23: Presidents Come and Go; CIA Remains
During Castro’s rise in Cuba, Pawley noted “Wieland was in charge of Mexican, Central American and Caribbean affairs under Rubottom” and “did all that was humanly possible to brush aside, ignore, short-circuit or refute warnings by experienced American diplomats that Castro was a Communist and that his movement was infested with Soviet agents.”
Pawley claimed in his autobiography to have repeatedly told President Eisenhower to “weed out Wieland before he could bring about further, and possibly irreparable, damage to our national interests.” However, Ike trusted the judgment of his brother, Dr. Milton Eisenhower, a university president who was the president’s consultant on Latin American affairs, and “was protecting his protégés, Rubottom and Wieland.” This infuriated Pawley because Dr. Eisenhower unapologetically acknowledged that he had never been to Pawley’s beloved Cuba and did not even speak Spanish.
Pawley also took his concerns directly to Rubottom and Wieland. “After citing the experience of all three of us at Bogotá, I asked them point blank how they could possibly be so naive as to question Castro’s credentials as a flat-out Communist, despite the mountains of evidence that had already been accumulated.” Wieland was unrepentant in his acceptance of Castro. “Even after Castro had seized power, Wieland did everything he could to cover up the Communist stamp on the Cuban regime.”
Pawley also described in his autobiography how Ambassador to Mexico Robert C. Hill in 1959, “attempted to brief Dr. Milton Eisenhower, on the Cuban situation during an airplane trip to Mazatlan.” Also aboard were Colonel B.E. Glawe, air attaché in Mexico and an experienced intelligence officer, and Raymond Leddy, a former FBI agent in Havana who entered the CIA, took part in the Arbenz overthrow which he thought could be expedited with Trujillo’s gunmen, then set up LITEMPO, a network of agents and informants reporting to the CIA’s Mexico City Station headed by Winston Scott. “Each time Mr. Leddy would say, ‘This is Communist’ or ‘This man is a Communist,’” Wieland would assert it was untrue. Hill told Pawley that he had been “‘warned by members of the Foreign Service about Mr. Wieland; that he was an opportunist and a dilettante, and that I should be very careful in my dealings with him.’”1
As Chairman of Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Senator James O. Eastland repeatedly focused on the communist threat to the United States through the Caribbean. In 1959, he had questioned Maj. Pedro L. Diaz Lanz (QDBIAS), the Chief of the Cuban Air Force who defected when he realized that Castro was pro-communist.
In his testimony before Sen. Eastland and J.G. Sourwine, Pawley unburdened himself of two decades of distrust of Castro and his pent-up frustration at getting others to see the light about the Cuban Communist revolutionary. He testified that gathering of Latin American diplomats and other interested parties at the 9th International Conference of American States in 1948 was “a very successful conference in Bogotá” at which General George C. Marshall intended to stay 3 days.” However, they learned that trouble was brewing spawned by “a Cuban there, a very young man who appeared to us not to be a real threat” yet the Cuban’s group “organized one of the most astute pieces of skullduggery you can imagine. At one in the afternoon, the Communists assassinated Colombian Labor Minister Jorge Eliécer Gaitan who “was the most liberal and was deeply loved all over the country. They told the young man who did the killing that they would be sitting in an automobile waiting to pick him up armed with machineguns in case somebody attacked him. But the minute he did the killing they machine gunned him and left him there and they got away.”
Pawley continued that he “believed it to be the Fidel Castro group. I cannot testify—I am under oath—that I know that positively.” But as he and U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Walter Donnelly “started down to the headquarters in our car and on the radio I heard a voice say: ‘This is Fidel Castro from Cuba. This is a Communist revolution. The President has been killed, all of the military establishments in Colombia are now in our hands. The Navy has capitulated to us, and this revolution has been a success.’ Nothing more clear than that.” Most of this was revolutionary propaganda. “Eighty percent of the broadcast was false, we later found out; but it was a very bad revolution, 2,500 people lost their lives. The city was gutted by fire, our delegation of 80 were trapped in 2 buildings ... had it not been at that high altitude, where there is a lack of oxygen, that building would have been destroyed and there would have been no escape for our American delegation.”
When another member of the Senate Subcommittee exploring the Internal Security threat of communism in the Caribbean, Senator Kenneth B. Keating, asked if Pawley actually saw Castro, Pawley responded negatively. “No; but Guillermo [William] Belt, Cuba’s Ambassador to Washington ... secured safe passage for his (Castro’s) return to Cuba. Ambassador Belt has told me many times that he did it and he is now sorry. He told me this again late as a week ago in my office in Miami.” According to Belt, Castro’s group “were trying to destroy the Organization of American States.”
Pawley noted that while the OAS survived “there are large pockets of Communists in Colombia today that the Government cannot deal with.” Pawley felt that this was a continuation of the threat that had already hit in another beloved area of the world, China, where he had built three aircraft factories between 1932 and 1944. Pawley stated “the loss of China, constitutes for me what I believe to be one of our greatest losses and one that in my judgment might be the inevitable cause of world war III.” (In 2023, his prescient words resonated with new gravity as China and the U.S. postured over the future of Taiwan where the Nationalists had fled after World War II. Ironically, WW-II enemies, Germany and Japan, were U.S. allies.)3
Pawley testified that he “knew all of the leaders on the Nationalist side and I had met many of the leaders on the Communist side. I met Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai and, as I was president of an aviation company, I traveled all over the country and provided 90 percent of the aircraft used by the Nationalist Government in its fight against the Communist regime prior to
the Japanese war, and I continued in that capacity during the period in which the Japanese were in China.” Pawley “had a tremendous feeling regarding the Communist threat to us and to the world. I even felt at that time that it might even be a greater threat than Germany and Japan.”4
Pawley gave validity to his own opinion by declaring “George Marshall stated at lunch one day in the presence of several friends of my wife, he said, ‘Bill, the great problem with you, you were right 5 to 8 years too soon.’” He also noted that he had shared his Far East expertise with President Truman. “I had six definite discussions with Mr. Truman between 1945 and 6, months before Korea. I said to the President that I thought that if we did not provide, as the Communists were doing, a strong Nationalist force to defend their freedom that China would be lost to communism, and if it were lost all of Asia would go.”
Pawley laid the blame on those he encountered while in business “in Chungking—and prior to that even, in Hangchow when the headquarters were there—I found young men working for the American Government in the Department of State whose views I did not agree with. They thought, and were so telling our Ambassador and also Stilwell, that the Communist movement was an agrarian reform movement of such great benefit to China—that Chiang [Kai-shek] was too dictatorial and that we should aline [sic] ourselves with this agrarian reform group.”
Senator Keating then engaged Pawley, who had moved his aircraft manufacturing to Bangalore, India, in also implicating State Department representatives in that country at General Stilwell’s headquarters. “Were you aware of the fact that the State Department representatives in Stilwell’s headquarters in New Delhi were informing the military there of the same thing which you said the young men were informing them in China?” Pawley responded that he was unaware of that but pointed his finger at “John Davies, Jr., John Service” and stated that “John Carter Vincent was here in Washington as an Assistant Secretary of State and he formed part of the clique that believed and worked on this theory.”
Asserting that President Truman “and I were very close friends” Pawley claimed his discussions over the communist threat “never got anywhere because as the years went by he would tell me that Dean Acheson was better informed on these matters than I was, that he had the advantage of ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence], and G-2 [military intelligence], and State information and that I had been out of touch with it for some time and that I was wrong.”
Six months before the Korean conflict, Pawley told Truman, “I will never approach you again; I have been out to see George Marshall and he agrees with what I am going to say to you. I think if we do not take a strong hand now and support with tremendous effort the Nationalist movement in China in which the Chinese will fight for their own freedom and own independence, China will be lost and you will have a war on your hands in Burma, Indochina, or Korea within 1 year and you will either commit America or you will lose Asia, and to me that is the greatest error of judgment in the world would be for an American to fire a shot at a Chinese. That to me would be one of the most terrible catastrophes that could befall this country.’” Pawley told Truman that within China “‘are millions of people who are willing to fight for their own freedom—who don’t have enough to eat—and who can be recruited’” to stop the expansion of communism throughout the hemisphere.5
The FBI quickly learned of Pawley’s testimony, and its content became a focus within the Bureau. S.B. Donahoe wrote a memorandum circulated to Director J. Edgar Hoover’s longtime assistant Alan H. Belmont, Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, and William C. Sullivan “to analyze the testimony of William D. Pawley” which stated he “furnished no significant pertinent data regarding current threat not already known to Bureau.” The memo detailed Pawley’s comments about three suspected communists: Latin American labor leader George Michanowsky, United Nations employee Gustav Duran and Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, “one of the most dangerous men in this hemisphere” who could transform his country into a Cuba within three years unless the United States does something.
