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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Alvin Ross.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Alvin Ross.md
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---
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category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
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tags:
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- Person
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- AlvinRoss
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- CubanNationalistMovement
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- CORU
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- OrlandoLetelier
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- CubanExiles
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alias:
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- Alvin Ross Díaz
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- Alvin Ross Diaz
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summary: "Former Tropicana blackjack dealer and Cuban Nationalist Movement member convicted of the Letelier murders in 1979 on a jailhouse informant's testimony, freed on appeal after United States v. Henry, and acquitted at retrial in 1981."
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location: "Union City, New Jersey"
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created: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-21
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---
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Alvin Ross Díaz had been a blackjack dealer at the [[Tropicana Club|Tropicana]] in [[Havana]] before the revolution. [[Guillermo Novo]] introduced him to [[Michael Townley]] in September 1976 as "a comrade." He was at the meeting in a [[New Jersey]] hotel room on the night of September 10 with Novo, [[Virgilio Paz]], and [[Jose Dionisio Suarez|José Dionisio Suárez]] where Townley asked the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] to help kill [[Orlando Letelier]].[^1][^2]
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### Trial
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An FBI informant reported in January 1978 that "a young action oriented cell under the control of Francisco 'Frank' Castro of the [[CORU]] organization," made up of Ross and Raciel Rodríguez, had bombed the Viasa Airlines office in Miami Beach on December 23, 1977. Indicted for the Letelier murders on August 1, 1978, Ross was tried with the Novo brothers from January 8, 1979. [[Sherman Kaminsky]], a racketeer awaiting sentence who had met him in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, testified that Ross said "he was involved in the murder of Orlando Letelier together with generals in DINA," called Townley "a traitor, a rat, an informer," called Letelier "a rotten Communist Marxist," said he was "glad Letelier was dead," admitted "he had contributed two wires used in the bomb," and said "he would not pay for Letelier's murder because the CIA would be the scapegoat, people would believe anything of the CIA." The sentencing judge had told Kaminsky: "I am going to suspend the operation of that sentence depending on how you come through." Ross was convicted on February 14, 1979, and sentenced to two concurrent life terms.[^2][^3]
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On September 15, 1980, the court of appeals reversed: after *[[United States v. Henry]]*, decided that June, testimony so obtained was inadmissible. At the retrial in May 1981 Townley, asked what Ross had done to carry out the assassination, answered: "There is nothing I can think of." The jury acquitted Ross and Novo of the murders.[^2][^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, p. 14.
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[^2]: *United States v. Sampol,* 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
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[^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, file 2-471, "CORU," August 16, 1978. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 13.; "USA v. Guillermo Novo Sampol et al., 78-CR-367," case synopsis, latinamericanstudies.org, not verified against the docket.
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[^4]: "Michael Moffitt, who survived a car bomb that killed his wife," United Press International, May 13, 1981; "New Tactics Led to Acquittal in Letelier Case," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680028-2, as summarized.
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@ -26,13 +26,16 @@ From August 13, 1965, to October 27, 1967, the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA
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To the [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]] on June 1, 1978, Solie rejected the theory that Nosenko had been sent. "I concluded that he was under his own power when he contacted us in 1962. He did it without the knowledge of the KGB, and he went back to the Soviet Union. If he had been dispatched out, it would have been quite logical that there would have been contact with him in the Soviet Union." On Nosenko's statements about [[Lee Harvey Oswald]]: "The record reflects on 3 January 1968, I asked Nosenko to give me an account of everything he did in the Oswald investigation." Asked whether he had questioned Nosenko on what he wrote or compared it with other material, he said: "No, because I had no reason to disbelieve him." Asked whether he believed Nosenko had told the truth about Oswald: "Yes, I have no reason to disbelieve him."[^1]
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As chief of the Security Analysis Group in June 1976 he identified for the agency's privacy staff the "Spencer Oliver" named in a Freedom of Information request from [[James McCord]], "who according to a newspaper article in 1972 was the Executive Director of the State Chairmens Association of the [[Democratic National Committee]]" and in whose office telephone "an alleged listening device was found."[^4]
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### Wackenhut
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On July 18, 1978, Solie certified that the committee's staff had reviewed the Office of Security's file on the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] "in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President [[John F. Kennedy]] and Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.|Martin Luther King, Jr.]]"[^4]
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On July 18, 1978, Solie certified that the committee's staff had reviewed the Office of Security's file on the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] "in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President [[John F. Kennedy]] and Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.|Martin Luther King, Jr.]]"[^5]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, security classified testimony of Bruce L. Solie, June 1, 1978, record 180-10110-10010. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection, pp. 5-6, 59, 65-66.
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[^2]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Family Jewels," memorandum of Howard J. Osborn, Director of Security, to the Executive Secretary, CIA Management Committee, May 16, 1973, with attachments, p. 00023.
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[^3]: House Select Committee on Assassinations, security classified testimony of Yuri Nosenko, June 20, 1978. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection, pp. 44, 110-111.
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[^4]: Solie, Bruce L. Memorandum, July 18, 1978, JFK record 104-10130-10450. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection.
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[^4]: Solie, Bruce L., Chief, Security Analysis Group. Memorandum for the file, "McCord, James Walter, Jr.," June 23, 1976, JFK record 104-10123-10362.
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[^5]: Solie, Bruce L. Memorandum, July 18, 1978, JFK record 104-10130-10450. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection.
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Popper.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/David Popper.md
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---
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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- DavidPopper
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- StateDepartment
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- Chile
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- OperationCondor
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- HenryKissinger
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- AugustoPinochet
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alias:
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- David H. Popper
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summary: "US ambassador to Chile from 1974 to 1977 whose human rights approaches drew Kissinger's marginalia, and who in August 1976 advised against warning Pinochet about Condor, proposing that the CIA raise it with Contreras instead."
