Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
From: MCKEOWN, ROBERT.
To: FONZI, GAETON.
Document date: 05/17/1977
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/13/20

AGENCY : HSCA

RECORD NUMBER :

180-10108-10060

RECORD SERIES : NUMBERED FILES.

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 015107 (FOLDER 1 OF 4)

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM: FONZI, GAETON.

TO :

TITLE: OTERO, LEADS.

DATE :

PAGES:

SUBJECTS :

05/17/1977

5

CIA.

LEADS & INFORMATION.

GARRISON INVESTIGATION.

FBI.

DOCUMENT TYPE:

MEMORANDUM

CLASSIFICATION :

Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS : Consulted

CURRENT STATUS:

Withhold

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

06/24/1993

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS : Box 297. FBI tabbed Box 297-2.

v9.1

NH 56829 DocId: 32262491

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## Page 2

MEMO

TO:

FROM:

Re:

5/17/77

Tanenbaum

Fonzi

Otero leads

RECEIVED

1977 MAY 23 AM 10: 44

U.S. HOUSE SELECT

COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

Some interesting new developments have come up relating to

the Rolando Otero lead's and I thought it would be a good idea

to organize (for both of us) what we have so far and where

we should go with it.

First of all,

there are details in Otero's background which may

be significantly related to what we're interested in.

Otero

was first tried last August in Jacksonville in a Federal court

on charges relating to nine bombing incidents he is alleged

to have committed in Miami on October 17th and December 3rd

and 4th, 1975.

As Federal

agents later admitted, the heart

of their case

was based on information supplied by Ricardo

Morales.

Morales never testified at that trial because,

according to Federal prosecutors, he "wasn't available."

Morales was working at that time (and still is)

for the

Security Section of the Venezuelan police department.

Yet

while the trial was going on in Jacksonville, Morales traveled

regularly between Miami and Caracas.. Ihad no problem locating

him myself (I got the number of the girlfriend he was living

with here and just missed him one weekend before he returned

to Caracas. He dropped in frequently at the Little Havana

Activities Center to chat with his old friend Rafael Villaverde,

a guy.

with heavy intelligence connections.

I didn't pursue Morales at the time because what I

talk to him about then wasn't tessane a mentos himself neo

an interesting background. He was once a member of Castro's

Intelligence Agency (G-2), defected and became a highly trained

explosives expert and contract agent for the C.I.A:, working

openly for the Agency as late as 1965 in the Congo.

"He was very

close to Bay of Pigs leader Manuel Artime and a member of

Operation 40, the special assassinations unit.

He was tharged

with at least one murder here but never tried.

"In 1968 he

was arrested for a series of bombings but he became an F.B.I.

informant and was

He was the chief government

witness

In the 1968 trial of Orlando Bosch, who was convicted

and sentenced to 10 years. (He was paroled in 1972, skipped the

country and was free until his arrestein Caracas with Veciana-

associate Luis Posada this year on charges of blowing up the

Cubana Airlines plane in Barbadoes.

Morales reportedly set him

up for the arrest, which may be just protective custody.)

What I wanted to talk to Morales about last year was an item in

a transcript.of a tape recording that emerged in

the Bosch trial

of 1968. In a secretly taped meeting with Bosch, Morales talked

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about

"a fellow named Hunt" who "gave $15,

000 to some

representatives of Cuban Power to place bombs."

Bosch

later assumes that Hunt is the "one of the wells," but

I wonder

about that.

At any rate,:

with Morales never being called to testify in

Otero's Federal trial, Otero was found not guilty of every

count.

That seemed to really disturb the F.B.I

and, no

doubt, its trusted informant Morales, because

immediately

afterwards the

Bureau and Morales teamed up with State

authorities to

smack Otero again with the

same nine charges,

this time on

a state level.

And this time the trial was held

not in an urban setting.but in the back country of Florida's

Panhandle where most of the jurors, although employees of

Eglin Air Force Base, were actually residents of Alabama,

red-blooded Americans who knew the difference between the

good-guy F.B.l. agents and some crazy. Cuban bomber. Never-

theless, Otero was

found guilty of only one of the nine

charges, that of placing a bomb in a locker

The prosecution had presented a locker handle with his

thumb print on it.

