37: Garrison's Gumbo

 

In 1966, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (foreground in photo with Clay Shaw) began probing a possible connection between the CIA and the Kennedy assassination. Some observers hoped it would be a way to feast on the truth, but for the CIA it was causing high-level indigestion.

On January 12, 1967, a CIA Dispatch from Chief, WOVIEW (Cord Meyer, Jr. of the Covert Action Staff), expressed concern that Garrison’s investigation was impugning the Warren Commission, President Johnson and the CIA. 

The document outlined how to counter criticism of the Warren Commission by discussing “the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out ... that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.” Moreover, “employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.” During “private or media discussion not directed at any particular writer” arguments should be made that: “No significant new evidence has emerged.” Eyewitnesses “are less reliable.” 

Robert Kennedy “would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy.” Republican “Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration” of Lyndon Johnson, “and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.” Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon.

The CIA releasing officer’s signature on the document was Cord Meyer, Jr.1 whose wife’s mysterious death became interwoven in assassination conspiracy theories because of her affair with JFK--and James Jesus Angleton's retrieval of her diary after her body was discovered along the Georgetown canal towpath.

It's rather mind blowing that the Warren Commission which included ex-CIA Director Allen Dulles wanted Americans to believe a lone nut ex-Marine could pull off an assassination at Dealey Plaza, but a CIA executive who had worked under Dulles wanted Americans to believe it was too difficult for trained CIA assassins to do.

People within the CIA had real concerns about Garrison’s investigation because it touched on the Agency’s involvement of the Cuban-exile DRE which had some 2,000 supporters who had been organized and supported with the help of David Atlee Phillips. The DRE had been receiving $51,000 a month from the CIA as part of its AMSPELL program at the time of the Kennedy assassination. As Chief Western Hemisphere Cuban Operations Group, Phillips was a signatory along with Chief Western Hemisphere Division William V. Broe of an October 1967 cable regarding “Identity: James Garrison” that indicates “All coordinated in draft: WH/COG/CICS; CI/R&A; OGC; OS/SRS; WH/COG/EXO (indecipherable signature).” 2

Earlier “Mr. Calvin Thomas of the SB [Soviet Branch] Division wrote a memorandum entitled ‘Possible DRE Animus Toward President Kennedy’ and dated 8 March 1967.” During Thomas’s Yugoslavian tour of duty “he had read about the Warren Commission's investigation and had noted the pre-assassination encounter in New Orleans between Carlos Bringuier of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) and Lee Harvey Oswald.” The encounter was followed by a debate on the highly popular New Orleans radio station WDSU between Oswald and Bringuier, Edward Butler of the Information Council of America, and newspaper reporter/broadcaster Bill Stuckey during which Oswald declared he was a Marxist. On November 23, 1963, the DRE which was over seen by the CIA's Psychological Warfare head in Miami put out an issue of Trinchera, "Oficial (sic) Organ of the Cuban Student Directorate," which linked Oswald's motive to Castro. 

Similarly, Frank Fiorini (aka Sturgis) proclaimed to Sun-Sentinel writer Jim Buchanan  that Oswald had met three times with Castro G-2 agents. The claim proved false. 

Ironically, after Sturgis became well known as a Watergate burglar, he was accused (along with E. Howard Hunt) by Michael Canfield and Alan J. Weberman of being one of the three tramps rounded up by police in the area of Dealey Plaza. A transparent overlay included with their book showed facial similarities.

But later the three tramps were identified as John Forrester Gedney (age 38), Harold Doyle (age 32), and Gus W. Abrahms (age 53). According to the Dallas Police Department they were picked up in a box car in the railroad yard. "They have no means of support." Hunt was 45 and Sturgis almost 40, on November 22, 1963.

Calvin Thomas, who previously had been stationed “from July 1962 to August 1963” at JMWAVE, “recalled his own dealings in Miami with the DRE, a CIA-subsidized group. He considered the DRE members whom he knew to be unpredictable and untrustworthy. He speculated as to whether DRE element could have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. He recommended that CIA investigate this possibility if it had not already done so.”

The Calvin Thomas memo also mentioned Arthur Dooley of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Research & Analysis (CI/R&A) which had become the largest section of the Counterintelligence Division when it was restructured by its head James Jesus Angleton and CIA Director Allen Dulles in1954, the year the Doolittle Committee Report recommended the CIA become more ruthless than the enemy.

Dooley had discussed the delicate matter of the CIA/DRE link with some key people in CIA’s Western Hemisphere Cuban Operations Group (WH/COG). He “conferred with [redacted] of the Cuban Operations Group who recently “returned from a tour of the Miami Station; Carl Trettin, Deputy Chief of Counterintelligence Branch of the Cuban Operations Group who knew Briniguer and was stationed in New Orleans at the time of the” Oswald-Briniguer confrontations in August 1963; “and Margaret Forsythe also of the Cuban desk who is familiar with the DRE operation.” Dooley concluded that “Oswald was never a member of the DRE, which in fact rejected him” and that the “DRE had no part in the Kennedy assassination.”3

Margaret Forsythe had “stated that CIA's interest in the DRE had been made known to the office of the Attorney General by letter of 9 January and 18 April 1963 addressed to J. Walter Yeagley” of the Justice Department’s Internal Security Division. Forsythe’s January letter revealed that DRE supports the CIA’s Western Hemisphere “‘propaganda and intelligence collection activity’” however, “‘DRE is not a group under complete Agency control, the above does not insure that they will not undertake isolated paramilitary operations without prior notification.’” Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon.

After then C/WH/COG Tom Flores reviewed the Calvin Thomas memorandum he “considered that it reflected inadequate information and bias. It was agreed nevertheless that the charges which District Attorney James Garrison was then beginning to level against anti-Castro Cubans and this agency necessitated careful checking.”

The memo further noted “The problem arising from Garrison's charges of Agency involvement in the assassination is compounded by the nature of some of our former Cuban operations, which resulted in a form of indirect association. For example, Garrison has sought without success to extradite Sergio Arcacha Smith from Dallas. District Attorney Garrison will try to prove that Arcacha was the ‘second trigger man’ in the assassination. The checks run by WH/COG and CI/R&A have not shown any link between Arcacha and CIA. However, WH/COG has reported that Arcacha was the delegate of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD) in New Orleans before the Bay of Pigs, that he maintained regular postal contact with FRD headquarters in Miami, that the FRD and the Cuban Revolutionary Council were supported by CIA, and that funds were supplied to the head of these groups, Dr. Jose Miro Cardona. Consequently, Arcacha may have believed that his activities in New Orleans were CIA-supported. This phenomenon of indirect association appears in other cases as well and may well underlie some of Garrison's accusations. When the Clay Shaw trial “starts, the newspapers will carry a flood of accusations, old and new; and it would be judicious to be prepared in advance.”4

The roux was getting richly dark. And a Pawley colleague would decide to volunteer to work in Garrison's kitchen.

Clay Shaw was indicted March 1, 1967, my 21st birthday. An internal CIA memo prepared in September 1967 for the Director looked into the associations of various Garrison targets and the CIA. Among its revelations was that:

• Clay Shaw prepared “several DCS [CIA Domestic Contact Service] reports, chiefly on Latin America. Introduced the then DCCI, Gen. Charles P. Cabell, who addressed its members, on 9 May 1961, to the New Orleans’ Foreign Policy Association.” [Pawley’s Covert Security Approval in 1964 was for him to report to the CIA on his contacts within the Miami business community; Shaw was in contact with the International Trade Mart global community.]

• Lawrence J. Laborde was a “DD/P (JMWAVE) contact from February 1961 to April 1962. Served as officer on ship used in Cuban operations.”

• Emilio Santana Galino who was convicted of burglary in New Orleans in 1964 was a “DD/P (JMWAVE recruit in October 1962 as guide for infiltration operation in Cuba, carried out in May 1963. Exfiltrated with family. He was dropped 15 October 1963 in Miami because operation no longer tenable and some of his reporting not truthful. Knew by true or other names 8 CIA staff members and 14 other agents.” An “FBI report says Santana was alleged to own a Manlicher-Carcano rifle like Oswald’s and to have been in Dealey Plaza at time of the assassination on orders of the alleged conspirators (Shaw, Oswald, David Ferrie, and Sergio Arcacha Smith).”

• Victor Manuel Paneque y Batista was identified by Carlos Quiroga to Garrison “as having been in charge of training at a military camp in Lacombe, Louisiana in August 1963.” The memo writer denied involvement with the camp.

• Alberto Federico Fernandez Hechavarria was a “DD/P (JMWAVE) contact starting December 1960 and continuing at least through 31 January 1966.”

• Gerald Patrick Hemming Jr. “denied sponsorship by any U.S. Government agency” but “recent information from DCS indicates he was in touch with their Los Angeles office.”

• Jack N. Rogers, a “Baton Rouge attorney, committee counsel for Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities of the State of Louisiana” had “been a source of the DCS office in New Orleans since September 1959.”

• William Wayne Dalzell whom Gordon Novell discussed with the FBI which has files linking him “to charges of transporting stolen property, fraud and gun- running” had been in contact with New Orleans DCS during late 1960 and early 1961 “in connection with his proposals for a Radio Free Cuba.”

• Donald Norton who claimed to have worked for the CIA passing funds among David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Oswald “has had no links to the CIA” and “has a record of nine arrests.”

• Gordon D. Novel, who allegedly was sent by the CIA along with Arcacha Smith and Oswald to rob the bunker at the Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation in Houma, Louisiana and had “a tie to the CIA operation Double-Chek” was dismissed by the CIA memo writer as a liar who may be “in collusion with Garrison.”

