Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (40 page)

One CIA officer deeply involved in the Cuban adventures was William
Harvey, who established and managed the CIA's now-famous "Executive Action" program-a program of calculated assassination code-named ZRRIFLE. Referring to Harvey's program, President Lyndon Johnson once
commented: "... we were running a damn Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean."

It is in this area-assassination plots-that the U.S. intelligence community in general, and the CIA in particular, have created serious suspicions
in the minds of researchers regarding possible complicity in the death of
President Kennedy.

In September 1963, CIA officers again tried to hatch an assassination
plot against Castro-this time using a Cuban government official named
Dr. Rolando Cubela. His CIA code name was AM/LASH.

Some two years earlier, Cubela, a Cuban minister without portfolio, had
contacted the CIA and offered to defect. The Agency had persuaded him to
remain in place as a valuable conduit of inside information.

This time, meeting in a Sao Paulo, Brazil safe house, Cubela startled
his CIA contacts by offering to assassinate Castro if he had the support of
the U.S. government. This offer was sent to Desmond FitzGerald, a
personal friend of Robert Kennedy and one of the CIA officials in charge
of Operation MONGOOSE.

Despite cautions from CIA counterintelligence that Cubela might be a
Castro agent testing U.S. government intentions, FitzGerald ordered that
Cubela be told that his offer to eliminate Castro was under consideration at
the "highest levels." This strange story has been related in both Legend:
The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald by Edward Jay Epstein and The
Kennedys by John H. Davis.

Toward the end of October Cubela made an extraordinary demand. He
wanted personal assurance that his plan to kill Castro was to be actively
supported by the Kennedy administration. On October 29, again against the
advice of counterintelligence, FitzGerald personally met with Cubela and
assured him that once Castro was gone, the Kennedy administration would
support a new Cuban government. But when Cubela asked for a rifle with
telescopic sights and the means to deliver poison, FitzGerald declined to
speak of such specifics. Another meeting with Cubela was set and on that
day, the CIA case officer supplied Cubela with a poison ballpoint pen.
Cubela was told the rifle and some explosives would be delivered to him
soon. Cubela received his assassination tools from the CIA on November 22,
1963.

Although no documentation of the AM/LASH plot has survived, some
senior CIA officials now claim that the plot did have the support of both
Robert Kennedy and his brother. Since both are now dead, there's no real
way to be sure.

It was the knowledge of AM/LASH, however, that caused consternation among CIA officials when Castro made certain public statements concerning assassination plots. While attending a reception in the Brazilian embassy in Havana, Castro told an Associated Press reporter: "Kennedy is
the Batista of our time and the most opportunistic president of all time."
Castro went on to warn against "terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders" adding: "United States leaders should think that if they assist in
terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be
safe." This warning has for years been used to support the theory that
somehow Castro had learned of the CIA plots against him and, in retaliation, sent assassins after Kennedy. But since Cubela was not caught by
Castro until 1966, it is unlikely that AM/LASH was the impetus of his
1963 remarks.

While the CIA MONGOOSE program continued in Florida, similar
operations were being conducted in New Orleans, long a hotbed of Cuban
exile-CIA activity. One of the centers of this activity was the shabby,
three-story office building at 544 Camp Street, a connecting point for the
CIA, FBI, anti-Castro Cubans, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Within days of Kennedy's assassination, the FBI questioned David
Ferrie in New Orleans. Ferrie denied any knowledge of the assassination
and the FBI agents let him go, apparently unaware of Ferrie's Civil Air
Patrol connection to accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald or to New
Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello. Neither apparently did the agents
know that Ferrie had been working for Detective Guy Banister in the
summer of 1963.

Whatever information Ferrie gave the FBI will never be known, since
the interview was classified and locked away on orders of J. Edgar Hoover
and in 1976, the National Archives reported that Ferrie's original statement was missing from its collection of assassination documents.

Both Ferrie and Banister were well-connected with the Cuban exiles
living in New Orleans. Ferrie, as a contract agent for the CIA, claimed to
have flown on hazardous missions into Cuba, including landing there on
the night of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Ferrie's role as CIA agent was confirmed in 1975 when former executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director, Victor Marchetti, stated that
during high-level CIA meetings in 1969, CIA director Richard Helms
disclosed that Ferrie and other figures in the Garrison investigation had
indeed worked for the Agency.

Banister investigator Jack Martin and others have told investigators
through the years of contact between CIA contract agent Ferrie and
Oswald during 1963. He said he suspected that Ferrie "had taught Oswald
how to purchase a foreign-made firearm ..."

According to Beverly Oliver, the "babushka lady" Oswald and Ferrie
were even seen together in Jack Ruby's Carousel Club shortly before the
assassination.

Delphine Roberts also claims that Oswald and Ferrie were together. She
said that on one occasion Ferrie even took Oswald to an anti-Castro
guerrilla training camp outside New Orleans "to train with rifles." Once
she saw Oswald handing out pro-Castro literature on a New Orleans street.
Reporting this to her boss, Banister reassured her, "He's with the office."
Roberts later said: "I knew there were such things as counterspies, spies
and counterspies, and the importance of such things."

The day after Kennedy's assassination, Secret Service agents went to
544 Camp Street after seeing the address on some of Oswald's pamphlets.
Guy Banister's office was closed. They learned that "Cuban revolutionaries" had had an office there. The agents brushed the whole thing off by
reporting that they hadn't found a trace of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee at 544 Camp Street.

