ARRB REQUEST: CIA-IR-13: OFFICE/PERSON DEALING WITH ORGANIZED CRIME AND CUBA
Agency: CIA
Originator: ARRB
From: CIA/HRG
To: ARRB
Document date: 04/16/1997
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

-≤_ Released under the John

AGENCY INFORMATION

F. kennedy

Assassination Records

AGENCY : CIA

RECORD NUMBER

: 104-10336-10012

RECORD SERIES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

PRO

PROJFILES-ARRE REQUESTS

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Notel.

Case#:MM 53217 Date:

06-24-2017

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

AGENÇY ORIGINATOR

FROM

TO

: CIA/HRG

TITLE : ARRB REQUEST: CIA-IR-13: OFFICE/PERSON DEALING WITH

ORGANIZED CRIME AND CUBA

DATE :

04/16/1997

PAGES

19

SUBJECTS : FORD CHARLES

JEK ASSASSINATION

UNIT INDEX

ARRB REQUEST

FISCALINI

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER

CLASSIFICATION

: SECRET

RESTRICTIONS

.: 1A

CURRENT STATUS:

RELEASED IN PART PUBLIC - RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW

:

01/13/04

COMMENTS

: JFK-M-20 : F13 : 20030731-973803 : UNIT INDEX

(R)

- ITEM IS RESTRICTED

104-10336-10012

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LUAU

DRAFT

Mr. J. Barry Harrelsor

April 16, 1997

Page 9

1.20

"George Bush" in question. CIA is now checking whether the search query

included George Herbert Walker Bush prior to 1970. CIA should determine

whether George Herbert Walker Bush is the person to whom the memorandum

refers and should provide a definitive statement regarding the scope of its search

and the basis of its conclusion.

CIA-IR-10 IG Reports.

CIA will determine whether the IG's office maintains an index or inventory of its

reports and determine whether the IG's office prepared a report on the handling

of Oswald.

CIA-IR-11 Warren Commission critics.

We are asking that CIA determine whether it possesses any files or records on

Warren Commission critics Edward J. Epstein, Josiah Thompson, Mark Lane,

Harold Weisberg, or Sylvia Meagher. The Review. Board is not requesting

information per se regarding any FOLA requests by these individuals or any

Public Affairs news clippings?

CIA-IR-12 Contacts with journalists or publishing houses.

The Review Board seeks to determine to what extent, if any, CIA might have

attempted to influence any journalists or publishers regarding public discussion

of the assassination. This request, originally discussed in March 1997, was raised

at the DO follow-up briefing on April 1, 1997. The DO had no response and no

time frame for a response.

CIA-IR-13 Office or person dealing with organized crime and Cuba.

The Review Board requested that CLA make a particular personnel file available.

The file was made available by CIA for review. The Review Board will discuss

with you whether any further steps need to be taken.

To the extent that CIA possesses FOLA files or records on any of these

individuals, and to the extent that those records contain information that was not filed

'with the courts, such records are being requested for review by the Review Board.

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CONFI

25 March 1998

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

SUBJECT:

ARRB Request No. CIA-IR-13, for Information

Concerning Office or Person Dealing with

Organized Crime and Cuba

1.

ARRB Request No. CIA-IR-13, asked for information

on a specific office or person which may have dealt with

organized crime and Cuba about the time of the Kennedy

assassination. Further, the request asked for a response

concerning the searches

made by the Agency to identify this

office or person.

2. The Agency conducted an extensive records search

for any employee who might have been involved in activities

akin to those described within the request.

The search

identified a former employee, Charles D. Ford, as one who

may have had

such responsibilities for a period of time.

3. The former employee's personnel file was requested

by the ARRB staff and it was provided.

Review of the file

by a ARRB staff member resulted in a number of documents

being declared assassination records -- three fitness

reports and a recommendation, approval document and citation

for an Agency Career Intelligence Medal. These documents

have been added to materials awaiting indexing and review by

the ARRB.

3.

The inclusion of these documents within the JFK

collection for future processing completes HRP action on

subject request.

J. Barry Harrelson

Seen :

Concur

For the Directorate of Operations

date

For the Directorate of Administration

date

-CONFIDENTIAL

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14 September 1998

MEMORANDUM FOR:

FROM:

SUBJECT:

Laura Denk

Executive Director, ARRB

J. Barry Harrelson

JFK Project Officer, HRP/OIM

CIA-IR-13, Office or Person Dealing with

Organized Crime and Cuba

1. This is in response to referent request.

2. Searches were made for information responsive to

the request and materials were provided for examination by

ARRB staff. From that examination, staff members selected a

number of documents to be included within the JFK

Collection.

Those documents have now been included within

the JFK Collection and are being processed for release to

NARA.

3. This concludes the Agency's action on this request.

If you have any question, please advise.

J. Barry Harrelson

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SUETET

INFERVIEN FORM

NAME: .

ALIAS

PORD, Charles

TELEPHONE

OTR

OFFICE

OFFICE APPROVAL

Signature

DATE OF INTERVIEN 18 Sept 75

•LOCATION OF INTERVIEW.

_Carrol Arms

FRANSPORTATION REQUIRED:

YES

"FROM HEADQUARTERS

• .:TIME1120-1315

NO

(time)

OTHER

INTERVIEVED BY:

Postal, Gordon Rhea, Rhett Dawson.

Fred Baron, Robert Kelly.

Date

SUBJECT:

Cuban Operations -"Task Force H-

Assassination of Castro - Mafía connections.