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location: "Santiago, Chile"
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created: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-21
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---
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David H. Popper was the [[United States]] ambassador to [[Chile]] from February 1974 to May 1977, arriving five months after the coup.[^1]
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### Human Rights
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Between April 1974 and February 1975 Popper made ten approaches to Chilean officials on human rights. On December 13, 1974, he told the foreign minister, Admiral [[Patricio Carvajal]], that "Congressional critics might be impressed and progress be possible if the GOC were to move towards restoration of normality regarding the applicability of traditional Chilean legal requirements and the state of siege, restoration of habeas corpus, a role for civil court review of military sentences and convincing assurances regarding alleged practice of torture." On February 3, 1975, he told the interior minister, General [[César Benavides]], that "the release of a few well known prisoners" was "probably not sufficient to restore the GOC's image." Beside those two entries on the list sent him by [[William D. Rogers]], [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] wrote: "What was this about?" On an earlier cable Kissinger had written: "Tell Popper to cut out the political science lectures."[^2][^3]
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### Condor
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The department's cable of August 23, 1976, told him to see the head of state about "government planned and directed assassinations within and outside the territory of Condor members." Popper answered the next day: "While I appreciate importance of objective sought in reftel, I seriously doubt that an approach to President Pinochet is the best way to achieve it." Given [[Augusto Pinochet]]'s "sensitivity regarding pressures by USG, he might well take as an insult any inference that he was connected with such assassination plots. It is quite possible, even probable, that Pinochet has no knowledge whatever of Operation Condor. Particularly of its more questionable aspects." He proposed instead that the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] station chief convey the message to Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]] of [[DINA]] "in the context of having heard a rumor which he cannot believe, but which if substantiated would be disastrous for the perpetrators." On August 27 [[Harry Shlaudeman]] told CIA officers that an approach to Pinochet would be futile. [[William Luers]] pressed Popper through September to deliver the message. On September 20 the ambassadors were told to take no further action. [[Orlando Letelier]] was killed in Washington the next day.[^4][^5]
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On September 13 Popper reported that Pinochet's anniversary speech "contains little of encouragement to us," and that the release of 205 prisoners that day "does not indicate that detentions and 'disappearances' have ceased to occur in Chile. They still do occur." In early October, "after consulting with Ambassador Popper," the station chief "confronted the Chilean head of DINA, Colonel Manuel Contreras, with U.S. knowledge of Condor's existence. Colonel Contreras denied that our information of Condor was accurate and refused to admit that one of its objectives was to operate against terrorists in Europe. Recent clandestinely acquired information indicates that plans for Condor are continuing."[^6][^7]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, editorial notes; tenure dates from the Department of State's Office of the Historian.
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[^2]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, document 182, memorandum of William D. Rogers to the Secretary of State, "Démarches in Chile on Human Rights," February 8, 1975, with editorial note.
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[^3]: Dinges, John. *The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents*. New Press, 2004, p. 157.
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[^4]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, document 241, telegram 209192, August 23, 1976; document 242, telegram 8210 from Santiago, August 24, 1976, with editorial note.
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[^5]: National Security Archive, "Operation Condor Verdict: GUILTY!," Electronic Briefing Book, May 27, 2016; *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, document 245, telegram 4526 from San José, September 20, 1976, with editorial note on Secto 27128 of September 16.
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[^6]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, document 244, telegram 8956 from Santiago, September 13, 1976.
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[^7]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976,* vol. E-11, part 2, Documents on South America, 1973-1976, document 253, paper prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency, "Items Which May Be Discussed," undated.
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@ -33,7 +33,13 @@ On September 10, 1976, at Union City, Townley "outlined my DINA mission to assas
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Asked by the prosecutor [[Eugene Propper]] and the agent [[Carter Cornick]] where he had been the night before the bombing, Novo said: "That is my trump card. That is the ace up my sleeve." The informant [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete|Ricardo Morales]], then an officer of the Venezuelan [[DISIP]], had planted a story that Bosch was telling associates the "Novo brothers" had killed Letelier. "Bosch is a liar and a traitor to freedom," Novo said.[^1]
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### Trials
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Indicted on August 1, 1978, Novo was tried with Alvin Ross and his brother Ignacio Novo from January 8, 1979. Michael Townley, who had pleaded, testified that DINA "ordered him to secure assistance from the CNM" so as to isolate itself, and that Novo had insisted Townley take part personally. A jailhouse informant, Antonio Polytarides, testified to Novo's admissions. The defense argued that Townley "was in fact an agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency which had planned the assassination of Letelier." On February 14, 1979, the jury convicted all three; Novo received two life terms and five years for lying to the grand jury. On September 15, 1980, the court of appeals reversed under *[[United States v. Henry]]*, decided that June, which barred testimony from informants cultivated by the government among pretrial detainees; Ignacio's conviction fell for want of a separate trial. At the retrial of May 1981 the jury acquitted Novo and Ross of the murders and convicted Novo of the false declarations. In October 1981 he was released from federal prison by mistake, officials having confused him with his brother. An FBI informant had reported in January 1978 that he was organizing [[CORU]] cells in Union City "for military action in the U.S. and against the country of Venezuela."[^3][^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Branch, Taylor, and Eugene M. Propper. *Labyrinth*. Viking, 1982, pp. 101-108.
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[^2]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 9-21, 147-152, 240.
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[^3]: *United States v. Sampol,* 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
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[^4]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, file 2-471, "CORU," August 16, 1978. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 13. "Wrong Man Freed in Letelier Case," *Washington Post,* October 21, 1981, as summarized.
