Live by the Sword

by Gus Russo

  His station knew, Shackley said, that there were missiles in Cuba long before the policymakers would accept that reality. He said Kennedy announced that fact only after receiving a U-2 aerial photograph of the missiles. An edge of cynicism in his tone, Shackley said if he had known what Kennedy meant by “hard intelligence” he would have gotten him a U-2 photograph much earlier.69

  Layton Martens claims that the CRC office in New Orleans, as early as 1961, began receiving reports of small missiles, on portable launchers, arriving in Cuba. Both the Soviets and American governments agree that the first ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missiles) shipments of what the Russians called Operation Anadyr arrived on the island in mid-July, 1962.70 Nonetheless, there are many who corroborate Martens’ claim that smaller tactical weapons appeared much earlier.

  Martens remembers the night Ferrie burst into Arcadia’s office screaming, “They’ve got missiles! They’ve got missiles!” It was the summer of 1961, and “they” were Castro’s Cubans. Arcadia’s Cuban underground had reported that at least 10 portable tactical weapons, which they believed to be nuclear, had been observed on the island and were deployed along the perimeter of Mariel Harbor, where they had arrived. Morris Brownlee, Ferrie’s godson, recalls, “Dave had early knowledge of the missiles in Cuba from his Cuban contacts. He had a map of the sites. I saw it. He sent this information to the Justice Department.”71

  Ronnie Caire, who worked with Arcadia and Ferrie, said in December 1961, “Cuba has missiles. And these missiles are twenty minutes away from New Orleans.”72 Joe Newbrough, a Ferrie friend and an investigator for Guy Banister, told the author, “I remember laying in bed, watching the crisis unfold on television [in October, 1962]. When Kennedy showed the U-2 reconnaissance photos of the missiles, I jumped out of bed and yelled to my wife, ‘These are the same photos I’ve had for months!’ I may have gotten it from Ferrie. He had a whole set of them.”73 According to Luis Rabel Nunes, Arcadia’s successor at the CRC, “We heard about the missiles much before the crisis.”74 David Atlee Phillips, the CIA’s Director of Covert Operations in Mexico City who oversaw Cuban operations, wrote in his autobiography, The Night Watch:

  The early fragmentary reports that Fidel Castro had agreed to Soviet missiles being installed secretly in Cuba began to arrive in Washington in late 1961. The very first, I believe, came across my desk before I left Washington for Mexico. . .[CIA Director] John McCone went to see President Kennedy in August of 1962 and told the President it was his belief that the Soviets were in the process of establishing missile bases in Cuba. He admitted that his estimate was not supported by hard intelligence. Nonetheless, he persisted.75

  Ed Dolan worked at CIA headquarters throughout the Kennedy administration, in charge of disseminating Cuban photo analyses. “There certainly were SA-2 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) in Cuba in early 1962,” Dolan recently stated.76 While these were clearly not nuclear weapons, they were nonetheless of strategic interest to U.S. policy planners. (Martens and others in the exile movement are adamant, however, that Cuba possessed tactical, or battlefield, portable nuclear weapons as early as 1961.)

  Members of Castro’s own government have also reported that small portable missiles were believed to be on the island in 1961. Rafael Nuñez, who served from 1960 to 1976 as one of Castro’s diplomatic attachés, told the author, “In 1961, we often heard that missiles on trucks were moving around the island. I agree with the exiles about that fact.”77

  Layton Martens remembers how the information was handled in New Orleans:

  We reported what we heard to [FBI agents] Regis Kennedy and Warren DeBrueys. They set us up with a direct link to the White House and Bobby Kennedy. I was given Geodetic survey maps of Cuba, and we were told to have the Cuban informants mark where the missiles were located, which we did. There were ten sites that I remember.

  The White House wanted us to continue to explore this information, and by all means keep it coming. We were getting something he was not getting from the CIA. So the President, through his brother Bobby Kennedy, asked us to communicate with the FBI. The two agents assigned to me were Warren DeBrueys and Ernest Wall.78

  All the fragmentary information of early missile reports leaves many nagging questions: Did the administration feel that the best way to confront the problem was to take Castro out quietly, avoiding a nuclear confrontation? Could the exile underground have observed not only non-nuclear surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), but portable nuclear weapons, as Layton Marten believes? If Kennedy did have early knowledge of the missiles, it could answer the questions posed by former CIA Cuba Project officers, who were perplexed by Kennedy’s obsession to “go after the little guy [Fidel].”

