dicted . The typed specifications, added end to end, are more than 11 feet long. Among the interesting revelations in the fragments of testimony released by the grand jury is this account of when and how Andrews met "Bertrand," given in response to a question about Shaw's height:

"I see him on TV. He is a tall cat -- I don't believe the person I know as Clay Bertrand is as tall as him. I don't know. I can't say yes and I can't say no. As God is my judge I have to go back to the same thing I am telling you -- I go to a fag wedding reception -- and he is standing up and he is well dressed -- I don't measure the guy . . ."

On the voice: "I can't say positively . . . the voice I recall is somewhat similar to this Clay's voice . . . deep, cultured, well educated voice -- he don't talk like me . . ."

Andrews acknowledged knowing Ferrie and having handled Carlos Marcello's deportation defense, which also involved Ferrie as investigator.

He joined the long list of witnesses and the later analysts in reporting essential questions had not been asked of him as a Commission witness. In his picturesque and inimitable way, among these he ticked off the time and circumstances of his meeting Bertrand, at the "fag wedding," seemingly a not uncommon social event in tolerant New Orleans.

A week after the indictment, Andrews filed a $100,000 damage suit against Garrison, alleging deprivation of his civil rights.

As soon as I got a tape of Bob Scott's interview with Andrews, I sent it to Garrison. Here are a few excerpts from it:

Andrews: . . . I just don't want to get involved in it. Besides that, I like to live. If a guy can put a hole in the President, he can just step on me like an ant. It's not my fight . . .

Scott: Has the government shown any further interest in you?

Andrews: Yeah, they watch me. Got a tap on the phone you're talking on now . . .

Scott: You said there were three things you were going to do. One of them was find Clay Bertrand and the other one was find the guy who really killed the President. Do you still feel that way?

Andrews: I know, daddy-o. I'm too smart to talk, like I told you; I

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like to live. Most of the answers I know, but I mean, what the hell, it doesn't make any difference. I've done two of the three. Let's put it that way.

Scott: Would you care to say which two?

Andrews: No, unh - unh .

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Andrews: I just can't see anything will come out of it. What difference does it make? The guy's dead. Start a lot of . . . and, uh, mess up a bunch of people, and I'm just kind of conservative. I believe in letting sleeping dogs lie. If I can get out of publicity without a hole in my head and my creditors will find me and think I'm famous and want me to pay my bills . . . (On Oswald) Oh, he never killed him. All the people know that. He ain't nothing but a decoy. Everybody knows that . . . You can't win for losing in this game . . . He's just a patsy.

Scott: Do you think it was Lee that was in your office?

Andrews: I don't think, I know that . . .

Scott: How about any influence . . . or pressure brought to bear on you . . .

Andrews: Well, let's put it this way. I practiced international law a long time. I know my way around. I know what I have to do and I do what I have to do when I have to do t. I think if there is a plot . . . with the passage of time the people involved in it grow old and when you grow old you lose nerve. When you lose nerve, you become conservative and you just fade and you pass. It would be my guess as to whoever did what was done over in Dallas.

Scott: Do you think in your little dealing that you had with Lee Oswald at all that he had any connection with the CIA or the FBI?

Andrews: No. He personally? No . . .

Scott: Okay, then, Mr. Andrews, I do appreciate your talking with us.

Andrews: I wish I could go the route with you, but I ain't got nothing to win and everything to lose. You know, like my life, and I just enjoy breathing . . . I got a very well orderly life, you know, hahahaha , and I like it to stay that way. These people down here I think if what just listening to them and everything else is true, they'll have a lot of fun and they'll probably come close and J-u-u-u-u- ust miss, you know.

Scott: Do you think you really know the answer, you yourself?

Andrews: Well, let me put it this way. I can come closer than close. But I ain't even gonna get that close. I'm agonna -- If the action's north, I'm going west, you know. These -- uh, it's a very -- let me put it to you this way. It's a very fantastic, strange, set of circumstances. I don't think this thing was plotted. I think the whole thing happened within 36 or 72 hours at the most. Probably 16 hours . . .

Scott: If we ever open the investigation again on some sort of a nationally recognized or governmental plane, will you testify before a new investigation committee?