• New Orleans DCS had only “one contact with Charles A. Doh, the manager” in 1955 and occasional contacts with the Headquarters “in Houston, for an extended but unspecified period. Such contact continues.”

• Carlos Jose Bringuier was “the New Orleans leader of the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), an anti-Castro organization conceived, created, and funded by CIA. Contact of DCS office, New Orleans.” He “was investigated by the FBI on behalf of the Warren Commission. He has no contact with the DD/P, and there is no DD/P file on him.”5

A June 1975 memo noted “Bill Stuckey who wrote the July 1962 press article about INTERPEN and Hemming is identical with the William Stuckey who interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald during a public broadcast in New Orleans in August 1963. According to testimony in the Warren Commission hearings by William Stuckey and Carlos Bringuier (Cuban Student Directorate delegate in New Orleans) in early August 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald came to Bringuier’s New Orleans clothing store announcing that he, Oswald, was a former Marine trained in guerilla warfare who wanted to join an anti-Castro guerilla group in New Orleans. It is of note that Bringuier inferred he was knowledgeable of the anti-Castro guerilla group training on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain [Lacombe, Louisiana] and even collected funds for travel of two members to Miami when the group was disbanded.” [Many of the INTERPEN group were ex-Marines, as was Frank Fiorini/Sturgis.] 

After stalling Oswald for several days, Bringuier “encountered Oswald on the streets of New Orleans passing out ‘Fair Play For Cuba’ leaflets. The encounter led to a disturbance, and Oswald and Bringuier were arrested. Orest Pena, owner of the Habana Bar at 117 Decatur Street in New Orleans, bailed out Bringuier who subsequently alerted Stuckey to Oswald which resulted in the broadcast interview.  

Further, it noted that New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison was most interested in “Loren Eugene Hall, aka: Lorenzo Pascillo, aka: Skip Hall (OS#348 627), who ostensibly arrived in Dallas, Texas, in October 1963, remaining until after President Kennedy was shot. Garrison also alleged that Hall was involved in the ‘Minutemen.’ The Hall file reflects that in August 1963 Hall was in Southern California, where he spoke before numerous meetings of the John Birch Society attempting to raise funds for an anti-Castro planned invasion of Cuba scheduled for mid-September 1963.”6 Bureau informants considered Fiorini driven by a desire for publicity and unreliable.7

One of the lynchpins of Garrison’s investigation was David William Ferrie who was described as “brilliant but erratic” by his lawyer, G. Wray Gill. Gill was also an attorney for Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans Mafia boss deported to Guatemala in 1961 by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He returned two months later and fought re-deportation for years. In the gumbo that is New Orleans, Alfred “Chittenden, President of the ILA Local,” a promoter of the Cuban-exile FRD, arranged through Gill to have his 1969 wedding at “Marcello’s Churchill Farm Estate.”8

Within hours of JFK’s assassination 1963, the FBI learned that Ferry and Oswald eight years earlier had both been in the Civil Air Patrol, the organization started a decade earlier by David Harold Byrd. A photo exists of the two of them during their CAP days, but Ferrie stated he did not really know Oswald.9

Ferrie later became an Eastern Airlines pilot but was fired for being homosexual and may have been flying for Marcello. As an airman, Ferrie saw blame for the Bay of Pigs failure on JFK’s refusal to provide aircover.

Ferrie also was said to have been involved with Sergio Arcacha Smith whom the Warren Commission learned had been a delegate to the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) which had an office address of 544 Camp Street, New Orleans in 1961 and 1962.

Arcacha Smith was originally in the FRD, a predecessor of the CRC “used as a front for recruitment of Brigade 2506 for the invasion” according to CIA documents. Arcacha Smith “reported to the FRD headquarters in Miami ... and reportedly maintained extensive relations with the New Orleans FBI and Immigration offices. Two of his regular FBI contacts were Mr. De Bruce and the deceased Guy Banister.10 (Mr. De Bruce is probably a misspelling of Warren C. de Brueys who worked in the New Orleans FBI office until he was assigned to the Dallas office to direct “the analysis, composition and assembly of the first report” on the JFK assassination for President Johnson.)

“Arcacha was also one of the promoters of Friends of Democratic Cuba, Inc. (FDC) which was incorporated in New Orleans on 6 January 1961 ... created by several New Orleans business and political figures, including the deceased former FBI agent, Guy Banister, to collect money to aid Cubans in their fight against Communism.”11

A CIA memorandum written in August 1960 states that Guy W. Banister Associates, located at 434 Balter Building, New Orleans 12, Louisiana, is of interest to GOLIATH (CIA) as a cover mechanism. “It is necessary to determine whether the firm can lend itself to the type of cover operation under consideration.” The memorandum noted that “Mr. Guy W. Banister is a former FBI agent who is presently resides at 7059 Argonne Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana. You should attempt not to alert the firm or Mr. Banister to your inquiry.”12 The CIA later discovered that private investigator Guy Banister had some questionable activities in the past, had limited income, was a slow pay, advocates segregation, and should not be considered appropriate for cover work.13 The Miami Station “concluded that FDC was organized strictly for the personal gain of the promoters.” The FDC folded shortly after the report.14

Nonetheless, when the Cuban Revolutionary Front became the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) in 1961, it moved from the Balter Building to 531 Lafayette Street which was one of the side entrances to 544 Camp Street across from Lafayette Park in New Orleans.15

Oswald in August 1963 used the 544 Camp Street address on the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) literature he had printed using the alias, Lee Osborne. Ostensibly the FPCC handbill—calling for “Hands Off Cuba”—made him appear to be a communist sympathizer. But with all the anti-Castro activity happening at 544 Camp Street, Oswald’s FPCC literature begs the question, “Was Oswald part of an FBI COINTELPRO operation to gather names of those opposed to the U.S. policy towards Cuba?”

The Warren Commission failed to question Guy Banister before his death in 1964 about his connections to Oswald and never reviewed his surveillance files about the Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in Tampa and New Orleans which were destroyed by the Louisiana State Police.  

Orest Pena, the bar owner who helped Bringuier get out of jail, believed Oswald, who had frequent contact with FBI Agent de Brueys, "was an agent of the United States." According to his House Select Committee on Assassinations testimony, Pena himself was an FBI informant--but unpaid-- unlike so many others who were glad to receive extra income in trade for information about shady characters.

The FBI's COINTELPRO operation also paid individuals to infiltrate "subversive groups." These counterintelligence programs were designed to neutralize political dissidents by surveilling, infiltrating, disrupting and discrediting groups ranging from the Communist Party to the Quakers whose members included the recently deceased President Herbert Hoover and future President Richard Nixon. Disclosure of COINTELPRO in the mid-1970s was welcomed by 1960s' dissidents who had been labeled paranoid by the establishment, because they finally had proof that there was a “Them” watching “U.S.”

As part of COINTELPRO, the FBI infiltrated the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to try to better understand why Dr. Martin Luther King was working so hard for equal rights. They also sought to neutralize his efforts; even suggesting King take his own life. Many of those who had been on the FBI’s distribution list for reviewing Pawley’s activities were also reviewing the civil rights movement: J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson, Cartha DeLoach, Alan Belmont, William Sullivan, John Mohr and Frederick Baumgardner.16 How many of them looked askance at Pawley paying ransom to Castro for Bay of Pigs black prisoner Nestor Williams?

A similar effort by the CIA was reported by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities in April 1976. This “extensive program of alleged ‘domestic spying’ by CIA on Americans was the ‘CHAOS’ program” which began in 1967 in response to White House pressure [under Johnson and Nixon] for intelligence about foreign influence upon American dissent. The CHAOS mission was to gather and evaluate all available information about foreign links to racial, antiwar and other protest activity in the United States. CHAOS was terminated in 1974.”17 The timing coincided with the CIA’s concerns about the Garrison investigation.

Oddly, after the arrests of Oswald and Carlos J. Bringuier, Celso Macario Hernandez and Miguel Mariano Cruz for their August 9th altercation on Canal Street at St. Charles in downtown New Orleans, Oswald paid a $10 fine then requested an FBI interview and spoke to Special Agent John Quigley.18 Was this a COINTELPRO informant reporting? 

