MORE RUTHLESS THAN THE ENEMY

August 7, 2023

Prologue: Strike Two Against JFK

Imagine that May 6, 1961 day in Washington as William Douglas Pawley walked from the White House where the 64-year-old former Ambassador had been welcomed through multiple administrations. On this day his thoughts must have been aswirl with anger toward the neophyte president who had just thrown him out of the Oval Office.

How the hell does this inept young man whose father handed him the presidency ignore the recommendations of an international troubleshooter trusted by presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower?

Does Kennedy really think he is more well-versed on the potential danger Castro poses to the U.S. than the man who grew up in Cuba, launched the nation's first airport, served as U.S. Ambassador to two South American countries—Peru and Brazil—and had witnessed Castro's evil during the 1948 Bogotázo in Colombia while the heads of nations gathered for the 9th Pan-American Conference?

Who better knows Cuba than someone who spent his childhood there as his father sold merchandise to U.S. sailors at Guantanamo Naval Station? Who better than the entrepreneur who had formed Cuban National Airlines in the 1920s and had manufactured fighter planes in China and India for the Flying Tigers in the 1940s?

Who better than the man Cuban President Batista called upon in the 1950s to run Autobuses Modernos--the Havana bus company taking tourists to casinos run by Meyer Lansky, Santos Trafficante and other American Mafia figures?

Who better than the man Ike, Vice President Nixon and CIA Director Allen Dulles relied upon to organize thousands of exiles fleeing Castro? Who better than the man who helped establish a Cuban government in exile focused on retaking the island from the communists?

Who better recognizes the potential dangers the Western Hemisphere faces from the Soviet missiles in Cuba than the man who had warned of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor a year before it happened?

And who better knows the strengths and weaknesses of the Central Intelligence Agency than the man handpicked by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Eisenhower in 1954 to help the CIA overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala—and who advanced $150,000 of his own money for fighter planes to make sure Operation PBSUCCESS was a successful coup?

Who is more astute on covert activities than the man Ike called upon to assist General James Doolittle in examining the effectiveness of the CIA in counteracting an implacable communist enemy globally—and recommended that the Agency be transformed into an “aggressive covert psychological, political and paramilitary organization more effective, more unique and, if necessary, more ruthless than that employed by the enemy"?

Who is more serious about ridding Cuba of Castro than the man who asked Batista to step aside so a buffer government could be established, and when Batista refused, immediately offered to pay any amount to anyone who would assassinate Castro the day after he took control of Cuba?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Among the largest contributors to Richard Nixon's presidential campaign against John F. Kennedy, Pawley immediately called upon Nixon and CIA Director Allen Dulles to remove Castro. The initial planning meeting took place Pawley's beautiful Miami home on Sunset Island (as noted below in the declassified history of the Bay of Pigs Invasion posted at MaryFerrell.org), and the CIA soon set up its vast JMWAVE anti-Castro psychological warfare and covert operations a few miles away at the south campus of the University of Miami.

Pawley not only vetted Cuban exiles for the CIA but eventually amassed at his Miami business office an army of three hundred Cuban exiles awaiting their next marching orders to retake their homeland. With Nixon's loss to JFK, and the new president's denial of essential air coverage for the Bay of Pigs invaders, Pawley became convinced that the cadre of liberals in the White House, State Department and the adoring press were allowing the communist menace to thrive in the Western Hemisphere. This joke of a president was failing to listen to the wisdom of a successful, adept warrior who believed 10,000 U.S. Marines needed to be dropped into Havana to eliminate the Castro regime.

William Douglas Pawley’s pathological obsession with ridding Cuba of Fidel Castro and his intensifying disdain for JFK was rooted in his youth on the island at the end of the 19^th century as the “Cuba Libre” movement to free Cuba from Spain’s grip gained support in America. At that time, powerful figures hoped for an incident that could justify U.S. intervention. Some six decades later, the success of the 1898 battle cry--“Remember the Maine!”--would inspire a new generation of U.S. warriors to conceive Operation Northwoods—the staging of false flag attacks on the U.S. to gain support for an all-out attack on the Caribbean island.

The CIA eventually gave Pawley the cryptonym QDDALE and they worked together to spread invasion fever to all Americans. Not just the Cuban exiles chanting “Cuba si, Castro no!” and the Mafia families in Tampa, Chicago and New Orleans eager to regain their Cuban casino revenues but to any American who could be frightened into believing that Cuba was a steppingstone to the communist nuclear attack and takeover of the United States.

