T WAS AN HOUR TILL DAWN. memorial service for his guerrillas who I The moon had gone out and the Carib- were killed in heavy fighting around bean was a pool of black ink. Santiago during the revolution. In that dark, still hour on a November The large graveyard was decorated morning, a flashlight blinked three times with red flags and huge photos of the from the shore of a tiny bay on the north Maximum Leader, Despite the downpour, coast of Cuba. A few minutes later, a more than 3,000 persons turned out .for black-painted speedboat slipped quietly the ceremony. THE CIA At 8:50 AM, a motorcade of five jeeps into the bay and dropped anchor off the palm-lined beach. came roaring along the road to the ceme- The 36-foot boat, Violynn III, was tery. "Here he comes," whispered the owned and skippered by Alexander execution squad's lookout, watching the Rorke, Jr., 36, a handsome, wavy-haired PLOTS road through powerful binoculars. American adventurer whose wife was The first jeep, bristling with guns, the daughter of the late Sherman Bil- was full of soldiers. The lookout trained lingsley, the society saloonkeeper who his binoculars on the second jeep and hosted New York's famed Stork Club. spotted a familiar figure seated beside Rorke's heavily-armed crew consisted TO KILL the driver. It was Captain Alfredo Gamo- of an American college student and five nal, Castro's chief bodyguard. Cuban exiles, two of them survivors of A tall man in green fatigues was riding the Bay of Pigs disaster. Their mission: in the back seat. Because of the driving Kill Fidel Castro. rain, the jeep curtains and the two burly Rorke and his execution squad planned CASTRO figures in front, the lookout was unable to ambush the bearded dictator at San- to get more than a glimpse of the man in tiago de Cuba, the island's second the rear seat. But he assumed it must largest city. be Fidel Castro. As a free-lance reporter and He raised his right fist, two fingers photographer in Cuba, Rorke held aloft. At the lookout's sig- had covered Castro's revolution nal, machine guns opened up. from its start in the Sierra Bullets sprayed the jeep, kill- Maestra Mountains to the ing the driver, bodyguard triumphal march into Hav- Gamonal— and the superin- ana on New Year's Day, tendent of cemeteries, who 1959. But he fell out of was riding in back. The favor with Fidel when he jeep swerved off the road reported that the revolu- and crashed into a tree. tion was turning Red. Fidel Castro, riding in the One of the first newsmen fourth jeep, was unhurt. to spot this trend, Rorke Soldiers swarmed out of was jailed by the Castro the jeeps, searched the regime. in 1959 and again in woods and threw up road- January. 1960. after a radio blocks all over the area, but broadcast in which he charged the execution squad got away. that several of Castro's top A few weeks later, the Violynn aides were Communists. III made a midnight raid on After his second stretch in a Havana harbor, shot up a Soviet Cuban prison, Rorke was kicked off freighter and escaped to Florida after the island. He vowed to return, and he a running gun battle with Cuban patrol did. He made at least 15 clandestine trips boats. to Cuba in Violynn III and several other Several months later, British auth- visits by plane. orities seized the Violynn III when it Some, if not all, of these mystery "There is an assassin arrived at Norman Cay in the Bahamas missions were sponsored by the Central with 17 Cuban exiles aboard and a cargo Intelligence Agency. But whether the in every shadow, a CIA agent of arms and ammunition. Rorke was CIA sent him on the assassination as- questioned by Bahamas security police signment will probably never be known. behind every tree: says but was released when his CIA contacts When Rorke and his crew anchored in vouched for him. the small bay, they were met by two a former comrade of Castro. Shortly before 9 PM about a month members of Cuba's anti-Castro under- later, a twin-engine Beechcraft appeared ground. They pulled the speedboat onto "He's led a charmed life in the sky above Havana, setting off the beach and covered it with canvas air-raid alarms all over the Cuban capital. and palm leaves. Then the assassins set so far—but he knows his luck The mystery plane roared in from the off for Santiago in the back of an ancient sea at an altitude of about 150 feet and truck owned by one of the underground can't last forever:" dropped five homemade napalm bombs members. on an oil refinery in the Nico Lopez dis- As dawn broke and a heavy rainfall trict: the bombs failed to explode. e. began, they hid in the