Andrews: Well, I got the shortest memory in the world. Round about a minute. That -- that's not what's agonna do it. They done did what they had to do and the only people not satisfied are the people -- historians, you now. They want to document everything and they couldn't care less who gets stepped on or what. They're looking for the Holy Grail and if they can find it God bless 'em. What they going to do with it when they find it? They let Pandora out the box and they ain't no way they can put her

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back in. Now all you can get is conjecture. The real answers to tell you personally yes, I know the guy that pulled the trigger, man nobody could tell you that. But nobody. But the way I think what everybody's ticked off at is the in which all this mass of information was assimulated (sic) and it like the finding of an elephant. Down on the bayou when I's a kid they told us a little story. Took four blind men to the zoo. One grabbed an elephant by the trunk and said, "I know what he's like he's like a snake." ' Nother one grabbed the elephant by the tree and he said, -- no, by the leg you know and said, "He's a tree like a trunk." One walked into the belly and said, "You two cats are crazy, he' like a wall." One grabbed him by the tail and said, "No, he's like a rope." They all argued loud and long about what an elephant is, but they only got one part of him. And that the problem with the Warren Report. Nobody'll go deep enough, far enough and strong enough to take the entire concept and nobody is intelligent enough or clever enough to start from, say from Point A to Point C with the varyin ' factors that go in and out of it. But because they do not possess the necessary instincts and training to take al of the pieces and put it together and that's what they're hollering about the Warren Report that the Feebies didn't run this particular report out . . . But nobody knows which way the bullet went -- north, south, east or west. Did it come from Oswald's window? Actually, I have reason to believe there were three places and that there were two assassins and a dummy and all they caught was what they were supposed to catch -- the dumbbell. The two real people, the hit and the follow-up hit, -- you can't lay three shots, you know, the way they say they did but you can figure Assassin A, pow. You can figure Assassin B, pow, and Assassin A, pow, and you got three shots. Nobody can tell me the directions the shots come from and all you got to do is plant something in a person's mind and if he's an alleged witness he'll seize on it and go up and say it's true . . . But what they can't get away from, no matter how they look at it, is how they caught a patsy so quick. Who leaked the information? Do you know how to write?

Scott: Yes.

Andrews: One day we'll write a book, if you're ever down here, "Who Killed Cock Robin?"

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6. THE SPY WHO STAYED OUT IN THE COLD

With all the nonsense, repetitions and plain rubbish that litters the eleven large volumes of printed exhibits, page after page of hard-faced Ruby strippers, page after page of photographic reproduction of unrelated trivia in various pocket notebooks, an amazing clutter of unessential maps, directories, guidebooks and other printed mementos, with exhibits printed redundantly (and at the same time contradictorily, where allegedly identical exhibits actually are not), with all the enormous numbers of printed pages entirely wasted except as intellectual quicksand in which the casual reader or serious researcher is engulfed by the sheer volume and disorganization alone, why were not these missing parts of File 984, discussed in an earlier chapter, printed as evidence? Why was the file purged?

Certainly not from consideration of space or cost. Were content the basis of decision, it seems hard to justify devoting to an established error all but three of the 21 pages of the file that are printed. This is more pointedly questionable because what was consciously left out, what was not printed but is in this file, relates to testimony, to the story of Oswald in New Orleans and those involved in this story; to the Cuban training base, to the federal agents and the ways they work and the abuses of American law that they tolerate; in overtones, to the CIA; and they give the names of some of the men enmeshed in the web of the suppressed events.

The only purpose served by the conscious editing of this file when it was printed is suppression. No other reason or purpose suggests itself, no other end was served. It is not an accident. Nor is it a frivolous

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matter. Here the Commission had evidence of the a violation of a number of American laws, with the complicity or tolerance of the federal government, whose agencies caused or knew about it. Equally serious is the violation of publicly declared national policy, the policy of -- the policy created by -- the assassinated President. The consequence of these violations of law and policy could have been war -- war like none in history -- World War III, for the Soviet Union was publicly pledged to defend Cuba from any attack. These documents are about an attack on Cuba.

More provocative still is allotting six pages of "evidence" to Castro's November 29, 1963 (26H431ff), speech in seeming justification of the mischievous nonsense originating with Portel - Vila . This lie was widely disseminated by the Cuban refugees despite its falsity and its adverse effect on American policy. It constitutes an intrusion into American policy matters by these refugees who, in turn, were the mendicants of the CIA.

