Desmond
FitzGerald was born in 1910. Educated at St.
Mark's, Massachusetts and Harvard University,
he served as a member of the Office of Strategic
Services in the Far East during the Second World
War. He joined General Joe Stilwell
and took part in his campaign to recapture Burma
from the Japanese.
After
the war FitzGerald worked as a lawyer in New
York City. He became active in the Republican
Party and helped establish the Committee of Five Million, an organization
that investigated political corruption in the city. FitzGerald had
been friends with Frank
Wisner
since
before the war. Wisner persuaded him to become executive officer of
the Office
of Policy Coordination's Far Eastern Division. OPC was the espionage
and counter-intelligence branch of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
One of FitzGerald's tasks
involved arranging for over 200 agents to be parachuted into China.
In a two year period 101 were killed by local peasants and another
were captured and imprisoned. He also purchased $152 million worth
of foreign weapons and ammunition for guerrilla groups that never
existed in China.
Based in Taiwan he organized
covert operations during the Korean War.
Later he became CIA station chief in the Philippines
and Japan. Eventually he became head of the
CIA's Far Eastern Division (1957-1962). During this period he worked
closely with Colonel Edward Lansdale.
In 1962
FitzGerald was appointed Chief of the Cuban Task Force. John
F. Kennedy
was determined to overthrow Fidel Castro.
He created a committee (SGA) charged with
overthrowing Castro's government. The SGA, chaired by Robert
F. Kennedy (Attorney General), included John
McCone (CIA Director), Alexis Johnson (State Department), McGeorge
Bundy (National Security Adviser), Roswell Gilpatric (Defence
Department), General Lyman Lemnitzer (Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General
Maxwell Taylor. Although not officially
members, Dean Rusk (Secretary of State)
and Robert S. McNamara (Secretary of
Defence) also attending meetings.
Robert
Kennedy
put FitzGerald under a lot of pressure to arrange the assassination
of Fidel
Castro. CIA agent, Sam
Halpern, later claimed that "Bobby Kennedy was a bad influence
on Des. He reinforced his worst instincts." Thomas Parrott, the
secretary of SGA, claimed that FitzGerald had trouble dealing with
Kennedy: "He was arrogant, he knew it all, he knew the answer
to everything. He sat there, tie down, chewing gum, his feet up on
the desk. His threats were transparent. It was, "If you don't
do it, I tell my big brother on you."
FitzGerald also became
concerned when John
F. Kennedy invited
Tony
Varona
to the White House. As FitzGerald
pointed out, Varona had been recruited by Johnny
Roselli
to kill Fidel Castro. As
Evan Thomas pointed out: "to bring
an assassin into the Oval Office was hardly the way to preserve plausible
deniability."
FitzGerald personally
organized three different plots to assassinate Fidel
Castro. This included working with Rolando
Cubela, a senior official in Castro's government.
He
was given the codename AM/LASH and reported to JM/WAVE.
However, Joseph Langosch, of the Special Affairs Staff, suspected
that Cubela was a "dangle" (a double agent recruited by
Castro
to
penetrate the American plots against him". This idea was reinforced
when Cubela refused to take a lie-detector test.
In September,
1963, Cubela had a
meeting with the CIA in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
It was suggested that Cubela should assassinate Fidel
Castro.
According to a CIA report Cubela asked for a meeting with Robert
Kennedy:
"for assurances of U.S. moral support for any activity Cubela
under took in Cuba." This was not possible but FitzGerald, now
Chief of the Cuban Task Force, agreed to meet Cubela. Ted
Shackley was
opposed to the idea as he was now convinced that Cubela was a double-agent.
FitzGerald and Nestor Sanchez
met Cubela met in Paris on 29th October, 1963. Cubela
requested a "high-powered, silenced rifle with an effective range
of hundreds of thousands of yards" in order to kill Fidel Castro.
The CIA refused and instead insisted on Cubela used poison. On 22nd
November, 1963, FitzGerald handed over a pen/syringe. He was told
to use Black Leaf 40 (a deadly poison) to kill Castro. As Cubela was
leaving the meeting, he was informed that President John
F. Kennedy had
been assassinated.
