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AFTER

MA

TH

1C

•

509 in

g o

n V

eciana's d

escriptio

n, h

ave bu

ilt up

a pictu

re of th

eir gunny. "B

ishop," who w

ould now be into his sixties, w

as 6'2' tall, of athletic build, and w

eighed more than 200 pounds. The

eyes were gray-blue, the hair light brow

n going gray, the com-

plexio

n fair. "B

isho

p's" face w

as usu

ally tann

ed an

d h

e had

"sunspots" under his eyes. H

e was m

eticulous about his dress, and —

by the early Seventies —

was w

earing glasses for read-ing. V

eciana gained the impression he w

as either from the A

mer-

ican South or —

more likely —

from Texas. In 1978 the A

ssas-sinations C

omm

ittee issued an artist's impression of "B

ishop" and m

ade a nationwide appeal for assistance in tracking him

dow

n (see illustratio

n 26, to

p). That proved unrew

arding, but the investigators did m

ake considerable progress in the informa-

tion desert and disinformation jungle that they encountered at

the CIA

.

Veciana recalled that "B

ishop" — as his spym

aster in Ha-

vana — suggested he seek assistance from

a number of officials,

Working in the U

.S. E

mbassy. O

ne was an unnam

ed CIA

offi-cer, a second w

as Wayne S

mith, and the third w

as Sam

Kail.

Sm

ith, w

ho

was th

ird secretary at th

e Havan

a Em

bassy, h

ad

not been questioned yet — just one exam

ple of the failure by the A

ssassinations Com

mittee m

anagement to follow

up rele-vant leads in the V

eciana affair. Colonel S

am K

ail, however, a

Texan who w

as a military intelligence officer at the E

mbassy,

was contacted by the C

omm

ittee. He said he saw

so many C

uban visito

rs that h

e cou

ld n

ot rem

emb

er Vecian

a. No

r, he said

. co

uld

he recall th

e nam

e "Mau

rice Bish

op

," bu

t said th

at ag

ents o

f the C

IA w

ou

ld freq

uen

tly use th

e nam

es of o

ther

Em

bassy staff personnel in their outside contacts." Kail later

assum

ed, w

hile in

Miam

i, that h

is military u

nit w

as actually

wo

rking

for th

e CIA

. It was K

ail wh

o, in

sum

mer 1963, p

ro-

Po

sed th

e meetin

g w

ith A

rmy In

telligen

ce that w

as attend

ed

by Osw

ald's Dallas m

entor, George de M

ohrenschildt. So far,

the Kail lead has been unproductive apart from

that connection,

1: Iriftatui

the Com

mittee

oBmismhoitpte:e. found dramatic encouragem

ent elsewhere.

Several C

IA o

fficials have said

they d

id in

deed

kno

w o

f a

appointee John McC

one. During his deposition, this conver-

satioFnitrsoot kthpelareceis the fo

rmer D

irector o

f the C

IA, K

enn

edy

1701 4

'-'11r1A1

508 a

ely

,1

CO

NS

PIR

AC

Y

Paw

ley, he w

as instru

men

tal in th

e ruth

less overth

row

of th

e C

omm

unist-oriented regime in G

uatemala. G

uy Banister. w

ho reportedly m

anipulated Lee Osw

ald in the summ

er of 1963, has also been linked w

ith the Guatem

ala operation. The report pot' sists that H

unt was in M

exico City in late S

eptember 1963; at the

time of O

swald's visit to M

exico.'" Hunt denies this, as he has

denied allegations that he was in D

allas on the day of the assasv- nation.

Fran

k Stu

rgis (n

e Fio

rini)," ° H

ow

ard H

un

t's associate in

the

Watergate burglary, w

as one of those who helped spread the story

that Osw

ald was affiliated to C

astro's intelligence service. He is

still alive. Hu

nt says h

e did

no

t meet S

turg

is un

til 1972, wh

ile S

turg

is has said

he m

et Hu

nt tw

o years b

efore th

e Ken

ned

y assassination. Sturgis has declined to say w

here he was on the day

the President w

as killed. In

1979 an A

ssassinatio

ns C

om

mittee rep

ort stated

that

0(

Sturgis took part in an anti-C

astro operation called"Cellula Fan

tasma." This involved dropping leaflets from

the skies over Cubs.

and Sturgis —

who is a pilot —

was involved. The im

portance the detail is that S

turgis has been connected to the operation by3

Cuban w

ho attended its planning stages. The Cuban is A

ntonio V

eciana, and his reason for mentioning the schem

e to Congres -

sional investigators was the identity of a C

IA officer w

ho took 3 personal interest in it. The officer, says V

eciana, was "M

auna B

ishop." A

nto

nio

Vecian

a was th

e victim o

f a mu

rder attem

pt in

late 1979 —

an ambush w

hile he was on the w

ay home from

wort.

Four shots were fired, .and a fragm

ent of one bullet lodged to V

eciana's h

ead. H

e recovered

— in

wh

at po

lice and

do

ctor~

con

sidered

a freak escape. P

ub

licly the veteran

anti-C

astro

figh

ter has b

lamed

the attack o

n C

astro ag

ents, b

ut p

rivate!! he has also expressed concern that it m

ay have been linked total alleg

ation

s abo

ut C

IA case o

fficer "Mau

rice Bish

op

," wh

o -

says Veciana —

met O

swald shortly before the K

ennedy assas-sination and later urged the fabrication of a false story about O

swald

and

Cu

ban

dip

lom

ats in M

exico C

ity. "M

aurice B

isho

p," m

eanw

hile, rem

ains th

e center o

f con

tny

versy and the elusive target of continuing research to establish his real identity. A

ssassinations Com

mittee investigators, w

ort*

510 C

ON

SP

IRA

CY

QU

ES

TIO

N: D

o you, or did you, know M

aurice Bishop?

AN

SW

ER

: Yes.

QU

ES

TIO

N: W

as he an Agency em

ployee? A

NS

WE

R: I believe so.

Form

er Director M

cCone said that, although he' once

knew, he could no longer rem

ember w

hat "Bishop" actually

did for the Agency. T

here was another intriguing developm

ent w

hen the Com

mittee interview

ed a former C

IA agent described

publicly merely as "B

.H." W

hen asked if he knew M

aurice B

ishop, "B.H

." replied that "Mr. B

ishop was in the organiza -

tion, but I had no personal day-to-day open relationship with

him

. . . ." "

B.H

." w

as vague ab

out "

Bish

op,"

saying on

ly that he had been a senior officer and that he had m

et him "tw

o or three tim

es" at CIA

headquarters. In Miam

i, - however, the

Com

mittee stum

bled on a witness w

ho was m

ore specific. He

had formerly been a case officer at 1/v1/W

AV

E, the headquarters

in Florida for the C

IA's Secret W

ar against Castro. T

his offi-cer, w

hom the C

omm

ittee quoted under the pseudonym "R

on C

ross," had handled one of the most active anti-C

astro grouPs

and was potentially w

ell placed to have known "B

ishop." His

answers to the C

omm

ittee questions were dram

atic. C

omm

ittee investigators threw not one, but three nam

es at "C

ross." The first w

as "Bishop," another w

as "Knight.

and the third was the real nam

e of an officer who had w

orked out of H

avana. "Cross" duly pointed out the fact that the third

name w

as the true name of som

ebody he had encountered in H

avana. "Knight," as he recalled it, w

as a name occasionally

used

by H

oward

Hu

nt. A

nd

"B

ishop

," "

Cross"

believed

. w

as the name used by D

avid Phillips. P

hillips, the reader will recall, is the form

er top CIA

offi-

cer who w

as running Mexico C

ity Cuban operations —

at the tim

e of the Osw

ald visit, and of the strange visits to the Cuban

and Soviet Em

bassies by a man w

ho may —

on some occasions

at least — have been an O

swald im

poster. It is Phillips w

ho. in retirem

ent, has come up w

ith his own explanations of the

lack of surveillance pictures of the real Osw

ald, and of the disappearing sound recordings of the visitor to the em

bassies -and som

e of whose testim

ony failed to satisfy two C

hief Coun-

sels of the Assassinations C

omm

ittee. "Cross," a few

days

AF

TE

RM

AT

H

511

after his initial statements, declared him

self "almost certain"

that Phillips, w

ho sometim

es visited the Miam

i CIA

station from

Washington, did indeed use the cover nam

e of "Bishop."