Regarding Fidel Castro, “Pawley commented that the minute Castro came to power the U.S. Department of Justice sent 250 Special Agents to Miami, Florida, and they are there today ‘to prevent anyone from hurting our friend Castro.’ (He apparently was referring to INS implementing its force in Florida to try to control and prevent unauthorized flights over Cuba.)”6
When Pawley’s executive session testimony was finally released in February of 1961, he told a reporter that his plan to get Batista to step aside so Castro could be neutralized was thwarted by Roy D. Rubottom, “then Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, [who] refused to let him tell Batista that the U.S. would back up the deal.”7
Pawley would later harshly characterize the apologists for Castro and point to one in particular. In his manuscript of Russia Is Winning, he swung with both fists. “The real facts had been shrouded in the foggy thinking of ultra-liberals, cotton-headed Utopians and radicals, not to mention covert Communists, all continuing to place Castro in the role of a visionary and champion of the common man.”
Pawley’s disdain became clear. “One of the most influential voices in this chorus was that of then Senator John F. Kennedy” who had written in The Strategy of Peace that “Castro is part of the legacy of Bolivar.” Pawley seethed, claiming that JFK believed Castro’s triumphant rise was due to Ike’s ignoring “the brutal, bloody, and despotic dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista” and failure to give “the fiery young rebel a warmer welcome in his hour of triumph.”8 Pawley did not like Batista but hated Castro even more.
Months before Pawley’s testimony was made public, Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut held a press conference on September 11, 1960, regarding the testimony of the two recent U.S. Ambassadors to Cuba, Earl E.T. Smith and Arthur Gardner. The Senators asserted that foreign policy was being created by those in State who simply place memos in the Ambassador’s desk’s in-basket. As a result, “Cuba was handed to Castro and the Communists by a combination of Americans in the same way that China was handed to the Communists.” When pressed by Eastland to name names, Ambassador Smith identified Pawley’s thorns, William Wieland and Roy Rubottom, as two of the individuals who slanted things in favor of Castro. Both Wieland and Rubottom had witnessed the Bogotázo in Colombia, but never bothered to make the connection to Castro.9
Pawley also expressed in his testimony that he felt that William Wieland had shaped the U.S. policy of cutting diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic’s dictator Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo without realizing a communist uprising might follow in the country where Pawley had pursued business opportunities since 1916 including partnerships with Trujillo. In his Senate Subcommittee testimony, Pawley questioned how the U.S. could “condemn Trujillo” but support Yugoslavia’s communist dictator Marshall Tito. He also pointed out Truman’s “all out” effort to discredit Spain’s fascist dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco which was offset by Pawley himself successfully negotiating the installation of U.S. Air Force bases in Spain at the behest of General George C. Marshall.10
Shortly after Pawley’s testimony, all U.S. banks in Cuba were seized including First National City Bank of New York (later Citigroup), First National Bank of Boston, and Chase Manhattan Bank (later JP Morgan Chase). The next day, September 18, 1960, Fidel Castro came to New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly. The following month the Eisenhower Administration imposed a partial embargo on Cuba.11
On September 30, a CIA contact report was written by the Western Hemisphere Division chief involved in covert activities, C/WH/4/PA Gerard Droller (CIA pseudonyms Frank Bender and Wallace A. Parlett), regarding a telephone conversation about a meeting the previous day in William Pawley’s office with Fabio Freyre and Rubio Padilla who “were ready to join the FRD” (Frente Revolutionario Democratico). Their decision brought about “many hours of debate” in the Executive Committee. It was finally decided that Ricardo Rafael Sardinas Sanchez (aka Rafael Sardina Sanchez; CIA cryptonym AMLOON-1) of the Cuban Association of (Sugar) Cane Growers “would become the official representative of the Rubio complex” which includes “Movemiento Institucional Democratico (Sardina); Bloque y Organizacion Anti-Communista de Cuba (Cuervo Rubio); Movemiento Recuperadora de Cuba (Maceo); and Comite de Liberacion de Cuba (Rubio Padilla).”
The contact report from Droller/Bender continued. “Mr. Pawley opened the meeting by making the statement informing the participants that he and “Jake” [Esterline], he and Bender, “Jake” and Bender, had discussed how best to serve the Cuban cause and that he hoped we were able to work out an agreement. With this, Mr. Pawley left to attend a meeting with the Union, which was about to strike, and for a meeting with the Republican Campaign Committee. (Mr. Pawley was most harassed that day.)”
After much discussion about the number of votes each group would have on the Executive Committee, Droller wrote about “the utilization of the Rubio group’s alleged paramilitary assets in Cuba. I stated that if these assets were viable, one should use them at the earliest possible date without any reference to the Frente. Eventually, “I suggested that my military advisor, Jim Smith, should get in touch with Freyre and begin the necessary planning.”12
A government study of this period later described that the purpose of “The so-called ‘Bender Group’, composed of project political action officers, was set up as a notional organization of American businessmen to provide cover for dealing with the Cubans. After a series of meetings in New York and Miami a nominally unified Frente Revolutionario Democratico (FRD), composed of several Cuban factions, was agreed upon on 11 May 1960.13
The CIA’s cryptonym for the FRD was AMCIGAR, an obvious reference to combatting Castro. Similarly, Pawley’s QDDALE may be a truncation of Domestic Ambassador Latin Expert. (Following a security breach, AMCIGAR was changed in November 1960 to AMPORT.)
According to Jefferson Morley, who wrote an excellent biography of Winston Scott, the Chief of the CIA’s Mexico City Station from 1956 to 1969, AMCIGAR reluctantly shifted its base of anti-Castro operations from Miami to Mexico City in the summer of 1960 where it coordinated with the E. Howard Hunt (aka Walter C. Twicker aka Eduardo) and David Atlee Phillips (aka Michael M. Choaden). The AMCIGAR Cubans soon were at odds with local Mexican authorities and having security breaches. An “outrageous faux pas occurred when Cuban leader Tony de Varona visited Ray Leddy at the embassy and openly talked about his CIA connections.” Hunt and the FRD’s anti-Castro Cubans soon returned to Miami14 while Winston Scott’s attention soon turned to an affair with the wife of his longtime friend, Leddy.15
A little over two weeks later, Pawley and Senator George Smathers met with Jose Benitez, who then recapped the meeting in a letter to Pawley and urged Pawley to get in touch with 37-yeqr-old Captain Eladio Del Valle Gutierrez of Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. Benitez went on to write that former Cuban Congressman “Captain Del Valle has 150 men—armed— who are ready to go last week and will go as soon as Del Valle so directs” and that his “Officers are going to establish contact immediately with 1,500 people prepared by Captain Del Valle in one of the Provinces.” Del Valle “also has contact with the organization called El-Mar” comprised of “ex-members of the military class of Cuba.”16 (Seven years later Del Valle was brutally tortured and murdered, his head split open with an axe and shot point blank in the heart.)17
Another meeting being held October 17th brought E. Howard Hunt into Miami, Pawley’s territory where the JMASH section of JMNET was located. Droller/Bender/Parlett and Hunt/Twicker met at Hunt’s apartment with AMWAIL “in order to clear up a number of reports which had come to our attention to the effect that AMWAIL was playing footsie with the AMBANG (Manuel Ray Rivero’s MRP—Revolutionary Movement of People) group: the channel to the AMBANG group would be AMCHIRP-1 (MRP’s Ramon Barquin Lopez) and Miro Cardona.”
Droller/Bender/Parlett further reported “Twicker and I made it quite clear to AMWAIL that the formation of still another group here in the U.S. would be useless. If there was ever any interaction of this group to obtain support from Parlett or any other American source, such support would not be forthcoming. The vehicle for any support was AMRASP [FRD].” The conclusion of the contact report shows the frustration Droller and Hunt had with the various anti- Castro Cubans that were jockeying for leadership. After AMWAIL said “he would play the role of a honest broker,” Droller/Bender/Parlett wrote “With such honesty, who needs crooks?”18 (AMWAIL was Agrupacion Montecristi; AMWAIL-1 its leader Justo Carrillo Hernandez.)
