Dispatches

Marita with her THE SPY WHO son's pet snake at her Queens, New York, apartment LOVED CASTRO building. Top, aboard the Berlin in in 1959, the day she met was Castro, with her father (beside Castro). 's mistress before she became an informant for the C.I.A. Even more chilling were the hushed stories that she holds the key to unrav- and she claims to e explained, she said, "We eling the Kennedy assassination. She killed the President that day. herself calmly tells you she's been shot have borne him a son. You could have been a part of at. poisoned, firebombed, drugged, pis- it—you know, part of history. tol-whipped, and dumped into the Ama- You should have stayed." zon rain forest to die. If not an entirely She also says that —FROM THE TESTIMONY glamorous life, it has certainly been one OF MARITA LORENZ AT THE TRIAL OF with all peaks and no valleys. 30 years ago this month E. HOWARD HUNT v. LIBERTY LOBBY, 1985. Indeed, the woman I met looked ex- A Queens mother is shedding tears because hausted. At 54, Marita Lorenz is no she drove to Dallas with she can't wish her son happy birthday. The longer a femme fatale. Now quite broad son, who just turned 33, is Fidel Castro's love child. His name is Andre Vasquez. in the beam, she wears dark, sexless Her name is Marita Lorenz. clothes, usually black jeans. a turtle- —CINDY ADAMS. NEW YORK POST, neck, and a jeans jacket. Crowning this OCTOBER 23, 1992. bulky frame is a wide circle of a face, BY painted the palest of skin tones, and a suppose I had been expecting to meet raven-dyed 50s bouffant hairdo. Also an aging, elegant beauty, a Mata Hari in the 50s motif are her nails—short Schwarz, is being published by Thun- I of sorts, her hair pulled off her face and blunt but painted frosted pink, car- der's Mouth Press this month. into a sleek chignon. Marita Lorenz has rying a Parliament back and forth to Over the years, at least I I would-be been, after all, the lover of two legend- her mouth. The only softness is in her biographers have been defeated by the ary Latin-American strongmen: 's eyes—doleful brown saucers under pen- messy sprawl of Lorenz's story. In inter- Fidel Castro and the Venezuelan genera- ciled eyebrows. views spanning more than a month, she lissimo Marcos Perez Jimenez, each of While Lorenz has long been a patron agreed to tell it in its entirety, a saga that whom she claims fathered a child with saint of conspiracy buffs, she is hardly a has the episodic, roller-coaster feel of a her. Then there was the 25-year career household name. Recently, however, her Spanish-language soap opera, but that as an informer for the C.I.A. and F.B.I., testimony was the centerpiece of Mark also offers seemingly tidy resolutions to as well as the gunrunning, the black-bag Lane's best-selling book on the Kennedy many of the questions voiced about the jobs, at least three marriages, and an- assassination, , and her intelligence community throughout the 60s other child with a small-time gangster. life story, Marita, co-authored by Ted and 70s. With 76 percent of Americans 80 Portrait by JONATHAN BECKER VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 Dispatches France in the early 30s, she met and fell and for several years she traveled around believing that "others were involved" the Americas. On February 28, 1959, in the killing of J.F.K., according to a in love with Heinrich Lorenz, a wealthy German navy captain. Lorenz talked her the Berlin dropped anchor in Havana 1991 Gallup poll, Marita Lorenz has a harbor. "I was standing on the bridge," story the country wants to hear. Howev- into giving up her career and settling down with him in . The couple Lorenz remembers, "and in the distance er, while at least half of what she says is 1 could see this launch coming toward readily documented by the accounts of had four children, the last being Marita, who was born in August 1939. Two us. It was filled with around 27 men, all others and by F.B.I. memorandums, the with the same beard. One was taller than other half lacks any corroboration, and weeks later invaded Poland, and Heinrich Lorenz became command- the others. He was standing on the bow, at times even flies in the face of existing and he had a rifle. I said, 'Oh, shit, what evidence. er of a fleet of U-boats. Alice Lorenz was not allowed to leave Germany. Ear- is this? We're being invaded.' " In recent years, Lorenz has been liv- Her father was taking his afternoon ing in a cramped studio apartment in ly in the war she rescued a French sol- dier and a British pilot, who recruited nap, so Marita took command. "I Queens, New York. Although once a screamed out to them in German. The sleepy middle-class neighborhood, Jack- her into the French underground and British intelligence. In 1944 she was tall one yelled out, 'I want to come son Heights has become the cocaine cap- aboard.' I asked who he was, and he ital of the Northeast and the stomping thrown into the Bergen-Belsen concen- tration camp, where she almost died. started laughing and flashing a lot of grounds of Colombian drug cartels. None he said. 'Coman- Meanwhile, her husband's ship had been teeth. 'Yo say Cuba,' of this fazes Lorenz, who says she has dante Fidel Castro.' " long been used to dangerous Latins. In captured, and he was interned in an En- glish P.O.W. camp. Five-year-old Ma- Only two months earlier, Castro had fact, she says, "it's the longest time I've seized the island from Batista. remind- ever lived in one place." ed him, 'This is German soil.' Fidel said, Nevertheless, one can't As her first assignment, 'Yes, but you are in my harbor.' " A help but notice a pistol and good-looking man pushed forward and a dagger on the dresser by Marita accepted nothing less than introduced himself as . "I her front door, not to men- want a German beer," he said. tion her two hyperactive the assassination of Castro. Marita, who had never even been on a dogs. a pit-bull mix and a date. says she was instantly mesmerized 15-year-old bichon fris6. by Castro. ''When Fidel talks to you," Also on prominent display she says, "he talks to you very close. are a fishtank with one oc- rita was sent to the horrific children's He looks right in your eye. We had cupant—an orange piranha—a pet rat drinks and sloppy joes. He immediately (caged), a guinea pig, a cat, and seven detention facility at Bergen-Belsen. Liberated by the Allies, the shattered made me feel nervous. I had to kill two birds. The only homey touches are some hours until my father woke up. I gave books about spying and Cuban history, a Lorenz family moved to Bremerhaven, where Alice went to work for U.S. Army him a tour. Then I had to lose him, be- few family photos, and several portraits cause I wanted to be more pretty." of Castro. intelligence and later the 0.S . S. , the fore- runner of the C.I.A. Shortly after the fam- Marita raced down to her cabin to Although fluent in three languages, primp, but she was soon interrupted by a Lorenz speaks street English, but it is ily's reunion, seven-year-old Marita was raped by a deranged American soldier. knock on the door. It was the steward. the street talk of another time, like the "He was making a face," she says, speech in On the Wcuetfront. In fact, Many close to Lorenz say that her child- hood rape and the subsequent trial, in "and Fidel was standing behind him. He much of the time she dresses, walks, set was smoking one of those humongous talks, drinks, and smokes like a long- which she testified against the soldier, in motion a lifelong pattern of violence cigars. My heart's beating a mile a min- shoreman. At our first meeting, a noon- ute. He just steps in and looks around time lunch, she knocks back a glass and revenge in her relationships with men. In 1950 the family moved to the and says, 'Do you have an ashtray?' " of straight vodka minutes after she sits The steward disappeared, and Fidel down. States and eventually settled in Manhat- tan. While Heinrich Lorenz was a cap- closed the door. "He stands in front of "I'm the mutt of my family," she me, and he takes both my hands, and he declares. Her mother was a second tain of luxury ocean liners, his wife slid into the American intelligence commu- is kissing me. And he said, 'From one cousin of Henry Cabot Lodge, and her comandante to another.' He kept saying, older brother Joachim Lorenz, a Ful- nity, working alternately, it appears, with army intelligence and at the Penta- 'Don't you know who I am?' I said, bright scholar and former State Depart- 'No. Papa told me Batista is out and ment diplomat. worked for Senator gon. "I was never sure who my mother was working for," says Valerie Lorenz, somebody else is in. I guess