Then, “on August 21, 1963, he debated over radio station WDSU, New Orleans, with Carlos Bringuier” of the DRE.19 (The CIA’s version of COINTELPRO, MHCHAOS, under Richard Helms, James Angleton, and Richard Ober did not begin until 1967, some two years after President Johnson requested it.20)

If Oswald was, it wouldn’t be surprising that it was conducted in cooperation with the DRE to attract individuals sympathetic to the FPCC. Exploitation of the press was part of the DRE’s mission according to an internal CIA document. “The DRE was conceived, created and funded by the Agency in September 1960 and terminated in December 1966 ... initially set up as a psych warfare outfit, the organization was given a large amount of paramilitary aid in funds and material. After the Bay of Pigs, the DRE engaged in independent military actions ... Members were used through 1966 as political action agents, for publishing propaganda which was sent throughout the Hemisphere, attending international student meetings at Agency direction, and producing radio programs and special propaganda campaigns.”21

When Cuban exile Eladio del Valle conducted a bombing raid to ignite a sugar cane plantation in Cuba, David Ferry was his pilot. Ferrie died of a brain hemorrhage in New Orleans the same week that news broke in the New Orleans States-Item about Garrison’s investigation into the JFK assassination.22 On the same day, February 22, 1967, Eladio del Valle Gutierrez’s body was found in a Miami parking lot with multiple blunt impacts to the head and a gunshot wound to the chest. Del Valle (aka Yito and Llito) had been a leader of Fuerzas Armadas y Civiles Anti-Communistas (FAYCA) and associated with Ejercito Invasor Cubano (EIC).23

An FBI memo after the death of del Valle reported on “Contacts with Luis Posada Carrilles, CIA Informant” who reported in 1965 that another FAYCA founder, Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo (El Mexicano), had “sold .622 caliber silencers to Americans for $1,000” and Herminio Diaz “sold sixty hand grenades (USMK II) to Diego Borges for delivery to Americans” who Posada believed “were members of the Ku Klux Klan or possibly the John Birch Society.” The men were later identified from photos as Norman “Roughhouse” Rothman (former “manager of the Sans Souci [Trafficante’s casino] and Copacabana Clubs in Cuba representing the interests of the Mannarino brothers of Pittsburgh”) and Frank Lang “Lefty” Rosenthal (who had been involved in college sports fixing to rig gambling bets and went on to claim responsibility for bombings in the Miami area in 1967 to settle some scores).24

Rosenthal was suspected of having ties with Frank Sturgis and Luis Posada Carriles, who had not been involved the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but was a long-time friend of Jorge Mas Canosa and like Rosenthal also was later accused of bombings—namely the Cuban airline in 1976 and Havana hotels in 1997.25

Herminio Diaz Garcia and three others would die on a Cuban beach in 1966 trying to infiltrate Cuba to assassinate Castro.26 One of the survivors was Commandos L military leader Antonio Cuesta del Valle (AMDENIM-14) who claimed that Diaz had been in Dallas in 1963.27

J.C. King had written a CIA November 1960 dispatch to Jake Esterline regarding the CIA’s interest “in further information on this group because of the political implications involved in possible support of [Eladio] Del Valle by QDDALE [Pawley] and the ‘distinguished mutual friend’ of QDDALE and the writer of the letter,” Senator George Smathers. The dispatch also stated that “we would appreciate your obtaining from ODENVY [FBI] their evaluation of FAYCA and additional information on its leaders, including the identity of Luis Fajardo. Officers Name: J. D. Esterline. Office WH/4/PA Martha Tharpe.”28 Tharpe is a pseudonym, possibly for “Margaret Forsythe also of the Cuban Desk who is thoroughly familiar with the DRE operations.”29

The CIA’s DC/CI/R&A Donovan A. Pratt commented in his October 1968 memo to the Deputy Director of Plans that Walter Sheridan “is an NBC investigator who was associated earlier with the deceased Senator Robert Kennedy. Sheridan was a principal source of the information used in NBC’s anti-Garrison TV show 19 June 1967.”30

It is unclear if NBC and Sheridan were among the CIA’s “friendly” contacts. As of December 6, 2022, NBC still refuses to release the Sheridan documents, stating it stands by the Warren Commission, according to a team of researchers that spoke at a Mary Ferrell Foundation press conference at the National Press Club.31

Julio Lobo (AMEMBER-1) who was co-financing activities with the International Rescue Committee was a wealthy sugar magnate from Cuba known as “Mr. Sugar” who used Antonio Veciana Blanch as his accountant and offered to put up a quarter-of-a-million-dollars if an ALPHA-66 operation succeeded.32

Veciana, according to an FBI informant, had gotten fed up with the U.S. government’s inaction in August 1962. “The U.S. permitted Castro to take over Cuba ... confiscate property owned by U.S. citizens in Cuba without any action. ... shoot American citizens without any protest” and “permitted Russia to set up a base in Cuba.”

As a result, Veciana established Alpha 66 and developed “a plan to send 66 trained men of action into Cuba and commit five (5) violent, separate actions against the Castro regime.” His scheme included killing “the Russian Ambassador to Cuba or some other high Russian official in Cuba ... Blow up the Esso Refinery ... Destroy the power plant ... Sink a Russian ship in Havana harbor ... Kill a high ranking Cuban official.” If this violence was “successful, then Alpha 66 plans to sink a Greek or Canadian merchant ship by using a fast yacht armed with bazookas.”

According to the FBI informant, Veciana’s Cuba plan would utilize Vincente Noble and Guillermo Ruiz who “are on the loose in Cuba and ... are cold-blooded killers.” Veciana “was formerly the Chief of Action of the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP) in the Havana area. He was a member of the Christian Family Movement in Cuba and President of the Certified Public Account Association in Cuba. He was a top executive of the Banco Financiero, Havana, Cuba ... owned by Julio Lobo, the ‘Cuban Sugar King.’”33 (Veciana’s passion for regaining Cuba from Castro was strong and lasting. A decade later, he schemed with Felix Zabala Mas to undermine President Carter’s plan to restore relations with Cuba.34)

After the military operations were cutback, “many of the best DRE members relocated to other areas” throughout Latin America. They “have maintained some contact with various Agency stations over the years although the DRE is no longer very active. During the organization’s 6 year period of active existence DRE personnel were in contact with several JMWAVE staffers and outside contract agents. However, from January 1965 through December 1966, contact with DRE personnel was limited to two agents, Juan Manuel Salvat, the current DRE Secretary General who is now operating a bookstore in Miami, Florida, and Fernando Garcia Chacon who has relocated to El Salvador.”

The CIA review also noted that the FRD (Cuban Democratic Revolution Front) was created and funded by the Agency. “The FRD was formed as a political action, propaganda and military unit.” In addition to “extensive radio and printed propaganda, demonstrations, and trips throughout the Hemisphere to gain support for the fight against Castro,” the FRD recruited “members of the Bay of Pigs invasion force and carried out a massive program of social assistance to Brigade 2506 members in training camps and their families. Although the FRD headquarters were based in Miami, delegates were assigned to other areas which included New Orleans, Louisiana, Tampa, Florida and Mexico City, to gather intelligence and coordinate refugee activities.” The Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) “headed by Agency and White House sponsored Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, assisted by Manuel Artime and Dr. Antonio Varona” took over control of the FRD activities in late 1960.35

In those early days of the FRD, President Eisenhower met with CIA Director Allen Dulles and on November 1, 1960, to discuss Cuba and the FRD after meeting with William Pawley for 48 minutes. “The President said that Pawley was concerned about four things.” First, the slowness of training anti-Castro forces in Guatemala and the need to quadruple to 2,000 the numbers being trained. Second, “there had been success in getting rid of one of the communists in the FRD” but there was another. “Mr. Pawley however thinks Varona is a good citizen ... However, he has a poor opinion of some of the other members of the FRD and repeated that he thought one was worse than Castro. Third, Pawley wanted training to remain in Guatemala rather than moved to Okinawa. Fourth, Pawley urged Ike to put one person in charge over the FRD, a role he obviously wanted for William “Cuba” Pawley and a role he came close to as William “QDDALE” Pawley.36

Pawley’s comments about the FRD came shortly after Sergio Arcacha Smith “at the request of Antonio de Varona, a director of the CRC, agreed to establish a chapter of this group in New Orleans. Arcacha Smith was initially afforded free space in the Balter Building; he latter rented space at 544 Camp Street.” He “endeavored to raise funds by selling CRC bonds.”37 As mentioned earlier, CIA’s Jacob Esterline, using the alias Jacob England, met at Pawley’s office with him and Freyre on March 2, 1960 to discuss “the bond issue Mr. Pawley is floating in view of raising $2,000,000 for support of opposition activities.”38

Throughout the existence of the FRD and CRC, there was internal squabbling between liberal and conservative factions loyal to Prio or Batista—or their own self-importance. Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis “Jose Miro Cardona resigned his position as president [of CRC] in a clash with the Kennedy Administration over Cuban policy. Miro Cardona claimed Kennedy had promised another invasion would be launched and instead had chosen a course of peaceful coexistence with the Castro regime.” JFK cut off funding to the CRC on May 1, 1963. A month later Dr. Antonio Maceo who had replaced Cardona as the CRC leader, was forced to resign after perpetrating a second invasion hoax. Pawley’s favored leader, Varona, took the reins, but in 1964, in need of money, moved to New York to seek employment and the CRC “quietly disintegrated.”39

On June 2, 1967, a memo marked “Secret” to Yeagley addressed a number of issues. “Garrison claims that Oswald was probably a CIA agent who worked with anti-Castro Cubans with knowledge of Federal agents.” The memo writer rebutted this postulation with an assertion. “The Directors of the CIA and FBI testified before the Warren Commission that Oswald was never in the employ of their agency in any capacity.” Regarding Clay Shaw being a CIA agent, “CIA advised the Bureau in April 1967 that on May 9, 1961, Deputy Directors Cabell, CIA, was introduced before his speech to Foreign Policy Association in New Orleans by Clay Shaw, who was the program director, and that from December 1948 through May 1956, CIA’s Domestic Contact Service did have some relationship with Shaw, as it was interested in Shaw’s international contacts. CIA claims that the last contact with Shaw in this regard was in May 1956. (FBI Memo 4/27/67)”

The same secret document addresses Garrison’s assertion that there was an anti-Castro training camp on Lake Pontchartrain in Lacombe, Louisiana near New Orleans, run by Richard Davis, “which was operated by CIA to train assassins to send to Cuba and that Oswald was once at the camp.” The FBI denied having “information indicating that Oswald had any connection with Davis” who “has been described as a promoter and hustler, who will do anything for money, and is often carried away with his own thinking.”40

