21

October 30, 1962

Dear Kittredge,

Well, we have all gone through such exceptional experiences these last ten days. I am still piecing together the various crises with the Russians, and, of course, I wait to hear what you will add to these matters. I will say that I am impressed once again by your psychic powers. In your last letter to me—it does seem a year ago—you said, “Do not do anything insane with people like Dix Butler.”

I did, and have lived not to regret it, and would write to you about our eight-reeler in the swamps but am worn out. Suffice it that after two trips in a rubber dinghy through Cuban territory, we managed to get back to our mother ship, La Princesa. I wish to write to you now about its skipper, a remarkable man named Eugenio Martínez.

The return trip, incidentally, was gloomy. We lost five men and Eugenio did not wish to return without looking for them through another day, but a radio message came from Harvey. Martínez was commanded to come back. It was an emergency, stated Harvey.

Martínez followed these orders, although they went against every instinct in him. He fell into the most palpable depression. It was a bad loss. Whole networks have been rolled up in Havana, but our sea missions usually get away with lighter casualties. So we drank a lot of rum to fortify ourselves against the chop returning to Miami, and before it was over, Martínez told a gloomy tale I want to pass on to you. It enabled me to recognize why he reacts to depression as if it were his antagonist. Ghost-ridden, his dread is deep at not returning for those lost prácticos.

The story he told concerned an old friend named Cubela, Rolando Cubela. By the portrait Martínez gave of him, Cubela was a student leader back in the early fifties when there must have been a dozen such fellows at the University of Havana ready to overthrow Batista. Fidel Castro happens to be the man who emerged from the crucible, but there were others. Cubela was one of them. Rolando Cubela de Cuba. Sounds like a jefe, does it not? Martínez went into no details on Cubela’s appearance, and I did not dare to interrupt, since Eugenio does speak out of an inner gravity that tends to solemnize one’s reactions when around him, but I did receive a powerful impression that Cubela is a man of some physical stature, more than ordinarily handsome, and full of presence (not unlike Castro, what?). For that matter, Cubela, according to Martínez, has now become one of Castro’s intimates.

Let me take it in order. Back in 1956, Martínez and Cubela belonged to a student group who believed in calculated assassination of government officials. Under Batista, there was a plenitude of sadistic officers, but the Martínez-Cubela concept was not to attack the worst monsters, because truly bad officials stirred up enormous animosity against the regime. It was Batista’s decent officials who had to be done away with—they confused the issue! The target selected, therefore, was the chief of military intelligence, a gentleman named Blanco Rico who was not only opposed to torture, but had a reputation for courtesy to his captives. By vote of their cell, Cubela was selected to pull the trigger. I couldn’t, incidentally, quite make out the politics of this group—some sort of anarcho-syndicalism, perhaps, with middle-class roots. Cubela, for instance, was studying medicine—ah, these Cubans! On a night in October 1956, at which time Castro was already in the Sierra Maestra, Cubela managed to encounter Blanco Rico in a Havana nightclub called Montmartre (homage to Toulouse-Lautrec!) and proceeded to put a bullet through his head. “Rico died,” said Martínez, “but only after he lived long enough to look Cubela in the eye and smile. That smile has been described to me one hundred times. It was generous. To Cubela, it said: ‘My friend, you have made a grave mistake, and I forgive you, even if my ghost will not.’

“At that moment, of course, Cubela did not linger. He ran out into a waiting car, drove away to a place of concealment, and in a week we smuggled him out to Miami. I joined Rolando the following week. Havana was no longer comfortable for our people. With the death of Blanco Rico, the Batista police were running amok.

“One of our group came from a family who had money in Miami. Alemán. He owned the Miami Stadium and a cheap motel. That was where we lived. At his motel. The Royal Palms.”

Kittredge, I am afraid I interrupted Martínez here. “The Royal Palms,” I said, “is exactly where I stayed when I first came to Miami.”

“That, Robert Charles, may be why I tell this story.” He swigged his rum. “Salud.”

We drank. He talked. I will not try any longer to suggest his speech. I find even as I attempt to recapture his tone that I miss a portion of it. And, of course, I find myself improving his English. Let me summarize what he said, and where I do recall an expression that truly belonged to him, I will, of course, offer it to you. It seems that the Royal Palms was housing a good number of revolutionaries at this time, all rent-free, and Cubela and Martínez lived there as roommates. Cubela was considered a hero, but Blanco Rico dominated his dreams. “Blanco Rico keeps smiling,” Cubela told Martínez. “It goes so far into me that a cancer is forming in my intestines.”