COMMENTS:

Under oath. This was second meeting.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD:

Attached.

SECRET

(2)

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r.3

Intorulow by Senate Committee Investigators

Director of Iraining

3245

19 Septembar 1975

DDIR

shep

margi

DIR

Chlef, DivIsion D

7B-44 Egg.

Assistant to the Diractor

6D~15 HQ8.

logget: 'He fie

UcT 7 3 17 PH 75

HH

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CONFIDENTIAL

• 19 Soptomber 2975

PIC TRAVUUM POR THE RECORD

SUBJECT: Intervier by Senato Coranizzao Invostigators

1. On Tuesday, 18 September 1975, I was Intervlowed for the second

tino by investigators fron the Senato Caraittee. To Intorvies lasted fron

a oard hen to transcripelon see no required to trad

It and snicar to the truchfulness of the stationts a nado. under ordinaxy

circuastances, a Senator would have been present to swear me in at this in-

toricH. honover, because of the televised quolic nearings, so Senators were

available. An unidentified won operated the equipnent which consistod of a

Sony casette recorder ani dictaphone casetto recorder.

the primary questioning

was by Nt. Postal and lit. Gordon Thes, the sane Invostigators with whom I spoke

on the carlior accassion. At one point or another during the prozealings three

othor sen joined us for various perious of tise.

. MT. Rhott Dawson apperrod

shortly after the interview began and remained for about an lour. Air. Fred

Benren (l' can't vouch for tia spolling) arrived arter about half an hour and

remainod for aproximately thanty minutes, having received a paone call unici

took him away. Mr. Bob lolly arrived shortly after fir. Behran and stayed for

about 10 winutes longer than Mr. lehrer. The interview was conducted in a roon

In tho Carroll Aris a formor botel across the street frau the Sourte Office

Building.

The seeting began with a reminder tit I could have mn attorney prasant

I has asted to describe in sonoral terrs my work with CIA. I told thes

that in 1960 or thereabouts I had a short tour of duty with the Econonie Action

Sapte lot be 108, and that I went directly froa that assignent to nll4 in ....

I was askod to recall ny najor acrivities while with the Duban operation

and I did so. I reported that sy first assigment was the handling of a Cuban

pet on to to do using to elid detes as to faisa lon for a invent

hoard ay description of this activity at our earlier session, did not pursua

this matter any furthor).

COMPROMAL

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- CONFIDENHIN

Tha terestigators vere inierested la whes I vas assignod the code

naso Fiscalind; to circumstanoes lies linda tune rese las essiga, and wiso

had assimned 11 I caluton I had sera a teams oar of the agoranda (I

saw this durind a booting soch Bill Sturbits last Flday in Bill's office)

which roquested that lendilation in tha mae ef Fiscalini be assigned to no.

I explained the diranstances. Which it. tastel dus it. lisa nad neeru at our

eartler secting, and sald tie I thought the daze les tise und of larch, 1962.

The ciranstances involvod & outact by a le fuck layer, thru the levartment

of Justice, concerning a cllen uho had sosses * C-be and wanted to visit

Castro to put in a special plee on behalt at die iny di iles prisonors. 1

Identiflad the Individual concemed (1 sall curt rascaber his nano) as the

managor of tho Toross Hotel in des York.. I dial sat llenzify. the layor and

was not isted for his nasa. I Identifled & man I met at a second mecting in

Non York as "Bubbles" Abdallet. I expladned that de lutter individual pro-

poiod to accopany the sanager of the Teress to Ostra, the nanager being an

elderly gentiom with soue difflaulty in salty, I explained to tho investi-

gators that I bid no further conticts him tiese resple after i discovored that

Abdallah was wanted, or under indictsent - I forzet which - by Texas authorities

for suugeling drugs fron Herica. H. Robert Kelly was clearly intorosted in

pursuing the matter of who assigned my "Code Dure. " I Indicatod that the docu

mentation that I received cane fros the Office dE Security but that 1 did not

Kids thether thet offico scloctod the mino de not.

• So Ho went ovor agada tha story of uy contact with a Canadian nared "Joe"

I snor this man's last man but here not been esosd fox it and have not volu

toored it). I described as moting and & telenhone call involving Joe.

mooting he clalaad that ha could travel tact and forth frors Canada to Cuba; revealod

to me that ho has intorested in starting a suungling rotivity involving goods

on the proscribed list; that he santed laire? sortes dits onship and a great

deal of soney la exchange for allowing us to sui enterials or taiper with sore

of the shipments it va could get lue proscrica ganes to cindua. I explained to

the investigators that ly interest lay in the fact cut Joe claimed la could

speak with Che QuevaTa dod that I had attentos to get too to sorvo as a tears

of commicazion betreen us und Che, which Ise refused to do. As for the tele-

phono call, I told then that when Joe retured fron is trip to Cuba ho called

to say that bis things were soleg on in Dube and we should seet right may.

Being aware that at that poit se in the Agercy tele doep into what would later

oe callad the Otan Hissile Qists, I tald the I canid sot see him and that we

probably already lack khat be lad to tell be that res the last I heard of Joo.

ke spent a great deal of they satsy aper uy neerings with the Attomey

Interestad in the identity of the van khan I sir at the request of tho attorney

Gonoral. I went over this again in as luch detall'is I could renewer dut with-

out bolns able to recall sto this san was. I mas astol if I could describo the

CONFIDENTIAE

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FEB 27 '98 03:08PM

•CONFIDENTIAL

P.6

man an I said that I recalled lin as a fairly tall man of sverage build with

blae; hair, black eycbrows and glasses. Of considerable interest is tho fact

that perha»s 15 to 20 sinutes later I was shown ar 3 X 10 glossy photograph of

sevoral people walking in front of what appearad to le a public building and

was asked whether I could identify any of the people in the picture.