Nonetheless, a few months later, an FBI teletype revealed that Rudolph Richard Davis, Jr. during an interview had “received five hundred dollars from Time-Life Corp. to divulge location of training.” Davis who was from Cuba also “recalled two contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald while residing in New Orleans during the fall of nineteen sixtythree while Davis active in anti-Castro activities. Davis has no information re Minutemen activity with Oswald.” Davis denied involvement with Minutemen organization ... did receive financial assistance from John Birch Society, New Orleans.”41

Davis did have an “association with the MDC” (Movimiento Democrata Cristiano) supposedly as “a coordinator” for Dr. Jose Ignacio Rasco, an early critique of Castro’s violence and a founder of MDC, who eventually aligned himself with an independently wealthy, free spirit Laureano Batista Falla (no relation to the former head of Cuba). In April, Frank Sturgis “supplied information that Batista Falla, Orlando Bosch Avila, Manuel Artime, and Alexander Rorke were jointly planning an airstrike over Havana” on the 25th using bombs made by Batista Falla. Sturgis later said it may just have been “merely a publicity stunt.” Nonetheless, the FBI received information that the Mexican Army had reported in May 1967 that Sturgis and Orlando Bosch were involved in a plot to blow up a Cuban ship in a Mexican port.42

Some Bureau informants considered Fiorini driven by a desire for publicity and unreliable.43

The CIA’s CI/R&A issued a series of reports on Garrison’s investigation, beginning with one on April 26, 1967 that “listed seven Cuban refugees then linked to the case (Sergio Arcacha Smith; Carlos Bringuier, Julio Buznedo, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Pascual Gongora, Miguel Silva Torres, and Carlos Quiroga) and requested any additional WH/COG information about them and about the following groups: the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, the DRE, the Information Council of the Americas [INCA], and any other anti-Castro groups active in the New Orleans area. The request added, ‘Information about CIA relationship with the above- named groups should not be restricted to New Orleans but should also include Miami and other areas to which Garrison's investigations may lead.’ Information was also requested on Edward S. Butler, Alberto Fowler, Emilio Santana, and a paramilitary training site at Lake Pontchartrain.”44

The CIA’s own internal research in 1967 determined that INCA funding came “from wealthy New Orleans figures including Dr. Alton Ochsner (of the Ochsner Clinic) and Willard S. Robertson” who owned multiple car dealerships, and recently by the Schick Safety Razor Company.45 Ochsner, a heart surgeon, rose to fame in the field of blood typing then for raising the red flag regarding a link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1930s. In January 1955, he flew to Argentina and secretly operated on deposed President, Juan Peron, shortly after Evita— his wife Eva Peron—died. The doctor told him to quit smoking.46

Like Ochsner, Butler was an ardent anti-communist. As an Executive Vice President of INCA in 1965, he “sponsored the New Orleans appearance of Juanita Castro” who turned on her brother, Fidel Castro, and became such a fervent anti-communist sister, that JMWAVE wanted to keep its distance from her during Garrison’s investigation. However, her business manager was a “JMWAVE asset.” The CIA review noted that contact had been limited with Butler when he was “promoting the ‘Hitler In Havana’ film.” Emilio Santana Galindo was paid by the CIA’s JMWAVE “as a guide for infiltration teams.” He was dismissed in October 1963 “when the ratline developed by the team became inoperable due to occupation of the target area by Soviet technicians”—as well as “his untruthfulness about certain aspects of the team operation.” In 1966, he was arrested for burglary.

Garrison’s case focused on Cuban exiles who spoke Spanish. Fortunately, someone volunteered to be his translator. Unfortunately, it was Alberto Casimer Fowler Perrillat. 

On the surface, Fowler appeared to be a godsend. His sister was married to “Fort Pipes, Jr Jr., a member of a prominent New Orleans family” that had built its wealth in the sugar industry, and Alberto Fowler was director of the city’s International Relations, working out of the International Trade Mart. Previously, Fowler had been “president of the North American Sugar Company, Havana, from 1951 until he returned to the U.S. in November 1960 and enlisted in Brigade 2506” to overthrow Fidel Castro. But perhaps his sudden volunteerism was at the behest of someone else. “At the time of his enlistment [in Brigade 2506] Alberto Fowler gave Mark Foster, Cuban Refugee Center White House Representative, and former U.S. Ambassador William Pauley (sic), as references.”47

Fowler, who had been captured during the Bay of Pigs invasion, imprisoned and eventually released in the December 1962 prisoner exchange, shared William Pawley’s public anger at Kennedy for failing to provide air cover for the invasion. Upon his release by Castro, Fowler penned an article for U.S News and World Report voicing his bitterness toward the President. In November, Fowler intentionally harassed JFK by loudly “playing Cuban music” in a house next to the Kennedy estate. After the Garrison investigation, Fowler served on the Advisory Committee of Ed Butler’s INCA which had sponsored the Oswald-Bringuier-Butler WDSU radio debate and TV appearance on August 21, 1963 that helped establish the public image of Oswald as a Marxist.48

While in New York mid-January 1963, Jose Miro Cardona (AMBUD-1) was “contacted by three Brigade members whose trip to NY” had been “financed by Julio Lobo and International Rescue Committee.” Lobo intended to “send them on tour 27 U.S. cities in behalf Cuban cause. Appeared to AMBUD-1 that Lobo perhaps wants [to] form political group his own.” The memo was unsure if this was part of a Republican effort to have Brigade members discuss the Bay of Pigs failure publicly. The three men were Arteaga, Orlando Cuervo and Alberto Fowler.49 

Thus, Fowler was an associate of two CIA covert players, Leo Cherne of the International Rescue Committee and William Pawley, when he volunteered to join the Garrison investigation team—providing a potential information pipeline to Pawley and others in the CIA who worked with the DRE and other anti-Castro groups. And he cut right to the vortex.

On February 14, 1967, the DRE delegate Carlos Bringuier, who had engaged Oswald in the 1963 street fight in New Orleans, told the FBI “that he has been given a lie detector test [by Garrison] in which he was asked questions regarding Oswald’s being a member of the Communist Party, and” whether Oswald “acted alone.” During the test, Bringuier “was also questioned as to where he may have met Oswald; [Sergio] Arcacha Smith” ... “Richard Davis” ... if “David Ferrie knew Oswald.

Bringuier stated that based upon information received from Alberto Fowler, publicity director, City of New Orleans, he has learned that District Attorney James Garrison is of the opinion that Oswald was contacted to assassinate Fidel Castro by a group in New Orleans and this plan could not be carried out. An alternate plan was that some of the individuals in the first plan contacted Oswald to kill President Kennedy ... Bringuier advised that Fowler believes the FBI is tapping his telephone.” Also, Garrison’s office “is attempting to locate Arcacha Smith” (who had worked for “W. Guy Bannister, former New Orleans private detective”).

“Bringuier stated that Alberto Fowler told him that Mayor Victor Schiro of the City of New Orleans had told Fowler that Congressman Hale Boggs had first brought this investigation to the attention of” Garrison and “Jack Martin ... originally developed the information being investigated by” Garrison.50

Fowler also informed Bringuier that a TIME-LIFE reporter’s wife might be a French communist working alongside Garrison.51

Bringuier of the Pawley-connected DRE seemed to gain much insight from Fowler, the Pawley-recommended-brigade-member-turned-Garrison translator. On April 30, 1967, Bringuier was called by Fowler who “stated that Garrison plans to prove that it was Gordon Novel who pulled the trigger in Dallas and not Oswald.”52

On June 18, 1967 an urgent cable went to Director Hoover from the New Orleans FBI office where Carlos Quiroga had just appeared and advised that “during the past week, Carlos Bringuier Cuban exile leader in New Orleans, traveled to Miami, Florida where he met with Antonio Lanusa former leader of the Cuban Student Directorate. Lanusa advised Bringuier that Alberto Fowler, investigator for DA Garrison, had telephonically contacted him and “stated Garrison will prove President Kennedy was assassinated by Cuban exiles, and Bringuier was aware of Oswald’s purported affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency. Fowler also stated that Bringuier and Lee Harvey Oswald had staged their confrontation on Canal Street, New Orleans in August, 1963.”53

To that point, Lanusa said he had been accused by a Garrison’s investigator of “knowing about Oswald prior to the assassination. Alcock [the investigator] indicated that this information had been furnished by Claire Booth Luce.” Lanusa had been one of the first people to attempt to link Oswald to Castro on November 22nd because of his FPCC encounter with Bringuier.

