Into the Storm Part 3

With Chapter 3 of Into the Storm, John Newman has done a good job of debunking Antonio Veciana’s 1959 and 1960 stories of how he met Maurice Bishop (who he now claims was David Phillips). Now, let’s turn our attention to Chapter 11: Veciana, the Secret Years-1961-1962. Newman’s premise for this chapter is that when you remove David Phillips from the equation, Veciana’s true story is much different than what he has portrayed, both to Fonzi and in his book Trained to Kill (TTK).

Veciana’s “Lost” Testimony

In his section on Operation Loborio, Newman mentions that researcher Bill Simpich believes that the “Harold Bishop” mentioned in CIA files may be a pseudonym for Harold Swenson and provides some evidence for this. Of course, any “Bishop” that turns up in the Veciana story could be a candidate for Maurice Bishop, if such a person existed. Newman writes (attributed to Simpich):

… in 1976 Veciana did not know the first name of Bishop and … over the next twelve months, Veciana added “Morris” as the first name and then later changed it to “Maurice.”

But that is not strictly correct and brings up a subject I have been looking into-Veciana’s “lost” Church Committee (SSCIA) and Senate Select Committee testimony. Veciana referred to “Morris Bishop” in the very first telling of his story to Fonzi on March 2, 1976. “Morris” eventually became “Maurice” and Fonzi claimed the difference was attributable to the way he had written down what Veciana told him because of language differences (Veciana did not speak English, at least very well). But that does not explain documents which say the first name of Bishop could also have been “Jim” or “John.” This information had to have come from Veciana, but when? Newman says that there are six versions of the Veciana story, but I would add this caveat to that statement. There are six publicly available versions.

It turns out that Veciana testified under oath before the SSCIA. Logically, this occurred in a small window after he spoke to Fonzi in March 1976 and before the SSCIA published its report on April 29, 1976. In fact, according to Fonzi and alluded to in ARRB memos, Veciana testified twice. The second testimony was given to the new permanent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (which, of course, is still in existence). As early as December 1976, HSCA documents were produced that mention “Morris” “John” and “Jim” as possibilities for Bishop’s first name. Since “Jim” and “John” appear in no other versions of Veciana’s story, it is very likely that this information came from statements made by Veciana during one of these unseen testimonies.

According to information provided by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, both testimonies have apparently been lost. However, the existence of the testimonies is confirmed by references in Fonzi’s book and other sources. According to a July 1996 ARRB internal memo, the ARRB sought the testimonies in preparation for their own questioning of Veciana that ultimately never occurred. However, it would stand to reason that, if the ARRB had reviewed the testimony, it would have ended up being declared a JFK record and placed in the JFK collection. Since this did not happen, it may be that the ARRB never really received the SSCIA testimony. A 1997 memo by Ronald Haron that identified SSCIA testimony relevant to the ARRB listed only Veciana’s interviews by Fonzi and not his testimony.

The point of all of this is that Veciana was indeed uncertain about Bishop’s first name but not in the way characterized by Newman. Researchers need to understand that “Morris Bishop” existed right from the very first telling of the story. “Morris” likely became “Maurice” simply because Fonzi thought it sounded better. And the varying first names of Bishop may be the tip of the iceberg regarding inconsistencies in the Veciana SSCIA testimony or the second testimony before the permanent committee. We may never know since it appears the testimonies have been lost.

UPDATE: An FBI report (RIF 104-10102-10198) on an interview of Veciana's friend Felix Zabala states that the last of the testimonies occurred around December 10, 1976. This would be Veciana's testimony before the permanent committee.

Veciana and the Army

It has been one of the tenets of CIA-did-it researchers that Veciana was a CIA employee or at least worked very closely with the agency. I reported on this blog in 2017 that Veciana had been issued a Provisional Operational Approval (POA) as a sabotage man for the MRP that was never used and eventually expired. Thereafter, Veciana worked with Army Intellegence, not the CIA. Now, Newman provides new detail that confirms my findings and successfully explodes the CIA employment myth for all time.

Newman says that the price of CIA help for the anti-Castro rebels was “complete subordination to the agency.” Not only did Veciana have no interest in such subordination, but he disliked the CIA and never intended to work with them. The CIA paperwork for Veciana is now available and consists of a simple “Personal Record Questionnaire” (PRQ). This paperwork is consistent with the type of minimal relationship we know he had with the agency and is not the extensive documentation used for contract agents. Newman says that the approval of Veciana’s POA occurred before the CIA realized that the MRP had lost significance and would never recover inside Cuba. Additionally, the CIA’s Mongoose operation did not include ALPHA-66. Indeed, the head of Mongoose, William Harvey, found Veciana to be a nuisance and disrupted his sabotage plans by broadcasting government-wide alerts.