Were the Commission to print Castro speeches as part of its evidence and if it could find space for proven lies, how can it justify its failure to quote Castro's speech of November 23, a week earlier, his first speech after the assassination? In this speech and in the press of the time was enough for another full investigation. Castro quoted public statements, made in the United States, that are almost a prediction of the assassination.

Is it credible that the Commission could print six pages of a misquoted Castro speech that is not in point but could not find space for a Castro speech that is on target, if only to refute it?

The pertinent speech, the one that is not in evidence, does not come to me through the official United States monitoring and translation service. It is an unofficial translation. It is, however, his speech on the assassination, in which he explained, as he saw it, what

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was involved, who he thought might benefit from the resultant change, and what consequences might follow. It is a speech that is not unsympathetic to the late President. It was broadcast by Cuban radio and television. The Kennedy speech to which he refers was made five days earlier, November 18. Castro's speeches are long. I have excerpted this, omitting his attacks on editors and journalists whom he names and abbreviating the rest:

. . . These events occur precisely at a moment when Kennedy was being severely attacked by those who considered his Cuban policy to be weak. It could not be us, but only the enemies of the Revolution and the enemies in general of a more moderate policy, a less warlike policy, the enemies of a policy like this who might be interested in the death of President Kennedy, the only ones who perhaps could have received the news of Kennedy's death with satisfaction.

A few days ago an incident drew my attention. This was while the Inter-American Press Association Conference was taking place. It was a scandal . . . they made long tirades . . . against the speech delivered by Kennedy in Florida . . . (which) disappointed a number of persons who favor a more aggressive policy against Cuba. It was a disappointment for the counter-revolutionary elements, and it was a disappointment for the warmongering elements in the United states.

And so, a series of cables. Here: "Miami, Florida -- The Cuban exiles waited tonight in vain for a firm promise from President Kennedy to take energetic measures against the communist regime of Fidel Castro." . . .

A series of cables began to arrive . . . "New York, November 20, UPI -- The Daily News editorial stated that . . . Kennedy now refuses to allow Cuban exiles to launch attacks against Cuba from U.S. territory" the paper said "and in fact uses U.S. naval and air power to maintain Castro in power." . . .

And then, finally, there is something very interesting -- really very interesting and curious which drew my attention when I read it. That is why I remembered it and looked for the papers. It says: "The third editor to express his opinion was Sergio Carbo" . . . Carbo ... is Director of the Executive Council of the Inter-American Press Association . . . an important post in reactionary intellectual circles . . . his statement ends (and this is what drew my attention) . . . by saying: "I believe that a coming serious event will oblige Washington to change its policy of peaceful coexistence." What does this mean? What did this gentleman mean when he said three days before the assassination . . . in a cable . . . from Associated Press, dated November 19, AP number 254, Miami Beach . . . "I believe that a coming serious event will oblige Washington to change its policy of peaceful coexistence?"

What does this mean, three days before the murder of President Kennedy? Because when I read this cable it caught my attention, It intrigued me, it seemed strange to me. Was there perhaps some sort of understand-

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ing ? Was there perhaps some sort of plot? Was there perhaps in the reactionary circles where the so-called weak policy of Kennedy toward Cuba was under attack, where the policy of civil rights was under attack -- was there perhaps in certain civilian and military ultra-reactionary circles in the United States a plot against President Kennedy's life? . . .

Radio Havana apparently considered this an important speech. The next day, Sunday, it broadcast a lengthy commentary and analysis of it. The copy I have, again an unofficial one, is seven single-spaced typewritten pages long. It emphasized the thought that only the element Castro described as "ultra-reactionary" in American life could benefit from this assassination. The commentary returned to this time and time again, in such expressions as this: "An event like that of yesterday, can only benefit the ultra-right, the ultra-reactionaries among whom cannot be included the President and some of the people who worked with him . . ."

It also emphasizes Castro's comment on the IAPA Miami meeting:

. . . President Kennedy had spoken to them last Monday evening. The speech of the President was disappointing to the partisans against Cuba; it was disappointing to the Cuban counter-revolutionaries and it was disappointing to the ultra-right in the United States . . .

