It comes down to having to fight fire with fire, and when you go after big money, you go get bigger money. So I made a few calls and got in contact with a man whom I had known for a quarter of a century, but had not seen in the flesh since about 1954: a fellow Texan named Howard Hughes. There are few men I admire as much as my late Daddy, but Howard is one of them; he’s a man who understands completely what a buck can do for you. After catching up some old friends and commiserating on the sorry condition of our beloved country, I explained to him the purpose of my call; I had a proposition to make, one only a certain type of individual would be able to take me up on. Said proposition being his: in return for derogatory and extremely damaging information about the President of the United States, I was willing to pay the sum of one-half million dollars. It would go without saying, but I would be sure to reiterate that this information must come with fully documented proof, the kind which would hold up not only in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion. It must be unimpeachable. So much so, that the minute John F. Kennedy was to concede defeat on the evening of November 3rd, I would sweeten the deal with another half million.
What I needed from Howard was a name of someone with the connections to pull this thing off, while at the same time, affording me and the Goldwater campaign the right amount of insulation from any and all acts which might cross certain legal and ethical lines, and bring the wrong kind of attention from either the vultures in the press or the proper legal authorities. There are those who might blanch at my actions, but I saw it as nothing more than doing my due diligence as a member of the Goldwater for President campaign; those Kennedys were known for playing rough themselves and turnabout is always fair play.
“Wade, I applaud you for doing this,” was Howard’s reply when I explained the purpose of my call, “and there is nothing I’d like more than seeing that son of a bitch who’s ruining this country get tossed out on his ass, I mean he’s proposing laws that would mix the races-disgusting. But old Joe taught those boys well; it won’t easy getting anything on them; for some reason, they inspire a lot of loyalty. And they do know how to buy silence.”
I pressed my case, telling Howard it was our duty to the country to leave no stone unturned; my reasoning must have worked because he told me to sit tight while he made some inquiries and then he’d call me back. My friend and fellow Texan proved to be true to his word when my phone rang at three the next morning and he gave me a name.
That was how I ended up in a back room of the Carousel Club in Dallas Texas, sitting across a table from a man named Vance Harlow.
Lt. Colonel Martin Maddox
February - March 1964
With a deadline of April 1st staring us in the face, the days after I got my marching orders from the Attorney General are a blur in my memory as my group went about the business of planning for a war that would never be fought down in our office in the basement of the White House. My people rose to the occasion after the briefing I gave them, instantly grasping the challenge and wading into a mountain of reports and operational plans to create a situation where a coup inside Cuba could successfully be pulled off with absolutely minimal risk to the United States.
We grasped right away how two things needed to happen at once, each parallel to the other, but heading toward vastly different outcomes: the first was a diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis by using third parties to negotiate with Castro while the second would be a steady military buildup in the Southeast and in the international waters around Cuba. The diplomacy was in the hands of the President, but the logistics of military planning and the application of force to achieve the desired goal were our bread and butter and we put in back to back dawn till dusk days getting a plan ready for immediate implementation. We took Operations Plan 316, which would have been used if the invasion had gone forward in October of ’62, as our master mold to construct a new plan to bring about a different result. 316 called for a full-bore invasion of the island with 120,000 US troops following an extensive aerial bombing campaign designed to soften up the Cuban defenses; this is what the Cuban people had to believe they were being spared from when Commander Almeida staged his last minute coup.
A detailed presentation had to ready for the President on the first Monday in February.
It was around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday when there was a call to my desk. “Colonel Maddox, you will be getting another call in about an hour,” said the now familiar voice of the Attorney General. “It will be from a man identifying himself as Vance Harlow; I strongly recommend you listen to everything he has to say, because he has information which you will find extremely valuable, not to mention critical, to the job you have been given by the President. Again, I strongly recommend you pay good attention to what Mr. Harlow has to say, and I don‘t have to remind you that all these matters fall under the umbrella of the highest security clearance.”
My answer to this was a simple affirmative; when the Attorney General asks you do something, you do it, so when the call came exactly one hour and five minutes later, I listened intently, even though I had no idea who this man named Vance Harlow was or why his words might be valuable to me. What I did not expect was a request to meet him for a drink promptly at 1:00 p.m. at O’Donnell’s, a well-known sea food restaurant on E Street.
The man who stood up from a back table and greeted me when I got there may have been my senior by decade or so, he had a thick thatch of brown hair with only traces of gray at the temples; he gave me a firm handshake and said, “Colonel Maddox, any man who was at the Chosin Reservoir has already earned my respect.” He clearly knew who I was, my first impression of Vance Harlow was that he wore a dark suite the same way I wore my uniform.
I declined his offer to buy me a drink once we’d sat down, saying I was on duty, instead ordering a cup of coffee while he had a whiskey sour. I got right to the point, saying I was told he had information valuable to my work.