Months before the CIA and organized crime figures developed their assassination plots against Castro, Pawley not only offered to use his vast wealth to pay for Castro’s assassination but bragged at least twice of having his own “hitmen” to do it.

Was it merely a coincidence that Pawley seriously interacted in Operation TILT with the DRE anti-Castro Cubans (CIA cryptonym AMSPELL) whose militant leader, Carlos Bringuier, engaged Lee Harvey Oswald in a highly publicized scuffle and debate in New Orleans in August 1963—the same week the CIA's General Carter noted that Pawley was seeking an incident that would justify US intervention against Castro (as this 2025 declassified document reveals)?

Shortly after JFK's assassination, claims linking Castro and Oswald were made by one of Pawley's Operation TILT associates, John Martino, an electronics expert who had served the casino industry in Cuba until his arrest by Castro, and upon his release and return to the U.S. wrote the autobiographical book I Was Castro's Prisoner along with Nathaniel Weyl, author of Red Star Over Cuba.

Investigator Gaeton Fonzi told me that Pawley's activities made him a top priority for testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations as it reviewed the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. But Pawley never testified, having shot himself at home in January 1977 to end the pain of shingles (a few months after I had attempted to interview him in person).

The following links tell William Douglas Pawley's story which began for me with a footnote on page 361 of The Invisible Government1 followed by my Freedom of Information Act request in 1976 for the top-secret Doolittle Committee Report. Nearly a decade after the committee strengthened the CIA under Allen Dulles, Doolittle sat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board advising JFK on Cuba policy.

My pursuit of the truth continued for decades with the slow declassification of many hundreds of Pawley-related CIA and FBI files. In March 2025, President Donald Trump finally released somw 3,400 classified and redacted JFK Assassination documents.

Many of the long-buried government files that were declassified in the past few decades revealed Pawley’s involvement with America’s most powerful political figures, covert policymakers, the Cuban-exile group DRE which also interacted with Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1963, and Pawley's own significant friends embedded in the various Kennedy assassination investigations:

>> Pawley had worked closely on foreign coups with CIA Director Allen Dulles who was fired by JFK and then named to the Warren Commission.

>> Pawley had approved for the Bay of Pigs Brigade Alberto Fowler who joined New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's 1967 investigation of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie.

>> Pawley's Intercontinent Company aviation offices were in Rockefeller Center as early as 1939 when his brother, Wallace, worked with him there while brothers, Edward and Eugene, handled the company's business dealings in China. Nelson Rockefeller's investigation of CIA abuses found no connection of the CIA to Oswald and his assassin, Jack Ruby.

Pawley's extraordinary life can be found in the links below.

CHAPTERS

Every chapter has a link to additional content and footnotes. Just click on Read more >> above Labels.

Labels: assassination, Castro, China, CIA, Cuba, Doolittle, FBI, Flying Tigers, Guatemala, JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mafia, Miami, Nixon, Pawley, Peru, Pigs, Shackley, United Fruit

1: Love, “Cuba”

Few men reflect the times in which they live as vividly as William Douglas Pawley. Born in Florence, South Carolina, on September 7, 1896, he matured in a period when America was rapidly turning the corner from an agricultural economy to an industrial society. As amazing advances in technology were transforming the nation into a world power, this son of Edward Porcher Pawley and Mary Irene Wallace Pawley quickly recognized that fortunes were waiting to be made all around him—and all around the world— if he pursued them without fear of failure.

The Pawley family had roots in South Carolina dating to colonial times1 when Percival Pawley, Sr. in 1711 was granted the land in proximity to what is now Pawleys Island, an isle known in the 21st century for being an “arrogantly shabby” residential community where low-country cooking and beer mix freely with a refreshing breeze off the Atlantic Ocean. Earlier, in the 1700s, rice plantation owners such as Thomas George Pawley vacationed on Pawleys Island to escape the threat of malaria from May through October, because the isle was surrounded by saltwater marshes that were inhospitable to mosquito breeding.2 Even though Hurricane Ian made landfall less than 10 miles away in 2022 with a seven-foot surge that destroyed the pier, Pawley Islanders quickly cleaned up the sand, mud and debris attesting to the island’s resiliency over the centuries as a desirable southern beach destination.3

