The Riddle of AM LASH

i„tuashingio"vo uT LO OK Columnists / Editorials SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1976 CI

By George Crib:, 111 vane, and he began to work closely with Mar- tinez and Alemen. A M LASH Is the cryptonym the CIA as- Was the CIA's Man la Havana a Double Agent? There were many nasty things we had to signed to the senor Cuban official It - do to bring on lbe revnlulion." Alemen re- had recruited In 191St In kill Fidel Castro. The woo the decision to Agency's dealings with AM LASH, which con- flects, The meat difficult kill Blames Rico. BSI tota'a chief of military in- tinued up to a dtSOSIIMIS end in 1085, encom- The Riddle of AM LASH telligence, The reveltitienary logic of that passed the longesistanclIng and, tin the sur- face, the mint likely in thereed of its numer- day called or sluicing sadistic officials he cause of the hatred they /rowel "Rice ous plots on Castra's life. II therefore seems a remarkable suspension of curiosity that the treated everyone like a gentleman, He wouldn't Even torture people," Alernan ex- Senate Intelligence Committee, in its invest', plains. So he had to be done away with. "Re- Ration of the CIA's Assassination activities, Nude 'Martinez] and I participated in the de- passed 50 lightly river this critical chapter. To begin with, any examination of AM rision to gel rid of him," and the mon whom LASITs history would suggest that he had fur they assigned to kill trim wino many years been far too Mose to 'Mandy to in October, 1956, Cubela shot Rico through he relied on In any sensitive niseration. And the head in the fachlonable Montmartre from this a larger question presents night club As he died. Rico caught Cubeta's Was AM LASH actually a conscious double eyes and, Cubela believed. smiled under- agent for Castro. or was he perhaps so trans- standingly at him. Cuba, escaped to Miami parent and ethottesselly exploitable that he where be moved into the 'Tradewinits Motet, unwIttingiy provided' an equivalent service? one of the properties {including also the Mi- And if on and If Castro had become con. ami Slgdiumi which Airman owned there vineed that the linked States would stop at A large number of revolutionaries had nothing to kilt him. could Castro have felt been forced to flee Cotta at that time and compelled to strike first! many ended up staying at Aleman's expense AM LASH has never been publicly named. at the Tredewinds. esthete was naw a hero But his history is well known among Cuban among these exiles, but he Walt tortured by exiles in MtamL lie was a Cuban doctor, a for- the memory of Rica's dying smile. Ile was mer vosnandante of the rebel army,a hero of Convinced that Rico was talking to him at the revottition: Rolando Cubete, an intimate night and he had a nervous breakdown_ Mar. of Castro. The CIA persuaded the Senate In- titles, who had also gone into exile, shared a telligente Committee net to identify Cubela, room with him and served as his confessor who is now in Jail in Cuba. It maintains that and analyst- After a few months Cybele ap- alerting the Cubans to his role In early CIA peared to have recovered and returned to Cuba to jobs Castre's second front In the Es- plots would expose him to reprisals. But this argument is specious. The Cuban eaten-Ay muuelains. Castro made him a corn- ,I gevermrsent is filled with men who know Cu- embed,. then the highest rank in the Army, bela and his history and who must have read and whets Ratio& fled Cuba on New Year's the Church Committee's report. It is difficult Day 11159, he swept into Havana several days to believe that Cuhela new has any forret' before Castro and led the force that seized from his captors. The only people who stand the Presidential Palace, to gain from continued secrecy are those all too eager conspirators at the C/A. For the The Plotting Begins imagine the confusion that ' relit of us this story is essential V we are to T IS HARD to begin to make sense of the events surround- Imilked the Drat year Of revolution/ire ing the sorrel but deadly struggle that was government. Nut all the revcautinnartes sup- • being fought in the autumn of like. ported Castro- Many, and particularly those ar Sohn conk rae Tel Iluttaatt not who had worked in Havana. mistrusted Fidel -E.e/ The Tortured Assassin deeply but not inure than he mistrusted rip O UNDERSTAND Cubela fully, it tenet- them, Cobol. had always been suspicious of Alentan was educated in the United States , essery at once to introduce a Cuban ex- bought up most of Key Biscayne, retained was helping to direct the meal active