• i( 947_ _ &Lc c_ eic CTeor 41 Afterword: the search for "Maurice Bishop" 0) David Phillips, the former CIA officer considered by Post be net him only once. He told the Committee the Select Committee on Assassinations as a possible that he encountered "Bishop" between 1960 and 1964. candidate for the true identity behind the cover name In his Post interview, he said it was probably after "Maurice Bishop" -(2)- reacted strongly when this 1964 - after the time most relevant to the Veciana book was published in the suamer of 1980. He con- allegations. "B.H." told the Committee he worked tacted top executives in newspapers and television, closely with Phillips between 1960 and 1964. In the making himself available to counter passages in Con- conversation with the Post, he claimed that he did- spiracy concerning him. As a result, I took parEirt not work with Phillips until after 1964. "3.H." acc- discussions with Phillips on prominent television ounts for these differences by claiming that his dam programs. ents were "wrongly recorded". In the course of these approaches to the press, The Assassinations Committee investigator of the Phillips contacted the editor of the Washington Post. "Bishop" case suspects that the "B.H." scenario may Subsequently, when a reporter -(3)- was assigned to be a red herring, designed to confuse the trail. the story, Phillips revealed the real identity of Such justifiable suspicions might have been resolved former CIA officers whose identities were protected had the Committee management given the "Bishop" case by pseudonyms in Assassinations Committee reports and the attention it deserved. Sadly it did not. While in my book. Phillips observed that "Cross", the case Phillips did testify, the Committee failed to take . officer who believed Phillips had indeed used the testimony on oath from "Cross", "B.H." or "Gupton". name "Bishop", was a heavy drinker, implying that he "Cross" who told two investigators he believed "Bish- was prone to getting his facts wrong. -(4)- Short- op" was Phillips, was not even subjected to formal ly afterwards, when a Post reporter visited "Cross" interview. There were no systematic interrogations at home, he found that Phillips had been on the phone of relevant CIA officers who might have further con- to him only a short time earlier. Whatever had pass- firmed the use of the name "Bishop". The Committee ed between them, "Cross" stood by his assertion that failed to follow up a key lead provided by Veciana - the name "Bishop" had been used in the Miami CIA off- the identity of a prominent Cuban who may have orig- ice, and that he believed it was used to refer to inally proposed Veciana to "Bishop" as a promising Phillips. candidate for CIA recruitment. -(1)- The Cuban's name was known to the Committee, and is known to the "Cross" admits that he was formerly a heavy author. Other leads received cursory treatment. drinker, but - as noted earlier - has shown that his recall of names and details other than "Bishop" is The Caanittee never tried to trace a vital wit- accurate. In a further conversation, with this auth- ness whose name was provided by Veciana months before or, in 1981, "Cross" seemed upset by the interest his the Committee wound up its inquiry. ,Veciana had spok statements have caused, and complained the Assassin- en, from the start, of a go-between whom he had used ations Committee gave it "undue emphasis". He agreed, during his association with "Bishop" however, that he has been correctly quoted. A sub- The person who helped arrange meetings between sequent_ check with congressional investigators re- "Bishop" and Veciana is a woman, a prim grandmother vealed that "Cross" originally linked the name "Bish- in her fifties, who works as a minor functionary in op" with that of Phillips promptly and spontaneously. a U.S. government administrative department. She has The Washington Post reporter was also able to requested anonymity, and will be identified here only talk to Phillips' former Miami assistant "Doug Cupton". as "Fabiola", a Cuban exile who left Havana in autumn -(5) - He said, much as he had said to the Committ- 1961. She worked, until that year, as Veciana's sec- ee "I never used the name "Bishop" to my recollect- retary at the Banco Financiero, and was there at the ion". Finally the reporter visited "B.H." -(6) - time Veciana claims he was recruited by a "Bishop". the former CIA covert operative who told the Committ- While she says Veciana never mentioned a CIA contact, ee he had net "Bishop" in the past, but whose testi- Fabiola recalls details which fit his story. She re- mony prompted a skeptical reaction from the Committee calls a time when Veciana started going to "language investigator. courses" in the evenings. Veciana, in his earliest