Edward Porcher Pawley was born during the Civil War a few counties away from where the Confederate rebellion had exploded at Ft. Sumter. As a young man, he tried to make his fortune in cotton, but plantations suffered after their cheap slave labor was freed, and he soon faced bankruptcy. Fortunately, Edward had learned a merchant’s trade, selling dry goods in Florence, and was able to pursue other opportunities beyond South Carolina.4

The inflammatory sinking of the USS Maine triggered the Spanish-American War and the U.S. invasion of Cuba made famous by the American Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill. It not only catapulted the cavalry’s victorious leader, Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, to governor of New York State but made Cuba a fertile ground for William Pawley’s father’s ambitions. By 1900, Edward Porcher Pawley moved his wife, Mary, and their sons, George Plummer Pawley and William Douglas Pawley to eastern Cuba where he established E.P. Pawley Co. of Caimanera. About 1908, at some 64 years of age, he opened a branch store nearby at South Toro Cay, close to the wharf that supplied the United States Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay.

Labels: aviation, China, Compania Nacional Cubana de Aviacion, Cuba, Curtiss Wright, Drifters, Edna Pawley, Florida, Guantanamo Bay, Hahr, Haiti, India, Miami, PanAm, Pawley, Supreme Court, United Fruit

August 6, 2023

2: Aviation Crusaders

Three years after William and Annie Pawley’s wedding, his father began construction of Haiti’s “first modern hotel” on Bizoton Road in Port-au-Prince. Described as “the pride of the capital’s picturesque suburban country,” the 35-bedroom-suite hotel on Edward Porcher Pawley’s property was designed to attract guests by providing on-premises dining and dancing, a rooftop garden with views of the mountains and the bay, and access to swimming, boating, golfing, horseback riding, tennis courts and trap shooting.”1 (A century later, E.P. Pawley’s tropical paradise was considered the “most dangerous city” on the planet with profound famine fed by the ravages of hurricanes, earthquakes, cholera, poverty, gang warfare and political assassinations for control of most streets. Once beautiful, Haiti also was scarred by extreme deforestation as trees became a cheaper fuel alternative to gas and electricity.2)

By 1926, the knowledge William had gained from his father was beginning to pay off. He was on his way to becoming a millionaire in the Florida land speculation boom.3 While many took a major financial hit three years later when the Florida real estate bubble burst, William Pawley stayed afloat, having already shifted his attention elsewhere.

In 1927, Pawley went to Puerto Rico as a Curtiss Aviation representative.4 It was a life-changing career move that soon returned him to Cuba. In 1929, as the stock market roared toward a collapse, Pawley and Clement Melville Keys organized Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss operating out of Havana with the intention of providing passenger service, air mail service, air taxi service, pilot training, aircraft sales and aerial photography to enhance agricultural production.5 From a corporate structure point of view, the Cuban airline’s parent company was Intercontinent Aviation, Inc. which was formed as a subsidiary of the Curtiss-Keys group of aviation companies. Among the founders was financier Clarence Douglas Dillion, father of future Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillion.6

Labels: AVG, aviation, C.M.Keys, CAMCO, Claire Chennault, CNAC, Crusaders, Cuba, Curtiss, Essex County. Airport, Flying Tigers, Haiti, Kennedy, New Jersey, Pawley, planes

December 12, 2009

3: The "I" of The Flying Tigers

Recognizing that other parts of the globe could use air service, C.M. Keys turned his sights on Asia. His Curtiss-Wright Corporation partnered with the Chinese-formed China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) to provide air travel between Hong Kong and Shanghai. This took on a significant role in the history of modern China as well as William Douglas Pawley, who saw the opportunity to sell warplanes not just in the Western Hemisphere, but to the expanding military-industrial market in the Eastern Hemisphere. By the time he was through in China, Pawley had racked up tens of millions of dollars in aircraft sales; his first commission of $250,000 in 19401 represents the equivalent of $5 million in 2024.

With solid experience in Cuban aviation under his wings, Pawley was called upon by Curtiss-Wright to determine why CNAC was losing money. Always looking for opportunities to enrich himself, he envisioned developing new routes in China as he had done in Cuba. This would create demand for more planes and more sales commissions for himself while funneling their construction to his own aircraft factory in China. He sailed to Shanghai in January 1933 to negotiate the factory proposal with the Nationalist government, but Thomas Morgan, President of Curtiss-Wright, took charge of negotiations, and the contract was signed April 1st, giving the routes to Juan Trippe’s Pan American.2

All was not lost. Despite Trippe’s success in acquiring China Airways, Pawley had made important connections that would blossom into greater wealth and fame through unanticipated world events.

