HOUSE CHAIRMAN NEDZI FORD'S COPY OF THE ROCKEFELLER REPORT SENATE CHAIRMAN CHURCH

CIA Leaving Murky Murders to the Senate

Jauntily holding the 350-page doc- went on, other stories appeared in the CIA. On Monday afternoon, four days ument. aloft_ for reporters to see, Vice press_ linking the CIA to assassination before the report was delivered, the com- President Nelson Rockefeller last week plots against Cuba's Fidel Castro, the mission voted unanimously not to in- prepared to deliver to the White House Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo clude any material on the foreign as- his commission's report on the alleged (killed May 30, 1961) and Viet Nam's sassinations. However, the White House improprieties and machinations of the Ngo Dinh Diem (shot to death Nov. 2, has agreed to hand over the commis- CIA. "We've done a good job, I think," 1963). In March Ford directed Rocke- sion's tentative research on the subject said Rockefeller. "There's been no stone feller to investigate such charges. to the Senate's special eleven-man com- unturned, there's no punches pulled." The Rockefeller Commission also mittee, chaired by Senator Frank Then the Vice President gave a brief looked into the recurring speculation Church, that is vigorously probing all synopsis of the report on the agency, that Castro had tried to gain revenge U.S. intelligence activities. which his eight-man panel had been for the CIA's attempts on his life by us- Misused Powers. As for the CIA's preparing for the past five months: ing Lee Harvey Oswald to kill John F. domestic transgressions, the commission "There are things that have been done Kennedy. Like the Warren Commis- reportedly absolved the agency of much that are in contradiction to the statutes, sion, the Rockefeller group concluded blame, noting that Presidents Lyndon but in comparison to the total [CIA] ef- that there was no credible indication of Johnson and Richard Nixon drove the fort, they are not major." any such conspiracy behind Kennedy's CIA to overstep its bounds. Johnson had That tantalizing glimpse of the ea- death and Oswald acted alone. an obsessive belief that foreign money gerly awaited report's contents was all The document delivered last week and influence must have been behind that was vouchsafed the public. Ac- by Rockefeller contained nothing about the students' revolt and the antiwar cepting the volume four days later, Pres- any assassinations of foreign leaders. In movement. Nixon also prodded the CIA ident Gerald Ford took the report home explanation, Rockefeller said that his to misuse its powers and spy on dissent- for what he called a "long weekend's commission did not have enough time ers. The commission called for tighter reading." Later, White House sources to look into the allegations thoroughly. controls on White House access to the indicated that Ford would probably Said the Vice President: "We didn't feel agency and tighter congressional over- make the report public this week. we could come to a conclusion on par- sight of its operations. Domestic Spying. Initially, Rocke- tial information." Just how poorly Congress has been feller and his panel were commissioned As explained by Presidential Coun- performing its task of monitoring the by Ford to look into allegations about sel Philip Buchen, the White House li- CIA came to light last week in an in- domestic spying—made principally by aison with the commission, the mem- cident involving Democratic Congress- New York Times Reporter Seymour bers found that the study of the man Lucien Nedzi, the chairman of one Hersh—that the CIA had conducted a assassinations "was almost a bottomless House committee that supposedly massive domestic intelligence operation subject. If they were to go into the watches over the CIA. The New York in the U.S. during the late '60s and ear- whole thing, it would have taken more Times reported that Nedzi had been ly '70s against antiwar activists and dis- time and resources than they had." The briefed more than a year ago by the sidents. If so, this was seemingly a vi- group could have asked for an exten- agency about its involvement in assas- olation of the agency's charter that sion and a larger staff, but the mem- sination plans and domestic espionage banned "internal security functions." bers clearly had no stomach for dig- and he had done nothing whatsoever But as Rockefeller's investigation ging deeper into those affairs of the about the matter. Particularly, Nedzi did