Considering these and other issues, Veciana turned to the Army for help. By 1962, Veciana had fled Cuba in the wake of the failure of Operation Liborio and founded ALPHA-66. In September 1962, around the same time as ALPHA-66’s first attack on a Cuban port at Caibarien, Veciana contacted the Army through an intermediary named Jordan Pfuntner. ALPHA-66 “refused to work with” the CIA and instead desired to work with the Army and Pfuntner laid out a plan that requested funds and equipment while providing intellegence in return. The Army expressed interest in the proposal but needed Veciana to provide Soviet “ordinance material and intellegence information on Cuba” to access his credibility.

On November 1, Veciana met with “Patrick Harris” (actually Captain Milford Hubbard) and two other Army officers in Puerto Rico. The Army men wanted to talk to Veciana about the frogmen that had participated in a recent ALPHA-66 raid. At the meeting, Veciana gave the Army men the rifles and ammunition they had requested. Newman goes on to describe the meeting and a subsequent one that occurred the same day in considerable and dramatic detail. The point is that Veciana had extensive interaction with the Army that he initiated through Pfuntner.

An excellent observation made by Newman is that, with one exception, Veciana never related his presumably memorable experiences with the Army to Fonzi or congressional investigators and did not write about them in TTK. At the 2014 AARC conference under questioning by researcher Malcolm Blunt, Veciana again minimized his involvement with Harris and the Army saying that the Army contacted him first when the reverse was true.

The single time that Veciana mentioned the Army came in his discussions with Fonzi and he again sought to minimize his involvement. In The Last Investigation, Fonzi wrote:

From a series of long conversations with Harris, Veciana concluded that Harris was Army Intelligence—especially after he told Veciana that he might be able to provide some support for his anti-Castro activities. But Harris first wanted to make an inspection trip to Alpha-66’s operational base in the Bahamas. Veciana eventually came to trust Harris and gave him and a couple of his associates a tour of the base, but Harris never did come through with any aid.

But as Newman shows, it was Veciana who wanted the inspection trip and who initiated the contact with the Army in the beginning. What was the reason that Veciana promoted the story that he worked for the CIA rather than the Army? Newman speculates that it had to do with Veciana’s time in the Atlanta penitentiary for drug smuggling and I agree with him. Newman says he is in no hurry to speculate further. However, I will have a piece up shortly that explains Veciana’s grand motive.

Zabala’s Revelation

Feliz Zabala was one of Veciana’s best friends and his occasional roommate. He was also an FBI informant. A recently released FBI report of an interview with Zabala provides more confirmation of Veciana’s desire to be known as a CIA agent. In September 1976, Veciana told Zabala that he had been called to testify before a congressional committee investigating the JFK killing. For an undisclosed reason, Veciana needed to “publicly establish himself as a former CIA operative.”

But Veciana wasn’t finished. He also told Zabala that he wanted his sister, who happened to be married to Castro’s Interior Minister, to take a letter to Fidel describing Veciana’s involvement in the 1971 plot to kill the bearded dictator. Zabala was to tell his sister that he and Veciana had a falling out and the letter was a form of revenge. Veciana believed that the hot-blooded Castro would take to the airwaves and denounce Veciana as a CIA operative, thereby establishing his agency connection in one neat action. Again, Veciana never mentioned his best friend Zabala to Fonzi or any congressional inquisitors.

Conclusion

John Newman has done much to add to our understanding of Veciana’s true history and to explain what may have motivated his baffling activities. We now have confirmed that Veciana worked with Army Intellegence and not the CIA. We also know that his story of meeting Bishop/Phillips in Cuba did not happen as he said it did. Newman does make a few missteps and arrives at some unwarranted conclusions in my opinion. One mistake is his claim that James O’Mailia was Veciana’s CIA case officer during the brief time he was an agency asset. But documentation has the case officer as Cal Hicks, so why Newman is adamant to name O’Mailia as case officer is unclear. Also, Newman is convinced O’Mailia was “Joe Melton”, another character based solely on Veciana’s unreliable statements. Another mistake is placing too much faith in statements by Delores Cao since Veciana probably coached her. These mistakes can likely be explained by Newman’s desire to neatly tie up his current assassination theory which evidently has Lansdale and the Army brass behind the JFK killing rather than the CIA. Despite these issues, I look forward to Newman’s future work on Veciana and recommend Into the Storm.