Then Fidel said there is a strange sentence in this report made three days before the assassination. I believe," and noted that on November 19 AP cable says: (and quoted) "I believe that a serious event soon to take place will oblige Washington to modify its policy of peaceful co-existence."

All of this certainly adds up to a Castro charge that his political enemies talked as though they were predicting the assassination of the President that followed on the third day. If the Commission were going to regard Castro speeches as "evidence," it seems it might better have addressed itself to his speech on the assassination and might have left fewer questions for history if it had devoted the space it wasted in providing a propaganda field day for the radical right with the printing of the falsehood to the printing of his speech

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on the assassination. It should have investigated Castro's charges and, to the degree possible, have answered them, if it could. Its failure to print these seeming threats from the IAPA meeting is an especially serious self criticism because the Miami police had intercepted threats to kill the President and all the arrangements for his November 18 appearance before the IAPA had been changed because of it. We shall go into this in a later chapter.

There can be only one reason for eliminating these documents from the record, the same reason that kept out the New Orleans reports on the right-wing Cuban training camp along Lake Pontchartrain : suppression. By suppressing these reports, consistent with avoiding any inquiry of any nature whatsoever -- sympathetic or unsympathetic -- of Oswald connections with the anti- Castro Cubans, the involvement of the CIA was hidden.

Two weeks after the raid on this camp, Dan Kurzman , the Latin-American expert of the Washington Post wrote a story on the switch in the CIA's plans for its anti-Castro operations. In part he said:

. . . the United States is apparently trying to prevent independent exile organizations from engaging in parallel activities that might jeopardize its own . . .

United States, policy is to centralize the underground's control under the CIA. This agency is reportedly recruiting particularly trusted and competent members of individual exile groups into its service.

However, it is believed to be financing and cooperating with at least some independent organizations because of their relatively efficient underground networks in Cuba.

"The lack of hit-and-run raids on Cuban shore installations or ships trading with Cuba in recent weeks reflects general agreement among the exile groups that sensational and well publicized incidents are ineffectual, detrimental to CIA activities, and likely to meet with a swift crackdown by U.S. authorities."

There is reason to believe that at the time of the investigation and for a considerable time thereafter, neither Hoover nor anyone else in the FBI expected

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their reports, so sacrosanct to them, to be accessible to researchers and writers.

On February 4, 1965, Paul Hoch , a student at the University of California, wrote Hoover asking how he could "obtain a copy of the original FBI report " Although at the time of the assassination it was believed this report would be made public, it was not. It is not included in the Report or any of the 26 volumes.

Hoover's reply of February 10 reads:

It is not expected that our original report in this matter will be made public since information in FBI files must be maintained as confidential in accordance with regulations of the Department of Justice and is available for office use only. I would like to point out that the President appointed the Commission to look into the tragedy and ordered the FBI to conduct an investigation. Based upon these instructions, our investigative reports and the data appearing in our files were furnished to the Commission and any release of the release of these facts fell within the responsibilities of the Commission.

"Fell." Past tense, indicating the belief that what the Commission had not published would remain secret. The then-prevalent belief was that it would be 75 years before anyone would see any of the files. The character of the FBI's report is such that it is probable Hoover never expected it to be subject to scrutiny, for in it he makes no mention of the bullet that missed the motorcade entirely or the wound in the front of the President's neck.

Hoover's invocation of the "regulations" in his letter to Hoch is a polite way of saying he is a law unto himself, for it is his regulations that he invokes. His subsequent record is consistent with this on October 31, 1966, then Acting Attorney General Clark ordered that everything considered by the Commission and in the possession of the government be placed in the National Archives. I had written Hoover five months earlier, on May 23, 1966, asking for access to the spectrographic analysis of the bullet allegedly used in the assassination and of the various bullet fragments,

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clearly the most basic evidence, but not in the printed evidence. He has not answered that letter. Since issuance of the Attorney General's order, I have on a number of occasions requested this evidence of the Archives. Hoover, as of March 1967, had not turned it over. Once, in my presence, one of his agents deceived the Archives by falsely reporting this analysis was in an FBI file that was accessible. Since then, silence, but no spectrographic analysis.