Two days earlier, Fowler encountered Bringuier on Canal Street and revealed “Garrison has information that an identical double for Lee Harvey Oswald exists and this individual is a ‘double agent’ of the FBI. Fowler also indicated Garrison will draw trial out over a year’s time in order to develop and present evidence.” A note from the Domestic Intelligence Division stated that this “is completely false and gives further indication that Garrison is mentally unbalanced.”54

Joan Mellen, author of a book about the Garrison investigation, told Rex Bradford of the Mary Ferrell Foundation in 2006, “I was interested in Alberto Fowler because he was such an unlikely person to have worked with Jim Garrison as he did—he was totally loyal to Jim Garrison—and, which, um, would not be the case of Pershing Gervais, William Martin, and any of the—Bill Boxley and Tom Bethel—and any of the people who appear on the CIA list of plants in Jim Garrison's office.” Yet Mellen noted that Fowler “brought Bernardo de Torres into Jim Garrison's investigation, and that was a mistake, but you have to remember that Angelo Murgado traveled with Bernardo de Torres to the home of Sylvia Odio, where Oswald was set up for the murder of President Kennedy, and Angelo Murgado did not know that de Torres was part of the plot to kill President Kennedy and ... that two days after they visited Sylvia Odio, Bernardo de Torres would telephone Sylvia Odio and say ‘this Leon Oswald, he's talking about killing President Kennedy.’”55

James DiEugenio took strong issue with Mellen’s version of the Odio/de Torres encounter and Garrison’s probe. “The book is a hatchet job on RFK; one aimed right between his shoulder blades. And it is hard to believe that it was not planned that way. Especially since, as noted above, she never doubts anything these Cubans and their allies like Hemming tell her, no matter how wild, no matter how illogical, no matter how unsupported.”56

Another JFK assassination writer, Larry Hancock, stated that “Bernardo de Torres was known to have associated with several of Hemming’s Interpen members and he was well associated with Fiorini/Sturgis.” Post-assassination, de Torres worked in Latin America as an “arm salesman for Mitchell WerBell,” the weapons and silencers entrepreneur who ran Military Armament Corp. When Gaeton Fonzi of the House Select Committee on Assassinations explored de Torres, he found that Fowler’s friend brought much “unwanted publicity” and diverted attention away from the original focus on the CIA’s DRE activities and instead onto Castro— claiming that the Secret Service had asked de Torres “and ten others to watch for potential [pro- Castro] Cuban assassins” during JFK’s early November visit to Miami. Garrison later reflected that de Torres had pushed worthless “‘misinformation.’”57

When de Torres died decades later his friend, Owen Band, wrote in Miami New Times, that his “list of connections included mafia dons Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello” and “Bernie’s resume ... might have left out the number of times he was questioned in homicide cases in Dade County, Florida.”58

One thing for sure, Fowler’s volunteer work for Garrison gave the DRE (if not the CIA and Pawley himself) direct access to inside information about where the DA’s assassination investigation was headed. In addition, Fowler’s introduction into that investigation of another disgruntled former Bay of Pigs prisoner—Bernardo de Torres—helped further undermine Garrison’s quest for the truth. The roux that simmered in New Orleans contained all the ingredients of JMWAVE counterintelligence counterespionage subterfuge as the CIA worked hard to make sure that Garrison looked like a senseless fool rather than the distinctive gourmet at Arnaud’s where a waiter pointed him out to me during my stay in New Orleans as I drove from Ft. Lauderdale to San Francisco to New York and back on my honeymoon in the summer of love.

FOOTNOTES:

1 NARA 104-10009-10020 ~ 1/12/1967 CIA Dispatch “Countering Criticism Of The Warren Report.” To: Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases. From: Chief, WOVIEW.

Mary Ferrell Foundation CIA Cryptonyms

2 NARA 104-10173-10184 ~ 10/6/1967 Cable “Identity: James Garrison.” Orig N. Cratz. Source WH/COG/CI. 

3 NARA 104-10181-10113 ~ 4/3/1967 Memorandum for the Record “Possible DRE Animus Towards President Kennedy. From A.E. Dooley. Reference: Memorandum 8 March 1967 Same Subject. Subjects: AMSPELL.

"November 26 1963: CIA Assets Blame Castro. The first conspiracy theory was promoted by collaborators of the clandestine service." By Jefferson Morley. JFK Facts substack, November 26, 2023.  

Michael Canfield and Alan J. Weberman, Coup ď état In America. The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (New York: The Third Press, 1975). 

Chambers W. S. [Arrest Report On Investigative Prisoner - John Forrester Gedney November 22 1963] legal document November 22 1963 (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190292/: accessed January 6, 2024) University of North Texas Libraries The Portal to Texas History https://texashistory.unt.edu crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

4 NARA 104-10067-10081~ 2/28/1968 Memorandum. Subject: “Garrison Investigation of Kennedy Assassination: Allegations of Involvement, CIA and Cuba.”

>> Garrison's attempts to gain access to CIA and FBI files on the alleged conspirators was thwarted, and Clay Shawwas acquitted. He died at age 60 of cancer on August 15, 1974.

5 NARA 04-10400-10151 ~ 4/6/1967 “Subject: Carlos Bringuier.” Subjects: Shaw, Clay; Bringuier, Carlos. Pages 4-11 of 11. Earlier pages refer to Domestic Contact Service memorandum 6 April 1967 contains significant redactions.

6 NARA 180-10075-10168 ~ 6/23/1978 "Sworn Testimony of Orest Pena." House Select Committee on Assassinations.

>> Pena blamed FBI Agent Walter de Brueys's relationship with Oswald for the death of JFK.

>> Oswald who was described by the Warren Commission as a loner yet stood on street corners handing out flyers and debated the DRE on radio also out of character went to Habana bar with two other men and ordered lemonade but "started bitching about the price of the lemonade for twenty-five cents" according to Pena 

>> Pena often refused to answer HSCA questions, specifically those pertaining to whether Sergio Arcacha Smith and David Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald and whether they were involved in the JFK assassination. 

>> Pena had learned to fly a Cessna at Lake Front Airport with David Ferrie. Hours before his death, a nervous Ferrie came to the Habana bar to ask Pena if he knew where Sergio Arcacha Smith was. Perhaps in Texas, but go ask Bringuier was the gist of Pena's response. Bringuier also was no help. Twelve hours later Ferrie was dead.    

>> Pena applied for a passport on June 24, 1963, the same day Oswald did. Pena claimed he learned of the coincidence from famed early JFK assassination researcher, Harold Weisberg.  

NARA 104-10300-10208 ~ 6/10/1975 MFR (Memo for the Record) “Sturgis, Frank, and Hunt, Howard.” Declassified on April 26, 2018.

7 NARA 124-10226-10290 ~ 5/13/1968 Bureau Correlation Summary “Subject: Frank Angelo Fiorini, One Frank Date searched July 19, 1967.” Pages 35 and 36.

8 NARA 124-10203-10293 ~ 4/9/1969 FBI Report. “Carlos Marcello, aka.” From: SA John C. McCurnin, II, New Orleans Office.

"G. Wray Gill Dies October 4, 1972." Today in New Orleans History. NewOrleansPast.com 

>> Marcello's attorney for two decades beginning in 1951 was George Wray Gill Sr. (G. Wray Gill), who died on October 4, 1972. He also represented David Ferrie in his December 1961 attempt to be reinstated as an Eastern Airlines pilot. In December 1961, Gill began representing former pilot, David Ferrie, in his attempt to be reinstated with Eastern Air Lines after suspension on morals charges. Ferrie served Gill as an investigator and handyman from the spring of 1962 through November 1963 when Gill associate Jack S. Martin claimed Ferrie was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald, which three years later became a focus of of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.  

9 “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” PBS Frontline, November 1993.

10 Richard D. Mahoney, Sons & Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. Page 138.

“Secret Service report dated December 9, 1963, at New Orleans, La.” Warren Commission Hearings, Volume XII, Exhibit CE 1414

NARA 104-10130-10011 ~ “Sergio Vicente Arcacha Smith” (Enclosure 2 of Reference Memorandum dated February 22, 1961).

NARA 104-10105-1081 ~ CIA WH/COG 67-194 Memorandum for: ADDP; C/CI/R&A (Mr. Rocca). From: AC/WH/COG. Subject: Garrison and The Kennedy Assassination. Reference: CI/R & A Memorandum Dated 26 April 1967.

11 “Warren Claude de Brueys” Obituary. Fielding Funeral Home. December 21, 2013, https://www.ejfieldingfh.com/obituaries/Warren-De-Brueys/#!/Obituary

12 NARA 104-10109-10376 ~ 8/30/1960 Memorandum “Subject: Guy W. Banister Associates.” To: Special Agent in Charge, Los Angeles Field Office. From: Paul T. Auden CIA Hqs.

>> A year earlier Paul T. Auden wrote a Memorandum dated October 14, 1959 for Special Agent in Charge, Headquarters Field Office regarding the installation of a device at William D. Pawley’s office “for the use of the subject in certain matters of interest to Goliath [CIA]. Upon arrival of your agent at Miami, he should contact Mr. Bernard E. Reichardt, a staff employee of Goliath who shares an office with the open Goliath representative, Room 302, 299 Alhambra Circle, Coral Gables, Florida ...” The document also notes that Pawley “has cooperated with Goliath on numerous occasions and is a personal friend of the Director of Goliath.”

13 NARA 104-10109-10373 ~ 9/13/1960 Memorandum “Subject: Guy W. Banister Associates Inc. #222918 F-39/2.” To: Chief, Investigative Division.

14 “Warren Claude de Brueys” obituary. Fielding Funeral Home December 21, 2013, https://www.ejfieldingfh.com/obituaries/Warren-De-Brueys/#!/Obituary

15 “Oswald and William Guy Banister: The Rubber Stamp.” Coup D'état In America. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/weberman/11-8.htm#top

16 Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book III, Final Report of the Select Committee to study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate April 23, 1976, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Case Study.

“Investigations: FBI: Shaken by a Cover-Up That Failed,” Time, November 3, 1975.

John Mohr may have ordered the destruction of a note Lee Harvey Oswald sent the Dallas FBI ten days before the assassination. Mohr was also known for “all-night poker parties at the Blue Ridge Club” attended by other FBI officials, wiretapping manufacturer executives, and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA Counterintelligence head.” Senator Schweiker believed that FBI Director Hoover may have been lying when he claimed to the Warren “Commission that the FBI rejected Oswald’s offer to work as an informer in 1962 and 1963...”