Throughout 1963 the CIA continued to work with anti-Castro Cubans
and others such as Ferrie and Banister, who were in contact with Lee
Harvey Oswald.

Considering all this, as well as Oswald's bizarre military record and his
trip to Russia, one must wonder whether the ex-Marine was working in
intelligence.

After reviewing all available evidence, the answer to the above question
seems to be a resounding "yes."

The following is a quick look at some of the evidence pointing to
Oswald's involvement with spy work:

-His childhood-a bright loner who read a wide range of books and
was drawn to unpopular ideas, attracted by spy stories (The TV show
"I Led Three Lives" and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were
among his favorites)-perfectly fits the profile of persons most desired for intelligence work.

-Oswald's Marine career is checkered with inconsistencies and unexplained events that suggest secret intelligence training.

-His assignment to Atsugi base in Japan, which housed a large CIA
facility.

-Oswald's incredible ability with the Russian language. Several Russians, including his wife, said he spoke like a native, yet this highschool dropout reportedly taught himself Russian from books.

-The fact that several persons-including a former CIA paymaster,
Oswald's Marine roommate, and fellow Marine Gerry Patrick
Hemming-have suggested that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence.

-The manner in which Oswald traveled so easily in and out of Russia
as well as the unaccounted-for funds he used suggests intelligence
guidance.

-The ability of this American "defector" to leave the Soviet Union
with his Russian-born wife at a time when most Russians were being
denied exit permits.

-The ease with which this would-be defector obtained passports both
in 1959 and 1963.

-The fact that Oswald wrote a lengthy report on his activities in Russia
and, later, made a detailed report to the FBI concerning his Fair Play
For Cuba activities in New Orleans.

-Oswald's notebook contained the word "microdots," a common spy
technique of photographically reducing information to a small dot.

-Oswald's nonbinding "defection" to Russia fit perfectly the profile
of an Office of Naval Intelligence program to infiltrate American
servicemen into the Soviet Union during the late 1950s.

-One of Oswald's closest contacts, George DeMohrenschildt, was
himself an intelligence operative, first for the Nazis and later for the
CIA.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Oswald's involvement in spy
work concerns a small Minox camera found among his effects by Dallas
Police. Information developed by the Dallas Morning News in 1978 revealed the camera was not available to the public in 1963. It may have
been spy equipment issued to Oswald. This evidence was so explosive that
the FBI tried to get Dallas detectives to change their reports regarding the
camera and also kept photos taken by Oswald hidden for nearly fifteen
years.

Dallas detectives Gus Rose and R. S. Stovall had reported finding the
Minox camera loaded with film in Oswald's Marine seabag in the Irving
home of Michael and Ruth Paine hours after the assassination. The threeinch-long German-made camera was famous for being used by spies on both
sides during World War II. An inventory of Oswald's property taken from
the Paine home was made on November 26, 1963. Listed under item 375
was "one Minox camera." This inventory list was witnessed by FBI Agent
Warren De Brueys, the FBI man in New Orleans who had been assigned
to monitor Oswald during the spring and summer of 1963. Later however,
the FBI property inventory listed item 375 as a "Minox light meter."

Detective Rose told the Dallas Morning News:

[The FBI] were calling it a light meter, I know that. But I know a
camera when I see it . . . The thing we got at Irving out of Oswald's seabag was a Minox camera. No question about it. They tried to get me
to change the records because it wasn't a light meter. I don't know why
they wanted it changed, but they must have had some motive for it.

The motive may have been that the existence of the camera pointed to
Oswald's intelligence connections.

Dallas Morning News reporter Earl Golz contacted Minox Corporation
and spoke to Kurt Lohn, formerly in charge of Minox distribution in New
York City. According to Lohn, the serial number of the camera found in
Oswald's belongings-number 27259-did not exist among any Minox
cameras distributed for commercial sale in the United States. Lohn said all
Minox cameras distributed in the U.S. carried six-digit serial numbers
beginning with number 135000. Number 27259 was "not a registered
number . . . not a valid number," said Lohn. Golz also determined that
Minox did not sell a light meter in the U.S. in 1963.

A later FBI report stated that a Minox III camera was obtained on
January 31, 1964, from Ruth Paine and that it belonged to her husband
who worked for Bell Helicopter. However, Mrs. Paine told Golz she did
not remember being asked to turn over such a camera. Michael Paine
reportedly also had a Minox camera but it was damaged and "unworkable."

The Dallas detectives both claimed to have found a Minox camera in
Oswald's possessions. The FBI later claimed no such camera existed and
that they had actually found a Minox light meter.

Yet in 1979, acting on a Freedom of Information Act request by an
assassination researcher, the Bureau released about twenty-five photographs and stated they were taken with a Minox camera belonging to
Oswald. Michael Paine was unable to recall taking any pictures such as the
ones released by the FBI.

On page 113 of a book published by Dallas police chief Jesse Curry in
1969 is a photograph of Oswald's property taken from the Paine home.
Clearly pictured is various Minox camera equipment, including a binoculartype telephoto lens.

Where did Oswald get an unregistered Minox "spy" camera? More
important, why did the FBI attempt to have Dallas police change their
reports to indicate a light meter was found rather than a camera?

In 1976, a CIA document was released that showed that the Agency
indeed considered Oswald for recruitment. This contradicted the sworn
Warren Commission testimony of CIA official Richard Helms who stated
the Agency had never had "or even contemplated" any contact with
Oswald. This document, written by an unidentified CIA officer three days
after Kennedy's assassination, states "we showed intelligence interest" in
Oswald and "discussed . .. the laying on of interviews.-'-'