Desmond FitzGerald

Desmond FitzGerald (April 16, 1910 - July 23, 1967) was a senior CIA officer who served as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division during a critical period of the Cuban Missile Crisis's aftermath and the continuing effort to undermine or overthrow Fidel Castro's government. He is primarily remembered for the AM/LASH operation - his personal handling of Rolando Cubela, a senior Cuban official recruited as an assassination asset, whose operational meeting occurred on the day of President Kennedy's assassination.¹

Early Career

FitzGerald came from a Boston Brahmin background, educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and joined the CIA in 1950. His early career included work in Asia, including involvement in the Philippines operations under Edward Lansdale. He rose rapidly through the clandestine service, becoming Chief of the Far East Division before his assignment as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division in 1963.

His assignment to the Western Hemisphere Division came after William Harvey's removal to Rome following the Cuban Missile Crisis. FitzGerald inherited responsibility for the CIA's anti-Castro operations at a moment when Operation Mongoose had been formally suspended but covert pressure on Cuba continued under different organizational structures.¹

AM/LASH and Rolando Cubela

The AM/LASH operation involved Rolando Cubela, a senior figure in the Cuban revolutionary government who served as a military officer and had access to Castro's inner circle. Cubela had made contact with CIA officers indicating his willingness to work against Castro. Whether Cubela was a genuine defector, a double agent working for Cuban G2, or something more complex was never resolved.

FitzGerald personally met with Cubela in Paris on September 7, 1963, taking the unusual step of identifying himself (falsely) as a personal representative of Robert Kennedy - thereby invoking the attorney general's name without authorization as a means of establishing the seriousness of American intent. This impersonation was later considered a serious breach of operational security and proper authority.

On November 22, 1963 - the day Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas - FitzGerald was in Paris meeting again with Cubela, providing him with a concealed hypodermic needle disguised as a ballpoint pen, developed by the CIA's Technical Services Division, loaded with a toxin intended for administration to Castro. The irony of the simultaneous events - an American officer providing Castro assassination equipment at the exact moment Kennedy was being shot - was noted by the Church Committee and by subsequent investigators as emblematic of the confusions and entanglements of Cold War covert operations.

The AM/LASH operation ultimately produced no result against Castro. Cuban intelligence service sources later claimed the operation had been penetrated from early on, and that Cubela had been operating as a double agent. Cubela was arrested by Cuban authorities in 1966 and sentenced to twenty-five years; he was released in 1979.²

Post-Operational Career and Death

FitzGerald was promoted to Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) in 1965, the CIA's third-highest position, overseeing all clandestine operations. He was regarded as one of the most capable officers of his generation within the CIA's clandestine culture - aggressive, well-connected, and willing to operate at the edge of authority.

He died suddenly on July 23, 1967, of a massive heart attack while playing tennis on a court in Virginia. He was fifty-seven years old. His death, occurring at a moment when the CIA was under increasing scrutiny for its covert operations, cut short what colleagues expected to be a continued ascent within the agency. Evan Thomas's 1995 account The Very Best Men placed FitzGerald alongside Richard Bissell, Frank Wisner, and Tracy Barnes as part of the generation of talented officers whose careers were defined - and in several cases destroyed - by the agency's overreach in the early Cold War.¹