Otero's lawyers claimed that Morales had

enough sophisticated C.I.A. training to know how to transfer

a print and that if Otero could not be linked to the other

bombings only Morales could have done them. I think Otero

made a significant point in his defense when, after admitting

he was

fanatic anti-Communist and terrorist, he said that

any bombs placed within the United States were of propaganda

value only to Castro. Nevertheless, Otero was found guilty on

that one count and, for that single charge, given 40 years.

Now all of that may be important in terms of the information

Otero is providing us and where it is going.

"Although the

F.B.I. seemed to be out to get Otero, a Bureau report I got

indicates

that strange things happened early in its efforts

to gather information relating Otero to the bombings."

Also relevant may be this: In 1975, Otero says, he was involved

in a plot to kill Castro in Venezuela. That plot, he says,

was planned without the support or knowledge of the C.I.A.

One of those involved in the plot was otero's friend Hector

Serrano.

Antonio Gonzalez

and the bombings.

Fearing that, Serrano went to the F.B.I. and

told them his story.

According to the F.B.1. report, Serrano told the Bureau that®

Gonzalez had been in touch with Arturo Cobos, described as.

"a Cuban known to have contacts in the C.I.A."

HH 56829 Do0Id:32262491

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This is what the F.B.I: report then says: "Cobos furnished the

anton on do one cas in washing on, with fontast

to call with contacts on

Gonzalez that he contacted his source in the C.I.A.

and learned that the F.B.I. is aware that Rolando Otero did

commit the bombings,

and that Otero's three friends, Ciro

Orizondo, Tony Gonzalez and Hector Serrano are going to be

framed by the F.B.I. for their involvement in the same

bombings. Gonzales stated that on January 14, 1976, the

C.I.A. was sending a man down to Miami, Florida,

"to.

arrive

at about 12:30

to interview these

men, who should

house in Miami until the

C.T.A. man arrives."

What happened then was this: A fellow by the name of Mike Hall

suddenly shows up in Miami.

he gathers together Otero's

associates and takes

them to a "safe house" where, he assures

from an F.B.I. frame up. He holds them

a couple of days during which time they are visted

by Ricardo Morales, who fills them in on the 'details of Otero's

involvement with the bombings. Hall then gathers together

a couple of Otero's tape recorders, a typewriter (which, he

hints, may have been used to write notes relating to the

bombings)

and a few other pieces of equipment and leaves

town with it all. That's the last anyone sees of the stuff

or Mike Hall.

Otero's attorneys later discovered that there is, indeed, a

Mike Hall: He supposedly is a Treasury Agent in

the Minneapolis

bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco Tax and Firearms Division.

(His telephone in St. Paul: 612-725-7092).

He wouldn't

talk

about his

actions but said he used to be the ATTEF agent in

charge of the Miami office until 1974

He said he

received

call from an old informant" (Torres) who supposedly wouldn

talk with anyone else in ATT&F except him. So he immediately

flew in from Minneapolis and did his stuff.

I hear the F.B.I.

has filed an official protest about his involvement.

This is the way I read the significance of Hall's actions: I

think he (and whoever

he works

for) wanted to make sure that

while Morales was helping the F.B.I. to build its case

against

the Bureau didn't stumble across any untutored witnesses

or evidence that would have knocked the case out

early. Hence

Hall's quick visit to Miami, the "safe house" bit and the

gathering of the "evidence.

What I find interesting, considering the possibility that Otero

beout for revenge, is

that he doesn't put in

such a

likely candidate

as Morales into the Kennedy assassination,

especially since he admits he doesn't have any hard evidence

relating to the names he did give us.

And he seems to have

been acquainted

with Bernardo de Torres only peripherally, the

others less so.

In addition, what he did give us he readily

admits he got from a third party.

HH

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What we have so far on Bernard de Torres is this: He showed

up in New Orleans very early in Garrison's investigation

claiming he had important information. He said he was

a private detective inMiami and wanted to help.. Garrison

recalls he mentioned the name of State Attorney Richard

Gerstein as an entree.

Miami newspaper clippings at the

time describe

Torres as the "military coordinator of

Brigade 2506."

He refused to comment to

reporters on his

role in Garrison's investigation! "He said

some of the

angles were

'classified,' such as reports of an Oswald

visit here."

