Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
From: FONZI, GAETON, AND GONZALES
To: BLAKEY, ROBERT G.
Document date: 2/5/78
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

180-10077-10020

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/1/201

AGENCY: HSCA

RECORD NUMBER:

180-10077-10020

RECORD SERIES: NUMBERED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 005062

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM: FONZI, GAETON, AND GONZALES

. TO :

BLAKEY, ROBERT G.

TITLE:

DATE:

PAGES:

SUBJECTS :

02/05/1978

5

SIRAGUSA, CHARLES, INTERVIEW

CIA

DOCUMENT TYPE: MEMORANDUM

CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: 1B

CURRENT STATUS: Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW: 01/01/2003

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS:

BOX 105. FOLDER TITLE:

v9.1

NW 50955

DooId: 32247462

Page

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## Page 2

MEMORANDUM -

TO:

FROM:

RE:

February 5, 1978

G. Robert Blakey

Fonzi & Gonzales

Interview with CHARLES SIRAGUSA

005062

ARA 'CHARLIE CIGARS"

Background:

On January 4, 1978, a syndicated column

by Jack Anderson was published in the Miami Herald.

The column reported that a former Federal Narcotics

Bureau official named Charles Siragusa was approached

by a CIA official "around 1960" in Washington with

the suggestion "that Siragusa, drawing on his

knowledge and contacts in the underworld, would

recruit a crew of Mafia torpedoes for standby

assassination duty."

The CIA official reportedly

told Siragusa that a "bounty" of $1 million would

be paid for each "kill."

The Anderson column also

reported that Siragusa had been involved in at least

two other operations with the CIA: One was in helping

to gain the freedom of three CIA operatives imprisoned

in Cuba; the other was

in helping establish a

"safe

house" in Greenwich Village which was alledgedly

turned into a "sex trap for foreign diplomats."

Purpose of interview:

To determine if Siragusa had

any direct knowledge of any CIA relationships with

any assassination operations beyond what was reported

in the Anderson column; if his knowledge of organized

crime figures or activities included any relationship

with the John F. Kennedy assassination; if his activities

with the Federal Narcotics Bureau included an association

with the CIA that led to the recruitment and employment

by the Agency of QJ/WIN

and/or WI/ROGUE; and if Siragusa

had any additional knowledge concerning Daniel Carswell,

one of the CIA agents he reportedly helped get released

from Cuban prison.

Details: Charles Siragusa

was interviewed on January 30,

1978, in his seasonal residence at 4215 Wilkinson Drive,

Lake

Worth, Florida (305-965-2523) • He also maintains

a residence in Chicago (312-634-3432):

Siragusa

said

he had been a narcotics agent in New York before being

assigned to Europe in 1950 by the Federal Bureau of

how adie

SAL

CATED

SHAVE

H7 50955 DocId: 32247462 Page 2

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2.

Narcotics. In 1955 he was appointed supervisor of

a territory which included Europe and the Middle East.

He was stationed in Rome and supervised branch offices

in Beirut, Istanbul, Paris and Marseilles.

In 1958

he was transferred back to Washington as a field

supervisor.

In 1962 he became the Deputy Commissioner

of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a positlon ne

described as

"the number two slot.

". He retired trom

the Bureau of Narcotics

in 1963 and became executive

director of the State of Illinois Criminal Investigations

Commission.

He retired from that post in 1975.

Siragusa said he held the rank of Lt. Commander in

the U.S. Navy during World War II. However, he said,

he was

actually in the Office of Strategic Services,

Counter Intelligence.

He said his immediate superior

was James Angleton. Siragusa said that when he was

reassigned from Europe to Washington in 1958, he resumed

regular contact, including frequent luncheon meetings,

with Angleton,

then Chief of Counter Intelligence of

the CIA. Angleton subsequently introduced Siragusa to

other CIA officials, including Dr. Ray Treichler,

Vincent Thill and

fellow whose name he doesn't

recall with certainty but says might have been John

Mohr or Morse. Siragusa said

that it was with Dr.

Treichler that a "safe house" was established in

Greenwich Village. Siragusa

said he also worked

with Dr. Treichler on an anti-opium operation involving

the the passing of CIA funds to the Mexican Federal

Police.

Sometime in 1960 or 1961, according to Siragusa, he

was told by John Mohr (or Morse) that the CIA had

three agents in Cuban prison who had "pulled a

Watergate" on the Chinese News Agency in Havana.

Mohr told him that one of the agents was

especially

important because he knew the

names of a

a "couple

of hundred" other agents and, if Castro discovered

that, the agent would be pressured into revealing

them. Siragusa said that Mohr told him the CIA was

willing to pay $1 million to anyone who gained the

release of these agents from Cuba. As a

result,

Siragusa said, he went to Miami and obtained the

name of an informant from the Federal Narcotics

agent in charge of that office, Eugene Marshall.

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3.

(The name of Eugene Marshal had, coincidently, been

provided by Gerry Patrick Hemming in a discussion

with him at his office on January 20, 1978, with

Team Leader #3 Bill Triplett present.