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### Pennington
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After [[James McCord]], "an ex-CIA agent," was arrested at the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]] in June 1972, [[Lee Pennington]], a former inspector of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] then paid by the agency as a consultant and "an old family friend of the McCords," visited Mrs. McCord. "He found her burning papers and documents. Earlier, she had burned typewriter ribbons." He reported it, and the agency wrote it up. "For more than a year and a half, it lay in the CIA files like a paper bomb," while the bureau's agents "were getting persistent denials from the CIA." When Senator [[Howard Baker]] began to inquire into the agency's part in the cover-up, "a middle-level CIA employee who knew of the hidden memo threatened to blow the whistle." Director [[William Colby]] took it to Representative [[Lucien Nedzi]], who held hearings and concluded that the agency had not sent Pennington to burn the papers, "as the memo seemed to suggest." Osborn said he had not known of the memorandum. "It led to the early retirement of Osborn," Nedzi said. Osborn said: "I had planned for over a year to retire in June."[^2]
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After [[James McCord]], "an ex-CIA agent," was arrested at the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]] in June 1972, [[Lee Pennington]], a former inspector of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] then paid by the agency as a consultant and "an old family friend of the McCords," visited Mrs. McCord. "He found her burning papers and documents. Earlier, she had burned typewriter ribbons." He reported it, and the agency wrote it up. "For more than a year and a half, it lay in the CIA files like a paper bomb," while the bureau's agents "were getting persistent denials from the CIA." When Senator [[Howard Baker]] began to inquire into the agency's part in the cover-up, "a middle-level CIA employee who knew of the hidden memo threatened to blow the whistle." Director [[William Colby]] took it to Representative [[Lucien Nedzi]], who held hearings and concluded that the agency had not sent Pennington to burn the papers, "as the memo seemed to suggest." In January 1974, as the inspector general prepared to review the Watergate files, Osborn "ordered that the Pennington materials be removed." An employee of the Personnel Security Division copied them to his safe. Osborn wrote the memorandum of February 22, 1974, that disclosed the matter, testified to the Senate committee's staff on February 25, and retired on February 26.[^5] Osborn said he had not known of the memorandum. "It led to the early retirement of Osborn," Nedzi said. Osborn said: "I had planned for over a year to retire in June."[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^2]: Anderson, Jack. "Washington Merry-Go-Round," *Washington Post,* April 2, 1974, p. B15. CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84-00499R000200010002-2.
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[^3]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report, Book III*. S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, pp. 579, 600-602, 723-724.
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[^4]: Osborn, Howard J. Memorandum for the record, November 8, 1967, JFK record 104-10133-10076. National Archives, JFK Assassination Records Collection.
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[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, minority staff, "CIA Investigation," memorandum of Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., 1974, later printed in *Final Report,* S. Rept. 93-981, pp. 1115-1165. CIA Reading Room copy, document 01481990.
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/James O'Connell.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/James O'Connell.md
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---
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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- JamesOConnell
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- CIA
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- CIAOfficeOfSecurity
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- JohnnyRoselli
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- AssassinationPlots
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- FBI
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alias:
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- James P. O'Connell
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- Jim Olds
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summary: "FBI agent turned CIA security officer who as Johnny Roselli's case officer from September 1960 carried the Castro poison plot, rose to deputy director of security, and in 1968 vetted James Earl Ray's lawyer."
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born: 1917-02-19
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died: 1992-02-15
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location: "McLean, Virginia"
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created: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-21
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---
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James Patrick O'Connell was born in [[New York City|New York]] in 1917 and graduated from [[St. John's University]] in 1939. He served with the Navy in the Atlantic, was a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] from 1946 to 1951, and joined the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] as a security officer in 1951.[^1]
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### Roselli
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In September 1960 [[Sheffield Edwards]], the director of security, put O'Connell to the operation against [[Fidel Castro]] arranged through [[Robert Maheu]]. Under the name Jim Olds he was introduced to [[Johnny Roselli]] and was his case officer from September 14, 1960, until May 1962, when [[William Harvey]] took him over. Roselli brought in [[Sam Giancana]] and [[Santos Trafficante, Jr.|Santos Trafficante]]. Poison pills from the agency's technical division went to [[Cuba]] by way of [[Juan Orta]] and later [[Tony Varona]]. Edwards recorded the operation for Attorney General [[Robert F. Kennedy|Robert Kennedy]] on May 14, 1962.[^2][^3]
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### Deputy Director of Security
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By 1968 O'Connell was deputy director of security. On October 15 of that year he signed the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]]'s memorandum on [[Arthur Hanes]], the former mayor of [[Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]] then representing [[James Earl Ray]], recording Hanes's service as a confidential correspondent from 1952 to 1959 and his part in recruiting [[Alabama Air National Guard|Alabama Guard]] pilots for the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]]. He retired in 1973 with the Intelligence Medal of Merit, worked as a security consultant, and died at [[Arlington, Virginia|Arlington]] on February 15, 1992.[^1][^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Obituaries," *Washington Post,* February 17, 1992.
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[^2]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Family Jewels," memorandum of Howard J. Osborn, Director of Security, May 16, 1973, with attachments, pp. 00012-00014.
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[^3]: *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963,* vol. X, Cuba, document 337, memorandum for the record by Sheffield Edwards, May 14, 1962, with source note.
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[^4]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Security, memorandum for the record, "HANES, Arthur J.," October 15, 1968. Record 104-10117-10312, National Archives.
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jose Dionisio Suarez.md
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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Jose Dionisio Suarez.md
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---
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category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
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tags:
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- Person
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- JoseDionisioSuarez
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- CubanNationalistMovement
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- OrlandoLetelier
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- DINA
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- CubanExiles
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alias:
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- José Dionisio Suárez Esquivel
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- José Dionisio Suárez
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- Charco de Sangre
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summary: "Cuban Nationalist Movement member who drove Michael Townley to Orlando Letelier's house in 1976 and, by Townley's account, pressed the buttons at Sheridan Circle, a fugitive until 1990 and released from immigration detention in 2001."
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born: 1939
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location: "Union City, New Jersey"
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created: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-21
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---
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José Dionisio Suárez Esquivel, a former officer of the Cuban revolutionary army, was called "El Cepillo" and "Charco de Sangre," pool of blood, "for his work in carrying out executions since the revolutionaries' victory." In December 1974 he went with [[Guillermo Novo]] to [[Chile]] "to pay homage to Pinochet," entering with [[Orlando Bosch]]. At a [[Union City, New Jersey|Union City]] motel he and Armando Santana searched [[Michael Townley]]'s luggage at gunpoint and found the passport of Kenneth Enyart.[^1]
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### September 1976
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Suárez was at the meeting of September 10, 1976, where Townley asked the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] for help. He "drove to Washington in his late-model American car" on September 18, lent Townley more than a hundred dollars, and because he had a new job to start in [[New Jersey]] on Monday pressed the others to move quickly. He supplied a blasting cap. "During the ride to Letelier's house, I was informed by Paz and Suarez that they expected me to place the device on the car as they wished to have a DINA agent, namely myself, directly tied to the placing of the device," Townley stated. Suárez drove him to [[National Airport]] for the first flight to Newark. Townley told investigators he believed Suárez set off the bomb "by pressing two buttons on a telephone beeping device as he trailed Letelier at [[Sheridan Circle]]."[^1][^2]
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### Fugitive
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Indicted on August 1, 1978, with Novo, [[Alvin Ross]], [[Manuel Contreras]], [[Pedro Espinoza]], [[Armando Fernandez Larios|Armando Fernández Larios]], and [[Virgilio Paz]], he had earlier "spent 11½ months in a D.C. jail rather than testify before a grand jury." FBI agents found him on April 11, 1990, in a modest house in [[St. Petersburg, Florida]], an unemployed painter known as Jose Suárez, with his wife and a fifteen-month-old son. "Jose is basically a scapegoat," his wife said. "In exchange for a promise not to prosecute his wife," he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder a foreign official and was sentenced to eight years. Released on probation in 1997, he was held by the immigration service at [[Bradenton, Florida|Bradenton]] because [[Cuba]] would not take him, until the Supreme Court's ruling of June 2001 against indefinite detention. Freed on August 14, 2001, he said: "I want to clarify a lot of things. There have been many lies."[^2][^3][^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 16-21, 148-151, 240.