In addition, "Cross" now

coupled "Bishop" w

ith the first name

"Maurice" —

a name the C

omm

ittee investigators had not so far m

entioned. D

avid P

hillip

s testified on

oath to th

e Assassin

ations

Com

mittee in 1978. H

e denied ever having used the name

"Bishop," and said he had never heard the nam

e used by a C

IA em

ployee. His denial, how

ever, has not stilled the specu-lation around his nam

e — and it continues as this edition goes

to press. Phillips, a T

exan born near Fort Worth, originally w

anted to becom

e an actor. After a false start in the theater, he m

oved to C

hile and tried his hand at publishing a small E

nglish-language new

spaper. It was there that he attracted the atten-

tion of local CIA

officers, who launched him

on his long ca-reer in

U.S

. intelligen

ce — a career w

hich

span

ned

some

of the Agency's m

ost infamous operations to topple foreign

governments (see illu

stration

26, right). In 1954, in associa-

tion with a C

IA team

including How

ard Hunt as P

olitical A

ction O

fficer, Ph

illips p

layed a lead

ing p

art in th

e over-throw

of the anti-Am

erican, left-leaning Arbenz governm

ent in G

uatemala. It w

as a remarkably cunning operation. in w

hich A

rbenz was panicked into resignation as m

uch by propaganda as by actual force of arm

s. Phillips, a propaganda expert, ran

the clandestine Voice of L

iberation radio — broadcasting

false reports about imaginary rebel forces and about battles

which never took place. W

hen Am

erican-backed forces took over, Phillips spent som

e time in G

uatemala studying the docu-

ments of the defeated regim

e. It was he w

ho noted the recent activities in G

uatemala of an obscure young revolutionary

called Che G

uevara. and opened a CIA

file on him. Six years

later, in 1960, Phillips w

as in at the very start when P

resident E

isenhower approved the earliest plans to reverse C

astro's revolution in C

uba. He attended the first C

IA executive m

eet-ing on the subject, and later becam

e propaganda chief of the B

ay of Pigs operation. H

e was C

hief of Station in the Dom

ini-can R

epublic during 1965, the year Am

erican troops invaded

512 C

ON

SP

IRA

CY

the country. At the peak of a career in w

hich he rose to become

Chief of the W

estern Hem

isphere Division, P

hillips was to the

fore in A

merican

med

dlin

g in C

hilean

affairs. He w

as chief of

the C

hile T

ask F

orce establish

ed to try to p

revent S

alvador

Allende assum

ing the presidency to which he had been legallY

elected

. Ph

illips, for all th

at, insists h

e is a man

of progressive

sympathies. T

he Assassinations C

omm

ittee inquiry, faced with the sug-

gestion th

at Ph

illips w

as "B

ishop

," took

into accou

nt cer-

tain coin

ciden

ces betw

een P

hillip

s' career and

"B

ishop

" as

describ

ed b

y Vecian

a. Ph

illips w

as a Texan

, and

Vecian

a had

from

the first exp

ressed th

e belief th

at "B

ishop

" w

as most

likely from

Texas. P

hillip

s had

served in

relevant p

laces at tim

es consisten

t with

Vecian

a's accoun

t of "B

ishop

's" ac-

tivities. In 1960, w

hen

Vecian

a said h

e was recru

ited b

y "

Bish

op"

in H

avana, P

hillip

s was servin

g there as a covert

operative. V

eciana says "

Bish

op"

initially in

trodu

ced h

im-

self as a represen

tative of a constru

ction firm

head

qu

artered

in B

elgium

. He also u

sed a false B

elgian p

assport. P

hillip

s, in a biography not yet published w

hen Veciana first m

ade his allegation

s, states that b

y 1959, followin

g the C

astro revolu-

tion, h

e was u

sing h

is own

pu

blic relation

s firm as a fron

t for C

IA op

erations. O

ne overt fu

nction

of the com

pan

y was to

represen

t "foreign

ind

ustrialists."

Th

ere is eviden

ce that th

e C

IA has indeed used B

elgian identity papers for secret opera-tions abroad.

Th

e An

glo-Am

erican D

irectory of Cu

ba for 1960 carries

an entry for Phillips as a "P

ublic Relations C

ouncillor." Phil-

lips, h

owever, says h

e was ou

t of Cu

ba b

y early March

1960. before th

e "m

id-1960"

period

wh

en V

eciana says h

e was re-

cruited

by "

Bish

op."

Th

is auth

or's research, for th

is Ed

ition,

has produced some corroboration that P

hillips did cease to be a p

erman

ent H

avana resid

ent in

early 1960. Assassin

ations

Com

mittee research

, how

ever, reported

ly ind

icated th

at P

hillip

s could

ind

eed h

ave been

in H

avana d

urin

g the p

eriod

mentioned by V

eciana. The C

IA's liaison in the C

astro regime

was on

e of Vecian

a's closest associates, and

Ph

illips k

new

AFTE

RM

ATH

513

him. V

eciana says it was "B

ishop" who incited him

to take part in

a plot to m

urd

er Fid

el Castro, w

hile P

hillip

s says he k

new

nothing of C

IA assassination plots. H

e has, however, adm

itted that —

in Cuba —

he took part in other anti-Castro activity very

similar to th

at ascribed

to "B

ishop

." P

hillip

s, writin

g be-

foie the Veciana allegations becam

e known, said he contacted

one of a group of Cubans w

ho were planning an early coup at-

temp

t against C

astro. His C

IA in

struction

s, Ph

illips w

rote, w

ere to introduce himself as "an A

merican anxious to assist,"

perh

aps "

usin

g a false iden

tity." T

he p

lan leak

ed, an

d sev-

eral of the C

ub

ans in

volved w

ere arrested. M

uch

the sam

e h

app

ened

wh

en V

eciana's p

lot to kill C

astro was d

iscovered.

Veciana has claim

ed that "Bishop" w

as involved in a much

later plot to assassinate Castro. in 1971 in C

hile. He also says

that "Bishop" played an im

portant role in efforts to remove the

then Chilean P

resident. Salvador Allende. A

llende fell in 1973 -the year V

eciana says he was finally paid off by "B

ishop" with

a lump sum

of more than a quarter of a m

illion dollars. Phillips,

who played a leading role in C

IA operations against A

llende. says th

at — as ch

ief of CIA

Latin

Am

erican op

erations in

1973 —

he k

now

s that n

o such

CIA

paym

ent w

as mad

e to V

eciana. He insists that such a sum

could have been paid only w

ith his own approval or that of the D

irector of the CIA

. It is know

n, however, that C

IA operatives in L

atin Am

erica — in-

cluding Phillips as a key executive —

disposed of thirteen mil-

lion dollars on covert action operations between 1963 and 1974.

