the IINsliiiipton 1364 UTLOOK Columnists SUNDAY, MAY 16, 1976 The Mafia, • The CIA And Castro By George Crile III (rile is Washington .ditor of Harper's magazine and is writing a book onth a CIA's Cuban operations for Dou- bleday. His artid p on the CIA's man in Havana, the Cuban agent code-named AM LISH, appeared in Out- look on May 2. In. this article, he examines the CIA's other major attemp it to plot the assassination of Fidel Castro, wh ich failed for what may have been similar reasons. By Zohn Ht!nly for The 14.01m/ton Post rtyl ANY ODD TRIBUTES have been offerec I to the in Cuba and Castro was fast moving to seize their hold- it American character, but few can rival tha t of Sen. ings. He had even put some of their members in jail. The Walter Mondale upon reviewing the total failat e of the Mafia's willingness to do the CIA's dirty work would not CIA's persistent efforts to kill Fidel :Castro.- "Thank: then have required explanation. Gott," he said, "we're just not very good at that: sort of Sam Giancana and John Roselli are the two mobsters thing.". generally identified with the Mafia-CIA plot, But a third, Most thoughtful observers seemed to draw ate same Santo Trafficante Jr., was perhaps the most important of reassuring conclusion. Even the American Mafia dons the three, for it was his men, both in Miami and Havana,. who had been recruited by the Agency to carry Out Casa, Who were supposed to carry, iitit the murder. trces execution were seen ag tab incompetent to lie really . TraffiCante is generally identified as_the don of south- evil. The portrait drawn by the SenateIntelligeni :e Coni- ern Florida, but he is also one of the chiefs in the Mafia's ratite:it casts.them more in the light, of character s out of loose national confederation. Once the Agency decided "The''Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," bitmbling to turn to the mob, it was inevitable that Trafficante's as- after ',Castro' but apparently never getting around to sistance would be sought. Alone among the principal making an attempt on hi.4 life. ' dons, he had lived in Cuba. He had built a large organiza- such interpretations of thesethe deadly findertalipngs are tion there and still had a number of associates in Cas- no doubt comforting, but they are unlikely to Il'e more tro's Havana. Moreover, his professional experience than exercises in wishful thinking. To begin wt4h, Sen. made him ideally suited for assassination work. Robert Morgan (D-N.C.) -tells-to "the, theory till' it- pre- va&cl in thejSeliale Intelligence] Committee wi is that He had learned the business from his father, Santo the Mafia never tried to kill Castro, that we were being Trafficante Sr., who came from Sicily in 1904 to Tampa, used." where he built and ran his crime family for the next 50 The committee did not pursue this, but an independ- years. In 1954, a year after surviving a shotgun attempt ent examination of the available record of one of the on his life, Santo Jr. succeeded his father. key Mafia figures involved in the plot.makes us c insider In the first few years of his rule, Tampa was plagued the troubling possibility that at least some of thr 2 CIA's with gangland murders. He was himself a leading sus- Mafia associates were working with Castro. pect in the 1957 barbershop execution of Albert Anasta- Such a combination would hardly have seemeit likely sia, the old chief of Murder Incorporated. Accompanied in 1960 when the CIA set out to recruit the Mafia_ 'Almost by a Cuban associate, Trafficante had been in Anasta- all the major underworld families had invested heavily sia's New York hotel suite the night before the killing. According to reports of the Senate Permanent Investiga:" before the Bay of Pigs. Accounts vary as to why the plan tions Committee, Anastasia had been. attempting to failed. One version is that the authorization to adminis- move in on Trafficante's Cuban gambling operations. ter the poison never carne through; another, that Castro The following month, Trafficadte was, arrested at the, ,,,, stopped going to the restaurant. Mafia national convention at Apalachin, NI. Ten'years ' The most intriguing theory was proposed by the CIA's later, his eminence was again confirmed by his appear- deputy inspector general, Scott Breckenridge, to a Sen- ance at the La Stella Restaurant in New York with Car- ate staff member. Breckenridge, who had been responsi- ' ,los_Marcello, Carlo Gambina and several other of the ble for investigating the CIA-Mafia plot, maintained that country's leading dons. ._. Trafficante had been providing Castro. with details of He was, in short, one of the major crime bosses