and Castro. But now he was alto of the towering ile In Miami, Jane Airman, whose assertions at Worcester Academy and then at the Uni- Sen. George Smothers an his lawyer and In- dangerous part of the revolution In Havana. figures uf the revolution, with an independ- are euffleiereily important nn make it WOrtil versity of Miami. During the 104th. his father vested as heavily in American politleans as He and four other young men — including ent following. Castro needed Fits support, and reviewing his record fur reliability. was perhaps the meat powerful man in Cedes in American real estate. Eugenia Rolando Martinez', the Watergate Cubela responded to his advances by accept. Nominally ['sinister of edueation, he was A leveler — Retried an onkel/mend cell that lag an infer to heroine heart of the politically heavily guarded headier and bass, whose lila son chose a (efferent path. A young, prevailed the arms for the aliiima smenssful pawed ul federation of 5111tiOt115 at thin Uni- Crile is Washington editor of Banner's most rewarding coup way in hark a truck up handsome idealist, he became, like Castro, A attack on die Presidential Palace in 1e57. Cu- versity. magoeine and is tenting o book on the CIA's to the Cuban treasury and make off with the revolutionary against the Batista regime, bele was then one of the leaders of the Stu- Cabers operations. Republic's Weeps reserves. In Miami, he While Castro was In the toreintalns. Ateinan dent revolt's innarles at the University of Ha. See AM LASH, Page C2

,.,...z....a...a.a.e.eeeee...... e... -- AM LASH, From Page CI. [ warning was the CIA s recent paramili- to Cubela. Aleman went into exile in frI tary activities in Cuba. After the Cuban le Cubela exalted in his new-found sta- Miami. He was to play no further role missile crisis of October, 1962, Kenne- tus as a triumphant revolutionary. Ile in Cubela's life. But Cuhela himself had dy, living up to the spirit as well as the erjea.a..; • drove about Havana in a gigantic tour- by then become a Manchurian candi- letter of his non-Invasion agreement ' • • ing car, drinking and womanizing. He date, at least vulnerable to the sugges- with Khrushchev, had suspended the was blissful in his dissipation until he tion of killing Castro, but also a colossal massive secret war the CIA had been killed a woman in a car accident, and security risk to whoever tried to tap his waging against Cuba. But then in Au- again began hearing Rico at night. As services, as he was being tapped by the gust, 1963, he suddenly reversed his before, he took to calling Aleman -CIA at the time of Kennedy's assassina- position and authorized 15 new com- . whenever he heard the voice. tion. mando raids; by the end of the month Aleman, now convinced that Castro the Agency had hit two major ind- was a Communist, had decided that Fi- Taking Risks ustrial targets. del had to be eliminated. He says that I .1 PERATION MONGOOSE, the se- But however infuriating such strikes he went with another revolutionary -`? cret war that the United States e'. might have been, they hardly . endan- friend to convince Cubela to take on waged against Cuba after the Bay of gered Cuban leaders. Could Castro the assignment. "He was very upset Pigs. was not a CIA initiative. It was the ' somehow have learned of the CIA's AM when we came to him," says Aleman. e product of the Kennedy's and soon re- "' LASH plotting? Cubela was not exactly "He said, 'I'ni a nervous wreck. I'm just k suited in the establishment In Miami of • ' a good security risk; even his case offi- getting better, and now you want me to • the largest CIA station in the world - cers were aware of their agent's insta- kill Castro. I don't see the Communists, with an estimated 400 American case 4a..eevtl le but if I recover, maybe I will — I won't bility. One described AM LASH's "mer- e(ea e officers and about 2,000 Cuban agents curial" temperament, telling how Cu- say yes, I won't say no."' Aleman was — charged with the sole task of de- • then paying fur a psychiatrist bela had proposed Castro's "execution," for Cube- stroying Castro. But by 1963 Mongoose only to become deeply disturbed when la, and he persuaded the analyst, who was a demonstrable failure. It was at the case officer used the word "assassi- shared his political views, to try to con- this point that AM LASH emerged as nation." "It was not the act that he oh- - vince Cubela that the only way to exor- the Agency's last hope to accomplish, cise Rico was by assassinating Castro. jected tO," the case officer wrote, "but with a single blow, the goal that had so merely the choice of words used to de- The man who accompanied Aleman stubbornly eluded them. scribe it. 