Congressional O

versight Com

mittees have yet to be told how

m

uch

of that vast su

m w

as spen

t. Million

s. how

ever, wen

t to fund m

anipulation of radio stations and newspapers for propa-

gand

a pu

rposes, an

area wh

ich h

as been

Ph

illips' sp

eciality since the F

ifties. None of this, of course, proves that the C

IA,

let alone Phillips. m

ade the payment to V

eciana. Funds w

ere available, how

ever, and they are so far fuzzily accounted for. P

hillips, meanw

hile, says he may be able to produce docum

en-tation show

ing that he was at C

IA headquarters near W

ashing-ton during at least part of the day "B

ishop" allegedly paid off V

eciana in Miam

i. On the other hand, P

hillips has made no such

AF

TE

RM

AT

H

515

Lions he recalled with P

hillips' assistant, Doug G

upton. Gup-

ton, says "Cross," w

ould often say something like, "W

ell, I guess M

r. Bishop w

ill have to talk with him

," and "Cross"

would know

he was referring to his boss, D

avid Phillips. A

t this point, how

ever, the Assassinations C

omm

ittee inquiry faltered.

The Com

mittee traced G

upton, who confirm

ed that he was

in daily contact with "C

ross." How

ever, he said he "did not recall w

hether either Hunt or P

hillips used the cover name

"Kn

igh

t," no

r did

he rem

emb

er Ph

illips u

sing

the n

ame

"Maurice B

ishop." Faced with "C

ross' " recollection of his having referred frequently to P

hillips by the name "B

ishop," G

upton said, "Well m

aybe I did, I don't remem

ber." He said

he did not recognize the artist's impression of "B

ishop" drawn

from the description by V

eciana. He did say, how

ever, that P

hillips "used many of his old contacts from

Havana in his

personal operations." D

urin

g th

e search fo

r "Bish

op

," An

ton

io V

eciana w

as show

n photographs of David P

hillips. He reportedly stared at

one picture for a long time, and then said, "It is close.... D

oes he have a brother?" Finally, though, V

eciana said, "No, it's not

him.... B

ut I would like to talk to him

." Soon, V

eciana had an opportunity to observe D

avid Phillips in the flesh —

at a lun-cheon of the A

ssociation of Former Intelligence O

fficers.• A

fterwards, according to a published account of the confronta-

tion, Veciana repeated his denial that P

hillips was "B

ishop," saying, "N

o, he's not him.... B

ut he knows." A

sked what he

meant, V

eciana merely repeated, "H

e knows." P

hillips, for his part, show

ed no sign of recognizing Veciana during the luncheon session —

although Veciana was repeatedly introduced to him

. Later, in sw

orn testimony, Phillips w

as to claim that Veciana had

been

intro

du

ced n

ot b

y nam

e, bu

t merely as "th

e driver."

According to the A

ssassinations Com

mittee investigator present,

Phillips was clearly told Veciana's nam

e, three times, in front of

wintesses.

• The meeting w

as addressed by Clare B

oothe Luce. who cropped up

in th

e inq

uiry in

con

nectio

n w

ith d

isinfo

rmatio

n. L

uce. a stau

nch

de-

fender of the intelligence establishment, is on the board of the A

sso-ciation.

514 C

ON

SP

IRA

CY

appeal to the record over his whereabouts at the tim

e of the in

ciden

t at the h

eart of th

e "Bish

op

" furo

r — th

e meetin

g

in autumn 1963, w

hen Veciana says he encountered O

swald in

"Bishop's" com

pany in Dallas, Texas. P

hillips now says that

he w

as in T

exas "arou

nd

that tim

e," visiting

relatives thirty

miles from

Dallas.

Congress' A

ssassinations Com

mittee pursued the declara-

tion

by M

iami case o

fficer "Ro

n C

ross," th

at Ph

illips an

d

Ho

ward

Hu

nt h

ad o

perated

un

der th

e nam

es "Bish

op

" and

"K

nig

ht" resp

ectively — u

sing

wh

at app

ears to b

e a chess

analogy. It found a sort of corroboration, which also contains

a contradiction. Hunt, w

ho has written several novels and a

non-fiction work about the B

ay of Pigs, has used pseudonym

s in his books. For exam

ple, although Hunt claim

s he did not m

eet Fran

k Fio

rini/S

turg

is un

til the S

eventies, a ch

aracter very like him

appears under the name H

ank Sturgis in a novel

written as early as 1949. The fictional character is an ex-M

arine turned gam

bler and soldier-of-fortune, a career which sounds

similar to that of the real-life individual w

ho legally took the nam

e Frank Sturgis in 1952. In his book about the B

ay of Pigs.

Hu

nt refers to

his o

ld asso

ciate Ph

illips, th

en p

rop

agan

da

chief for the operation, as "Knight." In his 1977 m

emoirs, for

his part, Phillips m

akes much of this identification, com

ment-

ing that "Bestow

ing the name of K

night was the ultim

ate acco-lade —

people who have w

orked in CIA

will recall that pseudo-

nym belonged to one of the A

gency's most senior officers, a

man H

unt idolized. . . ." The man H

unt idolized, it turns out, w

as Richard H

elms, the controversial form

er Director of the

CIA

. The recent authoritative book on Helm

s, Th

e M

an

Wh

o

Ke

pt th

e S

ec

rets

, states flatly th

at "Kn

igh

t" was H

elms'

codename in the C

IA. H

unt's literary back-patting of Phillips.

however, does not necessarily correspond w

ith the use of cover nam

es in real-life operations in the early Sixties. If H

unt indeed idolized H

elms, it seem

s plausible that — as form

er case offi-cer "C

ross" recalls — he w

ould have dubbed him

self"K

nig

ht"

during anti-Castro operations. "C

ross," of course, suggests it w

as Phillips w

ho borrowed the other nam

e from the chess-

board, "Bishop." H

e said the reason he was "alm

ost positive ..

Phillips actually used that nam

e was because of the conversa-

516 C

ON

SPIR

AC

Y

In the end, Congress' A

ssassinations Com

mittee w

as not satisfied w

ith the responses by either Veciana or P

hillips. Its R

eport said that the Com

mittee "suspected V

eciana was lying

when he denied that the retired officer w

as Bishop . . ." It re-

ferred only to a "retired officer" as having been the subject of the confrontation w

ith Veciana, but a detailed appendix to- the

Report show

s that Phillips w

as the officer discussed."' The

Report said of P

hillips, ". . . For his part, the retired officer

aroused the Com

mittee's suspicion w

hen he told the Com

mittee

he did not recognize Veciana as the founder of A

lpha 66, espe-cially since the officer had once been deeply involved in A

gency

anti-C

astro operation

s . ."

