29: Strange Dreadfellows: Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba

On December 29, 1962 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, President Kennedy told Manuel Artime (center) and other Brigade 2506 members that their "flag will be returned to them in a free Havana." The attendees clapped and cheered believing JFK was prepared to go to war. 

But as 1963 unfolded, a more diplomatic approach was taking place, involving negotiations with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Soon a group of prominent U.S. citizens decided it was time to turn up the heat on Kennedy. Freedom House, headed by Leo Cherne called upon Americans on March 25, 1963, to unite in a movement for a Free Cuba, without communist influence.1 In May, his rallying cry would lead to the formation of the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba. Cherne himself had been trying, like Pawley, to organize exiles for several years.2

Politically, Cherne had begun as a Wendell “Willkie Republican.” Willkie had switched from Democrat to Republican in 1939 as Hitler moved across Europe. With conservative Republicans viewing him as an “internationalist,” he lost the 1940 Presidential election to the re-elected Democrat Franklin W. Roosevelt. Willkie then helped Roosevelt push through the Lend-Lease policy to aid Great Britain and the Allied nations. Before dying in 1944, Willkie also served as FDR's liaison to Chiang Kai-shek which reportedly evolved into an affair with Madame Chiang. At the same time, Mrs. Willkie became a member of The Committee to Defend America by Aiding Anti-Communist China along with Clare Boothe Luce.

As director of the Willkie Memorial, Leo Cherne undoubtedly knew Willkie’s aide-decamp, Lamoyne (Lem) Jones, who in the 1960's became spokesman for the CIA's Cuban Revolutionary Council.3

Cherne in 1951 received “Covert Security Clearance to provide cover under Project BLANKET”—a program permitting “the subject to receive information about National Security Council 5412/2 matters on a need-to-know basis.” The CIA viewed individuals with international contacts as assets that could be tapped for gaining foreign country insights and for making contacts with potential informants, opinion influencers and future leaders. In 1954, Cherne received “Covert Security Clearance for use by Central Cover Division in providing cover under Project QKENCHANT.”4 This provided “Provisional Covert Security Approvals (PCSA) and Covert Security Approvals (CSA), with the Office of Security in connection with acquisition of Corporate Cover for Action.”5

A 1952 memo about using the Research Institute of America to provide cover for agents revealed that “Leo Cherne and Carl Novgard have been given covert operational clearances.”

Within less than a week of President Kennedy cutting funds to the Cuban Revolutionary Council, newspapers announced the establishment of the Cherne’s Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba (CCFC), comprised of prominent Americans with backgrounds in the academia, the military, news, labor, science, religion, government, and other walks of life.

Lyle C. Wilson’s article in The Oakland Tribune referred to it as a blue-ribbon committee on Cuba and stated the “CCFC is nonpartisan.” Its sponsors intended “to develop considerable political muscle, however” and had already developed an eight-page mimeographed pamphlet. The organization’s Executive Secretary, Daniel James, was listed as Editor in 19636 and served until Paul Bethel became Editor the following year. Bethel was a friend of the CIA’s anti-Castro propagandist in Mexico, David Phillips, who oversaw the activities of the exile student movement, Directorio Revolutionario Estudiantil (DRE), which the agency referred to by the cryptonym AMSPELL, according to Jefferson Morley’s Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA.7

The Free Cuba News (FCN) Vol. 1, No. 1 pamphlet dated May 4, 1963, stated that the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba saw an urgent need for an effective U.S. Cuban policy embracing a method of freeing the island from communism.” Adding to the dread of communism in Cuba was the assertion that “the enslavement of 6 million Cubans may now lead to the enslavement of 200 million persons in the remaining 19 Latin American republics” which is “wholly part of an offensive designed to enslave the United States.”