'Eliminate' was acceptable." was Jose IPepin) Naranjo, an old revolu- Cubela's relationship with the To the frustrated CIA men running tionary colleague who shared Aleman's Agency had begun at his initiative in the Cuban secret war it must have mistrust of Castro. But not long after 1961 when he contacted both the CIA seemed an acceptable risk to put up the meeting Castro invited Naranjo to and the FBI. eepressing a desire to de- with Cubela's disturbed state of mind. join his government as minister of inte- fect. But Cubela was the rarest of assets It was certainly worth giving him the rior (director of all the nation's police — an agent in the very heart of the en- assurances he demanded as a precondi- forces). It was a move on Castro's part emy system — and the CIA did not tion to carrying out his plan. According to win support among the rival factions want him to leave. His case officer's as- to his case officer, he requested mili- of the revolution. Understandably, Ale- v. tary supplies, a device with which to man was alarmed; he expected to be ar- e7;;;T:MI3. protect himself if his plots against Cas- j rested. But nothing happened. It was a lattiaaa tro were discovered and a meeting with • time of Political paranoia and Aleman a.eiieealaignment was to ensure that AM LASH Attorney General Robert Kennedy. assumed that Naranjo had decided to "stay in place and report to us." The meeting was set for Oct. 29. Ken- : keep quiet so as not to arouse Castro's piety did not attend, but Desmond Fitz- ' suspicion. At the beginning of September, 1963, Cubela finally agreed to stay if he Gerald, a social friend Of the Kennedys When considering the possibility that "could do something really significant and the CIA man in charge of the Cu- the Cubans were aware of Cubela's for the creation of a new Cuba." He ban task force, did; he presented him- later CIA plotting, it is worth bearing •••( told his case officer he would like to self as Kennedy's personal representa- Naranjo's subsequent story in mind. By plan Castro's "execution." tive. Cubela was apparently satisfied 1960 he had risen meteorically to a posi- e„ It was very shortly after this, on Sept, with FitzGerald's credentials, for the tion of total trust with Fidel: it was he -•••,' 7. 1963, that Castro summoned an Asso- two arranged to meet in Paris again on who tasted Castro's food to make sure it ciated Press reporter, Daniel Harker, to Nov. 22, when FitzGerald was to give wasn't poisoned. Today he is constantly essue an extraordinary threat: "United him an assassination device and to fin- at Fidel's side. In a CBS documentary eiStates leaders should think that if they alize plans. narrated by Dan Rather last year, Nar- are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate At the meeting that day, FitzGerald anjowas seen taking Castro's gun and ,Cuban leaders, they themselves will not gave AM LASH a ballpoint pen rigged i4 be nearer° from hint when Fidel settled be safe." - with a hypodermic needle the point of back to relax. Somewhere along the "There can be no question," observed which was so fine that its victim would line he proved his loyalty and managed e•.' 'Raymond Rocca, the CIA's liaison off i- not notice the injection. According to a to maintain Castro's trust — a not in- ).* cer with the Warren Commission, "that later CIA inspector general's report, "It considerable feat given the fact that this represented a more than ordinary is likely that at the very moment Presi- Cubela was his number two man in the attempt by [Castro] to get a message on e. dent Kennedy was shot, a CIA officer Interior Ministry at the time of his re- record in the United States." Indeed, it was meeting with a Cuban agent. , . and- cruitment by the CIA. It is of some im- was unprecedented — even for Castro, giving him an assassination device for portance that Aleman told me about his who was in the habit of making all use against Castro.", meeting with Cubela and Naranjo a full kinds of accusations and threats in the "This fellow was nothing but a dou- six months before the Senate assassina- course of his seven and eight-hour-long ble agent," concluded Sen. Robert Mor- tion report made the first public refer- speeches. gan (D-N.C.), a member of the Intellig- ence to AM LASH. One possible explanation for the ence Committee who was briefed by William E. Colby, then CIA director, on In 1960, several months after talking the AM LASH plot but was told nothing of Cubela's earlier