  As with President Kennedy’s Vietnam policy, it is possible that the President ignored this problem, hoping it would go away. Kennedy biographers have written that the President wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs, and his administration suffered because of it.79 Could this have been the case with the Cuban missiles? Some believe that Kennedy’s lack of action on the early missile reports led to the Soviets’ decision to up the ante with ICBM’s in 1962. This embarrassment, some contend, explains a cryptic memo from Nixon aide Charles Colson to chief-of-staff H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, concerning a statement by the CIA agent who acted as liaison with the exiles, E. Howard Hunt. Colson wrote: “[Hunt] told me a long time ago that if the truth were ever known, Kennedy would be destroyed.”80

  The questions surrounding the missile reports may never be adequately answered, but the important point is that Layton Martens’ allegations of a New Orleans Cuban exile pipeline to Washington certainly carry more credibility than might appear at first glance.81 The fact remains that, in addition to their support for the Bay of Pigs operation, the exiles and their intelligence network on the island would clearly be of interest to the Kennedy White House.

  The missile disclosure was but one phase of Martens’ volunteer summer in the offices of the Cuban Revolutionary Council. On the heels of the missile episode, Dave Ferrie would ask Martens to participate in an arms transfer. This was to be carried out, according to the CRC volunteers, with the approval of Robert Kennedy.

  The Houma Weapons Transfer

  According to the CIA’s own documents and its own admissions, one of the firms that co-operated with the CIA in its preparations to wage secret war against Castro’s recently-declared Marxist government was Schlumberger Wells Services Company. In fact, a 1967 CIA memo released in 1992 confirms that its Domestic Contact Service (DCS) “has discreet and continuing contact with the main Schlumberger office in Houston and branch offices in Minneapolis and elsewhere.”82

  Located in the little town of Houma, deep in the Mississippi River delta, and 50 miles southwest of New Orleans, Schlumberger served as a small arms depot for the CIA. It permitted a bunker it leased for storing blasting supplies to be used as a cache for ammunition, bomb casings and other military items, some of which were shipped abroad—presumably to CIA staging areas in Guatemala or areas elsewhere within striking distance of Cuba. The arms were shipped in crates bearing the markings “Schlumberger” and “machinery.” Other weapons were earmarked for rebels in the French West Indies, but were never shipped. Some of the weaponry was to have been used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The government’s fumbling of the invasion upset the firm, which subsequently decided to terminate its contract with the CIA.83

  According to Guy Banister’s attorney, Guy Johnson, Banister learned that some of the munitions remained at the Houma depot after the invasion. He thought that they should be put to use in the post Bay of Pigs anti-Castro effort. Ever the straight-laced FBI man, Banister wanted to finesse the issue legally.

  “Banister went to Washington, and saw a high official in the Justice Department,” says Johnson. “Presumably it was RFK.”84 At this time, FBI agent Regis Kennedy—who had no blood relationship to the Kennedys in Washington—made one of his regular appearances in Banister’s office.85 According to Banister associate Jack Martin,
“It was about this time that the ‘letters of marque’ and keys showed up.”

  A “Letter-Marque” is a legal device, generated by a high federal authority, that hasn’t been employed since the time of Thomas Jefferson. Its purpose is to give legal license to someone who is about to commit a quasi-legal action. More importantly, it prevents prosecution should the person be apprehended by local authorities. Jack Martin recalled some of the wording of the alleged letter: “You are hereby directed to seize munitions or arms, the property of a foreign government, that are illegally located within the United States, using any and all means to do so.”86

  The Letter-Marque was on Justice Department stationery, signed by Robert Kennedy. It was allegedly observed by Jack Martin, Gordon Novel (who says he was involved in the Houma transfer), Guy Johnson, and Banister friend Kent Courtney. Banister and the local anti-Castro activists were thus given the go-ahead to “liberate” the weaponry.

