From THE NEW REPUBLIC
DECEMBER 14, 1963
President Kennedy received me at the White House on Thursday, October 24 . . .. As we passed through the small room where his secretary was working, we caught a glimpse of Mrs. Kennedy leaving by a French window on her way to a private garden of the White House. The President called her back to introduce me.
It was still Indian summer in Washington. The weather was very warm and both the President and Mrs. Kennedy were very lightly dressed, thus enhancing the impression of youth, charm, and simplicity which was in rather surprising contrast to the solemnity of entering these august chambers. After she left, the President invited me to be seated on the semicircular sofa which was in the middle of his office. He sat in a rocking chair opposite the sofa. The interview was to last from 20 to 25 minutes, and it was interrupted only by a brief telephone call . . ..
My notes are very specific and I shall let President Kennedy speak through them: “I’d like to talk to you about Cuba . . ..” John Kennedy then mustered all his persuasive force. He punctuated each sentence with that brief, mechanical gesture which has become famous.
“I tell you this: I believe there is no country in the world . . . where economic colonization, exploitation, and humiliation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built, and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. This is one of the most important problems in American foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans, I approved of the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.”
After a silence during which he was able to note my surprise and my interest, the President continued: “But it is also clear that the problem has ceased to be a Cuban one and has become international, that is, it has become a Soviet problem. I am the President of the United States and not a sociologist; I am the President of a free nation which has certain responsibilities to the Free World. I know that Castro betrayed the promises made in the Sierra Maestra, and that he has agreed to be a Soviet agent in Latin America. I know that through his fault—either his ‘will to independence,’ his madness, or Communism—the world was on the verge of a nuclear war in October 1962. The Russians understood this very well, at least after our reaction; but so far as Fidel Castro is concerned, I must say I don’t know whether he realizes this, or even if he cares about it.” A smile, then: “You can tell me whether he does when you come back. In any case, the nations of Latin America are not going to attain justice and progress that way, I mean through Communist subversion. They won’t get there by going from economic oppression to a Marxist dictatorship which Castro himself denounced a few years ago. The United States now has the possibility of doing as much good in Latin America as it has done wrong in the past; I would even say that we alone have the power—on the essential condition that Communism does not take over there.”
Mr. Kennedy then rose to indicate the interview was over . . ..
32
AT THE END OF OCTOBER, MY FATHER TOOK A THREE-DAY TRIP TO PARIS, but only on his return did I find out that he had met with Rolando Cubela.
Earlier in October, Cubela had informed LYME, his case officer in Brazil, that he was about to be moved to Paris, an assignment he considered more suitable to his position as “second-in-command within the Foreign Division of the Interior Ministry.” While this title confirmed our conviction that he had close ties to the DGI, that did not remove the possibility that he was also ready to aim a sniper’s rifle at Fidel Castro.
There had been difficulties, however, setting up the rendezvous with Cubela in Paris. He insisted that Bobby Kennedy be present. It was his intention, Cubela announced, to become the next leader of Cuba, and he wanted assurances of political support from the Kennedys.
While there was obviously no possibility of asking Bobby Kennedy to go—my God, it could be a trap!—neither was there any inclination to inform him. One could certainly meet Cubela without Bobby. The real problem at this point was who to send to Paris as a personal representative of the Attorney General. Cal volunteered.
Perfect. No one would argue that Cal lacked the bottom to pass himself off as a close friend of the Kennedys.
Next, it was decided that Paris Station was not to be alerted. On the contrary, it would be more effective to fly LYME over from São Paulo to Paris. He could then guide Cubela to whichever nondescript café in the depths of the Twelfth Arrondissement had been chosen by Cal. “I like the Twelfth for this kind of get-together,” said Cal. “It has a slew of bistros where you will never run into anyone you’ve met since birth.” Yes, a simple sit-down was preferable to alerting Paris Station that Senior Officer HALIFAX was on his way to see a man who could prove a problem and might be carrying a gun. “Station,” said Cal, “would sprinkle so much hygiene on the premises that Cubela would bolt.”
