Free Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron

Phillips. CIA files
    confirm that Phillips was assigned to support AMWORLD at that time,
    and used a variety of aliases and cover identities, at least one of which
    he withheld from Congressional investigators.25
    Manolo Ray, of JURE, was considered by the Kennedys and Harry to
    be of very high integrity, and a natural leader. A CIA cable describes Ray
    as having the “highest intellect, sincerity, and conviction,” though some
    CIA officials, like E. Howard Hunt, didn’t like Ray’s liberal politics.26 In
    addition to the Kennedys’ insistence on including Ray in the coup plan,
    Richard Helms knew that Ray was also in touch with Rolando Cubela
    and Cuba’s top journalist, Carlos Franqui, connections that could also
    prove useful. While Ray had no known Mafia connections, two months
    before JFK’s murder, three associates of Santo Trafficante (including
    Rolando Masferrer) were involved in a deliberate effort to link Ray’s
    JURE to Oswald and the assassination. In that September 1963 effort,
    a JURE supporter in Dallas named Silvia Odio received a visit from
    two exiles, accompanied by a man said to be Lee Harvey Oswald. This
    incident, detailed in Chapter 13, would take on a huge significance for
    investigators after JFK’s murder.
    While that effort was a deliberate attempt to stage an encounter
    that would taint Ray and JURE after JFK’s murder, another incident

Chapter Two
31
    is not so clear cut. A CIA report from October 29, 1963, says that Ray’s
    second-in-command boasted that “JURE had obtained military equip-
    ment through robbing unidentified [US] installation,” a military base of
    some sort.27 This didn’t seem to alarm Ray’s CIA case officer, because it
    was one way to equip US-backed Cuban exiles with “deniable” weap-
    ons. In a Texas incident involving arms stolen from a US military base,
    an exile had apparently hinted at the JFK-Almeida coup plan, according
    to FBI and Treasury Department reports from October 1963. The exile
    told a Dallas gun dealer that in “the last week of November 1963 . . .
    a large-scale amphibious operation would take place against the Cuba
    mainland [and] United States military forces or Government agencies
    would possibly be involved [as well as] rebel Cuban forces.” (Jack
    Ruby’s auto mechanic was involved in this gun-theft ring, and another
    Ruby associate had similar dealings.) FBI reports say that the Dallas
    gun dealer was probably the source of the bullet found in Oswald’s rifle
    after JFK’s assassination.28 Thus, even Oswald’s bullets were linked to
    pre-assassination reports of the JFK-Almeida coup plan.
    It’s important to point out the gun dealer was not knowingly part
    of JFK’s assassination, and Ray’s JURE might not have been the source
    of the talk about the coup plan; FBI files indicate it was a man linked
    to Eloy Menoyo. Still, it shows how the shadowy milieu in which the
    Kennedys’ exiles operated gave the Mafia opportunities to learn about
    or compromise each of the chosen exile groups.
    The Cuban exile officers at Fort Benning were largely beyond reproach,
    and many would go on to have distinguished careers. However, the base
    was a stop on Marcello and Trafficante’s portion of the French Connec-
    tion heroin network, which smuggled drugs into the US by hiding them
    in automobiles and appliances of servicemen returning from Europe.
    The Fort Benning part of the heroin network would not be exposed until
    two years after JFK’s murder, though it was active in 1963.29 The mob
    bosses had developed their ties to the area because Fort Benning was
    just across the river from Phenix City, Alabama, which until 1954 had a
    decades-long reputation as the most corrupt town in America (when it
    was largely run by Trafficante).
    Before looking more closely at the CIA’s role in the JFK-Almeida coup
    plan, we should point out two high officials who were not involved,
    and why: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Vice President Lyndon