On 7th April, 1964, the
SGA officially brought an end to the sabotage
operations against Cuba. John
McCone,
director of the CIA, stated that President
Lyndon B. Johnson had abandoned the
goal of overthrowing or "eliminating" Castro. However, FitzGerald
continued to work with Cubela who was now
put in touch with Manuel Artime. They
met for the first time on 27th December, 1964. At the Madrid meeting
Cubela again asked for a FAL rifle and silencer. A CIA
report suggests that a "Belgian FAL rifle with silencer"
was given to Cubela on 11th February, 1965.
On 17th June, 1965, FitzGerald
was appointed as as head of the Directorate for Plans. For days later
the CIA sent out a cable to all stations directing termination of
all contact with Cubela and his associates. It stated that there was
"convincing proof that entire AMLASH group insecure and that
further contact with key members of group constitutes menace to CIA
operations against Cuba as well as to the security of CIA staff personnel
in western Europe." The CIA had been informed that one of Cubela's
associates was having secret meetings with Cuba intelligence.
Eladio
del Valle had
also told the CIA that Cubela was secretly in league with Santo
Trafficante.
It is claimed that FitzGerald came to the conclusion that Trafficante
was feeding back information to Fidel
Castro in
the hope of recovering his gambling dynasty.
Richard
Helms
became director of the Central
Intelligence Agency
in
June, 1966. He immediately put FitzGerald under
pressure to sack Tracy
Barnes.
The following month FitzGerald told Barnes his CIA career was over.
FitzGerald told his friend, Thomas Parrott: "It was the hardest
thing I ever did"
In
January, 1967, FitzGerald discovered that Ramparts,
a left-wing publication, had discovered that the CIA had been secretly
funding the National Student Association. FitzGerald ordered Edgar
Applewhite to organize a campaign against the magazine. Applewhite
later told Evan
Thomas for
his book, The Very Best Men:
"I had all sorts of dirty tricks to hurt their circulation and
financing. The people running Ramparts were vulnerable to blackmail.
We had awful things in mind, some of which we carried off."
This
dirty tricks campaign failed to stop Ramparts
publishing this story in February, 1967. As well as reporting CIA
funding of the National Student Association it exposed the whole system
of anti-communist front organizations in Europe, Asia, and South America
was essentially blown.
FitzGerald
became increasingly concerned about the mental state of James
Angleton,
the CIA's counterintelligence section. FitzGerald was convinced that
Angleton was suffering from paranoia. He was also concerned by his
excessive drinking. However, FitzGerald failed to get support from
Richard
Helms and
Angleton held onto his job.
Desmond
FitzGerald
died of a heart attack while
playing tennis in Virginia on 23rd July, 1967.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
William
Colby, interview in
The Very Best Men (1992)
Desmond FitzGerald
had just become chief of the division, and his spirit permeated it...
With a lovely Georgetown house and a country residence in Virginia,
he was well connected throughout Washington, where his romantic activism
produced great dinner talk. In the Far East Division and its stations
in Asia, he had a rich stable of immensely colourful characters from
"ugly Americans" like Lansdale, swashbucklers accustomed
to danger, to quiet students steeped in the culture of the Orient.
(2)
Richard
Helms,
interview in The Very Best Men (1992)
Des was basically
a guy interested in political action, not espionage, and I don't think
he ever understand counter-espionage. He felt he had to get something
visible done. Collecting intelligence was passive. The only reason
to collect it was to use it. He understood about tradecraft and security,
but really he cared more about using the stuff.
(3)
Dick
Russell, The Man Who Knew Too
Much (1992)
According
to Nagell, Desmond FitzGerald definitely figures into the Oswald saga
- to what degree we may never know, except perhaps through a no-holds-barred
official inquiry. A Time magazine file would later describe FitzGerald
as "one of the most powerful, but least known top officials in
Washington." This was shortly after his death at age fifty-seven,
when FitzGerald suddenly collapsed of an apparent heart attack on
a country-home Virginia tennis court on July 23, 1967, and died en
route to the hospital. At the time he was in charge of all CIA clandestine
operations. "Now there is a corpse," Nagell would write,
"that should be exhumed and examined by a qualified pathologist."
FitzGerald was a charming,
well-connected, redheaded Irishman whose roots derived from the same
Boston-Irish background as the Kennedys'. He stood about six-foot-two,
with strong, rugged features and, like his mentor Alien Dulles, there
was often a ready pipe in his mouth. In 1951 FitzGerald joined the
CIA. Almost from the beginning he was the agency's leading spokesman
for agents in the field, a staunch advocate of the "can-do"
philosophy During the Korean War FitzGerald made his name, smoothly
organizing dozens of covert operations from a CIA base in Taiwan.