In 1935, Pawley hosted a reception honoring the Chinese Minister of Aviation, General Mao Pang-chu (aka General Mow) and members of his staff during the Miami Air Races. The Chinese group was wrapping up a global tour to learn about “air methods.” Their earlier visit to Russia, was followed by the group being guests of Adolph Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy, then they proceeded to France and England. Arriving in Miami, they were graciously hosted by Pawley at a reception held in the palm gardens of the recently built 18-story Roney Plaza Hotel, attended by some 300 guests.3

Among the people Pawley introduced Mow to was pilot Claire Chennault, an older-looking contemporary, whom Pawley recruited to train Chinese pilots.

Labels: CAMCO, Chiang Kai-shek, China, Claire Chennault, CNAC, Curtiss-Wright, Donovan, Flying Tigers, Howard Hunt, Japan, KMT, Luce, Miami Air Races, Nationalists, OSS, Pawley, Soong, Trippe, Watergate

4: "Businessman Pawley" Named U.S. Ambassador to Peru and Brazil

Upon the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, Harry S. Truman ascended to the presidency. In June, he appointed William Douglas Pawley as Ambassador to the South American nation of Peru. Pawley stated that he was chosen because of his decades of familiarity with Latin America, fluency with the Spanish language and because the U.S. “had a very serious problem” with Peru’s unpaid debt of $150 million. A mutually beneficial resolution to the debt problem was desired because Peru was the first Latin American country to side with the U.S. in World War II.1

On November 13th, the State Department’s Fred Lyon telephonically informed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that Pawley was in Washington, DC and eager to meet with Hoover before the end of the week. The FBI Director received a memorandum detailing facts about William Douglas Pawley—his marital status; the armed services status of Pawley’s two sons; the location of Pawley’s 6700-square-foot-mansion on Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach; his friendship with President Truman; and Pawley’s appreciation of the FBI’s August security survey of the Embassy in Lima. Hoover also was advised of the wealthy businessman’s history in Cuba, China and Florida; the fact that he has a private plane and yacht in Lima; and that Pawley “has expressed great respect for the FBI and the Director.” The memo also listed FBI personnel assigned to Peru (all nine names were redacted at the time of declassification) and the Legal Attaché, C.E. McNabb, who at the time was under recall as part of a staff reduction program.2

Internally, Peru’s years of border fights with nearby nations—Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile—had led to the development of a leadership of elites and military who were opposed by the center-left, anti-imperialist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA).

Labels: Brazil, CIA, CIO, Clare Boothe Luce, Eisenhower, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, Latin America, Nixon, Pawley, Perón, Peru, Rockefeller, Spruille Braden, State Department

5: "The Bogotázo” in Colombia

President Truman had accepted Pawley’s resignation from his Ambassadorship in Brazil reluctantly contingent upon him completing preparation for the Ninth Conference of the Inter-American States in Bogotá. It proved to be one of the most dangerous and disastrous events of his career even though he was aware of widespread animosity towards the U.S. The assessment of Latin America that Pawley gave to Secretary of State Marshall was reported in Time magazine. “Bluntly, the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil told his boss that things were going badly in Latin America. The latinos were sore because they felt that the U.S. was neglecting them in favor of Europe, and something ought to be done to straighten things out before next month’s Pan American Conference in Bogotá.” Marshall told him to get to work, and Pawley soon was documenting how the European Recovery Program would benefit South America.1

On March 8, 1948, Pawley wrote Marshall to recommend an overhaul of the Foreign Service Act to create Career Ambassadors “such as George F. Kennan, Charles E. Bohlen and Walton Butterworth.” Pawley envisioned that the title could add prestige and improve “the financial position of career men.” Pawley specifically mentioned Paul C. Daniels, Director of American Republics Affairs, as someone who could benefit. And touted his belief that “there is a place for political appointees in the Foreign Service.”2

Pawley then arranged an April trip to Medellin, Colombia, believing that Secretary of State Marshall could use a change from the high altitude of Bogotá. The plane got a flat tire when it landed on the bumpy runway, which caused much excitement among the crowds waiting to welcome Marshall, but according to Edna Pawley, “No one was ever in danger.” While in Colombia they lunched with local officials and visited one of Columbia’s largest orchid farms.