At the same time, Zamka (David Sanchez Morales) and AMWAIL-3 (Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo) were having discussions about intelligence and information that may have been part of the discussions that led to formation of AMOT.19
After Droller/Bender met with Manuel Artime at Hunt’s apartment on October 26, 1960, he vented more frustrations. “Artime was giving Twicker a hard time. Artime wants to return to Cuba; and has become disgruntled with the Americans.” Hunt and Bender “played all registers and tried to convince Artime to be a good boy, Artime wanted none of it.” The CIA men “were faced with the decision to let an otherwise very useful, pro-American and promising asset go sour or to reconsider the situation.” They “concluded that we only had to gain by Artime’s return” to his homeland.20 As previously mentioned, Artime and Hunt were extremely close friends.
Twicker’s apartment the day before was the scene of a meeting with AMHAWK, Manuel Antonio (Tony) de Varona, a leader in the Cuban Revolutionary Council and other anti-Castro exile groups. Droller wanted Varona to issue a statement “that he did not consider himself as the future President of Cuba nor was the FRD to be considered the future Government of that country.” Varona dictated a statement to that effect to Twicker. Varona also stated he “does not like his current public relations consultant in New York, Lem Jones; Varona will discharge Jones.” Apparently, the exiles were believing they could call the shots, because the document also notes that “Sanchez Arango is making the rounds in Miami showing that he has enough influence to remove Bender [the CIA’s Droller] from the scene.”21
Between October 20th and 25th, a number of memorandums were sent regarding the need to repair the recording devices in Pawley’s office. A verbal agreement eventually confirmed assigning two agents to repair the monitoring equipment.22
An October 27, 1960 a memo was added to Pawley’s 201 File from B.E. Reichardt. It includes a reference to Sardina needing a “letter of employment with Mackle Air Lines” which was run by Antonio Maceo Mackle, a prominent Cuban exile and the execution by firing squad of four Americans.23
On November 2, 1960, a CIA dispatch was sent to Chief of Base, JMASH from Chief, WH Division, regarding Eladio del Valle Gutierrez’s support by Benitez. CIA headquarters had received from Pawley a copy of Benitez’s letter “along with several unrelated papers, without comment from QDDALE or request for information.” The Agency was “especially interested in further information on this group because of the political implications involved in possible support of Del Valle by QDDALE and the ‘distinguished mutual friend’ of QDDALE.” A veiled reference to Pawley’s closeness to CIA Director Allen Dulles. Moreover, CIA Headquarters wanted an evaluation by ODENVY (the FBI) “of FAYCA [Fuersas Armadas y Civiles Anti-Communistas, which del Valle led] and additional information on its leaders, including the identity of Luis Fajardo.”24 Bold added by D.P. Cannon.
The slow progress of the Eisenhower Administration to overthrow Castro was a point that John F. Kennedy used effectively in his “fourth television debate with Richard Nixon.” During the debate “he had sharply blamed the Eisenhower Administration for permitting communism to seize a base there, ‘only ninety miles off the coast of the U.S.’”25
Five days before U.S. presidential election day, a meeting was held at which “Livingston Merchant of the Department of State raised the question of whether plans were being made to assassinate Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara—at which point General Cabell, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, pointed out that such activities as assassination were extremely difficult to manage and that the CIA had no capability for such operation.”26
Following John F. Kennedy’s slim—118,000 vote—victory over Richard M. Nixon, Deputy Director Plans Richard Bissell expressed there was urgency to get “all done that could be done.” To that end “the Director would make Mr. Barnes available to work closely with a State Department officer to be designated. It was also felt desirable to use Mr. Pawley’s services, initially in connection with [REDACTED] assistance.”
The CIA historian wrote that “points of view attributed to the President [Eisenhower] at this time by Mr. Bissell reflect very closely the position of William D. Pawley who had met with the President immediately prior to the President’s session with State, DOD, and the Agency’s representatives.” Livingston Merchant “had a long session with Mr. Pawley on the day prior to Pawley’s meeting with President Eisenhower” and learned that Pawley would recommend that Ike “should appoint a single experienced individual (he said he was personally qualified and would be available for the job if asked) to conduct the entire covert operation. In this connection, he cited the role which he had played in the Guatemala case.”
Pawley asserted that the U.S. “should recruit several thousand good young Cubans in Florida and give them basic training. This could be done in five or six weeks, rather than months, according to him.” Pawley opposed overt intervention by U.S. armed forces. “The essence of his plan would be to land in Cuba, presumably in the next month or two, a force of 600 trained Cubans, following up this landing with additional Cuban elements and then installing a government in the bridgehead which would call on us for financial and logistical support.” Pawley gave Merchant the names of people who should be in the new Cuban government “who he said are politically unblemished in Cuba, neither pinks nor reactionary rightists.”
A footnote stated “that discussions within the Agency and within the Special Group had only recently arrived at the figure of 600 men” leading people to “speculate on the source of Pawley’s information. Jake Esterline has tended to denigrate the role played by Pawley during the course of the Bay of Pigs operation; but, nonetheless, throughout the course of the operation Jake was charged with maintaining close liaison with Pawley.” In retrospect, the agency historian found that “JMATE records indicate not only numerous face-to-face meetings between Pawley and Esterline during the course of the operation, but also reflect an amazing number of telephone conversations between the two during the life of the operation. In terms of operational plan per se, Esterline appeared to be most cagy in handling this subject during the discussions with Pawley. The recorded conversations focus on the potential leadership for the FRD—with Pawley’s ‘best’ leadership choices usually being far to the right.”27
President Eisenhower met with “Secretary Anderson, Secretary Gates, Secretary Dillon, Secretary Merchant, Secretary Douglas, General Lemnitzer, Mr. Allen Dulles, Mr. Richard Bissell, General Persons, General Goodpaster and Gordon Gray” who wrote a recap of the meeting which focused on Cuba and what Pawley told Ike earlier that day.” The President said that as everyone knew Mr. Pawley had had substantial interests in Central and South America over many years and was knowledgeable about the area. He said that Mr. Pawley had told him that he had divested himself of all his investments in the area and therefore had no financial interests which could benefit from his activities. He acknowledged that Mr. Pawley was a zealot but at the same time said that in the many years he had known Mr. Pawley he had not found him wrong in the various predictions and reports which Mr. Pawley had made to him.”
Pawley voiced four concerns. Training needed to be faster than what occurred during PBFORTUNE and four times as many troops—“at least 2,000”—needed to be trained. Second “there had been success in getting rid of one of the Communists in the FRD there is still another remaining. Mr. Pawley however thinks Varona is a good citizen” but “he has a poor opinion of some of the other members of the FRD and repeated that he thought one was worse than Castro.” Third, Pawley was disturbed about talk that training may be moved “out of Guatemala to Okinawa” and Eisenhower “agreed on the ground that nothing could be kept secret in Okinawa.” Fourth, Pawley wanted a strong, dedicated Executive put in charge of eliminating communism from Cuba “and the President suspected Mr. Pawley himself would like this responsibility.”
Eisenhower conceded that Pawley may be right and “there needed to be some one individual who would have the situation always at his finger tips and also could take an active part in talking with members of the FRD and perhaps with other governments.” The President “said that it was strange that he used to think of Betancourt as a leftist and now he was beginning to look like a rightist in relation to the pro-Castro, pro-Communist attacks against him. Also, it was clear that Castro influences had been involved in the El Salvador situation. The President wondered whether the situation did not have the appearance of beginning to get out of hand.” Ike “then quoted Mr. Pawley as saying that the young member of the FRD who went around to talk to various governments found that some, [less than 1 line not declassified] said that they would put money, men and equipment into the effort on a clandestine basis, whereas open activity of this sort through the OAS would not be possible.”
After questioning whether the U.S. was being “sufficiently imaginative and bold” and effective, President Eisenhower focused on his concerns about transferring the reins of government to the new JFK administration “in the midst of a developing emergency.”
CIA Director “Dulles responded that he did not always agree with Mr. Pawley” especially on Pawley’s reliance on rightist groups. “Mr. Dulles pointed out that there had been at one time or another 184 different groups [3 lines not declassified]. The President asked how we might bring them all together and Mr. Dulles responded that this was impossible. The President then observed that he did not think we should be financing those we cannot get to work in harness. Mr. Dulles said we would find it necessary to continue to finance some [less than 1 line not declassified] notwithstanding.”
Director Dulles stated that there was a need to “stiffen the government of Guatemala” because the training there of “some 500 guerilla trainees” and “a separate air force group” was going well. He added “the operation was no longer secret but it was known all over Latin America and has been discussed in U.N. circles.” Eisenhower expressed that “even if the operation were known, the main thing was not to let the U.S. hand show.”
