The Spy Who Loved Castro

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 Havana in 1959, the day she met Marita Lorenz was Castro, with her father (beside Castro). Fidel 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 Lee Harvey Oswald 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 ANN LOUISE BARDACH 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: Cuba'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, Plausible Denial, 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 believing that "others were involved" France in the early 30s, she met and fell and for several years she traveled around in the killing of J.F.K., according to a in love with Heinrich Lorenz, a wealthy the Americas. On February 28, 1959, 1991 Gallup poll, Marita Lorenz has a German navy captain. Lorenz talked her the Berlin dropped anchor in Havana story the country wants to hear. Howev- into giving up her career and settling harbor. "I was standing on the bridge," er, while at least half of what she says is down with him in Bremen. The couple Lorenz remembers, "and in the distance readily documented by the accounts of had four children, the last being Marita, 1 could see this launch coming toward others and by F.B.I. memorandums, the who was born in August 1939. Two us. It was filled with around 27 men, all other half lacks any corroboration, and weeks later Germany invaded Poland, with the same beard. One was taller than at times even flies in the face of existing and Heinrich Lorenz became command- the others. He was standing on the bow, evidence. er of a fleet of U-boats. Alice Lorenz and he had a rifle. I said, 'Oh, shit, what In recent years, Lorenz has been liv- was not allowed to leave Germany. Ear- is this? We're being invaded.' " ing in a cramped studio apartment in ly in the war she rescued a French sol- Her father was taking his afternoon Queens, New York. Although once a dier and a British pilot, who recruited nap, so Marita took command. "I sleepy middle-class neighborhood, Jack- her into the French underground and screamed out to them in German. The son Heights has become the cocaine cap- British intelligence. In 1944 she was tall one yelled out, 'I want to come ital of the Northeast and the stomping thrown into the Bergen-Belsen concen- aboard.' I asked who he was, and he grounds of Colombian drug cartels. None tration camp, where she almost died. started laughing and flashing a lot of of this fazes Lorenz, who says she has Meanwhile, her husband's ship had been teeth. 'Yo say Cuba,' he said. 'Coman- long been used to dangerous Latins. In captured, and he was interned in an En- dante Fidel Castro.' " fact, she says, "it's the longest time I've glish P.O.W. camp. Five-year-old Ma- Only two months earlier, Castro had ever lived in one place." seized the island from Batista. remind- Nevertheless, one can't ed him, 'This is German soil.' Fidel said, help but notice a pistol and As her first assignment, 'Yes, but you are in my harbor.' " A a dagger on the dresser by good-looking man pushed forward and her front door, not to men- Marita accepted nothing less than introduced himself as Che Guevara. "I tion her two hyperactive want a German beer," he said. dogs. a pit-bull mix and a the assassination of Castro. Marita, who had never even been on a 15-year-old bichon fris6. date. says she was instantly mesmerized Also on prominent display by Castro. ''When Fidel talks to you," are a fishtank with one oc- she says, "he talks to you very close. cupant—an orange piranha—a pet rat rita was sent to the horrific children's He looks right in your eye. We had (caged), a guinea pig, a cat, and seven detention facility at Bergen-Belsen. drinks and sloppy joes. He immediately birds. The only homey touches are some Liberated by the Allies, the shattered made me feel nervous. I had to kill two books about spying and Cuban history, a Lorenz family moved to Bremerhaven, hours until my father woke up. I gave few family photos, and several portraits where Alice went to work for U.S. Army him a tour. Then I had to lose him, be- of Castro. intelligence and later the 0.S . S. , the fore- cause I wanted to be more pretty." Although fluent in three languages, runner of the C.I.A. Shortly after the fam- Marita raced down to her cabin to Lorenz speaks street English, but it is ily's reunion, seven-year-old Marita was primp, but she was soon interrupted by a the street talk of another time, like the raped by a deranged American soldier. knock on the door. It was the steward. speech in On the Wcuetfront. In fact, Many close to Lorenz say that her child- "He was making a face," she says, much of the time she dresses, walks, hood rape and the subsequent trial, in "and Fidel was standing behind him. He talks, drinks, and smokes like a long- which she testified against the soldier, set was smoking one of those humongous shoreman. At our first meeting, a noon- in motion a lifelong pattern of violence cigars. My heart's beating a mile a min- time lunch, she knocks back a glass and revenge in her relationships with men. ute. He just steps in and looks around of straight vodka minutes after she sits In 1950 the family moved to the and says, 'Do you have an ashtray?' " down. States and eventually settled in Manhat- The steward disappeared, and Fidel "I'm the mutt of my family," she tan. While Heinrich Lorenz was a cap- closed the door. "He stands in front of declares. Her mother was a second tain of luxury ocean liners, his wife slid me, and he takes both my hands, and he cousin of Henry Cabot Lodge, and her into the American intelligence commu- is kissing me. And he said, 'From one older brother Joachim Lorenz, a Ful- nity, working alternately, it appears, comandante to another.' He kept saying, bright scholar and former State Depart- with army intelligence and at the Penta- 'Don't you know who I am?' I said, ment diplomat. worked for Senator gon. "I was never sure who my mother 'No. Papa told me Batista is out and Howard Baker.

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