Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
From: CIA
Document date: 00/00/0000
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

180-10141-10499

Insertioni

DRAET

CIA HAS NO OBJEOTION TO

DECLASSIFICATION AND/OR

RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT

AS SANITIZED

JFK 22

FOLDERS

# 1B

Cuban-American

In Book V of the final report of the Senate Select

Committee to Study Governmental Operations on the performance

of the intelligence agencies in the investigation of the

assassination, the FBI and CIA are criticized for their

apparent failure to fully pursue leads surrounding the

assassination of President Kennedy and then to fully report

to the warren Commission the results of the investigations

they did undertake. One such lead concerned the travel

from Texas to Mexico City of ap unidentified Cuban-

American on November 23, 1963, and then his flight to Havana on

November 27. 1/ The lead was made more "interesting" by

the fact that the Cuban-American reportedly attended a

meeting of the Tampa chapter of the Fair Play

for Cuba

Committee on November 11, 1963. 2/ The House Select

Committee on Assassinations examined the documents connected

to that lead to determine: (a) whether the facts which were

known by the FBI and CIA about that individual warranted

further

investigation and what investigation was undertaken;.

Ib! whether any of that information vas reported to the Warren

Commission; and (c) whether the knoun facts suggest

any.

involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.

180-10141-10499

104412

10499

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## Page 2

Cuban-American.. page 2

A chronology of the activities at the FBI and CIA

on this lead amplifies the information which was in the

possessiond the two agencies.

CIA Investigation

The first information on the travel of the Cuban-

American appeared embecember & 1963. at that time the

Mexico

Station of the CIA sent a classified message

to CIA headquarters that a source

(dentified as LITEMPO/4) had

requested of the Mexico City Chief of Station at 1300 hours

on that date "urgent traces on U.S. citizen Gilberto P.

Lopez." 3/ The source said Lopez arrived in Mexico on

November 23 en route to Havana and that Lopez had

disappeared with no record of his trip to Mavana: According

to the message, Lopez had a tourist card, carrying number

24553, which he obtained in Tampa on November 20, 1963 and

his passport number was 310162.

The message stated that Lopez.

left Mexico for Havana

on November 27 via Cubana (Airlines).

The classified message listed the cryptonym LIfIRe as the alignal

source of information on Lopez's travel. It indicated the Mexico

city

Station had no traces on him: 4/

of the rama date

In a:other classified message dated December 3, 1903

from

the Mexico (

Station to CIA headquarters, the station

reported also that the FBI office in Mexico City had been

advised by mexican authorities that Lopez entered Mexico on

inveniber 27 at Nuevo baredo. 51

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## Page 3

DO NOT REPRODUC

Cuban- American.. • page 3

RETURN TO CIA

seist. the Next day

In another classified message dated December 4, 1963

to the Mexico

Station from CIA headguarters, the Agency

reported that the State Department check on Lopez had produced nothin

yet because of the difficulty in tracing records using only

a name and passpori number. 6/ The message contained this

paragraph:

We assume you have not toid CiTEMPO [SOUnCE]

that Lopez flew to Cuba on 27 November

because you do not want to blow the

LIFIRE operation.

This problem is up

to you. l/

The LIFIRE operation referred to in the hissi filamessage on

the obtriving o

to the Mexico

Station involved cooperation between the

CIA and Mexican federal officials who participated in a

plan of photographing passengers of flights departing for Havana.

and obtaining the passenger lists of the Cubana flights.

Mexican officials also had their own program to photograph the

passports of the passengers arriving from Havana. 8/

On December 5; 1963 the Mexico City Station reported

..reportiNg.

that the (LITEMPO/4) source had stated that Gilberto Lopez

had

crossed the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas on November 23,

1963 and registered in the Roosevelt Hotel in Mexico City on

The reporting Jour ch

November 25 at 1600 hours in Room 203. 2/ LITEMPO, alSO

reported that Lopez departed on a Cubana flight on

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## Page 4

Cuban-Anerican...page 4

November 27 for Havana.