There is no evidence that the "retired officer," P

hillips, had

any part in a conspiracy to murder the P

resident. Moreover,

whatever the true identity of "B

ishop," Veciana's account does

not state that "Bishop" plotted the P

resident's assassination. W

hat Veciana does allege, how

ever, is— if true—

highly relevant

to the continuing inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the

tragedy. The allegation is that a U

.S. intelligence officer met w

ith

Osw

ald shortly before the crime, and subsequently incited a

Cuban contact to help fabricate a false story about an O

swald link

with C

uban diplomats. T

hat, clearly, must be exhaustively

investigated. T

he Assassinations C

omm

ittee has left the "Bishop" affair

unresolved and under-researched. Its inquiries had been stymied

by confusing responses to its questions about "Bishop" addressed

to the C

IA an

d to its form

er emp

loyees. On

ce the A

gency

declared it could find no reference to "Bishop" in its files, one-

time D

irector McC

one said he must have been m

istaken when he

told the Com

mittee he did rem

ember "B

ishop." "B.H

.," the

former covert operative believed by C

omm

ittee staff to have been used on assignm

ents involving violence, stuck to his story of

having met "B

ishop" at CIA

headquarters. "Ron C

ross," the

Miam

i case officer who nam

ed How

ard Hunt as "K

night" and . Phillips as "B

ishop," has not withdraw

n his allegation. One C

om-

mittee investigator, w

eighing the various statements and the

circumstances in w

hich they emerged, believes that the statem

ent by "B

.H." m

ay be a red herring designed to confuse the trail. He

tends to believe McC

one's instinctive initial reaction, and also the

AF

TE

RM

AT

H

517

replies of "Ron C

ross" about Hunt and P

hillips. The feeling

remains that som

ebody in the CIA

, or who w

as formerly in the

CIA

, is playing chess with the K

ennedy inquiry. In its closing m

onths, with the evidence about possible M

afia

connections with O

swald in N

ew O

rleans building up, the Com

-m

ittee veered in that direction to the exclusion of other evidence. In fact, taking together the evidence of N

ew O

rleans and Mexico,

this was surely an error of judgem

ent. That, com

bined with the

pressures of time and m

oney, led to the dying-off of top-level enthusiasm

for the hunt for "Bishop." A

s we have seen, vital leads

remain unchecked. So, too, does another of V

eciana's efforts to help the investigations. H

e states that, in the very earliest days of his relationship w

ith "Bishop," he noted that his A

merican con-

tact had with him

a Belgian passport. V

eciana noted the name

"Frigault" on the passport, and he has produced a slip of paper w

ith that name on it. H

e says this is a note he made at the tim

e, w

hich he has kept ever since. Congress' A

ssassinations Com

mit-

tee failed to pursue this lead, which —

like the other neglected clues —

should now be follow

ed up promptly. T

hose directly involved in this area of the investigation are confident there w

as indeed a "B

ishop," and believe it is of paramount im

portance that he be unm

asked. Clearly this is right.

It is certainly possible that a renegade element in U

.S. in-telligence m

anipulated Osw

ald — w

hatever his role on No-

vember 22, 1963. T

hat same elem

ent may have activated paw

ns in the anti-C

astro movem

ent and the Mafia to m

urder the Presi-dent and to execute O

swald.

Th

e very suggestion

that som

e of those ch

arged w

ith

protecting Am

erican security should so betray their trust is clearly abhorrent to m

oderate citizens. Unfortunately there is nothing

inherently implausible in the scenario. T

he revelations of the Seventies h

ave shown only too clearly that there w

ere rotten apples in the C

IA apparatus and that they included som

e of those m

ost passionately comm

itted to the elimination of Fidel C

astro. In the nam

e of that cause, intelligence officers dabbled in unau-thorized operations, including assassination plots w

hich until

recently seemed to belong in the purple pages of pulp fiction. In

Pursuit of these follies, CIA

officials were deeply involved w

ith

top mem

bers of the Mafia. T

he mob hated the K

ennedy adminis-

518 C

ON

SPIRA

CY

tration, and so did some of those in the C

IA w

hose views clashed

with

the P

residen

t's. Th

e time of th

e Bay of P

igs, wh

en th

e President "betrayed" the cause of the anti-C

astro movem

ent, was

coincidental with the K

ennedy onslaught on the Mafia, including,

specifically, the forcible eviction of Carlos M

arcello. Over C

uba, or. the M

afia and the exiles nursed the same resentm

ents as many in

the CIA

. There w

ere those in the CIA

, steeped in an everyday aura of deception and violent action, w

ho exercised unconscion-able pow

er. The signs are that, at least from

the time of the

unauthorized raids on Soviet shipping after the missile crisis, som

e individuals in intelligence encouraged actions designed to sabot-age the P

resident's search for peace. This cannot be dism

issed as unfounded speculation. C

ongress' Assassinations C

omm

ittee noted that, even at the tim

e of the Bay of P

igs debacle, a senior C

IA officer reportedly incited C

uban exiles to disobey Presiden-

tial policy. Before the invasion, the C

IA director of operations,

working under the cover nam

e of "Frank B

ender," assembled

exile leaders at their Guatem

ala training camp. A

ccording to the authoritative history, "B

ender" told the Cubans that "T

here were

forces in the administration trying to block the invasion, and

Frank might be ordered to stop it. If he received such an order, he

said he would secretly inform

Pepe and O

liva. Pepe (P

epe San R

oman, the exile com

mander] rem

embers Frank's next w

ords this w

ay: 'If this happens you come here and m

ake some kind of show

, as if you w

ere putting us, the advisers, in prison, and you go ahead w

ith the program as w

e have talked about it, and we w

ill give you the w

hole plan, even if we are your prisoners.'... F

rank then laughed and said, 'In the end w

e will w

in.' M

any months later, during the m

issile crisis, Robert K

ennedy w

as appalled to discover that — as the w

orld waited in fear of a

nuclear holocaust— one C

IA officer had conceived on his ow

n the project of dispatching ten com

mando team

s to Cuba. T

hree groups had already set off. T

he President's brother investigated

the matter and found that top C

IA officials knew

nothing about it. T

he officer responsible for this idiocy was W

illiam H

arvey, the C

IA operative said by an official of the C

uban Special Group to

' The officer's real nam

e was reportedly "D

roller" (Thom

as Pow

ers, op.

cit., p. 107).