Under Secretary of State C. Douglas “Dillon then said that the State Department had begun to think along the same lines as Mr. Pawley, with respect to the number of men needed and that State felt perhaps we should have two or three thousand.”
President Eisenhower, who was to meet with President-elect Kennedy on December 6th, expressed that he was aware that Kennedy had already been briefed by Dulles in Palm Beach in late November “on the covert planning.”
It was postulated that if Cuba was near bankruptcy, the Soviet Union might cut aid, which would help get those in the country to help overthrow Castro. It was suggested that if rumors of “an epidemic of hoof and mouth disease” were true, the U.S. would have to question imports of beef from Cuba. “Mr. Dillon pointed out that we had done nothing about imports from Cuba except sugar.” Eisenhower then refocused the group on the need for “an individual executive to pull the whole Cuban situation together who would know precisely at all times what State, CIA and military were doing” and “again wondered whether Mr. Pawley would be suitable for this undertaking.” (One paragraph of Gordon Gray’s minutes of the meeting still classified.)28
Despite throwing his support behind Nixon, Pawley nonetheless felt that his efforts to organize the exiles for the fight against communism would be appreciated by the new President. Throughout the transition period to the new administration, upper levels of the intelligence community, including CIA Director Allen Dulles, Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton, Western Hemisphere Chief J.C. King and Jacob Esterline were in constant communications with Pawley or commenting on his contacts in Cuba and their various plots to overthrow Castro.
The CIA Bay of Pigs History notes that if Nixon had been elected President in 1960, Cuba may have been different in the decades that followed. “Indicative of the more forceful role that Nixon would have had the U.S. play was the comment that he reportedly made to William Pawley several weeks before the 1960 election, when Nixon indicated that he favored breaking relations with Cuba—at that time—recognizing a Government-in-exile, and then assisting that Government in its efforts to oust Castro.”29
With Kennedy’s victory, Pawley seems to have realized his opportunity to take on a State Department position overseeing the Western Hemisphere was lost and the needs of JMWAVE in Miami were growing; he decided to sell Belvoir House, his Virginia estate, and permanently move back to Sunset Island. His home sale was newsworthy enough to be reported on December
1, 1960, by The Washington Post.30 For the Pawleys, Belvoir had been more than a parttime home; it was a tool to build stronger relationships with the Eisenhowers, Marshalls and other Washington movers and shakers who enjoyed relaxing, hunting and fishing on the beautiful historic Lord Fairfax property, surrounded by a picturesque boxwood garden, rare books, art and gifts from Madam Chiang Kai-shek. Much of it was left behind by the Pawleys when they sold Belvoir to E. Delong Bowman, who had a monopoly on bourbon whiskey-making in Virginia. Originally, A. Smith Bowman Distillery was located on property that became Reston, Virginia, and was purchased by Sazerac in 2003.31
Like Pawley, who had raised $100,000 for Nixon’s campaign, Henry Luce was disappointed in the outcome of the 1960 presidential election. A decade later it was revealed that Luce, “the publisher of Time, Life and Fortune directed his magazines to back Richard Nixon in his campaign for presidency” despite having written in 1940 that if “John Kennedy is characteristic of the younger generation—and I believe he is—many of us would be happy to have the destinies of this republic handed over to his generation at once.” Luce felt so good about the future of the U.S. back then that he touted the twentieth century as the “American Century.” Not only had Luce penned the introduction to the young Kennedy’s book, Why England Slept, but like Brutus as part of Caesar’s inner circle, he invited Joseph Kennedy to watch JFK’s acceptance speech on TV at the Luce home, and then Henry and his wife, Clare Booth Luce, attended the inaugural ball and “sat in Joseph Kennedy’s box.”32
During the Kennedy administration, Clare would become a sharp vocal critic of the JFK’s Cuban policy joining the growing anti-Castro, anti-JFK choir led by Pawley who must have seethed when the “foggy thinking” liberal President asked Roy Rubottom to remain Ambassador to Argentina.33
FOOTNOTES:
1 Pawley, Russia Is Winning, Chapter 19.
Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Page 247.
>> While Raymond Leddy feared communists, he trusted the conservative CIA Station Chief in Mexico City, Winston Scott, a man who ran off with Leddy’s wife, Janet.
2 Nathaniel Weyl, Red Star Over Cuba: The Russian Assault on the Western Hemisphere (New York: The Devin- Adair Company, 1960). Page160.
“Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960—Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws. Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Sixth Congress. Report (December 20, 1960). Part 10. Pages 726-738.
3 “China confirms warnings to U.S. on Pelosi's possible Taiwan visit,” Reuters, Beijing, July 25, 2022.
When asked what kind of response China was "seriously prepared for" and if it would be a military or a diplomatic response [Beijing spokesman] Zhao [Lijian] said: "If the U.S. side is bent on going its own way, China will take strong measures to resolutely respond and counteract."
4 “Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960—Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws. Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Sixth Congress. Report (December 20, 1960). Part 10. Pages 722-726.
5 September 8, 1960. FBI Memorandum “Subject: Testimony Senate Internal Security Subcommittee ‘Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.’” From: C.D. DeLoach. To: Belmont.
“Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960—Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws. Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Sixth Congress. Report (December 20, 1960). Part 10. Pages 722-726.
[Page 722] Mr. SOURWINE. You mentioned something about your activity in China? Didn’t you also have a part in organizing the Flying Tigers?
Mr. PAWLEY. Yes I did organize the Flying Tigers ... but Claire Chennault, whom I employed at the Chinese request, got credit for it and as I did not do that for credit, I employed all the men that were involved in that, and I owned the company that was used for the purpose, I was the only stockholder and president of the company and Mr. Roosevelt thought that media was a good one to use because the employment of pilots and mechanics had to be done under cover, and I provided the cover.
[Pages 724-726:] Mr. PAWLEY ... I had a press conference and I spoke of the Pan American Bank and the great need for one. Jack [John J.] McCloy wanted to resign as World Bank President because he felt strongly there was no need for such a bank. Bill Martin was quite provoked and said I was upsetting the banking arrangements that already existed. Fortunately the Congress in the last year or so has created the Pan American Bank that was discussed in 1948. So, out of that, much good came.
McCloy agreed to go to Latin America ... prior to the Bogotá conference. He agreed to process one or more loans to one of the Latin American countries and Bill Martin agreed to go to Congress for us ... funds then in Bill Martin’s bank (Export-Import Bank) were earmarked for European lending ... that was the beginning of the Marshall plan ...
We had a very successful conference in Bogotá but, as I also said, Marshall intended to stay 3 days. We had information that there would be trouble ... a Cuban there, a very young man who appeared to us not to be a real threat.
But they organized one of the most astute pieces of skullduggery you can imagine. The Communists killed Gaitan at 1 o’clock in the afternoon—he was the most liberal and was deeply loved all over the country. They told the young man who did the killing that they would be sitting in an automobile waiting to pick him up armed with machineguns in case somebody attacked him. But the minute he did the killing they machine gunned him and left him there and they got away.
... Senator MCCLELLAN. Do you know who they were?
Mr. PAWLEY. We believed it to be the Fidel Castro group. I cannot testify—I am under oath—that I know that positively ... Walter [Donnelly] and I started down to the headquarters in our car and on the radio I heard a voice say: “This is Fidel Castro from Cuba. This is a Communist revolution. The President has been killed, all of the military establishments in Colombia are now in our hands. The Navy has capitulated to us, and this revolution has been a success.” Nothing more clear than that.
Senator KEATING. That’s right ... did you actually see Castro at that time?
Mr. PAWLEY. No; but Guillermo [William] Belt, Cuba’s Ambassador to Washington ... secured safe passage for his (Castro’s) return to Cuba. Ambassador Belt has told me many times that he did it and he is now sorry. He told me this again late as a week ago in my office in Miami ... he has many friends here and he comes here frequently ... they [Castro’s group] were trying to destroy the Organization of American States.
Senator KEATING. Did they, in fact assassinate the President?
Mr. PAWLEY. No; no ... Eighty percent of the broadcast was false, we later found out; but it was a very bad revolution, 2,500 people lost their lives. The city was gutted by fire, our delegation of 80 were trapped in 2 buildings ... had it not been at that high altitude, where there is a lack of oxygen, that building would have been destroyed and there would have been no escape for our American delegation.
Senator HRUSKA. Was this the beginning of the civil hostilities which then lasted several years in Colombia?
Mr. PAWLEY. Yes ... and there are large pockets of Communists in Colombia today that the Government cannot deal with ... all over Colombia actually in which the Communists are in control.
Mr. SOURWINE. Sir, during your service in the diplomatic service of the United States, have you ever had occasion, other than the one you have already described, to come up against Communist infiltration?