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[^2]: McAllister, Bill. "Suspect Arrested in Letelier Slaying," *Washington Post,* April 12, 1990.
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[^3]: *United States v. Sampol,* 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).; "USA v. Guillermo Novo Sampol et al., 78-CR-367," case synopsis, latinamericanstudies.org, not verified against the docket.
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[^4]: "Conspirator in '76 Letelier Assassination Released," Reuters, *Washington Post,* August 16, 2001, p. A13.
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---
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created: 2026-05-15
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updated: 2026-05-16
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updated: 2026-09-21
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title: Lee Harvey Oswald
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aliases:
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- Lee Oswald
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@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was the man arrested fo
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### Background and Soviet Defection
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|
||||
Oswald was born in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] and raised in Texas and [[New York]]. He enlisted in the [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] in 1956 and was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 (MACS-1) at Atsugi Air Base in [[Japan]] - a facility of particular intelligence significance. Atsugi's MACS-1 unit included height-finding radars (the MPS-16 radar among them), and Atsugi simultaneously hosted [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Detachment C of the [[U-2]] reconnaissance program, which conducted overflights of the [[Soviet Union]] whose existence was concealed from Soviet authorities until Gary Powers was shot down in May 1960. A Japanese-American technical intelligence unit, JTAG, was also co-located at the base. As a radar operator, Oswald had access to data from high-altitude U-2 operations - information CIA counterintelligence chief [[James Angleton]] later assessed as potentially significant given Oswald's subsequent defection.
|
||||
Oswald was born in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] and raised in Texas and [[New York]]. He enlisted in the [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] in 1956 and was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 (MACS-1) at Atsugi Air Base in [[Japan]] - a facility of particular intelligence significance. Atsugi's MACS-1 unit included height-finding radars (the MPS-16 radar among them), and Atsugi simultaneously hosted CIA Detachment C of the [[U-2]] reconnaissance program, which conducted overflights of the [[Soviet Union]] whose existence was concealed from Soviet authorities until Gary Powers was shot down in May 1960. A Japanese-American technical intelligence unit, JTAG, was also co-located at the base. As a radar operator, Oswald had access to data from high-altitude U-2 operations - information CIA counterintelligence chief [[James Angleton]] later assessed as potentially significant given Oswald's subsequent defection.
|
||||
|
||||
Oswald received a hardship discharge in September 1959. Within two weeks, he traveled to the Soviet Union and, in October 1959, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to renounce his American citizenship. Soviet authorities initially denied him permanent residency but eventually allowed him to remain, settling him in [[Minsk]], where he worked in a factory under [[KGB]] surveillance. He married Marina Prusakova, a Soviet citizen, in April 1961. Soviet defectors were routinely debriefed by the KGB; given Oswald's Atsugi assignment, the extent of any debriefing and what he disclosed has never been established.
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -30,15 +30,15 @@ Oswald subsequently sought to return to the [[United States]]. In 1962, the [[De
|
|||
|
||||
### CIA File: CI/SIG and Counterintelligence Handling
|
||||
|
||||
The CIA's counterintelligence Staff D, known as CI/SIG (Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group) and run by [[James Angleton]], opened a 201 personnel file on Oswald on December 9, 1960 - more than two and a half years before the assassination. The file, numbered 201-289248, was opened by Ann Egerter, a CI/SIG officer, under the name "Lee Henry Oswald" - with his middle name rendered as "Henry" rather than the correct "Harvey." Recording an incorrect identifying detail in a newly opened file was a CI/SIG technique called "marked cards": deliberately inserting a small error to detect whether file contents had been obtained by a foreign intelligence service, since any leak would carry the false detail. The file was connected to the HT/LINGUAL mail intercept program, in which the CIA monitored correspondence between American citizens and addresses in the Soviet Union.[^2]
|
||||
The CIA's counterintelligence Staff D, known as CI/SIG (Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group) and run by James Angleton, opened a 201 personnel file on Oswald on December 9, 1960 - more than two and a half years before the assassination. The file, numbered 201-289248, was opened by Ann Egerter, a CI/SIG officer, under the name "Lee Henry Oswald" - with his middle name rendered as "Henry" rather than the correct "Harvey." Recording an incorrect identifying detail in a newly opened file was a CI/SIG technique called "marked cards": deliberately inserting a small error to detect whether file contents had been obtained by a foreign intelligence service, since any leak would carry the false detail. The file was connected to the HT/LINGUAL mail intercept program, in which the CIA monitored correspondence between American citizens and addresses in the Soviet Union.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 10, 1963 - six weeks before the Kennedy assassination - the CIA [[Mexico City]] station cabled headquarters reporting that "Lee Henry Oswald" had visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City the previous week. CIA headquarters' response cable described Oswald in terms suggesting limited familiarity with his history - omitting his Soviet defection, his two-and-a-half years in [[Minsk]], and his summer 1963 [[Fair Play for Cuba Committee]] activities in New Orleans. This information was all available at headquarters and would have made Oswald's Soviet Embassy contact appear far more operationally significant.
|
||||
On October 10, 1963 - six weeks before the Kennedy assassination - the CIA Mexico City station cabled headquarters reporting that "Lee Henry Oswald" had visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City the previous week. CIA headquarters' response cable described Oswald in terms suggesting limited familiarity with his history - omitting his Soviet defection, his two-and-a-half years in Minsk, and his summer 1963 [[Fair Play for Cuba Committee]] activities in New Orleans. This information was all available at headquarters and would have made Oswald's Soviet Embassy contact appear far more operationally significant.
