PAWLEY'S "OWN GUNMEN"

  

Before entering politics in 1945, Sen. Homer E. Capehart (R-Indiana) had been a highly successful businessman known as “the father of the jukebox industry.” Back then, a jukebox contained dozens of 45-rpm, 7-inch records that could be heard on a pay-for-play basis by depositing a coin and pushing buttons that corresponded to the song selection. Jukeboxes quickly became fixtures in diners, bowling alleys, military installations, laundromats, college campus lounges and other gathering spots. Record companies embraced them because this new platform provided another way for songs to get heard and for artists to become bigger stars, such as country & western singer Marty Robbins. In an age of 2 minute records, his 4-minute-38-second song about a gunslinger in the west Texas town of “El Paso” became a No. 1 hit while Pawley was planning Castro’s demise through his own hit squad. As for Capehart, he became an astute politician before losing his seat after three terms to Birch Bayh.1

In the spring of 1960, the CIA Deputy Director of Plans sent FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover a memo from the Department of State that remained classified until 2011 and was not released for several more years. In the memo, the U.S. Counselor of Embassy for Economic Affairs in the Dominican Republic reported that he had talked on February 23, 1960 to Wallace B. Rouse, a long-time construction engineer who had traveled a few months earlier to Ciudad Trujillo with Senator Homer E. Capehart (R- Indiana). The group had hoped to seal “a large business deal” that collapsed at the “last minute” when Generalissimo Trujillo called the group “‘thieves’” which greatly upset Rouse.

Rouse told the Senator that “Pedro Moreles (presumably an American citizen) was recently given $5,000 ‘earnest money’ in Miami as a downpayment to bump Castro off. Rouse implied this was arranged by [Arturo] Espaillat acting for Trujillo, and also implied that former U.S. Ambassador William Pawley was implicated.” After describing how Moreles would be smuggled into Cuba, Rouse stated that “William Pawley had asked him why he, Rouse, had not sent gunmen to kill Castro; and that Pawley told him if that didn’t work ‘he would send his own gunmen’ to do the job. On arrival in Port- au-Prince, the Embassy Administration Officer, unaware of the Rouse conversation, coincidentally said he had been seated next to William Pawley on a flight from New York to Port-au-Prince during which Pawley had made the identical remark to him.”2 Bold emphasis added by D.P. Cannon

In September 1960, a poison pill operation was initiated by the CIA’s Director of Security Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Director of Plans Richard Bissell and operative Jim O’Connell who contacted millionaire Howard Hughes’s associate Richard Maheu to be the “‘cut-out’” between the Agency and the Mafia. Chicago mobster Sam Giancana arranged for Johnny Roselli to try to get the poison pill to someone who could slip it into Castro’s drink. CIA Director Dulles and his Deputy Director General Cabell were briefed about it, as was Richard Helms when he later became Deputy Director of Plans.3

This compartmentalization did not mean that Pawley-King-Esterline team did not have their own plans for assassinating Castro. Pawley himself had offered to personally pay for such a hit,4 and propaganda team member in Mexico, E. Howard Hunt, in 1960 recommended the assassination of “Castro before or coincident with the invasion (a task for Cuban patriots).”5 Others, like Richard Drain of WH/4 “suggested using Rip Robertson rather than the Mafia.”6

Years later the CIA Bay of Pigs History would state that “Mssrs. Bissell, Edwards, and Harvey, with Maheu and the Mafia remained strictly compartmented and isolated from the officially authorized Project JMARC” in which Pawley was involved. The history notes that Jake Esterline “refused to grant Col. J.C. King ... a blank check when King refused to tell Jake the purpose.” King however “got a FAN number from the Office of Finance and that the money was used to pay the Mafia-types.”7

The CIA’s William Harvey attended two meetings in 1961 to discuss “Executive Action,” a euphemism for assassination after discussing the concept with Richard Bissell. “On January 25, he met with Sidney Gottlieb, the new Chief of CIA’s Technical Services Division. On the following day, he met with Arnold Silver, who recruited agent QJWIN—the only agent Harvey ever employed in Project ZRRIFLE (for the purpose of ‘spotting’ potential assets).” William “Harvey was the head of Staff D ... of the operations directorate” which was responsible for communications intelligence work on the secret level.” Funding, according to Richard Helms, got special handling “to avoid the normal clearance procedures.” ZRRIFLE wasn’t limited to executive action by rifle or other means; it also included rifling through foreign embassy files drawers “to steal codes” and “ciphers.”