you are Howard Baker. Her other brother, the that somebody.' Nothing hit me as late Philip Lorenz, was a concert pianist "except I knew she worked in intelli- gence with high security clearance. She hard as this ever—like a ton of bricks. and a protegd of Claudio Arrau, and her He didn't let me completely undress. He sister, Valerie, holds a Ph.D. and works didn't confide in me, but she was very close with Mama." Valerie stresses that was the sweetest, tenderest. I guess no- as a counselor in Maryland. body ever forgets their first lover." Espionage, however, was always a she couldn't be more different from her sister. "I was raising three children in They had dinner that night with Cap- part of the family business. Her mother at midnight the Berlin Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, while Marita tain Lorenz, and was a spy, and there is evidence that her headed back to New York. Days later, father did some double-agenting. Lo- was off to God knows where." Marita was in the family apartment on renz's mother, Alice Lofland, started With less than a ninth-grade educa- tion, Marita persuaded her parents to let West 87th Street. "I was in love and life as an actress and dancer on Broad- miserable. I was stirring this Jell-O, and way. En route to a movie location in her work on her father's cruise ships, VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 82 Dispatches the phone rings .. . and it's him." The Lorenz, he did odd jobs for the mobster Castro. "Fidel would lay a snake if it following day, she says, Castro sent his Meyer Lansky and the Batista crowd un- wriggled," says Sturgis, "and she was private plane to New York. til 1957, when he hitched his wagon to one of the snakes. I tried to get her to "My sister was 19 going on 12," says Castro's star. Sturgis quickly won favor poison Fidel, but she backed off because Valerie Lorenz, "when she met Castro. with the emerging new leader by putting she was in love with the son of a bitch." This was the big love of her life." Jo- his gunrunning talents at his disposal, Although Sturgis is apoplectic on the achim Lorenz recalls events differently, then joining Castro's troops in the Sierra subject of Media Lorenz, he concedes remembering a "lot of phone calls" Maestra Mountains for their final tri- that at the time "she could have had me from Havana, and he believes that Ma- umph. In return, Castro rewarded him taken out and shot in a minute. She rita hooked up with Castro later, having with the prized position of operating the didn't betray me. Not then." flown down with one of his friends. casinos, and promoted him to chief of From the airport she was escorted air-force intelligence. 'm watching Lorenz on television. to the Habana Libre hotel, formerly the Early on. it became clear that forging She's the subject of a segment of Habana Hilton, where Castro occupied a relationship with the U.S. was not IHard Copy, and she's talking about one whole floor. For the next seven going to be the anticipated cakewalk. the child she had with Castro. She's months, she lived there with him. "He Lorenz claims that Sturgis saw the crying. Crying, she says, because she wasn't a Communist then," she says. writing on the wall and knew it was never got to raise him. It is a heart- "He never mentioned the word 'Com- time to switch teams again. "He's al- breaking story, but under scrutiny, ac- munist.' That was later, and he always ways been a soldier of fortune," she cording to some observers, it unravels wore a Madonna-and-Child gold medal says, adding derisively, "or misfor- like a cheap sweater. around his neck. Always." While it is indisputable that Lorenz She met Castro's aide and had a long affair with Castro and became longtime companion, Celia "Fidel said, lid you come here pregnant, perhaps even twice, there is Sanchez, who died in 1980. no evidence that a child was born. What "She didn't resent me. She to lull me?' Just like that I said, evidence there is leads to several other was happier to have only one possible conclusions: (1) Lorenz's preg- girl than to have him flying `Yes. I wanted to see you." nancy ended in a late-term abortion. (2) around," she says. Marita She had a miscarriage followed by a lat- traveled through Cuba with er abortion. (3) She lost a baby, which Fidel, perfected her Spanish, led her to adopt a child. and suffered through his flings with tune." The same could be said of her, In early October 1959, she says, when other girlfriends. "Every day letters of course. As for Sturgis, he makes no she was seven and a half months preg- came in from women all over the bones about his various allegiances. "I nant, she was slipped a Mickey in a world," she says, "offering to do any- was a double agent," he thunders over glass of milk. Why this happened she thing to meet him." the phone when I reach him in . does not know, although one possibility In April 1959, Castro flew to the "I was recruited by the C.I.A. in is that the drug was intended for Castro. States, determined to meet President 1958, and stayed in Havana until June Castro has said that the most successful Eisenhower and reinforce Cuba's rela- 30, 1959." He and Lorenz met in the assassination attempt on his life was by a tionship with the American govern- lobby of the Riviera Hotel, where Stur- C.I.A.-hired cafeteria worker in the ho- ment. "It was an unofficial meeting," gis and Castro's brother Raul "were tel, who made his nightly chocolate milk says Lorenz, who accompanied him. looking over the slot machines." Lo- shake. "I realized I was going down," "Fidel invited himself, more or less. I renz says that Sturgis "shimmied by she says. "I just passed out." When she said, 'Fidel, wear a suit. They're not me and said in Spanish, 'I know who came to, she was in a doctor's office. gonna go for your uniform.' " The trip you are. I can help you.' His lips were "Somebody said, 'Everything is fine. was a disaster. Eisenhower refused to moving, but his eyes were dead. That's The baby is fine.' Then I was given an meet him, dispatching his vice presi- Frank." A week later, she had an- injection and taken back to the Habana dent, Richard Nixon. who had little pa- other encounter with Sturgis. Both Hilton." When she awoke, she found tience with the bearded Cuban. "Nixon of them were wearing their revolution- Camilo Cienfuegos. the commander of was quite rude with him," remembers ary uniforms, having been made hon- the Cuban army. packing her suitcase Lorenz. orary members by Castro in his 26th of and arranging her return to the States. During Castro's U.S. trip, Lorenz July Movement. "I was having coffee "CamiIo said the baby had to be taken says, she discovered she was pregnant, downstairs at the Habana Hilton," re- away because of Fidel's enemies," she news Castro greeted enthusiastically, tell- members Lorenz, "and he sat down says. "Fidel wasn't there for any of ing her, "Wonderful! A German-Cuban next to me. He wanted me to get him this. He was on the other side of the baby!" According to one account, the some of Fidel's papers. So again I tell island." State Department was referring to Lo- Fidel's people, 'Who is this guy?' However, in 1959, Lorenz told a dif- renz as "the First Lady of Cuba." They said, 'tin americana but he's a ferent story. Soon after her arrival in In May 1959, Lorenz met the man she sympathizer.' Maybe somebody talked New York, she was admitted to Roose- has cast primarily as the villain in her to him, because I didn't see him again. velt Hospital, where, according to re- life's melodrama. , former- I think he dived into the American Em- tired F.B.I. agent Frank O'Brien, "she ly Frank Fiorini of Norfolk, Virginia, bassy after that." was being treated for a botched abortion who would later make history as one of According to Sturgis, who denies that she had in Havana. She never said any- the Watergate burglars, spent the late he ever worked for the Mob, he recruit- thing about having a kid." O'Brien and 50s working in Havana. According to ed Lorenz while she was living with his partner, Frank Lundquist. were sent