I could

iot. Bt. Postal pointed to tho ceatral figure and asled if I could identify him.

I said I could not. (The picture was of a nan probably in lis midesixtics with

floving white hair - sonewhat on the order of Senator jeating • a large down.

curving noso, whito, straight eye brows bellind dark glasses, a sonownt lineu,

puffy faco, and a slightly receding forglead accentuatal by the fact that his

hair was combed straight fron front to back. The ran was wearing a dark bluo

or black suit, and onc ran appeared to be accompanying him to his lett and

slightly ahead, and another man slightly to his right and rear.

without hav

ing ay reference points by which to juugo, my best quess would be that thie

subjact was about 5'10" tall, lie appearod to be rather heavy, perhaps in the

range of 220 poles.

There scened to be a caption of same soft at the bottom

of the picture but this was hidden from ny vicw.) Hr. Postal askod whether

the main figuro in the photosraph could have beon tie man the Attorney General

directod ne to sec. I replied that, even allowing for tho difference in years,

the man in the photograph in no wayurescabled the man I saw on behalf of tie

Attornoy General.

7: Nessrs. Postal and Rica again brought up the subject of assassination

aid asked whether I had engaged in or had leand mention of, in Task Force lY

or sas, discussions on the subject of assassination either in general or

specifically with respect to lastro.

I told the investigators tlit the subject

came up repeatadly when we were speaking with Cubans, many of whom, having been

forced to flee Cuba, sircerely wished for Castro's immediata denise.

I said

that I had never heard of of engaged in conversations with Agency officers about

any plan the direct and only aspect of wiich was the assassination of Fidel

Castro, I pointed out tiat on a rumbor of occasions. I dealt with Cubans who

wanton to kill castro, but that ly. job was simly to attempt to extract irom

these contacts the names of people in cuba sio night be of potential use to us

in intolligence operations.

I said that I had never engaged in plotring with

cubans royarling assassiration but that I had nary conversations with Qubans

regarding their desiro to coniuct parmilitary ac uvities wiich, as a by projuct,

night nell result in Castro's death. I pointed out emphatically that the Agency's

policy prolibies political assassination.

8.. I was askod if I kncw Bill kainwright and Nestor Sanchez. I told then

that I linew then both and that lostor and I shared an office for a short period

nent tho and of my attachment with sas.

I was asked if "A-lASt'' meant anything

to ne and I replied in the negative.

This was followed by whether Ball ond

l'estor had discussed with me or mentioned an operation of theirs involving a

high level officer of the Cuban government, a nilitary man who made frequent

trips out of cuba. Again I could only reply in che negative. I aided the

juxtaposition of Bill and l'estor in the context of a single oporation surprised

CONFIDENTIAl

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EB 27 '98 03:10PM

P.?

- CONFIDENTIAL

operations as Bill working at collecting foreign intelligence.

aslied if the word "NOTs" seant anything to me and I said it did but that oll

'I could say was that it had to do with counterintelligence activitios. it.

Rhea asked me whether I could say that the "DIS" activity was concerned with

contreting Ouan willes in the vlunt area and I indicatod that this was my

wulerstanding. The subjoct was not pursuci further.

3. I was astiad about my visit to New Orleans (wilch I had mentioned during

the previous session) and I explained that these two trips were for the purpose

of attcapting to find ways of establishing chamels of commication between the

exilal Cabans in Now Orleans and their friends in Ouba. I indicated that I haù

been aule to coso un with a very fine prospect, a Cuban, and that I hau turnal

him ovor to ono of our FI Case Officors. I also said that I had several dis-

aussiorswith an Anerican whom I doclined to identify under the general ground

rule relating to sources of inforation. lessrs. Postal and lea assed 1i I

would respond affimatively lt they noro to suggest sovo initials which night

correspond to the name of my inerica contact. I agrced to do this but the

initinls which they mentioned neat nothing.

ticin!) I volunteered the initials of my contact, "py", and this procuced a blank

expression on the part of both investigators and a shrus of it. When's shoulders.

The final question I was askou was whether I had any knowledye of the "Ponchar-

train operation'.

I'told then that I knew where Lake Ponchartrain us, and

that's as far as it went.

10.

He spont a little time on the subjoct of Ceneral Landsdale. I ad-

mittci I had attended one meeting in Gencral Landsdale's office in the Pentagon.

I was asked whother anyone else las there and said that I could recall only one

narie, Cornelius loosevelt, but tat there were two other people at the seeting.

In response to a series of questions about what was discusseu at thât meeting

I said that Gencral Landsualo was intorested in various parunilitary possibilitios

and that my role was linited to giving a quick assessient of whether we had the .

agent assots to assist lu carrying out the various possible operations that

General anisualo suprestod.

11, I was asted whether tho term "rangoose" meant anything to me and I

indicatal that it was a general tern used to refer to a composite of planned

operational activities.

I said that I had no inowledgo of any spocific activity

being planned under this none and further amplained that it was possible that

sore of my Cuban contacts night have been taken over by other Casa Officers for

use under "Mongoose" but that I had no direct knowlelge of such having been done.