That classified message stated

the source

additionally that LITEMPO/ had je good photograph of

Lopez.

10/

The photograph of Lopez contained in his CIA 201 file

has

"27 November 1963" stamped on the back. In the photograph

Lopez is shown wearing dark glasses and the background in

the photograph is dark and indistinguishable

the following don

In a dispatch dated December 5, 1963) from the Chief of

station in Mexico City to headquarters, copies of the

photograph of Lopez were attached. and the dispatch stated

wien

that the photograph was taken. On the night of November r,

1963 at the Mexico City airport by Mexican authorities as

Lopez was boarding a Cubana flight. 11/ The dispatch gave

the previously reported information of the numbers of Lopez's

passport and tourist card and his entry

into

and departure from Mexico. The dispatch contained the

additional information that Lopez was fisted as the only

passenger on Cubana flight #465 on November 27, 1963 to Havana;

the flight contained a crew of nine Cubans. It said he used

a U.S. passport and a Cuban courtesy visa. 12/ The dispatch

had the following message: "Source states the timing and

circumstances surrounding subject's travel through Mexico and

departure for Havana are suspicious." 13/ The dispatch

said also that the source "urgently" requested all available

data on the individual.

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## Page 5

Cuban-American.. • page 5

the sima crite

Also on Decmeber 5, 1963) CIA headguarters cabled the

• Mexico

City

Station and identified this Cuban-American as

Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, who was born on January 26, 1940. 14/

It stated also that Lopez was not identical with a Gilberto

Lopez who had been identified as active in pro-Castro groups in

Los Angeles. 15/

CIA headquantees rceived

March

19,

1964, the Monterrey Station sent a

classified message (to headquarters that Enrique Ruiz Montalvo

an agent of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, had Stated.

informed the CIA that one of Ruiz's contacts reported

in late February, 1964, that an American citizen named Gilberto

Lopes was involved in the Kennedy assassination. 16/ The message

said Ruiz's contact reported that Lopes entered Mexico on

foot from Laredo, Texas about 1200 hours on November 13 carrying U.S.

passport #319962, which was issued July 13, 1960. 1l/ According

to the dispatch, the contact related also that Lopes proceeded by

bus to Mexico City "where he entered Cuban embassy"; it said that

he left the Cuban Embassy on Novemoer 27 and was the only

passenger for Cuba on flight

#465. 18/

It said the contact

reported that Lopes was issued Mexican travel form B, #24553, at

Nuevo Laredo. 19/ According to the dispatch, Ruiz reported

that he could not verify the contact's information,

but thought it might be of interest to the United States

government. 20/

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## Page 6

Cuban-American... page 6

The cable stated also that background information

concerning the Monterrey base's contact with Rui2), was

contained in

dispatch dated March 19 which was being pouched

to headquarters on March 20

21/

The Next

On March

,the Deputy. Chief of the Mexico

City

Station

cabled a classified message to headquarters in which it was

stated that the information contained in the earlier dispatch

бле талепледогі

which discussed Ruiz's contact "jibes fully with that provided

[SOURCE]

station by LITEMPO & early December 1963." 22/

A 201 file was opened on Gilberto Policarpo Lopez by

Agency headquarters on December 16, 1963. 23/ At that time his

records indicated that no earlier 201 file had existed. The

file contains

a "Review of 201 file on U.S. Citizen" by

Barry Gibson

an operations officer for the LAM/FI component

of the Agency. 24/ In that review the file was classified

as a "counterintelligence case (i.e., involving a foreign intelli-

gence or security service)." 25/ The date of entry of that

category in Agency records is indicated as January 22, 1915

Lopez's file. 26/

FBI Investigation

In

a report dated August 26, 1964, the FBI documented

the results of its investigation on Gilberto Policarpo Lopez

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## Page 7

Cuban-American... page 7

which had been carried out in Key Nest, Florida. The report

stated that Lopez's counsin, Guillermo Serpa Rodriguez, told the

FBI that Lopez came to the United Stated for the first time some :