  When the weapons transfer was carried out that summer, it became clear that the CIA and the FBI were heavily involved. The transfer didn’t happen overnight; in fact, military supplies were confiscated over a period of three months. In preparation for the transfer, says Jack Martin, Guy Banister (his boss) telephoned M. E. Loy, manager of Schlumberger Well Services Company. The point of the call was to make sure that the FBI or CIA would supply keys to the bunker where the weapons were stored. On another, earlier trip, the work party came armed with a pair of wire cutters in place of the promised keys, which had not been delivered.

  “It was a CIA operation,” says Arcadia’s attorney, Frank Hernandez. “It was set up so that Schlumberger could report it [the weapons transfer] as a robbery, and be reimbursed by their insurance company. They went in at midnight and the material was waiting for them on a loading dock. We later verified that the CIA indeed reimbursed the insurance company.”87

  Layton Martens, participating in the transfer, remembers one of the trips to the bunker. For this excursion, keys to the depot were in hand and the munitions were delivered to the office of Guy Banister and Associates. “It seemed like there was a whole caravan there, led by Dave Ferrie,” says Martens. The young participant “didn’t know what the hell was going on,” except for having heard that the transfers were conducted by order of David Ferrie, who participated, and, by inference, under orders of Sergio Arcadia Smith.88

  Arcadia’s attorney, Frank Hernandez, has long believed that Arcadia participated personally in the weapons transfer, but Arcadia denies this. Martens supports Arcadia’s denial, saying, “I don’t remember Sergio there.” However, Arcadia did tell Ronnie Caire that on one occasion, Arcadia drove a truck-load of “plastic explosives” from Houma, Louisiana to New Orleans because no one else wanted to drive the truck.89 Arcadia’s good friend Carlos Quiroga also stated that he participated in the transfer with Banister, Ferrie, Arcadia, and a U.S. Marine named Andrew Blackmon.90 He put the explosives in a U-Haul trailer to be sent to Miami, Quiroga says, but it stayed in New Orleans for a long time.91

  One of the accomplices in the transfer—unwitting, he insists—was Luis Rabel Nunes, who replaced Sergio Arcadia Smith as New Orleans head of the CRC in 1962. Rabel supplied a laundry truck with which the weapons were transported—but he, like DeLaBarre, didn’t quite know what was up. “I had a laundry truck I used to loan out to help re-settle Cuban refugees—just for humanitarian reasons,” Rabel recalled recently. “The Catholic Church asked us to help out. We also helped the refugees find jobs. In that effort, we had the backing of both Mayors—Mayor Morrison and Mayor Schiro—Dr. Ochsner, and FBI agent Warren De Brueys. It wasn’t until years later that I learned they had sometimes used the truck to transfer weapons.”92 Rabel gave a bit more information in Congressional testimony: “As far as I knew, they took them [the crates of munitions] to Lake Ponchartrain.”93 It will be seen that Lake Ponchartrain played host to exile training camps which operated in concert with a White House-backed anti-Castro invasion force training in Central America.

  Guy Banister’s office was the destination of many of the Schlumberger munitions. In fact, Guy Banister and Associates (the Cuban exile “Grand Central Station”) often resembled a small freight depot for weaponry destined for use in the exile cause. Among the most enduring images of Banister’s office—at least according to those who had access to it—was of crates of munitions, including grenades, land mines, and firearms, as well as of Banister’s nonchalance about their presence there.

  Delphine Roberts, Banister’s research assistant, remembers a hidden panel in the ladies room where some of the armaments were stored.94 The weapons were of such prodigious quantity that they spilled out into the rest of the office. And this would continue in spite of the Kennedy administration’s promise, as part of the settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis, to stop the sabotage raids on Cuba launched from the United States. Mary Brengel, Banister’s secretary, would remember “rifles stacked all around his office up until the day of the assassination.” Brengel added:

  There were 10 or 12 of them around, and groups of four or five men at a time would come in and speak in hushed tones. And they would pick up the rifles and heft them and sight them. Even if I were at my desk, I’d hear the jingling and jangling and I’d know what they were doing.95