84 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 Lapula. Ka Marna, blonde and 24, holding to interview Lorenz, as the F.B.I. had a Monica, at a hearing for her paternity keen interest in her activities. "She suit against former Venezuelan was very young," remembers Lund- president Marcos Perez Jimenez, quist. "Maybe she was 20, but she Miami, 1963. Bekw, Frank Sturgis in a looked more like 14. I knew one thing: New York court in 1977, charged with she was in over her head." harassment of Marita Lorenz_ According to an F.B.I. report. on De- cember 3, 1959, Lorenz told the agents that she had had a miscarriage after her return to Havana in the spring of 1959. "Miss Lorenz stated that she is not too clear on the details of this matter ... but she has been told rumors that she had been drugged, taken to a hospital and an abortion was performed. ... Miss Lo- renz stated that it was after this miscar- riage and the reaction of Fidel Castro, that she turned against him." A second pregnancy may have ended in an abortion on September 19, 1959, ac- cording to another F.B.I. re- port, which notes that Jestis Yanes Pelletier, Castro's mu- "Marcos was heavily connected. latto aide-de-camp, was re- sponsible for making the He was C.I.A.-connected. He was arrangements. Other F.B.I. reports document several vis- Mob-connected. I decided, O.K." its made by Yanes to see Lo- the moneyman," who handed out enve- renz in New York. One F.B.I. lopes of cash. It was not until Watergate, memo states that on January she says, that she learned Eduardo's real 16, 1960, Lorenz told agents that Yanes nal Spellman, and the Pope. In May 1960, name: E. Howard Hunt. "Hunt reported had warned her that "Fidel Castro was Alice Lorenz and Rorke wrote a maudlin, directly to Washington," she says. "He denying that he was in any way involved sensationalized version of Marita's story was very close with [C.I.A. director] in the pregnancy .. . and that Yanes Pel- entitled "Fidel Castro Raped My Teenage Allen Dulles. Sturgis bragged about him letier was the one responsible, and that Daughter" and sold it to Confidential and Hunt going to see Dulles." [the ] were willing to pay $500 to magazine. "My mother was a big factor On December 4, she made a quick $1,000 for medical expenses." in my decision," says Lorenz. "I was in "dry run" visit to Havana "to make Lorenz angrily dismisses these reports the spy business before I knew it." sure that Fidel would see me and that as "disinformation," even though they Marita infiltrated the New York chap- everything was cool." The visit is con- are based entirely on information she pro- ter of the , and firmed by F.B.I. reports, which note vided at the time. Even more mysterious was soon providing the F.B.I. with re- that her stated reason for returning was is the fact that she freely offered the re- ports on its members. Lorenz says she to "handle personal matters," which in- ports that contradict her baby story. became "a contract agent" for the cluded seeing a child she had adopted In New York. Lorenz's mother in- C.I.A., a claim which is impossible to after her miscarriage. troduced her to Alexander Rorke Jr., a confirm owing to the agency's policy A few weeks later, Lorenz says, she Jesuit turned adventurer with impecca- of secrecy regarding personnel. How- returned to carry out the assassination. ble blue-blood credentials: son of a ever, it is indisputable that she worked She was given two botulism-toxin pills prominent judge, graduate of St. John's with various anti-Castro groups that that looked like "white gelatin cap- University, and son-in-law of Sherman were supervised and funded by the sules" to drop in Castro's drink. Just Billingsley, the owner of the Stork Club. C.I.A. As her first assignment, she ac- one would do the trick—killing within A freelance photojournalist, Rorke had cepted nothing less than the assassina- 30 seconds, she was told. Whatever am- covered the . After a tion of Castro—an action which gives bivalence she felt about her mission was stint in a Cuban jail, he became a rabid further credence to her 1959 story that compounded when she said good-bye to anti-Castroite, eventually working for she had an abortion or a miscarriage, Alex Rorke as she boarded her plane. the C.I.A. "Alex was a 'Camelot.' He and that it was Castro's unsympathetic "Without moving his lips, he said very, was dapper, well-spoken, with a trust reaction to her misfortune that turned very softly, 'Don't do it.' " Rorke also fund," says Lorenz. "Alex would take a her against him. told her not to take the "guts pill" she me to church. He taught me how to In Miami, where she was trained for had been instructed to swallow before pray." her mission, she says she met the man in leaving. "It's some kind of shit the For weeks, she says, her mother, charge of the ultrasecret unit dubbed Op- C.I.A. gives you," says Lorenz, "that Rorke, and Sturgis hammered away at her a eration 40. Eduardo, as Sturgis intro- makes you feel very strong, courageous, on the evils of Castro and Communism. duced him, was tall and rather elegant. indifferent. Like speed. Her mother wrote Castro an outraged let- "He always wore white suits," Lorenz "I knew the minute I saw the outline 8 ter and sent copies to Eisenhower, Cardi- 8 says, "and was very quiet. Eduardo was of Havana I couldn't do it," she says. 86 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 Dispatches

"I hopped a jeep and went to the Hil- tion 40 went into full-tilt military train- Cuba. I think she tried to do training ton. Just simply walked in, said hi to ing for the . with [a leader of the the personnel at the desk, went upstairs Lorenz's group, the International Anti- anti-Castro movement). Giancana and to the suite. Room 2408. I went in and Communist Brigade, was stationed Roselli would never talk to her. She waited." in the Everglades. Assassination tech- never met them. / don't remember Even if she had had the will to go niques were central to the training. meeting them. She's a lying bitch and through with her mission, she had al- "Frank told us about slow-acting poi- a traitor. I mean, she shacked up with ready botched it, having stashed the cap- sons, fast-acting poisons, injections that Fidel—a Communist!" sules in a jar of cold cream. When she give you cancer and other diseases." Lorenz says she was also a courier for looked for them. "they were all gunked Lorenz says she often piloted boats load- her group. In March 1961, she was in- up. I fished them out and flushed them ed with munitions bound for various des- structed to pick up a $200,000 contribu- down the bidet." When Castro finally tinations—"sometimes Nicaragua, some- tion from a General Diaz at 4609 Pine appeared, he was wary. "Why did you times Guatemala," which was to be one Tree Drive in Miami Beach. "When he leave so suddenly?" was his first ques- of the jumping-off points for the Bay of gave me the money, he said, 'This is tion. she says. " 'Are you running around Pigs. "If we needed extra boats, we just for rice and beans.' I took it and gave it with those counterrevolutionaries in took them from people's backyards. It to Sturgis. I later found out that he was Miami?' I said yes. I tried to play it was an incredible high." One of her Marcos Perez Jimenez, the former dic- cool. The most nervous I have ever jobs, Lorenz says, was being a "decoy" tator of . He was settling been was in that room, because I had while her group stole arms caches from into political exile, playing the Peron agents on standby and I had to watch U.S. military bases. "I never under- game. He chased me around for six my timing. I had enough weeks." hours to stay with him. Perez Jimenez. whose famously brutal order a meal, kill him, "I think Alex knew they were regime had been backed by the U.S., had and prevent him from mak- finally been sent packing. Venezuelan au- ing a speech that night, going to kill Kennedy," Lorenz says, thorities pressed charges against him for which was already pre-an- the theft of $13.5 million. Lorenz claims nounced. "and they got rid of him." Perez Jimenez later boasted that he had "He was very tired and actually gotten away with more than $700 wanted to sleep.. . . He million. Though she describes him as "a was chewing a cigar, and short, fat, balding guy who bit his nails to he laid down on the bed and said, 'Did stood that," she says, "why we were the quick." she nevertheless succumbed you come here to kill me?' Just like that. stealing from our own." to his charms, which were no doubt con- I was standing at the edge of the bed. I Described by one source as "an abso- nected to his vast fortune. "He was heavily said, 'Yes. I wanted to see you.' And he lute stunner, ravishing and really wild," connected. He was C.I.A.