19: CIA Informant R-1

In late September 1959, the CIA’s Bernie Reichardt asked whether the Agency “had any information on Fabio Freyre, a nephew of Julio Sanchez, who is Bill Pawley’s next door neighbor.” Freyre gave Pawley “some important material” which Pawley “will forward as soon as possible.” Pawley also “told Bernie he will try to get a job for General Martin Diaz Tomayo”1 (one of those who had been selected for the post-Batista junta) giving Reichardt the impression that the Spanish-speaking Miamian was continuing the job-finding role he played in Panama.

When Pawley and Reichardt discussed Freyre, “Pawley suggested to Bernie that a recorder and mike for his office would be a good idea since it would permit him to make recordings of the conversations with Cubans and Dominicans who come in to discuss political matters.”2

As a result, plans were made to survey Pawley’s office to install a recording device and the “mike and wire installation was made on 15 October 1959 by employees of an Office of Security field office” according to a 1975 memo summarizing the agency’s relationship with Pawley that was finally declassified December 15, 2021.3

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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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44: Life and Death

On October 4, 1977, Bob Woodward, the Watergate reporter from The Washington Post spoke in New Jersey at Montclair State College (now a University) and bet the audience that no one could name all of the infamous Watergate burglars just five years after the crime. I won his $20 bet because my interest in JMWAVE and the anti-Castro Cubans associated with E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis and William Pawley had been rising not waning during the investigations by the Rockefeller Commission, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, between 1975 and 1978.

Those probes also were creating an intriguing cluster of dead fellows within the JMWAVE-AMSPELL-TILT milieu.1 Some were heart attacks, perhaps brought on by the stress of revelations of dark secrets. Some suicides. Some murders by shooting and car bombing.

On the morning of January 7, 1977, hours before Pawley took his own life, Juan Jose Peruyero “was shot twice in the back” as he left his home in Miami’s Little Havana “shortly after at 8 a.m.” Before he died at “Jackson Memorial Hospital,” Peruyero said he knew who fired the shots, but the assailant in the passing “1967 Cadillac” was never prosecuted, and it has remained a cold case for decades. He “was the seventh exile leader to die in the last three years.”2

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47: Timeline

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

1899 ~ After the Spanish American War when Teddy Roosevelts “Rough Riders” helped 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 ~ Pawley establishes Intercontinent Corporation run by him and his brothers Edward and Eugene.

1933 ~ Pawley becomes President of China National Aviation Corporation.

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 based in Calcutta until 1945.

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

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

1946/6/13 ~ Pawley named 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.

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

1949/9 ~ Negotiated taking over the Havana trolly system.

1950/1 ~ Pawley runs Havana Autobuses Modernos, removing trolley car tracks.

1951/2/4 ~ Daughter Annie Hahr's wedding.

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

1951/6 ~ In India re wheat and monazite

1951/9 ~ Son Clifton Pawley died, left Washington for Mexico and Miami. 

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

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

1952/1/17 ~ Sailed with Edna and Anita Pawley and his assistant Ed Harris to Europe; stayed until May, but returned to Washington to settle a strike in Miami then flew to Lisbon Conference with Lovett. Took a two week trip for consultation with Defense Department

1952/5 ~ Resigned as assistant to Lovett.

1952/6 ~ At Belvoir House farm in Virginia.

1952/9 ~ In Europe and Middle East with Edna.   

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

1953 ~ In Miami. 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.

1953/4/4 ~ 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.

1954/6 ~ William Pawley, William Franke, Morris Hadley and General Jimmy Doolittle appointed by President Eisenhower to review the Central Intelligence Agency and recommend that it 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 in Atsugi, Japan where the U.S. dispatches U-2 planes to spy on Russia and 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 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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