12. Nt. Robert Kelly expressed considarable interest in the organization of

Task Force l. It one point he asked har muny echclons there wore between ne and

Mo, liclos. I told them that I reported to Lill ilarvey; that uy tizle was Spocial

Assistant; that dir. Harvey reported to li. Heles; that I froquently recoivel

CONFIDENTIAT

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CONFIDENTIAL

assigment and saporsod to sar Balpera; al that occasionally i usertook

IS tOE ITSE CisTYeT, FunET's deputy, although tresa tasis were concernal

dit die mritya at last farol and did not involvo contact with the Cubins.

I nos anted if tuese Nety My speclal Assistant other than In in Task Force l

¡ni I ratio ture it. Logty, Cula prior to lit. Harvey's arrival on tha sceno,

rad der rettined is & pester of tasi force l. In an SA status. I said that

EiTE IN ICAl iNE DOCH OtheIS bOCHUSE peOple lould stoN up frou tina to tião for

store tates as duty for sereral sonts or so anil then depari to carry on

tielt west eisorters, bure thas I could not rocall ayone by nane at the present

time

13. I nas asked viether I used tha nace Fiscalinl in circusstances other

thun those described. I said that 1 frequently carried idcatification in

that nose und isod it on several accestone I lescribal one occasion which was

an mishra che-ste cuntzat with so bearing on any iten of interest to the cocmir.

tee,. Tire innstigator aslood sudder I lad ever contacted lubans in diaoi and I

replial fun the negative.

No I mis astre lf l tad ever made castacts with people In Nou lork alty

the tint tase testribes I said that indeed I had but that in one caso, al

to the In taquestion lived in les York, the scering took placo in Newark,

JEw JaIsey. In Insponse to s question I said that the leau was provides by the

. Fit I declined to itendly the sen imolued on the grounds of tho sorsitivity

et his resitan le that tie and the fact that I do not knos at present whoro ho

Is our start hit is doing. (luis was the bezinning of the unsuccessful ECHO Opera-

don inbc sharks de recaried seashese in the Task Force l OF Haul Station

I. I mas asiad siester I had suy Inowledgo of a neeting of the Attorney

General sad liban excile leaders in the suster of 1962.

I said that such a

secting wouli not lane been tuscal, in by opinion, but that I lai so irowloiga

dE suct l insing. I pointed eut that it bas concon practico anong vany Cuban

lesirs ta try to scrudre the support, or at loast tie appaarance of support, of

¿ 5, agacies aul prutiment US. political figures. I further stated that

miesus stepts varo made to get the U.S. to support a Cuban govemscht-1n-

- odile and that I had had che seting in Hashington with a Cuban lener who was

consemily arpting to get us to support his as herd of such an arrangesent.

I identified tils san as lurto Garcit-lohly and adlel that ho was sentencal to

prise sane yours later for curterfeiting. Cuban pesos.

The naws "Kohly" ob-

Manly tma a bell with 1t. Fastal as he repcatod it aloud in a surprised tone

d TutOE EDNEVEr, MI. Postal did nor pursus tho matter.

Ju. Sars ef the other toplos which vere surfaced in comection with tho

abore Dejor linus: I bas astat taether I lnce the follaring people or recognizod

Sy responses are surarized in the parenthoses and i can't vouch for

el so spellings):

CONFIDENTIAL

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CONFIDENTIA

(1)

Carios Teppedino (never heard of him)

Joso Orta (nover hoard of him)

San Glancana (read about hira in newspaper; nover net him)

Roselll (road about him in tho newspaper; novor met him)

Trafficanto (read about him in nowspaper; never net him)

Manuel Artino (a prominent membor of Cuban brigade; never mot him)

Big Jim O'Connoll (heard about him in the newspapor; nover met him)

I was asked whother "No Nane Key"seant anything to me and

I gave a nogative response.

I was asked If I had visited Chicago in the course of my work

and I told then I had not.

in at me to day too late point to under to a co setoner the

directed to sally torth and initiate contact with members of the underwordd in

the U.S, and who directed me to do so. Their interest is even more pointedly.

"operations".

and that I was never directed to take the initiativo in establishing

contacts with tho underworla.

I said that several, probably no more than five

or six, of the poople with whom I dealt were somewhat "shady" characters, in

some cases with recorded run-ins with law enforcement agencios.

Charlès D. Ford

Chief, Training Services Staff, OTR

CONFIDENTIAL

i: ?!

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.10

7 waller -

The panet

pilinge

Review Staff: 75/2723

Date 28 August 1975

O chanted will

Nalt Elder (35p7

and the says that

IG has achin an

his. (Charlie 7res

& OTR A l mantioned.)

I'd held this mend

is came there is

ange of pla

forg

bunge, Check with Dick -

Waltet Elder+

'ime.

reports that Mr. Helms

ed that in response to a

Robert Kennedy,

the Agency

lish contacts with the under-

ssets for use against Castro.

ficer was Charles Ford who

11.

nation we have on this and

gency

officer:

is shep

Mirie

Comments:

Truck down

Action

SC/DCI

A/DDA

A/DDI

A/DDO

A/DDS&T

OGC

OLC

TG

Info

X

red by cons

i.O. 1!!.1

10d.:de 19 811. 121. (2)

1ED0DiD 18 2.1915139

SECRET

10)

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KUITII

.11

SEGRET

Review Staff:. 75/2723

Date

28 Äugust 1975

TO

•: CIA Task Force

FROM

: The Review Staff,

SUBJECT : SSC/HSC Request

RECEIVED: Date

Waltet Elder Y

Time

Mri Shep

Ma. it

Mike Madigan, SSC staff, reports that Mr. Helms

and Mr. Halpern have testified that in response to a

request by Attorney-General Robert Kennedy, the Agency.

assigned an officer to establish contacts with the under-

world to: look for possible assets for use against castro.