AFTER

MA

TH

519

have hated Robert K

ennedy "with a purple passion." B

efore his eventual rem

oval to a foreign posting, Harvey's expertise w

as harnessed to tw

o familiar projects. O

ne was the "E

xecutive A

ction" scheme, in w

hich Harvey had been dabbling even before

the Bay of P

igs. Its purpose, as the CIA

has admitted, w

as to •

research m

eans to overthrow foreign leaders, including a "capa-

bility to perform assassinations." T

o that end, Harvey contacted

03/wm

, the as yet unidentified CIA

"asset" whom

Harvey used to

canvass the underworld for "an available pool of assassins." From

late 1961 until 1963, H

arvey headed another operation — the

CIA

machinations w

ith the Mafia to kill F

idel Castro. H

e was

actively involved in the field and in that capacity had meetings

with the gangster John R

oselli, the link-man to Santos T

rafficante in the C

astro assassination plots. H

arvey's desperate folly during the missile crisis, and "B

en-der's" apparent incitem

ent to mutiny during the B

ay of Pigs

operation, are both recorded by distinguished chroniclers. These

episodes are evidence, if evidence is still needed, that some in the

CIA

were ready, even eager, to flout the w

ishes of President

Kennedy. W

hile the Assassinations C

omm

ittee rightly concluded that the C

IA as an agency had no part in the assassination, it is

wholly possible that m

avericks from the intelligence w

orld were

involved. A

fter his brother's death in Dallas, A

ttorney General R

obert K

ennedy confided such suspicions to a family friend, then D

irec-tor of the C

IA, John M

cCone. T

he younger Kennedy later recall-

ed, "You know

, at the time I asked M

cCone ... if they had killed

my brother, and I asked him

in a way that he couldn't lie to m

e. and they hadn't." A

s we have seen, R

obert Kennedy later

developed grave doubts about the official version of the Dallas

murder and suspected that organized crim

e might have had a part

in it. As for M

cCone, he believed from

the start that there had been m

ore than one gunman in D

ealey Plaza. In 1979, the suspi-cions of both m

en have been vindicated by the research of the A

ssassinations Com

mittee. T

oday, furthermore, it is doubtful

that McC

one would still feel able to give assurances of A

merican

intelligence officers' innocence, and certainly Robert K

ennedy W

ould have had difficulty accepting them. In N

ovember 1963,

When the question first cam

e up, CIA

Director M

cCone had no

,o96.411111.0111M

520 C

ON

SPIRA

CY

idea what outrages his ow

n people had been comm

itting. He knew

nothing of the C

IA plots to kill C

astro. Nor had he been told that,

as part of their lethal schemes, som

e senior officers had become

deeply involved with the very M

afia bosses suspected of plotting to kill the P

resident. Allen D

ulles, McC

one's predecessor, did know

of assassination plots against Castro but failed to m

ention it to h

is colleagues w

hen

he b

ecame a m

emb

er of the W

arren

Com

mission. If R

obert Kennedy had survived to learn w

hat we

know today, he w

ould surely have extended his suspicions of an organized-crim

e role in the assassination to include the Am

erican intelligence elem

ent. T

he past two years have m

arked a historic turn-around in the unraveling of the K

ennedy case. Form

er Warren C

omm

ission counsel B

urt Griffin told a B

BC

colleague and myself, "I feel

betrayed. I feel that the CIA

lied to us, that we had an agency of

governm

ent h

ere wh

ich w

e were d

epen

din

g up

on, th

at we

• expected to be truthful with us, and to cooperate w

ith us. And

they didn't do it. The C

IA concealed from

us the fact that they w

ere involved in efforts to assassinate Castro w

hich could have been of extrem

e importance to us. E

specially the fact that they w

ere involved in working w

ith the Mafia at that tim

e." Judge G

riffin feels the same about the F

BI and says, "W

hat is most

disturbing to me is that tw

o agencies of the government, that w

ere supposed to be loyal and faithful to us, deliberately m

isled us." Judge G

riffin's rueful conclusions about the performance of the

intelligen

ce agencies are n

ow n

ot allegations b

ut h

ard facts,

hamm

ered into the record by successive Congressional inquiries.

As for the specific case of the K

ennedy killing, the Assassinations

Com

mittee declared in 1979 that "the C

IA–M

afia–Cuban plots

had all the elements necessary for a successful assassination con-

spiracy— people, m

otive and means—

and the evidence indicated th

at the p

articipan

ts migh

t well h

ave consid

ered u

sing th

e resources at their disposal to increase their pow

er and alleviate their problem

s by assassinating the President. N

evertheless, the C

omm

ittee was ultim

ately frustrated in its attempt to determ

ine details of those activities that m

ight have led to the assassination —

identification of participants, associations, timing of events,

an

d so

on

...."

As this book w

as being completed, one indefatigable A

med-

AFTE

RM

ATH

521

can reporter found that his carefully researched stories on the K

ennedy case were not getting into print. O

n appealing to his editor, he received a m

emorandum

regretting that he was still

"posing questions that are unanswerable." H

e should instead, w

rote the editor, "carefully point out that the Assassinations

Com

mittee's dem

ise is reflective of the general public's feelings for the m

oment —

'Let it rest.' " W

hen the Com

mittee's final

report came out, the m

ost powerful organs of the A

merican m

edia echoed that sentim

ent. Some decried the significant achievem

ents the C

omm

ittee had produced. Long before their reporters could

possibly have studied the m

onumental verbiage of the report and

its accompanying volum

es of evidence, Time, N

ewsw

eek, and the N

ew

Yo

rk T

imes delivered their verdicts. T

hey gave space to articles ranging from

the caustic to the openly sarcastic. One

distinguished comm

entator "declined to accept" the acoustics evidence that tw

o gunmen w

ere at work in D

ealey Plaza, yet it was

clear from his com

ments that he had not studied the vital detail of

that evidence. One reporter sneered at those he dubbed "conspi-

racy junkies," and another gloomily foresaw

that now "w

ackier and w

ackier the theories will grow

." Had he read the C

omm

ittee's findings, the latter w

riter would have found that the latest inquiry

had performed the w

elcome service of disposing of the m

any fantasies w

hich had surrounded the case. I started w

ork on the Kennedy case w

ith the apprehensive expectation that I w

ould be sifting more than a dozen years of

intensive investigative reporting. I found, with astonishm

ent, that I w

as in a virtual journalistic vacuum. T

he Kennedy assassination

never was treated w

ith the assiduous reporting effort that fol- low

ed Watergate. It occurred in a tim

e when the reporter's vital

instinct of inquiry was dulled by trust in the official investigation.

The necessary follow

-up was sw

ept away in the avalanche of the

metam

orphic Sixties. With a handful of honorable exceptions, few

professional journalists did original w

ork on the Kennedy assassi-

nation. To m

y amazem

ent, I repeatedly found myself the first

reporter to interview relevant w

itnesses. A

fter the Assassinations C

omm

ittee reported, one Am

erican editorial opined that the C

omm

ittee had done no service to his- tory and should never have m

et at all if the best it could do was

prolong public confusion. Its writer claim

ed with assurance that

522

CO

NS

PIR

AC

Y

"few

Am

ericans are very ferven

t these d

ays in th

eir desire to

know the single, burning, absolute truth about the killings." N

o reporter should presum

e to read the public mind, and —

I venture to say—

it does not really matter in this case w

hether the Am

eri-can people are w

eary of the Kennedy assassination or not. B

e-tw

een hysteria and the cement of history there is that essential

to any civilized

society — ju

stice. T

he reporters who m

ocked the latest assassination investiga-tion

also prod

uced

distu

rbin

g qu

otes from law

-enforcem

ent

authorities. One Justice D

epartment official w

as reported as say-ing that the latest official inquiry "offered nary a clue" as to w

ho, other than O

swald, m

ight have taken part in the assassination. A

nother declared that the Justice Departm

ent has better things to do than to "chase ghosts." T

he first would find clues aplenty w

ere he to study the seven thousand pages of A

ssassinations Com

mit-

tee evidence on the Kennedy case. H

e might even find them

in this book. A

s for the second official, the outburst is at odds with his

responsibility as a trusted public official. A

s for the CIA

, its arrogance toward the civilian adm

inistra-tion is recorded tim

e and again in these pages. For C

ongressmen

on the Assassinations C

omm

ittee, its performance w

as as galling as ever. O

ne, Congressm

an Fithian, noted at one public hearing

that the Agency had dispatched a spokesm

an who declared him

-self "not qualified" to discuss the subject of L

ee Osw

ald, "which

hap

pen

s to be th

e only th

ing th

is comm

ittee was p

rimarily

interested in." Congressm

an Dodd w

as so outraged by what he

learned about both the FB

I and the CIA

that he added his own

eloqu

ent footn

ote to the C

omm

ittee's report. D

odd

insisted

. "T

hese two agencies need the rule of law

. The attitude that they

were free to fu

nction

outsid

e or above th

e law allow

ed th

ese abuses to occur. T

here must be no question that the C

ongress intends for these agencies to operate w

ithin the law and that the

Am

erican public demand that they do so. I believe that even today

the attitude of being in some w

ay above the law lingers in these

agencies."