After Korea, FitzGerald moved on to become CIA station chief in the
Philippines and then Japan before being appointed the Agency's Far
Eastern Division head. He was known as a scholarly sort with a rapt
interest in art - as well as an avid enthusiast of CIA covert operations.
"He grew up in a
world where the models were the British," his daughter Frances
was saying as we sat in her book-lined apartment over-looking New
York's East River in the spring of 1992. "You know, the attitude
that a whiff of grapeshot would do. He viewed politics in the Third
World as a matter of elites, very small elites, so he simply believed
you could change things quite a bit by changing the ruler."
(4)
James
Angleton, interviewed
by Dick
Russell about Desmond FitzGerald
in his book, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1992)
Desmond FitzGerald...
St. Mark's, Harvard, distinguished Irish family, highest social status.
Distinguished himself in the Far East Theater (during World War II),
working with guerrillas and different people. One of the most energetic
men you can imagine. He was, to put it bluntly, a hard-nosed, positive
individual who worked himself to death seven days a week. He lacked
what I'd call research analysis - the verbal side of discussion for
arriving at a decision. But never waffled on decisions. When he made
up his mind, there were no ambiguities, no ifs, ands, or buts. Very
loyal to his men, extra loyal to the cadre.
(5)
Joseph Burkholder Smith, interviewed by Dick
Russell (8th April, 1992)
I know that
Desmond FitzGerald's Cuban Counter Intelligence staff was very interested
in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and getting a penetration into
it would have been a high-priority effort. In other words, finding
out exactly what they were doing, any ties with, say, the Cuban Intelligence
service, and how much if any they were funded by the opposition -
from Cuba, or Russia via Cuba, or anybody else.
(6)
CIA Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro
(1967)
Desmond FitzGerald,
then Chief, SAS, who was going to Paris on other business, arranged
to meet with Cubela to give him the assurances he sought. The contact
plan for the meeting, a copy of which is in the AMLASH file, has this
to say on cover: "FitzGerald will represent self as personal
representative of Robert F. Kennedy who traveled Paris for specific
purpose meeting Cubela and giving him assurances of full U.S. support
if there is change of the present government in Cuba."
According
to FitzGerald, he discussed the planned meeting with the DD/P (Helms)
who decided it was not necessary to seek approval from Robert Kennedy
for FitzGerald to speak in his name.
(7)
Evan
Thomas, The Very Best Men
(1995)
The Cubans
were notoriously leaky, while Castro's security service, the DGI,
had been well trained by the East Germans, who had a knack for working
double agents."
Shortly before
FitzGerald was due to leave for Paris to meet AMLASH, Sam Halpern
walked in on a shouting match between his boss and the SAS counterintelligence
(CI) officer. "The CI man was telling Des not to go to Paris.
He felt Cubela was a dangle, or that he'd talk to his friends. It
was a real collision. The CI man wouldn't give and Des wouldn't give."
FitzGerald decided to go anyway.
In Miami,
Ted Shackley was equally frustrated. "I told Des that it was
something he shouldn't do. 'If AMLASH does do something,' I told him,
'it's quite likely they'll track you down. You have a high profile.
What are you going to get out of this? The only thing you'll get is
the satisfaction of saying you saw the guy!' " said Shackley.
"Des shrugged and went on his merry way."
FitzGerald's
boss, Richard Helms, "shared the qualms (of the SAS staff)."
As the head of the clandestine service, he could have vetoed the trip.
"But," Helms later explained, "I was also getting my
ass beaten. You should have enjoyed the experience of Bobby Kennedy
rampant on your back." Helms signed off on FitzGerald's meeting
with Cubela. Although FitzGerald was going in Robert Kennedy's name,
Richard Helms decided it was "unnecessary" to tell the attorney
general, whom he regarded as an even greater risk-taker than FitzGerald.
"Bobby wouldn't have backed away," said Helms. "He
probably would have gone himself." It shows the level of pressure
felt by the CIA that Helms, normally careful to cover his back, didn't
even bother to get Kennedy's authorization.
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