Schweiker was the only Senator permitted to see all of the classified Warren Commission’s documents, according to Robert Sam Anson in an interview with Arlene Francis on WOR-AM, December 3, 1975. However he was guided by James Jesus Angleton and Raymond Rocca, who had returned to the CIA, after resigning a year earlier, to help the assassination investigators and suggest Cuban and Soviet agents to question.

William C. Sullivan in 1961 was appointed assistant director of the FBI's Intelligence Division and eventually became the FBI's third-ranking official behind Director J. Edgar Hoover and his assistant Clyde A. Tolson. Despite being a liberal, his FBI activities included attempts to discredit Martin Luther King. He then wound up being involved in the FBI’s investigations of King's death as well as John and Robert Kennedy’s. At age 65, William C. Sullivan was shot dead near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on November 9, 1977. An inquest determined that it was an accidental shooting by hunter Robert Daniels who was fined $500 and lost his hunting license for 10 years.

"Examining NH's Own JFK Assassination Mystery." By Jeff Woodburn, New Hampshire, November 16, 2017.

Sullivan had been scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He was one of six top FBI officials who died in a six-month period in 1977. Others who were due to appear before the committee who died included Louis Nicholas, special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover and Hoover's liaison with the Warren Commission; Alan H. Belmont, special assistant to Hoover; James Cadigan, document expert with access to documents that related to death of John F. Kennedy; J. M. English, former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory where Oswald's rifle and pistol were tested; Donald Kaylor, FBI fingerprint chemist who examined prints found at the assassination scene.

William C. Sullivan with Bill Brown, My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979). “William C. Sullivan, Ex-F.B.I. Aide, 65, Is Killed in a Hunting Accident.” The New York Times, November 10, 1977.

>> At the time of his death Sullivan was working on this book with journalist Bill Brown. Published posthumously, the book was highly critical of both J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson.

17 Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book III, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate April 23, 1976, CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: Chaos and the Office of Security.

The most extensive program of alleged "domestic spying" by CIA on Americans was the “CHAOS” program. CHAOS was the centerpiece of a major CIA effort begun in 1967 in response to White House pressure [under Johnson and Nixon] for intelligence about foreign influence upon American dissent. The CHAOS mission was to gather and evaluate all available information about foreign links to racial, antiwar and other protest activity in the United States. CHAOS was terminated in 1974.

18 “Document Appendix to Oswald in New Orleans.” Pages 608-619 (note page numbering is odd in this document which also indicates page 213/309 for example). Mary Ferrell Foundation website.

>> Lee Harvey Oswald and Celso Macario Hernandez were interviewed by New Orleans Police Patrolman Warren Roberts. Carlos Jose Briniguer and Miguel Mariano Cruz were interviewed by Sergeant Horace J. Austin of the New Orleans Police Department Intelligence Unit.

>> They were arrested by New Orleans Police Lieutenant W. Gaillot and Patrolmen F. Hayward and F. Wilson according to a report dictated on 11/26/1963 by FBI Special Agent John L. Quigley.

>> Miguel Mariano Cruz (born 9/27/44) was age 18 and in 11th grade of high school at the time. He was not Senator Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz (born 3/22/1939), as claimed by Donald Trump.

19 “Chapter 7: Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives.” Warren Commission Report. Page 407. 20 Richard H. Athan Theoharis, The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006). Pages 49, 175, 195, 203 & 322.

Russell P. Napoli, Intelligence Identities Protection Act and Its Interpretation (Nova Publishers, 2005). Pages 18– 20.

21 NARA 04-10056-10096 ~ 6/9/1967 CIA Memorandum For: ADDP, C/CI/R&A (Mr. Rocca). “Subject: Garrison and The Kennedy Assassination. Reference: CI/R&A Memorandum Dated 26 April 1967.” Page 12 of 14.

22  “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald.” Frontline, PBS-TV, November 1993. “Jim Garrison Interview.” By Eric Norden, Playboy, October 1967.

23 NARA 1993.08.05.10:41:34:710005 ~ “HSCA Material Reviewed At Headquarters—Cuban Counterrevolutionary Handbook.” Pages 283 & 297 of 482.

>> Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo (El Mexicano) was another founder of FAYCA. During 1963, Eladio del Vallealso been involved with the Ejercito Invasor Cubano.

>> I was a University of Miami student living on W. Flagler Street when I read the newspaper account of del Valle’s death.

24 NARA 124-10300-10077 ~ 7/12/1967 FBI Report. To: Director, FBI. From: Welsh, Warren R. “Section: C. CIA—Organized Crime “HSCA Report, Volume X. Plots. Page 187 of 210.

“Section: C. CIA—Organized Crime “HSCA Report Volume X. Plots. Page 187 of 210.

25 “Militant Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles dead at 90.” Sun-Sentinel, May 23, 2018. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/obituaries/fl-reg-obit-luis-posada-carriles-20180523-story.html

26 NARA 124-90107-10358 ~ 5/31/1966 CIA Information Report. Subject: Attempt to infiltrate Cuba by Cuban Emigres on 29 May 1966.

NARA 124-90094-10088 ~ 7/7/1966 FBI Report. From: MM. To: HQs. Page 11 of 20.

27 Jefferson Morley, JFK Facts Podcast, February 2, 2023. >> Sandalio Herminio Diaz, Armando Romero, Roberto Anta Fernandez, and Guillermo Alvarez Sanchez were killed; Antonio Cuesta del Valle and Eugenio Saldivar Cadenas were taken prisoner.

28 On November 2, 1960. CIA Dispatch. Subject: Eladio del Valle Gutierrez, leader of Fuersas Armadas y Civiles Anti-Communistas (FAYCA). To: Chief of Base, JMASH. From: Chief, WH Division.

1. Enclosed for your information, under separate cover, is a thermofax copy of a letter addressed to QDDALE recommending support of Subject’s invasion plans. The original of this letter was received from QDDALE at Headquarters, along with several unrelated papers, without comment from QDDALE or request for information.

2. We are especially interested in further information on this group because of the political implications involved in possible support of Del Valle by QDDALE and the “distinguished mutual friend” of QDDALE and the writer of the letter.

3. Reference A answered some of the questions raised in reference B. However, we would appreciate your obtaining from ODENVY their evaluation of FAYCA and additional information on its leaders, including the identity of Luis Fajardo. Officers Name: J. D. Esterline. Office WH/4/PA Martha Tharpe.

29 NARA 104-10181-10113 ~ Memorandum for The Record “Possible DRE Animus Towards President Kennedy.” Prepared by A.E. Dooley.

The DRE was an anti-communist student organization funded covertly by CIA. It was known by the cryptonym AMSPELL. In the fall of 1962, the DRE organization in Cuba was penetrated and wrapped-up by the DGI. We continued to provide nominal financial support to the DRE until September 1966 and terminated our relationship completely on amiable terms on 1 January 1967 ... Another anti-Castro organization mentioned in connection with the (altercation between Carlos Bringuier and Lee Oswald) was the Information Council of the Americas (INCA). According to Paul Oberst, of the Cuban Operations Group (COG/CA) CIA did not fund this organization although we had contacts with some of its members. It is abundantly clear that the DRE had no part in the Kennedy assassination. Oswald was not a member of the DRE, which, in fact, rejected him. In developing information regarding CIA's relations with the DRE, I conferred with REDACTED of the Cuban Operations Group who recently returned from a tour with our Miami station; Carl Trettin, Deputy Chief of the Counterintelligence Branch of the Cuban Operations Group, who knew Bringuier and was stationed in New Orleans at the time of the above incidents; and Margaret Forsythe also of the Cuban desk, who is thoroughly familiar with the DRE operation.

>> Arthur E. “Dooley accompanied Ray Rocca to President's Commission on 12 Oct 1964 to request that [Warren] Commission not print certain photos taken in Mexico on 4 Oct 1963” according to the Mary Ferrell Foundation database.  https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19769#relPageId=3

“Jeremy.WPD. Analysis and Review Identification Aid” Assassination Records Review Board. ARRB electronic files of Eileen A. Sullivan, Press and Public Affairs Officer https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=203668#relPageId=1&search=203668.Jeremy.WPD

>> See also Helms communications to Rankin of the Warren Commission 06 March 1964 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11090#relPageId=21

           James Jesus Angleton established seven branches within the Counterintelligence Division:

• -  Research & Analysis (CI/R&A)

• -  Operations (CI/OPS

• -  International Communism and Front Organizations (CI/IC)

• -  Special Investigation Group (CI/SIG)

• -  International Police (CI/IP)

• -  Liaison to Other US Departments and Agencies (CI/LS)

• -  Special Operations Group (Israel) (I/SOG)

The senior officer and deputy reported directly to Angleton. Each branch had “nearly two hundred officers, analysts, research assistants, translators and secretary/clerks (about one for every five officers).” CI/R&A which oversaw the CIA’s file archives and CI/Ops

“By far the largest of the seven branches were Research and Analysis (which oversaw the file archives) and Operations (which handled cases and confronted suspected agents in foreign services). Together they comprised about two thirds of the Counterintelligence Staff’s total personnel. The other branches had about a dozen people or less in them; in the International Communism Branch, for instance, a staff of about ten officers provided liaison with foreign intelligence services from countries where strong Communist parties operated.”

30 NARA 104-10312-010381 ~ 10/28/1968 CIA “Memo Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination: Gordon Dwane Novel.” To: DDP. From: Pratt, DC/CI/R&A.

