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.
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