Cubela recovered, however. Rico disappeared from his dreams. So he decided to go back to Cuba and fight for Castro in the Sierra Escambray. Since this was another front, separate from the Sierra Maestra, Castro, pleased to have a man of Cubela’s caliber, bestowed on him the rank of comandante, the highest rank in Fidel’s army. Cubela and his men even entered Havana three days before Castro completed his triumphal march across Cuba, indeed Cubela was in command of the force that occupied the presidential palace.

For months, he drove around Havana in a grand touring sedan. On a drunken night, “not able to distinguish sufficiently between happiness and the lofty emotions of a maniac, he had a smashup. He killed a young girl.” That death brought back to him the ghost of Blanco Rico. Before long, Cubela was talking to a psychiatrist, who, in his turn—he worked for another revolutionary group—was trying to convince Cubela that the only way to put Blanco Rico’s ghost to rest was to assassinate Fidel Castro. “In Cuba,” said Martínez, “even our psychiatrists are pistoleros.”

Kittredge, I have not wanted to interrupt this story to dwell on the circumstances of the telling, but we did hear it up on the flying bridge of La Princesa. The rigging of our platform was creaking on every roll of the ship. Since Martínez had waited out the day in the Gulf Stream hoping Harvey would rescind his order to return and we could make another search for the men who were missing, it was late afternoon and we were getting low on gas before we turned north. The story was heard, therefore, at night. It is not difficult to visualize ghosts in these waters. As I listened, it occurred to me that our famous specter of the Keep, Augustus Farr, did perform his acts of piracy in the Caribbean, and I must say he now felt near to me, but then, I had not really slept in forty-eight hours.

Somewhat abruptly, Martínez concluded his tale. It seems Cubela told Martínez, “Do you know, one day I will kill Fidel Castro.”

I shall never comprehend Cubans. Even though Cubela now occupies a high position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and would certainly have nothing to do with his old friend Martínez, “I am,” says Eugenio, “convinced that he will in fact terminate Fidel’s days on earth.”

We returned to Miami to discover that Harvey’s days here are numbered. It seems that in this last week, while Russian ships were approaching the line of our blockade, Harvey sent out sixty men to Cuba in different operations right in the teeth of Bobby Kennedy’s order to call off all raids.

Well, Harvey is of the old school: They call your bluff and double it. His hatred for the Kennedys—which up to now I have virtually spared you—has magnified so much in the last six months that he is beginning to see them as the root of all evil. I wish I could pretend this is his special aberration, but, in fact, a poisonous bile is circulating through JM/WAVE in reaction to the missile crisis. Our Cubans feel let down, and our own personnel are of the same mind. There is much talk that we were too easy on Castro and Khrushchev. As you may have gathered, there has always been loose talk about assassinating Castro; the Miami Cubans serve up the idea daily. The follow-up joke around here these days, however, is: “When does the elimination take place?” “Of whom, Fidel?” “No,” goes the reply, “Jack.”

Such sentiments represent a minority of the personnel at JM/ WAVE—we, like all other places in the Agency, do keep our midwestern Ph.D.’s with their wives, children, and threewheelers on the lawn, but, in truth, Kittredge, the mood is ugly. A lot of people say they were ready to go to war last week (especially now that they realize they don’t have to) but I know the intensity of the root feeling. In my small taste of combat (we had to evade some machine-gun fire) it felt exhilarating at the time. Now, however, I wake up angry many a night and want to fire back. If I feel thus warlike, be assured that others are raging.

In any event, Harvey not only broke Kennedy’s no-raid rule, but got caught. When Bobby queried Harvey directly, Wild Bill sent back the following memo: “Have complied with your directive, but three of my teams are beyond recall.”

That produced an incredible set-to at the next meeting of Excom. Harvey wrote a memo for his own files after it was over, and even ended up showing it to a few of the selected troops, including myself. He was so agitated that he actually was desirous of my reaction. The memo rambles and is full of the inner disturbance with which it was written, but, considering that Harvey does not come off well, I was able to say that I respected his scrupulous reporting of the exchange with Bobby Kennedy.