history. "When ing for and Colby said, 'Senator, that's always a problem.' I was struck by how naive these people at the CIA seemed to have been " But perhaps a more reasonable con- clusion, based on Cubela's instability, is that, even if he were. not a double agent, the Cubans were at least able to find out what be was conspiring to do. For one thing, the Cuban intelligence the DGI — and the Soviet KGB are close working partners, and it is un- likely that one or the other organiza- tion would have left so senior and pe- culiar an official as Cubela unsurveyed en his frequent trips abroad. Cubela's ultimate fate seems to support this theory. According to the CIA :inspector general's report, FitzGerald left the meeting "to discover that Presi- dent Kennedy had been assassinated. Because of this fact, plans with AM LASH changed and it was decided that we would have no part in the assassination of a government leader — including Castro — and would not aid AM LASH in this attempt." But the CIA did continue to plot with AM LASH for another year. Incredibly. the Agency apparently did not try to TIZILMd Pres' 1.e.e tnx LI 1 find out if there was something beyond coincidence in the simultaneous events Manuel Artime, a leader of the BayOf Pigs brigade and of CIA- in Paris and Dallas. A case officer con- backed guerrilla raids on Cuba, is still an active exile leader. tinued to meet with Cubela until a few Months later, when a decision was made to cease all direct contact be- Colby told us we'd been meeting with tween Cubela and American case offi- AM LASH In Geneva, Paris and Madrid, cers, choosing instead to work through it occurred to me, how could the guy exile agents as "cutouts." get out of a little country like this so "AM LASH was told and fully under- easily? Colby said he could do it be- stands that the United States Govern- cause 'he was a high official. I asked. ment cannot become involved to any Colby who be (Cubela] was really work- degree in the 'first step' of his plan," Cubela's case officer wrote after Ken- nedy's death. "FYI," be added, "this is where B-1 could fit in nicely in giving any support be would request" In the Senate Intelligence Conunit- tee's report, B-1 is simply described as the leader of an anti-Castro group. In real life he is Manuel Artime, the political chief of the CIA's Brigade 2306 at the Bay of Pigs and after that Kenne- dy's designated Cuban leader to organ- ize and direct the large CIA-sponsored commando operations run from bases in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. (Artime is also the godfather of Ho'eard Hunt's son and was actively Involved in Hunt's activities at the time of Watergate.) Up until 1965 Artime's Central Amer- ican efforts had little if any success. It had taken him months to get organized, partly because of the Agency's esoteric method of doing business. There were meetings in foreign countries, Swiss bank accounts, arms to be purchased through intermediaries in Luxembourg and through cover corporations. When the MRR {devolutionary Recovery the MRR (Revolutionary Recovery Movement) finally got under way in 1964, it was a well-trained and equipped force. Artime says that Robert Ken- nedy sent his congratulations via Ar- time's case officer after the first commando raid. But subsequent operations were not successful. Things always seemed to go wrong now that the exiles were left without American case officers to direct them. The Agency provided Ar- time with up-to-date. Intelligence, but the raiding parties inevitably would land in the wrong spot, run into bad weather or meet some other obstacle. Morale was low at the camps and there were rumors of smuggling activities and embezzlement of funds. As before, the Cubela plot offered a last hope for a touchdown pass when the .game seemed all but last. Planned Rcndevous RTIME openly acknowledges his .1."1. part in the final Cubela plot. His descriptions of the arrangements made with Cubela, which he related months before the Senate assassination investi- gation, coincide with all of the senators' findings. Ironically, neither Cuhela nor Artime knew that their initial contact had been secretly arranged by the CIA. An inspector general's report ex- plained that the Agency "contrived to put B-1 and AM LASH together in such a way that neither of them knew that the contact had been engineered by .-131 — Rolando Cubela — holds a friend's daughter in CIA. The thought was that B-1 needed a this Miami photo from pre-resolution days. With him, left, is Pepin Naranjo, who helped recruit him to kill Fidel Castro.

