Rolando Masferrer ("El Tigre") 1966
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"EL TIGRE" MEETS THE STRANGER by 'assassination Information Bureau "invasion" fell apart. to write it off until two U.S. Customs of- Plans to use Haiti as a jumping-off ficials pleaded with him to go back in, in- On the morning of October 31, 1975, point to invade Cuba were resurrected in timating that there was a much bigger Rolando Masferrer ("El Tigre") 1966. This particular scheme called for story: Mafia money and a promise of the switched on the ignition of his car and Cuban and Haitian exiles to seize Haiti gambling rights in Haiti if the invasion was blown to smithereens. Just a week from a base in the Dominican Republic. was successful. before his death, Masferrer had written Masferrer was employed to raise money This only resulted in further headaches in Libertad, the Spanish-language weekly and recruit members for the invasion for CBS. Subsequently, it found itself the he published in Miami, that Cuban exiles force. This venture had rather unique target of a Congressional investigation must be prepared to use dynamite to con- backing and the two men assured the and forced to pay $15,000 in an out-of- tinue their struggle. Masferrer's murder recruits of high chances for success court settlement to Julio Hormilla, who remains unsolved. Though some might because the money and prestige of the had lost an eye in an injury where, he see the hand of Castro in Masferrer's Columbia Broadcasting System was charged, medical help was delayed until death, it seems likely that Masferrer was behind them. the CBS cameraman could photograph a victim of internal disputes which are CBS had entered the picture in the the incident. rife in the Cuba exile-mob-intelligence spring of 1966 with an attempt to do a Jesus Gonzalez Carta and Masferrer circles in which Masferrer was a prime were student leaders at Havana Universi- mover. ty in the 1930s and they were alternately The political and military career of allies and enemies during the stormy Rolando Masferrer Rojas began during Cuban politics of the 1940s. Gonzalez the Spanish Civil War when he fought was arrested in Costa Rica in 1957 and with the Communists against Franco. told police he had been paid $200,000 to Later, in Cuba, Masferrer's politics kill President Figueres. lie escaped from swung to the far right. He was a power in jail, returned to Cuba and in 1959 was Cuban politics for more than twenty deported by Castro. As late as March years, and was especially close to Presi- 1968 he was sentenced to five years in dent Batista, in whose support, he once prison in New York for plotting to dis- boasted, he had killed 15,000 people. A tribute counterfeit currency in exchange private army called "Los Tigres" was for arms to use against Castro. his chief instrument of terror. Masferrer was forced to flee Havana the day before Castro's forces entered the city. With a price on his head, Masferrer settled in Florida. Then, in April 1959, soldier-of-fortune and "raconteur extraordinaire" in the Martin Luther EL- King shooting, Jack Youngblood, who documentary on smuggling guns into had been working for Castro for several Haiti. This developed into a documen- years, attempted to kidnap Masferrer tary on an attempt to invade Haiti, and return him to Cuba. Youngblood overthrow the Duvalier regime and use arranged for two Miami Springs Haiti as a base of operations against policemen to stage a phony arrest of Cuba. In the end, by which time CBS had Masferrer and then hand him over to invested upwards of $250,000, the inva- Youngblood and another pilot, The sion never took place, the leaders scheme was broken up at the last mo- (including Masferrer) were arrested and ment by Federal officers. eventually convictd, and the affair had Just before the Bay of Pigs invasion, all the earmarks of an elaborate con job. Masferrer was arrested on the direct Although it denied having financed the orders of Attorney General Robert entire operation in return for exclusive Kennedy, who was trying to stop the filming rights, CBS acknowledged that On May 29, 1976, the bullet-ridden growing influence of Batista partisans in some of the money found its way into the body of Gonzalez, 53, called "El the invasion force. On several occasions, hands of the invaders. (CBS also paid Extrano" (The Stranger). was found in a he took part in abortive invasions of handsome consulting fees to CIA field in South Dade County at the fringe Haiti by enemies of President "Papa munitions manufacturer Mitchell of the Everglades. He had been dead for Doc" Duvalier. One such fiasco occurred Werkea.) less than a day. Police reported no im- in the summer of 1963, when Masferrer One of the recruits, Julio Hormilla, mediate leads in the case. took about a hundred Cubans and swore in an affidavit that Masferrer and The deaths of Gonzalez and Masferrer Haitians to No Name Key, the Florida others were "only pretending to launch come at a time when Senate investigators base for CIA operations against Castro the invasion of Haiti and Cuba so that looking into the JFK assassination have which has figured prominently in the in- they could raise monies for their own found strong indications of an anti- vestigation of the assassination of John selfish use." CBS producer Jay Castroite connection in the president's F. Kennedy. The men were told that they McMillan had begun to feel that the murder. The names of Gonzalez and were going to raid the north coast of whole affair was a hoax, noting "that Masferrer can now be added to the Cuba, and when they found out that money had disappeared around witness list headed by Jimmy Haifa and Masferrer's real target was Haiti, the Masferrer before" and he was preparing Sam Giancana. October 1976 63 .