Until November 15, 1961, ZRRIFLE remained separate “from the CIA-Roselli poison pill assassination plot against Castro” that was trying to capitalize on the Mafia’s eagerness to regain its gambling casinos in Cuba. “Harvey has a note on that date he discussed with Bissell the application of the ZRRIFLE program to Cuba. Harvey says that Bissell instructed him to take over Edwards’s contact with the criminal syndicate and thereafter to run the operation against Castro.”

The Mafia-triumvirate that the CIA engaged was made up of significant mob members: Santo Trafficante of Tampa, John Roselli of Los Angeles, and Sam Giancana of Chicago.

“Santo” also spelled “Santos” was the name of both the father, Trafficante Sr. who died in 1954, and Jr. who lived until 1987. Trafficante Jr. had been involved with Meyer Lansky in the casinos in Cuba prior to Castro coming to power and expelling the mobsters from the country. A resident of Tampa, Trafficante had dinner with Albert Anastasia, head of New York’s Murder, Inc., the night before he was assassinated in Manhattan in a barber shop chair in October 1957.8

“Handsome” Johnny Roselli had been ordered by Al Capone to relocate to Los Angeles in 1925 where he cultivated interests in Hollywood and in the Las Vegas Tropicana Hotel with individuals from Chicago in 1957.9

Salvatore “Momo” Giancana (aka Sam, Sam Flood, Sam Gold, Sam the Cigar and Mooney and many other names) was head of the Chicago Outfit, who profited from bookmaking in the city’s Southside. In 1957, he was linked to the slaying of Leon Marcus of Southmoor Bank and Trust, who had lent Giancana $100,000 as the mortgage to purchase the River Road Motel in Schiller Park which was to be used for additional gambling operations. The police initially suspected the partner of Marcus, Lionel Ives (born Isaacs) of Chicago and Ft. Lauderdale. A PCI (Protected Confidential Informant) advised that “some of Giancana’s men” attempted “to obtain $10,000 from Marcus without the sanction of Giancana.” Ives, a racetrack gambling bookie, theorized “that

Marcus threatened to tell Giancana about the incident and the men panicked and killed Marcus.”10

It was later determined that Salvatore Moretti—a fired Chicago cop—had killed Marcus. Giancana rewarded Moretti first with a pair of diamond cufflinks and then on April 18, 1957 with a car ride to his death carried out by three men who climbed into his car. When his body was found in the trunk, the only item found in his clothing was a comb—because Moretti had failed to comb Marcus’s wallet to retrieve Giancana’s $100,000 IOU to Marcus.

Vicious, sadistic hitman William “Willie Potatoes” Daddano was the major suspect in the execution of Moretti because his body had cigarette burns, a Daddano trademark. Seven years before his death Moretti and Joe Adonis had refused to disclose their income source to the Senate Crime Committee (Adonis had car hauling contract with Ford Motor Company in New Jersey).11

In all likelihood, the Chicago Outfit was angry about all the attention the murder brought to Southmoor Bank which Marcus had organized in 1947 along with Southmoor Securities and the Southmoor Foundation. The financial organization had trust accounts that concealed the crime syndicate’s ownership of major gambling operations, Ralph’s Place controlled by the Fischetti brothers and The Fort Tavern near Glenview Naval Station. From sports gambling to craps to slot machines to coin operated machines, organized crime had lots of cashflow to hide despite having to buy off police and politicians with cash-packed envelopes.12

In addition, Marcus, who organized the bank in 1947, contributed heavily to local politicians. A year before Marcus was executed, Orville E. Hodge, the Illinois State Auditor who wanted to have his own planes and fancy cars embezzled $2.5 million in state funds and used Southmoor to cash $600,000 in fraudulent state warrants for which he wound up in prison along with his office manager, Edward Epping, and Southmoor president, Edward A. Hintz. (The bank would change its name to Guaranty Bank and Trust Company.)13

Sam Giancana changed the motel’s name from River Road to Thunderbolt and put his brother Charles in charge. It later became the Caravelle Motel. And Sam’s power grew. Detective Peter Heidinger of the Chicago Police Intelligence Unit advised FBI Special Agent “William F. Roemer that he believed Sam ‘Mooney’ Giancana was now the number one man in the underworld as of” December 3, 1959.14