While waiting for the cars to take them, Marshall realized a newsboy was holding a copy of the April 3, 1948 Semana (Colombia’s version of Time) which featured a cover story of the upcoming Bogotá Conference complete with a caricature of Marshall.3

Three days later, Marshall sent a note from Bogotá to Pawley in the same city on the letterhead of the Delegation of the United States of America thanking him for a case of champagne while adding, “I might say you are making it extremely difficult for me to live up to my self-imposed pledge on this trip. I can hardly wait to get back to the States and put a bottle on ice.”4

Vernon Walters, who assisted Pawley during his Ambassadorship, later wrote an autobiography, Silent Missions, in which he describes his “good friend” Pawley as a “truly great and patriotic” man who spoke Spanish flawlessly, a major compliment from Walters who was revered for knowing a half-dozen languages. The two men, as well as Edna Pawley, were together in Bogotá when the economic conference that Pawley had organized at the request of President Truman and Secretary of State Marshall was disrupted with violent riots resulting in thousands of deaths.

Labels: Bogotazo, Castro, Colombia, Harriman, Marshall, Pawley, Rio, Vernon Walters

6: Men and Women of Letters

On a diplomatic level, General Marshall agreed to use Pawley for short missions such as “negotiations to secure military installations, particularly bomber bases, in Spain.”1 There also is considerable evidence in The Pawley Collection at The George C. Marshall Library in Lexington, Virginia, that Marshall came to treat Pawley as a friend and corresponded often with Pawley and his wife, Edna, until Marshall’s death a decade later.

A September 4, 1947 telegram was sent from Washington addressed “Personal for Ambassador Pawley from General Marshall” which stated that “Katherine and I repeat again our heartfelt appreciation for the bountiful hospitality of your Edna and you and of your untiring efforts in our behalf.” Marshall asked Pawley to “make my compliments to the President and Mrs. Truman and to Margaret” and noted President Truman “is famous this morning as a mountain climber and orchid fancier meanwhile I have Lovett waiting at my side with the multitudinous details of a sick world.” Lovett signed the telegram.2

Labels: Anita Pawley, Brazil, diplomacy, Edna Pawley, Lovett, Marshall Plan, Rio de Janeiro

7: Truman Likes Ike

Upon returning to the U.S. in the summer of 1948, former Ambassador William Douglas Pawley immersed himself in President Truman’s re-election, meeting off-the-record with the President on July 6th. In attendance were several cabinet members including Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and Attorney General Tom C. Clark, who some two years later would be sitting as an Associate Justice serving on the United States Supreme Court when Annie Pawley’s case against William came before it.1

Truman was feeling out of place as President. Personally, he hoped that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, fresh off his victory in Europe, would run as a Democrat in 1948—with Truman stepping down to be his Vice President—but the General rebuffed the offer, and the reluctant Truman was compelled to run against New York’s popular Governor Thomas Dewey.3

That same day Pawley had written from his Belvoir farm address in Virginia to the Secretary State to let him know that while visiting Cuba in June he had spoken for an hour to Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarras who was “looking forward to an invitation to visit the United States in the immediate future.

Labels: Chiang, CIA, Dewey, Eisenhower, Howard Hunt, Ike, Luce, McCloy, OSS, Pawley, Prio, Truman

8: Father of the Groom of Elizabeth Taylor

Throughout the spring and summer of 1949, members of the Pawley household had more than politics, China and William’s abdominal surgery on their minds. Hollywood’s famous 17-year- old, Elizabeth Taylor, who achieved stardom five years earlier as a steeplechase horse rider in “National Velvet” was on the lips of Pawley’s son William Douglas Pawley, Jr.

In March, while visiting Miami, Elizabeth and her mother, Sara, met 28-year-old William D. Pawley, Jr., as they celebrated the child-star’s 17th birthday on Star Island, Miami, Florida on March 3, 1949. Eleven years older, with dark hair the strikingly handsome--"profoundly conservative"--Bill Pawley had been a wartime Burma Hump flyer and now headed the family's bus operations in Miami. Bill taught Elizabeth how to drive a car; play golf; took her to parties and dances; and further bonded with her during a $145 long-distance phone call to Hollywood.1

At Easter, the Taylors stayed and swam at Pawley’s Miami Beach home with views of palm trees and boats traversing the bay. Elizabeth soon broke off her engagement to former West Point football star Glenn Davis, a Heisman Trophy winner All-American known as “Mr. Outside.” She had been wearing his gold football ring as “‘part of growing up.’” In early June, again as house guests of William and Edna, Sara Taylor announced that the raven-haired beauty with jewel-like eyes was engaged to the young Bill Pawley, and she was sporting a three-and-a-half carat, emerald- cut “‘nice piece of ice’” as Bill termed the diamond engagement ring. The wedding was scheduled for the following spring when Elizabeth would be 18.