[My personal opinion Is that, from my experience,

anyone. Who comes up with a story putting Oswald in Miami

Is a source of misinformation.] However, according to the

clippings: "Torres was among a group of

ten Cubans who

helped Secret Service men protect President Kennedy when he

visited Miami four days before his assassination."

The latter is interesting because the only one who ever had a

story of Localites assisting Secret Service men here in Miami

on Kennedy's visit

was Jerry Patrick Hemming, who says he also

was involved in that security effort,

Miami Police reports

list Torres as

an associate of Anselmo Leon Alliegro,

an old

pal of Hemming's.

Police once Found a quantity of explosives

and weapons in Alliegro's home. Alliegro said they belonged

to Torres.

Torres also has a connection with a boutique that is owned by

another Otero lead, Norman Diaz.

Diaz is the father-in-law

of Miami City Commission Manolo Rebozo, a close associate of

Manuel Artime's and a former member of Operation 40 himself:

Today Garrison feels that Torres was one of his early sources

of misinformation.

He hasn't yet checked his files on him, but

from recollection

he says whatever information Torres provided

never went anywhere, be summoned to testify before a Federel

The latest clipping I have on Torres reports

that he was going

grand jury in Washington investigating the assassination of

Chilian Foreign Minister Letelier.

That was early this year.

I don't plan to

approach. Torres until I run the full circle

around him. It's the little things that make me feel he may be

important.'

Otero, for instance,

told me that the source of his

information, Juan Adames,

the fellow he was in the Broward County

Jail with for a brief period, visited his, Otero's, girlfriend

when he was out for a

short while last summer.

Bob Rosenblatt,

Otero's

attorney, was

recently talking to her and asked her

about it. She said that Adames dropped by just to tell her how

much

he was in sympathy: with Otero's plight and that he would

try to help as much

as possible.

she sald it was just a brief

social visit. Yet, she volunteered, he did happen

to bring up

the name of Bernardo Torres

and asked if Otero had ever mentioned

him to her. (Adames knew that Otero has been in regular telephone

contact with her from his Panhandle prison.) She said she told

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5

Adames that she did not know Torres

and that Otero had only

pointed him out to her once in a movie theater.

It seems

to me that Adames may have gone out of his way to

check on whether or not otero was passing around intormation

which he, Adames, may have let slip to him in the cameraderie

of a prison cell.

Meanwhile, I finally found Juan Adames. (a.k.a. Juan Isador;

Juan lappia; Victor Manuel Alonzo.) (D.O.B.:

7-15-41; born

Dominican Republic; 170: 1bs; brown hair,

brown eyes,.

5'9" tall)

He 1s: in the Dade Correctional Institution, a state prison

in Florida City, about 35 miles from Miami. He was arrested

in Fort Lauderdale in June, 1976, on forgery and worthless

check charges.

So Otero's

about meeting him in the

jail there checks out.

Adames bonded out for a brief

period last summer,

was brought back for trial, was found

guilty and sentenced to 18 months.

According to investigators in the Broward State Attorney!s

office, Adames is a sophisticated con man.

Yet he now.

desperately wants to get out of jail and has been cooperating

with

them.

One of the areas Adames is talking about involves

individuals who conspire to rob

armories in

order to sell or

exchange the weapons for narcotics, small time hoods with

indirect connections to organized

crime. Adames said he was

working with such a gang, casing targets by photographing them

in advance. Adames claims he is a professional freelance

photographer.

When investigators asked him how he got involved

with the gang, Adames said that one of the members happened to

said that?

see in his apartment some documents which belonged to a close

friend of his in the armaments business, Bernardo de Torres.

To show the investigators that he was telling the truth,

Adames produced a sheaf

of documents

which obviously belong

to Torres.

They deal with the sale of weapons to the Mexican

and Columbian governments and to the DEA in Mexico City.

Torres is listed on one of the documents as "Director of

Operations for Central and South America" for the Military

Armament Corporation.

The Chairman of the Board of Military Armament Corporation is

old friend,

Mitchell Livingston WerBell III.

The pieces are coming together.

I'm following up, planning to approach Adames undercover.

As

soon as 1 get a chance,

I'11 send you copies of all the key

stuff I have on WerBell. The latest word I have is that our

old 544 Camp St. buddy, Gordon Novel, is living on WerBell's

estate in Georgia. Small world.

#

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