  A local newspaper, citing a reliable source, claimed that there were 50 to 100 crates of ammunition in Banister’s office at about this time, all labeled “Schlumberger.” The paper went on to say:

  Five or six boxes were open. Inside. . . were rifle grenades, land mines and some little missiles of a kind he [the source] had never seen before. The friend said he remonstrated with Banister because “fooling with this kind of stuff could get you in trouble.” He added: “Banister said no, it was alright, that he had approval from somebody. He said the stuff would just be there overnight, that somebody was supposed to pick it up. He said a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight.”96

  FBI documents would show that some of the material also ended up in Ferrie’s apartment, where it was observed by a number of his CAP cadets.97 It is not documented where all this material ended up, although most believe it was tunneled by the Banister organization to various Latin American anti-communists, with some of it going to the Cuban exiles.98

  By the end of 1962, the Cuban exiles were well-entrenched in New Orleans and seemingly encouraged by official Washington. New Orleans was the Cuban exiles’ epicenter for weapons, their training ground for military leaders, and a likely launch point for another invasion. To stir the mix of a national nightmare, all that was needed was for a motivated, unhinged, pro-Castro activist to arrive.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE KENNEDYS AND THE COMMUNISTS, 1963

  Immediately after learning definitively of the Soviet missile presence in Cuba, JFK snapped, “[Castro] can’t do that to me!”1

  But one month later, at a November 20, 1962 press conference, Kennedy pledged, “For our part, if all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and kept out of the hemisphere in the future. . . and if Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist purposes, there will be peace in the Caribbean.”

  With the missile crisis seemingly resolved through the president’s expansive pledges, the fortunes of the Cuban exiles waned dramatically. First, they had been stung by Kennedy’s “betrayal” at the Bay of Pigs. Then, Project Mongoose was dismantled. Now, President Kennedy was telling the world that Castro might remain in power in Cuba after all. Some exiles, like imprisoned Brigade Commander Pepe San Román, were beyond embitterment. “I hated the United States,” he said, “and I felt I had been betrayed. Every day it became worse. Then I was getting madder and madder and I wanted to get a rifle and come and fight against the U.S.”2

  Until the missile crisis, Kennedy’s “secret war” against Cuba—Operation Mongoose—had appeased the exiles’ wrath, convincing them that Kennedy had not slipped in his commitment. But in the autumn of 1962, the exiles assumed that the discovery of m
issiles in Cuba would increase U.S. resolve to demolish Castro. Instead, they witnessed a U.S. pledge to the Soviets to leave the island alone—a “no invasion” agreement, in effect. The exiles, most of whom were out of the Kennedy loop, were incensed. One prominent exile called Kennedy’s agreement with Soviet leader Khrushchev a violation of his famous pledge made three days after the Bay of Pigs to never abandon Cuba to communism. The exile leader wrote, “For the friendly Cuban people, allies of the United States, and for hundreds of thousands of exiles eager to stake their lives to liberate their native land, it was a soul-shattering blow.”3

  But John Kennedy’s foreign policy was both less, and more, than what appeared on the surface. In fact, his Cuban policies after the missile crisis might best be described “dualism in the extreme.” While the President had come to decide, no doubt as a result of the 1962 missile crisis, that it was time to be conciliatory towards the Soviet Union, he and his brother continued their relentless secret war against Castro. To make this delicate dichotomy successful, it became necessary to alter the style, though not the substance, of the Administration’s Cuba Project. The result? The U.S. cracked down on some exile activities, and encouraged others.

  By March 1963, the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service, and even the British police in the Bahamas were teaming up to arrest certain Cuban exiles.4 To most observers, it seemed that the Kennedys had abandoned the exile cause. But that was not the case. Bobby Kennedy was merely tightening the reins, streamlining the Cuba Project to include only his most trusted exile friends.

  Dan Kurzman, the Washington Post’s Latin-American expert, wrote an August 1963 story that stated in part:

  The United States is apparently trying to prevent independent exile organizations from engaging in parallel activities that might jeopardize its own. . . United States policy is to centralize the underground’s control under the CIA. This agency is reportedly recruiting particularly trusted and competent members of individual exile groups into its service.5