My father went over to Paris, then, on October 28 and came back on October 30. At their meeting on October 29, Cubela got drunk in an hour. He would only accept this personal representative of the Attorney General, he told my father, on the full understanding that the President’s brother was a very busy man. On their next meeting, however, he would want to receive a handwritten letter from the Attorney General. It must contain Mr. Robert Kennedy’s personal promise that a successful completion of the proposed mission would result in the full powers of the U.S. government being brought to bear in support of the presidential candidacy of Rolando Cubela during the first free Cuban election. “On the other hand,” added Cubela, “if I do not succeed, you will owe me nothing but my expenses—which can prove considerable.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“About what you’d expect,” said Cal. “He’s tall, dark mustache, certainly attractive to women, shows circles under his eyes, is probably partial to cocaine, and would be a whole pain in the ass to hang around with for more than a night.”
I felt frustrated. There was not all that much to my father’s account. “Did he,” I asked, “talk about nothing but his political prospects?”
“Well, we did get into the hardware. On my next trip, he wants to be handed a few sophisticated tools. He rattled on about our ‘technical felicities’ until I didn’t know whether he was referring to sneakies or sniper-sticks, so I decided to be blunt: ‘Are you speaking of the assassination-mode capability?’ I asked. He went wild. ‘Do not use that word again in my presence,’ he cried out at me. By God, we were virtually alone in the café but still his voice was rising. I had to put a heavy hand on his shoulder. Which he threw off, although it did quiet him down enough for him to hiss: ‘Elimination is the word! You eliminate a problem, that is all!’ I suppose I had made a bad move by being so explicit, but I did want to jar the guy into focus. He was getting vague and megalomaniacal. A heavy drinker. Of course, not every successful assassin has to pass a sobriety test. I cite John Wilkes Booth as the classic example.”
“You are not too happy with Rolando Cubela?”
“Miserable. Hugh and Dick Helms do, however, agree with me—he’s all we’ve got.” Cal nodded. “See for yourself. I’ve decided to take you along on the next trip.”
“I can’t say I’m not pleased.”
“I didn’t want you on the first one. I was feeling kind of spooked. If something went wrong, I didn’t want you in the middle. I like to be able to measure my share of the fault.”
Was he kind enough not to say that others had not wished me to go? That was but one more question, and we had come to the point where t
here would be, I expected, no more answers. My father was hardly about to admit to me that Cubela, by a preponderance of evidence, was bound to be a double agent, and Helms and Harlot might be pursuing this matter precisely to bring to Fidel’s attention that the Agency was not only still set on killing him, but that a personal representative of the Kennedys was going to play a serious role in the plot. The coldest part of my heart was not without admiration: Castro’s distrust of the peace overtures would be greatly increased. Was I beginning to comprehend how the game worked? I even felt a cool happiness in being so removed from myself, as if exactly this subtle distance from one’s soul was the acme of elegance. Like Harlot, I might yet become the instrument of my will.
On their side, the peace offensive was continuing its efforts. An FBI report informed us that Dr. Vallejo had told Lisa Howard on October 31 to alert Attwood to stand in readiness for the flight to Havana in a private plane. Vallejo said it would be sent over by Fidel himself. There had to be a strong likelihood, however, that Vallejo was merely pursuing a few of his own unauthorized hopes, for on the same day, October 31, on Cuban television, Castro brought out the two commandos captured in the raid we had dispatched on the heels of the hurricane, three weeks ago. Under the TV lights, these exile Cubans produced the name of their case officer (Dix Butler was immortalized as Frank Castle), and the actual location of 6312 Riviera Drive was announced, plus a description of our JM/WAVE weapons armory. Castro must have anticipated large media reaction in the United States, but the Agency was quick to suggest that the commandos had been brainwashed, and the story received no particular attention. Castro was predictably enraged: “The American press refuses to report these attacks even when confronted with evidence they could easily have substantiated. You can see that in this free press of which they boast, the wire services and the CIA act in unison, elaborating and developing the same lie in order to disguise the truth.”