Sam Halpern says the officer was Charles Ford who

used the name, Rocky Siscalini.

Madigan wants any information we have on this and

would like to interview the Agency officer:

Comments:

Ton ck down

Action

190 M:M 969:31

SC/DCI

A/DDA

A/DDI

A/DDO

A/DDS&T

OCC

OLC

SA MỰU

Info

X

SECRET

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ALSO BY SEYMOUR M. HERSH

Chemical and Biological Warfare:

America's Hidden Arsenal

My Lai Four:

A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath

Cover-up:

The Army's Secret Investigation of

the Massacre of My Lai Four

The Price of Power:

Kissinger in the Nixon White House

The Target Is Destroyed:

What Really Happened to Flight 007 and

What America Knew About It

The Samson Option:

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and America's Foreign Policy

THE

DARK SIDE

OF

CAMELOT

SEYMOUR M.

HERSH

LITTLE

. BROWN AND COMPANY

ROSTON NEWVADO TARAC.

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THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT

load its cargo of Cuban sugar, a CIA scientist broke into a warehouse

and injected the sugar with a chemical to ruin the taste. "It was child-

ish," Halpern says now. "But we were doing something under the

pressure."

There was further humiliation for the men of Task Force W.

Bobby Kennedy, increasingly impatient with the lack of progress in

Cuba, decided in the early spring of 1962 to run his own operation.

He once again moved into the back channel, as he had done with the

Soviets, this time working with the Mafia. On his orders an experi-

enced clandestine CIA operative named Charles Ford was assigned as

the attorney general's personal agent. Kennedy's unprecedented re-

quest went up the chain of command to General Marshall Carter, the

new deputy CIA director, for approval. Ford spent the next eighteen

months, until the assassination of President Kennedy, making secret

trips, at Bobby Kennedy's direction, to Mafia chieftains in the United

States and Canada, while continuing to serve with Harvey and

Halpern on Task Force W. "Bobby was absolutely convinced,".

Halpern told me, "that the mob had a stay-behind system in Cuba

since they had so many assets left there. There were the casinos and

gambling dens and prostitution rings and God knows what else.

Kennedy thought that by tapping into those stay-behind units we

could get some decent intelligence on what's going on in Cuba. The

concept was crazy. The Mafia couldn't have set up a stay-behind sys-

tem; it's too hard. Also, Castro had a great internal security system

and you couldn't work contacts in the cities. That's why we"— in

Task Force W —"operated in the countryside."

purpose in dealing with Charles Ford was to do what Bill Harvey was.

not doing — find someone to assassinate Fidel Castro. "Charlie saw

Kennedy in his office and of course talked to him on the phone quite

regularly," Halpern told me. "Charlie was a good officer, and Bobby

was his case officer. Charlie never reported that kind of information

to me. He may never have reported it to anybody. He was Bobby's

man. Nobody's going to touch him."

Kennedy initiated some of the telephone calls to Ford, Halpern

said, but they were usually made on his behalf by Angie Novello, his

longtime personal secretary. Novello, interviewed for this book

briefly by telephone in 1994, said she remembered Halpern but had

TARGET CASTRO

287

"no memory" of ever calling CIA operatives, including Ford.*

Halpern told me that Ford would make it a point to stop by his cu-

bicle in the Task Force W offices and say, "See you again, Sam.

I'm off again." Ford averaged two trips a month for the attorney gen-

eral, and would dictate reports for Kennedy upon his return. "I

know," Halpern said, "he went to places like Chicago, San Francisco,

Miami — wherever Bobby sent him — including one trip to Canada."

Ford, obviously following instructions from Kennedy, relayed noth-

ing to his nominal superiors in Task Force W. "We never got a single

solitary piece of (written] information," Halpern said. Charlie Ford's

reports, if they still exist, presumably are among the millions of pages

of Robert F. Kennedy papers that have yet to be released by the John

F. Kennedy Library.t

Halpern said he and his colleagues had an ongoing concern for

Ford's security. "We like to control our meeting places," he explained.

"We don't like to walk into an unknown place." The husky and dark-

skinned Ford, who had served in Japan and knew a great deal about

the CIA's extensive operations there, was given identity papers and a

careful cover story in the hope that his identity as a clandestine CIA

officer would not become known to the Mafia.

"I don't know how Bobby Kennedy squared that in his own

mind," Halpern said. "On the one hand, he allegedly was going after

* Halpern's recollection of conversations between Kennedy and Ford is supported in

part by Robert Kennedy's telephone logs and appointment book for 1962, as made

public by the Kennedy Library in 1994. They show that Kennedy met twice with Ford

in September and also received a telephone call that month from Ford. In his 1993

memoir CIA and the Cold War, Scott D. Breckinridge, who was one of the authors of

the CIA inspector general's 1967 report on assassination plotting, cryptically de-

scribed the Ford assignment. As part of Mongoose, the CIA "was directed to provide

an operations officer to meet with Mafia figures identified by Kennedy under cir-

cumstances over which CIA had no control." Breckinridge acknowledged in an inter-

view for this book that he had been told the story by Halpern, and others, during the

1967 inquiry. Breckinridge did not identify Ford in his book, even after Ford's death,

in keeping with the CIA practice of not naming previously unidentified clandestine

agents. Halpern himself did not confirm Ford's involvement for this book until he

+ In a 1993 compilation, the Kennedy Library reported that its collection of RFK papers

totaled 1,541 linear feet, of which 440 feet have been released for research. Few of

Kennedy's working papers from his days as attorney general have been made avail-

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the Mafia to destroy them; on the other hand, he was using them for

information about Cuba. Maybe it was a deal he made with them.

