Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (40 page)

This Los Angeles CIA cable drew attention to the remark by Hemming that the pistol had been "issued" to him by the CIA in Miami. The cable provided headquarters with this, possibly related, detail:

Meanwhile, Sixth Army-CID got in Act, but CIC got them out again. However, if weapon is not property of some other agency they want to recover on presumption it is Army property. We have prevailed on sheriffs office to keep it off blotter and away from press, denying all the time that we ever heard of a Hemming. Hemming called this office later in day to report pistol stolen but recovered by sheriffs office. Did not mention having previously claimed association with the agency."'

The Army's stake in the matter was noted in the February 7 CIA headquarters response to the Los Angeles field office. "You were also informed that the local Army CID office had expressed an interest in the case on the presumption that said weapon may be Army property." "3 What was missing from the headquarters response was this question: For what reason and under whose authority did Army Counterintelligence get the 6th Army's Criminal Investigation Division to back out of the case?

An internal CIA Headquarters memo of February 2, 1962, indicated that the culprit claiming the pistol was probably Hemming, "identical with the Subject of Security File # EE-29229," but that he was not and had not been in the past of interest to Western Hemisphere Division, which maintained "information" on Hemming anyway."' This internal memo, however, contained a slightly different variation of the incident. Written in the Operational Support Division of the Security Office, the memo contained this paragraph:

The sheriff's office contacted the OO/C [Domestic Contacts] Los Angeles office who, in turn, requested the sheriffs office to attempt to keep the matter out of the newspapers and that they would attempt to trace the identity of the individual. The local CID office of the U.S. Army also became interested in this matter; however, they also were requested to suspend any active investigation of this matter.' 15

Putting this together with information from the Los Angeles field office, we now have this picture: The Army Counterintelligence Corps requested the 6th Army Criminal Investigation Division to suspend any active investigation into the Hemming gun incident. Was the U.S. Army issuing, in Miami or elsewhere, sidearms to Cuban training groups subordinate to or associated with the Cuban Revolutionary Council? We know the Army was involved in training Cuban rebels. Was Hemming's Interpen connected to the Army or to an Agency project to which the Army provided support?

The CIA response to the Los Angeles field office also mentioned Hemming's statement "that he was a GOLIATH agent who was on a training mission in connection with an assignment aimed at Cuba.... Subsequently, this matter was brought to the attention of the overt GOLIATH field office in your area."16 GOLIATH*
was another way of referring to the CIA. GOLIATH headquarters, however, forgot to ask GOLIATH Los Angeles how Hemming got to the police station so fast. There is no record of the police having traced the gun's serial number or having called Hemming. Who was the "anonymous" caller? Could the call and Hemming's appearance shortly thereafter to lay claim to his weapon be connected? Did Hemming make that call?

Ernst Liebacher was chief of Operations at the CIA Los Angeles field office (LAFO) at the time, and he interviewed Hemming after the gun incident in Hemming's office on 403 West 8th Street. Liebacher submitted his report of the details on February 15. In the report, Liebacher explained that Hemming had been known to the LAFO "since approximately October 1960 when he voluntarily contacted the office and furnished certain information concerning activities in Cuba." The report added that, "from time to time," Hemming had "furnished additional information which has been forwarded to Washington, DC in the form of reports of interest to the agency."

Liebacher's report also revealed who in the CIA LAFO had been Hemming's point of contact. Liebacher said that for a long time it had been Paul R. Hendrickson, who "had many contacts," and later, after Hendrickson was transferred to the Seattle office, Sergeant W. D. Pangburn had been "designated for contact." Liebacher's February 15 memo added this note:

Within the past two weeks, Subject furnished Pangburn with a large envelope marked "Cubana Revolucion," or some such legend on it, and it contained all sorts of plans for training Cuban guerrillas. Subject claimed to have been working with the Office of Naval Intelligence and said that he had also been in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Miami, Florida."'

According to Liebacher, Hemming never claimed to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. This is correct. Hemming claimed only to be an informant, "a snitch," as he said, for the Agency, and sometimes as a "singleton" for Angleton. The point here, however, is that the gun story led to other trails, to Cuban exiles and the counterrevolution against Castro.