Cal smiled. “Whose ox is being gored?” he asked.
I held on to that. I did not believe that we owed Castro any debt in the way of reasonable treatment—no, not after the missiles—but it did no harm to be able to refresh one’s sense of sanction.
Meanwhile, our access to Rusk’s office was improving. While Nancy Waterston’s level of entry was, at best, restricted, some high-level memos did pass her desk. Her limitations as an agent—we called her EUPHONY—remained more prominent than her virtues, however. She refused to undertake the emotional turmoil of photographing documents. In compensation, she did have a rare faculty for recollecting exactly what she read, and would come home at night to type out long, detailed recapitulations of confidential papers for Rosen. Since her attention had, by our design, not been fixed on Cuba (so as not to alert her to our interests until she proved reliable), all we received through most of October was information on Rusk’s reaction to a coup d’état in Honduras, the sale of wheat to the U.S.S.R., and the resignation of Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister, none of which was close to our heart. Harlot called Nancy’s submissions “gists.”
By the beginning of November, however, her work produced a few results. Secretary Rusk was beginning to react to the Cuban overture, and EUPHONY was busy furnishing Rosen with the gists of memos Rusk had been firing off to some of his people in the State Department: “Diplomatic Caribbean investments of long standing are not to be undercut by maverick negotiations.” Et cetera. Before long, by way of EUPHONY, we learned that Attwood had been told that the State Department’s enthusiasm for the Cuban overture was, in a word, “constricted.” A memo out of Rusk’s office on November 7 went as follows:
Before the United States Government can even contemplate entering into minimal relations with the Cuban government, all political, economic, and military dependency on the Sino-Soviet bloc must cease, together with all subversion in the hemisphere. Castro would have to renounce Marxism-Leninism as an ideology, have all Communists removed from influential positions, be prepared to offer compensation for all properties expropriated since 1959, and return all manufacturing, oil, mining, and distribution industries to private enterprise.
“Sounds like Rusk wouldn’t mind a little unconditional surrender,” I remarked.
“Well,” said Cal, “that may be the best thing about the old stump. He hates unforeseen movement. If he stays in one place long enough, he figures Kennedy will circle back to him.”
In Havana, we were keeping Jean Daniel under light surveillance (which was not without its demand on the limited resources of our Cuban assets) but the observers were confident that Daniel had obtained no access to Castro during his weeks in Cuba, and had been obliged to content himself with tours of mines, sugar refineries, and schools for children in the provinces. The Cuban overture looked to be, as Cal put it, “in irons.”
All the same, we were taking nothing for granted. The next meeting with AM/LASH was now arranged for November 22, and I began to ride a fine sense of anticipation. On nights that found me in Washington, I would attend Agency language classes to brush up on my conversational French. It was hardly necessary. If all went well, Cal and I would be in Paris for only a day, but I gave myself to it as a solemn undertaking; the rigor of French syntax seemed, under the circumstances, to be not without sacramental overtones for the task that lay ahead. It is interesting that the closer we came to the date, the more I began to see Cubela not as a double agent, but in all the spectral light of an unimpeachable assassin.
33
ON NOVEMBER 18, PRESIDENT KENNEDY GAVE A TELEVISED SPEECH AT A dinner of the Inter-American Press Association of Miami, and Dix Butler and I watched in a bar.
I could not help contrasting this evening to the apocalyptic reception Jack Kennedy had had at the Orange Bowl in December, eleven months ago. Tonight, there was no standing ovation when he concluded, and most of his speech was received in silence. The audience, composed in large part of Miami exiles, were exhibiting their suspicions. When Kennedy referred to Cuba’s “small band of conspirators” as a weapon employed “by external powers to subvert the other American republics,” and added, “This and this alone divides us—as long as this is true, nothing is possible—without it, everything is possible,” no large response came back.
Afterwards, Butler gave his verdict. “‘Get rid of the U.S.S.R.,’” said Dix, “‘and you can have your socialism, Mr. Castro,’ is about what he was saying.” Dix gave a wide and wicked grin. “I can think of a lot of Cubans in Miami who are going to stick pins tonight in their wax effigy of Jack Kennedy.”