Maheu was a freelance aide to Howard Hughes who served the eccentric billionaire by “intimidating would-be blackmailers and obtaining information on business rivals.” Maheu served as the cut-out for the CIA operations, making a $150,000 offer to Roselli and his cohorts to kill Castro. The Mafia members did not want money, and never accomplished their mission against Castro.15

William Douglas Pawley’s fervent pre-occupation with ridding the world of Castro was based in part on wanting his Caribbean profit centers undisturbed by revolutionaries. As an entrepreneur he had developed “considerable bauxite holdings in the Dominican Republic,” and his brother, Ed Pawley, “is a big sugar man there, who praises Trujillo” noted The Washington Daily News in February 1961.16

The Pawley family’s business interests had cultivated a long friendship with Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo who—as commander-in-chief of the nation’s army—seized power in 1930 and ruled as a dictator for three decades.

Pawley would testify in Congress that he felt that the State Department’s William Wieland had shaped the U.S. policy of cutting diplomatic relations with Trujillo without addressing the potential aftermath. “As to the Dominican Republic, I have been there many times, beginning as far back as 1916” he told the Senators. “If the United States is going to help Tito [of Yugoslavia] who is a communist dictator, but condemn Trujillo, it just doesn’t make sense. The Truman administration went all out to discredit Franco, but nevertheless George Marshall sent me to Spain to negotiate with Franco. I made the arrangements with Franco that got us the bases [America has] today.” Pawley’s testimony did not disclose his family’s business dealings with Trujillo, which the CIA had investigated for several months in 1957 and 1958.17

Castro’s uprising against Cuban dictator Batista had worried Pawley. On May 10, 1960, Pawley sent a letter to Vice President Nixon to recap the work he and Senator George Smathers had been doing “to bring about a transition from dictatorship to democracy in the Dominican Republic without bloodshed or chaos.” He wrote that this was a better choice than to “stand idly by and let the left-wingers overthrow Trujillo and create another Cuba.” Pawley believed the Dominican Republic’s fall “would be a terrific blow to U.S. prestige” that could cause a domino effect in the Western Hemisphere. He informed Nixon that “I am convinced that some of the junior members of the Department of State are anxious for the overthrow of Trujillo without regard to the consequences. In this, Herbert Matthews [of The New York Times] is the ringleader and there are many more of this type who are contributing to this disaster.”18

In June 1960, Trujillo had sent men to Caracas to bomb the car carrying Venezuelan President Betancourt who survived the assassination attempt but his head of security lost his life. Betancourt had been critical of Trujillo’s dictatorship. Pawley was no fan of the socialist Betancourt but recognized that Trujillo had won no friends through his deadly plotting. Trujillo’s human rights violations resulted in the OAS Council of Foreign Ministers voting in favor of breaking diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic.

In November, an event occurred that would unite global opposition to the Dominican dictator. Three young women—Patria, Marie and Minerva Mirabal—who became known as the “Las Mariposas (The Butterflies)” were murdered by Trujillo’s men as they returned through the countryside from visiting their husbands in a Dominican prison. The women had been a thorn in Trujillo’s side since the time when he felt slighted by the family leaving a party while he was still there. Their father was arrested as was Minerva, who refused to write an apology. The brothers of the dictator interceded and gained their release.

Following the death of their father in 1953, the Mirabal sisters formed a group (Movement of the Fourteenth of June) opposed to Trujillo. He eventually arrested their husbands in hopes of shutting them up. When that failed, the women were stopped and led into a sugarcane field where they were beaten and strangled to death, outraging Dominicans and external observers.19

In November of 1960, Eisenhower asked Pawley to see if he could convince Trujillo to step down. Pawley then flew to Ciudad Trujillo and was driven to the Hotel Embajador. As he was about to phone his brother Edward at their nearby nickel company “my chauffeur rushed in to say that the Generalissimo had just driven up in a small car, alone.” Trujillo told Pawley that he was determined to “never leave this country. I will stay even if I end up on a stretcher!” His words would prove prophetic.20

FOOTNOTES:

1 "Homer E. Capehart: Phonograph Entrepreneur." ByWilliam B. Pickett. Indiana Magazine of History. 1986, 82 (3). Pages 264–276.