Mr. PAWLEY. ... the loss of China, constitutes for me what I believe to be one of our greatest losses and one that in my judgment might be the inevitable cause of world war III ... I had spent from 1932 until 1944 in and out of China. I had been in business there for many years and I had built three aircraft factories ... I knew all of the leaders on the Nationalist side and I had met many of the leaders on the Communist side. I met Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai and, as I was president of an aviation company, I traveled all over the country and provided 90 percent of the aircraft used by the Nationalist Government in its fight against the Communist regime prior to the Japanese war, and I continued in that capacity during the period in which the Japanese were in China.
Therefore, I had a tremendous feeling regarding the Communist threat to us and to the world. I even felt at that time that it might even be a greater threat than Germany and Japan.
George Marshall stated at lunch one day in the presence of several friends of my wife, he said, “Bill, the great problem with you, you were right 5 to 8 years too soon.”
... when I was invited by Mr. Truman to participate in his Government, which I was most happy to do, I said to him, “You are sending me to South America, Mr. President, but I would like to give you the advantage of many years’ experience in the Far East. I think I am somewhat of an expert on this and would like to talk to you about it sometime,” and he said, “Yes.”
I had six definite discussions with Mr. Truman between 1945 and 6 months before Korea. I said to the President that I thought that if we did not provide, as the Communists were doing, a strong Nationalist force to defend their freedom that China would be lost to communism, and if it were lost all of Asia would go ...
Now, while I was in Chungking—and prior to that even, in Hangchow when the headquarters were there— I found young men working for the American Government in the Department of State whose views I did not agree with. They thought, and were so telling our Ambassador and also Stilwell, that the Communist movement was an agrarian reform movement of such great benefit to China—that Chiang [Kai-shek] was too dictatorial and that we should aline [sic] ourselves with this agrarian reform group.
Senator KEATING. Did you know the representative of the State Department in New Delhi at the time there in Stilwell’s headquarters?
Mr. PAWLEY. I was in New Delhi quite a lot, any number of generals came in and out of there because I had an aircraft factory at Bangalore and I dealt with all of them.
Senator KEATING. Were you aware of the fact that the State Department representatives in Stilwell’s headquarters in New Delhi were informing the military there of the same thing which you said the young men were informing them in China?
Mr. PAWLEY. No I did not know that.
Mr. SOURWINE. Do you have particular individuals in mind, Mr. Pawley, who were saying these things, initiating these reports.
Mr. PAWLEY. The men that I recall would be John Davies, Jr. John Service, one or two others. Senator KEATING. Davies was in New Delhi at one time. John Carter Vincent?
Mr. PAWLEY. John Carter Vincent was here in Washington as an Assistant Secretary of State and he formed part of the clique that believed and worked on this theory.
So my talks with President Truman—and he and I were very close friends—were most satisfactory except that he felt that the things I was advocating were premature in the first instance ... I never got anywhere
because as the years went by he would tell me that Dean Acheson was better informed on these matters than I was, that he had the advantage of ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence], and G-2 [military intelligence], and State information and that I had been out of touch with it for some time and that I was wrong.
I had my final talk with Truman 6 months before Korea ... and I said, “Mr. Truman, I will never approach you again; I have been out to see George Marshall and he agrees with what I am going to say to you. I think if we do not take a strong hand now and support with tremendous effort the Nationalist movement in China in which the Chinese will fight for their own freedom and own independence, China will be lost and you will have a war on your hands in Burma, Indochina, or Korea within 1 year and you will either commit America or you will lose Asia, and to me that is the greatest error of judgment in the world would be for an American to fire a shot at a Chinese. That to me would be one of the most terrible catastrophes that could befall this country. There are millions of people who are willing to fight for their own freedom—who don’t have enough to eat—and who can be recruited ...
6 Pawley’s testimony was initially sent by FBI executive Cartha DeLoach to “Mr. Sizoo of Domestic Intelligence Division for appropriate review and return to my office to be returned to the Committee: Volume 1, September 2, 1960 – Executive Session – Classified, Testimony of William D. Pawley.”
9/16/1960 FBI Memorandum “Subject: Testimony of William D. Pawley Before Senate Internal Security Subcommittee September 2, 1960.” To: A. H. Belmont (seen by DeLoach and W.C. Sullivan). From: S. B. Donahoe.
During his testimony, he commented on following individuals:
George Michanowsky
Michanowsky, according to Pawley, reportedly was a communist who headed the Latin American Division of CIO...and was connected with the Political Action Committee of the CIO prior to the CIO clearing out communists from its ranks ... Pawley stated [Spruille] Braden today is making a terrific anticommunist fight in New York through various organizations with which he is connected and Pawley commented that he never regarded Braden as a communist.
[REDACTED PARAGRAPH]
Gustav Duran
Pawley is convinced that Duran, who is employed at United Nations (UN) in New York City, is a communist.
[REDACTED PARAGRAPH]
William A. Wieland
Pawley expressed belief that Wieland was not particularly useful to the United States and he advised the Eisenhower Administration that he has great misgivings regarding continuance of Wieland in a critical post. However, he stated he has no reason to believe Wieland is a communist.
Wieland is Director of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs, State Department [REDACTED]
Romulo Betancourt
Pawley expressed belief that Betancourt, President of Venezuela, is one of the most dangerous men in this hemisphere and predicted that what is happening in Cuba today is going to happen in Venezuela in three years unless something very drastic is done in the United States (apparently referring to change in State Department policy).
Fidel Castro
Pawley commented that the minute Castro came to power the U.S. Department of Justice sent 250 Special Agents to Miami, Florida, and they are there today “to prevent anyone from hurting our friend Castro.” (He apparently was referring to INS implementing its force in Florida to try to control and prevent unauthorized flights over Cuba.)
Pawley expressed belief that during the 9th International Conference of American States at Bogotá, Colombia, in 1948, at which Pawley was U.S. delegate, the Fidel Castro group organized assassination of one Gaetan (sic). Pawley described Gaetan as a political leader in opposition against the Government in Colombia, a man of great prestige and greatly loved. He stated the Fidel Castro group killed Gaetan in an attempt to rally masses against the government and destroy the Organization of American States.
Action: For information.
7 John T. O’Rourke, “Our Man in Havana, William D. Pawley,” The Washington Daily News, February 20, 1961. 8 Pawley, Russia Is Winning, Chapter 21.
9 Weyl, Nathaniel. Red Star Over Cuba: The Russian Assault on the Western Hemisphere. Pages 158-61.
10 “Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960—Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws. Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Sixth Congress. Report (December 20, 1960). Pages 745 & 742.
The Washington Post, February 22, 1972. 11 Facts on File 1959. Page 443 E2-F3.
12 9/30/1960. Contact Report “Meeting in Miami, 29 Sept 1960. Subjects: Freyre, F.; Padilla, R.; Pawley, William.” From: Gerard Droller.
1. Background: Before my trip to Miami on 26 September, C/WH/4 informed me of a telephone conversation he had with Mr. Pawley: Rubio Padilla and company were ready to join the FRD and I was to take steps to facilitate this. According to these instructions, I brought this matter up with Varona on 27 September (see Contact with Varona of that date), and also during my meeting with the Executive Committee on 27 September: turning to Sardina during this meeting I suggested that he get in touch soonest with Cuervo Rubio and Rubio Padilla and work out the details of their entry into the FRD ... Then, after many hours of debate, they agreed that the Rubio group, which really consists of four organizations, would form a Council and that the spokesman of this council, i.e. Sardina, would at the same time be a member of the Executive Committee of the FRD. In other words, everything would remain as it is except that Sardina would become the official representative of the Rubio complex. (For record purposes, the Rubio complex consists of the following groups:
1) Movemiento Institucional Democratico (Sardina);
2) Bloque y Organizacion Anti-Communista de Cuba (Cuervo Rubio) ;
3) Movemiento Recuperadora de Cuba (Maceo); and
4) Comite de Liberacion de Cuba (Rubio Padilla).
Sardina continued to say that there were, indeed, rumors floating about that other FRD Executive Committee members would be removed and, in fact, the FRD Executive Committee had not been certain whether or not they would see Bender today or somebody else who would have replaced Bender. Against this background, the meeting with Rubio Padilla should be viewed.
2. Mr. Pawley opened the meeting by making the statement informing the participants that he and “Jake”, he and Bender, “Jake” and Bender, had discussed how best to serve the Cuban cause and that he hoped we were able to work out an agreement. With this, Mr. Pawley left to attend a meeting with the Union, which was about to strike, and for a meeting with the Republican Campaign Committee. (Mr. Pawley was most harassed that day.)