TIME, JUNE 16,1975 9 THE NATION not mention it when he was made chair- report, Church accused it of ducking the he will call the Mafia's John Roselli, who man of the special committee created assassination issue. As to the Vice Pres- reportedly was signed up by the CIA to by the House in February to investigate ident's claim that the CIA was not guilty direct some of the schemes to assassi- charges that the CIA had violated its stat- of "major" sins, Church angrily de- nate Castro. Church also plans to ques- utes—a seeming conflict of interest. clared: "I don't regard murder plots as tion Robert Maheu, the onetime FBI When Nedzi did not deny that he a 'minor' matter." agent and aide to Howard Hughes, who had known about the CIA's shadowy ac- Church has hard evidence for his is said to have recruited Roselli for tivities all along, five of his six Dem- harsh statement. During his three ap- the CIA. ocratic colleagues on the investigating pearances before the Senate committee "Ours is not a wicked country, and committee hotly called for his resigna- —more than ten hours at the witness we cannot abide a wicked government," tion as chairman. If Nedzi does not go table—CIA Director William Colby said, says Church. He prefers to talk not of quietly this week, his fellow Democrats according to intelligence sources, that "assassinations" but of "murder—a sim- on the committee made it plain that if the agency had worked with Chicago pler, clearer term." Says he: "The U.S. necessary, they would force a House vote gangsters on plans to kill Castro. In one cannot, involve itself in any way in mur- to get him out. case, the hit man was to have been a der. The notion that we must mimic the With Nedzi's committee incapaci- Cuban army major who was close to the Communists and abandon our princi- tated and the Rockefeller Commission's Cuban leader. The allotted fee for the ples list an abomination." report handed in, the job of pursuing job: $150,000. (For another example, When it draws up its final report on the investigation of the CIA was left in see box.) the CIA, Church's Senate committee will the hands of the Senate committee. Un- An Abomination. To find out more face the same dilemma in proposing so- der Church, a liberal Democrat from about the assassination plots, particular- lutions that Nelson Rockefeller outlined Idaho who may run for his party's pres- ly who authorized them, Church will de- when his commission began its study in idential nomination in 1976, the com- vote the rest of this month to closed- January: "We must have an intelligence mittee has been zealously holding pri- door hearings on the subject. Not only capability, which is essential to our se- vate hearings since May 15. After the does Church plan to recall Colby and curity as a nation, without offending our Rockefeller Commission handed in its other CIA officials, past and present, but liberties as a people."

the funds should be considered as "ice" The Momo and Cain Connection (protection money). What did Giancana get for his in- The story of the CIA's efforts to en- say, Detective Cain began recruiting vestment? In October 1960, the CIA did list Mafia aid in assassinating Cuba's Spanish-speaking toughs on the Windy him a favor that was beyond the pur- Fidel Castro continues to unfold. In City's West Side. Some of the hoodlums view of the agency. Giancana was fum- 1960, during the waning months of were sent to Miami and Central Amer- ing because his girl friend, Singer Phyl- Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, Trate ica for training in commando tactics. lis McGuire, was interested in Come- has learned that the agency went to Exactly what the Mafia rangers ac- dian Dan Rowan. The CIA arranged for Momo Salvatore ("Sam") Giancana, a complished against Cuba is still unclear. burglars to break into Rowan's hotel high-ranking Mafia don who ruled Chi- Some intelligence officials doubt that a room in Las Vegas and search for ev- cago's gangland with a bloody hand. The single guerrilla from Chicago ever set idence that might cool the romance. mission: kill Castro. For help, Giancana foot on the island. For his part, Cain turned to one of the most nimble and later was to boast how he had led hit- But in 1964, for all the ice he had conniving figures in the Mafia: Richard and-run raids on Cuban power stations. carefully laid away, Giancana seemed to Cain, who had been the Mafia's agent U.S. sources say that the CIA spent get no special treatment from the U.S. in the enemy camp: a detective on Chi- more than $100,000 on the operation, Government. Haled before a federal cago's police force. while Giancana laid out $90,000 of the grand jury looking into the Mafia's af- Among his other accomplishments, Mob's own funds for Cain's expenses. fairs in Chicago, Giancana refused to Cain spoke Spanish fluently. With the When some Mafia officials objected to talk and served twelve months in jail for consent of the CIA, intelligence sources the payments, Giancana contended that contempt of court. Released in 1966, the PETERS-DAYTON DAILY NEWS don moved to Mexico for a while but is now back in Chicago. Cain had been forced to quit the Chi- WOO MORNING, cago police in 1960 after he was caught spying on Mayor Daley's commissioner of investigations. Incredibly, he was %R MISSION, hired in 1962 by Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogilvie (who was to become Il- SHOO YOU linois' Governor six years later). Resum- ACCEPT,INMES ing his role as a spy for the Mob, Cain A CERAM 1,AIN was fired by Ogilvie for his shenanigans in 1964. Finally, in 1968, Cain was jailed MCAN afit for his part in a Mafia operation. Re- WHO =EP leased in 1971, he became the still ab- A sent Giancana's man in Chicago. There, on Dec. 20, 1973, two rraav~e~n wearing ski masks and carrying warEe- talkies surprised him in Rose's Sand- wich Shop, a sleazy restaurant that had color stills from The Godfather on one wall. One man held a 12-gauge shotgun under Cain's chin and blew the head off the man whose quarry had once been Fidel Castro. t TIME, JUNE 16, 1975