2 DOC_0005660960.pdf ~ 5/24/1960 CIA Memorandum “Subject: Wallace G. Rouse.” To: Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Attention: Mr. S.J. Papich. From: CIA Deputy Director, Plans.

>> Sections of this transmittal document were still redacted when released over half-a-century later.

Attached was:

2/24/1960 “Memo of Conversation Dealing with Caribbean Political Tensions, Including Communist Activities in Latin America; and Alleged U.S. Intelligence Deficiencies.” To: The Ambassador. From: The Counselor of Embassy for Economic Affairs. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005660960.pdf

>> Handwritten note indicated Pedro Moreles had Florida/Dominican Republic connections.

3 NARA 157-10014-10169 ~ 8/06/1975 SSCIA Miscellaneous Records of the Church Committee. Title: “Richard Bissell.” Subjects: ZRRIFLE; Bissell, Richard. Pages 8, 12, 13, 24 of 36. Released 10/23/2017.

NARA 157-10011-10024 ~ 5/21/1975 “SSCI Transcript, Testimony of DCI William Colby.” Subjects: Castro; SSCI Transcript, Testimony of DCI William Colby; Operation Mongoose; Cuba. Pages 4,5 & 10 of 18. Released 12/15/2022.

4  “William D. Pawley Kills Himself.” By Sam Jacobs and Arnold Markowitz. Miami Herald, January 8, 1977, page 1.

5CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Page 282.

6 CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Pages 279-281.

7 CIA Official History of the Bay of Pigs. Page 278.

8 Anthony Provenzano file. Page 42. Mary Ferrell Foundation MaryFerrell.org.

FBI Informant: “NY T-1 said Clemente did not furnish any further information concerning his possible involvement in the loan shark business, but did comment in general that, ‘Bob Kennedy, he expects by March, to have a lot of guys pulled in. He’s going to pick on the 100 top hoods in the country, all Italians.’ Clemente felt that he was not one of the hoodlums that Kennedy expected to pull in. The subject, in discussing newspaper articles, made mention that there were no Italian appointees in the President’s cabinet or sub-cabinet.”

“Anastasia Slain in a Hotel Here; Led Murder, Inc.; Victim's Brothers.” By Meyer Berger. The New York Times, October 26, 1957.

>> Anastasia had dinner with Santos Trafficante the night before Anastasia was killed in late 1950s.] 

9 NARA 124-10224-10022 ~ 7/18/1958 FBI Report “John Roselli, May 5 through July 18, 1958.” Monte Proser Productions interconnections.

Tropicana axed Theodore Schimberg, Chicago bottling company executive, and Charles Baron, a Chicago auto dealer in 1957 after it was revealed that the casino lost money, according to the Reno Evening Gazette, June 12, 1957.

“Note to Costello Cited by Nevada,” The New York Times, June 29, 1957.

>> It was revealed that New York mobster, Frank Costello, was receiving details of the Tropicana’s winnings.

10 NARA 124-10198-10112 ~ 9/6/1966 FBI Supplemental Correlation File “Subjects: SGI, Advice, ACT, Association, OC.” From: Director, FBI. Page 9 of 42.

11 The Chicago Daily Tribune, December 13, 1950.

>> Salvatore Moretti was in Chicago. Willie Moretti in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ also was called before the Senate Crime Committee; his income came from a one-seventh ownership of U.S. Linen Supply of Paterson, NJ valued at $900,000.

13 “Illinois: Hodge Dislodged.” Time, July 30, 1956.

14 NARA 124-90024-10122 ~ 1/5/1961 FBI Untitled Document. To: HQ. From CG. Subject: Sam Giancana. Page 250, 252 & 253 of 376.

15 “Marcus Slaying Link Probed in Shortage.” The Hammond Times, June 13, 1957.

From 1967 through 1970 Lionel Ives revealed details to David Price Cannon of the case including that the bank had been established on a whim when a gambler who bet on horses at Ives’s wire house noted, “There is so much money flowing through here, you should open a bank.” According to the former FBI SAC in Chicago, William Roemer, “Ives was a gentleman, not a gangster.”

Also see Hammond Times, April 13, 1957 Salvatore Moretti’s death; and the Delta Democrat-Times, August 7, 1960 regarding the bank. 

>> Giancana asked Willie Daddano to take care of Marcus. He sent ex-cop Salvatore Moretti to retrieve the document from the Marcus’s wallet, but failed to do so after murdering him. Moretti was then taken to southwest Chicago, tortured and shot through the head, stuffed into a dry cleaning bag, and left in the trunk of his Chevy.