Whether or not suppression was the motivation, it certainly is the effect. What was hidden is the puerile pretense of an investigation by the FBI of part of the story of Oswald in New Orleans and of violation of laws and national policy. The FBI had every reason to believe the CIA was involved with rightist Cubans, some with frightful reputations for brutality. After Bringuier's testimony about the camp and Oswald, if anyone ever intended a serious, "thorough," and "exhaustive" investigation of the assassination and what related to it, the anti-Castro Cubans and Oswald's relations with them was unavoidable.

The "synopsis" of Miami Agent James J. O'Connor's report of May 8, 1964, covering his "investigation" and the attachments is in this same uninformative spirit: It alludes to the false charge that Oswald had been in Cuba, an invention of these same Cubans who should have been investigated and were not, says that Castro's speeches are monitored by the USIA, refers only to the part of Bringuier's testimony dealing with the alleged "spy," and makes no reference to the New Orleans camp for the training of Cubans to attack Cuba or to the newspaper stories that refer to the camp. The synopsis, instead of revealing what significance the following 19 pages might have, masks it. A hurried lawyer reading the synopsis would be deceived by it.

In its entirety, this so-called "synopsis" reads:

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Title: LEE HARVEY OSWALD

Character: INTERNAL SECURITY--R--CUBA

Synopsis: Newspaper articles and investigation set forth concerning FERNANDO FERNANDEZ, mentioned by CARLOS BRINGUIER of New Orleans, Louisiana, in testimony to Counsel for President's Commission Also set forth is article from magazine BOHEMIA INTERNACIONAL, issue of 2/2/64 wherein allegation is made that FIDEL CASTRO, during a speech on 11/27/63 committed a slip of the tongue in stating "The first time OSWALD was in Cuba . . ." Employee of USIA, Miami, stated that although all public speeches of CASTRO are monitored, no such slip of the tongue has been detected. He furnished translation of CASTRO's speech 11 /27/63 however no remark was noted implying that OSWALD visited Cuba.

The hope that somehow, some way, all knowledge of this camp would disappear if it were not mentioned is pervasive. O'Connor added no data about it. What appears in the stories is presented, nothing else. He made no investigation and, from his own report, interrogated none of the principals. His concept of an FBI investigation, or his instructions, translated his function into that of a forwarding service for the transmission of newspaper clippings and some of the old information from the files of the Miami office. Not a single avoidable new name or fact is introduced. Together, the suppressed Miami and New Orleans reports fail to give the names of most of the men involved. They were readily available to the agents of both offices. All they had to do was want and ask for them. Particularly was this true in Miami, where the bosses and offices of the so-called "Christian Democratic Movement" are. This group is known as the CDM and the MDC.

The contents of these newspaper stories, referred to by Bringuier and in his hand when he was a witness but not placed into evidence by Liebeler, explain the all-level federal reluctance for them to get any attention or analysis. The September 4 Diario Las Americas story begins with the complaint of Laureano Batista that "the Castro spy, Fernando Fernandez 'was not being detained'" by the FBI. Soon he was quoted telling the FBI the law, that "we gave sufficient proof to the FBI for his arrest." Batista's is the instant law

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associated with others of his name. That the FBI found nothing with which to charge Fernandez

did not concern him. It was sufficient for him that he wanted Fernandez arrested.

In the second paragraph he is quoted as having said that the CDM "turned over the uncovered Communist agent to the FBI." This statement was soon contradicted. The September 6 story, in its third paragraph, says that Fernandez "had been taken to the FBI four days ago," but in the ninth paragraph CDM members are quoted as having said, "Fernandez accompanied them to the FBI office on his own accord."

The dependability of this information in this Cuban refugee paper is apparently equal to that of the refugees. In its headline, referring to an alleged FBI statement, it says, "Secret Service Official Makes Statement to 'Diario Las Americas.'" The alleged statement, not too well received, was that "it is only a crime to spy against this country and not against the exiles who are violating United States neutrality laws."

The rest of the Diario Las Americas part of the report deals with the trials and tribulations of one Diego Valero, of Nassau, who was described as "the leader of the Castro espionage network in Nassau" in the so-called confession extracted from Fernandez be fore he was "turned over" to the FBI or "accompanied" the members of the CDM "on his own accord." It was all news to him and entirely untrue, ` Valero declared after a special trip to Miami to clear himself with the FBI.