Who knows?" Ford, who died in the late 1980s, never discussed -

even years later — his missions for Kennedy, Halpern said.

Bobby Kennedy was doing more than "allegedly" going after the

Mafia. Within days of taking office in January 1961, the attorney gen-

eral had announced what the Wall Street Journal approvingly de-

picted as the "most sweeping campaign against gangsters, labor

up his words by invigorating the Justice Department's organized

crime division and decreeing that he would make war on crime his

priority as attorney general. He took the fight to Congress and won

legislation making it a federal crime to transmit gambling informa-

tion from state to state by telephone or telegraph, cutting deeply into

the main profit center of organized crime. In his speeches and con-

gressional testimony, Kennedy repeatedly insisted that fighting crime

was a moral issue that could not be successful without fundamental

changes in society.

"The paramount interest in self, in material

wealth, in security must be replaced by an actual, not just a vocal, in-

terest in our country, by a spirit of adventure, a will to fight what is

evil, and a desire to serve," he had said in The Enemy Within (1960),

his account of the McClellan Committee investigation. "It is up to us

as citizens to take the initiative as it has been taken before in our his-

tory, to reach out boldly but with honesty to do the things that need

to be done."

Robert Kennedy's previously unrevealed involvement with Charles

Ford provides new insight into a May 1962 meeting in the Justice De-

partment. Arthur Schlesinger and other Kennedy admirers have re-

peatedly cited the meeting as evidence of both the attorney general's

innocence of the CIA's assassination plotting and his adamant disap-

proval of any collaboration with organized crime:

At issue was a year-old dispute between the CIA and the FBI over

the FBI's insistence on prosecuting Sam Giancana on wiretap charges

that stemmed from Giancana's jealousy. The incident took place in

TARGET CASTRO

289

October 1960, when Giancana and Robert Maheu, the private inves-

tigator who was then serving as a CIA cutout, were sharing a hotel

suite in Miami while trying to find a way to assassinate Castro. Gian-

cana became convinced that his girlfriend, the singer Phyllis

McGuire, was having an affair in Las Vegas with Dan Rowan, of the

comedy team of Rowan and Martin. Maheu, eager to keep Giancana

in Miami — and perhaps seeking to ingratiate himself with his Mafia

collaborator — got approval from his CIA handlers, along with some

necessary cash, and arranged to have Rowan's hotel room bugged

and wiretapped. Maheu's man, a private investigator named Arthur J.

Balletti, gained entrance to the room and, believing Rowan would

not be back soon, left his wiretap equipment in it, unattended. A

maid discovered the equipment and called the local sheriff, who ar-

rested Balletti.

The case was turned over to the FBI, whose agents were told in

late April 1961 that the CIA was working with Sam Giancana and the

mob. Their informant was none other than Maheu, who — dis-

tressed at what he perceived as President Kennedy's cowardice at the

Bay of Pigs - began talking to his former FBI colleagues. The FBI

was "madder than hell, according to Sam J. Papich, a Hoover aide

who handled liaison between the FBI and CIA, one of the most sen-

sitive jobs in the American intelligence community. Papich told in-

vestigators for the Church Committee in 1975, according to a

summary made available under the Freedom of Information Act,

that the CIA's involvement posed a huge stumbling block to any pos-

sible prosecution of Giancana for illegal wiretapping. Papich, who

was a reluctant witness, further told the committee that Bobby

Kennedy "was concerned that this operation would become known,

and didn't want it to get out." The flap went to the top of both agen-

cies. Sheffield Edwards, director of the CIA's office of security, spent

the winter and spring of 1961-62 trying to convince the FBI and Jus-

tice Department to drop the case and keep what they knew secret.

Nothing was resolved until April 1962, when Lawrence Houston,

the CIA's general counsel, met with Herbert J. Miller, the assistant at-

torney general in charge of the Justice Department's criminal divi-

sion. Miller told him, Houston recorded in a memorandum obtained

by the Church Committee, that he envisioned "no major difficulty in

stopping action for prosecution," thus protecting the secrecy of the

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CIA's use of the Mafia. Three weeks later, on May 7, Houston and

Sheffield Edwards, representing the CIA, met with Bobby Kennedy in

his office and — as Edwards told investigators for the CIA inspector

general's 1967 assassinations report — "briefed" the attorney general

"all the way."