time after Castro first came to power. 27/ He stayed approximately

one year and then returned to Cuba. 28/ Rodriguez stated that

Lopez returned to Cuba because he was homesick and missed

his family; he had parents and four brothers who still resided

in cuba. 29/

Rodriguez stated also that Lopez's brother Selito was

a member of the Cuban militia at that time. 30/ Another

brother, Raimundo Policarpo Lopez, had reportedly been

sent to the Soviet Union to study by the Cuban government,

according to Rodriguez. 31/

Rodriguez told the FBI that Lopez returned to the United

States in 1960 on 1961 because he was afraid he would be drafted

into the Cuban militia if he remained in Cuba. 32/

The FBI learned that Lopez married an American woman in Key

West in August, 1962. 33/ According to Lopez's wife, he worked

for a time with the Pepsi Cola Co. in 1962 and at the Molina

and Murgia Bakery in Key West, which was owned by cousins. 34/

She said that he also worked for a construction company in

Tempa in: June, 1963. 35/

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## Page 8

Cuban-American. page 8

Lopez's wife told the FBI that Lopez began suffering from

recurrent attacks of epileysy and had to be confined at Jackson

State Hospital in-Key-West in early 1963. 36/ She stated that

he was treated by doctors from Coral Gables and Key West for the

epilepsy. 37/ She stated that she did not believe he had a

history of epilepsy before coming to the United States. 38/

She believed his convulsions were brought on by nervous

and worry over his family in Cuba and may have been a reason

tension

for his return to Cuba in 1963. 39/

The wife said that in approximately November, 1963,

she received a letter from Lopez saying he had returned to

Cuba. 40/ The wife stated that she was surprised he had returned

but that he had mentioned he was going back to Cuba when he

left for Tampa in November, 1963. 41/ The wife gave her opinion

that he returned because of his close relationship with his

parents. 42/ The wife stated that she received another letter

from him later from Cuba. 43/: According to the letter, he was

working. as an elevator operator in Havana. 44/ In that letter

Lopez said he had received some kind of financial assistance

for the trip from an organization in Tampa: 45/ According to the

vife, Lopez did not have sufficient personal funds to pay the

expenses to Mexico and Cuba. 46/ She said that he had never had

contact with Cuban refugee organizations to her knowledge. 47/

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## Page 9

Cuban-American... page 9

Rodriguez told the FBI that Lopez left Key West

in late 1963 to go to Tampa with the hope of being able

to return to Cuba. 48/ Rodriguez said he believed Lopez wanted

to return to Cuba because he was afraid of being drafted into

the U.S. military. 49/ Rodriguez said Lopez was not involved

in any pro-Castro activity while living in Key West, but that

Lopez was "definitely" pro-Castro. 50/ Rodriguez recounted that

in one instance he and Lopez actually had a fist-fight over

Lopez's pro-Castro. sympathies.

51/

In a report in March 1968, the FBI reported that Lopez

had attended a meeting of the Tampa Fair Play for Cuba Committee

63

on November 20, 197z. 52/ The report also stated that at a

meeting of the group on November 17, 1963, Lopez stated that he

had been refused travel back to Cuba. He said at that time

that he was waiting for a phone call from Cuba to get word on

his departure to Cuba. 53/

According to that report in March, 1964, a member of the

::

Tampa FPCC stated that she called

a friend in Cuba on December 8,

1963

and was told that Lopez had arrived safely. 54/ The member

had attempted to locate. Lopez in Cuba through friends there because

Lopez had not delivered gifts to persons in Cuba from people

in Florida as he had promised to do. 55/ The member stated

also that the Tampa chapter of the FPCC had given Lopez.