Of the other seven men said to have been named as "Castro agents" by Fernandez, two were Cuban diplomats and remained silent. The other five immediately presented themselves to either the FBI in Miami or the United States Embassy in Mexico "to clear their, names." Poor Valero had to travel to do it.

At the end of his report, O'Connor "noted" that the

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"interrogation was partly conducted by MANOLO DE CANAL, Spanish Radio Station Commentator." It is not surprising that after the "interrogation" details of it were broadcast by unnamed radio stations.

There follows a UPI story indicating that agency's disbelief of Fernandez's position and role as a spy by referring to him as a "confessed spy," in quotation marks. His "confession," when mentioned, is similarly deprecated, also by quotation marks. Not without reason, for the information in the Miami FBI files quoted on the fifteenth page of O'Connor's report reads, "On September 1, 1963, MM T-1, another government agency which conducts security and intelligence type investigations, advised that MDC officials were then in the process of interrogating FERNANDO FERNANDEZ at the MDC headquarters in Miami and that FERNANDEZ has been beaten up during the interrogation."

Assuming it is a crime to beat people up, as presumably it is even for police, is not the failure of "MM T-1" to notify the Miami police an eloquent commentary on its impartiality and the dependability of the "confession?"

The September 6 Diario Las Americas story opens with what it describes as Fernandez's "claim" to the Miami Herald that the statement "had been obtained from him under threats and torture," as though this were not the case. Not inconsistent with what is inherent in Bringuier's testimony (10H43), indicating that Fernandez was in a kind of involuntary custody on the trip from New Orleans to Miami, is the next paragraph:

Fernandez told the authorities of Miami that the members Or the Christian Democratic Movement had tortured him by tightening a cord around his neck and placing a pistol at his head in order to force him to confess that he was an agent for Castro. The members of the movement insist however, that the aforementioned confession was voluntary, and for that reason he had been taken to the FBI four days ago and presented along with a tape recording of the above-mentioned confession.

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Batista is then cited as evidence that "there had been no coercion."

Fernandez, it appears, went as fast as he could to the Miami police "and told them that he had been beaten and 'tortured' at pistol point for twelve hours" and demanded that charges of "kidnaping, assault and battery be lodged against his supposed torturers." Shades of MM T-1! How impartial can you be?

Diario Las Americas, as though to warn other Fernandezes, continues with the details of what Fernandez told the police: "He stated that the confession in question was false and that it had been obtained from him under threat of death if he did not make it just that way; . . ." To leave no doubt in anyone's mind, the paper says of Fernandez, who was never under police arrest, "Fernandez was released Tuesday."

After asserting that public officials have said neither that the confession was true nor that it had been obtained under duress, Diario indicates "there would be an investigation to see whether the Movement took the law into its own hands in order to obtain a confession," and reveals its own opinion of how law-abiding, high-minded, generous and all-forgiving Laureano Batista is:

In regard to this matter, Batista said that they did not intend to continue the controversy, since they did their duty by turning Fernandez over to the authorities in order to let the law take its course.

The account quoted from the Miami News adds details. The pistol, it says, was 45-caliber. Fernandez told it that he reported the refugees' plans "in order to prevent a 'massacre.' The exiles will not get anywhere in their fight against Castro because they do not have the proper conditions." Elsewhere Fernandez is less concerned about the effect of his words on the Cuban- refugee community and translates, "they do not have

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the proper conditions" into "they are mad and cannot succeed."

He told the News what he also told federal authorities, that he was convinced Castro would stay in power and he wanted to go home to his people.

The old Miami FBI file, described by O'Connor as "developed . . . during investigation conducted in August and September, 1963," discloses that Batista's assistant Paneque (whose mother was a Batista) had returned from New Orleans by August 3, 1963, for on that day, accompanied by Heriberto Valdes, he appeared at the Miami FBI office, with copies of letters and a story.

According to him, Fernandez, who had come recently from Kansas City, joined the CDM in early July. Because he was interested in their activities, the CDM was suspicious. Henry Infante was assigned to cozy up to him, became his friend (here O'Connor's account makes no mention of New Orleans and the camp there) and intercepted a letter Fernandez addressed to the man he thought was Cuba's ambassador in Mexico City.

What a self-revelation of the so-called "Christian Democratic Movement" that it should be suspicious of a member who is interested!