NARA 1993.08.09.17:07:29:370007 ~ 9/30/1960 Contact Report “Subject: Meeting with William Pawley, Fabio Freyre and Rubio Padilla in Mr. Pawley’s office, Miami, 29 September 1960.” From: Gerard Droller C/WH/4/PA. Unsanitized CIA File of William Pawley. Page 224 of 267. Mary Ferrell Foundation website: maryferrell.org
9/30/1960 Contact Report “Meeting in Miami, 29 Sept 1960. Subjects: Freyre, F.; Padilla, R.; Pawley, William.” From: Gerard Droller.
“Fabio Freyre, Exile Who Defied Castro After Invasion.” The Palm Beach Post, August 21, 1997.
NARA 1993.08.09.17:07:29:370007 ~ 9/21/1960. Priority. “Subject: MASH.” From: Gerard Droller. Unsanitized CIA File of William Pawley. Page 224 of 267. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
1. Understand via [REDACTED] that Cuervo Rubio and Jose Rivero once more desirous become associated [REDACTED]/ Request this be discussed soonest with Sardina who might be put in charge ... advise.
13Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation and Associated Documents, Part I of II. February 16, 1962, Page 9 of 232.
14 Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. Pages 101-106.
15 Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA. Page 247.
16 NARA 1993.08.09.17:07:29:370007 ~ 11/4/1960 Dispatch “Attachment. Subject: Eladio del Valle Gutierrez, leader of Fuersas Armada y Civiles Anti-communistas (FAYCA). Headquarters File Number 201-77378.” To: Chief of Base, JMASH. From: Chief, WH Division, J.D. Esterline. [Coordinating Officer; Originating WH/4/PA REDACTED ext. 4935.] Unsanitized CIA File of William Pawley. Page 219, 220, 221 & 222 of 267. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
[ATTACHMENT 1]
10/18/1960 Strictly Personal and Confidential Letter. To: William D. Pawley, 260 N.E. 17th Terrace, Miami 32, Florida. From: Jose A. Benitez, Chairman, Democratic State Committee of Puerto Rico, San Juan.
Subject: Cuban Revolution.
After discussing with you and our mutual friend, Senator Smathers, yesterday the Cuban situation and the Cuban Peoples’ idiosyncrasies, and knowing your knowledge of the present Cuban leaders in exile, I take the liberty of making you the following recommendation.
- I am sure that my recommendation will be of great help to our democratic cause and the future development of democratic movement in Latin America.
- Captain Eladio Del Valle Gutierrez (201-21601E), 8245 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida, Telephone: UNion 6- ... (37 years of age.)
I had the pleasure of meeting Captain Del Valle and discussing his plan.
I have met personally all the human and material resources. He was ready to invade Cuba last week, but at my suggestion postponed it.
If we can offer help for him, his sacrifices will bring better results than allowing him to work by himself. He has no relation with other active Cuban leaders in his plans, even though he is a personal friend of them.
10/18/1960 Letter “Subject: Cuban Revolution.” Subjects: Pawley, W.; Benitz, J. To: Pawley, William D. From: Benitez, Jose A., Chrm Democratic.
10/18/1960 Letter “Subjects: Pawley, Wm D; Gutierrez, Elad; Capt Del Valle.” To: Mr. William D. Pawley. From: Mr Jose A Benitez, Chairman, from Democratic State Committee of Puerto Rico.
10/18/1960 Memo “Cuban Revolution.” From: Benitez, Jose A., Chrm, Democratic. To: Pawley, William D. 17 “Jim Garrison Interview,” by Eric Norden, Playboy, October 1967.
18 NARA 104-10179-10420 ~ 10/17/1960 Contact Report “Meeting with AMWAIL on 11 October in Twicker’s Apartment, Miami Florida.” From: Wallace A. Parlett. Subjects: AMWAIL, AMBANG, Manuel Ray File.
Mary Ferrell Foundation Cryptonym Project. http://www.maryferrell.org
19 NARA 104-10179-10404 ~ 10/20/1960 Dispatch “Transmittal of Memorandum.” To: Chief, WHD. From: Chief of Base JMASH. Subjects: Manual Ray File. AMWAIL.
20 NARA 104-10240-10161 ~ 11/2/1960. Memorandum for the Record: Meeting with Manuel Artime at Twicker’s Apartment, Miami Florida, 26 Oct. 1960.
21 NARA Number 104-10168-10307 November 8, 1960 Memorandum for the Record. Subject: Meeting with Tony Varona at Twicker’s Apartment, Miami, Florida 25 October 1960. From: Gerard Droller.
22 10/20/1960 Memorandum for the Record “Conversation in Miami between Mr. William D. Pawley and unidentified Cuban.” Subjects: Pawley, William; Cuba; Anti-Castro.
10/20/1960 Memorandum “Repair of recording device in Pawley’s office.” Subjects: Pawley, William.
10/25/1960 “Confirmation of verbal agreement to assign two agents to proceed in repairing recording device in Pawley’s office.” Subjects: Pawley, William; Recorder. To: SA in Charge District Field Office. From: Auden, Paul.
10/25/1960 Memo “William D. Pawley.” Subjects: Miami, Florida. To: Special Agent in Charge. From: Auden, Paul, Special Agent.
10/25/1960 Memorandum “Pawley, William D. (Recording Device).” Subjects: Pawley, William. To: Special Agent in Charge District. From: Auden, Paul T.
October 25/1960 Memorandum “Pawley, William D.” Subjects: Pawley, William. To: Special Agent in Charge District. From: Auden, Paul, Special Agent.
10/25/1960. Memorandum “Subject: William D. Pawley #78435 I:S3/I.” Subjects: Memorandum; Pawley, William;
GOLIATH. To: Special Agent in Charge District. From: Auden, Paul T.
>> Goliath is CIA in general, according to the Cryptonym Project at the Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
23 NARA 1993.08.09.17:07:29:370007 ~ 10/27/1960. Memorandum for the Record “[ATTACHMENT 2] Subject: Materials received from [REDACTED] 27 October 1960. From: B.E. Reichhardt. Unsanitized CIA File of William Pawley. Page 223 of 267. Mary Ferrell Foundation website.
>> In Pawley 201-77378 File. This document also has references to Diario de la Marina’s financial statement, “activities of BOAC (Bloque de Organizaciones Anticommistas)” and “possibility Paul Hughes was party to Castro deception plot which resulted capture and execution 3 Americans. Passed to CI for possible action with FBI and further routed to FI.”
“Our History: Ultimate sacrifice made in 1960 Cuba.” By John Andrew Prime Columnist. Shreveport Times, March 9, 2015.
On at least three occasions, and likely more often, area veterans have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the nation even when the United States was not technically at war.
This was brought to mind recently through an email from reader John Ridge, a blogger and historian with an interest in north Caddo Parish, who advised this column of someone who largely has fallen through the cracks in terms of recognition.
On Oct. 15, 1960, just a few weeks ahead of the historic Nixon-Kennedy presidential election, and months before the April 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle, a small group of men with military backgrounds staged a military raid on Navas Bay in Oriente Province. Several Cubans in the group were tried and given lengthy prison terms, but three Americans—Allan Dale Thompson, Anthony Zarba and Robert Fuller—were given a summary trial by Cuban revolutionary tribunals and executed.
Thompson, a 36-year-old Korean War veteran, was from Mooringsport. As best can be determined, he was buried in an unmarked grave with Zarba and Fuller and their bodies remain in Cuba to this day.
“With discussions going on about normalizing relations with Cuba after 50-plus years, perhaps this man’s story is worth resurrecting,” Ridge wrote the column. He has put together a blog on Thompson. “I stumbled on this while researching Mooringsport history but really don’t know if any of his relatives or others who knew him are still around. I would imagine this was well covered by the Times and Journal at the time of the incident.”
The papers ran articles the day after Thompson’s execution, with a locally taken photo of Thompson’s aunt and uncle, Oscar C. and Rachel T. Corn, who reared him after his mother’s death in the late 1920s. The Corns and the Thompsons were commercial fishermen, and Thompson lived in Mooringsport and worked with the Corns until 1958, the story said.
Oscar Corn died in October 1964, while Rachel Corn died in February 1990. Thompson’s father, John Ruskin Thompson, also a fisherman, died in January 1967 in Saint Maurice, in Winn Parish.