-connected," said, 'That's good. That's good.' " Lorenz quickly won entree into Miami's she says. "He was Mob-connected. He Castro asked if she was working for high life, not to mention its low life. For was police-department-connected. . . I the C.I.A. "I said, 'Not really. I work a while she busied herself with a mil- decided, O.K." for myself.' Then he leaned over, pulled lionaire who allowed his company to be Perez Jimenez also provided her with out his .45, and handed it to me. I used by the C.I.A. as a gunrunning a breather from the Op 40 crowd, partic- flipped the chamber out and hit it back. front. He introduced her to his friend ularly after the debacle of the Bay of He didn't even flinch. And he said, Santo Trafficante Jr., the Mafia boss of Pigs invasion. All of her group, she 'You can't kill me. Nobody can kill Tampa, who had run casinos in pre-Cas- says, returned from the failed mission in me.' And he kind of smiled and chewed tro Havana. "The main thing to know a ballistic rage. blaming their military on his cigar. . . . I felt deflated. He about Marta," says New York theater flop on President Kennedy, who they was so sure of me. He just grabbed me. businessman Sheldon Abend, a longtime claimed had betrayed them by failing to We made love. I contemplated stay- family friend, "is that she was always provide air support. "Orlando Bosch ing—to try talking to him later, after pursuing men who were like her father, was totally fanatic, and Sturgis just hat- his speech, but it would be too late. these powerful, dictatorial types." "I ed Kennedy. 'Fucking Kennedy' this and because he rambles on for 8, 10, 12 met Johnny Roselli at the Fontaine- 'fucking Kennedy' that. He wanted the hours. That was the hardest part. I bleau," Lorenz says. "He was a nice, bastard dead. They hated him as much wanted him to beg me to stay, but he flashy guy who treated women nicer as they hated Fidel." Sturgis concedes got dressed and left. I just sat there by than the guys I worked with—because that there was plenty of anti-Kennedy myself awhile. I left him a note. I told he was Italian. He worked for Sam sentiment around, but denies that he him that I would be back." Giancana, and they worked with us, be- made any threats. After a 45-minute flight from the Jose cause the Mob guys hated Fidel because A month after becoming Perez Jime- Marti airport, Morita was back in Miami. of him closing the casinos." nez's mistress, Lorenz was pregnant. was terrified," she says, "knowing I Sturgis admits to -using Marisa to try For more than two years, she was the was going to get hell." Even before she to kill the bastard [Castro)," but he says Evita of Miami, blissfully cocooned by landed, Sturgis and company knew she she never worked for Operation 40 or Perez Jimenez's prodigious wealth and had blown it, because they had heard knew Howard Hunt. "She worked for power. It didn't matter that the hyper- Castro speaking on the radio. "One guy one of the anti-Castro groups," he says. promiscuous Perez Jimenez already had said, 'Now we've gotta go to war. Be- "There were about 200 of them. South numerous girlfriends and mistresses and cause of you!' " was the biggest C.I.A. station was married with children. What count- Beginning in February 1960, Opera- in the world at that time because of ed was his promise to provide for Lorenz

88 VAN Me FAIR /NOVEMBER 1993 insputrin

for the rest of her life. "I went to the confirms that the trusts were nullified former head of Castro's air force], Gerry apartment of [lawyer] Roy Cohn when I when Marita broke the general's ano- [Patrick Hemming, a longtime C.I.A. was eight and a half months pregnant. nymity in the suit, which Walters char- agent], who was the nicest of them all. He was a shifty little shit. He charged acterizes as "out-and-out extortion." and Frank, We picked up two cars with Marcos $20,000 to set up the trust funds Fearful, broke, and miserable, Lorenz tail fins—one was black and one was for me." says, she drifted back to her old pals. blue—and went over to Orlando Bosch's In March 1962, Lorenz's daughter, "I wanted protection," she says. "I house." According to Marita, waiting Monica, was born in New York while intended to shoot Walters, but Sturgis with Bosch were "the two Novo broth- Perez Jimenez was fighting his extradi- talked me out of it. I started running ers," Guillermo and Ignacio, militant tion in Miami. "He wanted a boy, but guns again, from Miami, New Orleans, anti-Castroites. Alex Rorke. however, he loved Monica," says Lorenz. She and the Keys to Guatemala, where anti- was no longer with the group. "In Sep- still blames Robert Kennedy, then U.S. Castroites were plotting another invasion tember, Alex had a serious falling-out attorney general, for wrecking her do- of Cuba." with Sturgis," says Lorenz. "He told me, mestic paradise by honoring Venezue- 'I'm sick of all this hating-Kennedy stuff. la's extradition demand. uring the summer of 1962, Lorenz They're up to something rotten.' " While Perez Jimenez was sitting in says, she met a new recruit at a train- The group piled into the two cars. "I the Dade County jail, Lorenz discovered D ing camp in the Everglades. "Oz- thought we were going to get guns," she that she was pregnant again. (She later mis- zie" was a quiet. thin man who seemed says. "but instead they brought guns." A carried under mysterious circumstances, neither particularly fit nor alert. "He third car, carrying, she says, a small ar- the victim of a hit-and-run driver in an was very quiet, like he wanted to be mory of weapons, followed them. "Stur- incident that Lorenz claims gis was in my car. So were Bosch, Pedro, was no accident.) At the be- and Gerry." In the second car was Os- hest of David Walters, Perez "Castro was the big, glamorous wald, she says, flanked by the Novo Jimenez's Miami attorney brothers. They drove straight through and deal-maker, Lorenz says, hunk at that time. My mother was the night to Dallas. "stopping only to she filed a paternity suit pee and get coffee." against Perez Jimenez. "Wal- a dictator groupie." They settled into two adjoining rooms ters told me, 'We need an in a motel, according to Lorenz. "I angle for a stay of extradi- thought we were going to hit an ar- tion. We are going to have mory," she says. "Like we're here to to use you.' I loved Marcos. I thought it part of—but he wasn't part of—the do an operation. I thought they were go- was just a legal maneuver, so I said, 'Go gang. He wasn't a talker. He was a ing to use me as a decoy. That's what 1 ahead.' " chimer-inner. I only saw him once was told. Sturgis brings in a bag with A month later, on August 16, 1963, or twice. He looked like pneumonia disguises and another bag with automat- Perez Jimenez was sent back to Venezu- warmed over, like he couldn't carry a ic weapons and starts clipping them to- ela, where he did live years of very rifle. I asked Frank, 'What's he going gether. It seemed different this time cushy jail time. Upon his release, he and to do?' And he said, 'Never mind. because of the instructions Frank gave. his fortune were graciously offered asy- He'll serve his purpose.' " Sturgis de- Nobody could make phone calls. No lum in by fellow tyrant Genera- nies working with Lee Harvey Oswald, broads. No booze. No contacts with the lissimo Francisco Franco. and says he never even met him. Curi- outside." Lorenz discovered that she had vio- ously, what appeared to be Sturgis's Soon after their arrival in Dallas. they lated a clause in the trust funds created name (Fiorini) was found in Oswald's had a visitor, whom Lorenz had never by Roy Cohn by breaking Perez Jime- phone book. met. "This guy comes into the room. nez's anonymity with the paternity suit. Lorenz says her group transported He's like a little Mob punk, a short, "When Walters told me about it later, arms to New Orleans. another hub of balding guy with a cocky hat, heavyset, he said. 'Too bad. Tough shit.' Every- anti-Castro activity. She vividly re- with a cleft on his chin." His name was thing started to vanish after that. I got members David Ferrie, who died days Jack Ruby, and he was a small-time death threats. I felt I was going to get before New Orleans district attorney mobster who had visited Cuba several killed." Even today, Lorenz is loath to Jim Garrison was going to arrest him times during Castro's early days. "He acknowledge Perez Jimenez's abandon- for conspiracy to murder Kennedy. She took two steps inside, saw me lounging, ment of her. Her villain of choice is Da- remembers driving down from New and said, 'Who's the fucking broad?' vid Walters. later the U.S. ambassador York with Rorke and Manuel Artime, And I said. 'Fuck you. punk.' " to the Vatican, who, as Perez Jimenez's who had been the C.I.A.'s great white Never willing to be a mere fly on the executor, she claims, acted independent- hope to succeed Castro. "Ferrie was a wall of history, Lorenz describes how ly of his client and seized her trust real weirdo," she says. "Real hyper. she exploded into a catfight with Ruby. funds. But Alex told me he was one of our "I was furious how he spoke to me. I Reached in Miami, Walters charges best pilots—very daring." had been sitting in a crowded car. I that Marita's paternity suit was instigat- On November 18, 1963, Lorenz says, had P.M.S. I said, 'Fuck this, Frank, ed solely by her. "The general has al- she got a job call from Frank Sturgis. I'm going home. Give me some plane ways denied that it was his child," says She dropped her daughter with her sitter fare.' " Sturgis, she says, tried to Walters. though he admits he paid child and drove over to the group's safe house, calm her down, then went outside with support to Marita on Perez Jimenez's be- "a small, shabby converted hotel" in Ruby. Through the window, Lorenz half for "some time." Walters adds, "I southwest Miami. The group, she says, watched the two talking quietly. "Frank drafted the trusts, not Roy Cohn." He included "Ozzie, Pedro Diaz Lanz [the and Ruby were (Continued on page 96)