The date on this letter, August 1, is not entirely, consistent with developments recounted in the New Orleans report. It also indicates the speed with which the camp broke up. On August 3 Paneque was back in Miami, having made the 900-mile trip by bus after arrangements for the payment of transportation expenses had been made, as recounted earlier.

There is reason not to believe either of the contradictory accounts, the CDM's or Fernandez's. If Fernandez was a spy, he reported remarkably little and absolutely no detail. He reported his "chance" infiltration of a "serious operation" whose "imminent" attack `. Is leaving from-Central America" He said he had

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"detailed reports of this military plan" and did not give the slightest hint of them but did warn the ambassador to "remain alert from now until the 8th ."

In return for the information that he did not give he bargained, for himself and, he thought, Henry Infante, who double-crossed him.

My comrade and I wish to return to Cuba we ask you to intercede for us. Also what way can we use to return? Is it possible to get diplomatic asylum in some Embassy in Central America? Is it possible to escape by some clandestine means? In short, we await instructions.

The tone and lack of content of this letter suggests that Fernandez was truthful in saying he was disillusioned with the refugee groups, convinced they would never make a dent in Castro, and just wanted to go home. What is much more difficult to credit is the CDM story of the letter they planted on him. Here O'Connor's report reflects the lack of interest on the part of the FBI in this confessed violation of law. He says that Paneque and Valdes "advised that for several weeks prior to that date (that is, before August 3), certain members of the MDC had been in New Orleans, Louisiana, in contact with RICHARD R. DAVIS, JR., the MDC delegate in New Orleans." Not another name in addition to Fernandez's is given. Yet all of these men violated the neutrality laws. If the FBI got or wanted their names, O'Connor does not indicate it. He says only that "included in the group at New Orleans were" these three.

Little as O'Connor says, he says enough to expose deBrueys and Steinmeyer and what they were sheltering in their report of a month later, already quoted. Nowhere in the deBrueys- Steinmeyer report is there the slightest indication that Davis was "the MDC delegate in New Orleans." Instead, they retail as though it were true Davis's transparent cover story, that he was an innocent businessman who wanted only some laborers to send to Guatemala. Both reports are

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alike in revealing no names, rather exceptional, would seem, for the FBI. The New Orleans "reporting included but a single additional partial identification that of a "man named FORNES ."

While the FBI said little and avoided the obvious. the Commission said even less. Not a single one these names is mentioned in all the testimony save that of Fernandez, by Bringuier.

The CDM yarn O'Connor forwarded to Washington is that "in order to entrap FERNANDEZ, PANEQUE and others drew up a fictitious anti-CASTRO plan of action, which they requested FERNANDEZ to translate into English. PANEQUE made available a copy of the plan, which was translated by FERNANDEZ, as follows."

Before quoting this delightful James Bondishness , Cuban-refugee style, let me point out that there was nothing at all fictitious about the New Orleans camp or the planned attack, which was frustrated by police action alone. It was part of, perhaps the beginning of, a change in United States secret policy further reflected in the picking up of Loran Eugene Hall, one of the characters in the story of The False Oswald, by Treasury agents, thus ending the plans for the invasion of Cuba and terminating the West-Coast-to-East-Coast gun-running they had carried on during 1963, when it was counter to declared policy.

Thus letter that "entrapped" Fernandez was not very clever. It was datelined "Caracas, Venezuela, July 23, 1963," and signed by Batista, the Miami-based leader of the CDM. Batista thus involved Venezuela in actions against Cuba, whereas Venezuela officially and stoutly maintains the opposite is true, and Fernandez had reason from the start to believe the entire thing was a fake, because he had just left CDM Miami headquarters himself.

It is accurately addressed, as it had to be, to "Captain Leovino Interian, c/o Richard Davis, Jr., Delegate

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in New Orleans, 1670 Westbrook Dr., New Orleans 22, La." Thus, whether the letter was or was not a trap, we have additional proof from the files of the FBI that it did nothing about this open violation of law and further evidence of the complicity of deBrueys and Steinmeyer in shushing it up. The information about Interian and Davis is correct. The FBI silence is not.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of this affair is the first paragraph of the letter that was to ensnare Fernandez, whose function, recall, was to translate a letter from Spanish into English ("FERNANDEZ speaks excellent English," in the words of O'Connor's report). How do you address a man who is fluent in Spanish and not in English? In English! Why? For "security!"