31 Mary Ferrell Foundation Presents: Jefferson Morley and Judge John R. Tunheim Live on JFK – Full. National Press Club. December 6, 2022. YouTube: https://youtu.be/_43KtWoHbpY
>> The presentation was designed to pressure President Biden to mandate the release of all remaining JFK Assassination documents in government, corporate and organizational hands.

“More than 70% of voters in poll want Biden to release secret JFK assassination records.” Marc Caputo. NBC News. December 6, 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/voters-poll-want-biden-release-jfk-assassination-records-rcna60193

32 John Newman, Into the Storm (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2019). Page 296.
>> On 9/6/62, TFW chief William Harvey notified the FBI, State Department, DIA, Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence and Air Force Intelligence that the CIA wanted any information that these agencies could develop on Alpha-66. He also sent another post the same day stating that Alpha-66 was planning an operation on 9/10/62 using two small boats. If this operation was successful, Harvey added, Julio Lobo would reportedly commit $250,000 for future Alpha-66 operations.

33 NARA 104-10102-10073 ~ 8/8/1962 FBI Report “Operation Alpha 66—Internal Security—Cuba—Registration Act—Cuba.” From: FBI/Puerto Rico. Subjects: Cuba, Operation Alpha; Blanch, Antonio; International Security

34 NARA 104-10102-10198 ~ 4/8/1977 FBI Internal Document. Subjects: Castro, Fidel; Veciana, Antoni.

35 6/1/1967 Memorandum No. 3. “Subject Jim Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination, Reference: CI/R&A Memorandum of 8 May 1967 Subject as Above.” :www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10435-10034.pdf

36 “Section: 613. 11/29/60 Memorandum of a Meeting with the President, White House, Washington. Written by an attendee, Gordon Gray. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI: Cuba

37 “Section: V. Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC): New Orleans Chapter.” HSCA Report, Volume X. Page 61.

38 NARA 104-10220-10117 ~ 3/8/1960 Memorandum “Meeting with Mr. William Pawley and Pablo [sic: Fabio] Freyre on Financial and Organizational Matters.” Subjects: Pawley, Wm. From: Esterline, J. P., C/WH/4 – Routing slip has handwritten notation QDDALE.

39 “Section: IV. Cuban Revolutionary Council: A Concise History.” Written by Gaeton Fonzi, Investigator, and Elizabeth J. Palmer, Researcher. HSCA Report, Volume X. Pages 58 & 59.

40 NARA 124-10264-10474 ~ 03/13/1967 FBI Memorandum. To: Director, FBI. From: AG.

41 NARA 124-10369-10045 ~ “Admin Folder-09: HSCA Administrative Folder, LHO Incoming Communications 6/21/67 – 7/19/67.” Page 36 of 262.

42 NARA 104-10221-10188 ~ 7/26/1967 FBI Memorandum “Frank Angelo Fiorini ... Reported Plans to Blow Up Cuban Ship in Mexican Port, Possibly Veracruz.”
In addition to Fiorini (Sturgis) and Dr. Orlando Bosch Avila, alleged plotters included Ronald Edward Thompson; Donald Francis Roche (aka John Henry Schulte); Jose Antonio Mulet Gonzalez (aka Quajiro); and Alfredo C. Fuente.

43 NARA Record Number 124-10226-10290. May 13, 1968. Bureau Correlation Summary. Subject: Frank Angelo Fiorini, One Frank Date searched July 19, 1967, pages 35 and 36.

44 NARA 104-10067-10081 ~ 2/28/1968 “Garrison Investigation of Kennedy Assassination: Allegations of Involvement, CIA and Cuban.” Declassified 2017-11-09

45 NARA 104-10170-10129 ~ Cable “(This Is Cable No. 2) Of A Series.”

46 Eduardo Randrup, MD and Hector O. Ventura, MD. “The Secret Trip of Dalton Alton Ochsner,” The Ochsner Journal, 2016 Summer; 16 (2). Pages 116-119.

47 NARA 104-10404-10445 ~ 4/26/1967 Memorandum “Garrison And The Kennedy Assassination With Attachment Containing Background Info and Bio Data.” For: ADDP C/CI/R & A (Mr. Rocca). Prepared by Western Hemisphere/Cuban Operations Group (name redacted). Page 7 of 16.

>> Alberto Fowler’s sister, Carlotta, was married to Fort Pipes, Jr. whose prominent sugar industry family had Louisiana roots dating back to the 1812 Battle of New Orleans. Carlotta’s obituary displays her family’s dedication to the Cuban American National Foundation.

Carlota Perrilliat Fowler Pipes on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 at Ochsner Foundation Hospital. Age 83 years. She was a native of New Orleans, LA. Carlota graduated from Louise S. McGehee School, and attended Chevy Chase University. She was a member of the Junior League of New Orleans, New Orleans Town Gardners, and the Cuban American National Foundation. Beloved wife of the late Fort Pipes, Jr. Mother of Elizabeth Pipes Swanson, Carlota Pipes Woolworth Stahl, Pamela Fort Pipes, and Ashley Pipes Bowen. Daughter of the late George Raphael Fowler and Lise Perrilliat Fowler. Sister of Lisette Fowler Weiss and Maria Fowler Giberga, the late George Fowler and Alberto Fowler. Grandmother of 13 and great-grandmother of 1. Relatives and friends are invited to attend Funeral Services on Saturday, March 26, 2005 at Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church, 1230 S. Carrollton Ave. at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow in Metairie Cemetery. Contributions to the Fund for the Recall of Governor Blanco or the Cuban American National Foundation, 1312 Southwest 27th Avenue, Miami, FL 33145 preferred. LAKE LAWN METAIRIE FUNERAL HOME in charge of arrangements. Published by The Times-Picayune from Mar. 25 to Mar. 26, 2005.

CIA 1443-492-AL; CIA Box 12, Folder 10 (MMF 1077) ~ Rosemary James & Jack Wardlaw, Plot or Politics, James, Page 148.

48 Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice. John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the murder of JFK (New York: Carroll & Graf 2005). Pages 517, 682-683, 740-742.

>> Citing an anti-Kennedy article by Alberto Fowler that appeared in U.S. News & World Report, January 7, 1963. 

>> Citing an article about Fowler’s harassment of JFK that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 22, 1973.

>> Waldron and Hartmann postulate that Fowler may have worked for the CIA and steered DA Garrison toward Clay Shaw who also worked at the International Trade Mart (as did William Gaudet) and away from Tony Varona, Manuel Artime, Frank Fiorini, Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello. Fowler was a member of Varona’s Cuban Revolutionary Council according to the authors.

49 NARA 104-10236-10349 ~ CIA DIR CABLE “23 Jan Unidentified Member Exile Community Reported 01/23/63 AMBUD-1.”

When AMBUD-1 [real name Jose Miro Cardona] in NY 13 January [1963] he contacted by three Brigade members whose trip to NY financed by Julio Lobo and International Rescue Committee: (FRU) Arteaga, Orlando (Cuervo) and Alberto (Fowler) ... AMBUD-1 learned that Lobo planned [to] send them on tour 27 U.S. cities in behalf Cuban cause. Appeared to AMBUD-1 that Lobo perhaps wants [to] form political group his own.

>> The memo was unsure if this was part of a Republican effort to have Brigade members discuss the Bay of Pigs failure publicly to discredit President Kennedy.

Organización Auténtica http://www.autentico.org/oa09271.php

>> Upon Fowler’s death, Antonio Navarro wrote:

ALBERTO FOWLER (1929-1987)

Just as Alberto never needed an introduction, he needs no farewell. Alberto filled any room with his presence - and he filled our lives. As Alberto and my wife Avis were fond of saying "It’s been a long and dusty road." We tend to say at these ceremonies, about all kinds of people, that "they never hurt a soul." Well, Alberto, truly, never willingly hurt anyone. What he did was to help many a soul - including mine.

Within his obvious, often blatant sophistication, and his occasional devilment (like putting tiny little frogs in his mouth and letting them jump out onto the laps of horrified ladies), Alberto had a quality of innocence, a child-like wonderment that made him the mystic that he was, the artist that he was. We knew, somehow, that he had never grown old and bitter, despite ample cause, and remained a free spirit - perhaps never altogether of this world.

A few years ago, in a book I wrote, Alberto was a principal character. I quoted him at the moment in December of 1958 when it was first clear that the 26th of July movement had carried the day in Cuba. He said to Julio Batista and to me in a friendly but firm way: "Don’t worry friends, we shall be noble in victory." And he meant it. But unfortunately it was not for Alberto to decide. He was a young idealist and he had sincere hopes for the revolution. Some of us, less wise than our elders, also had hopes. We lived to regret it - and to try to do something about it.

Alberto certainly did. Some of his friends from the heroic Brigade of the Bay of Pigs, who shared with him an admirable effort, and the women who supported them, are here today to pay a last tribute to a comrade.

I remember a photograph of Albert bravely talking back to his captors, undaunted by his dangerous position. What the Communists could not accomplish a combination of illnesses has done, and Alberto decided to fight no more.

For me, we have come full circle: from New Year’s of 1959 at the Isle of Pines to New Year’s of 1988 when we say goodbye.

Alberto was a loving son, a good husband to his Paulette ( a devoted wife with a capital "D"), a good brother, father, and the best friend a man ever had - many men and women ever had. Of the emptiness he will leave, I will not talk, I cannot talk.