90 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1943 Dispatches

(Continued from page 90) leaning the evidence that ultimately swayed the of them, like Marita, have been "in- against the trunk of the car," she says. jury was the testimony of Marita Lo- forming" for years, and have their own "And Sturgis came back in and says, renz, read by another woman (Lorenz enemies and agendas. Moreover, the 'O.K. All right. You can go.' " said she was too fearful to appear in per- quest to resolve the crime of the century Not long after Ruby left, Lorenz says, son), placing Hunt in Dallas at the time, has recently snowballed into a kind of E. Howard Hunt (who has denied having Gerry Patrick Hemming. reached at assassination mania, producing an amaz- been in Dallas) showed up at the motel. his home in Miami, doesn't deny know- ing spate of tell-all books in which the "I saw Hunt talking to Sturgis outside ing Lorenz, nor does he refute the story authors, ranging from C.I.A. agents to the motel, handing him an envelope." of the three cars driving to Dallas. He famous mobsters, claim that they killed Later, she claims, she saw Hunt speak- says that "other people" knew about J.F.K. or know who did. ing with Oswald in the adjoining room. the caravan, but he says he was not While most of Marita's claims concern- "The door was open between the two among the passengers. "I was invited ing Castro, Perez Jimenez, and anti-Cas- rooms. Oswald was sitting in the other to go .. . indirectly through Sturgis," he tro C.I.A. activity can be corroborated, room with the other guys. On the bed. says. "I declined, and advised a number the Dallas story cannot. In the first place, Just casually sitting there waiting for of others not to go." However, he adds, there is no documentation or testimony instructions. That was the last time almost as an aside, he and a cohort were from anyone other than her. Pressed for saw him." twice solicited in 1962 to participate in substantiation, Lorenz says she told her In the early hours of November 21, an assassination of the president. The story to F.B.I. agents O'Brien and Lund- according to Lorenz, Sturgis drove her first time, he says, was in New Orleans quist upon her arrival at her mother's. to the airport. After spending one night in April. "Guy Banister, who was work- The agents, she says, had their own bad in Miami, Lorenz decided news: Alex Rorke was dead, his plane to visit her mother in New having disappeared off the coast of Co- Jersey. Halfway there, the "My mother knew too much," zumel, Mexico. "I think Alex knew that co-pilot came out to talk they were going to kill Kennedy," she to the passengers. "He says Lorenz. "They gave her a shot. says, "and they got rid of him." How- said, 'Ladies and gentle- ever, neither agent has any recollection men, the president has Same as they gave Jack Ruby." of any discussions with Marita Lorenz been shot in Dallas.' Boom! concerning J.F.K. And I screamed out three More problematic is the fact that Lo- times, 'No! No! No!' I renz has spun variations on her story wanted to tell the pilot, 'Get this plane ing with the C.I.A. until the Bay of Pigs over the years. The first published ac- down. I got to talk to somebody.' " and was then freelancing, took us aside count, by Paul Meskil, which ran in the and suggested that a considerable sum of New York Daily News in September rank Sturgis contends that he was money could be had immediately if we 1977, reported that Lorenz claimed to home watching television in Miami. did a direct hit on both Castro and have gone to Dallas with Sturgis, Os- F He says that the day after the assassi- J.F.K.," says Hemming. In late 1962, wald, Bosch, Diaz Lanz. and "two Cu- nation he was interviewed by the F.B.I. he says. he was again propositioned by ban brothers whose names she does not "They said, `Frank, if there's anybody "government agents" during a visit to know." Meskil, now retired, says he capable of killing the president of the Dallas. Hemming also says that he met does not recall her mentioning either United States, you're the guy that can do Oswald on numerous occasions, first in Jack Ruby or Howard Hunt. "She claimed it.' " he bragged in a 1975 interview. Monterey Park, California, in January she had a picture of Oswald taken in the Calling Lorenz "a liar who's double- 1959, then in Miami in December 1962, Everglades," says Meskil, "but I don't crossed a lot of people," Sturgis adds, and later in New Orleans. think anyone has ever seen it." Sheldon "She keeps changing who the people Pedro Diaz Lanz satisfied investiga- Abend says he saw the photograph, were in the cars. It's ridiculous. I'm tors of the House Select Committee on which he says showed Marita and "Oz- not saying that everything that Marita Assassinations that he was addressing a zie" in South Florida. "I have my own says is a lie, but she'll do anything for "women's group" in Wichita, Kansas, reasons for not thinking the guy was Os- money." Sturgis denies that he ever on November 22, 1963. In the mid-70s, wald," says Abend, "but judging from met Jack Ruby, and says that he didn't Orlando Bosch told committee investi- the picture, he was a dead ringer for Os- meet Howard Hunt until the time of gator Gaeton Fonzi that he had had only wald. I think Marita was completely sin- Watergate. limited contact with Marita Lorenz, and cere. She believed it." Lorenz says she Initially, Hunt claimed that he was out described her as "an adventuress with a turned the photo over to the office of . shopping with his wife in Washington, psychopathic disease." Bosch contemp- Senator Howard Baker, for whom her D.C. Later he said he was at his C.I.A. tuously dismissed Lorenz's allegations, brother worked. office. In 1980, Hunt filed a $3.5 mil- adding that he had "never traveled west Although Lorenz remains the darling lion libel suit against Liberty Lobby, an of New Orleans in my life." Repeated of the conspiracy set, one former admir- eccentric right-wing D.C. think tank, for attempts to reach the Novo brothers er, A. J. Weberman, co-author of Coup running a story in its publication, The failed to gain a response. d'Etat in America. has become bitter- Spotlight, by ex—C.I.A. agent Victor ly disillusioned with her. Weberman Marchetti which contended that Hunt ursuing assassination theories is like says he is convinced that Hunt and was involved in the assassination of stepping into a hall of mirrors. The Sturgis were in Dallas, but he no long- J.F.K. Hunt lost the case on appeal in p trickiest part is that anyone who has er believes that Lorenz went along for 1985. That trial is the basis for Mark firsthand knowledge is likely to be less the ride. Weberman met Lorenz in Lane's Plausible Denial. Lane says that than an entirely credible witness. Most 1976. shortly after Howard Hunt had