We know that the gun incident illuminates only a portion of Hemming's CIA activity which went back well before his October 1960 debriefing by the LAFO. What concerns us now are his conesponding ONI files in the first half of 1962. It is from those files that we catch a glimpse of Hemming's associates and of who was processing his files in ONI. The above CIA documents and the ONI documents below are most valuable when viewed together, a combination that provides insights into otherwise shadowy parts of the Cuban exile underworld. From the time of the L.A. handgun incident in January 1962 to Hemming's trip to New Orleans in June 1962, his ONI and FBI files cross-reference into an interesting tangle of names: Menoyo, Quesada, Seymour, Sosa, Bartes, and Wesley.

Three of these names, Seymour, Bartes, and, possibly Wesley too, would become involved with the Oswald story in important ways.

Hemming IV: A Trail of Names

The CIA February 15 summary of events discussed above also noted the Pangburn interview of Hemming on February 6, 1962. Pangburn had obtained the following information from Hemming:

Subject claimed that he was issued the .45-caliber automatic pistol about 1'/2 months ago by a Cuban named Captain Sosa, who had obtained permission from one Arturo Gonzales Gonzales. Sosa was reported to have been with the "30th of November group" and to have spent considerable time in the mountains. It was Subject's understanding that Sosa was known to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Two (or possibly three) guns were issued to Subject and his cohorts, one of them a former OSS-type, named Davis, who was also said to be connected with the "30th of November group." Subject stated that these weapons had been issued to them because other underground Cuban groups in Miami had been "giving them trouble" by putting sugar in gas tanks and tossing small grenades in their quarters.18

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) file contained intelligence on the members and leaders of the 30th of November Group. Some, possibly much, of this intelligence was gained through an FBI informant in Hemming's circle. The FBI, in turn, shared this information with ONI.

On April 24, 1962, P. Carter, an ONI clerk working in Op-921E (Security, Espionage, and Counterintelligence Branch), prepared, as an enclosure to a cross-reference sheet, information on Hemming.19 This report contains a tiny detail on the final destination of the Robert James Dwyer file which seems worth making a note ofthe appearance of the organizational designator "F5"-a detail we will return to when it crops up again. The other information entered into Hemming's ONI files on June 11 said that, as of April 19, the 30th of November Group had "about" twenty-seven members, and its leaders included such former prominent Cubans as Jesus Fernandez, formerly Havana Province financial coordinator; Orlando Rodriguez, "who had no position in the movement in Cuba"; Guido De La Vega, transportation coordinator and known to Rodriguez as "anti-U.S."; Joaquin Torres, formerly Matanzas Province coordinator; Osvaldo Betancourt, formerly Havana Province general coordinator; Manuel Cruz, Havana Province financial coordinator (succeeded Jesus Fernandez); and Horiberto Sanchez, brother-in-law to the founder of the 30th of November Group, David Salvidor. The leader at the time was named Carlos Rodriguez Quesada.

This information, placed on Hemming's cross-reference sheet on June 11 by "jgr" in ONI's 921E office, had apparently been picked up from Quesada by an FBI informant on April 19. The crossreference sheet contains this useful passage:

Carlos Rodriquez Quesada, head of group, advised 4/10/62 he just returned from Washington, DC where he was gratified to find that a number of military leaders and some Senators disagreed with State Department policy with regard to Cuba, and that aid for Cuban exiles may be forthcoming. [Informant] MM T-2 advised a part of the 30th of November under Jesus Fernandez is still connected to CRC.... On March 26, 1962 [informant] MM T-1, an individual who has been active in revolutionary activity in the Miami area for the past 4 years, advised that 5 men from the 30th of November Movement went into the Everglades west of Miami on the previous weekend, where they practiced shooting M-1 carbines. An American adventurer named Jerry Hemming accompanied this group."'

As we will see, heat from summer fires would soon force Hemming and his friends out of the Everglades. For now it is important to note that Quesada led the 30th November Group when it joined other factions in the spring of 1963 to form a Cuban governmentin-exile."'

