Operation 40

Operation 40 was a CIA-sponsored undercover operation in the early 1960s, which was active in the Caribbean (including Cuba), Central America, and Mexico.

Origins

Following the Cuban Revolution, on 11 December 1959, Colonel J. C. King, chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, sent a confidential memorandum to Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. King argued that in Cuba there existed a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries."

As a result of this memorandum Dulles established a ZR/RIFLE unit named Operation 40, from the "Group of 40" of the National Security Council group that followed Cuba. The group was presided over by then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon and included Admiral Arleigh Burke, Livingston Merchant of the State Department, National Security Adviser Gordon Gray, and Allen Dulles of the CIA. Tracy Barnes functioned as operating office of the Cuban Task Force. He called a meeting on 18 January 1960, in his temporary office near the Lincoln Memorial. Those attending included David Atlee Phillips, Jacob 'Jack' Esterline, E. Howard Hunt, and Frank Bender, all of the CIA. (Fabian Escalante, The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62 [1995], "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders," 11/20/75; Furiati pp.14-15; Fonzi chronology p.415). Barnes, Phillips, Esterine, Hunt, David Sanchez Morales and others had previously worked together in the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

On 17 March 1960, President Eisenhower signed a National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program authorizing the CIA to organize, train, and equip Cuban refugees as a guerilla force to overthrow Castro.

The group recruited former Batista-regime intelligence officers and mob henchmen like Eladio del Valle and Rolando Masferrer, soldiers of fortune like Frank Sturgis, and CIA case officers like Col. William Bishop and David Morales, who managed teams of assassins. (Mahoney p 174-175; HSCA staff reports)

Felix Rodriguez, Porter Goss, Barry Seal, and others, Mexico City 22 January 1963

Members

Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66. CIA officials and agents such as William Harvey, Thomas Clines, Porter Goss, Gerry Hemming, David Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Bernard Barker, Tosh Plumlee, and William C. Bishop also joined the project. (Later, Ted Shackley played a role, as CIA station-chief in Miami after the Bay of Pigs invasion.)

The individuals who comprised Operation 40 had been selected in Miami by Joaquin Sangenis, former Chief of Police during President Carlos Prio's regime. Operation 40 had 86 employees in 1961, of which 37 were trained as case officers. These included: Frank Sturgis, Felix Rodriguez, Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio 'Musculito' Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar 'Gasparito' Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, Alvin Ross, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Juan Manuel Salvat, (Cuban-American) Bernard Barker, and Paulino Sierra. Barry Seal may have flown for Op 40.

A letter dated 8 February 1961 signed by Felipe Rodriguez of the CIA, lists the leaders and men of "la COMPANIA DE INTELIGENCIA Y RECONOCIMIENTO (Operacion-40)". This letter also has names and information as to member status of death, prison, of various Bay of Pigs participant. (Letter obtained from Brigade Headquarters.)[1] Among the names listed are: Jose Manuel Alvarez Pascual, Rafael D. Arce Godinez, Enrique Jose Casares Blanco, Miguel Cossio (Cosio Rosales), Arsenio Felipe De Diego Aday, Carlos Alberto De Diego Aday, Alberto J. Farinas Alzugaray (Alzagaray), Jorge Luis Fernandez Lopez Callejas, Federico M. Flaquer (Flagler) Carballar, Mario Fuentes Macias, Hector A. de Lamar Maza, Mario Luis de Lamar Maza, Vicente Leon Leon, Fernando J. Milanes Morales, Ramon Eduardo Pages Morales, Carlos Pascual Noriega, Eddy Perez,Ramon Perez Veitia (Veytia), Ramon Pla Perez, Pedro Salvador Puig Gomez, Jose Manuel ('Manolo') Reboso (Reposo) Bello, Felipe Rodriguez, and Rogelio ZAYAS Bazan Loret de Mola.[2]

Operations

On 4 March 1960, La Coubre, a ship flying a Belgian flag, exploded in Havana Bay. It was loaded with arms and ammunition that had been sent to Cuba's revolutionary Castro regime. The explosion killed 75 people and over 200 were injured. Fabian Escalante, an officer of the Department of State Security (G-2), later claimed that this was the first successful act carried out by Operation 40. Operation 40 was not only involved in sabotage operations. One member, Frank Sturgis, allegedly told author Mike Canfield: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time." The group sought to incite civil war in Cuba against Castro. "In October 1960, they realize that this project has failed, and that is when Brigade 2506."

The group played a major role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. "The first news that we have of Operation 40 is a statement made by a mercenary of the Bay of Pigs who was the chief of military intelligence of the invading brigade and whose name was Jose Raul de Varona Gonzalez," writes Escalante. "In his statement this man said the following: in the month of March, 1961, around the seventh, Mr. Vicente Leon arrived at the base in Guatemala at the head of some 53 men saying that he had been sent by the office of Mr. Joaquin Sanjenis, Chief of Civilian Intelligence, with a mission he said was called Operation 40. It was a special group that didn't have anything to do with the brigade and which would go in the rearguard occupying towns and cities. His prime mission was to take over the files of intelligence agencies, public buildings, banks, industries, and capture the heads and leaders in all of the cities and interrogate them. Interrogate them in his own way".

In a 9 June 1961 memorandum to Richard Goodwin, historian and Kennedy advisor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote: "Sam Halper, who has been the [NY] Times correspondent in Havana and more recently in Miami, came to see me last week. He has excellent contracts among the Cuban exiles. ... Halper says that CIA set up something called Operation 40 under the direction of a man named (as he recalled) Captain Luis Sanjenis, who was also chief of intelligence. ... But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism. The liberal Cuban exiles believe that the real purpose of Operation 40 was to 'kill Communists' and, after eliminating hard-core Fidelistas, to go on to eliminate first the followers of Ray, then the followers of Varona and finally to set up a right wing dictatorship, presumably under Artime. ... The exiles believe that all these things had CIA approval. ... Nice fellows."

References

*Fabian Escalante, The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62 [1995]
* Statement of Information: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives. United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. 1974. "specially trained to capture documents of the Castro government"
The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK by Dick Russell, (2003)
* Tangled Webs Vol. I - Page 73, by Gyeorgos Ceres Hatonn
The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965 - Page 303 by Don Bohning - History - 2005 - 320 pages
Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, PD Scott, J Marshall, (1998)
* Files on JFK by Wim Dankbaar, (2005)

External Sources

*GWU National Security Archives on Bay of Pigs invasion.
*Cuban Information Archives.
*Bay of Pigs documents and 40th anniversary conference papers, GWU National Security Archives.

Operation 40: Encyclopedia BETA