Page 1 JFK Characters As you start reading about the JFK John Abt assassination, you quickly realize that there are thousands of people involved John Abt was a lawyer for the Communist party. in one way or another. Keeping track of When LHO was arrested in Dallas, he asked for Abt who’s who gets to be a challenge. to represent him. LHO wasn’t a communist or That’s why I created this list of some of marxist, but he pretended to be as part of his CIA the major (and minor) players in the undercover assignment. Asking to have Abt as his complex story. It is designed to give lawyer was intended to be a signal to his you a quick idea of the most relevant intelligence handlers that his cover was still intact facts about each of the characters and that he was still playing along. He wanted his listed, and it is intended as a quick handlers to know that they could count on his reference tool. (However, just reading silence. down the list of characters is one way to get a lot of information about the events of November 22, 1963, in Juan Adames Dallas, Texas.) Juan Adames provided information to HSCA It is by no means complete, as that is (House Select Committee on Investigations) beyond my scope. But I do plan to keep investigator Gaeton Fonzi, working in Miami. adding characters as I learn more Adames told Fonzi about Bernardo Gonzales de about the death of JFK. Torres Alvarez (de Torres), who had been working for CIA since 1962. De Torres was also an FBI informant, and a player in the JFK murder conspiracy. Adames denied working for CIA, but admitted knowing LHO and other people involved in the conspiracy. He also admitted working with de Torres to forge documents for hit teams who met in Cuban hangouts throughout Florida. Adames also stated that de Torres had in his possession photographs taken during the JFK assassination. AEJUMP AEJUMP was a CIA program for finding and recruiting people (like recent Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and Ukrainian immigrants) who would be willing to be dropped into the Soviet Union as CIA commandos. (It was an unsuccessful program. All recruits died, some murdered. Some turned out to be double agents.) AESTORAGE AESTORAGE was the CIA cryptonym for its practice of concealing certain documents from anyone not involved in its clandestine operations. In other words, even other components of CIA itself Page 2 were not allowed access to those sensitive district attorney from New Orleans is going to be documents. The Rockefeller Commission asked able to do about it. He knew Garrison was CIA to clarify its list of cryptonyms, and CIA claimed passionate about this cause, and he figured that some of them were so old that they themselves Garrison would fire him on the spot. However, the no longer knew what they meant. Like virtually DA laughed at Alford’s outburst, and added: everything else CIA says, it was a lie. They didn’t There’s probably nothing a chicken shit District really expect anyone to believe them, but they Attorney is going to be able to do about it either. expected the Commission to understand that CIA didn’t care whether anyone believed them or not. CIA could do and say anything they wanted, and Alpha 66 there was nothing anybody could do about it. The JFK assassination had proven that. Alpha 66 was a violent paramilitary group formed by David Atlee Philips (CIA agent, aka Maurice Bishop), Antonio Veciana (CIA contractor, Cuban AID exile), and Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo (Castro opponent). Alpha 66 commandos led serious raids AID is the acronym for Agency for International against Cuba. Development, a CIA clone or proprietary. AMCARBON Adrian Alba AMCARBON was the CIA’s cryptonym for the Adrian Alba operated the Crescent City Garage in Agency’s “operational relationship” with editors and New Orleans, next door to Reily Coffee Company, reporters working for the Miami Herald. Specific where LHO and Judy Vary Baker worked during the individuals were identified with a numeric suffix, summer of 1963. such as AMCARBON-1 for Al Burt, Latin American editor at the Herald. That position was later occupied by AMCARBON-3, Donald Bohning. James Alcock The AM stood for Cuba, and the CARBON referred Jimmy Alcock was one of Jim Garrison’s assistants. to writer assets, who funneled information to The In Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, Garrison tried the Company. case against Clay Shaw in New Orleans. But in reality, it was James Alcock and Al Oser who tried the case. (Garrison had been widely perceived as Dean Andrews being motivated by a desire for publicity, and he Dean Andrews was a rotund attorney in New didn’t want to lend his support to that image.) Orleans. His clients were mostly