31: JFK Disapproves the Somoza Plan Backed by Pawley

After Operation TILT, William Pawley turned his attention to General Luis Somoza's plan to invade Cuba from Nicaragua with hopes it would justify full U.S. intervention, while John Martino shifted his energy to a new project involving Rolando Masferrer Rojas and an invasion of Haiti in August 1963. The common goal was to eliminate Castro.

A CIA telegram stated, “According to Carlos Zayas Castro, a colleague of Rolando Arcadio Masferrer Rojas, and several other unidentified persons in the Miami area, the recent Haitian activities were organized and supported by Masferrer, a Cuban exile who travels between New York and Miami. (Field comment: General Leon Cantave is generally credited with having organized the 5 August invasion of Haiti. Masferrer may have been seeking personal aggrandizement had the invasion been successful.)”

The telegram further noted that Masferrer “had Cubans in place in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti; he attempted to recruit 30 men from the Commandos L Group through Zayas.” Masferrer planned “to establish Carlos Marquez Sterling, a leading Cuban exile, as the figurehead or President.” Without addressing the source of his money, the telegram stated that “John Martino financed the travel of about 200 Cubans from New York to Miami” who as of August 8th were staying “in the Senate Hotel [probably the Art Deco Senator Hotel on Collins Avenue at 12th Street] and another hotel in Miami. Martino did not know what to do with his men following the collapse of the Haitian invasion.”1

Rolando’s brother, Raimundo Masferrer, who moved to Dallas in 1958 where he worked for the Parks Department as a mechanic, helped raise money for arms, believing the invasion would pave the way to overthrowing Castro who had imprisoned six of their family members and whose forces shot six others in 1959.2

In January 1960, William Pawley had advised the CIA that he had been contacted by Arthur Patton, a Commissioner from Dade County, Miami, Florida, who asserted that one of his police officers had been offered $200,000 to kidnap another of Rolando’s brothers, Rodolfo “Kiki” Masferrer.3

Rolando Masferrer had come to the attention of the intelligence agencies as early as 1948.4 He tried to endear himself to Trujillo in 1956.5 After arriving in the U.S., Rolando lead exile raids against Castro.6 Prior to the Bay of Pigs, the CIA tried to neutralize his activities against Castro7 and the Kennedy Justice Department later indicted Masferrer for plotting an invasion against Cuba.8 He then turned his attention to trying to overthrow Duvalier in Haiti, in the summer of 1963.9

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43: Sunset

On January 7, 1977, while many Americans were coping with one of the worst winters in U.S. history, an 80-year-old Miami Beach resident, whose fortune had been made off the public’s desire for refuge from the cold, composed a note in his Sunset Island home. Then he lifted a pistol to his chest and fired a bullet into his heart.1 

He was still alive when the ambulance arrived, “but died a short time later” according to the Miami police who told reporters William Pawley “had been in failing health.”2 His death came as Frank Sinatra fans mourned the death of his mother, Dolly Sinatra, in a plane crash that also claimed the life of her close friend from New Jersey, Ann Carboni, coincidentally the wife of the former China National Aviation Corporation dentist in Calcutta.3

That night, the national broadcast of CBS Evening News devoted less than half-a- minute to reporting that William Douglas Pawley, a former Ambassador to Brazil, had committed suicide. 4

The Washington Post two days later referred to him as an aviation expert and devoted 309 words to his life.5

The New York Post announced “‘Flying Tigers’ Founder Dies” and noted that Pawley had raised over $250,000 for the election campaign of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and another $100,000 for Vice President Nixon's unsuccessful race against John F. Kennedy in 1960.6

Time magazine noted William Pawley’s passing in its customary inch of coverage which stated that in 1958 President Eisenhower had dispatched Pawley to Cuba on a secret mission to persuade President Fulgencio Batista that a caretaker government should be installed to prevent revolutionaries from taking control of the island.7 Batista refused to step down, and three weeks later Fidel Castro took power. The underpinnings and aftermath of the incident would lead to animosity between Pawley, State Department members and the next President, John F. Kennedy.8

Pawley’s life as a world financier, envoy and philanthropist merited 15 inches in The New York Times.9

Down in South Carolina, where an island is named for the Pawley family, The Florence Morning News obituary pointed out that General James Doolittle had “once served as a test pilot for Pawley” when he sold planes to China.

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