approximately $190 for the r'éturn trip to Cuba. 55/ Tha

menber

soir? that Lopez had gone to Cuba by way of Mexico because he dia

not have a passport. 57/

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## Page 10

Cuban-American...page 10

The March 1964 FBI report listed Lopez's passport as

#310162, which had been issued in January, 1960, and his

Mexican tourist card as

"M8-24553, issued November 20, 1963:

in Tampa. 58/ It stated that Lopez entered Mexico by private

auto at Nuevo Laredo on November 23, 1963 and departed

for

Havana on November 27 as the only passenger on a Cubana flight,

carrying a Cuban courtesy visa. 59/

According to the FBI file, Lopez's mother, Esperanza

Rodriguez, was born in Key West, Florida. 60/ The file

listed three cousins and four uncles who resided and worked in

the Key west area with their families. 61/

Lopez's FBI file contains a memo from the Tampa office

dated October 26, 1964 which states:

It is felt that information developed

regarding the subject is not sufficient

to merit consideration for the Security

Index. 62/

The only information transmitted by the FBI to the warren

Commission on Lopez concerned a check at the Passport Office. 63/

The information the Bureau did send to the Commission a bout the

Tampa chapter of the EPCC did not include any information on

Lopez's activities. 64/ The CIA apparently did not provide

any information on Lopez to the warren Commission. As pointed

out in the Senate report, this omission is made more egregious

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## Page 11

Cuban- American... page 1l

by the fact that sources had reported within a few days of

Lopez's departure for Havana and of the assassination that the

circumstances surrounding his travel seemed "suspicious" and

that in March, 1964, while the Warren Commission was well

underway into its work into the investigation of the

assassination, Lopez had reportedly been involved in the

Kennedy assassination.

CIA TARFOrCe ReporT.

In the 1977

report of the Inspeator General of the

"Play the Agency attempted to refute several "inaccuracies"

in the Senate report regarding the reporting on Lopez's

•travel. That is

apparently the only follow-up by the

Agency on the lead after the Senate report appeared.

In the first place, The Inspector eneral, report

corrected the statement in the Senate report that sources

reported that Lopez appeared "suspicious" when he was

JFR

surveilled in Mexico. 65/ The It report explained that the

internal CIA document Of December

5 1963.

which characterized

the man as suspicious was merely "cryptic and impressionistic

rather: than constituting. a tangible basis for dramatic:

activity or final conclusions. " 66/

The report stated additionally that the March

1964 cable from the Monterrey base which recounted the

information on Lopez (from the contact of the Mexican police

and claimed Lopez was involved in the assassination was

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## Page 12

Cuban-American... page 12

incorrect on several points: Lopez's name was misspelled

"Lopes"; it stated that Lopez entered Mexico on foot when

the CIA repeated the FBI's conclusion that he had traveled

by auto; it gave incorrect digits in Lopez's passport

number; it stated that the Mexican tourist visa was issued

in Nuevo Laredo

and not Tampa; and it. reported that. he

stayed at the Cuban Embassy. 67/ Based on these inaccuracies,

the Inspector Pereral concluded that "the source patently

was extensively misinformed." 68/ Based on that observation,

the Inspector General completely discounted the cable

by the Deputy Chief of Station in Mexico

City on March 20

1964) that the Mexican police source information "jibed"

with what had earlier been reported by the CIA's source. 69/

Presumably the discrepancies pointed out by the

TER

Inspecter Genexal are meant to explain the fact that the

CIA did not take more aggressive investigative steps to

ascertain.

whether there might have been some schip

between Lopez and the assassination.

In that regard, the

1977 -Ingpector Gene

report explains that the Agency

had no other means of investigating Lopez at his disposal

and had carried the lead as far

as it was able by

questioning a Cuban defector about Lopez. While the fact

of the CIA's lack of access to further information about

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## Page 13

Cuban-American... page 13

Lopez may well be the case, that fact does not explain either

the failure of the CIA. to take more seriously the suspicions

of the sources, or most importantly, to report whatever

information it had to

the Warren Commission. In that

TFR

regard, the attempts of the Inspector General to denigrate

the value of the information provided on Lopez do not

explain

Biplane

diminich the apparent negligence of the Ayency

seriously

pursulag the information as it was received.