KENNEDY: You are dealing with people’s lives and you go off on a half-assed operation such as this? Things were as delicate as spun glass out there. On whose authority did you send sixty men into Cuba at a time when the slightest provocation might unleash a nuclear holocaust?

HARVEY: These operations were consequential to military requests made of me for the underwriting of invasion contingencies.

KENNEDY: Are you saying the Pentagon put you up to this?

HARVEY: In the spirit of mutual underpinning of coordinated projects, affirmative.

KENNEDY: Bullshit.

At this point, Bobby polled every military presence in the room. McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, General Lemnitzer, and Curtis LeMay were among those asked whether they were witting of this. All replied: Negative.

KENNEDY: Mr. Harvey, we need a better explanation. I’ve got two minutes.

HARVEY: With all due respect to the high level of personnel in this room, and in no sense contravening input to which the gentlemen here polled have access, the disposition of military decisions does not in all cases cover the impromptu and counterdelegated, since in-practice directives often contradict antecedent decisions.

KENNEDY: Why don’t you try English?

HARVEY: You ordered an immediate halt to all operations against Cuba. I made a clear distinction between operations and agents. I initiated no operations. But I did not wish to have the United States find itself in a shooting war in need of all the intelligence it could get and lacking same. I decided to make one last attempt to send some agents in.

At this point, Harvey’s memo to himself states:

On this set of remarks, the Attorney General gathered his papers and left the room. Several others followed. John McCone, also present, departed without taking me aside to offer his customary critique of what I had presented. Later, by virtue of information relayed to me by several concerned high Agency friends and close associates, I have become privy to the knowledge that Director McCone said to Ray Cline, Deputy Director of Intelligence—the quote is as relayed to me—“Harvey has destroyed himself today. His usefulness has ended.”

Intercession by Richard Helms and Hugh Montague has delayed activation of this eventuality. I am inclined to interpolate here that Director McCone’s present esteemed position as prime detector of the medium-range missile installment in Cuba is due to my diligent efforts to illumine him as to Communist investiture of such nuclear ordnance in our adjacent waters.

Set down in a state of clear recall two hours after the National Security Council Executive Committee meeting on October 26, 1962, held in the Joint Chiefs of Staff War Room.

WKH

This morning, Harvey could rent out his office as a funeral parlor. I feel sorry for him. Doubtless, I am too tolerant to make an ideal Agency man. Contradict me, I implore you.

Devotedly,

Herrick

On rereading this letter, I decided to remove my account of Rolando Cubela. If there were to be any more attempts on Castro, Cubela might be of special use. That night, therefore, I put together a succinct version of his history, spoke of Cubela’s present high status in the Cuban government, and sent it not only to Harlot, but to Cal in Tokyo. I notified each of them that the other had received the same communication.

Harlot’s answer came first:

Good nose. We are in need of a likely fellow. Buddha, you may be interested to hear, is now dipping his enormous belly into Cal’s old swimming hole. I pass on to you for immediate consumption by the paper-shredder the following communication from J. Edgar to Robert K., dated October 29. J. Edgar didn’t even wait for the missiles to be put to bed.

An underworld informant of the FBI has stated confidentially to me that he can arrange Castro’s assassination. While I would certainly agree with the Attorney General that the CIA’s plot with the Mafia has been foolish, I now feel ready, if desired, to offer the good offices of the FBI. The informant was, of course, told that his offer is outside our jurisdiction and no commitments can be made to him. At this time we do not plan to further pursue the matter. Our relationship with this informant, however, has been most carefully guarded and we would feel obligated to handle any re-contact of him concerning the matter if such is desired.—JEH

Say nothing further, therefore, about your find. From now on, refer to him as AM/LASH. GOLIATH

P.S. Too bad about Harvey. An irreplaceable loss to me.

Repeat: Destroy this communication. OTI.

OTI meant on the instant. I did not comply. I put it in my Miami safe deposit box.

Next day, a brief letter came from Cal by Tokyo pouch:

Hugh and I are in accord for once. We will contact AM/LASH. (A damned awkward saddlebag, but then we have a collateral agent called AM/BLOOD. We just do the best we can.)

It may interest you to know that McCone has already told me to get ready to replace Wild Bill, albeit I will receive a reduced and highly discreet version of Task Force W. Believe me, it will soon be renamed. I would feel elated to get back in the trenches again were it not for Bill Harvey. What a tragic lapse. That poor hardworking man.

Your own HALIFAX