interviews, spoke of attending nightly US intelligence "B.H." a short, dark man of Cuban origin, is bell- briefings in an office building which houses, on the igerent - not least about the way the CIA has been first floor, the Berlitz School of Language.. -(8)- treated in recent years. He told the Committee. that Fabiola says she did become aware that Veciana Phillips was a "personal friend", an officer he work- was involved in subversive activities. He once pro- with closely on a "day-to-day" basis on Cuban operat- duced a huge sun of half a million dollars, which he ions between 1960 and 1964. Interviewed by the Wash- asked her to safeguard until he retrieved it. Vec- ington Post in 1980, B.H. stated that after Phillips Lana has always said he worked with "Bishop" on a testified to the Committee, but before he himself was "program that resulted in the destabilisation of the formally interviewed, he discussed the Committee in- • Cuban currency' . In Cuba, Fabiola decided not to ask quiry with Phillips. In his Committee interview "B.H.' awkward questions. Politically, she sympathized with was asked simply whether he had known anybody named him, and later - in exile - collaborated actively Maurice Bishop. After replying that he had, "B.H." when Veciana became leader of Alpha 66. - (9) - responded to Committee questioning. "Mr Bishop was in He asked her to act as an answering service for the organisation but I had no personal day-to-day op- him when he was traveling, and in the months to come en relationship with him. Phillips, yes; Bishop, no. Fabiola became familiar with the name of a caller I knew them both." from the mainland United States. The name was "Bish- "B.H." appeared in his replies to be stressing op". When I interviewed Fabiola I threw out a num- that he remembered "Bishop" as being somebody other ber of names, including that of "Bishop". "Bishop" than Phillips. There are notable discrepancies be- was the only name to which she responded, and it . tween what "B.H." told the Casnittee and what he stirred in her the memory of another name. "Bishop' raid to the Post. He told the Committee he encoun- is firmly linked in Fabiola's mind with a second per- tered "Bishop" "two or three times". He told the -10- son - "Prewett". For her, the two names are so def- sonally know him," and later, in response to a dir- initely associated that at first she had difficulty ect question, she said she did not know "Bishop." remembering which was which. Febiola says both in- Prewett also said she had never net Phillips. dividuals telephoned over the same period, and she Phillips - asked about Prewett - contradicts her. understood they were associated with one another. He says he once knew Prewett quite well, specifically She believed both "Bishop" and "Prewett" were conn- recalling meetings in the Dominican Republic. ected with an American news publication, based on Contacted by this author in early 1981, Phillips the East Coast. Finally she recalls that "Prewett" was asked whether he stood by his denial that he was was female. "Maurice Bishop", or indeed knew a "Bishop", a denial A check of American press directories turned up formally recorded in the Assassinations Committee Re- Virginia Prewett - (10) - a Washington journalist port. -(11)- Phillips repeated that he neither was who has specialized in Latin American affairs all her "Bishop", nor."connected in any way", and said that life. She has written extensively about the struggle any such intimation was "an outrageous accusation." between Fidel Castro , whom she characterized as a As for Veciana, the source of the "Bishop" allegati- "betrayer", and the Cuban exiles, whom she describes ion, he also repeated to this author that "Bishop" as "patriots". In sumer 1963 Prewett attended a con- was not Phillips. ference on Cuba co-sponsored by Freedom House and the Citizen's Committee for a Free Cuba. Her report on the conference, later inserted in the Congressional (1) 'Afterword' is taken from the American paper- Record, began by quoting a call by Freedom House "to back edition of Anthony Summers' Conspiracy (1980) remove both Fidel Castro and the Soviet presence It wasn't included in the British (Fontana) edition. from Cuba without delay." When Sweets finished the book he continued to follow For many years Prewett wrote for the North Amer- up certain leads, particularly those connected with ican Newspaper Alliance (MAMA), a syndication organ- "Maurice Bishop" and Oswald in Mexico City. ization founded by Prewett'a friend Ernest ameo, al- This new information was to appear in a series of so a veteran of the CIA's forerunner, the Office of articles , "The conspiracy that nearly led to holo- Strategic Services, who arranged for Prewett to work caust" for The Observer.