man inside and AM LASH wanted a silenced weapon, which CIA was unwill- ing to furnish to him directly. By put- ting the two together, D-1 might get its man inside Cuba and AM LASH might get his silenced weapon from B-1," Artime, who faithfully reported all of his plans to his case officer, provided Cubela with a silencer and some "srezll, highly concentrated explosives." The two men worked out elaborate arrangements for Cubela's role in the new Cu- ban government after the revolution and for the logistics of his escape. Ar- time was to land with his commandos as soon as Cubela struck. The assassination itself was to be carried out at Ver- adero Beach, where Castro was plan- ning to spend the Easter holidays at a house once owned by the DuPonts. Cu- bela stayed at a house close by; from there he planned to use the high pow- ered rifle. "I had the U-2 photo of the beach,- Artime remembers. "At that moment we had 300 boys [his commandos; and I put them all in the mother ships and in the communication ship with the two house and the plot was on." The call French journalist who left Washington PT boats ready for the attack. Cubela was to be relayed to the CIA communi- in mid-November to interview Castro. was supposed to call somebody in New cations bank in Miami and immediately Daniel, who was lunching with Castro York and say something like 'Look, the to Artline's commandos at sea, "But the at the moment of Kennedy's deattt, tobacco that they smoke now in Miami call never came." later portrayed the Cuban as being gen- is not good. The good tobacco is now in The circumstances surrounding the uinely shocked and bereaved by the Spain because it's the Cuban tobacco.' latter Cubela plot were suspicious from news. That would mean Fidel was in the the start. By the time the final arrange- But U.S. Cuban policy since the Bay . _ . . ments were made in 1965, they had he- of .Pigs had been boldly and consist- •come ludicrous. "I think Cubela's real ently duplicitous, and no man knew motive was a desire to continue his this better than Fidel Castro. One need playboy life," says .Artirne. "I met him only listen to his fury in October after a once in Rome, twice in Spain, and he hurricane had ravaged Cuba and the was always drinking and having a good CIA had followed with a major com- time. I gave him a' lot of money and he mando strike: "What does the United spent it like mad." Several of the exiles States do as we are mobilizing to recu- involved in the plot turned out to be ev- perate from the hurricane?" he asked ery bit as unreliable. They began to rhetorically. "They send saboteurs, boast about the plan; it became an open arms and pirate ships and explosives ... secret in Miami. These were not the ordinary counter- In June, 1965, the CIA finally termi- revolutionary bands . . . The import- nated all contact with AM LASH and ance is that it is an action carried out his associates. The explanation cited by by an organism of the United States the Church Committee report was "for government." reasons related to security." What ap- Later in the month Castro captured parently alerted the Agency to the two of the Agency's Cuban comman- questionable nature of the whole enter- dos, but he waited a full week before prise was a strong indication that the forcing them to go on television to con- Cuban exile agent it had used to put Ar- fess to their assignments. Coincidental- time and Cubela together was actually ly, this was two days after AM LASH's working for Castro. meeting with FitzGerald — the meet- It was,not until the beginning of 1966 ing at which AM LASH appears to have that the Cuban authorities got around become convinced that the Kennedys to arresting Cubela. He was charged were hacking his plot. The commandos with treason, including the attempted gave a surprisingly full account of their assassination of Fidel Castro. mission; they even gave the names of At his trial in 1966 no one condemned their case officers and the location of Cubela more harshly than Cubela him- their bases in Miami. Castro was infuri- self. He called for the maximum sent- ated by the glib U.S. denials of involve- ence for himself — to be shot against ment and by the refusal of the Ameri- the wall — and he seemed to confess to can press to report the attacks even everything. But he did not mention - when confronted with evidence they nor did the prosecutors ask him about could easily substantiate. "You can — his earlier CIA plots. There appeared see," he railed," that in this free press to be a studied attempt to avoid any they boast of, the press, the wire serv- public mention of Cubela's plotting be- ices, the CIA, everyone acts in unison, fore 1964. Finally, Castro himself inter- elaborating and developing the same vened on Cubela's behalf to ask for lie in order to disguise the truth." clemency. The would-he assassin was Perhaps the central question here is sentenced to 25 years in prison but is whether Castro knew of Cubela's plot- now reported to be at a state rehabilita- ting and thus knew that the CIA and tion farm. probably much higher authcirity was-", The Central Question still trying to kill him. To Sen. Morgan, . A LTHOUGH the events presented there is little doubt of this. He thinks here strongly suggest that Ken- Castro, after learning of Cubela's plot- nedy and Castro were locked in a fierce ting, first tried to deter the CIA with secret struggle until the end, there is his public warning and that he then re- another, often cited body of thought taliated when he learned of Cubela's which believes the two men were seek- subsequent meeting with FitzGerald - ing a mutual understanding. now believing the Kennedys them- For one thing, in the fall of 1963, Cas- selves were responsible. "Just exactly tro had intermediaries approach Amer- how it happened I don't know and I ica's deputy U.N. Ambassador William don't know if we'll ever know." but Attwood with an offer to open talks. "there is no doubt in my mind that Kennedy had authorized Attwood to John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassi- take Castro up on the offer and they nated by Fidel Castro or someone un- had agreed to a secret meeting in Cuba. der his influence in retaliation for our Kennedy had even sent an unofficial efforts to assassinate him." peace feeler through Jean Daniel, a C I070 George Crge 111

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