Hemming

mentioned Marshall as someone who could confirm the

attempt of Lee Harvey Oswald to join his No Name

Key group in Miami following the group's arrest

In December, 1962.

Accordina to Hemmina, Marshall

was an associate then of attorney now California

radio personality) Charles

Ashman, who had arranged

for the group's accommodations in the Miami motel

where Oswald appeared. Marshall was subsequently

dismissed from the Bureau of Narcotics for illegal

activity. Hemming says he is currently working for

attorney Melvin Belli

Turner can arrange an interview with him.)

Siragusa said that Marshall put him in touch with

a Cuban informant who reportedly had the contacts

and

ability to obtain the release of the CIA agents. Sira-

gusa does not recall the name of the informant,

only that

he had a small private detective agency in Miami,

was a fast talker, was about six feet tall, weighed

about 240 pounds and had a very unattractive wife

who worked with him.

Siragusa said that the informant

claimed he could

get the job done, but after a

few ineffectual

attempts it became obvious that he

couldn't. Siragusa then went to Chicago and contacted

an old informant he refused to name.

That informant

put him in touch

• with a Chicago attorney he also

did not name.

That attorney, who Siragusa said was

a Greek, was a personal friend of Raul Castro.

Siragusa took the Greek attorney to Washington for

a meeting with an attorney named James Murphy,

whom Siragusa assumed was working for the CIA.

(Siragusa said he had known Murphy from his OSS

days when Murphy was with him in the "X-2" counter

intelligence branch.) Siragusa said that Murphy

gave the Greek lawyer $10,000 on each of two

occasions for trips to Cuba. Eventually, says

Siragusa, the Greek lawyer obtained a Havana lawyer

to negotiate the release of the three CIA agents.

-more

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4.

Siragusa said he does not know the details of their

release, nor does he recall their names.

He said the

name of

Daniel Carswell only "sounded familiar." He

failed to identify a photograph of Carswell.

He could

offer no other information concerning the incident but,

he said, he has a file box of index name cards still at

his old

office in Chicago and, he said, when he

returns there in May he will review the file and

refresh his memory on any names.

Siragusa confirmed the information provided in the

Anderson column concerning the interest of a CIA

officiäl in forming a "hit squad" for standby

assassination duty. He said he doesn't recall whether

it was Sheffield Edwards, Vincent Thill or John Mohr (or

Morse) who put the proposition to him.

He said he was

told that since he had a lot of contacts in the underworld,

would

he put together an assassination squad

. which would

be paid $1 million a hit. Siragusa said he at first

thought the CIA officer making the proposition to him

was joking but as the conversation progressed he

decided that he was not.

Siragusa said he immediately

declined the proposition and told his contact "no

dice."

He said he told him that it would "be different

if it were war time," but he wouldn't consider it in

peace time.

Siragusa said the conversation took

place sometime in the "early 1960s."

Siragusa said that most of his underworld contacts

had come from the Chicago area, but that he never met

John Roselli or Sam Glancana•

He also said he never

heard of Jack Ruby or Rubenstein in Chicago. He said

the first time he heard of the name of Ruby was after

the Kennedy assassination and that he knows of no

connection of Ruby to the narcotics business.

In relation to QJ/WIN and WI/ROGUE, Siragusa was asked

if he was familiar with any undercover agent or informant

who was used by the Federal Narcotics Bureau and then

subsequently given to the CIA for its use. (Re Senate

Select Intelligence Committee. Report on 'Alleged

Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.") Although,

Siragusa said, his position should have given him such

knowledge of an agent transfer, he does not recall any.

He said, however, that the CIA would often come to him

for credentials from the Federal Narcotics Bureau for use

by the Agency's agents. "A lot of guys were floating

around Europe with phony narcotic agent credentials," he

said.

4

-more

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5.

mocking

Siragusa said it was also possible that the agent transfer

could have been handled by one of his supervisory employees

who was surrepticiously working forlthe CIA. One such

possibility, he said,

was. Paul Knight, his Narcotics

Bureau agent in the

Middle East.

Siragusa said he put

Knight in charge of the Beirut office in 1955 and the

Paris office in 1958. He said Knight later resigned

from the Narcotics Bureau and officially went to work

for the CIA. He said Knight was fluent in French, German

and Arabic, and is today in his late 40s or early

50s.

Another individual who may possibly have knowledge of

QJ/WIN and WI/ROGUE, said Siragusa, was a close friend

and associate of his in Europe, Henry Manfredi, who

died in 1966 or 1967. Manfredi, he said,

was

formerly

with Army CID and later with the Narcotic Bureau. Siragusa

thinks he joined the ClA in 1958. His widow, Dorothy

Manfredi, currently lives at 1373 Canterbury Way,

Rockville, Md (424-5142) •

Siragusa also mentioned a CIA agent he met through

Manfredi in Europe.

He recalled only that his first

name was Bob and that his last name sounded Irish.

Bob was subsequently sent to the Congo by the CIA

and the last Siragusa heard was that he was in Madrid

running an import-export business.

Siragusa said he was unfamiliar with all the other

CIA officials whose names he was asked about. He was

also unfamiliar with all the organized crime and

Cuban figures whose names he was asked about.

5

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