20: Hitmen

Before entering politics in 1945, Sen. Homer E. Capehart (R-Indiana) had been a highly successful businessman known as “the father of the jukebox industry.” Back then, a jukebox contained dozens of 45-rpm, 7-inch records that could be heard on a pay-for-play basis by depositing a coin and pushing buttons that corresponded to the song selection. Jukeboxes quickly became fixtures in diners, bowling alleys, military installations, laundromats, college campus lounges and other gathering spots. Record companies embraced them because this new platform provided another way for songs to get heard and for artists to become bigger stars, such as country & western singer Marty Robbins. In an age of 2 minute records, his 4-minute-38-second song about a gunslinger in the west Texas town of “El Paso” became a No. 1 hit while Pawley was planning Castro’s demise through his own hit squad. As for Capehart, he became an astute politician before losing his seat after three terms to Birch Bayh.1

In the spring of 1960, the CIA Deputy Director of Plans sent FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover a memo from the Department of State that remained classified until 2011 and was not released for several more years. In the memo, the U.S. Counselor of Embassy for Economic Affairs in the Dominican Republic reported that he had talked on February 23, 1960 to Wallace B. Rouse, a long-time construction engineer who had traveled a few months earlier to Ciudad Trujillo with Senator Homer E. Capehart (R- Indiana). The group had hoped to seal “a large business deal” that collapsed at the “last minute” when Generalissimo Trujillo called the group “‘thieves’” which greatly upset Rouse.

Rouse told the Senator that “Pedro Moreles (presumably an American citizen) was recently given $5,000 ‘earnest money’ in Miami as a downpayment to bump Castro off. Rouse implied this was arranged by [Arturo] Espaillat acting for Trujillo, and also implied that former U.S. Ambassador William Pawley was implicated.” After describing how Moreles would be smuggled into Cuba, Rouse stated that “William Pawley had asked him why he, Rouse, had not sent gunmen to kill Castro; and that Pawley told him if that didn’t work ‘he would send his own gunmen’ to do the job. On arrival in Port- au-Prince, the Embassy Administration Officer, unaware of the Rouse conversation, coincidentally said he had been seated next to William Pawley on a flight from New York to Port-au-Prince during which Pawley had made the identical remark to him.”2 Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon

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