|
||||
|
||||
The cable was routed through the office of Jane Roman, a senior CIA officer and wife of Howard Roman. Roman's initials appear on the cable as a sign-off. In 1994, journalist [[John Newman (historian)|John Newman]] showed Roman the cable and the withheld information during a recorded interview. Roman stated: "I'm signing off on something that I know isn't true." She was unable or unwilling to identify who at CIA headquarters had directed the response be drafted as it was, or why.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pro-Castro Activities and New Orleans
|
||||
|
||||
In the summer of 1963, Oswald appeared in New Orleans distributing [[Fair Play for Cuba Committee]] (FPCC) leaflets stamped with a fictitious address - 544 Camp Street - that was the same building as 531 Lafayette Street, the office of [[Guy Banister]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Special Agent in Charge who ran an anti-Castro intelligence network. Oswald gave a radio interview on WDSU defending Castro's Cuba and reportedly was the only FPCC member in New Orleans. His activities were monitored by the FBI.
|
||||
In the summer of 1963, Oswald appeared in New Orleans distributing Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) leaflets stamped with a fictitious address - 544 Camp Street - that was the same building as 531 Lafayette Street, the office of [[Guy Banister]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Special Agent in Charge who ran an anti-Castro intelligence network. Oswald gave a radio interview on WDSU defending Castro's Cuba and reportedly was the only FPCC member in New Orleans. His activities were monitored by the FBI.
|
||||
|
||||
The coincidence of the FPCC leaflets' address with Banister's office has been examined extensively without definitive resolution: whether Oswald and Banister knew each other, whether the address overlap was deliberate or accidental, and whether Oswald's pro-Castro activities were genuine political expression, intelligence cover, or something else, remain unresolved questions in the HSCA record.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -48,13 +48,15 @@ In late September and early October 1963, Oswald (or someone representing himsel
|
|||
|
||||
The CIA's evidentiary record from this surveillance proved anomalous. Photographs of individuals entering the Soviet Embassy on the dates Oswald claimed to have visited showed a heavyset, dark-haired man who was clearly not Oswald. CIA headquarters acknowledged this in cable DIR 84888, sent to the Mexico City station on November 23, 1963 - the day after the assassination - stating that the photographs "are not of Lee Oswald." The Mexico City station's explanation was that its cameras had malfunctioned or that the visitor was photographed at a moment when cameras were not operational.
|
||||
|
||||
The agency's own internal account, drafted by [[Raymond Rocca]] of the counterintelligence staff for the general counsel on May 12, 1967, when [[Jim Garrison]] made the photograph an issue, states that Oswald's contact with the Soviet consulate on October 1, 1963, "was reported to CIA Headquarters on 9 October 1963" and distributed on October 10, "predicated entirely on the assumption that Oswald probably intended to redefect to the Soviets," and that the station "guessed" the man photographed that day "might be Oswald because of the coincidence in time." The station passed to the FBI on the afternoon of November 22 three photographs of the man taken at 12:17 on October 1, five taken at 11:32 on October 4, and two taken outside the Cuban embassy on October 15. One was cropped by agent Bardwell Odum in Dallas and shown to [[Marguerite Oswald]] on November 23. "No photograph was taken, acquired or received of Oswald, alone or with any individual, by CIA in front of the Cuban Embassy, the Soviet Embassy, or anywhere else in Mexico." A request to the Navy for a photograph of Oswald "had not been serviced before the assassination date." Rocca sent the draft to [[Thomas Karamessines]] "based on a file review as well as my recollections of the event," and a colleague noted: "This checks completely with my recollection." Its conclusion: "CIA's considered judgment is that this man and his photograph are totally irrelevant to the Oswald investigation."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The LIENVOY recordings posed a separate problem. FBI agents who listened to recordings of intercepted phone calls involving someone claiming to be "Lee Oswald" stated the voice spoke broken Russian-accented English - markedly inconsistent with Oswald's documented fluency in Russian and his recorded voice from the New Orleans WDSU radio interview. Whether the recordings and photographs involved a different person using Oswald's name, technical failures in CIA surveillance, or something else was examined by the HSCA Lopez Report and not resolved.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The HSCA commissioned a 350-page classified staff study, "Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City," by Edwin Lopez and Dan Hardway (the Lopez Report), completed in 1979, partially released in 1996, and more fully released in 2003. The Lopez Report concluded that CIA information about Oswald "was not reported to CIA Headquarters in an accurate and expeditious manner prior to the assassination" and that the Mexico City station had not reported "all information in the possession of the CIA Mexico City Station" to headquarters. The report is available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Assassination
|
||||
|
||||
On October 14, 1963, Oswald was hired at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) in [[Dallas, Texas|Dallas]]. President Kennedy's motorcade route was announced in Dallas newspapers on November 19, passing directly in front of the TSBD.
|
||||
On October 14, 1963, Oswald was hired at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) in Dallas. President Kennedy's motorcade route was announced in Dallas newspapers on November 19, passing directly in front of the TSBD.