Houston, who was also questioned for the IG Report, described

Bobby Kennedy as saying that "he could see the problem and that he

would not proceed against those [Giancana et al.) involved in the

wiretapping case." Kennedy added, speaking "quite firmly, 'I trust

that if you ever try to do business with organized crime again —

with gangsters — you will let the Attorney General know before you

do it." At the time, of course, as Houston and Edwards apparently

did not know, Kennedy — aided by Charles Ford — was himself try

ing to do business in Cuba with organized crime. Kennedy also was

goading the agency to get on with getting rid of Castro and knew, as

did his brother, that a pretty California woman named Judith Camp-

bell was carrying messages to that effect between the president, Sam

Giancana, and Johnny Rosselli. In the meeting with Edwards and

Houston, the IG Report noted, Bobby Kennedy brought up the sub-

ject of Johnny Rosselli and his motivation: "The Attorney General

had thought that Rosselli was doing the job (the attempt at assassi-

nation of Castro) for money. Edwards corrected that impression; he

was not." Four days later, Kennedy asked Houston and Edwards for a

memorandum of the meeting. That summary, delivered on May 14,

gave Kennedy an invaluable document for the record, stating that he

had been angered upon hearing — presumably for the first time —

of the Mafia's use in activities against Castro and had ordered the

CIA to check with him before dealing again with criminals. It made

no mention of Castro assassination planning — past, present, or fu-

ture. Such actions, as Kennedy surely was aware, were never to be put

in writing.

Thus, the 1967 CIA report, made public in 1993, concluded that al-

though Houston and Edwards had fully briefed Kennedy on the CIA's

use of the Mafia in the fall of 1960 and spring of 1961, they had left the

impression that the operation "presumably was terminated following

the Bay of Pigs fiasco." What Houston and Edwards did not do, the IG

Report added, was tell the attorney general that the assassination

plotting was continuing, even as their meeting took place. "As far as

TARGET CASTRO

291

we know," the IG Report added, Kennedy was' never told that the CIA

"had a continuing involvement with U.S. gangster elements."

Both the IG Report and Church Committee report eight years

later concluded that Edwards knew about the continuing assassina-

tion operation and had deliberately misled Kennedy at their meeting

and in his follow-up written report.* They may have been wrong. By

the fall of 1961 - several months before Edwards's meeting with

Kennedy — the Castro assassination effort was in the hands of Bill

Harvey's task' force. Harvey, as many witnesses testified, was well

known for keeping his operations to himself. In 1975 Edwards, then

seriously ill, had it both ways when he testified before the Church

Committee. He told the senators that he "did not know" when he met

with Kennedy that the plotting against Castro had been revived. But

he also said, "I thought Mr. Harvey was pretty foolish to continue this

thing." The retired CIA officer was candid about his reluctance to dis-

cuss the assassination plotting before the committee, saying, "I am

not prepared to testify to that under oath. Please understand me. I

am not trying tó fight the battle, see." Frank Church, the committee

you want me to say, Senator? What do you think I should say?" Ed-

wards clearly intended to take his secrets to the grave with him.

The gist of the IG Report and Church Committee testimony is

this: On May 7, 1962, the attorney general, having learned for the first

time that the CIA had retained Giancana and Rosselli to murder

Castro before the Bay of Pigs, did nothing more than tell the agency

not to use the Mafia without clearing it with' him first. He took no

names, began no inquiry, and did nothing to make sure that such ef-

forts never took place again. The incomplete and possibly false Ed-

wards-Houston account of their meeting with Kennedy became the

basis for Schlesinger's conclusion, in Robert Kennedy and His Times,

that "the Kennedys did not know about the Castro assassination plots

* William Harvey, in his 1975 testimony before the committee, said that Edwards's sug-

gestion that the assassination plotting had ended "was not true, and Colonel Edwards

knew it was not true." He explained that Edwards chose to "falsify" the record to in-

sulate himself from any possible damage and from prosecution. "If this ever came

up." Harvey said, "the file would show that on such and such a date... he was no

longer chargeable with this."

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before the Bay of Pigs or about the pursuit of those plots by the CIA

after the Bay of Pigs."

There was another consideration, Schlesinger wrote:"No one who

knew John and Robert Kennedy well believed they would conceiv-

ably countenance a program of

assassination. Like McCone, they

were Catholics."

Sam Halpern believes that he understands the import of the May

7 meeting: "Bobby was not telling us to stop, but [was telling us) not

to do it again without checking with him." If that interpretation is

correct, Kennedy's goal in the meeting with Houston and Edwards

was twofold: to get on the record a statement that the CIA had ended

its assassination plotting and, much more important, to ensure that

the agency did not authorize a future clandestine operation that

could compromise or endanger Charles Ford's continued meetings

with the Mafia.

The most effective participant in Operation Mongoose was the Pen-

tagon, whose planners had been instructed to prepare for a pitched

battle in Cuba in the fall of 1962, in the event Lansdale's schemes paid

off and Cuba was in revolt. As part of that planning, hundreds

of thousands of American soldiers and sailors took part in military

exercises in the Caribbean, under the watchful eye of Cuban in-

telligence. In August more than 65,000 men participated in Opera-

tion Swift Strike Il, obviously meant to simulate art attack on an

island like Cuba. Later; 7,500 U.S. Marines conducted a mock inva-

sion of an island near Puerto Rico named "Ortsac" — Castro spelled

backwards. In the fall of 1962 the Pentagon was ordered to begin

prepositioning troops and matériel for a massive invasion of Cuba. If

the president so ordered, an estimated 100,000 troops in military

bases along the East Coast could hit the beaches of Cuba in eight

days.

