of assurance for Commander Almeida. How could President Kennedy ask Almeida to risk his life to stage a coup if word leaked that JFK had been too afraid to travel in his own motorcade? Despite the warnings, JFK decided to go ahead with the motorcade. Jackie wasn’t with him on this trip, so the risk would be his alone.

The Tampa threat was verified not only by Chief Mullins and a former head of the Florida Intelligence Unit (who wishes to remain confidential because of his efforts against Santo Trafficante and his crime family) but also from newspaper accounts—which appeared the day after JFK’s murder—and several official files. The threat involved at least two men, one of whom threatened to “use a gun” and was described by the Secret Service as “white, male, 20, slender build.” (That description could fit Oswald or Lopez, who were just a few years older; though Hispanic, Lopez had a light complexion.) According to Congressional investigators, “Secret Service memos” say “the threat
on Nov. 18, 1963 was posed by a mobile, unidentified rifleman shooting from a window in a tall building with a high power rifle fitted with a scope.” That was the same basic scenario as Chicago and Dallas; however, those Congressional investigators weren’t told the threat was active in Tampa. Chief Mullins confirmed that the police were told about the threat by the Secret Service prior to JFK’s motorcade through Tampa, and they had their own source as well. The threat triggered even more security precautions. One motorcade participant recalls commenting at the time that “at every overpass there were police officers with rifles on alert.”

Secret Service agent Sam Kinney said he learned later that “organized crime” was behind the threat. The former head of the Florida Intelligence Unit—who worked closely with the Tampa Police at the time—said that he was certain there was going to be a hit on JFK in Tampa. He later confirmed that Tampa mob boss Santo Trafficante was involved.

The official accompanied the Presidential party and said that the strain of dealing with the threat was why Kennedy appeared “handsome, tan, and smiling” in front of the crowds but appeared “tired and ill” backstage. Nevertheless, JFK went out of his way to present a fearless image in Tampa in spite of the threat. After finishing one of his speeches, JFK “surged out into the crowd, which immediately engulfed him. The Secret Service men with him went crazy,” according to a report in a local newspaper. The article also noted a motorcade participant’s recollection of “how concerned everyone was when” JFK “stood up in the car as he rode through the streets of Tampa after his talk.” We’ll never know whether he did so because of his ongoing back problems or, in case word of the threat leaked to the public, to show he wasn’t afraid.

Chief Mullins and other officials were especially concerned about Tampa’s tallest building, the Floridan Hotel, which overlooked a hard left turn for JFK’s motorcade. The redbrick Floridan looks similar to the Texas School Book Depository, only much taller and with more windows; almost a hundred had a clear view of JFK’s motorcade. The hotel was full that day and impossible to secure. In 1963 one could easily register under a false name—at that time, many travelers paid with cash—and every guest room window in the Floridan could be opened. The hotel was just one short block away from the intersection where JFK’s limo would have to come to almost a full stop to make its turn. For a sniper perched in one of the hotel windows, sitting back in the shadows, assassinating the President would have been all too easy.

Chief Mullins and the Secret Service didn’t know if the two suspects at large were southern white supremacists, disgruntled anti-Castro exiles, pro-Castro exiles, or Cuban agents. (The shadowy Cuban Miguel Casas Saez, who was reported near Chicago just before JFK’s motorcade there, had also been reported in Florida.) Even without knowing about Marcello’s two hit men from Europe, officials in Tampa had plenty of reasons to urge JFK to cancel his entire motorcade.

But JFK disregarded their warnings and insisted on going ahead. The clear “bubble top” for JFK’s limo wasn’t used. It wasn’t bulletproof anyway, and using it would send the wrong message to Commander Almeida. The Lincoln in which JFK rode in Tampa was the same one he would later use in Dallas. Just as in Chicago, a complete press blackout about the threat was informally ordered. A tight lid of secrecy was clamped down on all information about the threat. Two small articles appeared right after JFK’s death, but even then the story was quickly suppressed, and they received no follow-up. Chief Mullins was quoted in those articles—at first openly talking about the
threat but by the following day saying nothing—and he didn’t speak for publication about the threat again until I interviewed him in the mid-1990s.