|
||||
|
||||
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot while riding in his motorcade through [[Dealey Plaza]]. The Warren Commission concluded that three shots were fired from the sixth floor of the TSBD, where Oswald's presence was established, and that all three shots were fired by Oswald using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle traced to him via a mail-order purchase under the alias "A. Hidell." Oswald was arrested that afternoon at the Texas Theatre after the killing of Officer Tippit. He denied killing Kennedy and denied owning the rifle. He was charged with both the Kennedy assassination and the Tippit murder.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -66,7 +68,7 @@ The Warren Commission concluded Ruby acted alone from personal grief over Kenned
|
|||
|
||||
### Dallas: [[George de Mohrenschildt]] and the Russian Community
|
||||
|
||||
After Oswald's return from the Soviet Union in June 1962, he settled in the Dallas area, where a White Russian emigre community took social interest in Marina. The most prominent member to actively befriend Oswald was [[George de Mohrenschildt]], a petroleum geologist and Texas academic who maintained a documented relationship with CIA Domestic Contact Service officer [[J. Walton Moore]]. De Mohrenschildt told journalist [[Edward Jay Epstein]] shortly before his own death in 1977 that Moore had asked him to befriend Oswald and report on what Oswald had observed in the Soviet Union - with CIA assistance on a Haitian oil contract as the reciprocal arrangement. De Mohrenschildt obtained that contract in March 1963, immediately after his period of closest contact with Oswald.[^3]
|
||||
After Oswald's return from the Soviet Union in June 1962, he settled in the Dallas area, where a White Russian emigre community took social interest in Marina. The most prominent member to actively befriend Oswald was [[George de Mohrenschildt]], a petroleum geologist and Texas academic who maintained a documented relationship with CIA Domestic Contact Service officer [[J. Walton Moore]]. De Mohrenschildt told journalist [[Edward Jay Epstein]] shortly before his own death in 1977 that Moore had asked him to befriend Oswald and report on what Oswald had observed in the Soviet Union - with CIA assistance on a Haitian oil contract as the reciprocal arrangement. De Mohrenschildt obtained that contract in March 1963, immediately after his period of closest contact with Oswald.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Intelligence Connections and Unresolved Questions
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -80,4 +82,5 @@ The [[Assassination Records Review Board]] (ARRB), operating under the JFK Recor
|
|||
|
||||
[^1]: Warren Commission. *Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.* Government Printing Office, 1964. House Select Committee on Assassinations. *Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives.* Government Printing Office, 1979.
|
||||
[^2]: Newman, John. *Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth about the Unknown Relationship between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK.* Skyhorse Publishing, 2008 (updated ed.). Lopez, Edwin, and Dan Hardway. "Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City" (Lopez Report). HSCA Staff Report, 1979. Available at history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt/. Assassination Records Review Board. *Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board.* Government Printing Office, 1998.
|
||||
[^3]: House Select Committee on Assassinations. *Report.* Vol. XII (de Mohrenschildt). Government Printing Office, 1979. Available at aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol12/. Epstein, Edward Jay. *Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald.* Reader's Digest Press, 1978.
|
||||
[^3]: Rocca, Raymond G. Draft memorandum to Lawrence Houston, "Garrison Allegations Re CIA Photograph in Warren Commission Report: The Facts," May 12, 1967, with routing slips of May 15, 1967, JFK record 104-10005-10374.
|
||||
[^4]: House Select Committee on Assassinations. *Report.* Vol. XII (de Mohrenschildt). Government Printing Office, 1979. Available at aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol12/. Epstein, Edward Jay. *Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald.* Reader's Digest Press, 1978.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
37
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Pennington.md
Normal file
37
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Lee Pennington.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- LeePennington
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- CIAOfficeOfSecurity
|
||||
- FBI
|
||||
- Watergate
|
||||
- AmericanSecurityCouncil
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Lee R. Pennington Jr.
|
||||
summary: "Retired FBI inspector kept on a monthly retainer by the CIA's Security Research Staff, who watched James McCord's wife burn papers days after the Watergate arrests, a fact the agency withheld from investigators until 1974."
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
created: 2026-09-21
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-21
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Lee R. Pennington Jr. was "a former FBI inspector" and "an old family friend of the McCords." The [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s own account describes him as "for a number of years an informant of CIA's Office of Security. Being involved in work for the [[American Legion]] in the field of security he did research on the subject for CIA." [[Paul Gaynor]], head of the Security Research Staff of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]], retained him by the month until December 1972.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### June 1972
|
||||
|
||||
Shortly after [[James McCord]] was arrested at the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]], Pennington visited the McCord house, "where he found Mrs. McCord, with her daughter and son-in-law, destroying papers." He reported it. In August 1972 the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s Alexandria office asked the Office of Security about a "Pennington" who might have been McCord's supervisor. The agency answered with "the name of another Pennington, an employee of the CIA Office of Security, but who had never been a supervisor of McCord." The Senate minority staff found the purpose was "to withhold the name of Lee R. Pennington." In November and December 1972 he passed his case officer a memorandum by McCord about [[Jack Anderson]].[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The published minority report of the Senate committee gives the retainer as "$250 per month until December of 1973" and states: "The Agency has advised that the Security Research Staff was abolished in August of 1973."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### 1974
|
||||
|
||||
In January 1974, when the agency's inspector general was to review the Watergate files, [[Howard Osborn]] "ordered that the Pennington materials be removed." An employee of the Personnel Security Division copied them to his safe and told the inspector general. Osborn's memorandum of February 22, 1974, went to the Senate committee, the oversight committees, and the special prosecutor. Pennington testified in executive session on February 23 "that he did not go to the McCord home for the purpose of searching for or destroying CIA-related documents, but does acknowledge witnessing the destruction of documents." The testimony of others, the staff wrote, indicated "more active participation." Osborn retired on February 26. "The Security Research Staff has now been abolished." The staff noted that Pennington "may have been a 'domestic agent,' possibly in violation of the CIA's charter," and that his agency file "apparently has portions missing from it." The file itself went only to the House subcommittee of [[Lucien Nedzi]], with "gaps" the agency acknowledged. Nedzi concluded that the agency had not sent him to burn the papers. McCord wrote that Pennington, then 60, "came over to bring food to my family" and destroyed nothing.[^1][^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, minority staff, "CIA Investigation," memorandum of Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., 1974, later printed in *Final Report,* S. Rept. 93-981, pp. 1115-1165. CIA Reading Room copy, document 01481990.
|
||||
[^2]: Anderson, Jack. "Washington Merry-Go-Round," *Washington Post,* April 2, 1974, p. B15.
|
||||
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Questions Raised About Lee R. Pennington," 1974. CIA Reading Room, document 01435032.
|
||||
[^4]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. "Minority Report on CIA Involvement, Submitted at the Request of Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr.," in *The Senate Watergate Report,* Dell, 1974, vol. 2, pp. 732 ff. (S. Rept. 93-981, 1974), "Pennington Matter."
|
||||
[^5]: McCord, James W., Jr. Letter to the editor, *Washington Star-News,* July 3, 1974. CIA Reading Room, document 01482011.
|
||||
49
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Luis Posada Carriles.md
Normal file
49
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Luis Posada Carriles.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
title: Luis Posada Carriles
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Luis Posada Carriles
|
||||
- Ramon Medina
|
||||
created: 2026-05-17
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-17
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- DrugTrafficker
|
||||
- ElSalvador
|
||||
- 1980s
|
||||
- ContraWar
|
||||
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
|
||||
summary: "Veteran CIA agent with a documented history of drug trafficking who ran day-to-day Contra resupply operations at Ilopango Air Force Base under the alias Ramon Medina."