96 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 msputuirs brought suit against him for libel. (The book Fatal Hour that Lorenz "did not John Stockwell, a renegade former suit was later dropped.) "1 needed an help her credibility by telling us that when C.I.A. agent who was one of Marita Lo- eyewitness account at the time," he she arrived in Dallas . . . they were con- renz's erstwhile biographers, says that says, "so I was not being as objective tacted at their motel by Jack Ruby." while he feuded with his subject over as I should." However, Weberman Gaeton Fonzi, a staff investigator for some of her stories, "her wildest tale, continues, she did provide some signif- the committee and the author of the up- the jungle saga. turned out to be true. icant information that he was able to coming The Last Investigation, inter- It's chock-full of convincing detail." corroborate from other sources. She viewed Lorenz extensively prior to her Lorenz spent most of the next decade did see Hunt and Sturgis together in the testimony. "Marita Lorenz has a lot of in Yorkville, Manhattan's German neigh- early 60s at the anti-Castro training credible information regarding anti-Cas- borhood, around the corner from her camps. She did see Oswald in the Ev- tro activities and other things, but I don't mother. She resumed working as an infor- erglades. and probably saw him at the believe her Dallas story." For one thing, mant for the F.B.I.'s political division camp at the No Name Key." But as to he says, "she did not initially name the and for the New York Police Depart- her Dallas story, he doesn't buy it. Novo brothers, who are wonderful can- ment's 23rd Precinct. Lorenz lived at 250 "Why would these guys take along a didates. She came up with them later." East 87th Street, a building which she 24-year-old girl," he asks, and why Nor does he trust her allegation that says housed many of the staff of the So- would they drive to Dallas when three enmity existed between her and Stur- viet Consulate, as well as those of other of them are top-notch pilots? At the gis. "They were working together in Eastern-bloc consulates. After spending risk of discrediting my own witness, I the mid-70s, after she testified against her days sifting through the building's have to state Marita Lorenz has never him," he says. Her story, he believes, garbage, the nights were hers. In 1966 told a story in her life with- she met another Latin-American strong- out embellishment.•' man, Nicaragua's future dictator, Anas- This observation is repeat- In the Cuban Mission in tasio Somoza. "Everyone thought that ed in an F.B.I. report dating Tachito and I had an affair," she says, from the early 80s: "Lo- New York, Marita wrote a note: "but we didn't. Just friends. We talked renz has provided informa- about fixing up Monica, when she got tion in the past, some of "I need help. They are going to kill older, with his son Luisito." which is reliable, howev- She tried twice more to visit Perez Ji- er, she does have a tenden- me and my children." menez, in Madrid, but both times she cy to exaggerate." left without having laid eyes on him; the On May 31, 1978, Lo- second time, she was summarily escort- renz testified under a grant ed back to the airport. of immunity to the House Select Com- is sophisticated disinformation, which In the mid-60s she married a moody mittee on Assassinations in closed, se- always has some verifiable elements. Cuban with whom she had had a torrid cret executive session. She says she told fling. She says that "it lasted two the committee "everything—the gun- ix months after Kennedy's assassina- weeks," and that she got an annul- running, the training, the Dallas thing— tion, Lorenz, hoping to be reunited ment. In 1969 she had another child, a naming names." She adds that she paid S with Perez Jimenez, flew to Venezu- son named Mark, the offspring of anoth- a "nightmare price" for her testimony, ela with two-year-old Monica. "1 went er ill-fated romance. She has claimed and claims that Sturgis and others had down to tell him that David Walters had that the father was "a dumb fucking launched a terror campaign—a claim taken my money, my trust funds, my Irish hump," a former New York City Sturgis denies—to prevent her from tes- apartment, my car, the island, the yacht— police chief. However, most observers, tifying. One old pal didn't even make it everything. They left me penniless." including her sister, believe that Mark's to the hearings. In 1975, a week before Upon her arrival in , she says, father was Eddie Levy, a small-time Sam Giancana was to testify before the she was thrown into jail, "in the cell gangster who served a sentence in Flori- Senate hearings on C.I.A.-Mafia plots next to Marcos's. I never saw him, but da for insurance fraud. In fact, Valerie and the J.F.K. assassination, he was we talked through the wall." testified at a paternity hearing that Levy murdered in his kitchen. Johnny Roselli, Following her release, she accepted the was Mark's father. "I was there the day who did manage to testify, ended up in offer of a sight-seeing tour from two Ven- Marita decided to change Mark's dad," an oil drum, carved into pieces. ezuelan intelligence agents. The small says John Stockwell. "She simply told According to Congressman Louis military plane landed, she says, "at an Mark it was better to have a father who Stokes, who chaired the committee hear- abandoned mining camp" in the rain for- was a cop than one who went to jail." ings, the committee concluded "that est on Venezuela's border with Brazil. Further complicating this dizzying there probably was a conspiracy, but we "The co-pilot ran back to the plane on the spiral of relationships, Marita was mar- could not designate who the actual co- pretext of getting my bag. Then they got ried briefly to a third man, Louis Yura- conspirators were, except we believed in and started the engine up. I saw my bag sits, the building superintendent at 250 there was a role played by some members flying out the plane and the door shut." East 87th Street, whom she also has on of the Mob and some anti-Castro Cubans. Lorenz makes the amazing claim that occasion identified as Mark's father. Those were the two main groups." It is a she lived with an Amazon-rain-forest conclusion that neatly dovetails with Ma- tribe for nine months. Valerie Lorenz onica Mercedes Perez Jimenez Lete- rita Lorenz's story. However, her story confirms that her sister was ''in Venezu- lier is a 31-year-old green-eyed stun- struck the committee as being riddled ela for a long time. She talked about the M ner with one of those killer bodies with coincidences. Robert Blakey, chief jungle for years afterwards, and how she created in a gym. "She's a dead ringer counsel of the committee, wrote in his tried to flag down planes." for her father, Perez," says Frank Stur- 100 VANITY FAIR /NOVEMBER 5993 Dispathes gis, and indeed the resemblance is hen Watergate broke, Marini Lo- men, Guinzburg says he saw no evi- striking. A bodybuilder who has posed renz instantly recognized most of dence of her being opportunistic. "Her for Playboy, she was recently a finalist W Sturgis's fellow plumbers as "the impulses were very generous." he says, in the Miss Fitness U.S.A. contest in usual suspects" from the Op 40 gang. "but she was a total sucker, and could Las Vegas. She is also the mother of a There were Eugenio Martinez and Ber- be taken in by anyone." Robert Yaffee, two-year-old boy, the child of her mar- nard Barker, Sturgis's close friend, who a computer consultant at New York Uni- riage to Francisco Letelier, an artist had been Howard Hunt's deputy during versity, who has known Lorenz since the and the son of the late Orlando Lete- the planning of the Bay of Pigs. She mid-70s, agrees only in part. "It's true lier, the former Chilean ambassador to guessed there would be plenty of singing she is a victim," he says. "But she's a the United States, who was assassinat- and plea bargaining. victim who victimizes others. There ed on Embassy Row in Washington, In 1975, after doing a 14-month jail are very few men in Marita's life that D.C., in 1976. The couple is no longer stint for Watergate, Frank Sturgis decid- she has not turned against, from Castro together. "I feel terrible,•' Marita Lo- ed to tell all about his life as a double to Sturgis to Stockwell. .. all her hus- renz says. "My old ops killed his fa- agent, including his and Marita Lorenz's bands—just about all of them." ther. Terrible." Indeed, the Novo attempts on Castro's life, in a series of brothers—who Lorenz alleges escorted stories by Paul Meskil in the Daily n 1977, Marita Lorenz claims, Frank Oswald to Dallas—and Virgilio Paz, News. "I never wanted anyone to know Sturgis showed up on her doorstep, ea- all anti-Castro activists, were indicted about my life with Castro," Lorenz pro- I ger to jump-start their old friendship. for the murder of Letelier. Paz and tests. "He did it. That bastard is my "She's always had this love-hate thing Guillermo Novo were found guilty, but downfall." It wasn't long, however, be- with Sturgis," Valerie Lorenz explains. through a series of appeals Marita admits to being awed by Stur- and technicalities, Novo was gis's bravado. "We were walking down eventually acquitted of the "Fidel is totally fluent in English. York Avenue," she says. "and Sturgis murder. was bragging about all his exploits. So I -My mother came from a He plays dumb when he wants to asked him, 'Did you kill Alex?' He said, concentration camp," Monica 'Alex took too many pictures.' Then he is explaining to me over lunch with American reporters." told me, 'We can kill anybody