Con

gressman

Dod

d, lik

e his colleagu

e Fith

ian,

deplored the fact that the CIA

had failed to send to the Com

mit-

tee a spokesman prepared to discuss the role of that central figure

— L

ee Osw

ald. In

conclu

sion, th

e Con

gressman

turn

ed to

jL

AF

TE

RM

AT

H

523

Shakespeare to ask the question he posed to the Am

erican people about the C

IA. H

e asked, quoting Julius Caesar,

"Upon w

hat meat doth this, our C

aesar, feed T

hat h

e is grown

so great?"

' "Perhaps," D

odd concluded, "it is the meat of our indiffer-

ence. If so, we can afford to be indifferent no longer."

The C

hief Counsel of the A

ssassinations Com

mittee, P

rofes-sor R

obert Blakey, is a m

eticulous lawyer. H

e has a reputation for extrem

e caution and a painstaking regard for hard evidence. Since the C

omm

ittee issued its Report he has broken his custom

ary silence to em

phasize that the fact that there were at least tw

o gunm

en in Dallas, and thus a conspiracy, is "a scientifically based

fact." The P

rofessor says, "The C

omm

ittee has provided a road m

ap that indicates the points of departure for subsequent inves-tigation that need not be lim

ited as Congressional investigations

are— N

ew O

rleans in the case of the Kennedy assassination....

The G

overnment, to live up to the m

eaning of Justice, can do no less than to pursue the course the C

omm

ittee has charted. Why?

not t h e no

Because statutes of lim

itation do not apply to murder, certainly

mu

rders of m

en lik

e John

F. K

enn

edy.... Ju

stice

The C

hief Counsel is right, and his forthright com

ments lead

to the aspiration with w

hich justice is inextricably entwined -

morality. In m

id-1979, at a low point in his ow

n administration's

fortunes, the fourth successor to John Kennedy, P

resident Jimm

y C

arter, addressed the nation on what he called "the crisis of the

spirit in our country." He listed the ills of an A

merica endangered

from w

ithin — a nation in w

hich only a third of the people even bother to vote, w

hose productivity is falling, where there is a

vowing disrespect for all the established institutions. P

resident C

arter firmly dated the m

ilestones in the process that led to the crisis. T

hey were, he said, the executions of national figures w

hich began w

ith the killing of President K

ennedy. In

a schizop

hren

ic era, the assassin

ation of P

residen

t K

ennedy has reflected the best and the worst hallm

arks of the A

merican character. T

he murder itself, enacted on a w

ide screen of global attention, w

as somehow

intrinsically Am

erican, as seminal

pp t

524 C

ON

SPIRA

CY

to the Sixties as the broadcast dramas of V

ietnam, the revolu-

tion of international youth, and the landing on the moon. T

he first K

ennedy inquiry was bungled, for all the pom

p and circumstance

with w

hich its conclusions were announced. It w

as an analgesic, adm

inistered as readily as the drug culture which w

as soon to calm

and confuse one generation and outrage its parents. In the Seven-ties, the reopening of the K

ennedy inquiry was a response by the

lawm

akers to a national doubt that questioned far m

ore than the m

anner of one•man's passing. In 1981 it is conceivable that the

concepts of justice and morality m

ay surface from a sea of cyni-

cism and resum

e their place at the core of Am

erican life. Perhaps th

at hop

e will n

ot, only th

ree years away from

1984, draw

conditioned derision.

It is fitting, perhaps, to close with the w

ords of one who w

as not yet an A

merican citizen w

hen President Kennedy w

as assassi-nated. In 1978 Silvia O

dio, the Cuban exile w

hose chilling tes-tim

ony about "Osw

ald" remains the m

ost compelling hum

an evidence of conspiracy, gave m

e a television interview. W

hen I asked her w

hy she was now

prepared to talk, after refusing press approaches for so long, she w

as silent for a long mom

ent. Then she

said, "1 guess it is a feeling of frustration after so many years. I feel

outraged that we have not discovered the truth for history's sake,

for all of us. I think it is because I'm very angry about it all —

the forces I cannot understand and the fact that there is nothing I can do against them

. That is w

hy I am here."

A m

ultitude of citizens, not only in the United States, w

ould certainly agree w

ith that sentiment. T

he Assassinations C

omm

it. tee C

hief Counsel, in a rem

arkable statement, has expressed his

belief that it is not necessarily too late to see justice done. He has

declared that there are today "living people who could have been

involved in the assassinations of Martin L

uther King and P

resi-dent K

ennedy. These people should be vigorously investigated by

all constitutional means." P

rofessor Blakey asserts that "there arc

things that can be done, in a criminal justice context, to m

ove this tow

ards trial ..." On a case so long neglected, the C

hief Counsel

warns that he could not be sure of bringing an indictm

ent that w

ould secure conviction. Nevertheless, the P

rofessor says, "I think I could com

e close to it."

AFT

ER

MA

TH

525

That statem

ent, from a distinguished and responsible

counsel, should not go unheeded in a functioning democracy:

In its final Report, the A

ssassinations Com

mittee asked the

Justice Departm

ent to study the evidence so far assembled,

and recomm

end whether further action should be taken. T

hat w

as in early 1979. Tw

o years later, as this edition goes to press, the Justice D

epartment has yet to report back to C

ongress. Its attitude to the K

ennedy case, however, is distressingly clear.

Dep

artmen

t officials began

by m

oving extrem

ely slowly -

even more slow

ly than one may expect from

a bureaucracy. W

hen pressed on the delay by the Chairm

an of the Assassina-

tions Com

mittee, the O

ffice of the Attorney G

eneral responded w

ith foolish nitpicking about the precise dates on which it had

received Com

mittee m

aterial. Then, late in 1980, the Justice

Departm

ent made public an F

BI review

of the acoustics evi-dence that persuaded the C

omm

ittee there were tw

o gunmen

involved in the assassination. The F

BI report, a m

ere twenty-

two pages long, declared the tw

o-gunman finding "invalid" for

lack of scientific proof that shots were actually recorded, or that

a second gunman fired at the P

resident from the front. T

here w

ere imm

ediate protests from the consultants w

ho originally advised the A

ssassinations Com

mittee. T

hat was perhaps pre-

dictable, yet even a lay reading reveals that the FB

I review is

flawed. O

ne observer questions how m

uch of the published review

is the work of the B

ureau's managem

ent, rather than that of its scientists. A

ssassinations Com

mittee C

hief Counsel

Blakey expresses uncharacteristic anger, calling the FB

I review

"a public relations gimm

ick designed to avoid carrying the in-vestigation forw

ard." He adds bitterly that the Justice D

epart-m

ent has failed to do the work the C

omm

ittee requested — not

only on the acoustics but in other key areas. Professor B

lakey respects today's F

BI for its general integrity and com

petence, but says that "on the K

ennedy case they seem institutionally in-

capable of thinking or acting positively. It is a failure that began w

ithin a day of the assassination, when the F

BI decided there

was no conspiracy, and it has blocked open-m

inded handling of the case ever since." O

nce, the Assassinations C

omm

ittee C

hief Counsel expressed faith that the A

merican legal m

achin-

AL

526 C

ON

SPIR

AC

Y

cry wou

ld red

eem th

e past failu

res in th

e case of Presid

ent

Ken

ned

y. Tod

ay, after seeing h

ow th

e Com

mittee's w

ork h

as been m

ishandled, he is openly outraged. Professor B

lakey now

says "The Justice D

epartment is burying this thing because they

want the case to die. It's alm

ost diabolical. The Justice D

epart-m

ent will get out from

under this thing entirely, and nothing else is going to be done about it —

a conspiracy to kill my P

resident an

d you

rs."