|
||||
born: 1928-02-15
|
||||
died: 2018-05-23
|
||||
location: "Cienfuegos, Cuba"
|
||||
---
|
||||
Luis Posada Carriles was a veteran [[Central Intelligence Agency]] agent with a history of involvement with drug traffickers, mobsters, and terrorists who ran day-to-day Contra resupply operations at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] under the alias "Ramon Medina." He was recruited by [[Felix Rodriguez]] as his right-hand man after escaping from Venezuelan prison in 1985.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### CIA Recruitment and Early Criminal Activity
|
||||
|
||||
Posada was recruited by the CIA in the 1960s after years of working with anti-Castro Cubans in [[Miami]]. CIA records show he was investigated by the Justice Department in 1967 for supplying explosives, silencers, and hand grenades to Miami mobsters "Lefty" Rosenthal and Norman "Roughhouse" Rothman, a close associate of South Florida's Mafia chieftain Santos Trafficante. A memo in Posada's CIA file noted "Posada may have been moonlighting for Rosenthal," and in late 1968 he was transferred by the agency for "unreported association with gangster elements, thefts from CIA, plus other items."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drug Trafficking in Venezuela
|
||||
|
||||
Posada was sent to [[Venezuela]] and began working as an official of the Venezuelan intelligence service. In 1973 the [[DEA]] received a report that Posada "was in contact with two Cubans in Miami who were reportedly smuggling narcotics into the United States for Luis Posada." According to the informant, Posada was to be "the main contact" in a major cocaine smuggling operation involving members of the Venezuelan government. The DEA placed Posada under surveillance and he "was observed by agents in Miami to meet with numerous identified upper echelon traffickers in Miami during March 1973."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
CIA records show the agency was fully aware of its agent's involvement with drug traffickers. It received word in February 1973 that "Posada may be involved in smuggling cocaine from [[Colombia]] through Venezuela to Miami, also counterfeit U.S. money in Venezuela." But the agency decided "not to directly confront Posada with allegation so as not to compromise ongoing investigation."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
According to notes of a congressional investigator who reviewed Posada's voluminous CIA files in the late 1970s, cables indicated "concern that Posada [was a] serious potential liability. Anxious to terminate association promptly if allegations prove true. By April 1973, it seems sure that Posada involved in narcotics, drug trafficking - seen with known big time drug trafficker." After questioning Posada, the agency found him "guilty only of having the wrong kind of friends" and continued his employment.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
His associations continued: in January 1974 he asked the CIA to provide a Venezuelan passport for a Dominican military official, which the agency refused on the grounds that it "cannot permit controlled agents to become directly involved with illicit drug trafficking." A few months later the DEA received a report that Posada was trading weapons for cocaine with a man the DEA believed "is involved in political assassinations."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Terrorism and Prison
|
||||
|
||||
The CIA formally terminated Posada in February 1976. Eight months later he was arrested in Venezuela and accused of participating in the midair bombing of a Cuban DC-8 airliner, which killed seventy-eight people. Though never convicted, he spent nearly ten years in Venezuelan prisons before escaping in the summer of 1985.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ilopango and Contra Operations
|
||||
|
||||
Posada resurfaced at Ilopango in early 1986 as Felix Rodriguez's right-hand man. Posada told investigators that "Rodriguez and other Cuban friends" helped him escape Venezuela and relocate to [[El Salvador]], where Rodriguez helped him get a house in [[San Salvador]]. In a once-secret 1992 FBI interview, Posada recounted that "the resupply project was always looking for people to carry cash from the United States into El Salvador for Posada to dispense." He was told "the money came from Washington," but never got a better explanation.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
|
||||
38
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Raymond Rocca.md
Normal file
38
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Raymond Rocca.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- RaymondRocca
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- CIACounterintelligenceStaff
|
||||
- JamesAngleton
|
||||
- GarrisonGroup
|
||||
- WarrenCommission
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Raymond G. Rocca
|
||||
- Ray Rocca
|
||||
summary: "Research chief on Angleton's counterintelligence staff who handled the CIA's side of the Warren Commission and wrote its papers on Jim Garrison in 1967, proposing to brief Hoover and McCone and line up press channels."
|
||||
born: 1917
|
||||
died: 1993-11-11
|
||||
location: "Falls Church, Virginia"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-21
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-21
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Raymond G. Rocca "began his intelligence career during World War II. It included service in [[Rome]], where he went in 1944 with the [[Office of Strategic Services]] and later with the [[Central Intelligence Group]] and then the newly established [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]." He was chief of research and analysis on the [[CIA Counterintelligence Staff|Counterintelligence Staff]] under [[James Jesus Angleton]] and retired in 1975 "as acting chief of counterintelligence."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Garrison
|
||||
|
||||
[[Richard Helms]] assigned him the New Orleans matter in 1967. On April 26 he wrote that it would be "unwise to dismiss as trivial any attempts by Garrison to link the Agency to his plot." On May 12 he drafted for the general counsel the agency's account of the Mexico City photograph, "based on a file review as well as my recollections of the event." At the first meeting of the [[Garrison Group]] on September 20 "Rocca felt that Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy." On September 26 he circulated "a survey of possible courses of action": charges of impersonation against [[Gordon Novel]] and [[Donald P. Norton]]; an effort "to block or head off any attempts to put the [[Playboy]] article into the [[Congressional Record]]"; briefings of [[Clark Clifford]] and [[John McCone]], who "is in a position to exert extensive influence in Catholic and Republican Party circles"; "Mr. [[J. Edgar Hoover]] is probably the single most important person to be considered in reacting to Garrison's false charges"; "carefully selected channels of communication lined up in advance" in the press; and "materials for covert exploitation" presenting the investigation as "wittingly or unwittingly designed to cover, exonerate or exculpate the Soviets in the Oswald case." He was to "work up a graphic of the organization as conceived by Garrison." In March 1968 he wrote that Garrison's charge of a plot by the agency and the military-industrial complex "is by and large a rehash."[^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Church Committee]] took his deposition on November 25, 1975, on the doctrine of counterespionage. The [[House Select Committee on Assassinations]] took his testimony on July 17, 1978. He died at Arlington Hospital of a stroke on November 11, 1993, aged 76.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Raymond G. Rocca, CIA Official, Dies," *Washington Post,* November 13, 1993.