The pamphlet also promised a “punishing non-partisan attack” on President Kennedy whom “does not now have an effective U.S. Cuban policy.” The group believed it could rally Democrats against JFK, noting that it was “evident that the 1964 Republican presidential and congressional campaigns will make Cuba a major issue.”

The first issue of FCN further asserted that the overall situation in Latin America is much worse than the American people realize. “What CCFC is trying to tell Americans is not merely that it can happen here but that it probably will happen here unless Americans move to defend themselves now.”8

The American public however had faith in JFK’s handling of the Cuba situation. Nearly six out of ten polled believed that a war over Cuba in the next five years was unlikely.9

Among the fear-mongering Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba sponsors listed were former Bay of Pigs invasion co-planner, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Pawley’s old friend Clare Boothe Luce.10

At the time that the CCFC was formed, the public would not know that Luce, Leo Cherne, Jay Lovestone, Irving Brown and Ernest Cuneo, had connections with the CIA. Nor would many be aware that Cherne, Luce, Lovestone, Christopher Emmet, Dr. Sidney Hook, Sal B. Hoffman, and Edgar Ansel Mowrer had previously supported the pro-Chiang Kai-shek China Lobby11 that had long benefited from Pawley’s activism. Two decades earlier, Mowrer had been the reporter who was hired to draft a final report for “Colonel William J. Donovan, U.S. Coordinator of Information concerning a mission to the Far East in autumn of 1941” prior to setting up a U.S. intelligence infrastructure there after getting input from Colonel Chennault of the Flying Tigers.12

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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.

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47: Timeline

1864 ~ Edward Porcher Pawley born.

1890 ~ Edward marries Mary Irene Wallace.

1893 ~ George Plummer Pawley born. 

1896/9/7 ~ William Douglas Pawley born in Florence, South Carolina.

1899 ~ After the Spanish American War when Teddy Roosevelts “Rough Riders” help liberate Cuba from Spain, Pawley spends his early childhood at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station where his father had a store, earning him the nickname “Cuba” from classmates at Gordon Military Academy in Georgia.

1925/5/20 ~ Gerardo Machado becomes the 5th President of Cuba. He is overthrown in 1933.

1928 ~ William Douglas Pawley creates Cubana National Airlines which is sold to Pan American Airlines in 1932.

1929 ~ China Airways financed by Curtiss-Wright and controlled by Clement M. Keys begins flying mail from Shanghai to Hankow, Peiping and Canton. With pressure from the government, it evolves into China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC).

1932 ~ William Pawley establishes Intercontinent Corporation run by him and his brothers Edward and Eugene.

1933 ~ Pawley becomes President of China National Aviation Corporation.

1936 ~ William's oldest brother, George Plummer Pawley, dies.

1940/12/23 ~ Pawley partners with India in establishing Hindustan Aircraft Limited near Calcutta (Bangalore).

1941 ~ Pawley begins China Aircraft Manufacturing Company CAMCO to manufacture planes for the American Volunteer Group (The Flying Tigers headed by General Clair Chennault) to defend Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists against Japanese planes. CAMCO airplane assembly plants moved from Hangzhou to Wuhan to Lowing (on the China-Burma border) to India. 

1941/9 ~ David Harold Byrd, wealthy oil man and owner of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, co-founds the Civil Air Patrol to watch for enemy submarines and border crossings as well as enemy aircraft over the U.S. and provide other civilian support for the U.S. Army Air Force. Byrd is a cousin of Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd and West Virginia politician Harry F. Byrd. 

1942 ~ CNAC operates out of Calcutta until 1945.

1943 - E. Howard Hunt, Jr. serves as a wartime intelligence officer in China.

1945/7/20 ~ Pawley becomes U.S. Ambassador to Peru.

1945/10/13 ~ Carlos Prio Socrarrás becomes 5th Prime Minister of Cuba. 

1946/6/13 ~ Pawley becomes U.S. Ambassador to Brazil.