"I am sending you these orders in the English language," the letter begins, "in order to avoid any problems in security. Once you have opened this personally (if you do not receive the envelope sealed, do not trust the contents), I ask you to get in touch with our Delegate there as soon as possible, so that he, personally, will translate this Spanish, if you do not have any other person you can trust at the camp." At this point, in parenthesis, the O'Connor report says, "(Translator's note: English starts here)."

Is there little wonder, after reading this, that Fernandez lost all hope in these refugee groups? What a silly child's game!

You mail a letter from Venezuela to New Orleans, to a man fluent in English, Davis, for it is he who received the Interian letter and was ordered to translate it. Then you ask Fernandez not to be at all suspicious when he knows Davis's language fluency and knows that Davis is there in New Orleans and able to translate. Davis is the one who made the arrangements when that strange uniformed crew was apprehended by the Louisiana police.

Is there any wonder that Fernandez told the FBI "he became disillusioned with MDC's inability to ini -

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tiate meaningful action against the CASTRO regime and he conceived a plan to trade information regarding MDC military operations in order that he could obtain asylum in Cuba." These are the words of page 16 of O'Connor's report. Living in this comic-opera world and pretending it is all serious no doubt affected O'Connor. He actually said "asylum in Cuba."If there is one thing that can be believed about this entire caper, it is that Fernandez would have been "disillusioned."

The rest of the letter explains to reasonable men why Fernandez gave the ambassador no details. They simply could not be believed.

"We have acquired the necessary financial resources as well as military bases," it says, "so that we can now hit Castroland with everything we have. I have received a check for $9,575.00 from Mr. DAVIS and his friends with which we have paid for two Mustang's (P-51) and one B-26 Bomber. All with their bombs and ammunition."

Nothing would make for credibility like writing a man subservient to Davis and in care of Davis, telling him what Davis has done and doing this in greatest secrecy and "security" And would an arrant fool believe that for less than $10,000 he could buy two airplanes, complete with "bombs and ammunition"?

These planes were to "hit the refineries of Bellot in Habana Bay and the NARAMJITO power station." Meanwhile, "the commandos will take the lobby of this hotel (the Rosita de Hornedo , whose address Batista feels he apparently has to give another Cuban, the man who is "captain" of the raid!), cut all telephone communications, and proceed, in 14 minutes to kill every Russian . . . shall immediately be evacuated by the U.S. Navy, via U.D.T. (Underwater Demolition Teams) and submarine U.S.S. BARRACUDA." This sub would honor a "code word" straight from TV commercials, "GO TIGER, GO, GO, GO."

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This ultra-secret letter also told the commander who, naturally, did not know exactly what his "17 men in all" would be armed with: "submachine guns (300 rounds each), 6 hand grenades, and one 12 gauge riot shot gun, this with 85 shells each (sic)." How many porters each of the 17 members of this "commando" unit would require for his arsenal is not revealed, but certainly no one man could carry and use the allocated weaponry.

For all of this, according to Batista, "I have received a guarantee if we can do this, the O.A.S. (Organization of American States) will immediately demand the overthrow of the red regime of Cuba"

As though to assure Fernandez that the whole thing was some kind of utter nonsense, Batista concluded his letter with this directive: "The men under your command will leave your base on August 1st , 0700 hours, and shall proceed to Nicaragua via ocean fishing boat . . ." D-Day H-Hour had come and gone before Fernandez wrote the ambassador. If nothing else in this Cuban Gilbert and Sullivan grotesquerie warned Fernandez something was wrong, this certainly should have.

Fernandez must have known better: Infante told the FBI that what really worried Fernandez, why he really wanted to get out of the country, was his fear of prosecution by federal authorities at Kansas City. Fernandez confessed just this, in detail. He had operated "an employment agency wherein he imported Mexican women to act as maids to the Kansas City area," in O'Connor's Batista-like language, as a sideline while attending Kansas City University, "and this activity resulted in investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Fearing arrest by INS, FERNANDEZ left Kansas City and came to Miami . . . He said his principal motive in desiring to return to Cuba was to avoid arrest . . ." It was to get into Cuba that Fernandez joined the CDM. It did not

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