180-10083-10181 AGENCY : RECORD NUMBER : RECORD SERIES : AGENCY FILE NUMBER : ORIGINATOR : FROM: TO: TITLE: DATE: PAGES: SUBJECTS : DOCUMENT TYPE: CLASSIFICATION : RESTRICTIONS : CURRENT STATUS : DATE OF LAST REVIEW : OPENING CRITERIA : COMMENTS : v9.1 HW 50955 BDocld: 32250123 JFK Assassination System Identification Form Agency Information HSCA 180-10083-10181 NUMBERED FILES 011343 Document Information VITATE, GUY 09/01/1978 3 BAY OF PIGS VITATE, GUY VECIANA, ANTONIO CIA, STAFF OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT Unclassified 3 Redact 11/14/1996 Box 205. Page 1 Date: 10/2/201
HY 0955 KENNEDY Fonzi eee oe) OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT DATE 9/1/78 1. Identifying Information: Name ss Guy Vitale = ss Telephone. 305-323-5369 | Address 107 N. Virginia Avenue, Sanford, Fla. 32771 Type of Contact: | '. Telephone "X Person il. Summary of Contact: Guy Vitale is a retired employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was interviewed relative to a possible association with Antonio Veciana, as indicated by files review. Vitale said that, following an assignment in he returned to headquarters and was asked in about December, 1960, to take part in "The Project," as preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion was termed. His general assignment, he said, was to "hand-hold WT operators." That, he said, meant to act as a case agent for Cubans being trained in wireless telegraph operations. He remained at headquarters in Washing- ton for the first two or three weeks of this assignment . "handling cable traffic." He was then assigned to a secret. training installation outside Washington to take charge of a large group (more than 20) of Cubans. He described his job as providing general orientation to them and then releasing them to instructors in guerilla warfare and demolition. Vitale said he had no contact with anyone in Miami prior to the Bay of Pigs. After the Bay of Pigs, he said, he was detailed to go to a small island off Puerto Rico to gather up what he termed "the remnants of the invasion" -- mostly those Cubans who never made it to the beachhead. He took these men back to Miami and turned them over to other Agency personnel there. Vitale said his only other trip outside Washington was prior to the Bay of Pigs. That was to New Orleans, around March of I961. He was assigned to take three Cubans, whose names he does not recall, to New Orleans. There he turned them over to personnel at a training camp in Belle Chase, Louisiana. Following that, he was detailed very briefly to Pass Christian, Mississippi, to handle a -more- Boctlda: 322750123 Page 2
HY 50955 i 2. small group of Cubans who had gone AWOL from training. His job was to re~group them and reinstil!l their confidence for the up-coming invasion. That detail, he said, only lasted a week or two. Vitale said he never dealt with any politically important Cubans. The only names he could recall offhand were Jerry Prieto, "Magoo," Grillo and Bulsado. Mostly, he said, he handled men trained as wireless telegraph operators who were infllitrated into Cuba to act as communication tinks for paramilitary groups. After the Bay of Pigs, Vitale said, the Agency went to what he termed the "single team concept." That, he explained, meant that paramilitary groups were limited to a team of five or six persons and each would have [its own wireless telegraph operator to be infiltrated into Cuba with the team. Vitale said that the teams were run out of the Agency's Miami station. "We just audited the records," he said. His job, then, was as an assistant case officer and intelligence analyst. The senior case officer was Calvin Hicks. "Miami would send up the plans and Hicks would evaluate them and pass them on for higher approval," Vitale said. "I did the leg work and paper work and things like that." Vitale said he had very {tittle direct contact with personnel at Miami's JM/WAVE station. "Il had a lot of friends down there from pre-Bay of Pigs days and | would visit them on vacation," he sald, "but | remember only one operational trip down there, and that was to deliver some photographs." He does not know what the photographs were of. a had Vitale said heino dealings with E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Frank Fiorini Sturgis, Doug Gupton, Manolo Ray, Tuts Conte-Aguerra, or Radio Swan. Vitale said he does not recall the name of Antonio Veciana at all. When shown a photograph of Veciana, he said he does not recognize the man. When told that Veciana was associated with Alpha 66, he said: "I don't think that organization was ever used by the CIA, according to my recollection. Perhaps some of the individuals were, but not the organization." Vitale also did not recognize the names of Ollen, Pratchett or Maurice Bishop. He said he has a good friend by fhe name of Whitney Bishop who retired from the Agency about five years ago and_who, Vitale believes, was In communications. - He met him in When shown a sketch of Maurice Bishop, Vitale sald it does not look at all like his friend and that the sketch does not remind him of anyone he ever knew or saw. -more- Boclda: 3227501273 Page 3
Asked about his relationship with the Special Affairs Staff, Vitale said that was headed by Desmond Fitzgeratd and that the Paramilitary section in which he worked was a component of the staff, although he had no contact himself with Fitzgerald. Vitale was also asked about his involvement with the subversive machine program. He said that came about 1967 and it involved him being assigned to what he termed a "machine run. He was assistant to a fellow whose name he doesn't recall because it was only a very brief assignment. it involved culling names from Agency reports from all over the world and putting them on a programming card to be fed into an IBM machine. Asked about his finvol!tvement with the destruction of CS documents, Vitale said that was part of his responsibility as a records officer. The material destroyed, he said, was evaluated by him and judged to be no longer useful. it was, he said, just a matter of getting rid of overloaded “paperwork. The destruction was based on his own knowledge, ‘sometimes fn consultation with the originator of the document. Vitale said he was never asked to destroy any documents for the purpose of covering up Agency involvement with an operation. Vitale said he had, contact with any operations in the Florida Keys and was not familiar with ZR Rifle. ("I believe that's an African diograph," he said.) Although Vitale said he knew David Phillips headed the Cuba project, he never had any operation contact with him. ."1 wouldn't have on my fevel," he said. in his assignment in records keeping, Vitale said he never was involved in any "super-secret" or Mhip pocket" operations in which records were falsified or deliberately not kept. He said that, as far as he knows, the Agency files he was associated with reflect actual operations as they were. Generally, Vitale unsolicitedly expressed satisfaction with his career in the CIA. He said: "There are two things ! took with me when | left the CIA that | want to hang on to, and that is my secrecy oath and my pension. . They also have a very good medical plan." Vitale had earlier been shown a fetter from CIA Acting Director Carfucci releasingghim from his secrecy oath for the purposes of the Interview. ww 50955 padtamdsaagoPY