Allen Dale Thompson, described as a “down-on-his-luck fisherman” and an “adventurer” in the wire stories the papers ran, had apparently been working in the Gulf of Mexico and had been left jobless after a wreck, according to U.S. Consul Harvey Summ, quoted in the stories.
Thompson did not testify in his own defense during the 20-minute trial, but was defended by Fuller, a one- time Marine and Korean War veteran. Fuller admitted intent to overthrow the Castro regime but said he “believed Thompson did not know he was going to a foreign country and had been deceived by Cubans who organized the expedition.”
In June 1996, Shreveporter Kevin Jerome Johnson, a 36-year-old U.S. Air Force staff sergeant and HC-130 flight engineer was one of 19 U.S. service members killed in the June 1996 terror bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. His death his the city hard, especially The Times, since his sister-in-law, Eleanor Ransburg, was an editor at the paper. Johnson is buried in Lincoln Memorial Park.
Readers with more information on the fate of Thompson’s remains or surviving family in Caddo Parish, or of other peacetime military casualties whose names and fates need to be remembered, should contact this column.
A no-longer-existent website gave a different name for Anthony: “Executed by firing squad were Americans Robert Fuller, Anthony Salvard, Allen Dale Thompson and Anthony Zarba after being captured following an attempt to start a guerrilla movement in October 1960.”
24 November 2, 1960. CIA Dispatch. “Subject: Eladio del Valle Gutierrez, leader of Fuersas Armadas y Civiles Anti- Communistas (FAYCA).” To: Chief of Base, JMASH Officers Name: J.D. Esterline. Office WH/4/PA Martha Tharpe. From: Chief, WH Division.
Enclosed for your information, under separate cover, is a thermofax copy of a letter addressed to QDDALE recommending support of Subject’s invasion plans. The original of this letter was received from QDDALE at Headquarters, along with several unrelated papers, without comment from QDDALE or request for information.
We are especially interested in further information on this group because of the political implications involved in possible support of Del Valle by QDDALE and the “distinguished mutual friend” of QDDALE and the writer of the letter.
Reference A answered some of the questions raised in reference B. However, we would appreciate your obtaining from ODENVY their evaluation of FAYCA [Fuersas Armadas y Civiles Anti-Communistas, which del Valle led] and additional information on its leaders, including the identity of Luis Fajardo.
11/2/1960 Dispatch “Subj: Eladio Dal [Del] Valle Gutierrez, leader of Fuerzas Armadas y Civiles Anti- Communistas (FAYCA).” Subjects: Pawley, W. To: Chief of Base. From: [CIA] Chief, WH Division.
11/2/1960 Dispatch “Eladio Dal Valle Gutierrez, leader of Fuerzas Armadas y Civiles Anti-Communistas (FAYCA).” Subjects: Pawley, W. Invasion plans. To: Chief of Base. From: [CIA] Chief, WH Division.
25 Clandestine Services History. Page 9. http://www.foia.cia.gov
“Bay of Pigs 40 Years After, Chronology. The Bay Of Pigs Invasion/Playa Girón. A Chronology Of Events. October 7, 1960.” The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html
26 CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Page 147.
11/3/1960 “Minutes of Special Group Meeting, 3 November 1960 prepared by NSC.” Subjects: Anti-Castro Activities. Comments: Attached to 1781000210249. Present: Merchant, Douglas, Gray, Cabell, Lansdale.
NARA 178-10004-10181 ~ 11/3/1960 NSC Memorandum NSC general. “Subject File, Rockefeller Commission
Report (5)”
Summary from minutes of Special Group Meeting, 3 November 1960. Subjects: Anti-Castro activities; Merchant, Livingston T.; Cabell, Charles.
27 CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Pages 166-168.
The points of view attributed to the President at this time by Mr. Bissell reflect very closely the position of William D. Pawley who had met with the President immediately prior to the President’s session with State, DOD, and the Agency’s representatives. According to Livingston Merchant, who had a long session with Mr. Pawley on the day prior to Pawley’s meeting with President Eisenhower:
Mr. Pawley said that two things are necessary, and I inferred that these would constitute his [Pawley’s] principal recommendations to the President.
(1) The President should appoint a single experienced individual (he said he was personally qualified and would be available for the job if asked) to conduct the entire covert operation. In this connection, he cited the role which he had played in the Guatemala case.
(2) We should recruit several thousand good young Cubans in Florida and give them basic training. This could be done in five or six weeks, rather than months, according to him. He was extremely impatient at the thought of moving any Cubans who may now be in Central America, expressing himself forcefully as being sure their host would object.
I asked if he was proposing overt intervention by U.S. armed forces. He said absolutely not. The essence of his plan would be to land in Cuba, presumably in the next month or two, a force of 600 trained Cubans, following up this landing with additional Cuban elements and then installing a government in the bridgehead which would call on us for financial and logistical support. He mentioned a number of names which were unfamiliar to me of Cubans who he said are politically unblemished in Cuba, neither pinks nor reactionary rightists.*
*Considering that discussions within the Agency and within the Special Group had only recently arrived at the figure of 600 men ... one might speculate on the source of Pawley’s information. Jake Esterline has tended to denigrate the role played by Pawley during the course of the Bay of Pigs operation; but, nonetheless, throughout the course of the operation Jake was charged with maintaining close liaison with Pawley. JMATE records indicate not only numerous face-to-face meetings between Pawley and Esterline during the course of the operation, but also reflect an amazing number of telephone conversations between the two during the life of the operation. In terms of operational plan per se, Esterline appeared to be most cagy in handling this subject during the discussions with Pawley. The recorded conversations focus on the potential leadership for the FRD – with Pawley’s “best” leadership choices usually being far to the right.
28 “Memorandum of a Meeting With the President, White House, Written by Gordon Gray, Washington, November
29, 1960, 11 a.m.” U.S. State Department Office of the Historian Foreign Relations Of The United States, 1958– 1960, Cuba, Volume VI, No. 613.
PRESENT
- Secretary Anderson, Secretary Gates, Secretary Dillon, Secretary Merchant, Secretary Douglas, General Lemnitzer, Mr. Allen Dulles, Mr. Richard Bissell, General Persons, General Goodpaster and Gordon Gray
The President opened the meeting by saying that he wished to talk about the situation in Cuba and particularly a visit he had had [Page 1127] earlier in the day from Mr. William D. Pawley.2 The President said that as everyone knew Mr. Pawley had had substantial interests in Central and South America over many years and was knowledgeable about the area. He said that Mr. Pawley had told him that he had divested himself of all his investments in the area and therefore had no financial interests which could benefit from his activities. He acknowledged that Mr. Pawley was a zealot but at the same time said that in the many years he had known Mr. Pawley he had not found him wrong in the various predictions and reports which Mr. Pawley had made to him.
The President said that Mr. Pawley was concerned about four things which the President wished to discuss in the meeting. (1) Mr. Pawley felt that the effort in training of the people in Guatemala was too slow and that at the present time we were really going backwards. He felt that the 500 now in training ought to be increased to at least 2,000. (2) While there had been success in getting rid of one of the Communists in the FRD there is still another remaining. Mr. Pawley however thinks Varona is a good citizen. He also made reference to a young member of the FRD who is going around various South American countries who he thinks is very good. However, he has a poor opinion of some of the other members of the FRD and repeated that he thought one was worse than Castro. (3) Mr. Pawley had heard some idea of moving out of Guatemala to Okinawa. Mr. Pawley took a dim view of this proposal and the President agreed on the ground that nothing could be kept secret in Okinawa. [3 lines not declassified] (4) Mr. Pawley knew that the President had a committee on Cuba but was concerned that they were a group of very busy people who could not devote the necessary time and continuity to the Cuba problem. Mr. Pawley thinks the committee should have a strong Executive and the President suspected Mr. Pawley himself would like this responsibility. In any event, the President wondered if Mr. Pawley was not right in feeling that there needed to be some one individual who would have the situation always at his finger tips and also could take an active part in talking with members of the FRD and perhaps with other governments.
The President expressed his unhappiness about the general situation. He said that it was strange that he used to think of Betancourt as a leftist and now he was beginning to look like a rightist in relation to the pro-Castro, pro-Communist attacks against him. Also, it was clear that Castro influences had been involved in the El Salvador situation. The President wondered whether the situation did not have the appearance of beginning to get out of hand.
[Page 1128] He then quoted Mr. Pawley as saying that the young member of the FRD who went around to talk to various governments found that some, [less than 1 line not declassified] said that they would put money, men and equipment into the effort on a clandestine basis, whereas open activity of this sort through the OAS would not be possible.
The President then said he wished to ask two questions: (1) Are we being sufficiently imaginative and bold, subject to not letting our hand appear, and (2) are we doing the things we are doing, effectively.