1947 ~ Antonio de Varona appointed leader of the parliamentary committee of his party under Prio. Previously, de Varona was involved in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado and was elected to the Cuban congress and the senate.

1948 ~ E. Howard Hunt, Jr. becomes spokesperson in Paris for the Marshall Plan's Economic Cooperation Administration. George C. Marshall and his wife are close friends of the Pawleys.

1948/10/10 ~ Carlos Prio becomes President of Cuba, succeeding Ramon Grau.

1949/9 ~ Pawley negotiates taking over the Havana trolley system.

1950/1 ~ Pawley runs Havana Autobuses Modernos, removing trolley car tracks. He also becomes a partner with John J. McCloy and others in Commerce International China.  

1950 ~ E. Howard Hunt becomes Chief of Station of the Office of Policy Coordination in Mexico City. 

1951/2/4 ~ Pawley's daughter, Annie Hahr, weds.

1951/2/19 ~ Pawley enters State Department as special assistant to Dean Acheson.

1951/6 ~ Pawley visits India re wheat and monazite.

1951/9 ~ Son, Clifton Pawley, dies in Mexico; William flies from Washington to Mexico City and Miami. 

1951/11/20 ~ Pawley resigns from State Department effective the 30th. 

1951/12/3 ~ Pawley enters Defense Department as special assistant to Lovett.

1952/1/17 ~ Pawley sails with Edna and Anita Pawley and his assistant Ed Harris to Europe; stays until May, but returns to Washington to settle a strike in Miami then flies to Lisbon Conference with Lovett and takes a two week trip for consultation with Defense Department.

1952/5 ~ Pawley resigns as assistant to Lovett.

1952/6 ~ At Belvoir House farm in Virginia.

1952/9 ~ Pawley in Europe and Middle East with Edna.   

1952/3/10 ~ Fulgencio Batista overthrows Prio; de Varona begins fight against Batista.

1953 ~ Pawley in Miami serving as owner president and general manager of the Miami Beach Railway Co. since 1941 and of Miami Transit Co. since 1948. Also owner of South Miami Coach Line and Tropical Coach Line Inc. and Grayline Sightseeing Co. of Miami.

1953 ~ William, Edward and Eugene Pawley develop oil and mining companies in Mexico.

1953/4/4 ~ CIA coup against Mossadegh in Iran (Operation AJAX) is hatched by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, CIA Director Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.  Mossadegh is replaced by the Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, coincidentally a former classmate of future CIA Director Richard Helms.

1954/6 ~ Pawley works with the CIA on PBSUCCESS, the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala. So does E. Howard Hunt, Jr.

1954/6 ~ William Pawley, William Franke, Morris Hadley and General Jimmy Doolittle appointed by President Eisenhower to review the Central Intelligence Agency. They recommend that the CIA become “more ruthless than the enemy.”

1955/7/27 ~ Lee Harvey Oswald joins the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans which also includes Captain David Ferrie.

1956/10/24 ~ Oswald drops out of high school in Texas and joins the U.S. Marine Corps where he is trained as a sharpshooter.

1958/10/5 ~ Oswald is stationed at the Air Force base in Atsugi, Japan where the U.S. dispatches U-2 planes to spy on Russia. Oswald learns Russian.

1959/Spring ~ Oswald, back in the U.S., becomes friend of Kerry Thornley. 

1959/9/4 ~ Oswald applies for a passport a week before he is discharged from active duty in the Marine Corps.

1959/9/20 ~ Oswald departs the U.S. 

1959/10/2 ~ Pawley is given the CIA cryptonym QDDALE.

1959/10/15 ~ Pawley installs a tape recorder to tape discussions with Cuban exiles.

1959/10/31 ~ Oswald defects to the Soviet Union offers U-2 secrets.

1959/11/16 ~ Oswald interviewed by Priscilla Johnson.   

1959/12 ~ Pawley tries to convince Batista to step aside so an interim government could be put in place as a buffer against Castro.

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