in the the plot all along. United States and, significantly, the don most deeply af- But why would Santo Trafficante; of all people, do fected by Castro's revolution. Not only were his gam- this? One possible explanation is proposed in a July 21, bling casinos seized but he had been jailed in Cuba. One 1961, report on Trafficante by the Federal Bureau of would assume that such a man might have contemplated Narcotics: "There are unconfirmed rumors in the Cuban 'taking on Castro independently. At that time, in 1960. refugee population in Miami that, when Fidel Castro ran Castro's grip on Cuba was by no means secure. Once the American racketeers out of Cuba and seized the casi- Trafficante accepted his CIA commission, Castro's days nos, he kept Santo Trafficante Jr. in_jail to. make it ap- should have been numbered. pear that he had a personal dislike for Trafficante, when A Question of Loyalties in fact Trafficante is an agent of Castro. Trafficante is al- legedly Castro's outlet for illegal contraband in. the rr.HE INITIAL PLOT called for poisoning Castro in country." l. his favorite Havana restaurant, where one of Traf- The report goes on to' summarize contradictory re- ficante's men worked. The CIA's Technical Services Divi- ports on Trafficante's relationship with Castro but, be- sion supplied deadly botulinum toxin which Robert Ma- cause of its date, the allegations quoted are of great in- .\ heu, who was coordinating the mob's efforts for the CIA, terest. Back in 1961, the Mafia's anti-Castro credentials • passed to an exile associated with Trafficante at the Fon- were impeccable. The informants relied on by the nar- l , tainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach. From there Traff I- cotics agents may have been wrong in their conclusions, f I cante's courier was to deliver the poison pills to the man but it is hard to think of a possible self-serving motive - ) in the Havana restaurant. for fabricating such a story. t, All of this took place in March and April of 1961, just See MAFIA, Page C4 e C4 / Sunday, May 16, 2976 THE 'WASHINGTON POST The Mafia, The CIA And Castro Associated Press Havana, 1959: Santo Trafficante's arrest. category were being summarily taken out and shot. The Bureau of Narcotics report suggests the possibility that MAFIA, From Page CI he had agreed to work with Castro and that the jailing There are other indications that there may have been was designed to provide cover. But officially, he got out some working arrangement between Castro and the of Cuba thanks to the services of his resourceful lawyer, mob. Several reliable witnesses — most notably Grays- Rafael Garcia Bango. Bango is himself another good ex- ton Lynch, who was a senior case officer with the CIA in ample of that era's ambiguities — not least because his Miami for eight years — assert that during the crucial brother Jorge was and is one of Castro's closest friends early 1960s Castro relied on Cuban Mafia contacts for' and advisers. (He is Castro's regular handball partner much of his intelligence in the exile community. And and is the minister of sports, a prestigious post in Cuba.) once again Santo Trafficante emerges as a central fig- After getting Traficante out of Cuba, Bango stayed on ure, 'for Castro is reported to have paid off his Mafia for the turbulent first seven years of the revolutionary agents through the Florida numbers racket — Bolita - government. Then, in 1966, he left for Miami, where he which Trafficante runs. came to the attention of a federal anti-crime strike force Here another Bureau of Narcotics report — this one which had Trafficante under surveillance. According to prepared by agent Eugene Marshall — is instructive: one strike force official, the two men had what " . Fidel Castro has operatives in Tampa and Miami amounted to a "father-son relationship." Eight months making heavy Bolita bets with Santo Trafficante Jr.'s or- later Bango was arrested and jailed in Spain for passing ganization. The winning Bolita numbers are taken from. counterfeit American money. the last three digits of the lottery drawing in Cuba every Saturday night." According to this report, prior to the Significantly, Bango is now back in Cuba. That an im- drawing, these operatives communicate with Cuba and portant mob attorney, whatever his family connections, advise which numbers are receiving the heaviest play. should find life palatable in the new Cuba is at least cu- The Cuba lottly officials then rig the drawing . ." Ac- rious. But there seem to be nothing but contradictions in cording to ±mss reporti rx4 others, Castro's agents were the lifestyles of Trafficante and his friends.