“First off, Colonel” was Vance Harlow’s reply, “you must be asking yourself who I am and why I’m someone Bobby Kennedy himself would vouch for. For starters, I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana the year we declared war on the Kaiser, I joined the FBI a year before the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor; worked for Mr. Hoover for fifteen years, including three of them as the agent in charge of the Miami field office. I received four commendations for bravery during my years with the FBI, including one for the time a bullet barely missed my right lung after kicking down a bank robber’s door; I didn’t miss the space between his eyes. Upon leaving that position, I worked as an investigator for the McClellan Committee, specifically during their inquiry into the Teamsters Union and the activities of its President, Mr. James Hoffa. I believe you have heard of him?”
I answered with a yes, everyone had heard of the notorious Jimmy Hoffa, but if Harlow had worked for the McClellan Committee, then he was acquainted with the President and his brother.
“My work there led to three racketeering convictions, along with a dozen perjury charges. After that stint, I went into business for myself, becoming a private investigator; over the years, my clients have included the Ford Motor Company, MGM, Warner Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank among others; the management of The Sands and Stardust casinos in Las Vegas dial my number regularly.”
He paused at this point, presumably to let his resume sink in and properly impress me; it did, although I hoped it did not show.
After gulping down the last of his drink, Harlow asked me where I was parked, and I told him my car was at a garage two blocks away. “Good, let’s go back there, what I’ve got to tell you will require privacy.” I drank down a half cup of black coffee and followed him out the door, passing a room full of tourists enjoying their shrimp and crab meat lunches.
“Why couldn’t we have just met in the garage in the first place if that’s how it was going to be?” It was the obvious question I asked as soon as we were outside.
“Daily routine: I have a glass of Canadian Club first thing in the morning and early afte
rnoon; my breakfast and lunch every day since I left the Bureau.”
He then made a point of asking me my favorite baseball team and we talked about the Dodgers chances in the upcoming season all the way back to the garage; it was an obvious attempt to divert the conversation until we were in a place private enough to satisfy Harlow. I was glad to comply; can’t say I wasn’t more than a little intrigued by this whole situation with its 007 overtones.
“I left out the names of some of my better clients,” Harlow said as soon as he was settled into the passenger seat of my Impala, “for reasons which are understandable, because you do not blurt them out where any Tom, Dick, and Liz might hear you talking about who cut you a paycheck and what you did to earn it.
Sometimes Uncle Sam needs people who are not on the government payroll to handle matters most delicate or dirty; to go through doors a good Company man or G-Man could never knock on in the first place. To sit down with some people who are not model citizens, but whose interests and those of the government coincide and convince them to work for the mutual benefit of all. It’s called recruiting ‘assets.’ Do you understand what I’m saying, Colonel Maddox? Because if you are uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation, I will thank you for your time and go my own way, but if I leave now, you will be passing on a chance to have a direct pipeline to the General in command of all Soviet armed forces on the island of Cuba; I think that might come in handy when you consider what’s in store come April Fool’s Day.”
I grasped that he did free-lance work for the CIA and the Bureau, but his knowing about the planned coup shocked me, it was the ultimate confidential secret of the United States Government.
“I didn’t come here to waste my time, Mr. Harlow.”
And that was how I learned the American government and the Mafia had made common cause in the war to rid us of Fidel Castro. There has been a lot of speculation and outright lies over the years of how deep the involvement between organized crime and Feds went, so here is what I learned from Vance Harlow on
a cold February afternoon in 1964: he had been retained by the Central Intelligence Agency in the summer of 1960 to make contact with Johnny Rosselli, a known member of the Mafia who operated in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, through this Rosselli character a sit down meeting was arranged in Miami with Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, and Santos Trafficante Jr., the bosses of New Orleans, the Chicago Outfit, and South Florida respectively.
“I actually did most of my talking through Trafficante’s lawyer, Frank Ragano; those crafty sons of bitches were damn careful not to say anything which might incriminate them. You don‘t rise to the top in their business by being stupid or careless. It was mostly the lawyer and me doing the talking while those two bastard’s contribution to the conversation simply consisted of a lot of nodding and shrugging.”
A deal was struck at that meeting in the summer of 1960 whereby the good gentlemen of the La Cosa Nostra would aid the Agency in killing Castro and in return they would get back all their lucrative casinos and hotels in Havana confiscated by the Revolution. Thus a trio of Mafia bosses became “assets” of the American government.
The high cards the Mafia Kingpins were holding were a small army of loyal associates still on the island, former croupiers, front desk men, bouncers and cooks, even prostitutes, all eager to get rid of Castro and go back to their old well-paying jobs for the Mob. They proved quite helpful to Operation Mongoose in aiding everything from gunrunning to assassination squads.
“A year ago,” Harlow said, “two Cuban patrol boats were sunk in Havana harbor, that wouldn’t have happened if the amigo refueling the boats didn’t use to chauffeur arriving VIP’s from the airport to the Tropicana in a shiny black limo before the Communists took over and put him out of work.”
I asked an obvious question. “Why the hell can’t the combined forces of the CIA and the Mafia kill one man?”
“Because those Goddamn Cubans can’t keep their mouths shut,” Harlow answered. “The whole exile community is riddled with Castro’s spies; he knew the Bay of Pigs was coming on account of his double agents inside the exile camps in Nicaragua and Costa Rica told him. Cuban Intelligence has got scores of spies on the streets of Miami right now, listening for anything of interest. You better be careful who you tell about what’s going down come April 1st.”