Labels: Bill Pawley, Elizabeth Taylor, Father of the Bride, Heisman, Hilton, Miami, National Velvet, Pawley, William Pawley

9: Forrestal Plunges into the Cold War

On the Sunday night of May 22, 1949, former Secretary of the Navy and recent first Secretary of Defense James Forrestal was found dead on the ground outside Bethesda Naval Hospital. A few months earlier he had been asked to resign as Secretary of Defense by President Truman and then spent time with Robert Lovett in Hobe, Florida before entering Bethesda Naval Hospital for depression.

While some questioned if he had intentionally died by suicide, fallen accidentally or been induced to jump by experimental drugs or nefarious forces, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was convinced that “communists hounded Forrestal to his death. They killed him just as definitely as if they had thrown him from that sixteenth-story window in Bethesda Naval Hospital.” McCarthy also stated that “while I am not a sentimental man, I was touched deeply and left numb by the news of Forrestal’s murder. But I was affected much more deeply when I heard of the communist celebration when they heard of Forrestal’s murder. On that night, I dedicated part of this fight to Jim Forrestal.” McCarthyism was born.1

Labels: Batista, Bethesda, Buckley, Castro, Chiang Kai-shek, China, CIA, Cuba, Forrestal, India, Kennedy, Lansky, Lattimore, Mafia, McCarthy, McCarthyism, OPC, OSS, Pawley

10: Defense Department Troubleshooting

While sensitive talks were going on in India, a background check on William Douglas Pawley (EE-7144-A) was requested on October 3, 1951 which circulated for months before he could serve as special assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett who had replaced George C Marshall the month before. Those queried included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Naval Intelligence, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, House Committee on Un-American Activities, CSC (possibly Civil Service Commission), OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence), and ASCI (U.S. Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence).1

On January 24, 1952, one of the security checks “by the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1944-45” revealed some derogatory information from Pawley’s days in India building planes for China. Multiple people described Pawley “as a ‘shady, slick, business operator’. Subject was considered by several representatives of the British-Indian Government and the U.S. Consulate, Madras, India, as having a questionable reputation and was also considered dishonest by some of his previous associates.” Significant among them: “General Chennault who was one of the individuals contacted during investigation stated that he regarded Subject’s record in India and China as questionable and stated that Subject was ‘involved in attempted bribery’.”

Pawley however was not considered “disloyal by any of the persons contacted” so the State Department name check “was returned with a notation that the subject’s investigative file could not be made available for review. In the absence of any derogatory information as to Subject’s loyalty, and in view of Subject’s prominence in the United States, it is felt that he should be placed in the Approved/Caution category.”2

Labels: AEC, Atomic Energy, CAT, Chennault, China, CIA, Defense Department, FBI, India, monazite, Tolstoy, William Pawley

11: Going Bananas in Guatemala 1954

As George C. Marshall was being honored for the Marshall Plan designed to spur a peaceful economic recovery in Europe, his friend William Pawley was becoming involved in more hostile activities. In response to Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman calling for agrarian reform that would impact profits of United Fruit and coffee growers, the CIA drew up a contingency plan to overthrow him. CIA Director Allen Dulles wanted “a coordinated effort in the political field.” Dulles felt that “the exact steps which might be politically feasible are matters beyond our competence here” nonetheless “we have a legitimate interest, it seems to me, in seeing that the climate is right for the types of action in which we may be engaged.”

Dulles suggested “sending a two-fisted guy to the general area on a trip of inspection and to report to the President.” Who did he have in mind? “Bill Pawley or someone of his type might be considered. I recognize that Pawley is hard to control, but he is fearless and gets things done even though he may break a little crockery in doing it. I would suggest that he might also spend a little time in the countries bordering on one of our chief concern.”1

Prior to Dulles envisioning Pawley’s new role, covert “Security Clearance” had been requested by the CIA’s Branch 4 of the Western Hemisphere (WH-IV aka WH/4)—the Caribbean region—for Pawley to “be used in Project DTROBALO as a means of offering employment and resettlement to rehabilitated disposees [sic].” Pawley it was noted “has many contacts and business interests in Latin America which will be valuable in the resettlement phase of the Project. He is not to be used as a consultant. He will be used on a witting basis” and his cover story would be “Governmental” rather than “Commercial” or “Other.”