we want. in Beverly Hills, "so her de- Just blame it on national security.' He sire to be loved was very said columnist Dorothy Kilgallen 'got strong." Blithely comparing whacked' because of her intention to today's rock stars to the Latin gene- fore she was telling her own tales to publish a book which included informa- rales of the 50s and 60s, she says, Meskil, including a chaste rendering of tion from her exclusive prison interview "Castro was the big, glamorous hunk her life with Castro, who she claimed with Jack Ruby." With Sturgis spilling at that time. It was like being with Bon had kept her a prisoner until she was res- the beans so freely, Lorenz cranked up Jovi or Patrick Swayze. My mother cued by Sturgis. her nerve for the $64,000 question. "1 was a dictator groupie." To her mind, In 1976, Tom Guinzburg, then presi- asked him about Kennedy. He says, 'So Marita has always been singularly dent of the Viking Press, read the Meskil what if I fucking did it? Who's gonna apolitical, a woman guided by simple, stories and saw a blockbuster book in prove it? I have a fucking alibi. I was romantic impulses and a searing need Marita Lorenz's story. "We gave her home watching television.' And he to be protected. "She was a power and a co-writer a $320,000 advance," starts laughing: ha, ha, ha. And he says, junkie." Monica says matter-of-factly. he says, "which was a huge amount of 'You missed the big one, Marita.' " As for her mother's lifelong career of money in those days." The book, how- According to Lorenz, Sturgis suggest- spying and informing, Monica says ever, came to naught, because Viking ed that one way for her to dodge the with a shrug, "That was just her job had recently been sold to Penguin, and House hearings was to leave the coun- for money." the new owners decided to abandon the try. "He wanted me to infiltrate Fi- Monica has no memories of her fa- project. Nevertheless, Guinzburg says, del's military advisers in Angola," she ther, Marcos Perez Jimenez, nor has she he became quite close with Marita, and says, a charge Sturgis denies. "He seen a peseta of his multimillion-dollar still hears from her on occasion. "She warned me that if I testified I would be fortune. She also has only "the vaguest was very attractive, very convincing," killed." From the heated exchanges be- images" of her life as a two-year-old in he says. "We checked out all her stuff, tween Sturgis and her mother, 15-year- the Amazon. However, she suspects that and no one said she was not who she old Monica learned that Sturgis was Perez Jimenez masterminded their trip. said she was. When I met Marna, she planning to come by and "straighten "1 think it was my father who arranged was sifting through the garbage at the things out" on the afternoon of October that," she says between ladylike sips Bulgarian Consulate. Her gas, phone, 31, 1977. With a pistol borrowed from a of white wine. "My father is totally and electricity were always off, because friend's brother, Monica waited for him capable of having this woman and her she couldn't pay her bills. I think she outside her apartment building. Some- child killed. He's a dictator. Why not, spent her entire advance in around an one phoned the police, who talked Mon- man?" Aware that her mother blames hour and a half." ica into giving up the gun. Hours later, Perez Jimenez's lawyer, David Wal- Over time, Guinzburg noticed some- when Sturgis did appear at the apart- ters, for their jungle adventure—which thing "skewed and jumpy about her. ment, he was arrested and charged with Walters has denied any part in—she The level of paranoia was acute, and she aggravated harassment and coercion. says diplomatically, "This is where we was a grievance collector, for sure." Sturgis says that his arrest was "a differ. Sure, I'd like to believe that it While Lorenz's detractors have spoken setup," that he had flown to New York wasn't my father.. . '• about her predatory approach toward at Marita's request and that she had

102 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 even paid for his plane ticket. He sued Security Agency, Lorenz didn't dare C.I.A.?' I said, 'Fidel, be glad it was the city for false arrest, and actually speak. Instead, she wrote a long note. me and not somebody else, because you won a $2,500 settlement. He says fur- " 'I need help. There is no justice for would have been dead.' And I said, ther that he never told Lorenz to avoid me. They are going to kill me and my 'And I still love you.' I didn't know the hearings, that he never believed children.' I pleaded for help. I showed what else to say. And then I started to that Dorothy Kilgallen was murdered, them the photos of me and Fidel so they cry. I said, 'I want to see the boy. and that he had nothing to do with the knew who I was." That night, she says, I know he's alive.' " Castro agreed, disappearance of his friend Alexander two Cuban bodyguards stationed them- she claims, with one provision: that she Rorke. selves outside Monica's room in a New would never try to take the boy to the In December 1977, Alice Lorenz died York hospital and stayed there until her United States. from an "unknown paralysis." Valerie release. "Then Andre came in. I just looked, recalls her mother's accusations in the Emboldened, Lorenz returned to the and, my God, it's alive. It's real. My hospital. "She kept saying the C.I.A. mission, requesting a visa to visit Ha- God, it's mine. It's got my mouth, had done it," she says. "Something vana. "I'd write these notes," she says. my eyes. Oh, God, it's got Fidel's about an injection." Marita, who sat "They would read them, and then I'd nose. The first thing I noticed was his with her mother till she died, says, "She burn them with my cigarette lighter." In white, white skin and Fidel's curly knew too much. They gave her a shot. September 1981, she boarded a char- hair. And I started to cry. He speaks Same as they gave Jack Ruby." tered plane out of Miami and flew into English, too. He's a doctor—a pedia- "My grandmother had kept my moth- Havana. She was met by soldiers, who trician. I said, 'It's nice, Fidel. You er intact," says Monica. "After she escorted her in "a Czechoslovakian did a beautiful job.' " died, everything got very After an hour and a half, she says, bad. We went on welfare. father and son left. "I never knew when We had no money, no elec- "Then Andre came in. The first the hell he was going to walk in. I tricity or gas—once for six . couldn't believe it after all these years. weeks, - thing I noticed was his white, white So I take a shower real quick. The water Left in her mother's was lukewarm. The towels were shit— will, according to Marita, skin and Fidel's curly hair." Russian, like dish towels. I believed he were a letter imploring her would come back—more out of curios- daughter to get out of the ity." Five hours later, she says, Castro spy game and a photo- returned. "It was almost dawn. We graph of a boy named Andre, Marita's Cadillac to Fidel's house" —one of the made love." She howls with laughter. son with Fidel. According to Marita, the 15 homes Lorenz says he has, scattered "Can you believe that?" note said, "I did not tell you before about Havana. "This one was called In the- morning, Lorenz says, she had about the boy because you would have Casa Inmigracion. It's the one with the breakfast with her son—"if you want to been sidetracked." satellite dish. I was greeted by two bar- call it breakfast," she snorts. "It was budos [bearded ones, as Castro's sol- like Spam, dog food. And forget the cof- arita Lorenz is standing over her diers are known], who showed me to fee—no more Cuban coffee. It comes copying machine, duplicating old my room. Nice big room with a terrace from Nicaragua. It's like brown wa- M news clippings while expostulating around it... . I was nervous as hell." ter." From there, she was whisked to on how she almost paid with her life for She was also buzzing, having taken the airport. testifying at the House hearings. First, three Eskatrol pills—amphetamines- Valerie Lorenz, who drove her sister she says, were the phone and mail before she left Miami. "I'm going into to the Miami airport, says the first time threats, followed by a suspicious fire in hell," she had told her doctor. "I'll she ever heard about a son with Fidel her Yorkville apartment, a poisoning, a need it." was when she picked Marita up on her pistol-whipping, and a hit-and-run acci- "Finally, the boss, an old guy with a return. "She was in a state of shock," dent involving her son. In order to es- limp, who lost a leg at the Bay of Pigs, she says. "She went on and on about cape, she moved her family to a small came back," she says, "and said, 'Co- her kid. 