• F

ormer A

ttorney General R

obert Kennedy w

as reported as sayin

g, two d

ays before h

is own

assassination

in 1968, "

I now

fully realize that only the pow

ers of the Presidency w

ill reveal the secrets of m

y brother's death." Today, either the P

resident or th

e Attorn

ey Gen

eral can ap

poin

t an in

dep

end

ent S

pecial

Prosecutor, as w

as done after Watergate. T

he inadequacy at the Ju

stice Dep

artmen

t reinforces th

e feeling of som

e observers

that on

ly such

a course cou

ld n

ow b

e effective. T

he trauma of the m

urder of President K

ennedy will not go

away in our lifetim

e. A com

prehensive judicial inquiry — and

to date there has been no such thing — should prom

ptly investi-gate those living persons w

ho are potential suspects in the con-spiracy to m

urder President K

ennedy. If the evidence justifies it, th

ey shou

ld b

e brou

ght to trial.

Such an inquiry, full and unfettered, could purge the frus -

trations an

d th

e dou

bts of a gen

eration. It m

ay fail to do so,

but — as the A

ssassinations Com

mittee C

hief Counsel insists -

justice d

eman

ds n

o less. With

out su

ch an

effort, the d

ying of

President K

ennedy becomes, indeed, a confirm

ation of the age of uncertainty.

CH

AF

FE

R 25

Afterw

ord: The C

ontinuing Search for "M

aurice Bishop"

David P

hillips, the former C

IA officer considered by the Select

Com

mittee on

Assassin

ations as a p

ossible can

did

ate for the

true identity behind the cover name "M

aurice Bishop," reacted

strongly when this book w

as published in the summ

er of 1980. H

e contacted

top execu

tives in n

ewsp

apers an

d television

, m

akin

g him

self available to cou

nter p

assages in C

onspiracy con

cernin

g him

. As a resu

lt, 1 took p

art in d

iscussion

s with

P

hillips on prominent television program

s. In

the cou

rse of these ap

proach

es to the p

ress, Ph

illips

contacted

the ed

itor of the W

ashin

gton P

ost. Subsequently, w

hen a reporter was assigned to the story, P

hillips revealed the real identity of form

er CIA

officers whose identities w

ere pro-tected

by p

seud

onym

s in A

ssassination

s Com

mittee rep

orts and in m

y book. Phillips observed that "C

ross," the case officer w

ho believed Phillips had indeed used the nam

e "Bishop," w

as a h

eavy drinker, implying that he w

as prone to getting his facts w

rong. S

hortly afterw

ards, w

hen

a P

ost reporter visited

"Cross" at hom

e, he found that Phillips had been on the phone

to him only a short tim

e earlier. Whatever had passed betw

een them

, "Cross" stood by his assertion that the nam

e "Bishop"

had been used in the Miam

i CIA

office, and that he believed it w

as used to refer to Phillips. "C

ross" admits that he w

as for-m

erly a heavy drinker, but — as noted earlier —

has shown that

his recall of names and details other than "B

ishop" is accurate. In

a furth

er conversation

, with

this au

thor, in

1981, "Cross"

seemed upset by the interest his statem

ents have caused, and com

plained the Assassinations C

omm

ittee gave it "undue em-

phasis." He agreed, how

ever, that he had been correctly quoted. A

subsequent check with congressional investigators revealed

that "Cross" originally linked the nam

e "Bishop" w

ith that of D

avid Phillips prom

ptly and spontaneously.

• -

is

52

8

CO

NSP

IRA

CY

The W

ashin

gton P

ost reporter w

as also able to talk

to P

hillips' former M

iami assistant, "D

oug Gupton." H

e said, m

uch as he had said to the Com

mittee, "1 never used the nam

e 'B

ishop

,' to my recollection

." F

inally, th

e reporter visited

"B

.H.," the form

er CIA

covert operative who told the C

om-

mittee he had m

et "Bishop" in the past, but w

hose testimony

prompted a skeptical reaction from

the Com

mittee investigator.

"B.H

.," a short, dark man of C

uban origin, is belligerent —

not least about the way the C

IA has been treated in recent years.

He told the C

omm

ittee that Phillips w

as "a personal friend," an officer he w

orked with closely on a "day-to-day" basis on

Cuban operations betw

een 1960 and 1964. Interviewed by the

Wash

ington

Post in 1980, B

.H. stated that after Phillips testified

to the Com

mittee, but before he him

self was form

ally inter-view

ed, he discussed the Com

mittee inquiry w

ith Phillips. In

his Com

mittee interview

"B.H

." was asked sim

ply whether he

had known anybody nam

ed Maurice B

ishop. After replying that

he had, "B.H

." responded to Com

mittee questioning, "M

r. B

ishop was in the organization but I had no personal day-to-day

open relationship with him

. Phillips, yes; Bishop, no. I knew

them

both." "B.H

." appeared in his replies to be stressing that he rem

embered "B

ishop" as being somebody other than P

hillips. T

here are notable discrepancies between w

hat "B.H

." told the C

omm

ittee and what he said to th

e Post. H

e told the Com

mittee he

encountered "Bishop" "tw

o or three times." H

e told the Post he

met him

only once. He told the C

omm

ittee that he encountered "B

ishop" between 1960 and 1964. In his P

ost interview, he said it

was probably after 1964 —

after the time m

ost relevant to the V

eciana allegations. "B.H

." told the Com

mittee he w

orked closely w

ith Phillips between 1960 and 1964. In the conversation

with the P

ost, he claimed he did not w

ork with Phillips until after

1964. "B.H

." accounts for these differences by claiming that his

comm

ents were "w

rongly recorded." T

he Assassinations C

omm

ittee investigator of the "Bishop"

case suspects that the "B.H

." scenario may be a red herring ,

designed to confuse the trail. Such justifiable suspicions might

have been resolved had the Com

mittee m

anagement given the

"Bishop" case the attention it deserved. Sadly it did not. W

hile P

hillips did testify, the Com

mittee failed to take testim

ony on

TH

E C

ON

TIN

UIN

G S

EA

RC

H F

OR

"M

AU

RIC

E B

ISH

OP

" 529

oath from "C

ross," "B.H

.," or "Gupton." "C

ross," who told

two investigators he believed "B

ishop" was P

hillips, was not

even subjected to formal interview

. There w

ere no systematic

interrogations of relevant CIA

officers who m

ight have further confirm

ed the use of the name "B

ishop." The C

omm

ittee failed to follow

up on a key lead provided by Veciana —

the identity of a prom

inent Cuban w

ho may have originally pro-

posed Veciana to "B

ishop" as a promising candidate for C

IA

recruitment. T

he Cuban's nam

e was know

n to the Com

mittee,

and is known to this author. O

ther leads received cursory treatm

ent. T

he Com

mittee never tried to trace a vital w

itness whose

name w

as provided by Veciana m

onths before the Com

mittee

wound up its inquiry. V

eciana had spoken, from the start, of a

go-between w

hom he used during his association w

ith "Bishop."