The military planning was being led by Admiral Robert Denni-

son, commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and he took his mis-

sion seriously. "I had five army divisions and the Second Marine

Division, reinforced by elements of the First Marine Division," Den-

nison said in a 1973 oral history for the U.S. Naval Institute. "And

there were operations planned for the use of these forces against var-

TARGET CASTRO

293

ious landing areas in Cuba. All these would require naval and air

force support.... My plans were approved by the Joint Chiefs of

Staff and, of course, were known to the president. He had to know

what we could do, and how we were going to do it. We were up

against some pretty strong ground forces, so some very drastic

preparation would have to be made in the way of our bombing, gun-

fire. A great many people would have been killed. It would have been

quite a bloody affair. And then, once having captured Cuba and oc-

cupied it, the United States would have had a terrible problem in re-

habilitation, establishing a government. We would have been in there

for years."

All of this — the helter-skelter sabotage, the continued assassination

efforts, and the military planning and exercising — was seen and

fully noted by the Cubans and their benefactors in the Soviet Union.

The American aggression played a role in Nikita Khrushchev's deci-

sion to move Soviet nuclear missiles and launchers into Cuba, trig-

gering the missile crisis of October 1962: It "now seems likely," the

renowned Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis of Yale University

wrote in 1997, that "Khrushchev's chief purpose had not been to shift

the strategic balance," as the White House claimed it was at the time,

but rather to save the Cuban revolution. ... There has long been ample

evidence that the Kennedy administration was trying to get rid of Castro

by all means short of an invasion. Given the unprecedented level of Amer-

ican military activity in the Caribbean in the months and particularly

the weeks before the crisis broke, it seems foolish to claim that the next

step would never have been taken — especially if one of the CIA's many

assassination plots against Castro had actually succeeded

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and the FBI's surveillance of her were deemed state secrets that had

to be kept, even if crimes were ignored in the process.

Judith Exner did not learn about the break-in at her apartment until

fifteen years later, when she won a Freedom of Information Act law-

released and still censored, said nothing about I. B. Hale, nor did they

mention General Dynamics. By August 1962 her involvement with

Kennedy and his brother had ended. Bobby Kennedy had replaced

Exner with Charles Ford as a liaison to organized crime, and for Jack

Kennedy there were dozens of women who would replace her in other

ways.

By that fall, Exner said in My Story, she was deeply involved with

Sam Giancana. "Love with Sam was not as exciting as it had been with

Jack,' she wrote, "but ... it left me with a comfortable feeling instead

of a gnawing emptiness. I felt like I really knew how to handle Sam.

Once we became intimate, Sam did not change with me, he didn't

revert to some unreasonably possessive creature." In an interview for

this book, Exner acknowledged what she had not in her memoir: Sam

Giancana had his own reasons for maintaining the relationship with

her. "I'm not so naive that I don't think that his friendship with me

and continued friendship wasn't very beneficial," she told me. "He

could use it to his advantage if need be."

Jack Kennedy, she said, also used "Sam for his own purpose. And

Sam would naturally expect something for it. I don't like to think of

friendship being used that way." But, Exner added, "Jack didn't play

by our rules; Jack had his own rules. I believe that all of the Kennedys

play by their own rules. I don't think they conduct themselves the way

we do. I think that's very sad."

In the late summer of 1962, Exner said, "I was very troubled, again,

about the FBI surveillance and [Kennedy's] treating it lightly. He did

say a couple of times that he would talk to Bobby and see what they

could do about it. But it never seemed to me that anything was done.

We had been having difficulties because I wouldn't move back to

Washington, After we more or less broke up, he convinced me to go

back and see him one more time."

In recent years, Judith Exner has been waging a furious battle

JUDY

323

against a pervasive cancer; she was told ten years ago that she had

only a few more years to live. In interviews for this book and for a

1996 profile in Vanity Fair magazine, she has added another new ele-

ment to her story - Jack Kennedy made her pregnant on their last

visit. It was that pregnancy, she now says, that drove her into the arms

of Sam Giancana.

Exner, in her interview for this book, said that she and Kennedy

agreed in late summer 1962, after she told him about the pregnancy,

that she could not keep the baby. "In our next conversation" Exner

said, "he asked, 'Would Sam help us?' I spoke to Sam and he said yes.

Sam was angry at Jack, but it took the two of us for me to be in that

position." In Sam's eyes, Exner insisted, "he was helping me. You

know, a lot of people can say, 'Oh boy, this is just something else he

(Giancana) could hold over Jack's head' I don't care what they say, I

know what he did for me." She wasn't angry at Kennedy, she said. "I

was heartbroken."

It was at this point, Exner told me, that she became intimate with

Sam Giancana. He had responded to news of her pregnancy by ask-

ing her to marry him. "I told him, 'Sam, you don't want to marry me.'

I knew he was in love with Phyllis (McGuire). And he just said,

deserve to be asked? It was the one time with Sam and it was an emo-

tional response to his loving-kindness and caring for what I was

going through. But I would hardly say that that was having a simul-

taneous affair with two men."

Exner's most recent account of her faithfulness to Jack Kennedy

conflicts with the chronology in My Story. She may have indeed been

faithful to. Jack Kennedy for much of their time together, as she has

steadfastly insisted, or she may have been making love to both men at

the same time. The issue of when she became intimate with Sam

Giancana, however important to Exner today, does not affect the

importance of her story.

Exner, in her interviews for this book, told me that despite all, she

remains convinced that "Jack loved me, to the extent that he could

love someone. A lot of people think that I'm kidding myself, but I

knew him. I was the one who was with him. He had a place for

everything in his life, and he gave only so much of himself to what-

ever that was — whether it be love, work, or play" In that regard, she

said, "he emulated his father. I think all the boys in the family have

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