The Agency is

not to be faulted for the strength of its intelligence

gathering, but rather for the judgment which kept that

intelligence from the governmental body, the warren

Commission, which was mandated to pass on the strength of

exactly that kind of information.

From the information collected by the FBI, there

appear to be wellsible a reasons both for Lopez's

desire to return to Cuba and his solicitation of the help of a

local FPCC chapter for that travel. His contacts in Florida

appeax on their face to be innocent and nonpurition and not.

in any way connected with the assassination.:

Despite the

suggestion by the Senate report of suspicion in the

fact

that Oswald "may" have been in

touch with that same FPCC

the ASCA fund.

chapter,, no evidence appoats to suggest that Oswald was

actually in touch with the Tampa EPCC, of that Lopez was

connected in any way with Oswald or Dallas.

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## Page 14

Cuban-American..• page 14

Despite what is now known about Lopez, the Warren

Commission may well have wanted to lay to rest

suspicions which would remain about Lopez, and satisfy

itself that these circumstances in no way indicate foreign

involvement in the assassination.. The CIA has contributed

to: those suspicions by not airing. the matter and explaining

circumstances which could shed light on otherwise sinister

appearing events.

The Committee has documented instances where the CIA

decided to forego passing information to the Warren Commission

out of a desire to not lay bare extremely sensitive sources

and methods of intelligence.

The LIFIRE operation

certainly falls

within that category and as soon as the CIA

began receiving information that LIFIRE was the source of

the information about Lopez's travel, the cables and

messages reflected the desire to not reveal that method.

It also seems plausible that the FBI likewise chose not to

divulge what it had learned about Lopez because in doing

so, it would have had to reveal the sensitive CIA operation

which generated the initial information on Lopez's travel to Cuba

on November 27.

---

## Page 15

Cuban-American footnotes

1/ The Investigation of the Assassination of President

John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence

Agencies, Book V, Select Comm. to Study Governmental

Operations, 4/23/76, p.61, Senate Report No. 94-755.

2/ Id.

3/. Classified CIA Document Mexi IN 72615, 3 Dec. 1963.

4/ Id.

5/ Classified CIA Document Mexi IN 72829, 3 DeC. 1963.

6/ Classified CIA Document.

4

Dec: 1963.

7/ Id.

2/ Classified CIA Document Mexi 7253, IN 74227, 12/5/63.

10/ Id.

11/ Classified CIA Document HMMA-22579, 12/5/63.

12/

Id..

13/

Id.

14/

Classified CIA Document

5 DEC. 1963.

15/ Id.

16/ Classified CIA Document MNTY 0829, IN 43194, 19 Mar. 1964-

17/ Id.

18/ Id.

19/ Id.

20/

Id.

21/ Id.

22/

Classified CIA Document Mexi 8740, IN 43940, 20 Mar. 1964.

---

## Page 16

Cubon-American footnotes... page 2

23/

Classified CIA Document, Personality File Action Request,

16 December 1963, #201-741600.

24/

Classified CIA Document.

25/

Id.

26/

•Id.

27/

FBI Report, 8/26/64, Serial 105-126109-12, p.

Ibid. at

29/ - Ibid. at

30/

Ibid. at

Ibid. at

Ibid. at

Ibid. at

---

## Page 17

Cuban-American footnotes... page 3

49/

Ibid. at.

According to Lopez's FBI file, he registered with the

Selective

Service at Key West on July 29, 1960 and

was classified 4-F on February 23, 1962 due to a

language barrier.

50/

51/

21. FBI Report; 3/31/61, Serial 105-126109-9.

53/ Ibid. at

54/

Ibid.

55/

56/

57/

58/

59/

60/

61/

62/

63/

FBI Report, 10/26/64, Serial 105-126109-13.

Senate Report, The Investigation of the Assassination of

President John F. Kennedy, Book V, p.63.

64/

66/

Id.

55/ See Senate Report, p. 104.

TASK FORCE

CIA Classified Document, 1977. Inspector General's Report,

Tab

B, p.16.

67/

68/

Id.

Id:

59/

Ibid. at 17.

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