He explained that, in line w

ith intelligence tradecraft, "Bishop"

had always initiated their clandestine m

eetings, either by tele- phoning direct, or through a third person w

ho always knew

w

here to reach Veciana. V

eciana was long reluctant to identify

this third party, but finally did so — providing an old, invalid

address in Puerto R

ico. In 1980 I did follow up the lead, and

tracked down the V

eciana–"Bishop" go-betw

een. This proved

to be the first independent corroboration that Veciana really

Was in touch w

ith somebody called "B

ishop." T

he person who helped arrange m

eetings between "B

ishop" and V

eciana is a wom

an, a prim grandm

other in her fifties, who

works as a m

inor functionary in a U.S. governm

ent administra-

tive department. She has requested anonym

ity, and will be

iden

tified h

ere only as "

Fab

iola," a C

ub

an exile w

ho left

Havana in autum

n 1961. She worked, until that year, as V

eci-ana's secretary at the B

anco Financiero, and w

as there at the tim

e Veciana claim

s he was recruited by "B

ishop." While she

says Veciana never then m

entioned a CIA

contact, Fabiola re-

calls details which fit his story. She recalls a tim

e when V

eciana started going to "language courses" in the evenings. V

eciana, in his earliest interview

s, spoke of attending nightly U.S. intelli-

gence briefings in an office building which housed, on the first

floor, the Berlitz School of L

anguages. Fabiola says she did

become aw

are that Veciana w

as involved in subversive activi-

C.,

530 C

ON

SPIRA

CY

ties. He on

ce prod

uced

the h

uge su

m of h

alf a million

dollars,

wh

ich h

e asked

her to safegu

ard u

ntil h

e retrieved it. V

eciana

has always said he w

orked with "B

ishop" on a "program that

resulted in the destabilization of the Cuban currency." In C

uba, F

abiola decided not to ask Veciana aw

kward questions. P

oliti- cally, sh

e symp

athized

with

him

, and

later — in

exile col-

laborated

actively wh

en V

eciana b

ecame lead

er of Alp

ha 66.

He asked her to act as answ

ering service for him w

hen he was

traveling, and in:the months to com

e Fabiola becam

e familiar

with the nam

e of a caller from the m

ainland United States. T

he n

ame w

as "B

ishop

." W

hen

I interview

ed F

abiola I th

rewou

t a num

ber of names, including that a

"B

ishop."

"Bishop" w

as

the only name to w

hich she responded, and it stirred in her the m

emory of another nam

e. "Bishop" is firm

ly linked in Fabiola's

min

d w

ith a secon

d p

erson —

"P

rewett."

For h

er, the tw

o nam

es are so definitely associated that at first she had difficulty rem

embering w

hich was w

hich. Fabiola says both individuals

telephoned Veciana over the sam

e period, and she understood that they w

ere associated with one another. She believed both

"B

ishop

" an

d "

Prew

ett" w

ere conn

ected w

ith an

Am

erican

news publication, based on the E

ast Coast. F

inally, she recalls

that "

Prew

ett" w

as female.

A check of A

merican press directories turned up V

irginia P

rtwett, a W

ashington journalist who has specialized in L

awn

Am

erican affairs all her life. She has written extensively about

the struggle between F

idel Castro, w

hom she has characterize d

as a "betrayer," and the Cuban exiles, w

hom she describes as

"patriots." In summ

er 1963 Prew

ett attended a conference on C

uba co-sponsored by Freedom

House and the C

itizen's Com

- m

ittee for a Free C

uba. Her report on the conference, later by

serted in the Co

ng

ression

al Reco

rd, began by quoting a call

Freed

om H

ouse "

to remove b

oth F

idel C

astro an ears, d the Prew

ett Soviet

presence from C

uba without delay." F

or many y

wrote for th

e North

Am

erican N

ewsp

aper A

lliance (N

AN

A),

a syndication organization founded by Prew

ett's friend Ernest

Cuneo, also a m

ember of the C

omm

ittee for a Free C

uba. It was

Cuneo, a veteran of the C

IA's forerunner, the O

ffice of Strateve Services, w

ho arranged for Prew

ett to work for N

AN

A. In 1963

NA

NA

was severely criticized in a Senate C

omm

ittee Repoli.

TH

E C

ON

TIN

UIN

G S

EA

RC

H F

OR

"M

AU

RIC

E B

ISH

OP

"

531

for syndicating pro–Chiang K

ai-shek propaganda written by a

paid Am

erican lobbyist. In spring 1963, seven m

onths before the Kennedy assassi-

nation, Prew

ett was assailing the adm

inistration for its opposi-tion to the raids m

ounted against Cuba by A

ntonio Veciana's

Alpha 66 guerrillas. O

n April 2, in the W

ashin

gto

n D

aily New

s, 'P

rewett lam

basted a Kennedy spokesm

an who had "called the

daring and gallant Alpha 66 raids on C

uba irresponsible acts." P

rewett called this "an all-tim

e low in pronouncem

ent of U.S.

foreign policy," and mocked the notion that "unless w

e stop the A

lpha 66 raids against Com

munist C

uba, there'll be nuclear con-flict."

Th

ree week

s later, after Presid

ent K

enn

edy ord

ered

strong measures against w

ould-be exile raiders, Prew

ett rushed to support the exile leadership and berated the K

ennedy White

House for assum

ing it had "carte blanche to create a foreign P

olicy outsid

e the n

ation's p

opu

lar consen

t." T

hese P

rewett

articles were read into the C

ongressional Record.

Th

e Alp

ha 66 raid

s, wh

ich so em

barrassed

Presid

ent

Kennedy and w

hich pleased Virginia P

rewett, w

ere the very attack

s wh

ich —

accordin

g to Alp

ha 66 lead

er Vecian

a -w

ere carried ou

t on sp

ecific instru

ctions from

CIA

officer "

Mau

rice Bish

op."

As V

eciana tells it, "

Bish

op's"

inten

tion

was to cau

se furth

er troub

le betw

een K

enn

edy an

d R

ussia -

with

in m

onth

s of the M

issile Crisis w

hich

had

brou

ght th

e w

orld to th

e brin

k of n

uclear w

ar. His p

urp

ose was "

to pu

t K

ennedy against the wall in order to force him

to make deci-

sions that will rem

ove Castro's regim

e." In the com

pany of a Wash

ing

ton

Po

st reporter, I talked to V

irginia Prew

ett in 1980. She agreed that she had contact with

Alpha 66 in the early sixties, and accepted that A

lpha 66 was

"probably" backed by the CIA

— even if its leaders w

ere not form

ally told so. Prew

ett made it clear she w

as once familiar

with

the w

ork of th

e group

's leader, V

eciana, an

d ask

ed,

"Where is he now

?" Later in the interview

, however, she said

she had never met V

eciana. Veciana, for his part, says he did

know P

rewett, and refers to her as "V

irginia." He asserts he

met her at her hotel in P

uerto Rico m

ore than once, and "prob-ably in W

ashington." When the nam

e "Bishop" w

as first raised w

ith Prew

ett, in th

e context of th

e CIA

and

Cu

ba, sh

e said,