The President adverted to the impending transfer of government responsibilities and said that we would not want to be in the position of turning over the government in the midst of a developing emergency.
Mr. Dulles responded that he did not always agree with Mr. Pawley. He said that the CIA had not wanted to use entirely a rightist group for our purposes and at times Mr. Pawley seemed to have a different view.
Mr. Dulles pointed out that there had been at one time or another 184 different groups [3 lines not declassified]. The President asked how might we proceed to bring them all together and
Mr. Dulles responded that this was impossible. The President then observed that he did not think we should be financing those we cannot get to work in harness. Mr. Dulles said we would find it necessary to continue to finance some [less than 1 line not declassified] notwithstanding.
Mr. Dulles pointed out that there were some 500 guerrilla trainees in Guatemala and a separate air force group which was very effective. He said that this was now a going operation [2 1⁄2 lines not declassified]. As for the size of the effort it was felt that we could go up to 600 but above that there would be need for another facility.
Mr. Dulles said that his view was that we should not eliminate the operation in Guatemala but should stiffen the government of Guatemala. He suggested sending military trainees and also some planes. He said that it was clear to him that Ydigoras does not want us to leave Guatemala but the State Department has had a concern about staying there.
Mr. Dillon said the State concern was the operation was no longer secret but is known all over Latin America and has been discussed in U.N. circles.
The President said that even if the operation were known, the main thing was not to let the U.S.’ hand show. As long as we pursued that course he was not too concerned.
He said that if we [less than 1 line not declassified] begin to replace them with recruits already available we could build up again to a battalion size.
[Page 1129] Mr. Dillon then said that the State Department had begun to think along the same lines as Mr. Pawley, with respect to the number of men needed and that State felt perhaps we should have two or three thousand.
Mr. Gates interposed to ask whether we could now recognize a government in exile. In that event the problems of training would not be so great. The President did not feel this is now possible.
Mr. Bissell said that it had been concluded that we could not train in the U.S. with any hope of security and the President agreed. (This appears to be a Presidential decision which settles a question discussed several times in the 5412 group.)
Mr. Douglas said he wished to clear up one question. In the event that it became necessary to evacuate from Guatemala by reason of an OAS investigation or for some other purpose transportation would be a problem. His question was whether Defense could assume that it would not be called upon on a crash basis. Mr. Dulles replied that he had evacuation plans prepared.
Mr. Dillon then said he would like the opportunity to explain that we had not given up on the idea of some action in the OAS under the Rio Treaty. He said that we had been canvassing the ambassadors here in small groups and have talked with them all more than once. Our objective would be first to bring about an investigation of Cuba through an organ of consultation; second, there would be a report showing what Cuba is doing in seeking to export its revolution, the denial of liberties, etc., and third, a meeting of the foreign ministers in February or March in which it would be hoped that all would agree to:(1) break diplomatic relations and throw out the Cuban embassies, (2) shut off commercial relations thus permitting us to invoke Trading with the Enemy Act, (3) undertake some military action to seal off Cuba and the export of arms, (4) devise some method of controlling all Communist agents in addition to those of Castro. He said there were both encouraging and discouraging aspects.
On the plus side, the Central American countries generally agree and the South American countries are less positively excited about it but demonstrate some readiness. On the minus side are three important factors: (1) the impending transfer of government responsibilities in this country. The leaders wish to make sure that the new government would not pull the rug out from such an effort. This means that there must be some effort to get the new administration effectively tuned in to the undertaking. (2) There is likewise a transition or a transfer of responsibilities yet to take place in Brazil. Therefore the Brazilian voice is not yet heard and it is not known what Quadros, who takes office January 1, will do. (3) In any event, there will be outright opposition from Mexico.
Mr. Dillon said he knew of no other country which would be so opposed.
[Page 1130] The President then said the big gap which we face involves a better public opinion in the Central and Latin American countries as to what is going on. Somehow we must encourage the governments to be more active in teaching their people about the problem.
Mr. Dillon said that our recently adopted economic programs were really a part of such an effort. He said that we now had a new approach in economic programs for Latin America and also through ICA programs which had been immensely stepped up.
The President said that he had a date with the President-elect on December 6.3 He knew that Mr. Dulles had briefed the President-elect on the covert planning.4 He intended to speak with Senator Kennedy and would hope that the response would be that he would follow the general line.
Mr. Dillon then said as far as Cuba today is concerned the regime is actually going bankrupt.
The USSR has pulled back some on offers of aid. This in the view of the State Department explains the recent Castro suggestions about hoping for better relations with the new Kennedy Administration.5
Mr. Anderson pointed out that the fact of bankruptcy in Cuba would make it easier to get useful people to serve with expenditure of money. Also he said that he had heard a rumor, unconfirmed, that there is developing an epidemic of hoof and mouth disease which would enable us and indeed require us to look at the imports of food from Cuba. Mr. Dillon pointed out that we had done nothing about imports from Cuba except sugar.
The President said he wished to come back to the question of whether it would be useful to have an individual executive to pull the whole Cuban situation together who would know precisely at all times what State, CIA and the military were doing and who could answer questions directly should the President require them. He again wondered whether Mr. Pawley might be suitable for this undertaking.
[1 paragraph (3 lines) not declassified]
The President said that he does not share the State Department concern about “shooting from the hip” as he thinks that we should be prepared to take more chances and be more aggressive.
Mr. Dillon said that he thinks there is some point in Mr. Pawley’s view that the FRD may have been too far to the left and perhaps it should be broadened to include more conservatives.
[Page 1131] The President then said that if the State Department has some sound person, he would like to have him find out from the governments what they will do. He said that Mr. Pawley plans to go himself notwithstanding.
Mr. Dillon then said that in the last month or two the State Department has become much more aggressive and is taking more chances. This was a reflection in the change of Assistant Secretaries for Latin America.
The President again came back to his feeling that we need someone who would go to see the FRD and the Latin American governments and who would keep in sufficient touch so that he would know what all are doing and keep all others informed.
[1 paragraph (21⁄2 lines) not declassified]
The President then said that Argentina and Colombia and possibly Chile ought to be interested in the training effort. If the men can be gotten to those countries and trained there and then assemble at some point for a week in advance of their use, this would be a substantial contribution.
The President again came back to the question of an individual who could (1) deal with the FRD, (2) come into the President’s committee and deal with it as an equal as well as report to the President. (The President again said he liked Pawley for the job but knew that some felt that he was too impetuous.) (3) [2 lines not declassified] and, (4) pull things together. In other words, the President said he felt the need of a coordinating chief.
[11⁄2 lines not declassified] Mr. Dillon said that he would prefer that the group discuss a name and report back to the President and the President approved this course.
The President then said that it was certainly all right to give trainers and ammunition and planes as required to Ydigoras and to beef him up in any way we could and this might even be done overtly.
[11⁄2 lines not declassified] Also, he wanted a careful check on what the various countries would do and would want done.
29 CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Page 276.
30 “Belvoir Estate Purchased By Bowmans.” The Washington Post, December 1, 1960. Page D2. 31 “Belvoir..” https://www.scribd.com/document/263269479/Belvoir#
32 “Why Luce Wouldn’t Back JFK, Believed Nixon Was Experienced, Tape Reveal.” By Henry Raymont, Long Beach Independent/Press Telegram, August 19, 1970. Page A-16.
A Colonial Revival Landmark in the Piedmont The Plains, Virginia by Cheryl Miller, 2014 Garden Club of Virginia Favretti Fellow
Interviewed in November 1965—15 months before his death—Luce noted that his early assessment of Kennedy had been based on the then 23 year-old Harvard graduate’s senior thesis on Britain’s lack of military preparedness on the eve of World War II.
James L. Baughman, Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News Media (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Page 183.
“William Pawley” New York Post, January 8, 1977.
33 “Embassy Row.” Time, February 24, 1961.
President Kennedy requested that some 40 career ambassadors remain, including “Roy Rubottom, Argentina; H. Freeman Matthews, Austria; John Moors Cabot, Brazil; Edward Page Jr., Bulgaria; William C. Trimble, Cambodia; Christian M. Ravndal, Czechoslovakia; Robert McClintock, Lebanon.
Labels: Castro, CIA, communists, Cuba, Del Valle, Eastland, Esterline, Keating, Kennedy, Luce, Merchant, Milton Eisenhower, Nixon, Pawley, QDDALE, Robert Hill, Rubottom, Sourwine, Varona, Wieland
posted by David Price Cannon @ 2:20 PM
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