|
||||
[^2]: Holland, Max. "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 45, no. 5, 2001.
|
||||
[^3]: Janney, F.W.M. Memoranda for the record, Garrison Group meetings no. 1 and 2, September 20 and 26, 1967, JFK records 104-10428-10023 and 104-10428-10022.
|
||||
[^4]: Rocca, Raymond G. Memorandum, "This is a survey of possible courses of action," September 26, 1967, JFK record 104-10435-10022; draft memorandum to Lawrence Houston, "Garrison Allegations Re CIA Photograph in Warren Commission Report," May 12, 1967, JFK record 104-10005-10374.
|
||||
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. *Final Report, Book I*. S. Rept. 94-755, 1976, p. 167.; House Select Committee on Assassinations, security classified testimony of Raymond Rocca, July 17, 1978.
|
||||
30
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rolando Otero.md
Normal file
30
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Rolando Otero.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
|
|||
---
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category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
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tags:
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- Person
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- RolandoOtero
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- CubanExiles
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- Terrorism
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- Miami
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- DINA
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- Chile
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alias:
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- Rolando Otero Hernandez
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||||
summary: "Cuban exile charged with nine Miami bombings of 1975, including the FBI office, who fled to Chile and was handed to the FBI by Pinochet's government in 1976, a surrender the Cuban Nationalist Movement resented."
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location: "Miami, Florida"
|
||||
created: 2026-09-21
|
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updated: 2026-09-21
|
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---
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At 5:58 on the morning of October 17, 1975, an Eastern Airlines reservation clerk took a call: "Listen to me. This is not a joke. We have planted some bombs in the complex. The first one will go off in a couple of minutes." Minutes later a bomb went off in a bank of lockers at [[Miami International Airport]]. A federal grand jury indicted Rolando Otero Hernández for that bombing and others of December 3 and 4, 1975, in a seventeen-count indictment, later moved to [[Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville]] for the press coverage in Miami. The clerk picked his voice from a spread of five by "accent, tone, rhythm and word formation." The state charged him with nine bombings, among them the FBI office in Miami, and tried him from November 15, 1976.[^1][^2]
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### Chile
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Otero fled to [[Chile]]. In 1976 the FBI's legal attaché in [[Buenos Aires]], [[Robert Scherrer]], obtained his surrender. "The Chilean government first denied having Otero, then offered to turn him over in a coffin." Cuban exiles complained that Chile had given haven to Otero and [[Orlando Bosch]], "both fugitives from the FBI, only to betray them." When [[Michael Townley]] of [[DINA]] asked the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] for help against [[Orlando Letelier]] in September 1976, [[Guillermo Novo]] argued that "DINA should have killed Otero rather than turn him over to the FBI." A Dade County detective went to Venezuela in October 1976 to persuade [[Ricardo Morales Navarrete]] to testify at Otero's trial. An index to Morales's deposition of 1981, as transcribed on an exile website, lists Otero under the alias "Condor."[^3][^4]
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|
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### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: *United States v. Otero-Hernandez,* 418 F. Supp. 572 (M.D. Fla. 1976).
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||||
[^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, teletype to Director, "Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976," November 2, 1976, JFK Assassination Records Collection. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 10.
|
||||
[^3]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 9-10, 130.
|
||||
[^4]: Deposition of Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Dade County Circuit Court, criminal case 81-17247, index.
|
||||
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|
@ -28,7 +28,10 @@ In [[Rome]], where Townley was arranging with the followers of [[Stefano Delle C
|
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|
||||
In September 1976 Paz gave Townley the remote-control detonator used against [[Orlando Letelier]], one Townley "himself had constructed months before in Santiago by modifying a radio paging device." Paz and [[Jose Dionisio Suarez]] drove with Townley to Letelier's house. "I was informed by Paz and Suarez that they expected me to place the device on the car," Townley stated, "as they wished to have a DINA agent, namely myself, directly tied to the placing of the device."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Paz was indicted with six others on August 1, 1978, and remained a fugitive when Suárez was caught in 1990. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder a foreign official and was sentenced to twelve years.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 16-19, 152-160.
|
||||
[^2]: Branch, Taylor, and Eugene M. Propper. *Labyrinth*. Viking, 1982, pp. 243-246, 303.
|
||||
[^3]: McAllister, Bill. "Suspect Arrested in Letelier Slaying," *Washington Post,* April 12, 1990. "USA v. Guillermo Novo Sampol et al., 78-CR-367," case synopsis, latinamericanstudies.org, not verified against the docket.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -24,8 +24,11 @@ NBC broadcast a program critical of Garrison's conduct on June 19, 1967. On July
|
|||
|
||||
"On 1 May, Jack Miller, a former assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, called the CIA's general counsel to offer some intelligence that had come to Miller 'from within Garrison's office,'" the agency's own journal recorded in 2001. "Miller's source was Walter Sheridan." The general counsel was [[Lawrence Houston]], and the call is recorded in a memorandum of May 1, 1967, headed "Report Concerning Garrison-Kennedy-CIA." Miller was the same lawyer who represented Sheridan against Garrison two years later.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 1967, with Sheridan "subpoenaed by Garrison to appear before the Grand Jury in New Orleans," his lawyer Jack Miller, "who also is counsel for the Slocums in the Tofte case," told the agency's general counsel that Shaw's lawyers had approached him for someone in government "who could steer them as to the true facts and circumstances." Miller had been the channel from Garrison's office to the CIA in May; in September he was the channel from Shaw's defense.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Holland, Max. "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 45, no. 5, 2001. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Lie-That-Linked-CIA.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Sheridan v. Garrison, 415 F.2d 699 (5th Cir. 1969).
|
||||
[^3]: DiEugenio, James. "The Wegmann Files," *Probe,* vol. 4, no. 4, May-June 1997, pp. 8-9.
|
||||
[^4]: Houston, Lawrence R. Memorandum for the Executive Director-Comptroller, "Garrison Investigation," OGC 67-1787, September 18, 1967, JFK record 104-10428-10024.
|
||||
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|
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