I took that opportunity to ask Harlow how he knew about C-Day.
“I was told by the same man who told you,” was his reply.
Then Harlow elaborated on something he’s said earlier. “The commander of all Soviet forces on the island is General Alexander Andreyev, a tough son of a bitch who was with the Red Army when it captured Berlin in 1945. He arrived in Havana on New Year’s Day and has been making his headquarters at the Capri Hotel, an establishment whose former owner was an American company whose chief stockholders were Marcello, Trafficante and Giancana. The cooks and maids who used to jump at the beck and call for Trafficante’s manager now do so for General Andreyev and his staff. They’re quite loyal to their old well-paying employers. So imagine this, Colonel Maddox, imagine what would happen if, on the night of the coup, a personal message from the American government could be hand delivered right to General Andreyev? That might save a lot of lives, American and Soviet, and not just in Cuba either. Secure communication with the enemy in the field; that is what I am putting on the table Colonel.”
This was a lot to take in, to say the least. “It’s certainly something to consider.”
“You don’t have to make up your mind right today, but I know things have got to be finalized soon because you got to get a lot of ducks in a row, so to speak, if you want Castro’s head on a platter come April 1st.” He then gave me a number, saying I should call him when I decided his help was needed. “Just tell them you want to talk to our mutual friend in Miami; they’ll contact me within an hour and I’ll call you back, we’ll take it from there.”
Harlow offered me his hand, and I shook it, but not before a last question. “Why? You were a G-Man, why would men like Trafficante and Marcello trust you?”
“They don’t, but I have a reputation for loyalty to whoever is paying me and keeping my mouth shut. I do a job, and unlike you, Colonel, I am no longer bound by any oath. In these situations, that matters.” And then he opened the passenger door and was gone.
Was I shocked at the revelation that my government and organized criminals were working together to overthrow and murder the leader of a foreign nation, even if said leader was a Communist dictator? Would anybody have been shocked if it came out that Al Capone had helped FDR and Churchill try to knock off Hitler during WWII?
That Harlow apparently had the trust of the Attorney General said a lot; I was a Colonel working out of an office in the basement of the White House. Who was I to question anybody?
It took us until late Sunday night to get it finished, but the plan was ready when I stepped into Oval Office on Monday morning. It was designated Operations Plan 365, and the papers I handed to the President across his desk was the first typed up copy. It was just the President and myself; a quite intimidating enough situation.
The President acknowledged my salute and immediately began perusing the report. After a few minutes, President Kennedy stood up stiffly and then proceeded to give me a point by point analysis of Op Plan 365, which called for a six week very public buildup of military forces in Florida and the Caribbean in clear preparation for an invasion of the island of Cuba; something that would not happen because Castro would be overthrown before it became necessary.
“You’ve got a problem right here,” the President began, “with the number of units from the 101st and 82nd Airborne you intend to mobilize. By my count it only comes to 75,000 men, and there is no way anyone would believe we’re preparing to mount a credible invasion with those numbers. We could only do it with a bare minimum of a hundred thousand, and honestly I wouldn’t sign the orders if it didn’t include at least a commitment of a force greater than 120,000. Cas
tro’s spies in Florida, and certainly the KGB man in Havana, can count, Colonel. They will know a bluff when they see one, and Goddamnit, America can’t appear to be bluffing. Revise it and add an armored division and as many Marine units as you think you‘ll need.”
I answered him with an affirmative.
“Same thing with the number of light bomber wings,” the President continued, “we’d have to take out their radar and anti-aircraft batteries before the B-52’s could roll in and hit the big targets, you’re a little short on the A-4’s needed to do the job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your projected deployments from the Atlantic Fleet are adequate, but we’re going to have a problem if Khrushchev decides to intervene at the last minute, and I wouldn’t put it past the old son of a bitch. We will be violating agreements made only a year and a half ago, he’ll be in a red hot fury when Castro goes down. Dobrynin was in this office two days ago and I got him to get that stone faced bastard Gromyko to fly over next week because we’ve got to make it look like we’re giving diplomacy a chance. They don’t know it’s just window dressing.”
“Yes sir, they will never know.”
The President frowned. “But here’s the one thing which might make me want to shit can this whole operation: there are already thousands of Soviet military personnel on the island and it is entirely possible that at some point after the coup, it will become necessary to introduce some American forces into the country. It could be some of Castro’s diehards prove to be a real problem and maybe they are a job for the Green Berets. That could lead to a direct confrontation with Soviet troops on the island; I don’t want to see any Russian blood spilled during this operation. Secretary Rusk, Ambassador Stevenson and General Taylor will give me valid warnings about what the Soviets will do in Europe and the risk of stretching our forces too thin. This is no small concern, Colonel Maddox, there are no missiles in Cuba this time, but there are nuclear weapons in some other bad neighborhoods where we don’t want a fight to break out.”
All the Way with JFK: An Alternate History of 1964 Page 5