Another anti-Castro leader we meet in Hemming's early 1962 ONI files is Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo. A cross-reference sheet prepared on January 16, 1962, by P. Carter, the same clerk in the Programs section of the Espionage and Counterintelligence (SEC) branch of ONI (OP921 E2), had the following story typed under the optional space on the form "Identifying Data":

On 10/30/61, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo said that 2 of his men made a trip to Cuba in a small boat and an American went along. On 11/13/61, Roger Redondo Gonzalez said that in the middle of 8/61, he, Gerald Patrick Hemming, and others, went to Cay Guillermo, Cuba, on a fishing boat. The boat captain contacted an underground member and delivered a message. On 11/13/61, Rafael Huget Del Valle said that in the middle of 8/61, he, Hemming, and others left in a fishing boat for Cuba, and arrived five days later in Cay Guillermo, Cuba. They remained there for 3 days and then returned to Miami. Redondo said Hemming previously claimed to know the location of an arms cache located in British Bahama Islands, but when they were at sea, Hemming said he did not know where the arms were.122

This material was derived from an FBI report, the subject of which was Hemming's Interpen.

On September 10, 1962, another interesting Hemming crossreference sheet was prepared by the clerk "jgr", in which we encounter William Seymour and Jose Rodriguez Sosa. The cross-reference sheet contains this story:

[Informant] MM T-1, who has been actively engaged in Cuban revolutionary activities for the past four years and who has furnished reliable information in the past, on June 11, 1962, advised that Larry J. Laborde called Miami, Florida the previous evening and said he expected the 67-foot schooner "Elsie Reichart" to arrive in Miami on or about July 14, 1962, Laborde said the boat would have four Americans and three Cubans aboard as crewmen.

[Informant] MM T-1 advised that the schooner "The Mariner" is still located in Ft. Myers, Florida, needs an anchor and other repairs. Both of these boats are reportedly being operated by their owners and crews without monetary remuneration from Laborde.

Bill Seymour, an American citizen who had previously been trained as a mechanic while serving in the United States Navy, has been residing in Miami and is closely connected with Gerald Patrick Hemming, an American soldier of fortune who is closely associated with persons in Cuban revolutionary activities in the Miami, Florida area. Hemming, who is a close friend and associate of Laborde, planned to send Seymour to St. Petersburg to work on the boat's engine.

Captain Jose Rodriguez Sosa, a Cuban national residing in Miami and a member of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, a Cuban revolutionary organization, has been in close contact with Laborde and plans on sending another Cuban from Miami to join the "Elsie Reichart" which recently sprung a leak in the hull, and whose engine is still inoperative.''

Here, Hemming is connected to the DRE in Miami through Sosa. As we will see, Hemming was about to make his way to New Orleans. William Seymour is of special interest because his name later turns up in a bogus FBI story swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the Warren Commission. That story had Seymour as one of the three men who visited Silvia Odio on September 25, 1963,124 two days before Oswald arrived in Mexico City. These are subjects we will cover in Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen.

It is remarkable how many threads of information eventually weave themselves into a part of the Oswald story. The FBI had an informant in Hemming's Interpen group, and much of his reporting was naturally cross-filed into Hemming's ONI files. An example of this was the obscure but engaging piece of filing information we set aside earlier in this chapter-that an April 24, 1962, FBI report on Robert James Dwyer in Hemming's file showed that the final ONI destination for this document was "F5."125 Perhaps this was routine in the Navy, but it rarely appears elsewhere in the JFK collection.

This office might have been in 923F, the Personnel Branch of ONI's Administrative Division (923), but if so, it was not listed in the documents consulted for this study.126 It was probably an F5 branch in the same general part of ONI-Administration and Security (921)-that was handling the job of excerpting the Hemming material for final filing. This would make the full designation "921F5," which is worth mentioning because the only other document in the JFK files from 921F5 has an intriguing person's name on it. The document makes a brief reference to a discussion by "M. Wesley" of a "complete file" and "case history" on In- terpen.127 Even though it may be only a coincidence, it is an intriguing fact that there is a mysterious person by the name of "Wesley" who shows up in Mexico City after (or perhaps during) Oswald's visit there and makes his way into Oswald's FBI file.