6/14/1968 Chicago FBI Report ITWI [Interstate Transmission of Wagering Information]. Report Made by: [Redacted]. Lionel Ives file.] CG 165-1801 Page 9 of 129.

>> Lionel Ives operates mostly in the Wabash area but is being forced out by the “outfit.” Source does not know the reason but it is common knowledge among horse book operators that Ives has lost favor with the “Outfit.”

12 Report on Chicago Crime By Chicago Crime Commission. Senate Congressional Record, Monday January 29, 1951. Page 1095.

“Las Vegas' Tropicana plans for major makeover as it turns 50 by Ryan Nakashima,” USA Today, March 31, 2007.

>> Sam Giancana was shot to death in his home in 1975. The chopped up remains of Johnny Roselli were found in a 55-gallon drum off the Florida coast in 1976.

16 “Our Man in Havana, William D. Pawley.” By John T. O’Rourke. The Washington Daily News, February 20, 1961.

>> Pawley also praised Mann.

... Manuel Ray, another disillusioned Havana leader of Fidel’s 26th of July Movement also now in exile and plotting against Fidel remarks, “I doubt if Col. Barquin would like to have joined any movement in which Gen. Diaz Tamayo ... had a part.” It seems Gen. Tamayo had sentenced Col. Barquin to prison for Batista. Later Gen. Tamayo went to jail too, for plotting against the boss.

... Col. Borbonnet [aka Borbonet] is still in Cuba.

All of these men were considered loyal to Fidel, except jailed Gen. Tamayo....

Jules du Bois, Latin American expert for the Chicago Tribune and chairman of the Inter-American Press Association’s press freedom committee says: “Mr. Pawley has evidently changed his mind. When I saw him at Miami Airport in January 1958 on his way to the Dominican Republic, he said he didn’t think Castro was going to be good for Cuba, but said then he didn’t think he was a communist.”

In his Senate testimony, Mr. Pawley says he thought Fidel was a communist back in 1948 at the uprising in Bogotá, Colombia.

Regarding the Dominican Republic:

“Understand, I’m not trying to evaluate Trujillo ... the situation there is not all black ... today it is a beautiful little country that has accomplished more for its people in short time than any other country,” says Mr. Pawley.

Mr. Pawley is reported to have had considerable bauxite holdings in the Dominican Republic, and may still have them. Mr. Pawley’s brother, Ed, is a big sugar man there, who praises Trujillo.

17 Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960 to the Committee of the Judiciary’s Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Report (December 20, 1960). Pages 742 & 745.

“Mob Offered to Kill Castro—Mafia Turned Down CIA’s $150,000, Volunteered to Do It For Free.” By Laura Myers, Associated Press. The Seattle Times, July 2, 1997

18 5/10/1960 Letter to Vice President Nixon. From: William D. Pawley.

If Trujillo were permitted to fall dramatically, we would have another Cuba on our hands. This would be a terrific blow to US prestige and would create a situation for us that would make it impossible for us to prevent the chain reaction throughout the other countries in the Hemisphere....

Your help in the matter would be of tremendous value, as I am convinced that some of the junior members of the Department of State are anxious for the overthrow of Trujillo without regard to the consequences. In this, Herbert Matthews [of The New York Times] is the ringleader and there are many more of this type who are contributing to this disaster. With warm personal regards, I am

sincerely yours, William D. Pawley

19 “Hermanas Mirabal/Mirabal Sisters.” Sights and History of the People, Colonial Zone-Dominican Republic.

“Overlooked No More: Dedé Mirabal, Who Carried the Torch of Her Slain Sisters.” By Gavin Edwards, The New York Times, January 18, 2021, Section D, Page 6.

20 Pawley, Russia Is Winning. Chapter 20.

When I arrived at the airport in Ciudad Trujillo, the officials there, all of whom I knew fairly well, informed me that the Generalissimo had asked me to stand by for his call. I waited for fifteen minutes, then took my car, which was at the airport, to the Hotel Embajador for a shower and change. In the lobby, I was about to telephone my brother Ed, who was associated with our nickel company, that I would not be able to dine with him that evening, when my chauffeur rushed in to say that the Generalissimo had just driven up in a small car, alone.