woods near a As Cuban air force pilots rushed to cemetery on the outskirts of Santiago. by MORTON PETERSON their MIG fighter jets, and Castro re- Castro was scheduled to arrive at the treated to his basement air-raid shelter, cemetery around 9 AM to speak at a the Beechcraft took off and vanished continued on next page 27 • 51,7 VI "4, M11 MO PLOT TO KILL CASTRO continued in the dark. In Washington, two days later, Alex Rorke admitted he was responsible for the air attack. He said he was ac- companied on the flight by "a major Cuban underground figure, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Techno- logy and a U.S. freedom fighter tech- nician." Rorke also confirmed that he had carried out several missions for the CIA, including smuggling guns and anti-Castro agents into Cuba, but he insisted the oil refinery raid was his own idea. The following September, Rorke and his Beechcraft took off from Florida on another mysterious flight. With him were a pilot, Geoffrey ,Sullivan, and a Cuban freedom fighter, Enrique Molina Garcia. Before leaving Fort Lauderdale, Castro says Alpha 66 members, shown here training in Caribbean, are landing teams Florida, Rorke filed a flight plan to of assassins in Cuba. Ten members now face death sentences in La Cabana Prison. Panama, but after refueling on the is- land of Cozumel, off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, he sent a radio message Despite official denials. CIA agents Nye admitted there was an assassin- saying he was changing course to are still trying to get Castro. So are ation plot, but he claimed he had gone Honduras. several Miami - based Cuban exile to Oriente Province to warn Castro That was the last anyone ever heard groups, including the revolutionary or- that Batista was trying to murder him. from the swashbuckling adventurer. ganization Alpha 66. Small, fast boats Throughout the 105 days he spent in The Beechcraft and its crew vanished from the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico Cuban prisons, Nye insisted he was on without a trace. The Coast Guard con- bring armed men and shipments of Castro's side. ducted a massive air-sea search of the guns and ammunition to the island. A military tribunal found him guilty Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico but Ten members of Alpha 843, 113 to 30 and sentenced him to death, but the failed to find any sign of the missing years old, were captured by Cuban sentence was suspended on condition plane—not even any wreckage. troops last year. The guerrillas, wear- that he leave Cuba. "I knew that someday he might not ing military uniforms and armed with As Castro tightened his grip on the come back," said Rorke's pretty wife, Belgium-made pistols and carbines, island and took over American indus- Jacqueline. were among two infiltration groups tries, the CIA decided he had to go. Though the mystery of Rorke's dis- that landed in April and September. Several top-level, top-secret confer- appearance almost 10 years ago was Charged with plotting to assassinate ences were held on this subject and it never solved, investigators hinted that Castro and overthrow the Red Regime, was finally agreed that the only sure he and his companions were the vic- the 10 prisoners were locked up in La way to neutralize Fidel was to assas- tims of foul play. There were uncon- Cabana prison, where they were beat- sinate him. firmed rumors that Castro agents en and tortured. During their months The assassination was to take place 1 either sabotaged the Beechcraft, blow- in prison, they were not allowed to hortly before the Bay of Pigs in- ing it to bits over the water, or hi- consult a lawyer or communicate with asion. The CIA reasoned that a lead- jacked it to Cuba where its passengers anyone in the outside world. Finally, erless Cuba would be thrown into such were quietly executed in retaliation after a secret trial before a military a state of panic that the invading force for the plot to assassinate Castro. tribunal, they were sentenced to death. would meet little resistance. There have been at least a dozen The Castro government, in its only The plot took shape in the late win- such unsuccessful plots. Several of mention of the case. announced the er and early spring of 1961. It involved them have been secretly supported and death sentences March 8, 1971. motley assortment of conspirators, financed by the CIA. The facts about including American racketeers, mil- these cloak-and-dagger machinations THE first assassination plot involving 4lionaires, soldiers of fortune and gov- have been revealed only recently.