'He's alive! He's alive!' She farmhouse in Darien, Connecticut, mandante will see you now.' And the was sort of hysterical. She talked which she bought with her book ad- door opens, and Fidel lets it slam against about meeting this old couple who had vance. Within six months, she says, the the wall. He always did that. It's so raised him." house was raked with automatic gunfire. crude." She sighs. "And the first thing However, Lorenz returned without a After Monica was hospitalized with an that struck me was that he's gray—his single photograph, letter, or memento of inexplicable illness, Lorenz was close to beard. And he's walking back and forth, her alleged son. And asked to produce a complete breakdown. Some observers looking at me. Then he said, 'Welcome either the photograph or the letter left by suggest, however, that any harassment back, my little assassin.' I said, 'That her mother, she balks, finding endless she suffered had more to do with her wasn't nice. You're still alive. You owe excuses. Most damning is her own ac- career of befriending, and then inform- me.' And it started like that." They ban- count in her unpublished Viking biogra- ing on, various lowlifes, who were fre- tered in Spanish and English. "He's to- phy, describing her stay in Roosevelt quently her lovers. tally fluent in English," she says. "He Hospital upon her return from Havana in Early in 1981, Lorenz marched into plays dumb when he wants to with 1959: "I saw the doctor look at the X the Cuban Mission on Lexington Ave- American reporters. rays and say, 'Jesus Christ, they left half nue in New York City. Knowing the " 'Well, did you come back to kill of the baby in there.' And I thought I building was under continuous surveil- me?' he asked. 'Did you run out of dic- would go crazy. Mother told me that lance by the F.B.I. and the National tators? Are you still working for the they had taken 22 bones out, including 106 VANITY FAIR/NOVEMBER 1993 uispainirs

the entire rib cage. . . . 1 cannot think of a 35-year sentence on a Florida chain know who the mothers are. Mirka is not about it without knowing how old the gang for drug trafficking. one of them,' " says Stockwell. "Their baby would be to the day." After Watergate, Sturgis was convict- attitude is that Marita was just some Still, there is the slim possibility that ed of transporting stolen cars to Mexico. whore . . . which is typical Cuban ma- she adopted a child, as she told the He got off with probation, though he cho." When Lorenz tried to return a F.B.I. in 1959. However, the most com- was not allowed to carry a weapon for a year later, she was detained at the airport pelling argument for the love-child story number of years. According to the New and sent home without any explanation. comes from the fact that the Cubans York Daily News, he was arrested again Stockwell, she claims, had made the Cu- have allowed Lorenz to visit Havana on in 1986, for "promising an undercover bans nervous about her again. two occasions, in 1981 and again in agent to get someone out of jail in ex- In 1990, on a two-week tour of Nic- 1988, as documented in her passport. change for watches worth $75,000." aragua with Monica. Marita Lorenz Why, one wonders, would the Cubans- (He was acquitted.) Sturgis still lives in met Isabel Letelier and finally realized i.e., Castro—grant a visa to an admitted Miami, where he works as a "security her dream of forging a match for her assassin unless there was a compelling specialist" and remains active in anti- daughter with a celebrated Latin. Fol- personal reason? Castro groups. In 1991 his house was lowing the birth of their son, Monica So desperate is Lorenz to prove her destroyed by Hurricane Andrew. and Francisco Letelier were married. claim of having had Castro's child that Master spy E. Howard Hunt, fol- After the couple's breakup this year, she offers me what looks like an F.B.I. lowing his release from prison for Monica moved into an apartment down- report in order to verify her story. his involvement in Watergate, lived in stairs from Marita. However, misspellings, uncharacteris- Mexico for a few years before re- tic language, and the orenz settled into her tiny studio lack of an F.B.I. file number betray the doc- apartment so that she could be near For more than two years, her son Mark, who lived next door ument as a fraud. I. until this summer. Mark, who attends Lorenz was the Evita of Miami, college at night and works at a pet hrough the early store, would just as soon not know 80s, Lorenz con- blissfully cocooned by Perez Jimenez's anything more about his mother's check- tinued to do odd T ered life. jobs for the F.B.I., prodigious wealth and power. most notably infiltrat- For the last 2 years. Marita has been ing the Marielitos, Cas- finishing up her autobiography, some 20 years in the works. She is clearly banking tro's boat people, and on her past to be the meal ticket for her working undercover in a stolen-car ring turning to Miami, where he continues operated out of Miami. By the late 80s, future. She seems depressed, and has few to write spy novels. relationships other than those with her however, she seems to have run out of Marita Lorenz says she still stays in children, a neighbor, and some "ops" steam. She joined a network of former touch with some of her old pals in Mi- spies and spooks, such as Philip Agee. from the old days. She is forever broke, ami, which she calls "the second Lang- never having figured out how to make a The group formed the Association of ley." She says that the Cuban-exile living outside the spook business. Shel- National Security Alumni—basically a community in Florida is even more vola- don Abend says he's been telling her for self-help group. "We call each other tile today than it was 20 years ago, that more than 25 years to focus on one thing now and then," says Lorenz, "and give Radio and Television Martf are C.I.A. each other a boost." only: getting her money from Marcos Pe- operations, and that much of the money rez Jimenez. "Marita has an uncontested, Meanwhile, nearly all of the old for the cause comes from drug traffick- gang who she alleges were in Dallas legitimate claim to one of the world's ing. , the self-pro- great fortunes," says Abend, "and she's for the assassination of J.F.K. have claimed leader of the exiles, she says, been behind bars for one thing or an- living on welfare because she never fol- –is a real scary guy who's waiting to lowed through with a lawyer to take care other. Orlando Bosch spent 4 years in seize the throne for himself. These guys the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illi- of it." However, her cycle of poverty have already bought and sold Cuba so may soon be behind her if all goes accord- nois, for firing a bazooka at a Polish many times you wouldn't believe." ship in Miami, followed by a 12-year ing to plan with the deal she signed with On her last real visit to Havana, in Oliver Stone for a purchase price of jail stint in Venezuela for allegedly 1988, she stayed 10 days. Her son, she "more than $200,000" for the film rights blowing up a Cuban airplane, which says, was in Nicaragua working as a to her story. Marita's casual weaving of killed 73 civilians. Upon his return to medic for victims of the contras. She fact, fiction, and fantasy seems to be no the States, Bosch was jailed for parole claims that she saw Fidel one night and violation and held for two years. Re- impediment to the filmmaker. Tom Guinz- that they made love—for the last time. burg says he still hears from her once or cently, according to The , "The last mercy hump," she says with a twice a year—always needy and in cri- he was seen outside the Republic Bank laugh. "That was it. It began with him sis. "I think she is really unsophisticated on West Flagler Street in Miami, sell- and ended with him." However. John when she gets beyond the basics," he ing limes. Both Novo brothers served Stockwell, who went to Havana a short time for their involvement in the Letelier says. "It's like ice floes keep breaking time later, says that he met with a Cuban off in her head. I don't know how many murder. In 1978, Guillermo was arrest- official who told him that Marita had Maritas there are, but there are a lot." ed in Miami for possession of illegal visited the island but that she had not Her daughter, Monica, muses, "I think weapons and cocaine. Today they live in seen Castro. "He said, 'Look, we know my mother thought she was going to Miami. Gerry Hemming served 81/2 years who all of Castro's children are, and we have this wonderful, glamorous life." D 108 VANITY FAIR /NOVEMBER 1993