Alberto was not a saint - but he was close as close as we would want him. He had no divine qualities (though at times he thought he did), but his human qualities were exceptional. There was no malice in him, no bitterness, no sarcasm, no loaded comment, no envy...

Some of us here today, guided perhaps by premonition or who knows what forces, spent part of a day with Alberto last Monday, a magical day in many ways, before he left us the following dawn.

For those who may be saddened by his death at this time, let me tell you that his last words to my wife were "Avis, esto no es vida (living this way is not life)." So, let there be no sorrow, Alberto was ready to go. And he had the comfort of his family and his friends around him. Alberto did not have a peaceful life, but he had a peaceful end.

Alberto is now with his God - and Heaven will never be the same. In a way, that’s where he always belonged.

May he rest in peace.

Antonio Navarro 

Palm Beach 

December 31, 1987

NARA 124-10288-10189 ~ FBI Files on Antonio Arturo Hillaro Navarro Aulet an employee of Curtis Mathes. “No Title.” To: Director. From: Wallace R. Heitman. Page 26 of 26.

>> An informant “who is aware generally of Cuban refugee activity in the Dallas area” told the FBI in the spring of 1963 that Antonio Navarro is not engaged in any suspicious activity ... nor has he made any statements that would indicate he is pro-Castro or anti-U.S. in his political views.”

Commission Document 1085—FBI Letter from Director of 11 Jun 1964 with Attached Memoranda and Reports. Pages 3 and 4 of 225

>> When the Warren Commission requested information from the FBI about Navarro and others in the SNFE (Alpha 66), Director Hoover referred General Counsel J. Lee Rankin to the CIA. SNFE members mentioned by Rankin were:

• -  Osvaldo Aurelio Pino Pino

• -  Raul Castro Baile

• -  Juan Francisco Quintana Maya

• -  Antonio Arturo Hilario Aulet

            -  Manuel Rodriguez Orcarberro

50 NARA 124-10369-10059 ~ Admin Folder-Z9: “HSCA Administrative Folder, LHO New Orleans. 5/30/1967 Airtel to Director.” Pages 8 & 9 of 127. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.

NARA 180-10142-10408 ~ 11/14/78 Draft “MDC by Betsy Palmer.”

>> Richard Rudolph Davis was a Cuban residing in New Orleans who claimed to be a coordinator for the MDC which worked with DRE on Cuba-infiltration plans. Davis had “a business deal with geologist David L. Raggio and a wealthy, right-wing New Orleanian, Gus de LaBarre, forming the Guatemalan Lumber and Mineral Corporation.” The FBI raided property near their lumber-cutting training in LaCombe, Louisiana and “seized a cache of dynamite and other explosives” that was suspected was being stockpiled for a raid on Cuba. LaBarre’s nephew and attorney, Frank de LaBarre, told “his former law school roommate, Jim Garrison,” about the raid.

51 NARA 124-10369-10029 ~ Admin Folder-J9: “HSCA Administrative Folder, Lee Harvey Oswald.” Page 219 of 273. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.

52 NARA 124-10369-10059 ~ Admin Folder-Z9: HSCA Administrative Folder, LHO New Orleans Airtel To DIR 5/30/67. Page 49 of 127.

>> Fowler also told Bringuier that Representative Hale Boggs had stimulated Garrison to open the investigation based on suspicions about the activities of David Ferrie and Guy Bannister. Page 8 of 127. 

>> Boggs had been the youngest member of the Warren Commission in 1963. He died in 1972 in a plane crash.

53 NARA 104-10515-10101 ~ FBI Routing And Record Sheet: Information Regarding Cuban Emigres In Miami. 6/19/1967 FBI New Orleans Letterhead Memo “Assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy Dallas Texas, November 22, 1963.” Pages 4 &5 of 5.

54 FBI 62-109060 ~ JFK HQ File, Section 136.” Pages 197-199.

Final Report of the Assassinations Records Review Board, Section: H. Name Searches. Page 111. >> Anti-Castro exile Carlos Quiroga also had contacted Oswald feigning interest in Fair Play for Cuba.

55 Unredacted Episode 1: Transcript of Interview with Joan Mellen Conducted February 22, 2006 by Rex Bradford of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Available at the organization’s website.

>> Joan Mellen is the author of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History.

JOAN: I didn't interview Alberto Fowler, he was dead before I started, but I want to say what I have to say about Alberto Fowler, and that is the people who criticize Albert Fowler are liars - I'm just going to go right out and say that – 

REX: Ok, Ok -

JOAN: - because it's outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. The way I - how did find out about Alberto Fowler? I talked to everyone who knew Alberto Fowler from every side I could. I was interested in Alberto Fowler because he was such an unlikely person to have worked with Jim Garrison as he did - he was totally loyal to Jim Garrison - and, which, um, would not be the case of Pershing Gervais, William Martin, and any of the - Bill Boxley and Tom Bethel - and any of the people who appear on the CIA list of plants in Jim Garrison's office. [Emphasis added by D.P. Cannon.]

Now, Alberto Fowler, yes, brought Bernardo de Torres into Jim Garrison's investigation, and that was a mistake, but you have to remember that Angelo Murgado traveled with Bernardo de Torres to the home of Sylvia Odio, where Oswald was set up for the murder of President Kennedy, and Angelo Murgado did not know that de Torres was part of the plot to kill President Kennedy and –

REX: Sure.

REX: I -

REX: I'd actually like to get back -

JOAN: - that two days after they visited Sylvia Odio, Bernardo de Torres would telephone Sylvio Odio and say "this Leon Oswald, he's talking about killing President Kennedy." If Angelo Murgado had known that, you can imagine that he would have raised holy hell, that he was totally loyal to the Kennedys -

JOAN: - and certainly greatly devoted to Robert Kennedy - he told me that he vomited when he was watching television on the weekend of the assassination, and saw the, Oswald being arrested for the murder of President Kennedy.

JOAN: So, I'm going back, I want to go back - so I just want to say that, again, the fact that Alberto Fowler knew Bernardo de Torres because both of them had been in the Bay of Pigs. Now I want to go back to the people that I talked to about Alberto Fowler, since you mentioned - I'm very upset about this because I think Alberto Fowler was a very tragic figure in the history of Cuba, and in the history of the - in a way - partly, the Kennedy assassination, but also in the whole anti-Castro history, which really has not been told properly yet to this day, and that so many distortions have been presented about this that it's - it's really very upsetting. I spoke about Alberto Fowler to his nephew, George Fowler. Now, George Fowler was high up in the Cuban-American Foundation, which is one of the most militant anti-Castro organizations. I also spoke to the family of Alberto Fowler, and that means all his children, nephews, his niece, the married relations. I spoke to his best friend, who was named Antonio Navarro, who wrote a book called (unclear) - again, a great - I think he worked for the CIA in Miami, as a matter of fact, for the radio station there.[Emphasis added by D.P. Cannon.]

REX: Sure.

JOAN: And I talked to everyone - and I also talked about Alberto Fowler and his role in the Garrison investigation to the Garrison Chief Investigator, Louis Ivon -

REX: Sure, Ok -

JOAN: - and I actually - if I have to spend the whole hour on Alberto I'm going to do it - 

REX: (laughs) OK - I think that -

JOAN: - because you can -

REX: - Joan, Joan -

JOAN: - because you can use Alberto Fowler, Rex, as a microcosm of the lies that are told about the Garrison investigation -

REX: Ok -

REX: (laughing) Sure, sure, OK -

JOAN: - so we can go into this, we can do an hour on Pershing Gervais, or we could do an hour on whomever, but I want to say, um - don't get me started on Alberto Fowler -

JOAN: I just asked because after Bernardo de Torres, we know who, what he was. When I went to Louis finally when I was doing my own investigation, and I said "tell me everything about Alberto Fowler," Louis - a very taciturn individual, he just looked at me and said "nothing bad." And believe me, Louis knew everybody that was disloyal to Jim Garrison.

REX: Ok, well that's interesting. OK, well, I'm sure we could spend an hour on many of the characters in the story. I actually picked his name mostly at random to portray, I think the confusion that a lot of people still bring to the Garrison matter, and not to pick his name out in particular.

56 8/13/2006 Book Review by James DiEugenio. “Joan Mellen, A Farewell To Justice.” Kennedys and King (formerly CTKA) website.

57 Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked: Documented! The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History (Southlake, Texas: JFK Lancer Productions & Publications, 2006).
Pages 347-349.

>> Rolando Otero claimed that Bernardo de Torres “had photographs taken in Dallas on November 22, 1963.” Page 348.

>> There appears to be confusion over whether Carlos was an aka de Torres (page 348) or his brother (page 508) who operated a detective agency in Miami.

>> Another “Carlos” was “Rueben Perez, aka. Ruben Victor Ramon,” a member of Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo’s Alpha 66/SNFE spinoff, Commandos L’s. Page 438.

NARA 124-10280-10002 ~ 2/11/1964 No Title Memorandum. To: Director, FBI. From: Drew, William Mayo Jr. Page 5 of 27

>> “Army Intelligence then [January 1964] had under consideration a plan which was pending final approval by a high level Department of Defense authority to use Antonio Veciana, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, and Nazario Sargen, SNFE leaders, as sources for the collection of intelligence. The Army intelligence representative advised that Gutierrez Menoyo was then a ‘registered Army Source’ in the Intelligence Source Registry maintained by CIA.”

58 “The Spy Left Out in the Cold: Bay of Pigs Vet Bernardo de Torres Died Alone.” By Owen Band. Miami New Times, May 13, 2023.