“I don’t know that many Cubans anymore,” I said.
“You never did.”
I would have paid up at that point and left, half in outrage at what he said and half in gloom at the truth of it, but he put his arm around my shoulder. “Hey, buddy, cheer up, you and me go boom-boom in a boat. Hey? Nay?”
“You are easier to get along with,” I said, “when things are happening too fast to open your mouth.”
“I agree. Go where the wild goose goes.” He nodded. “Hubbard, these are farewell drinks. I’ve worked a transfer to Indochina. I am going back to the best hashish in the world.” At the moment, he was slugging bourbon on the rocks with a beer chaser. “Say my good-byes,” he said, “to Chevi Fuertes.”
Well, turns in conversation with Butler never took long to get around the corner. “Where is Chevi?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Since last we spoke, yes. As a matter of fact, yes. I have seen him. In fact, I had it out with him.” He nodded at the solidity of this fact. “I had him alone in my motel room, and I accused him of being DGI.”
“How did you get him there?”
“That’s a tale to tell. No matter. He just likes to hang around in my company, believe it if you will. He was duded up. Light blue suit, yellow shirt, orange tie. You and me would look like candy cocksuckers, Hubbard, but Chevi has an eye for accommodating pastels. Looked pretty. For a fat double dealer, he looked pretty. He
could open a downtown haberdashery. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to him, ‘seeing you is such a wrench that I’ve got to go to the loo.’ Hubbard, it was true. I had a full-gauge movement.”
It was tempting to suggest to Butler that if he ever rose to the higher levels of the Agency, it would be prudent not to get into the periodicity of his bowels, but I resisted the impulse. Just as well. He wanted to talk. He said, “Follow it! When I came out, I sat Chevi down in a chair and began to work him back and forth.”
“Back and forth?”
“A head swivel. A good slap to the left, a good one to the right. I had my ring on, so that pulled the cork. He began to bleed all over the yellow shirt and the orange tie. ‘You are an idiot and a beast,’ he said to me.
“‘No, Chevi,’ I told him, ‘it is a little worse than that. Tonight you are going to admit that you are DGI.’ What a speech he brought forth. The complexities of his work. If I recorded it, I could give lectures at Langley Manor. Chevi had dealings, he admitted. After all, he had done liaison for me into every exile group, MIRR, Alpha 66, Commandos L, DRE, Thirtieth of November, MDC, Interpen, Crusade to Free Cuba, Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean. He didn’t stop. He must have figured that so long as he kept talking I wouldn’t work him anymore. He listed each and every reason that he is our highest paid agent in Miami, and I said, ‘Let’s get down to it. You also have dealings with the DGI.’ ‘You know I do,’ he told me, ‘you encourage me to.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘provided you fulfill my instructions to the letter.’ ‘Understood,’ he said. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not understood. You have cut some very dangerous corners. You give the DGI more than I license you to give them.’ He actually nodded. ‘I may extend the boundaries,’ he said.”
“Chevi admitted that?” I asked.
“Of course he did. He was under the gun. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘how far were those boundaries extended?’ ‘You have to understand the game,’ he said. ‘I do,’ I said. ‘Then you understand,’ he said, ‘I have given material to the DGI that would increase their trust in me.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we believe you are a double agent working for us. And maybe they believe you are doubling for them.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but they are in error.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘the DGI is not stupid. Maybe you are giving them as much, or maybe a little more than you are giving us.’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘No?’ I asked. ‘At my very worst,’ he said, ‘I am a neutral marketplace.’ ‘Does this extend,’ I asked, ‘to letting them know the night that we will run a raid? Is that why two of my people got picked off, and I was named on Havana television?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am a neutral marketplace. I give clean information to both parties.’ You bet. I saw the key to his action then. ‘You,’ I said, ‘have your man in the DGI. You are thick with him, and he is thick with you. You are both going down on each other, aren’t you, you faggots?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that is bad enough, but why did you give the date of my raid over to the DGI?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’”
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