Labels: Arbenz, Armas, bananas, CIA, coffee, Corcoran, Dominican Republic, DTROBALO, Dulles, E. Howard Hunt, Eisenhower, FBI, Guatemala, Holland, PBSUCCESS, Republican, United Fruit, William Pawley, Wisner

12: The Doolittle Report on CIA Covert Activities

Pawley’s participation in the Guatemala coup left him feeling satisfied in 1954 that “the Monroe Doctrine and the position adopted by the Organization of American States had been forthrightly reasserted.”1

But he had also experienced first-hand “an absolutely intolerable breach of security during the Guatemalan episode” which he detailed decades later in his autobiography. After playing tennis with The Washington Post publisher Phil Graham, Pawley was stunned to hear Graham “lob over my head” the news that the U.S. was going to help Castillo Armas overthrow the Arbenz regime in Guatemala. Graham gave him more details as if Pawley was “listening to a top secret briefing at State. All that was missing was my role in the affair.” Graham revealed the source of his knowledge as a CIA “high official in the covert operations arena.”

While indicating that he did not question Graham’s patriotism, Pawley noted that “Graham’s lapse underlines the axiom in delicate operations that a participant should be told only what he needs to know. No more. No less.”

Pawley immediately told President Eisenhower of the security breach, and Ike responded by telling Pawley “‘to conduct a thorough investigation of the covert side of CIA operations for me.’” Pawley was concerned that it would jeopardize his invaluable relationships with the Dulles brothers at State and CIA. As a result, Eisenhower then suggested that Lt. General Jimmy Doolittle, “a national symbol of competent fair mindedness,” head up the study group with Pawley assisting him.2

Pawley’s files were moved from covert to an overt file, and he was given cryptographic clearance in preparation for becoming a key member of Eisenhower’s Special Study Group. The Doolittle Committee was formed in the summer of 1954 to study the CIA’s successes and failures in Guatemala, Iran and Europe and make recommendations on how to improve the agency’s capabilities.

During the clearance process Pawley’s background information passed through many hands including CIA Director Allen Dulles and the Director of Security Sheffield Edwards3, who seven years later would play a role in a plot with members of the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro,4 something Pawley would advocate.5

The July 13, 1954, two recommendations were written concerning “Bill Pawley’s usefulness.” One was from Henry Holland. “In my opinion Pawley would perform outstandingly on almost any assignment. His abilities as a lone operator are generally recognized. On the Guatemalan assignment he functioned smoothly as a member of a team.”6

The second recommendation was in the form of a CIA memorandum for Director Allen Dulles from Director of Security Sheffield Edwards who had set up Project BLUEBIRD’s teams of psychiatrists, polygraphers, hypnotists and technicians to identify risky CIA personnel and defectors in 1950. (BLUEBIRD evolved into ARTICHOKE and then MKULTRA.)

Labels: CIA, Dulles, James Doolittle, Luce, Morris Hadley, Tweedy, William Franke, William Pawley

Name: David Price Cannon

Location: Montclair, New Jersey, United States

MORE RUTHLESS THAN THE ENEMY: WILLIAM "CUBA" PAWLEY'S COVERT CIA ACTIVITIES & DISDAIN FOR JFK. David Price Cannon majored in American Civilization in the 1960s not far from the vast JMWAVE CIA Station in Miami. An advertising writer/creative director, Cannon also wrote a newspaper series on Marvin Airport, songs, and poems. His William Douglas Pawley research began with a footnote that led to a 1975 FOIA request for the Doolittle Report which emboldened the CIA to become more ruthless than the enemy. Between 1999 and 2023, thousands of previously classified CIA and FBI documents revealed more. His analysis of Zapruder Frame 413 is based upon obtaining a bootleg copy of the Zapruder film in 1975 and replicating what he saw at the Grassy Knoll. He recommends subscribing to maryferrell.org, Jefferson Morley's JFK Facts substack newsletter and podcasts as well as reading Carrozza's biography of William Pawley -- one of mid-century America's most interesting millionaires. An avid tennis player, Cannon holds three balls when serving, hits unorthodox backhands, and switches hands when returning opponent shots. Comments should be sent to: Pawleyinfo@aol.com

View my complete profile

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]