small-time Garrison did present opening arguments, however. criminals and the mafia. He once applied for Alcock handled closing arguments, with a final employment with the FBI, but they turned him down closing statement by Garrison. because he was considered unstable and he talked After the Shaw trial, Alcock became Garrison’s too much. chief assistant. He received a call from Clay Bertrand the day after the JFK murder. Bertrand had instructed Andrews to go to Dallas and represent LHO. That was the William Alford subject of discussion during Andrews’ lunch with William Alford was one of Jim Garrison’s assistants. Jim Garrison in October, 1966. Andrews had One day Alford’s exhaustion got the better of him, already told the FBI, the Secret Service, and the and he said to his boss: Jim, if the CIA killed the Warren Commission about that call, and now president, there’s nothing a chicken shit assistant Garrison had another question about it. Page 3 When Andrews was supposed to leave New to anyone who challenged his right-wing world Orleans for Dallas on Sunday morning, he was too view. sick to make the trip, so he called Monk Zelden to He was also very skilled at collecting information go instead. Before Zelden could hit the road, using stealth, such as planting bugs. That ability however, LHO had been killed. Andrews told a TV endeared him to CIA Directors Allen Dulles (1953- station and the Secret Service that he had seen 1961) and Richard Helms (1966-1973). Angleton LHO on three occasions. He was interviewed by had been friends with both Dulles and Helms since the FBI six times, and by the Secret Service three his OSS days. He also garnered their favor by times. By then, the FBI was in full cover-up mode, ignoring the chain of command and presenting his however, so they told Andrews that he had made intelligence tidbits directly to the Director. Not up the whole Bertrand call thing, or that he had surprisingly, Angleton’s rise to the top echelons of imagined it, having been heavily sedated at the CIA was fast. time. Andrews said they could spin the story any way they wanted to. The FBI publicly claimed In 1954 he was appointed (by Dwight Eisenhower) Andrews had imagined the incident, even though to the position of chief of counterintelligence. That they were searching frantically for Clay Bertrand, was arguably the most important position in the and they had been doing so even before they heard entire intelligence world. Especially with Angleton at Andrews’ story. the helm, because both Dulles and Helms gave him almost unlimited autonomy and unsupervised By then Andrews was terrified, and his lunch with freedom to act as he saw fit. Garrison did nothing to allay his fears. Garrison demanded to know the true identity of Clay This is an example of how dangerous that situation Bertrand. (He already knew it was an alias used by was. In 1963 Angleton climbed a wall and broke well-known Clay Shaw, but he needed someone to into the French Embassy in Washington. It was, in verify that fact on the record.) Andrews refused, not part, an attempt to help identify moles, but it was budging even when Garrison threatened to haul also a response to JFK’s secret attempt to enlist him before a grand jury and charge him with the help of Charles de Gaulle in negotiating a perjury. That didn’t frighten Andrews. Getting a peace agreement with North Vietnam, which was bullet in his head was what frightened him, and he strongly opposed by Angleton and virtually all his told Garrison so. The DA was forced to try to right-wing associates. JFK was bypassing CIA, identify Clay Bertrand as Clay Shaw another way. which Kennedy had vowed to destroy after the Bay of Pigs. In a very real sense, the White House was Later, Garrison did in fact indict Andrews for at war with CIA, so The Agency was conducting perjury. Andrews was convicted and received a jail covert operations against the Kennedy sentence of eighteen months. He continued to lie administration as well as against foreign threats to about Clay Shaw under oath, and he was again the US. It was in this hostile environment that the indicted for perjury because of his false testimony conspiracy to murder JFK was developed and in the Shaw trial. He never publicly admitted that carried out. Clay Bertrand was Clay Shaw. James Angleton Jacobo Arbenz Guzman Jacobo Arbenz was the President of Guatemala James Angleton became a fervent anti-communist until he was overthrown by CIA in 1954. That during his college days. He worked for the OSS unauthorized CIA action demonstrated to then (Office of Strategic Services, which evolved into the President Eisenhower that The Agency was out of CIA) before launching his career as a spy known control and dangerous.