#AntiCastro
13 entries tagged AntiCastro.
People (9)
- David Ferrie David Ferrie was a New Orleans pilot, CIA-connected operative, and Civil Air Patrol instructor whose unit included a young Lee Harvey Oswald in the mid-1950s, who worked with Guy Banister's anti-Castro network and as an investigator for Carlos Marcello's defense team, and who died on February 22, 1967 of a berry aneurysm two days after Jim Garrison announced he was under investigation.
- Desmond FitzGerald Desmond FitzGerald was the CIA's Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division from 1963 who personally managed the AM/LASH operation targeting Fidel Castro, meeting with Cuban official Rolando Cubela on the day of President Kennedy's assassination to provide him a poison pen, and died of a heart attack while playing tennis on July 23, 1967.
- Edward Lansdale Major General Edward Lansdale was the U.S. Air Force's preeminent counterinsurgency theorist, credited with suppressing the Huk insurgency in the Philippines by backing Ramon Magsaysay (1950-1953), advising Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam (1954-1956), and directing Operation Mongoose against Castro (1961-1962) under Robert Kennedy's oversight, becoming the partial model for the protagonists in both The Quiet American and The Ugly American.
- Guy Banister Guy Banister was a former FBI Special Agent in Charge who ran a private detective agency in New Orleans at 531 Lafayette Street - the same building whose 544 Camp Street entrance was stamped on Lee Harvey Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets in summer 1963, a coincidence that placed him at the intersection of Oswald's activities and the city's anti-Castro intelligence networks.
- Johnny Roselli Johnny Roselli was a senior Chicago Outfit figure operating in Las Vegas and Hollywood who was recruited by the CIA in 1960 as the primary organized crime conduit for assassination plots against Fidel Castro, testified before the Church Committee in 1975-1976, and was murdered and stuffed in an oil drum in Dumfoundling Bay, Florida, shortly after his second Senate appearance.
- Robert Maheu Robert Maheu was a former FBI agent who became the CIA's primary cutout for sensitive operations requiring criminal networks, recruited Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, and Santo Trafficante Jr. into the CIA's anti-Castro assassination program in 1960, and simultaneously served as Howard Hughes's most trusted executive managing his Nevada operations from 1966 to 1970.
- Sam Giancana Sam Giancana was the boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 who was recruited by the CIA through Robert Maheu and Johnny Roselli in 1960 to plan the assassination of Fidel Castro under ZR/RIFLE, and who was shot seven times in his Oak Park, Illinois home on June 19, 1975, days before he was scheduled to testify before the Church Committee.
- Santos Trafficante, Jr. Santo Trafficante Jr. was the Tampa organized crime boss who held pre-revolutionary Cuba casino interests, was recruited by the CIA in 1960 for anti-Castro assassination plots alongside Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, and whose attorney Frank Ragano claimed he made a deathbed confession of involvement in John Kennedy's assassination.
- William Harvey William Harvey was the CIA's chief of Berlin Base from 1952 to 1959 who engineered Operation Gold (the Berlin Tunnel), then headed Staff D and ZR/RIFLE (the CIA's assassination planning unit), ran the agency-mafia anti-Castro plots with Johnny Roselli, and was exiled to Rome station by Robert Kennedy for insubordination during Operation Mongoose.
Programs (2)
- Operation Mongoose Operation Mongoose was the Kennedy administration's post-Bay of Pigs covert action program against Cuba (November 1961 to late 1962), directed by Edward Lansdale under Robert Kennedy's Special Group (Augmented) oversight, run operationally by William Harvey at the CIA's JM/WAVE Miami station, and suspended following the Cuban Missile Crisis after Harvey unilaterally sent teams into Cuba during the crisis.
- ZR RIFLE ZR/RIFLE was the CIA's covert executive action (assassination) planning program, established around 1960 under William Harvey, designed to develop a general capability to kill foreign leaders, applied primarily against Fidel Castro through the organized crime network involving Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, and exposed by the Church Committee in 1975 as a program concealed from the Warren Commission.
Events (1)
- Bay of Pigs The Bay of Pigs invasion was the CIA's failed April 17-19, 1961 covert operation deploying approximately 1,400 Cuban exiles of Brigade 2506 against Fidel Castro, collapsing after Kennedy cancelled the follow-up air strikes and Castro's forces captured 1,179 survivors - prompting CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick's suppressed postmortem conclusion that 'plausible denial was a pathetic illusion.'
Places (1)
- JM-WAVE JM/WAVE was the CIA's massive Miami station operating under the cover of 'Zenith Technical Enterprises, Inc.' at the University of Miami's South Campus, which at its Operation Mongoose peak employed over 400 CIA officers and several thousand Cuban exile agents, making it temporarily the second-largest CIA station in the world.